Guild Wars 2

I want to start a topic about condition guardians in all parts of the game, Pve, Pvp and WvW. Also would like to talk about the New trait “Amplified Wrath : Burning deals 33% more damage.”

As a person that has 2 level 80 guardians with over 1800hrs played as guardian (I know it isnt alot) I have some ideas and concerns about Condition guards.

Two things I want to talk about.

• More options for conditions, what conditions other than burn is good for guard and on which weapons.
• The problems of Conditions (mostly Burning) and why trait into Conditions hurts the Guardian an extreme amount.

Burning
Pro: Strongest Condition in game, not all classes can use, Guardian has the most ways to ably Burn
Con: Only 1 burn can be applied, In any group setting, multi players applying burn over rides each others.

Trait in Conditions
Going, Carrion, Rabid, Rampagers, Dire, etc… Hurts the guardian more than helps, None will give and sustain (non condi) dps due to lack of either, Crit Damage, Crit Chance, Power or all 3. There also is no sustain condi damage, burning isnt enough dps to stop any condi removal or type of tank class.

The guardian is completely wasting traits when going into Condition Gear, If the guardian wanted to Tank with good Burning then that player might be able to do well in pvp, hard to kill, but enough Damage to “Scare” away dps burst builds.

Celestial Guardians
The 33% burn in this gear may help out (dont know the numbers yet) but again in any group setting that player will be lucky to get his burning off.

Zeal
As of right now, very few players trait fully into this tree and I cant see a single serious player traiting for Amplified Wrath.

Possibility of More conditions?

I want to talk about If Guardians would be allowed to gain more Damaging Conditions, manly bleed

Bleeding on Guardian

• Sword auto 3 – add 3 bleeds for 7sec. I feel adding 1 little change like this would open up guardian play style more than ANY other change to the guardian, with a good Sustain way to keep condition damage and the hard hitting burst of burn.
• Trait – Zeal: Bleeding blades – Your sword attacks adds bleeding for 5 seconds.

In closing, Guardian Condition is very lack luster and will need some more work, not just with guardian but also with basic game mechanics so that the guardian has a chance to do its damage. Using Condition gear only hurts the player and even with 33% more damage, I would never take any condition gear set for any reason on my guard.

Please comment and add,
If I made any mistakes please be nice about it and correct me, also I have a Reading and Writing LD so please dont be harsh on my grammar.

I know Anet desperately wants condi guard to be a thing, and i think after this patch it could definitely be viable. Doom sigils/perplex runes, with 30/30/0/0/10 mix of rabid/carrion. Dont forget retaliation is basically a new condition unique to guardians now with 30 radiance. Its also unclean sable and punishes a lot for multi hit attacks/fast attacks

I think guardian’s sword auto 3 attack is very weak. 1/2 sec per attack is too slow and without condition damage. The third attack is the most powerful but it probably misses without cripple effect at the last sec.

When switching to my condition warrior (s/s/sh, dire + rabid), his attack speed and playing style ( applying condition among to foes) is more interesting ( you may say OP or face roll whatsoever XD, I don’t refuse). All in all, compared to warrior’s sword, I found that guardian’s sword is boring.

Guyver.1426:

I think guardian’s sword auto 3 attack is very weak. 1/2 sec per attack is too slow and without condition damage. The third attack is the most powerful but it probably misses without cripple effect at the last sec.

When switching to my condition warrior (s/s/sh, dire + rabid), his attack speed and playing style ( applying condition among to foes) is more interesting ( you may say OP or face roll whatsoever XD, I don’t refuse). All in all, compared to warrior’s sword, I found that guardian’s sword is boring.

I said it Sword needs bleeds, it just feels right, and yes I 100% agree, sword is boring, even tho 1v1 its alot of damage when trait into sword, still boring.

I would love to see a condition build equivalent to the power builds but still, it’s just not worth it. Unless you add more conditions like bleed etc….

The new traits really don’t move Guardian condition damage builds into a different space so if you aren’t finding use for them now, you likely won’t find a use for them once they are changed. It’s a nice boost for someone who farms trash solo because sustain is not necessary and stacking damage effects is the best approach (at least I think so).

So many things are going to change that it’s hard to predict how useful this will be but I think the biggest barrier to burning builds for Guardian is the lack of a Power primary/Condition Damage secondary armor and that’s not changing next patch anyways.

Nobody is gonna play a burning guardian.

Carpboy.7145:

I know Anet desperately wants condi guard to be a thing, and i think after this patch it could definitely be viable. Doom sigils/perplex runes, with 30/30/0/0/10 mix of rabid/carrion. Dont forget retaliation is basically a new condition unique to guardians now with 30 radiance. Its also unclean sable and punishes a lot for multi hit attacks/fast attacks

With no Sustain on a Condi build, the build will fail. Necro’s can do it because of Life Force and 25k hps. They don’t need +healing or regen.

Do this to a guardian and you’ll be obliterated due to the simple fact that we dont’ have enough HP"s to wait for our Condi’s to spread.

Anet can’t figure it out (They’ve publicly stated this) and won’t listen to it’s playerbase TO figure it out.

I think people started making wrong assumptions after the recent Ready Up. Regardless of the rudimentary issues of condition Guardians (e.g. only one damaging innate condition) I tried to come up with a reasonable condition build but it didn’t work out. At least not when including Zeal. And the reason are pretty easy (PvP perspective).

• Zeal doesn’t provide any attractive traits for conditions on the Adept and Master level. This means you are losing 25 traits points to get a Grandmaster trait. Don’t do it unless you are running a power or hybrid build or desperately want +100% burning duration.
• Kindled Zeal is no condition trait. It is a hybrid trait. There is no point of getting it if you want to go full conditions because you can get better things than the stat bonus. If you want to go hybrid there is no point of getting the new Radiant Retaliation, though.
• Amplified Wrath is a power trait. You can enhance your DPS without investing into conditions in a power build. Kindled Zeal will always be better for a condition build as soon as you pick up other damaging conditions through runes or sigils.

So if you really want to go for a pure condition build I personally root for a 0/30/x/x/x set up with Burn as primary damage source and Retaliation as secondary damage source. You would gain Vulnerability through Blind as cover up condition (which favours GS, Sw and Fc as weapons) and could add other conditions through Runes and Sigils. Most people currently think of Perplexity. However, this would mean picking up a Shield for the Knockback instead of Focus which results in losing cover up conditions (Blind + Vulnerability). Instead, I got an eye on Krait (Bleed), Orrian (Poison) and Torment (…) which might be more valuable after their rework. I do not like the Runes of Grenth because they would diminish the effectiveness of Retaliation. The Runes of the Forge are an interesting defensive option. Based on the rune choice I’d add at least one sigil with one more condition.

IMO despite what it looks like, Amplified Wrath is not a change signifying Anet’s desire to make condition Guardians work. I think what Anet is trying to do with Amplified Wrath is allow Burn to be a bit more useful as a supplemental DPS increase for the traditional builds. That’s why it’s a straight up % increase. I think making a condi Guardian is always a bad idea due to Burn benefiting less from additional condition damage. However, its base value starts off higher than any other condition.

So, there’s probably a build somewhere where Amplified Wrath adds some deceptively strong burning on an otherwise very power oriented build.

Or not.

I honestly dunno anymore, every time I try to figure out what Anet is thinking with their changes I just hurt my brain. Sometimes I sit and look at the trees and the gear and stuff and think, “What would I do to fix this if I was Anet?” and there’s just so much that’s wrong that I think rather than fixing it I’d just start over … so here’s to hoping they get it right in Guild Wars 3.

All i know is, do 1k damage per tick on a burn? Sign me up. I also calculated that this new trait is better than having Kindled Zeal, so KZ may have been modified to do something else.

I gave up on what Anet might or might not have been thinking after the whole December patch. They ask for feed back from the community on the planned changes. Then after getting the feed back they promptly ignored it.

I think out of all the classes Guardian is the only one who would have to rely sources out side our own weapons, (runes etc) if we wanted to make it happen. What we need is a new weapon, (like we have been promised) maybe ax, that would be devoted to condition attacks like the warrior’s sword.

I am not gonna say any more about anything on here till after the patch drops though. At least then I can play it. But push comes to shove I don’t ever see a condition guardian out doing a Power guardian until some serious re-work is done to our job.

The closest thing Guardian has to a second condition is binding blade. But even that doesn’t make a condition guardian close to being viable. Amplified Wrath is a trait that should go to another class. If it was given to warrior, many players would say how OP it is. But given to guardian? Its a laughingstock.

I believe Anet doesn’t play their own game or at the very least play guardian class. To some degree Amplified Wrath is Kindled Zeal 2.0. It pretty much does the same thing, except it goes about a different way at doing it. Kindled Zeal didn’t work for the class, so why would Amplified Wrath?

Condition Guardians doesn’t exist. Some Guardians use specific traits to enhance their PHYSICAL DAMAGE through the use of fire, but those ultimately are physical damage builds and not based in conditions.

Guardians due lore aren’t allowed to use venom, torment or bleeding (defesive class) and fire as condition is useless due can’t be stacked and any reaply must wait in chain, so this condition is very easy to prevent. An example: if you fight in PvP and ther’s some longbow Warrior in you team your chances is that you will not be able to do a single point of condition damage to a foe as long as the target is fighting in the ground area of the F1.

This wasn’t a problem because DPS Guardians were fine a year ago, but since the last Summer the condition builds are steadly becoming the meta in some parts of the game (duels, roaming, PvP), and as I said due lore restrictions Guardians can’t have access to viable condition builds.

Don’t even try to start with lore things. ANet has shown pretty clearly that they don’t care for any reasonable lore things. Besides, I think that at least torment would fit quite nicely to the guardian.

I don’t support their idea, I’m just trying to understand why Guardian has 0 viable builds based on conditions.

Honestly I think the only one of the new grandmaster trait that could make any kind condition spec viable on Guardian is the new Radiance trait that turns retaliation into condition damage. I’m basing this on the fact that Anet said that Retaliation with this trait scales better with condition damage then power mean that it’s possible that a proper specced Guardian’s retaliation would hurt a lot making a tanky condition specced Guardian viable in sPvP and WvW. Burning would only be secondary though, primary damage would have to come from retaliation or else this spec would fall flat and be ignored.

The reason why retaliation could only be this powerful with a condi-switching trait is that while retaliation scales off powers your primary damage also goes up meaning that it would be unfair to hit a Guardian and receive a ton of damage while he’kittenting you like a trunk so they nerfed Retaliation’s damage to be only minor opposite of this trait so you barely notice it half the time.

However since condition damage is so weak on a Guardian, Retaliation’s damage scaling can be pushed to the extreme to make it a very powerful threat against an opponent meaning they would have to decide to either hit a guardian and take a ton of damage or hold back so they can recover which would be amazing on a bunker build in sPvP.

In conclusion, I think the Retaliation Grandmaster trait has been woefully underestimated. It could turn bunker Condi-Guardian into a thing that would be interesting build to run since most of the damage would actually come from your opponent hitting you.

Buran.3796:

I don’t support their idea, I’m just trying to understand why Guardian has 0 viable builds based on conditions.

Well, I think the really honest answer would be worth a permanent ban.

guardian.6489:

Honestly I think the only one of the new grandmaster trait that could make any kind condition spec viable on Guardian is the new Radiance trait that turns retaliation into condition damage. I’m basing this on the fact that Anet said that Retaliation with this trait scales better with condition damage then power mean that it’s possible that a proper specced Guardian’s retaliation would hurt a lot making a tanky condition specced Guardian viable in sPvP and WvW. Burning would only be secondary though, primary damage would have to come from retaliation or else this spec would fall flat and be ignored.

The reason why retaliation could only be this powerful with a condi-switching trait is that while retaliation scales off powers your primary damage also goes up meaning that it would be unfair to hit a Guardian and receive a ton of damage while he’kittenting you like a trunk so they nerfed Retaliation’s damage to be only minor opposite of this trait so you barely notice it half the time.

However since condition damage is so weak on a Guardian, Retaliation’s damage scaling can be pushed to the extreme to make it a very powerful threat against an opponent meaning they would have to decide to either hit a guardian and take a ton of damage or hold back so they can recover which would be amazing on a bunker build in sPvP.

In conclusion, I think the Retaliation Grandmaster trait has been woefully underestimated. It could turn bunker Condi-Guardian into a thing that would be interesting build to run since most of the damage would actually come from your opponent hitting you.

they said it will scale better then power, yes. why? you can easely have 2000 power in a dps build, but an avarage condi build has only 1000-1300 condi damage. thats why it HAS to scale better. it doesnt mean it will hit more.

I’d really like to keep our weapons the same and instead add a new condition one. The sword is fine as it is now and doesn’t need to be tweaked for conditions. I certainly don’t want to lose any of it’s power for a few bleeds.

Something like a main hand axe. We’ve already got the torch so we don’t need an off hand weapon. Bleeds on auto attack, some sort of either gap closer that cripples on two, and maybe a block that adds torment if successful on three.

We’re the only class in the game that doesn’t have bleed on one weapon’s auto attack. Well, Mesmers give one of three conditions (bleed, burn and vuln). We’ll never have a viable condition build until we have a weapon that applies conditions consistently.

They should make torch do something useful for burn builds. Maybe then somebody would actually use that weapon.

How ’bout… make it consume your burn duration for immediate damage? Longer the duration, bigger the damage.

You could apply a bunch and then combust it all at once. It would be especially nice since a lot of the time you actually kill your target while it still has like 10+ seconds of burn on it. No more wasted condition!

I’d trade Torch #5 for that any day.

Guardians need….a Dark archon mode! Guardian & a Neccie had a baby? Would solve the condition guardian conundrum…

If you decide to forgo a ‘competitive’ build, burning is fine and you can do that in certain settings. People already do that in PUGs or friendly teaming. Of course, people pushing in zerker only in PVE can simply exclude themselves from any condition build discussions to begin with so if you are condition in PVE, you really don’t care about minmax/optimized damage.

My biggest challenge with burning isn’t the fact it’s the only condition we get or it’s damage is bad. Again, non-competitively, those things don’t matter. My key issues are:

1. Gearing is subpar (no power primary condition damage, no Condition damage primary ascneded trinkets)
2. You only get damage

Let’s pretend we get weapon X that has one or two more conditions to play with, what gear are you going to use to take advantage of this? If you only get damage for burning (in contrast, torment has extra detrimental effects for movement), what is the incentive over just a better damage build?

Anet needs to figure out what the kitten they want the guardian to be. Its completely unrealistic to have a competitive game and have this amount of cluster kittening going on.

Also, who in the actual kitten cares about non-competitive? Since when has gaming, specifically multiplayer games, become something you do to relax? Stick with single player games or books, something that doesn’t waste other people’s time.

Lots of people care about non-competitive PVE because they don’t play to compete in PVE, probably because reward is not dependent on being competitive in most PVE content. It’s a relevant approach to playing and its the audience that Anet is appealing to with this game.

So who cares? Anet and players do. We get you don’t like it. You don’t get that it doesn’t matter.

See thats the problem with multiplayer games. There are other people playing. Half assing your way through a dungeon or pvp with a bad spec, bad gear, or bad play is just rude.

Alas you are right. Anet is trying to get more casual players, why I don’t know. CU comes out next year and its sink or swim time for casuals and try-hards alike.

PS: My definition of casual and try-hard goes like this:
Casual: A player who doesn’t play their best when they are playing a game. They don’t devote the extra 15-30 minutes of the time to learning a damage rotation, spec, gear, etc.
Try-hard: A player who forces the game to do most of the heavy lifting for their class. They play the strongest/cheesiest/cookie-cutter spec and get the best gear so the game will carry them.
There isn’t too much difference between these two types of players to be honest.

They don’t know Dynnen. kitten ed if you do, kitten ed if you don’t. Has you said this is a problem with multiplayer games. Moreover, more so with MMO types in my opinion. I feel those who lose out in the end are the players that are at the top of the bell curve who consider themselves casual yet put in the extra time to at least try and learn the gear, class, and instances. They are perfectly find but do not fit the power gamer who min and max and know most if not all classes they will face in battle.

The bottom of the curve are the feeders who want the game changed to make it easier on them because they are not power players let alone want to spend the time like those on the top of the curve. It is sort of lame in my opinion but I factor it in to the gotta have it know smart phone crowd who want instant gratification with no elbow grease

Lastly – PvE and PvP games don’t math. Never have, never will. Look at DaOC for a prime example. It was perfectly fine until they did what? Added PvE via an expansion pack called Trials of Atlantis and Master Levels.

Dynnen.6405:

Alas you are right. Anet is trying to get more casual players, why I don’t know.

I can only speculate that it’s because casuals are the market they want to appeal to because it’s a market that’s not well catered too with the current offerings from other MMO’s.

When companies appeal to an unserved market, it’s an easy win for them. That’s why I don’t see anything rude about people playing how they want in a game that is DESIGNED to allow people to succeed playing how they want.

If I played that way in WoW or SWTOR, I would be a pariah. Here, doing that means you can fit in and have fun and still succeed. No amount of preaching about casuals is going to change the fundamental design of the game.

Obtena.7952:

Dynnen.6405:

Alas you are right. Anet is trying to get more casual players, why I don’t know.

I can only speculate that it’s because casuals are the market they want to appeal to because it’s a market that’s not well catered too with the current offerings from other MMO’s.

When companies appeal to an unserved market, it’s an easy win for them. That’s why I don’t see anything rude about people playing how they want in a game that is DESIGNED to allow people to succeed playing how they want.

If I played that way in WoW or SWTOR, I would be a pariah. Here, doing that means you can fit in and have fun and still succeed. No amount of preaching about casuals is going to change the fundamental design of the game.

WoW, SWTOR, and GW2 are in the exact same category. They are ‘theme park’ MMOs. If you want a theme park experience, I hear they have these…theme parks that you can go to. You should go to gamebreaker tv and look up the Mark Jacobs interviews where he describes the status of the market, specifically MMOs. They are really good interviews. MMOs since wow have been chasing the subscription golden rainbow and have failed miserably for a number of reasons, and gw2 keeps adding check marks to the list of ‘things we should do if we don’t want our game to succeed".

I’m going to link this video…I’m hoping its for the last time seeing as how another game that has risk vs reward built into each class is coming out soon. You remember risk vs reward right? That thing that the anet devs used to talk about prior to the beta weekends? Anyway, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7VAhzPcZ-s

Bah, quote failed. Anyway Dynnen I was trying to say that while I agree with your overall post above I am not really keen on the person you referenced. He is the primary reason why DaOC lost market share and then made it worse by Trials of Atlantis and Master Levels. In other words, he destroyed a PvP game by trying to add PvE to complete with WoW.

Sure, we already ran into some issues with population and even class balance between realms but overall it was a solid PvP game with risk vs. reward. There was a reason to PvP, take keeps, relics, et al.

Anyway – off subject and I’ll bow out Anyone try Wildstar this weekend?

Crapgame.6519:

They don’t know Dynnen. kitten ed if you do, kitten ed if you don’t. Has you said this is a problem with multiplayer games. Moreover, more so with MMO types in my opinion. I feel those who lose out in the end are the players that are at the top of the bell curve who consider themselves casual yet put in the extra time to at least try and learn the gear, class, and instances. They are perfectly find but do not fit the power gamer who min and max and know most if not all classes they will face in battle.

The bottom of the curve are the feeders who want the game changed to make it easier on them because they are not power players let alone want to spend the time like those on the top of the curve. It is sort of lame in my opinion but I factor it in to the gotta have it know smart phone crowd who want instant gratification with no elbow grease

Lastly – PvE and PvP games don’t math. Never have, never will. Look at DaOC for a prime example. It was perfectly fine until they did what? Added PvE via an expansion pack called Trials of Atlantis and Master Levels.

I think the biggest problem with TOA was that it added an insane grind. Also loot on pvp servers could be stolen off the ground by stealthers and it lead to a giant charlie foxtrot. It was fixed, but not quick enough; which is weird considering they were usually pretty quick to balance/fix things. Not patching things or even attempting to fix problems is one of the worst things you can do as a developer. However one has to know there are problems with the product to fix them, and if you don’t admit that there are any; then they don’t get fixed.

Should just wait and see how it plays out; it might be better than a lot of people are expecting it to be in pvp/wvw. Seems to be pretty terrible in pve though…

Crapgame.6519:

Bah, quote failed. Anyway Dynnen I was trying to say that while I agree with your overall post above I am not really keen on the person you referenced. He is the primary reason why DaOC lost market share and then made it worse by Trials of Atlantis and Master Levels. In other words, he destroyed a PvP game by trying to add PvE to complete with WoW.

Sure, we already ran into some issues with population and even class balance between realms but overall it was a solid PvP game with risk vs. reward. There was a reason to PvP, take keeps, relics, et al.

Anyway – off subject and I’ll bow out Anyone try Wildstar this weekend?

I’d agree with you on the point that TOA caused DAoC to lose players, but it came out in 2003 while WoW came out in late 04 sometime. I think TOA had more to do with internal pressures wanting to expand a part of the game that wasn’t getting much attention, which he has finally alluded to. TOA kittened a lot of people off because they didn’t want an insane grind or new pve content (IMHO).

If you wanted to bow out of something you shoudn’t have mentioned wildstar I could write a thesis on that…game. I’ll give ya the run down. Everything cleaves (yes even out of stealth attacks) making it even more spammy than this game. The CC system is gimmicky as hell. There are things in the game that balance out the strong parts of the class, but you can trait out of them or have access to a low cooldown ability that negates that balance (IE: stealth breaks on damage and you move much slower while in stealth, both things can be traited out of). The only thing that doesn’t cleave are ranged executes that aren’t on the global cooldown.

I’m satisfied with this trait (because I find it fun to run around nuking people who don’t understand my build) and I feel since this trait is here, Anet might have changed Kindled Zeal.

Calculation wise, Kindled Zeal is a bit less damage than Amped Wrath even when other conditions are involved so I see no case in which people would pick KZ over Amped. Unless there’s a new condition that the Guardian can apply that no one is talking about.

Dirame.8521:

I’m satisfied with this trait (because I find it fun to run around nuking people who don’t understand my build) and I feel since this trait is here, Anet might have changed Kindled Zeal.

Calculation wise, Kindled Zeal is a bit less damage than Amped Wrath even when other conditions are involved so I see no case in which people would pick KZ over Amped. Unless there’s a new condition that the Guardian can apply that no one is talking about.

Sword auto imo should add bleeds, Its a sword, it cuts… it should bleed, no reason guards should be left in the dirt on conditions.

Dynnen.6405:

WoW, SWTOR, and GW2 are in the exact same category. They are ‘theme park’ MMOs.

Maybe the same category, but completely different philosophy on how they service players in the endgame. Category has little to do with how competitive the endgame is.

Simply put, the threshold for being successful in GW2 is so low, you can play how you want. That’s not true for SWTOR and from what I have heard, also WoW. GW2 attracts players that don’t want to be gear gated. It attracts players that want to play with each other, regardless of level. It doesn’t attract players that put others into categories of good and bad. There is a reason for that.

That’s why people should care about everything outside of the meta build, even people that hate non-meta gameplay. The success of the game depends on it.

More on topic, a bleed on sword auto … we still wouldn’t have competitive gear to support such a weapon.

Dynnen.6405:

Crapgame.6519:

Bah, quote failed. Anyway Dynnen I was trying to say that while I agree with your overall post above I am not really keen on the person you referenced. He is the primary reason why DaOC lost market share and then made it worse by Trials of Atlantis and Master Levels. In other words, he destroyed a PvP game by trying to add PvE to complete with WoW.

Sure, we already ran into some issues with population and even class balance between realms but overall it was a solid PvP game with risk vs. reward. There was a reason to PvP, take keeps, relics, et al.

Anyway – off subject and I’ll bow out Anyone try Wildstar this weekend?

I’d agree with you on the point that TOA caused DAoC to lose players, but it came out in 2003 while WoW came out in late 04 sometime. I think TOA had more to do with internal pressures wanting to expand a part of the game that wasn’t getting much attention, which he has finally alluded to. TOA kittened a lot of people off because they didn’t want an insane grind or new pve content (IMHO).

If you wanted to bow out of something you shoudn’t have mentioned wildstar I could write a thesis on that…game. I’ll give ya the run down. Everything cleaves (yes even out of stealth attacks) making it even more spammy than this game. The CC system is gimmicky as hell. There are things in the game that balance out the strong parts of the class, but you can trait out of them or have access to a low cooldown ability that negates that balance (IE: stealth breaks on damage and you move much slower while in stealth, both things can be traited out of). The only thing that doesn’t cleave are ranged executes that aren’t on the global cooldown.

Thanks for the info – I didn’t have a chance to try it this weekend so looking for some feed back

Dynnen.6405:

Crapgame.6519:

Bah, quote failed. Anyway Dynnen I was trying to say that while I agree with your overall post above I am not really keen on the person you referenced. He is the primary reason why DaOC lost market share and then made it worse by Trials of Atlantis and Master Levels. In other words, he destroyed a PvP game by trying to add PvE to complete with WoW.

Sure, we already ran into some issues with population and even class balance between realms but overall it was a solid PvP game with risk vs. reward. There was a reason to PvP, take keeps, relics, et al.

Anyway – off subject and I’ll bow out Anyone try Wildstar this weekend?

I’d agree with you on the point that TOA caused DAoC to lose players, but it came out in 2003 while WoW came out in late 04 sometime. I think TOA had more to do with internal pressures wanting to expand a part of the game that wasn’t getting much attention, which he has finally alluded to. TOA kittened a lot of people off because they didn’t want an insane grind or new pve content (IMHO).

I disagree with both of you on DAoC, to an extent. People were kittened off because the ToA content made its way into PvP. To compete with those that didn’t have MLs or Artifacts, you had to do that PvE grind. The grind to get to the PvP was horrible enough, then they added that crap into the factor.

TLR: the PvE stuff went into PvP and ruined the game.

On Topic with this thread, what about doing a 30/x/x/x/30 build? Utilizing Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath?

Also, how do you think this would do in solo/small groups?

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

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Dynnen.6405:

Crapgame.6519:

Bah, quote failed. Anyway Dynnen I was trying to say that while I agree with your overall post above I am not really keen on the person you referenced. He is the primary reason why DaOC lost market share and then made it worse by Trials of Atlantis and Master Levels. In other words, he destroyed a PvP game by trying to add PvE to complete with WoW.

Sure, we already ran into some issues with population and even class balance between realms but overall it was a solid PvP game with risk vs. reward. There was a reason to PvP, take keeps, relics, et al.

Anyway – off subject and I’ll bow out Anyone try Wildstar this weekend?

I’d agree with you on the point that TOA caused DAoC to lose players, but it came out in 2003 while WoW came out in late 04 sometime. I think TOA had more to do with internal pressures wanting to expand a part of the game that wasn’t getting much attention, which he has finally alluded to. TOA kittened a lot of people off because they didn’t want an insane grind or new pve content (IMHO).

I disagree with both of you on DAoC, to an extent. People were kittened off because the ToA content made its way into PvP. To compete with those that didn’t have MLs or Artifacts, you had to do that PvE grind. The grind to get to the PvP was horrible enough, then they added that crap into the factor.

TLR: the PvE stuff went into PvP and ruined the game.

On Topic with this thread, what about doing a 30/x/x/x/30 build? Utilizing Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath?

Also, how do you think this would do in solo/small groups?

Supreme Justice is good if you want to fry stuff with the longer duration on activation. Permeating Wrath functions in a way that you don’t ever want to active VoJ
Still a 30/x/x/x/30 would lack so much passive defense. And for what? Condition damage? No way.

blakdoxa.7520:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

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Dynnen.6405:

Crapgame.6519:

Bah, quote failed. Anyway Dynnen I was trying to say that while I agree with your overall post above I am not really keen on the person you referenced. He is the primary reason why DaOC lost market share and then made it worse by Trials of Atlantis and Master Levels. In other words, he destroyed a PvP game by trying to add PvE to complete with WoW.

Sure, we already ran into some issues with population and even class balance between realms but overall it was a solid PvP game with risk vs. reward. There was a reason to PvP, take keeps, relics, et al.

Anyway – off subject and I’ll bow out Anyone try Wildstar this weekend?

I’d agree with you on the point that TOA caused DAoC to lose players, but it came out in 2003 while WoW came out in late 04 sometime. I think TOA had more to do with internal pressures wanting to expand a part of the game that wasn’t getting much attention, which he has finally alluded to. TOA kittened a lot of people off because they didn’t want an insane grind or new pve content (IMHO).

I disagree with both of you on DAoC, to an extent. People were kittened off because the ToA content made its way into PvP. To compete with those that didn’t have MLs or Artifacts, you had to do that PvE grind. The grind to get to the PvP was horrible enough, then they added that crap into the factor.

TLR: the PvE stuff went into PvP and ruined the game.

On Topic with this thread, what about doing a 30/x/x/x/30 build? Utilizing Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath?

Also, how do you think this would do in solo/small groups?

Supreme Justice is good if you want to fry stuff with the longer duration on activation. Permeating Wrath functions in a way that you don’t ever want to active VoJ
Still a 30/x/x/x/30 would lack so much passive defense. And for what? Condition damage? No way.

Its like playing an ele with 30/x/x/x/30 and ONLY using FIRE attunement for the Burn.

blakdoxa.7520:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Dynnen.6405:

Crapgame.6519:

Bah, quote failed. Anyway Dynnen I was trying to say that while I agree with your overall post above I am not really keen on the person you referenced. He is the primary reason why DaOC lost market share and then made it worse by Trials of Atlantis and Master Levels. In other words, he destroyed a PvP game by trying to add PvE to complete with WoW.

Sure, we already ran into some issues with population and even class balance between realms but overall it was a solid PvP game with risk vs. reward. There was a reason to PvP, take keeps, relics, et al.

Anyway – off subject and I’ll bow out Anyone try Wildstar this weekend?

I’d agree with you on the point that TOA caused DAoC to lose players, but it came out in 2003 while WoW came out in late 04 sometime. I think TOA had more to do with internal pressures wanting to expand a part of the game that wasn’t getting much attention, which he has finally alluded to. TOA kittened a lot of people off because they didn’t want an insane grind or new pve content (IMHO).

I disagree with both of you on DAoC, to an extent. People were kittened off because the ToA content made its way into PvP. To compete with those that didn’t have MLs or Artifacts, you had to do that PvE grind. The grind to get to the PvP was horrible enough, then they added that crap into the factor.

TLR: the PvE stuff went into PvP and ruined the game.

On Topic with this thread, what about doing a 30/x/x/x/30 build? Utilizing Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath?

Also, how do you think this would do in solo/small groups?

Supreme Justice is good if you want to fry stuff with the longer duration on activation. Permeating Wrath functions in a way that you don’t ever want to active VoJ
Still a 30/x/x/x/30 would lack so much passive defense. And for what? Condition damage? No way.

If you could somehow work 15 radiance in there, you could get the VoJ recharge on death (and also have an additional blind).

I keep trying to make build that use permeating wrath, but they never feel good. I tried a 10/30/0/0/30 that had good damage output and AoE burning stuff, but that just had really bad survivabilitiy. I’ve found that a 10/0/30/0/30 build using mediation stuff works a lot better, but then it’s missing the radiance traits to boost VoJ as well as gaining some extra burning related stuff (i.e. renewed justice, radiant power, inner fire, radiant fire, searing flames).

Need that 30/30/30/30/30 build if anyone has the link to it.

I’ve got a working guardian condition build (pvp) It might also work in pve but definately not in pve. Still working out the kinks in the build since compared to the meta builds it lacks survivability and dps but it does/can give group support and debuff enemies thanks to the burns.

Yay another thread for my idea! If A-net really wanted, they could make a condition guardian easily viable, It is not even that big a change for traits.

Shattered aegis: Make this trait cause 2-3 stacks of bleed when aegis is broken. This does 2 things. A) gives us another condition source, and Gives a bit more reactive game play to our conditions, as you can/will need to time your blocks to build up the bleed stacks. Also as a bonus, it actually will allow aegis to not be completely wasted against thieves attacking us in stealth. It would also work very well with the new Valor grandmaster in group play.

Torment in Crit in radiance: Almost every single condition class has one of these traits in some form for bleeding. The only one that I don’t think does is Thief. Torment would help kill two birds with one stone as well. First it would give us a third condition (with shattered aegis/fire) but the big thing is that it would punish movement on enemies, which is something we need badly.

Leave burning as it is: We already have a good source of burning, and multiple sources of AoE burning. We really DO NOT need the two grandmaster traits in Zeal. Change them to make something that would be useful for zeal, and that would make people want to actually spec into 30 zeal. What we need is more conditions, not a slightly more powerful single one.

As far as the new radiance grandmaster, I am hopeful but kind of torn. It will be impossible to go 30/30/x/x/x in any pvp mode because it will leave us as completely glass cannon. Which kind of goes against how retaliation works, in that we have to take damage for it to activate. However, on the other side, how much of a scaling difference is it going to need to be to make regular burn + condi retal to be better than physical damage + reg retal. It will literally need to be worth the damage loss of going from physical to burn to even really be worth it.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

I’ve got a working guardian condition build (pvp) It might also work in pve but definately not in pve. Still working out the kinks in the build since compared to the meta builds it lacks survivability and dps but it does/can give group support and debuff enemies thanks to the burns.

Not trying to be rude, but if it lacks damage and survivability compared to the other builds, then what is the point of running it? Our other builds provide group support too, so you really are gimping yourself by running it if you are less efficient in those aspects. Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for running your own build and doing your own thing, but when it equates to losing too much it really just is not worth it.

I’m still not convinced that a 30/x/x/x/30 build would be bad in a solo situation. Especially if you have Supreme Justice on, that’s burning every 3 attacks, not to mention all the other sources of burning you have. Sure there’s condi cleaning, but that’s why the spamming would come in.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it would be better than a power build, but I’m still wondering how well it would do. The unexpectedness of the build in itself might be worth looking into. Everyone expects a tanker or med/ah build, but not a condi build.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I’m still not convinced that a 30/x/x/x/30 build would be bad in a solo situation. Especially if you have Supreme Justice on, that’s burning every 3 attacks, not to mention all the other sources of burning you have. Sure there’s condi cleaning, but that’s why the spamming would come in.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it would be better than a power build, but I’m still wondering how well it would do. The unexpectedness of the build in itself might be worth looking into. Everyone expects a tanker or med/ah build, but not a condi build.

Where does your sustain come from then though? You dont get selfless daring + healing power, you dont get AH/MF, you have no bonus vit/toughness. Even if you went with Dire gear, your still not going to have many ways to restore your health. The issue then becomes, is your burn going to be strong enough to kill someone before your health is drained because you will only have your heal to recover it. In gimmick burst spec it works because the goal is to kill things so fast that you don’t have to worry about that, with condition spec’s though….

Bash.7291:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I’m still not convinced that a 30/x/x/x/30 build would be bad in a solo situation. Especially if you have Supreme Justice on, that’s burning every 3 attacks, not to mention all the other sources of burning you have. Sure there’s condi cleaning, but that’s why the spamming would come in.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it would be better than a power build, but I’m still wondering how well it would do. The unexpectedness of the build in itself might be worth looking into. Everyone expects a tanker or med/ah build, but not a condi build.

Where does your sustain come from then though? You dont get selfless daring + healing power, you dont get AH/MF, you have no bonus vit/toughness. Even if you went with Dire gear, your still not going to have many ways to restore your health. The issue then becomes, is your burn going to be strong enough to kill someone before your health is drained because you will only have your heal to recover it. In gimmick burst spec it works because the goal is to kill things so fast that you don’t have to worry about that, with condition spec’s though….

I guess I’m thinking Carrion/Rapid mix and being glassy condi and not necessarily sustain. But, maybe I’m grasping for straws here.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Bash.7291:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I’m still not convinced that a 30/x/x/x/30 build would be bad in a solo situation. Especially if you have Supreme Justice on, that’s burning every 3 attacks, not to mention all the other sources of burning you have. Sure there’s condi cleaning, but that’s why the spamming would come in.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it would be better than a power build, but I’m still wondering how well it would do. The unexpectedness of the build in itself might be worth looking into. Everyone expects a tanker or med/ah build, but not a condi build.

Where does your sustain come from then though? You dont get selfless daring + healing power, you dont get AH/MF, you have no bonus vit/toughness. Even if you went with Dire gear, your still not going to have many ways to restore your health. The issue then becomes, is your burn going to be strong enough to kill someone before your health is drained because you will only have your heal to recover it. In gimmick burst spec it works because the goal is to kill things so fast that you don’t have to worry about that, with condition spec’s though….

I guess I’m thinking Carrion/Rapid mix and being glassy condi and not necessarily sustain. But, maybe I’m grasping for straws here.

I almost wouldnt bother with power in that build, I would say go rabid/dire and pick up scavenger runes along with on crit and on weapon swap leach runes (they don’t scale off power, but still do added damage, and will give you some type of sustain) so you would actually get 4 sources of life steal, (2x sigil, proc from heal, and proc occasionally when hit.) along with the condition damage. I would only go rabid enough to get your your crit high enough to make tour sigil worth it. also if this is wvw, maybe omnom pie for some added crit/leach as well.

Actually. maybe x/30/x/x/30 would be better, you get the free crit/condition damage, you get to turn retal into a condition, and could use more dire gear instead of rabid to boost up your defenses and keep all the leach…

Bash.7291:

Actually. maybe x/30/x/x/30 would be better, you get the free crit/condition damage, you get to turn retal into a condition, and could use more dire gear instead of rabid to boost up your defenses and keep all the leach…

And therin lies the single largest issue with guardians outside of 0/0/30/30/0 or 0/0/0/30/30….

All our synergistic traits are spread all the fk over the place when it comes to “Condi”…

30/30/0/0/10 – 10 in Virtues needs to be Permeating Wraith.

How hard is it to figure this out Anet….?

Honestly Amins, I am pretty much giving up on the extra burn damage in zeal. It really is not worth it from a condition spec viewpoint, as you lose way too much trying to get to it. Radiance at least gives crit, condition damage, retal condition, free fury (when fighting burning) VoJ refresh, torch traits, etc. And it will at least allow you to pick up the other stuff that you need to survive instead of going 30 power and being left with 33% extra burning and nothing else to show for it.