Guild Wars 2

Anyone able to tell me if Spirit Weapons are cool now or…?

SW Sword might be worth taking but still bunk for pvp.

And RIP loot stick… 300 range now, down from 600.

Spirit weapon Firebrand might be top dps in PoF

Sword of Justice has some impressive damage, cast on an 8 second cooldown. With 12 stacks of vulnerability and the fact that we can spam it fairly quickly I can see it becoming a staple in bursty builds. Even without specing into zeal it will still do respectable damage.

However it does have a cast time. Which can be killer in any form of PvP. There is also the situation of where can it fit into our current meta of builds.

I’m going to try it out on my Meditrapper replacing test of faith. It has slightly less burst, but you can access that burst more often every 8 seconds. I will see how it plays out.

As for PvE while specing Zeal I can almost guarantee it will be in the go to damage ability for Firebrand and may even push firebrand to top tier. It looks especially good with radiance.

The rest, are not bad. But need to lose their cast time to be on par with Sword of Justice, I see no reason to put these in a build as of yet.

Having a cast time and zero animation whatsoever on your character is weird as hell. Makes it seem like your character is locking up for the duration of the cast. Almost seems like they were originally going to have no cast time then they realized that’d be broken and forgot to / didn’t have time to add an animation before shipping the update. Either way, it ought to be addressed quickly.

Also, the skills have no range facts listed in their tooltips. That needs to be added as well. All in all the changes feel kind of rushed out without full implementation / polish.

Sword seems pretty nice. Burst AoE damage and a nice chunk of vuln as well. Seems to have 900 range, which will separate it nicely from Procession of Blades. I’m a bit disappointed that despite hitting 4 times, it only procs one Burn when traited, not sure if that’s intended or bugged. Old SW proc’d burn on every hit.

Hammer is kind of a mixed bag. On the positive side, having an on-demand Blast finisher with 3 charges is pretty awesome. And the CC will be good for break bars. On the negative side, its single-target only, which feels kind of strange considering its a hammer slamming down. Also, the functionality seems kind of… interesting. Like, it seems to prioritize blasting finishers over hitting enemies. I was playing around with it targeting enemies at long range, but with a light field / symbol active on my position, and instead of hitting the targeted enemy it was hitting my finisher instead. Which… maybe its preferable if you want it as a finisher, but? I dunno, like I said, it seems a tad strange.

Shield seems OK. It seems to cast a version of the Shield 5 skill, so it knocks back enemies briefly (synergizes with some traits and CC’s) and of course blocks projectiles. Duration is short, but that’d be expected due to the fact that its a skill with charges and stuff. The shield “shards” it shoots out that do damage and weakness seem to have a 900 range, while the shield itself spawns on you. Decent enough defensive skill, pretty unique. I will say that the cast time is probably too long on this one, keeps it from being a very good reactive skill.

Bow… I dunno, I’d have to play around with actual people to see how useful it is, since its clearly a more group-oriented skill. Its a 900 range ground-targeted heal with multiple charges and creates a light field, so at the very least its pretty unique, nothing else in the Guardian’s kit is too similar.

Sword of Justice and Hammer can compete vs smite condition, trading cond cleasing for more dmg and cc. Will need to use sigil of cleasing and escape in bow.

Tiale.2430:

Sword of Justice and Hammer can compete vs smite condition, trading cond cleasing for more dmg and cc. Will need to use sigil of cleasing and escape in bow.

Definitely not in pvp…

phokus.8934:

Tiale.2430:

Sword of Justice and Hammer can compete vs smite condition, trading cond cleasing for more dmg and cc. Will need to use sigil of cleasing and escape in bow.

Definitely not in pvp…

The more I play with it in PvP the more I see Sword of Justice is simply too slow. The cast time, plus the spinning time, it takes about 3 total seconds to deal it’s full damage. No player is going to sit through that. I was able to get some players with Soaring Devastation → Sword of Justice → Whirling Wrath. Which puts them on the back foot in a hurry but I simply cannot get players immobilized long enough to truly use Sword of Justice to it’s full potential.

Here’s hoping someone figures out a way, but I think these may be PvE skills.

The Binding Jeopardy trait (Immobilizing or blinding a foe also applies vulnerability to them.) still need a change or rework.

They should increase the damage a little bit of Staff #1 to compensate the nerf.

But overal there was a lot of good changes. Might even open up new builds.

Electro.4173:

I’m a bit disappointed that despite hitting 4 times, it only procs one Burn when traited, not sure if that’s intended or bugged. Old SW proc’d burn on every hit.

The trait doesn’t actually work atm, that’s just your own Virtue of justice going off. I posted about it in the bug forum.

Bash.7291:

Electro.4173:

I’m a bit disappointed that despite hitting 4 times, it only procs one Burn when traited, not sure if that’s intended or bugged. Old SW proc’d burn on every hit.

The trait doesn’t actually work atm, that’s just your own Virtue of justice going off. I posted about it in the bug forum.

I see. That makes sense. Gives me hope that it’ll proc multiple stacks of burn once they fix it, then.

Bash.7291:

Electro.4173:

I’m a bit disappointed that despite hitting 4 times, it only procs one Burn when traited, not sure if that’s intended or bugged. Old SW proc’d burn on every hit.

The trait doesn’t actually work atm, that’s just your own Virtue of justice going off. I posted about it in the bug forum.

I have a problem with Sword of Justice. It seems to go on cooldown for no reason when the count is charging (doesn’t take a count away).

Did someone also notice that?

@edit
This is random.

Sword of Justice is kittening nasty in pvp fights imo

Darknicrofia.2604:

Spirit weapon Firebrand might be top dps in PoF

u guys think it might work with a scepter??? instead of the axe?

Ive heard they are renaming guardian into 3/4rdian in next xpac, anyone heard it was true?

Sword of justice is definitely crap in sPvP…
Nerf to lootstick will make most frontline guardian either quit or play power.
This is a huge loss for WvW meta.

Aeolus.3615:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Spirit weapon Firebrand might be top dps in PoF

u guys think it might work with a scepter??? instead of the axe?

in all likelyhood, axe/torch and either scepter/torch or sword / torch 2ndary will be the best pve damage weapon set in a raid setting

Thani.8569:

Sword of justice is definitely crap in sPvP…
Nerf to lootstick will make most frontline guardian either quit or play power.
This is a huge loss for WvW meta.

Every one know what happens when some one try to play WvW close range xD, its a melt fest.

The flavor and playstyle of SWs got gutted. They are no longer pets, so there is nothing unique about them other than buggy animation and pathing from their pet roots.

They’re pretty close to being decent. Now if they could just fix their absurd cast times.