Guild Wars 2

Guardian Manifesto
By J.R. Miller

Guardians specialize in protective and defensive magic. A deep sense of loyalty to their allies fuels their passion and power. They’re also skilled with a variety of weapon that they put to good use against their enemies. (Guardians wear heavy armor.)

The above is a description from ArenaNet of what a Guardian is as it is taken from the character select screen.
Warning – The thoughts placed here are my own and are an opinion of where the guardian class should be going in terms of utilities, weapon skills, and traits.

This manifesto is one player’s perspective on the guardian and where the profession should be heading. I did this for my passion on the profession of playing a Guardian for over two years now and as a student to become a game designer.
To begin, I want to explain what a guardian is and what, in my opinion, it should be. As of the last class update in September I feel the skills updated for the guardian are a misstep in what this profession is and what it can become. As a player that travels Tyria from Cursed Shore to Dry Top, I noticed a few more guardians using the elite spell books which is a good thing but I still see little in the use of spirit weapons and still feel the best viable utilities are shouts and meditations. As the description above states, the guardian class specializes in protective and defensive magic. While this most recent patch keeps to the letter of that portion of the description, it seemed to focus almost entirely on a sort of selfish defensive – focusing mainly on increased damage output. I will analyze the current weapon skills, utilities, and traits to see if we can come up with something that best resembles concept of this profession in a more promising way.
Grab a drink and some snacks this is going to be a long one with the updates I’d like to see in the next class update.

Utilities
Between weapon skills and utilities this is what makes each class unique and revolves around the idea of what makes up a profession. I will be going over the utilities that in my opinion need the most work to become more viable and fun to use in a guardian style of play.

Spirit weapons
Lets tackle one of the most unused utility skill sets for a guardian and see if I can suggest a change that will benefit players for a more enjoyable play style with this set. I will go over every spirit weapon to alter the working of each one to improve its capabilities without making that skill too over-powered.

Shield: The shield, in my opinion, is a great concept as it creates a visual representation of what a guardian is, a protective knight. Currently, the shield activates when the player takes damage. Instead, lets take command of the protective bubble and put it in the players hand to activate his defense. Once the bubbles time limit is up, the shield will move to the side of the guardian till activated once again. I think that giving the player individual control of the utility by removing the shield throw ability, having the aegis boon placed on the guardian and allies under the activated shield, and causing foes under the dome of protection to receive weakness would allow for a more enjoyable and useful game skill for the player.

Bow: As a spirit weapon, bow is probably the most unloved out of the four due to its slow delivery of cleanse to the guardian as well as the healing arrows that seem to do so little. So the question is: how can we make this attractive to use without going overboard? Frankly, I’d say lets start from scratch by removing both abilities of the bow and doing something new to make it feel a bit more fun to use. To start, lets have this weapon set up as a stationary object like an engineer’s turret. Then we remove the condition cleanse ability and make it do damage to the foe that the player is attacking instead. With that set in place, I’d like the bow to be a sniper-like weapon for the Guardian to use against stealth players by giving the bow a special arrow that it can shoot to knock foes out of stealth. This activation ability of the bow would destroy it giving the guardian and 5 players regin and frenzy. I think this weapon would then give the guardian some fun style of play in a few scenarios and from a design point of view makes it very unique.

Hammer: I don’t have too much to say regarding the hammer as it is a spirit weapon that needs little in the way of change. To start, the third swing on its auto attack should knock down instead of a knock back. The activation ability of this weapon would no longer be a blast finisher or a hit but instead a stability buff to the Guardian and 5 other players. These changes make the hammer more of a guardian style weapon with a knock down and buff making it more viable in a supportive style of play..
Sword:. For the most part the sword is solid utility as it stands and it just needs a combo attack to make it feel more viable to use. Something like the three hit combo like the hammer without a knock down or back to it, and keep the activation to give Vulnerability to foes and this skill would be great.

Signets
Still with me? I knew you would be. Let’s go over the Guardians’ signets and the capabilities they offer. In every profession, signets give a bonus that revolves around the strengths of said profession.The only signet I will not go over in this section is Signet of Resolve since it falls in the healing category and that will be later discussed.
Bane Signet: This is a nice signet and the passive ability needs no adjustmen. The active ability, I would design a bit differently; change the knockdown ability on the active part and replace it with a binding chain that launches out from the guardian to attach to a foe and pull them back to the guardian. ( Acting like Scorpion Wire.)

Signet of Judgment: I don’t really like this one at all. I’d change the name to Signet of Warding. The Signet of Warding would grant toughness to the Guardian as its passive ability and the active ability would change from retaliation to protection to better suit the idea of this newly named signet. The stun break would, however, stay with this signet.

Signet of Virtue: This signet would replace signet of wrath as well as the passive condition damage and would grant longer boon duration on virtue skills by 5%. The active ability would grant 15% of the damage taken as healing to the guardian and 3 other players.

Signet of Mercy: This signet’s passive ability would also stay as is since it works well with the guardians’ healing. I would, however, change its active ability by removing the resurrection ability to prevent death. Instead, by activating the signet the guardian grants himself a light-within that will protect the guardian for 10 seconds. If the guardian is struck with a hit that would drop him to down state the light-within would activate and grant health to the guardian up to 35%. Think of this signet like a guardian angel watching the guardian.

Healing skills
To begin with and in my opinion, out of all the healing skills for the guardian to chose, only two need to be reworked – Signet of Resolve and Healing Breeze. Shelter is a skill that works well with what a guardian skill should be and needs to no change or update.

Signet of Resolve: Currently, this signet removes a condition every ten seconds and heals for roughly 8.5K. It is a simple healing skill and with the low health pool of the guardian this will give the player 75% health back. On top of this, Guardians have a trait that removes a condition the same way every ten seconds. So, why would they need a healing ability to do the same? I think what is needed is to remove the condition idea from the signet and apply the trait Altruistic Healing. I’d make each boon heal for a base of 70. You now have something that affects the strength of the guardian. The heal itself of 9k would be dropped to 5k to balance it out.

Healing Breeze: I would rename Healing Breeze to Healing Aura and it would have the same effect as Healing Breeze but would be in effect all around the guardian instead of just in front of him. I like this idea a due to the fact that now you don’t have to aim the heal you simply can place yourself in the area to hit a max of 5 players. The distance needs a smidge increase to 200 from the 150 the Heal does now. Keeping the pulses and how it works as a breeze I think this will do justice for this skill.

Weapon skills
Only a few weapons made my list that need an update or all around change to give players more options to enjoy while playing the guardian. The two weapons that need this update are the Torch and shield. As the two least used weapons, it would be kind to update them to give them skills more viable to use for future guardians.

Torch: Who knew we had this item? I know I sure as hell never seem to use it.
Zealot’s Flame & Zealot’s Fire: With Zealot’s Flame we would increase the up time of the skill by 2 sec giving it a 5 sec up time. Zealot’s Fire is renamed Zealot’s Smite and it would give the player a ground target ability with a range of 1,200 that once active will launch a pillar of fire which will have a base damage plus burning.

Cleansing Flame: This skill would shoot three times, once activated the guardian would shoot a quick flame for x damage, for 1 sec, another flame for x damage, for 1 sec, and the last flame for x damage, for 2 sec. This idea to give the skill a 4 sec damage rotation gives the skill a bit more burst, also it would keep the condition removal for allies in the line of fire.

Shield: Out of the 3 professions that can use this off hand weapon it is the least exciting for guardians and in my opinion needs to be reworked as it should be the guardian’s best off hand weapon for defense (at least that’s how I think just based on the concept and image of a guardian). Lets see if we can make this worth something players would use instead of tossing aside.

Shield of Judgment: I would have this skill block and the player could move while blocking. You know, like with an actual shield. Now that’s out of the way, to make this a bit more fun each time the guardian blocks with the shield he and his allies gain protection for 5 sec. The block only lasts for 3 1/2 sec. These simple changes to the shield would create something a player can work with/ In addition, a few trait updates could make the shield something fun to play with.

Shield of Absorption: Why is the shield heal ability so much less than that the staff abilities? Why is the cooldown so much longer? For Shield of Absorption, a minor update is needed for the healing portion of the skill which activates during the block. The healing should be improved and baseline at 2k.

Mace: This is a weapon that I would like to see two skills updated to give the weapon more use. The True strike, Pure strike, and Faithful strike would increase the damage by 3% on each hit and the heal on the final strike healing base increased to 500.
Protector’s strike: I would enjoy seeing this either go one of two ways: have the damage from the swing do more or give it a knock back to those who strike the guardian while it’s up.

Traits
Traits are what give each character the heart of who they are and what they are great at. Each trait line will see updates to both minor and major traits, some more than others.

Zeal

Adept Traits:
IV-Revenge of the Fallen: This trait and Strength of the fallen should be combined.
VI-Spirit-Weapon Mastery: This trait and Improved Spirit-weapon duration should be combined.

Master Traits:
VIII- Zealous Blade: Great sword deals extra 5% damage with a 50% chance on hit to cast Regen on the guard and two others.
X-Expeditious Spirit: Combine this and Fire inside.

Grand Master Traits:
XI-Wrathful Spirits: Renamed Valiant Spirits – Spirit weapons health increased by 40% and the Guardian gains a bonus to vitality for each weapon the player controls.
XII- Kindled Zeal: Renamed Symbol of the Blessed- All symbols now stack might and fury.

Radiance

Adept Traits:

I- Healer’s Retribution: Gain retaliation and protection using a healing skill
III- Shimmering Defense: Increase the health threshhold to 35%
IV- Inner Fire: When a condition is applied to the Guardian they will gain regen and fury
Master Traits:
VII-Radiant Fire: Remove the recharge on torch skills of the trait, and keep the burning duration. The recharge will be traded for Zealot’s Flame on activation will now remove two conditions.

VIII- Zealot’s Phalanx- With fire inside now combined with Expeditious Spirit we now grant each use of a shield skill stability to the Guardian.
IX- Inscribed Strength: This skill with take over for Inscribed Removal and will no longer remove conditions on signet activation, instead will grant power for each unused signet you have equipped.

Grand Master Traits:
XIII- Blazing Brand: This trait will increase burning duration and if applied to a stealth foe they will now leave fire foot prints.

Valor

Adept Traits:
III- Zealot’s Charge: Guardians run faster while wielding a shield

Master Traits:
VIII- Glacial Heart: Critical hits with, mace,sword, or hammer now causes chill.

Grand Master Traits:
XI- Virtues Blessing: Gain Regen for each unused Virtue.
1 Virtue- 175
2 Virtue- 280
3 Virtue- 400

Honor

Master Traits:
X-Writ of the Merciful- Increase the healing by 5%

Grand Master Traits:
XII-Battle Presence- Purity of Body should be combined with this Trait

Minor Grand Master Trait: Elusive power is renamed Virtues Power: Deal more damage per unused Virtue. 1 virtue- 1% 2 virtue -2% 3 virtue- 3%

Virtues

Adept Traits:
V-Dread Smite: Burning from a Guardian now ticks twice as fast on foes.

Grand Master Traits:
Galvanize Virtues- This Trait now improves Virtues farther for stat bonus for the Guardian.
Virtue of Justice: attack power – 75
Virtue of Resolve: healing power – 75
Virtue of Courage: Toughness- 75

Closing statement
To all those who took the time reading the ideas that I have placed here, I tip my hat off to you, as this was an idea that I wanted to get out and hope – just maybe – something may come of this if not perhaps well see a variation of an idea here. I had fun coming up with new ideas for my main class as this may evolve later as I add other options for skills in place here and would enjoy reading skill updates from those who enjoy building concepts just like me. With all that said, I want to let everyone know this was my idea and my opinions, on top of that it is not here to shake an angry fist at Anet devs for this class. It is an idea list to let those devs know what I’d like to see as a player have the guardian class evolve into for later patches.

I’ll try to keep my responses short.

Spirit Weapons: Whatever change you propose doesn’t change a basic fact: Spirit Weapons tend to be clunky to use. Preferably, you want them active before a fight starts, but timing them can be obnoxious (especially in PvP). Removing their cast-time would help so they’re easier to activate at the start of a fight. I’ve also seen a suggestion of modifying the Spirit Bow so it can become a proper heal skill, which I think should be worth considering.

Signet of Resolve: With the low native healthpool, Guardians need all the condition cleansing they can get. Even with Pure of Voice, three Shouts and Purity conditions can still be a problem if the opponent can apply Poison and/or Bleeding fast enough. I think Resolve is probably the only Signet that doesn’t need changing.

Shield: I like that you’re not making suggestions that get rid of Shield of Absorption. That skill is what makes a Shield worth using.

Mace: Protector’s Strike already hits for enough that skilled opponents won’t attack while you’re using it. I’m not sure it needs improvement.

If I haven’t commented on a skill, it’s either because I didn’t have anything to say or because I liked your suggestion. I didn’t comment on the traits because I don’t want to get into trait balance discussions.

Bow of Truth is one of the better spirit weapons just because of its active. I wouldn’t want it reworked (especially not into some offensive thing), although it could definitely use a casting time buff along with the other spirit weapons. I wouldn’t want Healing Breeze reworked either, it’s my favourite skill in the game. Making it close-ranged really limits its ability to save people and it’d make it about as clunky as Cleansing Flame (which seriously needs a range buff imo).

Fashion Mage.3712:

Bow of Truth is one of the better spirit weapons just because of its active. I wouldn’t want it reworked (especially not into some offensive thing), although it could definitely use a casting time buff along with the other spirit weapons. I wouldn’t want Healing Breeze reworked either, it’s my favourite skill in the game. Making it close-ranged really limits its ability to save people and it’d make it about as clunky as Cleansing Flame (which seriously needs a range buff imo).

If you read Healing Breeze again the rework hits all around the guardian and the reach is farther out in all directions.

Oops, thought you implied otherwise. Nevermind then.

Alaryk.6310:

Signet of Resolve: Currently, this signet removes a condition every ten seconds and heals for roughly 8.5K. It is a simple healing skill and with the low health pool of the guardian this will give the player 75% health back. On top of this, Guardians have a trait that removes a condition the same way every ten seconds. So, why would they need a healing ability to do the same? I think what is needed is to remove the condition idea from the signet and apply the trait Altruistic Healing. I’d make each boon heal for 350 + healing power. You now have something that affects the strength of the guardian. The heal itself of 9k would be dropped to 5k to balance it out.

Using Empower on 5 targets with the passive signet effect you want would result in more than 20k heal. .-.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Alaryk.6310:

Signet of Resolve: Currently, this signet removes a condition every ten seconds and heals for roughly 8.5K. It is a simple healing skill and with the low health pool of the guardian this will give the player 75% health back. On top of this, Guardians have a trait that removes a condition the same way every ten seconds. So, why would they need a healing ability to do the same? I think what is needed is to remove the condition idea from the signet and apply the trait Altruistic Healing. I’d make each boon heal for 350 + healing power. You now have something that affects the strength of the guardian. The heal itself of 9k would be dropped to 5k to balance it out.

Using Empower on 5 targets with the passive signet effect you want would result in more than 20k heal. .-.

After re-reading the trait I re-did the numbers then played around with some math to see what would be a better fit for this and placed 70 as the base for boons apply by the guardian. Now the numbers should look like this as example empower might ( 70×12(might stacks)=840 × 6 = 5k health) That is just adding 1 point to the base that the trait does now.

I looked over the 350 healing and that was doing well over 20k which would be a little over board. Thank you for pointing that out I will edit that.

First off Paragraphs & spacing between them do wonders.

Second while you nailed why many of the skills/traits are not used many of your suggestions would be brokenly powerful, especially once you factor in how they could interact with each other and already existing traits.

I like that other people are trying to suggest changes to skills & utilities though.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

First off Paragraphs & spacing between them do wonders.

Second while you nailed why many of the skills/traits are not used many of your suggestions would be brokenly powerful, especially once you factor in how they could interact with each other and already existing traits.

I like that other people are trying to suggest changes to skills & utilities though.

Its all part of the plan, think of this as an open idea of what could be, and I do understand that some of my ideas would be very powerful so my question to you and all that read this what would you like to change? Out of all the ideas listed my one idea that I wish to see transpire is the shield changes.

I would like to explain my devotion to a shield change for the guardian and I will give an example as to why Shield of Judgment needs to be implemented as a block mechanic.

We put two guardians side by side one with a foci and the other with a shield. For the sake of argument the guardians Aegis is not active. Now lets place a giant in front of the guardians and well have him do a stomp, guardian with the foci will use Shield of Wrath to block the attack and be fine. Guardian with the shield will cast Shield of Judgment for protection and will still take damage.

My issue with this is that one guardian with a foci an object the size of your fist can block an attack, while the guardian with a shield that can protect the body will take damage, the idea blows one mind. This is why I plead for a block on that skill set so that one it to be used more as the front line weapon for all guardians, and two not to be a fancy paper weight that I keep in my bags.