Guild Wars 2

And might also work wel with Greatsword since GS 1 give might.

Well they did say they were giving the hammer some love so this is one way to do it..

Karl McLain.5604:

Hammer love is already in the works!

Bobobejumbo.4951:

There was so much more important kitten for them to fix, like things that don’t work right. But no, lets shuffle the skill order around, that seems like a good use of time!

As has been pointed out several times, the button placement for all professions in the game follows a logic – arranged by cool down duration – so they have rightly arranged it to reflect the changes.

Draeka.5941:

The GS still has the lowest cd’s of its overall skills than the other two, however. The change was made so that the symbol didn’t help give a perma-retaliation to the player. Hopefully the devs tweak retaliation in a bit, rather than try to re-balance the entirety of Guardian’s light fields. Then again, I don’t really use my GS much anymore, so I can’t comment on its new efficacy.

Not true. If you discount the use of #5 for both GS and Hammer (Since #5 is generally situational in use and not part of a damage rotation for either weapon), GS can use 14 Skills per Minute while Hammer can use 18.4 Skills per Minute.

If you’re picky and you want to include #5, GS is at 16 SpM and Hammer is at ~19.9 SpM.

I’m asking.

Up until now, I have ran a symbol heavy build, in both traits and weapon choices. Specifically, I used Mace/Focus with GS and traited for increased symbol size, duration, and symbols to provide healing.

By doubling the CD on Symbol of Wrath, I feel like this build just doesn’t bring much to the table anymore. It has essentially reduced my effectiveness by half in dungeons.

in all honesty, i do not see what the big deal is with retaliation. did it really need a nerf? because my thief, mesmer, warrior, and pretty much anything else dropped guardians without even noticing retaliation damage, so i dont see why retaliation is so bad as a boon. secondly the change in skill placement is just really annoying. i think the skills and the way retaliation worked were fine. i probably be playing a different character seeing as i dont think they will change them back.

What I want to know is how retaliation was a big deal for PvE? Now maybe it shines in dungeons, I haven’t run a lot of them to be honest, but in normal PvE most of the monsters hit so slow that I rarely saw it making a big difference even if I had it up all the time. So is this nerf, change, and skill set move all for PvP balance? I sure hope they didn’t just screw up my guardian in PvE for PvP balance….

I don’t think the GS was ever designed with symbols in mind, tbh.

I think the hammer and staff are much better suited to consistent symbol placement, especially considering the bonuses they grant (more so for the hammer). And trust me…if you have two hammer guardians who know what they’re doing, dungeons are very easy to deal with. At least, the ones you can actually melee a decent amount of the time…

Zeph.5927:

MysticoN.5068:

Easy fix. Change back the CD and make it so the GS symbol gives might instead of retaliation.

Freaking brilliant. You my friend, have surpassed the Anet dev team in terms of common sense AND intelligence. They should hire you right away.

Seriously, why did something that could be so simple, turn out to be so hard for Anet to comprehend?

Because this “oh so brilliant” solution would change all other light combo fields in the game, creating a lot of balance side effects, as well as it would take some flavor away from what makes a Guardian a Guardian.

Guardians are about playing with the team, dominating their position, and defending while striking back. Retaliation demonstrastes the last point greatly, while their party-wide might effects is one of the many things that can demonstrate the first point.

Making them self-stacking might machines is not as flavourful. They do have one or two fire fields, though, if you love that so much, but they’re secondary for a reason.

In fact, making fire fields working the same as light fields would be disappointing and lazy. They are different fields for a reason. At the same time, making a single symbol a fire field would be inconsistent with all their other symbols, and with their flavour. Yes, Guardians inflict burning, but by (mostly) relying on holy-ish effects, something their symbols represent.

That’s why this “easy, brilliant solution” is a random idea from a random forum poster, and not from a professional game designer, who has to keep things like consistency and flavour in mind.

MysticoN.5068:

Easy fix. Change back the CD and make it so the GS symbol gives might instead of retaliation.

I’d be happy with a bit of Quickness instead, get us a little bit of haste going, even still, I’d just be happy with reverted changes and having the symbol give NO buff. I honestly couldn’t care less about Retaliation, I don’t use it in my build. It’s gimmicky, it shined the most in WvW absorbing the siege weapon damage and destroying them and since they nerfed that, I have no interest in the stat whatsoever.

On another note, I’m purchasing Mists of Pandaria to see what joke Blizzard have done to Paladins. Until Guardians are fixed, I have no interest in GW2 currently.

DiogoSilva.7089

That’s why this “easy, brilliant solution” is a random idea from a random forum poster, and not from a professional game designer, who has to keep things like consistency and flavour in mind.

Er. He’s talking about the secondary effect from Symbol of Wrath, not the Combo with a Leap or Blast Finisher. Symbol of Wrath already gave 5*1s of Retaliation at base (as all Symbols give a Boon to those standing in it).

Also, Guardians already are self-stacking Might Machines. Also see: Virtue of Justice with Inspired Virtue and Renewed Justice. Also see: Empowering Might. A Symbol that gives an extra stack of Might to everyone standing in it is very much team support. Hell, the Guardian could drop it under a cluster of ranged attackers, then hop back into the fight.

Nothing wrong with having an opinion, but read what you’re commenting on before you do so. Please?

Edited for clarification of reference.

George: I believe the skill re-arrangement was because the weapons are setup so that the skills go in order of chain to longest cd. That’s why, nothing nefarious…just trying to keep things rational.

emtwo: You’re splitting hairs. The GS has the best melee CC of the three in its #5, and is very crucial to an offensive build. After all, it is an interrupt that brings the enemy to your doorstep…not bad to deal with pesky kiters. So no, I’m not going to drop it because the #5 for the GS is significantly lower than the other two.

Skill CDs (with 20% trait)

GS: 8, 12, 16, 24 = 60
H: 4, 12, 20, 32 = 68
S: 2.5, 12, 16, 32 = 62.5

If you want to include the chains, the Hammer has an extra second added to it, as well. The hammer will generally stick to the chain and #2, but the GS utilizes its entire skillset to deal/avoid damage. The GS is still a good weapon, though I am concerned with what they intend to do with retaliation. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Schakal.6091:

Er. He’s talking about the secondary effect from Symbol of Wrath, not the Combo with a Leap or Blast Finisher. Symbol of Wrath already gave 5*1s of Retaliation at base (as all Symbols give a Boon to those standing in it).

Also, Guardians already are self-stacking Might Machines. Also see: Virtue of Justice with Inspired Virtue and Renewed Justice. Also see: Empowering Might. A Symbol that gives an extra stack of Might to everyone standing in it is very much team support. Hell, the Guardian could drop it under a cluster of ranged attackers, then hop back into the fight.

Nothing wrong with having an opinion, but read what you’re commenting on before you do so. Please?

Edited for clarification of reference.

I did read what was said, I just made the wrong interpretation.

About might-stacking, you’ll notice (most? all?) Guardian’s might-stacking comes from some sort of self-sacrifice, and/ or usually benefits the party more. Empower is the best example – while you’re channeling your spell, your allies are getting stronger. You’re then left with only a few seconds to take advantage of your own might. Likewise, thetraits are related with a virtue, the guardian’s mechanic about self-sacrificing for a party-wide effect. And finally, the burning fields com at the “sacrifice” (let’s call it that) of utility skills.

I personally love how those little details are set up, because they define and give personality to the profession.

Also, GS used to be very formulaic. There was a single optimal skill sequence, that was basically about using 2->3->4, and 2->3 when 4 was under recharge. Now that the symbol has double the recharge than Whirling Wrath, we’re going to see the wrath not combo with it half the times, and the other skills way less, giving some sort of decision making behind the symbol usage. Before, we could spam condition removal and retaliation. It was a mindless, noob weapon. Spam 234, and you get massive melee-range aoe, condition removal two times, tick damage, loads of burning, and loads of retaliation. You spammed 234 in pve, and you would win against almost everything. Now, the retaliation stacking and the two free condition removals are more valuable, because they’re less frequent, and that’ll lead to decision making about the best time to use the symbol.

I think it’s simply a funnier playstyle as it is now.

Well, technically speaking…

The Hammer Symbol is what? 1s every 3s, so it has 33% uptime? 50% with Writ of Persistence. The OLD GS Symbol was 5s every 10s, so 50% uptime. 5s every 8s with Two-Handed Mastery, which would be 62.5% uptime even… and with Writ of Persistence it would be almost permanent — 7.5s out of 8. (I had to look up Staff. 4s every 15s, every 12s with Two-Handed Mastery or 33% uptime , 6s out of 12s or 50% with Writ of Persistence… but admittedly freely placeable.)

For Symbolic Exposure and/or Writ of the Merciful it was actually at least the 2nd best choice. 2nd best because the best choice IMO would be Mace. 50% uptime (4s on an 8s CD; 6s out of 8s or 75% uptime with Writ of Persistence) and Regeneration. Not the best in anything but the best bang for the buck.

Still. The possible near permanence of old SoW is quite a thing.

Adding the cooldowns together doesn’t accurately portray the amount of time you spend waiting on cooldowns. With GS you’ll be auto-attacking roughly 87.9% of the time, with Hammer you’ll only be auto-attacking 74.3% of the time. I think I might make a new thread about this tomorrow.

Retaliation is a weak boon to put on a symbol in the first place. It’s very situational, requiring many mobs hitting many different members of your team who are all standing next to you for it’s greatest benefit. It also doesn’t really help your team that much. If you do happen to be in that situation, the damage as I understand is lackluster anyways. I can’t imagine how anyone would consider using GS in a team due to its symbol support. I can understand the disappointment due to the reduction of damage. It definitely takes away from the variety of the weapon.

The hammer symbol uptime is actually quite significant (each protection stack is 1s but they stack consecutively for 3 seconds of protection) I wouldn’t be surprised if that doesn’t get a nerf too, unless spamming auto is already considered enough of a drawback.

See, I never played like that. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong. But in my experience, Conditions are not all that prevalent in regular PVE. At least not compared to Stuns and Dazes. My basic combo was always 5-5-3-F1-2-1-1-1-4. There’s a Fire Combo Field going down either before or after the pull from Binding Blade. I realize the Blind just before I pop Retaliation is not ideal but survival > DPS.

Bwah? I auto-attack with the hammer darn near 90% of the time to keep up the field and combo with mighty blow…the other three skills are hardly used. In terms of skill usage, I’d go GS>Staff>Hammer in terms of utilization during combat.

I would have been fine with symbol fury instead of retalition.

Yeah, sorry….should have added “effective” to “consistent symbol placement,” as you can also get a good chain of retaliation going with the hammer alone. Our symbols could use some tweaking, that’s for certain.

I usually don’t activate skill’s 5th the second time until needed, or until it’s about to end, because it deals damage over time. That being said, it’s possibly the skill that requires most “skill” in the weaponset, with the blind from 4th being close. And I personally think the virtue is not worth using without teammates, when you’re using multi-hit skills like the symbol and the whirling wrath, although I guess the right traits might change that.

Nonetheless, the symbol -> whirl -> leap combo does too much for too little effort, and now became less spammable.

I agree pve enemies don’t deal many conditions, but when they do (especially in orr), they’re pretty strong against the Guardian’s low hp.

Anywars, retaliation is to guardians what fear is to necros or confusion to mesmers. It’s good that Guardians have a weaponset dedicated to it.

Well, I’ve never personally played a Symbol-centric build. Writ of Exaltation usually seems to cover all my needs there. But I’d assume one would want to leverage all options there. ie. Vulnerability via Symbolic Exposure (though I personally have a love/hate relationship with Vulnerability) and healz via Writ of the Merciful. While Symbol of Protection is lovely beyond measure (as is any Protection Boon) I can see why someone would have gone with GS and SoW.

Not that that matters anymore.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Schakal.6091:

Er. He’s talking about the secondary effect from Symbol of Wrath, not the Combo with a Leap or Blast Finisher. Symbol of Wrath already gave 5*1s of Retaliation at base (as all Symbols give a Boon to those standing in it).

Also, Guardians already are self-stacking Might Machines. Also see: Virtue of Justice with Inspired Virtue and Renewed Justice. Also see: Empowering Might. A Symbol that gives an extra stack of Might to everyone standing in it is very much team support. Hell, the Guardian could drop it under a cluster of ranged attackers, then hop back into the fight.

Nothing wrong with having an opinion, but read what you’re commenting on before you do so. Please?

Edited for clarification of reference.

I did read what was said, I just made the wrong interpretation.

About might-stacking, you’ll notice (most? all?) Guardian’s might-stacking comes from some sort of self-sacrifice, and/ or usually benefits the party more. Empower is the best example – while you’re channeling your spell, your allies are getting stronger. You’re then left with only a few seconds to take advantage of your own might. Likewise, thetraits are related with a virtue, the guardian’s mechanic about self-sacrificing for a party-wide effect. And finally, the burning fields com at the “sacrifice” (let’s call it that) of utility skills.

I personally love how those little details are set up, because they define and give personality to the profession.

Also, GS used to be very formulaic. There was a single optimal skill sequence, that was basically about using 2->3->4, and 2->3 when 4 was under recharge. Now that the symbol has double the recharge than Whirling Wrath, we’re going to see the wrath not combo with it half the times, and the other skills way less, giving some sort of decision making behind the symbol usage. Before, we could spam condition removal and retaliation. It was a mindless, noob weapon. Spam 234, and you get massive melee-range aoe, condition removal two times, tick damage, loads of burning, and loads of retaliation. You spammed 234 in pve, and you would win against almost everything. Now, the retaliation stacking and the two free condition removals are more valuable, because they’re less frequent, and that’ll lead to decision making about the best time to use the symbol.

I think it’s simply a funnier playstyle as it is now.

I gave it a try tonight and didn’t enjoy it. The layout feels less intuitive than it did before. Before it was light field then combo with finisher (2-3 or 4 as you said). But now I hit 4 and then combo backward with 2 or 3. The first time I played a greatsword Guardian I immediately felt that it was a well designed and planned skillset. It just felt right to me. Now it feels awkward, part of which is just adjusting to the new key placement, but part is definitely the reduced synergy of the skill layout and the functions of the skills together.

I picked Guardian in part because I liked the way it used Retaliation. It wasn’t the only reason, but it sort of signed the deal…. Six months of beta testing then release. Fast forward a month and the community has created builds for PvP focused around Retaliation making the studio unhappy so they retool.

My advice to newcomers to GW2? Roll a Warrior. Simple play mechanics, not likely to get kittened with too much

Just to be more clear, I was referring to symbol builds in a team-based setting. The GS option was the weakest offering. I can imagine that if someone gets a guardian for running a team, the teams least desirable boon from a guardian symbol will be retaliation. Stability would be really nice though. I hope they drop the retaliation altogether.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Change Symbol of Retaliation and make it Symbol of Might while you are at it?

MysticoN.5068:

Easy fix. Change back the CD and make it so the GS symbol gives might instead of retaliation.

I’m happy someone(and many other posts too) agrees with me. Making the Symbol grant 5s of 1 stack of might per tick(hence 5 stacks of might for 5s each) with 10s recharge would not be overpowered at all. Or Symbol of Fury since it also stacks in duration rather than intensity, at 1s Fury per symbol tick.

There arent many other boons as option.

Symbol of Stability(power creep), Symbol of Vigor(game breaking), Symbol of Aegis(OP if it renews aegis every second).

I use a Symbol heavy build too and I’m annoyed by this change.

Not only that, but the rearranging is kittening annoying. I can’t count how many times my fingers automatically pressed the wrong button. Or when my brain sees the Symbol of Wrath down and I instantly click #3.

Greatswords were great for Symbols, a 8 second for a 4 sec duration Symbol with 5 ticks was awesome. This change simply nerfed a not so great already Grandmaster Trait, Zealous Blade, because now it heals for even LESS.
It also messed up another common build with Altruistic Healing, since you lose boons/heals.
The heals from Symbols’ healing is also kittened up. In all, it cut the effectiveness of some Traits by 50%.

If they intended to nerf Retaliation only, which I don’t care, it’s fine. But they messed up how some builds works too.
Symbols never were too much of a use in PvP, and I can’t imagine why would they think our damage in PvE was OP.

I actually went with the GS’s SoW because it has the longest ‘on the ground’ time out of all symbols. Since I trait them for increased size, longevity, and healing, the goal was to maximize healing potential without being locked into a combo/being forced to take eat damage. The mace and staff are tied with ‘on the ground’ time, but seeing as my goal was to provide support via healing and not swiftness, the mace was a better choice. The hammer was last on my list of choices due to it having the shortest ‘on the ground’ time of all symbols, and required being locked into finishing a chain before gaining the benefit of the symbol.

I really enjoyed the symbol build. I liked being able to heal with the symbols with the healing trait. It was one of the few things helping me stay alive in PVE. I dont like running around like a mad monkey all the time, it doesn’t work well for melee classes.

PVP and PVE are two very different things! Trying to make them both work together clearly doesn’t work and it is greatly harming PVE to the point that i really dont want to login to play any more.

And why in gods name they thought it was a good idea to put Leap of Faith as number 3 before Symbol of Wrath i dont know. Really it should be last. I only use Leap of Faith when i want to close a gap quickly from a distance.

If they thought retaliation was harming PVP they should remove it altogether. It only lasted 1 second on Symbol of Wrath anyway. It was so small i never noticed it.

GW1 had PvE and PvP completely separate. This needs to happen in GW2. They are already showing that they are incapable of balancing them both using the same skill sets.

I was a symbol and two handed guardian. I absolutely loved my style and I haven’t been able to play another class since then. I have a very strong feeling my love will wane for this. This will also decimate the healing I did too. So goodbye my guardian.

I have 3 issues with this Greatsword change:

1. Despite reading the patch notes, I am still no wiser as to how re-arranging my buttons helps “the retaliation issue.”

2. Do we really have to randomly rearrange things? I felt like I was insane when I logged on today. I don’t normally look at my bars but now I have to constantly. At least till I get used to it.

So annoying. I thought you guys “didn’t rush to solutions” preferring to take your time and get it right first time. So seriously what happened? Who thought this was a good idea? Is this really gonna stay this way?

I can see you put them in order of CDs but are you really going to rearrange my buttons every time you change a CD?!

3. PLEASE GET THIS:
>>>> I want to do cool looking moves more often, not less. <<<<<<<

These patch changes highlighted this for me.

Symbol of wrath on a 20sec CD. Kinda cool looking.

Whirling wrath on a 10sec CD. The most UTTERLY STUPID looking move in the entire game, used more frequently, why?

Whirling wrath has an IDIOTIC animation! C’mon boys! Lets pirouette more! Can you please make my character look cool, not stupid. I know, lazy animators right? They think they are smart because they re-used the throw animation and made one animation into two. They think no one will notice, hehe… out-smarted everyone… -_-

Can we do the stupid moves LESS and NOT MORE!

WW should be an awesome move on a high CD to make up for the TERRIBLE ANIMATION! Instead its an ok move, that we have to do all the time…. every ten seconds to be exact…

I really hate bad animations and making them my highest used move outside of auto attack is irritating. I tolerated this move before but now…. the thought that the worst move also being the most common move, well… presses my buttons for some reason.

In any case, I don’t really care about retaliation issues… no offence, but thats your job. You’re making my favourite weapon worse! Not better! Find an intelligent solution to the problem and don’t release terrible animations in the first place please!

every patch they keep nerfing us i dont get it. warr does more dps and has more hp. our thing is to be more defensive but they keep nerfing all of our skills. /sigh well maby they will make up for it and give us same hp as warr and better dps. if they keep taking away gunna have to give us somthing.

In related news, I think this has been one of the first time everyone’s been pretty much unanimous on a subject.

I’ve decided not to play my guardian at all until the buttons are put back how they’re supposed to be. It’s not that I don’t think I could learn them, but I do believe that ANet will realize the mistake and change the buttons back. So if I learn the new configuration, then I’ll just have to re-learn the old one again… And how long is that going to take? Weeks? A month?

If the buttons are never reverted, I’m just never going to play my guardian again.

Whirling wrath was always a 10 sec cooldown. But maybe you’re noticing it more now because that’s going to be basically all greatsword guardian’s will doing (besides lots more auto-attack).

Also, while I like the animation for Leap of Faith, I can’t say it makes sense to be doing it more frequently. Why increase the frequency of a skill that has me leaping at an enemy I’m likely already fighting in melee range? The Symbol of Wrath animation at least makes sense as a skill that you’d possibly use when fighting face to face.

Well, on the upside, at least there’s no reason to question whether to use a greatsword over a hammer anymore.

I don’t mind the retaliation nerf, though i must say i felt the difference in overall damage (taking into account CD + place time + retaliation dmg), but i can live with that. What really bugged me was the skill placement and option to keep old placement would be nice w/o having to mess up my keys for other weapons.

I’m glad I just started leveling my alt because this button re-arrangement for the great sword severely kitten me off. I know it’s a game and all, but nonetheless, I’m really hoping this was a mistake because I don’t want to spend the next week re-learning my buttons.

On the chance that this re-arrangement is not a goof, and ArenaNet is going to change the default button positioning like this when they decide to make spell changes, then I’d like better user customization abilities so I can avoid having to re-learn spell placements each time there is such a patch. Also, if such customization is going to be implemented, then I would also like key settings to be exclusive to characters with import functions available.

Let’s be honest, the reshuffling of keybinds, albeit annoying, is a manageable nuisance.
The unacceptable part is to nerf the capacity to drop symbols for the greatsword user.
Retaliation too good? nerf its effects, or replace it by another boon. But why nerf the greatsword in itself by doubling cd of its major mechanic, the ability to drop symbol?
We’re like rats being cornered with less and less viable weapon choices for damage, and I DONT like that.

Fredlicious.7523:

Well, on the upside, at least there’s no reason to question whether to use a greatsword over a hammer anymore.

I wish I could enjoy hammer. With this greatsword change I’m not sure what I’ve got left on my Guardian to use. Other than greatsword I pretty much only like sword and mace

If this change happened because of PvP, then all I can say is wtf? GW1 had skill changes separate from PvE and PvP. Do that in GW2 and we’re golden. Why Anet abandoned that model of skill changes is beyond me. Why go backwards with progression instead of forwards?

And also, if it really WAS because of PvP, then all I can say is LOL. If people were dying to retal from an immovable symbol (that can easily be dodged out of, and then just not hit the guardian while they’re in it or pull them out of it), then that is a learn to play issue, not a “guardians need nerfed” issue.

Guys, calm down! How long is it going to take until you adjusted to the new layout? Two hours? A day? It’s really not a big issue.

The main thing about the symbol was the boon anyway, as the damage is not that breathtakingly great. I think they could give the symbol another boon in addition to retaliation now the CD has been increased.

And 5 seconds off of Leap of Faith is a HUGE buff! This ups the combo potential of the Guardian a lot and there should be more changes in this direction, since this is what the guardian desperately lacks when not wielding a hammer. Also the CD on the Symbol+Leap combo is still about the same since now Symbol is on 20s when before leap was (so it’s only the cast time of the symbol longer if you want to do that permanently).

And I don’t think I need to tell you how good a gap closer+blind is in PvP, so having it available even faster is a good thing. Especially since being kited is a real concern for GS+Hammer Guardians if they don’t bring Judge’s Intervention.

It’s really just a retaliation nerf – all the good things about the GS are still intact.

The change in skill set up seems very much like nitpicking. If nerfing Guardians continuously wasn’t a bother enough to their dedicated players, this seriously is. Sure, you can re-adjust over time or just rebind, but time is the very last I’ll be giving it.

Why do you bother with these changes? Look at the entire rest of the game. There’s so much that needs fixing. Yet you prefer mucking around with random skill numbers? Why is that exactly, to make it seem you’re busy – hard at work? You’re not fooling anyone since the release of this half-assed game.

Perhaps this is a reaction to a build up of frustrations with all the faults within Guild Wars 2, but; well done Arenanet. I cannot believe how you managed to go so wrong with this game. I say that as a major Guild Wars 1 fan, which I played religiously. Compared to that, GW2 is but a shadow in a very dark world.

This update proves to me that Arenanet don’t play the game theirselves. As someone who has been playing Guardian for over 500 hours and almost all of it being greatsword / hammer this is the most gamebreaking change they could have made for me.

The greatsword just feels awkward now, thanks for this utterly useless update.

Eijolend.2485:

It’s really just a retaliation nerf – all the good things about the GS are still intact.

Except they’re not intact. I used Symbol of Wrath’s damage component to help AoE stuff down in PvE, on top of providing healing with the major trait in the healing trait line. Now both of those aspects have been GREATLY NERFED for greatsword, all in the name of some half kitten buff (retal) that most people never even noticed anyway. And the Zeal trait line (which focuses on symbols and the greatsword specifically) have had all of its minor traits reduced in effectiveness by half. All because of this change for retal. Anet is off their kitten rocker with this nerf.

Whatever about retaliation, that’s for another thread…

For the love of GOD, change my freaking skill slots back. 300+ hours of muscle memory is completely shot. Sign me up on whatever petition, because I’m definitely P.O’d about this change. What kind of non-gamer suggested this without the ability to change it?? And before anyone says “rebind your keys”, FYI that screws up your alternative weapon, your underwater weapons… etc. So by fixing 1 you screw up 3 others.

This is HORRIBLE.

Zeph.5927:

Eijolend.2485:

It’s really just a retaliation nerf – all the good things about the GS are still intact.

Except they’re not intact. I used Symbol of Wrath’s damage component to help AoE stuff down in PvE, on top of providing healing with the major trait in the healing trait line. Now both of those aspects have been GREATLY NERFED for greatsword, all in the name of some half kitten buff (retal) that most people never even noticed anyway. And the Zeal trait line (which focuses on symbols and the greatsword specifically) have had all of its minor traits reduced in effectiveness by half. All because of this change for retal. Anet is off their kitten rocker with this nerf.

Yep, also I considered having 2 abilities with a 10 second cooldown one of the “good things” about greatsword and I don’t really see how that’s intact. Compared to the old greatsword it now feels like I’m waiting on cooldowns too much. And Leap of Faith’s lowered CD doesn’t really make up for the DPS loss of Symbol of Wrath. Seriously, LoF does about auto-attack damage. The blind is nice but in PvE when I’m fighting mobs I don’t frequently need a gap closer on a short cooldown more than I need an ability like Symbol of Wrath to do decent AoE damage.

I will adjust to this change, as one does when playing games of any kind.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy about it.
The retalliation change does not bother me one bit, balance all you like! (Alright please don’t go overboard!)
But reordering the skills sets a bad precident. I’d be afraid of next week having to re-learn my one handed mace or hammer skills.

I believe the numbers should have been tuned and abilities left as they were, or at least give us the power to move the buttons around ourselves to suit our playstyle!

maybe I’m missing something, but unless they also changed duration and cd on those abilities I don’t see what reorganizing them has to do with adjusting how retaliation is used.. like others stated why not just change the numbers but keep the placement the same??

Guys, i think you should put this on their suggestions page :/

Nystal.5491:

I believe the numbers should have been tuned and abilities left as they were, or at least give us the power to move the buttons around ourselves to suit our playstyle!

This. Why was this even considered without this mechanic in place?? The ability to set the order of skills personally needs to be implemented immediately. I pretty much completely refuse to relearn this new skill order.

Also it is on their suggestion page. There’s about a dozen topics all over this official site about it. They obviously screwed up. More people are mad about the skill bar change than the actual nerf, and I understand why. As a gamer, you get used to up and down nerfs or buffs. But you start changing our keybindings and crap around that’s like touching a man’s stereo presets.