Guild Wars 2

Sarcasmic.6741:

Nope, happens regularly. Our guild leader respecs for full glass cannon when he takes a break from 70-80 fractals to help the rest of us progress 20-30, and I’ve watched his damage directly through his stream. Not to mention 8k focus shield explosions and 10k whirling wraths. It’s not quite glass warrior output, but it is frightening.

It’s more than possible. As a full glass you can easily do 12-13k with ww with right pots.

Btw, what’s his stream?

Off-topic, at work so I can’t get you a link. See if I can’t dig it up later. He doesn’t stream often, mainly just to show us stuff, and when he was progressing past 60.

On-topic, yay at someone who sees guardians can be more than walking boon dispensers.

Xynn.2748:

Do you play fractals? The only boss this matters at all on, in any way shape or form, is Legendary Grawl Shaman and that is only because the Lava Elementals are just straight up stupid design.

EDIT:
“The Lava Shaman and his adds cry at the sight of Shield, and the Shaman will dutifully kill himself AND his adds by shooting into WoR. "
—>Never mind, I can see that you don’t play fractals at all lol.

Except that’s not the case at all, and you know it or you’re just BSing me.

Bloomhunger is entirely ranged, and all of his attacks can be reflected/blocked. With SoA and WoR on two guardians, the most dangerous thing in the fight is Storm Spirit because of Retaliation. Your whole team can sit inside of bubbles and literally AFK auto-attack him to death so long as the two guardians maintain their rotation and in frequently kill the Storm Spirit. This isn’t as big of an issue with Mossman as he will move and engage in melee, anti-projectiles just stop his dagger post-stealth aspect which is predictable and can be dodged since you know exactly when he’ll do it. (That is… if anyone ever did Mossman without just climbing the tree.)

The Uncategorized Map has the same problem. Old Tom can be shut down completely by SoA (I realize he’s a mini-boss). Two guardians rotating SoA + Sanctuary removes the only way Tom had for dealing damage, and the most dangerous aspect of the fight becomes poison… which is irrelevant because you’ll likely burn him down haphazardly since he cannot do jack. The Raving Asura’s balls can be completely blocked off by WoR/SoA, meaning that the fight devolves into fighting four veteran mobs, twice, without any Agony to worry about.

That, right there, is two of the whole set trivialized. The Shaman is greatly abated in difficulty by Walls and SoA (and I don’t think Feedback will actually work all that well because of the Shaman’s height). Something is certainly wrong when one class will greatly reduce the difficulty of ~1/3rd (3 of 9 bosses sans Jade) of the fractals content.

And to make amends, I don’t want to see guardians blown up (it is my class, after all,) but they really need to be toned down a bit either by (a) making encounters less tailor made for them, (b) buffing the other classes to be as desirable. And yes, reading some posts, I see I’ve bit a bit overzealous, I apologize for that. I still stand by that SoA, at the very least, is too over the top as a skill, especially when traited.

Sarcasmic.6741:

You haven’t seen good guardians. In pvp, it’s a bit difficult to hit with scepter perhaps, but not in pve. It’s very easy for a guardian to hit 3k on auto attack with scepter, which is stronger and faster than my dps ranger’s long bow auto attack, then there’s smite which chews through immobile targets.

No. My guardian has 3000 attack and 70% crit damage.

Scepter hits rarely go over 1.5k.

Darx.9842:

No. My guardian has 3000 attack and 70% crit damage.

Scepter hits rarely go over 1.5k.

Well, you’re missing about 20% crit damage (possibly more), and the rest I would assume comes from your trait lines. It’s entirely possible to make each tick of smite do that damage. You could be auto attacking for more.

Dear OP, advocating a nerf to Guardians just because it happens that we are the best class at dealing with projectiles is, honestly, foolish. While I agree with you ( Guardians are too useful in FotM ) you should cure the problem at the root: fractal encounters rely too much on projectiles. If we had a whole dungeon about dealing condition dmg ( teleporting around) that would not be a valid reason for nerfing Necromancers (Thieves). So rather then ask for uncalled nerfs on a class already weak to ranged/kiting, ask Anet not to make encounters so reliant on a single mechanic.

P.s. @ thieves:
Comparing Smoke Screen to Wall of Reflection and whining that’s weaker is like me comparing http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Judge%27s_Intervention to http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep and doing the same. You’ll get to have WoR when you’ll stop teleporting around with 1200 range like it’s nobody business
P.p.s. My scepter auto has never gotten over 1k damage.
P.p.p.s. Nobody ever uses Shield of the Avenger besides certain encounters in fractals and very rarely in WvW. Let’s nerf it XD

vena- i’ll say it again because even though your tone has softened, you still stand behind the same points.

we will NOT see a nerf to wor/soa because of fotm because it would affect all other areas of the game where wor/soa is considered balanced. if a nerf were pending, it would be because those 2 utils are imbalanced across the board, traited or not.

i would argue that soa has it’s very important uses in wvw, but wolf is convinced it’s not…and that is another discussion altogether.

kiba.2768:

vena- i’ll say it again because even though your tone has softened, you still stand behind the same points.

we will NOT see a nerf to wor/soa because of fotm because it would affect all other areas of the game where wor/soa is considered balanced. if a nerf were pending, it would be because those 2 utils are imbalanced across the board, traited or not.

i would argue that soa has it’s very important uses in wvw, but wolf is convinced it’s not…and that is another discussion altogether.

I don’t think there will be nerfs to skills since like you said it’ll affect other areas of the game. Mobs will likely gain new types of skills to counter reflect. I would imagine many melee mobs will gain charge or AI that casts AoE behind walls like the Grawl Shaman already does.

kiba.2768:

vena- i’ll say it again because even though your tone has softened, you still stand behind the same points.

we will NOT see a nerf to wor/soa because of fotm because it would affect all other areas of the game where wor/soa is considered balanced. if a nerf were pending, it would be because those 2 utils are imbalanced across the board, traited or not.

i would argue that soa has it’s very important uses in wvw, but wolf is convinced it’s not…and that is another discussion altogether.

I’m not really even arguing about nerfing them anymore, if you look at my last post’s final paragraph. A few posters made some very good points on the fact that its the encounters that are messed up in that they just are too unidimensional or just not designed to punish/work around what guardians bring to the table. That, however, doesn’t change the fact that ~1/3 of fractals is currently designed poorly in that it heavily favors stacking guardians to trivialize the mechanics of the fights into non-events.

The only skill I really have a beef with is SoA, which is just too good in terms of projectile denial. Yes, I am opinionated about it. :P

right, then the environment design is flawed, not the profession nor the profession skills/utils. if some of the projectiles in future fractals were changed to beams or the encounters were moved away from ranged dependency, there wouldn’t be debates over whether or not a single profession’s skills would need nerfing.

robert hrouda said it himself in regards to the solo warrior dungeon runs that it displays true mastery of the profession and no nerfing was coming down based on 1 player’s experience. in the same fashion i believe he would not be pressed to change the guardian’s anti projectile mechanics based on 1 aspect of the game

kiba.2768:

robert hrouda said it himself in regards to the solo warrior dungeon runs that it displays true mastery of the profession and no nerfing was coming down based on 1 player’s experience. in the same fashion i believe he would not be pressed to change the guardian’s anti projectile mechanics based on 1 aspect of the game

It almost sounds like he’s going to revamp the burrows to prevent that in the future if it becomes anywhere efficient.

Actually, it gotten to the point where everyone asks for a Guardian for fotm. Go and take a look in gw2lfg, most people are asking for a Guardian for fractals. I’m playing a thief and the only few times, me and my warrior friend get a group by joining is rare. Most of the time, we end up waiting for people to join then the other way round.

I shudder to think how my hunter does fractals. With no missile deflecting or blocking spells at all.

I am not saying nerfing Guardians is the way to go but is it possible to make other classes as desirable for fotm as guardians?

it’s all about how the design the encounters. i.e
the ascalon boss fight. it could potentially have been very efficient fight to have a ranger on because of pets resses. but the npc dosen’t last for 1 second after the first phase. if the npc would have mattered more then yeah rangers would be awsome in this fight.

StrayDilettante.8671:

I am not saying nerfing Guardians is the way to go but is it possible to make other classes as desirable for fotm as guardians?

As I doubt the current encounters will get much of an overhaul, adding encounters that more heavily favor other professions (or their presence in a group) could potentially help out weigh the lopsided set-up we currently have. This is a bit of a saving grace for how the fractals are designed, they can have maps that favor some professions over others, allowing groups to pick and choose and really have equal odds no matter the set-up given the randomness of the maps.

Some classes are a bit hard to accommodate for, though, (how do you design a dungeon to favor rangers without just making it a dumb gimmick?) so the best approach would be to just tone down how unidimensional some of the current fights are or just give their projectiles some sort of “piercing” or give them AoEs to bypass getting wall camped.

there’s no need to change how projectiles behave in accordance to any utils that nullify them. rather, add in beams(they are not classified as projectiles and bypass wor/soa)

Waraxx.4286:

it’s all about how the design the encounters. i.e
the ascalon boss fight. it could potentially have been very efficient fight to have a ranger on because of pets resses. but the npc dosen’t last for 1 second after the first phase. if the npc would have mattered more then yeah rangers would be awsome in this fight.

I’m not too sure what level of fractals, you are mentioning about. But, at level 15+ fractals, the npcs are kitten helpful in the final boss fight. My warrior friend excels there because of Warbanner. The npcs deals quite some damage to the boss. I thought ranger’s pet can only ress one person per skill though?

I agree with points on both sides here.

After playing around with some alts lately I’ve realized that many classes have a lot of self-serving utility that I never see them utilize in hard situations.

This doesn’t solve the main issue at hand… But I guess my point is that folks who rely on guardian anti projectiles sometimes forget they can use their own abilities to block/nullify projectiles.

Don’t mistake me though, I do see the gap between guardian and other classes’ utility. It’d be nice to see the gap reduced somehow… Hopefully not through needing a class but rather by buffing other classes’ utility. I’m open to either option though.

As I doubt the current encounters will get much of an overhaul, adding encounters that more heavily favor other professions (or their presence in a group) could potentially help out weigh the lopsided set-up we currently have. This is a bit of a saving grace for how the fractals are designed, they can have maps that favor some professions over others, allowing groups to pick and choose and really have equal odds no matter the set-up given the randomness of the maps.

Some classes are a bit hard to accommodate for, though, (how do you design a dungeon to favor rangers without just making it a dumb gimmick?) so the best approach would be to just tone down how unidimensional some of the current fights are or just give their projectiles some sort of “piercing” or give them AoEs to bypass getting wall camped.

You do have a nice point. Although, I am quite sure it won’t be well-recieved. Actually, I think the Volcanic is meant for hunters.. (They can stand on the platform and shoot) Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out because, they are needed to ress at the bottom.

StrayDilettante.8671:

I shudder to think how my hunter does fractals. With no missile deflecting or blocking spells at all.

Actually, Rangers are very desirable in good FotM groups due to an ability to DPS relatively safely (doing your job). Not to mention Search & Rescue which besides 40+ efficiency at Maw is a great skill for other tough boss encounters when you cannot risk rezzing yourselves (e.g. Dredge, Volcanic).

Entangle is also very useful. And in terms of projectile reflection and avoiding damage you should bring Whirling Defense (axe offhand I believe?) and Lightning Reflexes. Not to mention your awesome Healing Spring for a looong water field combo!

Bas.8976:

StrayDilettante.8671:

I shudder to think how my hunter does fractals. With no missile deflecting or blocking spells at all.

Actually, Rangers are very desirable in good FotM groups due to an ability to DPS relatively safely (doing your job). Not to mention Search & Rescue which besides 40+ efficiency at Maw is a great skill for other tough boss encounters when you cannot risk rezzing yourselves (e.g. Dredge, Volcanic).

Entangle is also very useful. And in terms of projectile reflection and avoiding damage you should bring Whirling Defense (axe offhand I believe?) and Lightning Reflexes. Not to mention your awesome Healing Spring for a looong water field combo!

You are overstating the usefulness of rangers. They are at best as good as most other classes. If you consider the people playing rangers at the level, most are there only on the merit of search and rescue and otherwise contribute very little. It was actually refreshing the other day to see a ranger who was actually pleasant to have around and performs capably. Then again, this more of a people issue than class.

DanH.5879:

i also agree with the OP:
just for the sake of comparison, just compare wall of reflection with smoke screen:
wall: much bigger rectangle (long+wide) than smoke screen (check)
duration: much over 10 seconds (15 if trained), smokescreen 7, can’t train extra duration

cool down: 40 sec for wall (32 trained), 30 for smoke (24 trained),
instant cast vs 1 second cast
1 is light field other smoke, so on par here…but only here

reflection causes damage to the boss, smoke does not…
So why the hell wall is so much better than our smoke screen? Why?

pls inform yourself better next time… WoR has a 1 sec casttime… and its lastingtime is 10 and 12,5 (traited)

haviz.1340:

Sarcasmic.6741:

Nope, happens regularly. Our guild leader respecs for full glass cannon when he takes a break from 70-80 fractals to help the rest of us progress 20-30, and I’ve watched his damage directly through his stream. Not to mention 8k focus shield explosions and 10k whirling wraths. It’s not quite glass warrior output, but it is frightening.

It’s more than possible. As a full glass you can easily do 12-13k with ww with right pots.

Btw, what’s his stream?

the real question here is: why would any guardian go full glass canon?

as a high level fractalist myself i am well aware that glass cannoning doesn’t work beyond ordinary dungeons.

Ranged players will always do the best combined with condition removal in fotm. If you try to melee most of the fractal bosses you are going to get downed.

Twill.6217:

the real question here is: why would any guardian go full glass canon?

as a high level fractalist myself i am well aware that glass cannoning doesn’t work beyond ordinary dungeons.

Why would you do anything but glass cannon beyond fractal 50? Everything 60+ will 1-shot down you either way, “trash” included. It’s best to do the most damage you can in hopes that you kill the enemy before you yourself were downed. (Guardians are actually more capable at building full glass and surviving anyhow, except to maybe Mesmers)

Sarcasmic.6741:

Twill.6217:

the real question here is: why would any guardian go full glass canon?

as a high level fractalist myself i am well aware that glass cannoning doesn’t work beyond ordinary dungeons.

Why would you do anything but glass cannon beyond fractal 50? Everything 60+ will 1-shot down you either way, “trash” included. It’s best to do the most damage you can in hopes that you kill the enemy before you yourself were downed. (Guardians are actually more capable at building full glass and surviving anyhow, except to maybe Mesmers)

well that’s not really true. i know plenty of groups that build for support in high level fractals.

Twill.6217:

well that’s not really true. i know plenty of groups that build for support in high level fractals.

Ok fair enough, not full glass cannon, but using gear besides Berserker’s is more what I’d meant. I have a guildie warrior for example who trait slots for shout heals, but still builds damage wherever else available and wears damage gear. Things of that nature. None of this Soldier’s/Cleric’s/Apothecary’s/Etc builds focused on “tanking” damage. It just doesn’t happen that far into fractals. You either don’t get hit, or you get downed.

Sarcasmic.6741:

Well, you’re missing about 20% crit damage (possibly more), and the rest I would assume comes from your trait lines. It’s entirely possible to make each tick of smite do that damage. You could be auto attacking for more.

Maybe there are 25 stacks of might and what not in there too ?

Well I think we’ve come to an agreement, or sort of We could further discuss the strenght of WoR/SoA but I don’t think that’s the thread for it. I do understand, though, the gripe of OP with how “fire and forget” WoR and especially SoA feel, and how a better reward/risk ratio could be implemented not only with Guardians but many other classes. But I think that’s asking for too much and it’s again, another whole topic.

DancingPenguins.9875:

Bas.8976:

StrayDilettante.8671:

I shudder to think how my hunter does fractals. With no missile deflecting or blocking spells at all.

Actually, Rangers are very desirable in good FotM groups due to an ability to DPS relatively safely (doing your job). Not to mention Search & Rescue which besides 40+ efficiency at Maw is a great skill for other tough boss encounters when you cannot risk rezzing yourselves (e.g. Dredge, Volcanic).

Entangle is also very useful. And in terms of projectile reflection and avoiding damage you should bring Whirling Defense (axe offhand I believe?) and Lightning Reflexes. Not to mention your awesome Healing Spring for a looong water field combo!

You are overstating the usefulness of rangers. They are at best as good as most other classes. If you consider the people playing rangers at the level, most are there only on the merit of search and rescue and otherwise contribute very little. It was actually refreshing the other day to see a ranger who was actually pleasant to have around and performs capably. Then again, this more of a people issue than class.

Nah, usefuleness of rangers is not overestimated. The thing is, it is a very appealing class to low-medium skilled players – simple, remotely safe-in-use and because of that people get an impression that rangers are useless. The truth is that each and every class in useful in this game – everything depends, as you said, on the players.

Ylvina.6749:

pls inform yourself better next time… WoR has a 1 sec casttime… and its lastingtime is 10 and 12,5 (traited)

Wall of Reflection has no cast time, but it does have an aftercast delay, much like Corrupt Boon. Please make sure you know the details you are attempting to correct someone else on.

Wolfheart.1938:

Well I think we’ve come to an agreement, or sort of We could further discuss the strenght of WoR/SoA but I don’t think that’s the thread for it. I do understand, though, the gripe of OP with how “fire and forget” WoR and especially SoA feel, and how a better reward/risk ratio could be implemented not only with Guardians but many other classes. But I think that’s asking for too much and it’s again, another whole topic.

And yet, you can’t touch how these abilities operate in PvE without drastically affecting their play in Wv3. Same as the other suggestions to nerf the traits related to the wall: the traits are in relation to our consecrations, so nerfing that trait nerfs several abilities. PvE AI is dumb, but I would assume Wv3 opponents have at least two braincells to rub together, making any argument based solely on one portion of the game useless. If the devs decide to balance Wv3 separately, like with PvP, then the argument might hold some water…but I think we’d all be better off with the devs simply changing the battle mechanics in PvE if that’s what has everyone up in arms.

Bas.8976:

DancingPenguins.9875:

Bas.8976:

StrayDilettante.8671:

I shudder to think how my hunter does fractals. With no missile deflecting or blocking spells at all.

Actually, Rangers are very desirable in good FotM groups due to an ability to DPS relatively safely (doing your job). Not to mention Search & Rescue which besides 40+ efficiency at Maw is a great skill for other tough boss encounters when you cannot risk rezzing yourselves (e.g. Dredge, Volcanic).

Entangle is also very useful. And in terms of projectile reflection and avoiding damage you should bring Whirling Defense (axe offhand I believe?) and Lightning Reflexes. Not to mention your awesome Healing Spring for a looong water field combo!

You are overstating the usefulness of rangers. They are at best as good as most other classes. If you consider the people playing rangers at the level, most are there only on the merit of search and rescue and otherwise contribute very little. It was actually refreshing the other day to see a ranger who was actually pleasant to have around and performs capably. Then again, this more of a people issue than class.

Nah, usefuleness of rangers is not overestimated. The thing is, it is a very appealing class to low-medium skilled players – simple, remotely safe-in-use and because of that people get an impression that rangers are useless. The truth is that each and every class in useful in this game – everything depends, as you said, on the players.

Exactly, it’s the type of player it attracts that really makes a difference.

DancingPenguins.9875:

Bas.8976:

DancingPenguins.9875:

Bas.8976:

StrayDilettante.8671:

I shudder to think how my hunter does fractals. With no missile deflecting or blocking spells at all.

Actually, Rangers are very desirable in good FotM groups due to an ability to DPS relatively safely (doing your job). Not to mention Search & Rescue which besides 40+ efficiency at Maw is a great skill for other tough boss encounters when you cannot risk rezzing yourselves (e.g. Dredge, Volcanic).

Entangle is also very useful. And in terms of projectile reflection and avoiding damage you should bring Whirling Defense (axe offhand I believe?) and Lightning Reflexes. Not to mention your awesome Healing Spring for a looong water field combo!

You are overstating the usefulness of rangers. They are at best as good as most other classes. If you consider the people playing rangers at the level, most are there only on the merit of search and rescue and otherwise contribute very little. It was actually refreshing the other day to see a ranger who was actually pleasant to have around and performs capably. Then again, this more of a people issue than class.

Nah, usefuleness of rangers is not overestimated. The thing is, it is a very appealing class to low-medium skilled players – simple, remotely safe-in-use and because of that people get an impression that rangers are useless. The truth is that each and every class in useful in this game – everything depends, as you said, on the players.

Exactly, it’s the type of player it attracts that really makes a difference.

If we want to factor out the player skills and only talk about actual class usefulness we really have to make an effort to put it into perspective and specific situations. As far as fractal goes, basically you can separate the classes into 3 groups, or main functionalists: first tier support, 2nd tier support and the damage dealers.

First tier support are the damage mitigation classes, and these are the most important. So you are looking at guardians, to a very much lesser extent elementalists and thieves.

Second tier is the healing, the offensive buffs and combat resurrections. These won’t be much useful in the first place if you don’t have the mitigation to take the grunt of the fights, and that’s what makes guardians so indispensable in fractals simply because they are so good at it. Also, of course the attentions of SoA and WoR are well deserved, let’s not forget protection and aegis that guardians also excel at.

And lastly there aren’t much to say about damage dealers, but I do want to point out one thing, and this may get some disagreements, which is personally I think high single target dps is less valuable compared to support and high aoe. This of course depends on if you are on progression or farming, ie. getting through or getting through fast.

So the problem with Rangers are where do you actually fit in in fractals, it is there is no one aspect of rangers that make them the ‘first pick’. But of course if all aspects are covered already, a ranger is more than welcomed, but so will be any other class for that matter. As of search and rescue that many people likes to bring up, you can’t really justify a classes based on one bug that probably will get fixed in the future, or becomes irrelevant when new ascendent gears hit.

I’ve been maining a guardian since before day 1 of gw2.
Shield of Avenger used to be a very rare skill to see used in dungeon runs or WvW ( it still is to some extent ), which was a shame, because it IS a nice utility.

WoR was used selectively in dungeons, depending on the encounter and a fair amount in WvW ( where it’s useful, but has too short a duration to turn the tide of battle to any great extent ).

In WvW they both have huge telegraphs.

I switch my utilities, weapons and traits around often during a dungeon run, but FoTM is the only instance which I feel I need to use both SoA and WoR almost all of the time.

So the question should not be: “Why doesn’t Anet nerf these skills?” but should be “Why doesn’t Anet change FoTM so these projectiles are no longer reflectable”.
They have done similar tweaks in past patches to make some attacks unblockable, purely because the guardian damage mitigation can be so good ( we ARE guardians after all ;-) ), so they just need to do the same for FoTM.

I really won’t be surprised if we do see something to that effect in up-coming patches.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Ylvina.6749:

pls inform yourself better next time… WoR has a 1 sec casttime… and its lastingtime is 10 and 12,5 (traited)

Wall of Reflection has no cast time, but it does have an aftercast delay, much like Corrupt Boon. Please make sure you know the details you are attempting to correct someone else on.

your luck… skillbuilder app had old data -.-" ingame tooltip says youre right
well… but it still lasts 12,5…

Thieves can stealth better than my Mesmer and Engineer. Nerf plz.
Mesmers can distract better than my Necromancer and Guardian. Nerf plz.
Engineers can do things I don’t expect more than my Warrior and Guardian. Nerf plz.
Warriors can deal damage more than my Engineer and Hunter. Nerf plz.
Necromancers can inflict conditions more than my Warrior and Elementalist. Nerf plz.
Hunter can maul me with a pet while ranging me from a distance more than my Necromancer and Mesmer. Nerf plz.
Guardian can deal with projectiles more than my Thief or Engineer. Nerf plz.

It baffles me how people would opt to cry nerf over very situational utility spells instead of being kitten about fotm being largely projectile based. I think the logical things to do are to be happy about guardians while staying hopeful anet spices mechanics up with future fractal releases.

Thz.7569:

It baffles me how people would opt to cry nerf over very situational utility spells instead of being kitten about fotm being largely projectile based. I think the logical things to do are to be happy about guardians while staying hopeful anet spices mechanics up with future fractal releases.

OMG Guardians help people NERF THEM

The only reason i can think is people think guardians are getting the spots in fractal groups they should be so they think if guardians lose their usefull ability they will spend less time LFG

Lets face it Guardians cant run, cant hide , cant dps, tag fewer mobs get less loot and spend half their time saving other peoples kittens.

Fine nerf the projectile protection ability so it ONLY affects the Guardian let the whiners bleed and die.

Shuguard.7125:

The mesmer also can do a huge reflect build with wardens, feedback and another move(can’t remember the name off the top of my head).

feedback doesn’t reflect half of what guardian reflects can. for example the dredge earth attack. i don’t know if its feedback broken or guardian reflects that are too powerful and reflect stuff they aren’t supposed/

Ok this looks like it’s no longer an issue.

Guardian spirit weapons have been all nerfed into the ground on the last patch, and are no longer viable in any scenario, let alone fractals.

Tarsius.3170:

Ok this looks like it’s no longer an issue.

Guardian spirit weapons have been all nerfed into the ground on the last patch, and are no longer viable in any scenario, let alone fractals.

It’s still useful, it’s just not mindless now… SoA will be more about positioning, and Guardians still have WoR which is still among the best of project reflecting utilities.

Jzl.8715:

It’s still useful, it’s just not mindless now… SoA will be more about positioning, and Guardians still have WoR which is still among the best of project reflecting utilities.

If they are useful, it would be in such a slender set of circumstances that using another utility would most likely be more beneficial to everyone.

At first I thought the harpies might be a good candidate still for SoA, but sadly tests show the shield dies before it even gets a chance to proc a bubble. ( admittedly, I haven’t had the asura fractal yet since the patch, so i can’t speak from first-hand knowledge )

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine running fractals without spirit weapons – I can see that they were OP for those instances – but the proper fix would have been to make fractal skills unblockable, or to make the weapons susceptable to agony, rather than make them useless in every part of the game (otherwise it’s better to just remove them entirely, as they are wasting valuable traits)

If it makes you guys feel any better, this was probably a PvP nerf that indirectly affected PvE, since spirit weapons were the only unkillable summons. It was probably needed for further balance.

Typical Anet, instead of changing the way the skills work, they take the quick lazy option and just nerf the health of spirit weapons…making them worthless….

Guardian has been nerfed almost every patch since beta…5-6 months later and were still OP apparently, go figure…

Another 4 utility’s that are utter crap…

Tarsius.3170:

Jzl.8715:

It’s still useful, it’s just not mindless now… SoA will be more about positioning, and Guardians still have WoR which is still among the best of project reflecting utilities.

If they are useful, it would be in such a slender set of circumstances that using another utility would most likely be more beneficial to everyone.

At first I thought the harpies might be a good candidate still for SoA, but sadly tests show the shield dies before it even gets a chance to proc a bubble. ( admittedly, I haven’t had the asura fractal yet since the patch, so i can’t speak from first-hand knowledge )

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine running fractals without spirit weapons – I can see that they were OP for those instances – but the proper fix would have been to make fractal skills unblockable, or to make the weapons susceptable to agony, rather than make them useless in every part of the game (otherwise it’s better to just remove them entirely, as they are wasting valuable traits)

SoA were too much of a necessity in fractals, and that alone speaks a lot of why it need to be adjusted. Also someone also mentioned that this was mainly a response to PvP perhaps that’s why it’s on all spirit weapons, SoA in PvE is just collateral damage.

IMO the best way regarding SoA in PvE alone was increase the duration of downtime between pulses. But again that’s solely in a PvE scenario, the patch clearly is directed at all spirit weapons.

But at the end of the day, some sort of adjustment to SoA should be fully expected.

Yeah, I was in for a big surprise doing Fractals on my guardian yesterday. Spirit Shield pretty much dies within 5 seconds of casting it, the bosses seem to have found a new love of prioritizing damage on the Spirit Weapons. It’s a total joke.

I don’t understand the decision to have almost every dangerous boss attack be projectiles and then take out the game mechanics to protect against these projectiles.

ArenaNet, please hire some game designers from Blizzard and implement some fun, challenging and fair boss encounters. The last couple of patches have made this game more and more and more annoying. It starts with screwing over players rather than fixing the most blatant in your face bugs all over the game. It ends with Combo Field and Dodge Dailies … of which I will need a full month of pain every day just to get a single item.

I think you guys are doing something wrong? Every guardian in my guild is still having absolutely no problems with their shields on fractal 30+. I honestly dont think I saw it die once when they came to 28 to help me. We camped underneath it for the full duration of the elementals in volcano, the harpies in uncharted, and more.

Perhaps you shouldnt be throwing it down while you’re already taking damage? Preempt things with it, or dodge roll before you throw it up so the attacks dont immediately hit it before it gets placed down.

So, you bring the example of the Volcano fractal. Let me elaborate.

You set down shield of the avenger, the next 3 attacks with firebolts, or the circles on the ground which drop fire from above or knock down will be directed such that they hit the stationary Shield of Avenger.

In the next phase, the fight on the island, every time I set down SoA, the next attack ALWAYS was a fire storm on the stationary shield killing it within 5-8 seconds of casting it.

We did these fights twice for the regular shaman and five times for the infused shaman and it was always the same. You cast the shield, the boss will prioritize killing it. No throwing it down while already taking damage. The shield will start shielding, it’s stationary, the boss will put down an attack that kills it. End of story.

I blame this thread for the SW nerf! But it’s okay, we can’t go past lvl50 anyways.

I don’t buy the nerf due to pvp argument… It’s pretty rare to see a spirit weapon build guardian in wvw because you lose too much by investing in their trait line, and i’ve yet to see anyone complain they are OP in pvp…anyway, i’m going offtopic…

…wrt fractals, i’ve not bothered to try them myself, but i’ve see how quick they due to mist npcs and orr trash mobs.