Guild Wars 2

While other classes have an Elite cast skill cancellation cooldown of 4secs us Guardians gets the whole 90 secs making the skill completely useless. It seems a bit unfair, I understand that if you reduce the cancellation cd to 4secs like other classes people will just abuse the invulnerability cast.

So i just have a suggestion of making the skill cast time 3/4secs or 1 secs and that you receive the 2secs invulnerability and virtue renewal at the end of the cast.
Why?
- 3/4 sec/ 1sec is enough time for you to cancel the elite skill.
- 3/4 sec/ 1sec isn’t too long of a cast time to receive invulnerability in a do or die situation.
- Receiving invulnerability and virtues at the end of the cast time will make sure people don’t abuse the new cast cancel cooldown.
- If you dodge an attack while casting your Renewed Focus it will no longer go into full cooldown and allow you to use it again in 4secs.

This way your Elite Skill won’t go into a 90sec full cooldown if you want to cancel the cast and save it for later or if you simply dodge on accident while channeling the Renewed Focus

Or

As many people have already said make the Virtues Renewed upon activation of Renewed Focus

If anyone have other ideas of how to make the skill work out please post it!!

Because it’s extremely powerful..?

huggles.5271:

Because it’s extremely powerful..?

Uhh that’s not the point here. The point is that if you try to cast cancel ( By dodging) Renewed Focus it will automatically go into a 90sec cooldown making the skill useless. What i simply suggested was a way arenanet could change the skill making it so Renewed Focus can have a cast cancel along with a way to make it so people don’t abuse the invulnerability you get while casting it.

I’m going to be honest I didn’t read much, it was really long :/

huggles.5271:

I’m going to be honest I didn’t read much, it was really long :/

lol it’s okay :P

huggles.5271:

I’m going to be honest I didn’t read much, it was really long :/

But you bothered typing out this post?

To OP: Elite skills in this game are mostly gimmicky. They should be redesigned to heighten their usefulness to something akin to the warrior’s Rage Signet.

Pariah.8506:

huggles.5271:

I’m going to be honest I didn’t read much, it was really long :/

But you bothered typing out this post?

To OP: Elite skills in this game are mostly gimmicky. They should be redesigned to heighten their usefulness to something akin to the warrior’s Rage Signet.

Agreed strongly!

Leonsky.3156:

Uhh that’s not the point here. The point is that if you try to cast cancel ( By dodging) Renewed Focus it will automatically go into a 90sec cooldown making the skill useless. What i simply suggested was a way arenanet could change the skill making it so Renewed Focus can have a cast cancel along with a way to make it so people don’t abuse the invulnerability you get while casting it.

Why would you cancel the cast with a dodge anyway? You are invulnerable!

stof.9341:

Leonsky.3156:

Uhh that’s not the point here. The point is that if you try to cast cancel ( By dodging) Renewed Focus it will automatically go into a 90sec cooldown making the skill useless. What i simply suggested was a way arenanet could change the skill making it so Renewed Focus can have a cast cancel along with a way to make it so people don’t abuse the invulnerability you get while casting it.

Why would you cancel the cast with a dodge anyway? You are invulnerable!

1 – Teammates heal you and you no longer need the invulnerability and want to save the cast for later time

2 – Using Renewed Focus and while casting runs into aoe and cast is about run out and need to dodge before the skill cast is finished. Problem with this is you no longer get your virtues. ( Example – Dodging Molten Beserker Waves / Aetherblade Cannon Phase )

Maybe have it reset your virtues immediately after casting? If you cancel the invulnerability then that’s just too bad.

Or just a small suggestion without caring about balance too much:

Signet of Focus (CD 90s)
Passive: 25% movement speed increase
Active: Gain 4s invulnerability and reset virtues.

Where the increased elite duration trait would not affect this anymore, but you can pick up the signet cooldown reduction instead.

Leonsky.3156:

1 – Teammates heal you and you no longer need the invulnerability and want to save the cast for later time

2 – Using Renewed Focus and while casting runs into aoe and cast is about run out and need to dodge before the skill cast is finished. Problem with this is you no longer get your virtues. ( Example – Dodging Molten Beserker Waves / Aetherblade Cannon Phase )

1 – Though luck.
2 – Maybe that skill isn’t the best to use in that situation then?

Mostly, I think you don’t understand how that skill works. You are supposed to be invulnerable only during the cast time. Why? Because you aren’t allowed to do anything else while you are protected. Same as blocking stances. Adding a cast time before the skill activates would also make it unusable in reflex to block an attack. All in all,
iIt’d be a major remake of the skill.

stof.9341:

Leonsky.3156:

1 – Teammates heal you and you no longer need the invulnerability and want to save the cast for later time

2 – Using Renewed Focus and while casting runs into aoe and cast is about run out and need to dodge before the skill cast is finished. Problem with this is you no longer get your virtues. ( Example – Dodging Molten Beserker Waves / Aetherblade Cannon Phase )

1 – Though luck.
2 – Maybe that skill isn’t the best to use in that situation then?

Mostly, I think you don’t understand how that skill works. You are supposed to be invulnerable only during the cast time. Why? Because you aren’t allowed to do anything else while you are protected. Same as blocking stances. Adding a cast time before the skill activates would also make it unusable in reflex to block an attack. All in all,
iIt’d be a major remake of the skill.

You’re not getting my point. If you pop renew focus and accidently dodge or dodge less than half a second before the skill ends your virtues are not renewed that alone is enough reason for them to remake the skill. Some guardians use it for the invulnerability and some use it for the renewal of virtues.

As for situation wise you never know what will happen. Maybe you just popped renew focus cus you’re about to die and all the sudden molten firestorm shoots fire aoe all around and your only way out is to dodge through the aoe before the cast ends otherwise you’ll take the fire aoe damage, but now you no longer get the virtues.

It’s not just about the invulnerability dude it’s the virtues too.

It’s like if if you need a Warbanner and the skill gave invulnerability while casting but you dodge roll on accident because you’re distracted by the boss attacks and forgot you had invulnerability you get the invulnerability duration but no warbanner because the cast was interrupted and it goes into a 240sec cooldown.

Why not just frontload the virtue recharge instead of giving the Guardian two seconds of immunity on the move? You know, so virtues recharge as soon as you activate the skill but have it retain the same CD?

Leonsky.3156:

huggles.5271:

Because it’s extremely powerful..?

Uhh that’s not the point here. The point is that if you try to cast cancel ( By dodging) Renewed Focus it will automatically go into a 90sec cooldown making the skill useless. What i simply suggested was a way arenanet could change the skill making it so Renewed Focus can have a cast cancel along with a way to make it so people don’t abuse the invulnerability you get while casting it.

Why are you dodging when your cant take any dmg of cc? Renewed Focus has 2 effects the main one is the cast if you let it reset every time you roll getting that small window of use you will have an endless ability to go inviolable ever 3 sec for 1 sec at a time.

Your suggestion would make the skill interruptible?

Jski.6180:

Leonsky.3156:

huggles.5271:

Because it’s extremely powerful..?

Uhh that’s not the point here. The point is that if you try to cast cancel ( By dodging) Renewed Focus it will automatically go into a 90sec cooldown making the skill useless. What i simply suggested was a way arenanet could change the skill making it so Renewed Focus can have a cast cancel along with a way to make it so people don’t abuse the invulnerability you get while casting it.

Why are you dodging when your cant take any dmg of cc? Renewed Focus has 2 effects the main one is the cast if you let it reset every time you roll getting that small window of use you will have an endless ability to go inviolable ever 3 sec for 1 sec at a time.

As for situation wise you never know what will happen. Maybe you just popped renew focus cus you’re about to die and all the sudden molten firestorm shoots fire aoe all around and your only way out is to dodge through the aoe before the cast ends otherwise you’ll take the fire aoe damage, but now you no longer get the virtues.

Elm.8169:

Why not just frontload the virtue recharge instead of giving the Guardian two seconds of immunity on the move? You know, so virtues recharge as soon as you activate the skill but have it retain the same CD?

Yes this!!

No the suggestion is to add a cast time where you aren’t invulnerable and you can cancel it without going into full CD, then the invulnerability would be given after as a buff at the same time as the virtues recharge.

Honnestly, if the main reason you have is because at times you cancel it by mistake, I’d say this suggestion is along the lines of asking your computer to display twice the “Confirm deleting this file?” before doing it just in case you made a mistake.

Sure, there should be some amount of protection against mistakes, but too much is too much!

But just having virtues recharge at the start might just be enough. Though it could be considered an unneeded buff to the skill.

That skill should have been an instant activation stun breaker that gives a 2s invulnerability effect (3s with renewed focus), allowing you to do things under the invulnerability effect, much like elementalists under Obsidian Flesh, and renewing the virtues once the invulnerability ends, instead invulnerability being a channeled effect.

huggles.5271:

Because it’s extremely powerful..?

It is? Hmm well whatever floats your boat. 2 whole seconds of invul yay.

JonPeters.5630:

This is absolutely working as intended. The game wide rule (minus a bug or two that we are working on) is that once a skill has given you any of the benefits, canceling or interrupting that skill puts it on full cooldown. The alternative, in this case especially, is to be able to make yourself invulnerable for 2 seconds, cancel and then recast 4 seconds later which would be very broken.

Jon

Then wouldn’t it be more beneficial to players to just get the virtues at the start of Renewed Focus instead and ride out the invulnerability duration.

Perhaps it should go on the full cooldown but you at least receive your virtues renewed.

My real concern? Making spvp changes to skills without any regards to how this affects the skills in dungeon team setups/pvp/wvw.

Solution? Spilt skills. Why not? ‘People are simple creatures, they wont be able to comprehend it.’

JonPeters.5630:

Leonsky.3156:

JonPeters.5630:

This is absolutely working as intended. The game wide rule (minus a bug or two that we are working on) is that once a skill has given you any of the benefits, canceling or interrupting that skill puts it on full cooldown. The alternative, in this case especially, is to be able to make yourself invulnerable for 2 seconds, cancel and then recast 4 seconds later which would be very broken.

Jon

Then wouldn’t it be more beneficial to players to just get the virtues at the start of Renewed Focus instead and ride out the invulnerability duration.

It might, however that is not the only consideration when creating a skill. In this particular instance the idea of refreshing virtues is powerful and we want you as a player to commit to this instead of casting and canceling right away. It is also flavorful in that you meditate for a few seconds to renew your focus not he other way around.

Jon

I do agree but why not make the virtues really powerful, in pve they are but in pvp and especially wvw the virtues are marginal at best.

So why not keep renewed focus as it is and either boost the virtues or add a fourth virtue. Virtues in wvw is lackluster atm unless you trait heavily into them which is really weird for a class defining skill/mechanic.

If virtues was a very powerful tool like necro death shroud or F1 on warriors i wouldnt mind at all the way renewed focus works.

Its especially annoying when interrupted by an unblock able attack and put on full cd with no benefit.

Once again this i alright if the elite actually boosted something very powerful, which it doesnt. We are talking about a couple of seconds of burning or 1,5k, one aegis and 2k health here.

JonPeters.5630:

Leonsky.3156:

JonPeters.5630:

This is absolutely working as intended. The game wide rule (minus a bug or two that we are working on) is that once a skill has given you any of the benefits, canceling or interrupting that skill puts it on full cooldown. The alternative, in this case especially, is to be able to make yourself invulnerable for 2 seconds, cancel and then recast 4 seconds later which would be very broken.

Jon

Then wouldn’t it be more beneficial to players to just get the virtues at the start of Renewed Focus instead and ride out the invulnerability duration.

It might, however that is not the only consideration when creating a skill. In this particular instance the idea of refreshing virtues is powerful and we want you as a player to commit to this instead of casting and canceling right away. It is also flavorful in that you meditate for a few seconds to renew your focus not he other way around.

Jon

I think this highlights the key issue plaguing the Guardian class right now. You guys give too much weight to the Virtues. Especially Courage and the Aegis boon.

JonPeters.5630:

Leonsky.3156:

JonPeters.5630:

This is absolutely working as intended. The game wide rule (minus a bug or two that we are working on) is that once a skill has given you any of the benefits, canceling or interrupting that skill puts it on full cooldown. The alternative, in this case especially, is to be able to make yourself invulnerable for 2 seconds, cancel and then recast 4 seconds later which would be very broken.

Jon

Then wouldn’t it be more beneficial to players to just get the virtues at the start of Renewed Focus instead and ride out the invulnerability duration.

It might, however that is not the only consideration when creating a skill. In this particular instance the idea of refreshing virtues is powerful and we want you as a player to commit to this instead of casting and canceling right away. It is also flavorful in that you meditate for a few seconds to renew your focus not he other way around.

Jon

I don’t want to make it look like I’m arguing with you. But I disagree with what you are saying. Renewed Focus is weak since Virtues are weak. They are only signets with a different name and inferior effects.

I personally only use Renewed Focus because I have to, since the other two elites are less than ideal.

As my Guardian specializes in solo capping camps in WvWvW I use the Hounds of Balthazar rather then renewed focus as I find them way more useful. The Virtues are just too weak to bother with more then once during a camp cap and if I do things right I can be waiting for the camp to change color before the swords appear. Using Renewed focus versus the Hounds I have been unable to get to that point.

I don’t see anything wrong with it to be honest

One plus with the way it works at the moment, if you’ve had to hit renewed focus as a panic button, you get a couple of seconds to fire any Virtues that still have their active available so the recharge isn’t wasted.

On the other hand I certainly wouldn’t mind it if dodging was disabled while the skill was channelling.

Tarsius.3170:

One plus with the way it works at the moment, if you’ve had to hit renewed focus as a panic button, you get a couple of seconds to fire any Virtues that still have their active available so the recharge isn’t wasted.

On the other hand I certainly wouldn’t mind it if dodging was disabled while the skill was channelling.

I was about to bring this up. many a time have I used RF as an “oh kitten” button, not having the time to actually pop any unused virtue before I hit the elite. As it works now, I get a few seconds to spam anything I haven’t used. If you don’t get this chance, it’s effectively an entire virtue effect wasted.

I think the best solution here is simply not to dodge out of your elite. It’s something I did a few times when I was starting out, and yes it’s annoying, but you will learn eventually.

Yes, we know that you consider our Virtue of Resolve to be good, so good infact you gave us the lowest tied health pool in line with Thief and Elementalist. 10.8k i belive, and in exchange we have 84 (0.06) health regeneration.

And that is supposed to be if we don’t use the active one. Then we lose out of the passive one, cause having low health for a free crap regeneration was not bad enough allready.

JonPeters.5630:

Virtues are not balanced for PvE vs PvP vs WvW they are balanced for combat which is tuned for generally 1-5 combatants. Whethe or not they are effective in a given encounter depends on that encounter. Sometimes they are more useful as passive abilities and sometimes they are more useful as actives. Finally, they are not balanced against other skills specifically, they are balanced as the class mechanic of the Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.

Do you feel they are just like signets?

I don’t feel powerful when virtues are up and I do feel at loss when they are gone. Virtues become semi decent when you invest 30 points into the Virtue line. But which class has to invest heavily into a trait tree to make their class mechanic useful?

Lets look at the virtues:

1. Virtue of Justice: Guardian doesn’t have a condition build, so this isn’t very useful. It only becomes useful when you trait into radiance for blind and refresh voj when you kill a enemy.

2. Virtue of Resolve, very low passive regen. But wiki states that VoR is suppose to make up for Guardian’s low innate health:

“Virtues have been said to help balance the guardian; for example, they have a lower base health than the warrior profession but compensate for this with their higher health regeneration granted by Virtue of Resolve.” Warriors have better passive health regen than guardian does.

The active heal on vor isn’t particularly bad, but the cool down on the virtue is.

3. Virtue of Courage isn’t particularly good either. Aegis every 40 sec and a on demand aegis with a 90 second cooldown. Is aegis considered that powerful that it requires long cooldowns? Blind spam is a better alternative, though against bosses who are immune Aegis is better. But then every class has the ability to dodge, which is fulfilling the same purpose aegis would.

I just can’t see how Virtues are a class defining mechanic or how they are powerful. Warriors adrenaline skills feel powerful, Mesmer’s class mechanic is unique, same with necro, thief, engi and ranger. But guardians are just a poor mans signet.

If you feel I’m mistaken in my perspective, by all means enlighten me. And maybe I can begin to see the guardians class mechanic from a different perspective.

I think all of you completely disregard the additional benefits virtues can provide with a little effort (5 pts in Virtues and/or 5-15 pts in Zeal)

5 points into Virtues trait line gives you 3 stacks of Might per F1, regen per F2, Protection per F3. You’re saying Virtue is a poor man’s signet, with a minor trait, it becomes a shout instead.

Few ideas:
• Good synergy with AH, extra boons means extra healing (F1 heals for ~1200+)
• Good F3 can save you a day in tons of situations (block an attack while finishing downed enemy, block agony attacks in fractals, etc). It’s an on-demand instant-cast-while-casting Aegis, it’s not powerful often, but it is powerful.
• F2 + F3 is Regen + Protection + Aegis + Heal, really good party saver. Refresh immediately after use.
• With 15 points in Zeal you put blind and 3 stacks of vurnerability as well as 3 mights and a lot of burning PER EACH killed enemy – works wonders in AoE environments, as Blind is seriously powerful damage avoider. Couple 15 in Zeal with Greatsword, 1H sword + Focus and you’re spamming AoE blindness left and right, your party might never be hit.
• Remember that F1 activated burn isn’t just 5(?) seconds, it’s 5 seconds per affected person.
• With 20 points in virtues, F2 can clear 3 conditions – In a DPS build that utilize the 25 point trait in Virtues, this is a good cleanse.

Honestly, Virtues are good.

JonPeters.5630:

Virtues are not balanced for PvE vs PvP vs WvW they are balanced for combat which is tuned for generally 1-5 combatants. Whethe or not they are effective in a given encounter depends on that encounter. Sometimes they are more useful as passive abilities and sometimes they are more useful as actives. Finally, they are not balanced against other skills specifically, they are balanced as the class mechanic of the Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.

It is best that they are not balanced against singular skills specifically. However, spvp, wvw and dungeons are all very different modes of play. Perhaps you feel you can cover everything, effectively hitting 3 birds with one stone and in the case of guardian I will be honest and say it is the most balanced class available. The problems arise however when classes are constantly changed, sometimes drastically to suit what the spvpers want and other modes of play are not considered.

The reason I am in support of split skills in particular is because there is the problem of the necromancer. Look at how popular he is in spvp, now compare that to dungeons.

Not so fantastic.

Why? Because the necro has been tailored to the needs of spvp/wvw with little regard to it’s effectiveness in dungeons. It can do perfectly fine in dungeons, yes, even quite well. Cannot deny that. However, compared to any other class, it offers the least appropriate utilities and damage output for dungeon teams. Why would I take this class over any of my other 80s? Currently the necro can really only shine in high end fractals.

JonPeters.5630:

Virtues are not balanced for PvE vs PvP vs WvW they are balanced for combat which is tuned for generally 1-5 combatants.

The problem is your “1-5 combatants” part. If you have 5 allies, and you’ve taken some Virtues traits, they can be very effective. If you’re fighting alone, you almost never want to burst Resolve and Courage regardless of your situation, traits, or play mode. Justice, because of its burst effect and cooldown, is the only Virtue worth bursting on your own, and its almost always better to burst Justice than not to.

Bottom line:

Resolve and Courage are not powerful enough when you don’t have allies.

JonPeters.5630:

Whethe or not they are effective in a given encounter depends on that encounter. Sometimes they are more useful as passive abilities and sometimes they are more useful as actives.

Nobody ever said they should be awesome all the time. We should all be able to agree that all skills should be situationally beneficial and not ‘spam happy’.

Some skills are more situational than others. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for weapons and utilities since you get to choose those. You don’t get to choose your Virtues. You’re stuck with them. They shouldn’t be as situational as something like Signet of Mercy or Sanctuary.

JonPeters.5630:

Finally, they are not balanced against other skills specifically, they are balanced as the class mechanic of the Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.

Which can be read as: “Its okay if the Virtues suck compared to the other skills because the Guardian, as a whole, doesn’t suck.” Not a good argument for not changing something.

They’re balanced as a mechanic outside of utilities, weapon skills, elites, and healing skills. Okay, that’s fine. In stating that, you have to look at the difference between functionality of class mechanic skills and standard “bar” skills (1-0). What exactly about the Virtues sets them apart from utility skills and makes them more than just 3 extra signets?

In that respect, look at how you’ve had to buff signets as a whole. Because of their functionality, they can be extremely situational. In the case of Healing Signet for the Warrior, you never want to activate it. At the very least you’d lose 16 seconds of 392 HP/second. You would be trading 6272 healing for 3275. This is extremely situational in the sense that you would only ever want to activate Healing Signet if you wouldn’t have survived without an immediate 3275 HP and you wouldn’t be in imminent danger over a 16 second period.

What I’m about to say has nothing to do with the thread but I’d just like to mention that I’m remarkably glad to see a dev post in the Guardian forums! It makes me feel like things we’re discussing are actually being read.

Why would you dodge cancel an invul skill?

JonPeters.5630:

Virtues are not balanced for PvE vs PvP vs WvW they are balanced for combat which is tuned for generally 1-5 combatants. Whethe or not they are effective in a given encounter depends on that encounter. Sometimes they are more useful as passive abilities and sometimes they are more useful as actives. Finally, they are not balanced against other skills specifically, they are balanced as the class mechanic of the Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.

Honestly, that sounds like a “your class is balanced, move along” answer. That aside, I can understand it, when there are classes like ranger’s who have the most broken of class mechanics in terms to almost all game play. However, there are severe issues with alot of the logic regarding the answer, that other people in this thread have brought up.

Virtue of Justice: We lack a condition build, making it so pretty much anyone else that can apply burning, is going to do it 10x better than ours. This makes things like Supreme Justice, and permeating wrath almost completely useless in any type of group setting. That leaves Justice is blind, Renewed justice, and Inspired virtue, with also the he boosts from radiant power, and Fiery wrath. However, in a group setting, neither of those should be an issue, leaving the first 3. Justice is blind/renewed justice is great for PvE, since mobs die fast and often. In sPvP and WvW. they are kind of lack luster, due to the fast number of attacks (thus quickly removing blind) and the fact that by the time you start getting multiple kills, odds are the group you are fighting is already losing. Maybe if it activated on down instead of death, it would be alot more useful (but most likely broken)

Virtue of resolve: Even with massive amounts of Healing power and Absolute resolution, the heal is still pretty lack luster. at 1k healing power, with absolute resolution you are at 180 Healing per second. A Warrior who puts 20 points into Defense (the same amount of points required for absolute resolution) at 1k healing power gets 170 healing per second at 3 bars of adrenaline, and also can cleanse 3 conditions on burst skill use with 3 bars. However, after they use the burst skill, they don’t lose all the healing, and burst skills are also on a much shorter cooldown. Yet they somehow VoR is still used as a reason to give guardians the lowest health pool, compared to warriors who have the highest. Along with the clear issues in mobility and snares.

Virtue of courage: Holy hell cool down batman! 90… freaking…. seconds. For a skill that blocks a single attack? The ONLY saving grace of this virtue at the moment, is Indomitable Courage, just for the extra stability. Honestly this skill should have charges, and not a refresh over duration effect. since the whole point of blocking with aegis is supposed to be skill, not “Oh hey its been 30 seconds since the fight started, and I haven’t used courage yet lets hope it blocks something big” Unless the new shattered aegis change does a ton of damage, or they change the healing on pure of heart, (since the VoC passive is always wasted on first hit, and completely uncontrollable for any passive activation) There really is no need for this skill to act the way it currently does, as alot of it just seems like a massive waste.

All in all, while there may be few ok to good options for each virtue, mainly Inspired virtue, our class mechanic is very far from OK, and the fact that it is the cause for us being limited on health is rather disappointing. It honestly causes alot more issues, as it becomes an excuse to force us into more tanky builds, as we have to make up for our “superior defenses” becoming more and more lackluster compared to other classes who keep getting large survivability buffs, despite already having a much larger health pool.

SmoothHussler.6387:

Why would you dodge cancel an invul skill?

Generally on accident, but also dodging a split second too early would ruin the virtue refresh. This could easily happen in a case where your stuck in heavy AoE with renewed focus channeling and your not going to survive for very long after the invuln, and dodging is the only option.) I’m not saying poor playing deserves a helping hand by any mean, but I can’t think of any other elite acts this way. (As in, one of the primary effects is completely negated)

Virtues has always feelt like three free signets rather than a class unieqe skill that Guardian has, you could use 5 traits to improve them but that is the problem.

The traits are terrible as base values, and using the “We can trait, and yes we can” arguement is kinda invalid. We allready paid to have the Virtues.

We have crappy base health, we have crappy soft CC, we have crappy option to swiftness. And we have crappy hard CC. And our damage is ussualy suffering becouse of the other reasons.

The main problem with Virtues is that you HAVE to trait them if you want good traits, and according to alot of people you HAVE to use renewd focus aswell.

JonPeters.5630:

Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.

Extremely irritating to read that from a dev when we all now that all we do war do it better.

Efficient class maybe but why bother when war do everything better and not pigeon holed in one build.

Making the dev team understand the guardian community feeling about their profession is a lost cause. You don’t even care to read our feedback …
Virtues are one of the thing among others (aegis, healing power scaling, symbols, conditions) that require full redesign. They are ridiculously underpowered comparing to war skills/traits.

JonPeters.5630:

Virtues are not balanced for PvE vs PvP vs WvW they are balanced for combat which is tuned for generally 1-5 combatants. Whethe or not they are effective in a given encounter depends on that encounter. Sometimes they are more useful as passive abilities and sometimes they are more useful as actives. Finally, they are not balanced against other skills specifically, they are balanced as the class mechanic of the Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.

Which is fine and dandy. One of the issues is that the passives are to weak and adds close to nothing and the actives isnt that impressive either.

An other issues can be found in the individual virtue. 90 s cd on aegis is just really bad in almost all game formats and the same goes for 60 sec cd on regen. Virtues are pretty much poorer versions of signets in the passives and worse versions of shouts in their actives.

You say they are balanced in 1-5 opponents and this might be true for VoJ and VoR but in VoC aegis is totally unpredictable with even two opponents in vicinity, especially in the current meta in pvp and wvw where aoe rules.

The big hits it was good to negate back in beta and bwe isnt the main concern anymore.

The virtues and Renewed Focus also pigeonholes us, especially in wvw, versus a 30 point valor build or 30 point in virtues. You have the numbers here i bet and you can easily check what the most common builds are and those builds are reinforced by the weakness of virtues and the elite which solely focus on virtues.

Beef up all virtues so you dont have to trait them to be strong (they arent strong unless at least 30 points in virtues compared with untraited shouts) and keep RF as it is but make it more worth using. Why not reset all cd on all skills. It is an elite after all and should serve as a gamechanger.

@ Usernamn. Please stop whining, he is here talking to us, take the opportunity to give feedback in some sort of constructive way. They wont answer you ( which been vividly explained in an other thread) and you gain no point sin the community.

What you don’t understand is that they have no intention to modify anything as guardian is fine for the dev team.
You beleive they are talking to us but it’s not the case, we are having these discussions since launch and kind and productive feedback has been given the way they requested it with the result we know …

Make your own expereience but don’t ask long time users like me to play this fake discussion game.

My main problem with Virtues isn’t balance, but functionality. I find them very uninteresting, and so do a lot of people. The Guardian’s profession mechanic would be far more interesting if their functionalities were more unique and (generally) impactful. I would personally prefer if the spirit weapons were its active effects. Justice (damage) for the sword, resolve (healing) for the bow, courage (defense) for the shield, and a new, forth virtue (control) for the hammer.

As it stands, Mesmer’s shatters are pretty much a more interesting version of virtues because they’re more unique (tied to clones instead of being non-utility-slotted signets) and have more impact. Instead of sacrificing 1 tick of burning or 40 second cooldown aegis for a little bit more burning or for a second aegis, Mesmers have to make big sacrifices (phantasms) to get big, impactful effects (aoe burst, 3+ seconds of invulnerability). The concept of “sacrifice” feels more impactful there, because of the higher-risk/ higher-reward ratio.

Aza.2105:

But which class has to invest heavily into a trait tree to make their class mechanic useful?

Thieves and Elementalists surely do. That’s why they’re getting relevant changes to initiative gain and base attunement cooldown next patch.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Thieves and Elementalists surely do. That’s why they’re getting relevant changes to initiative gain and base attunement cooldown next patch.

I can understand what you mean, but I don’t feel its the exact same. Thieves class mechanic traits were scattered through out different trait lines and their class mechanic could also tied into their utility skills like infiltrator’s signet and stealth.

Ele is more similar to guardian yes, but they actively use their class mechanic since its their exclusive version of weapon swapping. Virtues on the other hand could be completely removed and the class itself won’t be largely effected by the loss of them.

Amen to that, for me Virtues are my panic button. Press them once i know im in bad shape and hope the tiny difference will hold me alive for another heal.

I will admit that if i do specc more for them, they would probably be used alot more, but as it is now. They are my oh kitten buttons.

Oh my god, reading this is depressing lol. You guys should not be trying to change one of the best elites in the game, for one of the strongest professions in the game. The dev is right, guards are more than usable in top tier pretty much anywhere, and if you don’t think that you must be pretty blind.