Guild Wars 2

To not make this too long, let’s just get to the crux of it. The guardian in PvP is fairly beyond, in terms of debate, one profession that can viably run builds. They have a tonne of strengths to them that i won’t cover, but having recently returned to Guardian builds for Pvp, there is some aspects of them that have already been addressed and mentioned by players, yet there seems to be little word back about what balance reviewers are pondering on this feedback .

The things I would like to mention again specifically;
The greatswords leap finisher (leap of faith) Has a lot of rubber banding to it. I am not sure if this is mostly due to ping differences, or server side issues of mapping what specific spaces are being occupied at what times. The skill itself is fine, but the rubberbanding does add a lot of hit/miss to the skill.

Also flashing blade in terms of gap closing seems fine, however when it is followed through with the next sword skill zealots defense, there is a noticeable stall between skills which only really adds to its predictability and ease of evading. It is in my experience a skill that can simply be out walked fairly easily.

Binding blade, although admittedly is a powerful skill that deserves a cast time and a certain animation, but in 1 vs 1 or 1 vs 2 it’s current animation is a tad overtly advertised to players and in particle haze is impossible to see. If it is connected to a player, then the guardian decides to walk off (Or get feared away) the pull/knock down effect is either nullified or it will still work despite the guardian being quite far away from the original binded players. It again seems to depend on the deus ex machina to whether it will actually pull them entirely to you, just knock them down or not work at all.

I think the guardian, despite having limited access to swiftness (Which is key to up close heavy melee classes.) is still in a good spot, despite the current meta heavily endorsing defense roles..but just a couple of it’s skills need some minor tweaks and this profession can be consider pretty air tight and the job done.

Perhaps If i could recommend anything would be that wards could be detonated for secondary purposes. What these secondary purpose would be I’d leave to better people than me to decide. Also consecrations, although powerful in their own ways, are highly situational and I rarely see them get used in spvp or PvE dungeons or otherwise. I do acknowledge that they do get some play in tpvp for reviving purposes, but that unto itself shows how limited their uses are and I believe, but can’t prove that the long cool downs do truly put players off using them. I would also quite like to see guardian spirit bow add a swiftness element.(You know..swift as an arrow kinda thing.) It currently cures conditions, but the guardian has so many condition clearing path ways there is no real reason to equip bow on top of it. A lot of the spirit weapons have fallen out of favour, and when traited for their use (Generally 30/30/0/0/10) The guardian HP pool with full soilder runes equal 12,450 hp. It seems a very large investment and compromise to just make them viable, but by no means powerful.(Or they can be destroyed faster than thief NPC’s and phantasms and turrets, or if nothing else up to 30 seconds, of which the cool down doesn’t start until they’re destroyed.) I acknowledge they can burn, contribute damage and knockdown and that this is enough to foil certain players perhaps still learning their professions and others that have no stability, but against more seasoned players they just don’t seem to have enough punch to be more than mildly annoying.

Considering Guardian is only one of two heavy melee professions, they kinda need to bring a lot to the table to satisfy those players who prefer that heavy melee style. I think the guardian does this fairly nicely, but with enough separation to not be confused with a warrior. However just little things tarnish what is mostly a well rounded professions in the pvp field. I heard in the previous SoTG that some of the guardian meditations were up for review, perhaps my 2 cents worth can help add player feedback, start discussion and give clear idea’s about possible future directions they could move in.

Leap of Faith has terrible accuracy and coding issues.
50% of my leaps this evening took me in the opposite direction to my target.

Binding Blade used to work where players that tried to run away from the Guardian when bound would automatically be pulled back. ~ This would be better.

The Guardian may have builds but they are all Shout / Meditation based.
Sanctuary gets used as a way to help rezz because Signet of Mercy is a diabolical skill even after it’s buff.

Bane Signet offers a good bonus with power, but the cast time for the k/d is too long (it also seems to last no time at all as the target instantly gets back up) and the damage too weak for the long 40s cool down you suffer with no passive bonus.

Signet of Mercy has a horrible bonus with +180 healing power.

Signet of Wrath is pretty bad with condition damage as the Guardian only has access to burning.

Signet of Judgement while sounding good with 10% damage reduction isn’t actually worth it. The meta has been condition heavy since release and you’re far better off building utility skills to remove conditions and practising dodging to avoid big direct damage attacks instead.

Wall of Reflection works for about 2s till people stop casting ranged attacks and run through it to hit you, even in the middle of a big team fight it doesn’t contribute enough to warrant a utility slot, too obvious and easily avoided.

Purging Flames does far too little damage for its recharge, even lowered.
Even in a condition build. Yes you can run in and out of the ring to remove a condition, but this means you’re doing no damage and a sitting duck to take more damage, if you’re crippled or chilled it’s not viable.

Hallowed Ground while sounding like a good idea means that everyone has to come into melee range for Stability (usually on a point) GW2 has a massive issue with AoE damage, cleaving and high damage ranged attacks, being a melee in this game can be an utter pain and uphill struggle.
Bringing Hallowed Ground makes you a masochist that wants to subject all of your team to the joys of being a Guardian or Warrior in a ranged condition/AoE heavy game.

And Spirit Weapons. Even when invulnerable they weren’t used that often because they were slow, had very long cool downs and didn’t do a huge amount of damage.
Then ArenaNet gave them 3k hp and no one has used them since.
Too little HP, too little damage when they will only last a few seconds and too long till you can use them again. Just a waste of a utility slot.

Ezrael.6859:

Leap of Faith has terrible accuracy and coding issues.
50% of my leaps this evening took me in the opposite direction to my target.

Binding Blade used to work where players that tried to run away from the Guardian when bound would automatically be pulled back. ~ This would be better.

The Guardian may have builds but they are all Shout / Meditation based.
Sanctuary gets used as a way to help rezz because Signet of Mercy is a diabolical skill even after it’s buff.

Bane Signet offers a good bonus with power, but the cast time for the k/d is too long (it also seems to last no time at all as the target instantly gets back up) and the damage too weak for the long 40s cool down you suffer with no passive bonus.

Signet of Mercy has a horrible bonus with +180 healing power.

Signet of Wrath is pretty bad with condition damage as the Guardian only has access to burning.

Signet of Judgement while sounding good with 10% damage reduction isn’t actually worth it. The meta has been condition heavy since release and you’re far better off building utility skills to remove conditions and practising dodging to avoid big direct damage attacks instead.

Wall of Reflection works for about 2s till people stop casting ranged attacks and run through it to hit you, even in the middle of a big team fight it doesn’t contribute enough to warrant a utility slot, too obvious and easily avoided.

Purging Flames does far too little damage for its recharge, even lowered.
Even in a condition build. Yes you can run in and out of the ring to remove a condition, but this means you’re doing no damage and a sitting duck to take more damage, if you’re crippled or chilled it’s not viable.

Hallowed Ground while sounding like a good idea means that everyone has to come into melee range for Stability (usually on a point) GW2 has a massive issue with AoE damage, cleaving and high damage ranged attacks, being a melee in this game can be an utter pain and uphill struggle.
Bringing Hallowed Ground makes you a masochist that wants to subject all of your team to the joys of being a Guardian or Warrior in a ranged condition/AoE heavy game.

And Spirit Weapons. Even when invulnerable they weren’t used that often because they were slow, had very long cool downs and didn’t do a huge amount of damage.
Then ArenaNet gave them 3k hp and no one has used them since.
Too little HP, too little damage when they will only last a few seconds and too long till you can use them again. Just a waste of a utility slot.

I concur…and unfortunately as it stands, the only viable role we have is bunker. Before the patch, while playing bunker, we could at least use some of our utilities to mix things up. However now, it’s all about using condition removal utilities.

And that is a shame…

I agree with everything said. I think you have framed a lot skills fairly. Despite the flaws that have been pointed out, I don’t feel the guardian is unplayable so to speak. I think their design is still sound, and the idea for them and skills assigned are good, but they need tweaking(Their skills, as opposed to their concept.) for all the stated reasons above.

I have to fully endorse the spirit weapons aspect. They are by design a unique skill line to Guardians, but they feel so very under powered to use. Even in PvE, where foe A.I seems to recognise and hate pets, they get destroyed altogether to easily. In PvP svanir and chieftain destroy them with a mere sneeze.

Thank you for contributing fair constructive criticism to the thread.

Ezrael.6859:

Leap of Faith has terrible accuracy and coding issues.
50% of my leaps this evening took me in the opposite direction to my target.

Binding Blade used to work where players that tried to run away from the Guardian when bound would automatically be pulled back. ~ This would be better.

I can’t agree with mechanics like this. Automated play doesn’t promote skilled play. Think of Mesmers, Rangers, and Necros. But most specifically mesmers and the woes that ai brings. Such as auto-targeting of a player who stealthed / unstealthed somewhere else simply because you’re both still in combat, even if the player with the pets has no idea where the unstealthed target is, the ai will essentially play for the player and lead the way.

That’s just flawed design , and anything automated takes away from actively using skills with any kind of thought process behind it. On this note, I would argue that Guardians having the ability to passively remove 2 conditions every 10 seconds follows this logic.

IMO because of passive condition removal that you don’t even have to think about and then active condition removal, classes like Guardian … then Necromancer, properly traited Elementalists, are the reason why most classes don’t really seem like they have the option to go with a condition based build.

Condition removal is incredibly high for some classes, which effectively makes classes without the ability to layer conditions, especially the inclusion of burning, sub-par and in essence takes away from build diversity.

Went on a tangent there. I don’t disagree with everything you said, just the automated part in particular, because that kind of thing in any game really just plays for the player and makes a class require less thought process to be effective, leading to potential imbalances.

Interesting thoughts. To clarify, I agree with skillful play, but what we’ve pointed out is that with skillful play you are fairly often denied the skillful hit because certain skills do not perform in pvp as they do pve. Leap of faith has a high miss rate even if your standing directly beside your opponent and you are both the only people in the map. Zealots defense has a massive miss rate even when fired point blank in someone’s face. However, even if the stars do align perfectly for you and it is going to hit, the precast advertise is so overt it is extremely easy to dodge. A professions weapon skills are their bread and butter. They are skills that require precise honing so that when they are triggered within range and the opponent remains in range, they should hit. This is not the case for a handful of guardian weapon skills.

As to address your concerns that many people do not like they have to go with a condition based build,..well, that is more in the hands of Anet development. It was not the players who decide all but 2 of the ranger weapons will cause conditions,..or that every necromancer weapon causes conditions, or that passive traits grant condition damage when specific trait lines are taken to achieve other traits further down the tree line. These are concrete set into their weapons and trait allocations..it is beyond the player to change this and entirely in Anets hands to address.