Guild Wars 2

First off. I gotta say, I find the guardian’s traits to be the worst in the game.

I know, I know, you are all “defenders” and you think guards are great and all…

…but when I rank the classes in my head, the worst is necro, then engineer, and then guardian.

And for this class, I think, it’s all about the traits. I can only hope that Altruistic Healing becomes a signet of some sort. or a run speed trait is added, or they find a way to put that fire aoe grandmaster trait in a trait line that has something to do with condition damage…. or combine it with the fire on every 4th attack…

ugh, the possibilities are endless!

And can we get some survivability please? I know you guys think guards “live forever” it’s such crap. Other classes can bunker way better, it’s just that everyone thinks “guardians”=“tanks”=“bunkers”=“we’re the best”

I remember it like it was yesterday, because it was yesterday. My guard with 3340 armor took a 12k+ killshot.

…it’s a hell-of-a-dose of reality when Mr. Tanky almost get’s 1-shot form 1200’ away.

..and I think the first step for fixing that would be to let Mr. Tanky shoot back at the guy 1200’ away, and then maybe we could spec for something that doesn’t just absorb damage, because we don’t have any way of dishing it out!

but I digress…

TLDR:

I have really, really high hopes for the trait redesign, and I think guardians have the most to gain from it.

so you have 12k hp, right? okay…

actually guards’ only weak side is ranged, scepter is just badly designed ( not to mention we are not fairies ). I have 16 k hp, 3200 armor, 50% crit chance, 2,8k attack and 35% crit dmg and I’m doing more than fine. 0/15/30/20/5

Not a single class in this game can withstand a killshot from big bosses ( like karka roll etc ) but guess what.. most of us know how to avoid it.

There are many useless traits, however I’d say that we have one of the best traits among all classes.

So yes to fixing scepter, yes to fixing some traits, no to more “tankiness”. We would be WAY OP.

/ on a side note – we made a small 5-ppl group of all guardians in guild and went WvW.
Small zerk went after us ( id say 20-25 ), we killed around 7, run away. You really need more surv?

Stop using AH. You will notice the best guardians don’t use the trait, or much of any investment in Valor at all.

Before you complain about classes being underpowered, you should examine if you are playing them right. IMO guardians are the second-best class in the game, just behind engineers, but it’s a bit of a toss-up.

Quoting Ezeriel.9574
“(…)I remember it like it was yesterday, because it was yesterday. My guard with 3340 armor took a 12k+ killshot.(…)”

That is the new trait line on warrior giving them 3% to 6% more damage per boon, saw a guardian being one hitted with that one and he runs over 15k hp, problem is he poped all boons at that momment, i still need to find a uber sniping to build my warrior, its good to kill key guardians on groups 20+ VS 20+. that is anet wanting to avoid “sturdy” classes.

OP can you post your stats here?

Btw, Guard is by a long shot the most well rounded prof both for traits and skills.

Sure, Radiance and Zeal might have some love, and there are some gimmick/bad traits..
Sure, Spirit Weapons are almost never used outside Shield for extra bubble in pve..
Sure, Scepter is broken and Sword needs serious improvements…

But overall Guard are in a extremely good position.
Ofc still hoping for some improvements, but it’s just matter of fine-tuning and fixes here and there, imo.

We also have some of the best minor traits in the game IMHO.

Perma Vigor, dodge healing, extra damage for stacking boons and conditions and blocking, extra boons/retal from virtues and the ability to blind and burn after every kill

Aeolus.3615:

Quoting Ezeriel.9574
“(…)I remember it like it was yesterday, because it was yesterday. My guard with 3340 armor took a 12k+ killshot.(…)”

That is the new trait line on warrior giving them 3% to 6% more damage per boon, saw a guardian being one hitted with that one and he runs over 15k hp, problem is he poped all boons at that momment, i still need to find a uber sniping to build my warrior, its good to kill key guardians on groups 20+ VS 20+. that is anet wanting to avoid “sturdy” classes.

OP can you post your stats here?

let’s see… 3374 armor, 14,909 life, 2796 power, 50% crit, 285 healing, 0-0-30-20-20 spec

…but I change it every day or two, or I just go back to any other class, I have all but mesmer to 80.

I log onto my guard and feel like Ed Gruberman… I just wanna start thrashing bozos, and then I log to WvW and get a boot to the head.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Stop using AH. You will notice the best guardians don’t use the trait, or much of any investment in Valor at all.

This is only conditionally true.

Depending on what part of the game you’re playing and in what role, Altruistic Healing may or may not be a good trait choice. For heavy PvP/WvW team support guardians, they often go with Honor and Virtues for the full defensive stats and lots of team-support traits for condition removal. For an offensive build, you often see investment into Valor for the heal on meditations. For PvE, Altruistic Healing is a mainstay.

Altruistic Healing is very good for generalized play. If you’re not sure what you want to do, or you do a little of everything, then it works very well. When you move to more specialized roles, then that generalization is no longer as good.

As for thoughts on trait buffs, I’d like to see a conditional (such as on cripple/chill/immobilize) self-applied symbol of swiftness trait. I’d also like to see “Symbols are Larger” be the 5 point minor trait in Zeal.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Stop using AH. You will notice the best guardians don’t use the trait, or much of any investment in Valor at all.

Before you complain about classes being underpowered, you should examine if you are playing them right. IMO guardians are the second-best class in the game, just behind engineers, but it’s a bit of a toss-up.

LOL

Yaki.9563:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Stop using AH. You will notice the best guardians don’t use the trait, or much of any investment in Valor at all.

Before you complain about classes being underpowered, you should examine if you are playing them right. IMO guardians are the second-best class in the game, just behind engineers, but it’s a bit of a toss-up.

LOL

Name me a class better than engineer in any format, then we’ll talk. In PvE, they outDPS warriors. In PvP, they outbunker guardians. In WvW, they outzerg rangers and mesmers.

Hell, I don’t even need to switch my traits for any of these formats, the same works for all of them.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Yaki.9563:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Stop using AH. You will notice the best guardians don’t use the trait, or much of any investment in Valor at all.

Before you complain about classes being underpowered, you should examine if you are playing them right. IMO guardians are the second-best class in the game, just behind engineers, but it’s a bit of a toss-up.

LOL

Name me a class better than engineer in any format, then we’ll talk. In PvE, they outDPS warriors. In PvP, they outbunker guardians. In WvW, they outzerg rangers and mesmers.

Hell, I don’t even need to switch my traits for any of these formats, the same works for all of them.

You’re joking right? :o

Have you ever actually used or fought an engineer? They are super overpowered.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Have you ever actually used or fought an engineer? They are super overpowered.

Ya. You train them and they die in seconds like most glass cannons. I’d rather fight an engineer than a mesmer. Engineer has much less burst and their damage is heavily telegraphed. The only time I’d consider an engineer overpowered is when they can get on a high ledge.

i can’t figure out if you are talking about PvE or Pvp, because i don’t see warrior in that list so its not a PvP list, but then again ,did you see hammer guardian face to face with bosses and tanking every hit?…

Lighter.5631:

i can’t figure out if you are talking about PvE or Pvp, because i don’t see warrior in that list so its not a PvP list, but then again ,did you see hammer guardian face to face with bosses and tanking every hit?…

Are you talking to me? Warriors are good because the stat boost from banners is huge but beyond that they’re actually not as good as people think they are. Hundred Blades is high total damage but in terms of overall sustained DPS warriors are actually lower than guardians in terms of DPS, unless it’s a small target that can be pushed against a wall (i.e. Slave Driver) in which case they are very slightly higher (about 1-2%).

You absolutely should have a warrior in every party to stack banners (bring Strength, Discipline, and Battle Standard) but there’s no reason to bring more than one, since having multiple banners of the same type doesn’t stack. Compare that to engineers, who deal equivalent or better DPS in most situations (and at range), and also stack much higher amounts of might and vulnerability (a single engineer can easily get 10+ stacks of might and 25+ stacks of vulnerability on everything).

And before you go NO LOL I DEAL 20K WITH HUNDRED BLADES please try to actually do the math and see how much you actually deal in practice. It’s not as much as you’d think. Hundred Blades is a high total damage number but keep in mind that it is a four-second channel, and that is four seconds NOT spent auto-attacking. That means that HB doesn’t actually deal 20k damage, it deals 20k minus the damage of about 6 swings from the auto-attack. The formula for overall DPS is [auto-attack DPS + additional DPS for each skill / recharge time].

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Lighter.5631:

i can’t figure out if you are talking about PvE or Pvp, because i don’t see warrior in that list so its not a PvP list, but then again ,did you see hammer guardian face to face with bosses and tanking every hit?…

Are you talking to me? Warriors are good because the stat boost from banners is huge but beyond that they’re actually not as good as people think they are. Hundred Blades is high total damage but in terms of overall sustained DPS warriors are actually lower than guardians in terms of DPS, unless it’s a small target that can be pushed against a wall (i.e. Slave Driver) in which case they are very slightly higher (about 1-2%).

You absolutely should have a warrior in every party to stack banners (bring Strength, Discipline, and Battle Standard) but there’s no reason to bring more than one, since having multiple banners of the same type doesn’t stack. Compare that to engineers, who deal equivalent or better DPS in most situations (and at range), and also stack much higher amounts of might and vulnerability (a single engineer can easily get 10+ stacks of might and 25+ stacks of vulnerability on everything).

And before you go NO LOL I DEAL 20K WITH HUNDRED BLADES please try to actually do the math and see how much you actually deal in practice. It’s not as much as you’d think. Hundred Blades is a high total damage number but keep in mind that it is a four-second channel, and that is four seconds NOT spent auto-attacking. That means that HB doesn’t actually deal 20k damage, it deals 20k minus the damage of about 6 swings from the auto-attack. The formula for overall DPS is [auto-attack DPS + additional DPS for each skill / recharge time].

No, im talking to OP, i would never talk to anyone without quoting them, so you may delete your post now, no problem.

Lighter.5631:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Lighter.5631:

i can’t figure out if you are talking about PvE or Pvp, because i don’t see warrior in that list so its not a PvP list, but then again ,did you see hammer guardian face to face with bosses and tanking every hit?…

Are you talking to me? Warriors are good because the stat boost from banners is huge but beyond that they’re actually not as good as people think they are. Hundred Blades is high total damage but in terms of overall sustained DPS warriors are actually lower than guardians in terms of DPS, unless it’s a small target that can be pushed against a wall (i.e. Slave Driver) in which case they are very slightly higher (about 1-2%).

You absolutely should have a warrior in every party to stack banners (bring Strength, Discipline, and Battle Standard) but there’s no reason to bring more than one, since having multiple banners of the same type doesn’t stack. Compare that to engineers, who deal equivalent or better DPS in most situations (and at range), and also stack much higher amounts of might and vulnerability (a single engineer can easily get 10+ stacks of might and 25+ stacks of vulnerability on everything).

And before you go NO LOL I DEAL 20K WITH HUNDRED BLADES please try to actually do the math and see how much you actually deal in practice. It’s not as much as you’d think. Hundred Blades is a high total damage number but keep in mind that it is a four-second channel, and that is four seconds NOT spent auto-attacking. That means that HB doesn’t actually deal 20k damage, it deals 20k minus the damage of about 6 swings from the auto-attack. The formula for overall DPS is [auto-attack DPS + additional DPS for each skill / recharge time].

No, im talking to OP, i would never talk to anyone without quoting them, so you may delete your post now, no problem.

Well, it’s good information for anyone reading it to have, anyway.

That’s an incredibly strange way of looking at things.

Hundred Blades still did 20k damage, you don’t subtract the possible auto attack damage from it, that’s just stupid.

You’re talking about DPS while using total damage numbers and just muddying the waters with subtraction rubbish. It makes no sense at all.

If you need instant pressure then Hundred Blades > Autoattack, it will deal more damage in a shorter amount of time and it cleaves.

If you want pure sustained damage DPS then yes, auto attack is often a superior choice, while you use other skills when suitable.

PvE is such a non-challenge anyway that I’m surprised so many people devote so much spreadsheet calculation time towards it >.<

Ezrael.6859:

That’s an incredibly strange way of looking at things.

Hundred Blades still did 20k damage, you don’t subtract the possible auto attack damage from it, that’s just stupid.

You’re talking about DPS while using total damage numbers and just muddying the waters with subtraction rubbish. It makes no sense at all.

If you need instant pressure then Hundred Blades > Autoattack, it will deal more damage in a shorter amount of time and it cleaves.

If you want pure sustained damage DPS then yes, auto attack is often a superior choice, while you use other skills when suitable.

PvE is such a non-challenge anyway that I’m surprised so many people devote so much spreadsheet calculation time towards it >.<

Look at it this way.

HB is 4 second channel, deals about 2k damage at base power. That’s 500 damage/second.

Smite is .83s cast, deals 1665 total damage at base power. In the same 4-second window, you can cast Smite and then do 4 more auto-attacks for 224 each. That’s about 2.5k.

When I talk about “subtracting” the auto-attack damage, I’m referring to the value of the skill over just auto-attacking. A high total number means nothing if you could do equivalent or more damage with other skills over the same period of time, even if the game doesn’t add them up into one big number for you. Similarly, hitting 20k with Hundred Blades is meaningless as a measure of overall DPS for the same reason.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Hundred Blades is a high total damage number but keep in mind that it is a four-second channel, and that is four seconds NOT spent auto-attacking. That means that HB doesn’t actually deal 20k damage, it deals 20k minus the damage of about 6 swings from the auto-attack. The formula for overall DPS is [auto-attack DPS + additional DPS for each skill / recharge time].

I see what you’re getting at here, and it’s an excellent way of looking at things, mathematically.

Say skill A does 2k damage with no cooldown and a 1/2s channel. This means its DPS is 4k. This is your autoattack.

Say skill B does 20,000 damage with 8s cooldown and a 4s channel, but roots you in place during the 4s channel. This means its DPS is 20,000 damage over 4 seconds, triggered once every 12 seconds (8s cooldown at the end of the 4s channel = 12s recharge time). That skill’s total DPS is roughly 1667 total, or 5,000 while active (20,000 damage over 4s).

However, we also have to take into account DPS of skill A for comparative purposes: over 4s, we could unleash 8 attacks, dealing 2k damage apiece, for 16,000 damage. Skill B, then, deals 20,000 damage during the same time skill A deals 16,000 damage. Thus, it’s a 4,000 damage increase over the use of skill A during the same time period.

The formula for overall DPS, then, is 4000 + (4000 / 12) = 4,333 damage per second while using skill A constantly, except when skill B is available (and triggering skill B on cooldown).

Though the 20k damage number in 4 seconds is very impressive, its net effect on overall DPS is surprisingly small, and only adds up to the effect of a single extra hit from skill A every 6 seconds. It’s up to the player and the situation as to whether 333 DPS is worth being rooted in place a third of the time.

Alot of classes out DPS Greatsword Warriors, actually. For example, a Sword Ranger easily will if his pet remains alive. Unfourtunetly, the playerbase as a whole is stupid, and can’t think beyond the big numbers on the screen, paying no attention to the big picture or what actually goes on under the hood. That’s why everybody wants 100b Warriors for dungeons, and won’t even consider bringing other classes like Ranger or Engineer, despite the fact by only bringing Warriors they are potentially reducing their total DPS.

Engineers/Guardians out-dps’ing Warriors. Do i dream?
Guardian is the profession i play when we could use some projectile reflection. 10/25/0/25/10 and unless im not buffed to 25 Stacks Might, Fury and targets are set to burning and i can hold my aegis guardians damage looses so much against warriors. If all those criterias are met a guardian could do slightly more damage than an autoattack-spamming warrior.

Dub.1273:

Engineers/Guardians out-dps’ing Warriors. Do i dream?

No, you don’t.

Grenadiers, sword/focus guardians, sword rangers and hammer eles out-DPS warriors.

KotCR.6024:

Alot of classes out DPS Greatsword Warriors, actually. For example, a Sword Ranger easily will if his pet remains alive. Unfourtunetly, the playerbase as a whole is stupid, and can’t think beyond the big numbers on the screen, paying no attention to the big picture or what actually goes on under the hood. That’s why everybody wants 100b Warriors for dungeons, and won’t even consider bringing other classes like Ranger or Engineer, despite the fact by only bringing Warriors they are potentially reducing their total DPS.

There are other reasons why everyone wants warriors over other profession, like they bring 25 stacks of might and vulnerability, and perma fury. They also have a high base vitality (doesn’t really matter that much, but every small thing helps)

Melfice.5091:

KotCR.6024:

Alot of classes out DPS Greatsword Warriors, actually. For example, a Sword Ranger easily will if his pet remains alive. Unfourtunetly, the playerbase as a whole is stupid, and can’t think beyond the big numbers on the screen, paying no attention to the big picture or what actually goes on under the hood. That’s why everybody wants 100b Warriors for dungeons, and won’t even consider bringing other classes like Ranger or Engineer, despite the fact by only bringing Warriors they are potentially reducing their total DPS.

There are other reasons why everyone wants warriors over other profession, like they bring 25 stacks of might and vulnerability, and perma fury. They also have a high base vitality (doesn’t really matter that much, but every small thing helps)

Warriors don’t bring 25 stacks of might and vuln, lol. Even an engineer can only stack about 15 might and 25 vuln tops, there’s no way a warrior could do it.

The perma-fury is nice but you don’t need multiple warriors for that, either. You bring warriors primarily for the giant stat boost you get from the banners, but when there are three banners worth taking (Discipline, Strength, Battle Standard) and one warrior can easily pack all three, there’s no reason to bring two unless it’s absolutely vital for some reason that each warrior has access to two other utilities. Even then there’s definitely no reason to bring 4, except that warriors are pretty idiot-proof as far the profession goes and even a PUG can be counted on not to totally screw them up. By comparison the vast majority of guardians are still running AH and I almost never see grenade engies or melee rangers.

“For Great Justice!” is 3 stacks of might each time for its full cooldown. 3 warriors makes that 9 stacks for the entire group. Then warriors have another 5 from popping their signet and can accumulate a few more from their own greatsword trait. So all the warriors in the group will have perma-fury and ~20 stacks of might for every trash pull and good chunks of boss fights, many of which have burst periods. The rest of the group has almost perma-fury and at least 9 stacks of might just from the warriors. Throw a couple banners in (since you really only need 2 for DPS) for trash or “On My Mark!” for bosses with burst windows. The fact that warriors bring so much damage gain to the group as well as themselves is partly why they’re so popular compared to other professions. Compare that to a full DPS guardian or Engi and the group benefit of them is far less even if their individual contribution may be slightly higher.

I would also note that the multi-warrior mentality is mostly from CoF path 1 and other easy dungeon paths where you can go all-out damage and not be in danger. In a more difficult dungeon, you would want a more balanced group. But that same aspect also limits DPS variants of other professions that are too much of a liability or bring little group support.

On top of that, you have the condition stacking issue that limits some professions. Warriors rely mostly on raw damage with some bleeds (stacks intensity) and vulnerability (stacks intensity). Even guardian burning does less than maximum DPS because it’s a duration stacking condition. Poison is similar and heavy condition builds can near the bleed cap on their own.

Exedore.6320:

“For Great Justice!” is 3 stacks of might each time for its full cooldown. 3 warriors makes that 9 stacks for the entire group. Then warriors have another 5 from popping their signet and can accumulate a few more from their own greatsword trait. So all the warriors in the group will have perma-fury and ~20 stacks of might for every trash pull and good chunks of boss fights, many of which have burst periods. The rest of the group has almost perma-fury and at least 9 stacks of might just from the warriors. Throw a couple banners in (since you really only need 2 for DPS) for trash or “On My Mark!” for bosses with burst windows. The fact that warriors bring so much damage gain to the group as well as themselves is partly why they’re so popular compared to other professions. Compare that to a full DPS guardian or Engi and the group benefit of them is far less even if their individual contribution may be slightly higher.

I would also note that the multi-warrior mentality is mostly from CoF path 1 and other easy dungeon paths where you can go all-out damage and not be in danger. In a more difficult dungeon, you would want a more balanced group. But that same aspect also limits DPS variants of other professions that are too much of a liability or bring little group support.

On top of that, you have the condition stacking issue that limits some professions. Warriors rely mostly on raw damage with some bleeds (stacks intensity) and vulnerability (stacks intensity). Even guardian burning does less than maximum DPS because it’s a duration stacking condition. Poison is similar and heavy condition builds can near the bleed cap on their own.

Warriors do in fact self-stack might pretty well but their group might contribution is pretty weak. Warriors have high solo DPS primarily because of their ability to self-stack might and fury but their base DPS is actually relatively low. A warrior with 25 might and fury actually deals less than a guardian or engineer with those same boons, all other things equal, so in general it is more productive to focus on group might contributions from multiple classes than to pour resources into stacking your own. Fury is generally a non-issue with a competent warrior or ranger so the primary issue is getting enough might and vulnerability going. Warriors are average at this at best; they’re about on par with guardians and fall far short from engineers, who can easily maintain 10+ stacks without any DPS sacrifice.

Similarly, while warriors can burst to 25 vulnerability very briefly, it’ll only last for 5-6 seconds tops and then drop back to 0. This means that the boss needs to drop very quickly (i.e. Slave Driver) and even then you need a lot of coordination so you’re not overlapping your vuln bursts or going long stretches without any vuln at all. Compare that to the engineer, which, again, gives high amounts of constant vulnerability (20+ at base) with no DPS loss.

To put it more simply, warriors can achieve high solo DPS easily, making them ideal for pug groups where you can’t rely on group contributions, but when you can dictate who does what in the group it’s simply much more efficient to have one class who can provide a large group contribution with little to no DPS loss (the engineer) then focus on setting up for large amounts of raw DPS for the rest (guardians and rangers, possibly elementalists and thieves depending on the content). Warriors are a good well-rounded option but not ideal for minmaxing.

:O
I just can’t believe the OP. I genunely hope he’s trolling us. I mean, dude! We have reflects, many sources of aegis, heal that blocks everything for 2 secs, dodges and 2s invuln with 90s cooldown and you dare saying guardian needs more survivability? This thread is insane, I’m not even going to explain why guardian is ok as it is, maybe even OP a bit.

At this point any possible change for guardian would be either to some useless trait or a downright nerf.

So you people better hope they don’t change a thing.

AH + staff = another heal spell