Guild Wars 2

Obtena.7952:

I do disagree with some of what’s being said here, primarily about your experience compared to other classes. I’m sad to see you advocate that it’s good that the other classes you have experience with are successful because of their strong weapon implementation, relying less on their utility slots and skills.

Sorry i realize i was a bit unclear, im not advocating it, im just reflecting upon it and state that guardians are more reliant on utility and traits, compared to the warrior/ranger.

In the suggestion part you will find that im not propsing any major changes to the weapons, besides to the staff. Other than that its just symbols as a function i think need a fix. 55 points for one weapon skill to perform max is just silly.

In short im fine that we have to build to be effective but im not fine that we have no option when we build.

In fact, I find it more challenging and appealing to not use it and attempt to move away from it whenever possible. My alternatives to AH are focusing on the inherent damage mitigation you get as a guardian. I think that approach gives me a broader insight to the profession.

I literally tried hundreds of builds and there are no options that can be made, in a competitive environment, that aer as good as a MF/AH build.

Sure it can be “fun and challenging” to play other builds, like a high crit lifeleech 1h build, but is it as successful? Imo opinion the answer is now, a class that has to gimp it self by not using one single trait has some serious underlying issues.

I strongly disagree that the only viable builds for guardian have to include full valor trait its bullcrap
Currently I play 10/30/0/25/5 build with tons of damage, great survivability and support
base health pool 17K
Armor 2600
Attack 2800
Crit chance 60%
Crit Damage 45%
With sword/focus, scepter/torch and lifestealing pie (even blackberry pie) is enough to facetank most bosses in dungeons
Support:
Might stacking (empowering might), clearing tons of conditions with purging flames, cleansing flame, superrior rune of knight (with shouts), healing with dodge

matemaster.2168:

I strongly disagree that the only viable builds for guardian have to include full valor trait its bullcrap
Currently I play 10/30/0/25/5 build with tons of damage, great survivability and support
base health pool 17K
Armor 2600
Attack 2800
Crit chance 60%
Crit Damage 45%
With sword/focus, scepter/torch and lifestealing pie (even blackberry pie) is enough to facetank most bosses in dungeons
Support:
Might stacking (empowering might), clearing tons of conditions with purging flames, cleansing flame, superrior rune of knight (with shouts), healing with dodge

Interesting

Read again whats written, im not saying that there are no other builds, im saying there are no other competitive builds

So without starting a kitten contest here is my stats in dungeons.

I have about (at work so its approx)
16k health
90% critical damage
55% crit
Adding 77% dps (you gain 57% dps from crit damage and crit chance and an other 20% from condition based traits, so same dps increase)
Approx 2800 armor
3100 attack

So basically same health, i got more dps due to more power.
More armor and if i traded armor in gear/trinkets for crit damage i could go over 100% in critdamage
Access to the same utilities/dodge/traits as you mention.

What i also have
24/7 aoe damage on hammer or high single target dps with GS
Condition removal on team with shouts thru traits or regen
Constant protection/retal on the team if needed.
And gaining +2k health per chain with my hammer.
And if i want to max single target damage i go scepter/1h just for the lulz

So even if your build is fun i have the same utility, better support, more dps and more survivability thru more armor and AH. This is what i mean with competitive.

Brutaly.6257:

This is somewhat of a dream imo, a guardian without boons would mean a removal of virtues in their current form and also a major overhaul of the majority of our weapons.

The thing is that Arenanet clearly stated that they want a melee centric boon soldier and that we are, as long as we have AH. Survivability without AH and with 1h Sword/scepter is just to low for us to be that boon soldier.

In fact making AH innate would actually increase the opportunities to build around 1h sword/scepter and utilities at isnt boon based. Virtues, choice of runes, choice of sigils would valid options to keep the boon soldier going.

The concept of a boon soldier is intrinsically flawed. Secondly, as the professions are now, elementalists are the closest to what a boon based combat is supposed to be with the phasing of attunements, NOT the mash-button-right-before-you-(re)engage that is the guardian’s or the warrior’s boon style.

The best description that can fit the guardian ATM is a magical soldier with innate fragility, that is overcome by having a larger repertoire of defensive abilities. Said abilities may be boons, it may be something else.

Heck, they reworked hexes into phantasms. They should similarly turn the concept of spirit weapons into a physical manifestation of enchantments that closely follows the caster so they can be a valid replacement of AH spam for a guardian’s self defense (and possibily allow us to target an ally with it so it works for groups too). I assume the current nerf is due to spirit sword and hammer being too aggressive. They should have made it so the spirit weapons hover just beside the target and perform only utility functions (rather than adding straight DPS +CC).

I can’t imagine anyone thinking the bow and shield was ever OP. It would definitely work better as a mobility solution than the suggestion to turn symbols into auras, or to propose any drastic changes to any boons.

Brutaly, what build is that? With the 1000 hours experience you have in guardians, I believe it’s a good thing to share that too.

Very nice job done here OP. Also would like to stress it more: make gs guardian playable. Atm it’s like this: you hardly get close to other damagers, but you are super squishy or you don’t do any reasonable damage and you’re still pretty squishy.

Heinel.6548:

The concept of a boon soldier is intrinsically flawed. Secondly, as the professions are now, elementalists are the closest to what a boon based combat is supposed to be with the phasing of attunements, NOT the mash-button-right-before-you-(re)engage that is the guardian’s or the warrior’s boon style.

The best description that can fit the guardian ATM is a magical soldier with innate fragility, that is overcome by having a larger repertoire of defensive abilities. Said abilities may be boons, it may be something else.

Heck, they reworked hexes into phantasms. They should similarly turn the concept of spirit weapons into a physical manifestation of enchantments that closely follows the caster so they can be a valid replacement of AH spam for a guardian’s self defense (and possibily allow us to target an ally with it so it works for groups too). I assume the current nerf is due to spirit sword and hammer being too aggressive. They should have made it so the spirit weapons hover just beside the target and perform only utility functions (rather than adding straight DPS +CC).

I can’t imagine anyone thinking the bow and shield was ever OP. It would definitely work better as a mobility solution than the suggestion to turn symbols into auras, or to propose any drastic changes to any boons.

Well the first part is more of an opinion than that the concept is flawed. personally i find the concept (AH) to fit on a class thats supposed to be defensive melee support. The more you support the team the stronger you become and since most of the boons on the team can be achieved by actually fighting i find it well designed.

Just as i like my shouts giving adrenaline on my warrior, the only thing is that the gain in adrenaline should be based on number of allies that get the boon which is a “mash button before engage” which i, like you, kind of think is a bit flawed.

For the rest of your post i can just say that i agree, nothing more to add.

Fror.2163:

Brutaly, what build is that? With the 1000 hours experience you have in guardians, I believe it’s a good thing to share that too.

It has no relevance to the discussion but its a mix of berserker, knights and valkyrie.

And now im at home and its 89% crit damage, 50% crit chance, 3096 attack, 16245 hp, 2641 armor so i was a bit off on the armor.

The point is that with the proper AH setup you will have huge uptimes of aggro, while doing decent dps, giving boons to the team and have a survivability which surpasses any other setup we can achieve. This all together makes all pve content to be doable maintanking in pure berserkers while having aggro.

Aggro is the best kind of support you actually can give to the real damage dealers in the group.

LITF.2576:

Very nice job done here OP. Also would like to stress it more: make gs guardian playable. Atm it’s like this: you hardly get close to other damagers, but you are super squishy or you don’t do any reasonable damage and you’re still pretty squishy.

Thx.
But honestly there is nothing wrong with the gs, its balanced compared to the other weapons we have and i find it to be top tier of our arsenal.
What you point out is that we lack the damage other profession might have and that i partly agree on but the question is if we should have the same damage as the real damage dealers considering our survivability.

Heinel.6548:

The concept of a boon soldier is intrinsically flawed. Secondly, as the professions are now, elementalists are the closest to what a boon based combat is supposed to be with the phasing of attunements, NOT the mash-button-right-before-you-(re)engage that is the guardian’s or the warrior’s boon style.

The best description that can fit the guardian ATM is a magical soldier with innate fragility, that is overcome by having a larger repertoire of defensive abilities. Said abilities may be boons, it may be something else.

I agree with this.
the class description is broken, just like most of the actions made to balance it.
The reason of this (for me) is one, you cant balance a class that work, when other classes have broken mechanics and bugs unresolved. Before the balance, all things must be fixed, and the you can balance wisely.
I know that this require time, but i don’t find wise to break things, so they can be equal with other broken things.

Heck, they reworked hexes into phantasms. They should similarly turn the concept of spirit weapons into a physical manifestation of enchantments that closely follows the caster so they can be a valid replacement of AH spam for a guardian’s self defense (and possibily allow us to target an ally with it so it works for groups too). I assume the current nerf is due to spirit sword and hammer being too aggressive. They should have made it so the spirit weapons hover just beside the target and perform only utility functions (rather than adding straight DPS +CC).

I can’t imagine anyone thinking the bow and shield was ever OP. It would definitely work better as a mobility solution than the suggestion to turn symbols into auras, or to propose any drastic changes to any boons.

I dont really know if Sword and hammer was so OP, but the timing of this change dont reflect your opinion (im not saying that you are totally wrong). SW builds was used even before the fractal release for Spvp with no issues or forum whines (just look how many players are whining about how strong and OP is the guardian bunker build) but the SW change is coming now, when a lot of player are on high fractal stage, where the spirit shield Shine.
For me its only another heavy handed nerf, just to solve “a little issue”.

It would definitely work better as a mobility solution than the suggestion to turn symbols into auras, or to propose any drastic changes to any boons.

Eheh, well some proposition are just horribly unbalanced, but the ones proposed by brutaly are not, and they are well argumented. This is a summary of all the good things proposed on this forum for 5 months.(with some personal addiction by OP)
Sometime drastic changes are needed, not only nerfs have to be drastics.

- Fix the traits lines with regards to where each traits is placed in the branch as well as improving or switching out the traits which are not worth bothering with.

-Improve the range options of this class as well as give us a few more options when it comes to keeping our opponent within melee range.

-Increased size of symbols would be an adequate fix for the current issue instead of us having to trait for a decent area of effect.

-Improve on current weapon skills for example Zealots Defence being such an easily avoidable attack due to such a narrow area of damage.

These are the major things that need to be improved. If anyone has anything to add feel free.

tanshiniza.8629:

- Fix the traits lines with regards to where each traits is placed in the branch as well as improving or switching out the traits which are not worth bothering with.

-Improve the range options of this class as well as give us a few more options when it comes to keeping our opponent within melee range.

-Increased size of symbols would be an adequate fix for the current issue instead of us having to trait for a decent area of effect.

-Improve on current weapon skills for example Zealots Defence being such an easily avoidable attack due to such a narrow area of damage.

These are the major things that need to be improved. If anyone has anything to add feel free.

Just look the OP post, all this solutions, and much more, are right there :P

Ganzo.5079:

tanshiniza.8629:

- Fix the traits lines with regards to where each traits is placed in the branch as well as improving or switching out the traits which are not worth bothering with.

-Improve the range options of this class as well as give us a few more options when it comes to keeping our opponent within melee range.

-Increased size of symbols would be an adequate fix for the current issue instead of us having to trait for a decent area of effect.

-Improve on current weapon skills for example Zealots Defence being such an easily avoidable attack due to such a narrow area of damage.

These are the major things that need to be improved. If anyone has anything to add feel free.

Just look the OP post, all this solutions, and much more, are right there :P

Not saying they aren’t there but I feel this post went off on a bit of a side track to I am putting down the foundations again. If everything in the OP was given to us Guardians we would be a cut above all the other classes which is another reason I’ve given 4 main things that need to be improved.

First of all, thanks Brutality for taking the time to write down this major piece. Your love for the profession is obvious and all your posts are incredibly informative. Hope Anet lends a listening ear to what you have to say and do something, even though Guardian already is a fun profession.

Since game balance is hard to find, I don’t see Anet changing our HP pool base so we are probably stuck with the build variety issue: 30 in Valor will most probably stay in a huge majority of builds. But improving symbols and making Zeal more relevant and coherent is feasible I am sure. Hey, did Anet ever consider adding an Immobilize effect to any mob inside a symbol?

As for mobility issue, some solutions could be easily implemented. For instance, although might is always good, why not get Swiftness instead of Might on crit with 20 in Honor? Not perfect maybe but that would be a start.

Range issue: indeed, a focus rewrite is in order. And this can also be easily implemented. If Anet thinks we are meant to stay melee, then they should add mobility. More swiftness included in shouts? Another multifunction teleport utility?

@Brutaly

Today i was wondering about your retaliation idea, I said many times that is very good, but for me this tweak need a little change\clarification
I quote the part only for the people that did not read the first post

Regarding retaliation I would like to see something skillbased that harmonize with the other game mechanics. Why not also make this stack in intensity. You pop retaliation and when hit upon you get a damage bonus for each hit so the next attack deals more damage. And each attack you do, that hits, consume a stack of retaliation. So pop it, get hit 10 times and the next 10 attacks deals more damage. That damage should be equal to todays retaliation and increase based on power (zeal) and added to the damage of the skill used. This would mean that retaliation could crit and as a dps tool it would in fact be stronger then todays retaliation but it would take an effort to apply the damage.
Imo this would also make aegis and retaliation to have some really nice synergies and also make retaliation skillbased.

Dont you think this retaliation application can create some problem with Simbols pulses, and burning tick?
I know that in you description you stated that the damage have to be applied on the skill damage, but i want to be sure that your idea is designed only for Skills that hit the enemy directly.

Another point is for Aoe skill like Mighty blow, when you hit multiple targets, you consume a number of charges equal to the number of enemy damaged, or only one charge, because you used one skill? (This kind of question may seem dumb, but i think are really important to define a perfect mechanic)

tanshiniza.8629:

Ganzo.5079:

tanshiniza.8629:

- Fix the traits lines with regards to where each traits is placed in the branch as well as improving or switching out the traits which are not worth bothering with.

-Improve the range options of this class as well as give us a few more options when it comes to keeping our opponent within melee range.

-Increased size of symbols would be an adequate fix for the current issue instead of us having to trait for a decent area of effect.

-Improve on current weapon skills for example Zealots Defence being such an easily avoidable attack due to such a narrow area of damage.

These are the major things that need to be improved. If anyone has anything to add feel free.

Just look the OP post, all this solutions, and much more, are right there :P

Not saying they aren’t there but I feel this post went off on a bit of a side track to I am putting down the foundations again.

Yes it did go a bit off topic and thx for trying to keep it on track.

Ganzo.5079:

@Brutaly
Lots of stuff regarding retal

First it should trigger/stack the exact same way as todays retal, when a skill is applied, and it should trigger multiple times in aoe. Just as it do today.

Regarding consumtion of the stacks it should/could be consumed one stack per skill used. So regardles of hitting one stack should be consumed. This would be skillbased.

But i dont think we shouldnt focus on details, i think its our “job” to give proper feedback, which should contain solutions but no implementations.

matemaster.2168:

I strongly disagree that the only viable builds for guardian have to include full valor trait its bullcrap

Only run 30 valor if you want to be good.

If your happy being mediocre play something else.

Brutaly.6257:

But i dont think we shouldnt focus on details, i think its our “job” to give proper feedback, which should contain solutions but no implementations.

Details and possible implementations are a form of feedback too, its the player point on how a mechanic have to work, just to prove that we are not kids that are searching the shiny toy that can slay anything and anyone with one hit :P

Anyway, i like your explaination regarding the mechanic ^^

Great post. Well thought and logical.

I have to agree. When I started my Guardian I saw loads of traits at the beginning of each line that looked tasty. But after playing for a while and looking at the later traits it became very clear 30pts in Valor was pretty much mandatory.

tanshiniza.8629:

If everything in the OP was given to us Guardians we would be a cut above all the other classes which is another reason I’ve given 4 main things that need to be improved.

Im not sure about that, let me illustrate.

These are the stats i have with no traitsand with a specific gear. Its a vit/tough/pow armor and a mix of berserker/knights/valkyrie trinkets, rune of the soldier and berserker weapons with sigil of energy in off hand and life leech on crit in mainhand.

Assume we want to play purely 1h (one of the issues i point out) and go for 1h sword/shield and scepter/focus.

15,5k health (1384 vitality)
1428 precision (28%)
34% critdamage
1993 power (2956 Attack)
1354 toughness (2565 Armor)
90 hps in regen from virtues

Lets say i build for dps with the above stats and go for a 30/30/10/0/0 build.

That adds 300 power and 300 precision.
assume i want reduced cd on signets for the heal and SoJ. SoJ would be neccessary due to really bad armor values. I would grab the suggested trait that adds 10% of precision to vitality and ofc 1h strength as my major.

In zeal i chose, disregarding any future tiers, zealous weapons so i get 50 hp per hit, 10% of power turned into vitality and i would keep fiery wrath for 10% more damage versus burning enemies. In valor purity is a given since this one has only shouts that remove conditions.

This would give me these stats

3100 attack (2157 power)
1628 precision (38+15% crit)
44% critdamage
15,5 + (2,1k from power) + (1,6k from precision) which adds up to 19,2k health
+10% damage versus conditioned foes and 10% verssu burning foes.
2665 armor

Virtues would be almost useless and the gain from Virtue of Altruism would only be gained from the symbol in the scepter. There is no swiftness which makes mobility kind of low and its dependent on team mates to move around.

This build is a dps soldier imo and as such it can be compared to warriors.

If we compare the above with my warrior in full berserkers with rifle and 1h+warhorn, same runes and sigils.

with a defensive build 0/0/20/30/20
24k health
2800 power, its actually at least 3000 since i can keep, at least, 6 stacks of might on self 24/7.
37% crit chance, 57% with perma fury and perma swiftness
60% critical damage.
2859 armor

About 400 hps in passive regeneration with adrenaline and over 260 hps without.
5s weaponswap
5k aoe heals from 3 shouts.
almost endless of adrenaline gain, from shouts, from attack and from being attacked
More and better consistent condition removers thru shouts.

if we compare these my suggestions are actually very modest and borderline UP. This pretty much shows how weak zeal/radiance is. Even if we chose a semidefensive armor we have worse stats then a defensive warrior, even if we change to knights on the guardian the only stat thats gonna be significantly better is crit chance and toughness, the rest are much worse and lets not even compare mobility.

If we switch armor on the guardian to berserkers/knights we are turned into glasscanons, to match the warriors damage stats, our HP goes down with approx 2k and we would have about 17,5k health with very moderate means of recovering health.

We cant remove purity, it wouldnt work so if we want more survivability we need to give up one end trait in Zeal or Radiance and then you gain vigorous precision and inspired virtues.
Kind of balanced to trade those two for either 50hp per hit or 15% crit chance.

Overall, i dont think my suggestion would make us op if the traits are tiered correctly, building in zeal and radiance makes you loose out on some really nice stuff.

EDIT: Playing a berserker with a 30/30/10/0/0 would be close to impossible, in wvw you would literally be oneshotted by warriors and thiefs and rangers would hit you for 2-3k per autoattack on the longbow.

So no the suggestion i made isnt overpowered but they give us at least the option to invest in zeal and radiance.

Even if OP was implemented i doubt i would ever invest more then 10 points in zeal and maybe 20 points in radiance.

(0 10 15 30 15) is also a “standard” build for WvW and it doesn’t have AH.

Vukanigia.5496:

(0 10 15 30 15) is also a “standard” build for WvW and it doesn’t have AH.

Is it viable, yes. is it competitive, no.
This isnt about builds that some people play its about one trait that is mandatory for max performance.

Its about meta builds and AH being that meta

Just a sidenote if you read OP you might find what i think of retaliation and posting a wet noodle build (I assume its vit/tough/pow thru and thru or clerics) with large health pool and retal stacked and at the same time have invested in VoC on rally but nothing invested in longer lasting consecrations or ranged consecrations just cant be taken seriously as a wvw build.

If its not a retalbuild please PM your traits and we can do the math compared to a AH build based on either raw dps or retal and ofc ability to support in general, preferably a 0/0/30/20/20..

As i said in a previous post, there is a difference between fun and effective and that build might be fun but its not meta., not for a retal build and not for builds in general.

The problem with Guardians right now is their “full potential” is in support / healing builds in WvW. Pure DPS Guardian’s aren’t anymore special than Thiefs or Warriors in terms of front lining, but Support Guardian’s bring a powerful package to the battlefield.

Support Guardians = Boons, lots of group healing, “frontliner”, WoR, Sanctuary/Wall of Lining, and Tome of Courage. <- Huge group support capabilities in WvW.

DPS Guardian = Boons, no group healing, “frontliner”, pulls, and AOE damage. <- No different than any other DPS class.

ComeAndSee.1356:

The problem with Guardians right now is their “full potential” is in support / healing builds in WvW. Pure DPS Guardian’s aren’t anymore special than Thiefs or Warriors in terms of front lining, but Support Guardian’s bring a powerful package to the battlefield.

Support Guardians = Boons, lots of group healing, “frontliner”, WoR, Sanctuary/Wall of Lining, and Tome of Courage. <- Huge group support capabilities in WvW.

DPS Guardian = Boons, no group healing, “frontliner”, pulls, and AOE damage. <- No different than any other DPS class.

You are right and that alone make people kind of upset with the guardian most people (namely the ones who play the support end of the guardian) are some what fine with the class and push all the dps aside and tell other to just roll warrior or thief for damage. Guardian should bring something more to the table than just want everyone else in dps does. I mean we have a group wide or more might buff (VoJ traited or EM) but that really doesnt get us anywhere since we still get blown up if we are in a big group of enemies since no matter how “tanky” you are 20+ people will still kill you in 5 seconds.

Karma Crimzin.5079:

ComeAndSee.1356:

The problem with Guardians right now is their “full potential” is in support / healing builds in WvW. Pure DPS Guardian’s aren’t anymore special than Thiefs or Warriors in terms of front lining, but Support Guardian’s bring a powerful package to the battlefield.

Support Guardians = Boons, lots of group healing, “frontliner”, WoR, Sanctuary/Wall of Lining, and Tome of Courage. <- Huge group support capabilities in WvW.

DPS Guardian = Boons, no group healing, “frontliner”, pulls, and AOE damage. <- No different than any other DPS class.

You are right and that alone make people kind of upset with the guardian most people (namely the ones who play the support end of the guardian) are some what fine with the class and push all the dps aside and tell other to just roll warrior or thief for damage. Guardian should bring something more to the table than just want everyone else in dps does. I mean we have a group wide or more might buff (VoJ traited or EM) but that really doesnt get us anywhere since we still get blown up if we are in a big group of enemies since no matter how “tanky” you are 20+ people will still kill you in 5 seconds.

You can’t have it all.

Heinel.6548:

The best description that can fit the guardian ATM is a magical soldier with innate fragility, that is overcome by having a larger repertoire of defensive abilities. Said abilities may be boons, it may be something else.

Just wanted to point out, this is extremely important to understand. When you cut to the chase, the above is what you find.

This means as a Guardian, when you choose to be a glass cannon, go balanced, or go bunker, the following happens:

-If you go glass cannon you’ll drop very easily, and won’t have the burst of a glass cannon Warrior or Thief. We’ve all seen the damage those can do.

-If you go bunker, you gain a colossal amount of survival, and decent (or more) support along the way. As a sacrifice you lose a lot damage, and likely have to use a defensive playstyle.

-If you go balance, you gain a decent amount of damage compared to bunker as expected, but you still don’t gain nearly as much damage/control as you give up in survival/support. Almost every criticism I have about the Guardian stems from this.

The only build that really breaks the above mold is some variation of 10/30/30 or a Meditation build. The problem with that though, is you lose out on your utilities and dedicate your entire build to one thing: essentially 1v1 viability.

Summary: The main problem with the Guardian is that in not going for a bunker style build, you don’t gain much in return. This problem is only reinforced by most of the community being indifferent or satisfied with this, as most seem content with bunker or support style builds.

Alarox.4590:

This means as a Guardian, when you choose to be a glass cannon, go balanced, or go bunker, the following happens:

-If you go glass cannon you’ll drop very easily, and won’t have the burst of a glass cannon Warrior or Thief. We’ve all seen the damage those can do.

-If you go bunker, you gain a colossal amount of survival, and decent (or more) support along the way. As a sacrifice you lose a lot damage, and likely have to use a defensive playstyle.

-If you go balance, you gain a decent amount of damage compared to bunker as expected, but you still don’t gain nearly as much damage/control as you give up in survival/support. Almost every criticism I have about the Guardian stems from this.

The only build that really breaks the above mold is some variation of 10/30/30 or a Meditation build. The problem with that though, is you lose out on your utilities and dedicate your entire build to one thing: essentially 1v1 viability.

---

Summary: The main problem with the Guardian is that in not going for a bunker style build, you don’t gain much in return. This problem is only reinforced by most of the community being indifferent or satisfied with this, as most seem content with bunker or support style builds.

I think this is a spot on break down of some of the issues we have, which imo opinion is even more emphasized by by the placement of AH.

Just a reflection on whats needed in zeal/radiance in order to make them valid for group play.

1. There has to be some sort of vitality increaser. If you go a power/precision build having 11k health just aint going to make it.

2, Even if we add in #1 we need some major damage boosters. and now we are talking about stuff like 100% more damage on swap and100% precision on swap.

I also have played over a thousand hours all on my guardian and have completed most aspects of PvE (dungeons and getting a legendary) in addition to being r30+ in sPvP and having close to 10k kills in WvW all on the guardian. Unlike the OP however, I believe that the guardian is in a good state currently other than some bugs that need to be fixed (e.g. Pure of Voice not working with Hold the line and SYS consistently). Most of the concerns stem from possibly wanting to do what guardians were not meant to do.

First, I agree that having 30 points in valor is, in dungeons and WvW, necessary to be a “competitive” guardian—a profession that requires to be in close range to be most effective. Naturally, having high toughness is a must when being one of the first targets of a zerg in WvW and usually the only target of monsters in dungeons without having to disengage. The healing either from using meditations or boons through altruistic healing just puts the guardian on a level above any other profession when it comes to tanking.

I disagree that AH should come inherently through virtues. It is fine to be taking 30 in valor in every non-supportive guardian builds to take AH. There is enough room to “diversify” with the other 40 trait points. For example, one can take three shouts and go 30 in Honor and 10 in virtues to have a lot of condition removal (and more with soldier runes) on a shortened cool down to have a truly tank build with great team support and mass self-healing. Similarly, one can take 20 in virtues to have a longer boon duration and other utilities like longer consecrations or spirit weapons or boosted virtues. One can spread out some minor/major points to zeal or radiance to play a little around with symbols, signets, and various offensive conditions. One can even advance into the grandmaster traits in zeal or radiance for buffed symbols or right-handed strength/perfect inscriptions even though they do not synergize as well with altruistic healing.

In fact, the true problem that underlies this concern of lack of diversity is that there is really no need to advance points into either major or grandmaster in zeal or radiance traits. There are two reasons and they cannot be fixed by minor tweaks without having to change the entire guardian paradigm: (1) the traits are selfish and do not synergize well (or shall I say are plain inferior to) with everything that guardians bring to the table through boons (shouts and virtues) and being a damage sponge; (2) the extra stats one get from these trait lines are easily simply not needed/not very useful (i.e. condition duration and condition damage) or easily replaceable.

For point number one, we can agree that guardians would be more useful to your team (in most cases) by bringing party-wide boons and heals rather than spirit weapons that do very limited damage or signets that benefit only you. Zeal and radiance traits are selfish. There are some 1v1 or roaming builds that use these traits but guardians were not meant for that role due to the relative lack of mobility and burst. They are not competitive and you better reroll to another class if you want to be a roamer.

Point number two. Well it should be obvious that any stats concerning conditions would be almost useless to a guardian. We have four conditions: burning, blind, immobilize, and vulnerability. Only one is affected by condition damage and since it only stacks in duration, the guardian’s burn contribution will not be noticeable in most encounters. In addition, condition duration is pretty much worthless for the other three. Having an extra second on immobilize may help you get that finishing blow in WvW, but honestly it probably won’t matter in most cases. Power (and also condition damage if that burn is really important to you) is easily replaceable by a nice little boon called might. For each might stack, you get +35 power. You’re better putting points in virtues to get longer boons for might stacks, which have relatively long durations for a boon (from the top of my head, 5 seconds from empowering might, 10 seconds for 12 stacks from empower, 10 seconds for each block if you have 25 points in valor, 3 stacks for 20 seconds from superior sigil of battle, 10 seconds from superior sigil of strength). I run a might stacking build and have 15-18 might stacks up consistently (without a staff) in the middle of a fight meaning greater than 500 power, more than you will ever get putting points just into zeal and ignoring boons and support traits. Finally, more crit. chance through extra precision is nice, but most guardian builds nowadays are already at that 40-50% crit. chance mark which should be enough for the class.

For the other concerns brought up:

Staff – It’s great as a support weapon. Permanent twelve might stacks with increased boon duration, permanent swiftness, a ward, an AoE spam, and a much improved orb of light. What more can you want?

1-H weapon – They may not seem as useful in PvE or WvW since you want to do the most AoE damage possible, but I don’t see why people think they aren’t as viable as 2-H weapons. They serve their purpose. Sword – a teleport and blind, great single target burst. Shield – just amazing overall, protection to party and knockback/bubble.

Scepter – longest range of all guardian weapons, immobilize; Focus – good for getting might stacks and a blind/condition removal.

Symbols –Upgrading symbols offensively may be a good idea for the points you have to spend, but symbols for offensive purposes is generally not a good idea since it’s easily avoidable.

Spirit Weapons – Shield is very useful in dungeons, hammer is nice 1v1 in PvP. Other than that, really no comment since I always thought they spirit weapons were underwhelming in general and don’t use too often.

Retaliation – Someone else pointed out that thieves can’t just spam their skills on you and expect to win which differentiates good vs. bad thieves. I think retal is fine. In WvW, stacking area retal is a good counter to the OP AoE right now. Overall AoE needs to get fixed before retal, but in small scale battles retal is fine.

Aegis buff – Giving more than one stack of aegis is even less skill based than letting retaliation stay the way it is. You use aegis only when you want to block key skills, which takes skill. It’s fine.

In summary, I feel that most of the concerns are trying to make the guardian into something it is not meant to be. We are a heavy armor class that can bunker very well, give great party support through boons, and do pretty good damage in close range. I also disagree with the belief that we lack diversity. I love the fact that guardians have so much tanking and support capabilities. But I also have accepted our limited offensive repertoire, including but not limited to our lack of ranged damage and mobility as compared to other professions. We are different from the warrior in that we do not get cripples, knockdowns, and stuns but a teleport, immobilize, wards, and pullback. The joy I have found in playing the guardian is realizing these facts and trying to find a balance to use the most optimal build suited for any occasion.

Golden.3012:

In fact, the true problem that underlies this concern of lack of diversity is that there is really no need to advance points into either major or grandmaster in zeal or radiance traits. There are two reasons and they cannot be fixed by minor tweaks without having to change the entire guardian paradigm: (1) the traits are selfish and do not synergize well (or shall I say are plain inferior to) with everything that guardians bring to the table through boons (shouts and virtues) and being a damage sponge; (2) the extra stats one get from these trait lines are easily simply not needed/not very useful (i.e. condition duration and condition damage) or easily replaceable.

With more power from zeal, retaliation does more damage. That makes people less likely to attack you or your party, to this end, zeal is not a selfish trait line. You could argue retaliation is not the good way to go, but I think the way all the guardian traits are set up, they intended this to happen. If you want to go retaliadian, you take zeal for the damage, then extra retal granting traits from the other lines to balance your build out.

The GM traits in zeal leaves a lot to be desired, it does have traits for the GS which is the one that has the retal symbol. Overall it has a very target-denial feel towards it with a somewhat stationary playstyle (would kinda be OP if you can target-deny and also be mobile).

I don’t know. Most people seem to hate retaliation enough to not to want a go with this. And me, I still think they should make staff the retaliation weapon and let GS has swiftness. But maybe that’s just me.

@Golden

My point isnt that guardians isnt in a good state! Read again if you think that whats you actually read because that wasnt my intention.

On the contrarys guardians are in a very good shape, as long as you invest 30 points in valor, which you also point out, and ofc in honor and virtues.

The difference between you and me is that you are in content with that and find that being the purpose of the profession or as you say “whats its mean to be”. Which is you interpretation of the profession and not arena nets vision for it.

If that was arenanets vision we wouldnt have have radiance and zeal but we have, but with little payoff when investing in them, which you also seem to agree on.

AH being innate is a part of a suggested solution, its not of importance to this post really, the definition of the problem is. A definition it seems you share since you more or less state that 30points in valor is mandatory if you want to be competitive.

Staff is only good if you get 40% uptime on boons, if not its useless compared to other classes innate abilites. I agree its the best support we have but that doent make it good. Once again its a weapon that more or less forces out of zeal and inte virtues and honor, at least i you want it to work properly. Personally i find the weapon to be very nice and i play with it as my second choice in wvw but that is not the same as stating its good, its just the only viable choice, nothing more and nothing less.

There are more useful support in warrior warhorn then in the staff.

Scepter, yeah i know what it does, is this an attempt to say its good?

who said anything about using symbols as an offensive tool, im talking about investing 55 points to get max impact. What other weapon in this game needs so many specific traitpoints to get it to achieve max impact?

I assume you play a bunker yourself and thats why you find retal to be fine. I will quote something to display what i think differs between you and me

Alarox.4590:

This problem is only reinforced by most of the community being indifferent or satisfied with this, as most seem content with bunker or support style builds.

Emphasized by this.

Aegis buff – Giving more than one stack of aegis is even less skill based than letting retaliation stay the way it is. You use aegis only when you want to block key skills, which takes skill. It’s fine.

Stacking Aegis and have an uptime for maybe 3 sec is definitely more skillbased then running around with 100% uptime by practically doing nothing.

And stating aegis is skillbased in wvw is just rubbish! If you are two groups with 10 people each that clash you have no control what so ever to time it for that great hit since every white hit around will remove it.

As i said in tpvp and duels it works, in competitive wvw it aint working.

Golden.3012:

In summary, I feel that most of the concerns are trying to make the guardian into something it is not meant to be. We are a heavy armor class that can bunker very well, give great party support through boons, and do pretty good damage in close range. I also disagree with the belief that we lack diversity. I love the fact that guardians have so much tanking and support capabilities. But I also have accepted our limited offensive repertoire, including but not limited to our lack of ranged damage and mobility as compared to other professions. We are different from the warrior in that we do not get cripples, knockdowns, and stuns but a teleport, immobilize, wards, and pullback. The joy I have found in playing the guardian is realizing these facts and trying to find a balance to use the most optimal build suited for any occasion.

This pretty much displays the difference, you find that tankbuilds are the core of guardians and ofc then you defend that.

The difference is that i want to be able to play both tankish builds, like warriors, and offensive boon builds, like warriors, and everything in between.

I think the part i quoted from alarox pretty much narrows it down.

After reading through a couple times I have to agree with alot of the OP. There are some things that I would do differently though. I would make Virtue of resolve into your mentioned virtue of altruism. I feel like we really don’t need another defensive virtue, and this would make it something far more active than just gaining health. However in doing this I think the numbers would need to be adjusted, as we are losing out on that passive regen, and also making it slightly weaker if your symbol changes were to go through.

As an added virtue I would like to see something more offensive and possibly snare related. There is an idea that I think would be awesome, but implementing it would be kind of weird. Something along the lines of “whenever you do X amount of damage, you apply a snare to your current target” and make the threshold like 7k or so. This would give a snare to all builds, but would favor the damage builds that need it more, since they could total the damage faster than defense minded builds. Also, make the on use of it do an AoE immobilize for 2-3 seconds. The buff you could get from 5 virtue trait could stay as fury. I think this would help alot with both our mobility, and getting a healing trait out of the valor line to free up some points. And obviously all the numbers regarding it could be adjusted to balance it.

Other than that I pretty much agree with most of the other things, just figured I would throw an added idea in there.

Hello again,

When I said the guardian is in a good state, I meant that I did not agree with most of the proposed changes and I had already written why.

This is what Jonathan Sharp had to say about the profession as seen in the December 14 Update Notes: “The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health. They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield. We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.”

Maybe I was not clear in my lengthy post, but since the guardian is a class that requires to be in melee range to be most effective and feel very powerful when their boons are active, it is natural for them to take 30 in valor to get more armor and also a trait that heals when applying boons. Guardian players are just playing to the profession’s strength.

People seem to have a problem with taking 30 in valor or honor because they see it more of a bunker/supportive trait line. Over time, some may get bored of this role especially after playing hundreds of hours and that is understandable, but inherently guardians were meant for this role to “feel very powerful” when applying boons and removing conditions from teammates. I for one am glad that guardians have a specialized role, unlike the warrior which can roam but are not as good as thieves and elementalists, and also can bunker but not as well as the guardian.

Making zeal and radiance grandmaster traits as viable as altruistic healing will put the class over the top. How can you change any of the grandmaster traits in those lines to compete with a trait that synergizes so well with the guardian’s strength—boons and condition removal? For thought: would placing any of AH, MF, PoV in those two lines satisfy people?

Are the minor and major traits in those lines viable? I believe so: they provide enough diversity for one to play a more offensive support role if one pleases. And the skill balancers also realize this: in the December 14 patch they made binding jeopardy and blind exposure more worthwhile to take.

As for the weapons, I find them to be “good.” However, this is semantics and some people may want more from a weapon. What you cannot argue though is the fact the staff is a great support weapon. Taking 2-H mastery, symbols are larger, and just eating a chocolate omnomberry cream will give you almost permanent swiftness to your entire WvW zerg and twelve stacks of might to your party. Line of warding is amazingly “good” and also fun for all sorts of WvW scenarios. The scepter “serves its purpose” as I have said—a viable ranged weapons that does decent DPS and that has an extremely hard to dodge 3 second immobilize/3 stacks of vulnerability (untraited). Again, what more exactly did people want?

Stating that anything in WvW with lots of “white hit” (a zerg) is skillbased is also rubbish. In those cases I run around like a chicken with my staff critting 1.2 k to everything around me just once or twice with auto attack and get twice as many loot bags compared to when I use any other weapon. Forget aegis, you want a different mechanic entirely in those cases (try wall of reflection, sanctuary, or ele’s swirling winds). Aegis is fine.

Just because you play tankish does not mean you are excluded from being offensive. You may not be critting like a thief or warrior (and I don’t think that was the intention of the designer) but you can make up for it by stacking your might boons or using blinds against key skills or using knockbacks, wards, immobilizes to control the playing field. You have traits in zeal and radiance that improve those immobilizes and blinds that give you diversity in play styles.

I see the guardian not as a jack-of-all-trades profession but one that is highly specialized with enough diversity to keep it still fun to play after these many hours. People may call me out for being “indifferent,” but I still stand by the belief that the profession is fine as it is besides some minor bugs.

@Golden

The fixes was just suggestions, as i tried to point out on several occasions in this thread. The important part are the “problems” part of OP, not the solutions.

The definition you use is the exact same as i used when making the review. No issues there.

The difference is that i think the guardian should fulfill that definition with what ever traits we use. Either thru innate capabilities or thru traits. The issue is that in order to achieve that we are forced to to trait 30 points in valor which imo is a huge flaw. So either make it innate or have traits of similar strength in all the other traitlines.

I have a very hard time believing that when arenanet designed the guardian they infact thought “hey lets make valor super strong and an obvious meta and zeal and radiance almost useless! Yeah, great idea! Lets balance the profession around one end trait in valor and let that define the profession!”

Anyone that even tried a 30/30/x/x/x build, with any armor type available in the game, realizes that something is really messed up with the traits we have. An 11k knights guardian isnt fulfilling what Arenanet want the profession to fulfill. Its infact unplayable in wvw, at least in a competitive environment and definitely not in melee range.

Regarding being bored by 30 points in valor. Why would anyone be bored by that, its toughness and crit damage when you trait it. The issue is that there are no choices, not boredom. Its the lack of variation and choices that causes boredom.

Personally i think it would be a step in the right direction to move both AH and MF to radiance and zeal, then at least those lines would be more valuable. Valor would still hold some great tools that people would invest in, purity being one of them and ofc the stats from valor are just stellar compared to the secondary conditionbased stats in zeal and radiance.

We can discuss the staff for ever but even with 60% boon duration the average numbers of might stacks on the team is about 8 over time and ofc perma swiftness.
With the same runes/food in my warrior i have 6 stacks over time, almost perma fury+swiftness on the team, 10 stacks of vulnerbility on the designated target by using one shout and war horn and still be able to do 8k bursts. And ofc if i use all three shouts i also have 5k burs heals. Sorry, the staff i lack a lot when it comes to offensive support. Its the best we have but its not good.

The problem isnt that the traits in radiance and zeal are that bad, the thing is that they are bad compared to what you loose out on Valor, Honor and Virtues. Once again grab what ever gear you want and try a 30/30/x/x/x build, which is playable as ranger or warrior, and then tell me that Jonathan Sharps definition of the guardian is even close to true.

I never said zerging is skillbased, please dont put words in my mouth, i said when clashing having stacked aegis is more skillbased then to days aegis which is totally useless. I play mostly 5 man party in wvw and my main activity is actually fighting zergs with up to 4 times the manpower and this is what i base my skillbased comment on. Aegis as a group boon in wvw is close to useless because when you have like 4 different guys on you, there is no chance in hell you can control the effect of aegis. If it was stackable, with a very limited duration, it would be, imo, more skillbased.

Ofc there are traits that improves immobilizes and blinds but is it worth investing in? No its not, but it could be worth it if i didnt have to put 30 points in Valor to actually fulfill Arenanets vision of the profession. There isnt a single competitive build that have more then 15 points in radiance and 0 points in zeal. Its just as simple as that and the placement of AH is one major contributor to this,

And dont worry even if you play a 30/30/x/x/x you wont even come close to a thief or warrior even though with 11k health and really lousy tools to survive it would be justified to hit even harder considering thiefs has the option to chose when they die and a warrior would have 19k health as a buffert and ofc 110% constant crit chance, with what ever weapon he choses.

Sorry it want my intention to imply you are indifferent, apparently you are not since you post in a constructive way. But i do imply you are in content since your vision of the profession is fulfilled in a 30 point valor build based on retaliation.

I started to write a massive response then just realized it was a waste.

I do want to mention, that Virtues are fine. Don’t change them. If you spec them right, every single virtue is extremely powerful…. and yes, VoJ is AWESOME w/ a 5 pt investment to make it a BLIND (GS / S&F w/ Traited VOJ = 4 Blinds or basically perma aoe blind ).

I don’t want Symbols to change. I like the way they are, but yes I agree in one aspect: They are counter intuitive… people run from the spot.

Possible Fix (and Fix to AoE in general so they don’t limit AoE like they proposed (which is horrible)): Symbols and Consecrations negate GtAOE as they ‘purify’ the land they’re cast on. Symbol times would probably need to be reduced a bit, but they already don’t last very long (3-6s?, 16s on full boon duration w/ Stability Consecration).

But basically, the reason I don’t like these types of threads is that you’re asking for a complete overhaul of a class.

This has never happened on any sucessful MMO in regards to a signle class overhaul. Sure, expansions where every class has had massive work, but not on a single class.

You’re right but understand that this profession lacks quite a bit when compared to the others. Here’s a few off the bat:

-No cripples
-No stuns
-No viable ranged weapon
-Forced to stay within a single spot(symbols)
-Worst mobility of any other profession
-Required to be around teammates to be ultimately effective.(I can’t think of any other profession where you MUST be with others to bring out your full potential)
-Some of the slowest skills in the game with little benefit.(empower being an exception)

And this is just to name a few. The Guardian is indeed counter intuitive to the games combat mechanics of constant movement. This is the only profession that is crippled by such.

Brutaly.6257:

Easy solution for the scepter, just speed up #1 and make Smite a symbol, Symbol of Fire. This is the single target ranged option. #1 should be a projectile finisher with a x% chance.

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

as a support build i’d LOVE to have smite be a symbol, I can trait it to heal allies, last long, and have a bigger radius!

also we have no projectile finishers so, this needs to happen

I also think that Altruistic healing should be nerfed, and made innate

I agree with most of the problems that Brutaly listed, but don’t agree with the solutions. I won’t go into what should be done because it’s far more complicated than what was listed here and would rather let the Developers hash that out over days or weeks.

On the topic of playstyle, I think it would be safe to assume that most guardian players who aren’t flavor of the month chose the profession because of its supportive melee role. The traits lines that don’t have group play in mind in some way, either by boons or control, should have some kind of boost.

I also agree with what Brutaly said, I dont expect all of the recommendations by Brutaly to be accepted by other fellow guardian players or the developers, but Anet should take some of them into consideration. My biggest issues are: range weapon, HP (could be a tad higher) and limited viable builds.

I think boon uptime should be addressed as well.

Brutaly.6257:

Vukanigia.5496:

(0 10 15 30 15) is also a “standard” build for WvW and it doesn’t have AH.

Is it viable, yes. is it competitive, no.
This isnt about builds that some people play its about one trait that is mandatory for max performance.

Its about meta builds and AH being that meta

Just a sidenote if you read OP you might find what i think of retaliation and posting a wet noodle build (I assume its vit/tough/pow thru and thru or clerics) with large health pool and retal stacked and at the same time have invested in VoC on rally but nothing invested in longer lasting consecrations or ranged consecrations just cant be taken seriously as a wvw build.

If its not a retalbuild please PM your traits and we can do the math compared to a AH build based on either raw dps or retal and ofc ability to support in general, preferably a 0/0/30/20/20..

As i said in a previous post, there is a difference between fun and effective and that build might be fun but its not meta., not for a retal build and not for builds in general.

Point of 15 in Radiance is for “Renewed Justice” and “Blind Exposure” with “Justice is Blind” if you play Guardian in melee train this is really useful. I’m Shout spec with rune of Soldier and “Superior Aria” , “Pure of voice” (POV don’t work all the time so i switch this sometimes) and 42% crit chance with “Empowering Might”. l use GS and Staff and i use crit food, venom and toughness/vit food.

You are right for consecrations, it’s op as hell but when you have 6 guardians in raid some of them have to be shout spec also for condition remove.

Also, i think Eng and Elementalist can bring more healing to raid then a guardians.

With Water Fields and Blast you have Area Healing and you don’t need 6 healing support guardians but just a few.

Vukanigia.5496:

Brutaly.6257:

Vukanigia.5496:

(0 10 15 30 15) is also a “standard” build for WvW and it doesn’t have AH.

Is it viable, yes. is it competitive, no.
This isnt about builds that some people play its about one trait that is mandatory for max performance.

Its about meta builds and AH being that meta

Just a sidenote if you read OP you might find what i think of retaliation and posting a wet noodle build (I assume its vit/tough/pow thru and thru or clerics) with large health pool and retal stacked and at the same time have invested in VoC on rally but nothing invested in longer lasting consecrations or ranged consecrations just cant be taken seriously as a wvw build.

If its not a retalbuild please PM your traits and we can do the math compared to a AH build based on either raw dps or retal and ofc ability to support in general, preferably a 0/0/30/20/20..

As i said in a previous post, there is a difference between fun and effective and that build might be fun but its not meta., not for a retal build and not for builds in general.

Point of 15 in Radiance is for “Renewed Justice” and “Blind Exposure” with “Justice is Blind” if you play Guardian in melee train this is really useful. I’m Shout spec with rune of Soldier and “Superior Aria” , “Pure of voice” (POV don’t work all the time so i switch this sometimes) and 42% crit chance with “Empowering Might”. l use GS and Staff and i use crit food, venom and toughness/vit food.

You are right for consecrations, it’s op as hell but when you have 6 guardians in raid some of them have to be shout spec also for condition remove.

Also, i think Eng and Elementalist can bring more healing to raid then a guardians.

With Water Fields and Blast you have Area Healing and you don’t need 6 healing support guardians but just a few.

I’m not sure how much healing output Engi’s and Elementalist can put out, but the main advantage of Guardian healers is they can stand on the front lines and better support abilities (aoe stabilities, wall of reflection, sanctuary, wall of lining, empower, etc). You obviously don’t need 10 support classes, but coordination is what makes your support classes excel on the battlefield.

@Vukanigia

You missed the point. Im not saying any of the traits you choose are bad or poor. Im just saying they get infinite stronger with AH. Having 1,5k health each hammer chain or GS chain is supreme.

If yo allready have 5 defensive suport guardians why add one more since retal dont stack in intensity. And retal from virtue of retribution isnt teamwide if i remember corretly.

Why not a 0/15/30/20/5 build and what you loose out on is 1k health, 25% uptime on retaliation (which the other support guards can stack) and ofc 10% boonduration.What you gain with knights gear is 15% crit damage, 150 toughness, either retributive armor or purity and ofc great healing from AH and approx 15% more crits compared to your build.

Once gain im not saying your traits or build is bad but its not meta and the survivability AH adds can be compared to any other trait we have, besides maybe selfless daring in a healbuild.

I’ll try AH tonight… Didn’t say that it’s not good… I’ll wrote tomorow how do i feel with that build…

i want to play a guardian when i have 70 trait points to work with.

Not 40.

I put mine down for PvE only now because i cant be as versatile with class purpose or class customization, its only meant for 1 thing, face-tanking frontline while allies do real dps.

you add in dps, but even still your keeping 30pts in Valor (NEED DAT CRIT DMG YO) because its supreme, no brainer, the whole “NOOO DUHHH” moment.

As for anyone who says a Guardian is boon-based… i lol at you with my perma 13stacks of might, 8 secs of protection on a 9 sec cooldown, 7sec of regen(also 9 sec cooldown, but thats not counting the passive regen “Soothing Mist”), perma swiftness and perma fury. And im not even a true bunker ele with my gear, im a Tank/DPS hybrid

And my last point in Water tree im consistently switching from (Either cleansing wave gives extra condi curing or sharing auras, both of which i can use whenever and keep the same viability as long as i play with SKILL. And im able to switch between a more party supportive or solo style with little to no major affect to the build itself. Its doesnt RELY on just 1 TRAIT to pack all that power/survivability.

They only stated that guardian philosophy in regards to Altruistic Healing SPECIFICALLY, because no other class has it. But look at thief stealth regen, elementalist “Signet of Restoration”, and warrior shouts. Boons, and Healing by the butt load. Imo way better, or atleast more “frequent” and reliable then what AH provides. All these things they can have, BUT STILL BUILD FOR PRIMARLY DPS and still keep great dmg while getting the full benefit of those suriviability traits.

Thieves, Warriors, Elementalist, Mesmers… They’re all good on their own. But their even better in a group.

Guardian is different, it can be good-ish alone. But its true power only begins to show up when you’ve got enough people hugging you or your rocking triple mediation.

You can’t be a AH guardian, relying on virtues only, you NEED shouts.

You can’t be a MF guardian, only using 1 or 2 mediations, you NEED 3 mediations (save yourselves is good in the 1v1 aspect to replace 1 mediation)

And you can’t be a “Boon-Based Guardian” without stacking everything, whether it be weapon choices, sigils, traits, armors, or runes, without it all being driven towards the purpose of giving you boons or supporting your boon uptime.

You need a shield (protection), you need a mace(regen), you need a hammer(proteection). Greatsword(might) doesnt compare to a 4sec blast finisher with great dmg potential and protection based auto attack, as well as 2 combo fields, a ranged immobilize, and the ring…. If your not using the mace, your using either Staff or trying to use Greatsword as well.

but im not saying im right, im not saying anyones wrong. this is all what i’ve felt from playing the guardian.

Btw i also have 1000+ hours built up on my guardian before i decided to switch to Ele.

Amins.3710:

I started to write a massive response then just realized it was a waste.

I do want to mention, that Virtues are fine. Don’t change them. If you spec them right, every single virtue is extremely powerful…. and yes, VoJ is AWESOME w/ a 5 pt investment to make it a BLIND (GS / S&F w/ Traited VOJ = 4 Blinds or basically perma aoe blind ).

I don’t want Symbols to change. I like the way they are, but yes I agree in one aspect: They are counter intuitive… people run from the spot.

Possible Fix (and Fix to AoE in general so they don’t limit AoE like they proposed (which is horrible)): Symbols and Consecrations negate GtAOE as they ‘purify’ the land they’re cast on. Symbol times would probably need to be reduced a bit, but they already don’t last very long (3-6s?, 16s on full boon duration w/ Stability Consecration).

But basically, the reason I don’t like these types of threads is that you’re asking for a complete overhaul of a class.

This has never happened on any sucessful MMO in regards to a signle class overhaul. Sure, expansions where every class has had massive work, but not on a single class.

Sorry for tanking time to answer. I havent stated that virtues are bad, on the contrary i find them to be bad when not traited but in order to get them strong you need to do a very small investment, which is ok.

I have been, and still are, a vivid defender of the power of the virtues.

The counterintuitive part is maybe the most important one and personally i think they need to remove boonpulses for it to be effective, apply the entire boon length when placed would solve that.

But honestly, do you really think it should be neccessary to invest 55 points to make one (max two) weaponskill to have max impact?

No im not asking for a complete overhaul of the class, im giving feedback on the parts i find flawed in the class. The thing is with proper feedback is that it should always be followed with a desirable change, other wise its not feedback.

No overhaul needed.

1. Speed up skill one on scepter (i can live with both a mediocre staff and smite in its current form).
2. Merge all symbol traits i Honor
3. Move selfless daring to Zeal and make it scale with power.
4. Move symbolic power and symbolic exposure to Honor.
5. Make symbols apply their full boon duration when placed and normalize duration and casting time on the symbols.
6, Bring back 20% crit chance when in symbol as grandmaster trait in radiance
7. Add in some sort of percentage of pow/pre to vitality traits in zeal and radiance.
8. Make AH innate as a virtue and add in swiftness in one of the virtues.

I can live with the rest of the flaws in the review but addressing ranged, one build dilemma, symbols as a function and the mobility issues wouldnt take more then 8-10 small changes.

Very well written, I hope they use some of the feedback you provided, though as I read in some statements above, the Guardian is somewhat ok at the moment, especially when compared to other classes that took pretty big hits.
Anyways, I hope this thread reaches ANet in some way.

I have to agree with most of what Brutal has mentioned in his first post.

From a PvP perspective:
Symbols take too long to activate and are very small (ex. Greatsword rooting you in place,before you even finish casting the enemy is far away).
Symbols take too many traits to make it even worth and even then they are worthless because most of your allies and opponents are not gonna stand inside them more than a mere second. Make the symbols large naturally and give the full boon duration is a great idea to fix this.

Also you are forced to play with 30 points in valor,either for meditation or Altruistic healing both for tanking and dps specs, which makes builds less diversified.
The Zeal line is horrible past 10points, especially after the last patch that our spirit weapons have been given the TRASH award.

We get easily kited around,even with the sword’s teleports and Judge of intervention it’s really hard to stay in melee, when most classes have a abundance of abilities that apply cripple or constant swiftness,25% speed increase passives and very short teleport cooldowns.
When I play with my dps guardian i find myself using the scepter more often than the sword/greatsword.

Our scepter is a melee weapon with range 300, good luck hitting a moving target beyond that.
Staff needs a rework, the symbol is buggy and in some situations it gives 1second of swiftness only or none at all. The #2 orb ability always gets stack into the enviroment and it’s just not fun to use.
Line of warding takes way to long to cast and has a short duration. 2 seconds of cast while you are immobile for a line that lasts 5 seconds. By the time you cast it the enemy has already crossed over.

Anyways I’m rambling too much, basically I hope Anet reads brutals post and make some changes. Our weapons abilities and symbols in particular need to be more interesting and fun to use, not frustrating.

I really liked the idea of having a fourth Virtue of Altruism, but I would like to propose a different active ability. Once popped, strip the guardian of all boons and spread them to nearby allies. This, I feel, is more in line with the other virtues that have this selfishness/team support balance to it. Give up power to grant benefits to your team. Balancing it shouldn’t be an issue, since this ability pratically already exist (although on the other side of the spectrum) with the necro’s Epidemic.

As usual, a well written and well thought out assertion of the Guardian. I think a lot of your ideas for change are very good, considering none of them will change the overall feel of the Guardian or change combat basics; simply make traiting and weapon choice more diverse and viable.

Now…can you write one for Ranger too?

@Mizu
The cool thing with virtues atm is that there is a gain for the team and the guardian when you pop them. And thats there is solely a gain for guardian when they are passive.

In your suggestion i cant see the gain for the guardian, its only a drawback and there will be no incentive to pop the virtue.

@Seras
No i cant write one since i have not played my ranger more then maybe 100 hours in wvw and i dont have the knowledge to write it.

But i could write a guide on how to play rangers in a very rewarding style of gameplay. One of the most underrated professions in the game imo.

I have two builds i use in wvw that just rocks, one supportbased and one dps focused. Its great fun and lethal.

You know what I figured about Altruistic Healing: If it was an Elite Signet, I would like it a lot more (it would also be blatantly overpowered). I just don’t think it’s a really inspired Grandmaster Trait.