Guild Wars 2

“And then when you play the combat in our game. You will say “Wow! That’s incredible, I’ve never seen anything like that before… I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, hey I swung it again – that’s great…No one enjoys that, no one finds it fun. We want to change the way people view combat."

-Line from the GW2 Manifesto.

We’ve all heard it, we all remember it, but is it actually true?

I would say that for some weapon sets and for some professions, ANet has delivered what they promised they would. However, there are a few glaring examples of where the manifesto fell extremely short.

The one I am going to focus on, in light of the recent nerf, is the Guardian Greatsword combat style. Before the nerf, our rotation was fairly passive, mostly waiting on cooldowns to recharge. Symbol, Whirl, Leap, maybe Binding Blade if you had some condition damage or were fighting multiple enemies. Then the downtime was filled by 1 or 2 full chains of auto-attacking. This didn’t really bother me. It wasn’t a very long wait before my Symbol and my Whirl were back up. However, it was still a wait. The downtime between cooldowns was simply inactive and boring. I could sit back and watch if I wanted to.

Like I said, there was nothing really wrong with it, it just wasn’t all that active. It kind of goes against what the manifesto claimed would be changing in Guild Wars 2, but not enough where I would have felt the need to comment on it. Then the nerf happened.

I’m not going into details, the subject has been beaten to death. Longer CD, less build diversity, less active gameplay, more waiting around swinging swords ad nauseam, etc… Changes have been suggested to fix the issue; I’ve suggested a few, others have suggested even more. The community is pouring good ideas through these forums every moment. Are they being heard?

Perhaps this example will resonate with some people, and perhaps make ANet reconsider their change to the Symbol, or at least rework the Greatsword to bring it in line with their very promising manifesto. Does anyone remember our counterparts in Vanilla WoW, even early BC WoW? The Retribution Paladin was one of the most stagnant, clunky, and cooldown based classes you could play. Before people jump on the fact that I mentioned WoW, please take a moment to read what I have to say, and not the simple fact that I am bringing up the “giant.”

I didn’t play a Paladin in Vanilla WoW because everyone said you had to be a healer or a tank (in some rarer cases). I wanted to be the Zealot. I wanted to be what the Guardian was promised to be in Guild Wars 2. I’m not sure why I chose to level up a Paladin when BC came out, but I gave it a shot (this was before they became the FotM). Does anyone remember what leveling up was like in Vanilla and BC. You used a Two-Handed Sword or Mace and literally auto-attacked, waiting for procs of Seal of Command and your Judgement to cool down. That was all there was to the rotation, unless you wanted to deplete your mana and drop a consecration here and there.

There was no Crusader Strike until level 40. There was no Divine Storm. There was no Templar’s Verdict. There was no active usage of Consecration. There was no other damage comparable Seal until Seal of Blood (Blood Elf only at the time) which you unlocked at level 58 I believe. So that is most of the leveling process and even most of your endgame played completely passively. I did it anyway because I loved the concept of the Paladin (even more so, the Blood Knight – that’s what they called Blood Elf Paladins at the time).

After WotLK came out, all of the above abilities that I mentioned became part of the rotation, even though some of them took a while to be fully implemented. The end result was …this is going to sound kind of crazy…active combat. You went from using Crusader Strike every six seconds and Judgement every 8-10 seconds to using every ability listed in the above paragraph as they came off their respective cooldowns. You had a rotation to learn, to capitalize on, to hit buttons with. You were not just “swinging a sword.”

So then we have the Guardian of Guild Wars 2. You want to use a Greatsword, right? You want to be the Zealous Crusader? The Holy Avenger? The Persecutor of the Wicked? Well get used to auto attacking with 1 or 2 abilities you can hit every so often. It isn’t fun anymore. Hell, it was hardly that much fun when the Symbol was on a 10 second CD.

This is not what was promised. This is not what the player base deserves after waiting this long for such a great game. The Guardian community deserves better than this. We have been reduced to the pre-WotLK Retribution Paladins. I don’t want to be the Lolret of Guild Wars 2. I want my Greatsword to inspire fear in others. I want truly active gameplay. Just because I can dodge does not make it any less apparent that most of the time, I am standing around swinging my sword.

Stand with me if you want to see a change. I know ANet is listening. I know they want better for us.

Animus

I think Anet treatment toward guardians is truly unbelievable, we have a low health pool bad healing, now thy want to nerf the retaliation but in the process destroy the greatsword and symbol builds. if thy want the lower the retaliation duration and make it more tactical give us lower cooldowns let us decide when we want to cast it. dont raise the symbols cooldown it will only make the combat stagnate and boring and more players will leave this profession and start a new character with anet favorite profession…. some will leave this game.

You hit the nail on the head. Anet went completely in the opposite direction of what they promised us with combat with the recent GS nerf. GS guardian has literally become an auto attack build, with WW mixed in when it comes off CD. That is literally the whole rotation now. SoW, LoF, and BB are all VERY situational now, and are rarely used in most play.

Wow, that’s quite a bit of drama.

Anyways, I disagree with just about everything you said. The recent patch may have been for the worse, but stop making such a huge spectacle out of it. It’s gone from a bad nerf to questioning the entire company. It happens.

State your case. State it well. If you have an argument, you’ll be heard. If not, then you won’t. If it is truly a problem, others will rally, but don’t turn it into something it isn’t, just to tug on emotional strings.

And anyways, if you’re only using a GS, then you are suppose to have stale gameplay. You get 73 levels to master the weapon swap for a reason.

To be quite frank, I pray Anet avoids this sub-forum for a bit. The idiots are quite vocal at the moment, and the more rational discussion and suggestions are diluted by a tidal wave of stupidity.

@ Gisei

Not only have you missed the point entirely, but you have managed to twist my words into something that was never stated. This has nothing to do with ANet as a company, nor am I really tugging at emotional strings…Not sure where you are seeing that. I use strong verbiage and I’m a good writer so my posts might sound compelling, but I think you are reading between the lines when there really isn’t anything there.

My points are presented clearly, and represent only what they say, not what you are inferring from them. So, enlighten me and the rest of the Guardian community. What points do you disagree with? If you can’t find contention with my post in a tangible manner, then take your hate elsewhere. You have not proven anything I’ve said to be incorrect and you are just flat out wrong.

The tidal wave of stupidity that you are referring to is most certainly not echoed by my sentiments.

I completely agree with animus. Guardian just feels boring now sitting there waiting for my cooldowns to go off. I mean at first it wasn’t so bad knowing it was only 10 seconds before I could go on a spinning rampage again but now I feel like the greatsword isn’t even a viable build anymore. Quite a few of our power traits are heavily focused on greatsword and symbol use and now we just lost a large portion of our damage. We lost a large chunk of our damage with the symbol change, now not only do we have way less health than warriors but our damage has 0 chance to possibly compete with just one hundred blades cast.

Also @ Gisei; I have no idea what you are referring to sir, animus’ post was well thought out and explained his point clearly. We are all worried about the viability of our class in guild wars and having anet ignore the issue will not help in the slightest. We are not just some entitled bunch of whiners trying to get our way, we are gamers trying to get the most fun experience from the game that we can, and standing still auto-attacking is not fun.

@OP: If you think the game play is stale, you haven’t tried a dungeon or any PvP. Up until 70-80, most of the open world PvE is pretty easy. Even at 70-80, it’s usually pretty easy due to the zergs that run around Orr. Try venturing off the beaten path alone or in a single party with just a greatsword though. The Risen zergs in some of those events will wreck you if you just play a greatsword. (I’m pretty sure the zerg learned how to swarm from the risen at this point…)

Gisei.5749:

And anyways, if you’re only using a GS, then you are suppose to have stale gameplay. You get 73 levels to master the weapon swap for a reason.

This is a major reason I think a lot of people are having problems with GW2. They don’t want to learn how to weapon swap. They want to stick with one weapon all the time. Well I’ve said it many times on this forum. GW2 is not built for you to play the weapon you want all the time. It’s built around selecting the right weapon for the job. In some dungeons, I not only use the weapon swap functionality but I’ll switch weapon sets altogether between areas once I know the dungeons well enough.

Gisei.5749:

To be quite frank, I pray Anet avoids this sub-forum for a bit. The idiots are quite vocal at the moment, and the more rational discussion and suggestions are diluted by a tidal wave of stupidity.

I kind of feel the same way. It’s like the entire crowd here asking Anet to change the game because they can’t figure out the class, the combat, etc…

It reminds me of PvXWiki in GW1. There were very few great builds that made it through the rating process. People couldn’t figure out how they worked so they just laughed them off or voted them down.

You people are funny. The Guardian is still a very strong class and this change has left most of it’s ability to kill standard mobs intact. I can still fight 2 veterans + adds solo with the Greatsword and not need to use my Heal. I can run around Orr not engaging, just letting them beat on me until I’m out of range and not worry.

Even with the recent changes the Guardian is still a very solid class and all this talk about the class now being useless is just whining.

kousei.5914:

@OP: If you think the game play is stale, you haven’t tried a dungeon or any PvP. Up until 70-80, most of the open world PvE is pretty easy. Even at 70-80, it’s usually pretty easy due to the zergs that run around Orr. Try venturing off the beaten path alone or in a single party with just a greatsword though. The Risen zergs in some of those events will wreck you if you just play a greatsword. (I’m pretty sure the zerg learned how to swarm from the risen at this point…)

Gisei.5749:

And anyways, if you’re only using a GS, then you are suppose to have stale gameplay. You get 73 levels to master the weapon swap for a reason.

This is a major reason I think a lot of people are having problems with GW2. They don’t want to learn how to weapon swap. They want to stick with one weapon all the time. Well I’ve said it many times on this forum. GW2 is not built for you to play the weapon you want all the time. It’s built around selecting the right weapon for the job. In some dungeons, I not only use the weapon swap functionality but I’ll switch weapon sets altogether between areas once I know the dungeons well enough.

Gisei.5749:

To be quite frank, I pray Anet avoids this sub-forum for a bit. The idiots are quite vocal at the moment, and the more rational discussion and suggestions are diluted by a tidal wave of stupidity.

I kind of feel the same way. It’s like the entire crowd here asking Anet to change the game because they can’t figure out the class, the combat, etc…

It reminds me of PvXWiki in GW1. There were very few great builds that made it through the rating process. People couldn’t figure out how they worked so they just laughed them off or voted them down.

I’ve got over 400 hours clocked on my Guardian. I have the CoF Greatsword and am currently working towards either Sunrise or Twilight (haven’t decided yet). I run with all kinds of different setups when it comes to weapon swapping, and frankly I’m just downright offended that you would even imply that I don’t take full advantage of that system because believe me, I do.

I don’t know if this will do any good, but my Guardian’s in game name is Khamil and I play on the European server, Gandara (I live in the US, don’t ask why I’m on Gandara; it’s a long story). If any of you have seen me play or run with me in dungeons, you can attest to my knowledge of the Guardian profession and my ability to not only effectively control enemies, “tank”, “heal”, and “dps”. I put those in quotes because obviously GW2 does not allow you to completely devote yourself to any one of the three.

Don’t imply that people don’t understand how to play just because you assume they read the patch notes and think “Oh darn my GS doesn’t do big damage no more.”

You realized only the first paragraph of that post was directed at you right? The other 2 sections were responding to Gisei.

But in response, if you’re weapon swapping and you can effectively “control enemies, tank, heal, and dps”, you’re not using just the GS and you’re actively doing a lot more than waiting on CDs so you’ve just completely refuted your own post about stale combat. And thus this entire thread.

I cant see the connection between a viable argument and PvXWiki (in my opinion a tool for the lazy), What is wrong with players having a favorite weapon? or a favorite build?
Greatsword had a lot of viable playstyles and a lot of them are now closed to the player due to the symbol change, those players had a lot of fun with the game prior to this nerf. Today thy need to find a different weapon and a different playstyle, some will like it as a way to play a new game with your favorite toy some will not. those people are not vocal and are not a minority, and the lack of response from Anet feels bad, i do believe that thy are spending their time in finding a solution to this problem.

We are moving towards retaliation being more of a counter to taking many hits rather than a general boon to keep up all the time.

Why not reduce the retaliation duration in order to prevent a constant retaliation upkeep and prevent the stacking of retaliation and reduce the coodown of the retaliation skill in order to give the players the option to use it as a counter to attacks.
sorry to say that the 40 (32 with a trait) sec cooldown of signet of judgment with its 3 sec retaliation doesn’t give me a lot of options to counter attacks.

We also wanted to improve the combo finisher of the guardian, so we reorganized guardian greatsword skills to the

How can it be that doubling the cooldown of a skill improve combat, why cant thy increase the duration of the cooldown and increase the duration of the skill.
why cant we decrease the duration of the skill and give the player a shorter cooldown that will make combat a lot more tactical and fun.

If Anet will not hear the players effected by the nerf it only cause antagonism against Anet, i can’t see any logic with that.

Edit: by the way i’m not using greatsword and my build is not effected by the recent changes, but i still hate those changes.

kousei.5914:

You realized only the first paragraph of that post was directed at you right? The other 2 sections were responding to Gisei.

But in response, if you’re weapon swapping and you can effectively “control enemies, tank, heal, and dps”, you’re not using just the GS and you’re actively doing a lot more than waiting on CDs so you’ve just completely refuted your own post about stale combat. And thus this entire thread.

I suppose I should clarify. I was effectively controlling enemies, tanking, healing, and dps’ing (again, not literally, but as much as GW2 allows), and I was doing that all with a Greatsword and a Staff. Occasionally I’d switch out my Greatsword for Mace/Focus and keep my Staff as Secondary. I did this on fights that required more healing through my Symbols and more uptime on my Symbols in general.

Now, I cannot run the same build. The Greatsword simply does not provide nearly enough reliable access to a Symbol to warrant its spot in my dungeon setup. That is my personal experience. Maybe others are making it work for them, but I can assure you that the ones who were running Symbol builds have either moved on or are dying while trying to make it work.

I can see from your response that you are only looking to be confrontational. If you don’t think my thread has a purpose, then don’t post in it. I think many others disagree with you. The Guardian community, or at least the Greatsword Guardian community, should be in unison here, not divided.

Rhinala.1739:

I cant see the connection between a viable argument and PvXWiki (in my opinion a tool for the lazy), What is wrong with players having a favorite weapon? or a favorite build?
Greatsword had a lot of viable playstyles and a lot of them are now closed to the player due to the symbol change, those players had a lot of fun with the game prior to this nerf. Today thy need to find a different weapon and a different playstyle, some will like it as a way to play a new game with your favorite toy some will not. those people are not vocal and are not a minority, and the lack of response from Anet feels bad, i do believe that thy are spending their time in finding a solution to this problem.

We are moving towards retaliation being more of a counter to taking many hits rather than a general boon to keep up all the time.

Why not reduce the retaliation duration in order to prevent a constant retaliation upkeep and prevent the stacking of retaliation and reduce the coodown of the retaliation skill in order to give the players the option to use it as a counter to attacks.
sorry to say that the 40 (32 with a trait) sec cooldown of signet of judgment with its 3 sec retaliation doesn’t give me a lot of options to counter attacks.

We also wanted to improve the combo finisher of the guardian, so we reorganized guardian greatsword skills to the

How can it be that doubling the cooldown of a skill improve combat, why cant thy increase the duration of the cooldown and increase the duration of the skill.
why cant we decrease the duration of the skill and give the player a shorter cooldown that will make combat a lot more tactical and fun.

If Anet will not hear the players effected by the nerf it only cause antagonism against Anet, i can’t see any logic with that.

First off, the PvXWiki comparison was about the general guardian forum. Not specific to this topic.

Secondly, I wish people would stop saying “ANET broke symbols”. They changed one out of the five symbols we have. They changed retaliation and symbol upkeep with the GS. That’s it. There are a bunch of ways for guardians to get more retaliation (other skills, combos, traits, etc.), there is a way to extend duration of symbols, and there are 4 other symbols if you want symbol damage (if you’re spec’d into symbol damage you should have had a second weapon on swap with a symbol anyway).

As for the general retaliation changes, I’m sure this is just the first step of the changes and I’m patient enough to see where they take it. We could sit here and suggest things and try and figure out where they’re going with it all day. In the end, it’s up to them though.

No one is saying ANet broke Symbols. They most certainly broke Symbol builds for the Greatsword. Tell me who is going to select Major Traits around an ability they can only use once every twenty seconds?

As for having other weapons with Symbols, well…yeah, use them. I ran GS and Staff and I loved that I could throw down two symbols at a time if I needed to. With the way I was traited, I was able to actually play the Guardian in melee range with some respectable, not great, but respectable damage, and not worry about getting downed every other mob swing.

It was very active and very fluid. Now it is clunky and ineffective. There are no two ways about that.

My edit didn’t go through on the last post so I’ll respond here. I wasn’t trying to be confrontational. I was trying to reply to your original post. Your responses make it seem that you’re doing a lot more than sitting back and waiting for your GS cool downs. This has turned into a thread about the GS changes instead of stale game play though.

You want to focus on symbols. I’m assuming you’re running Zeal and Honor. Why not switch from staff to hammer or mace/X as your secondary to your GS? You’ll get a lot more synergy with symbols than with a staff. If there are any fights coming up that you know you’ll have to be at range, then switch out accordingly.

Neither the GS nor symbol builds have been invalidated. You’ll just have to adjust your weapons, utilities, etc. But this isn’t new to MMOs. There always have been and always will be patches and changes that force players to look at their builds again.

I was actually running a 0/5/30/30/5 build with a focus on healing generated through Symbols and Battle Presence. I am in full Clerics. I would love to put points into Zeal but giving up Altruistic Healing from Valor would hurt my ability to “tank” too much to be worth it. The 5 points in Virtues is for more healing through Altruistic Healing and the 5 points in Radiance is for just a bit more crit to proc my Vigor boon for more healing and more dodge rolling (which is also more healing).

The GS and Symbol builds have not been invalidated, but the combo of the two has been. You can run it if you want, but you will be inefficient at what you are trying to accomplish.

Honestly, you probably weren’t getting the greatest synergy with GS to begin with so I can see how the changes would have killed your build. That trait build would be a lot more effective with a Hammer primary. Especially if you’re looking to trigger Altruistic Healing. The symbol procs Altruistic Healing like mad and it’s almost constantly up with the longer trait.

I don’t play a Hammer in PvE because it just flat out the most boring skill set in the game. PvP is an entirely different scenario as abilities 3-5 become useful for more than just a situational “here and there” approach.

With the current GS symbol, I agree, it isn’t getting a whole lot of synergy from the Symbol build. Which is why the build is, so to speak, “dead.” However, playing with GS prior to the patch, it proc’d Altruistic Healing from anyone who stepped inside of it, it lasted longer than the Hammer’s symbol-providing more healing through Traited abilities, and it provided much more active combat.

I use the Hammer in PvP because it is just awesome. Decent burst from what shouldn’t be a bursty profession and amazing control. However, I think I would rather beat my head against a solid brick wall than use the Hammer in PvE.

Thunk…Thunk……………..Thunk>Blast
Thunk…Thunk……………..Thunk>Blast
Vomit.

Unfortunately we don’t see too much difference from that to the current iteration of the GS. They are both fairly passive and boring weapons in PvE now.

The only thing I disagree with Animus on is the fact that Guardians apparently aren’t supposed to be bursty. We were told in the beginning that we could play how we want and there are quite a few nice builds out that allow for such customization. =)

I tend to agree with Animus on most of the points he made. I only play Guardian and I used to play a symbol-heavy GS build, but as soon as they nerfed it I switched my build to support Virtues. It works well for dungeons and I avoided the frustration that Animus is going through.

However, reading this post made me realize the latest changes were a very targeted attack against a specific build. Apparently, in PvP it was easy to maintain retaliation using 2 skills: symbol of wrath + signet of judgement.

The nerf is typical of Anet knee-jerk skill balancing: change these skills with no oversight or balance for the rest of the game. This is reminescent of GW1 skill balancing (for many years) where they would just change back and forth from month to month between different skill variations based on the latest GvG meta. It made absolutely no sense elsewhere in the game and it looked completely unprofessional.

I don’t mean to offend the person in charge of balancing (Izzy) but these things only lead to a series of conclusions:

1. He ignores game balance in favour of the highest level of PvP format. (which I believe is the wrong philosophy, but is the one they adopt now)
2. He doesn’t have the oversight to recognize also the negative impacts of these changes (yes, some customers are deeply dissatisfied).
3. He doesn’t have the capacity to make the right changes (i.e. limited foresight on branching implications, more imbalances created down the road, other builds invalidated, etc).

Until they implement a complete PvE/WvW vs. tPvP split, we will always see these seemingly random nerfs.

And to be constructive, not just critical, I will add my opinion on an elegant solution to the PvP imbalance he was trying to fix: change the boon given by symbol of wrath from retaliation to swiftness (same duration, 5 seconds). Done, problem averted.

Animus, I agree with you on many of your points, but making a thread with the sole purpose of identifying a problem, without truly attempting to provide a sollution, doesn’t reach far.

I think posting on existing threads with quality sollutions, and helping them stay in the front page with quality replies that keep the discussions alive in a healthy way, will make it alot easier to get noticed.

I’ve made all the suggestions I can possibly think of in other threads. With this thread, I wasn’t necessarily proposing a change, rather a reason for a change, which I think can be just as constructive if it is handled in the right fashion.

If you would like my opinion on what ANet should do to fix the Symbol, I will reiterate it here. I believe the Symbol should be reverted to its previous recharge rate and (as countless others have suggested) it should provide a different boon. I think most appropriately it should provide Might since the weapon itself is a high damage oriented one.

I would also love to see the Symbol apply a cripple and/or fumble condition to enemies (to appease both PvE and PvP players). It would be interesting if the effect was stronger the closer to the center of the Symbol the opponents are. This would make taking larger Symbols an even more attractive option, as well as adding to the overall versatility of the Greatsword.

However, my expertise in balancing is non-existent so I wouldn’t be able to tell you if that would be too much of a buff or “fix” to the current problem with the Symbol. If other people have suggestions, feel free to post them here, but like I said, this was more of a reason why to make a change rather than a proposal of changes. I would hate to see this thread merged into the infinite mass of Greatsword changes complaints.

I agree with animus.

For me GS is just too boring now and nerfed too much. Personally I cant enjoy guard anymore and play almost every other class in spvp now. I dont mind that much, one more class which is quite easy to beat now. A friend of mine stopped playing gw because of that nerf – it destroyed the whole class he say. If further patches will go into the same direction, of nerfing little op things completely to the ground and getting even more cd based, i am happy the competition is not sleeping and there will be other games for me. No offence the autohit-lovers :-)

I think it would be a great option to change back the symbols to the original order and duration, but nerf or change the retalitation. Why not take out the retalitation of the symbol and turn it in an additional virtue? Thus the symbol mechanic would not be destroyed – ret would be activated tactically with a long cd.

Whatever, probably Anet dont care anyway..

I’ve finally got around actually playing with the weapon, and it lost a lot of the fun-factor, without actually losing too much power. It’s bit boring now indeed, with waiting for cooldowns more. I’ve even considered putting the first attack on auto-cast.

I am very disappointed in this nerf to the Greatsword. I tried going back to the hammer today and was that a boring play style. So ANET has now given me the choice to have fun playing (even that is less fun now than before) or playing effectively. I may just stop playing guardian until ANET gets its ….insert word of choice here….. act together.

While I applaud your efforts encouraging the community to adjust to the changes and be constructive about criticisms, I think simply stating ‘Hey, that used to be fun, now it’s not… put it back the way it was." Is a valid and perfectly viable option. I’m a paying customer, and that’s what I want. I don’t want to ‘adjust’ in this case. Believe me, I’ve adjusted all the way through GW1 and before that, and before that… and most things, do make some sense. This Greatsword change just doesn’t make sense for me /especially/ as it relates to PvE where ‘balancing’ isn’t at all related to being fair to other players, but is instead simply a change in the level of difficulty. I don’t appreciate or need a change in my level of difficulty. It was fine the way it was. I’ve died plenty of times, but I’ve also felt powerful and awesome and had a lot of fun. I think the greatsword (My primary weapon) was just fine, and the most constructive thing I can say is, please change it back.

You can combine Hammer and GS for the time being. Basically, do your normal rotation with GS then switch to Hammer, by time you fire off Mighty Blow and the Hammer Autoattack most normal mobs are dead. Seldom do you even complete the Autoattack sequence.

As a follow up to my earlier comments, I can only conclude that ANET has decided that retaliation is overpowered. I would like to address that directly, particularly in regards to the Greatsword:

I think we can agree that Guardians were never meant to be a high DPS class per se. They NEED to be able to do a significant amount of damage to survive the dungeons and to fulfill the role of TANK for those who choose to play the TANK role (thank you ANET for letting us CHOOSE the role we’d like to play, regardless of profession) — but Retaliation is NOT a DPS enhancing effect, in my mind. It has that effect, when a high DPS mob or player decides to tangle with a Guardian (and some of the other classes are much better at it, quite frankly, a ranger can lay down more DPS at greater range than a Guardian with a greatsword). But…

To my way of thinking Retaliation as it stands is a purely defensive response to incoming high DPS. It says, in effect, ‘It would be better for you to pick on someone else right now. If you just had the sense to step out of the way of my g\Greatsword, or target me with a condition or AoE instead, you’d do better… but as it is now you’re only hurting yourself.) It’s not the Guardian’s fault if the attacker can’t adjust to that circumstance and with classes that can do much more DPS than us, we need that deterrent, particularly in a melee (close in) situation against multiple attackers who can just continuously lay down ranged attacks. So, the whole ‘always on’ thing, sometimes… is really, really really necessary.

The alternative, of course, is to ‘adjust’ with a more pure defensive build, healing, staying in the back, being pure support — but that’s against ANET’s stated philosophy. Any profession should be able to play any role. I submit that a Guardian without Retaliation (particularly as it used to be on the Greatsword) would have a very difficult time being a TANK. Indeed, a Guardian with ‘bursty’ or ‘occasional’ retaliation’ still has difficulty standing up to CONDITIONS and AoE and Ranged damage and all the other badness that’s out there.

How do I know this? Because, as a level 80 Guardian in full dragon armor running TA explorable I can tell you, I’m not some sort of overpowered invincible never-die build. I get slammed by the posion/AoE/multiple attacks/lifesteal and many, many other options attackers have against us. So, it puzzles me, in the end, as to why ANET continues to pick on Guardians, first by direct nerf of our DPS prior to release, and now reducing our defenses too.

In short, retaliation forces those who attack Guardians to be a little more creative about the form of their attack, but it doesn’t make the Guardian invincible. Moreover, it’s required for the Guardian profession to play the TANK role, for those that choose that role.

The Guardian is designed for support and defense. And because in this game, support and defense depends fundamentally on good timing, our support abilities all have longer than usual cooldowns. Short-cooldown abilities encourage regular use; long-cooldown abilities encourage precise timing for a larger payoff.

Support comes, for the most part, in three forms. We have passive, ‘baked in’ effects like Symbol of Protection on our Hammer Chain 3 or Heal on our Mace Chain 3. We have utilities, nearly all of which have prohibitive cooldowns that punish careless use and powerful effects that reward precise timing (Wall of Reflection, Stand Your Ground, etc.)

But we also have utility skills in our weapons bar—lots of them. Because skills like Binding Blade, Shield of Absorption, Shield of Wrath, Line of Warding, Empower and Banish are so potentially powerful given precise timing, they all have long cooldowns that prohibit frequent use in the heat of battle.

This leaves Guardians in a peculiar position: Half our weapons are responsive, aggressive and loaded with short-recharge abilities; the other half aren’t, and depend heavily on Auto Attack (1). Sword is a great example of an aggressive, kinetic weapon that’s quite a lot of fun to play and has cooldowns short enough to encourage use but long enough to discourage waste. Mace is another great example. With a Symbol at 8 seconds and Protector’s Strike at a modest 15 seconds, Mace may feel “slow and steady,” but it’s hardly dull. It doesn’t rely so heavily on its Auto-Attack.

Greatsword is in a singularly awkward position, in fact.

On paper, the cooldowns don’t look that bad. You have a 15 second (12 traited) Leap that’s also a finisher, which is great for closing distance and staying aggressive. You have Whirling Wrath at a short 10 second (8 traited) recharge that deals solid damage to single targets or groups. Two solid, aggressive abilities on relatively short cooldowns, plus a solid Auto-Attack. That seems fair, right?

Actually, it’s not that simple.

The problem is that, on paper, Greatsword’s few short cooldown skills make it seem like a fun, active, aggressive weapon. However, Leap of Faith, Whirling Wrath and Binding Blade are all Combo Finishers, and Combo Finishers used carelessly are easily wasted.

The best use of a Combo Finisher is, unsurprisingly, while inside a combo field. Greatsword is our single most dependable source of Combo Finishers, and our only source of Combo Finisher: Leap. Prior to the October 7 patch, the 10s cooldown on Symbol of Wrath gave Greatsword its “active” playstyle by providing Guardians with an at-will Combo Field, thus ensuring that your Combo Finishers are never wasted.

In other words, Greatsword’s functionality pivots on Symbol of Wrath. Leap of Faith, Binding Blade and Whirling Wrath all have powerful synergy with Symbol of Wrath, and a big increase in SoW’s cooldown length also reduces the frequency with which Leap, Whirling and Binding can be optimally used.

Perhaps this is by design. Perhaps the change was intended to tone down a weapon that had access to a powerful Symbol, a combo Field and the ability to activate three Finishers off that one, low-cooldown, frequently-available Field. And maybe that was a problem. I won’t speculate, because that’s pointless.

But what is certain is this: The October 7 patch may not have, on paper, reduced the damage and functionality of the Greatsword by much. But it did reduce the frequency with which Guardians could optimally use their abilities. Put another way, the Oct 7 patch encourages reactionary use of Greatsword abilities, rather than aggressive use. It makes Greatsword play depend more heavily on Auto-Attack rather than abilities #2 to #5 which seems oddly counterintuitive.

With the recent increase to SoW’s recharge, I found myself not even bothering to use WW until I could effectively combo them together. Now I look at my guardian and just let out a long-drawn sigh. I’ve been using GS and scepter/focus since pre-release and on my guardian alone I’ve logged a little over 400 hours. I have attempted using a hammer, but it’s just not for me. I have also attempted other professions, but I have enjoyed guardian the most. I have considered mace/shield but I can’t even find myself wanting to do a few dungeons to get them.

I really don’t care much about retaliation, as I run a toughness/boon heals build. In fact, I would be quite content if SoW granted vigor instead of retaliation with the original 10 second recharge. The changes to the recharges of SoW and Leap of Faith hardly seem like a fair trade-off. This heavily affected the combo-ability of GS and my general enjoyment of this game.

screenshots for credibility,

I don’t understand why people use Great Sword for anything other than the pull, You can maintain 12 stacks of might for five people including yourself if you’re blasting in fire fields consistently. How do people convince themselves that the minor dps increase from Great Sword outweighs the 420 power to everyone in the party, not to mention the increased control from hammer, as well as a higher symbol up time for your altruism?
.
.
.
Also using retaliation correctly can make you the highest dps in a fight, Risen Illusionists, Flame thrower wielding mobs, and even the Serpent of Tides boss from the Mursaat path in Arah can easily make you number 1 dps.

However, I’ve rarely seen anyone use symbol of wrath for the retaliation itself. At what point as a Guardian have noticed all the eles and necros run into melee range to pick up a couple seconds of retaliation? Not even once!

The biggest culprits of retaliation are “Stand Your Ground” and “Save Yourselves”, both being instant cast shouts with a higher than 20% uptime of retaliation for both of them.

I played Guardian from the release and always in Greatsword from 6 to 80. It was really satisfying and funny to play, and i remember the thrill of whirling 6-7 mobs to death with a laugh, because they were killing themselves at the same time.

I now play hammer, and i read that some of you said it was boring and the “nerfs” to the Greatsword. So i fetched back my rusty Dragonkiller and went to killing mobs and players.

From what i saw, and it is consistent with what Animus said, they had an overreaction to the “infinite retaliation” problem that plagued many people in WvW.

But, it stops there. Yes, you won’t have perma-SoW anymore. But whining to have it back stagnating. We now have a better leap, why don’t use it to full. Use your utilities to compensate. What the kitten, use YOUR COMPANIONS to compensate!

Fire fields combine very well with leap, giving Area Might and increasing our DPS more than Symbol of Wrath: if you get ours, combined with Master of Consacration and a good, aggressive gameplay, you will work wonders.

And i suggest you go in a more active playstyle, using an underestimated trait (Reckless Daring? i can’t remember the exact name) to insert our healing-dodges in between the chain! You will get used to the animation timing and make that less boring (is what i do with the hammer, that really has only #1 and #2 skills).

Sure, these suggestions won’t give you back the thrill of rampaging in the enemies almost non-stop with 2-3… and laughing at their pathetic attempt of damaging you..

I will miss those times, but we should adapt and endure. We are Guardians, and we will find a way to get the most of our rusty Greatswords in time. This thread could be the start of the new “Greatsword build” that will rule them all.

Till then… learn, adapt and endure, Guardians of Tyria!

Fabsm, you refer always from a pvp prospective, and you dont understand that the “problem” is for PVE players.

Im one that adapt mostly of times, but when things become without sense (and when you dont know the reason of a change, things become whitout sense) maybe its time to speak and be propositive.

Most of my point works in a PvE prospective.

What i mean is: don’t discard this change as an opportunity to learn new ways of using your favorite weapons.

Do you have a longer CD on SoW? Maybe is time to bring up our Consecration (even in PVE) to substitute for the longer CD. Purging Flames with Master of Consecration is 32 seconds CD, you can always alternate the two fields and another weapon (let’s say a mace) and obtain a similar result than before, only different, because instead of a 100% retaliation uptime, you will have 66% retaliation 33% might.

It is more difficult (you have to switch, you have to use skills you don’t normally use), but you will have a different approach. Maybe you will be used to having might.

What i say is: adapt please. Give it a try.

Man i already use another weapons, but thrust me, DONT WORK WELL!
and anyway, concration is not a simbol, have no sinergy with simbols, so keep a consecration in a pure simbol build its like using pizza to replace car wheel. (ok maybe its a stupid example xD)

for me retaliation can be simply deleted from the game, nerf a weapon mechanic for a single boon its not smart.

i can adapt for reasoned and explained things, but i cant adapt for a casual thing that DONT affect its target, but hit many other aspects.

@ Judge

I think most people would agree that, given the right build, a Hammer can certainly be just as, if not more, effective than the Greatsword for damage output and group utility. The problem most people have with the Hammer is that it is frankly just boring.

In PvP, this isn’t nearly as evident because you are often making great use of your utility skills (3-5) to give yourself an advantage. I love the Hammer for this reason in PvP, but in PvE it is a completely different story.

You spend almost your entire rotation auto attacking, hitting #2 when it comes of CD, or whenever you can line it up with a Combo Field effectively. It is just extremely bland and after the first couple of blasts that give you that “Hulk Smash” feeling, it wears off and becomes a repetitive snooze fest.

“But you have a second weapon to use with the Hammer!” For those who use this argument, I can only agree, but you can say that for any weapon. If you are comfortable using a boring and less active weapon, then go for it, the Hammer will perform well for you. However, if you are like me and want to feel like you have a real rotation or at least a selection of abilities to supplement your damage, the Hammer just falls very short (still referring to PvE, of course).

Frankly, I would like to see the Hammer have as much work done on it as the Greatsword. I think both weapons are lacking in different areas. Prior to the patch, the Greatsword was active and fluid, now it is almost as boring as the Hammer. I’d like to see both weapons be slightly tuned to a more active play-style.

I think the Greatsword Problem is enhanced by the lack of good offensive PVP utility skills. When thinking about adding DPS to a PVE group fight only two utilities come to mind, Purging Flames and Bane Signet (only one of which is active). Judge’s Intervention is PVP only and spirit weapon’s cast time (and down time) isn’t much fun in PVE. This leaves Guardians with 13 defensive/group oriented utilities and 1 active offensive PVE utility so when we’re roaming around by ourselves we would like our weapon skills to be very active.

The Greatsword change moved away from active and reduced the overall damage of the weapon. It should be retooled toward how players were using the weapon, as a solo and aoe dps weapon.

PS: Hell remove the retaliation from wrath altogether and make it fury or might, then move the cooldown back to 10 seconds and leave the leap cooldown at 15.

I tend to agree to some extent with you Animus.

But… just one thing. That manifesto line stuff, that’s business talk to try to convince people to buy a product, it has nothing to do with what they literately will do, or have the intention to do, either right away (during development) or later on via updates. In video games that happen to be supported (by the devs) via multiple patches especially for MMORPGs, or just generally games that are on-line there’s never any guarantee that a class, or a game feature will be or will stay the way it was intended to be, or any guarantee it will stay the way it was in its early (or “Vanilla”) days (or weeks, or months).

There’s always change coming up and when players over time “get used to” specific ways to play according to how the class is built and balanced then inevitably when patches modifies that play style the players themselves find themselves confronted with a forced re-adaptation of particular skills or the whole class (which is more rare, but can happen). It sometimes happen that whatever amount of adaption is needed you still feel convinced that something is wrong, that’s fine, then you point at those aspects of the concerned skills, spells, or class. But more often then not the developers went through that with their testers (I’m not saying it’s always the case, but usually it is) and they actually expect the first waves of reactions to be negative because the players reacting to the changes were not the testers whom had the chance for some time to try out the changes internally.

But… anyway, there are of course situations when you are genuinely certain that something in the patches went wrong, again I’m saying that’s completely fine, so voice your opinions and perhaps offer your own modest solutions as feedback/suggestions to the issues. So while I do agree with most of your points regarding the Guardian changes for the GS I still think that starting to support your own points with that manifesto line was about as cheap of a move as it was cheap to start with from ArenaNet to pretend that the combat in their game would be as dramatically different when compared to other similar games. But in favor of ArenaNet despite me not liking it when companies do that (to try to create hype) I have to say that ultimately they are a business and they need to do their job… I.E. try to sell a product, therefor try to come up with some one liners like that manifesto to make it look like their game (or, in this case the combat… or at least when it comes to swords being swung over and over again) is Oh So Superior to others.

As a player who disagrees on game-play mechanics, or do not like how newly a specific class or particular spells or skills were balanced, changed or modified, then “our job” is to merely point at it/them and explain why it might not be a good thing to do. But quoting one liners when you know as well that it was said prior to the game’s release is cheap, at the very least, but also naive.

Gallian.7630:

I tend to agree to some extent with you Animus.

But… just one thing. That manifesto line stuff, that’s business talk to try to convince people to buy a product, it has nothing to do with what they literately will do, or have the intention to do, either right away (during development) or later on via updates. In video games that happen to be supported (by the devs) via multiple patches especially for MMORPGs, or just generally games that are on-line there’s never any guarantee that a class, or a game feature will be or will stay the way it was intended to be, or any guarantee it will stay the way it was in its early (or “Vanilla”) days (or weeks, or months).

There’s always change coming up and when players over time “get used to” specific ways to play according to how the class is built and balanced then inevitably when patches modifies that play style the players themselves find themselves confronted with a forced re-adaptation of particular skills or the whole class (which is more rare, but can happen). It sometimes happen that whatever amount of adaption is needed you still feel convinced that something is wrong, that’s fine, then you point at those aspects of the concerned skills, spells, or class. But more often then not the developers went through that with their testers (I’m not saying it’s always the case, but usually it is) and they actually expect the first waves of reactions to be negative because the players reacting to the changes were not the testers whom had the chance for some time to try out the changes internally.

But… anyway, there are of course situations when you are genuinely certain that something in the patches went wrong, again I’m saying that’s completely fine, so voice your opinions and perhaps offer your own modest solutions as feedback/suggestions to the issues. So while I do agree with most of your points regarding the Guardian changes for the GS I still think that starting to support your own points with that manifesto line was about as cheap of a move as it was cheap to start with from ArenaNet to pretend that the combat in their game would be as dramatically different when compared to other similar games. But in favor of ArenaNet despite me not liking it when companies do that (to try to create hype) I have to say that ultimately they are a business and they need to do their job… I.E. try to sell a product, therefor try to come up with some one liners like that manifesto to make it look like their game (or, in this case the combat… or at least when it comes to swords being swung over and over again) is Oh So Superior to others.

As a player who disagrees on game-play mechanics, or do not like how newly a specific class or particular spells or skills were balanced, changed or modified, then “our job” is to merely point at it/them and explain why it might not be a good thing to do. But quoting one liners when you know as well that it was said prior to the game’s release is cheap, at the very least, but also naive.

Thank you for the honest criticism. I hadn’t intended to come across using a “cheap shot” or like a disgruntled customer that feels like the big bad company wronged me. I genuinely believe that ANet does not want their game to be like other MMO’s and I believe that they have succeeded in many areas. However, I do believe that this is one particular area where they have failed.

It was less apparent when the Symbol was on its original 10 second recharge timer, but it is now obvious to all Greatsword users that there is a problem with the weapon’s “activity level.” Even if the manifesto is simply a marketing tool, it has to stand for something, even if it doesn’t determine ANet’s entire course of development for their game.

Once people realize that ANet hasn’t lived up to its promises, some will definitely feel jaded and move on to other games. While this issue (the current Guardian Greatsword skill set) probably won’t deter people from sticking around and giving ANet the time they need to work on the balancing of their game, it may concern players who actually did look to that manifesto as a sign of what will change in ANet’s version of the MMO.

There are many instances of incorrect information and hype in that video, admittedly, and I chose to focus on this one because it resonated with my frustrations, and the frustrations of many others. I see ANet as a business, but also a fairly sincere business that does want to provide quality for their customers, and does want to maintain as much honesty as possible. I think focusing on making all weapons more “active,” or at least the ones that really need it, would be a huge step in the right direction for the company. It would demonstrate that, perhaps, that manifesto wasn’t purely corporate hype, which I don’t believe it was.

The guardian is a support and defensive class and as such won’t have much in the way of what you call “active” play. The guardian has a lot of what I would call active play. The guardian forces the player to have a lot of battlefield awareness to know not only when and how to use each skill but also how to setup the use of said skill. That also means you can’t just spam them on recharge.

I want you to ask yourself one question honestly. If the guardian didn’t have the greatsword, would you still be playing it? I say this because after reading all of the GS nerf QQ threads I wish ANET never would have given the guardian a greatsword. It’s obvious from some of the responses from both you and a lot of other GS players that it’s diluted what the class really is and has done more to confuse players than anything else. I honestly believe that if the guardian didn’t have the GS there would be a massive amount of guardians currently QQ’n that would have never picked a guardian to begin with. The GS is a great weapon for the guardian in certain situations but most of those situations come in solo play or some form of PvP. The fact that the guardian’s game play style doesn’t appeal to so many has them trying to use the GS in areas outside of those where it’s most effective.

I’ve said it before many times on this forum but I’ll say it again. Pick a class in which you like the overall game play of the class. That means with almost all of the weapon sets of said class because this game forces you to choose the best weapon for the situation. You’ll be hindering yourself and your teammates if you try and play the weapon set that you want to of the time instead of what works best in the situation.

I leveled my guardian from 5-80 with a greatsword and had loads of fun the whole way. It was an extremely versatile weapon that did decent (not op or underpowered) damage and while there were periods of waiting for skills to cooldown, it was quite an fun time. Fast forward to the Oct. 7th patch, guardian has suddenly become boring as ****. I enjoyed the symbol build with the guardian but now there’s absolutely no point in taking a symbol trait if you’re using a GS. What really matters is that Anet took one of the most balanced and entertaining weapons in the game, and turned it into a boring auto-attack fest, while nerfing it for some reason. They should be making more weapons as versatile and fun as the GS used to be if they want to make the game more fun for players. Killing fun = A bad call, regardless of whether the GS is still useful or not (it’s not really).

The fact ANet has yet to reply to ANY of the threads in this community following the outcry from this patch is scandalous.

If the game fizzles like so many others have, it will be on their heads.

I think this is a problem with the game in general, pretty much every class has this problem outside of maybe Elementalist.

Dmg is just too passive and automatic. Not deep/fun/interesting enough. They need to work on having lower cooldowns and creating more combo’s (not just combo field stuff) but actual combo’s like Ranger’s SORT of have with their pet (This Attack causes your next Pet Hit to X/Y/Z).

Also falls to traits.

I want to thank all of the contributions to this thread, as well as all of the other ardent Guardian’s creating threads who would like to see some dev attention directed to this issue.

Hopefully we will get some sort of answer soon.

go check out 1:22 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_FskSWHLgE&feature=relmfu
now most damage from greatsword come from autoattack thanks for the pointless nerf.
“we dont want players to grind” … yes you do

I think we should slow down a bit. This is by far the greatest mmorpg I’ve ever played, even with the current balance issues. I honestly believe in the back of my mind that our beloved Guardians will get what we deserve and hope the love will come soon.

So its safe to conclude that retaliation was not the impetus for the GS nerf? So was it the damage?

If the latter is true, then explain thief damage in this game. I’m having a hard time seeing the logic or balance across various build as they pertain to WVW and Sc builds.

tom.7468:

go check out 1:22 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_FskSWHLgE&feature=relmfu
now most damage from greatsword come from autoattack thanks for the pointless nerf.
“we dont want players to grind” … yes you do

“I swung a sword, i swung a sword again, hey i swung it again”, yep that does actully sound a lot like the guardian GS now (and actully very much like the hammer in PvE).

MajorMelchett.6042:

tom.7468:

go check out 1:22 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_FskSWHLgE&feature=relmfu
now most damage from greatsword come from autoattack thanks for the pointless nerf.
“we dont want players to grind” … yes you do

“I swung a sword, i swung a sword again, hey i swung it again”, yep that does actully sound a lot like the guardian GS now (and actully very much like the hammer in PvE).

My Hammer attack routine in PVE is:
Thump (move), Thump (move), Symbol (Dodge-heal), Mighty Blow, Knockdown (Dodge Away), Swap Weapon (Staff-Simbol of Energy), Empower, Symbol (move away), Orb (Move away and start to kite) , Autohit till Swap (kite) , Swap to Hammer, Rinse and Repeat.

I usually insert one or more Virtues or Utilities in between, especially Save Yourselves and Retreat (they’re nice healing with Altruistic Healing).

I run with larger symbols, mainly because for me the AoE is better than the alternatives, especially at Orr when often i have 3+ mobs on me. I run with the improved Retaliation duration because of Mighty Blow + SoP.

This is far from being boring, and i can wear down even 2-3 veterans with this routine. I bet the same could be applied with Greatsword/Staff. If you like big numbers you can even switch the Empower at the end, before swapping and go home with 15+ Stacks of Might.

The secret is being adaptable, if you are missing the days of “1-2-3-4, rinse and repeat, mob is dead” you’re only clinging to the past.

Finally, our class is not defined from a single weapon or a single build. We have lots of them, i like and use them all. Everyone of us has her preference, of course, but sticking with an outdated build because “it worked well and i want it back” is not constructive for our class at all.