Guild Wars 2

Hey guys.

I’ve posted before on changes for weapon skills that I thought the guardian could use, but this time I decided to focus purely on the sword, to highlight some of its issues in more detail as opposed to just mentioning it in passing in a longer thread.

1: Auto attack:

Now on paper, the Guardian’s sword auto attack actually looks decent, especially with its relatively large damage numbers. However that’s all it really does, damage. Unlike the sword autos for some other classes that remove boons, or apply bleeds, cripples or vulnerability, the guardian’s auto relies solely on its damage to remain competitive.

When you compare it to the thief’s sword auto, which does almost the same amount of damage, but also applies conditions on the third attack and cleaves better, suddenly that damage doesn’t seem as impressive anymore. Hell, even compared to the guardian’s greatsword auto, the total damage numbers are almost the same, yet the greatsword has the added benefit of applying might on the third strike, as well as having superior cleaving capabilities.

But there are other mechanical issues with the guardian’s auto attack that hinder it even more, and that is the third attack in the auto chain, Sword Wave. Because it counts as a projectile, it often has trouble hitting targets that normal melee attacks have no trouble with, even at point blank range. It also almost completely lacks any cleaving capabilities, unless you hit targets that are directly on top of or behind each other. Furthermore, it can be blocked or reflected by enemies with projectile blocks or reflects, causing the guardian to miss or even damage himself in situations where every other melee attack would succeed. The worst part in all this is that if Sword Wave does fail to hit the enemy, even if the attack is reflected or blocked, the guardian will continue to repeat it multiple times in an attempt to land a hit, thus further lowering the player’s dps and potentially causing multiple cases of damage reflection in a row.

To me, it’s completely silly to punish a guardians as though they were using a ranged projectile even though they are using a melee attack. It leads to a lot of unnecessary frustration and hinders the sword greatly as a melee weapon.

Changes to Zealot’s Defence:

Zealots defense is just a bad skill, so bad in fact, that I reckon most guardians who are experienced with the sword probably rarely use ZD, if ever. The main reason is because its damage relative to its cooldown and cast time is fairly low, to the extent that interrupting your auto attack to cast it will likely not even improve your dps at all and in some cases, might even decrease it. It also lacks the ability to cleave, so in cases where you’re fighting multiple opponents, using Zealot’s Defense would actually lower your dps by a significant margin.

It also doesn’t offer enough utility to make up for the low damage. Although it destroys ranged projectiles, that effect pales in comparison to similarly functioning skills like pistol whip, which cleaves, stuns and evades, or Blurred Frenzy, which cleaves and grants evade as well (evading melee attacks AND projectiles —-———> just destroying projectiles). What makes Zealots defense even worse is that despite offering inferior utility and damage to the above mentioned skills, it actually has a longer cooldown as well. I just really don’t know what kind of thought went into this design.

Lastly, even though the skill fires ranged projectiles, because of their lack of homing and their poor tracking capabilities, you’ll often find you’ll miss targets that are even moving at a snail’s pace at range. It doesn’t even count as a projectile finisher and has all the downsides of ranged attacks – like being susceptible to projectiles reflects or blocks – while maintaining very few of the perks (for example, because the projectiles trail along the ground, if you try fire it over a gap, instead of flying to hit the target, the projectiles fall into the gap and disappear).

But what about flashing blade? O_o

Flashing blade is awesome. I reckon its the only skill on the sword they got right, though it could stand to be a leap finisher. XD

Lack of burst capabilities:

Thanks in large part to the poor damage of Zealots defense, the sword is completely devoid of any burst damage potential. While its sustained damage with the auto attack is still good (mechanical issues aside), the lack of burst means that the sword’s overall dps is actually quite low. How low? Well, low enough that even the Guardian’s scepter out-damages it against single targets by quite a fair margin, which is actually quite sad considering you’re comparing a ranged weapon with a melee weapon.

How to improve the Sword:

The fixes are quite simple really.

1: For the auto attack, all you really need to do is change sword wave so that it no longer counts as a projectile attack, and improve its cleaving capabilities.

2: For Zealots Defense, there are a few possible fixes. Changing the projectile destruction effect to a block effect for both melee and projectile attacks on its own would already add enough utility and synergy with on block traits to significantly improve the usefulness of ZD as a whole. If Anet doesn’t want to go that far, then at the very least increasing its damage, allowing the projectiles to pierce targets, or even just giving them a slight homing effect would all help make this skill a bit less mediocre than it currently is.

Overall, I just think the sword is being held back from being a great weapon by a few key design flaw issues, ones that are so obvious I’m surprised ANet hasn’t patched them already.

9/10 I agree with most of this.

For zealots defense to be good it would probably be enough if it would actually hit anything on the range that is displayed in the tooltip. When you use zealots defense on 600 range atm you hit half of the projectiles at best. On moving targets it’s even worse.

Keksmuffin.1450:

9/10 I agree with most of this.

For zealots defense to be good it would probably be enough if it would actually hit anything on the range that is displayed in the tooltip. When you use zealots defense on 600 range atm you hit half of the projectiles at best. On moving targets it’s even worse.

Yeah, simply having decent tracking or even some homing would already improve it a lot. But at it is right now, Zealots Defense can’t even hit an immobile target with all the projectiles at 600 range. XD

True. - The Sword by itself can’t keep up with GS in dps. Overall it is about 20% behind.
- The third auto-attack is frustrating. Not only it doesn’t work on object it can keep you on the third attack for 2-3 shot until the auto-attack reset you can do dmg again.
- Zealot defense is great in sPvP, but that’s all. The reflect can be nice in PvE, but its minimal. There is no gain from using it DPS wise over the auto-attack.
- Flashing blade is nice. But i would like to be able to use it even when you don,t have something targeted to add a bit of mobility on the sword.

But if they could just fix the problem with the 3rd auto-attack I would be fine. The sword fill its role of sustain between GS burst just fine. Its not a complete useless weapon.

As a tpvp sword meditation guard main I have to suggest 2 things similar to what OP posted:
3rd auto on sword needs the projectile removed. I think an attack similar to warr-axe-2 (the cyclone axe) should be what we’re aiming for. 3 quick attacks so that the 3 attack bonus is still kept but no longer counts as a projectile. Honestly idc if they nerf the range since I’d rather have consistant dmg.
Zealots defense needs:
A: aftercast destruction increased (once youre done throwing worthless projectiles theres still the effect)
B: Lower the activation time to 1/4 second or even instant (been kittened so many times because using this skill as “reactive” like we’re suppose to is too darn slow)
C: Fix the projectiles so they actually land

then it should be actually worth the 3rd skill on a 1h wep set

It seems that the designers are obsessed to make weapon skills that provide projectile defense that immobilize the users. Apart from tracking projectiles, being able to move would make the skill more desirable and tactical.

These things have been reiterated a thousand times. As much as I’d love to see it, I don’t think there are any plans in the near future for it.

And while we’re at it, can we make flashing blade do some not-so-pitiful damage please? With such a blatant aftercast animation it’d be nice to be able to get some immediate damage on the target before they inevitably dash away again.

It’s these little things that make me mad… So many utilities, traits and weapon skills are useless in this game(since release). Why improve the gameplay experience and increase build diversity when you can add living story bullkitten content.

I don’t understand it.

Thaddeus.4891:

But if they could just fix the problem with the 3rd auto-attack I would be fine. The sword fill its role of sustain between GS burst just fine. Its not a complete useless weapon.

To be honest, I don’t see how or why the sword would fill a role of sustain between greatsword bursts, when sword auto and greatsword auto basically do the same damage (greatsword does 1035 based damage with a full chain in 2.5 seconds, sword does 1042 base damage with a full chain in 2.5 seconds). In fact, greatsword auto could be considered superior thanks to better cleaving, less mechanical issues and might on the third attack.

In a PvE situation where you want to maximize damage, it would actually make more sense to use a mace or even hammer alt.

Completely agree with the explanation on Sword’s AA. I’d like to add another issue I have with Zealot’s defense. As the slowest profession, why would you want a skill that plants you in place? Seems pretty counter intuitive. When you’re utilizing sword, you’re trying to keep on your target. It just seems backwards to me.

Edit: I just wanted to link a post I made a little while ago about the Guardian weapons as a whole and what I feel needs to be adjusted. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Changes-in-the-Sept-2014-Feature-Pack/4307390. I could be completely wrong in my assessment but small tweaks would be nice.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Thaddeus.4891:

But if they could just fix the problem with the 3rd auto-attack I would be fine. The sword fill its role of sustain between GS burst just fine. Its not a complete useless weapon.

To be honest, I don’t see how or why the sword would fill a role of sustain between greatsword bursts, when sword auto and greatsword auto basically do the same damage (greatsword does 1035 based damage with a full chain in 2.5 seconds, sword does 1042 base damage with a full chain in 2.5 seconds). In fact, greatsword auto could be considered superior thanks to better cleaving, less mechanical issues and might on the third attack.

In a PvE situation where you want to maximize damage, it would actually make more sense to use a mace or even hammer alt.

You can give any number for the dmg it depend on the stats of each character. We’ll talk about Coefficient because they don’t change in any situation. Both take 2.5 second. Total coefficient for sword is 1.24 and for the GS, its 1.12. So its about 10% more dps for the sword auto-attack. After, you need to take into account the traits. Best dps build right now give you 5% dmg for your gs but 10% dmg for the sword. After that, you have Right-Hand Strenght that give you 15% more crits chance with 1 handed weapons AKA the sword. I don’t want to do the math for the total difference in term of dps between sword and gs, but that put the sword auto-attack further ahead of the GS auto-attack.

Its not like I’m pulling that out of my kitten . GS + Sword/Focus is view as the best dps build for guardian and for a long time. You use your GS skill 2 to 5, then switch to Sword for auto-attack while waiting for you GS burst to get ready again.

Hammer/GS also work that way. GS for burst and Hammer auto-attack in between. Hammer auto-attack only is right behind with about 96-98% of the dps. Greatsword only is about 90-95% of the dps of GS+Sw/F.

But in the end, they are all viable build.

Until they improve zealots defense and/or the 3rd autoattack just use a Silly Scimirar. It just feels so right to use the 3rd autoattack for the 3rd time and still miss because your target is absorbing projectiles or to flail arround and see only one out of 8 projectiles actually hitting your target when you’re using this skin.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Until they improve zealots defense and/or the 3rd autoattack just use a Silly Scimirar. It just feels so right to use the 3rd autoattack for the 3rd time and still miss because your target is absorbing projectiles or to flail arround and see only one out of 8 projectiles actually hitting your target when you’re using this skin.

lold

Said it numerous times since Beta:

1) Sword #1, second strike needs to cripple. This would alleviate alot of the misses on third strile.
2) Zealots Defense need to work on the move.
3) Zealots Defense is now Projectile
4) Zealots Defense now blocks for 2 seconds instead of 3.

5) Powerful Blades Trait in Radianceneeds to be changed as follows: +5% Damage and Projectiles now Pierce

Amins.3710:

Said it numerous times since Beta:

1) Sword #1, second strike needs to cripple. This would alleviate alot of the misses on third strile.
2) Zealots Defense need to work on the move.
3) Zealots Defense is now Projectile
4) Zealots Defense now blocks for 2 seconds instead of 3.

5) Powerful Blades Trait in Radianceneeds to be changed as follows: +5% Damage and Projectiles now Pierce

1: That would be interesting, still not a fan of the third hit being a projectile. Maybe change both?

2: Not bad. Now in conjunction with 4, is it blocks all attacks or just ranged?

My main issue with sword is the #2 skill hit not being instant. When entering battle with flashing blade, you have to wait a second for a strike Then switch to trigger in battle state. Certain sigils will not proc otherwise and it’s a Huge pain.
I think the scepter, which mainly does single target damage, should do more DPS than any 1 hand weapon. The sword was always meant to be a hybrid, single target dps or group fight weapon.

Saiyan.1704:

My main issue with sword is the #2 skill hit not being instant. When entering battle with flashing blade, you have to wait a second for a strike Then switch to trigger in battle state. Certain sigils will not proc otherwise and it’s a Huge pain.
I think the scepter, which mainly does single target damage, should do more DPS than any 1 hand weapon. The sword was always meant to be a hybrid, single target dps or group fight weapon.

Funny thing you mention that. I looked at other ranged weapons from other professions and the rifle from Engineer, long bow from Warrior and Ranger hits as hard if not harder and pretty much never misses. Funny that.

Arken.3725:

Saiyan.1704:

My main issue with sword is the #2 skill hit not being instant. When entering battle with flashing blade, you have to wait a second for a strike Then switch to trigger in battle state. Certain sigils will not proc otherwise and it’s a Huge pain.
I think the scepter, which mainly does single target damage, should do more DPS than any 1 hand weapon. The sword was always meant to be a hybrid, single target dps or group fight weapon.

Funny thing you mention that. I looked at other ranged weapons from other professions and the rifle from Engineer, long bow from Warrior and Ranger hits as hard if not harder and pretty much never misses. Funny that.

Yea it’s not nice. Scepter auto being already slow and easy to dodge, should get a damage buff imo. I’m thinking 100 more damage on top of it’s base. That’ll be an additional 250’sh damage on crits (I think, I’m terrible at theory crafting)

Arken.3725:

Amins.3710:

Said it numerous times since Beta:

1) Sword #1, second strike needs to cripple. This would alleviate alot of the misses on third strile.
2) Zealots Defense need to work on the move.
3) Zealots Defense is now Projectile
4) Zealots Defense now blocks for 2 seconds instead of 3.

5) Powerful Blades Trait in Radianceneeds to be changed as follows: +5% Damage and Projectiles now Pierce

1: That would be interesting, still not a fan of the third hit being a projectile. Maybe change both?

2: Not bad. Now in conjunction with 4, is it blocks all attacks or just ranged?

I wouldn’t change the block mechanic, imo.

It’s quite good against quite a few ranged classes, regardless of what other’s think: Scepter Ele’s, Rangers, Rifle Engi’s just to name a few.

Saiyan.1704:

Arken.3725:

Saiyan.1704:

My main issue with sword is the #2 skill hit not being instant. When entering battle with flashing blade, you have to wait a second for a strike Then switch to trigger in battle state. Certain sigils will not proc otherwise and it’s a Huge pain.
I think the scepter, which mainly does single target damage, should do more DPS than any 1 hand weapon. The sword was always meant to be a hybrid, single target dps or group fight weapon.

Funny thing you mention that. I looked at other ranged weapons from other professions and the rifle from Engineer, long bow from Warrior and Ranger hits as hard if not harder and pretty much never misses. Funny that.

Yea it’s not nice. Scepter auto being already slow and easy to dodge, should get a damage buff imo. I’m thinking 100 more damage on top of it’s base. That’ll be an additional 250’sh damage on crits (I think, I’m terrible at theory crafting)

The thing is that won’t really help. I’d rather it actually hit than get a damage buff.

Arken.3725:

Saiyan.1704:

Arken.3725:

Saiyan.1704:

My main issue with sword is the #2 skill hit not being instant. When entering battle with flashing blade, you have to wait a second for a strike Then switch to trigger in battle state. Certain sigils will not proc otherwise and it’s a Huge pain.
I think the scepter, which mainly does single target damage, should do more DPS than any 1 hand weapon. The sword was always meant to be a hybrid, single target dps or group fight weapon.

Funny thing you mention that. I looked at other ranged weapons from other professions and the rifle from Engineer, long bow from Warrior and Ranger hits as hard if not harder and pretty much never misses. Funny that.

Yea it’s not nice. Scepter auto being already slow and easy to dodge, should get a damage buff imo. I’m thinking 100 more damage on top of it’s base. That’ll be an additional 250’sh damage on crits (I think, I’m terrible at theory crafting)

The thing is that won’t really help. I’d rather it actually hit than get a damage buff.

They need to PIERCE to be effective… otherwise its nothing more than splash dmg.

Undeniable that DPS wise, Sword is only good for 1v1, or vs a Boss.
Sword3 I see it as a trolling method to stack my Burn instantly without getting interrupted by range CC in pvp.

Projectile problem? Lets face it, who would spend their deflect utilities skill in pvp when vs a Guard? AA in 300 range for melee weapon is kinda OP to me.

We need to have a target to teleport, sadly it seems Arena will never change that. They want us to die fighting =( , not running away.

Furthermore, GS ish definitely superior over Sword in so many ways. GS3 can disengage from fight xD

The only changes i hope for Sword would be reduce their cool down, or add certain stats when equipped.

Arken.3725:

1: That would be interesting, still not a fan of the third hit being a projectile.

Does this say that just the sword needs improvement or that projectile in general are weak?

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Thaddeus.4891:

But if they could just fix the problem with the 3rd auto-attack I would be fine. The sword fill its role of sustain between GS burst just fine. Its not a complete useless weapon.

To be honest, I don’t see how or why the sword would fill a role of sustain between greatsword bursts, when sword auto and greatsword auto basically do the same damage (greatsword does 1035 based damage with a full chain in 2.5 seconds, sword does 1042 base damage with a full chain in 2.5 seconds). In fact, greatsword auto could be considered superior thanks to better cleaving, less mechanical issues and might on the third attack.

In a PvE situation where you want to maximize damage, it would actually make more sense to use a mace or even hammer alt.

The answer is RHS+ the 10% sword damage increase if you include those in your build sword AA> GS AA by a bit not to mention that the sword AA always procs VoJ upon completion while the GS only does it every 2 AA sequences.

Changing the auto-attack would be nice, but it’s not too big of a problem. People rarely reflect my auto-attack, though in theory it’s bad design.

Imo “Flashing Blade” is not as good as you claim. In terms of DPS it is very bad, since the base dmg is fixed to a very low amount. The aftercast and cast-time is also pretty long, which means you could’ve completed at least 2/3 of your auto-attack chain.
Teleport+Blind is nice though, but the skill should give dmg equivalent to “Leap Of Faith”. Furthermore, using it without a target should trigger the teleport. Guardians really need out of combat mobility, which this would grant (think Phase Retreat).
This change with a change to Merciful Intervention as well (making it a port without a target), would probably get Medi Guards into the meta.

Zealot’s Defense however actually deals a decent amount of dmg if you can actually land it. I see a lot of guardians using it wrong, but I’ve had a lot of use for the projectile absorption, it’s GOLD against Warriors or Engineers. Having the attack block all attacks would be better obviously, but might make the skill too strong.
If it did only block projectiles, that would be pretty nice, since it would trigger on-block effects and still be a situational skill.
If it were to block everything, people would just spam it like they do with Blurred Frenzy.

Almost feels like we go over the issue’s with weapon sets every month. I’d like to keep going over them to find everyone’s opinions on the matter. Here’s a copy/paste of the post I made a while ago with every weapon kit and the changes i’d like to see. What do you guys think?

Hammer: Too slow for the damage output it produces. Now I understand that this is supposed to be a CC-related weapon but it’s too slow even for that. I keep looking at the Warrior hammer and picture how awesome it is to fight with that. Not to mention traits that have a significant synergistic behavior with said weapon.

Sword: This one is minor but Zealot’s defense is very static and Counterintuitive to the games design(constant movement). Not to mention the blades barely hit a moving target. Also one change i’d like to see is the #3 on its AA. Its cleave is well below average. Why can’t this just be a single-hit like Axe on Warrior. That thing hits like a truck and even hits behind the player using it.

Scepter: Only thing this needs is tracking improvements. I’m still seeing it easily avoidable with strafe-dodging. Rifle on Engineer and Longbow on Warrior/Ranger hit just as hard if not harder and rarely miss.

Great sword: This is actually has a pretty decent kit outside of 2 skills. I’m looking at Symbol of Wrath and Binding blade. One offers static game-play and outside of PvE, is near-useless. Binding blade isn’t terrible except for the cool down is a bit long and the leash is a tiny bit too small. Not to mention it can be completely negated by dodging just as you pull someone. Last but not least, i’d like to see WW have its projectiles removed and just increase the base damage, those things are completely random and contribute very little.

Mace: The Auto-attack needs a change, even with more than 1000 HP, the heal from the third strike is insignificant. Make this more selfish or something to be of actual use. Symbol of Faith, once again, offers static play and outside of PvE, is near useless.

Torch: Cleansing flame not affecting the Guardian? Now this might be too strong if it did but you could just increase the cd to make up for that.(20 seconds)

Focus: I’d like to see Ray of Judgement’s projectile be faster. Maybe drop Shield of Wrath’s cd a bit(35 seconds)

Arken.3725:

Almost feels like we go over the issue’s with weapon sets every month. I’d like to keep going over them to find everyone’s opinions on the matter. Here’s a copy/paste of the post I made a while ago with every weapon kit and the changes i’d like to see. What do you guys think?

Hammer: Too slow for the damage output it produces. Now I understand that this is supposed to be a CC-related weapon but it’s too slow even for that. I keep looking at the Warrior hammer and picture how awesome it is to fight with that. Not to mention traits that have a significant synergistic behavior with said weapon.

Sword: This one is minor but Zealot’s defense is very static and Counterintuitive to the games design(constant movement). Not to mention the blades barely hit a moving target. Also one change i’d like to see is the #3 on its AA. Its cleave is well below average. Why can’t this just be a single-hit like Axe on Warrior. That thing hits like a truck and even hits behind the player using it.

Scepter: Only thing this needs is tracking improvements. I’m still seeing it easily avoidable with strafe-dodging. Rifle on Engineer and Longbow on Warrior/Ranger hit just as hard if not harder and rarely miss.

Great sword: This is actually has a pretty decent kit outside of 2 skills. I’m looking at Symbol of Wrath and Binding blade. One offers static game-play and outside of PvE, is near-useless. Binding blade isn’t terrible except for the cool down is a bit long and the leash is a tiny bit too small. Not to mention it can be completely negated by dodging just as you pull someone. Last but not least, i’d like to see WW have its projectiles removed and just increase the base damage, those things are completely random and contribute very little.

Mace: The Auto-attack needs a change, even with more than 1000 HP, the heal from the third strike is insignificant. Make this more selfish or something to be of actual use. Symbol of Faith, once again, offers static play and outside of PvE, is near useless.

Torch: Cleansing flame not affecting the Guardian? Now this might be too strong if it did but you could just increase the cd to make up for that.(20 seconds)

Focus: I’d like to see Ray of Judgement’s projectile be faster. Maybe drop Shield of Wrath’s cd a bit(35 seconds)

Just want to point out that most of the design/balance for the weapons are for spvp which currently is conquest and has very static elements. So the whole node thing is probably the reason for symbols existing at all.

Arken.3725:

Almost feels like we go over the issue’s with weapon sets every month. I’d like to keep going over them to find everyone’s opinions on the matter.

I agree, but it just becomes repetitive to most without the involvement of the devs. There’s been a lot of good ideas put out by the guardian community, but I’m sure people get tired of saying the same things in different threads.

Awareness of these issues is key, without these threads and discussions nothing will be done. The community is as much at fault for “guardians are in a good place” when things that needed to be done could have been. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”, or so I’ve heard. It seems how buffs and nerfs are decided around here.

Bran.7425:

Arken.3725:

Almost feels like we go over the issue’s with weapon sets every month. I’d like to keep going over them to find everyone’s opinions on the matter. Here’s a copy/paste of the post I made a while ago with every weapon kit and the changes i’d like to see. What do you guys think?

Hammer: Too slow for the damage output it produces. Now I understand that this is supposed to be a CC-related weapon but it’s too slow even for that. I keep looking at the Warrior hammer and picture how awesome it is to fight with that. Not to mention traits that have a significant synergistic behavior with said weapon.

Sword: This one is minor but Zealot’s defense is very static and Counterintuitive to the games design(constant movement). Not to mention the blades barely hit a moving target. Also one change i’d like to see is the #3 on its AA. Its cleave is well below average. Why can’t this just be a single-hit like Axe on Warrior. That thing hits like a truck and even hits behind the player using it.

Scepter: Only thing this needs is tracking improvements. I’m still seeing it easily avoidable with strafe-dodging. Rifle on Engineer and Longbow on Warrior/Ranger hit just as hard if not harder and rarely miss.

Great sword: This is actually has a pretty decent kit outside of 2 skills. I’m looking at Symbol of Wrath and Binding blade. One offers static game-play and outside of PvE, is near-useless. Binding blade isn’t terrible except for the cool down is a bit long and the leash is a tiny bit too small. Not to mention it can be completely negated by dodging just as you pull someone. Last but not least, i’d like to see WW have its projectiles removed and just increase the base damage, those things are completely random and contribute very little.

Mace: The Auto-attack needs a change, even with more than 1000 HP, the heal from the third strike is insignificant. Make this more selfish or something to be of actual use. Symbol of Faith, once again, offers static play and outside of PvE, is near useless.

Torch: Cleansing flame not affecting the Guardian? Now this might be too strong if it did but you could just increase the cd to make up for that.(20 seconds)

Focus: I’d like to see Ray of Judgement’s projectile be faster. Maybe drop Shield of Wrath’s cd a bit(35 seconds)

Just want to point out that most of the design/balance for the weapons are for spvp which currently is conquest and has very static elements. So the whole node thing is probably the reason for symbols existing at all.

That makes sense just the issue there is that there isn’t any significant benefit/detriment when being affected by symbols to be used in play.

Shanks.2907:

Arken.3725:

Almost feels like we go over the issue’s with weapon sets every month. I’d like to keep going over them to find everyone’s opinions on the matter.

I agree, but it just becomes repetitive to most without the involvement of the devs. There’s been a lot of good ideas put out by the guardian community, but I’m sure people get tired of saying the same things in different threads.

Awareness of these issues is key, without these threads and discussions nothing will be done. The community is as much at fault for “guardians are in a good place” when things that needed to be done could have been. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”, or so I’ve heard. It seems how buffs and nerfs are decided around here.

I think we’re all tired of the whole “guardians are in a good place” constantly being thrown around. I will say that the Guardian does feel like the most balanced profession probably due to the fact that it has the least amount of strong passives associated to the class.

All of the virtue’s passives, in my opinion are incredibly weak. This is especially true for Resolve and Courage. I honestly believe if you took away the passive’s themselves, you probably wouldn’t notice it. Outside of that, you have Vigorous Precision which got a pretty significant nerf months back(which only really works with offensive builds).

It seems like the never really listen to the community for the most part. There has always been great feedback in this section, however Anet always does some weird changes. For example, making Renewed Focus a Meditation. I don’t think I ever heard anyone ask for that, I’m not going to complain about a buff, but it really doesn’t fix the issues med guard has. It took them two years to finally reduce the CD on Retreat, and that has been something that’s been asked since release.

There is nothing wrong with having static abilities.
They help reduce the amount of spam that is already in GW2.
And they have a use against melee opponents, so I don’t find it a problem at all.

Except those static abilities are not strong for you nor are they a detriment to your opponent. The idea behind static abilities should be that due to its immobile nature, it should be strong in both areas that are beneficial/detriment.

Guardians static abilities(mostly symbols) do not produce this.

Harbinger.8637:

It seems like the never really listen to the community for the most part. There has always been great feedback in this section, however Anet always does some weird changes. For example, making Renewed Focus a Meditation. I don’t think I ever heard anyone ask for that, I’m not going to complain about a buff, but it really doesn’t fix the issues med guard has. It took them two years to finally reduce the CD on Retreat, and that has been something that’s been asked since release.

Yeah, that’s kind of how I felt about the RF change. I mean, it’s awesome, but it didn’t really fix any of the glaring issues that the class still DOES face.

Black Box.9312:

Harbinger.8637:

It seems like the never really listen to the community for the most part. There has always been great feedback in this section, however Anet always does some weird changes. For example, making Renewed Focus a Meditation. I don’t think I ever heard anyone ask for that, I’m not going to complain about a buff, but it really doesn’t fix the issues med guard has. It took them two years to finally reduce the CD on Retreat, and that has been something that’s been asked since release.

Yeah, that’s kind of how I felt about the RF change. I mean, it’s awesome, but it didn’t really fix any of the glaring issues that the class still DOES face.

I’d honestly put RF as a less than average elite that’s only really useful when specced into. Quite a few elites out there that require no investment to put out their full potential. Also, I don’t understand why RF is considered a meditation. Doesn’t make much sense to me.

Kraljevo.2801:

It’s these little things that make me mad… So many utilities, traits and weapon skills are useless in this game(since release). Why improve the gameplay experience and increase build diversity when you can add living story bullkitten content.

I don’t understand it.

Meanwhile shield 4 of the engi can be done while moving…ty Anet for having managef this highest priority change…

Don’t mean to derail the topic, but since we are talking about Guard changes overall, I found this to be quite interesting. It’s a list of all the older traits that got removed. Some of them are quite good. I’ll list a couple that caught my eye, but you can look at the full list if you want. Interesting stuff.

Altruism- Virtues recharge faster.

Practiced Resistance- Conditions expire more quickly on you.

Defender’s Warding- Shield of Wrath absorbs more damage.

Burned by Truth- Applies burning on critical hits.

Staggering Judgment- Shield of Judgment knocks back.

Steel Curtain- Your Line of Warding blocks projectiles.

Precise Defender- You have a 10% chance to gain a 3 second protection when you critically hit.

Courageous Speed- Critical attacks with your sword grant you Swiftness.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits

Ray of Judgment weakens on a critical hit.
want

Harbinger.8637:

Don’t mean to derail the topic, but since we are talking about Guard changes overall, I found this to be quite interesting. It’s a list of all the older traits that got removed. Some of them are quite good. I’ll list a couple that caught my eye, but you can look at the full list if you want. Interesting stuff.

Altruism- Virtues recharge faster.

Practiced Resistance- Conditions expire more quickly on you.

Defender’s Warding- Shield of Wrath absorbs more damage.

Burned by Truth- Applies burning on critical hits.

Staggering Judgment- Shield of Judgment knocks back.

Steel Curtain- Your Line of Warding blocks projectiles.

Precise Defender- You have a 10% chance to gain a 3 second protection when you critically hit.

Courageous Speed- Critical attacks with your sword grant you Swiftness.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits

I like some of these changes, would you mind taking a look at the proposed changes I linked above?

I’m not a huge fan of the AI changes only because they’re so weak in general that you’d probably have to give it some overpowering traits/skills to even consider using them.

Also, the protection gained from Precise defender is a bit low. It’s funny because Guardian’s have very limited access to protection outside of Shout builds. This seems decent. Maybe up to 30%?

i noticed that the first minor in valor use to give protection instead of aegis at 50%. we should do that again, even if its only for 5 seconds. its such a worthelss trait compared to all the other minors