Guild Wars 2

Part 4 of a series dedicated to redesigning and fixing GW2 combat, profession by profession.

GUARDIAN: ALMOST PERFECT 2
The Guardian is actually in a pretty good spot at the moment. The initial main goal of this thread is to address the issue of imbalanced gap-closers and bring some underused skills up to a more competitive level in order to promote more Guardian build diversity.

Hammer skills
[Mighty Blow]

• This skill now uses ground-targeting.

[Ring of Warding]

• This skill can now be used while moving.

Mace skills
[Faithful Strike]

• This skill now cleaves.

Shield skills
[Shield of Judgement]

• Recharge reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
• Cast-time increased from ½ second to 1 second.
• Now also inflicts a 50 range knock-back to affected foes.
• Now, for each foe struck by this skill, the Guardian gains 1 second of Retaliation.
• Protection now normalized to 3 seconds in both PvE and PvP.

[Shield of Absorption]

• Recharge reduced from 40 seconds to 35 seconds.
• This skill now counts as a blast finisher.

Staff skills
[Wave of Wrath]

• At 600 – 300 range, damage adjusted to: 134 (0.4)
• At 300 – 0 range, damage adjusted to: 222 (0.6)

Sword skills
[Flashing Blade] (2-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 12 seconds
• Unleash a wave of light from your blade that blinds foes in front of you.
• Damage: 33 (0.2)
• Blind: 3 seconds
• Range: 600
  • This skill uses a Guardian [Wave of Wrath] hit-box for its attack.
  • This skill uses the Guardian [Wave of Wrath] attack animation.
  • This skill now chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Brilliant Leap].

[Brilliant Leap] (2-2)

• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Leap to target area, damaging foes when you land.
• Damage: 118 (0.4)
• Damage radius: 180
• Combo Finisher: Leap
• Range: 600
  • This skill uses the Engineer [Jump Shot] attack animation.
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 5 seconds.

Torch skills
[Zealot’s Flame] (4-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Become a ball of flame and charge your foe, blasting and burning foes adjacent to your target
• Zealot’s Flame duration: 1 second
• Damage: 252 (0.75)
• Damage radius: 180
• Burning: 3 seconds
• Range: 600
  • This skill strikes up to 5 foes.
  • Using this skill puts you under the Zealot’s Flame effect for 1 second, during which you will move at a rate of 600 unites per second and cannot use skills. The effect ends early if you are knocked down, die, enter underwater or reach your target. This is identical to [Ride the Lightning].

[Zealot’s Fire] (4-2)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¾ second
• Recharge: 50 seconds
• Leap and smite foes at the target location. You launch burning foes that you strike. You gain regeneration and retaliation for each burning foe that you strike.
• Damage: 244 (1.0)
• Damage radius: 180
• Launch vs burning foes: 400
• Regeneration: 2 seconds
• Retaliation: 1 second
• Range: 600
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 15 seconds.
  • This skill strikes up to 5 foes.
  • This skill uses the Warrior [Earthshaker] animation.
  • This skill creates a blue, human-sized Sigil of Fire proc animation when its attack lands.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Zealot’s Flame]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately go to into recharge upon respective use.

[Cleansing Flame] (5)

• Recharge increased from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
• This skill’s first and last pulses now each remove up to 1 condition respectively from the Guardian.

Meditation skills
[Merciful Intervention]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 45 seconds
• Teleport to target location. If there was another ally at that location, you create a healing field.
• Field healing (3x): 1890 (0.2)
• Field duration: 3 seconds
• Field radius: 180
• Combo Field: Light
• Range: 900

[Judge’s Intervention]

• This skill now uses ground-targeting.
• Damage reduced from 122 (?) to 101 (0.3).
• Range decreased from 1200 to 900.

Healing skills
[Healing Breeze]

• Recharge lowered from 40 to 25 seconds.
• Self-healing lowered from 6525 (1.0) to 4850 (1.0)
• The final channel pulse now removes up to 2 conditions from the Guardian and allies inside the cone.

Elite Skills
TOME OF COURAGE

• Cast-time reduced from 1 to 0 seconds (instant).
• Recharge reduced from 180 to 10 seconds. This skill goes into cool-down when the tome is stowed.
• No longer has a duration limit.
• No longer grants stat bonuses or boons upon activation.

[Heal Area] (1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¾ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Create a spring of spiritual water at target location that heals allies.
• Healing (3x): 1320 (0.5)
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Combo Field: Water
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200

[Purifying Ribbon] (2)

• Cast-time reduced from ¾ second to ½ second.
• Recharge increased from 3 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Conditions cured on ally increased from 1 to 2.
• Blind duration increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Number of bounces adjusted from (current?) to 5.

[Protective Spirit] (3)

• FUCNTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 90 seconds
• Cast a protective spirit over target location that weakens foes while granting protection to allies. Protective Spirit heals allies whenever they are struck for critical damage.
• Weakness: 3 seconds
• Protection: 3 seconds
• Protective Spirit (3): 10 seconds
• Protective Spirit healing: 392 (0.5)
• Maximum number of allies affected: 10
• Maximum number of foes affected: 10
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • Allies affected by this skill gain 3 stacks of a unique buff called Protective Spirit. Each time an ally with the Protective Spirit buff is struck for critical damage, the buff reduces by 1 stack and heals the player for the described amount.

[Pacifism] (4)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2 seconds
• Recharge: 90 seconds
• Pacify foes at the target area, dazing them.
• Daze: 2 seconds
• Maximum number of foes affected: 10
• Radius: 300
• Range: 1200

[Light of Deliverance] (5)

• Recharge increased from 30 seconds to 180 seconds.

TOME OF WRATH

• Cast-time reduced from 1 to 0 seconds (instant).
• Recharge reduced from 180 to 10 seconds. This skill goes into cool-down when the tome is stowed.
• No longer has a duration limit.
• No longer grants stat bonuses or boons upon activation.

[Conflagrate] (1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 10 seconds
• Burn foes at the target area.
• Delay: 2 seconds
• Damage: 386 (1.0)
• Burning: 4 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • A tongue of fire lingers above the target location before crashing down to inflict the damage and burning in the same manner as Elementalist [Ice Spike].

[Affliction] (2)

• Damage adjusted from 409 (current damage modifier?) to 244 (0.75)
• Recharge increased from 3 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Weakness duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.
• Crippled duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

[Smiter’s Boon] (3)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2½ seconds
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Channel a cone of empowering energy that damages foes while granting might and swiftness to allies.
• Damage (4x): 672 (2.0)
• Might (1 stack per pulse; 4 pulses total): 10 seconds
• Swiftness (4): 3 seconds
• Range: 400
  • [Cone of Cold] cone.
  • The Guardian also receives the boons listed in the skill’s description.

[Zealot’s Fervor] (4)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 5½ seconds
• Recharge: 210 seconds
• Channel a spell that grants fury and quickness to all allies in the area.
• Fury (5): 2 seconds
• Quickness (5): 1 second
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Maximum number of affected allies: 10
• Radius: 1200
  • This skill pulses its boons once each second.
  • Movement interrupts channeling.
  • This skill uses the Guardian as the focal point for the radius.
  • Upon activating this skill, the Guardian gains a debuff that makes him/her immune to gaining boons. This boon immunity debuff lasts 5 seconds and cannot be cleansed by condition removal skills.

[Judgment] (5)

• Recharge increased from 30 to 180 seconds.

Radiance traits
Inner Fire (Radiance — IV)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Using your Virtue of Justice grants you and nearby allies fury.
• Fury: 2 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Cool-down: 20 seconds

Valor Traits
Glacial Heart (Valor — VIII)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• [Mighty Blow] now also creates a burst at the target location that chills adjacent foes.
• Chill: 4 seconds
• Chill radius: 180
• Cool-down: 15 seconds

Virtues traits
Elite Focus (Virtues – VII)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Increased the duration of Renewed Focus and removes the recharge on tome skills.
  • Renewed Focus duration increase: 50%
  • Tomes no longer have recharges when stowed.

Flashing blade on sword is fine. What sword needs is to have the ability to move while casting zealot’s defense, and guardian in general needs more access to soft CC and mobility (when built for it, we don’t want to have another warrior on our hands).

Black Box.9312:

Flashing blade on sword is fine.

Instant, 600-range, direct-to-target movement doesn’t promote legible combat—especially on a 10-second or even an 8-second cool-down. I’ve preserved the clutch blind aspect of the skill to preserve its defensive capabilities. The only reason I didn’t touch [Judge’s Intervention] was because of its cool-down.

Black Box.9312:

What sword needs is to have the ability to move while casting zealot’s defense,

Rooting yourself with that skill adds a skill cap to it. Bad positioning can ruin that skill. That’s why it’s very well-made.

Black Box.9312:

and guardian in general needs more access to soft CC and mobility (when built for it, we don’t want to have another warrior on our hands).

The torch suggestions were to promote more mobility and CC. As for soft CC (I’m assuming you mean things like immobilize—which Guardian already has—cripple and chill), what did you have in mind? Where would you put it and in what amounts?

I dunno if Sword really needs to be changed; this change subjects it to a lot of rules. You can’t use it to blink past a fear wall or line of warding, the projectile will get reflected, etc etc. Also making 2-1 use Hip Shot’s projectile behavior would make it pierce I suppose which should be an expensive effect on a blind.

Changing Line of Warding has very very serious implications for WvW.

Zealot’s Flame sounds really really cool because let’s face it RTL is a cool ability but I think that the burn->burning req might be a little redundant? I’d personally be okay with a traited Zealot’s Flame just applying a gigantic pile of Burning and not having a chain skill.

Not sure why we’re changing Cleansing Flame. IMHO guardians are in a good spot when it comes to how well they take conditions. My lazy suggestion if I’m allowed to (you’re overhauling the game why can’t I); turn it into a ground pulse that burns enemies and cleanses conditions on allies, a bit like a mix of Ele staff 2 and Ranger healing pond thing.

Changing Merciful Intervention like this will probably make guardians even more desired for WvW. As written, it doesn’t trigger combo fields, so it’ll make them even more mandatory for big fights.

I don’t know about tomes because I’m not really that experienced with guardian and mostly talking out my kitten .

Torch 4 doesn’t need to be touched at all. Merciful Intervention should be Ground ground targetable for more functionality/or targetable for those you want to teleport too (example, selecting one of your teammates as a target.)

Sarrs.4831:

I dunno if Sword really needs to be changed; this change subjects it to a lot of rules. You can’t use it to blink past a fear wall or line of warding, the projectile will get reflected, etc etc.

Yes.

Sarrs.4831:

Also making 2-1 use Hip Shot’s projectile behavior would make it pierce I suppose which should be an expensive effect on a blind.

Actually, the goal was to make it not a piercing projectile. I would have said otherwise. It just needs the speed of [Hip Shot] to make it a fast blind.

Sarrs.4831:

Changing Line of Warding has very very serious implications for WvW.

sPvP is a far more balanced place from which to stand when making skill changes. All of these changes come from an sPvP stand-point.

Sarrs.4831:

Zealot’s Flame sounds really really cool because let’s face it RTL is a cool ability but I think that the burn->burning req might be a little redundant?

Could be. That thought had occurred to me long before I had decided to post this, but I liked the chain skill too much to give up on it. If anything, it makes the incoming launch attack even more cued, though, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing especially since it has a potentially long active time as a chain skill.

Sarrs.4831:

I’d personally be okay with a traited Zealot’s Flame just applying a gigantic pile of Burning and not having a chain skill.

Removing chain skills from the game only further narrows the offensive and defensive possibilities for a given weapon set. This game honestly could use more skills.

Sarrs.4831:

Not sure why we’re changing Cleansing Flame. IMHO guardians are in a good spot when it comes to how well they take conditions. My lazy suggestion if I’m allowed to (you’re overhauling the game why can’t I); turn it into a ground pulse that burns enemies and cleanses conditions on allies, a bit like a mix of Ele staff 2 and Ranger healing pond thing.

Having to aim a cone and track your teammates has a higher skill cap than quickly tapping the ground. Moreover the long channel associated with [Cleansing Flame] is another obstacle that a user must hurdle with proper timing and positioning so as to not be interrupted.

Sarrs.4831:

Changing Merciful Intervention like this will probably make guardians even more desired for WvW. As written, it doesn’t trigger combo fields, so it’ll make them even more mandatory for big fights.

Is that bad?

Sarrs.4831:

I don’t know about tomes because I’m not really that experienced with guardian and mostly talking out my kitten .

The biggest issue with Guardian Tomes is that it really pigeon-holes a Guardian’s ability with not really that much benefit. With something like Tornado, you can power up a Meteor Shower or other skills; with Lich Form, you just auto-attack everything to death; with Juggernaut, you can CC a single target into the dirt while inflicting heavy damage. Guardian Tomes have a super powered ability, but it’s balanced with a very long cast-time. In order to promote more useful and flexible application of potentially game-changing abilities, Guardian Tomes could be turned into another version of Engineer Utility Kits.

Swagg.9236:

Is that bad?

Guardians are already one of three mandatory pieces in a WvW train (guardian, warrior, elementalist). Your guardians usually have Hammer and Staff to lay down Hammer 5s and Staff Lines to control the enemy, Hammer 2s to blast fields that you lay down(your group’s versatility is determined by how many fire/water/lightning fields you have and how many blasts you can bring), and Staff 4 is pretty obvious in its function.

This change would basically make it so that Guardians can easily add another ability into their repertoire which adds a whole bunch of healing onto those water blasts. They’re already a core part of a big group’s functions, and this would make them even moreso.

I know that this is an analysis of the changes from sPvP, but these changes do flow on in potentially unexpected ways in other parts of the game.

Sarrs.4831:

Guardians are already one of three mandatory pieces in a WvW train (guardian, warrior, elementalist).

Let’s stop here for a second.

WvW is this game’s second form of PvP aside from sPvP. In WvW, players fight each other. However, unlike in sPvP, the numbers of players and the stats players achieve vary wildly compared to what one might find in even an sPvP hotjoin match. These variables completely throw off any attempt at all to properly balance any aspect of WvW.

Even though changes made from an sPvP perspective would flow over into WvW, it is for the best in every regard since there is no conceivable way to properly balance something from a WvW standpoint due to the inflated stats, the consumables, the number of players and the stability bathing that occurs in that game-mode. It makes no sense to ever balance from a WvW perspective.

Sarrs.4831:

This change would basically make it so that Guardians can easily add another ability into their repertoire which adds a whole bunch of healing onto those water blasts. They’re already a core part of a big group’s functions, and this would make them even moreso.

With that attitude, [Merciful Intervention] is just a dead skill then. Do you have a suggestion to make change it so it would work well in PvP without somehow further breaking the mess of a game-mode that is WvW? I guess I could go off and come up with some solutions of my own in the mean time.

Swagg.9236:

Let’s stop here for a second.

WvW is this game’s second form of PvP aside from sPvP. In WvW, players fight each other. However, unlike in sPvP, the numbers of players and the stats players achieve vary wildly compared to what one might find in even an sPvP hotjoin match. These variables completely throw off any attempt at all to properly balance any aspect of WvW.

Even though changes made from an sPvP perspective would flow over into WvW, it is for the best in every regard since there is no conceivable way to properly balance something from a WvW standpoint due to the inflated stats, the consumables, the number of players and the stability bathing that occurs in that game-mode. It makes no sense to ever balance from a WvW perspective.

ANet disagrees with you. I know that’s really lazy justification, but part of the reason they’re making the Ferocity stat is because critical damage distorts how small-scale combat/roaming works in WvW. They do think balance is important for WvW and PvE.

As logical as it might be to root changes in sPvP and let them spring from there, the PvE and WvW crowds do need to be considered too when making changes. While it might be nice to think balancing the game in the sPvP bubble without ramifications is possible, I don’t think that ANet can really justify doing that, as they are protecting their income by catering to their PvE/WvW crowd- And at the end of the day, they need to make money to keep the lights on.

Swagg.9236:

With that attitude, [Merciful Intervention] is just a dead skill then. Do you have a suggestion to make change it so it would work well in PvP without somehow further breaking the mess of a game-mode that is WvW? I guess I could go off and come up with some solutions of my own in the mean time.

Making it a Light field would prevent the water field from being blasted, but has problems of its own.

Lazy suggestion; make it target the most heavily conditioned player, and have it heal the target and remove 2-3 conditions from them. This directly buffs its output and makes it more relevant in the current meta.

Sarrs.4831:

ANet disagrees with you.

ANet needs assistance.

Sarrs.4831:

I know that’s really lazy justification, but part of the reason they’re making the Ferocity stat is because critical damage distorts how small-scale combat/roaming works in WvW. They do think balance is important for WvW and PvE.

The Ferocity “nerf” won’t bring any sort of real balance to WvW. Zerker’s will be just as insane there as it has ever been. Furthermore, let’s not try to pin down the source of the Ferocity nerf on an attempt to balance WvW. The real reason came from people that complained how zerker is objectively the best stat option in PvE (because it is).

Regardless, sPvP, stats are infinitely more balanced across the board.

Sarrs.4831:

As logical as it might be to root changes in sPvP and let them spring from there, the PvE and WvW crowds do need to be considered too when making changes.

Here’s the best part:

• Balancing the entire game around sPvP means to balance the entire game around player-like encounters.
• Balancing the entire game around player-like encounters means having to use PvE enemies that resemble players.
• Having to use PvE enemies that resemble players means more overworld enemies like what one might encounter in the Heart of the Mists (dueling NPCs, Svanir, Chieftain, Keep Lord and his entourage).
• Encountering Heart of the Mists enemies in overworld PvE means having to rely on CC, timing, positioning and teamwork in order to defeat them (soloing a lot of those enemies at once is very, very difficult).
• Because these enemies are so complex, they wouldn’t necessarily need huge hp pools in order to be a challenge to fight. Their skills and mechanics already make them a challenge—especially if they’re in a group.
• Because enemies don’t have huge hp pools, the players don’t need inflated stats or consumables to kill them.
• Because the players don’t need inflated stats or consumables, sPvP stats can be implemented everywhere.
• Because sPvP stats are implemented everywhere, stats are more stable and balanced everywhere.

That’s how you do it.

Sarrs.4831:

Lazy suggestion; make it target the most heavily conditioned player, and have it heal the target and remove 2-3 conditions from them. This directly buffs its output and makes it more relevant in the current meta.

It gives me an idea. I’ll work with it.

Swagg.9236:

• Balancing the entire game around sPvP means to balance the entire game around player-like encounters.
• Balancing the entire game around player-like encounters means having to use PvE enemies that resemble players.
• Having to use PvE enemies that resemble players means more overworld enemies like what one might encounter in the Heart of the Mists (dueling NPCs, Svanir, Chieftain, Keep Lord and his entourage).
• Encountering Heart of the Mists enemies in overworld PvE means having to rely on CC, timing, positioning and teamwork in order to defeat them (soloing a lot of those enemies at once is very, very difficult).
• Because these enemies are so complex, they wouldn’t necessarily need huge hp pools in order to be a challenge to fight. Their skills and mechanics already make them a challenge—especially if they’re in a group.

Is Tequatl a balanced encounter?
Does Tequatl resemble a player?
This might seem like a copout but this is the fundamental difference between spvp and pve/wvw; any delicate balance that’s constructed on the small scale does not scale up. WVW open field is wildly different from spvp. Large scale PvE encounters are wildly different from spvp. Hell, even 8v8 isn’t considered a serious avenue for spvp, and that still has the exact same stats and mechanics as 5v5 (at least, to the best of my knowledge- but if 8v8 worked well, wouldn’t we see tournies of it?)
And before you say “we’ll just make the dungeons the ‘real challenging content’ and we’ll not really worry too much about the big fights”, the opposite is already happening.

• Because enemies don’t have huge hp pools, the players don’t need inflated stats or consumables to kill them.
• Because the players don’t need inflated stats or consumables, sPvP stats can be implemented everywhere.
• Because sPvP stats are implemented everywhere, stats are more stable and balanced everywhere.

This is a Pandora’s Box problem; that box has already been opened. Ascended gear is already in the game, and people have already spent a lot of gold, and therefore money/time, on it. You’ve probably already seen the thread about Celestial being impacted by the Ferocity change just as much as Berserker’s gear is; how big do you think the thread saying “we’re deleting all the time and effort you put into your ascended gear, sorry folks” will get?

Swagg.9236:

• Balancing the entire game around sPvP means to balance the entire game around player-like encounters.
• Balancing the entire game around player-like encounters means having to use PvE enemies that resemble players.
• Having to use PvE enemies that resemble players means more overworld enemies like what one might encounter in the Heart of the Mists (dueling NPCs, Svanir, Chieftain, Keep Lord and his entourage).
• Encountering Heart of the Mists enemies in overworld PvE means having to rely on CC, timing, positioning and teamwork in order to defeat them (soloing a lot of those enemies at once is very, very difficult).
• Because these enemies are so complex, they wouldn’t necessarily need huge hp pools in order to be a challenge to fight. Their skills and mechanics already make them a challenge—especially if they’re in a group.
• Because enemies don’t have huge hp pools, the players don’t need inflated stats or consumables to kill them.
• Because the players don’t need inflated stats or consumables, sPvP stats can be implemented everywhere.
• Because sPvP stats are implemented everywhere, stats are more stable and balanced everywhere.

That’s how you do it.

That’s great, except… Other than balancing the whole game around sPvP, Anet isn’t doing any of that. So the rest of us who don’t exclusively play sPvP want to have more balance in the parts of the game that we DO play.

Are we just talking from a skill point of view or traits as well?

I’d add on a few changes if possible:

Great sword-
Whirling Wrath: Remove the projectiles, increase base damage by 15%
Symbol of Wrath: Convert to a mobile aura, remove damage and replace with a pulsing cripple and a stack of might per pulse.

Hammer:

Auto attack chain: Remove the symbol at the end, reduce cast time to 3/4 seconds, last hit applies 1 second of chill.
Zealots Embrace: Change to frontal cone chains that apply immobilization.
Banish: Reduce cast time to 1/2 second.

Staff:

Auto attack: Reduce damage by 25%, apply a small heal to frontal cone.
Orb of light: Change damage by exchanging the detonation with the traveling damage.

Mace:

Auto attack: Third hit cleaves
Symbol of faith: Change to a mobile aura that applies pulsing regeneration to yourself an allies, cripple to enemies and remove damage.

Scepter:

Auto attack: Home into your target, reduce damage by 10%
Smite: Change to proper GTAOE that applies pulsing damage and burning, increase cd to 15 seconds.
Chains of light: Remove the vulnerability, exchange with either burning or cripple.

Sword:

Auto attack: Increase scaling of #1 and 2 hits up to 1 instead of 0.8. Third hit is changed to a melee attack that cleaves.

Zealots Defense: Projectiles home in on your target, each projectile applies 1 second of burning.

Focus:

Ray of Judgement: Increase the speed of projectile by 50%.
Shield of Wrath: Increase blocks to 5, reduce damage by 30%.

Shield:

Shield of Judgement: Reduce cd by 5 seconds.
Shield of Absorption: Increase healing scale from 0.2 to 1.

Torch:

Zealots Flame: Triggers Inner fire.
Cleansing Flame: Increase cd to 20 seconds, have each pulse remove a condition from the Guardian as well.

Shelter: Reduce cd by 5 seconds.
Signet of Resolve: Reduce cd to 30 seconds, reduce base heal by 20%.
Litany of Wrath: Reduce cd to 15 seconds, change to instant.

Consecrations:

Hallowed Ground: Remove the boon duration increase, reduce cd to 60 seconds.
Purging Flames: Reduce cast time to 1/2 seconds.
Sanctuary: Reduce cd to 110 seconds.
Wall of Reflection: Change from a wall to a Circle with a smaller radius of 180.

Meditations:

Smite condition: Allow to stack up to 3 conditions, damage increased when full, removes 3 with an increased CD to 30 seconds.
Contemplation of Purity: Normalize the duration of the conditions converted.
Judge’s Intervention: Remove the physical damage, increase burn to 5 seconds.
Merciful intervention: Change to Ground target.

Shouts:

Hold the Line: Apply an actual voice to the skill. Reduce cd to 30 seconds.
Stand your ground: Increase cd to 35 seconds.
Retreat: Remove the aegis application, increase duration of swiftness to 30 seconds.
Save Yourselves: For each condition taken from your applies, the opposite boon’s duration is increased. (Bleeding turns Vigor from 5 seconds to 10)

Signets:

Bane Signet: Reduce active cast time to 1/2 seconds.
Signet of Judgement: Remove the stun break, reduce the cd to 20 seconds.
Signet of Mercy: Change active to remove all conditions from an ally.
Signet of Wrath: Change from condition dmg to running speed bonus.

Elites:

Renewed Focus: Increase invulnerability to 3 seconds.

Sarrs.4831:

Is Tequatl a balanced encounter?

Even though you’ve strayed way off from my main discussion point, I’ll humor you anyway:

• GW2 PvE combat has no well defined roles.
• Because GW2 PvE combat has no roles, DPS is king.
• Because DPS is king, every overworld PvE boss requires super high hp.
• Because every overworld PvE boss has super high hp, every encounter is a maypole dance around the boss/corner-stack in a boss’ blind spot, spamming skills until its dead.

ANet wanted to change this with Tequatl. Unfortunately, there is no real way to change this at all. Since GW2 has no well-defined profession roles, there’s no way of making a natural transition to self-organization in GW2. Therefore, they decided to invent roles and make them necessary by giving bosses invulnerability mechanics that could only be removed by these invented roles.

• ANet invents turrets as a means to defeat Tequatl’s invulnerability mechanic.
• The entire encounter hinges on 6 people knowing how to press a few buttons in exchange for abandoning their normal profession mechanics.
• The rest of the encounter is “Hail to the DPS King” as usual.
• End result: No change in PvE DPS paradigm.

Sarrs.4831:

Does Tequatl resemble a player?

No, because you don’t need to use a special turret to kill an otherwise invincible player opponent. Otherwise, you’re LITERALLY playing rock-paper-scissors.

Sarrs.4831:

This [reasoning] might seem like a copout

That’s because it is.

Back to the matter at hand:

• ANet continues with this Tequatl trend.
• ANet creates more rock-paper-scissors boss encounters because the lack of defined combat roles permits little else.
• The result of this is that players that don’t understand the encounter can come in and ruin it for everyone.
• ANet has not succeeded in creating encounters that “teach the player base self-organization,” they have succeeding in creating encounters that require the player base to all be in teamspeak simultaneously. That’s not the same thing. Besides, one plays a game to relax and enjoy its core mechanics; not to be schooled on how to play something with rules that change on an encounter by encounter basis. We’re playing an MMO, not Wario Ware: Smooth Moves.
• Furthermore, things like the newest overworld bosses to be added to the game, confirm that ANet isn’t even segregating roles anymore. Despite the mechanics present to undo the individual Wurm bosses’ respective invulnerabilities, the timed-kill aspect of the encounter simply turns the entire event into another DPS spank. The only catch is now it’s “DPS in this spot. Now DPS in this spot. Now DPS over there.” Instead of corner-stacking or doing the maypole dance, we’re now chasing the carrot across the map.

The fact of the matter is, if we want to use our own profession mechanics that we have supposedly mastered, we need player-like enemies (maybe even more than 1; or many more than 1) against which we play.

Also, there’s also the question of why haven’t we seen jumping puzzles incorporated into boss fights? Jumping Puzzles exploit a universal mechanic (jumping and reaction time) that doesn’t detract from an individual player’s own profession mechanic. Why is the Marionette destroyed by funneling into lanes and killing NPCs or completing mini-games? Why aren’t we hopping up to its face on temporary panels to deliver strikes at its weak point?

Sarrs.4831:

but this is the fundamental difference between spvp and pve/wvw; any delicate balance that’s constructed on the small scale does not scale up.

Yes. Sometimes I feel that GW2 would have been much better if everything were just instanced like GW1.

Sarrs.4831:

[All armor being balanced to sPvP levels] is a Pandora’s Box problem; that box has already been opened. Ascended gear is already in the game, and people have already spent a lot of gold, and therefore money/time, on it. You’ve probably already seen the thread about Celestial being impacted by the Ferocity change just as much as Berserker’s gear is; how big do you think the thread saying “we’re deleting all the time and effort you put into your ascended gear, sorry folks” will get?

Yes. And I’m in that group too. I have my ascended everything, but I know that the only way to truly save this game is to fully balance everything around sPvP. Although, at this point, I’d be better off making my own game. Even so, I’d still like to help ANet with GW2.

Arken.3725:

Are we just talking from a skill point of view or traits as well?

Well, I’m focusing on skills because even though traits are passive procs (one of the worst things about this game) they are at least tied to active skill use. By adjusting active skill use, we can indirectly address some issues associated with passive trait procs.

That said, feel free to suggest anything here. I’m considering everything that people say in these threads.

LOL.

You gave a lot of suggestions on what is fine. Yes, the tomes are really weak, but the sword and staff are fine. Some things that are cleary broken or useless like spirit weapons and you did no suggestions to it at all!

What must be fixed on Guardian now (are useless or very very weak):

• Mace #1 (last hit is too slow) and #2 (too slow);
• Torch #5 (should have higher DPS or clean the guad as well);
• Shield (too much CD);
• Healing Breeze adn Litany of Wrath (which I do not think that will be fixed on the next balance patch, considering on what the dev said);
• Hallowed Ground;
• Sanctuary;
• Merciful Intervention;
• Signet of Mercy (active is junk – maybe even the passive, considering the healing power scaling);
• Signet of Wrath (the passive is useless, guard have the worse condition build – both dmg and soft CC);
• All spirit weapons;
• The Tomes;

Traits:

• Binding Jeopardy;
• Revenge of the Fallen and Strength of the Fallen (on almost all classes this is junk);
• Shattered Aegis;
• Every Spirit Weapon trait;
• Kindled Zeal;
• Healer’s Retribution;
• Shimmering Defense;
• Glacial Heart;
• Retaliatory Subconscious – WORST TRAIT EVA;
• Shielded Mind.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Guardian-List-of-useless-traits-and-skills/first

Swagg.9236:

Sarrs.4831:

Is Tequatl a balanced encounter?

Even though you’ve strayed way off from my main discussion point, I’ll humor you anyway:

Yeah I am getting a bit out of the way. I could say that’s the point, and that changes like these can affect things all the way over on the other end of the pond (I was going to make the link between PvP stats→Balanced in PvE→Ascended→Low level economy), but it’s probably just me being up a bit past my bedtime. My apologies.

To all this stuff about encounter design, I’ll say, more or less; yes. PvE does suffer from the overemphasis on damage. One point for large-scale encounter design is that they don’t need to emulate player behavior, but they need to emulate at some level what’s necessary in PvP.

Why is the Marionette destroyed by funneling into lanes and killing NPCs or completing mini-games? Why aren’t we hopping up to its face on temporary panels to deliver strikes at its weak point?

This is kind of a point I want to touch on because the Marionette is interesting in how it spreads out the players, both by lanes and by platforms; at the end of the encounter you’re in a group of something like 5 people and you can almost feel the system starting to actually ‘click’, so to speak, when it’s brought down to that scale.

Swagg.9236:

Yes. And I’m in that group too. I have my ascended everything, but I know that the only way to truly save this game is to fully balance everything around sPvP. Although, at this point, I’d be better off making my own game. Even so, I’d still like to help ANet with GW2.

Assuming that means sacrificing your ascended gear? You might be okay with it, but you’re not really the average GW2 player. If ANet told people that they were deleting all ascended gear tomorrow, that’d have the very real potential to kill the game outright.

I remembered that I had forgotten a few suggestions: healing skill updates are now with the trait post.

Shelter; like the change to the blocks, gives it more counterplay. Not sure why healing is a channel rather than a big lump at the end because it undermines the newly added counterplay; if you’re worried people will just breeze through the blocks then add more

Healing Breeze; same concern I have with Cleansing Flame, guardians seem to be in a decent place when it comes to how they deal with conditions

Signet of Resolve; at the moment it seems unpopular so raising the cast time seems difficult to justify, but jiggling about the cd and heal amount seems okay. need to check how exactly condi cleansing passive signets work when they come off CD

This seems fun, my turn.

Swap Places

Virtue Of Resolve: CD now 90 seconds, bump base heal to 120, bump base active 2000.

Virtue Of Courage: CD now 60 seconds, grant aegis for every 30 seconds.

Greatsword:

Whirling Wrath: Increase damage by 10%-20%.

Symbol Of Wriath: Increase damage by 10%.

Binding Blade: Bound effect stays on target even if out of range.

Hammer:

Symbol of Protection: Decrease cast time to 1 or 3/4 seconds.

Ring of Warding: Can cast while moving.

Staff:

Orb of Light:

Detonate Orb of Light: Increase Explosion damage by 20-30%.

Mace:

Faithful Strike: Now cleaves, area heal only procs once still.

Protector’s Strike: Can press key again for protection buff.

Scepter:

Orb of Wrath: Now follows target, decrease damage by 10-20%.

Smite: Decrease # of hits, increase hitbox of hits.

Sword:

Sword Wave: Make it not a projectile.

Zealot’s Defense: Attack autoturns to targets movement.

Ray of Judgment: Increase projectile speed 10-20%.

Heals:

Healing Breeze: Increase base healing to others by 10-20%.

Consecration:

Sanctuary: Increase base heal to 4000.

Mediations:

Judge’s Intervention: Now is ground targetable.

Merciful Intervention: Now is ground targetable.

Smite Condition: Now has a 1/2 cast time. (Instant Damaging ablities are bad for the game)

Shouts:

Hold the Line!: CD decreased to is 30 seconds.

Stand Your Ground: CD increased to 25 seconds.

Retreat!: CD is now 50 seconds.

Signets

Bane Signet: Knockdown is swapped to stun. (Knockdown should just be removed from the game, to similiar to stun.)

Signet of Judgment: Grants protection for 4 secs instead of retalition.

Signet of Mercy: Decrease CD by 30 seconds: Now brings the target up to full heal.

Signet of Wrath: Passive – Grants you increased crit chance. (This whole signet could get reworked)

Crappy Spirits:

Bow of Truth: Projectile bounces max 3 times to cure conditions. Active creates a water field.

Hammer of Wisdom: Command: Stuns your foe.

Shield of the Avenger: Only follows you instead of your target. Command: Pulses Weakness in 180 aoe range for 10 seconds.

Sword of Justice: Command: Drops Symbol of Symbol of Wrath?

Swagg.9236:

Sarrs.4831:

Guardians are already one of three mandatory pieces in a WvW train (guardian, warrior, elementalist).

Let’s stop here for a second.

WvW is this game’s second form of PvP aside from sPvP. In WvW, players fight each other. However, unlike in sPvP, the numbers of players and the stats players achieve vary wildly compared to what one might find in even an sPvP hotjoin match. These variables completely throw off any attempt at all to properly balance any aspect of WvW.

Even though changes made from an sPvP perspective would flow over into WvW, it is for the best in every regard since there is no conceivable way to properly balance something from a WvW standpoint due to the inflated stats, the consumables, the number of players and the stability bathing that occurs in that game-mode. It makes no sense to ever balance from a WvW perspective.

So all you are suggesting here is for sPvP, which then will may ruin the rest of the game? What about putting PvP and WvW on the same level first and then start balancing from that point?

• Lets start with increasing the stats you can get in sPvP or decreasing those in PvE/WvW to the same level?
• Maybe even introduce buff-food in PvP, which could be a permanent buff, and only needs to be purchased once.
• Then look at the core mechanic of every class.
• Overhaul the traits of some classes
• And then start suggesting nerfs to/buffs to/new skills.
• (Overhaul PvE enemies to faster hitting and dodging ones)

This would be the rational way to balance this game, but we as community cant do anything here, its ANets job.

Your suggestions start at the wrong side of that list. Its a lot of effort you made here, but in the end its just worthless, because every change in the list above, needs again a rebalance of your suggestions.

We need to start at the root of all those issues and not at the top.

If you ignore:
- Lack of burst potential
- Lack of mobility UNLESS you get traveler’s and trait for meditations.
- Lack of active abilities: zero movement, active skills (similar to necromancer)

then it’s “almost perfect”

Sirendor.1394:

If you ignore:
- Lack of burst potential

You’ve gotta be joking. Have you never seen a burst meditation Guardian?

Sirendor.1394:

- Lack of mobility UNLESS you get traveler’s and trait for meditations.

Sword has a spammable teleport. I’m addressing that, though, by not only limiting the the teleport, but also giving the Guardian an actual targeted leap (a very useful movement tool).

Sirendor.1394:

- Lack of active abilities: zero movement, active skills (similar to necromancer)

That’s what I’m addressing with my torch skill changes.

Feel free to suggest anything, though. Despite the arguments that typically come along with these thread, they’re mainly a forum for potential changes. I just happen to have a set list of rules that govern balanced combat in GW2 to which I adhere.

Sir, while I have to respect anyone who wants to bring balance to this game I have to tell to please stop trying to suggest guardian changes unless you have a serious grasp of all areas of the game. Given that you suggest changing shelter, which is our best heal and a crutch we rely on, I don’t believe you have the qualifications to do so.

Many of these changes would break guardian in some aspects, such as lowering Signet of Resolve to 30 second. You’re changing it from approx a 203h/s heal to a 201h/s which is not bad in of itself however then traiting signet recharge will shoot it up to 250h/s which is not a change it needs. 250h/s + absolute resolve would bring our total theoretical heal per second to 350 to 400 depending on healing power. Run meditations heal on top of that and you’re creating a warrior now.

And shelter. The reason shelter is perfect is because it’s a great trade off. Either you run 30 in valor and the might on block + AH allows for a more potent heal which requires good timing to maximize it or you don’t run AH and it’s a low heal block that allows you to escape situations given the relatively low mobility compared to other classes and lack of soft CC. Anyone who says guardian has great mobility even in meditations has never tried to out run other classes, especially when all our mobility is target required.

It’s a nice thought but attempting to create balance threads for all classes while having limited knowledge outside of your main class will only create problems for this game. That’s why I will gladly share my guardian knowledge after 2k total hours of WvW, PvE and PvP on a guardian while not even thinking I know how all the other classes work. Sure I may have an idea but you lack the depth people who main one class for that long have developed.

I actually am in favor of big changes in order to bring up some skills that are not used anymore. Even if it implied some over powerfull skills or nerfed skills.

Anet needs to take some risk here so that the variety of actually used skills would broaden. And a small patch to correct them 2 weeks after that.

Anet has decided to take the 3 month balance patch approach so a “small patch” is unlikely. Aside from that, the changes he’s suggesting are not going to fix the overlying problems that guardians have. The larger problems are that guardians don’t have reliable mobility in most builds, no soft CC in order to sustain damage, and our weapons need a few tweaks rather than large changes. Give guardians a movement signet (change signet of mercy: Active, rally 3 people in the area, passive, 25% movement speed with a similar cd to other rally skills. Now THAT is risk vs reward game play) and a bit of soft CC like chilled perhaps (and not that kittenty Glacial Heart that’s worse than a Hydromancy sigil) and guardian are in a fine position to be a hybrid in WvW. PvP we’re doing fine, I really don’t see an issue in PvP. We have a reliable DPS build and our role in TPvP is pretty good.

Admittedly I kind of like the book with no cool down suggestion, but it needs some work.

CnaeusDane.2938:

Sir, while I have to respect anyone who wants to bring balance to this game I have to tell to please stop trying to suggest guardian changes unless you have a serious grasp of all areas of the game. Given that you suggest changing shelter, which is our best heal and a crutch we rely on, I don’t believe you have the qualifications to do so.

The reason behind my change to [Shelter] is the same reason behind a lot of my changes across all of these threads (and those to come): powerful skills should pose risk to the user. [Shelter] is one of many skills that’s effectively a freebee in practice despite it’s effect being potentially so powerful. The enormous discrepancy between [Shelter]’s risk vs reward factor denotes imbalance.

Furthermore, one of the primary goals of these threads is to make slow combat down and make it more legible across the board. With a goal like that, “block the next 3 attacks” becomes a very powerful skill ability that is only quickly overcome by a team effort.

CnaeusDane.2938:

Many of these changes would break guardian in some aspects, such as lowering Signet of Resolve to 30 second. You’re changing it from approx a 203h/s heal to a 201h/s which is not bad in of itself however then traiting signet recharge will shoot it up to 250h/s which is not a change it needs. 250h/s + absolute resolve would bring our total theoretical heal per second to 350 to 400 depending on healing power. Run meditations heal on top of that and you’re creating a warrior now.

Can’t believe that I forgot about the signet cool-down trait. Well, that’s a thing. It’s just sad to see [Shelter] completely monopolizing the Guardian healing skill slot—another denotation of imbalance. Maybe we could try improving the passive (make it the same, but put its proc in the hands of the player by tying it to dodging, virtue use or something).

And shelter. The reason shelter is perfect is because it’s a great trade off. Either you run 30 in valor and the might on block + AH allows for a more potent heal which requires good timing to maximize it or you don’t run AH and it’s a low heal block that allows you to escape situations given the relatively low mobility compared to other classes and lack of soft CC. Anyone who says guardian has great mobility even in meditations has never tried to out run other classes, especially when all our mobility is target required.

CnaeusDane.2938:

It’s a nice thought but attempting to create balance threads for all classes while having limited knowledge outside of your main class will only create problems for this game. That’s why I will gladly share my guardian knowledge after 2k total hours of WvW, PvE and PvP on a guardian while not even thinking I know how all the other classes work. Sure I may have an idea but you lack the depth people who main one class for that long have developed.

Go ahead, then. I’m glad that these threads can spark debate, and I’d be happy to hear you out.

Trust me I agree combat should be risk vs reward based and should be much slower than being able to spam skills on such short cool downs however the problem lies much more with the games basic mechanics than it does with individual skills. Guardian is one of the few classes you can’t just spam skills or rely on passive skills to win (read: PU Mesmers, Warriors, Necromancers.) The reason shelter is monopolized isn’t because signet of resolve isn’t a good heal, it’s a fantastic heal that I usually run when I run 0 0 10 30 30 because then I can rely on regen and absolute resolve for a little bit more passive health. But if you start moving away from tanky healing power based builds you can’t afford to lose shelter. You can’t run away, our mobility is target based (aside from gs3) and isn’t better than warrior or thief. We can’t stealth like thieves or mesmers. We just kinda stand there and hope our team mate has shadow refuge. And soft CC to attempt to burst or disengage? Forget it, hope you’re running hydromancy sigils.

Shelter already has a pretty big trade off, it has less hps than wars healing signet ACTIVE. It is a good skill for mitigating damage but terrible for gaining health. The blocking makes it difficult for many to interupt , but the channel is long enough for a skilled player to fear or cc with an unblockable if equipped. It also goes on full cool down if interrupted, unlike other skills. Signet of resolve is used quite a bit, not as much as shelter but i think that has a lot to do with the fairly weak passive that spends a lot of time on cool down.

Sword teleport is the main reason why sword is so popular in melee. Along with GS it is one of the only weapons we have that we can use to actually hit an opponent. Sword is quicker than GS, but quirkier. Auto can bug and not connect, has poor cleave, can be reflected and zealots defense is often best not used unless you are taking a lot of ranged auto attacks. The weapon really leans on flashing blade to keep it useful.

From my own experiences, Sword auto 3 needs to be cleaned up. Flashing Blade should be a non-target skill and would allow teleporting in a straight line if no target is selected since a skill like rush is allowed to be a non-target skill. Zealot’s Defense should apply chilled on the first hit of the chain since it’s so obvious. That or make it 4 projectiles instead of 8 which hit more reliably. Could also give a 1/4 or 1/2 second chill/cripple to the 2nd auto attack since it’s so easily walked away from in wvw.

Hammer just needs a bit of time shaved off the symbol, make it 1sec on auto 3 rather than 1 1/4. Banish should have a slightly reduced cd as well.

Greatsword whirling wrath needs to be slightly faster movement, it’s very difficult to land right now since it’s so obvious and slow. (I fought a gs guardian just the other day and had to laugh at him sadly. It was so easy to read his ww, dodge back and using zealot’s defense. WW makes you move so slow zealot’s defense easily hits which is a shocker)

Staff is fine, though the orb of light needs to be fixed when it won’t recharge if the orb gets stuck.

Scepter needs a slightly increase smite cd and slightly decreased chains of light cd to balance it out. Auto is still kinda bad, maybe a hair more damage to comp for the poor tracking.

Shield needs to reduce the cds for both skills just a hair, it’s a solid weapon but the effects aren’t worth the long cd.

Focus is fine. Probably our best offhand.

Torch 4 needs to work with the “Gain fury when you’re on fire” trait. Torch 5 needs to either self cleanse, increase damage, apply burning or any combination of those. (Note: Currently it is not worth using Torch 5 over the swords auto attack if used as a pair. The loss of DPS isn’t worth it. Haven’t tested with other weapons)

Mace is pretty solid, it does its part well.

Overall Guardian weapons aren’t bad, but they’re very obvious. It’s a lot more work to land damage. Access to soft CC as a trait or on a weapon would help a lot. Personally think chilled on crit as a zeal 20 trait would make for some interesting play. Sacrificing 20 points into zeal which is largely considered our worst trait line and wouldn’t allow for GS dmg/heal unless you push for 30.

Mightymealworm.8409:

Shelter already has a pretty big trade off, it has less hps than wars healing signet ACTIVE. It is a good skill for mitigating damage but terrible for gaining health. The blocking makes it difficult for many to interupt , but the channel is long enough for a skilled player to fear or cc with an unblockable if equipped. It also goes on full cool down if interrupted, unlike other skills. Signet of resolve is used quite a bit, not as much as shelter but i think that has a lot to do with the fairly weak passive that spends a lot of time on cool down.

Sword teleport is the main reason why sword is so popular in melee. Along with GS it is one of the only weapons we have that we can use to actually hit an opponent. Sword is quicker than GS, but quirkier. Auto can bug and not connect, has poor cleave, can be reflected and zealots defense is often best not used unless you are taking a lot of ranged auto attacks. The weapon really leans on flashing blade to keep it useful.

I think that flashing blade is the only reason to use Sword at WvW (myself included). Considering the lack of mobility + lack of soft CC everyone can just run away from us. I use sword+hammer+hydromancy sigil only to keep up the fight. I am also begining to use Bane Signet becouse I’m sick of people just running from me.

CnaeusDane.2938:

From my own experiences, Sword auto 3 needs to be cleaned up. Flashing Blade should be a non-target skill and would allow teleporting in a straight line if no target is selected since a skill like rush is allowed to be a non-target skill. Zealot’s Defense should apply chilled on the first hit of the chain since it’s so obvious. That or make it 4 projectiles instead of 8 which hit more reliably. Could also give a 1/4 or 1/2 second chill/cripple to the 2nd auto attack since it’s so easily walked away from in wvw.

Hammer just needs a bit of time shaved off the symbol, make it 1sec on auto 3 rather than 1 1/4. Banish should have a slightly reduced cd as well.

Greatsword whirling wrath needs to be slightly faster movement, it’s very difficult to land right now since it’s so obvious and slow. (I fought a gs guardian just the other day and had to laugh at him sadly. It was so easy to read his ww, dodge back and using zealot’s defense. WW makes you move so slow zealot’s defense easily hits which is a shocker)

Staff is fine, though the orb of light needs to be fixed when it won’t recharge if the orb gets stuck.

Scepter needs a slightly increase smite cd and slightly decreased chains of light cd to balance it out. Auto is still kinda bad, maybe a hair more damage to comp for the poor tracking.

Shield needs to reduce the cds for both skills just a hair, it’s a solid weapon but the effects aren’t worth the long cd.

Focus is fine. Probably our best offhand.

Torch 4 needs to work with the “Gain fury when you’re on fire” trait. Torch 5 needs to either self cleanse, increase damage, apply burning or any combination of those. (Note: Currently it is not worth using Torch 5 over the swords auto attack if used as a pair. The loss of DPS isn’t worth it. Haven’t tested with other weapons)

Mace is pretty solid, it does its part well.

Overall Guardian weapons aren’t bad, but they’re very obvious. It’s a lot more work to land damage. Access to soft CC as a trait or on a weapon would help a lot. Personally think chilled on crit as a zeal 20 trait would make for some interesting play. Sacrificing 20 points into zeal which is largely considered our worst trait line and wouldn’t allow for GS dmg/heal unless you push for 30.

I agree with every thing you said, excep for Scepter and Mace.

Scepter is really bad, the only good thing is the immobilize. The AA and smite hardly will hit anything. Smite seems to have a good dps, but the anemies just walk away, hitting they only 2 times (if lucky).

And mace is too slow. They should reduce the cast from the last hit from #1 by 1/4 (to 3/4 – this skill does not cleaves and have a poor healing power scaling) and the symbol (#2) to 1 sec or even 3/4 sec. I wanna to use mace, but every time I try it, I get bored.

How does this thread feel about making [Judge’s Intervention] a ground-targeted teleport? As much as this would increase the Guardian’s potential mobility, it might goof up a lot of typical combos that some Guardian’s might attempt by pre-casting skills before pressing the teleport button. I mean, the combos should still work so long as the player just aimed the target reticle properly. Not sure, though.

As for the posts above me, I’ve been reading over them and I’m working on a response.

I’d be fine with a ground-target port. It would require a little more attention to your combinations. Another comment regarding other Guardian heals; Shelter is by far, our best heal. I don’t believe this makes it too strong but rather the one we use as a crutch. The base heal is small that’s offset by the fact that it’ll block the next few incoming attacks. I would love a smaller cd heal that requires proper timing and reward. I thought Litany of Wrath would be such a heal but it needs to be adjusted quite a bit.

edit: I still stand-by most of the changes I posted above. I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts about them.

Ground targeting would certainly help guardian mobility. I’d love to have it as an option. Though we do lose some utility from it. (Won’t be as easy to thief stomp if they port, banish stomp will be trickier, RoW + JI won’t auto track, though for WvW it’d be excellent.) Personally I’d prefer a fix / reduction to merciful healing and make it a ground target option.

Shelter is tricky. I see why people want to change it but at the same time it’s a problem to change it. As it’s used now it’s a large scale burst mitigation, as the only other option is renewed focus. The problem is warriors have access to things like endure pain and shield block to do the same thing so I’d never opt to get rid of it as it stands.

IF, and that’s a pretty big if, Guardians had increase mobility in order to avoid large situation bursts in WvW and had one of the shield skills changed to an actual shield block for about 2 second duration to help during initial bursts that some teams use to get rid of us in PvP then I could see changing shelter to be a few blocks and a larger heal.

Really it’s the same problem warriors have with healing signet. It’s so good why use anything else and if they nerf it people will use anything else. What should be examined is how to change the utility. A prime example is thief heals. Hide in Shadows and Withdraw are both used in very different builds because of the utility aspects.

What could be an interesting idea is that Signet of Resolve instead of just passively removing conditions could be stored for up to 3 conditions removed in a burst. A small icon similar to how shield of wrath works, ticks up to 3. Activate the skill once to use the condition removal, twice to use the heal. Would allow for counter play, since the animation would be longer and could be interrupted. Let’s players have a more active role, which is always a plus and probably the biggest thing is allowing people to actually see the effect activate. I could count on 1 hand the times I’ve seen signet actually remove a condition.

Shield Of Judgement. 30 second cool down.
Block attacks. 2 second duration.
At the end of the duration create a wave in front of you that damages allies and gives protection to allies.
3 seconds of protection.
Damage: 250 (Base)
Range: 450

Reduces the damage, range and protection duration. Gives a block duration. Can’t be used to disengage as easily since it has a forced attack afterwords.

Signet of Resolve:

Stores condition cleansing (up to 3 stacks)
Activate once to remove conditions (1 condition per stack) 1/2 second cast time. 5 second recharge.
Activate again for the full heal. 3/4 second cast time. Full heal CD reduced to 35

Forces you to cleanse conditions before signet cleanse and if you decide not to cleanse there’s a 5 second timer before you can heal. Increases total cast time very slightly, and allows for more active play and decision making.

CnaeusDane.2938:

Ground targeting would certainly help guardian mobility. I’d love to have it as an option. Though we do lose some utility from it. (Won’t be as easy to thief stomp if they port, banish stomp will be trickier, RoW + JI won’t auto track, though for WvW it’d be excellent.) Personally I’d prefer a fix / reduction to merciful healing and make it a ground target option.

Personally, I think that a small skill-cap increase on combos with IoJ would be a small price to pay for additional mobility. I’ll get to designing the skill.

CnaeusDane.2938:

Shelter is tricky. I see why people want to change it but at the same time it’s a problem to change it. As it’s used now it’s a large scale burst mitigation, as the only other option is renewed focus. The problem is warriors have access to things like endure pain and shield block to do the same thing so I’d never opt to get rid of it as it stands.

It just makes me sad to hear Guardians openly admit to calling [Shelter] a crutch and then saying that there’s no issue with it. It really speaks volumes on the current state of GW2 PvP combat. I’m going to revert my suggested changes to the skill, for now. I’ll keep it saved, but I my hope is that we can move to something more along the lines of what I’ve suggested in the future. The best way to do that, however, is to really take a critical look at the game as a whole and target the issues that make [Shelter] into a necessary crutch and not just an overpowered healing skill (as it really is).

CnaeusDane.2938:

What could be an interesting idea is that Signet of Resolve instead of just passively removing conditions could be stored for up to 3 conditions removed in a burst. A small icon similar to how shield of wrath works, ticks up to 3. Activate the skill once to use the condition removal, twice to use the heal. Would allow for counter play, since the animation would be longer and could be interrupted. Let’s players have a more active role, which is always a plus and probably the biggest thing is allowing people to actually see the effect activate. I could count on 1 hand the times I’ve seen signet actually remove a condition.

That’s actually a really neat idea. I’ll try to craft something for that.

Swagg.9236:

CnaeusDane.2938:

Ground targeting would certainly help guardian mobility. I’d love to have it as an option. Though we do lose some utility from it. (Won’t be as easy to thief stomp if they port, banish stomp will be trickier, RoW + JI won’t auto track, though for WvW it’d be excellent.) Personally I’d prefer a fix / reduction to merciful healing and make it a ground target option.

Personally, I think that a small skill-cap increase on combos with IoJ would be a small price to pay for additional mobility. I’ll get to designing the skill.

CnaeusDane.2938:

Shelter is tricky. I see why people want to change it but at the same time it’s a problem to change it. As it’s used now it’s a large scale burst mitigation, as the only other option is renewed focus. The problem is warriors have access to things like endure pain and shield block to do the same thing so I’d never opt to get rid of it as it stands.

It just makes me sad to hear Guardians openly admit to calling [Shelter] a crutch and then saying that there’s no issue with it. It really speaks volumes on the current state of GW2 PvP combat. I’m going to revert my suggested changes to the skill, for now. I’ll keep it saved, but I my hope is that we can move to something more along the lines of what I’ve suggested in the future. The best way to do that, however, is to really take a critical look at the game as a whole and target the issues that make [Shelter] into a necessary crutch and not just an overpowered healing skill (as it really is).

CnaeusDane.2938:

What could be an interesting idea is that Signet of Resolve instead of just passively removing conditions could be stored for up to 3 conditions removed in a burst. A small icon similar to how shield of wrath works, ticks up to 3. Activate the skill once to use the condition removal, twice to use the heal. Would allow for counter play, since the animation would be longer and could be interrupted. Let’s players have a more active role, which is always a plus and probably the biggest thing is allowing people to actually see the effect activate. I could count on 1 hand the times I’ve seen signet actually remove a condition.

That’s actually a really neat idea. I’ll try to craft something for that.

The problem isn’t Shelter, but other the healing skills. Warriors have tons of way to tank full damage – 1 from shield, 1 from a healing skill (that is 100x more powerful than Shelter, and under used becouse the healing signet is OP) and 1 utility skill.

The problem with the other healing skills are: Healing Breeze – It is just useless, too much CD considering its underwhelming effect and Litany of Wrath only (sort of) work if is fully traited. The Signet of Resolve problem is the CD that should be 35 sec and should have better synergy with traits (they should buff Perfect Inscriptions to 50% efficiency ) and other signets (the Signet of Mercy active is useless and the Signet of Wrath pasive is useless).

The Shelter is 100% OK. You have a 20 sec CD heal for +10 sec CD and 2 sec of block.

Mikau.6920:

The problem isn’t Shelter, but other the healing skills. Warriors have tons of way to tank full damage – 1 from shield, 1 from a healing skill (that is 100x more powerful than Shelter, and under used becouse the healing signet is OP) and 1 utility skill.

Please don’t bring [Healing Signet] or anything else into this discussion. You’re getting off point. Even though [Healing Signet] (bunker Warrior in general) is indeed overpowered, it has nothing to do with what we’re talking about here.

Mikau.6920:

The problem with the other healing skills are: Healing Breeze – It is just useless, too much CD considering its underwhelming effect and Litany of Wrath only (sort of) work if is fully traited. The Signet of Resolve problem is the CD that should be 35 sec and should have better synergy with traits (they should buff Perfect Inscriptions to 50% efficiency ) and other signets (the Signet of Mercy active is useless and the Signet of Wrath pasive is useless).

I’m working to address the issues of the other healing skills right now. There have been a couple of good ideas suggested already and other good points made regarding what I’ve already suggested. I’m hopefully going to work on making some updates to this thread today.

Mikau.6920:

The Shelter is 100% OK. You have a 20 sec CD heal for +10 sec CD and 2 sec of block.

[Shelter] is not fine because as a skill it offers virtually no risk to the user for its activation while it can give an immense return through multiple blocks as well as thousands of health. It’s overpowered, but it can’t necessarily be helped right now because the game is so overtuned and imbalanced; Guardians need it to survive. Hopefully [Shelter] can receive the nerf that it deserves once we work to tone down the broken parts of this game.

I do agree to the extent that Shelter is a mindless skill that provides an almost guaranteed heal. I’d love to see it changed to more of an active skill but have more benefit because of the increased risk.

Group retaliation needs to go, it’s promoting zerg play and really is not fun to play against.

Agreed, Retaliation is a pretty poor boon in my opinion.

I think it’s time guardian had a unique mechanic more akin to that of the thief. i.e. spammable everything I’m sick of cooldowns galore.

Retaliation is a key part of a bunker guardian’s potential. Getting rid of it would break a key component of the class, which means it’s not going to go away.

Shelter has risk, its a very bad heal if timed incorrectly. It just happens to be difficult to time it poorly due to current guardian meta builds. Guards lack range and escapes so they are always in the middle of battles. Guards lack HP and all meta builds have healing alternatives so they don’t mind tiny heal on the skill.

If signet traits were more useful, or if high HP or high mobility ranged guard builds were more prevalent, signet of resolve would be more popular. Healing breeze needs reworking and litany is poorly designed. Fix these three and shelter would face more competition. Saying shelter is op because it is most popular healing skill is like saying renewed focus is op because it is the most used elite skill.

I think shelter is fine, but if you must raise skill cap on it, reduce heal by 33% and add 1 more second block. Makes it more of a situational heal with longer chance to interrupt and reduces healing sustain.

Black Box.9312:

Retaliation is a key part of a bunker guardian’s potential. Getting rid of it would break a key component of the class, which means it’s not going to go away.

Retaliation should just stack in intensity. It makes it balanced in 1v1s and it removes its ability to burn down an entire group of players’ HP simultaneously.

Mightymealworm.8409:

Shelter has risk, its a very bad heal if timed incorrectly.

Every heal is bad if timed incorrectly.

Mightymealworm.8409:

It just happens to be difficult to time it poorly due to current guardian meta builds.

What about a Guardian meta build actually makes “timing” [Shelter] poorly difficult to do? Do you even have an actual explanation for this sentence?