Guild Wars 2

Focus
- Ray of Judgment:
This skill doesn’t even deserve the name of such a cool gw1 skill in its current state, and it’s very slow and unreliable.

New skill: Ground-targeted aoe (900 range, 240 radius). A beam of light that pulses 2s of blind on enemies and cures condition on allies each second. 4 second duration (4 pulses total).

Shield
- Shield of Judgment:
I think it’s the most ok of the 3. Still, it could use some extra utility.

Cast time reduced from 1/2 to 1/4. The wave reflects projectiles.

Torch
- Cleansing Flame:
With Ray of Judgment being the condi cleanse, torch can be the offensive weapon it’s supposed to be.

Channel time reduced from 3¼ to 2¼. Still hits 9 times, now also applies 1 stack of burning (4s) with every 3rd pulse (3 stacks of buring total)

Also make the projectile on Torch #4 home in on the enemy.

True, but that’s more of a bug fix, along with the random Out of Range messages you get, even though the target is right in front of you.

Nice suggestions there.

I would prefer that ray of judgement healed for 500-700 per pulse instead of removing condis.

Cleansing flame could also be altered so it was a proper cone, like wave of wrath but with shorter range, and max 5 enemies. That would also fix targeting issues as well.

Your torch suggestion would also give us a proper condi weapon if cool downs is balanced properly.

+ focus trait need to be in shield trait line on bottom tier not some aegis kitten that noone uses.

So many bad trait positions in guardian line that it hurts.

Wow. Our off-hand weapons are stellar. All of the skills are great as is. If you want to buff them, I’m not going to argue. To say they are currently bad boggles my mind.

Ray of judgement is an ESSENTIAL condi clear in the condi met in sPvP. Cleansing flame is the same for WvW. And shield of judgement is a huge source of DPS in shattered aegis builds.

Permafrost.2695:

Wow. Our off-hand weapons are stellar. All of the skills are great as is. If you want to buff them, I’m not going to argue. To say they are currently bad boggles my mind.

Ray of judgement is an ESSENTIAL condi clear in the condi met in sPvP. Cleansing flame is the same for WvW. And shield of judgement is a huge source of DPS in shattered aegis builds.

I’ve been playing WvW for a while now (restarted a year ago after HoT killed it for me) and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guardian use Cleansing Flame. Guards have way better options in terms of allied condi removal. While I could say some of the suggestions aren’t desperately needed, Cleansing Flame (and torch for that matter) need a good seeing to.

Permafrost.2695:

Wow. Our off-hand weapons are stellar. All of the skills are great as is. If you want to buff them, I’m not going to argue. To say they are currently bad boggles my mind.

Ray of judgement is an ESSENTIAL condi clear in the condi met in sPvP. Cleansing flame is the same for WvW. And shield of judgement is a huge source of DPS in shattered aegis builds.

Ray of judgement is a mediocre condi clear. It can be avoided by someone who simply runs backwards or has average reflexes. Assuming you’re standing directly in front of your taget, it’s going to take you 1-1.25 seconds to clear 2 condis (which is very poor compared to the condis cleared:cast time ratio of every other active clear guardians have). It is also a projectile which puts the guard at the mercy of reflects/destroys. All of that on a 20s cd? I’d say it stands for at least a small buff.

Permafrost.2695:

Wow. Our off-hand weapons are stellar. All of the skills are great as is. If you want to buff them, I’m not going to argue. To say they are currently bad boggles my mind.

Ray of judgement is an ESSENTIAL condi clear in the condi met in sPvP. Cleansing flame is the same for WvW. And shield of judgement is a huge source of DPS in shattered aegis builds.

While I don’t think guardians (and some of their stuff) are as bad as a bunch of people always cry, those offhand skills certainly aren’t “stellar”. ROJ is annoyingly slow and uncontrollable, cleansing flames is a joke (and I’ve never seen someone desperate enough to use it in PvD) and shield of judgement is in general pretty meh, though not as bad as CF.

I definitely wouldn’t mind if we got the proposed changes.

RabbitUp.8294:

Focus
- Ray of Judgment:
This skill doesn’t even deserve the name of such a cool gw1 skill in its current state, and it’s very slow and unreliable.

New skill: Ground-targeted aoe (900 range, 240 radius). A beam of light that pulses 2s of blind on enemies and cures condition on allies each second. 4 second duration (4 pulses total).

Shield
- Shield of Judgment:
I think it’s the most ok of the 3. Still, it could use some extra utility.

Cast time reduced from 1/2 to 1/4. The wave reflects projectiles.

Torch
- Cleansing Flame:
With Ray of Judgment being the condi cleanse, torch can be the offensive weapon it’s supposed to be.

Channel time reduced from 3¼ to 2¼. Still hits 9 times, now also applies 1 stack of burning (4s) with every 3rd pulse (3 stacks of buring total)

I like your proposed changes overall but here are a couple comments and annexes to your suggestions:

Ray of Judgement: Perfect. I think this would be a good change without making it op.

Shield of Judgement: This skill is actually very well-balanced and in a good spot right now. You seem to be denying the fact that:

• It’s not a projectile but has considerable range and aoe to it.
• Hits up to 5 targets and allies, this is pretty huge and can be a game changer on the right build.
• Actually does fair damage in addition to the aegis and protection it applies (I’ve downed quite a few thieves with this skill).
• Has a decent cooldown.
  I don’t think it needs a cast time reduction, 1/2s is fair considering it’s role on a team-support off-hand. It also doesn’t need to reflect projectiles since shield 5 already blocks projectiles.

Cleansing Flame: Upping the total damage, adding more burn or lowering the total cast time (which would up the dps) is necessary imo since you’re right, this is primarily an offensive skill but unfortuantely doesn’t serve that purpose very well right now. Additionally though, I think it should also clear condis from self which would allow you to offensively clear condis and maintain some damage (as either power or burn guard). This would make torch an excellent off-hand for both power builds (as an offensive off-hand vs. condi builds) and condi builds (it’s the obvious offhand for any and all burn guards).

Those are really nice suggestions, especially the Ray of Judgment one. I think the shield is fine though.

Cleansing Flame should either get a range increase or it should become more of a condition-based skill.

I’d totally be down with returning Jesus Beam to its former visual glory.

I wouldn’t change Shield of Judgement. I don’t think the proposal affects enough to make it worth changing.

Cleansing Flame doesn’t need its own burning when VoJ makes every weapon a burning weapon. I’d rather have it remove conditions from the caster and allies once every 3 pulses. At least have it benefit the caster in some way when you remove conditions with that skill. 3s Might for each condition removed?

Three seconds of might is something that you might as well not have. Torch is our dps offhand, so more dps (ideally via shorter cast time) and reliable (self) condition cleanse should be enough to benefit all game modes.

Adding Might increases damage in every situation where you aren’t capped. It would apply for every condition removed from an ally, so you could have a visual representation of exactly how effective you just were. The Might intentionally increases the power and burning damage of just the skill itself as a nice little bonus to using it to cleanse and damage. It would have a weird interaction with AH so while it’s not the greatest, it does show a good concept for what would benefit CF.

Permafrost.2695:

Wow. Our off-hand weapons are stellar. All of the skills are great as is. If you want to buff them, I’m not going to argue. To say they are currently bad boggles my mind.

Ray of judgement is an ESSENTIAL condi clear in the condi met in sPvP. Cleansing flame is the same for WvW. And shield of judgement is a huge source of DPS in shattered aegis builds.

Guardians are the greatest class ever. I don’t know why anyone ever plays anything else!

Ghotistyx.6942:

I’d totally be down with returning Jesus Beam to its former visual glory.

I wouldn’t change Shield of Judgement. I don’t think the proposal affects enough to make it worth changing.

Cleansing Flame doesn’t need its own burning when VoJ makes every weapon a burning weapon. I’d rather have it remove conditions from the caster and allies once every 3 pulses. At least have it benefit the caster in some way when you remove conditions with that skill. 3s Might for each condition removed?

VoJ alone is not enough. Best case scenario is using Cleansing Flame on 3 targets (which is the cap, btw, when Ele’s Drake’s Breath is capped at 5) with the VoJ trait, and even then, it’s 9 stacks of burning for 2 sec each.

Compare that to Ranger’s Bonfire that does 9 stacks of 2½s burning to 5 targets, without any requirements or channel time and has the added utility of being a fire field.

Adding some base burning to Cleansing Flame is meant to compliment VoJ and push the skill to viability. Not even condi builds actually use Cleansing Flame, it’s ridiculous.

Again, there’s a big difference between something getting a tweak or something being so bad it necessitates a buff or a rework. There are tons of things to “fix” on the Guardian class. I wouldn’t put our off-hand weapon skills in the top 10. Thus, they are not bad.

Make RoJ faster or reduce the CD? Cool. I don’t have a ton of issue with it now, but I’ll take it! If you haven’t seen or don’t know how to effectively use CF in WvW, you’re in for a very pleasant surprise. Add might stacks on top of it? Sure, sounds even better to me! Reduce cast time and/or add a reflect to CoJ? Heeeeck yeah.

I like all that. In my mind, it’s just icing on the cake.

I agree with the idea that all the offhand have a skill that is lacking. The shield is passable for the time being and doesn’t really need to be changed before the others. It has good support and when combined with certain traits, it becomes pretty good at what it does. I think the shield’s biggest problem isn’t so much the skills but where the trait for the shield is located. Being against Communal Defenses and Strength in Numbers (especially SiN), is tough for a trait that only affects shield CDs and give you some toughness.

Now concerning the other two offhands and their skills, they are pretty terrible. Torch has the problem that one skill is pretty useless and the only reason Torch gets ran at all is because the other skills is so loaded that it actually is usable. Torch 4 does have the problem that it likes to make you role play as a Storm Trooper. It is especially bad because when your opponent stands still and you’re moving it still likes to miss gloriously. Than there is the times when you’re in melee with your target and it will still go flying off to nowhere. I think this is because the coding is done for it in such a way in order to get that sweet looking projectile (unless you have a Legendary Torch, than eat candelabra mobs!) and it is not actually coded as a real projectile. This also causes the problems of it falling through floors, not crossing gaps, hitting the tiniest of rocks and so on.

Now onto the terrible skill of Torch, Cleansing Flame. This skill tries to do so many things horribly. First, it does terrible damage. It is a DPS loss over auto attacking and while that is fine, otherwise you get into just spamming every skill off cooldown, the other factors of this skill does not make up for it. The second problem is when you use it to cleanse there are the following problems: if you have auto target on, you will turn away from allies to deal damage instead of cleansing, next the cone seems super small that the cleanse probably misses anyhow.

This skill needs to probably be remade from the ground up and be closer to a single burst Purging Flames than anything. Keeping the blue fire breath is fine as well but there needs to be multiple fixes, namely quicker speed, slightly larger cone, and either a self cleanse on top or burning. My favorite idea for this skill is to make it be a true cleanse and burn condis off allies (including yourself) and removing boons from enemies (or corrupt them into burns only). Make it only tick 3 times, but give it those properties and it’d be fine (consolidate the damage into 3 bigger ticks with 3 cleanses/strips).

Onto the Focus, I really can’t remember the last time I actually put on a Focus (and I love anomaly). Probably the last time was before the Greatsword buff and using it to open on Gorse for the quick burst of damage, than rocking Scepter/Torch for the rest of the fight. Focus’s #5 skill is in a fine spot, provides 3 blocks and also pulls double duty in being able to be used as a burst. Though since I haven’t used the weapon in some time, I can’t recall the CD and if it seems a tad long (used to be 45 seconds, don’t know if that was reduced or not).

Focus 4, Ray of Judgment, Jesus Beam, whatever, doesn’t live up to any expectation. It seems to take forever to cast, removes very few conditions, is slow as molasses, completely unreliable in a fight over 1 target and yourself, and is just purely weak sauce. When you see the Jesus Beam from GW1, it was something to behold. The first time you saw it, you probably died horribly to it because no one expected those Afflicted Monks to actually have smiting prayers instead of being healers. That beam came down, did insane damage that was not reduced by armor, and made you burn as well. After a while, people make groups that used monks with some points in smiting prayers just to bring righteous judgment onto the unbelievers. Fast forward to GW2, and it seems Guardians threw out everything that was great with Monks, they decided Reversal of Fortune was trash, Bonds were kittenty, healing was for chumps, and the Jesus Beam needed to tickle foes instead of destroying them.

I love your idea of actually making RoJ like in GW1. It could also have the same graphic, in it’s outdated over 10 year old self, and I’d be happy. That skill looked awesome, and had the power to back looking awesome.

RabbitUp.8294:

VoJ alone is not enough. Best case scenario is using Cleansing Flame on 3 targets (which is the cap, btw, when Ele’s Drake’s Breath is capped at 5) with the VoJ trait, and even then, it’s 9 stacks of burning for 2 sec each.

Compare that to Ranger’s Bonfire that does 9 stacks of 2½s burning to 5 targets, without any requirements or channel time and has the added utility of being a fire field.

This is actually a good point. When you start comparing guardian’s torch to other classes’ torch skills , guardians can only apply burning on one of their torch skills and it’s through an extremely unreliable projectile (due to its outdated or bad coding, I can’t tell which). This skill is also single target…all other classes are capable of applying burn with either of their torch skills and are capable of applying an aoe burn. Cleansing Flame’s “aoe” is pitiful compared to that of any other class and is effectively single target due to how narrow it is.

Likely the devs intended for torch 5 to synergize with virtue of justice but even then it’s very mediocre and only in a few scenarios does it actually provide decent burning… such as when attacking a group of enemies and having Permeating Wrath traited.

Both torch skills, but especially Cleansing Flame could really use some love. Hope they have something on the chopping block!

Ghotistyx.6942:

Adding Might increases damage in every situation where you aren’t capped.

And there are enough situations where you can expect to be capped. I’d prefer buffs to torch to be universal at least for any kind of PvE and sPvP, since those are the modes where it is used. If #5 got reasonable dps, self-cleanse and on top of all the little might stuff, I won’t mind. The first two things are most important. But I’d hate to see some nearly useless might added at the expense of dps or cleanse capabilities.

I did the math awhile ago, but CF is only a dps loss against power sword AA. Against any other AA or when hybrid/Condi, it’s a dps gain even against sword and 3 targets. With Permeating Wrath and 3+targets, it’s a quality damage skill. Its biggest problem is the hard to notice ally cleanse. I’d prefer if they changed the condition cleanse to once every three pulses and include the caster, but if they don’t change anything I just want to know how effective that condition cleansing was.

I also want Jesus Beam back. Rabbit’s proposal is very close to perfect.

Shield I think is okay as is. I wouldn’t complain if it gets a short projectile reflect on SoJ, but I don’t see it as being needed either.

Cleansing Flame I think, at minimum, should be able to hit five targets instead of three, and should have some self-cleansing involved. It’s crazy that a skill that is basically a flamethrower is only able to hit as many targets as swinging a sword, and that breathing out a stream of, well, cleansing flame doesn’t help in cleansing yourself at all. I can understand if they don’t want every pulse to cleanse on the guardian, but it should at least give something to the user. A straight up DPS increase would be gravy, but not my top priority.

With RoJ… well, it’s clearly not the GW1 RoJ. That’s… actually something I’m content to remain the same. I’d probably be more inclined to up the projectile speed and improve its other characteristics rather than reworking it entirely.

RabbitUp.8294, i liked the SoJ adition.

Ghotistyx.6942:

I did the math awhile ago, but CF is only a dps loss against power sword AA. Against any other AA or when hybrid/Condi, it’s a dps gain even against sword and 3 targets. With Permeating Wrath and 3+targets, it’s a quality damage skill. Its biggest problem is the hard to notice ally cleanse. I’d prefer if they changed the condition cleanse to once every three pulses and include the caster, but if they don’t change anything I just want to know how effective that condition cleansing was.

I also want Jesus Beam back. Rabbit’s proposal is very close to perfect.

I’ve stopped claiming CF is a dps loss since you last mentioned this but in a pvp or wvw scenario I think it’s unfavorable to use CF over auto attack in most cases. If CF received a substantial buff or additional benefits I think we’d see more guardians running torch and actually using this skill.

Just as an aside: As of right now, I burst hard when I fight burn guardians and they start using CF because I know I’m going to come out on top of the trade; have been right every single time.

Yeah, CF isn’t a good 1v1 skill and it does have some risk associated with it. The mechanics support high population situations, both the damage and ally cleanse (100 seconds total worth of burning in ideal circumstances). Contrast that with Zealot’s Fire/Flame, which is a fantastic single target skill, and both skills have a purpose. Both ZF and CF just need some qol which we’ve all mentioned a lot.

I just remembered, Guardian has Pillar of Light on their trident, just copy that visual as a ground-targeted skill for the new Ray of Judgment.

Trident skills in general look and function quite nicely. What a waste.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Trident skills in general look and function quite nicely. What a waste.

Both underwater weapons are nice and functional and would be totally fun on land, but sadly must rot underwater. Trident would just have pillar be a symbol and the sink be a knockdown while the spear would have #4 be a line symbol that you hop back when you place it. The weapons would be so fun imo.

Azoqu.8917:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Trident skills in general look and function quite nicely. What a waste.

Both underwater weapons are nice and functional and would be totally fun on land, but sadly must rot underwater. Trident would just have pillar be a symbol and the sink be a knockdown while the spear would have #4 be a line symbol that you hop back when you place it. The weapons would be so fun imo.

Oh man. Pillar of Light as the new Ray of Judgement please.