Guild Wars 2

I’m still looking for it! I was pretty excited for the “largest balance patch ever”…until I saw it had zero effect on the hyped up “build diversity” of guardians as a whole. 99% of guardians are still going to be using a GS, hammer, mace, or staff. Honor and valor are still going to be the default trait line choices for guardians. I’m failing to see the build diversity here.

A guardian that tries to build for dps will still be pigeon holed/pressured into using a GS since you buffed it even more….without buffing the damage or other capabilities of the only other real dps weapon for a guardian…the one handed sword. Still no leap finisher for flashing blade. Still no snare on flashing blade. The change to the duration of vulnerability from blind exposure still does not increase the personal dps of the guardian versus powerful blades…although it does net an increase in group dps due to longer application of vulnerability to all blinded targets.

Zeal still has a significant and unavoidable budget of symbol traits….effectively forming a barrier to anyone not using a GS, hammer, staff, or mace. Scepter users are still playing darts with a blind fold apparently and torch users were given a placebo to think they actually got a buff.

Flashing Blade is a blink, therefore it’ll never be a leap finisher. Now making it a blast finisher? I can see that since you pop out of thing air in a puff of blinding light.

I see plenty of build diversity. If by diversity you mean 5 points in one useless tree, or 5 points into another useless tree (for 5 pts). I’m just kidding of course, we all know where to put those other 5 points. Sarcasm aside you are absolutely right OP. This mythical build diversity may exist for other classes, but not for guardian.

Yeah, obviously they were aiming for build diversity when they buffed up glacial heart. I can just see all those 0/0/30/30/10 EM/AH hammer guardians swapping to sword/torch now.

Oh, wait.

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

Amen brother.

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

Then please tell us your all new original build. I can wait.

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

And from your post, it’s very apparent that your one amazingly unique build is representative of every single guardian in GW2.

Can just agree with OP.

In wvw and pve (non competitive gameplay and scripted opponents with about the same skill level tbh) this might have added some sort of diversity since you frankly can play it more or less without a single point in your traits. Ofc maybe even in spvp which pretty much plays out like wvw and pve with the same low level of required skill.

But if you look at tpvp where competitive builds are in demand its the same “old” builds that will prevail. I think this pretty much sums it up. What these changes brought was just a couple of more gimmick builds for unskilled gameplay.

Tbh anyone even thinking of using glacial heart, cc are used to prevent damage, increase mobility, setup for burst, etc and here we have a random cc triggered by chance and with a huge cd.

Even though zealous blade is nice indeed it competes with scepter power and actually prevents from diversity. Zealous blade should have been for all weapons and not just GS.

Strenght in number change was good though but i cant see how that diversify in any form or shape.

So basically it *might" be valid to put 20 points in zeal now, for non competitive gameplay. I wouldnt call that diversifying.

Perhaps you should be grateful Anet hasn’t tried to give you ‘build diversity’. After all, look at what happened to the Mesmer or ele when they try that.

Right now, guardian is probably the best class in the game. And this patch, which screwed just about everyone else, the guardian apparently received nothing but buffs.

Im trying something new as a result.
I didnt like much in the 20 points in Valor, so took that and put it into radiance
20/15/0/30/5
Shout/GS build

Setun.4368:

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

Amen brother.

+1 to the pair of unskilled and clueless tools. Make sure to get that wool sheared off yourselves so you look good after this awesome patch.

I’ve tried multiple “Builds” as soon as i got the chance. Taking advantage of utilizing the changed traits today. ie. Spirit Weapon(hammer) builds, 1hd builds(Anet burned us by moving the Burn on block trait from Radiance btw), Zeal GS builds.

In Conclusion: It did nothing. We lose too much while going into the Zeal traits with little benefits. The biggest issue with this; is taking advantage of GS when 80% of the players are all Range and kiting you with chill, snares, roots etc. To much utility is lost running a Heavy GS build with no real way to catch up. With the heavy CD on chain pull and how easily it is to be dodge. It-Just-Isnt-Worth-it.

Cookie Cutter builds are still superior. Class is still in need of some serious build diversity.

This of course is speaking from a PvP frame of mind.

I’m not sure the complaint is accurate. We have lots of builds that work very well for various situations. What I was hoping to see from the changes was a more thoughtful approach to dependencies between traits, similar to what we have with Honour 5 and Radiance. Just some simple pairs to increase people’s desire to mix traits more. On the flip side, I can see why being able to ‘combo up’ is less important for GM traits … those have to be strong enough to stand on their own. Unfortunately, the Zeal line is still it’s own island.

Still, if I had to classify the changes, it would be improving weaker aspects of Guardian play. I don’t feel that the improvements are so significant that they expand the current space of popular (re. competitive) builds.

I think guardians are okay, they just need a bit more mobility. But the class is not broken. I am currently in the 80-90% bracket on the leaderboards, just with solo queuing as a dps guardian.

I think I could get a bit further with an actual team, but I like playing a DPS guardian more than bunkering.

I also think matchmaking is much more effective than other games, because even if I run a class that people would argue hurts the team; I should lose until the point were my enemies are weaker and face the same skill level.

I have never played a game were most classes are viable at everything, in World of Warcraft this was essentially impossible. I was forced to run Holy Priest in Cataclysm at launch and reached 2200, but that wasn’t balance because my class was broken and Holy was the only viable spec (and it still sucked)

ODB.6891:

Setun.4368:

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

Amen brother.

+1 to the pair of unskilled and clueless tools. Make sure to get that wool sheared off yourselves so you look good after this awesome patch.

I dont know, has i already lost the sense of build diversity.
On WvW (only thing i do) after tried loads of builds the only thing i can assume is guardian on critical damage is the best and only way to play it, dead people cant damage you, and doing 6k damage in area (per target) well its more than worthy as playing other pseudo roles that class have that can get wrecked easily.

PSto warriors: Boons

ODB.6891:

Setun.4368:

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

Amen brother.

+1 to the pair of unskilled and clueless tools. Make sure to get that wool sheared off yourselves so you look good after this awesome patch.

Lmao. Since when did not needing a crutch like AH make me unskilled? I’m not the one having issues building my character away from Altruistic Healing.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

Then please tell us your all new original build. I can wait.

There’s nothing all new or original about it. When I build for straight DPS, I run 10/30/0/30/0 sword/shield + staff or alternatively sword/focus + scepter/shield shouts with PoV. Berserker gear.

Guardians are balanced they dont require nerfs/buff, they got it right the first time.

The only things I got was +80 to team toughness, which was pretty good.

Stop putting points in zeal, its a noob magnet trait.

foofad.5162:

ODB.6891:

Setun.4368:

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

Amen brother.

+1 to the pair of unskilled and clueless tools. Make sure to get that wool sheared off yourselves so you look good after this awesome patch.

Lmao. Since when did not needing a crutch like AH make me unskilled? I’m not the one having issues building my character away from Altruistic Healing.

Pretty sure you are so clueless that you managed to miss the point of every post in this thread. The entire point of the advertised build diversity was to get people to do something different than what the majority has and still are doing. That being 30 honor/30 valor builds. The fact that you keep specifically talking so much about not needing AH (despite my initial post not even mentioning it) makes me think you are actually an AH user. I don’t, have never, and will never trait any into valor and i’ve only gone as far into honor to pick up EM. This thread has nothing to do with my ability to build my character…my character has been built and is built for dps with a little thrown in to honor for EM. This thread was about the lack of the advertised build diversity when it comes to guardians. The current set up for guardians remains focused on GS/hammer/staff/mace. This patch just reinforced that majority instead of promoting different choices. It didn’t even promote exploring zeal for anyone other than GS users (zealous blade).

Once again….+1 bro

The real problem is that the only traits that are actually really defining for the class are Right Handed Strength, AH/Monk’s Focus, Empowering Might, Pure of Voice, Battle Presence, and Permeating Wrath could be if burning was stronger.

You could make a case for a few others in niche builds (writ of persistence for hammer), but pretty much everything else is either mediocre, or easily obtained.

Every effective* DPS build is framed around 10/25/0/20/0 because those are the traits that actually increase damage.

People drop 30 into valor despite the fact that most of the traits aren’t very good because AH is so incredibly powerful. Or they go full on meditations with Monk’s.

People dump points into Honor because almost all of those traits are useful to some build.

Zeal is terrible because the minors are all about symbols, but the weapons that actually use symbols for damage (Hammer / GS) gain more from the 10/25/0/20/0 setup than they do from going deep into Zeal.

If you want build diversity, you need stuff in each tree that people really want, not just two boring/bad traits that I have to grab to get the one good trait (Radiant Power for 2H weapons for example).

@ODB If I may point…
fact that one guardian is using greatsword don’t dictate what build he runs – as for now I can count at least 3 builds that may be used with gs with no or just little loss.
same with other weapons You told.
and this patch IS promoting other builds than majority is using – because thing that dependless weapons great majority have is 30 points in Valor and honor – this patch promotes a little – maybe not enough for some to consider but promotes another traitlines – and try to promote another traits in current “meta” traitlines.

EDIT: I’m not saying that work with promoting diversity is done – but they are on the good path to manage this

ODB.6891:

foofad.5162:

ODB.6891:

Setun.4368:

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

Amen brother.

+1 to the pair of unskilled and clueless tools. Make sure to get that wool sheared off yourselves so you look good after this awesome patch.

Lmao. Since when did not needing a crutch like AH make me unskilled? I’m not the one having issues building my character away from Altruistic Healing.

Pretty sure you are so clueless that you managed to miss the point of every post in this thread. The entire point of the advertised build diversity was to get people to do something different than what the majority has and still are doing. That being 30 honor/30 valor builds. The fact that you keep specifically talking so much about not needing AH (despite my initial post not even mentioning it) makes me think you are actually an AH user. I don’t, have never, and will never trait any into valor and i’ve only gone as far into honor to pick up EM. This thread has nothing to do with my ability to build my character…my character has been built and is built for dps with a little thrown in to honor for EM. This thread was about the lack of the advertised build diversity when it comes to guardians. The current set up for guardians remains focused on GS/hammer/staff/mace. This patch just reinforced that majority instead of promoting different choices. It didn’t even promote exploring zeal for anyone other than GS users (zealous blade).

Once again….+1 bro

How does bragging about not going into valor make you any different from his point of not using AH? Hypocrit much? Also, avoiding valor entirely is stupid as well. There are some good strong self traits in there aside from AH/EM. People play the builds they want, the issue is getting people to actually think outside the AH box, because its been forced into peoples minds thakittens the only way to survive.

Outside of AH Valor is good due to:

30% crit dmg
Retributive Armor (3-5%) crit chance depending on gear
Purity (lets you drop heal signet for shelter which IMO is far superior)

When you combine these with AH, you can see how useful this entire traitline is.

And i tend to lol when people bash the valor line yet they are willing to drop 30 points in radiance which has kitten traits in general just to get an overrated minor trait

Hunter.4783:

Outside of AH Valor is good due to:

30% crit dmg
Retributive Armor (3-5%) crit chance depending on gear
Purity (lets you drop heal signet for shelter which IMO is far superior)

When you combine these with AH, you can see how useful this entire traitline is.

And i tend to lol when people bash the valor line yet they are willing to drop 30 points in radiance which has kitten traits in general just to get an overrated minor trait

….. Radiance is actually very good for damage specs as long as your are running at least one of GS or Sword. Blind on vulnerability stacks quickly with all of our sources and inner fire is great in WvW or Spvp as you end up getting burning alot, which leads to great fury uptime. The 25 point trait is honestly just extra an extra bonus after those. And if you do run one hands 15% crit is huge. The valor line itself is good, and works for almost all weapons, but people rely way too heavily on it and need to start thinking outside the box.

ODB.6891:

foofad.5162:

ODB.6891:

Setun.4368:

foofad.5162:

I haven’t run Altruistic Healing since November. Don’t need it, don’t want it, enjoying the buff to Greatsword Power when I’m not busy demolishing things with sword/shield and staff.

So, y’know.

Learn to play, and the build diversity skyrockets.

Amen brother.

+1 to the pair of unskilled and clueless tools. Make sure to get that wool sheared off yourselves so you look good after this awesome patch.

Lmao. Since when did not needing a crutch like AH make me unskilled? I’m not the one having issues building my character away from Altruistic Healing.

Pretty sure you are so clueless that you managed to miss the point of every post in this thread. The entire point of the advertised build diversity was to get people to do something different than what the majority has and still are doing. That being 30 honor/30 valor builds. The fact that you keep specifically talking so much about not needing AH (despite my initial post not even mentioning it) makes me think you are actually an AH user. I don’t, have never, and will never trait any into valor and i’ve only gone as far into honor to pick up EM. This thread has nothing to do with my ability to build my character…my character has been built and is built for dps with a little thrown in to honor for EM. This thread was about the lack of the advertised build diversity when it comes to guardians. The current set up for guardians remains focused on GS/hammer/staff/mace. This patch just reinforced that majority instead of promoting different choices. It didn’t even promote exploring zeal for anyone other than GS users (zealous blade).

Once again….+1 bro

The point of build diversity is to allow for the maximum number of viable builds possible. There will always be a most popular build for any given meta. You can’t force the majority of players who play the popular builds from switching. You can only give them alternatives. Right now, Guardians do have alternatives to x/x/30/30×. It’s not anyone’s fault that the players don’t go with the alternatives. People will flock to what they think is the easiest, or the best. Popular perception is that AH builds are the be all and end all. AH is viable, there’s no disputing that. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other builds out there, and that you shouldn’t use them.

Half of people’s troubles that I see on the forum stem from a lack of creativity when it comes to building their characters. Most people don’t sigil past accuracy/force/kill stacking, or rune past water/dwayna/sanctuary. They don’t build without AH. They are stuck on these old standby skills that work instead of venturing out into the unknown wildlands of weapon swapping, using Unscathed Contender/Retreat as a DPS tool, most people don’t even switch their utilities to suit what they’re fighting. ANet can’t force you to do that. All they can do is dangle carrots – like merging traits to make Zeal 20 more attractive.

Anyway, if it helps you feel better to think of me as some sort of unskilled, lying, dirty Altruistic Healing specced forum warrior then knock yourself out. If you look at my post history I think you’ll find that I have almost always supported doing things differently.