Guild Wars 2

As per the notes.
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•We are moving towards retaliation being more of a counter to taking many hits rather than a general boon to keep up all the time. We also wanted to improve the combo finisher of the guardian, so we reorganized guardian greatsword skills to the following:

•Skill 4: Symbol of Wrath (20 second recharge)
Now incase anyone doesn’t know, that’s double it’s old cooldown.
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Now from the patch notes this seems to have been done to affect retaliation and inprove combos, however here is a list of all the things the doubling of the symbol affected with the GS.

Symbolic Exposure – Symbols apply vulnerability to foes.
Symbolic Power – Increases damage of symbols.
Writ of Exaltation – Symbols are larger.
Writ of Persistence – Symbols last longer.
Writ of the Merciful – All symbols heal allies.

All the above traits have had there usage halfed on GS because the symbol doubled in cooldown, add to this the loss of DPS on the GS itself due to the cooldown (and less ticks on VoJ).

So this nerf to curb retaliation affected a lot of builds THAT DON’T USE retaliation – was this spotted and if so, how come nothing was given to make up for it? (the 5 second reduction in leap really doesn’t cut it for all the builds it affected).
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So as per this, how about perhaps at least doubling the duration&damage of the symbol or simply putting it as it was (10 seconds) and removing retaliation from it instead.

The nerf to SoW makes no sense at all. No guardian that is specing for retaliation in PvP is going to use SoW anyway. There are better, more mobile ways of keeping retaliation up. This was nothing more than a dps nerf for greatsword specs. It is totally unwarranted and short-sighted.

Just go ahead and ask everyone to reroll a warrior since they are the standard that everyone measures everything against. Every other class is substandard by comparison.

We have been making cases for your argument in the Guardian forums; I’m glad you brought it to General where it might actually get some attention. By now I’m sure ANet realizes what they have done to the Greatsword in their efforts to curb retaliation. If nothing else, we should be receiving an answer from them to attempt a justification of the issue.

I just looked at the Warrior’s Greatsword abilities just to get an idea of how their setup differed from ours, and wow… Talk about complete action oriented game play vs. complete stagnation. Even when the Symbol was on a 10 second CD it was still a fairly passive weapon that primarily relied on Whirl and auto attack for damage.

Why does the Guardian Greatsword encourage such passive play? We now have 1 reliable damaging ability with a realistic CD. Whirling Wrath. That is not innovative game design. That is not what I expected from GW2. I sincerely hope a change is on the way-a change for the better.

Well i guess it was intentional then (due to lack of response).
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I ask Anet then, can you at least fix the Zeal line now, as you’ve broken a portion of it.

Part of it is clearly aimed towards the GS and Symbols (the standard traits are symbol traits, and a number of selectable traits are aimed at the GS) and well, considering the now huge 20s Symbol cooldown on the GS it’s kinda broken the GS/Symbol build along that trait line (wasn’t this noticed in testing?).

So can we PLEASE get a response on this, it’s quite an issue when in fixing 1 skill you broke an entire build (builds).

Ohh great, now it’s moved here.

To the mod, it was posted in other section for a reason – as it was a general question to Anet and well, they seem to not be answering in this section.

SoW is purely a guardian thing. If the post had been about retaliation as a whole, with nigh no or little focus on anything strictly Guardian, it might’ve stayed. \

I expect they’ve got something fairly big in the works for Guardian, but they want to take things at their own pace, not to mention they have much more info than we do on total usage, statistics, etc. Anets also said that testing a new idea roughly takes anywhere from 2-6 weeks (mostly a month if I remember correctly), so it seems these changes were needed (ie. seen as a problem) a month ago.

Yeah but this is a game in which you earn/buy gold/gems to buy things, and well if a patch is going to basically break an entire build on a trait line then they should let people know before hand so they don’t waste gold/money.

If they think the entire Symbol setup on the Zeal trait line (and other traits that deal with Symbols) is to overpowered with the Greatsword, then they should tell us so we don’t waste money if we decided to go with a Greatsword/Symbol build. However they stated it was to do with retaliation and as such there is no excuse as to why they ruined so many traits that work with the Greatsword/Symbols.

If what you say is true, then it truely is a very poor system because this game deals with REAL money, it’s not like we can resell our Greatswords on the TP as they’re souldbound now.

I have no issue with them going after retaliation on the Greatsword (as much as i don’t agree with it), however they didn’t just do that. They went after the entire Symbol build on the Greatsword when one of the trait lines deals with BOTH Symbols and Greatswords.

They need to either fix this ASAP (either the cooldown or all the Symbol/Greatsword traits) or offer an explination as to why they went ahead and did this knowing what it was going to do.

If you’re trying to pay2win, you’re playing the game wrong

Simplest of simplest solution/s
Revert the change, then one of the following:

1. Symbol of Wrath has 20s recharge in PvP and 10s recharge in PvE
or
2. Retaliation now does 75% damage of what it is now in PvP(stays the same in PvE, or you can even change it too, we really could care less about Retaliation in PvE)
or
3. Symbol of Wrath changed to Symbol of Vigor. Vigor is also a defensive boon that Guardians cannot give to allies yet, and it also stacks in duration. We can still give Retaliation to allies through other means(Stand your Ground, Light Field Blast/Leap etc). Symbol of Vigor would not be overpowered because it would “require you to stand in the symbol to get Vigor”, the irony that Vigor is used for dodging(hence not staying still in the circle). Or choose other boon.
or
4. Symbol of Wrath duration becomes 8seconds(12seconds when traited), Recharge is 20seconds
or
5. Symbol of Wrath keeps 20second recharge, but boost our symbol traits(double the damage for all symbol damage, double the damage from “symbols do more damage”, 2 stacks of Vulnerability instead of 1 from “symbols apply Vulnerability”, double the healing from “symbols heal allies”, double the extra time from “symbols last longer”, but “symbols are larger” stays the same. This would make people use symbols more intelligently with higher recharge but higher reward.

Of course ArenaNet will not listen to any of these suggestions nor comment on any of this change(silent treatment thinking we will all calm down and come to accept it and adapt to it within a few weeks, this tactic known as IzzySmitersBoon has always worked in GW1) even though there are over 90% of Guardian players who are angered by this change, some of which are begging them to revert this change, rerolling Warrior instead, or even logging off for good.

They could of kept the cooldown as it was but removed retaliation and replaced it with a condition like burning or maybe fury.

Ghotistyx.6942:

If you’re trying to pay2win, you’re playing the game wrong

Is this directed at me or a deleted post?, as it makes no sence and has nothing to do with what i said.

If it was at me and to do with the fact i mentioned real money, then you completly missed the point.

I think the one thing we could ask is the game designer responsible of this class comes on this forum and explains his plan for the guardian. Because nerfing lots of builds and a weapon and leaving people in the dark doesn’t bode well for the relations between players and devs.

I played yesterday with my main (GS Guardian, of course) and… shock! First and foremost – I had a very hard time getting used to the new button layout, ‘cause my fingers already had the whole combo memorized :/ A pain in the behind, really. Especially if they don’t allow us to change the button setup (which is fine by me), but now it makes no sense when they mix it up so bad I don’t know what’s what

Second, I hate what they did with SoW. I specced my guardian for GS and symbols and now both these specs have been nerfed and practically cut in half. I swallowed the bitter pill of having a favourite class that has the least base health of all the classes (warrior has all he needs, sure, I get it – we need an OP class afterall). But now they take away the most fun I had with it by slashing and cutting away the best weapon that the class was using…

Sucks. This just sucks

Pretty bad nerf but what angered me even more than nerfing the weapon (and from my experience the GS was the only weapon even remotely able to deal enough ae damage to get loot in events) is the remapping of the skills.

Sure, I see that they are mapped according to recharge duration, but nonetheless the new setup feels extremely awkward! Please reset this to the old setup, regardless of recharge duration!

GS does not deal a lot of ae damage in events compared to staff. i usually have to hold back in the lower events not to kill the whole wave alone.

i tried GS yesterday and – schock! took me two minutes to learn the new key set.

dont try to be warriors so kitten hard. Just roll one and stop whining.

That is always very educated to say: stop whining and roll another class.

The fact that you are maybe not attached to your class should not delude you to think that it is the same for others. I usually play one class per game and no twinks. Thus I care about the things that happens to that class.

And about the staff…. Sure in lower events that is viable. In higher events there is often time delay until the damage is actually applied. often in events where there are a lot of players I attack with the staff three or four times before any damage is applied. In contrast, GS damage seems to be immediate and much more responsive. Also, GS damage is far higher on any single mob. With staff in high populated events I do not get enough damage to even get exp for the mobs, let alone loot.

MajorMelchett.6042:

Yeah but this is a game in which you earn/buy gold/gems to buy things, and well if a patch is going to basically break an entire build on a trait line then they should let people know before hand so they don’t waste gold/money.

I mean not to be a jerk, but if you really think it’s their responsibility to warn you about changes they make, you are playing the wrong kind of game. For anyone to think that any Publisher would hold your hand through every change they make, you are sadly mistaken.

After sitting on it for a day, I agree with the OP. This change did next to nothing for retaliation and hurt greatsword build options and damage significantly. The retaliation boon needs to be changed first, then adjust its sources.

I agree with OP. Although the changes didn’t break the Guardian, I can still play it, it was indeed a significant nerf to my build. The symbol build.

If this was all about retaliation, just remove it from SoW. If they don’t want to change the mapping again, make SoW last longer. But I don’t think they will listen to us, they currently have bigger issues. It’s hard to balance things, so they might just stay, kitten it, let them get over it.

If they wanted to change the way retaliation worked, fine. But they should know that they kittened up other parts of the Guardian.

I see no decrease in damage. If there is, then it’s minimal. Instead of using Writ of Persistence, just use Two-Handed Mastery. This will knock 5 seconds off your CD.

Animus.6073

We have been making cases for your argument in the Guardian forums; I’m glad you brought it to General where it might actually get some attention.

Ironically, this post looks silly now that some jerk body has moved it to the guardian forum.
“It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.”

Anyway, as I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t mind the changes.

The nerf needs to be undone, my GS/symbol trait build got ruined

eh, i dont mind it so much cuz my main is a necro. i just got my guardian to 40 last night, so i dont really have a build set in stone yet. i will admit i was primarily using GS but i’m already used to the changes, so it’s w/e to me. lol

Greatsword was overpowered in PvE too. It was possibly one of the most “mindless” weapons for the Guardians to use. This is, clearly, more than a nerf to retaliation. It’s a nerf to the mindless condition-removal + retaliation + aoe burst spam by simply cliking 234(5) or even just 23 every ten seconds while eating a sandwish. The greatsword does have a very fluid playstyle, and this update doesn’t changes that, but the playstyle was also bland when it had an optimal sequence to follow. Really, how many of you cared about timing your retaliation right? How many of you cared about timing your condition removal right? If anything, most of us (including myself) simply cared about putting the symbol, using the combo finishers, and watching mobs die around you with 4892347 numbers on the screen, be them from retaliation, burning, the symbol or the wrath.

In comparison, combo fields with hammer required a slow attack chain for a very quick symbol, or a high-cooldown ward. In comparison, Staff can easily set up symbols (in addition to a high-cooldown ward), but you can not finish it without weapon swap. The mace gave you an easy to set symbol, but there was only, what, one (or two?) OH finishers with a high recharge?

It was not even a big nerf. You have more blind and mobility now, for less retaliation and condition removal. I doubt the dps lost is that big. It was clearly a nerf, but it certainly leads to more skillful play. The leap requires timing, and the symbol will not require more decision making about when you should use it for a really strong sequence (defensively and offensively).

Whining because one of the strongest professions in this game is getting nerfed, as if it was the end of the world that can only be solved with rerolls, is only going to leave you more disappointed. It is not the guardian players that are rerolling to other professions. It’s other professions that usually reroll the top tier professions, like the Guardians. All nerfs usually “ruin” specific builds. You’ll need to adapt to it, not claim them to be back to their overpowered state.

My main character is not a Guardian, but that only makes this much clearer. If you read the patch notes, not only this one but most of them, you’ll notice that most professions are being consistently nerfed. Guardians are not the only victims. If you go to the thief boards, they feel like they are the only victims of this game, when thieves are clearly too strong on pvp. If you go to the mesmer boards, the same happens. At every single board, people act as if they are the victims, but there’s a clear idea that warriors, guardians, mesmers (pvp) and thieves are on the stronger side of the spectrum, in every board except, of course, the board for the profession some people think it’s fine and shouldn’t be nerfed.

If there were no profession boards, I can tell you, in a thread like this, the overwhelming majority of players would feel like the nerfs made to guardians, mesmers and thieves in the last patch makes perfect sense. But people usually only stick to their favourite profession boards, and whenever a nerf comes, they demand it to be back to where it was.

That being said, I also think the developers should have given better explanations for their nerfs, and one of them has admitted they’re trying to improve upon that for future patches.

@ Diogo

Read up on the various posts and you will see that we are not so much complaining about a loss in DPS or combo synergy. We are complaining that various builds involving Symbols and even an entire trait line have now been reduced to sub standard options. Putting points into Zeal used to be an “OK” choice at best, now it has very, very, very limited viability. Maybe a burning or spirit weapon build, but all the minor traits involving symbols simply go to waste.

As for those of us who used the Greatsword and traited into Honor and Valor, we are now reduced to boring and stale combat with Symbols not even being a viable build anymore. The uptime isn’t prevalent enough to warrant selecting the Symbol oriented traits.

So, we aren’t complaining about being the victims (some of us are, but believe me they do not speak for the majority nor the intelligent portion of us). We aren’t complaining that our numbers are lower or less frequent, we aren’t complaining that other classes “do it better.” We are simply confused why ANet has chosen to diminish our build diversity and our active combat when it comes to playing the Greatsword. Their efforts were to reduce the effectiveness of retaliation, according to the patch notes. So why must all Guardians who want to play the Greatsword suffer in light of ANet’s new stance on a mechanic most of us weren’t even focusing on?

They soul have left symbol of wrath alone and taken retaliation off of it. Make it grant fury or something instead.