Guild Wars 2

Aramanth.1546:

No, I know exactly what we should get:

Signet of the Champion-
Passive: Guardian has Unshakeable
Active: Allies gain two stacks of defiant.

….Oh come on, it’s not OP at all!

Sure, why not. This has my support.

Solution: Give the guardian a new elite that summons a cannon (same as the ones during Arah) and lasts until broken or reset by CD like the Engi elite, that would give us useful “range damage”

Renewed Focus has saved me many of times, and completely shuts down burst sins, but I pretty much use Hounds of Balthazar all the time now. I know it’s a human elite, but I still find it the least finicky elite in my arsenal even with the long cooldown.

I don’t hate guardian elites, I hate all elites equally. In GW1 our entire builds were usually built around the elite skill, now they’re just extra. I wish I could use any additional utility skill instead of our elites.

New suggestion for elite: Spirit Catapult!

Lasts 30 seconds and deals AoE damage up to 2400 range

Sure, you can’t move or do anything whilst using it; but you’d have your very own siege engine.

Or this: Spirit Armory! Summons 1 of each of your Spirit Weapons simultaneously for 20 seconds (30 when traited with Improved Spirit Weapon Duration or Elite Focus; 40 seconds with both)

As to Renewed Focus, it would be less crap if it would also remove all your conditions (and maybe turn them into boons) :P

Anyways, I always thought ArenaNet claimed Elite skills to be something powerful and spectacular. But in the end most of them are just a bad utility skill of extremely limited use on a very long cooldown.

Just my opinion on the matter. I’m just going to stick with my Mistfire Wolf

I’d honestly prefer not to be forced to use an elite skill, I’d rather have the ability to put another utility in my elite slot, or have Arena Net add or fix our existing elites.

Renewed Focus and Tome of Courage are the only two worth a kitten

Norn racials are hilarious, though. I often mix in some Wolf/Bear form for laughs, but for laughs is all I do it for.

Fozzik.1742:

I pretty much always use my racial elite… Hounds of Balthazar. So yeah, I’ve found all the guardian elites I’ve purchased to be pretty lame.

Maybe I’ll like some of the tomes better once I’m doing more grouping / dungeons, but I just get owned whenever I use those in the open world.

I think it would have been nice to see elites related to our weapons…like some really powerful spell you put on your hammer or greatsword for 20 seconds that provides secondary effects to your attacks.

I’ve not used anything else up to this point but the hounds. I just don’t see myself running around with a book in WvW at the moment. I feel defenseless and I see those that use it as an easier target. I may try the Courage one though after reading all the other comments and see if I can rotate with the hounds.

I am a little, would not have minded a consecration elite skill, that deals damage and provides a buff.

Or maybe an elite spirit weapon, no clue what it would do though.

I am not unhappy but I could be happier. Outside of dungeons and PvP, and sometimes even inside dungeons, I am running around with the human racial elites as opposed to the Guardian elites. I don’t generally find that with, for example, my engineer. With her I am mostly using engineer elites and mostly to mix things-up I’ll use the Asura elite.

The Guardian elite I use the most is Renewed Focus. It’s pretty great. The books are good but you do have to get your timing right. Especially with the healing one.

In a “group” emergency, you might be safer using renewed focus to spam virtues than to use Tome of Courage to heal your party. That’s one thing I hate about our elites. We have a casting time to enter Tome of Courage and a casting time on the full heal. Most people are dead by the time I can get that off when its justifiable enough to use it. If I spam #1 to heal, it helps..but the heal is so weak and most people are kiting things by now so you ’re lucky if you hit more than 1 person with it. If everyone is kiting, #5 becomes useful…if they are in range of it. If damage is not being taken fast, then its usually worthless since most good players can take care of themselves.

In many cases, I find myself canceling the Elite early because people are down or healed themselves.

Tomes have too many ground target AoEs for my taste, the 3sec no damage taken is nice but we should have free movement. To say free movement is OP is a joke considering its got what?.. 280s cooldown and only last 3sec. Not to quote the devils game but WoW let Paladins have free movement for like 10sec and could still do damage.

I think that if we were allowed to have new elites, I would keep renewed focus but maybe buff it a bit. Something like turn conditions into boons or just remove conditions. I would get rid of the tomes and have a super spirit weapon – something like the Orrean Juggernauts that is a sword and shield combo and maybe a elite shout and/or a signet. I don’t know. I don’t think we would be overpowered if we were given better elites.

Elite: Spirit Armor
Recharges your virtues. For 20 seconds, all allies have Retaliation and armor equal to yours (no effect if armor rating is already higher).

Elite: Spirit Army
Summon all four Spirit weapons. When they reach the end of their lifespan, they automatically activate their “use” ability

Elite: Reversal of Fortune
For 20 seconds, any time you would be affected by a condition, you are affected by a random boon instead. Converts all existing conditions to boons.

I still say Renewed Focus is not to be underestimated, though.

SuperLuigi.3720:

Elite: Spirit Armor
Recharges your virtues. For 20 seconds, all allies have Retaliation and armor equal to yours (no effect if armor rating is already higher).

Elite: Spirit Army
Summon all four Spirit weapons. When they reach the end of their lifespan, they automatically activate their “use” ability

Elite: Reversal of Fortune
For 20 seconds, any time you would be affected by a condition, you are affected by a random boon instead. Converts all existing conditions to boons.

I still say Renewed Focus is not to be underestimated, though.

Wow…
This isn’t LoL where you can just ult and instagib someone.

All the elites for guardian are fine. Don’t like it? Reroll. Other professions grass ain’t greener.

1. I just stated those for fun. They were never meant to be taken seriously.

2. No, no they are not. They WOULD be, if they weren’t literally all of them interruptible. The Tomes WOULD be nice, powerful elites, if I could use them in a fight without having to sit still during an interruptible six-second cast to use the good spells on them. Renewed Focus WOULD be good, if it wasn’t three seconds of invulnerability that still took condition damage, could still be interrupted, and didn’t make you immobile for the duration. It’s still a decent elite, but not on its own merit. It’s good because it lets you pop your virtues and get them back, so you don’t lose the passive effects or can pop them again.

3. Don’t tell me to reroll, and don’t tell me the other professions don’t have “greener grass.” I play those classes. And I play guardian. And I LIKE guardian. That does not mean the other professions don’t have an advantage in terms of elite skills. The Warrior Juggernaut elite, which changes their weapon skills and locks their utilities, is very similar to the Guardian tomes. One difference is, Juggernaut buffs damage, while the tomes buff health. Another difference? Juggernaut grants Stability for the full duration, the tomes grant protection or regeneration, which is completely worthless, because even someone up at four in the morning and half asleep can see a Guardian suddenly stop moving around and start posing, and think “Hey, I need to interrupt that guy in the next six seconds” and then do it. Or Lich Form, which grants—hey—stability. Tornado? Stability. Rampage as One? Stability. PLAGUE? STABILITY. Every single elite that locks you into a form without your utility skills grants stability except the Guardian’s. Rampage as One isn’t even a transformation, it doesn’t lock you out of anything, but it still gives the Ranger and their pet Stability.

4. Liking a class and wanting to play it does not mean I have to pretend there are no issues with it.

Snuffy.4061:

Well when it states that you become invulnerable but yet you still die in it then it makes you question.
I don’t doubt for a second that its good with a virtues build, i used it in the Mediation bunker build have has 20 points in virtues, it was very good, but there are times when you are in combat and you get low and want to use the invulnerability and the freshly renewed virtues to survive the encounter (happens a lot definding 1v2/3 in tpvp) but if you don’t manage to rid yourself of all conditions before doing so, you can die while casting it, or if you cancel it early to survive it goes on cooldown.

Maybe if it stated that it only makes you immune to direct damage while casting then sure, no problem, but the tooltip just says invulnerable, which would generally mean all forms of damage.

The tooltip could definitely use a rewording. I was also surprised to find it didn’t work on condition damage.

Stupid condition damage goes through everything…

I’d personally want it to mention the virtues first, and maybe have the invulnerability mentioned as an “In addition…” clause, to de-emphasize its importance.

However, I’d like to point out that using Renewed Focus as a way to save yourself from death when low-health is a bad way to use it. That is much too berserker/warrior-like.

Invulnerability skills (that do not refill your health) are ideally used when you’re still between 50 to 75% health and the enemy is about to unload their peak damage at you again.

Reasons

1. The cooldown will be up sooner
2. Protecting over 70% of your health with invulnerability is smarter then protecting 10% when you don’t have any bonuses for being low-health

The only time it’s considered smart to cast Renewed Focus when low on health is when it’s the boss/opponent whose low on health and you need the extra survivability to commit to the kill.

Tomes need their stability back

Anyway. PvE-wise, Tome of Wrath is great. 2 bursts of Quickness will vastly improve your parties damage output. PvP wise, getting interrupted while trying to do anything sucks, and the skills that make this book good all have a long kitten cast time.

Tome of Courage. PvE wise, for support, I’d rather have Wraths Quickness. The full heal is nice, but it kind of has to be preemptively cast. Any time where your party is low enough to warrant the need for the heal, your party is already dead if you didn’t start casting the heal 2 seconds before it happened. I mean, it’s nice when it works, but if you want to heal your party in PvE, Guardians have better alternatives. PvP, on the other hand, it brings great AoE CC, and the heal can make or break a fight. Same problem with getting interrupted and precognitive casting though.

Renewed Focus… I’ve seen one use for it in PvE outside of underwater combat (and you only use it underwater because you have no other options), and that’s a friend of mine will use it to survive Lupicus’ bubble of doom if he gets caught in it. He COULD just bring shelter for that fight, but for whatever reason he doesn’t want to. The invincibility is (essentially) available on a shorter cooldown with a greater heal. The ability to pop an extra Courage/Resolve is nice… but… again. Other skills do it better and it doesn’t take an elite. If your party REALLY needs a burst heal button you have a Staff, or Merciful Intervention. Don’t have Healing Power? Bow of Truth (admittedly not a burst heal). If your party needs an AoE Aegis then you can just bring Retreat! and not lose your personal Aegis AND have it on a shorter cooldown. Why am I not talking about Justice? In a PvE party situation you should probably be activating Justice whenever it’s off cooldown. If you have any points in your final trait line then this will perma burn things. Best justification for using Renewed Focus is really just for the slew of boons you can get from popping all of your Virtues with the minor trait. But, then again, Save Yourselves! also exists…

SuperLuigi.3720:

3. Don’t tell me to reroll, and don’t tell me the other professions don’t have “greener grass.” I play those classes. And I play guardian. And I LIKE guardian. That does not mean the other professions don’t have an advantage in terms of elite skills. The Warrior Juggernaut elite, which changes their weapon skills and locks their utilities, is very similar to the Guardian tomes. One difference is, Juggernaut buffs damage, while the tomes buff health. Another difference? Juggernaut grants Stability for the full duration, the tomes grant protection or regeneration, which is completely worthless, because even someone up at four in the morning and half asleep can see a Guardian suddenly stop moving around and start posing, and think “Hey, I need to interrupt that guy in the next six seconds” and then do it. Or Lich Form, which grants—hey—stability. Tornado? Stability. Rampage as One? Stability. PLAGUE? STABILITY. Every single elite that locks you into a form without your utility skills grants stability except the Guardian’s. Rampage as One isn’t even a transformation, it doesn’t lock you out of anything, but it still gives the Ranger and their pet Stability.

You realize the only transform skill that is actually worthwile is the Lich form? And it’s only if you are in a full direct damage build on the profession made for condition damage???
And for the love of god… tornado hit for up to 1k in crit with a gear that would allow you to throw 10k with meteor shower.
You havn’t played other profession at all if you believe their elites are better.
Juggernaut on a warrior is pure garbage. It make you big and useless because NO it doesn’t buff your damage. You deal near to no damage. Only good thing about it is the stomp move that you can get as a utility.

And the only good thing about the Ele tornado is the knockback it provides. Yes, I know. Guess what? That still makes Tornado and Juggernaut more useful than either Tome against anyone who’s paying attention, at all, because nobody can stop the Juggernaut from stomping or the Tornado from blowing them backwards.

They are way to ‘busy’ for my tastes. I’m already using a plethora of different weapons, having to know all the various abilities for each. The elite skills are just more stuff I need to know and I don’t find them all that necessary. They don’t add to my build in any way. They are just different. I’ve defaulted to Renewed Focus all the time.

I dunno man, I friggin love my tomes.
If you think Guardians have it bad with elite skills, try playing an elementalist.
Tome of courage is amazing if you are one of those annoying buggers (like me) that do nothing but capture and HOLD the point by being an unkillable and unmovable object.

I wouldn’t mind an elite skill that would revert my Greatsword skills to pre-patch so I can actually use my Guardian properly.

1. Auto-Attack > 2. Combo Field > 3. Whirl > 4.Leap > 5. Whirl!

I’m disappointed that they all have such tremendous cooldowns. Most every other class seems to have shorter cooldowns on their elite skills – our lowest is renewed focus at 90s. If they shaved some time off of them I’d be more satisfied with them overall.

The selection is quite poor, especially when one is a short channelled ability and two are abilities which change your first 5 skills. I’d definitely like something which lets me use my regular skills. I’m not talking about strength but about design in general.

Take at least one tome to utility and change it to something better, its not strong enough to show as an “Elite” skill.

Expecting “Elite” skill to be the turn the tide skill not a “Im a shining beacon with bright red painted targets all over me” skill as shown from wrath and RF.

Would love to have some shorter cd skills that provide group buffs. Something like a 10 sec Aura on a 60 sec CD.

Doesn’t sound like very many of you have actually used Renewed Focus

You can move while casting Renewed Focus, and it cannot be interrupted, unless you die from condition damage

BishopX.6453:

on my ele when I use water elemental it turns the tide of a mass combat
When i summon my fire sword, and someone else picks up the other one, it changes things dramatically

when a thief calls in reinforcements… you normally always lose
when a mesmer uses celerity.. you notice it
when you get turned into a dodo bird… you notice it and normaly die
Daggerdtorm.. wrecks me
FLesh golem changes things a ton when you have the build for it
litch form is good.
ENtangle is game breaking
rampage as one is huge and drops anyone
when a warrior pops his elite AND GETS EVERY BOON IN THE GAME… you notice it.
when

nobody plays an engi… but i can say their elites are not good.
and ours are horrid. im sorry NOBODY would call 3 sec of shield and the ability to block 1 attack immediatly after and heal yourself for 500 damage… an ELITE skill.

MEZMERS GET ILLUSION OF LIFE which is a temp aoe REZ, that is actually MORE powerful than tome of courage or renewed focus.

FRENZY is better than both as well.

Just a quick note about entangle. It’s not game breaking. In fact, entangle is useless in pvp. All a player has to do is use a leap or a teleport skill, and they’re free of the vines.

Doesn’t sound like very many of you have actually used Renewed Focus

You can move while casting Renewed Focus, and it cannot be interrupted, unless you die from condition damage

You know that this thread is about 2 months old? Renewed Focus was stationary back then.

I’d rather just have the heal on a shorter cooldown or shorter cast time tbh

I would agee that both tomes are junk. Renewed Focus I like. You can pop all three virtues then hit Renewed Focus and pop all three again. The three seconds of god mode comes in handy and all for a 90 second cool down. I like it.

I would change my elite with an utility anytime. Guardian elites (and maybe all elites) are useless when you take their cooldowns into consideration.

dudikoff.3645:

I would change my elite with an utility anytime. Guardian elites (and maybe all elites) are useless when you take their cooldowns into consideration.

Its 20 seconds healing 2/4k w/o reaload and AOE, its good to help players exiting the arrow showers zone, also doubles toughness?

• Pacifism – 20sec on recharge – Pacify foes, dazing them for three [sic] seconds.
• Light of Deliverance – 30sec on recharge – Fully heal up to five nearby allies.
  While the skill lasts 20 seconds i would like ot cast it 2 or 3 times.

I believe we have more serious problems in the consecrations line, as example the sanctuary recharge time 90 when traited and full traited will last 10seconds, when not traited last 6seconds and takes 120secons to recharge.

Focus has worked very well in WvW, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a warrior blast all his best moves on me while invulnerable, and after that I just come back at them with virtue of justice activated which blinds them, burns them and gives my character several stacks of might along with another aegis and a heal.

Tome of Wrath quickness and AoE spam can sometimes take out an unsuspecting person standing in a tower.

Im not so satisfied by our elite skills.

• Reneved focus is very good, but with long cd and low effect duration. One of theese two variables need to be adjusted (personal taste, i prefer the invulnerability duration)

• The two tome are good(not awesome, but good), but i dont understand why with the tome out we cant use our Skills from 6 to 9, the tomes effects dont justify this limitation.

Renewed Focus all the way. It does not have a very “elite” feel but that’s all right because those trying to burst you down do not see it coming either (gotta love seeing those sweet little ‘Invulnerable’ popping up). It also works well with altruistic healing.

The others are good too but so much harder & situational to use…

Renewed Focus is the only good elite.

The others are extremely weak and desperately require buffs. I’d very much rather have 1 more regular skill than these poor “elites”.

Are you happy with our elite skills? No, I don’t like them. I usually use racial ones. What I would like to see is something like signet of rage (low cooldoown and some boons)

Iavra.8510:

Doesn’t sound like very many of you have actually used Renewed Focus

You can move while casting Renewed Focus, and it cannot be interrupted, unless you die from condition damage

You know that this thread is about 2 months old? Renewed Focus was stationary back then.

O i c. In that case color me stupid

i love renewed focus. if u dont like it, chances are, youre not using it right. first off, it has half the cooldown as the tomes. the invulnerability is nice, but thats more an added bonus. as well

I play a tanky guard who supports with buffs and I’m constantly popping virtues. they grant certain buffs to the party as well as retaliation (how im specced). on top of that, ive also got a trait that allows me to remove three conditions when popping virtue of resolve. on top of all this, altruistic healing lets me buff allies while healing myself – its the icing on the cake. whether u spam every virtue or happen to need them in a tricky situation, RF helps you out.

in the fray, both tomes feel clunky and make it hard to tank mobs properly. everything that i can do with them i can do better without them. RF compliments my build perfectly.

tldr: RF saves my kitten in tight situation and gives the party an edge to make it out alive

RF is a great great tool. It gets you out of serious DPS and is far more useable than the tomes. As well as being on a short cooldown. It’s like Endure Pain for Warriors but with a lot more upsides!

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http://www.the-unnamed.com/spvpapp – recruiting skilled players for TPvP

I’d like to see stability on the tomes again. If you take a look at the “transform” elites the other professions got:

- Warrior: Rampage
- Ranger: Rampage As One
- Thief: Dagger Storm
- Elementalist: Tornado
- Necro: Lich Form, Plague
- Engineer: Elixir X, Mortar
- Mesmer: well…they don’t have a self-transform elite to begin with

Not going to debate about the usefulness of said skills but in my opinion the tomes should give 20 sec (or 30 sec with Elite focus) stability just like Rampage and the other skills do. Our long-time casting skills like Tome of Courage #5 are way too easy to disrupt atm.

I’d honestly like it if they just combined the best skills of the kitten tomes and gave me another elite choice. The only non-transform profession elite is Renewed Focus. (I love it to death, yeah) but I die so much quicker while I have this kitten book in front of me. Give me an Elite that works with my build, not against it.

Obviously the two tomes are underused for a reason, you know?

But that’s just my opinion. I’d rather have them combine the tomes and give us an interesting elite instead. Also, having only one possible elite underwater is extremely lame. (For Guardian and other classes that only have one option)

Again, I’m not saying the tomes aren’t useful. I use them when protecting a keep against attack, or pushing an attack. But they’re boring and not as good as they could be.

Actually it’d be great if they dropped both tomes and just give us the 4th skill on tome of courage and the 5th skill from tome of wrath on shorter cooldowns and quicker cast time and we’ll have them all be viable, useful elites.

Renewed focus is plenty powerful. Moreso if your virtues have additional effect. I don’t know what people are talking aobut not being able to move during the cast time – I move while invulnerable all the time. Further, you can pop you virtues while Renewal is in progress – the reset is at the very end. I’ve definitely had uh-oh moments were I’ve hit renewal and then dumped all my virtues during the cast and come out of invulnerability ready to hit them again as needed.

And the shorter cooldown compared to the others is nothing to sneeze at.

Disastersaurus.3146:

Renewed Focus: I…really can’t justify this elite skill at all. Maybe some Guardians are making it work for them, but the invulnerability is really just neutral, since you’re stuck in place while casting, and the only effect is to refresh virtue cooldowns? Even if I pop all three virtues at once, then use Renewed Focus, it pales in comparison to the kind of power the tomes bring to the table.

If someone is genuinely impressed by Renewed Focus and what it does for them, I guess that’s great, but I’d be surprised.

I’m a pure Cleric-type tank guardian and I use Renewed Focus exclusively for dungeons. Being able to pop all my Virtues then immediately renew them is great. Helps me and my team.

And how are you stuck in one place? It’s not a self-root. I use it in dungeons and WvW and move while casting it. It’s a great way to avoid getting rooted and pulled while running towards your friendly keep’s door. I can tell you’ve never actually used it if you think it’s a self-root. It most certainly is not.

Sometimes I use the Tomes in WvW where it’s appropriate (always during defenses or sieges), but for dungeons I like Renewed Focus.

I think I’m the only Guardian in this entire game that likes Renewed Focus, for whatever reason. I’m fine with that. I make use of it as it’s intended: A great ability for a tank to buff allies and temporarily gain some invincibility while renewing the Virtues s/he just used. Not to mention it’s a relatively short cooldown. That means double Aegis every 90 seconds (once when I use Courage, second time 3 seconds later when Courage renews). Awesome. I love me some Aegis for boss fights.

There are plenty of guardians who like RF. Its the only decent elite we have. Those that don’t know how important our virtues are will not know how good it is.

As for the rooting. It used to root us to the spot for casting but they removed the rootingand made ut mobile to improve the skill.

Only elite I will ever use in spvp and sometimes in WvW. Though in PvE I prefer racialist.

I actually like the renewed focus. Short recharge and with the combination of the trait that heals you a bit for every boon you give, not only to yourself, but also your allies, aswell as 5 points in virtues, that gives you 3 stacks of might from using virtue of Justice, regeneration buff from using the healing virtue and protection buff from using virtue of courage. I find that pretty decent in pretty much all situations. Especially when you use renewed focus, right after. You get a good portion of health instantly, for aswell as some health over time and protection, not to mention the extra damage + the virtues original use, whereafter you get the passive effects right after.

You are very right

I Generally use this as a secondary heal to my signet as the overall healing it quite considerable.

To put it into perspective, shelter does 2 seconds invulnerability plus around 4.6k healing.

Popping all three virtues then using RF and popping them again will give you 2 blinds, 2 stacks of might, 2 regen, 2 protection 3 seconds of mobile invulnerability AND (if traited) around 4k healing.

All this with a 8-9k signet heal ready to pop if all goes horribly wrong. or shelter for an extra 2 seconds of invulnerability. Hell, you can even use sanctuary after this for an extra 6 seconds of your enemy being unable to attack you properly.

RF is not a standalone skill. It is massively powerful once you use the synergy between traits and virtues.

RF is majorly powerful but you have to be using the right build. Other elites are situational but can be used with any set up BUT they have massive cooldowns so you have to choose wisely when you use them.

I can see where the existing elites would be useful, however none of them have any benefit to how I play the class.

So instead of changing/replacing existing skills I’d rather add an elite signet that gives a passive speed boost (preferably 25% but I’d take anything at this point, or am I missing a passive speedboost somewhere?) and could have the active be something like Stability for x seconds but you’re immobilized for the duration, or maybe just part of the duration. Or since it’s a heavier class, what some might call “tanky” despite not really being a tank something like the Ranger’s Rampage as One (But I want that passive speed boost dang it), but that might be a bit OP I’m not sure. I just know some Stability and passive speed would be fantastic (and if you have to choose go with the speed; I love my guardian but the movement speed is teeth grindingly, hair pullingly frustrating).