Guild Wars 2

The profession as a whole IS in a good spot – and that ’s a mark against buffing the profession as a whole.

Spirit Weapons are in a dismal spot. Improving them, likely with the same batch of changes Engineer spirit weapo- er, Gyros! are getting, namely cooldown starts on summon, faster speed, and more durability will likely give the Guardian and Dragonhunter new competitive choices rather than push our strongest builds over the line.

Nike.2631:

The profession as a whole IS in a good spot – and that ’s a mark against buffing the profession as a whole.

Alright, can we stop with this? Clearly the devs do not think Guardians are in a good spot or they wouldn’t be fixing the issues we have been bringing up (or at least other devs for other professions). Tweaking spirit weapons to fall in line with Scrapper (or the AA chain to fall in line with the Rev) isn’t a buff, its a quality of life update to ensure we aren’t relegated to the halls of the Durmond Priory’s “forgotten classes” section.

Alent.4780:

Nike.2631:

The profession as a whole IS in a good spot – and that ’s a mark against buffing the profession as a whole.

Alright, can we stop with this? Clearly the devs do not think Guardians are in a good spot or they wouldn’t be fixing the issues we have been bringing up (or at least other devs for other professions). Tweaking spirit weapons to fall in line with Scrapper (or the AA chain to fall in line with the Rev) isn’t a buff, its a quality of life update to ensure we aren’t relegated to the halls of the Durmond Priory’s “forgotten classes” section.

Did you not read the very next sentence? Or maybe not understand changes to the profession as a whole is separate from changes to individual pieces of the profession? Or how about virtually the only feedback we’ve had outside of the game itself has been the observation the “the class is in a good place” and their observable behavior continues to reflect that? They’ve been fixing WHAT ISSUES exactly? Because the wonderful improvements to shield would fit exactly in the paradigm I’m describing – improvements that bring up less competitive builds without touching the meditation Guardian and burst-burns.

Nike.2631:

Did you not read the very next sentence? Or maybe not understand changes to the profession as a whole is separate from changes to individual pieces of the profession? Or how about virtually the only feedback we’ve had outside of the game itself has been the observation the “the class is in a good place” and their observable behavior continues to reflect that? They’ve been fixing WHAT ISSUES exactly? Because the wonderful improvements to shield would fit exactly in the paradigm I’m describing – improvements that bring up less competitive builds without touching the meditation Guardian and burst-burns.

I did, and I agree – I just don’t think it is fair to say that we are “in a good spot”. Not saying you are the only one guilty of it – trust me I agree with all of your points about additional choices and the halfhearted shield changes. I’m just saying that most other classes have more than viable build, which means to me that Guardians are most definitely not in a good spot.

Alent.4780:

I did, and I agree – I just don’t think it is fair to say that we are “in a good spot”. Not saying you are the only one guilty of it – trust me I agree with all of your points about additional choices and the halfhearted shield changes. I’m just saying that most other classes have more than viable build, which means to me that Guardians are most definitely not in a good spot.

I’m not “Guilty” of anything. That is the consistent refrain from the only people in a position to know, and its observably true from the player side as Guardians are welcome in any playmode.

We are at least totally on the same page about promoting a variety of competitive builds. Let’s hope Karl shares that particular zeal in and amongst the many balls he’s being asked to juggle .

(If you think the shield changes are “half-hearted” I suggest playing it more . With the traitable synergy with AoE aegis and having a mobile four-second shelter that converts to a heal it’s practically a new weapon.)

Alent.4780:

Nike.2631:

The profession as a whole IS in a good spot – and that ’s a mark against buffing the profession as a whole.

Alright, can we stop with this? Clearly the devs do not think Guardians are in a good spot or they wouldn’t be fixing the issues we have been bringing up (or at least other devs for other professions). Tweaking spirit weapons to fall in line with Scrapper (or the AA chain to fall in line with the Rev) isn’t a buff, its a quality of life update to ensure we aren’t relegated to the halls of the Durmond Priory’s “forgotten classes” section.

I am not sure we can understand you Alent.
The devs repeatedly say they think the profession “is in a good spot” and that is why the Are Not fixing anything we bring up in these forums.
You make it sound like you think they are fixing stuff but asking you to count the number of Guardian QoL fixes on one hand would be depressing since one finger is enough.

The other thing that is annoying a lot of us is that other devs see short threads about QoL items and instantly reply or act upon them, for example the Rev and scrapper updates, while we have multiple expansive threads asking for similar updates that have Never been addressed.
It is a matter of response time and we feel like the bottom of the barrel when others are receiving obvious preferential treatment and the rational is that we have A build that works so we don’t need another.
Guardian “is in a good spot” because shout, reflect and aegis sharing was useful in dungeons, I wonder what we will do when that goes away, will they still say we are kings of dungeons so need no updates… Oh wait we will be in a good spot for fractals relax.
We have seen repeatedly that guardians will not get any good utility updates and asking for some reply on forums has been useless.

Alent.4780:

I did, and I agree – I just don’t think it is fair to say that we are “in a good spot”. Not saying you are the only one guilty of it – trust me I agree with all of your points about additional choices and the halfhearted shield changes. I’m just saying that most other classes have more than viable build, which means to me that Guardians are most definitely not in a good spot.

I may have misunderstood you too about your views but I still do not agree that the devs share our views, they do say repeatedly it “is in a good spot” and nothing needs to be changed about the useless utilities.
And ignore our sub forum almost exclusively, or simply do not have good enough PR to reply to the correct threads. Whatever the problem is I am completely reaching the conclusion that the guardian needs a change in management simply due to mistakes.

Keep in mind fixing QoL issues for a new profession is not on the same plane as fixing QoL issues for an established profession. Like it or not the game works, and that means those fixes would be nice but they aren’t make or break issues or in the new-and-shiny spotlight. Let the various kid brothers do their job luring in new players. If the Dev presence dries up again after showing that they can manage to get work done while dropping in every other week or so, THEN I’ll be right there handing out torches and pitchforks.

In the meantime I look at my favorite trait in the game — Battle Presence — and have zero doubt I can build a Guardian that will be highly sought after in Raids. That we haven’t stretched our healing muscles in a while doesn’t mean we don’t already have tools to be competitive.

Nike.2631:

Keep in mind fixing QoL issues for a new profession is not on the same plane as fixing QoL issues for an established profession.

Then it is just sad that guardian is never brought up during meetings where they are discussing other professions. “Hey guys lets buff Spirit Weapon 2.0” “Great idea but don’t you think we are forgetting something? Anyone have anything to bring up?” Silence

Ideally similar QoL issues should be brought fixed across all professions at the same time.

And yes I agree that after launch, up till Christmas is going to be the last deciding time but I just wish for more presence more soul to this profession.

Nike.2631:

Keep in mind fixing QoL issues for a new profession is not on the same plane as fixing QoL issues for an established profession. Like it or not the game works, and that means those fixes would be nice but they aren’t make or break issues or in the new-and-shiny spotlight. Let the various kid brothers do their job luring in new players. If the Dev presence dries up again after showing that they can manage to get work done while dropping in every other week or so, THEN I’ll be right there handing out torches and pitchforks.

In the meantime I look at my favorite trait in the game — Battle Presence — and have zero doubt I can build a Guardian that will be highly sought after in Raids. That we haven’t stretched our healing muscles in a while doesn’t mean we don’t already have tools to be competitive.

Scrapper is not a new profession, it’s still the engeneer. This is why I’m kittened at all this ineptitude towards guardian

Gee, do you see the core Engineer stuff getting tons of attention? No? Same thing with ALL the professions. The new lines are up in the air and are getting a lot of Dev focus. The existing lines and tools are not.

If you insist on it being persecution of your favorite profession when it’s obviously how all of them are being treated, expect to be rightfully ignored. This is not ‘fix the core professions’ month. This is ‘have a sexy expansion launch’ month and thinking the focus will be anywhere else is silly.

They have had 2 years to fix spirit weapons, yet gyros have been play tested for 2 days and are changed BEFORE spirit weapons., even though they are the same mechanic.

So stop being a fan Boi for a min and use your brains. All we are asking is for this change to be applied to spirit weapons as well

Yeah? Well this fan boi PUT THE GYRO CHANGES IN THE THREAD THEY’RE READING.

Seriously. You complain they don’t pay enough attention to this board and then look baffled when random post #4031 isn’t being looked at it this week when there’s an official feedback thread running.

Changes to their new paid content is not comparable to a problem we’ve had for years. Of course they are going to try and make the new stuff awesome so you feel obligated to buy it. But the only thing that confuses me is why Dragonhunter is in the state it currently finds itself…

Spirit weapons I feel will always be like traps even if they fix them. “Could be cool but we need to bring our actually vital skills”. (Except SoA in some PVE content)

It is more of a just stay quiet and ignore the fact that guardian exists mentality that annoys me. I do not get mad when they don’t work on spirit weapons during HoT development but I do get mad if they ignore them when similar work was done elsewhere.
There should have been someone at that meeting that knew the guardian issues and that brought up fixing both at the same time, or at least a post saying we recognise the similarities and we will work on this for guardians after launch.

PS. Core spec interactions with elites are being considered on other elites such as Druid with no staff, whereas ours is not case and point pure sight and longbow. And don’t think that we missed the “kitten they were not satisfied with DH still so let’s give them a blanket 7% damage buff again and lower the pure sight bonus to 6%” reality of the new version of the trait.

Friendly reminder the developers haven’t expressly said “Guardians are in a good place” for like, 2 years. They’ve said it once, maybe twice. There’s only so often you can say it before the sarcasm and bite is worthless.

Guardian is in a good place. There are lots of build options and things to explore. Our class hasn’t stagnated, and still has a place in any game mode. Players refusing to develop the tools of their class is not the fault of the designers. They’ll continually try to improve our less popular options, but the effort is wasted of everything if compared with how much it improves the current status quo. It’s one of the reasons, I think, Dragonhunter is so different from the base. It’s to push us to experiment and find something new. There are some synergies with the popular options, but there’s so much potential that I don’t think we’re exploring. I’m glad we have a few people who are really going to the lab with our recently changed abilities and trying to find that new thing. Honestly, I think the people who are doom saying are those who aren’t putting enough effort into learning these new choices. Those who are willing to work and discover the actual boundaries are those who can best comment on what needs to be changed further.

fear not ye, he has arrived!

Ghotistyx.6942:

Guardian is in a good place. There are lots of build options and things to explore. Our class hasn’t stagnated, and still has a place in any game mode. Players refusing to develop the tools of their class is not the fault of the designers.

You’re really just plain 100% wrong on this. The class has absolutely stagnated. Want proof? Take a look at the Druid and Ventari Revenant. Take note of the fact that despite how many of our skills and traits being related to allied healing in some way, that these are being built from the ground up to be better healers than the Guardian ever was. Look at the fact that they’re abandoning healing power entirely in favor of just boosting allied heals by a percentage value.

Don’t say that Guardian wasn’t meant to be a healer, either. It was definitely meant to be a healer to at least some extent. The problem has always been that our allied heals are still balanced around a launch-era meta that Anet has now proven no longer exists. They’re not afraid to allow for actual scaling and have low cooldowns on allied heals anymore. And yet, here we are 3 years later, with skills like these:

-Virtue of Resolve: 1,625 heal, 50s cooldown, 32.5 HP/s
-Orb of Light (Detonated): 271 (to allies it passes through) + 788 (1,059) heal, 12s cooldown, 65.67/88.25 HP/s
-Empower: 1,500 heal, 20s cooldown, 75 HP/s
-Shield of Absorption (Detonated): 1,300 heal, 24s cooldown, 54.17 HP/s
-Merciful Intervention: 1,960 heal, 50s cooldown, 39.2 HP/s
-Sanctuary: 266 * 6 (1,596) heal, 120s cooldown, 13.3 HP/s
-Signet of Courage: 808 heal, 10s interval, 80.8 HP/s

None of these even bump above 2k unless you invest heavily into healing power, and even then you’re hard pressed to get them past 3k. Meanwhile, the HP/s ratio on every single one is under 100, making them less worthwhile for raw sustain than regen alone.

As for the actual thread topic, the change to gyros is really just another nail in the coffin for me. I loved my Guardians, but I really just don’t see myself caring about the class anymore.

One aspect that used to be strong has now stagnated the class? Now, I’ll probably agree that the scaling isn’t exactly where it should be, but Guardians can definitely put out over 1k hps to nearby allies.

Guardian will be forgotten once Revenant + Herald and Chronomancer comes out, just saying…

Feels like were starting get further off topic but I guess with what’s be discussed & the gyro change announced which could benefit SW. It’s more of wait & see how this function change works out & see if further work & more is needed after we has the time to test.

Regard the healing & healing power as this seems to be an area there actively looking at & working on I would hope core builds that partly were fulfilling this play style also receive the same attention so it’s not only the new builds that are able to do this. Get Druid &Ventari to were they want then look at the existing option & are these also viable choices. If not hopeful work on improvements is implemented.

True. When a concept as a whole like Spirit Weapons or healing is being promoted, something has to be the focal point to balance around. Once we see the true impact of Druid, Revenant, and Gyros, then we could expect to see changes being made to bring everyone to the target capabilities.

Black Box.9312:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Guardian is in a good place. There are lots of build options and things to explore. Our class hasn’t stagnated, and still has a place in any game mode. Players refusing to develop the tools of their class is not the fault of the designers.

You’re really just plain 100% wrong on this. The class has absolutely stagnated. Want proof? Take a look at the Druid and Ventari Revenant. Take note of the fact that despite how many of our skills and traits being related to allied healing in some way, that these are being built from the ground up to be better healers than the Guardian ever was. Look at the fact that they’re abandoning healing power entirely in favor of just boosting allied heals by a percentage value.

Don’t say that Guardian wasn’t meant to be a healer, either. It was definitely meant to be a healer to at least some extent. The problem has always been that our allied heals are still balanced around a launch-era meta that Anet has now proven no longer exists. They’re not afraid to allow for actual scaling and have low cooldowns on allied heals anymore. And yet, here we are 3 years later, with skills like these:

-Virtue of Resolve: 1,625 heal, 50s cooldown, 32.5 HP/s
-Orb of Light (Detonated): 271 (to allies it passes through) + 788 (1,059) heal, 12s cooldown, 65.67/88.25 HP/s
-Empower: 1,500 heal, 20s cooldown, 75 HP/s
-Shield of Absorption (Detonated): 1,300 heal, 24s cooldown, 54.17 HP/s
-Merciful Intervention: 1,960 heal, 50s cooldown, 39.2 HP/s
-Sanctuary: 266 * 6 (1,596) heal, 120s cooldown, 13.3 HP/s
-Signet of Courage: 808 heal, 10s interval, 80.8 HP/s

None of these even bump above 2k unless you invest heavily into healing power, and even then you’re hard pressed to get them past 3k. Meanwhile, the HP/s ratio on every single one is under 100, making them less worthwhile for raw sustain than regen alone.

As for the actual thread topic, the change to gyros is really just another nail in the coffin for me. I loved my Guardians, but I really just don’t see myself caring about the class anymore.

You’re miss informed. We designated the Guardian as the healer class because there was no other class around to fulfill that role. No one, not the Devs or Lore, said Guardian was the healing class. So yes, Guardian was never meant to be the healer class.

It’s clear the Guardian mitigates the damage Allies receives, cleanses them instantly, grants them stunbreaks to get back up and stability to not get knocked back down. The Guardian picks you up, puts a sword in your hand and fights with you side by side.

The Druid is basically a field medic with a net and shotgun. He’ll put a bandaid on people, ensnare enemies and occasionally poke them with a stick.

People are so immersed about how the “Gerdien is thee support class QQ” mentality that they don’t see the game is evolving and defining the very classes we play.

Going off topic myself I would love a rework of boons, non damaging conditions, supportive & defensive abilities & skills to be looked at so these ability & skill have scaling associated wuth toughness, vitality & healing power similar to power’s, condition damage, precision & ferocity’s effect on skill damage. Make these passive non offensive stats no longer passive but effects the active use of our skills.

But I’m mostly dreaming here as I don’t see this happening. I’m planning to enjoy HoTs but feel after going through the new content this aspect if these stat still mean nothing for our skills & are to be only training wheels will again make rewards have a unsatisfactory feeling & that control & support are the lesser role because stat’s are meaningless as an improvement for them unlike the interaction between stats & DPS. Now this is just my feeling that builds over time. I’ll enjoy the newness but after that I’ll again start looking elsewhere.

GW2 has such an interesting combat system it’s just sad to see 2 of their 3 pillars have less active gameplay enhancement option compared to DPS.

Why can’t passive stats improve a channelled blocks dutation but can improve a skill out going damage?

Why is a support focued build’s boons have the same boon strength as a DPS build? But sacrifice the strength of their outgoing DPS.

Okay enough ranting, for any that finished the read thanks one of my largest frustrations with GW2’s direction.

Saiyan.1704:

You’re miss informed. We designated the Guardian as the healer class because there was no other class around to fulfill that role. No one, not the Devs or Lore, said Guardian was the healing class. So yes, Guardian was never meant to be the healer class.

Yes, building a guardian based on damage mitigation is one of the many ways to build them, but not seeing the obvious connection to healing that they have is just simple delusion.
I’d go on and on about all the supportive healing that guardians have, but BlackBox was already courteous enough to list most of it, although you shrugged it off as him being “misinformed*”. Guardians also used to have the best healing ability in the game until it was more or less stolen by druids.
As for the lore, I think the rather large connection that guardians have to monks really says enough.

It’s fine if you really love the kind of guardian that you’re playing right now, but your persistent and delusional insistence that guardians were never meant to be able to be built as healers is extremely obnoxious and you should really stop.

Spirit Weapons should have worked similar to Dervish’s Flash Enchantments, with passive and active effects instead of being AI minions…

Fashion Mage.3712:

Saiyan.1704:

You’re miss informed. We designated the Guardian as the healer class because there was no other class around to fulfill that role. No one, not the Devs or Lore, said Guardian was the healing class. So yes, Guardian was never meant to be the healer class.

Yes, building a guardian based on damage mitigation is one of the many ways to build them, but not seeing the obvious connection to healing that they have is just simple delusion.
I’d go on and on about all the supportive healing that guardians have, but BlackBox was already courteous enough to list most of it, although you shrugged it off as him being “misinformed*”. Guardians also used to have the best healing ability in the game until it was more or less stolen by druids.
As for the lore, I think the rather large connection that guardians have to monks really says enough.

It’s fine if you really love the kind of guardian that you’re playing right now, but your persistent and delusional insistence that guardians were never meant to be able to be built as healers is extremely obnoxious and you should really stop.

I’m not being obnoxious as if i’m flaunting my ego around. This is about the very representation of what Guardian was as a class before patch; what the certain people portraited the Guardian as being, to the current evolution to what the Guard truly is.

I’m not in any illusion that our biggest group healing aspect, Tomb of Courage, was removed so the Druid would appear as the game’s group healer class. It definitely wasn’t all about the asthetics of Tombs themselve. I could look at other class mechanics and say “oh, it doesn’t fit” or “it needed a change”. They wouldn’t have touched Tombs at all if it wasn’t for the Druid spec. That’s the Devs covering for what their intentions really were.

My point is, yes, Guardian was played as the Healing class because it was a group healing class. But that isn’t the core lore – foundation – of the Guardian himself.

He is a soldier who damages first, protects second and heals third.

Druid is a healer first, CC second and everything else falls under third.

Saiyan.1704:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Saiyan.1704:

You’re miss informed. We designated the Guardian as the healer class because there was no other class around to fulfill that role. No one, not the Devs or Lore, said Guardian was the healing class. So yes, Guardian was never meant to be the healer class.

Yes, building a guardian based on damage mitigation is one of the many ways to build them, but not seeing the obvious connection to healing that they have is just simple delusion.
I’d go on and on about all the supportive healing that guardians have, but BlackBox was already courteous enough to list most of it, although you shrugged it off as him being “misinformed*”. Guardians also used to have the best healing ability in the game until it was more or less stolen by druids.
As for the lore, I think the rather large connection that guardians have to monks really says enough.

It’s fine if you really love the kind of guardian that you’re playing right now, but your persistent and delusional insistence that guardians were never meant to be able to be built as healers is extremely obnoxious and you should really stop.

I’m not being obnoxious as if i’m flaunting my ego around. This is about the very representation of what Guardian was as a class before patch; what the certain people portraited the Guardian as being, to the current evolution to what the Guard truly is.

I’m not in any illusion that our biggest group healing aspect, Tomb of Courage, was removed so the Druid would appear as the game’s group healer class. It definitely wasn’t all about the asthetics of Tombs themselve. I could look at other class mechanics and say “oh, it doesn’t fit” or “it needed a change”. They wouldn’t have touched Tombs at all if it wasn’t for the Druid spec. That’s the Devs covering for what their intentions really were.

My point is, yes, Guardian was played as the Healing class because it was a group healing class. But that isn’t the core lore – foundation – of the Guardian himself.

He is a soldier who damages first, protects second and heals third.

Druid is a healer first, CC second and everything else falls under third.

I never said that Guardian was the healer. I said that Guardian is a healer. Big difference.

This game was built on the premise that roles would not be class-restricted. Yet here we are with a perfect example to counter it. If I need a healer, why would I ever want to take a Guardian when I could just take a Druid instead? What good would bringing Sanctuary be if a Ventari Revenant can do virtually the same thing on a much greater scale with much, much less downtime?

It’s pretty evident that we were given a set of healing skills and traits with the idea in mind that a player could create a healing-focused build for a Guardian. This does not imply any sort of exclusivity. The problem with it no longer being exclusive only comes from the fact that these skills are now all rendered near pointless, because there’s no reason to even have so many allied healing skills on a Guardian when you can just bring someone else that will inevitably be better when it comes to providing allied heals.

So why do we even have these skills anymore if they’re the least effective option? If Anet truly wants the Guardian to be objectively inferior at allied healing, then that’s one thing. But if that really is the case, then they need to replace skills and traits meant for a healing build with other things that will help push the Guardian closer towards what it IS supposed to be.

Black Box.9312:

So why do we even have these skills anymore if they’re the least effective option?

We might just have to wait for now. If Ventari and Druid are meant to be the paragon sustain heal and burst heal specs, then every class, not just Guardian, might need to see how they perform in the new content. They might need to be balanced before everyone else can be brought to their “good spot”. Now granted, I understand they can do some of the balancing simultaneously, but if they represent what the ideal power level a healing spec should have, then we might need to wait until that level is settled first. This isn’t a new concept in this game. I claim Guardian as my most beloved class, but I do play everything (18 characters, 2 of each profession come HoT), and this is nothing that other classes haven’t had to go through.

This can also be applied to Spirit Weapons. If Gyros are the premier example of Spirit Weapons done right, then we might need to wait until they settle down. Rest happy knowing any improvements to Gyros over Spirit Weapons are because they know how Spirit Weapons are performing. We should expect similar functionality soon, and its if we find get it that we should call more attention to it.

Black Box.9312:

Saiyan.1704:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Saiyan.1704:

You’re miss informed. We designated the Guardian as the healer class because there was no other class around to fulfill that role. No one, not the Devs or Lore, said Guardian was the healing class. So yes, Guardian was never meant to be the healer class.

Yes, building a guardian based on damage mitigation is one of the many ways to build them, but not seeing the obvious connection to healing that they have is just simple delusion.
I’d go on and on about all the supportive healing that guardians have, but BlackBox was already courteous enough to list most of it, although you shrugged it off as him being “misinformed*”. Guardians also used to have the best healing ability in the game until it was more or less stolen by druids.
As for the lore, I think the rather large connection that guardians have to monks really says enough.

It’s fine if you really love the kind of guardian that you’re playing right now, but your persistent and delusional insistence that guardians were never meant to be able to be built as healers is extremely obnoxious and you should really stop.

I’m not being obnoxious as if i’m flaunting my ego around. This is about the very representation of what Guardian was as a class before patch; what the certain people portraited the Guardian as being, to the current evolution to what the Guard truly is.

I’m not in any illusion that our biggest group healing aspect, Tomb of Courage, was removed so the Druid would appear as the game’s group healer class. It definitely wasn’t all about the asthetics of Tombs themselve. I could look at other class mechanics and say “oh, it doesn’t fit” or “it needed a change”. They wouldn’t have touched Tombs at all if it wasn’t for the Druid spec. That’s the Devs covering for what their intentions really were.

My point is, yes, Guardian was played as the Healing class because it was a group healing class. But that isn’t the core lore – foundation – of the Guardian himself.

He is a soldier who damages first, protects second and heals third.

Druid is a healer first, CC second and everything else falls under third.

I never said that Guardian was the healer. I said that Guardian is a healer. Big difference.

This game was built on the premise that roles would not be class-restricted. Yet here we are with a perfect example to counter it. If I need a healer, why would I ever want to take a Guardian when I could just take a Druid instead? What good would bringing Sanctuary be if a Ventari Revenant can do virtually the same thing on a much greater scale with much, much less downtime?

It’s pretty evident that we were given a set of healing skills and traits with the idea in mind that a player could create a healing-focused build for a Guardian. This does not imply any sort of exclusivity. The problem with it no longer being exclusive only comes from the fact that these skills are now all rendered near pointless, because there’s no reason to even have so many allied healing skills on a Guardian when you can just bring someone else that will inevitably be better when it comes to providing allied heals.

So why do we even have these skills anymore if they’re the least effective option? If Anet truly wants the Guardian to be objectively inferior at allied healing, then that’s one thing. But if that really is the case, then they need to replace skills and traits meant for a healing build with other things that will help push the Guardian closer towards what it IS supposed to be.

I absolutely agree with you there. Our certain team healing abilities needs to be rethought or removed entirely. I feel we are limited because of these certain aspects in place, like team wide regen with sig elite and the trait that gives allies F3 regen. Or not increasing our base health pool because of traits like Zealous Blade… but I suppose it differentiates us from being facetanking Warriors.

I don’t have an answer for you other than it suppose to promote different playstyles, not exclude anyone build wise like you eloquently stated and more importantly, develope different team compositions.

The game is too new and too complex for 5 players to brainstorm and actually run a unique off meta build, imo.

They could turn Spirit weapons into conjured weapons or something…

Going back to weapons…

I think some issues come from the weapons not scaling with power, but they scale with conditions. This sort of limits the possible build choices, and the option to pick power or conditon damage would give greater build variety.

I could see them being used more often if the guardian wasn’t so vulnerable without them. Combine this with bad AI, and it makes guardian a prime target.
Of course, this has been stated plenty of times already…

I would like spirit weapons to be a hybrid of banners and minions, granting support, but also following closeby. I honestly would prefer them to remain entirely offensive, but unless we get the gyro treatment…

Also speaking of conjured weapons and healing, we can turn the bow into a supportive conjured spirit weapon, giving guardians a temporary healing role and long ranged cleanse. This is off the top of my head though. No idea how to balance it without being too weak or strong.

AWACS.6537:

Going back to weapons…

I think some issues come from the weapons not scaling with power, but they scale with conditions. This sort of limits the possible build choices, and the option to pick power or conditon damage would give greater build variety.

Necromancer minions have this same functionality. This means you can take advantage of it by either going Dire and having Spirit Weapons deal your physical damage (not really recommended for various reasons), or you can make use of Guardian’s unique tools like Empowering Might and Altruistic Healing. It gives you sustain while improving your own damage and your spirit weapons.

Here’s a build I made recently that is based on what a good SW build might look like.

Other changes SW need:
Cooldowns need to start on summon. They need to start acting more like minion skills, seeing as they’re minion skills themselves.
Hammer needs to knock down on auto chain, and knock back out also knockdown on command.
Bow and Shield need to do damage. It doesn’t have to be a lot (Flashing Blade amounts would be enough), but the arrows should bounce between allies and enemies so that it can take advantage of the traited burning. Shield can also pulse Flashing Blade damage while it’s shield is up.

Even without the other changes, if SW could just have better uptime, they’d see much more use.

Ghotistyx.6942:

AWACS.6537:

Going back to weapons…

I think some issues come from the weapons not scaling with power, but they scale with conditions. This sort of limits the possible build choices, and the option to pick power or conditon damage would give greater build variety.

Necromancer minions have this same functionality. This means you can take advantage of it by either going Dire and having Spirit Weapons deal your physical damage (not really recommended for various reasons), or you can make use of Guardian’s unique tools like Empowering Might and Altruistic Healing. It gives you sustain while improving your own damage and your spirit weapons.

Here’s a build I made recently that is based on what a good SW build might look like.

Other changes SW need:
Cooldowns need to start on summon. They need to start acting more like minion skills, seeing as they’re minion skills themselves.
Hammer needs to knock down on auto chain, and knock back out also knockdown on command.
Bow and Shield need to do damage. It doesn’t have to be a lot (Flashing Blade amounts would be enough), but the arrows should bounce between allies and enemies so that it can take advantage of the traited burning. Shield can also pulse Flashing Blade damage while it’s shield is up.

Even without the other changes, if SW could just have better uptime, they’d see much more use.

heheh if that command bow skill could aplly all those hits in fire…. XD

your build is quite similiar to what i used on WvW except of the gear, i ended using signet becouse the passive 1k heal migh heal SW, since the elite shout is only used for the offensive weapons that 1 in 99 times will reach the enemy.
Signet of courage is super BAD impossible to use in combat unless i hide behind somehting.
Once in awhile i might drop old the line and use retreat for the aegis.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAW5elsAhahYZQwOIQTEHyD1NfDiao+AZZAg3hnYSB-TVSGABCcRAA4JAUkSvmUGcoKBTpE0NNDBquDQ7PAA-w

(also i only have exoctics )

I read a lot of nice suggestions.
I also thinks that Spirit Weapons should be differentiated from other minions mechanic, and like the idea of keeping them near the guardian and essentially using them as weapons that also attack your target every few seconds while still having their active “command” skill.
You guys have already stated why that’s a good idea (soaking AoE cleaves, being able to take spirit weapons out of AoEs with you, etc.)
I guess the only problems with this change is that spirit weapons would have the hidden benefit of hiding the guardian from enemies, since it would be slightly harder to click him behind 3 spirit weapons.
Regarding damage, I think spirit weapons should stay as they are, and they should be buffed only in survivability: if they become too much of a dps increase then they would become mandatory, and they should increase build diversity, not shrinking it.

Another thing: I’d really like heal and elite skills in the Spirit weapon line.

The Heal could be a staff that pulses the Regeneration Boon every few seconds, and on command it would AoE heal with a Blast finisher.
For the Elite it’s something a little more original: instead of summoning a spirit weapon, you summon a spirit armor: a empty armor that copies either your cultural heavy armor(bonus point if it scales on level with tier 1, 2 and 3) and grants the Guardian a % damage reduction, similar to Phantasmal Defender, but only for the guardian itself. The command would be the Spirit Armor lifting in the air and pulsing blindness to enemies and creating a light field.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Hey all,

As some of you may have seen in raids during the last BWE, we were trying out something new with player minions. Basically, in that final BWE, player minions did not take damage from boss attacks. We thought that made minion-based professions feel so much better in combat, but that change did expose some problems such as minions being able to withstand a damaging attack indefinitely.

We wanted minions to not die left and right, but we did want them to have some attrition instead of being completely immune to attacks. This problem is mainly prevalent in PvE as we have huge attacks all over the place that are meant to be dodged by players but unfortunately for minions, they can’t dodge.

After reviewing BWE results, we wanted to create a better system to accomplish this as a global change for minions. To do that, we made it so that unless a minion is specifically targeted by a creature, they will be dealt drastically reduced damage and condition duration from attacks. Currently, this is set to 95% reduction as we feel like it’s a good starting place, but we’ll continue to monitor and adjust it. This means if your minion gains agro from a creature it will still take full damage, but if there is area effect damage hitting your minion, instead of usually killing it instantly, it will slowly attrition it down.

We felt like minions were in a good place for PvP so we didn’t want to change them there for now. Thus, the interaction between players and minions in PvP combat will remain the same.

The change is for all player minions, this includes things like engineer turrets and ranger spirits as well. This will be in for HoT Launch in a few days.

So, now they don’t get splashed to death. Though with their ability to pull agro they are still gonna get creamed.

Yes spirit weapons are also affected by these changes, they didn’t go through a item by item list they said all minions and pets, and then they had to start replying to every thread asking wait a minute what about x or what about y. Yes they are all affected.

Did you even read my comment? I wasn’t asking if spirit weapons were included. I was moving on to the next step: what this means, particularly in light of spirit weapons’ unusual habit of pulling agro.

Hey! HEY KARL! Where did you go? Karl please fix this.. No wait!… Why are you walking away and ignoring everyone?…… KAAARL…

He’s gone guys, RIP spirit weapons the 4 useless utilities are here to stay confetti

I am happy then implemented my favorite suggestion for spirit weapons as code in the game now.
Seeing as Spirit Weapons are currently by far the least used minions in the game for PvP, could we get this effect on them for PvP mode also? To make them that special type of almost invulnerable until focus fired. Do you guys think this would be balanced?

spirit weapons should not get both invulnerable and cooldown on cast.. thats turret engie all over again only worse, you will have them up permanently with 0 counterplay

ozzy.8059:

spirit weapons should not get both invulnerable and cooldown on cast.. thats turret engie all over again only worse, you will have them up permanently with 0 counterplay

If you were replying to me then yes agreed, this was a separate suggestion if they want to keep cooldowns as they are.

But I want to point out that implementing this change would NOT make them “invulnerable with 0 counterplay.”
It would instead require More counterplay: You swap targets and they die really fast. Done. But IF you ignore them then they get value. That is good game design.
They remain weak against good players but punish bad players who are not paying attention and spamming AoEs like 90% of PvP players.(not punished for that currently)

PS. Can’t add that to MM Necro obviously because the minions are so tanky they are able to ignore AoEs anyway.