Guild Wars 2

I was browsing MMORPG.com and I found this recently posted article:
PvP and WvW Changes

In the article, there is the following paragraph:

Class Changes

The staple of every MMO update will of course be present. I’m talking about class changes. Classes are ever evolving in Guild Wars 2 and this update will bring something new to every class. In particular they highlighted Guardian Spirit weapons which are rarely used at the moment. To make them viable opens for players they will all be made more powerful.

As far as I know, there hasn’t been a Ready-Up video to touch on the fundamental changes to guardian, so is there any source and/or validity to this?

well gamescom is going on, so it’s not hard for people in the cologne area to talk to a dev and get information.

we don’t have any dev confirmation, but i doubt MMORPG.com is lying.

Interesting. Their casting time needs to be reduced, they need more uptime, the bow needs to be more reliable and his active needs to cleanse some conditions too, the shield needs to break stuns on cast in addition to its active, they should be much more resilient as a whole as well.
Let’s hope for a much deserved buff to them nonetheless.

Anet please, just stop trying to buff ai builds no one wants another spirit ranger in any pvp, whether its hotjoin, soloq or teamq. I actually want to fight a player and not lose to ai/passive effects in pvp. After all, it is call player vs player for a reason. If I want to fight ai I go do pve.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Anet please, just stop trying to buff ai builds no one wants another spirit ranger in any pvp, whether its hotjoin, soloq or teamq. I actually want to fight a player and not lose to ai/passive effects in pvp. After all, it is call player vs player for a reason. If I want to fight ai I go do pve.

it doesn’t have to be viable on sPvP to be viable. they might be making it into a nice build for PvE.

balance =/= PvP balance.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Anet please, just stop trying to buff ai builds no one wants another spirit ranger in any pvp, whether its hotjoin, soloq or teamq. I actually want to fight a player and not lose to ai/passive effects in pvp. After all, it is call player vs player for a reason. If I want to fight ai I go do pve.

it doesn’t have to be viable on sPvP to be viable. they might be making it into a nice build for PvE.

balance =/= PvP balance.

That makes sense to us. But clearly not to anet and unfortunately they are law.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Anet please, just stop trying to buff ai builds no one wants another spirit ranger in any pvp, whether its hotjoin, soloq or teamq. I actually want to fight a player and not lose to ai/passive effects in pvp. After all, it is call player vs player for a reason. If I want to fight ai I go do pve.

I agree. I don’t like the idea of a spirit pet guardian either. I certainly don’t hope it becomes the strongest build in any gamemode. If I wanted a pet class I would’ve made a ranger or necromancer.

I’m not a huge fan of AI builds either. However I do think there could be a way to make the current AI builds take at least a little bit more skill and not clutter the screen so much.

• Lowering the leash range so that AI like Minions and Spirit Weapons don’t chase people around but rather make them an extension of the player. It would give the player more control while making them weaker to AoE. While currently most AI does this while idle, once combat starts

• Make the AI have a set spot they stand by the player. For example the Shield of the Avenger should be in front of the Guardian, the Hammer/Sword should be on the sides, and the Bow should be behind them.

• To counteract them being tied to the hip of the player, give some of the activatable abilities more range, like making the Hammer attack jump forward a bit then return to the player’s side or minions jumping forward to use their attacks/explode. The range/speed of the attack (even the AA) can vary depending on the AI but they should return to their spot besided the player after the attack.

Basically, make the Minions/ Spirits/ Pets etc. feel like a normal Utility skill, just one that happens to summon something next to the player that gives them a passive attack/defense. The builds would attract a lot less hate if their screen wasn’t constantly flooded by pets running around all over the place. The problem is I’m not sure this is possible with the current AI coding since we know the reason Ranger pets have the problems they do is because ANet tied them to mob AI. My ideas are a bit tricky to put into words but hopefully the message gets across.

I think the idea of having floating weapons besides you is cool, but not when it feels like I have hardly any real control over them. Same applies to MM on necro.

yaaaay another AI build.

at what point can we stop calling players watching their AI fight eachother “PVP”?

How is AI supposed to be good for pve? The closest are phantasm builds and drakes….just like turret engineer and other AI builds they would be strong in conquest and never used in www at less not with 3 of them slotted. They got to be viable in at least one mode and unfortunately for some it might be where people are hiding from WWW lol .

People complain all the time anyway I’m still waiting on info for necro and just give a little up side I would like fighting and playing a spirit weapon guardian if improved. right.

Liewec.2896:

yaaaay another AI build.

at what point can we stop calling players watching their AI fight eachother “PVP”?

I think the game was called pokemon if I’m not mistaken.

Like Bruno said, hopefully its a pve change that doesn’t end up helping pvp.

NinjaEd.3946:

Liewec.2896:

yaaaay another AI build.

at what point can we stop calling players watching their AI fight eachother “PVP”?

I think the game was called pokemon if I’m not mistaken.

Like Bruno said, hopefully its a pve change that doesn’t end up helping pvp.

You might be disappointed skill bar doesn’t really translate into pve balance as seen so far.

Sagat.3285:

NinjaEd.3946:

Liewec.2896:

yaaaay another AI build.

at what point can we stop calling players watching their AI fight eachother “PVP”?

I think the game was called pokemon if I’m not mistaken.

Like Bruno said, hopefully its a pve change that doesn’t end up helping pvp.

You might be disappointed skill bar doesn’t really translate into pve balance as seen so far.

i don’t know, invigorating precision seems like a pretty PvE-ish trait. i like bringing it on S/P with signet of malice to see my character disappear under a cloud of green numbers.

and i remember a statement long ago from ANet saying that they don’t think it’s a bad thing that certain specs are only good for certain game modes, so there’s that. spirit weapons, however, are almost as bad as thief traps in terms of usability (at least you can spec them into a gimmicky half decent build)

Can’t think of how they’d be useful unless they give passive stats.. seeing how you’d be giving up buffs, condi clear and other stuff to even put 1-2 on skill bar. Unless they make it you can add one more skill instead of an elite.. gawd elites are garbage

As i have often mentioned before, I would love it if they just made them summoned weapons which replace the guards weapon skills.

No dodgy and skillless AI, just some well needed depth to guardian game play and the potential for some interesting new builds

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

no one wants another spirit ranger in any pvp, whether its hotjoin, soloq or teamq

Great. Look at a tiny minority in the tiniest game mode, and then also assume that you can speak for everyone even in that limited group.

You don’t like builds based on pets. You also didn’t investigate the general balance idea behind them in that case (lower maximum power, in return high and automated minimum power). Pet builds work perfectly fine in virtually any game. GW2’s have the general game problems work in their favour, but also the fact that players keep thinking that the game is balanced for the tiny slice they personally seem to play exclusively.

If you really think pet setups are so broken, how come they’re so rare? Moreover, how come you seem to be resisting balancing being done on them, when it sounds like that’s exactly what you should want for?

Carighan.6758:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

no one wants another spirit ranger in any pvp, whether its hotjoin, soloq or teamq

Great. Look at a tiny minority in the tiniest game mode, and then also assume that you can speak for everyone even in that limited group.

You don’t like builds based on pets. You also didn’t investigate the general balance idea behind them in that case (lower maximum power, in return high and automated minimum power). Pet builds work perfectly fine in virtually any game. GW2’s have the general game problems work in their favour, but also the fact that players keep thinking that the game is balanced for the tiny slice they personally seem to play exclusively.

If you really think pet setups are so broken, how come they’re so rare? Moreover, how come you seem to be resisting balancing being done on them, when it sounds like that’s exactly what you should want for?

There’s a difference between pet builds and zoo builds. I’m not aware of many PvP MMO that include zoo builds. And if there is, they probably include uncapped AoEs that destroys those.

Solution for zoo builds : remove the AoE cap in sPvP.

stof.9341:

There’s a difference between pet builds and zoo builds. I’m not aware of many PvP MMO that include zoo builds. And if there is, they probably include uncapped AoEs that destroys those.

Solution for zoo builds : remove the AoE cap in sPvP.

Hrm, yes and no.
Most of those don’t try to do smallscale combat but I’d go hugely off topic if I start on that again (I don’t think smallscale PvP is a good idea in MMORPGs in the first place, good as it is in other genres – see the WoW dev’s experience with 2v2 arena :P ).
And well… yes, in a way. AE caps hurt. They’re not bad in a way, but also not good.
Then again in larger fights the existent AEs will kill any pet within seconds, so…

Considering how weak pets already are in larger fights with the AE caps, how would this not make them even more useless?

The problem with many skills/utilities in general, especially ones based around AI is that after you dump zyllion trait points into making one type of utility viable, you don’t want to equip other types of utility. That goes for AI builds. Once you dump 80% of your trait points into spirits/minions/phantasms you want to get most of it, so you just slot as many as possible.

If AI utilities weren’t so crap in before heavy traiting, then maybe people would actually choose one, max two matching their build and use other types as well.

Rym.1469:

The problem with many skills/utilities in general, especially ones based around AI is that after you dump zyllion trait points into making one type of utility viable, you don’t want to equip other types of utility.

Yes, thank you.

This problem is actually larger than just traits, gear is so important to your character’s general ability that you cannot go outside of it’s main use.

There’s two ways this could be tweaked a bit:

• Tweak all outliers. Characters would have less of the stats they focus on and more of those they don’t feature on their gear/traits. Traits would give considerable smaller bonuses to skills while many current elements are simply merged baseline.
• Remove the customization for reasons of just cutting down characters instead of enriching them. If all your traits do is reduce you from someone picking from 55 utility skills and 6 elites to someone picking from 7 utility skills and 1 elite, what is their point? Just merge all power baseline and remove the traits entirely.

So the preview is out.

They are improving spirit weapons through their actives and not their passives, which should be healthier in pvp than the opposite direction.

Tarsius.3170:

As i have often mentioned before, I would love it if they just made them summoned weapons which replace the guards weapon skills.

No dodgy and skillless AI, just some well needed depth to guardian game play and the potential for some interesting new builds

This would be amazing, and it could be like how engies equip and unequip kits…