Guild Wars 2

Someone made a thread in the General Discussion forum regarding the most “stable” profession and many rightly so agreed the Guardian. Am I the only one that dislikes this to an extent? Yes, I love this profession for it, we’re seen in all areas of the game for one reason or another. We’ve been in a good place for a long while, and we don’t desperately NEED major changes like Ele or pre-dhuumfire necro and old warriors.

But there lies my dislike, we never see anything new. I don’t even want major buffs, I just want something new to play around with that’s really unique. Fresh Air came out for Ele months back and I thought “this is a new interesting mechanic” regardless if it was build defining or not. Guardian’s new grandmasters for example: More burn damage, retal scaling from condi, blocking creates blocking, more health, more endurance regen. They’re all really passive except maybe the Valor trait, and other than retal scaling from condi there’s nothing that is really unique or interesting. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table other than the slight chance that you can now play your guard as a mediocre condi engi.

We may be in a good place right now, but with each patch to other classes, we are losing our foothold on “In a good place” simply because we aren’t moving where others are.

It’s a double edged sword. If we are the benchmark for where Anet wants professions to be balanced, Then I think most of our changes will be mostly cosmetic.

They should overhaul staff. It’s so frigging boring, but you have to use it because it’s so good.

So you guys are complaining you the class is too good to be buffed, and doesnt even get nerfed patch after patch? Makes total sense, switch to an elementalist so you have more “fun” then.

^^ Settle down Mr Angry. The complaint is that the profession is stagnant.

Sad, but Guardian is so “stable” that I believe this is how Longbow will be if they decide to release new weapons.

1) fire an arrow that sparkles
2) fire an arrow made of light
3) fire an arrow that is holy
4) fire a holy light arrow
5) fire a sparkling holy light arrow

LumAnth.5124:

Sad, but Guardian is so “stable” that I believe this is how Longbow will be if they decide to release new weapons.

1) fire an arrow that sparkles
2) fire an arrow made of light
3) fire an arrow that is holy
4) fire a holy light arrow
5) fire a sparkling holy light arrow

holy mother of arrows

Stable is a good way to put it. I don’t believe the Guardian has ever been considered “op” since the game’s release. So in that regard, yes it is nice to know that you’re playing a profession that doesn’t rely on incredibly powerful traits/skills. But just as to compound on what Obtena stated earlier, it’s been stagnant.

Traits scattered all over the place, plenty of useless ones to boot. Many of which are boring(% based traits). Outside of shouts, you have very little to no boon uptime. Mobility seems to be non-existent(outside of runesets). Zero soft-cc for one of the most melee-centric professions in the game. And of course, any decent ranged weaponry.

I love the Guardian profession, I doubt i’ll ever switch. This doesn’t mean I don’t have concerns just like everyone else that shouldn’t be addressed. I’d love it if we could get a few people from the Guardian forum and come up with some changes.

LumAnth.5124:

Sad, but Guardian is so “stable” that I believe this is how Longbow will be if they decide to release new weapons.

1) fire an arrow that sparkles
2) fire an arrow made of light
3) fire an arrow that is holy
4) fire a holy light arrow
5) fire a sparkling holy light arrow

At least we’d finally have a proper ranged weapon. :p

I disagree almost completely. All of the things that we are stable at I don’t want to change. I have played the same Staff support spec since beta and I don’t ever want it to change because I have so much fun with it and I never get bored.

However, there are PLENTY of things that need to be changed on Guardian. We are far from perfect. Spirit weapons are still useless pieces of garbage, we still only have one condition, we still have no soft CC, etc etc.

TL;DR:

The stable aspects need to stay stable because they’re fine, but there are still weak aspects of the Guardian.

Very true. I really like guardian’s balance and I love playing one but it’s kind of sad when you’re reading patch notes, everyone gets new fun toys to play with and guardians get 10% change on meditation’s recharge… coooool.

Donut.6914:

I disagree almost completely. All of the things that we are stable at I don’t want to change. I have played the same Staff support spec since beta and I don’t ever want it to change because I have so much fun with it and I never get bored.

However, there are PLENTY of things that need to be changed on Guardian. We are far from perfect. Spirit weapons are still useless pieces of garbage, we still only have one condition, we still have no soft CC, etc etc.

TL;DR:

The stable aspects need to stay stable because they’re fine, but there are still weak aspects of the Guardian.

Off topic but, can I ask what build you are using for support staff? I have been looking for a good setup for awhile now. Thanks

“Stable” because many other classes are badly designed and need to be retooled. If a class goes through a lot of changes, it’s probably because it’s badly conceived of.

ArchonWing.9480:

“Stable” because many other classes are badly designed and need to be retooled. If a class goes through a lot of changes, it’s probably because it’s badly conceived of.

Sure, we’re “balanced”. You know what that means? It means we’re average. We’re good at nothing.

When another class comes across a guardian in WvW they think “great, free kill”. We have low HP, average DPS, low mobility. As soon as our condition cleanses have been used we’re dead. We can’t even run away.

Oh yeah, we can buff others. That way they can get the kills and the bags.

I though if you hit you also get a bag. Try attacking maybe instead of focusing on buff?

Zanshin.5379:

ArchonWing.9480:

“Stable” because many other classes are badly designed and need to be retooled. If a class goes through a lot of changes, it’s probably because it’s badly conceived of.

Sure, we’re “balanced”. You know what that means? It means we’re average. We’re good at nothing.

When another class comes across a guardian in WvW they think “great, free kill”. We have low HP, average DPS, low mobility. As soon as our condition cleanses have been used we’re dead. We can’t even run away.

Oh yeah, we can buff others. That way they can get the kills and the bags.

That’s the point of balance… all classes need to be balanced to a median eventually. You could buff them to the level of the most overpowered, but Anet is simply not capable of that level of creativity or thinking atm.

I’m talking about classes in the context of quality of design. For example, the ranger is not only underpowered in certain circumstances but they are built around a fundamentally flawed concept of being pet dependent.

Free kill in wvw? What are you talking about? Definitely not in a group. I would say mesmers are pretty ridiculous to fight but that seems to be a problem of the OPness of the build itself.

I’m not sure how one of the classes that gets requested the most in wvw groups and in pvp, while not a bad addition to a dungeon can be considered simply average anyways…

When people say that guardians are in a good spot, it doesn’t mean they can’t be improved, but the actual vision of the class is pretty solid, as opposed to say something like necromancer or ranger of which the developers clearly can’t decide what they want to be. If you want concerns from me personally, I think the necro is soon going to be come the “in a good place” position over us soon enough— if they didn’t suck so badly in pve (or more like pve isn’t for them).

Gw2 to be honest, is a long ways from achieving some kind of balance. All classes need to be straightened up in terms of concepts and theme before trying to bring them on par with each other. I’m afraid that requires patience.

So don’t take me wrong. I think many of the complaints have weight and need to be addressed anyways. But I can’t help but feel so many guardian complaints are of First World Problems. “We can’t have a condition build!” << perfectly valid complaint but the thing is that we actually have builds that work in the first place.