Guild Wars 2

This is all in my opinion. This is coming from someone who primarily plays pve as a dpser or lately as a non meta healer. I don’t do much solo roaming, spvp etc on my guardian, though I do wvw mostly as a tanky healer. Hopefully this can act as a point of discussion or provide some feedback to anet ahead of the incoming balance pass.

Zeal
Minors
Zealots Speed-Decent for an adept minor.
Symbolic Exposure-Again, decent for a minor, the duration is a bit low though.
Symbolic Power-Awful for a minor, does not add any meaningful dps. Suggest a bleed proc on crit to improve condition builds.
Majors
Binding Jeopardy-5 vulnerability for 8 seconds on immobilize.
We have 2 immobs on a 15 and 20 second cooldown. If it’s damage you’re after, Fiery Wrath is much better. I don’t see why anybody would take this.
Fiery Wrath-Amazing.
Protector’s Impact-Standard 50% falling damage reduction.
Revenge of the fallen-Has anyone ever actually picked this?
Shattered aegis-Damage is far too low to care about. We actually preferred the burning. A very poor change from last patch.
Spirit weapon mastery-Spirit weapons are garbage except the shield, this trait is only ever picked on gimmick fights where you absolutely must have maximum projectile defense.
Zealous Blade-The healing is still far too low to care about. Nobody takes this with the intention of healing, it’s all about the 5% damage.. which is actually quite low for a master trait.
Focused Mastery-Standard, though I find it highly irritating that 2h weapon traits give you cooldown reductions for all 5 skills compared to 1h weapon traits.
Scepter Power-Bit boring but 10% damage is good.
Eternal spirit-Has anyone ever bothered to command a spirit weapon anyway?
Wrathful spirit-Do spirit weapons actually do damage?
Kindled zeal-We don’t have enough conditions to care enough about 13% condition damage. Why would I be gearing for power and conditions anyway? Wtf?
Amplified Wrath-Has anybody actually ever used this? Ever? Even with like 2000 condition damage this is going to give me ~250 more burning damage per second. That’s just awful for a GM trait.

Conclusion
Zeal suffers from extremely poor high end traits. Going past 10 (15 for hammers) isn’t seen as very useful, with 20 for greatsword users only a half decent possibility. There’s almost nothing except straight damage modifiers. If you’re going to push conditions on us there’s still room here for some half decent traits. What about turning Binding Jeopardy into applying cripple whenever you burn?

Radiance
Minors
Justice is Blind-Amazing
Renewed Justice-Amazing
Radiant Power-Amazing
These minors are what every traitline should be like. Interesting, mechanic changing, active, and potentially gameplay changing.
Majors
Healer’s retribution-3 seconds of retalliation? Are you kidding me? Useless.
Signet Mastery-Our signets aren’t worth putting on our bars, let alone worth using. Okay perhaps the 10% damage reduction signet is useful in a selfish way.
Shimmering defense-60 second cooldown makes it worthless.
Inner fire-How often are we set on fire? 3 seconds of fury is nothing anyway.
Searing flames-Boons are too commonly applies in both pve and pvp. 1 boon every 10 seconds is nothing.
Radiant fire-Nobody uses the torch.
A fire inside-Nobody uses spirit weapons for dps, and burning is already permanently on most targets anyway.
Inscribed removal-2/4 of our utility signets have awful passives, none of the on-use effects are great either. Possibly the knockdown in pvp.
Powerful Blades-Again sadly the best trait is a passive one.
Right Hand Strength-Again. Passive. Best trait in the tree.
Perfect inscriptions-20% extra of 180 stats = 36. 36 stat points for a grandmaster trait? What a joke.
Radiant Retalliation-Quirky I suppose, though I can’t really see a decent condition build with 30 points in radiance.

Conclusion
My biggest complaint with radiance is that if you try to put points in it and don’t want to use a 1h weapon.. once you go past 15 points for the awesome minor trait I challenge you to find a half useful trait.. go on! I leave the Master trait empty half the time out of protest when using a 2h sword.

Valor
Minors
Valorous defense-I know it’s a minor trait but 90 seconds is a very long cooldown.
Courageous Return-Not bad I suppose for a minor, but realistically most people putting points in Valor are attempting to NOT go downed.
Might of the protector-Pointless. We don’t have enough blocks to make this useful, and most people putting points in Valor aren’t focussing on dps.
Majors
Meditation Mastery-Standard. Passive, great for meditation specs.. though some of the skills could use tweaks.
Defender’s flame-Burn on block. We don’t have enough blocks to make this useful. I care so little about 1 second of burning that I haven’t even tested if it procs off aegis. I’m guessing no. Is it guaranteed or just a proc chance? Nobody cares enough to test.
Strength of the fallen-Has anybody ever taken this?
Strength in Numbes-Great choice.
Purity-Decent but selfish choice. Make it 600 radius groupwide and we might have a good deal.
Retributive Armor-Decent dps choice if you’re going 10 points in Valor for some reason. Not sure I understand it though.
Mace of justice-Good choice for healbots. 5% damage bonus is a waste of programming.
Glacial heart-Recharge is too long, too easily removed.
Honorable shield-Meh. Shield 4 is good. With some tweaks the projectile block could be useful. Cooldowns are too long even with the trait, and the trait only affects 2 of our 5 skills just like all 1h traits.
Focused Mind-Standard for dps meditation builds.
Altruistic Healing-Selfish but does great at keeping you alive.
Communal Defenses- Decent but as with most support skills the radius is too low to be useful enough to spec into. An investment into a GM trait needs to be guaranteed. Our Virtue of Courage recharge rate is a little too long to make this useful.

Conclusion
Overall valor could do with some less selfish traits. It is a trait line frowned upon in pve. I think rolling a couple of the meditation traits together and possible making the Meditation heal affect allies would be interesting if you rework some of the more rubbish meditation skills. I think the mace/shield trait combo is poorly placed, it makes it almost impossible to grab useful traits for any non dps orientated 1h+offhand user without a huge sacrifice. If I want to play the archetypical guardian such as the one in the gw2 pictures with a mace and shield I can’t specialise for it without giving up one of the grandmaster traits? ugh.

Honor
Minors
Vigorous Precision-Yeah I’ll take it. Shame it got nerfed.
Selfless Daring-Best dodge trait in the game imo.
Elusive Power-Nobody is speccing Honor for dps, and this trait rewards bad dodges. It doesn’t make much sense and is poorly placed. The adept minor also works against the grandmaster minor..
Majors
Wrathful spirit-3 seconds of retalliation after aegis? Not worth it.
Superior Aria-Amazing. Shouts are brilliant.
Writ of exaltation-Have it turn symbols into mobile auras perhaps. Currently I feel there are too many symbol traits needed to make symbols good. Perhaps merge with one or more of the other symbol traits.
Resolute healer-The shield #5 is bad enough. This trait manages to be even worse. And is the cooldown 90 seconds still? Omg.
Pure of heart-Awful healing amount, not enough to care about. Plus if you’re on 100% hp and get hit.. aegis blocks it.. you then outheal.. great.
Resolute healer-Why can’t we get something useful like mesmer’s feedback on revive? And this only lasts 1 second? Trash. Make it shield of wrath (focus #5) and now we’re talking. This trait is so bad I wrote about it twice. Fortunately Honor has way too many useful traits for anyone to care about the really bad ones.
Writ of Persistence-Again-merge some of these symbol traits please. There are too many.
Empowering might-240 radius is too small to be useful. Also the inner cooldown of 1 second reduces effectiveness with weapons that have a 1 second attack time like staff and aoe attacks. There’s potential to create very viable support builds here by making this similar to Warrior’s Phalanx might boon.
Two handed mastery-Decent choice.
Pure of Voice-Lost its shine after it was fixed to not convert two conditions. In today’s climate conditions are too quickly reapplied for this to be super useful.
Battle presence-Solid choice for healers.
Force of WIll-Solid choice for selfish people.

Conclusion
I like honor, it can be very useful. With a tweak to elusive power (10% dmg when endurance is full perhaps) it could compete with other trait lines for a spot in meta dps builds and increase choice and diversity. Symbols turned into auras would be good, otherwise rolling the symbol traits into 1 trait opens up a lot more gameplay options. There is also room to make a good might buffing support guardian by making empowering might not rubbish.

Virtues
Minors
Inspired Virtue-Amazing. Everyone should have this minor.
Virtue of Retribution-Negligible really, but kinda useful in wvw.
Power of the Virtuous-Decent if you’re this deep into virtue and a dpser.
Majors
Unscathed Contender-I feel this is in a good place. High risk high reward, and good for activated burst.
Vengeful-Not great.
Consecrated Ground-Fantastic pick. Just wish Sanctuary would be better.
Retaliatory subconscious-Really? Other classes get things like shadowstep away on cc, mirror the cc back to the enemy, create a static field around yourself… we get.. 3 seconds of retal? Really?
Improved spirit weapon duration-Enough with the small army of spirit weapon traits!
Elite focus-I don’t know if many people use our tomes any more. Removing our utilities and weapon skills is a bit rubbish. Most of the time I see them used it’s for a quick zealot’s fervor (quickness) or 100% heal and then cancelled. I think tomes need a rework. There are also bugs such as removing all protection gained from ToC’s #3 skill when you finish Tome-ing.
Absolute Resolution-Solid choice.
Indomitable Courage-Solid choice.
Supreme justice-Nobody cares about burning.
Permeating wrath-Nobody cares about burning.
Shielded mind-Decent I guess but highly situational and a long cooldown. Not great for a GM trait.
Purity of Body-Waste of programming code. Tiny bonus, doesn’t even stack with vigor. Grandmaster trait? Joke.

Conclusion
I want to like Virtue. Too many of the high end traits are situational or useless, but when it’s useful.. it’s really really useful. I think our virtues need a lower cooldown overall. Elite Focus has potential depending on the Tome rework. Certain traits simply need redone such as the Virtue of Justice traits and Purity of Body.

Utilities
Meditations-All except smite condition have a cooldown which is far too high. The teleport-heal one (merciful intervention) is especially useless.
Spirit weapons-All of these are completely useless except for the shield, which plays second fiddle to wall of reflect. Only intense projectile fights make you consider the spirit shield.
Consecrations- Great but please make sanctuary not rubbish.
Signets-Bane signet (power) is okay for the passive. In PvP the knockdown is alright. Signet of judgement has a useful but selfish damage reduction passive. Wrath (condition) and mercy (healing) both have awful passives. Wrath has a half decent active but you have to put up with an awful passive if you want to use it. The active on mercy has a cast time far too long, the radius is far too small, and the cooldown is far too long. Why do so many other classes do utility revives better than the guardian?
Elites-Tomes are just meh. They need a real rethink.

Weapons I have issue with
Torch-useless. I don’t even know where to start. I used it once for the first time in ages in the dry top mine to see in front of me before I realised there were free torches for everyone at the entrance.
Shield-I like #4. #5 stops you doing other things and doesn’t last long enough, make it off the global cooldown and instantly pop up a projectile block around yourself which moves with you and lasts longer. Both cooldowns are far too high.
Mace-Awful dps, awful & slow auto attack heal but better than nothing. #3 is a time wasting block which gives you either a tiny amount of damage after some seconds standing around like an idiot or a tiny amount of protection. Neither of which are worth hitting the #3 key for. Regen symbol is good in theory but suffers the same mobility problems as all symbols.
Sword-Make this cleave properly please. It’s the one thing holding it back from actually being a viable choice compared to 2h sword if you ever want to pick just 1 melee weapon and hold a staff or scepter in your offhand. The #3 skill is just ridiculous. It misses easily and roots you, and barely increases dps anyway.

Good post right here. I agree on most of the points you’ve said here.

Well done.

Thanks for writing this up. It seems similar to something I wrote closely after launch. Because of the length I won’t be doing a direct response.

• You seem to have a big problem with what you call “selfish” traits. These are actually perfectly fine. Purity, for example, does a lot of work in PvP. Plus, most professions only have “selfish” traits or need to go out of their way to take group-traits. Additionally, there need to be traits for solo content.
• Any trait that just gives a flat increase in damage ([Weapon] does X% more damage) is stupid. Traits need to change things up. If those traits need to exist for some balance reason (doubtful) they should at least modify the weapon in some interesting way.
• Traits that have anything to do with the downed state are a waste of space.
• I’m okay with Radiance being the One-Handed line.
• Traits concerning One-Handers are at a disadvantage and should probably be compensated in some way.
• The Spirit Weapon traits are mostly useless because Spirit Weapons themselves are horrible. If they are improved, the traits might be more useful. That being said, the traits for Spirit Weapons are too widely distributed along the trait lines.
• Inner Fire has the additional problem that it is counterintuitive with the Torch, since that weapon “sets you on fire”.
• I’m okay with some passive traits. Right-Hand Strength for examples is pretty good, seeing as it allows us to gear for more survivability while still having a good crit-rate.

I agree with a majority of what you posted, however there are two notable ones I will touch up on where I disagree. Torch, is pretty good, not better than Focus in PVE setting but it’s a fine Off-hand for PvP environment. 4 is burn(That give you good application for 10% damage on burning foes) and the second activation for torch is easily a ranged nuke that can easily crit for 4-5k. The 5 ability is good against kiters and runners that are mid ranged and just out of yor melee combat range.

Amplified Wrath is a very good trait for power burn meditation, with carrion. Mix with sigls and you’ll easily be keeping up 750-800 burn ticks) decent direct damage, and good retal scaling.

fadeaway.2807:

Weapons I have issue with
Shield-I like #4. #5 stops you doing other things and doesn’t last long enough, make it off the global cooldown and instantly pop up a projectile block around yourself which moves with you and lasts longer. Both cooldowns are far too high.
Mace-Awful dps, awful & slow auto attack heal but better than nothing. #3 is a time wasting block which gives you either a tiny amount of damage after some seconds standing around like an idiot or a tiny amount of protection. Neither of which are worth hitting the #3 key for. Regen symbol is good in theory but suffers the same mobility problems as all symbols.

First of all, great review of the traits. I won’t chime in on all that but I wanted to agree with you on the Mace and Shield issues.

Mace 1 is an area attack except for the last hit (I believe). That should be corrected — making the last attack an AOE rather than targeted only — even if the attack speed is the same.

Mace 3 is BETTER for its Protection buff than one block in WvW. It should block one attack AND give Protection no matter what.

Shield 5 needs a longer duration and we should not be stuck channeling it once it’s dropped or least it should stay for longer when we do. With Protection on Shield 4 and longer Projectile block and Light Field on Shield 5, Shield would be in a better place.

Again, great write-up, Fade. Very thoughtful. And I get that when you mean “selfish” you actually mean “tanky.”

Might of the Protector is actually pretty good with an AH build. You can get a few extra stacks of might with shelter, and the extra heal from the might proc is minor but typically guaranteed in most cases, making shelter a better heal.

Mace dps isn’t that bad. It still has no place in pve though. It’s good for kitten ing into zergs with skill no.3 on, lol.

Also, Signet of Judgement has AOE weakness on a low cooldown so it’s not really that selfish though certainly you could grab something else.

Sword can use tweaking, but it’s already a viable weapon everywhere except zerg content.

Most of it I agree with, especially wondering why Elusive Power even exists. Virtues and Zeal have so many useless traits.

I thought it was funny how you said might of the protector was pointless because no one traits into valor for dps, but then went on to say the medi traits were standard for dps builds.

Most of the stuff you said was more or less accurate although it’s really noticeable that you don’t play pvp a lot. Resolute healer is amazing there, pretty much guarantees rezzes if the guy who’s stomping didn’t pop stability before you started to rez.

Might on block is actually kind of good with meditation builds when you use strength runes since you pretty much have perma might without even trying. Also shelter can do wonders in teamfights with it, sometimes even giving you 25 stacks depending on the classes on the other side.

Every “on block” effect works with aegis btw, applies to burning on block aswell.

Good post overall though, I especially agree with removing the cooldown from might on crit thingy in honor and changing 10% more dmg when you don’t have full endurance to 10% when you have full endurance. Would make honor a super good traitline to carry pugs or to solo dungeons.

I agree with some of what you say but you clearly don’t play pvp so I can’t take this feedback seriously, sorry.

Those of you who have noticed I don’t play PvP are spot on. I play other games to get my PvP fix for various reasons (:
Those of you who offered perspective from a PvPers point of view are awesome.
Thanks!

TrOtskY.5927:

I agree with some of what you say but you clearly don’t play pvp so I can’t take this feedback seriously, sorry.

Feel free to write up your own feedback on the PvP perspective. I’d do it myself but I haven’t played any decent PvP since way too long.