Guild Wars 2

Seems to me with all the Condi based players out there now, that this elite would be great for Bombing the enemy Zerg. I use to wreck people with this skill if I timed it right. I think it deserves a second look.

Maybe it is just me?

It was fun but you can still dish out comparable conditions.

• Burning = Permeating Wrath + Bow/Staff/Scepter
• Cripple = Zealots Aggression (DH)
• Quickness + Fury = Feel My Wrath

You don’t get the knock down, though.

I would say bring back the old tomes…..

I was greatly dissapointed when I found out that tomes are no longer in the game.
I’d love to have them back even though I never had the opportunity to use them.

when ic a guardian with the elite signet for the heals…..i dont know what to think… besides a face palm.

Shame on those guards…

Tomes as kits like Engineer would make Guardian a whole lot more fun to play and tactical, which is what the class desperately need because let’s be honest, the gameplay barely changed with DH compared to the other elite specs…

Aeolus.3615:

when ic a guardian with the elite signet for the heals…..i dont know what to think… besides a face palm.

Shame on those guards…

This was damage and not heals. And it was epic!!

Xaylin.1860:

It was fun but you can still dish out comparable conditions.

• Burning = Permeating Wrath + Bow/Staff/Scepter
• Cripple = Zealots Aggression (DH)
• Quickness + Fury = Feel My Wrath

You don’t get the knock down, though.

I never had issue with being knocked down or interrupted. You need the proper build for the tome. And you also need a good sense of timing.

Tomes were my favourite skills by far and one of the main reasons I liked guardians so much in the first place. I almost ragequit the game when they were removed, and I’ll probably do so if they aren’t back by the next expansion.

Bleh, tomes sucked alongside all the other transforms type skills. I hope Anet follows the Guardian example and converts all transforms into one use skills. As for the elite guardian signet, it needs to have the passive heal on a 1s tick instead. It might actually be worth using then.

Lahmia.2193:

Bleh, tomes sucked alongside all the other transforms type skills. I hope Anet follows the Guardian example and converts all transforms into one use skills. As for the elite guardian signet, it needs to have the passive heal on a 1s tick instead. It might actually be worth using then.

Theres was a thread requesting those changes whns the changes were made to the tomes, we are still waiting.
I doubt Anet would copy a warrior passive healing signet, that heals entire party within 180 CD.

I rather just improve on Signet of Courage.

Considering we’re basically without a defensive or offensive Elite… the active and passive effects are bad. It should heal for 400 and cleanse 2 conditions every 5 seconds.

The active heal should be similar to Staff#5 – Immobilize yourself while healing nearby allies, 2k heals per second, totaling to 10k healing before Healing Power effects.dw

It seems like most of this community would prioritize overpowered abilities rather than fun or interesting design, which is pretty kitten embarrassing honestly. Tomes were removed because of this, and -given the opportunity- I bet everyone would support that change again.

Saiyan.1704:

Considering we’re basically without a defensive or offensive Elite…

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renewed_Focus
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon's_Maw
Not only are they defensive and offensive respectively, but they’re both very good elites as well. I dare say that Renewed Focus is one of the best elites in the game.

Fashion Mage.3712:

It seems like most of this community would prioritize overpowered abilities rather than fun or interesting design, which is pretty kitten embarrassing honestly. Tomes were removed because of this, and -given the opportunity- I bet everyone would support that change again.

Saiyan.1704:

Considering we’re basically without a defensive or offensive Elite…

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renewed_Focus
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon's_Maw
Not only are they defensive and offensive respectively, but they’re both very good elites as well. I dare say that Renewed Focus is one of the best elites in the game.

It was only OP because people have no clue how to play! Get good or get out. I never once went down due to the tome lol. It can hurt sure, but traps for DH hurt worse lol. It’s the same for any ability. Learn to recognize them and defend yourself from them.

Mylerian.9176:

Xaylin.1860:

It was fun but you can still dish out comparable conditions.

• Burning = Permeating Wrath + Bow/Staff/Scepter
• Cripple = Zealots Aggression (DH)
• Quickness + Fury = Feel My Wrath

You don’t get the knock down, though.

I never had issue with being knocked down or interrupted. You need the proper build for the tome. And you also need a good sense of timing.

That’s so not what I wrote…

Xaylin.1860:

Mylerian.9176:

Xaylin.1860:

It was fun but you can still dish out comparable conditions.

• Burning = Permeating Wrath + Bow/Staff/Scepter
• Cripple = Zealots Aggression (DH)
• Quickness + Fury = Feel My Wrath

You don’t get the knock down, though.

I never had issue with being knocked down or interrupted. You need the proper build for the tome. And you also need a good sense of timing.

That’s so not what I wrote…

OH I see I misread that.

a full compliment of tomes ( that work similarly to engi kits) for the elite spec would be nice tbh.

Also gives anet a way to make a guard heal-spec.

a heal/clense tome
a support/buff tome
A dps oriented tome ( be it condi, power, or one for each)
a CC oriented tome?

Saiyan.1704:

I rather just improve on Signet of Courage.

Considering we’re basically without a defensive or offensive Elite… the active and passive effects are bad. It should heal for 400 and cleanse 2 conditions every 5 seconds.

The active heal should be similar to Staff#5 – Immobilize yourself while healing nearby allies, 2k heals per second, totaling to 10k healing before Healing Power effects.dw

I think that’s where Anet needs to put 25% speed increase. Add that to the passive and have it pulse healing every 3 to 5 seconds tops, and then it’s not too bad. As it stands now it’s an “elite” that isn’t even as good as Battle Presence. Way too much can happen in 10 seconds for this skill to be of any use.

Aeolus.3615:

Lahmia.2193:

Bleh, tomes sucked alongside all the other transforms type skills. I hope Anet follows the Guardian example and converts all transforms into one use skills. As for the elite guardian signet, it needs to have the passive heal on a 1s tick instead. It might actually be worth using then.

Theres was a thread requesting those changes whns the changes were made to the tomes, we are still waiting.
I doubt Anet would copy a warrior passive healing signet, that heals entire party within 180 CD.

Ok maybe 3 seconds. Also work out of combat. I know anet doesn’t want anything to touch their precious Healing Signet (ahem… signet of vampirism…)

I think kits would be way too much to add to a new class since you would need to add 6 kits and only engi was designed with a no CD 6 weapon kit swap in mind.

What about F1-F3 being different attunements. F1 is base weapon attunement. F2 and F3 are 2 different book attunements. Or they could just add a new F4 which is “book attunement” to bring back the animations similar to celestial avatar.

Agreed. Engineers paid a price for the convenience of kits – kits are the factor that balances against engineers having no weapon swap and the least range of weapon sets out of any profession in the game. Guardians, having a conventional weapon swap and among the largest range of weapons in the game (I think warriors are the only ones that beat them there?) are highly unlikely to get something they can freely swap like engineer kits.

I’d expect tomes to be more similar to elementalist conjures. You probably won’t summon a tome for allies, and they may have a time limit rather than charges, but expect each tome to have a limited period before it expires and needs to recharge before you can use it again.

Which does raise the question of what they’ll do with the healing tome. I’d expect it to work out similar to (ironically) Healing Turret: the guardian gets a heal from invoking the tome, and can then choose between keeping the tome out to heal the party, or using the big heals and then dropping the tome (the equivalent to engineers doing the turret-overcharge-detonate routine).

Fashion Mage.3712:

It seems like most of this community would prioritize overpowered abilities rather than fun or interesting design, which is pretty kitten embarrassing honestly. Tomes were removed because of this, and -given the opportunity- I bet everyone would support that change again.

Saiyan.1704:

Considering we’re basically without a defensive or offensive Elite…

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renewed_Focus
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon's_Maw
Not only are they defensive and offensive respectively, but they’re both very good elites as well. I dare say that Renewed Focus is one of the best elites in the game.

I meant that taking the sigil elite means you’re without a defensive or offensive option. Poor choice of wording on my part :p

draxynnic.3719:

Agreed. Engineers paid a price for the convenience of kits – kits are the factor that balances against engineers having no weapon swap and the least range of weapon sets out of any profession in the game. Guardians, having a conventional weapon swap and among the largest range of weapons in the game (I think warriors are the only ones that beat them there?) are highly unlikely to get something they can freely swap like engineer kits.

If guardians were to get a tome spec, then they should just lose weapon swapping. Kind of like how elite specs are actually supposed to make you trade off something.

Maybe you guys should search back a few years in the forums and see how players felt when all we had was tomes for elites.

I don’t want tomes back… ever.

juno.1840:

Maybe you guys should search back a few years in the forums and see how players felt when all we had was tomes for elites.

I don’t want tomes back… ever.

Yeah, a bunch of morons were upset that tomes weren’t as overpowered as Renewed Focus, and thus wanted them to be replaced by duller elites that were assumed to be as overpowered as RF (but weren’t). The aftermath is Feel My Wrath which is okayish, and Signet of Courage which is complete and utter trash that you shouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole.

Despite this, a fairly large majority of people still thought tomes were a great concept. As such, the devs involved with removing them said they’d come back in a future elite spec. Doesn’t look like they’re coming back yet though, by the look of the recent leak. So people who liked tomes now get to enjoy getting ****** in the kitten for another 2-3 years (or more).

Fashion Mage.3712:

juno.1840:

Maybe you guys should search back a few years in the forums and see how players felt when all we had was tomes for elites.

I don’t want tomes back… ever.

Yeah, a bunch of morons were upset that tomes weren’t as overpowered as Renewed Focus, and thus wanted them to be replaced by duller elites that were assumed to be as overpowered as RF (but weren’t). The aftermath is Feel My Wrath which is okayish, and Signet of Courage which is complete and utter trash that you shouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole.

Despite this, a fairly large majority of people still thought tomes were a great concept. As such, the devs involved with removing them said they’d come back in a future elite spec. Doesn’t look like they’re coming back yet though, by the look of the recent leak. So people who liked tomes now get to enjoy getting ****** in the kitten for another 2-3 years (or more).

What did people actually like about tomes? They were useless in almost every aspect of the game and suffered from the typical low duration/high cooldown ratio that every form suffers from. As for the elites they were turned into, “Feel my wrath” was sadly overshadowed by Dragon’s Maw as the go-to dps elite. If they reverted the original cooldown nerf back to 30 seconds, it would probably see a lot more use. And Signet of Courage was dead on arrival because of the high passive heal interval. And a 3 second interval with a 242 heal, it wouldn’t be that bad. And a 3 second cast instead of the monstrous 4 1/4s one with movement allowed would help too.
edit: spelling is hard

Lahmia.2193:

And a 3 second cast instead of the monstrous 4 1/4s one with movement allowed would help too.
edit: spelling is hard

With banner being on a 2 second cast to resurrect 5 people and provide buffs for a long duration, a 3 second cast is still overkill and should only be 2 seconds as well.

And speaking of banner, all the res utilities should really have their cast times reduced to 1 second.

Azoqu.8917:

Lahmia.2193:

And a 3 second cast instead of the monstrous 4 1/4s one with movement allowed would help too.
edit: spelling is hard

With banner being on a 2 second cast to resurrect 5 people and provide buffs for a long duration, a 3 second cast is still overkill and should only be 2 seconds as well.

And speaking of banner, all the res utilities should really have their cast times reduced to 1 second.

Agreed on both accounts.

Lahmia.2193:

What did people actually like about tomes? They were useless in almost every aspect of the game and suffered from the typical low duration/high cooldown ratio that every form suffers from. As for the elites they were turned into, “Feel my wrath” was sadly overshadowed by Dragon’s Maw as the go-to dps elite. If they reverted the original cooldown nerf back to 30 seconds, it would probably see a lot more use. And Signet of Courage was dead on arrival because of the high passive heal interval. And a 3 second interval with a 242 heal, it wouldn’t be that bad. And a 3 second cast instead of the monstrous 4 1/4s one with movement allowed would help too.
edit: spelling is hard

Regardless of how much they were used or how strong they were, tomes offered very interesting and fun skills gameplay-wise and thematically. If they were weak, the solution was to buff them or rework them (into kit-type skills for example) rather than completely removing them from the game.

Feel My Wrath and Signet of Courage are both part of what the old tomes were. Feel My Wrath was one of the best parts of Tome of Wrath, and it came with a low cooldown as well, although personally I think Judgment was its most stand-out and interesting skill even if it wasn’t necessarily its most sought after skill.

The best (and most fun) part of Tome of Courage wasn’t actually the full heal (it was Heal Area). The full heal was designed to be used with ToC and its other abilities. Naturally, isolating the full heal with the same cooldown and cast time, but without the huge defensive buff, stability, and extra abilities (like Pacifism, which worked very well with the full heal) from Tome of Courage, it was bound to turn into a train wreck. Tome of Courage was also one of the exceedingly rare instances of support in GW2 that wasn’t just a 600 range PBAoE ability.

Azoqu.8917:

Lahmia.2193:

And a 3 second cast instead of the monstrous 4 1/4s one with movement allowed would help too.
edit: spelling is hard

With banner being on a 2 second cast to resurrect 5 people and provide buffs for a long duration, a 3 second cast is still overkill and should only be 2 seconds as well.

And speaking of banner, all the res utilities should really have their cast times reduced to 1 second.

It can’t really be compared to a normal revive skill. The banner is an elite skill, and thus its cast time and effects are justified (it also has an absurd cooldown).

2 seconds would be nice I think (although it might be pushing it), but 1 second would be pretty broken I think. From my experiences, if you cast the revival signet as soon as someone drops, they almost never get finished before you can finish casting. Personally I think they should work on making revive skills (at least single-target revives) adjust their target based on whether their target teleports or not, because reviving things like thieves and mesmers gets pretty annoying if they don’t know what you’re doing.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Lahmia.2193:

What did people actually like about tomes? They were useless in almost every aspect of the game and suffered from the typical low duration/high cooldown ratio that every form suffers from. As for the elites they were turned into, “Feel my wrath” was sadly overshadowed by Dragon’s Maw as the go-to dps elite. If they reverted the original cooldown nerf back to 30 seconds, it would probably see a lot more use. And Signet of Courage was dead on arrival because of the high passive heal interval. And a 3 second interval with a 242 heal, it wouldn’t be that bad. And a 3 second cast instead of the monstrous 4 1/4s one with movement allowed would help too.
edit: spelling is hard

Regardless of how much they were used or how strong they were, tomes offered very interesting and fun skills gameplay-wise and thematically. If they were weak, the solution was to buff them or rework them (into kit-type skills for example) rather than completely removing them from the game.

Feel My Wrath and Signet of Courage are both part of what the old tomes were. Feel My Wrath was one of the best parts of Tome of Wrath, and it came with a low cooldown as well, although personally I think Judgment was its most stand-out and interesting skill even if it wasn’t necessarily its most sought after skill.

The best (and most fun) part of Tome of Courage wasn’t actually the full heal (it was Heal Area). The full heal was designed to be used with ToC and its other abilities. Naturally, isolating the full heal with the same cooldown and cast time, but without the huge defensive buff, stability, and extra abilities (like Pacifism, which worked very well with the full heal) from Tome of Courage, it was bound to turn into a train wreck. Tome of Courage was also one of the exceedingly rare instances of support in GW2 that wasn’t just a 600 range PBAoE ability.

Another consideration is that Tome of Courage existed in a meta where healing was basically considered to be worthless… and control was often worthless due to the way Defiance stacks worked.

It also has the issue most elite transforms have. No, it isn’t that they suck. It’s that, because you only get to use them for short periods with a long recharge in between, most people never learned to use them properly, which leads to thinking they suck. ToC was particularly prone to this because it was something you’d only pull out in the first place when there’s a lot of healing to be done, and if you pull it out and then don’t know how to properly use it, it’s going to be underwhelming.

In the current environment where healing is a thing again, though, I could definitely see ToC coming back, or something close to it. Guardians, being the heirs of monks, really should be able to have a party healing option that’s competitive with druids.

Tome of Wrath was also a lot of fun. Granted, being able to “Feel My Wrath!” as a shout probably is more useful overall, but it was fun to be able to go into all-out artillery mode for a bit while also buffing your allies.

I’m still hoping they eliminated them because they plan on bringing them back as a new caster weapon, something this game seriously lacks, we basically have three; scepter, staff, focus; and focus is just any random crap that fits in your hand.

Tomes being revived as Virtue replacements would be acceptable also. It would drastically change guardian gameplay while introducing an engi/ele/rev form dancing element. Having two weapon swaps, plus 10 durations and 40s cooldowns on each Tome of [Virtue] would bring something rather unique to Guardian.

Mylerian.9176:

Seems to me with all the Condi based players out there now, that this elite would be great for Bombing the enemy Zerg. I use to wreck people with this skill if I timed it right. I think it deserves a second look.

Maybe it is just me?

Tomes were removed with the promise of them coming back with a future elite spec.

While that seems like a nice promise, it’s also an extremely vague promise. A tome elite spec will be amazing, but if it’s only going to come out in expansion number 5, it doesn’t really mean much.

They’d have kept their promise either way.

Ghotistyx.6942:

They’d have kept their promise either way.

Yes, which is exactly why it’s such a weak promise. They didn’t even say that tomes would return, they said “we’d like to bring them back”.

I don’t see the problem. They haven’t committed to anything more than what they’ve said. I personally like the replacement elites, even if SoC could be better. Tomes being brought back would also be nice, and more applicable to the game as it stand currently.

RabbitUp.8294:

Mylerian.9176:

Seems to me with all the Condi based players out there now, that this elite would be great for Bombing the enemy Zerg. I use to wreck people with this skill if I timed it right. I think it deserves a second look.

Maybe it is just me?

Tomes were removed with the promise of them coming back with a future elite spec.

They didn’t actually make a promise, they just raised the possibility.

Ghotistyx.6942:

I don’t see the problem. They haven’t committed to anything more than what they’ve said.

That is the problem. What they said is meaningless; people would appear to want tomes back but the only thing they have to go on is that super vague statement. It kind of seems like that was only said to help sway people to the side that wanted tomes gone, rather than as reassurance to fans of tomes that they’d be coming back.

Guardian nex spec….with Tomes on virtues and echo utilities…. spear main hand, Paragon.

That would be kewl.

Guardian has enough luck to get rid of the clunckyness of the tome while other professions are still plagued by transformation elite skill and yet there are people who complain… Sad… truly sad.

The change to tome were a gain for the guardians not a loss. “feel my wrath!” who succeed to tome of wrath is one of the best shout in the game and is always usefull. Signet of courage is a bit of a let down due to it’s awfully long cool down but, it does exactly the same job as the tome before.

The biggest complaints about tomes were that they couldn’t be used enough because of their cooldown and duration. So I don’t know where you’re getting this “clunkiness” thing from. Additionally, I don’t see other professions complaining about their transformations much besides eles.
Lich Form isn’t used much simply because its used by power necros, who aren’t meta, and Rampage was basically an “I win” button for awhile, before it got nerfed.
Elixir X is used a lot, although it gets criticism for being random (not for being a transform) between one of the best transforms (Rampage) vs the worst transform (Tornado). Tornado is garbage, but then again, so are all elementalist elite skills. There’s nothing wrong with transforms, even if you personally do not like them.

Tome of Wrath got replaced with Feel My Wrath, which is better (in terms of strength, but not necessarily fun) but is still overshadowed by other elite skills. Tome of Courage got replaced with Signet of Courage, which is garbage, and that’s not just because of the cooldown.
Tome of Courage provided sustained AoE healing via Heal Area, sustained AoE cleansing via Purifying Ribbon, enormous protection/regeneration spam, AoE CC, and burst healing in the form of Light of Deliverance (ironically one of its worst skills). Signet of Courage only does the latter, except on the same cooldown without the stability and other benefits that were provided by tomes. So no, it doesn’t do the same job and it never will.

You should also realize that even if Feel My Wrath and Signet of Courage were stupid OP, that doesn’t necessarily make them better designed or more fun than tomes. In the case of Feel My Wrath, it’s not as bad (still boring by comparison imo), but Signet of Courage is inexcusable.

SoC gives a hps similar to VoR, just at a longer clip. Like most people, I’d prefer if it would proc much more often. Being traited increased the hps by a significant amount, but who is going to take a signet build and pump healing power? I suppose you really could take Radiance, Honor, and Virtues but it feels like a lot of specialization for not a lot of work. Signets in general don’t feel quite solid enough, and that’s something that could be improved upon in the future. Whether or not it comes from Tomes returning, or from Signets taking on more of the skills Tomes used to have doesn’t matter entirely.

Ghotistyx.6942:

SoC gives a hps similar to VoR, just at a longer clip. Like most people, I’d prefer if it would proc much more often. Being traited increased the hps by a significant amount, but who is going to take a signet build and pump healing power? I suppose you really could take Radiance, Honor, and Virtues but it feels like a lot of specialization for not a lot of work. Signets in general don’t feel quite solid enough, and that’s something that could be improved upon in the future. Whether or not it comes from Tomes returning, or from Signets taking on more of the skills Tomes used to have doesn’t matter entirely.

The raid healing build uses Honor, Valor, and Virtues though I was thinking while running it in fractals what does Valor give me and if it would be worth ditching for Radiance in order to get blind on VoJ use. Sadly I just couldn’t see any helpful traits but I guess signet passives would be one. Still would not be worth it to increase just the terrible signet passive since you are giving up self-sustain and shield CD reduction.