Guild Wars 2

Guardian

With the guardian, our intent for this balance update is to improve some of the less popular utility skills and open up some build diversity in both support and offense. The active skills of some of the spirit weapons have been reworked to include more supportive functionality. One change we’re excited to tell you about is Spirit Bow’s command ability, which will now heal in a targeted area rather than just around the bow itself. We’ve also adjusted the guardian’s elite skills; the tomes have received considerable number changes and quality-of-life updates.

What do you guys have to say about this?

From a wvw perspective

A step in the right direction and hopefully they reworked all functinality in the spiritweapons and also moved the traits so they arent to spread out.

Hopefully they also adressed how spread out symbol traits are, we are talking about max two symbols in two weapons and unlike necromancers mark no one in their right mind goes for full symbol builds which is our main area control tool.

When they talk about build diversion i sincerely hope they adress survivability in condition builds and in offensive setups besides symbols and spirit builds.

Im a bit excited about our elites as well, sounds promising.

My concern though is that this preview is all we get, we seen it before, and if so its just aint enough.

I pray that they will not do a mistake with the class that will make us more squishy and easy piking in 1v1 or 2v1

Brutaly.6257:

My concern though is that this preview is all we get, we seen it before, and if so its just aint enough.

Yeah, that’s my main concern as well. As all Guardians should know by now, we’ve been down this road far too many times already.

Yup, I hope the omission of any mention of weapon QoL fixes or trait rebalancing (unlike other professions) is simply in the interest of keeping the announcement short and sweet.

Also, you can change all you want on spirit weapon actives but it will be for nothing if the simple issue of cooldowns and trait placement isn’t addressed.

I am still quietly optimistic – they didn’t say we are in a good place, and at the absolute worst I’ll have something new to put in the bugs list

In all honestly not very optimistic.

-Regarding Spirit weapons, bow being targeted was a no brainier, but that is not the main problem with weapons, the problem with weapons is that they do not keep up with you, need a bazillion traits to run and get destroyed by essentially every aoe and boss in the game even when not aiming for them. Reworking their abilities? sure be my guest but that is not what they really need, they need not to be touched by aoe and have their move speed increased.

-Dont see them addressing the guardians meager 10k hp pool. Necros have almost twice as much hp and offensive sustain.

-No comment on GS trait balance/additions, the main used weapon has virtually no trait we can access after fixing our hp pool and getting healing medis.

-Also no changes to symbols which might as well not exist in WvW.

Apolo.5942:

In all honestly not very optimistic.

-Regarding Spirit weapons, bow being targeted was a no brainier, but that is not the main problem with weapons, the problem with weapons is that they do not keep up with you, need a bazillion traits to run and get destroyed by essentially every aoe and boss in the game even when not aiming for them. Reworking their abilities? sure be my guest but that is not what they really need, they need not to be touched by aoe and have their move speed increased.

-Dont see them addressing the guardians meager 10k hp pool. Necros have almost twice as much hp and offensive sustain.

-No comment on GS trait balance/additions, the main used weapon has virtually no trait we can access after fixing our hp pool and getting healing medis.

-Also no changes to symbols which might as well not exist in WvW.

Agree completely on spirit weapons. The traits are way to spread out.

The health pool is not really an issue in PVE, however in Spvp it can become one as it sevrely limits the choices for amulets & runes. Increasing the base health however would likely necessitate nerfing our defensiveness.

Great sword traits are not the only ones that need fixing. Currently I could name a good 20 traits that are very underwhelming or just stupidly gimmicky.

Where symbols are concerned I have been saying for quite a while that they need to cut the duration of all symbols by 1/3 – 1/2 of what they currently are but double the damage & boon applied per pulse. (as is its often not worth standing around in a symbol the full duration its down because standing still will get you killed)

That being said I am happy they at least said they are going to look at the utility skills elites, I just hope that isn’t the only thing they do.

Liking the bow change (let’s hope it actually scales with healing power), and I’m fine with the tome changes providing they don’t do something stupid like removing Tome of Courage’s healing and replace it with something else.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Increasing the base health however would likely necessitate nerfing our defensiveness

For me, active defense and heals > passive defense. If I wanted to facetank things I’d play a warrior.

Not too impressed; details are what matters.

I was afraid spirit weapons were going to take up resources on this patch.

sigh

Well they deserved attention, as well as all the other unused utilities that the devs are finally tinkering with.

seems like more of the same. Are players really going to use spirit bow? Seeing things change for elites might be good. Guess we have to wait and see. What classes are up this Friday?

Fashion Mage.3712:

Well they deserved attention, as well as all the other unused utilities that the devs are finally tinkering with.

I suspect that the term “under used utilities” is entirely limited to the aforementioned spirit weapon options and nothing else. Otherwise they would have mentioned signets.

I am interested what they’ll be doing to the elites though… Provided we don’t just get Tome of Ikea for summoning a dazzling array of spirit bookshelves and sofa beds

tomes need perma stability to make them at all viable

I used to run tomes with lyssa rune (stability on elite and full condi cleanse), but the nerfed to the rune made the tomes worthless

Not enough information to provide accurate feedback. We need details before we can really comment.

I haven’t posted in a very long time due to other games occupying my time but from the looks of this I can say that it’s not nearly enough. We need LESS AI in the game, not more. The Tomes needed changing after they removed stability many months back so this could be interesting. Overall, this is a list of stuff i’d like to see addressed:

Symbols: too static/weak, very little use outside of PvE

Mobility: Getting to the target has never been an issue, sticking on them is another. This applies to weapons that are too slow/don’t have enough reward for how slow they are.

Ranged: A proper ranged weapon would be nice and/or fixing Scepters terrible tracking.

Adjusting the Virtues: Passives are FAR too weak compared to their active counterparts(especially when traited). I was never a fan of passives but if you’re going to keep these, at least make them strong enough for the Guardian if he/she’s playing solo.

This is just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more concerns from others but this has been on my list for at least a year.

Edit: Also just like every other profession, I can probably name at least 20 traits that are completely useless.

Great – Now Spirit Weapons can be used in our SUPPORT Builds…

Way

To

Go….

Support Buff’s…. exactly what we needed.

The vague description is inline with my expectations … not high. For instance, I don’t believe the problem with spirit weapons is a lack of supportive functionality, but that’s what we appear to be getting. I guess we will see what we get.

Charak.9761:

tomes need perma stability to make them at all viable

I used to run tomes with lyssa rune (stability on elite and full condi cleanse), but the nerfed to the rune made the tomes worthless

At launch tomes did have stability, then they removed it and replaced it with retaliation for tome of wrath and protection boon for tome of courage. Overall tomes have always felt clunky, as all transformations do in this game.

With that said, buffing spirit weapons is good news despite some people being on the fence about it.

One of the biggest problems in this game is diversity, a lot of it has to do with the community’s overall perspective but the other portion is that some skills are down right bad. With guardian we have two three utility categories that are frequently used:

1. Shouts
2. Meditations
3. Consecrations

All three of those are in a pretty good spot, but signets and spirit weapons go relatively unused. So 2/5 utility categories go unused. So 9 skills are unused, that’s quite significant. Also, the only reason why zeal tree feels underwhelming is because spirit weapons are. With spirit weapons viable the zeal tree by proxy becomes viable as well.

Hopefully they make the right moves with the changes. I imagine somehow spirit weapons will also be able to provide boons, but we’ll see.

1_ Shouts, never use them, too little utility too long cooldown, only use them on specific parts in pve, aka stability for marsh fractals thats it.

2_ Meditations, this is how all skills in this game should be, big noticible impact, low cooldown, exelent.

3_ Consecrations, never use them same problem as 1

If you can only realistically blow the skill 1nce per fight, it needs a complete overhaul, big blow up are what elite skills are for.

?
I’m guessing you only pvp and/or roam wvw? Since meditations aren’t too hot anywhere else.

There’s only 1 meditation skill with a low cooldown, and that is smite condition.

ArchonWing.9480:

?
I’m guessing you only pvp?

There’s only 1 meditation skill with a low cooldown, and that is smite condition.

Twentish second cooldown is acceptable if the skill is powerfull enough.

36 seconds cd on a 2k heal, teleport, burn and fury is ok
16 seconds cd on a 2k heal, clean condition, fury and aoe nuke is ok
30 seconds cd on 5s stability and retaliation is not.

You’re comparing fully traited meditations against untraited shouts… and also meditations only affect yourself.

If spirit weapons were immune to attacks for their duration, and there were two new buttons I could press to make them spread out, follow, or attack target, then I might get excited.
I do look forward to any improvements to guardian of course, and I’m in no way feeling kitten before I see the actual updates.

Apolo.5942:

1_ Shouts, never use them, too little utility too long cooldown, only use them on specific parts in pve, aka stability for marsh fractals thats it.

2_ Meditations, this is how all skills in this game should be, big noticible impact, low cooldown, exelent.

3_ Consecrations, never use them same problem as 1

Consecrations typically have the cooldowns they have exactly because the utility they offer is pretty huge. Not all consecrations have a high cd though. When I happen to have them equipped, I use Wall of Reflection and Purging Flames 2-3 times a fight.

As for meditations, they only affect the user, which is why they have relatively big effects on relatively short cooldowns. They’re basically the “selfish” utility line with the exception of Merciful Intervention.

And as ArchonWing said, don’t make comparisons that leave out important details.

Megastorm.6219:

If spirit weapons were immune to attacks for their duration, and there were two new buttons I could press to make them spread out, follow, or attack target, then I might get excited.
I do look forward to any improvements to guardian of course, and I’m in no way feeling kitten before I see the actual updates.

They’re probably not going to make them immune; that’s going to lead to a lot of complaining regardless if it’s good or not.

They do need to make them much sturdier as in “not melt in 0.1 seconds to incidental damage” so a big buff is needed.

ArchonWing.9480:

Megastorm.6219:

If spirit weapons were immune to attacks for their duration, and there were two new buttons I could press to make them spread out, follow, or attack target, then I might get excited.
I do look forward to any improvements to guardian of course, and I’m in no way feeling kitten before I see the actual updates.

They’re probably not going to make them immune; that’s going to lead to a lot of complaining regardless if it’s good or not.

They do need to make them much sturdier as in “not melt in 0.1 seconds to incidental damage” so a big buff is needed.

Athey need a HUGE buff, or at least a differentiation, pvp “incidental damage” is not the same as PVE “incidental damage”.

I’ve given up on any major changes to Guardian. Anet obviously has their minds made up on how the profession should be played, and are too stubborn to really change anything. Yeah Guardian is in a pretty decent spot, however there are still a lot of traits, skills, and builds that need some love. However I really don’t see it happening, and Guardian will continue to remain in the same stale state for almost two years now.

I know I sound pretty pessimistic, but after almost two years now, it’s quite disheartening. I find it harder and harder to even log in.

How about we not buff spirit weapons by a large margin? As I’ve stated a few posts up, we need LESS AI in every mode. I don’t mind them as introductory to playing the game. However, their effectiveness should NEVER equal or even come close to that of active skills.

It also surprises me by the heavy discussion of said AI. I’m sticking to my guns on this one about the previous issues that I brought up earlier. Here’s an overview of the weapons that need to change for the better and why:

Hammer: Too slow for the damage output it produces. Now I understand that this is supposed to be a CC-related weapon but it’s too slow even for that. I keep looking at the Warrior hammer and picture how awesome it is to fight with that. Not to mention traits that have a significant synergistic behavior with said weapon.

Sword: This one is minor but Zealot’s defense is very static and Counterintuitive to the games design(constant movement). Not to mention the blades barely hit a moving target. Also one change i’d like to see is the #3 on its AA. Its cleave is well below average. Why can’t this just be a single-hit like Axe on Warrior. That thing hits like a truck and even hits behind the player using it.

Scepter: Only thing this needs is tracking improvements. I’m still seeing it easily avoidable with strafe-dodging.

Great sword: This is actually has a pretty decent kit outside of 2 skills. I’m looking at Symbol of Wrath and Binding blade. One offers static game-play and outside of PvE, is near-useless. Binding blade isn’t terrible except for the cool down is a bit long and the leash is a tiny bit too small. Not to mention it can be completely negated by dodging just as you pull someone. Last but not least, i’d like to see WW have its projectiles removed and just increase the base damage, those things are completely random and contribute very little.

Mace: The Auto-attack needs a change, even with more than 1000 HP, the heal from the third strike is insignificant. Make this more selfish or something to be of actual use. Symbol of Faith, once again, offers static play and outside of PvE, is near useless.

Torch: Cleansing flame not affecting the Guardian? Now this might be too strong if it did but you could just increase the cd to make up for that.

Focus: I’d like to see Ray of Judgement’s projectile be faster. Maybe drop Shield of Wrath’s cd a tiny bit.

These are just off the top of my head. I still believe that symbols as a whole(I forgot to add the hammers version) need to change. I understand that pretty much all of these are buffs but if you honestly looked over each skill, you’d realize how slow and in some cases, ineffective they are regardless of how long the wind-up is. Just my 2cents.

Actually it needs a whole lot more AI, it needs less button mashing and more passive stuff to slow down the fights.

Agreed with Arken… weapons really need work.

Jaskier.2714:

“…intent for this balance update is to improve some of the less popular utility skills
…open up some build diversity in both support and offense.
..spirit weapons have been reworked to include more supportive functionality.
…also adjusted the guardian’s elite skills; the tomes have received considerable number changes and quality-of-life updates.”

The Shield and Bow will obviously have more Defensive support. The Sword and Hammer i’m assuming will have more Offensive uses. Tombs will be buffed but not sure by how much, or if it’s more than what Renewed Focus offers… which was Suppose to be the “middle” man of the group anyways..

I’m more curious if Signets fall into the “less popular utility skills” or if they’re just talking Just spirit weapons.

Does anyone remember the fake balance notes a few months ago? One of the fake changes was the Spirit bow command ability being targetable(like what we are going to see now in the official update).I wonder if Anet taking notes, bc those fake patch notes were sick.

Little idea I had.

What if they reworked Glacial Heart.

Make it something like

“Glacial Heart” Whenever you blind a target you also apply chill to nearby enemies.
2 second duration, 180 radius around blinded enemy & 10 second cool down.

This would effectively give the guardian more uptime in melee and limit how much they could be kited offsetting the fact that guardian burst potential is much much lower then other melee specs.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Little idea I had.

What if they reworked Glacial Heart.

Make it something like

“Glacial Heart” Whenever you blind a target you also apply chill to nearby enemies.
2 second duration, 180 radius around blinded enemy & 10 second cool down.

This would effectively give the guardian more uptime in melee and limit how much they could be kited offsetting the fact that guardian burst potential is much much lower then other melee specs.

I don’t think they will change glacial heart again. I personally feel that giving glacial heart a damage modifier for hammers would make it more useful. Maybe a 10% dmg increase + the rng proc would be ok.

Aza.2105:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Little idea I had.

What if they reworked Glacial Heart.

Make it something like

“Glacial Heart” Whenever you blind a target you also apply chill to nearby enemies.
2 second duration, 180 radius around blinded enemy & 10 second cool down.

This would effectively give the guardian more uptime in melee and limit how much they could be kited offsetting the fact that guardian burst potential is much much lower then other melee specs.

I don’t think they will change glacial heart again. I personally feel that giving glacial heart a damage modifier for hammers would make it more useful. Maybe a 10% dmg increase + the rng proc would be ok.

Eh maybe.

But as is the Cd is so long its pretty much useless.

As for something to buff the hammer I had an idea a while back about how they could change unscathed contender.
As is now it only works if AEGIS is up, lets be honest in any serious fight its unlikely to be up long.
But if they changed to to the following it would be much better

“Unscathed Contender” While under the effects of protection you deal +8% more damage.

Hmm, would it be better if Unscathed Contender worked like Scholar runes and did more damage above 90%?

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

“Unscathed Contender” While under the effects of protection you deal +8% more damage.

A full dps guard has relatively little access to protection though, and you probably wouldn’t want to squander it as a pre-cast for burst.

ArchonWing.9480:

Hmm, would it be better if Unscathed Contender worked like Scholar runes and did more damage above 90%?

That would help in PvE or WvW.

Tarsius.3170:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

“Unscathed Contender” While under the effects of protection you deal +8% more damage.

A full dps guard has relatively little access to protection though, and you probably wouldn’t want to squander it as a pre-cast for burst.

Depends on your build & the group your with.

A guardian using Hammer for instance has pretty much permanent protection.

Also most elementalists will run with elemental attunement and can give a good sized chunk of protection
Spirit ranger with stone spirit can grant it
Chaos armor will also grant it on occasion

Also it would help out anybody using mace, shield, Hold the line or save yourselves.

So in the end it would be allot better then it is now considering in any challenging fight AEGIS is unlikely to be up that long.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Tarsius.3170:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

“Unscathed Contender” While under the effects of protection you deal +8% more damage.

A full dps guard has relatively little access to protection though, and you probably wouldn’t want to squander it as a pre-cast for burst.

A guardian using Hammer for instance has pretty much permanent protection.

Lol this is the most kittened comment ever.

This is true only if

a- You hit with the slowest most telegraphed attack in the game.
and
b- Your opponent is kittened enough to fight you in the small static circle you create.

Tarsius.3170:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Well they deserved attention, as well as all the other unused utilities that the devs are finally tinkering with.

I suspect that the term “under used utilities” is entirely limited to the aforementioned spirit weapon options and nothing else. Otherwise they would have mentioned signets.

I am interested what they’ll be doing to the elites though… Provided we don’t just get Tome of Ikea for summoning a dazzling array of spirit bookshelves and sofa beds

That would be OP having all the furniture in one skill!