Guild Wars 2

I’m just curious whether or not other people have seen this a lot lately. I do mostly PUG grouping (which is fine with me) and I find that grouping with other guardians is either extremely helpful for the group or I end up doing all of the work when it comes to the support a guardian brings (although I’m DPS based with sword/focus).

I swear I’ve grouped with guards that never use the F1-2-3 keys. Granted, while you’re leveling there’s not much use to them and they are easy to forget about, but they add DPS, heals and…well..Aegis to the whole group quite easily. You would think with 2 Guards it should be easy to keep them up, but apparently there are a lot of Guards out there that don’t know about them or don’t know their use.

Anyone else run into this?

Not fully speced into virtues but i rarely use F2 or F3 for a few reason, i have to say that F1 is a god gift sent by the all mighty raptor Jesus however, F2 barey seems to do anything except in “desperate” situation and then 95% of the people i play with ussualy runs away and OOC rather than depend on my 1.5k heal. And the F3 is really really silly, it is so situational that sometimes it is really good. And sometimes it is terrible, Aegis itself will either save you’re party from a big 50k attack, or block that mobs 1 damage attack only to open up for another 50k attack, and the virtue trait to give protection to it don’t really make any sense at all, since the aegis last for 20 seconds, and the protection last for 5 seconds. Might be different specced to the end high to make them stronger, but for now F2 and F3 are so easily forgotten and that is precisely what i have done. Forgot about them.

Put 5 points in virtues. F1 = 3 might on demand. F2 = heal + regen F3 = Aegis and protection. When in doubt, pop all three and hit renewed focus. Use immediately after if needed. This makes virtues operate like a second heal with damage reduction. Like having another shout for emergency use.

F1 is awesome already stated, F2 is ok but not really that good unless you stack alot of healing. And F3, oh it is good i get 5 sec protection and 20 sec aegis. Good i really need that Aegis after protection, oh wait it dosen’t work like that, well guess i really need that 1 attack protection.

I’m constantly using my virtues in group situations as the extra heals and stability I’ve traited into are godsends. I think you don’t get the full use of the virtues unless you really aim for them in your trait setup but when rocking the Healway build the extra 2 heals are super nice in those tight situations.

I’m usually reluctant to use the F2 virtue unless I’m about to hit Renewed Focus because shutting off a fairly powerful continuous source of regeneration for a small heal is a questionable tradeoff. If I’m in continuous combat I really notice the loss of staying power after activating it.

With just 5 points in Virtues the F1 and F3 virtue activations are quite powerful and well worth using almost any time, though.

Not traited = barely use them, very situational, is best use the passive unless you really need it like crucial block, desperate healing or finishing someone doing more dps with f1. The virtues not traited is a very weak mechanic imo.

Traited is another history. You can spend 5 points in virtue for great buff, you can spend 5 in radiance for F1 aoe blind, you can trait via virtue IX and X, for remove conditions or stability (also XI and XII for improve f1). Is when virtues come great for use it and very powerful.

If you don’t trait virtues, Justice is the only virtue worth bursting. Even if you are traited, they’re rather underpowered considering the traits you’d have to give up.

One extra block on a 90 second cooldown for 4 more people isn’t worth the extra 50 seconds it takes for your Courage to come back, and the passive healing you get from Resolve FAR outweighs the actual healing you get from bursting the skill.

IMO two things need to happen to Guardian Virtues:

• Reduce the cooldown on Resolve and Courage
• Re-evaluate the effectiveness of Aegis as a boon

Aegis is way too overvalued IMO. It isn’t even a dodge…it just blocks one attack. Mesmers clones can body-block more than one attack. And if a thief backstabs a clone, he’s revealed. Not so if he gets blocked by Aegis. Come on now…

Agreed with Aegis being very lackluster. Sure, sometimes you can see a big telegraphed attack coming and time the Virtue of Courage activation to negate it, but that’s not very common in sPvP/WvW, where most high damage is delivered as a rapid volley of many smaller hits and dodge rolling is far more reliable as a defense. (Blind has the same problem as a condition. It’s very difficult to blind your enemy’s one big attack instead of just getting one of the ten smaller attacks he’s about to throw out in rapid succession)

The cooldowns on all 3 virtue activations could be lowered to 20 seconds and none of them would be overpowered on their own, although it might cause a balance problem once you factored in the Virtues trait line. Still, you shouldn’t need trait support to make your class mechanic worthwhile. Buff the base virtues and then nerf the traits a bit if necessary.

Also, you are completely right that having an attack blocked from stealth should reveal the attacker. Anet has said they want stealth to have more counterplay and that should definitely be a part of it. If a backstab fails, the thief should not get to simply try again until it connects.

Stice.5204:

Agreed with Aegis being very lackluster. Sure, sometimes you can see a big telegraphed attack coming and time the Virtue of Courage activation to negate it, but that’s not very common in sPvP/WvW, where most high damage is delivered as a rapid volley of many smaller hits and dodge rolling is far more reliable as a defense. (Blind has the same problem as a condition. It’s very difficult to blind your enemy’s one big attack instead of just getting one of the ten smaller attacks he’s about to throw out in rapid succession)

Not to mention the fact that Aegis does nothing to protect you from conditions that already exist on your person. Its strictly a direct-damage negate.

Stice.5204:

The cooldowns on all 3 virtue activations could be lowered to 20 seconds and none of them would be overpowered on their own, although it might cause a balance problem once you factored in the Virtues trait line. Still, you shouldn’t need trait support to make your class mechanic worthwhile. Buff the base virtues and then nerf the traits a bit if necessary.

Well if you reduced Justice by 20 seconds you may run into problems. I think Aegis just needs to be made as powerful as Courage tries to portray it. It should be an intensity-stacking boon.

NEW THREAD! Petition for Aegis intensity stacking with a cap of 5!

Stice.5204:

Also, you are completely right that having an attack blocked from stealth should reveal the attacker. Anet has said they want stealth to have more counterplay and that should definitely be a part of it. If a backstab fails, the thief should not get to simply try again until it connects.

This is also why Elementalists will get a 40s cooldown on their RtL skill if you block it. You don’t enter combat.

I use them all the time, but only situationally. If I know some big attacks are coming I’ll hold off and try to support the best I can until right before, then I hit them all in succession while I’m channeling renewed focus and have them all immediately recharged. On my dps guard I spam f1 all the time because I’m traited for blinds on activation and instant recharge every time something dies, so it’s near-perma blind and burning as well as small constant flow of might stacking (from the minor trait).

For the f2 I try to combo it with other heals (which i think it was meant to do anyway, not to be used as a tiny single heal, although in desperate situations I’ve had to) but I’ll either combo it with my own heal for a massive heal spike, or a dodge roll heal for an aoe heal spike. Also if you traited for it, you’ll be spamming it a lot for condi removal.

F3 is prob the most awkward out of the 3 imo. Like someone mentioned, you might time it perfectly, but all it takes is some limp noodle mob to do 1 dmg to someone and cancel it, effectively making it worthless to block those hits you really need it on.
It still has it’s uses though, if nothign else to block those really slow large hits you’re too lazy to dodge on or as a cheap, quick protection boon from the trait.

I use them to get heals off AH in WvW mostly.

Otherwise I think they are kinda lackluster and could definitely use some better minor traits to make them more interesting.