Guild Wars 2

Let’s face it, the Guardian has been surpassed by other classes in most game modes. Mesmers are better tanks, Revenants are better boon suppliers and Druids give better support. In PvP the Guardian lacks the complexity to be part of the meta. The only place the Guardian currently shines is in WvW.

The biggest issue that is causing this is the lack of vision that came with the Dragonhunter. Did we really need the Dragonhunter? What did the elite specialization bring to the table that the Guardian was lacking? The feeling of the bow with the traps is genuine but it doesn’t add anything significant to the class that we couldn’t do already. The Dragonhunter’s potential is mostly for solo-play. When it comes to teamplay, which effects 90% of the game, the Dragonhunter is overshadowed by other classes and their respective elite specializations. I prefer bringing my Druid to fight Xera, Tempest to obtain my PvP Season Legendary rank and Reaper to do T4 Fractals.

So what needs to be done to make Guardians more appealing in teamplay situations? To answer this question we need to go back to our core functionalities and how they currently aren’t functioning as they should be:

• Our traits are a mess after the dev’s consolidated them. No one uses Zeal, Radiance and Honor anymore. There is so much potential though. For example, I can’t wait for the day to use a Shattered Aegis build. However, it is never used because it simply doesn’t belong in the Zeal tree. It should be part of the Virtues or Valor tree. Same goes for Glacial Hammer which would be more fitting in the Honor tree. The Honor tree should be our supportive tree but it is nowhere near as effective as a Tempest or Druid.

• Utilities feel underpowered. Except for meditations most utilities either have too high recharge time or too low effectiveness. For example, they might as well rename Save Yourselves to “Save Ourselves” because I never us it other than to get swiftness, the other boons are simply not worth it for the recharge time. Meanwhile Necromancers can take all conditions from allies AND throw them back at the enemy. Signets are a one trick pony that don’t have any useful traits for them. Don’t even let me get started about how unreliable spirit weapons are. Our weak utilities and boon application is mainly why Mesmers are currently better tanks than Guardians. Simply because Mesmers give more useful boons to the party.

• The Guardian has great potential with blocks, reflections and light fields. But none of these are effectively used in return to deal damage. Light fields are frowned upon. Nobody wants them, yet we have no control over them as they are part of our main weapons and utilities. I rarely see retroactive use of Guardian blocks (Shield of Courage, retreat and so on) in order to prevent incoming damage. This is because the recharge time is too high and area is too small for teammates to anticipate (Bulwark trait feels rather useless).

What changes would you like to see in order to make Guardians great again?

aegis is too seldom/passively attained for it to be effective for damage or healing anyway. guardians are in the most need for a trait/utility overhaul. i see potential in healing bunkers if aegis was more practical and mace was buffed.

shield needs lower cooldowns. light fields are only good for whirls. blasting should remove conditions instead of applying retal.

Make F3 aegis proc every 15 seconds

& lower weapon CDs. Buff torch and shield

Retaliation as a whole is completely useless in PvE as it Provides almost no dmg.
It is even very Harmfull in Fractals with “boon thief”.
So I think they should work on that as well and make it a buff thats actually usefull

The changes I would do to Guardians:
1)Within the Honor tree I would make the traits Protective Reviver and Vigurous Precision swap places within the traitline, then have Glacial Heart from Virtues and Honorable Staff from Honor swap places. This is simply personal preference

2)I would change Empower so that the effects listed on it will take place instantly after the Guardian finished casting either a Healing, Utility or Elite Skill. This would only work with Receive the Light, all of the Consecrations except for Wall of Reflection, Bane Signet, Signet of Mercy, Signet of Wrath, Signet of Courage, Renewed Focus the summoning of Spirit weapons and the comand for the spirit bow.

3)I would have Fiery Wrath renamed to Radiant Strike and have it take the place of Radiant Fire which I would then rename to Zealous Flame. This is to make it so that Zeal and Radiance don’t have to be paired toghether to make a good condi dps build.

4)I would remove the healing effect from Orb of Light and the damage effect from Detonate Orb of Light. Again personal prefference I feel this would simplify staff as a weapon and make it more flexible to use and easy to learn.

5)I would make blasting light combo fields remove 1 condition instead of applying Retaliation.

6)I would make Chains of Light a focus skill and Ray of Judgement the new auto attack for Scepter. Afterwards I would have Orb of Wrath become part of the Mace AA,with its range nerfed to 300 but buffed with the ability to apply 1 stack of burning and faithfull strike would be the new Scepter #3, with it’s range increased to 1200, the ability to remove 1 condition from 5 nearby allies and a cooldown of 30 sec.

Ok this change requires a bit of an explenation, focus is a very good defensive weapon, ruined by an RNG based skill, Ray of Judgement, Chains of Light is a better addition to focus as it makes it a more reliable defensive weapon – with the added bonus of being able to go on the offense.

Orb of Wrath as part of mace is the easiest bit to explain, I simply wanted to make mace a better competitor for sword in terms of it’s ability to deal damage,by making it apply the burning condition in a more reliable way. I would also rename the skill to Radiant Strike to make it fit within the AA cicle of the weapon.

Scepter, has always been a gimmicky weapon from my perspective as it felt like an off hand weapon due to it’s terrible AA, so I decided to make it a more offensive gimmick by making similar to the Revenant’s spear – a gimmick weapon based on the concept of alternative fire modes. Ray of Judgement is the spammable gimic,a strong AA you can’t control, while Smite is the alternate AA used to deal with multiple opponets,can be aimed but is easily doged and Faithfull strike is the single target nuke/aoe heal.

One change I would make is to remove Stalwart Defender (Master) from the Valor Tree, and move Altruistic Healing (Grandmaster) in its place. Then I would bring Pure of Voice from the Honor Tree, and move it to where Altruistic Healing used to be. This solves a couple of problems.

1. Guardians in the Honor Line very rarely choose Pure of Voice over Writ of Persistence due to the enormous benefit of providing permanent protection via Symbol of Protection+Writ of Persistence.

2. A common complaint is that the Guardian is being outshined by other classes when it comes to providing boons, condi cleanse, and DPS. By moving Pure of Voice in the Valor tree, Guardians who would be taking Pure of Voice normally, can now also benefit from being able to take Writ of Persistence + Pure of Voice + Altruistic Healing to provide strong group support and hopefully solidify Guardians’ role as a bunker/support once more.

Off-topic here. In general, I think Trait Trees are fundamentally flawed due to the placement of traits working against the players’ desire to create specific builds. I love the fact that we are lucky enough to have a skill tree to customize our builds, but sometimes I just wish for Tree Lines to have more passives that give you the ability to do something unique to that Tree, and then all the choices you make in choosing traits simply augment/enhance the way you do things in that Tree. Think of it as every Tree giving you a “job” or a “role”, so to speak. You can have a Tree for “Conditions”, “Power”, “Protection”, “Healing”, and “Virtues”.

For example, a Guardian going into Protection automatically gains the Writ of Persistence ability as a passive. Or a Guardian going into Conditions gains the Amplified Wrath ability as a passive. This way, I think it would be easier to define roles for classes, and it would be much easier to properly create builds that are viable for those roles. I still think it would be cool to be able to choose 3 out of 5 Trees.

Indomitable Courage activates immediately when casting Shield of Courage

Purification’s trap activation heals immediately when triggered. Cast time is 1/4s down from 1/2s.

Defender’s Dogma no longer replaces the passive active on Spear of Justice or Virtue of Justice. It will instead contribute as an additional burn stack.

Other Items
Add build diversity aka… overhaul all core traits on every class.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

The changes I would do to Guardians:
1)Within the Honor tree I would make the traits Protective Reviver and Vigurous Precision swap places within the traitline, then have Glacial Heart from Virtues and Honorable Staff from Honor swap places. This is simply personal preference

I like your idea for swapping Glacial heart with Honorable Staff. Glacial Heart has no relation to Virtues whatsoever and should be in the Honor tree so it can be used with Writ of Persistence. Honorable Staff, Communal Defense and Pure of Heart would have a lot more synergy with Virtue traits as well.

cletiscake.9173:

One change I would make is to remove Stalwart Defender (Master) from the Valor Tree, and move Altruistic Healing (Grandmaster) in its place. Then I would bring Pure of Voice from the Honor Tree, and move it to where Altruistic Healing used to be. This solves a couple of problems.

Altruistic Healing and Pure of Voice should belong together in the same tree. Although the question remains how strong it would make Guardians when we can use both Writ of Persistance, Pure of Voice and Altruistic Healing at the same time. Personally I feel like Altruistic Healing should remain a Grandmaster trait as it is very powerful. It would definitely make Guardians more worthwhile as a support class though.

Saiyan.1704:

Indomitable Courage activates immediately when casting Shield of Courage

Purification’s trap activation heals immediately when triggered. Cast time is 1/4s down from 1/2s.

I would also like to see Wings of Resolve heal (partially) activate before the jump. It’s not easy to pull the heal off when you get bursted in PvP. Especially when you try to jump further away.

As important as meditation healing is… It should be baseline

We build a giant reflect wall and we make revenants pay for it.

Kuya.6495:

We build a giant reflect wall and we make revenants pay for it.

And Engineers… They know all about reflecting things [now]

I had a thought once.
If mesmers have their one of a kind boon that only they apply, then I thought about something special that only guardian could have and that isssss…
An improved aegis that will not block attacks but instead it will become a little damage sponge.
The thing is you get that improved aegis and it can withstand for about 10k of direct and condition damage, but only damage meaning that you can still get CC’ed (but not boon stripped, oh naw!)
This extra effect could come up with a new elite spec, what do you guys and ladies think?

Rodzynald.5897:

I had a thought once.
If mesmers have their one of a kind boon that only they apply, then I thought about something special that only guardian could have and that isssss…
An improved aegis that will not block attacks but instead it will become a little damage sponge.
The thing is you get that improved aegis and it can withstand for about 10k of direct and condition damage, but only damage meaning that you can still get CC’ed (but not boon stripped, oh naw!)
This extra effect could come up with a new elite spec, what do you guys and ladies think?

I think this would be a fantastic idea for a future elite spec. Imagine an expac where all new elite specs focus on bringing new functionality to already existing mechanics (rather than making new utilities or class functions the focus). Guardian’s elite spec could being new functionality to aegis; aegis could now be a dps sponge rather than just blocking a single attack. This could also possibly be a major trait that is choosable in case players prefer negating single burst attacks.

This season in Spvp i manage be legendary only with my old style support Guard. Didn’t use any skill-Trait from HoT. When my mates were normal players i was king of point but when weren’t i was suffer. Cause all focus on me and condis where endless . I am not sure if they need to get nerfed or we need to buff up.
I tried also DH Bunker from meta. That build was selfish and troll build . Means u are alive till all die then u die and die fast as the other build. Players from ur team not healed enough from u or get buffed .If u not play dps Guard DH is pointless class.
Now if Anet still want to promote this fail called HoT need to marry DH and core game so we can have a decent Support-heal or Bunker class.

Rodzynald.5897:

I had a thought once.
If mesmers have their one of a kind boon that only they apply, then I thought about something special that only guardian could have and that isssss…
An improved aegis that will not block attacks but instead it will become a little damage sponge.

I like your idea. The current implementation of Aegis is too unreliable with the amount of random hits going on. However, I see some trouble with PvP Conquest with that. The same problem existed in the previous PvP seasons with Bunker Mesmers. They could just permanently bunker a conquest node and eventually got nerfed.

Ajax of Telamona.6974:

This season in Spvp i manage be legendary only with my old style support Guard. Didn’t use any skill-Trait from HoT. When my mates were normal players i was king of point but when weren’t i was suffer. Cause all focus on me and condis where endless . I am not sure if they need to get nerfed or we need to buff up.
I tried also DH Bunker from meta. That build was selfish and troll build . Means u are alive till all die then u die and die fast as the other build. Players from ur team not healed enough from u or get buffed .If u not play dps Guard DH is pointless class.
Now if Anet still want to promote this fail called HoT need to marry DH and core game so we can have a decent Support-heal or Bunker class.

The problem with Guardians in PvP is that Elementalists are better bunkers because of the amount of damage mitigation (insane protection), healing, boons and reflect they have. Even a DH meditation build will not make it far because of the lack of complexity. With lack of complexity I mean that experienced players can completely nullify Guardians simply by having reflects and dodging traps. So in my opinion, yes, they absolutely need to be buffed in order to become part of the PvP meta.

How do we make guardians great again? A bigger wall of reflection. XD

My problem with Guardians is that I liked their original virtues and they no longer represent why I even play a guardian. I play a guardian because I want to fight and shield and support my allies, but now with the dragon hunter all of my virtues are selfish. I understand that they wanted to change it up but almost every other profession got a new mechanic. Warriors got berserk mode, Engineers got a fuction gyro, Ranger got heal mode, Revenant got facets consumption, Mesmers got contiuum split and alacrity, Elementalist has element overcharge, and thief has near infinite special dodges. Necros and Guardians received changes to their mechanic, not additions. No one complains about the necro though because their abilities fall in line with their profession which is getting stronger in large scale conflicts with reduced shout cooldowns the more enemies are affected, wheras the guardian doesn’t feel protective anymore with dragon hunter.

In general, I would use virtue of justice to burn on near dead enemies, resulting in massive amounts of burning while enemies died and the level of burning grew stronger and stronger. All the while you symbols load your allies with boons and healing. Now your virtues are selfish and virtue of justices sets fire to and tethers one guy, or you fly and heal in an area. If they want to make them great they need to have some consistency with their design choices.

dh virtues arent selfish, using them for allies just requires a lot more effort and coordination

Well, they’re not necessarily selfish, but they are quite a lot less support oriented than base virtues. It’s just not apparent because base virtues are such utter trash that it’s hard to make a real comparison, but assuming they were both balanced, base virtues would be more supportive design-wise.

Keksmuffin.1450:

dh virtues arent selfish, using them for allies just requires a lot more effort and coordination

It’s not just a lot more effort and coordination. The whole design of the Dragonhunter is flawed. We have a selfish long range bow, with selfish short range traps and a mix of both short and long range supportive virtues. There are so many mixed abilities for mixed roles that do not fit together. Which explains why guardians still fall back on hammer with old utilities in groups.

Of course there will be times I am going to use Wings of Resolve to jump and heal a party member. But we are not expected to do that. Same reason why players generally do not expect us to use Shield of Courage in any situation. We have other classes who are way better for that (druid/ele heals and revenant glint/dwarf). Virtues by itself are not effective enough to fulfill their role as support.

Said it better than I did I think. Base virtues were made with support in mind, DH virtues have support as an afterthought.