Guild Wars 2

MB is ok like it is (possibel a little bit more dmg). A low CD explosion finisher can be used often without having nothing else then “DPS” in mind.
Just a 3 or 4 Buttons DPS rotation ist stupid and boring too.

Banish should deal more dmg if the target will be knocked back to a wall (or ring of warden for example). But not a brainless DPS cd.

Decreasing Hammer AA 3 casttime to 1,1 or 1sec and removing the lightfield. Will make this weapon more fun and stronger. In both PvE and PvP without giving a boring 2-3keys dps rotation to it.
I have GS/Sword/F Rotation, my Warr a GS/Axe/Mace or Axe/Sword-Axe/Mace and so on.
Rotations are boring too. A few skills used depending on the situation, that makes fun.
A small dps push for our Hammer´s would be welcome (AA3 casttime reduction), sure why not. More weaponchoices are always good. And dmg/dps is important even in PvP.

Brutaly.6257:

Glacial heart. Increase sving speed on the third step of the mace and hammer chain and increase damage with 5%.

Nice!

Is this your idea or something that Anet has proposed recently?

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly.6257:

Glacial heart. Increase sving speed on the third step of the mace and hammer chain and increase damage with 5%.

Nice!

Is this your idea or something that Anet has proposed recently?

Just an idea what they can do with glacial heart that actually addresses something people seem to have issues with.

Ok let’s try being constructive. This is just another pretty much useless patch, those changes won’t really do much for the class (this is criticism…criticism is constructive).
I think the guardian is in a really good spot right now, the dps guardian is probably the only thing that prevents me from leaving this game. It’s definitely fun to play, not that spammy (compared to other classes) and rewards intelligent gameplay. The problem is your pretty much forced into certain builds. I know pretty much every class in game has this problem but I think that, when it comes to guardian, this can be solved.

• Zeal V – Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.
  Ok, but tbh I don’t think this will be worth taking, so quite pointless.
• Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)
  Just increase the base healing a little bit, but not too much, I don’t want another warrior healing signet.
• Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.
  This is not that bad, could improve hybrid builds a little, but I won’t take this anyway.
• Radiance V – Searing Flames. Reduced cooldown from 20s to 10s.
  Ok.
• Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
  Jon, as you have already realised, this won’t make the sword good, the dmg is not the problem, the problem is zd roots you, as a dps guardian you need as much mobility as possible.
• Valor V – Retributive Armor. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
  This one is quite good.
• Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
  Might be decent for healing builds, but we have better options in that tree.
• Virtues VIII – Supreme Justice. Number of attacks going from 4 to 3.
  Ehm ok, why should I take this instead of Absolute Resolution? Especially in a game filled with condition spam.
• Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse, rather than 8 seconds if you have no swiftness and 1 second if you have swiftness.
  I like the symbol as it is tbh, no reason to change that.

Now, I think most weapons can be easily improved without making them op.
Greatsword: this one is perfect as it is.
Staff: really good support weapon.
Mace: I know some people don’t like the mace, but I think it’s one of our best weapons, even for dps, amazing burst and additional defense.
Scepter: most of the time I’m forced into taking a scepter for dps, that immo is amazing to set up your burst and a ranged option is often good. Imo smite should be changed somehow, maybe it could become a new symbol which grants might. No need to buff the aa, it’s already good at close range and I don’t want the scepter to be the new mesmer gs or ranger sb (aa spam weapons).
Sword: just change zd, make it castable while moving or rework it altogether.
Hammer: very good for control, I know some people use that even in dps builds, but I think the aa is too slow imo. Make the symbol 1 sec cast and lower the dmg, this won’t really make the weapon op and that aoe prot will help countering aoe dmg spam. Hammer 5 is clumsy, make it castable while moving and lower the duration a little bit to compensate that. Imo.
Focus: amazing, perfect as it is.
Torch: good for burst, can be improved, especially Cleansing Flame.
Shield: I don’t really like the shield tbh, the focus is so much better. The cooldowns should be lowered a bit. Shield of Absorption is not that bad but imo the whole weapon should be rewoked.

Vigorous Precision should be moved to a different tree. Dodge spamming in this game is disgusting. Still a dps guardian needs vigor. Moving that trait to a more offensive tree would solve the problem imo.

Brutaly.6257:

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly.6257:

Glacial heart. Increase sving speed on the third step of the mace and hammer chain and increase damage with 5%.

Nice!

Is this your idea or something that Anet has proposed recently?

Just an idea what they can do with glacial heart that actually addresses something people seem to have issues with.

Hm in PvE 5% would be nice. But 5% at glacial heart…20 points in a PvE useless traitline…forget it, it won´t help.

If we want to do PvP, the hammers weakest point it 5 (not useable whil moving) and 1, cause most players will walk out of the symbol.

1. Hammer is control
2. Hammer is not a fast “movement weapon”
3. Hammer “lacks” of “burst” in PvP, sustain is ok but easy avoidable. 5% more will chance nothing.

So we have not much soft CC…GC can do this.
Decrease freezing duration to 1second, but the cooldown too. 10 or 8 seconds for example.
A little bit dmg+frost. Will do this job for PvP, PvE will stay unchanged cause valor is horribel in PvE.

Where do I start…. I will reflect the current Guardian as a WvW-smallscale-roaming player: I know that many things can be different regarding PvP…

• Kindled Zeal – I tried to create a build implementing this trait. One way you will get so squisy because u lack important defensive traits or you wont be dealing any damage… just adding some percentage here wont make any difference at all too bad its a Grandmaster Trait wasted

• Shattered Aegis – depends on the dmg it will do (DEV promised us numbers yesterday ! ) but if they are decent – YES PLEASE !:)

About the Guardians Weapons:

• I agree with most of you: Hammer autoattack is not what it could be, Hammer 5 should be castable while moving.. but: no, Mighty Blow is not too weak it is one of the best Skills we have!

• One handed sword: I agree with the projectile “issue” but still like it, imo nr3 shd be traitable to be casted while moving or to reflect projectiles again, maybe add some range to nr 2

• GS: very good designed weapon… only Whirling Wrath is buggy with the whole projectile thing going on… PLZ ANET fix this skill! It should be one of the hardest hitting skills we have but most of the time u will end up with numbers that have lower dps than the autoattack chain (there are enough reports of this in the forums)…

• Focus: perfect as is! same with staff and scepter

• Shield.. both defensive and offensive far weaker than focus… This sould be more viable number 5 is ok but imo number 4 needs a rework so it actually feels like a shield (like focus 5!)

Skills and Traits:

• Give us traits/skills that lead towards a signet build
• Make it more appealing to trait into virtues (loosing stats) to gain powerful bonuses on those the change of the burning is ridiculous imo
• I’m not a fan of the condi meta but: give us some conditions!!

• Elites!!! The tomes are just not useful at all the most useful eilites dont run such a long CD and require you to stay in place and cast the best spells for 3s.. so if youre not running a tanky build you will never take these…
  Give us one more second of renewed focus or add some utility to it (condi cleanse, movement skills, heal, stealth!! )

But in general I love the development of the guard

Cheers

People need to say which aspect of the game they are talking about (WvW, PvE, SPvP) because some of these suggestions make sense in one, but not the other two.

make sword 2 instant so we can use it with sword 3 at once, instead of using judge intervention.

now it does some kind of animation

I think Anet needs to step back and look a three things about each class, including the guardian.

1. What makes this class unique from the rest?
2. How will this class fill each role in DPS categories(melee&range, support, bunker) and type (direct damage and conditions)?
3. Determine the strengths and weakness of each class and over different variations of builds with equipment variations giving it a sense of purpose no matter what game type.

If you don’t give classes a specific niche or role to fill within solo, group, wvw, spvp, dungeon gameplay then it leads to discussions of class comparisons and why some classes are better in some/most areas than others and that leads to class popularity, flavors of the month, and QQ’ing.

Now, for my suggestions for just what I would like to see change for guardians:

Weapons:
1. GS - Remove projectile functionality and create only a whirl attack. Adjust damage and radius.

2. Hammer - drop that 1/4 second of AA#3 and make Ring of Warding castable while moving, compensate with longer aftercast.

3. Scepter - AA needs some help. Maybe make it a channel ability like ele’s scepter or an instant attack like necro’s? Smite should create a symbol and be larger area of effect.

4. Sword - Zealot’s Defense needs to be castable while moving or you follow target no matter what direction they move and it gives evasion.

5. Focus - Increase RoJ’s rejuv duration to 5 seconds and fly faster. It misses or targets outrun ray to be effective. Or you can make it a cone effect like shield #4.

6. Shield - Shield of Judgment needs knockback effect. Shield of Absorption needs to be converted into a 3 second channeled block with a significantly smaller dome absorbing projectiles. This will help guardian’s direct damage intake as well as still guarding others. Remove knockback and healing sequence.

7. Torch - Increase burning duration of #4 sequence (3 seconds too short for a 22 second cooldown) and add burning to #5, 1 second of burning or regeneration per pulse with 10 pulses(probably reduce), cone effect, up to 5 targets/allies. Remove condition cleansing capabilities, guardians have enough of this.

Cont’d...

We know guardians have options for blindness, immobilize, burning, chilled, and vulnerability. Blindness, immobilize and chilled work both ways with direct and condition dps as being defensive/control. Burning being the only primary condition and vulnerability only helping direct dmg. I would think we need to toss in cripple for direct dps to keep doing what they need to do and torment for condition builds. Having these two will assist with the condition meta, giving guards at least a foot in the door and help with their lack of mobility.

Symbols need to be reworked or give a trait that helps keep targets in the symbol. Too easily to just move out of them making them quite useless. Zealot’s Speed could be changed to cause 1-2 seconds of crippling per tick of the symbol since getting retaliation when the guardian is below 50% health is utterly pointless and just adds to their almost already perma retaliation uptime.

I really wish they would tell us the focus of each trait line. For example:

Zeal - Focused on Direct DPS and associated conditions with minors to condition dmg durations. Weapon traits associated with this line would be GS/sword, Hammer, and meditations.

Radiance - Focusing on crit reactive traits/abilities, conditions, consecrations(all consecrations grant 1 second of burning while enemies stand in radius) and 1h primary weapons. Scepter, sword (possible on crit causes torment?), torch, and Spirit Weapons (after they figure out wtf they are going to do with these).

Valor - Defensive trait line that would compliment a Zeal heavy build primarily increasing direct damage and critical strikes. Shield, focus, and signet traits.

Honor - Focusing on support/healing that compliments mostly any build looking for more self sustain: staff, mace, symbols, Altruistic Healing (now heals allies as well).

Virtue - Focusing on group support that complements honor trait line: shouts, reactives for virtues, and Pure of Voice

There are so many ideas I have to adjust, or more or less, overhaul the class to have a sense of purpose and niche that I just don’t have the time to type up. Maybe another time. But it’s pointless because Anet has their idea of how they want a guardian to work and I have mine. So far, I am not impressed with theirs.

Spirit Weapons - Remove from game or create an elite called Summon Ancestral Defenders. Calls upon four spirit weapons to defend the guardian for 30 seconds with a 2 minute cooldown. There, I just solved your failed design of having pet options for a support melee class.

One last thought. Make guardians slightly more sturdy and rely less on retaliation for skilless play. Confusion and retaliation, to me, should just be removed or EXTREMELY toned down. They should be something strategically used and not readily available.

/rant

Maybe it is just me, but make burning come from a actual weapon i.e. torch.

Drop focus and move attributes to shield or move shield to right hand/main so 4 and 5 still work, then equip torch and its two work, and add something for 1.

Too many gimmicks and focus is just ugly. Magic or not, we are not casters and shields should be it. Give the cloth users the focus.

Perhaps if they add more options for off hand weapons such as allowing mace and sword to be used in either hand. That would open up more possibilities.

Just a thought.

I would like to see some changes for the Shield if nothing else reduce the cool downs. I really think that the mechanics for Protector’s Strike should be on the shield and that the mechanics for Shield of Judgment should be on the mace. It doesn’t have to be a direct swap but being able to block at least one attack with the shield would be nice.
Perhaps a block and a push back such as Counterattack, Ranger GS #4 could also work.
I think it’s funny that the warrior and engi shield skills are better than guardian shield skills and we have a shield for our profession symbol. I would like to see more Guardians running around with Shields personally but everyone has their own tastes.

Cleansing Flame should cause burning, even if it’s only the last tick of damage
Being able to move when doing Zealot’s Defense would be nice.

As for traits buffing Radiance X from 5% to 10% is nice. I think the minor traits in Radiance are some of the most desirable traits Guardians have while a lot of the major traits are lackluster but there are a couple of good ones in there. Blinding Exposure for example is great, while Inner Fire is very situational and it only grants one boon. The Trait A Fire Inside doesn’t seem like it belongs in Radiance but rather Zeal. Right-Hand Strength is just golden. I think the typical Radiance user will either go II or VI, then X, and then XI. The remaining traits are very situational or lackluster, unless a player wants to use a signet build.

Since Radiance grants condition damage and precision, i think we need some kind of extra on critical hit x condition happens there. Necro, Engi and War can get extra bleeds from crits for example. While it doesn’t have to be bleeds and I think we have enough burning it could be some kind of new Adept Major trait perhaps.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

6. Shield – Shield of Judgment needs knockback effect. Shield of Absorption needs to be converted into a 3 second channeled block with a significantly smaller dome absorbing projectiles. This will help guardian’s direct damage intake as well as still guarding others. Remove knockback and healing sequence.

what would be the point of having the dome of absorbtion if the guardian can already block everything for 3 seconds? especially if you make it too small for allies to stand in.

on shield 4 I’d prefer a daze over a knockback we don’t need 2 on the same weapon.

After looking at it a bit, I’d like to see Strength in Numbers and Honorable Shield swap tiers.

That would put Strength in Numbers in the master tier, similar to Spotter and Empower Allies, while making the off-hand weapon trait for shields more accessible.

Nike.2631:

After looking at it a bit, I’d like to see Strength in Numbers and Honorable Shield swap tiers.

That would put Strength in Numbers in the master tier, similar to Spotter and Empower Allies, while making the off-hand weapon trait for shields more accessible.

That’s not a bad idea, but I wouldn’t endorse it until the Shield cooldowns were reduced by default to something more reasonable.

Nike.2631:

After looking at it a bit, I’d like to see Strength in Numbers and Honorable Shield swap tiers.

That would put Strength in Numbers in the master tier, similar to Spotter and Empower Allies, while making the off-hand weapon trait for shields more accessible.

Would break 50% guardian WvW builds.

I only have one opinion about all this and it’s regarding the developer’s moves to make increase the variety and ability of DPS focused Guardian and some other directions they’re going in: Do not change Vigorous Precision out of a minor adept trait. And if you do, please give up a few thousand more baseline HP because it’s probably the single most important trait for Guardians with little to no vitality.

Nozdormu.4352:

Nike.2631:

After looking at it a bit, I’d like to see Strength in Numbers and Honorable Shield swap tiers.

That would put Strength in Numbers in the master tier, similar to Spotter and Empower Allies, while making the off-hand weapon trait for shields more accessible.

Would break 50% guardian WvW builds.

Or would that be “would break 1 build that’s used by 50% of WvW guardians”?

Nozdormu.4352:

Nike.2631:

After looking at it a bit, I’d like to see Strength in Numbers and Honorable Shield swap tiers.

That would put Strength in Numbers in the master tier, similar to Spotter and Empower Allies, while making the off-hand weapon trait for shields more accessible.

Would break 50% guardian WvW builds.

I really don’t think so. Almost all guardians that go into valor line don’t get only 10. I really think that Strength in Numbers should swap with Honorable Shield.

Nozdormu.4352:

Nike.2631:

After looking at it a bit, I’d like to see Strength in Numbers and Honorable Shield swap tiers.

That would put Strength in Numbers in the master tier, similar to Spotter and Empower Allies, while making the off-hand weapon trait for shields more accessible.

Would break 50% guardian WvW builds.

If that were true is would say a lot about one of those traits being overpowered for it’s tier/cost…

Nike.2631:

After looking at it a bit, I’d like to see Strength in Numbers and Honorable Shield swap tiers.

That would put Strength in Numbers in the master tier, similar to Spotter and Empower Allies, while making the off-hand weapon trait for shields more accessible.

This doesn’t change anything. Each trait is suppose to be a choice, meaning that there is something of equal value that gives different results. Moving honorable shield doesn’t make using a shield anymore attractive than that it is. Because the off hand is poor outside of spvp and there are better traits to utilize besides honorable shield.

I think the solution is to redesign the shield itself and the trait.

I find it interesting in this thread ….

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Strongest-1-vs-1-class/page/2#post3252146

…that most people rate Guardian as the worst 1v1 class in WvW.

Cause we probaly are, jesus. Anet could not even get the wiki correct.

Quote:
Virtues have been said to help balance the guardian; for example, they have a lower base health than the warrior profession but compensate for this with their higher health regeneration granted by Virtue of Resolve.
—————————————————————————————————————

Yeah. I guess that is if you account that the Warrior is not using signet, or Shout healing, or 15 trait points into Defense trait.

Then i guess the above statement is true, if a warrior would pick any of the above. Then they have higher regeneration than Guardians.

Perikittenor.1892:

Cause we probaly are, jesus. Anet could not even get the wiki correct.

Quote:
Virtues have been said to help balance the guardian; for example, they have a lower base health than the warrior profession but compensate for this with their higher health regeneration granted by Virtue of Resolve.
—————————————————————————————————————

Yeah. I guess that is if you account that the Warrior is not using signet, or Shout healing, or 15 trait points into Defense trait.

Then i guess the above statement is true, if a warrior would pick any of the above. Then they have higher regeneration than Guardians.

lmao nice find!

I’ve been working these ideas around my head for the last few days, and I think I’m a point where I want to share them. These mainly pertain to the minor traits in the Zeal and Honor line, and how I’ve never really felt like they actually fit in well with what the two lines were capable of. With that regard, here’s what I have in mind:

Zeal Changes

• Changes to Minor Traits
  • Move Vigorous Precision into Zeal Adept’s Minor slot.
  • Create a new Zeal Master Minor trait: Zealous Speed – “Increase Movement Speed at low Endurance.”
  • Move Elusive Power into Zeal Grandmaster’s Minor slot.
• Changes to Major Traits
  • Combine Symbolic Exposure with Symbolic Power & place it into the Master tier.
  • Combine Spirit Weapon Mastery with Eternal Spirit & move it into the Adept tier.

Honor Changes

• Changes to Minor Traits
  • Create a new Honor Adept Minor trait: Strengthened Resolve – “Activating Virtue of Resolve heals for more.”
  • Create a new Honor Master Minor trait: Renewed Resolution – “Recharge Virtue of Resolve when struck below the threshold (20% health).”
  • Move Battle Presence from Grandmaster Major into the Grandmaster Minor slot. Make it so the effect is stopped when Virtue of Resolve is on cool-down.
• Changes to Major Traits
  • Move Selfless Daring into the Adept tier.
  • Combine Writ of Exaltation with Writ of Persistence and move it into the Master tier.
  • Create a new Grandmaster Major trait: Martyr – “Nearby allies are healed when you are downed.” The healing for this trait will mirror the healing caused by Empower.

Now I know some of you are wondering why I would think of these changes, and the answer is kind of simple. I never understood why Vigorous Precision and Elusive Power were placed into the Honor line. If anything, I could only see them placed there because of Selfless daring. To be honest I don’t think a line dedicated to group support should have these sorts of traits. I feel they are better suited to Zeal as a means of giving players looking for a means of sustaining themselves better in a fight without having to sacrifice their DPS.
I continued this line of thought by giving an much needed movement speed increase while on low endurance. All in all, a Zeal specked guardian will hit harder and move faster, but will do so by having to sacrifice their dodging, which is helped via the use of Vigor.
I also tried to help get rid of one of the more persistent issues the Zeal line has, and that’s the Spirit Weapon and Symbol trait. I combined some of them, and figure that they’re somewhat fine where they stand.

Now as to the changes to the Honor line, I feel like they should give support-based guardians an upper hand in an area that they tend to struggle with when compared to other professions; healing. I’ve done this by including traits that can boost a guardian’s overall healing ability via Virtue of Resolve. This also helps the line mirror Radiance and Valor, which both showcase Virtue of Justice and Virtue of Courage respectively. It was bugging me that Virtue of Resolve wasn’t getting a similar treatment.

Anyway, I don’t know if these are any good, but they’ve been bugging me for a while, so I decided to get them off my chest.

Crapgame.6519:

Maybe it is just me, but make burning come from a actual weapon i.e. torch.

Drop focus and move attributes to shield or move shield to right hand/main so 4 and 5 still work, then equip torch and its two work, and add something for 1.

Too many gimmicks and focus is just ugly. Magic or not, we are not casters and shields should be it. Give the cloth users the focus.

Which is funny, because guardians are a magically oriented class. We ooze magic from almost all of our attacks.

Suggestion for SoS, instead of the proposed Dec 10th change:

On entry into a SoS field, increase swiftness -to- 8s if it is less than that. Will pulse twice for a total addition of 8s if you remain in the field for 4s.

This preserves the current wvw use of SoS as an escape/catchup tool on the run while adding a “symbol” feel. It also removes the current 1s addition, which I agree is somewhat clunky and sometimes jarring.

Bah, this is late and the changes to it are already in for Dec10, but, for future considerations:

• Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)*

When I first saw this I was a bit excited since this was a boost to my Zealous Blade build, but the more I’ve thought on this, the more I’ve realized it’s just not enough. I generally run with around 400 healing power, and most people besides a tanker will be running even less.

With 10 hits, like from WW for example, that would equate to:
240 + 80, or 320 healing. That’s it.

I hope they boosted up this “boost” when it rolls out on Dec10, if it made it, because it’s still not that significant.

I personally was hoping to be able to use this to spec out of my dependency on Selfless Daring and put that 5 points into Virtues.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

I think Anet needs to step back and look a three things about each class, including the guardian.

1. What makes this class unique from the rest?
2. How will this class fill each role in DPS categories(melee&range, support, bunker) and type (direct damage and conditions)?
3. Determine the strengths and weakness of each class and over different variations of builds with equipment variations giving it a sense of purpose no matter what game type.

If you don’t give classes a specific niche or role to fill within solo, group, wvw, spvp, dungeon gameplay then it leads to discussions of class comparisons and why some classes are better in some/most areas than others and that leads to class popularity, flavors of the month, and QQ’ing.

Now, for my suggestions for just what I would like to see change for guardians:

Weapons:
1. GS – Remove projectile functionality and create only a whirl attack. Adjust damage and radius.

2. Hammer – drop that 1/4 second of AA#3 and make Ring of Warding castable while moving, compensate with longer aftercast.

3. Scepter – AA needs some help. Maybe make it a channel ability like ele’s scepter or an instant attack like necro’s? Smite should create a symbol and be larger area of effect.

4. Sword – Zealot’s Defense needs to be castable while moving or you follow target no matter what direction they move and it gives evasion.

5. Focus – Increase RoJ’s rejuv duration to 5 seconds and fly faster. It misses or targets outrun ray to be effective. Or you can make it a cone effect like shield #4.

6. Shield – Shield of Judgment needs knockback effect. Shield of Absorption needs to be converted into a 3 second channeled block with a significantly smaller dome absorbing projectiles. This will help guardian’s direct damage intake as well as still guarding others. Remove knockback and healing sequence.

7. Torch – Increase burning duration of #4 sequence (3 seconds too short for a 22 second cooldown) and add burning to #5, 1 second of burning or regeneration per pulse with 10 pulses(probably reduce), cone effect, up to 5 targets/allies. Remove condition cleansing capabilities, guardians have enough of this.

Cont’d…

Somebody give this man a cookie. No a key to the city…….

Yes yes yes yes yes. You have explained everything in a much better way that I could in a good tone.

Anet listen to this man please he knows what he’s talking about and I’m sure many guardians would concur with him.

Crapgame.6519:

Magic or not, we are not casters and shields should be it.

Except, we ARE casters. Guardian is, as a concept, a heavy armored hybrid class, using weapons to cast spells. We create magical symbols, we have utilies that are actually spells, look at the virtues, look at the elites.

Dont kid yourself; if you want to play whack-a-mole with your weapons, go roll a warrior.

But still, I also think that shield needs improvement. Both cooldowns reduced by 10 secons is a good start. Maybe 3 stacks of vulnerability to enemies OR 3 seconds of vigor or something to the 4th skill could be nice on top of cd reduction.

For other weapons;

1- Sword is pretty obvious; just make us rotate as we use 3rd skill and make it actually hit targets that are not point blank >_>

2- Faster projectile speed on 4th skill of Focus could balance things out.

3- Replace the condition removal of Torch’s 5th skill with something offensively useful so we can use it as an actual dps source. Very limited number of people actually take it for the cleansing.

4- Hammer hits pretty hard with AA chain and MB; but the casting speed of other skills is too slow. 3rd skill is already a projectile and misses a lot in wvw and pvp environments. 4th skill is a little too easy to dodge and 5th always needs some kind of CC usage beforehand. I think casting 5th while moving could outbalance things; but 1/4 cast time decrease on these skills wouldnt hurt.

5- Scepter’s skills are fine as they are ‘balance-wise’. But do they need to change? yes please. They are boring.

6- Staff is perfect except for the 2nd skill. Make it always explode upon contact with target (or max range if it doesnt hit the target). Reduce the cooldown to 8-ish seconds. Remove the healing for ‘’passing through allies’’ part. Add damage to explosion. Nobody in wvw and pvp uses this skill really, and staff is mostly used for empower in pve anyway.

7- Healing radius of AA chain of Mace could use some help. 1/4 seconds of reduction to 2nd skill’s cast time and blast finisher effect (instead of whirl) to the 3rd skill would be really neat.

As for utilities;

1- Fix spirit weapons and and related traits.

2- Make Tome of Wrath a little bit useful.

3- Fix spirit weapons and and related traits.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

snip

I totally agree with this post. Kudu’s to you my friend!

I personally love using shields and quite sad that both shields on warrior and guardian are weak all around. Warrior works for sPvP, but it could use more tools in PvE. Guardian’s 5 on shield has way too much gimmicks that are hard to perform or useless in sPvP. I feel the 5 on focus should have been swapped with shield, it makes more sense.

Anyway, the change you proposed on shield is nice, but should keep the healing sequence on 5. Otherwise it becomes a copy of warrior’s Shield Stance other than they can move around for 3 seconds.

JonPeters.5630:

Symbol of Swiftness
To clarify the new Symbol of Swiftness will give you 4 seconds of Swiftness every single pulse regardless of if you have swiftness or not. This is a improvement in many situations and a slight loss in the situation where you were using the Symbol as just a one time buff. I think this makes it feel more like a Symbol, which is good. We are still discussing the idea of it being 5 seconds, but there is some danger of that going pretty high with boon duration.

Not seeing how cutting its effectiveness in half (8 seconds to 4) is a “slight loss”. This is nerfing it into the ground. Do understand that what this symbol applies is Swiftness, a boon that boosts your movement speed. You get no benefit at all from this boon unless you’re moving — moving is the whole point of this boon. So, you don’t stand around inside this symbol, you run through it. You only get the one pulse as you run through, the symbol isn’t large enough to get two while running through it. This change is not an improvement very often — this is a skill about movement that you use on the move >95% of the time, and thus, over 95% of the time, this is a massive nerf to this skill. The only way to make this not a massive nerf is to vastly increase the size of the symbol, such that you actually get two pulses as you run through. That would make it a break-even change here.

Galatea.8263:

Not seeing how cutting its effectiveness in half (8 seconds to 4) is a “slight loss”. This is nerfing it into the ground. Do understand that what this symbol applies is Swiftness, a boon that boosts your movement speed. You get no benefit at all from this boon unless you’re moving — moving is the whole point of this boon. So, you don’t stand around inside this symbol, you run through it. You only get the one pulse as you run through, the symbol isn’t large enough to get two while running through it. This change is not an improvement very often — this is a skill about movement that you use on the move >95% of the time, and thus, over 95% of the time, this is a massive nerf to this skill. The only way to make this not a massive nerf is to vastly increase the size of the symbol, such that you actually get two pulses as you run through. That would make it a break-even change here.

The place where this skill is the most used is WvW; and from WvW point of view, this change is a huge buff. At least for the zerg runners (you shouldnt use staff as a roamer anyway).

While the zerg is moving, there are symbols of swiftness in front of the zerg all the time; and only the initial symbol you walk on has an effect right now; others give you 1 sec. of swiftness. Because of this, you find yourself falling behind of the zerg from time to time.

This change DOES make it feel more symbol-ish. And it is a great improvement towards WvW usage; not for guardians, but the whole zerg itself.

I’m sorry if this change hits your gameplay in a bad way; but to be honest, you really dont need staff for other parts of the game in my opinion.

Actually, anet should compare GW1 Dervish with GW 2 guardian, if half the skill of the dervish from gw 1 to get it on the guardian it would be a tanky class

Kelvin.5610:

Actually, anet should compare GW1 Dervish with GW 2 guardian, if half the skill of the dervish from gw 1 to get it on the guardian it would be a tanky class

we need those crazy scythe dancers back for the sake of having 1000 regen per second and hiting like if hell got loose (warrior would finaly have a contestant on hundred blade damage heheheh)

To be honest i think unless i remember wrong ofcourse, that we are top 3 dps class. Our problem however is that unless you go atleast a little tanky on trait and gear, we also become one of the squishy’iest classes, consider that and the combo of low mobility and almost none movement impairing tools.

These drawback easily make too huge negative impact to play as one, by all means itis doable and even considered rather good with teammates to help us sovle these problems, but in most cases it would however be bether if we support rather than being supported since we got really nice support abilitys.

And pure of voice was bugged before they changed it. It used to remove two condition but it was only supposed to remove one, not what we needed as a bugg fix, but it does open up more builds being viable rather than all Guardians being forced into shout.

Zealous blade will be scaling with healing power at last!!!! Kinda dissapointed by the scaling though, i was expecting something around 5% or even 7%.

Kelvin.5610:

Actually, anet should compare GW1 Dervish with GW 2 guardian, if half the skill of the dervish from gw 1 to get it on the guardian it would be a tanky class

I’d personally would prefer to have the Dervish return as it’s own stand alone class, and not have some of it mechanics added the the guardian. Though that’s just my opinion on the matter.

It’s kinda stupid how we are the slowest class when the Warrior can wear the same things as us and remain faster. O_o Why can a Warrior wear heavy armor like us yet be quicker?

Are all Guardians just unfit or something? Should at least keep us on par with Warriors in terms of speed. Can’t we have something like Warrior’s sprint?

Also + 1 to increased swing speed.

Templar.3418:

It’s kinda stupid how we are the slowest class when the Warrior can wear the same things as us and remain faster. O_o Why can a Warrior wear heavy armor like us yet be quicker?

Are all Guardians just unfit or something? Should at least keep us on par with Warriors in terms of speed. Can’t we have something like Warrior’s sprint?

Also + 1 to increased swing speed.

Warriors seems to become more and more like Guardians, their defense is even a lot better than ours with their Healing Signet, mobility and health.

JonPeters.5630:

Supreme Justice and Kindled Zeal
I feel like there is a build here, but TBH I haven’t gotten it to work in our internal testing yet. This is as good a place as any to talk about stat conversion traits.

Currently they do not convert 100% of a stat because certain stat bonuses such as those from signets do not get converted. For that reason we are being conservative but normalizing all of our conversions to the follow #s for now.
Minor: 5%,7%, and 10% respectively for adept, master and grandmaster.
Major: 7%,10%, and 13% respectively for adept, master, and grandmaster.

I’m not sure this will be enough, but I do not want these traits to be overpowered as I feel they are fairly passive. That being said, I think they are good simple traits and with 12 traits per line it is absolutely fine to have some passive simple to understand traits.

and that’s just the problem: they are NOT overpowered…when comparing to a physical DPS build. In fact, they are underpowered. IMO, conversion traits should convert 100% of a stat (include bonus stat from signet, buffs, etc). If we decide to invest our utilities / traits to gain such stats, our corresponding conversion trait (that we also chose to invest in) SHOULD increase appropriately. It only makes sense.

Kindled Zeal Suggestion

Based on the comments for the Dec 10th updates and many of the issues described in terms of the lack of soft CC and the type casting of guardians into a defensive stand and fight without the ability to stick to targets mold, i have a few alternative suggestions :

If the main focus of the patch is on creating viable power based build in a trait line focusing predominantly on symbols, perhaps a updated GM trait could replace the existing kindled zeal trait to meet these needs in terms of forcing a defensive last stand engagement, especially if guardians aren’t intended to chase as a melee class and the symbol of swiftness change is moving in the direction of remaining stationary to charge a benefit. I’m guessing the focus would be either to get to the target and keep them there or force them to come to you, hence:

Kindled zeal suggestions:
1. Symbols knock down opponents who attack/activate a skill within the symbol area.
-A ground enchantment reminiscent of the old gw1 shield of judgement skill
-It might actually be usable against pve defiant stacks without compromising players in a stun lock as long as they are familiar with the skill
-Provides a way to force symbol tick damage
-Provides an intricate use for symbols as one of our class exclusive mechanics?
-Are denial too much for PvP focused on area capture ?
– Hammer/mace symbols application could be an issue though without the right ICD

or

2. Symbols act as a protective area providing ranged damage reflection/absorption while inside the symbol’s affected area, until the attacker enters the symbol area
[almost like the Operative Brie battle in Arah]

-Forces engagement at a melee range & supports the new healing skill’s functionality?
-Could be a nice addition to a slow moving guardian with low base hp pool trying to spec away from the standard more defensive trees.
-May be too similar to existing utilities vs same theme followed through and more accessible given single person application limit?
-May improve shattered aegis functionality forcing engagement within shatter range to trigger?
-Would be nice if the symbol removed a condition on use as we are supposed to be the condition anti-class, hence our limited access to condition application?

3. As a side note I would love to see aegis act as a life sheath/barrier based on a life bar with a cap of say 1000 + (some multiple)*vitality, with the cap replenished after each aegis break. The life sheath/barrier doesn’t carry over damage/conditions, ie needs to be reapplied to you. Similarly SY would pull the conditions onto the life sheath if it is in place. If the idea is that we still need to chase/escape at least the barrier would help up to a point as a movement impairing condition/out of combat shield?

Maybe too much “protection monk” and too little “substitute warrior” :p

I am sure there are people more familiar with the intricacies of balancing and the full implication, just wanted to put these ideas out there and maybe inspire someone to provide a better solution . Thanks for reading the post.

“The change makes the spell apply a consistent 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse without the strange hidden mechanic. Basically. if you already have swiftness on the people which you using the symbol on or if you take the time to stand in the spell for the full duration then it will just be a buff. =)”

Yes thats why we need speedbuffs so we can stand in them… really…

micmartin.7465:

All of my guildies who play Guardian all agreed yesterday when talking about the symbol of swiftness nerf. It is only useful in zerg running which means specifically in WvW. In all other gameplay the change has only negative effects on us that also means running in small WvW parties or alone. Thank developers, I wonder what they can ""improve"" next for us. They should at least call the change a nerf. One of the worst ideas ever, “hey lets make Guardian even more party dependant!! Oh yeah that a great idea, they dont play alone!! They cant!!”

We also discussed the ""dps changes"" made for us. All agreed that they were so minimal that none would even bother with a change in their build. Personally feel the time would be better spent fixing pure of voice. No point in useless fixes and additional breaking, they should just fix at least we gain some benefit.

Its also a pathetically small buff if you run a dungeon, and your warrior friends blow their kitten warhorns before you place your symbol! I’m on voip with them, and they always freaking forget. So now I can get my little pathetic amount running past it, instead of 1 tick.

Well this ‘discussion’ thread was a waste of time.

Dagoth.7038:

Well this ‘discussion’ thread was a waste of time.

QFT

That’s a big, bad joke.

As a WvW Guardian all I see is a pretty nasty nerf which makes me so glad I decided to get Bifrost now. :/

Guards were never a focus for the dev team for changes. They simply had to find some things to make a list of “hey we gave you guys stuff too” without rocking the boat. Maybe we will get something in the next balance patch 6 months from now?

Oh look, more nerfs and a useless heal. Yeyeyeye. They should give us all redeme tokens so i can pick a new class. Cause all this is so much bullkitten.

Edit, only appears to have b een a small typ on the class forum. Guess they can’t even get that right