Guild Wars 2

Well with the CDI announced focusing on specific proffessions, I thought it would be an idea to get everyone on the Guardian forums to put down their ideas about what parts of our class needs balancing. Even if there’s no way we could put ourselves in the bottom 3 asked for in this Dev Thread it gives me hope that they’ll get round to a Guardian CDI soon. Might be an idea to start discussing now, being careful to describe whether it needs rebalancing in PvE/SPvP/WvW or all of the above.

I’ll start with some of the PvE issues that come to mind:

Utilities
Signet of Wrath This skill’s passive is to increase condition damage, on a class which only has access to burning. Not really viable as many have mathed out. Either a change to the passive (Precision?) or a whole overwork of Guardian conditions are needed.

Spirit Weapons, with the notable exception of Shield of the Avenger bring too little, and nowadays when the fight is more chaotic (and you might need a spiritual companion) they are too easily snuffed out by a random cleave or AoE. Seeing as a large amount of Zeal Traits are tied to them it would be nice to see them get looked at, though admittedly I have few ideas in this regard. Shield of the Avenger gets a pass, as while very niche, does give us a poor man’s Wall of Reflection, when one is not enough.

Signet of Mercy, possibly this is just a PvE thing, but considering its CD, it’s passive buffing an undeveloped stat and it’s sometimes quite tempremental disposition to work, it’s long casting seals the deal in almost never being used. It only can revive a downed player (not defeated) but has a 3.5 second casting time – almost always being quicker to staunch the player manually, without giving up a utility slot.

Weapons

Offhands: At the moment, Focus is the offhand for PvE. The flaws in Shield/Torch seem to often mean that even Guardians who have 4 slots for one handed weapons opt that both are X/Focus. Shield of Judgement has a 600 cone that does similiar damage to an autoattack, and applies protection to Allies. While protection is a nice buff to dish out, it’s often wasted with Guardians typically leading from the front, andthe effect not having similiar mechanics to a shout i.e effecting all those in 600 range. Shield of Absorption provides a similiar niche role as Shield of the Avenger, that of being Wall of Reflections weaker cousin. However the CD is long on a skill that puts you in a vulnerable spot of being rooted, and often the prime target of a Defiant Champions claw or chomp attack. I imagine Focus was designed to be the solo offhand with it’s access to Regeneration and Super-Aegis and Shield to be the team choice, but Focus also giving Blast Finishers and Blinds means that it outperforms Shield in almost all aspects of PvE.

Torch, likely designed to be the DPS offhand, has sporadic use. Skill 4 gives Guardians a nice touch of ranged burst damage with it’s Zealot’s Fire, but the CD is still seen as a bit too long for this one trick pony. Skill 5, Cleansing Flame, is almost invariably a DPS loss over autoattacking and its condition removal is much beter served by an kitten nal of other skills the Guardian has at it’s disposal – making it a very unattractive choice over the safety/blasts of the Focus.

Class Mechanics

Virtue of Resolve/HP/Active Defence

Almost as a matter of course when discussing Guardian balance, we have to compare ourselves to the Warrior. Currently the match up between a Full Berzerker Guardian and a Full Berzerker Warrior, seems to highlight some of the imbalances.
Guardians HP is around 11k in this state at level 80, Warriors around 19k. This difference often means DPS Guardians have no room for mistake on bosses – if you don’t dodge/shield every attack, you’ll be taking a dirt nap.
The counterpoint to this would be that Guardians have more options in Shielding themselves: Aegis/Protection etc. However, Warriors are also seemingly are doing well in this regard, with things like Endure Pain/Shield Stance. While I’d probably agree that Guardians have more protective methods, I’d argue that it’s not by enough to be <60% of their maximum health. A multitude of other similiar unfavourable comparisons are available: Virtue of Resolves, a class defining feature, is absolutely dwarfed by Healing Signet. Guardian DPS being quite a bit lower than Warrior DPS played by the same player. The list goes on.
With recent pre-patch notes released showing changes to skills such as Vigourous Precision getting nerfed (and DPS Guardians needing every source of active defence they can get) and Warriors gaining more Active Defence options I worry about the long term viability of the DPS/PvE Guardian with the current direction.

Summary

These are my own opening points: While as a whole, I enjoy my class and will continue playing as a Guardian, I definately see issues that need addresing. Above have been some of my PvE qualms – I would love for us as a forum to get some agreement on what needs to be changed, and how it should be changed, by the time our incoming CDI rolls round.

I would have to agree that signet of mercy/ spirit weapons need help.

As far as Spirit weapons go they are simply just way to fragile. the shield of the Avenger is a very nice skill however it dies in seconds and in my opinion shouldn’t be susceptible to AOE damage so that it cant just be killed instantly. So the shield actually has to be targeted to receive damage. this would be a reasonable tweak. and an easy one at that.

Traits

Before I go into the problems of specific traits, lets look at the couple of issues that end up culling a lot of choices from the PvE Guardian. Firstly, Spirit Weapons, as I’ve already discussed are next to useless in PvE. Thus the 5 different trait options that augment them are effectively off the table. The second issue is more PvE specific – Retaliation is not very useful in an enviroment where you are trying to dodge very slow, possibly fatal, attacks and the damage it does is a pittance to compensate. About 5 trait choices are focused on giving small amounts or boosts to Retaliation, but in the PvE environment the only one thats going to be picked up is the forced choice of Virtue of Retribution at 15 points in Virtues.

Zeal

Normally the power line of traits on a class is a good one to take in PvE. However, with so many choices lost to the void of Spirit Weapons, it’s often overlooked apart from to secure Fiery Wrath
The Grandmasters traits are pretty poor: Kindled Zeal increases Condition Damage on a class with only access to Burning. The other GM Trait is about Spirit Weapons.

Radiance
A fairly great tree throughout, with a few oddities. Inner Fire gives a boon that DPS Guardians would love more access too, but involves having to take take damage from very specific kinds of enemies.

Honour
A great set of interesting traits makes it tempting to put points in this line, even if it’s tied to less throughput stats. The one trait I’d mention is Pure of Heart . Healing when the Aegis is removed, rather than say regeneration, would often mean it’s trying to Heal people at 100% HP. Secondly Guardians have only a very small pool of skills that apply Aegis, making it hard to justify traits that augment it, without additional Aegis skills being forthcoming.

Virtues
For this traitline, the only massive disapointment is Permeating Wrath which for a Grandmaster trait, you’d expect to at least be a fire combo field.

Virtues in themselves have a slight problem that as soon as you’ve added 5 points into this traitline, it’s almost invariably better to use the Active effect of Virtues. “Should I leave on the passive effect?”, becomes a very easy question to answer, when traits can boost them to cause blind, cure conditions, apply massive amounts of boons, break stuns etc while leaving their passive effects unsimiliarly boosted. It makes the class as a whole, a bit less interesting, and homogenises it a bit to close to Engineer kit skills.

I’d Love to hear some feedback from people; but hell, even if there’s not a huge amount, at least I can start linking to this thread when people ask what needs to be changed. Thanks all for reading!

Tempus.9540:

……

I agree with just about everything you’ve said here, and in the post prior. Very well said

Tempus.9540:

The counterpoint to this would be that Guardians have more options in Shielding themselves: Aegis/Protection etc.

Except for all the abilities that are unblockable, steal or corrupt your boons, and a higher hp pool gives you better resistance to conditions, and warriors have almost as many blocks – some of which really do block the “unblockable” skills!

Our power and precision grandmaster traits are poor. If you spend 30 points you should get something powerful for it. +10% Damage (power), Fury on crit, might on crit, burning on crit (precision)

Health pool is to low. Just an individual thing. I don’t like it beeing in mellee having 10k. Sure you got your defensive stuff and once that kitten nal(sic! omg!) is gone -> bang.

I’d like to also see offensive supportive stuff. More access to fury. Maybe an elite signet “signet of the holy fire” 20s fury, 20s fire damage on crit.

Why is the cooldown on “Retreat!” so high? It’s rather a speed buff than really a powerful supportive skill. 40s?

Tempus, your post is spot on. Very well done, and you hit most of the areas which need improvement. I would probably add we need something done with spirit weapons, but I cringe to think of more AI minions floating around on the battlefield.

I also agree we guardians are going to suffer immensly with the vigor nerf. As dps we are so glassy, and we are extremely reliant on the ability to dodge. I don’t think people realize how much of a nerf this will be.

Lastly, I fear that none of the issues will be addressed, as ANET thinks we are in a good spot, and are the most balanced profession in the game. This line of thinking is further exasperated by posters, including guardians, who continually write that we are in a “good spot.” I personaly think we are mediocre, and there are other professions that do it better in many regards, except bunkering. But who wants to play a profession that is pigeon holed into bunkering all the time? I definately think if ANET addressed the things you mentioned in your post, then we would be in a “good spot.”

Due to our lower health the warriors helaing signet would make more sense on a guardian. Maybe our helaing signet can be changed?

raubvogel.5071:

Due to our lower health the warriors healing signet would make more sense on a guardian. Maybe our healing signet can be changed?

This I don’t believe to be the case. Warriors have a larger healthpool, so when they get hit once they can wait for this passive heal to bring them back up to 100% health without being in danger. Guardians with their low health pool need things like Shelter, because after one hit they are dangerously low – or dead. While I complain because what’s a class mechanic to us , is outclassed x3-4 times by a Warrior Heal skill it makes sense that the passive healing choice goes to the class with the HP cap to utilise it.

If anything, thinking about this only reinforces to me that Virtue of Resolve could do with a complete overhaul: Something more akin to a passive permenanent protection buff, with the active then giving protection and regeneration to the whole team (briefly) would better mesh with the rest of the class. However, while this suggestion doesn’t set off any massive alarm bells for me in PvE (occaisonal 33% reduction on that missed dodge) I worry that this sounds like too big a boost for SPvP, though I lack the man hours there as a Guardian to properly comment.