Guild Wars 2

I’m curious to know everyone’s opinion, if they as individuals expect to much when it comes to changes to the guardian class?

From what I read on the forums, many players expressed disappointment when with the guardian changes and new GM traits. To a degree I was one of those players. The common issue I observe is that everyone wants guardian to have more viable builds other than being a bunker/support type.

Objectively each class shares this problem and worse, mostly every class has a couple of viable builds but some are worse off since even their viable builds don’t give them any prominent role on a team. So from that perspective when devs say that guardians are in a good spot then they are actually right.

Personally speaking, if I had one real request for the class that the devs would implement it would be to increase the baseline survivability and lower the performance of survivability from trait lines. I feel the gap between the untraited guardian and fully spec guardian need to be shortened. If this could happen, I feel it would open up for more diversity. Without investing in traits, guardian’s defense is rather poor. But of course this is just my perspective, others may disagree.

Aza.2105:

Personally speaking, if I had one real request for the class that the devs would implement it would be to increase the baseline survivability and lower the performance of survivability from trait lines. I feel the gap between the untraited guardian and fully spec guardian need to be shortened. If this could happen, I feel it would open up for more diversity. Without investing in traits, guardian’s defense is rather poor.

It’s a fair point in the context of traits. Guardians do have a defensive/survival bias in their heal and utility skills that arguably fills some of that gap. I’ve always felt VoR and VoC had longer cooldowns than they necessarily need. In the context of comparisons with other class Fskills they are, in my mind, rather weak. No doubted diluted by their defensiveness and by affecting a whole party.

Personally, I’m more disappointed that the underperforming aspects of Guardian appear to be getting swept under the rug. Particularly Spirit Weapons. The biggest shake-up comes in Condition damage, most Guardians I know are not keen to exploit that for a number of issues, some of which don’t even reside with the class itself. We’re in a better spot than many, but I think it’s wishful thinking indeed to say we’re in a “good spot” and require mainly QoL changes.

I expect quite a lot, because after I tried out almost every possible build it felt like there is something missing, like the profession is unfinished, like if only the basics of the original design were implemented and the rest was just glued onto it.

During the time since release if the guardian was steered slowly patch by patch towards the original vision of what the guardian is, according to devs, supposed to be – a boon powered warrior, I believe that by this day the guardian would already be at the right spot. Unfortunately the new GM traits definitely show that the original design was forgotten a long time ago.

Personally I think the original vision is good, just badly (or not) implemented. I mean without shouts and 30 in virtues we really don’t have much boons to throw around at all. We can’t get a 100% uptime on anything besides Regeneration, Protection and Swiftness which are:
1. weapon locked
2. delivered by static symbols in short ticks
3. impossible to keep up all at once
Then we have 3 trait lines which barely grant any access to boons and boon duration is going to take a hit in the next patch on top of it.

I sort of chaulk it up to what sort of player wants to play a Guardian. I personally feel drawn to “Tank” and “Healing” archetypes in games. The Guardian is the closest incarnation of these in GW2 in my eyes. A class that can be very durable and provide support and sustain to his/her group.

So my first expectation is to be very durable regardless of how I spend points or load out. And I think in most aspects of the game this works out. Even full on Zerk builds have blocks and invulnerability other classes do not. Only in the case of conditions does the low HP pool really start to hold you back and that only really becomes a major issue when fighting players who can rapidly apply conditions faster than your cleansing options.

Second expectation is support. In which the Guardian is well known for it’s defensive boons, which are unfortunately in the mechanics of the game, only going to get you so far. They help with sustain, but a well timed dodge is worth far more than any amount of regen you can produce. I get it, no holy trinity… it’s how things have to be.

So often I feel shoehorned, into increasing my defense and support aspects.. which is my own prerogative and something most Guardians will invest into. There’s good traits there, but nothing that changes how the Guardian plays really… just enhancements to our existing base abilities.

Obviously there’s very strong PvE DPS specs as well, so thats not really a valid complaint. There’s other classes that are weaker in PvE, so I gotta feel we’re all thinking WvW or PvP.

My personal pet peeve is getting controlled. As the single most melee dependant class in the game, we’re not the most fierce hand to hand classes out there either. Our CC abilities are very short ranged and easily avoidable. I constantly get stunned, immobilized, crippled far beyond what cleansing options we have a available. And often find it a struggle to stay on top of many other much more mobile classes…. which would be fine if I didn’t know what sort of options are available for other classes.

I would like to have more disabling conditions, things to pressure my opponents, punish them for allowing me to connect. I’d like a passive trait that increases run speed while melee weapons are equipped like Warriors, rather than having to make choices like running Staff or Traveler Runes when swiftness isn’t otherwise available.

That to me would increase build variety. I’m not looking to be the new condition master. I just don’t want to feel like a big lumbering lummox being kitted when we have nearly zero escape options.

Yes and no.

I do not believe Guardians should dps or sustain as well as certain other classes. I feel the loudest whiners want Guardians to be wannabe warriors, and that’s simply not going to happen. Just go roll a warrior and be done with it. This is a group oriented class by default.

But let’s not kid anyone. As the game itself has many flaws, they manifest themselves into guardian gameplay.

It is fair game to complain about how crappy one of our trees are (zeal) We are unable to take advantage of this tree because our core defenses are down in the middle two rows and thus to encourage flexibility, this has to change.

Anet still hasn’t understood that burning is NOT a viable condition. It does not stack and may get overwritten. Condition damage scales obscenely poorly and is not worth the investment.

At the same time they fail to realize this class requires use of active defense and nerfing our vigor trait hurts us far more than it hurts other classes. They think it’s normal for guardians to use up half their points in honor or virtues and wonder why build diversity is not what it could be. It also makes little sense that a class designed around bringing itself up has a tree devoted to selfish preservation.

These issues aren’t crippling entirely. Guardians manage to carve 1-2 decent builds for any situation and compared to other classes have more choices for sure, but many guardians would like to do something with spirit weapons and signets, and fire. Shouts are insanely boring, but most guardians in wvw are stuck with them, for example or resort to meditations that give 0 support.

Still, complaints should not revolve around melodramatic whining about how one has no options or “why not just roll warriors?”. As I’ve jokingly said in another thread, many of these things are first world problems. Things seem broken not because the guardian is badly designed, but the game modes themselves have so many issues that every class will seem out of whack. Anet needs to get the gameplay itself fixed, otherwise any balance suggestion is just a bandaid.

I started as a necro main, and decided the vision of that class was completely broken; thus switching. That class is now a lot stronger and more fun to play, but I don’t think Anet’s concept of it has really been made to my needs, so Guardian it is…

No, I don’t think asking for all of our Skills to be usable is asking for to much. Some might call for buffs in other areas, I myself would be content if anet would fix Spirit Weapons to start with. CC, Traits, Signets and Mobility would just be Icing on the Cake

Yes and no xD

Like I’ve said before, I don’t expect much from patches for Guardians.

However, that has more to do with knowing that Anet doesn’t view existing skills and traits as a top priority right now. Let alone Guardian skills and traits. I do expect for bugs to fixed quickly, but I’m not holding my breath on currently lackluster and/or useless skills being revamped anytime soon.

Skills are in their “good enough” bucket for now.

If they ever get serious about sPvP and introduce multiple game modes, then they’ll have to revisit skills and traits again. Unless they change how the game plays, it’ll probably stay the way it is.

Let me say it this way. If another year goes by and spirit weapons and signets are untouched then no one should expect anything ever.

edit:

I added the word “existing” so it’s existing skills and traits. Even though there are existing traits on every profession that need improvements, they’re about to add even more. So yeah, traits are a priority… just new ones, not ones where already have. Apparently it’s easier to add new ones than it is to revamp old ones.

Honestly, i am curious to see what happens to guardians when the new sPvP map comes out with just fighting and no capture points. Sounds alot like Mini-WvW, which means we are just going to be kited to death instead of being able to deal damage because people are not going to be forced to stay near a capture point. I have a feeling it is going to end up showing alot of the flaws, which are already shown when trying to roam in Wvw, that people have been having issues with for a while (mainly lack of soft cc / Actual ranged weapon)

I expect nothing,

I would like to see spirit weapons fixed and made viable :’(

I don’t want to bash the devs on this, but I wonder what is their reasoning for not touching spirit weapons or signets? Do they feel they are working well?

I’ve seen a lot of player feedback on spirit weapons, but not much on signets. With the exception of signet of judgement, I feel that guardian signets do not fit with the class. Maybe with any other class guardian signets would be awesome.