Guild Wars 2

Even before official launch the Guardian was nerfed now its been nerfed again. First it was healing power now its attack. Why?

Just seems odd that you decrease power output on the class when the only really damage it can do is with great sword or normal sword + shield. As a long time player of gw1 I have seen plenty of these “improvements” usually ended in people hating a class and avoiding it.

If this is your intention Anet well done keep up the good work. Game balancing is important and blah blah which is fine but if your gonna balance it balance a warrior too increase the recharge time on IT’S two handed skills. yeah we have weapon swapping and we are supposed to alternate between combos, but considerng the staff and sceptre skills are a waste of time that leaves sword and shield or mace and shield
and tbh the mace skills aint that great either.

And caste time on some of the "Elite " tome of wrath are pretty ridiculous one of them ha s a cast tiime of 45 seconds. To balance things how about reducing that a little.

Agreed overall, but mace skills shine in dungeon content with a defensive build focused on virtues. I quite like the Guardian mace, but i want to be able to slot more of my own options from a skill pool rather than presets. Just because ArenaNet wants their game to be easily learned and picked up for e-sports purposes, doesn’t mean they should neglect all depth they could offer a playerbase.

Guardians even after all the toning down are still among the top. It’s a shame you can’t see the Guardian past greatsword.

inb4 you flame, I play a Guardian extensively too, I only pull out Greatsword on fights needing more AoE pressure. Otherwise, I run with Hammer/Staff and regularly switch to other sets when situation calls for. The worst change was the re-arrangement, 2 for Symbol the 3 to combo was very intuitive. I know the change was to keep each skill in increasing CDs but frankly, the new arrangement will take some getting used to.

It seems that you’re one of the types of players tunneling damage completely and completely blind to the ridiculous amount of utility this class can bring.

My #1 alt is my guardian and playing with the hammer/staff setup I’d say they work out just fine. I don’t use the staff much except maybe some speed buffs or being support for those around me so I’m mostly just hammer. I’ve got a good tank, I can’t take down everything as fast as my main engineer but my survivability is far far higher. The extra two seconds I take to kill monsters I can deal with.

It’s unfortunate that sPvP balancing affects all the other parts of the game.

They are supposedly be balancing the PvP, but they have not still noticed they are killing the PvE experience. Thanks alot izzy.

Guardian is pretty good still. In other NC Soft games they used to always nerf into the ground 1 profession they deem imba. The ranger and the guardian are nerfed and now everybody will go for the warrior or thief, as it is a constant search for the most imba profession.

I love the guardian, I will always play it as my main, no matter how deep they stamp it in the ground.

Lumines.3916:

It’s a shame you can’t see the Guardian past greatsword.

There’s no guardian past greatsword, m8. You can’t even call it a nerf. It’s instant class destruction.

R.I.P. dear guardian. Was fun while it lasted.

prodigy.1023:

Lumines.3916:

It’s a shame you can’t see the Guardian past greatsword.

There’s no guardian past greatsword, m8. You can’t even call it a nerf. It’s instant class destruction.

R.I.P. dear guardian. Was fun while it lasted.

I use Sword/Torch + Staff on my Guardian. If you can’t handle a few nerfs/buffs you haven’t played many MMOs I assume. That or you’re used playing classes like lol"SkillBased"Thief

I play Guardian with Greatsword
I use 3 (leap) to get in, and 1 (basic attack) everything to death

All u have to do is leap and kill, leap and kill, stop worrying about the rest
This build got buffed so hard, 5seconds reduction on the leap just makes me so much stronger

Guardian got buffed YO, whatcha all talking, what nerf?

Guild Wars 1 had PvP-only skills. This concept of physically separating the PvP and PvE mechanics was the correct answer to the problem of PvP balance updates changing PvE builds. We have gone backward here.

That said…

There’s no guardian past greatsword, m8. You can’t even call it a nerf. It’s instant class destruction.
R.I.P. dear guardian. Was fun while it lasted.

You have absolutely got to be kidding me. Not only is GS still playable (now just good instead of super-duper-uberOMGAMAZING), but also, hammer, sword + focus, etc. Seriously. Everybody relax. I am hoping that was sarcasm above, it is THAT over the top.

If you want to play a great sword class, why the Guardian and not the Warrior? If you want the utility, use a Guardian. I love my Guard. Even with the recent changes, the utility it brings to group play is outstanding.

Sounds like some of you are trying to ’’DPS’’ with the Guardian. I don’t think your in the right class for that. Saying the ‘’only viable way to play a Guard is with the GS’‘, just isn’t correct.

No idea about sPvp, but in dungeons and wvw guardians are in the top 3

Geez ..talk about overreacting.

I play pve mostly so pvp doesn’t mean so much to me, but for damage I prefer sword and torch. Defensively I tend to go with mace and shield but not completely happy with that.

This seems like the perfect game to have separate pvp and pve rules for each class (in the name of balance of course), I wonder why they shy away from it? PvP ruining PvE and vice versa is a common problem for games like these. Most of the time its pvp ruining or breaking the PvE of a class.

@Pradton

Because in terms of longevity…….GW2 is a PvP game not a PVE game……their focus on balance, changes, etc will be on PvP. I don’t care for PvP yet I recognize that that is what the game is about.

I love my Guardian. Different weapons for different situations. What’s wrong with that?

jesterchaos.5907:

when the only really damage it can do is with great sword or normal sword + shield.

While I dislike the change to GS, you clearly don’t know anything about Guardians if you think shield is an offensive off-hand weapon.

To make Greatsword work now, you need to actually use a second weapon set that puts down a longish combo field. I use Mace to drop a symbol, then swap to GS and lay down WW and LoF. Then follow up with SoW and BB. If the mob is still up, I’ll swap back to Mace and do it all over again. You can do similar with Hammer, and Staff. Purging Flames is also a good skill to get a Combo Field to then Finish on with GS.

SausageStorm.4293:

If you can’t handle a few nerfs/buffs you haven’t played many MMOs I assume.

More like I played too many. That’s why I know where it’s going and that’s why I’ve already rerolled.

And don’t try to sell me some “adapt” blah-blah-blah. I can see when a class gets nerfed to the ground. And then there’s nothing to stay for, nothing to adapt to. This patch killed my mes and my guard. Well, it’s time to play engi and war.

jesterchaos.5907:

Even before official launch the Guardian was nerfed now its been nerfed again.

You’re destined to be disappointed with that outlook. It was Beta, nothing was finalized. Many classes took a hit. And even at launch, an MMO is a fluid system. I’ve played classes in other MMOs that changed radically throughout their lifetime. The game is barely out two months, Guild Wars lasted seven years and still going. Let’s give it some room to develop.

I seriously don’t understand why they don’t just make separate changes for PvE and PvP like they did in guild wars 1. If there is a problem with a skill in pvp, change it in pvp! don’t let that ruin the experience for PvE also

@All those wanting separate changes:
Do you really think they’d make 3 different skill sets? That’s what you would need. They aren’t just balancing for PvE and PvP. They’re balancing for PvE, PvP, and WvW. GW1 was also balanced differently between PvE and PvP because of the sheer number of skills they had to balance. GW2 should be easier for them to balance even keeping one set of skills for everything.

Lumines.3916:

Guardians even after all the toning down are still among the top. It’s a shame you can’t see the Guardian past greatsword.

inb4 you flame, I play a Guardian extensively too, I only pull out Greatsword on fights needing more AoE pressure. Otherwise, I run with Hammer/Staff and regularly switch to other sets when situation calls for. The worst change was the re-arrangement, 2 for Symbol the 3 to combo was very intuitive. I know the change was to keep each skill in increasing CDs but frankly, the new arrangement will take some getting used to.

It seems that you’re one of the types of players tunneling damage completely and completely blind to the ridiculous amount of utility this class can bring.

I completely agree (although I run different default weapon sets). In fact, I rarely use GS. It’s one of the worst weapons we get IMHO. I’d roll a Warrior or even a Ranger if I wanted to play GS extensively.

If you are so negativ over your class then reroll already. No point crying about it here!

Guardian should not be saying that they didnt need nerf, I just left my elementalist because they kept nerfing it and people take us as example when they get their class nerf, so I turn to the guardian class because warrior is was too face roll. I have hope for this class and I dont want to reroll for a 3th time.

prodigy.1023

And don’t try to sell me some “adapt” blah-blah-blah. I can see when a class gets nerfed to the ground. And then there’s nothing to stay for, nothing to adapt to.

You’re coming across as someone with an exceptionally illogical view of this particular change to the game mechanics. I don’t think that you actually CAN see when a class gets nerfed to the ground, because you’re saying that it’s happened here, and to say that it clearly hasn’t is perhaps the understatement of the year.

I say this with all the respect in the world, in case you care anything about how people are reading what you’re writing. I don’t want to fight with you because you’re clearly emotionally invested in this topic, but if you look around even a little bit you’ll find people that are showing you how to continue playing your guardian – even your GS – in ways that are both fun and effective. Maybe, you know, try that.

This topic is a perfect example of the knee jerk reactions that are oh so common in MMO communities.

Seperate skill balancing for pvp pve and maybe even wvw would be great.

Guardian is so nerfed but yet they remain extremely popular in tournaments, where some classes are almost nonexistent due to being actually useless.

Just seems odd that you decrease power output on the class when the only really damage it can do is with great sword or normal sword + shield.

The Oct 7th patch didn’t decrease the “power output” of the Guardian class by a significant amount. We had, in the long run, a modest nerf to a single ability on a single weapon coupled with a modest buff to a single ability on a single weapon. The buff to Leap of Faith is something no one is talking about, which is so weird. It significantly improves Greatsword/Sword+Focus synergy. Like, a lot.

Furthermore, Guardians can deal damage with the following weapons pretty significantly. Sword, Scepter, Focus, Torch, Greatsword, Hammer. Of these, Sword + Torch, Hammer and Greatsword deliver the most damage, while Scepter is potentially powerful at a closer range.

but considerng the staff and sceptre skills are a waste of time that leaves sword and shield or mace and shield
and tbh the mace skills aint that great either.

Staff is an excellent weapon, but it’s tailored more to support than damage, and shines with Trait support. Scepter, while dull, is effective at mid-range. And Mace is a solid weapon—just limited in its scope. It has a short cooldown Symbol, a heal on an auto-attack, and a strong block-counter that also protects nearby allies. Amazing? No. But definitely solid. You’ve also, conspicuously, left out Torch (awesome) and Focus (awesome)

And caste time on some of the "Elite " tome of wrath are pretty ridiculous one of them ha s a cast tiime of 45 seconds. To balance things how about reducing that a little.

Did you mean 4-5 seconds? Absolutely no spell in this game takes 45 seconds to cast.

There’s no guardian past greatsword, m8. You can’t even call it a nerf. It’s instant class destruction.
R.I.P. dear guardian. Was fun while it lasted.

I’m going to guess you were being sarcastic. In case you weren’t, I’m going to guess you were just blowing off steam. Because there isn’t even a fraction of truth to this statement.

And don’t try to sell me some “adapt” blah-blah-blah. I can see when a class gets nerfed to the ground. And then there’s nothing to stay for, nothing to adapt to. This patch killed my mes and my guard. Well, it’s time to play engi and war.

So what happens when Engineer and Warrior get nerfed too? What classes will you go to?

I really think you’re overreacting. The problem with your post is that it’s incredibly difficult to engage you and offer you some constructive advice when you say things like “There is nothing to stay for, nothing to adapt to.” Let’s look at what did happen:

1. Greatsword’s Symbol of Wrath went from a 10s Recharge to a 20s recharge
2. Leap of Faith went from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.

So overall, the patch changes the way you play Greatsword in the following ways:

• Symbol of Wrath contributes less overall damage in fights that last longer than 20 seconds provided your enemy stays within the radius of your Symbol for the entire 5s duration, and provided you use Symbol of Wrath precisely when it’s off cooldown. This is roughly equal to losing one auto-attack chain worth of damage in perfectly static fights every 20 seconds. In practice, roughly speaking, in a 30 second fight, this is the equivalent of losing one string of attacks, tops.

• Greatsword synergy with Zeal is now less obvious and less attractive. This is actually a pretty valid complaint. Zeal has two Greatsword traits—both of which are, admittedly, lackluster—but prior to the patch, Zeal worked pretty well with Greatsword. However, this problem is reflective of the issues inherent in the Zeal trait line, not Greatsword itself.

• Blind applications become significantly more reliable. Leap of Faith is now 15 seconds, or 12 with 20% Recharge reduction. Combine this with Flashing Blade (10s recharge), Ray of Judgement (25s recharge) and Virtue of Justice (30s—as low as 1-2 seconds with Renewed Justice), and you have the potential for constant and reliable mitigation in a way that was as easy before.

• Your only Leap Finisher in the entire profession gets 25% of its recharge shaved off. You have a much more reliable source of Leap Finisher, and Greatsword, overall, becomes less of a symbol weapon and more of a Combo Finisher weapon, allowing for significantly more group synergy with everyone else’s Combo Fields.

Conclusion

The Greatsword changes do not reduce your damage at all in shorter fights (i.e, less than, say, 12-15 seconds) and may actually improve it. In longer fights, you will see a modest damage loss from the increased cooldown of Symbol of Wrath, but only in situations where you’re dropping Symbol down every ten seconds, and the enemy is staying inside the radius of Symbol for the entire duration. Furthermore, your only Leap finisher gets a lot better, and Greatsword gets significantly better at Combo Finishers, and your Blind options and Sword/Focus synergy becomes significantly better.

So, a modest if situational, weapon-dependent nerf coupled with a modest, less situational but also weapon dependent buff.

Seems like an okay trade-off. A small overall nerf at worst, but hardly the game breaking, Guardian killing, klaxon activating nerf to the ground you’re painting it to be.

kousei.5914:

@All those wanting separate changes:
Do you really think they’d make 3 different skill sets? That’s what you would need. They aren’t just balancing for PvE and PvP. They’re balancing for PvE, PvP, and WvW. GW1 was also balanced differently between PvE and PvP because of the sheer number of skills they had to balance. GW2 should be easier for them to balance even keeping one set of skills for everything.

This makes absolutely no sense. So they successfully decoupled PvP and PvE skills in a game which has many, many more skills available, but it’s impractical for them to do the same in GW2? And the fact that there are now 3 different contexts for those skills instead of 2 means it’s easier to successfully balance all skills for all classes across all 3 rather than tune them separately?

There really is no reason why they couldn’t, or shouldn’t, separate PvE/PvP/WvW skills. As others have pointed out, it’s one of several steps backwards taken in this game compared with its predecessor.

@eveningstar

It’s not all about the damage nerf. It’s about the nerf to the GS’s ability to support in general. Before, you could have a symbol every 10 seconds (8 if traited) that you could lay down for different effects depending on how you traited. One example would be the trait that allows symbols to heal allies. Now, not only has our overall damage been nerfed, but the GS’s ability to even remotely offer any kind of support to allies around you has also been nerfed because of the 100% increase in the cool down. I will say yet again, Anet made a knee jerk reaction fix for retal, but broke a lot more stuff in the process. And they didn’t even fix the retal issue. Guardians can still have perma or near perma retal without SoW. So in essence, the nerf didn’t fix the retal issue (which is what Anet said it was suppose to be for), it merely nerfed overall GS damage AND support. Why can’t people like you see that?

It’s true that Greatsword’s function has changed. It’s no longer a reliable weapon for Symbol builds, which are now better suited to Staff, Hammer and Mace. The damage nerf is relatively insignificant, and only looks significant on paper. It’s a situational damage nerf, and not on its own a big deal.

Greatsword capacity for support through Finishers actually hasn’t changed. Previously, Greatsword was a very powerful all-around weapon that provided both strong Symbol support and three Combo Finishers. Now, the Symbol support is limited, at best, but the Combo Finisher support actually got better by a good margin.

Our one and only Leap Finisher got better. I’ll argue that we could use another one in Sword, but that’s not really relevant here. Our two Whirl Finishers remain strong sources of both damage and support.

So Greatsword is hardly a bad weapon for Support. It’s just a matter of how you go about achieving that support. Greatsword’s role has become more clearly defined. It lost one role—synergy with Symbol based builds—but it’s become solidified as a Combo Finisher weapon.

The point I’m trying to make in this thread, which I hope I’ve illustrated, is that these changes are seriously not worth throwing a fit over. Dismissing Guardians as a broken class, a useless class, one fit for storage, that’s been “nerfed to the ground”—the sort of rhetoric that’s being used in this thread—doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t help players looking for some sensible feedback on the changes, and it doesn’t help ANet on the off chance that they’re reading our feedback.

If you want to make a thread about how Greatsword lost its Symbolic support—an arguably central tool in the Guardian support toolbox—I’d gladly engage you on the topic. Heck, I’d probably even agree with you.

What I can’t agree with are these knee-jerk, over-the-top topics that spread misinformation about the degree and scope of the nerfs and create white noise over which valuable feedback gets drowned out.

Frankittenhe gs wasent borked with this change. So we cant combo as often. To be honest the gs combo was a bit OP. Instead they gave us the gap closer sooner. I would rather be able to gap close faster. As for total output. Its about the same. I was a gs user long before the change and still am long after. Frankly i see 0 difference once i got use to the symbol being at 4 instead of 2.

GS is still awesome. Guardian is sitll awesome. i main a hammer but will use GS when need to. was running a dungeon once and was frankly not doing so well. switched to GS just to try something different and instantly made a huge difference.

play extensively after these changes. you’ll find ways to adapt and make it even better. if it REALLY has severely affected your gameplay after you’ve tried to get used to it and improve, then we can take a look at what’s really at stake.

reading the changes in the recent patch did nothing to affect the way i view or play my Guardian. i don’t plan to sit back and take whatever the devs throw our way either, but i just don’t feel this patch really did change us all THAT much.

if you really don’t like the GS, then find another way to play. aagain, as mantioned, i play the hammer and it does AWESOME damage. the GS still does great damage i feel. you might have to tweak your playstyle a bit, but that’s part of an MMO i guess – change is the only thing ever constant.

Eveningstar.6940:

• Symbol of Wrath contributes less overall damage in fights that last longer than 20 seconds provided your enemy stays within the radius of your Symbol for the entire 5s duration, and provided you use Symbol of Wrath precisely when it’s off cooldown. This is roughly equal to losing one auto-attack chain worth of damage in perfectly static fights every 20 seconds. In practice, roughly speaking, in a 30 second fight, this is the equivalent of losing one string of attacks, tops.

While I don’t disagree with the rest of your post (unless we want to get into how badly designed the Zeal line has always been; it’s just worse now), your above assessment is plain wrong.

Symbol of Wrath was always the most useful (I daresay the only time it was useful) in mass PVE encounters. I keep mentioning ‘farming’ groups of enemies (usually for Fine Material drops) or dealing with Event zergs. If you have a lot of enemies in Symbol of Wrath, the Symbol damage and Retaliation damage potentiate to wiping out groups in short order.

Faster than the new 20s cooldown of Symbol of Wrath at any rate. The thing is, it’s not just fights over 20s length where the change comes into play. It’s fights over 10s in length. Which is probably most in a solo environment unless you’re just picking on Grubs.

Of course, at a point this is all anecdotal evidence. I haven’t gone out and gotten metrics on my solo killspeed, nor do I intend to. But I do run the ‘Minotaur farm’ in Frostgorge Sound now and then when I don’t have anything better to do (I can try and grief the bots while I’m at it too; I definitely do get my daily reporting in, precious little good that it does). I’m definitely noticing a slower killspeed since the SoW change. It’s an issue of seconds, but there’s an impact.

utildai.5319:

If you want to play a great sword class, why the Guardian and not the Warrior? If you want the utility, use a Guardian. I love my Guard. Even with the recent changes, the utility it brings to group play is outstanding.

Sounds like some of you are trying to ’’DPS’’ with the Guardian. I don’t think your in the right class for that. Saying the ‘’only viable way to play a Guard is with the GS’‘, just isn’t correct.

Fact is the original anet claim was we would be able to play alone not just part of a group and why cant guardian have damage as well as the mighty bulls charge 100 blades warrior. I play warrior as well doesnt mean i shoudnt be able to enjoy my guardian without having to buff up some random group who just happen to be where i am to gain participation rewards.

“GS is still awesome. Guardian is sitll awesome. i main a hammer” Uh-huh.

I don`t main a hammer because it is an extremely boring weapon to solo with. And when I solo with GS now I notice a drop in both my dps and my survivability. If you mained GS you`d noticed it too. I`m not talking about some “on paper” effects, it is quite real nerf that I experience first-hand. All that for the sake of nerfing retaliation builds that came out of it unscathed.

I am afraid that GS is not awesome any more. DPS is reduced and so is survivability. I don’t even have a weapon set I like any more. They all have significant weaknesses.

Guardian is fine, only weapon that needs a change is scepter. And if they made healing power affect more healskills better + make condition damage Viable it would be perfect..

@utildai.5319

There is no role in this game. You can play any class however you want to. Atleast that’s what we were hooked up for before the professions were destroyed.

There are roles in the game. They’re not very well defined and every profession should be able to perform in every role, but there are roles.

@Varyag

What class would that be because i see every class the same amount if you added up how often you see every class over the span of 100 games you would see a 5% different from most seen to least seen class.

I got a few videos i recorded after the patch i like the GS
http://www.twitch.tv/beezyyall/videos?kind=past_broadcasts#

It is just as good as it was be for if you focus on the change your going to instill in your head its bad when the bigger picture is a guardian is a lot for any profession to handle u may think man this nerf is KILLING me, But if you were to get in the mind of your enemy! fighting a “skilled” guardian is no picnic

the balance to GS was not the one thing that made you a bad guardian if you think you are not doing well on your guardian because of this “nerf” its prob because you were never good to start.

that is not a direct comment to anyone here, but more of a rule of thumb.

The people complaining are the people who don’t have any skill, don’t know how to adapt and constantly rely upon overpowered abilities in order to succeed.

They are the people who continually roll the FOTM and cry about every change in game.

It’s nothing new, it’s always been this way: Don’t feed the trolls.

Let them re-roll.
End of story.

The only trolls here are the ones who counter the fact that the SoW change majorly affected various legit Symbol-centric PVE builds by citing that GS was still valid in PVP. Which is no surprise to anyone but the densest kittens around cause static fields have no use in a fluid combat environment. Which is part of the big disconnect that is the root of much of the current unhappiness.

A change to one skill made the entire synergistic potential of the Zeal trait line null and void. Not that there was a lot there to begin with. This would be acceptable if the patch notes said that they wanted to weaken GS symbol builds. But the change was supposed to specifically address Retaliation. Which it didn’t do at all. Hence the aforementioned jarring disconnect.

You’d know these things if you actually read into the ongoing discussion instead of flaunting your ignorance.

The nerf doesn’t bother me very much, the greatsword still has the best utility of all the other weapons.

Leaping Strike and I think binding strike are the best skills I have ever used. Provides 2 ways to close into a single enemy, and another to force multiple enemies to close into you.

This alone makes GS a very viable tanking build. I am a PvE Player, I very rarely play in pvp.

In world PvE it turns into a tanky burning build rather than pure DPS if you build it as such.

What scares me is the hotkeys constantly changing in response to nerfs or buffs. As a casual player I just get frustrated and don’t want to relearn what I have been using for so long. I have so little time at night, and they ruined it the night they added this.

People tend to talk about the nerfs but leave out the buffs. Retaliation’s efficiency may have been lowered but we gained a quicker cooldown on our blinding strike which I think was an excellent buff.

Some people are forgetting that the blinding strike also acts as a distance creator or gap closer so being able to spam that more often is going to help us in PvP. And the blind is pretty hot too.

I don’t think guardians are bad like some people are making them out to be. I was able to kill two players at the same time in WvW. I even got attacked by three players at the same time and was able to last a long time while also taking them down to near health before they were able to kill me. Guardians rock!

Schakal.6091

If people can’t figure out how to triumph PvE w/o a 100% uptime of Retaliation and basically perma cleansing the group, then there are bigger issues at hand than a simple ~cooldown~ reduction of one ability out of all of our abilities.

This is clearly a L2P as a grp issue.

Those who can’t, re-roll.