Guild Wars 2

Brothers in arms, we’re not so unfortunate.

Stand Fast! Be firm, and unyielding. Nerfs are going to come, but so are buffs. Balance and reworked again and again. This is the nature of persistent MMOs with a PvP basis.

It’s funny that you can actually compare Guardians now with Vanilla WoW Ret-Paladins. Like I’ve said in probably 10 threads now:

Like Vanilla Ret-Paladins there will, in the end, be only a few who don’t complain about the class, don’t whine and moan at every nerf, but instead take what we have and end up being feared.

The few truly great Ret-Paladins, like myself (self-proclaimed..or not if you were on Thunderlord), from Vanilla were regarded as hackers, gimmick players, and all other manner of sillyness because we took what was viewed as underpowered or overnerfed and made a terrifying specatacle of ourselves by destroying groups of people in PvP.

The same can be said now. Stop complaining. Take what you have, and tweak it until you can do what you need to get through to the next batch of nerfs. OR reroll. Either way, 25 threads about Greatsword nerfs, 300 about the lack of long bow, and TONS about our lack of health-pool is just sad.

TL;DR: Stand fast, make what you can with what you have. Stop making useless complaint threads, instead make threads on ideas how to make the most of our current utilities.

Not that I disagree with you, and I actually do believe that changes will come (for the better), but I can’t help feeling like this post was in response to my thread. As far as Retribution Paladins go, in Vanilla WoW, the only ones that were feared were the ones abusing the Reckoning “bug.” You had to be extremely, and I mean extremely, well geared to be competitive with other classes. If you were that geared, you tore people to pieces and it was awesome. I know because I did it, too (in BC, at least).

However, we are not talking about WoW, we are talking about GW2. I think we are fighting for the same cause. We want more build diversity and more options and more action.

In regards to your theory on “the same can be said now…take what you have, and teak it until you can do what you need to get through to the next batch of nerfs…”, I completely disagree. There is no way to out gear content or opponents in GW2 because the gear treadmill is more like a gear buffet (you have all of the best gear available to you). There is no way to counter our inherent design flaws with outstanding gear, since everyone has outstanding gear.

Believe me, we will make the best of what we have and I, along with many others, will not be shelving my Guardian or my Greatsword. We will stand fast. We will endure because this is the profession we want to play and the way we want to play it. That does not mean we should stay quiet when we feel something has been wrongfully adjusted. I would encourage people to keep voicing their disquiet and concerns with the Guardian. Stand fast, indeed, but don’t roll over and take it.

I changed to a Ret blood elf all through BC, and this resonates with me. I remember all the gimmick talk and disdain they took. I remember people moaned and tried to start drama whenever I’d be asked by friends to fill a spot in their raid runs as they were used to terrible Ret paladins.

I did the research and did what I could to make it work – and I ended up being much wanted and also showing them what a properly geared and played Ret could do (though to be fair, I was still gaming Seal of Casino – but hey, that’s the card they dealt us).

I went Prot eventually because my guild wanted a tank and AOE tanking was finally accepted. Anyway, the reason I state this is because I decided to really focus on the Guardian because of the patch. I can’t think of a better time to learn a class than when it’s going through it’s balancing and tuning – the game is so young. My main is a Thief and I treat that the same way. There will be those who throw a fit on the forums, and those who just play and learn how to work the new system that was dealt out. Be constructive, and who knows? I remember some of the biggest “nerfs” or changes ended up being game changers for making my class and playstyle even better.

I totally sympathize with your sentiments and agree with your message of keeping your chin up and weathering changes, but largely because change is the status quo in an MMO, and ANet has a history of frequent and aggressive balancing—which I personally think is a good thing.

The Guardian forums became almost unreadable in the minutes following the patch, which is annoying, because constructive discussions get buried in thread after thread of hyperbole and palpable frustration. Even if you want to criticize the Oct 7 patch (and, in fact, I do), it’s hard to get a rational argument out before it gets buried in exaggeration.

By the way, as the proud player of a Retribution paladin from vanilla to Wrath of the Lich King (I had to go Holy for raids for a while, alas) I don’t think Guardians are at all like Ret. Ret was in a bad place for years, and in PVE it was simply noncompetitive by a long shot for a very, very long time.

Guardians, on the other hand, are in a good place. We’re a powerful, useful, versatile and competitive profession with adequate complexity and a strong balance of power and support. I don’t see that changing any time soon, at all.

Animus.6073:

Believe me, we will make the best of what we have and I, along with many others, will not be shelving my Guardian or my Greatsword. We will stand fast. We will endure because this is the profession we want to play and the way we want to play it. That does not mean we should stay quiet when we feel something has been wrongfully adjusted. I would encourage people to keep voicing their disquiet and concerns with the Guardian. Stand fast, indeed, but don’t roll over and take it.

I feel you to an extent. I don’t think such a blow has been delivered, at the very least one to warrant our full outright cries. Maybe I’m just not seeing what you are. The recent GS Symbol nerf was not enough, in my eyes, to warrant the level of sincerity I’m getting from your post. Obviously text does not convey feeling very well, but it seems to err on the side of aggression.

Eveningstar.6940:

By the way, as the proud player of a Retribution paladin from vanilla to Wrath of the Lich King (I had to go Holy for raids for a while, alas) I don’t think Guardians are at all like Ret. Ret was in a bad place for years, and in PVE it was simply noncompetitive by a long shot for a very, very long time.

Guardians, on the other hand, are in a good place. We’re a powerful, useful, versatile and competitive profession with adequate complexity and a strong balance of power and support. I don’t see that changing any time soon, at all.

The bad place they’re were in for PvE is not where I lent my focus. I’m strictly a PvPer (via WvW) thus was giving my opinions on their similarities from that standpoint. I should have clarified. I apologize.

Daedalus.3954:

Animus.6073:

Believe me, we will make the best of what we have and I, along with many others, will not be shelving my Guardian or my Greatsword. We will stand fast. We will endure because this is the profession we want to play and the way we want to play it. That does not mean we should stay quiet when we feel something has been wrongfully adjusted. I would encourage people to keep voicing their disquiet and concerns with the Guardian. Stand fast, indeed, but don’t roll over and take it.

I feel you to an extent. I don’t think such a blow has been delivered, at the very least one to warrant our full outright cries. Maybe I’m just not seeing what you are. The recent GS Symbol nerf was not enough, in my eyes, to warrant the level of sincerity I’m getting from your post. Obviously text does not convey feeling very well, but it seems to err on the side of aggression.

I was in no way attempting to convey aggression. Dissatisfaction, I will most certainly give you. A little bit of bitterness is thrown in there, as well, but I cannot admit to not feeling extremely bitter about what happened. That being said, I feel no anger towards ANet, and I firmly believe they knee-jerked their way into this mess and they are remaining so silent because they are mulling over the correct way to fix it.

Remember how fast they jumped on the dungeon difficulty/exploits/DR debacle a couple weeks back. We got responses fast. They knew what their stance was and they were ready to defend it to the masses. I believe we haven’t received any feedback because ANet wants to really deliver when they fix this mess, and yes, I do believe it is a mess.

I have posted why in many other threads so I won’t go into here, but suffice it to say that I truly do not believe the Greatsword wielding Guardian is in the place it belongs right now.

I feel you to an extent. I don’t think such a blow has been delivered, at the very least one to warrant our full outright cries. Maybe I’m just not seeing what you are. The recent GS Symbol nerf was not enough, in my eyes, to warrant the level of sincerity I’m getting from your post. Obviously text does not convey feeling very well, but it seems to err on the side of aggression.

I’m with you there. I feel like the SoW nerf changed Greatsword trait synergy and changed the nature of the Greatsword weapon away from Symbols and toward combo finishers. I also feel like the buff to Leap of Faith is one of the unsung qualities of the recent patch, and actually helps us quite a lot more than we seem to be recognizing.

Animus.6073 you have another thread on the topic, but I’d rather not bounce between them, so I’ll say it here:

I appreciate your passion on behalf of your profession. I think it’s awesome that Guardians care so deeply about our gameplay, and I personally have a few “pet peeves” I plan on fiercely advocating once the time is right.

But.

I do think the general response in these forums toward the recent Guardian changes are laced with hyperbole and exaggeration that simply do not stand up to scrutiny. Like you said in another forum, you are a good writer and your posts reflect your ability to articulate your feelings. But most of the complaints surrounding the SoW change are just irrational and based on Slippery Slope fallacy (“First they came for your SoW, then they’ll come for your Hammer, and soon the Guardian will be a forgotten class”) or Hyperbole (“The SoW nerf makes GW inviable/trash/uncompetitive/terrible/kills melee, etc.”)

I just can’t throw my hat into the ring on this one. I like the general philosophy of being stoic in the face of change, but the SoW changes are just not a big deal. Or at least, not as big a deal as a lot of people on this forum are making it seem.

The bad place they’re were in for PvE is not where I lent my focus. I’m strictly a PvPer (via WvW) thus was giving my opinions on their similarities from that standpoint. I should have clarified. I apologize.

Nah, don’t apologize. I totally feel you there. A dangerous Ret paladin in PVP was a thing to behold, not only because it was so rare, but because it was so difficult to pull off, and so infuriating to the adversary.

;)

@Animus:

I understand your stance and accept your opinion. While I don’t necessarily disagree, I think if you know or feel just how ‘aware’ of the issue they are, then change requests need to be more on the constructive end. Not the cluttered mess of whines and complaints these forums have become. That was the foundation for my soap box this afternoon with this post.

Only complaining will get us improvements.

Malediktus.9250:

Only complaining will get us improvements.

Suggestions =/= Complaining.

There’s a very serious difference between complaints and constructive suggestions. That’s the point I’m making. Complaining is going to get you nothing. Be constructive. Suggest ways to deal with what we have now, while they work on balance. We make 40 threads full of complaints, or 40 threads of suggestions of what to do until they figure a way to balance it out: which do you think helps us all as a profession? The latter is the obvious way to bring us together as a community.

Yeah but when you make a decent constructive suggestion on the current GS setup, it gets moved into the mass of complaints on the GS setup by the mods.

There have been loads of good constructive threads/posts on the issues the latest update caused, with loads of good suggestions on how to fix it – and yet they’re getting “merged” with the mass complaints and lost.

Eveningstar.6940:

The bad place they’re were in for PvE is not where I lent my focus. I’m strictly a PvPer (via WvW) thus was giving my opinions on their similarities from that standpoint. I should have clarified. I apologize.

Nah, don’t apologize. I totally feel you there. A dangerous Ret paladin in PVP was a thing to behold, not only because it was so rare, but because it was so difficult to pull off, and so infuriating to the adversary.

;)

Haha, no doubt! There were some extraordinary fights.

I completely agree with you, Daedalus. The majority of posts are simply complaints. However, laced in here and there, you will find some really positive and constructive suggestions. I was trying to call attention to them and to further bolster the morale of Greatsword Guardians. My post, although absent of suggestions, is more of a heads up to others and hopefully to ANet.

I realize everyone is well aware of what is going on, but I really wanted to drive home the concept of what active gameplay should mean and what it should mean for the Guardian. Although GW2 is more active in the sense that you need to actually land your melee attack and not rely on a number generator to get that hit or miss/dodge, it pales in comparison, miserably I should add, to the “on demand strike” quality of other MMO’s (even outside the scope of WoW).

To clarify, I am solely referring to the Guardian, and more specifically, the Greatsword Guardian, when I comment on stale combat. Everyone has cooldowns such as their utilities and elites that add to combat, but why does the Greatsword Guardian, or even the Hammer Guardian, have to be reduced to: auto-attack until strike ability is off CD?

MajorMelchett.6042:

Yeah but when you make a decent suggestion on the current GS setup, it gets moved into the mass of complaints on the GS setup by the mods.

Hence my cry for logic! Put aside and ignore the whines and complaints. If it’s not constructive to our progression as a profession then what good is it to us? We need to focus our efforts to bettering ourselves rather crying for fixes or we’ll stamp our feet.

Complaining won’t get you improvements. This isn’t a Starbucks.

Constructive posts help you a lot more than angry complaints will. If you had a constructive suggestion and it got merged or deleted by a mod, then one of three things happened:

• Your post wasn’t nearly as constructive as you thought.
• You posted at a bad time. Sad but true; trying to be rational when everyone else is throwing a fit doesn’t work. It’s like trying to be the one person at Thanksgiving Dinner trying to calm down your angry and drunk Uncle who’s getting in a fight with your misbehaving cousins.
• You were suggesting something that was already being talked about in another thread.

Complaining and getting angry might help you get a little steam off, but I promise you it won’t make a lick of difference in the long run. Constructive criticism backed up with cogent arguments and a good discussion has a much better chance.

Animus.6073:

To clarify, I am solely referring to the Guardian, and more specifically, the Greatsword Guardian, when I comment on stale combat. Everyone has cooldowns such as their utilities and elites that add to combat, but why does the Greatsword Guardian, or even the Hammer Guardian, have to be reduced to: auto-attack until strike ability is off CD?

You have just described the Vanilla WoW Ret-Paladin. In every, single way. I’m telling you it’s like I’m looking into the past in some magic scrying crystal at Vanilla WoW in 2004. We are magic-based warriors with nothing but a few shiny spells and an auto-attack. We must make the best of it until they can make the tools we need to progress.

That’s what I mean in my post. It took time for Retadins to GET the tools they needed, but until they did we made the best of what we had.

That is exactly correct. That is what I was saying in my other thread. We are being reduced to, well I don’t want to say carbon copies because that isn’t accurate, but at least counterparts to the Vanilla and even BC Retribution Paladin.

Why I take issue with that now rather than at launch is this. The recent nerf moves us even closer to what Retribution Paladins were. We are now 10 seconds less active than we used to be. We should not be moving closer to what they were. We should be moving further and further away.

It took Blizzard years to fix Retribution, but ANet fortunately has the benefit of seeing the developing arc that Paladins went through in WoW. They have the resources to not make the same choices (I won’t straight up claim they are mistakes because it is their vision, after all) that Blizzard did. I am confident that they will make some good decisions for our community, given some time.

Very well put, now can we convey that to the community without smearing complaints all about it, and mix in some suggestions for maintaining damage and uptime with what we have?

I remember the community of Retadins from back then, and if Guardians are going to be something similar, then we need to act as we did back then. We need to boost each other up with constructive suggestions, get the ball rolling on how to do what we do best in groups for both WvW and PvE.

Working together will provide us with the best outcome. Once Guardians, enmasse, are acting under the same ideals, using similar practices to achieve the same end, ANet will see an expressive community who have the means to put to good use their attention.

That is exactly what we need. I could not agree with you more. I personally cannot stand the new threads popping up saying, “Our Symbol was OP anyway, guys, get used to it.” I also am a bit dumbfounded that some people are disagreeing with my posts. I’m not normally one to claim that my view on a specific topic is the only valid one, but not a single person has actually provided any evidence to the contrary.

We should all unite under the opinion that this change, this nerf, call it whatever you want, is not putting Guardians anywhere near where they should be. If ANet needs to change the way Retaliation works, go for it, but don’t break builds just to change a simple mechanic and its application.

Most simple solution I can think of, and it has been stated before, is to change Symbol of Wrath to grant a different boon and/or inflict a condition. I would personally love to see it inflict a cripple, but that might be asking for a bit much.

That’s a great idea! Awesome input.

Now, while that’s a great suggestion, what have you done to continue working with your GS build? What have you had to adapt with? What changes in play have you had to make to adapt?

All you guys talk about is WoW ~ O.o

Animus.6073:

Most simple solution I can think of, and it has been stated before, is to change Symbol of Wrath to grant a different boon and/or inflict a condition. I would personally love to see it inflict a cripple, but that might be asking for a bit much.

No more than Ring of Warding if it works the same way as other symbols. It would only apply the condition every second at a one second duration. A person could just dodge/teleport out of it and be free, or stand there and waste their condition removals. Immobilize, on the other hand, would be OP.

-

People just want to understand why the changes were made. The changes Anet made to the greatsword don’t accomplish their stated goal (yet). Until we know more, people will continue to be unsatisfied.

Also I know you’re trying to inspire people, but to me this is just a complaint thread complaining about complainers. This might as well be merged with all the other threads.

As I mentioned in another thread, I haven’t been able to play much since the change, but I would like to consider taking some points out of Honor and dumping them into Zeal to generate that extra symbol with the 5 point passive.

I don’t know if giving up Battle Presence will be worth it though. Since I run in full Clerics gear with a 0/5/30/30/5 setup, it would be a huge drop in effective healing, which isn’t really what I’m going for. It would definitely boost my damage a bit and the extra symbol would be nice, but I would really have to test it first hand before I let the community know if it was a worthwhile change.

Clearly some of what’s been said has passed through the wrong kind of filter to you Kasei.

The intent was to move from complaining to constructive suggestions. No yammering about what’s OP. Just what would help, how we are dealing with what we have, and how we’ve turned our focus to adapt. Please, continue with that in mind.

Animus.6073:

As I mentioned in another thread, I haven’t been able to play much since the change, but I would like to consider taking some points out of Honor and dumping them into Zeal to generate that extra symbol with the 5 point passive.

I don’t know if giving up Battle Presence will be worth it though. Since I run in full Clerics gear with a 0/5/30/30/5 setup, it would be a huge drop in effective healing, which isn’t really what I’m going for. It would definitely boost my damage a bit and the extra symbol would be nice, but I would really have to test it first hand before I let the community know if it was a worthwhile change.

I went from using 10.30.0.0.30 to using that build (0.5.30.30.5) recently and I love the switch to something with more survivbility. I can’t tell you if Battle Presence is worth it, as I’m away from the game until this evening, but I see where you’re going with it. I hope you can relay your results, in kind, to the community.

When someone has to use an old status quo MMO to compare to a supposed “revolutionary MMO” then something is wrong.

See, you’re falling for that mentality again… “It was like this in that game, so it’s going to be like this in this game”.

That’s not what the whole manifesto is about.

There is no middle ground, the nerfs were stupid. They certainly aren’t helping anyone except maybe people who QQ about retal… but even for that, a lot of Guardians have come to a consensus that the wrathful spirit nerf was deserved just not as severe as the 70% reduction.

Stay classy GW2.

Never played wow enough to remark on that. But i will say. We are not bad off. The changes havent altered my style at all. So it took an hour or so to get use to the skill changes. Big deal. Over all i actually perfer the changes. Having gap closer on a shorter cooldown is so nice, and our goto aoe skill still is on the same timer. So not like they made us useless. Infact far from it. As for the retaliation changes. So you cant run it 100% of the time. You really never should have been able to in the first time. Kinda made it a little overpowered in my eyes.

didn’t play WoW either. but i can see where you’re coming from, OP. and before i say anything else, i honestly do love and appreciate the Guardian community we have here. i myself am a very proud Guardian and i’ve been maining the crap out of mine. not the best, but working towards it. extremely versatile, can do damage, can support and at times i like to think i am helping hold the team up. nor do i want or need credit for it, to remain a nameless hero. and many of you in here, continue to give feedback, passion which continue to build towards that sentiment.

i main a hammer and always have since i laid hands on my first one. i picked up the greatsword for a while and absolutely love it as well though. when no specific situations call for other weapon sets, you’ll see me running with the hammer and GS.

i stand by the nerf not being as bad as it’s made out to be – but that IS only because the whining posts seem to be more prominent. and that’s what people focus on. and like said, the constructive, good, helpful stuff gets lost. i think many of us just do want to see where the devs were coming from with this patch. they mentioned it was for retaliation, but didn’t really go into details and it was overall vague imo. there are repercussions to other builds perhaps, symbols, zeal line, etc.. but i don’t believe it’s gamebreaking.

holding my breath now for official word from ANet. in the time being though, still loving the Guardian. still smashing with my hammer and wielding the GS. nothing game-breaking yet and am sure ANet’s looking for a fix or how to respond. am sure this topic has caught their attention.

STANDING FAST.

I am totally with you, Daedalus, and proud to be playing the same profession as you on the same server with you.

Let me join my voice in the steadfast (or stubborn?) Guardian community and say that we can easily endure this nerf because we ARE GUARDIANS.

We protect, we cleanse, we fight, we endure. We are Guardians of the people and of our party members, and every group with a Guardian has to look at him/her with pride, because they were lucky to have a member of the best elite warrior group of Tyria!

Let the so-called Guardians whine and abandon the way… they were not and would never be up to our standards, and our community will only gain if these weaklings change their profession to something easier.

We will endure even them, and be proud of being the Protectors of Tyria!

People complaining about the change really do not understand the class.

There are ~~SO~~ many ways to get Ret is ridiculous.

On top of that, it was a complete joke for constant conidition purging. You could run a completely offensive build (10/30/30/0/0) and completely elemninate the only real threat of damage: Condition.

Yes, that’s one of our primary jobs, however, not to that extent. We still fulfil it, but to constantly purge conditions, if that’s the role you want, you need to change your spec a bit now.

We don’t always get to eat the cake w/o consequences!

Nightwind Of Dwayna.3250:

I am totally with you, Daedalus, and proud to be playing the same profession as you on the same server with you.

/Salute! Hail Brother!

Given just the last few posts on this thread, even CONSTRUCTIVELY disagreeing with me. This is what I’m talking about. This is what our community needs to focus on.

Adapting, using new ways to get the desired outcome while remembering to do so in a manner fitting brothers in arms. Love this community, it speaks volumes to what we are capable of en masse.

Daedalus.3954:

Clearly some of what’s been said has passed through the wrong kind of filter to you Kasei.

The intent was to move from complaining to constructive suggestions. No yammering about what’s OP. Just what would help, how we are dealing with what we have, and how we’ve turned our focus to adapt. Please, continue with that in mind.

Forums are for voicing opinions. As long as a post meets Anet’s standards, then it’s fair game. This thread is opinionated, just like all the others. It’s arrogant to tell other players to not voice their opinions, and dismiss them as complainers.

Daedalus.3954:

The same can be said now. Stop complaining. Take what you have, and tweak it until you can do what you need to get through to the next batch of nerfs. OR reroll.
…
Stop making useless complaint threads, instead make threads on ideas how to make the most of our current utilities.

If your were aiming to support guardian players in light of the recent changes, this thread should have been named “Guardian Greatsword Build Alternatives” and shouldn’t have addressed player opinions or WoW for that matter. Stop shunning away opinions that don’t massage your elitist ideal of the guardian, while hiding behind the banner of bolstering the guardian community.

I will be posting my guardian build insights in the sticky, where it’s more likely to be read by the people who are seeking the information.

I look forward to reading them.