Guild Wars 2

Mods, please don’t merge this with the other Greatsword thread, this thread is to clearly explain the issue we Guardians have with the recent Guardian Greatsword patch. We don’t want this to get lost within all the other posts as the 1st few pages don’t mention anything about this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Greatsword-Change-merged

Thank you.

Changes made to Greatsword by the Patch on Oct 7th 2012.

The stated goal of the Greatsword nerf was essentially to nerf Retaliation builds. So, in order to nerf Retaliation builds the following changes were made to the Greatsword:

GS #2 Whirling Wrath: No change, still a 10sec Cooldown
GS #3 Leap of Faith: Cooldown down to 15secs from 20secs
GS #4 Symbol of Wrath: Doubled Cooldown from 10secs to 20secs

Whilst a lot of Guardians am mildly miffed at the rearrangement of the skill order following these changes (as weapon skills are organized in order of Cooldown on your hotbar), that is NOT the complaint.

THE PROBLEM IS HERE.

The nerf to Symbol of Wrath on the Greatsword did NOT nerf Retaliation builds as intended. The nerf to Symbol of Wrath on the Greatsword did nerf SEVERAL OTHER builds that utilized that symbol.

Breakdown of Negative Effects.

Symbol of Wrath was previously on a 10 second cooldown, exactly the same as Whirling Wrath. This allowed a Greatsword Guardian to branch into several builds and varying combat options.

If you wanted to deal a hefty amount of AoE damage, then the Greatsword was your go-to weapon. Between the Symbol of Wrath and Whirling Wrath the Greatsword let the Guardian be an AoE damage-dealing machine. This simply isn’t possible like it was before, as a Guardian simply cannot get the same damage output in the same time-frame thanks to the increased cooldown.

This isn’t only about the loss of damage though. The Greatsword also provided BUILD DIVERSITY/VERSATILITY by having a symbol in it’s weapon skillset and some synergy in the Zeal trait line. Unfortunately, all symbol-based trait builds that utilized the Greatsword took a huge and UNNECESSARY hit this patch:

1. If you wanted to use the Symbol of Wrath as a large AoE (by traiting for increased radius) in conjuction with other Guardian AoE’s (such as Purging Flames) for great AoE damage, you could do that.

2. If you wanted to use the Symbol of Wrath to heal yourself/allies (by traiting for symbol healing) and thus provide AoE support, you could do that.

3. If you wanted to use the Symbol of Wrath primarily as a damage-dealer and way to
apply Vulnerability, you could do that (by traiting into the Zeal line).

4. If you wanted to use the Symbol of Wrath to chain with other weapon Symbols you could do so readily, as the Greatsword symbol had a cooldown that would typically be ready to go on weapon-swap if you cycled between a Mace or a Staff as your other symbol weapon.

5. Basically, the Greatsword previously had a reliable AoE symbol that would be up every fight, would help with your damage output, could catch many enemies in it (if you traited for increased symbol radius), could heal yourself and allies (if you traited for symbol healing), could apply Vulnerability to foes (if you traited for that via the Zeal line), could do increased damage (again, if you traited high enough into the Zeal line), and could be chained or used in tandem with other symbols very readily.

Yeah, the Greatsword can still do those things…but now it’s every 20 seconds. In the meantime, you’re practically stuck spinning with Whirling Wrath, using Leap of Faith 5 seconds sooner than you previously would, and then auto-attacking the rest of the time while you wait for the now abhorrent cooldowns of the Greatsword’s main damage-dealing skills.

Closing/Summary.

The Greatsword gave build variety and versatility. With this unnecessary nerf the Greatsword has become only a tool for finishers, and the symbol synergy it did have has been so severely hit that it’s simply not worth using the Greatsword in any symbol/AoE builds anymore. Yeah, it CAN still be done…but it’s nowhere near as fun or as effective as it used to be, and there is no reason for it to be the way it is now (especially since the nerf was supposed to be to perma-Retaliation builds!).

If Retaliation builds REALLY were the intended target, then work on Retaliation.

There is NO reason for the Symbol of Wrath cooldown to be THAT high. The nerf to the Greatsword has put a huge dent in the build variety and versatility it had previously, as well as hitting the damage and AoE ability of the weapon by more than any reasonable amount. On top of that, many symbol-boosting traits simply do NOT benefit the Greatsword like they used to, and this is a huge problem considering the Greatsword has a symbol in it’s skillset, and that the main trait line that boosts offensive symbol usage (Zeal) is tied to/provides traits to encourage Greatsword usage!

If the Symbol giving Retaliation is the problem, then simply make it give Fury or Might instead!, I cannot believe that ArenaNet went through with this change without considering any of the ramifications it would have on other builds involving the Greatsword.

This post was orgianally made by Exemplar.1479.

I hope this is OK with you to post this matey, i thought your post explained the issue best and that it would make the best start of the thread.

another thing to say, its that leap of faith miss the target very often if you are not in close combat (we all know this bug) so in every case, no sinergy, and more miss hit.

another way to fix (or maybe a compromise) this its add a simbol on another of the low cd skill like GS #5 (5 simbol per minute whitout cd reduction traits instead of 3) or Gs #3 (6 simbols per minute without gs reductions traits)

Simbol on Gs#3 are 7 simbols per minute… so maybe too much OP
sorry for the error ^^

They nerfed the GS symbol because of retaliation, there was no other reason. They could of removed retaliation all together from the symbol and replaced it with something else.

Good luck. I tried to make a proactive thread in a similar vein and some illiterate kitten of a mod merged it into the big QQ thread. I’m bitter enough over this little gesture to assume that ANet doesn’t give a kitten about our opinion.

Do you people actually believe that Anet didn’t consider all those things? Do you really think that the internal tests that Anet is doing (in their own words, it takes up to a week or more to test all and any changes) didn’t discover that they are affecting more than just retaliation builds?
Do you seriously belive that you, just you were the FIRST one to discover all these combinations?
Please…

Man, if the intent was to nerf, all the GS simbols builds (because retaliation builds still exists with 100% ret uptime) well they could simply write it in the update log.

For now, and for my eyes, this change have no real explaination.

Do you people actually believe that Anet didn’t consider all those things? Do you really think that the internal tests that Anet is doing (in their own words, it takes up to a week or more to test all and any changes) didn’t discover that they are affecting more than just retaliation builds?
Do you seriously belive that you, just you were the FIRST one to discover all these combinations?
Please…

You could be right, however Anet explained certain reasons for this fix in the patch notes and those reasons seem misplaced and/or contradictory if you take the above in consideration.
Hence the question, we are paying costumers after all: there is no harm in asking.

nemeth.4196:

Do you people actually believe that Anet didn’t consider all those things? Do you really think that the internal tests that Anet is doing (in their own words, it takes up to a week or more to test all and any changes) didn’t discover that they are affecting more than just retaliation builds?
Do you seriously belive that you, just you were the FIRST one to discover all these combinations?
Please…

Obviously Anet didn’t figure this out the first time, hence the change.

I agree with the OP that the nerf is greater than the fix in this case because of all the builds that a longer CD symbol effects. Why not just reduce Retaliation damage for the Guardian?

Kruunch.3714:

Why not just reduce Retaliation damage for the Guardian?

Thats the worst idea ever. Changing base mechanics in such a way would break the game.

Why dont make retaliation a boon only for utility skills? so No 100% uptime and smart use of it.

Mattius.2549:

Kruunch.3714:

Why not just reduce Retaliation damage for the Guardian?

Thats the worst idea ever. Changing base mechanics in such a way would break the game.

Well if the idea was that perma-Retaliation builds were game breaking (which Anet seemed to feel that they were, hence the change) you can change it in one of two ways …. make it so you can’t perma-Retaliate (which they did, and effected a half dozen non-perma Retaliation builds in the process) or change the damage (i.e. the “game breaking” mechanic) on Retaliation and effect only that build.

Sort of like fixing a leaky water pipe by patching it instead of “fixing” the whole plumbing. Some times a patch is all you need.

100% agree with OP. Also This deserves an developer response.

My suggestion 10 or 12 sec cd (if you really want push it, 12 could be still ok-ish) for symbol. Remove or nerf the retaliation. Add something else, like vigor maybe? Or might?

And we might be back again to having some fun.

I didnt like the changes too, but if retaliation was the main reason for that, I would prefer they just take it of from the skill and replace it with something else, I would love to have a 3 sec immobilization which would work great on a spinning zerg….

I have since moved on from the GS, because even though I could struggle through using it’s new format it just isn’t worth it. It is no longer fun to play, just a chore. I didn’t want to lose all of the gold I invested in my armor for my symbol build for Superior Runes and such, so I swapped over to Mace/Shield as an alternative symbol to replace GS. It is an okay substitute when there is simply nothing better to use. The animation on mace is way longer than it needs to be, but I deal with it. I honestly don’t feel like ANET thought this through. The very least they could do is address this with the community. They would have to be blind not to see the outcry from the community since the 7th on this issue. It wouldn’t take more than a couple minutes, and it would let the community know that they are listening. Instead they are too busy fixing Asura head sizes. I guess they consider Guardians a throw away class.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

100% agree with OP. Also This deserves an developer response.

My suggestion 10 or 12 sec cd (if you really want push it, 12 could be still ok-ish) for symbol. Remove or nerf the retaliation. Add something else, like vigor maybe? Or might?

And we might be back again to having some fun.

Fury would be really nice.

@ Kruunch & Phoebe Ascension: I’d be happy with no extra boon at all just to have it back how it was .

I’m not joking.

It’s a pretty ridiculous change, I have to admit. Especially given how much AoE retaliation you can still grant with a hammer and some light fields. Couldn’t they have just nerfed the symbol duration and put more damage up front, or nerf the retailiation boon duration?

Between this and nerfing Signet of Judgment AND making it an exception to the 25% retaliation duration trait (because apparently 3 second retal is okay, but 3.75 is so broken that it warranted an unlabeled complication to the trait system), I’m really a lot less confident in the live team’s balancing abilities…

The symbol AoE damage is crap…
They actually buffed the GS by reducing the CD on our leap to 15 seconds.

snaplemouton.1294:

The symbol AoE damage is crap…
They actually buffed the GS by reducing the CD on our leap to 15 seconds.

No it wasn’t, on it’s own it did resonable damage – however you have a whole set of Symbol traits to make it do much more. Hence the issue people are complaining about (the fact that Symbol builds got ruined on the GS).

I have no idea how anyone can say this is a buff (unless they’re having a laugh), it’s not even a slight nerf – it’s a major one.

I note here, for the record, that the notes for the most recently issued patch dated yesterday (10/11/12) contains no changes/reply/response to the concerns listed here and elsewhere regarding the Guardian nerf.

Has anyone else seen anything official on this?

I for one, am disappointed again that ANET chooses to do nothing about this and remains silent. Surprised? Well, yes, somewhat — if their stated goal is to be the best MMO ever produced, then isn’t responding to the community part of that?

Kruunch.3714:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

100% agree with OP. Also This deserves an developer response.

My suggestion 10 or 12 sec cd (if you really want push it, 12 could be still ok-ish) for symbol. Remove or nerf the retaliation. Add something else, like vigor maybe? Or might?

And we might be back again to having some fun.

Fury would be really nice.

Fury would make some crit-based builds OP; Might for offense or Vigor for defense are both pretty balanced. As long as SoW’s recharge gets reverted down to 10 seconds.
Anet feedback would be much appreciated.

Great thread, well written and thought out. I definitely find my Guardian less fun to play with my greatsword now (which I used as my primary all the way to lvl 80 and to be honest was my favorite weapon available to the Guardian). I really loved the class too but it might be time to switch to a new one. The most disappointing thing to me now though is this: if Anet is just going to be throwing around random patches to break our class, with no recompense on our behalf, what the hell is the point?

@MajorShock: I think that’s my biggest issue with this whole situation, Anets lack of recompense (response).
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On the very same update Anet did a 40ms change to the Rangers bow, in that day a thread started wondering if it was working as intended and it got a response that same day on page 1 from Anet, 2 days later after some internal testing by Anet they confirmed it was.
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Now look at us. The same patch notes states our GS change was for retaliation, and yet it bascially broke (pretty much) the entire Zeal trait line for the GS (despite being for Symbols and partially for the GS) and any build that uses the GS and Symbol traits. 9 pages of complaints on 1 thread with 18k views/multiple other threads across various other sections (more on this one, the suggestion section, the bug section and even guild wars 2 discussion) and yet not 1 single response from Anet about what happened or why it was done like this.

No response on if this was infact the intended change (to basically make the GS not Symbol viable) and that they perhaps are intending to change the Zeal traits for GS, just a mistake and something they hadn’t noticed or just a bit of a joke – nothing.
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I’m not happy about this at all. I love the Guardian with a GS and i love it in the Spirit weapon build and Symbol builds and yet, the more i try and adjust to the nerf the more i grow bored of the weapon and it’s frankly ludacrus shortcomings in these regards now.

/agree, good post

Anet needs to make a response.

The changes just don’t make sense, and someone should explain it all. By now, Anet should have made one of two actions:

1. Reset things, saying “Our bad, we are going to comeback at this later.”
2. They should have given a full explanation of their plan, whether they think it worked or not and what they plan to do in the future.

Its bad customer service to not have got a response by now.

The Lack of Response is a Bad sign

No response is probably the worst sign we could get. It possibly says one of three things:

1. Anet doesn’t think there is a problem. The problem is in the players and they just need to get used to it.
2. Anet doesn’t know whats going on or what to do about, so they are holding back to see “how it all pans out.” Maybe it will just go away.
3. Anet is aware of the issue but wants to keep something secret so they can announce later “hey we did this cool thing to guardians, aren’t you lucky that we just keep improving the game for you.”

Hopefully its the 3rd one but there should still have been a response by now.

But seriously, this update should never have gone live and I think Anet know it but won’t retract it. They are going to push forward with it. Which means things will probably get worse before it gets better. It seems in their efforts to make GW2 an e-sport they are pretty willing to sacrifice other parts of the game for it.

Bottom line

Bottom line, for me. They did nothing that I can see that nerfed retaliation. The GS rotation is less fun to play now. So I am still asking why?

Well, It seems ANet has a thing against greatswords being interesting weapons. I want to use greatsword, it’s just what I want to do, but I now have 2 different professions for which greatsword is CRAP.

ANet – This is Driving Me away from your game. I am your target audience.. a financially independent gamer with cash to burn on micro-transactions and not enough time to farm gold, and you are sucking the fun out of everything I even CONSIDER trying out.

I play GS mesmer and have been underwhelmed with the weapon, went back and tracked the changes since the first BWE and quite frankly I’m seeing a very disturbing parallel here. (it went from a solid single-target ranged weapon to an incoherent pile of incongruous tools)

I was going to swap to my guardian due to this lackluster performance for GS on my mesmer, and now I find out while I was away at work they came in and made it useless for guardian too. (I WANTED TO RUN GS SYMBOL SUPPORT)

MajorMelchett.6042:

This post was orgianally made by Exemplar.1479.

I hope this is OK with you to post this matey, i thought your post explained the issue best and that it would make the best start of the thread.

Thanks! And no problem, I was actually going to post that here myself. To see that someone decided to use it as the base for this thread is humbling and warming.

Hopefully we can get the real issues looked at and resolved for all of our Guardians’ sakes. There’s a lot more to this than the simple “lulz keybind” or “if you want dps play warrior” nonsense that keeps getting trolled at us.

With this change, they took aim with a nuke at perma-retaliation builds, and instead missed wide and destroyed greatsword’s synergy with its own primary trait line, and broke greatsword support builds in pve.

They could have removed retaliation from the symbol (maybe replaced it with anything else as a boon), left the cooldown as-is, and it would be better, but I’m shelving my guardian as of now. I don’t want to mess with other weapons, it’s an RPG and I should have my preferred RP weapon be viable. If I can’t, I’ll move to the next profession.

This is strike 2 for a-net. My mesmer greatsword is not scaling, and now this change to guardian greatsword. I will also be refraining from ANY monetary contributions to this game until such time as greatsword is made a coherent and useful weapon for offensive-support again.

I actually was considering blowing my first paycheck on some gems to give my guardian the primeval skin but now I don’t even want to play him because my playstyle is completely messed up after 2 months. Greatswords can’t be used in a damaging fashion as a large chunk of that was lost with the nerf to the symbol up-times and combo field viability, and now they can’t be used as a decent support tool either for the same reason. Until they fix some issues with guardians I think i am just going back to borderlands and dishonored for awhile. I love the exploration in this game but the combat just doesn’t feel nearly as active now when so many guardian skills have long cooldowns (I don’t even want to talk about how bad the shield skills are)

Thank you for killing Guardian only DPS build , sauce. So much for playing the game MY way huh Anet?

Just say you want every Guardian to stay and be SUPPORT, might as well.

Hmm, it would be nice if we could get a developer in here to reply to our concerns.

ArenaNet still being dead silent on the issue despite all the legitimate points being raised creates a very uncomfortable feeling from the customer/player standpoint. Immensely uncomfortable. I really hope we hear something from them on this issue, because it certainly isn’t going to be swept under the rug.

I think it just shows that most likely this was infact the intended change regardless of what the patch notes stated, as you state it’s very uncomforable that they would basically ruin a number of builds like this and not even give us the time of day for a reason as to why (in any of the threads).

I just can’t see how they would they make such a change to a weapon to affect retaliaiton and instead make GS symbol builds next to useless with it (and render a trait line that deals with symbols and the GS not worth taking together).

Considering the patch notes stated that it was for retaliation and what infact it actully affected (symbol builds/spirit weapon builds using the GS), and that it hardly touched (if at all) retaliation (and Anets silence on the matter), it seems to show that they must have intended this to be the target all along and that is why they won’r respond to any complaints on it (be they well put or just strait up flames).

If this is the case if find it not only shocking for the silence, but shocking that they would make such a change and then post notes that don’t match the change at all (not even close IMO).
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I’m not saying i don’t like the game or Anet (i do), but i certainly have lost a lot of faith in Anet in how they have dealt with this matter.

i think they dont answer us because they are working a secret super duper guardian update (i really hope this XD)

But a little reply would be appreciated, even something like:

“hey guys, we are working on it, and when you see it, you kitten brinks! so kitten and play!”

edit:
lol I really like this kitten censure XD

Anyways, new week tomorrow and hopefully a response from Anet – perhaps it was a bit silly to make the thread on a Friday/Weekend.

It would be wrong of me to post in the other threads supporting this topic (re: breaking symbol builds) without posting in this one too.

Once again, just longing for a response from ArenaNet.

Bumping and hoping for that ArenaNet response…

Yeah, a new week and some new hope in a response to any of the GS Symbol threads.

I really feel that Anet messed up with the no holy trinity thing. But it feels like they are forcing classes to play support.
Ex guardians is a pure support class now.
Warriors are clearly tank/DPS due to the highest HP pool in the game.

So there may not be the traditional MMO trinity but this game does have its own trinity. Tank/support/DPS The GS nerf is a clear showing that Anet did not want guards DPSing. Oh and the lack of a real ranged weapon.

Ahh well i guess, seems it’s just not that important – shame really as it shows that in the end Anet can ruin multiple builds in 1 patch (that didn’t even state anything about them) and not say a thing about it.

Remember people defending this, if a patch comes along that ruins your favorite builds that you’ll get the same treatment as we have.
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I like your game Anet but i really have to say, they way in which you have handled this situation (so many complaints across multiple threads) has been quite shocking.

The lack of a response from ANET on this is very disappointing. I used to think they were a good company, but now I am beginning to think they are nothing but arrogant egotists who cannot admit when they made a mistake.

This GS nerf, a weapon that I don’t even use and their continued lack of response speaks volumes to me. It tells me that under no circumstance will I purchase any expansion nor purchase anymore jems.

I’m not gonna provide vid proof as well it isn’t possible now seeing as the change is done – i mean how exactly am i ment to do 2 exact same tests when i have no access to the original setup anymore?. Also in this case no vid is needed, it’s very clear what the patch did in terms of symbols and the symbol traits so why on earth would a test even be needed?.

It’s been clearly shown in multiple threads what the issue is and what the patch stated it was supposed to be doing – you just seem to be ignoring it all for some reason and instead just calling people names and telling them they are QQ/Whining.

Still no ANet response? Disappointing.

I was hoping for better from them, and seeing results like this (no reply or statement on it all despite the community bringing it up across multiple threads and clearly, succinctly, and politely explaining the issue) are a little too reminiscent of Blizzard/Diablo 3 for my tastes…

as the first thread said

1. bring back the old cooldowns
2. couple symbol of wrath with fury or might

NOT MORE TO SAY

If you need a reason why to quit this game: ANet just gave it to you.
I mean, how do they expect us to keep playing this game, after they just proved that they don’t give a crap about our complaints? Yes sure I tried other specs/weapons/classes. But still, who’s gonna tell me that they won’t mess up this spec/weapon/class next?

To make a mistake is one thing (I mean, everyone makes mistakes), but then at least admit it! Or explain why you think it wasn’t a mistake.
But their explanation was nothing but a sore excuse why they had to use the big fat nerfhammer instead of just fine tuning the whole matter.

(Just as a side note: I quit WoW because they constantly did exactly this things and not because I had to pay a monthly fee.)

While levleing my mesmer (now forced to “secondary” the greatsword since BWE 2) since this patch, every greatsword guardian i’ve come across has been either dead or struggling. This is really sad. Im still sticking with what I said, not one gem, not one more dollar to ANet until they restore the viability of symbol-support to greatsword guardians.

I love how in every MMO people generally complain about how OP a dagger class is. In this case, the Guardian was a bit OPed. If your trait line was setup correctly, you had SoW and WW up every 8 seconds. With berserker gear on and jewels you would be doing AOE damage of about 8K per tick every 8 seconds. I am a guardian, and I did love the constant output of DPS, but lets be serious….we were waaaaay OPed. Also for ppl complaining about how they auto attack #1 until their CD’s are done. I believe people should try conditioning yourself to swap wpns during combat. With knight gear and knight jewelry I have 2800 attack, 3100 toughness and over 50% Crit chance. I switch between Hammer and Great sword. I have constant DPS and the ability to survive longer. It really amazes me how mindless some people can be when they get stuck into a routine and then that routine changes because changes were made to the process in which they went about things.

You do know WW cooldown hasn’t changed right?, so you can still do that AOE every 8 seconds. What amazes me is how some people can’t see how making every trait that works with the GS symbol having a decrease of 50% uptime isn’t a problem (more so when it was never even pointed to in the notes).
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If it was so OP (which it wasn’t – have you seen what some other classes can do in a similar timeframe?) then why not i don’t know – decrease the damage of the symbol and keep the cooldown as it was so all the traits that use it don’t get a massive nerf aswell (if using the GS).

Anyways, thanks for pointing out we can weapon swap in combat, i honestly don’t think any of us against the change (or offering suggestions to make it more reasonable) even knew about that feature.