Guild Wars 2

By now we have all seen the traits they showed on the last ready up, Some of them were great.
Others, well they were just sad….

Figured I’d put this thread out there with some suggestions. If you have any suggestions for Arena.net on guardian skills & traits post em here, just try to keep them reasonable.

Lets start off with Zeal.

1: Symbolic Exposure. Given how many other classes can literally spam vulnerability stack this trait is rather under powered. What if it instead applied 2 stacks for 4 seconds ?

2: Symbolic Power. Better then it is on live but burns appear to have a much much lower base damage then they do on live. Stacking burns will also be extremely hard when so many of the ones guardian has access to are such short duration.
What if it had a 100% chance to apply a 2 second burn ?

3: Wrathful Spirit. This trait is incredibly weak on live & remains so. What if it gave 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds to anyone effected by your AEGIS when it breaks ?

4: Expeditious Spirit: Nice that the spirit traits are combined now but unless they get a health boost they will remain extremely fringe use (shield being the exception)

5: Shattered AEGIS. While the damage boost is nice it’s not really enough to warrant it’s use. What if it dazed anyone who breaks one of your AEGIS (that could add some great counter play).
Or it could apply slow to anyone who breaks your AEGIS.

Now for Radiance

1: Renewed Justice. This trait can be quite useful in large groups of mobs, however against bosses & players it’s much less useful. Back during the original closed beta we had a trait that gave critical attacks a chance to burn, what if we combined them so that it also gave critical attacks a 33% chance to apply a 3 second burn ?

2: Healers Retribution. This skill is very under powered given how long the CD of most guardians heals are. What if it gave retribution in AOE to allies for 5 seconds when the guardian used a heal ?

3: Perfect Inscriptions. It’s nice that you combined the signet traits but they still seem rather underwhelming. Part of that is due to the signets themselves but short of reworking them there are other things that could be done.
What if instead of a 20% boost to signet passives it instead gave precision for each signet you have equipped ? (say 25-30?)

Now for Valor

1: Strength of the Fallen. Nice combining it with purity trait, but I doubt anyone will want to use it because it’s still so niche. Suggestions are open for what to do here.

2: Stalwart Defender. Considering focus is now the defensive choice this could really use some help.
What if it caused the shield skills to grant AEGIS to nearby allies ?

Now for Honor

1: Protectors Impact. Nobody really likes fall damage traits. I suppose they could become more useful with the new maps but they are really just to niche.
Suggestions are open for what to do here.

Lastly Virtues

1: Unscathed Contender. It can be quite nice when it’s up but in any serious fight AEGIS is unlikely to be up for long.
What if instead it gave a 10% boost to damage while under the effects of protection ?

2: Retaliatory Subconscious. The addition of an AEGIS proc is nice but given the CD it’s still quite underwhelming.
What if you chanced the name to “Protected Subconscious” & instead had it give protection & AEGIS when it procs?

3: Permeating Wrath. I think one of the dev’s mentioned changing it to burn around the target on VOJ proc ? If so you would have allot of very happy guardians.

That’s more or less it for the traits. There are still quite a few skills that could stand to be looked at on the mace, shield, & sword however. Plus Litany of Wrath could also stand to be looked at if you want it to become an actual choice.

SO anyone have any suggestions, input or thoughts ?

Renewed Justice/Courageous Return: Change it to something that works while in combat instead of being triggered upon getting a kill and/or revival.

Protectors Impact: addon on something that’s useful in combat as well. Fall damage traits overall are very unappealing.

Retaliatory Subconscious: Agree above with changing to protection and reducing the CD. Retal, to me, is the weakest boon currently in the game.

I would REALLY like to see aegis able to stack..
Then some abilities and traits could be given a little more oomph by applying more than one stack of aegis, but even without that what if there are multiple guardians who pop courage close together. one of those is pretty much wasted. The way aegis and blocks work the duration doesn’t really matter. no one ever says oh that guy has aegis up. let me hold off my attack until it drops off. no, if anything he’s just gonna use an auto attack to remove it then unleash his burst.

stacking would help that a little if you had 3 stacks of aegis IE 3 attacks blocked then there’s a better chance of you negating a huge attack rather than some aoe proc for 56dmg..

the only other alternative I can think of is put a damage threshhold on it. say aegis will block the next incoming attack up to 1000 dmg, then you get hit for 300. that gets blocked leaving 700 left, once it reaches 1000 dmg aegis is removed. If an attack for say 3000 hits you, then it is fully blocked, but aegis drops immediately.

regardless something needs to be done to improve aegis because its just not a reliable way of negating damage in pvp. pve is a little different cause enemies don’t attack as often and the tells are easier to notice.

I like what they did with the thief fall damage trait, on top of activating blinding powder when falling it also activates it when they use the class mechanic (steal) what if we could do something similar like dropping a symbol when we heal ? Having the symbol on virtue would be too similar, possibly exploited since there are 3 virtues instead of just one, and 2 of them can be refreshed. If they limited it to 1 virtue it would be to weak since the individual virtue cooldowns are too long, but guardian heals have just about the right cooldown. Having protection on demand without the need for a specific weapon would be very appealing, and it would synergize well with all the symbol traits in honor and zeal.

I agree that renewed justice and courageous return need something else, especially renewed justice because it doesn’t always trigger due to some mobs not giving exp or bosses not having any mobs that you can kill around. So what about when Virtue of Justice is on cooldown increase ferocity by 100-150

Retal traits need to be given another look. Nobody is going to take 3s of retaliation after using a 30s+ cooldown heal skill over fury when striking a burning target or RHS. It’s kind of pathetic that guardians are supposed to be the flagship retaliation class, and yet warriors are the ones getting 50% uptime on it when they block or receive a critical hit while we get traits that give it to us for a paltry 3 seconds.

I’ve always considered Guardians to be the Retal/Protection profession but it seems unless you run heavy into Virtues/shouts, you’ll essentially have none.

Arken.3725:

I’ve always considered Guardians to be the Retal/Protection profession but it seems unless you run heavy into Virtues/shouts, you’ll essentially have none.

Not really protection is easily available to the hammer which is getting a nice buff, and retaliation is available to any weapon with a symbol.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Arken.3725:

I’ve always considered Guardians to be the Retal/Protection profession but it seems unless you run heavy into Virtues/shouts, you’ll essentially have none.

Not really protection is easily available to the hammer which is getting a nice buff, and retaliation is available to any weapon with a symbol.

Again, this being limited to 1 weapon and a dedicated tree to obtain a little bit of protection. Anyone smart enough to keep moving(which they will) will hinder your ability to maintain that protection.

Edit: Not asking for permanent protection at all. Just it’s really situational.

Arken.3725:

I’ve always considered Guardians to be the Retal/Protection profession but it seems unless you run heavy into Virtues/shouts, you’ll essentially have none.

That’s the problem that’s essentially plagued the class since launch from a balancing standpoint. Defensive guardian builds were really powerful, so they balanced the class with the assumption that its access to protection, aegis, condition removal, etc. was baseline when in fact you actually had to invest quite heavily into defensive traits to be able to receive them.

Only now with the rise of the medi guard are we just getting past this stigma.

To be honest Black Box, i’m happy to see a rise of the medi-guard(what I play. Granted I think every profession should have a viable power, condi and bunker spec.

Arken.3725:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Arken.3725:

I’ve always considered Guardians to be the Retal/Protection profession but it seems unless you run heavy into Virtues/shouts, you’ll essentially have none.

Not really protection is easily available to the hammer which is getting a nice buff, and retaliation is available to any weapon with a symbol.

Again, this being limited to 1 weapon and a dedicated tree to obtain a little bit of protection. Anyone smart enough to keep moving(which they will) will hinder your ability to maintain that protection.

Edit: Not asking for permanent protection at all. Just it’s really situational.

Its not just 1 weapon the lel shield, the mace and the lol tome provide protection its just that people are holed up on the max dps build and demand the defensive boons be also added to the max dps build without making any sacrifices.

I know for a fact when you stated Mace, shield and tome that you couldn’t do it with a straight face lol.

Edit: Strictly speaking from an spvp perspective.

I wont argue about the later 2 but mace is a great weapon that will probably overtake the sword if the changes make it live due to SA.

Either way, the protection mace grants currently is incredibly unreliable, because it only procs if you can go a full 3 and a half seconds of channeling without getting hit by a single attack. Mace 3 really needs to be reworked to function like other weapon blocks, so that it only counters when in melee range and has a subskill that cancels the channel and provides a different bonus (in this case, protection without having to channel for so long).

I still want to reiterate on my previous comment about the traits that needed changing from above. This goes for all On revival/kill traits in the game; the concept makes no sense during combat.

Black Box.9312:

Either way, the protection mace grants currently is incredibly unreliable, because it only procs if you can go a full 3 and a half seconds of channeling without getting hit by a single attack. Mace 3 really needs to be reworked to function like other weapon blocks, so that it only counters when in melee range and has a subskill that cancels the channel and provides a different bonus (in this case, protection without having to channel for so long).

Thats something that Ive always commented on the mace 3 should be a sequence skill like all the other ones similar in nature that have a 2nd skill when pressed again if the block is not used without having to wait the whole duration.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

3: Permeating Wrath. I think one of the dev’s mentioned changing it to burn around the target on VOJ proc ? If so you would have allot of very happy guardians.

You know, one of the niché (but IMO, incredibly useful) traits we are losing is Searing Flames. This would remove a Boon from a target upon Burn application. However, the trait doesn’t seem to have been rolled into any of the new traits.

I feel the new Permeating Wrath would be a good place to put it, helping it become a bit more competitive with it’s alternatives (as the Stunbreak+Stability new combined trait on Courage use is hard to compete with).

Black Box.9312:

Either way, the protection mace grants currently is incredibly unreliable, because it only procs if you can go a full 3 and a half seconds of channeling without getting hit by a single attack. Mace 3 really needs to be reworked to function like other weapon blocks, so that it only counters when in melee range and has a subskill that cancels the channel and provides a different bonus (in this case, protection without having to channel for so long).

That is one of the things I alluded to in my last sentence about base skills needing fixed.

Among them are

1: Sword auto attack number 3 (often misses & can be reflected but is not considered a ranged attack.)

2: Sword number 3 (projectiles often miss & do less damage then the auto attack, the “block” doesn’t actually block & it roots you)

3: Mace number 3 (only melee block in game that can be triggered & ended by ranged attacks, it also does not have a second skill like other blocks)

4: Scepter auto attack (moves so slow that anyone beyond 600 range can avoid many of them by strafing)

5: Scepter number 2 (smite is good for single target but given the rework of traits wouldn’t it be great if it was a symbol ?)

6: Litany of Wrath (even with the rework it will be hard to justify it’s use vs shelter or the other heals. Having it be instant or lowering the base CD to 25 seconds would help a great deal)

KotCR.6024:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

3: Permeating Wrath. I think one of the dev’s mentioned changing it to burn around the target on VOJ proc ? If so you would have allot of very happy guardians.

You know, one of the niché (but IMO, incredibly useful) traits we are losing is Searing Flames. This would remove a Boon from a target upon Burn application. However, the trait doesn’t seem to have been rolled into any of the new traits.

I feel the new Permeating Wrath would be a good place to put it, helping it become a bit more competitive with it’s alternatives (as the Stunbreak+Stability new combined trait on Courage use is hard to compete with).

I noticed that as well, actually. Kind of sad, because all it really needed was a little bit of tweaking to make for a nice skill that provides some good counterplay against boon-heavy opponents.

Also noticed that inscribed removal didn’t get rolled into perfect inscriptions.

This is very sad since signet builds were not that popular anyway.

If they would add the inscribed removal effect into perfect inscriptions it would help make the choice viable.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

1: Unscathed Contender. It can be quite nice when it’s up but in any serious fight AEGIS is unlikely to be up for long.
What if instead it gave a 10% boost to damage while under the effects of protection ?

I just chose something that caught my eye. Changing this to Protection would be too much uptime for the damage increase. I would lower the damage to 5%, maybe even lower if it were protection.

The idea behind this is that you use it on the initial burst and from there timing it for when you go to spike. It is rather hard to adapt in the midst of a fight but the damage is there when you usually need it.

Shield skills should get the protection on use. A-net is kitten backwards as usual. Lets take the most used off hand focus and make it even better.