Guild Wars 2

I’ve been feeling that Guardians only have a few weapon combos that feel active, and today I was looking at the CD times for all our skills and I think I know why it feels that way. It is that way.

Just comparing Guardian:Warrior same weapon skill CDs:

Greatsword — 75 : 53
22 seconds of additional CDs

Hammer — 85 : 74
11 seconds of additional CDs

Sword/Shield — 95 : 78
17 seconds of additional CDs

Mace/Shield — 93 : 80
13 seconds of additional CDs

Sword/Torch and Mace/Torch are the only weapon sets I feel are active as a Guardian. The rest are all rather boring, spending a lot of time auto-attacking. All of the Warriors 2H weapons have relatively low CDs, other than Hammer, which is why they feel so much more active.

So roll another profession if you feel this is not your style? A warrior perhaps, you seem to have some of the workings down already. On the other hand a elementalist is what you need if you want active gameplay, IMO.

Why is it any attempts to suggest areas of improvements to a profession are met with a portion of the community suggesting the poster try another profession? I’ve tried them all. They all have issues.

I see your point, what suggestions do you have to improve upon the down time? Have you thought about bending low CD utilities in between your high output moves to space out the CDs?

Looking at a main-hand sword between the two:

Guardian:

• First skill is just a quick five-hit series for the purpose of proccing Justice.
• Teleport/blind is a good opener, but is also great to use as a reaction to a mob powering up an attack.
• Sword #3 is handy for reacting to an influx of many, or a few powerful projectiles.

Warrior:

• First attack sequence is bleed, which is a nice, easy-to-distribute reminder that you are a threat.
• Second skill is a closer skill, but leap finishers also tend to provide some nice, short-lived buffs.
• Cripple is a control skill, plain and simple. If the mob cannot close to its desired target, it will turn to somebody else—preferably the warrior.

The reason that guardians have longer cooldowns is because they have more support-oriented skills. Support often comes in the form of reacting to the situation to redirect it to a more favorable course, but dictating the flow of battle (control) is what a warrior does.

If you can’t use your skills, you can’t play control.
If you can use support skills too often, you’re probably OP.

I see this as more of an apple-orange comparison than anything else.

At least one of the 4/5 skills on almost every weapon need to be retuned to allow for a lower CD. The general functions of the 4/5 skills are fine, but the durations or effects should be reduced so they can be used more frequently.

I don’t think Guardians were provided utilities to compensate for the overly long CDs on many of our skills. They seem to be in line with most other professions’ utilities’ CDs. While you can use utilities to increase player interaction, Guardians are still less interactive than most other professions. Possibly all — I haven’t reviewed the CDs for everybody.

Fildydarie.1496:

Looking at a main-hand sword between the two:
[… cut …]
I see this as more of an apple-orange comparison than anything else.

I probably should’ve just left Sword out of it. Main-hand Sword has virtually the same CDs for the two professions: 25s to 23s.

I don’t see how it’s an apple:orange comparison either — clearly A.Net was able to balance the support/CD pretty well for Sword. But they did not succeed for Shield, Greatsword, or Hammer.

I’m sure A.Net can provide support-themed skills that have lower CDs. That’s what I’d like to see. I could offer suggestions, but I don’t think A.Net needs my help in this regard. I’m sure they have lots of ideas — I’m just telling them that they should use ideas with lower CDs.

I would like to see our Virtues become more interactive. Perhaps give us some mechanic that is similar to a warrior’s adrenaline (some secondary energy bar so to speak) where it builds up more quickittenhan our current virtue cooldowns but where we are only allowed to use one virtue once it hits max. This will force us to pick which virtue we want to use with this energy source but also allow us to use it more frequently.

I feel like our current virtues have much too long of a cooldown unless you take a trait that refreshes them on kill. The passive effects on them make you really not want to use them b/c of the cooldown, whereas if I could reactivate these virtues based on an energy mechanic I would be much more likely to blow them.

Virtues are interactive. Take 15 in radiance and be amazed at how much button pressing you have to do to get the most out of it.

Guardians have long delays on their attack chains as a gift to them because their real value is looking out for enemy movements. While every other class has to dodge, guardians can specifically mitigate damage while still going on with their attack if they time their saves correctly. That’s why they don’t have big skill bar combos – no guardian skill should be spammed except for the autoattack because all your attention should be on anticipating and blocking enemy moves. Every skill after 1 has utility as an escape skill and should be reserved for opportune moments detected by your battle sense.

I agree that the cooldowns on some of our skills (especially shield skills) is a little hefty for what they offer and it really slow us down. We just kinda stand there and look pretty a lot of the time between cooldowns and it is pretty irritating. I love the class but I will be the first to admit it needs some work

Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree. I think the guardian is in a good place atm, but some of the CD’s are a bit on the high side. Even a minor decrease would be welcome.

Velkyn.9285:

Why is it any attempts to suggest areas of improvements to a profession are met with a portion of the community suggesting the poster try another profession? I’ve tried them all. They all have issues.

While I agree that some of the CD’s and execution times are long (though not unreasonable), I believe your approach to the assessment is overly simplistic.

When I read your original email, something strikes me: The weapon combos you feel actively engaged with use torch, an offensive offhand weapon. Much of the guardian weapon combos are support or defensive play so it seems to me that as a whole, you aren’t going to like the class.

My Guardian is L72. I like him plenty.

And yes, Torch is offensive, but I like it because I get to do stuff, not because it wrecks kitten (it does though!).

I really dislike Shield and Focus because the skills have such long CDs that you can’t afford to use them in anything but dire emergencies. Having a couple oh kitten! buttons is fine, but we already have 2 Virtues, Heal and 3 Utility Slots! Every Guardian has at least three oh kitten! buttons, and as many as eight (Mace, Shield/Focus, 2 Virtues, Heal, 3 Utilities).

I don’t mind that we have the ability to have so many oh kitten! buttons, but I want more options to have fewer. I want more weapons like the Torch, or the Warrior Greatsword.

I hope, and expect, that A.Net will address the situation. A.Net has already justified a host of nerfs to “overpowered” skills to encourage players to adopt a more interactive play style leveraging more abilities (e.g. the recent Ranger Shortbow nerf). I just hope we don’t get our #1s nerfed because we don’t use our oh kitten! buttons enough! The right solution is to get rid of some of the oh kitten! buttons and replace them with skills that are less situational and/or usable more frequently.

sometimes i think i am the only guardian who plays mace/focus… cant see understand why anyone would want to play something diffren in pve. cooldowns are not that bad on focus.

i do think that the OP has a nice find on its hand.

i use mace focus for solo play and i think its awesome!
But for group play i prefer mace shield.

I do not agree with you, OP. I find Guardian combat to be highly interactive. First let me preface this by saying that the content you are playing with will make the most difference. Fighting standard mobs in the open world will never require much thought or interaction when they can be easily killed, even in large numbers. The true excitement and ‘interactivity’ comes from Champion fights, dungeon encounters and the like.

Basing your argument on skill cooldown doesn’t make sense. If all our skills were spammable, would that make things more interactive? The fact we have cooldowns imposes limitations, and limitations are what generate content. We have to find ways to work around our limitations. The best example is our lack of ranged combat – that means when we go toe-to-toe with a big baddie we have to be tip-top shape. We get plenty of retaliation, protection, block and vigor to keep us alive, and then some of the best healing if we or a teammate messes up. Do not fall into the trap of thinking your skill bar is everything – it isn’t. You’re missing the bigger picture.

You need to think about when you use your new 20s Symbol of Wrath. You need to judge whether you should be using your GS or a hammer for a given encounter. You need to judge what utility skill best serves you and your group, and how it interlocks with their choices. You have such an incredible amount of freedom for each fight, it’s daunting – hence why many stick to one weapon/build.

I suggest going into your next big fight thinking – “How can I improve my game?”. Start boon juggling, start using your endurance bar as a resource to be spent, start playing with your control abilities to mitigate damage and manage the flow of battle. Guardians are all about being at the centre of combat: we command the fight, we’re the leaders, we’re the ones brave enough, with the right tools, to stand up to the toughest enemy and bring it to them.

Velkyn.9285:

Why is it any attempts to suggest areas of improvements to a profession are met with a portion of the community suggesting the poster try another profession? I’ve tried them all. They all have issues.

Main issue with this is your looking at the cd and not what the skill’s actually do. Guardian skill’s tend to be fairly powerful compared to other classes from my own experience and as such do deserve a longer timer.

Many of us, look the cd and the skill effect, and proposed to NERF the skill and have back the old GS cooldowns.

And for people that say: “think when to use sow, instead of spam it”
i can say that i prefer to think when activate a finisher with the leap, instead of thinking when to use a skill that many many people have traited. (and me like others have not traited simbols for SOW retaliation, i hate retaliation, its i boon that for me can deleted now from the game!)

Ganzo.5079:

Many of us, look the cd and the skill effect, and proposed to NERF the skill and have back the old GS cooldowns.

And for people that say: “think when to use sow, instead of spam it”
i can say that i prefer to think when activate a finisher with the leap, instead of thinking when to use a skill that many many people have traited. (and me like others have not traited simbols for SOW retaliation, i hate retaliation, its i boon that for me can deleted now from the game!)

Stop trying to turn this thread into a GS whine thread. This thread is not about that. Its about the cooldowns in general across all our weapons. Troll somewhere else please.

SiNoS.2147:

Main issue with this is your looking at the cd and not what the skill’s actually do. Guardian skill’s tend to be fairly powerful compared to other classes from my own experience and as such do deserve a longer timer.

The skill effects on the weapons I highlighted are not more interactive than the Warrior’s skills with the same weapons. I’m not asking A.Net to uniformly reduce our CDs while leaving the skill effects unchanged. I fully expect any reduction in CD to come part and parcel with a reduction in the skill’s effect. What I want is the ability to use skills more frequently — that is what (in my mind) makes the play feel interactive.

I personally think the skill effects are also lackluster in addition to being not interactive, but that’s not what this thread is about. The thread is strictly about how we stand around spamming #1 a lot, because many of our skills are oh kitten! abilities that have to be conserved and used at just the right time or be wasted.

Instead of that play style, I’d like to see abilities that can be used more frequently with less thought given to “I can’t use this ability again this fight, so is this the right time?” For example the Focus #5 — it’s on a 45s cooldown. You cannot even use it once a fight most times. And it’s rare that you really needed to block three consecutive hits. I’d rather it be more like a reactive “block” of one attack that we can use two or three times as often. I quoted Block because I’m thinking something like a “Heal” mechanic — you get hit for a boatload, and smack #5 in X seconds to heal (or reverse) the damage.

Fildydarie.1496:

The reason that guardians have longer cooldowns is because they have more support-oriented skills. Support often comes in the form of reacting to the situation to redirect it to a more favorable course, but dictating the flow of battle (control) is what a warrior does.

If you can’t use your skills, you can’t play control.
If you can use support skills too often, you’re probably OP.

I see this as more of an apple-orange comparison than anything else.

This. You don’t have to read any more or post any more. This guy (or gal) gets the guardian as a class.

kousei.5914:

Fildydarie.1496:

The reason that guardians have longer cooldowns is because they have more support-oriented skills. Support often comes in the form of reacting to the situation to redirect it to a more favorable course, but dictating the flow of battle (control) is what a warrior does.

If you can’t use your skills, you can’t play control.
If you can use support skills too often, you’re probably OP.

I see this as more of an apple-orange comparison than anything else.

This. You don’t have to read any more or post any more. This guy (or gal) gets the guardian as a class.

Guardians have lots of Control abilities. Staff #5, Focus #5, Shield #5, Hammer #5, and our Symbols just to list a few off the top of my head. These abilities all direct our opponent to do things — these are not REACTIONS to the opponent, they are PROACTIVE abilities that cause the opponent to do certain things. I’d have to review all the abilities between Warrior and Guardian, but a cursory glance would suggest to me the opposite — Guardians are CONTROLLERS, and Warriors are SUPPORTERS/ENABLERS. I think this poster doesn’t really understand what is Support, and what is Control.

You can be a controller or supporter with both long CD/strong effect skills, and low CD/weak effect skills. A great profession would have a healthy mix of both. Guardians have too many of the former, and not enough of the latter.

Cooldown and Effect Power are components of the Skill formula that are involved in balancing skills. A.Net certainly can, and must, adjust these so Guardians become more interactive.

The OP has a valid point, to a degree. The problem with this is that it’s subjective material that is hard to define and quantify. I was going to type a text wall to attempt to demonstrate all the issues and variables involved but honestly it’s just too big and most of you guys are smart enough to imagine it anyway.

Do our support skills really balance out against our slower skill speeds, lower damage output and diminished hit point pools? I don’t know, I hope the devs do. I doubt they will give us a breakdown of it.

Bottom line is that I like my guardian because I can “feel” useful (to me) even if I’m not which equates to fun (for me). I feel like I do more than swing a weapon or just cast spells which is how every other profession except engineer (oddly enough) feels to me.

Velkyn.9285:

I’d rather it be more like a reactive “block” of one attack that we can use two or three times as often. I quoted Block because I’m thinking something like a “Heal” mechanic — you get hit for a boatload, and smack #5 in X seconds to heal (or reverse) the damage.

So basically something like aegis on a shorter cast time or are you actually wanting a skill that heals us after we take damage? Reason i ask is because 9/10 times if im hit by something that requires those type skill’s im downed and there is no hitting that skill. While i do like the idea of reactive instead of proactive in this game it just doesent fit as anything worth reacting to isent something you normally can react to. even dodging is proactive to a degree just a very short one. Unless your getting smashed everything you go to dodge in which case your kinda missing the skill :P.

Velkyn.9285:

Guardians have lots of Control abilities. Staff #5, Focus #5, Shield #5, Hammer #5, and our Symbols just to list a few off the top of my head. These abilities all direct our opponent to do things — these are not REACTIONS to the opponent, they are PROACTIVE abilities that cause the opponent to do certain things. I’d have to review all the abilities between Warrior and Guardian, but a cursory glance would suggest to me the opposite — Guardians are CONTROLLERS, and Warriors are SUPPORTERS/ENABLERS. I think this poster doesn’t really understand what is Support, and what is Control.

You can be a controller or supporter with both long CD/strong effect skills, and low CD/weak effect skills. A great profession would have a healthy mix of both. Guardians have too many of the former, and not enough of the latter.

Cooldown and Effect Power are components of the Skill formula that are involved in balancing skills. A.Net certainly can, and must, adjust these so Guardians become more interactive.

Every skill you listed can’t be used proactively. They’re too crucial, have too high CD, and don’t last long enough to be used proactively. The entirety of the guardian is based around knowing how to react to situations with the correct CDs. Being able to predict when something is going to happen because you figured the game out doesn’t make the skill use proactive either. It just means you’re prepared to react faster when the game throws something at you. Warrior banners are a proactive skill.

Guardians are support characters so the get a little control but Warriors have much better control capabilities. They have a lot more ways to immobilize, cripple, knock down, daze, stun, etc. foes. Look at a Hammer and Mace/Shield combination for the Warrior for example. Guardians get next to nothing compared to the CC that Warriors get.

Control is the act of directing your opponents’ strength.
Support is the act of increasing your allies’ strength, or mitigating your opponent’s strength.

Strength come in many shapes and sizes.

Giving boons is support, as it enhances the offensive and/or defensive strength of your allies (depends on which boon). Curing conditions removes the strength reduction a foe has placed on you. Blind prevents the negative consequences of an attack without forcing a foe’s hand. And so on.

Guardian Staff #5 is a control skill as it restricts the motion of a group of enemies. I won’t argue that. But we’re not looking at individual skills, we’re looking at the whole gamut and archetype. Staff #2 is a heal (support), #3 gives swiftness (support) and #4 gives might (support). The staff has control functions, but it is a support weapon at its core.

Hammer #5 is a control skill, and so is #3. #4 toes the line depending on how you want to evaluate interrupts. But, yes. The hammer is the control weapon of choice for the guardian. This is why the trinity is dead—you can play control as a guardian, but it is not our primary function.

Focus #5 is self-support; a block is not control, it is support. Focus #4 is support as well.

Shield #5 as a kncokback toes the line—you can use it to limit a foe’s options or to preserve your own. As a projectile absorber, hwoever, it is clearly support. As a heal, it is still even more support. Shield #4 is group protection—support.

Lets look at the rest of the guardian skills:

Torch #5 is support.

Scepter #3 is a control skill, but 1 and 2 are just damage. You will be partnering it with a support off-hand.

Mace #1, #2, and #3 are all support skills.

Sword #2 is a support skill, as is #3.

Greatsword #1, #3, and #4 are all pretty clear-cut support abilities. #5 you could label as control, but it is more about positioning the foes favorably once, which is more in-line with support than control (control is concerned with keeping them there, not placing them there). #2 is a damage skill, but whirl finishers in different fields can produce effects across the entire spectrum—most in the support category.

Guardians are a support class before all else. They can do damage, and they can do control, but it is not their strength. The true strength of a gurdian is how it helps to bring out the strength in a group—soemthing warriors are not nearly as good at.

With the exception of warhorn, every warrior weapon has at least one cripple, immobilize, stun, daze, or knockdown.

I don’t agree with your assessment of each skill, but it’s not germaine to the discussion. Regardless of the ability type (Damage, Support, Control), cooldown is simply a facet of the balance equation. All three types are equally valid with both high and low cooldowns.

I fail to see the justification for Guardian skills to have exhorbitantly higher CDs than Warrior skills simply because they are “Support” skills. Especially considering the Guardian’s highest CD skills aren’t “Support” skills — most of them are Control skills. There is no reason those skills’ effects could not be toned down or altered to allow for lower CDs. And in doing so, the Guardian becomes more interactive.

In terms of my thoughts for Shield #5 — I orginally thought about it just granting Aegis, but then I thought the idea of damage reversal to be a more interesting mechanic since Guardians already have an ability to grant themselves Aegis on command. Albeit they can only use that once every 90s without spending heavily into Virtues.

kousei.5914:

Every skill you listed can’t be used proactively. They’re too crucial, have too high CD, and don’t last long enough to be used proactively.

Well, I think you’re looking at this with a PvE mindset. In PvE, many of the skills I listed are used reactively to mobs’ telegraphed attacks. And many skills that are Controlling in PvP are simply oh kitten! buttons in PvE. The mob doesn’t care that you triggered Shield of Absorption, or Shield of Wrath, or even Wall of Reflection. It just keeps attacking you, and those abilities lose much of their Control aspects. But a human player’s response to those abilities is often very different — they change what they’re going to do, hence those abilities are Control.

That aside, you’ve kind of proved my point I think. You don’t use those abilities proactively because the cooldowns are too high. You save them until you know they will be of extreme use. I bet you spend a lot of time with those abilities off cooldown because you can’t risk having them on cooldown when you really want them. I know I do. The cooldowns are so huge as to discourage using those abilities. I think that’s a symptom of bad design.

Velkyn.9285:

…
I don’t see how it’s an apple:orange comparison either
…

Of course you are comparing apples and oranges. Guardians have completely different skillset than warriors. Their weapons have way more support/control effects on them to have as low cooldowns as warriors.
Or what, do you expect 3s immob on hammer to be 5s cd so you can feel “active combat”? The knockback to be on 10s, or the area denial on 15s? Did you actually look at the skills?

It seems like you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Velkyn.9285:

Well, I think you’re looking at this with a PvE mindset. In PvE, many of the skills I listed are used reactively to mobs’ telegraphed attacks. And many skills that are Controlling in PvP are simply oh kitten! buttons in PvE. The mob doesn’t care that you triggered Shield of Absorption, or Shield of Wrath, or even Wall of Reflection. It just keeps attacking you, and those abilities lose much of their Control aspects. But a human player’s response to those abilities is often very different — they change what they’re going to do, hence those abilities are Control.

That aside, you’ve kind of proved my point I think. You don’t use those abilities proactively because the cooldowns are too high. You save them until you know they will be of extreme use. I bet you spend a lot of time with those abilities off cooldown because you can’t risk having them on cooldown when you really want them. I know I do. The cooldowns are so huge as to discourage using those abilities. I think that’s a symptom of bad design.

You’re seriously confused on what Control is and what Support is. Shield of Absorption, Shield of Wrath, and Wall of Reflection are all support skills not control skill… And they lose none of those support capabilities in sPvP or WvW if you know what you’re doing.

I actually play sPvP and WvW more than PvE. The cool downs are fine as they are. In WvW and sPvP, the fights are so fast paced that you’re going to be on cool down more than off cool down because you’ll find a situation to use them. If you’re scared to use your skills, you’re not good enough or not confident enough in your skills as a player yet and you’re also probably not playing with a good enough team.

@Fildydarie

I agree with you, but OP has a point. We have longer CDs due to more support abilities, BUT this is extremely punishing to DPS Guardians. Anet mentioned we can play any role/style we want with any class, the way i see it, after OP’s comparison and also after reading your findings, Anet is making Guardians purely support class. This is a serious flaw, Anet promised we can play any role/style right?

Now i always play a support role and im happy with the Guardians being support oriented, but i do sympathize with our fellow Guardians that want a DPS role.

A lot of trolls ask out fellow DPS Guardians to play warrior, but it only serves to strengthen the fact that Anet failed hard in their concept of every profession can play the role/style they want…

kousei.5914:

You’re seriously confused on what Control is and what Support is. Shield of Absorption, Shield of Wrath, and Wall of Reflection are all support skills not control skill…

You can use them as Support if you want. But they’re so much more than that. Those skills can be used to control the battlefield. That’s how I use them. I could use a Wall of Reflection to save someone from being downed, but I’d rather charge forward and throw it up forcing the enemy force to scatter to attack around it, or run. Same with Shield of Absorption. I could use it to save someone … but I’d rather use it to force a push. I use those skills to Control the battlefield.

Now Shield of Wrath has a tenuous place in either camp… it’s a self-mitigation skill that is extremely visible. I called it Control because it encourages an opponent to use low damage skills on you until it goes away. But it’s a pretty weak application of the Control concept.

But again, this is all irrelevant to the conversation. Support and Control skills both can have low CDs.

ImariKurumi.5761:

@Fildydarie

I agree with you, but OP has a point. We have longer CDs due to more support abilities, BUT this is extremely punishing to DPS Guardians. Anet mentioned we can play any role/style we want with any class, the way i see it, after OP’s comparison and also after reading your findings, Anet is making Guardians purely support class. This is a serious flaw, Anet promised we can play any role/style right?

Now i always play a support role and im happy with the Guardians being support oriented, but i do sympathize with our fellow Guardians that want a DPS role.

A lot of trolls ask out fellow DPS Guardians to play warrior, but it only serves to strengthen the fact that Anet failed hard in their concept of every profession can play the role/style they want…

A lot of DPS guardians i see want to play it like a warrior is the issue. Guardian can still do good dps. Its just never going to be the same playstyle to warrior. And no im not saying this to bash them. I am just pointing out anytime the dps side comes up its instantly compaired to the play style of the warrior. We are not warriors. If you try to play like one then yes in all honesty maybe you should change to one just because that is the play style you want. I never remember seeing you can play any style you want on any class, (Would be kinda silly to say that as there would have to be only one class to start with a selection of skill’s that are universal kinda like The Elder Scrolls series and you choose which skill combo you want would be the only way to pull that off.). If you can find that post please link it. I do remember them saying you can fill every role, and infact we can.

@op and a lot of posters in the forum

I just don’t see this as a problem.

The guardian playstyle is going to be highly reactive: you outwit your opponent, he can throw anything at you, but he cannot find a way to go through, since whenever he throws at you you just do not feel hurt/got out of it/made him a fool of it.
On the other hand the warrior playstyle is very proactive: I stun you here, interrupt you there, I just won’t let you play, and will blast you back to respawn before you can try this. But then you have few reactive ways to play a warrior, just like you have few proactive ways to play the guardian.

To me I just treat my class having one autoattack and 9 utilities.

evilcherry.1327:

@op and a lot of posters in the forum

I just don’t see this as a problem.

I see it as a big problem. With several weapon sets ONE should at least offer a dynamic and fun playstyle. The Guardian’s weapons skills should be as fun to use as any other classes. Only by constantly swapping mele weapons, and I would much prefer to have a ranged weapon in as my alternate, can we experience the same exciting gameplay as every other class can without swapping.

Relentliss.2170:

evilcherry.1327:

@op and a lot of posters in the forum

I just don’t see this as a problem.

I see it as a big problem. With several weapon sets ONE should at least offer a dynamic and fun playstyle. The Guardian’s weapons skills should be as fun to use as any other classes. Only by constantly swapping mele weapons, and I would much prefer to have a ranged weapon in as my alternate, can we experience the same exciting gameplay as every other class can without swapping.

I swap a lot and have dynamic and fun play on my guardian. Like the poster a few posts up says. The guardian isn’t for everyone. Players need to stop looking for a class based on typical archetypes and actually play all of the classes before they choose one to main. If you find other classes much more dynamic and fun, then maybe one of those other classes is the one you should be playing. Why is this so hard for people to figure out and why do they get so annoyed when players tell them this? It’s the simple truth that the game is designed so that each class has a different play style. Pick the one you like to play not the one that matches the archetype you liked playing the most in other games.

@Relentliss
It is not undynamic. It is reactive: you can let the opponent play as he wants, you basically let him have his rhythm, but he can do anything if he don’t hurt you.

Both the Greek and the Spaniards won the Euro, but here people just accuse the Greek as playing poor football/having a poor style. They, as well as the guardian, have its way to win it, and if you do not appreciate there is always the Spain.

Auto-attacks for the win! Go-go magic invisible button presser!

Being tactical and being supportive =\= static playstile.

This is and action mmorpg so its reasonable that if the general CD cooldown for the skills its to high, maybe some skills are unbalanced.

I dont want a massive redisign of the weapons skill, because we have strong counters, but an(only ONE) attack option <10 sec CD for weapons that dont have it can improve the action approach of the class.

I would advocate for the opposite: 9 reactive abilities, and leave us with an autoattack which is slow in DPS but perfectly spammable in any situation.

It is not boring, it is not static, it is just reactive.

i agree with your argument, but Its question of proportions.

1 autoattack
1 fast cd attack with lower effect\lower control
8 slow cd with greather effect\greather control

will be surely more action oriented, whitout compromise the guardians nature.
For now only hammer and scepter use this proportion, and i know that is for the slowest autoattack.

Fildydarie.1496

I see this as more of an apple-orange comparison than anything else.

If only more people saw things this way.

Ganzo.5079:

i agree with your argument, but Its question of proportions.

1 autoattack
1 fast cd attack with lower effect\lower control
8 slow cd with greather effect\greather control

will be surely more action oriented, whitout compromise the guardians nature.
For now only hammer and scepter use this proportion, and i know that is for the slowest autoattack.

Once in vanilla wow people made a macro to one-key a rotation of say 5 abilities.
We should not move backwards. Give me a cookie-cutter key, and then make everything else situational anyday.

Nor ARPGs base their characters on 10 keys. They are based on 1 or 2.

evilcherry.1327:

Ganzo.5079:

i agree with your argument, but Its question of proportions.

1 autoattack
1 fast cd attack with lower effect\lower control
8 slow cd with greather effect\greather control

will be surely more action oriented, whitout compromise the guardians nature.
For now only hammer and scepter use this proportion, and i know that is for the slowest autoattack.

Once in vanilla wow people made a macro to one-key a rotation of say 5 abilities.
We should not move backwards. Give me a cookie-cutter key, and then make everything else situational anyday.

Nor ARPGs base their characters on 10 keys. They are based on 1 or 2.

i simply dont understand this reply o.o

100% agree. My level 60 Guardian is eating dust. Why? Only greatsword was fully viable/fun imo (as main weapon, with traits focused on it). Now with the nerfs also that is out of the question. As long as Arenanet doenst realize this, I think i’m forced to play warrior. Normally warrior is totally not my playstyle. I like a fast and high utility mage class in particular. But with the current state of those (pve), I don’t see the point of playing them either.

So right now leveling a warrior. Let’s see if they are more fun fully traited (they are now already more fun.) A bit hard to play since close combat requires very good responses to survive (timing on dodge/block/blind).

@Phoebe Ascension: If the only redeeming quality of a profession is a single weapon and spec, then I’m sorry to hear that you do not enjoy 90+% of what the profession has to offer. However, it also means that since you only enjoy a tiny percent of it, you would probably be best served looking elsewhere anyway.

What is it about the greatsword build that made it so intrinsic to your enjoyment of the profession that a slight increase to cooldowns has completely ruined your experience?

High utility mage class? What is wrong with elementalist? They are nothing but utility and mage, and I’ve seen how effective they can be in PvE firsthand.

Gratsword guardian was nearly the exact opposite of high utility mage—they are a melee class using a build focused more on self-buffing than group support. Wouldn’t a staff build be more in line with what you enjoy? Why isn’t the utility in mace+shield more enjoyable than greatsword?

These are honest questions—I try to see things through the eyes of others, but I cannot wrap my mind around the “end of the world nerf” viewpoint.

Fildydarie.1496:

Why isn’t the utility in mace+shield more enjoyable than greatsword?

I like the mace and shield. It’s a good support-only combo for WvW. The mace hits like a wet lettuce and the third swing feels agonisingly slow like the hammer’s. I often find myself using another ability or running away because the third swing is taking so long.

Come play engineer or elementalist.

Actually, go take some piano lessons and THEN come play with us.

Haette.2701:

Come play engineer or elementalist.

Actually, go take some piano lessons and THEN come play with us.

While I think those professions have a great deal of interactivity, and did find them engaging and entertaining when I tried them out (took both to L15), but I just couldn’t like the Engineer’s flavor, and my wife’s playing an Elementalist.

I think every class should be as engaging and exciting as those classes. Their Attunement and Kit mechanics open up a lot of options, providing fantastic levels of action! Maybe the Guardians Virtues could become stances that alter our weapon skills, instead of signets with huge CDs. That’d be pretty awesome.

You need a bit of everything in a game. Following your suggestions would kill the class for many who prefer and chose it for a less twitchy gameplay.

The ones telling you to play another profession are indeed correct and not being rude.

I’d say Thief, Warrior and Ranger would be good testing grounds for you if you don’t want engineer or Elementalist.

Obviously, stay away from Mesmer as it’s fairly passive as well.