Guild Wars 2

So, pretty much everyone that’s played a Guardian can tell there’s only a couple builds that are any good if you intend to live long enough to have fun. The 30 Valor/ 30 Honor synergy is off the charts, especially after the changes to Greatsword’s skill set effectively killed the Zeal trait line. There’s very little reason for a Guardian to consider a build without spending 60 of their traits in these lines unless they specifically aim to be Boon Machines/get maximum up-time out of Retaliation (too bad that Greatsword change didn’t affect it, amirite?)

I’d like to discuss ways to re-allocate some traits that are in disadvantageous places in their respective Trait lines.

For example, our Two-Handed Mastery trait. It’s a Master trait in the Honor line and (unsurprisingly) synergizes extraordinarily well with any build utilizing Altruistic Healing, but not on its own. It takes another Master Trait from the Honor line to synergize at all- Empowering Might. Since they are both Master traits, one needs to put the full 30 Trait points into Honor to get both, and then 30 in Valor to get the synergy. If we move Two-Handed Mastery down to an Adept trait (much like an Elementalist’s 20% elemental recharge rate increase) we effectively create more room for Guardians who want this synergy to experiment with traits outside the Valor and Honor line by freeing up 5-10 trait points, as there would no longer be a reason to pigeon-hole valuable points into a near-worthless Grandmaster slot. Suddenly we have room to give Zeal a chance, or increase our Boon efficacy further. Not only that, but it opens up opportunities to experiment with new builds altogether to get new Synergy for the two-handers without feeling so suboptimal by not immediately filling the Valor line. There are numerous possibilities that open up just from aligning one Trait to the same slot that other Professions have it in! This particular example has more relevance than it should have due to the excessive number of people that favor 2-handed weapons. At the very least it will create some build variation instead of forcing 30 Valor/ 30 Honor. I realize a lot of Altruistic Healing’s synergy can come from Shouts as well and people who opt to use it that way don’t suffer the same opportunity cost. This particular example levels the field between Guardians that use shouts and those that would rather not.

Another example is the Guardian Inner Fire trait. It has mislead many a player into believing their Torch skill Zealot’s Flame activates the trait’s effect. And why shouldn’t it? The Boon lasts for 3 seconds, so even if one were to fill their Virtues trait line to 30, the duration might reach a 4th second at best. By changing nothing about Inner Fire except allowing it to synergize with Zealot’s Flame, more incentive to trait into Radiance and try out 1-handed weapons is created. Plus, you know, it wouldn’t just be thematically appropriate, it would be INSANELY COOL!

I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to alter Guardian traits just a teensy little bit to create more viable build options without making up new traits or skillsets at all. I believe it should be looked into and hopefully adjusted as such (and for this idea to be extended to other Professions that suffer a distinct lack of Trait::Profession synergy).

Any discussion/criticism is welcome so long as it is kept in mind that I am not making up new traits or asking for unreasonable adjustments such as moving Altruistic Healing to an adept slot. If a discussion arises I would like for it to only be about reasonable adjustments of existing traits to create a wider variety of effective builds (if this inspires other Professions that suffer a low number of synergistic builds to take a glance at their own traits for similar ideas I encourage you to make your own suggestion thread on it).

I think a number of guardian traits/effects are broken right now, Altruistic Healing being a prime example. I know personally in the last couple of weeks I’ve bugged at least five things that aren’t working as they should be/their description says.

I like your thoughts though, Arch. There should be no clear cut ‘best’ trait-line. Hopefully Anet will continue to tweak with the class overtime so this becomes a reality.

you havnt used a staff while using the traits to make Justice proc on the 4th hit and that when it does its a fire aoe have you?

there is plenty of ways to play, sometimes its more in how you apply them then in straight up number crunch. I have been told i should die alot with my build but i use it in wvw to anchor my sides pushes by darting in throwing up walls of reflection and using my staff to hammer a hole in the other side allowing my side to push in behind me.

Teraphas.6210:

you havnt used a staff while using the traits to make Justice proc on the 4th hit and that when it does its a fire aoe have you?

there is plenty of ways to play, sometimes its more in how you apply them then in straight up number crunch. I have been told i should die alot with my build but i use it in wvw to anchor my sides pushes by darting in throwing up walls of reflection and using my staff to hammer a hole in the other side allowing my side to push in behind me.

I get where you’re coming from and honestly, I haven’t done that with the staff. But what I’m talking about is that Guardian traits don’t have much going on. It’s very difficult to find synergy without giving up something more valuable than the synergy itself, the exception being 30 Honor and 30 Valor. I know at least one other profession suffers from the same lack of oomph in their build options.

The Guardian traits don’t need much changing, they’ve got everything they need to have all kinds of not only creative and original builds, but extraordinarily effective ones. The problem is only that many traits are in places they shouldn’t be. Going on our Two-handed Mastery trait again, it’s one of the only 20% recharge rate traits in the game that gives no additional benefit that isn’t slotted into the Adept trait. Nearly every other 20% recharge trait in the game that’s slotted into the Master trait gives an additional benefit besides just the recharge. The same concept applies to a lot of our traits. Simply slotting some of them in more sensible places opens up a lot of synergy that would reduce the relevance of the Honor/Valor bandwagon and hopefully knock it off of its throne as the undisputed best build we have (because it is).

Spirit Weapon builds are one of the few organic builds we have in that it offers synergy with our Profession without giving up anything valuable to get it. Our previous synergy with the Zeal line while using a Greatsword was another great example before ANET re-arranged the Greatsword skillset to “reduce the effectiveness of Retaliation builds” and killed an entire build option as collateral damage without even minutely affecting what they wanted to.

I don’t doubt the effectiveness of your personal build and your desire to play it that way, but from the information you’ve given about it, I don’t see any of your abilities actually synergyzing with each other to make your play style more effective. Rather I see your play style making the build more effective, and that’s the reverse of how it should work. A build should supplement playstyle.