Guild Wars 2

By the changes, they seem to want full DPS Guardians to play something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgqCnGSOEf4ESmiC8AtUIQHU1j45e8QA-TsAg0CtIATBmDMDYSwsgNsYVyuAA

Precast SoW>JI>WW… etc. Instakill, stability/blind stomp and get out.

I honestly don’t like this approach, I expected a heavy armor apparently selfsustainable holy (and shiny!) Warrior with few hard CCs but being one who withstands a battle for a while and wittles you down with fierce but powerful strikes with more slower paced and tactical manouvers; not this insta damage spike getin-getout squishy DPSer, it feels like a thief with no stealth and heavy armor (wtf?). I just don’t like how that feels on a Guardian.

That support GS/Staff build running around is far from a DPS build.

Why did Warriors became all I wanted in a Guardian?

PS: Kindled Zeal is still going to be absolute kitten btw. (lel ~+230 condi. dmg.).

Khenzy.9348:

By the changes, they seem to want full DPS Guardians to play something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgqCnGSOEf4ESmiC8AtUIQHU1j45e8QA-TsAg0CtIATBmDMDYSwsgNsYVyuAA

Precast SoW>JI>WW… etc. Instakill, stability/blind stomp and get out.

I honestly don’t like this approach, I expected a heavy armor apparently selfsustainable holy (and shiny!) Warrior with few hard CCs but being one who withstands a battle for a while and wittles you down with fierce but powerful strikes with more slower paced and tactical manouvers; not this insta damage spike getin-getout squishy DPSer, it feels like a thief with no stealth and heavy armor (wtf?). I just don’t like how that feels on a Guardian.

That support GS/Staff build running around is far from a DPS build.

Why did Warriors became all I wanted in a Guardian?

PS: Kindled Zeal is still going to be absolute kitten btw. (lel ~+230 condi. dmg.).

Completely agreed.

I always expected Guardians to be sustained fighters, with much lesser burst than what a Warrior could achieve, but better tools to win an attrition fight.
Most damage oriented guardian builds are, however, burst fighters, and pretty decent ones tbh. If you try to build a sustained Guardian you end either with a bunker/support build that does no damage at all or with something that’s easily outperformed by a warrior.
It’s quite annoying to have my main character behaving the opposite of what I (like most people I guess) expected when I choose and created it :P

It’s good that they recognise that Guardians as a support class for groups are in a good spot, but Guardians that want to do something outside that box are suffering. Thats at least a step in the right direction.

Mobility is not about how long you have uptime on speed, it’s about your access to leaps, blinks, rushes and the reuse timer on those abilities, that’s why Greatsword warriors are 1 of the most mobile pieces on the battlefield. Whirlwind → Rush → Bulls charge, put fleeing person in combat so everyone else can catch up, or disengage and kite out of there and return after ur healing signet has kicked in for 5-10 seconds.

So the changes to SoS are kind of meh, as im reading it overall you can stack more speed by huddling on top of the Symbol for it’s duration. But by just running over it you’re losing duration. So it’s a nerf and a buff depending upon your gameplay, i run almost exclusively in a small mobile groups(3-5), we are constantly otm to avoid large numbers so for me it could be a nerf, will have to see how it plays out. For large group zerg play ur getting more speed out of it so it’s more a buff.

Kindled Zeal still seems woeful, as a grandmaster trait it needs to bring a lot more to the table, probably a total rework. I can kind of see the idea, they want it to be an assist to a burst build rather than the focus. But if this is the case it needs to be dropped from grandmaster and a new trait made or it needs to bring more to the table.

Other changes, Pure of Heart … what my Aegis once every 40 seconds? Yeah no thanks i will take a different trait. Searing Flames is good, Shattered Aegis seems good, Powerful Blades is awesome.

At least i can play around with my bursty build, the main problem still exists though, running around with 13khp’s as a glass guardian you will get eaten alive by the condi meta.

Hopefully that means a clean-up of the Zeal line and Spirit Weapon traits. Glad to see you guys trying to get condi Guardians going.

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.

Since non zerg WvW involves alot of running away from random zergs showing up during a fight, you guys must see how this is a bit punishing possibly, I feel like i’m the core support of the group but when things go sour I feel too easy to catch, alot of times during respositioning to avoid getting unavoidably flattened by all the zergs of warpers out there(so many warpers and teleporters with range tagging us into slowmode combat).

Why are we losing some of our only burst escape? Usually the swiftness I get from my symbol if i’m able to place it somewhere that it wont end up tagging me into sure-death combat will barely get me away, do you feel we should be holding a utility slot hostage all fight with retreat standing by to do not much but give us a mediocre escape?

Can we get thrown a bone with a proper escape of some kind to choose if the symbol of swiftness is going to run out in an emergency escape early enough to really make sure you get caught into combat? Like merciful intervention with a better cooldown and ground targetting? Not sure how many of you guys do your WvW content solo or small scale but you must see the unnecessary frustration of getting caught by a out of combat heartseeker spamming teleporting thief with a zerg all hungry to get their 60 wxp off one person each.

When our group is roaming one class that never gets away from us ever is Guardian(along with Necro of course).. I think this is the only issue people are having with the change, we already lack quick escapes to an annoying degree.. I love small group roaming so much and the challenge of not getting caught by an annoyed zerg, i’m pretty happy with how things are currently personally but I just feel it’s all a little out of balance vs the out of combat speed/teles.. this is just looking like a help for zerg guardians mostly in regards to WvW.

JonPeters.5630:

snip

Well, hopefully it’ll give me the impetus to rewrite the burning guide. I’m at least somewhat hopeful now, though I was hopeful this past balance patch and was a little disappointed on the condition front.

Hey Jon,

What is up with the attention to pure of heart, it was buffed not too long ago and now its being buffed again.

Hmm does that mean Guardian only runes and sigils? Because if not that mean EVERYONE would get the increase.

If you want to fix Zeal you have to make grandmaster skills worth taking over the other lines competition. Both Grandmaster skills in Zeal are just plain bad right now. Honestly, and I hate to say it, but if you want to keep kindled zeal, you should swap it with Fiery Wrath.

(Adept) Kindled Zeal, 7% conversion rate.

(Grandmaster) Fiery Wrath, +20% damage to foes inflicted with burning. 20% makes up for the loss of 10% modifiers we could get from other trees when it was adept level. Zeal also adds condition duration so I like the synergy.

As for Condition Damage Build? We need it to not be able to be tanky, or its just plain OP on a guard. I say eliminate Wrathful Spirits (or bump it somewhere else, spirit weapons and thier traits wont be worth taking until they get major re-work) and introduce new Grandmaster Zeal skill.

(Grandmaster) Tormenting Flames: Applies 1 stack of torment for 2 seconds to foes you apply burning to.

2 second duration avaoids the free damage tick (3 seconds would eaqual 4) built in to condition duration in zeal without some investment. No cooldown, low stacking capability make it a very active style application. No fire and forget. 30 points in zeal make it difficult to impossible to go bunker with it. Great synergy with Radience and Virtues lines, neither of them allow you to go tanky.

I would also make Powerful Blades: 5% damage with sword/spear and apply 1 stack bleed for 2 seconds on crit. That forces some build decisions with conditions. It is master level, so you cant go Grandmaster in both Zeal and Virtues and still have this.

As for sticking in a fight. Scepter Power: reduced to 5% with a 5 second cripple on crit, 20 sec cooldown. That gives it maximum 25% uptime. Cripple on scepter would make for some nice ranged damage possibilities.

Make Glacial Heart a Hammer Mastery skill and add 5% damage to it. People would then use it. Adjust chill effect to compensate as necessary.

And last but not least, Sybolic Power: Remove damage modifier, add 3 second chill to last pulse in symbol. No automatic chill gives opponents motivation to move out of symbol. We are supposed to have area denial, right?

Fun to see some buffs on Guard and a few of them will be interesting. But there are alot of problems still residing.
——————————————————————————————————————
Zeal V – Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.
:This will be fun to test out and will in most cases be a buff. Only question is. Will the traits damage be viable with our current specs. Well time will tell and as i said will be fun to test it.
——————————————————————————————————————
Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)
:Kewl that they acctualy understand that this needed some scaling, 2% is kinda low but may be shown to be really nice. Fast number say that @ 1000 healing power, each strike will heal for 25+20, seems fair.
——————————————————————————————————————
Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.
:Well what to say, Besides pointless. Whoever came up with this idé really need some private tutoring. It is cool that they are attempting to make it interesting but this should either be changed to another tree and/or scale from one of the defensive stats.
——————————————————————————————————————
Radiance V – Searing Flames. Reduced cooldown from 20s to 10s.
:Really nice. Still random and slightly long cooldown for only stripping boons. But it is on the right way, and it is bether that they make it slow and steady there. Than buff the kitten out of something like warrior……
——————————————————————————————————————
Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
:Hm ok so increase one of our strongest singel target weapons even more. Why?
Don’t get me wrong, we need the damage. But we got other weapons with alot less damage that would need more sustained damage.
——————————————————————————————————————
Valor V – Retributive Armor. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
:Well it is on its way but. And yes i am going to say but. Why are you spending time on passive traits and making them stronger. A more passive playstyle should not be rewarded, sure it might have needed a buff. But really, we have alot of other stuff we need to fix rather than this.
——————————————————————————————————————
Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
:Nice but it is still overhealing alot. You need to understand that this will always trigger when we have full health the first time, and after that. It depends whatever we are virtue or shout to even make it useable.
——————————————————————————————————————
Virtues VIII – Supreme Justice. Number of attacks going from 4 to 3.
:Cool change and makes more of a difference. To bad it will not buff the active effect more. Or will it?
——————————————————————————————————————
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.
:This is both a buff and a nerf, it will buff us in zerg environment. But reduce our roaming capability’s and our escape performance.
——————————————————————————————————————

My cent of the new patch.

JonPeters.5630:

Hello Guardians,

So I wanted to talk about the bigger discussion topics for the Dec changes for you as well.

Shattered Aegis
As soon as I get in on Monday, I’ll post the damage #s on this and the power scaling. I think a meaning ful discussion about this change is going to require that. One danger here is that big WvW zergs using this could be really powerful, but I will say that the numbers are decent.

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.

Another thing about this build is that you do not have all of the information you need about this power guardian right now, but I can’t reveal more without spoilers. /tease

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.

Power guardian vs Condition guardian
I think Dec 10th will see the emergence of the power guardian, but I think that the condition based guardian still has a ways to go. Ultimately this is because it is hard to cover the burning and frankly you need a good reliable second or even third condition that guardians simply do not have right now. I think for those professions lacking that 3rd damage condition we are looking at supplementing them via runes and sigils rather than skills/traits right now but that won’t be something we attempt until the build that follows the Dec 10th build.

I think that is everything for guardian and hopefully you enjoyed a few half spoiler/half teases.

Thanks,

Jon

I’ve had a go with this a power burning build before in Spvp duels a while back, and frankly i thought it it was pretty good, it performed well, even against other guardians and mesmers, hell even necros. It was going Carrion with Soldiers stuff in Spvp. The only thing i really felt lacking with this sort of build is good condi removal(The amount you need with the current meta) and sustain.. There’s a way i gauge damage output, it’s by including all the other sources of damage available to you. There’s a lot of hidden synergy in zeal. it gives 300 power and 30% Condi duration. Kindled Zeal gets about maybe a 200+ increase in Condi Damage, since you have about 2k power already, and you have great access to retal which is also scaled by power, then you have direct damage, which is pretty strong there. Burning as the Devs have said is strong, and it is true, 300+ damage vs 500+ damage, and each ticks per second. The longer the fight goes on the higher the damage of the 500 per tick scales more than the 300 per tick. Then you dip in some retaliation and all of it can add up to a lot, (Direct Damage + Burn Damage(per sec) + Retaliation(Number of hits?)= Possible damage output). So I’ll be in the works of crafting a second set for my offesive based guardian x3

Perikittenor.1892:

Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
:Nice but it is still overhealing alot. You need to understand that this will always trigger when we have full health the first time, and after that. It depends whatever we are virtue or shout to even make it useable.

This is exactly what’s wrong with it, thanks for putting it into words.

Maybe they could put a slight delay on the heal, lets say 5 secs. That way it actually heals damage.

Copied from general thread.

Guardian: Move traits around to different trees so it actually makes sense, specifically symbol traits. It has been said a million times before. Remove Revenge of the Fallen and Strength of the Fallen, NO ONE uses these EVER, totally worthless. Guardian needs speed more than anything else, replace one of those traits above for speed trait, and symbol swiftness change makes zero sense.

Glacial Heart has so much potential… Guardian could really use more chill skills and traits to help keep up with all kiting they get. Guardian needs a second condition badly, until that happens condition guard will be worst condition class in game. Kindled Zeal will continue to be totally worthless even after you “buff” it until that happens.

Zealots Defense is currently one of worst attacks in game. It roots you and cant hit anything moving or more than a arms length away. It works in only 2 instances, when someone is running at you in a straight line or when someone is in downed state. I guess you could count someone afk as one instance as well. At least you guys listened to me about scepter auto attack, hopefully this will be fixed and not fallen on deaf ears.

Guardians do suffer from a lack of mobility in combat and perhaps this could be addressed by the adding a cripple condition to “Symbol of Swiftness”. So if the Guardian lays down the symbol and remains there for the 3 second duration the guardian and any allies gain the swiftness buff while any enemy in melee range within the circle would be debuffed with a cripple condition.

Just a suggestion

I would love to trait deeper than 10 points into Zeal, but since my weapons of choice are sword/focus and scepter/focus….that leaves 10 unavoidable trait points spent in Zeal that I will get zero use of due to lack of symbols on the above weapons. I am referring to symbolic exposure and symbolic power. Please swap these minor traits with things all guardians can make use of. Shattered Aegis would be an excellent choice to move to one of those minor slots since all guardians use aegis. If you want to move them into major slots..that would be great. Unless I am mistaken, there are zero minor (unavoidable) traits on any profession that are unusable due to not having the “correct” weapon equipped…with the exception of guardians. Please fix.

I think changing the requirement for activating Zeal minor trait “zealot’s speed” to a chance on hit or crit would be more appropriate, since with the low base health pool on a dps guardain…as soon as health drops, the smart move is to dodge…not try to stand and tank. Dodging moves us and our target out of the symbol. This defeats the purpose of the symbol. It would be effective if it was something that could occur while we were not in danger of death.

I would also suggest that Zealous Blade not be limited to one specific weapon. If you are traiting into Zeal and Radiance, that means little to no points in honor/valor…which means low health, low healing power, and low toughness. Health generated by Zealous Blade would be very useful in such a set up.

Regarding Symbol of Swiftness, can you make it so it also gives you 4 seconds of Swiftness if you have none upon cast (before the first symbol tick)? This would preserve the old functionality of giving 8s if you are only standing inside for 1 tick. As it stands, I really dislike this change for sPvP since rarely will anyone be inside the symbol for multiple ticks. It makes the symbol awkward and clunky.

Aza.2105:

Perikittenor.1892:

Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
:Nice but it is still overhealing alot. You need to understand that this will always trigger when we have full health the first time, and after that. It depends whatever we are virtue or shout to even make it useable.

This is exactly what’s wrong with it, thanks for putting it into words.

Maybe they could put a slight delay on the heal, lets say 5 secs. That way it actually heals damage.

they should make it regen instead

symbol of swiftness should be 8seconds on cast as per usual and 4 if you have swiftness already.

this change is just illogical. to move faster you have to stop.

JonPeters.5630:

Hello Guardians,
<snip>
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.
Another thing about this build is that you do not have all of the information you need about this power guardian right now, but I can’t reveal more without spoilers. /tease
</snip>
Thanks,

Jon

I am thrilled to hear about something new/different to look forward to, but I am still concerned with the shortsightedness of the Kindled Zeal Trait. The incoming change would have to be rather large to make it attractive enough for such a deep investment in Zeal. I just cannot see the investment being worthwhile given our current options and the opportunity cost of such an expensive trait.

However, you’ve neglected to comment on Zealous Blade. I would be curious to hear your thoughts on that. Also, do consider increasing the bonus damage modifier to 10% to maintain your logic above. If the cost of the damage is conveyed into the heal, consider increasing the coefficient to 4-5%, this amount of scaling should be enough for players to actually consider it instead of it just being an afterthought of the 5% damage. I would rather the increased damage be an afterthought, and the healing potential be the main consideration.

I look forward to the information regarding Shattered Aegis, though, as it may bring more builds into Zeal if it offers a potent enough spike.

Also, if you wanna go ahead and spoil the tease, feel free to PM me, I won’t give it away. Seriously, though, without all the information we can’t give a useful response without all the data. So as soon as you can share, please do.

JonPeters.5630:

Guardian:
Tanky and supportive guardians are in a strong position in many gametypes. We do feel that damage guardians are not as powerful as they could be. While we don’t want guardians to be as strong offensively as some of the other classes (given their powerful defensive abilities) we opened up more offensive guardian builds.

I think the misconception here is that all guardians have the same defensive capability and survival rate as a bunker guardian. Yet the bunker has to sacrifice pretty much everything in order to attain said status.

Buffing offensive guardians should either be a vast increase in damage or a moderate increase in survival.

Right now we are getting moderate increases in damage to the point where no one really notices…..

Personally I agree with the idea of keeping the guardian a defensive class so I’m not too keen on buffing damage straight up anyway and would like to see more defensive yet threatening. Not just a lump on a log that won’t die at a glance.

Oh yeah and those many game types that the supportive/tanky guardian seeing action in is pretty much just s/tpvp. Yet everyone still worries that we will lose that soon too.

Firstly, the SoS adjustment is just going to make people mad and its not really fair. It is going to be a huge issue for Guardian’s quality of life.

Zealot’s blade. What guardian speccing for damage is going to have healing power? Make it a lifesteal so it goes higher with power.

Kindled Zeal – garbage agrbage garbage – Symbols give a Chill effect – this would be our 2nd dot and a nice and necessary form of soft CC

Boon Duration? Neither DPS or AH builds have much boon duration. Why? Because our health is so kittening low. Only one build really uses boon duration. I hardly think its going to be an issue. I would love to spec boon duration but you die before the boons run out in WvW. No one is using it in pve and you don’t have access to some of the runes in Spvp to get lots. Clearly, you are not thinking the SoS nerf through clearly enough.

Jon you can thank me later

JonPeters.5630:

Power guardian vs Condition guardian
I think Dec 10th will see the emergence of the power guardian, but I think that the condition based guardian still has a ways to go. Ultimately this is because it is hard to cover the burning and frankly you need a good reliable second or even third condition that guardians simply do not have right now. I think for those professions lacking that 3rd damage condition we are looking at supplementing them via runes and sigils rather than skills/traits right now but that won’t be something we attempt until the build that follows the Dec 10th build.

Well you guys are helping me out every time you bring out an update. The other day you gave me 12k Maul crits on Ranger. Now, you’re boosting the condi damage on Guardian. I say awesome.

One thing I’ve noticed though is that Guardians do not necessarily use conditions in a condition build. They have 1 uncleansable skill that does damage based on malice, they can do damage to targets when they are hit due to retal and they constantly poke you with burning.
The only problem with the build I put together is the squishiness. This is where the improvements need to go. I have absolutely no problem with dealing damage in that build. I’ve seen people literally drop without me even looking at them.
I’ll keep tweaking the build to see if I can change it up and give it some sustain but right now it’s just drop condis, watch people drop but drop with them as well.

I asked him to clarify this.

Another thing about this build is that you do not have all of the information you need about this power guardian right now, but I can’t reveal more without spoilers. /tease

Imo the only thing, besides that condi builds are far away, that is really important. Hopefully he choses to at least comment on some sort of direction.

I am simply amazed at your determined will to ignore lessons from beta and just common sense.
Yes, this is another SoS “whine”. Standing still to run faster …

This balancing patch had me more excited for the game than the last 23334 living stories and almost got me to log in again. Almost.

JonPeters.5630:

Hello Guardians,

So I wanted to talk about the bigger discussion topics for the Dec changes for you as well.

Shattered Aegis
As soon as I get in on Monday, I’ll post the damage #s on this and the power scaling. I think a meaning ful discussion about this change is going to require that. One danger here is that big WvW zergs using this could be really powerful, but I will say that the numbers are decent.

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.

Another thing about this build is that you do not have all of the information you need about this power guardian right now, but I can’t reveal more without spoilers. /tease

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.

Power guardian vs Condition guardian
I think Dec 10th will see the emergence of the power guardian, but I think that the condition based guardian still has a ways to go. Ultimately this is because it is hard to cover the burning and frankly you need a good reliable second or even third condition that guardians simply do not have right now. I think for those professions lacking that 3rd damage condition we are looking at supplementing them via runes and sigils rather than skills/traits right now but that won’t be something we attempt until the build that follows the Dec 10th build.

I think that is everything for guardian and hopefully you enjoyed a few half spoiler/half teases.

Thanks,

Jon

Thanks for taking the the time to reply and answer some of our questions. I love the guardian class and what it stands for. And while I do like the idea of a more offensive guardian style of play I only really see that being useful some of the time. Our very low hp base and lack of significant ranged options doesn’t allow for much survival in some instances.

I think that if you were to consider some trait options which allowed us to get some more HP we might be more inclined to try this style of play more.

In my opinion the thing most guardians are looking for right now is some kind of soft crowd control, mainly either a chill or a cripple that isn’t part of a RNG. Also spirit weapons are weak in most instances in the game. I myself would be very happy to see some work put into them to make them usable again. Even if this would require a split between sPvP versions and the rest of the game.

I do look forwards to seeing the information on the power guardian.

Thanks again for replying

Brutaly.6257:

I asked him to clarify this.

Another thing about this build is that you do not have all of the information you need about this power guardian right now, but I can’t reveal more without spoilers. /tease

Imo the only thing, besides that condi builds are far away, that is really important. Hopefully he choses to at least comment on some sort of direction.

Well, he said that they would not give us large lumpsums of conversion stats because that is not “by the numbers” as they have some rules on buffing/nerfing traitlines based on tiers apparently.

He did mention that we were meant to utilize sigils and runes to see the full potential of some of these talked about builds.

So the /teaser may be a new sigil or rune that will work well with the guardian. Although as silentstorm did catch onto, this would be an accessible buff for any other profession as well, so it still may not be enough for guardians.

@CMF
I would like to think they thought of that before he made that post…
I hope….

well my point was that it would be interesting if there are changes in zeal that they havent spoken of yet. Or if the intend to buff the direct damage on bunker builds or is it a third alterantive? By the part i quoted its not clear how they want to achieve this powrguardian

A power guardian can made in very different fashions and its here i want a clarification. Im not interested in numbers etc, i want to know the overall approach to this power guardian.

Yeah, that is what I meant. I “think” the overall approach is via a gear mechanic and not a trait/class mechanic.

It may still yet be undistributed class changes specific to guardian, but I’m reading into his words a bit.

I’m already using a burning/power hybrid that is insipired by Foofad’s guide (100% burning duration, Supreme Justice, Permeating Wrath and Kindled Zeal). Supreme Justice buff is totally going to make it even better!

Well one thing I would suggest is this. We have too many traits that are throwaway traits. Like things we are forced into which limits freedom and fun in the profession. Totally a opinion but I would combine certain traits. They shouldn’t really be single anyway.

For example I’d combine; Absolute Resolution, Indomitable Courage, and Permeating Wrath. Make it into one trait Called Royal Virtues or something. No reason for them to be three different traits. And that free up two more trait slots for build flexibility.

This is just an example but if you look in every trait line. All 5 have throw aways we either don’t ever need never use. Or your basically saying oh my gosh. Why is this even separate from this? Maybe the proper thing to say is they need to be streamlined. It’s all over the place.

And leaves us little wiggle room. Even the new additions doesn’t fix that problem. What the new additions will actually do. Is just add a few more builds to be “locked” into. And we still be lacking power and unhappy about it. Unless they hiding a fat power buff.

JonPeters.5630:

Power guardian vs Condition guardian
I think Dec 10th will see the emergence of the power guardian, but I think that the condition based guardian still has a ways to go. Ultimately this is because it is hard to cover the burning and frankly you need a good reliable second or even third condition that guardians simply do not have right now. I think for those professions lacking that 3rd damage condition we are looking at supplementing them via runes and sigils rather than skills/traits right now but that won’t be something we attempt until the build that follows the Dec 10th build.

Went back and read the bottom line, and I revoke my thought about a new sigil/rune based off the last sentence here saying they are waiting to see what happens with the Dec 10th build.

In this paragraph I have to disagree that the lack of condition guardians is because of meaningful condition damage. Or at least I want to voice the flip side of that coin.

The lack of condition guardians is because of two things:

• Lack of ability to sustain in combat while speced for conditions.
• Lack of ability to apply heavy pressure/burst with burning as it is a “slow” condition to tick and stacks in duration not intensity.

If we are going for the slow burn but dangerous fire, we need to survive long durations. Current traits/gear does not readily support a condition bunker. Or at least we have not seen the emergence of one readily used in the guardian meta.

For an offensive burn guardian, we do not have a good way to heavy pressure a target, and that way would only be gained via bleeding or torment. Bleeding and torment stacking in intensity helps apply heavy fast damage to push life down and burning maintains the damage after the burst is gone to keep the life low after the burst.

Pressure + Burst = Kills

Right now we can apply decent pressure, but people can sustain and survive it.

Or we can flip around and burst with power based builds but people can recover from it.

Putting the pressure/burst together on appropriate cooldowns would allow players to time abilities and get those kills. A defender would be able to monitor the moves of the guardian and thwart the kill, and then combat resets for both players until someone makes a mistake.

The third side of the 2 dimensional coin is sustainability . If I have pressure and I have burst, do I have sustainability or should I?

With pressure+burst+sustainability you get overpowered. So the triad there should have a weakness to it.

Either we have:
Pressure + burst (glasscannon)
Burst + sustain (???)
Pressure + sustain (bunker)

As I’m winging it and typing. I really don’t know what role the burst+sustain setup would be. It could be a roamer/team fighter, but we are notorious for lack of travel speed. Maybe that would be best described as the dueling build or the balanced build.

Right now we have glasscannon, but I feel that could use a little more burst. and we have bunker, but without the pressure damage aspect, it is purely just sustain.

We don’t really have that mid ground build either. I think meditations comes closest at that, and it is decent but I think it needs a little more burst or sustain with it.

The devs are obviously afraid to give guardians damage as they view us to be tanky/hard to kill. Vocally and just by observing the changes they make, it has been a hard ride to justify guardian damage output.

CMF.5461:

Yeah, that is what I meant. I “think” the overall approach is via a gear mechanic and not a trait/class mechanic.

It may still yet be undistributed class changes specific to guardian, but I’m reading into his words a bit.

And how i read it it is by gear mechanics they will address the condi guardian. When i read what he wrote i dont see that the power guardian (hopefully he is talking about either zeal or more damage to bunkers) will be addressed by gear mechanics.

Infact what im reading is that nothing will be done this patch but it will be fixed in a pach later on, unclear when, after the 10th of December patch. English isnt my native language so i might be misreading the entire post.

Well I do burst+sustain already in my play style. What it does for me is allow me to roam and take on people. Even in bad odds and pull through. But here is the downfall of that. Although I’m strong enough to get the kills and live. People will survive now and then.

Which causes you a problem and leave little room for error. So it pressures you to play perfect or die. That maybe too much on a new gamer. But my worry eventhough I’d like it. Is how much pressure is too much pressure for someone who already Burst+Sustain then you add pressure?

John, the main problem guardians have at the moment is not lack of damage, it is the inability to build a proper offensive guardian that is not 100% all in burst that can also null conditions. Our condition removal skills either require too heavily trait for them – pure of voice+ shouts, signet mastery +signets , or have all or nothing approaches to them – contemplation of purity and virtue of resolve.
The problem with conditions is they hurt our ability to move around way too much, besides the damage.
I for wvw currently run 3 shouts with pure of voice and soldier runes, as it’s the only reliable way i find to be able to control condition removal actively to be able to bring the fight to my enemy.
If zeal offered a – symbols pulse for condition removal, or radiance offered a passive condition removal or transfer on critical damage.
or every time we blocked we remove a condition
all these stuff can replace renewed justice – or courageous return, which really have little use.
Also to consider torch 5 doing some self cleansing as well, will give it much more viability, maybe even if it did not give condi removal but the same buff you get from contemplation of purity, or condi immunity for skill duration just to the guardian.

and last point to think about, “retreat!”, please, lower base cooldown to 45 – 50 seconds, this as a shout, is way to long for it’s effect, with 20% lower cooldown for shouts and 30% more boon duration you still only get 26/36 second swiftness uptime for 45 seconds.
give us an alternative to staff, or using sword/JI on bunnies to have mobility.

Oren.1736:

John, the main problem guardians have at the moment is not lack of damage, it is the inability to build a proper offensive guardian that is not 100% all in burst that can also null conditions.

I agree with your whole post. Our problems don’ t show up on spreadsheets, but when you actually try to play a guardian.

I dunno, but I think that this change to symbol of swiftness will be bad. This change only will make what already is bad, worse (Guardian mobility). I disapprove this change.

I still wonder when Anet will give spiritweapon some love for wvw. They are totaly usless in both wvw and pve due to the aoe damage. Then there is some problems with the comands. And the fact it takes 1.5 sec to summon so it will take you 3 seconds just to get sword and hammer ready. And thats a longe time if you are in a fight. And you cant summon them before because then the timer for them being up will run out…

Anet’s vision of guardian is some what hard to understand, a few things I have gathered from what I read from Jon’s post’s in regards to guardian is:

1. The class isn’t suppose to be mobile, its suppose to be slow.
2. The class is a defensive class, its not suppose to do as much damage as the other classes.

Both in my opinion are at odds with being a melee oriented class. Especially the first. As a melee class if it can’t be mobile, how can it keep pressure on anything? Which is dps guardian’s primary problem.

The second is understandable to a degree but only a bunker guardian can fulfill the term being defensive. But then it runs into the problem of not being able to do damage at all. While a offensive guardian has no defensive characteristics of the class. It shows that theories on Anet’s papers aren’t exactly playing out in game.

If we are indeed suppose to be a melee class, who isn’t suppose to be mobile, who doesn’t suppose to do as much damage as the other classes then do not punish guardians for not being in melee range and for not being able to dish out as much damage as the other class.

Because for now both strengths of guardian are severe weaknesses. I personally feel guardian doesn’t need a damage boost, in the long run it will either be ineffective or possibly overpowered. The class doesn’t need that.

What it does need is a rewarding experience of being defensive and being stationary. The class initially had retaliation, which some what dealt with kiting problems and put purpose on being a stationary class. It was nerfed to the ground.

Offensive guardians just need better access to defensive capabilities. Likewise defensive guardian shouldn’t be so polarized to were their damage is completely insignificant (perhaps rebuff retaliation?). Spirit weapons could also help guardian’s ranged problems if they worked.

At any rate, something needs to be done. The class doesn’t need to become warrior 2.0. Yet, the class shouldn’t be severely punished for working as intended: being defensive and slow. Anet has said it themselves, they do not want to create a dedicated healer in gw2. Yet, guardian feels awfully close to that.

JonPeters.5630:

Hello Guardians,

So I wanted to talk about the bigger discussion topics for the Dec changes for you as well.

Shattered Aegis
As soon as I get in on Monday, I’ll post the damage #s on this and the power scaling. I think a meaning ful discussion about this change is going to require that. One danger here is that big WvW zergs using this could be really powerful, but I will say that the numbers are decent.

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.

Another thing about this build is that you do not have all of the information you need about this power guardian right now, but I can’t reveal more without spoilers. /tease

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.

Power guardian vs Condition guardian
I think Dec 10th will see the emergence of the power guardian, but I think that the condition based guardian still has a ways to go. Ultimately this is because it is hard to cover the burning and frankly you need a good reliable second or even third condition that guardians simply do not have right now. I think for those professions lacking that 3rd damage condition we are looking at supplementing them via runes and sigils rather than skills/traits right now but that won’t be something we attempt until the build that follows the Dec 10th build.

I think that is everything for guardian and hopefully you enjoyed a few half spoiler/half teases.

Thanks,

Jon

Can’t wait till Monday! =D

The biggest problem that I see with the Guardian, and with these changes, in PvE is that it doesn’t seem like they have a defined role. And yes, I do believe that it’s possible to have a defined roll without having the ‘Holy Trinity.’

The biggest problem that I see with them in WvW is that the changes to Shattered Aegis and Symbol of Swiftness aren’t buffs to the Guardian class, they’re buffs to the Zerg. It seems like you definitely want to give the Zerg reason to desire Guardians. I believe that a better idea would be to provide motivation for players to want to play Guardians in WvW. Buffing the Zerg isn’t going to accomplish that. Buffing the Guardian however, just might.

Tanky and supportive guardians are in a strong position in many gametypes.
While Guardians do well in both roles in all forms of PvE, they can’t do much of either of these things in WvW. I see two reasons for this.

1) They’re not as ‘tanky’ as Warriors, and they’re not as supportive as Elementalists. So if I want to do one of those in WvW why wouldn’t I just play one of those other classes? What does a Guardian do that would make me want to pick it over a Warrior or Elementalist?

2) Mobility is a real problem in WvW. Guardians don’t deal well with being immobilized and they have problems with speed. This makes it difficult to keep up with your target and with your teammates.

We do feel that damage guardians are not as powerful as they could be.
So do you want them to become melee warriors or thieves without stealth but with support abilities? Wouldn’t it be better to make Guardians either more ‘tanky’ or more supportive? Isn’t that why people play Guardians?

Zeal V – Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.
So you acknowledge that Guardians don’t do well with a condition spec and you’re addressing that by removing one of the ways in which we apply conditions?

Virtues VIII – Supreme Justice. Number of attacks going from 4 to 3.
And then you add it back with this change. I don’t understand why. Are you trying to make Guardians burn more often, but reduce their ability to apply burst damage?

Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)
This ability still won’t be worth taking because it isn’t competitive when compared to regeneration or simple healing.

Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.
That small increase to the one condition that we can reliably apply still leaves this in the useless category.

Radiance V – Searing Flames. Reduced cooldown from 20s to 10s.
Once again, the change to Zeal V makes this improvement less useful.

Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%
As others have said, when this first fires off it’s useless because the Guardian is at full health. It should be a Regen, an HoT, or perhaps with a delay of several seconds before the heal is applied.

Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%. AND Valor V – Retributive Armor. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
Nice buffs. Much appreciated. However, without the ability to keep my target in range of my weapon these abilities are useless. Which brings me to the final and, I believe, most important part of my post:

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 realize that you guys are trying to improve this skill, but this change only buffs the Zerg, it’s a nerf to the Guardian themselves. If I’m using it as part of the Zerg then great! It stacks and the Zerg gets more Swiftness longer. If I’m using it for myself I’m either trying to chase a fleeing target to get the kill or flee an incoming Zerg. In either event I certainly don’t want to sit around in my circle waiting for the buff to stack. Which means that for the Guardian you’ve nerfed this by 50%.

Everything is IMHO, of course. And I apologize if my post ‘sounded’ in any way sarcastic or insulting. That isn’t my intention. I’m not angry or ranting. I’m simply trying to calmly state my point.

Peregrine Falcon.5496:

The biggest problem that I see with the Guardian, and with these changes, in PvE is that it doesn’t seem like they have a defined role. And yes, I do believe that it’s possible to have a defined roll without having the ‘Holy Trinity.’

Well, what about having the same main role as every single other class? That’s simply dishing out as much damage as possible. The guardian tweak is then defensive support via tons of blinds, aegis and anti-projectile skills.

Peregrine Falcon.5496:

The biggest problem that I see with the Guardian, and with these changes, in PvE is that it doesn’t seem like they have a defined role. And yes, I do believe that it’s possible to have a defined roll without having the ‘Holy Trinity.’

The biggest problem that I see with them in WvW is that the changes to Shattered Aegis and Symbol of Swiftness aren’t buffs to the Guardian class, they’re buffs to the Zerg. It seems like you definitely want to give the Zerg reason to desire Guardians. I believe that a better idea would be to provide motivation for players to want to play Guardians in WvW. Buffing the Zerg isn’t going to accomplish that. Buffing the Guardian however, just might.

Tanky and supportive guardians are in a strong position in many gametypes.
While Guardians do well in both roles in all forms of PvE, they can’t do much of either of these things in WvW. I see two reasons for this.

Everything is IMHO, of course. And I apologize if my post ‘sounded’ in any way sarcastic or insulting. That isn’t my intention. I’m not angry or ranting. I’m simply trying to calmly state my point.

There is more then enough reasons for a Zerg to want to have Guardians. Well at least any zerg that is more then a mindless group of people wandering the map with no idea what is going on or where they are going except they are following that little blue tag.

Most groups in wvw already want guardians. My guild pretty much protects our boarderlands during the sea hours of our map, both with havoc and zerg play. The leader likes to get at least one guardian per group to provide buffs and soak damage from the opposing zergs. Anything that makes guardians stronger in WvW would be great. I don’t see the current changes helping out all that much with the problems we face there however.

I will wait until more information comes out. But right now all that seems to have happened is that my pve build got a buff and my wvw build didn’t. The Guardian is already a core part of WvW. It just needs to be stronger in certain things, and I think we would all be happy with it.

Aza.2105:

Anet’s vision of guardian is some what hard to understand, a few things I have gathered from what I read from Jon’s post’s in regards to guardian is:

1. The class isn’t suppose to be mobile, its suppose to be slow.
2. The class is a defensive class, its not suppose to do as much damage as the other classes.

Both in my opinion are at odds with being a melee oriented class. Especially the first. As a melee class if it can’t be mobile, how can it keep pressure on anything? Which is dps guardian’s primary problem.

The second is understandable to a degree but only a bunker guardian can fulfill the term being defensive. But then it runs into the problem of not being able to do damage at all. While a offensive guardian has no defensive characteristics of the class. It shows that theories on Anet’s papers aren’t exactly playing out in game.

If we are indeed suppose to be a melee class, who isn’t suppose to be mobile, who doesn’t suppose to do as much damage as the other classes then do not punish guardians for not being in melee range and for not being able to dish out as much damage as the other class.

Because for now both strengths of guardian are severe weaknesses. I personally feel guardian doesn’t need a damage boost, in the long run it will either be ineffective or possibly overpowered. The class doesn’t need that.

What it does need is a rewarding experience of being defensive and being stationary. The class initially had retaliation, which some what dealt with kiting problems and put purpose on being a stationary class. It was nerfed to the ground.

Offensive guardians just need better access to defensive capabilities. Likewise defensive guardian shouldn’t be so polarized to were their damage is completely insignificant (perhaps rebuff retaliation?). Spirit weapons could also help guardian’s ranged problems if they worked.

At any rate, something needs to be done. The class doesn’t need to become warrior 2.0. Yet, the class shouldn’t be severely punished for working as intended: being defensive and slow. Anet has said it themselves, they do not want to create a dedicated healer in gw2. Yet, guardian feels awfully close to that.

And this is a bit disapointing. They made the game and said that the classes would be able to fullfill many rolles. But in contrast to other clases Guardians are forced in to a supportive zerg class. We who picked the class and were thinking of going other routs promissed by Anet posible for all classes?

Makoto.9647:

And this is a bit disappointing. They made the game and said that the classes would be able to fulfill many roles. But in contrast to other classes Guardians are forced in to a supportive zerg class. We who picked the class and were thinking of going other routs promised by Anet possible for all classes?

This applies to every class in the game I believe. Most are forced to run a few builds because others just don’t work well.

Also, I wanted to add for Jon a brief summary of what I understand about Guardian’s design.

Guardian is a melee oriented class, who is slow and defensive. Not meant to be fast since their presence is strong in group settings like wvw. Their range attack options are inadequate yet they have nothing to consistently stay on top of targets while using melee skills. I just do not understand the design philosophy for the class. Why isn’t guardian a primarily ranged class with heavy armor? It would make more sense due to the fact that they are slow and stationary.

There was a stream several months ago, were one of the developers specifically stated that guardian is meant to teleport to their target and stay there. This is sort of true, when you teleport to a target in pve mobs stay there with you. However in pvp, when you teleport to a target they are unlikely to stay there with you.

I’m not trying to be sarcastic or anything. I just want to understand what the devs imagine for the class. Once again I state from my perspective a melee oriented class that can’t stay in melee range consistently makes no sense. A slow, defensive class with poor access to mobility who has inadequate ranged options doesn’t make much sense.

Out of all the classes, guardian is the only one who seems to have this issue.

Trying to adress Guardian issues through damage boosts doesn’t make any sense to me.
Guardian doesn’t lack damage, it actually hits pretty hard tbh.

The problem is that he can’t stick to their target by his own means, so he needs to be built around burst, trying to deal huge damage spikes aided by Judges Intervention and/or Immobilizes, all of them on fairly long CDs.
If you try to make the guardian more sustainable, you have to invest so many trait points for healing and condi removal (mainly because most of them are AoE, so situationally much more powerful than just self sustain tools) that you end with no damage at all (for sPvP, where you can’t mix and match stats and/or use foods to cover some weaknesses).

Zeal desperately needs sticking tools, like switness/cripple/chill sources. Without them, there’s no option for pressure in sPvP. It’s just either bunker/support or burst.

Update Summary

- +2% crit
- +5% sword Damage
- Swift Symbol Nerfed

Oren.1736:

all these stuff can replace renewed justice – or courageous return, which really have little use.

I was going to say something harsh here, but I’ll go out on a limb and assume you don’t play pve. That’s the only way I can logically see you actually thinking that renewed justice isn’t used. Maybe in pvp/wvw you don’t get kills in rapid succession, but that’s entirely different in pve. Its pretty easy to rack up decent stacks of might, vulnerability, and a series of blinds with the combination of inspired virtues, justice is blind, blind exposure, and renewed justice…especially on decent sized groups of trash mobs in pve. This has to be the best synergy of traits a guardian has. I agree with your other comments, but you really should take the pvp blinders off when saying things aren’t used.

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.

The reason i stop play a guardian is for you guys.

You need to stop nerfing and buffing only for sPVP, seriously, you need to stop.

Is annoying, frustrating and boring play a too slow class. You turn the guardian and stuck him in a punchball tower.

Roaming guardian is dead. Thanks to you for repeatedly ignore WvW and focus all your balance only for sPvP.

Try to make the symbol of swiftness change only for sPVP, leave it unchanged for PVE/WVW.

omg Jon, i really get more angry with this game every time i read you… is very frustrating.