Guild Wars 2

It’s a common complaint that Guardians are feeling somewhat unhelpful in WvW. Because of their lack of reliable ranged weapon/skills and the fact that players are not rewarded for supporting actions a lot of people seem to become frustrated not feeling as though they are making a difference in the battle. For the same reasons Guardians miss out on tagging the majority of enemies and aren’t rewarded as much as other classes.

I propose a fairly simple fix. One that is neither considered a buff to Guardian or a nerf to other classes. A change in the way Retaliation damage works.

Guardian has a few ways to apply the Retaliation buff to his or her surrounding allies. Almost all Guardian builds have some form of Retaliation and it can become an extremely powerful ability when used to it’s maximum potential.

A Guardian applying retaliation to a large group of allies in battle with skills like “Stand Your Ground” , Signet of Judgement and Symbol of Wrath can actually deal sizable amounts of indirect damage to the enemy. The problem? It’s that the player that applied these buffs isn’t considered the source of the damage and isn’t rewarded for it.

I believe changing Retaliation to consider the player that applied the buff as it’s damage source will completely remedy the problem, and stem a lot of complaints without actually having to rebalance any skills. Basically – if you apply Retaliation to your friend, who then gets hit by an attack, you will see the damage number pop up above the attackers head and this damage would ‘tag’ that player for you.

How would this help the situation?

• Players would get a visual feedback of their contribution to the battle. The lack of visual feedback of contribution is a massive problem for Guardians and one of the biggest reasons they feel unfulfilling to play in WvW. Seeing the Retribution damage procs pop up from within the enemy group would be extremely satisfying – even with the knowledge that really nothing has changed except that visual reminder.

• It will allow Guardians to get their foot in on some kills without relying on extremely slow projectiles or jumping in to a massive zerg and hoping to survive a few seconds to escape. Players will feel like they are actually being rewarded in larger scale battles.

• The damage and effect of Retaliation would remain unchanged. We don’t want to be increasing the damage the skill deals or changing any other mechanic behind it other than the considered source of damage. It’s important to avoid affecting skill balance.

• Reduced demand for Guardian to have a true ranged weapon keeping the class true to it’s style/lore.

As a a tag on to the end of this suggestion, applying the same principle to Burning buffs Guardians can give to their allies would work just as well. In fact, changing all Next Hit buffs to consider the player who cast the buff as the damage source might be nice.

So basically you’re blowing your cooldowns and waiting for them to refresh over and over again while every other class can do something that’s fun such as damage and/or AoE while the only thing we can do is shooting magical tennis balls at the enemy, which never even arrive in time because of their slow motion travelling speed.

The Guardian is the only class with no access to a “real” ranged weapon, which is a huge design flaw IMHO. The scepter could be okay, but definitely not as it is now with his clumsy, unfun slow motion tennis autoattacks!

I’d still prefer a weapon that keeps me active over some passive buffs that promote boring gameplay,

This isn’t meant to be a discussion about a certain build. Many builds that don’t focus on Retaliation give the buff to allies in one way or another. This suggestion is a way to direct the contribution from that damage to the Guardian to increase the number of rewards received (to be comparable to classes with ranged weps) and increase the gratification of playing Guardian in WvW.

While you may still want a ranged weapon I have no doubt this change would reduce overall demand for one (or adjustments to scepter/staff).

I’m not implying this is the only way to help Guardians, and I’m not implying another fix couldn’t be applied along with this. The point is this kind of fix is fairly simple and doesn’t impact game balance in any way. Adjustments to scepter or the inclusion of a ranged weapon for Guardian that has a brand new skill set is a massive task in terms of getting the balance right.

I…. huh. I really like this idea, simple as it is.

Bump for Guardians

I would suggest nerfing melee guardians so they’d use more ranged weapons to get in kills.

Just trying to say your problem seems much deeper game design issue than just guardian being more popular as melee weapon user than “other classes”, which is pretty vague term itself.

This my class – other classes issue is pretty old and difficult to fix I think it started after first pnp game or something.

I’m a Guardian and I agree, we need scepters or skills that enable more attacks from the walls while under siege

jalmari.3906:

I would suggest nerfing melee guardians so they’d use more ranged weapons to get in kills.

Just trying to say your problem seems much deeper game design issue than just guardian being more popular as melee weapon user than “other classes”, which is pretty vague term itself.

This my class – other classes issue is pretty old and difficult to fix I think it started after first pnp game or something.

It’s not about their popularity as a melee class. There is NO viable ranged damage option for Guardian. I won’t repeat myself and countless others in explaining why.