Guild Wars 2

I love guardian, and don’t get me wrong, I would love to have the longbow on them just like everyone else, and I do agree that Guardians are the only class without a “REAL” ranged weapon set.

That being said I believe there is a way to fix this that could make everyone happy, I would suggest scrapping the 1st staff skill and changing it to something like this:

Crux: Drop a pillar of light on your target after a .5 second delay that deals damage to anything within a 100 range(50 radius) and burns enemies (1200 range)

this I think would provide more damage for staff guardians and actually give them some real range.

hm on that note does any class get reliable burning on their #1 chain?

Shimond.2478:

hm on that note does any class get reliable burning on their #1 chain?

well it does have a half second delay so if someone does get hit they could possible dodge the next, so it provides more reliable damage as a #1 skill

Just give the Scepter a little bit more damage, the first skill must be faster it is too easy to dogde… just that. Staff if for support I would let it the way it is now.

Don’t destroy my staff. kthx

@Shimond, yes. Elementalists get reliable burning from #1 on Fire Scepter.

Nope. I think the lack of ranged options on Guardian might be by design, and for that reason, I want it to stay that way.

arcdash.4039:

Nope. I think the lack of ranged options on Guardian might be by design, and for that reason, I want it to stay that way.

If it is by design, it’s bad design.

i suggest let them main hand the focus, then they can dual wield focus’s which would look cool, and would save them the trouble of making a new weapon. Offhand focus has a bouncing light beam to support, lets give main hand focus a similar beam of light that burns and bounces a couple times. The secondary would be a dragon-tooth like explosive pillar, good for the burst damager builds, the third would be a condition manipulator of some sort.

Corsix: The problem with new weapons isn’t that they have to make a new weapon. The weapons are already in the game and we could just use the existing bows or rifles. The problem is that they have to: concept new skills, make animations for them, test them out, make sure they’re balanced with all the other skills and maybe make sure we have traits supporting it.

If they do return the bow, its because of flavor reasons that the guardian can summon a spirit bow. But keep in mind that spirit bow is a support weapon.
If they do bring out a bow for guardian, id only be in favor of it if only the #1 and #2 skill is the offense skill #3 should be some sort of healing shot #4 some sort of condition removal shot and #5 be healing arrow rain.

Otherwise I think making the scepter not be just average on strength is good enough.

So guardians not having Range is a design. You can suggest that it is a bad design, that is fine. The issue is, guardians are either front line tankers, or min-line support. They defend points, or take hits. You can do DPS with them, and I do with my Greatsword, but they fit there role like everyone else. The engineer is a ranged class, and has all of 2 melee attacks on the Toolkit. The warrior has ranged options because a feature of the warrior over the guardian and engineer is it’s large amount of weapon variety. The design was planned, and changing it is something you should give up on.

In reality the place it needs ranged in WvWvW when defending a keep. But that means the Guardian should be the one on a Cannon or Oil because of the natural regen and other stats and gear like Heavy Armor.

In sPVP not having ranged is not a issue. We have many teleports that are instant. Including several that are 1200 meters on low cooldown. One allows you to teleport without line of sign if the target was selected previously. I can’t tell you how many times I scared people off a point because I can hide, select them, then pop onto them and wreck them. I don’t need to struggle trying to close in to 600 meters for the leap, which we also have, or the short 1-h sword teleport.

If you want to kite enemies, play a different class. If you want to CC, play a different class. The guardian blocks it, takes it in the face, burns them and heals all while swinging giant swords, or using mid-range support weapons.

What I will say, is that the scepter is a little weapon in sPVP. Just don’t use it till it gets a buff. The mace/sword torch/focus makes for a better offhand set. Use staff/hammer/great sword for main.

Cheers.

You say it’s by design.
It was in fact stated that they want us to have viable ranged options in one of the BWEs.
Every other class has options for either short or long range combat.
The engineers toolkit is not their only “melee” weapon. The rifle is meant for short to mid-range combat. Then there’s the bomb kit too.

Fact is, lack of proper ranged options is a problem.
Most notably in WvW as you mentioned.

“In reality the place it needs ranged in WvWvW when defending a keep. But that means the Guardian should be the one on a Cannon or Oil because of the natural regen and other stats and gear like Heavy Armor.”

So , apart from the fact that you believe people will let guardians use these things because they’re guardians, you think it’s a good idea to have one class be excluded from proper keep defense (or any form of proper ranged combat)?

Please don’t mix up your own ideas about the class with the design behind it. You don’t know what they were thinking and neither do i – but i do not claim to know what they we’re thinking.

Edit: This sounds much more hostile than i intended it to be. Please excuse that.

Keelin said what I wanted to say.
If Guardians were really intended to be frontline fighters or mid-range support, we wouldn’t have gotten 1200 range on the Scepter or the Staff. Arenanet wouldn’t have said “It’s a concern but this close to release we can’t implement a new weapon.” They would have said: “Yeah, that’s just how the Guardian has to play. Deal with it.”

They just need to make Scepter’s hadoken fly faster.

Red Falcon.8257:

They just need to make Scepter’s hadoken fly faster.

Yeah, of course changing the Scepter a little bit would be enough. But really, who doesn’t want new goodies to play with?

I love guardian. I love the melee options, I run with GS/Hammer combo. But the lack of any worthwile ranged damaging skill is NOT understandable.
Why are we the only class that doesn’t have a ranged wide dmging AOE as part of their weapon skills?
Why are we the only class that ranged options sums up in tossing extra-slow balls of excrements that do wet noodle damage?
I love WvW but I dont have the funds nor the envy to spend all my time manning an arrowcart.
So now I’m forced to shelve the class I like for a stupid warrior just because they have worthy ranged option.

ive said it before and ill say it again, we dont need anything drastic. Scepter just needs a buff.

Faster #1 cotton ball things
and #2 be buffed (I prefer it to be turned into a symbol so we can trait it to have vuln, heal, or be bigger)

A litle buff on staff 2nd skill or Scepter buff, in my opinion.

Guardian is not designed for long range( or medium) combat as other calsses are lesse efective in close combat compared to the guardian.

Personally, as i see it – the problem is that the scepter alone equals 3 skills – that’s not enough for it to be the main ranged weapon for the guardian. You best bet is to pair it either with the focus or the torch – neither of which is a really good ranged weapon.

Having a real 2-handed ranged weapon would allow for proper balance in my opinion.

That being said, i find the current scepter to be really boring to be honest.
It just feels very uninspired and bland to me – in addition to the fact that it’s really not effective at 1,200 range.
So yes, I’m most definitely a bit biased.

not efective @ 1,200 becouse guardian is not a ranged profession or designed for that role?

Again, that’s what you claim. Which stands in contrast to statements by aNet

Scepter + Shield is fine considering you can use the bubble to give u some ranged space and cast protection from behind melee. It’s no different than how engineers use shields for a bit of anti-melee. I say our offhand choices are fine and scepter can main as a ranged wep if the projectiles were somewhat faster.