Guild Wars 2

I think we can all agree that the Guardian can often feel quite “vanilla” at times. The class mechanic is relatively dull compared to other classes, that make them generally feel rather distinct and different to play. The guardian however, merely gets simple buffs when activating the F1-F3 skills.

I think the main problem here lies in the way that our virtues really don’t interact with our traits much, at least not in a hugely interesting way. If we look at the thief class, and the trickery line in particular, you have to wonder why they get so many awesome toys to play with and why we don’t.
For those who don’t know, a thief traited for it can do 1.5K damage, heal 2K, give themselves vigor, might, fury and swiftness, steal boons AND stun their enemy, on top of the normal class mechanic.

I feel like the guardian should have some interesting traits that work with our virtues.

For example ;
Burning Speed > (Passive)Everytime you apply burning to a foe, gain swiftness for 3s. (Active) Apply Burning to foe and give yourself and allies quickness for 5 seconds.
Blinding Flames > Everytime you apply burning to a foe, blind that foe for 1s
Focused Courage > Anytime you block an attack, gain stability for 3s. (with internal cooldown obv)
Fearless Resolve > When activating virtue of courage, gain immunity to immob, cripple and chill for 8s

Secondly the guardian desperately needs more access to soft cc.

Frozen Occulus > When you apply a direct blind to an opponent, apply chill of the same duration (min cooldown of 15 sec imo)

Obviously these kind of things need some proper balancing but its the sort of thing i’d REALLY like to see in the guardian. They are just a couple of ideas, I would love to see some more.

Another couple of things would like to see

> Judge’s intervention should have a follow up chain move called Judge’s Return. Please let us have some mobility!
> Sword 2 could be similar

I like the idea. Virtues are a rather boring mechanic. Having more interesting traits attached to them would be fun. I don’t like suggesting specific things myself, but your suggestions look interesting, although I don’t think they’ll change the way the Virtues are actually used.

Oh, and combining two of your ideas: Let Virtue of Justice apply a chill instead of burning with a Grandmaster trait.

The increased mobility is very unlikely, since it’s very clear that Guardians are intended to have very little in way of getting away from a fight.

What I like about your suggestion is that when you apply burning and get 3s of swiftness, that’s only going to improve your combat speed. With such high application/low duration it gives us what we need in a fight, but the second we try and run it drops off. +1 great idea man.

And I think blind causing cripple is a better choice than chill. Can be a lower internal cooldown, and have great synergy with dps builds.

But, keep JI the same and work on MI. I don’t want to have to back track after my burst to reset the cooldown for JI. Though, on MI it would make perfect sense. Especially combined with a ground target (quite similar to shadowstep on thief).