Guild Wars 2

So where do I start?

Since they buffed it not too long ago Tome of Courage with Elite Focus actually looks really good on paper. It would actually be a really good option for support builds if it wouldn’t be for the horrible placement in the Virtues line.

So basicly here is the problem:

To use Tome of Courage you drop Renewed Focus which recharges your virtues.

Then you trait heavily into Virtues without being able to reset them with Renewed Focus making all the traits you get in Virtues apart from Elite Focus half as good as they usually are.

Also you need to drop Altruistic Healing when you still want to have ANY cleanse to get Absolute Resolution (which you can’t reset because you don’t have Renewed Focus).

Without Altruistic Healing and Renewed Focus you end up being way too squishy for a bunker guard and you also end up being kind of a one trick pony because as soon as your virtues and your tome are on cooldown you really can’t do much anymore.

If Elite Focus would be in Valor or Honor you would be able to create a build that is tanky enough to run without Renewed Focus and doesn’t have this weird conflict between being traited for Virtues but being unable to reset them.

tl;dr: Move Elite Focus from Virtues to Honor or Valor. Thanks.

EDIT: I’m talking about bunker guard in PvP just in case some special snowflake wants to tell me about his amazing WvW roaming healer pseudo monk guard. c:

yes, I agree. <3

My WvW guardian runs the healing book, good sustain, good tankiness and does pretty nice damage. Seems like a l2p issue.

Yea…

Taking Elite Tomes in the majority of contexts is dumb because it defeats the purpose of going into virtues to make your virtues better… and you won’t be able to recharge virtues. For example, you can’t even say go all to virtues with elite focus and take absolute resolution because you’ll have a long as hell cooldown which can’t be recharge which cuts the effectiveness in half. And thus you’ll have terrible condi removal.

So I was wondering though, what people thought about just keeping it in virtues (either/or thing, not all)

— Compromise and make it an adept trait in virtues.
— Remove retaliation virtue and combine it into inspired virtues, Elite focus takes that spot instead
— Just make stability on tomes by default

Keksmuffin.1450:

EDIT: I’m talking about bunker guard in PvP just in case some special snowflake wants to tell me about his amazing WvW roaming healer pseudo monk guard. c:

But what about my amazing PvP roaming healer pseudo monk guard. :0

Seriously speaking. Personally I enjoy the playstyle of a “glassy” support guardian. If I could spec further into tomes or make my guardian less tanky in exchange for more support to allies, then I would. Although it’s true that taking a tome over RF provides less synergy with virtues; I’ll avoid RF anyway because it probably won’t save my allies quite as well in a dire situation.

To me, the biggest downside to tomes are their downtime.

In my view, Honor would be a better fit then Valor. The purpose of tomes is to provide support, Valor is a very selfish and self preservation trait line. If it was in Honor both AH and Virtues bunkers could use it (assuming it stayed a Master trait), and you’d probably see it used more often.

Or Anet could just give it stab by default again. Never understood why they changed this. Every others professions’ elite transformation gets stab, Guard is the only one that has to trait for it.

Harbinger.8637:

Or Anet could just give it stab by default again. Never understood why they changed this. Every others professions’ elite transformation gets stab, Guard is the only one that has to trait for it.

By putting it on a trait instead of by default, they don’t have to go back on a previous change and admit it was a mistake. Stubborn balancing just digs the hole deeper, missing the opportunity to make things right and kicking the can down the road.

It makes it seem that we’ve gained something new rather than what we should of had all along. Even more, if it’s changed again in the future it will just take from our resources of available changes.

OP – exactly my thoughts today while trying to decide if to drop AH for 4 in virtues and to use my favorite ToC. Elite focus in Honor will make ways more sense.

Support!

this is what I see… noo I don’t want to sacrifice something to gain something put it in a line that will let me have everything..

if you didn’t notice this stuff happens to other classes too like dhuumfire a condition trait in the power line… and that’s not the only misplaced trait on necros…

^That. I don’t have a problem with trade-offs.

Elite Focus wouldn’t quite fit in Honor (the healing support line) because Tome of Courage isn’t the only Tome. In fact, Tome of Wrath is quite the opposite of something you’d find in Honor. I don’t see Elite Focus fitting in Valor at all either. Even Zeal would make more sense than Valor.
I find Elite Focus to be appropriate in the virtues line (the general support line).

Edit: Regardless, if one is going into the Virtue line and takes Elite Focus, the only traits (that matter) that’ll be affected by a lack of RF are Inspired Virtue and Absolute Resolution. I wouldn’t say the trade-off is build-breaking.

There’s not a problem with trade offs, but the trade off is apparently very large; I think OP detailed why it’s hard to put a viable build with that. While Dhuumfire could be considered to be on the wrong tree, you can still have viable builds around it; also dhuumfire is actually good and isn’t based around an elite with a long cooldown so a lot of necromancers find it worth it to put 6 points in spite (and hey, it’s 30% condi duration), while you really can’t say the same about guardians dumping points in virtues for tome.