Guild Wars 2

You seriously think that constant autoattacking require more skill than active play? brilliant argument.

I don`t think that ANet desicions are infallable, is all. I think they made a mistake. Now, if they can`t explain what they`ve done, or fix it, staying in the game would mean I`m into a lot of new “surprises” (as in, bad design and gamebreaking desicions) – and there is no reason to stay, or cope with changes, or wait for them to come to senses.

Too bad the game is not subscription-based.

I can’t tell if this is a serious topic or not. As far as I’m concerned Guardian is the most OP class in the game and I’m pretty hard pressed to find a reason NOT to just take 5 guardians into every dungeon.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I can’t tell if this is a serious topic or not. As far as I’m concerned Guardian is the most OP class in the game and I’m pretty hard pressed to find a reason NOT to just take 5 guardians into every dungeon.

Easiest dungeon run i’ve ever had was 5 guardian’s all in support/hybrid spec’s.

You`re going to be even harder pressed to find that many Guardians for dungeon runs. Or even one. Storages don`t do dungeons often…

Are you saying it’s going to be harder to find Guardians because the Guardians upset with this patch are hanging up their characters and rerolling?

That’s a good thing. Honestly, I’d rather not run a Dungeon with someone so prone to overreacting.

Dear eveningstar, you think is a good thing, well, i don’t think so.
If a player overreact, well it’s his problem, but if a “community” overreact, maybe there is real a problem, yeah there are always ppl like you that play the class and accept changes (even really bad and unnecessary changes like the last one), but this doesn’t mean that people always are overreacting.

Im still playing my guardian, it’s my main and a love him, i have a warrior 80 ad a mesmer, but they are not guardians, so i dont play them very often.
But after the patch i stopped to do dungeons, because it’s not funny like before, when im on GS now its only a long autoattack (leap of faith have no sinergy, and its not so usefull for DG run, and please dont tell me to change weapons, this really make me MAD) i do other things for now, like complete maps and complete jumping puzzle.

I still see plenty of guardians running around, myself included in that mix doing dungeons.

Ganzo.5079:

Dear eveningstar, you think is a good thing, well, i don’t think so.
If a player overreact, well it’s his problem, but if a “community” overreact, maybe there is real a problem, yeah there are always ppl like you that play the class and accept changes (even really bad and unnecessary changes like the last one), but this doesn’t mean that people always are overreacting.

Im still playing my guardian, it’s my main and a love him, i have a warrior 80 ad a mesmer, but they are not guardians, so i dont play them very often.
But after the patch i stopped to do dungeons, because it’s not funny like before, when im on GS now its only a long autoattack (leap of faith have no sinergy, and its not so usefull for DG run, and please dont tell me to change weapons, this really make me MAD) i do other things for now, like complete maps and complete jumping puzzle.

I’m fine with what you call the entire community overreacting. If you’re playing a class for only one weaponset then you’re playing the wrong class. You should be playing a class in which the play style appeals to you across multiple weapon sets. All this QQ’n about the greatsword change has only told me that there are too many guardians that would probably be much happier on other classes anyway. Maybe this will give them the chance to find that class.

So if they nerf the hammer(i dont use it cuz i think its boring, but its really OP) we go on dungens with bare hand right?

Ganzo.5079:

So if they nerf the hammer(i dont use it cuz i think its boring, but its really OP) we go on dungens with bare hand right?

If you think GS and Hammer are the only 2 viable weaponsets a Guardian has, you’re definitely in the “find a new class” group.

The problem is survivability in multiple groups or in long fights like bosses. Laying down retalitation was nice and made things relatively easy – maybe easier than it should have been I don’t know.

What I do know is that my Thief with dual daggers can stand up against more enemies than my Guardian with a GS.

Medium armor vs. Heavy shouldn’t lean so far in favor of my theif, that’s just dumb. The difference is that my thief can evade with dual weild and his bar. My guardian can’t do squat but stand there and get beat on. It’s truly a night and day PvE experience and its so absolutely boring and frustrating that yeah, my Guardian is getting parked on Ori nodes until they give us something better to work with.

@kousei
Well you are not the one who can make this choice for me, and say to other persons “this class its not for you, change” its quite arrogant, and i really hate this type of moods, instead of being constructive, this type of comments are destructive.

i dont think that hammer and GS are the only weap for guardian, i love swap weapons but you surely can say that Gs and hammer, are the only weapons oriented to a mix of damage and support.
Im one of the player that continue to use the GS(with mace\shield) istead of rolling an hammer guard like many of us, i like the staff, but only when in not in the middle of the fight.

Maybe my last comment was not so smart, but try to understand others before talk, maybe your playstyle its not so affected by the GS change, mine is changed i bit, its a bit boring like before, i do less damage, but im effective.

What I do know is that my Thief with dual daggers can stand up against more enemies than my Guardian with a GS.

What build are you running with your Guardian? What are your traits and weapon swaps, and what utilities? And which fights are you talking about in which your Thief can stand up to more enemies than your Guardian?

Guardians are a great defensive class, but that defense is not automatic. It takes a bit of tuning and a bit of optimization, and good situational awareness, to produce a highly survivable Guardian.

If you post your details and the fights in which you have trouble (because not all encounters are the same), we can probably help you out. Greatsword, by the way, is not the best choice for a survivability build. It’s an aggressive weapon focused on dealing damage to multiple nearby targets and triggering Combo Fields. Survivable Guardians should be looking at Hammer or Mace. Even Sword and Scepter are more defensive than Greatsword.

Retaliation doesn’t really contribute to your survivability. It just rewards you for brinksmanship.

Ganzo.5079:

@kousei
Well you are not the one who can make this choice for me, and say to other persons “this class its not for you, change” its quite arrogant, and i really hate this type of moods, instead of being constructive, this type of comments are destructive.

i dont think that hammer and GS are the only weap for guardian, i love swap weapons but you surely can say that Gs and hammer, are the only weapons oriented to a mix of damage and support.
Im one of the player that continue to use the GS(with mace\shield) istead of rolling an hammer guard like many of us, i like the staff, but only when in not in the middle of the fight.

Maybe my last comment was not so smart, but try to understand others before talk, maybe your playstyle its not so affected by the GS change, mine is changed i bit, its a bit boring like before, i do less damage, but im effective.

It’s not arrogant. It’s honest. If you honestly, sincerely believe your Guardian is not fun for you anymore, then don’t punish yourself by playing a profession you don’t enjoy. Play something else. Play what you do enjoy, and Dwayna bless you.

And speaking of constructive comments, there is absolutely nothing constructive about saying things like “Guardians are garbage now and should be tossed into storage,” or “If they nerf Hammer, we’ll be using our bare hands.” How is that constructive? How does that sort of feedback help anyone? It’s overreaction, hyperbole, and just plain false.

And no, Greatsword and Hammer are absolutely not the only weapons oriented toward a mix of damage and support. You’re forgetting about Sword and Mace, both of which are flexible enough to be built for both offense and support, or both.

Eveningstar.6940:

What I do know is that my Thief with dual daggers can stand up against more enemies than my Guardian with a GS.

What build are you running with your Guardian? What are your traits and weapon swaps, and what utilities? And which fights are you talking about in which your Thief can stand up to more enemies than your Guardian?

Guardians are a great defensive class, but that defense is not automatic. It takes a bit of tuning and a bit of optimization, and good situational awareness, to produce a highly survivable Guardian.

If you post your details and the fights in which you have trouble (because not all encounters are the same), we can probably help you out. Greatsword, by the way, is not the best choice for a survivability build. It’s an aggressive weapon focused on dealing damage to multiple nearby targets and triggering Combo Fields. Survivable Guardians should be looking at Hammer or Mace. Even Sword and Scepter are more defensive than Greatsword.

Retaliation doesn’t really contribute to your survivability. It just rewards you for brinksmanship.

You are right, Gs its not a support weapon, but with the right traits can be a good weapons for mid support builds.(this before the patch)

like in a boxe fight: parry, parry, parry, dodge, explode!

Eveningstar.6940:

What I do know is that my Thief with dual daggers can stand up against more enemies than my Guardian with a GS.

What build are you running with your Guardian? What are your traits and weapon swaps, and what utilities? And which fights are you talking about in which your Thief can stand up to more enemies than your Guardian?

Guardians are a great defensive class, but that defense is not automatic. It takes a bit of tuning and a bit of optimization, and good situational awareness, to produce a highly survivable Guardian.

If you post your details and the fights in which you have trouble (because not all encounters are the same), we can probably help you out. Greatsword, by the way, is not the best choice for a survivability build. It’s an aggressive weapon focused on dealing damage to multiple nearby targets and triggering Combo Fields. Survivable Guardians should be looking at Hammer or Mace. Even Sword and Scepter are more defensive than Greatsword.

Retaliation doesn’t really contribute to your survivability. It just rewards you for brinksmanship.

Right now I’m power/toughness spec’d using mostly sigs in my other slots, unless I drop one for retreat. But I’ve been level 80 guard since the first week of the game, so I’ve tried most every combo. Sure I could go mace/sheild and stand up longer… but why would I in PvE situations?

Suppose I’ve got an hour to play and want to gather top level resources. I take my guardian out to hit the spots.

1) He is slower than my thief … has retreat to hasten himself but that’s it. I can equip a sig on my thief and automatically run 25% faster, plus I can dodge once on him for 3-4 seconds of swiftness. Speed comes in VERY handy in Orr where you literally can’t even find a spot to park your toon to answer the dang phone because of all the Risen spawns.

2) Every so often, happens to everyone while out running to nodes, you get cornered or worse immobilzed and have to take on 2-5 Risen. Before the changes, I could GS those down (usually). I can position myself carefully enough on my theif to take them down right now using dual daggers — a MELEE WEAPON set, popping a bleed and evading. Rinse and repeat. My guardian has no such priviledge. Survivability might go up some with a shield – maybe enough to burn enough around me to survive the encounter, it just takes twice as long.

3) My skill bar on my Guardian is highly limited compared to my Thief. Sure I can stack up the slots with heals – ridiculously long recharge times which sucks if you are running nodes. Half my options are of this category. The other half are fairly useful for burning or removing conditions or summoning spirit weapons. But my thief can “warp” with his skills allowing him to escape being beaten on by multiple Risen. My theif can cripple a group of Risen – in some specs cripple them just with one evade. Allowing me to continue my node farming relatively easily. Not to unlike my Necro I might add.

My point is very simply that my Guardian in heavy armor dies more often than my thief in medium armor in a Greatsword vs. Dual Dagger comparison. My Guardian takes twice as long to hit the 12-15 nodes I want to hit on harvesting. I’m sorry, but I agree with the OP – it’s a kitteny excuse for a heavy armor profession.

Part of survivability is being able to take down things fast. Something the Guardian doesnt do well anymore.

Stamen.9240:

Eveningstar.6940:

What I do know is that my Thief with dual daggers can stand up against more enemies than my Guardian with a GS.

What build are you running with your Guardian? What are your traits and weapon swaps, and what utilities? And which fights are you talking about in which your Thief can stand up to more enemies than your Guardian?

Guardians are a great defensive class, but that defense is not automatic. It takes a bit of tuning and a bit of optimization, and good situational awareness, to produce a highly survivable Guardian.

If you post your details and the fights in which you have trouble (because not all encounters are the same), we can probably help you out. Greatsword, by the way, is not the best choice for a survivability build. It’s an aggressive weapon focused on dealing damage to multiple nearby targets and triggering Combo Fields. Survivable Guardians should be looking at Hammer or Mace. Even Sword and Scepter are more defensive than Greatsword.

Retaliation doesn’t really contribute to your survivability. It just rewards you for brinksmanship.

Right now I’m power/toughness spec’d using mostly sigs in my other slots, unless I drop one for retreat. But I’ve been level 80 guard since the first week of the game, so I’ve tried most every combo. Sure I could go mace/sheild and stand up longer… but why would I in PvE situations?

Suppose I’ve got an hour to play and want to gather top level resources. I take my guardian out to hit the spots.

1) He is slower than my thief … has retreat to hasten himself but that’s it. I can equip a sig on my thief and automatically run 25% faster, plus I can dodge once on him for 3-4 seconds of swiftness. Speed comes in VERY handy in Orr where you literally can’t even find a spot to park your toon to answer the dang phone because of all the Risen spawns.

2) Every so often, happens to everyone while out running to nodes, you get cornered or worse immobilzed and have to take on 2-5 Risen. Before the changes, I could GS those down (usually). I can position myself carefully enough on my theif to take them down right now using dual daggers — a MELEE WEAPON set, popping a bleed and evading. Rinse and repeat. My guardian has no such priviledge. Survivability might go up some with a shield – maybe enough to burn enough around me to survive the encounter, it just takes twice as long.

3) My skill bar on my Guardian is highly limited compared to my Thief. Sure I can stack up the slots with heals – ridiculously long recharge times which sucks if you are running nodes. Half my options are of this category. The other half are fairly useful for burning or removing conditions or summoning spirit weapons. But my thief can “warp” with his skills allowing him to escape being beaten on by multiple Risen. My theif can cripple a group of Risen – in some specs cripple them just with one evade. Allowing me to continue my node farming relatively easily. Not to unlike my Necro I might add.

My point is very simply that my Guardian in heavy armor dies more often than my thief in medium armor in a Greatsword vs. Dual Dagger comparison. My Guardian takes twice as long to hit the 12-15 nodes I want to hit on harvesting. I’m sorry, but I agree with the OP – it’s a kitteny excuse for a heavy armor profession.

Part of survivability is being able to take down things fast. Something the Guardian doesnt do well anymore.

How much hp do you have? Many guardians, myself included, have found if your below 15000 hp or so our survivability is severly lowered. I would go as far to say by 50%. For some reason that 5000 hp makes a world of difference. More than about anything else you can do to increase your survivability.

I only bring this up because i do have a thief and its survivability is no where near what my guard’s is. i can go threw stuff with my guardian that my thief wouldent even dream of. This includes takeing out some champion’s solo. Granted guard may not be as fast of a killer but it will walk threw stuff laughing as my thief has to way point out due to death.

I logged in to check, my health is 12,875 – I can’t imagine the extra 2K is going to be enough to bail me out, but I can certainly try it. I suppose the extra health comes from a different armor suffix?

ETA: My theif is standing right at 14K – which I find hilarious.

@Stamen,

Actually, if you want survivability, you’ll want Focus, not Shield. And Hammer is probably more survivable than Greatsword, especially with Altruistic Healing. Also, I don’t know what build you’re running. Power/Toughness isn’t a build, unless you mean you went Zeal/Valor, in which case, are you using Altruistic Healing or Monk’s Focus?

Furthermore, all-signets is probably a bad idea with Guardians if you want survivability, especially if you’re not Radiance.

But none of that matters at all. The problem is that you’re defining survivability as the ability to take down enemies quickly. If that’s what survivability means to you, then yeah, of course Guardians are going to be less survivable than a thief.

You’re building your Guardian like a thief or a warrior and expecting survivability. It won’t happen. If you want high damage and the ability to take down mobs quickly, you should consider a Burn build with Right-Hand Strength and Spirit Weapons. If you want survivability, you should look at Altruistic Healing and Monk’s Focus, plus Hammer, or Mace.

Guardians don’t survive like Thieves do. Greatsword is an aggressive weapon. You actually sacrifice Survivability to use it, and when you do use it, it’s probably best used when you have Combo Fields to activate.

Reading your post, the problem doesn’t seem to be that Guardians lack survivability. The problem seems to be that you’ve built your Guardian to farm like a Thief, and he’s getting killed and not living as long. That’s expected. Guardians don’t kill things as fast as Thieves do. Spirit Weapons + Burning, Monk’s Focus and Altruistic Hammer builds are probably your best bet for good damage and survivability.

Stamen.9240:

I logged in to check, my health is 12,875 – I can’t imagine the extra 2K is going to be enough to bail me out, but I can certainly try it. I suppose the extra health comes from a different armor suffix?

ETA: My theif is standing right at 14K – which I find hilarious.

Most of us feel the difference is from conditions. While normal damage doesent do much conditions eat threw our low hp base. For some reason that 15k mark seems to be like a switch was flipped. I know that at 13k i died a ton. At 15k that ammount was reduced by over 75% for myself. I currently set around 19-22k depending on WvW status. I can say that from 15k to what i set at has barely made any difference other than the fact i personally feel better seeing my hp at that amount.

Eveningstar.6940:

@Stamen,

Actually, if you want survivability, you’ll want Focus, not Shield. And Hammer is probably more survivable than Greatsword, especially with Altruistic Healing. Also, I don’t know what build you’re running. Power/Toughness isn’t a build, unless you mean you went Zeal/Valor, in which case, are you using Altruistic Healing or Monk’s Focus?

Furthermore, all-signets is probably a bad idea with Guardians if you want survivability, especially if you’re not Radiance.

But none of that matters at all. The problem is that you’re defining survivability as the ability to take down enemies quickly. If that’s what survivability means to you, then yeah, of course Guardians are going to be less survivable than a thief.

You’re building your Guardian like a thief or a warrior and expecting survivability. It won’t happen. If you want high damage and the ability to take down mobs quickly, you should consider a Burn build with Right-Hand Strength and Spirit Weapons. If you want survivability, you should look at Altruistic Healing and Monk’s Focus, plus Hammer, or Mace.

Guardians don’t survive like Thieves do. Greatsword is an aggressive weapon. You actually sacrifice Survivability to use it, and when you do use it, it’s probably best used when you have Combo Fields to activate.

Reading your post, the problem doesn’t seem to be that Guardians lack survivability. The problem seems to be that you’ve built your Guardian to farm like a Thief, and he’s getting killed and not living as long. That’s expected. Guardians don’t kill things as fast as Thieves do. Spirit Weapons + Burning, Monk’s Focus and Altruistic Hammer builds are probably your best bet for good damage and survivability.

I think whats happening is he dies to stuff on his guard that he kills on the thief. He might think its due to the thief killing faster. I could be wrong but without a gear, talent, and skill breakdown its hard to tell. We know hes rolling with less than 13k hp which will be part of the issue hes seeing. I know im in rare’s and i have 2776 attack, 2765 armor, and 18705 hp running a shout build and im normally the one killing the group that i see multiple people running from nearly dead while i finish my own group because they trained it onto me. Even in orr i have no issues taking on 7-10 mobs at once.

I’m kinda glad this update came out, i don’t have a problem with it really. Seems like it will separate the dedicated guardians from the less than dedicated guardians. The GS still kills stuff just fine for me. I’ve gotten used to the skill bar already too, I had already played through over 80 lvls with the old skill bar thanks to beta testing. I really think that if players can’t see guardians’ combat capabilities past the greatsword they were probably not playing the profession to it’s fullest potential anyway.

the point i’m trying to make is be positive and adapt because for all the kicking and screaming it’s not going back the the way it was before. Don’t get set with one playstyle or one weapon because what works today may not work after the next patch. This game is in it’s infancy, there will be lots of changes to come.

Eveningstar.6940:

But none of that matters at all. The problem is that you’re defining survivability as the ability to take down enemies quickly. If that’s what survivability means to you, then yeah, of course Guardians are going to be less survivable than a thief.

Actually, no I am saying that taking down things quickly is one way to obtain survivability. That was somewhat of an option prior to retaliation cooldown being increased. It’s no longer an option on the Guardian. Anything I want to do on my Guardian now takes longer than it does on my theif. I’m about halfway to 80 on my Necro and I can already tell it’s going to be the same deal. Melt it quick and move on is the motif for the other professions I’ve played. (My Warrior is 32 and I have quickly rising Mesmer).

Guardians don’t survive like Thieves do. Greatsword is an aggressive weapon. You actually sacrifice Survivability to use it, and when you do use it, it’s probably best used when you have Combo Fields to activate.

Sure the Guardian is different, but he didn’t used to be THAT different. He didn’t need a sack full of evades because the faster they hit, the faster they went down. Now he’s left to stand there and take it, which doesn’t work — unless of course I slow down my pace, which quite frankly — WHY SHOULD I? Why am I going to pick a class that gathers and moves through board at half the speed of the other professions? That’s what isn’t being answered here.

Greatsword used to be an aggressive weapon. I was foolish enough to waste skill pts making an exotic. Now it’s pretty much a death sentence in Orr mobs.

That’s why the OP is correct, at least for me. My toon is getting parked on nodes once I finish my 100% explore or until they decide to make a better paced skill set for the Guardian.

The problem with jesterchaos and other players like him is he’s the type of person to get emotionally attached to things easily. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it is questionable when you start to “break up” with a particular aspect in a video game.

jesterchaos got himself emotionally attached to his all mighty Guardian. In the back of everyone’s mind, we all like to feel overpowered. The problem with this guy is he can’t adapt to change. He feels the need to break up with his video game avatar and make another one. When the going gets tough, he quits.

What really needs to be understood here is game balance needs to take place. If not, everyone would play a Guardian.

Eveningstar.6940:

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.

Agree 100%.

The SoW nerf was more annoying than game changing and the shorter cool down on the leap is actually turning out to be more helpful (at least for me).

Kruunch.3714:

Eveningstar.6940:

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.

Agree 100%.

The SoW nerf was more annoying than game changing and the shorter cool down on the leap is actually turning out to be more helpful (at least for me).

Those who feel like the SoW nerf wasn’t a major impact either haven’t done the math or don’t play the Greatsword in heavily focused symbol builds. If you fall into either of those categories, the change may have been nothing more than annoyance, but keep in mind that there are many of us who are feeling the impact.

Even if you haven’t done the math and even if you don’t focus on a Symbol build, you should feel a lot less active while doing any PvE content. The 15 second recharge applied to the Leap in no way makes up for the lack of on demand damage and combo fields granted by the Symbol. If you want more active combat, you can find it on other weapon sets (not the Hammer, either, which is also a problem), or another profession. If stagnant and passive play is your style, then stick with the Greatsword; you won’t notice much of a difference.

Animus.6073:

Kruunch.3714:

Eveningstar.6940:

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.

Agree 100%.

The SoW nerf was more annoying than game changing and the shorter cool down on the leap is actually turning out to be more helpful (at least for me).

Those who feel like the SoW nerf wasn’t a major impact either haven’t done the math or don’t play the Greatsword in heavily focused symbol builds. If you fall into either of those categories, the change may have been nothing more than annoyance, but keep in mind that there are many of us who are feeling the impact.

Even if you haven’t done the math and even if you don’t focus on a Symbol build, you should feel a lot less active while doing any PvE content. The 15 second recharge applied to the Leap in no way makes up for the lack of on demand damage and combo fields granted by the Symbol. If you want more active combat, you can find it on other weapon sets (not the Hammer, either, which is also a problem), or another profession. If stagnant and passive play is your style, then stick with the Greatsword; you won’t notice much of a difference.

Obviously the changes are subjective. Some “feel” them harder than others. Yes, I find the increased CD on SoW annoying. No, I don’t find that it diminishes my effectiveness or play style overly. Yes, I play a GS Guardian the vast majority of the time (always have). No, I don’t agree with you.

That doesn’t mean I’m right and you’re wrong (or vice versa) … just our respective opinions.

P.S. – The active/passive play style spin makes no sense to me.

Kruunch.3714:

Animus.6073:

Kruunch.3714:

Eveningstar.6940:

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.

Agree 100%.

The SoW nerf was more annoying than game changing and the shorter cool down on the leap is actually turning out to be more helpful (at least for me).

Those who feel like the SoW nerf wasn’t a major impact either haven’t done the math or don’t play the Greatsword in heavily focused symbol builds. If you fall into either of those categories, the change may have been nothing more than annoyance, but keep in mind that there are many of us who are feeling the impact.

Even if you haven’t done the math and even if you don’t focus on a Symbol build, you should feel a lot less active while doing any PvE content. The 15 second recharge applied to the Leap in no way makes up for the lack of on demand damage and combo fields granted by the Symbol. If you want more active combat, you can find it on other weapon sets (not the Hammer, either, which is also a problem), or another profession. If stagnant and passive play is your style, then stick with the Greatsword; you won’t notice much of a difference.

Obviously the changes are subjective. Some “feel” them harder than others. Yes, I find the increased CD on SoW annoying. No, I don’t find that it diminishes my effectiveness or play style overly. Yes, I play a GS Guardian the vast majority of the time (always have). No, I don’t agree with you.

That doesn’t mean I’m right and you’re wrong (or vice versa) … just our respective opinions.

P.S. – The active/passive play style spin makes no sense to me.

Active meaning you are often using abilities as they come off of relatively short cooldowns, and passive meaning that you are only relying on auto attacking with the occasional insert of an on demand strike ability.

Disagreeing is fine, but I’m curious as to why. How can you claim that your effectiveness or play-style have not changed when a weapon you use frequently has one of its most frequently cast ability’s recharge time cut in half. Especially when that specific ability is our go to Combo field?

Sure, it is still playable, but to claim it is simply an annoyance rather than a drastic change requires some substantiation, I would think.

Are you unable to do something now with a GS build that you could do before as a result of the change (other than kill a mob a few seconds faster)? It’s an honest question, because if you answer “yes” then there’s our basis of disagreement. For me, I can do exactly what I did before in the exact same fashion. For me, the only change was that kill speed went down by a few seconds (literally). I can solo what I solo’d before. I can do what I did in a group before. So to that extent, the changes really aren’t much more than an annoyance.

As for the active vs. passive play style preference … for me, I don’t equate having another keystroke per 5 seconds (essentially the difference between the CD changes between SoW and LoF) as creating an active or passive effect in my total play style. GW2 in general promotes an active play style amongst all its classes, and I don’t find that these changes have changed that aspect of the Guardian for me (ymmv of course).

The biggest issue with my play style, is the rearrangement of the perma hot keys. Hence, annoying.

Kruunch.3714:

Are you unable to do something now with a GS build that you could do before as a result of the change (other than kill a mob a few seconds faster)? It’s an honest question, because if you answer “yes” then there’s our basis of disagreement. For me, I can do exactly what I did before in the exact same fashion. For me, the only change was that kill speed went down by a few seconds (literally). I can solo what I solo’d before. I can do what I did in a group before. So to that extent, the changes really aren’t much more than an annoyance.

As for the active vs. passive play style preference … for me, I don’t equate having another keystroke per 5 seconds (essentially the difference between the CD changes between SoW and LoF) as creating an active or passive effect in my total play style. GW2 in general promotes an active play style amongst all its classes, and I don’t find that these changes have changed that aspect of the Guardian for me (ymmv of course).

The biggest issue with my play style, is the rearrangement of the perma hot keys. Hence, annoying.

I can’t really argue with you in regards to active vs. passive play if that is your opinion, we simply see the issue in different lights. I equate auto-attacking while waiting for that additional key stroke to passive and almost stagnant; if you do not, I can’t change your mind with an argument.

As far as killing enemies goes, in solo normal enemy fights, you probably won’t see any difference at all, depending on your kill speed and your build. Most fights don’t last much longer than 6-7 seconds (obviously just an estimation) depending on how many enemies you have pulled or aggro’d. That being said, you really cannot measure the performance of a weapon on that scale. Take the Greatsword into a dungeon or a dynamic event and you will feel the difference in a pretty major way (assuming you aren’t just killing normal trash enemies).

So, in essence, short fights will not yield any difference. In PvP or any real PvE encounter on a scale any bigger than just world exploration will yield diminished Combo field usage and lower DPS, notably so.

Regarding active vs. passive …. I do not disagree with you about auto attacking being passive. And while the SoW change does elongate the time you will spend watching your auto attack, I didn’t find that it changes the scope of the play. That was my only point. It certainly didn’t make it more dynamic (although more leaps in a given time is kind of nice … so maybe not as bad as all that?).

Well, I’ve done dungeons and I’ve done dynamic events both before and since. I will agree that the change is most noticeable in dungeons but to my point, it hasn’t effected how I play in them. I still use the GS and I haven’t noticed a greater/lesser degree of success/failure. However I do notice a difference in performance here so I do agree with you on this point.

Dynamic Events I haven’t noticed that much of a difference at all … if it’s a tagging issue, I swap to Staff in between GS cycles. I still kill mounds of mobs fast.

PvP I’m still getting my feet wet with so I can’t speak to that although I’d be highly dubious that a short duration immobile ground effect CD change would drastically (or at all) change your mode of play. Conversely, how can you not be jumping for joy about a shorter cool down on one of your gap closers?!

I’m not trying to minimize how you feel about an issue effecting a class you (we?) love to play, nor do I agree with the scope of the change as explained to us by ANet. However I don’t believe it changes the class meaningfully (except maybe for Retaliation builds), if that makes any sense?