Guild Wars 2

I’ve heard from multiple people that this patch is gonna be HUGE for Guards and also this patch is going to be more of the same. Anyone got some links they can post about how this next patch is going to be for Guards?

Considering your post is the first I’ve heard about it, how about listing your multiple sources before the hype/rumor train gets started.

Right, Im trying to see if anyone else has found any information on it. I’m saying I’ll believe it when I see it, and hopefully someone has some information from a live stream I missed or something.
EDIT: What Im saying is I don’t have any sources and didn’t get any links. Also I didn’t say “OMG ITS A BIG PATCH FOR GUARDS” Maybe I should have had a better title since people do tend to only read the headlines =P

May want to edit out the “heard from multiple sources” in your OP if you do not in fact have any sources.

Ahh, True. It will say “people” instead of “sources” good point =D

I haven’t heard anything but I won’t complain if it turns out to be true.

Still waiting for healing breeze to be changed.

3 pages of updated skill facts/tooltips ftw

The MF changes are exciting: Rune of Traveler giving all stats, condition damage, boon duration and movement speed. Me like.

Tarsius.3170:

3 pages of updated skill facts/tooltips ftw

This is what I imagine too. Or them fixing a skill that we never knew was broken, which in the process makes the skill worse than how it was when it was broke.

I’m more excited about the doubloons giving boon duration now. Boon duration on upgrades! That’s neat.

Seeing how the Warrior traits got changed a lot I’d expect Guardian to get good stuff too.
Perhaps a buff to RHS, fixing lolZeal, and changes to weapon skills.

And for the love of Dwayna, DECREASE the cooldown of just about everything.
Most of Guardian utilities have a cooldown of 1 minute or 2, come on, how boring is that.

Red Falcon.8257:

Seeing how the Warrior traits got changed a lot I’d expect Guardian to get good stuff too.
Perhaps a buff to RHS, fixing lolZeal, and changes to weapon skills.

And for the love of Dwayna, DECREASE the cooldown of just about everything.
Most of Guardian utilities have a cooldown of 1 minute or 2, come on, how boring is that.

I dont see that happening soon, in my opinion Guardian it is fine to the dev’s eyes, for the live streams i dont find them even good playing with that class.

Guardian need range, mobility and softCC

but in…
pve guardian is fine without that
spvp guardian is fine without that
wvw guardian have a problem, unless you only play as zerg boon/condition remover.

Arenanet dont care about wvw. End of history.

foofad.5162:

I’m more excited about the doubloons giving boon duration now. Boon duration on upgrades! That’s neat.

6 × 4% from platinium doubloons = useless (24%). You can achieve 45% with water/monk/traveler runes.

urieldhynne.2743:

Guardian need range, mobility and softCC

but in…
pve guardian is fine without that
spvp guardian is fine without that
wvw guardian have a problem, unless you only play as zerg boon/condition remover.

Arenanet dont care about wvw. End of history.

True, but giving literally every other class a form of hard CC and living Guards out is poor planning imo. Yes we have walls/rings but those are on long cooldowns and highly situational, and half the time to make these skills work right you have to combine them with a utility to make them worthwhile.

I mean come on, a class gets a FOUR SECOND DAZE because we are Guards…we don’t even have a 1 second daze =/

Dynnen.6405:

urieldhynne.2743:

Guardian need range, mobility and softCC

but in…
pve guardian is fine without that
spvp guardian is fine without that
wvw guardian have a problem, unless you only play as zerg boon/condition remover.

Arenanet dont care about wvw. End of history.

True, but giving literally every other class a form of hard CC and living Guards out is poor planning imo. Yes we have walls/rings but those are on long cooldowns and highly situational, and half the time to make these skills work right you have to combine them with a utility to make them worthwhile.

I mean come on, a class gets a FOUR SECOND DAZE because we are Guards…we don’t even have a 1 second daze =/

We already have solid hard CC options, the problem is that we completely lack any reliable soft CC, with very limited access to swiftness. What I would like to see are some cripples added to at least a few weapon skills, as it stands it makes melee too risky for little reward, something that should be the exact opposite.

Other than that, which I consider somewhat minor, as our group support is still unrivaled, I’ve been glad they haven’t made sweeping changes to the class. Fotm’s will come and go, I’m glad guardian has always been a solid choice. We just need bug fixes, and maybe a few more tools to help make melee not be such a kite-fest.

I’m more worried about what they’re going to do to other classes..

Not Cripple, CHILL.

@ Jericho: What hard CC does a Guard have that is useful to carry in anything bigger than a 1v1?

@ Amins: When I read that I heard Ahrnold’s voice when he played Mr. Freeze.

Dynnen.6405:

@ Jericho: What hard CC does a Guard have that is useful to carry in anything bigger than a 1v1?

@ Amins: When I read that I heard Ahrnold’s voice when he played Mr. Freeze.

Whereas All I want is to say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE5KXlg4iUY

Pipe Dreams… gotta have em.

Dynnen.6405:

@ Jericho: What hard CC does a Guard have that is useful to carry in anything bigger than a 1v1?

@ Amins: When I read that I heard Ahrnold’s voice when he played Mr. Freeze.

Not sure what you mean by useful…

I guess I personally just use Shield of Absorption / Binding Blade / Banish as key skill interrupts and to help res / stomps, knock off enemies from a point, or occasionally in tandem with other teammates to lock down a target. I feel like they’re actually more important in teamfights..

Not sure if Wards classify as hard CC in and of themselves, but they can make a pretty big difference in larger skirmishes on a point.

Shield of absorption is solid, binding blade gets doubled up on some targets instead of staggering out to a secondary target just past the closest one, Banish is a long cd single target knockback (don’t get me wrong I love it), but theres much better AOE CC’s out there and we just aren’t on their level.

Dynnen.6405:

Shield of absorption is solid, binding blade gets doubled up on some targets instead of staggering out to a secondary target just past the closest one, Banish is a long cd single target knockback (don’t get me wrong I love it), but theres much better AOE CC’s out there and we just aren’t on their level.

I absolutely agree, but I guess what I meant was I’m not sure we need to be on the lolwarrior stunlock type level of CC. What we have for hard CC does it’s job well. What we almost completely lack is soft CCs.

I think soft CC would be best, nice and spread out simply to control range. Soft CC’s are also typically a lot longer duration by default and easier to increase duration via traits / runes.

We need SOFT CC.

The best would be warrior should excel in SOFT CC, for keep enemies in melee range, and be offensive class over us.

Guardian should excel in HARD CC, to be annoying and protect our mates with interrupts and blocking or disable enemies in a more defensive way.

The reality is: Warrior have a LOT, A LOT of soft CC AND hard CC (a LOT of hard CC via utilities).
And we have few hardCC and no softCC.

The next big balance patch will bring some juicy stuff for Guardians this time.

Edit: typo.

Khenzy.9348:

The next big balance patch will bring some juicy stuff for Guradians this time.

I hope it brings something New to our table. I love my guard… But he feels alot weaker then he used to

Talyn.3295:

Khenzy.9348:

The next big balance patch will bring some juicy stuff for Guradians this time.

I hope it brings something New to our table. I love my guard… But he feels alot weaker then he used to

We’re unfortunately the most ‘balanced’ class and in a game full of Meta’s that makes us the weakest in a lot of respects so hopefully they’ll bring back the true meaning of balance.

Agree with this here.

Guards are by far the most well – rounded and balanced class.

Yes, there are few issues here and there with traits, skills and a couple of weapons, but doesn’t change the situation.

Other classes are unbalanced, that’s it.

Also, it’s all matter of tradeoffs.
Mesmer have a lot of tools, decent dmg and utility, but a innate weakness to conditions and lacks of long term mobility.
Necros have DS + tons of HP conditions and CCs, but 0 stability and so-so cond removal.
(on paper)

And so on. In theory giving every class a “weak spot” built in makes counters part of the meta – see how Stun Wars made their way in pvp as natural counter to Necros.
If lack of soft CC and range is the guardian weak spot i’m fine with that, but then this means that the rest of the package must be on the level to have a chance even with those handicaps. Like Mesmers before this condition heavy meta – they were already weak to condis, but the prof was good enough to overcome that.

Necro: You’re kidding on the Necro’s and Condi removal, right? I mean 2 of thier WEAPONS have condi removal on it: Staff + Focus. Now add in Signet + Wells + Corrpution…. yeah….. Oh, they also have stability entering DS.

Mesmer: Their swiftness is as good as Retreat, but comes from a useable weapon (by usable, I mean for small grp roaming). They have incredible burst dmg and amazing utility. They are however, weak to condi’s.

Yes, every class has some sort of weakness.

What every class doesn’t have, that guardians DO have, is the inability to bunker down AND effectively kill someone.

In WvW, it shows even more, as it takes 3-4 min’s to kill someone as a full bunker (healway – for example) and if the opponent wants, they can run away w/ very little concern…. and by that time, at least 2 more people have found you.

Every other class who bunkers down w/ a Condi (or power, but for this example let ’s just use Condi) Build does not have this issue: To be able to kill someone, escape, and bunker all at the same time.

1) Ranger – Traps / BM
2) Engi – Bombs or HH (lets not even go to the preplexity builds)
3) Warrior – Bow / Sword+Shield
4) Necro – Scepter/Focus + Staff + Corruptions
5) Mesmer – Scepter/Focus + Staff
6) Ele – DD (Hybrid, only exception)

Disclaimer: It wasn’t a huge issue before the condi meta, but it certainly came to light as every other class found out it can just go Toughness, Healing, Condi (along w/ Perplexity) and bunker down while killing just as effectively, whereas the Guardian has to pick and choose…. one or the other.

That is the ~fault~ of the guardian and it needs to be addressed. It’s not a ~TRADEOFF~.

A trade off is NOT using GS + Sword + JI, but going Hammer + Scepter + Retreat… Mobility (blinks/leaps) for Speed + Imobilizes.

That’s a trade off.

John Peters recently made this comment about guardians. “We’re thinking about consecrations. Maybe smite condition will with number of conditions.” Notice the words ‘Thinking/maybe’ I would expect very little. One major step they could look at in spvp is that guardian played in sort of power/direct damage way needs to have HP buff. 11,000ish HP is no longer well suited to how much junk play has been added to the game.

If you take the classic meditation build;
11.5Kish HP
1x condition removal
Condi flip on long cooldown
one stun break on longish cooldown

It looks good enough on paper, but the reality is Vs any condi spam class your owned outright. Versus any bunker/prot build, you may win if they botch their rotations. Versus any snare/range build you may as well prepare for a long duel. Versus stun chainers you have some defense to guard against 30% of their stuns, the rest is now up to luck. They just run out of counter play abilities too quickly because they get exhausted too fast protecting that tiny Hp at the start of the engagement.

They gonna buff for sPvP for competitive tournaments only. For “not nerf or fix” the condition apply and re-apply system. For “balanced” competitive match they gonna adjust some classes to current meta. And guardian is still in a good position in high level or organized tPvP teams.

For PvE? PvE is not competitive, is a lot easier to balance something vs AI and nobody complain to much about.

For WvW is a lot harder because you havent structural rules like sPvP (capture and hold points, etc.) is a lot situational and a lot of situation and combinations is a lot more chaotic (sPvP is a lot limited in items too)

They dont care about WvW, is just a big minigame inside pve and a lot harder to balance.

I would like to see our shield skills buffed up a lot. The healing from #5 is far less than the staff heal with a much longer cooldown even traited. Some one also mentioned having #4 inflict weakness.

The biggest issues I have with the guardian are as follows.

Our health pool is way to low, the meager regen we get is nothing compared to what other class’s get. Warrior, ranger etc.

Armor makes little difference, heavy armor should offer more of a reduction and toughness should add even more on top of it.
Even with high toughness and heavy armor it is not uncommon to get hit for 6k+ hits.

Lack of soft cc to keep them in melee range.

Healing does not scale/work especially our group heals other than the elite tome full heal.

With the long cool downs, and poor scaling with healing power we are not able to counter or exceed damage done. Taking high healing power has one give up a lot of other benefits yet the benefit from it is subpar.

• just a dream would be fun to have save your self’s act like a necros plague and spread our ally’s conditions on our near by enemies.

They should fix the Spirit Weapons (mainly durability and the Bow) and buff the Shield in some way, like put the Honorable Shield Trait into the Adept Line, reduce the cooldown or add 5s weakness for #4 and increase the duration of the #5 to 5s or 6s (but I prefer the 1st suggestion, becouse that would be a really minor buff).

And fix the kitten healing power to scales better!