Improvement Suggestion Thread (long)
2. Skills (i’ll try to quicken the pace)
- Healing breeze
with the recent buff to the size of it i do find it a bit more useful when i’m running dungeons. But in general especially in pvp i always find Healing signet more useful, and even Shelter is bad for keeping off burst dmg but i think making a change to Healing breeze is needed. [I think that we could also make this more of a beacon kinda skill. Where you heal for less than Healing signet initially and you catch up to the other heal over time and spread that over to your allies in the area. So its a bit less of a strain to use and you’ve got a nice decent heal over time and you’re supporting your team at the same time (even knocking up the CD by maybe 5 secs)]
-Contemplation of Purity
(converts all conditions into boons) Don’t get my wrong i think this is an amazing ability. I think the problem is its CD. 60 secs (48 if traited). Now Guardians have quite a few ways to remove conditions even a lot of ways to do it passively. (i think the math is we have 4 traits that allow condition removal, one that changes them to boons, 4 weapon skills, and 4 utility skills, and 1 elite skill, not to mentions combos and finishers which we have light aka conditions) now now i know that thats one of the roles we play we’re boon/condition removal heavy but this particular skill doesn’t really show any use. Even in a meditation heavy build. I mean lets say that you don’t convert conditions into boons though shouts, there is Purging flames, Making a fire field – and removing conditions from everyone – 40 sec CD (32 traited). There is Smite condition – which also burns and deal decent dmg while removing conditions – 20 sec CD! (16 traited). And lastly is bow of truth (don’t get me wrong this is later on the list) but not only does it remove condition but it also can be used for a bit of extra healing. So with all these (and more) options why use Contemplation of Purity.
[My suggestion – Shorten the CD, 30 maybe even 20 seconds. Now i know everyones thinking “OMG then guardians wouldn’t be able to be conditioned” and to that i say “As if we can right now” Just this would make that particular skill appealing. Or even leave the CD and add “for 6 – 10sec no conditions may be reapplied”. Giving it its own niche use]
Bow of Truth (told you it would be here soon)
Out of all of the guardian abilities spirit weapons have to be my favorite. Having their varied uses but out of all of them i personally have the hardest time find the place for what should be one of the coolest of the weapons. Anytime i’ve ever brought along bow of truth, Pvp, pve, wvwvw, I’ve always ended up regretting it wishing i’d have brought along a better tool for the job. Almost everytime i have it, it sits there for most of the fight doing nothing till i command it and hopefully hopefully its there with me (which most of the time it isn’t) SO [Suggestions – First the movement i have no idea how the movement for this bow works sometimes it hangs out with me sometimes, it hangs out with party members across the world, sometimes it just goes into a corner and has tea time while i’m have a different kinda “bag of tea” fighting three thieves and that is a big problem. So either make it to where i can ground target where it will stay till it expires or even better force it to follow ALL the time. Like if a teammate with a condition is out of range forget him. and Secondly the actual ability and command ability. All of the other weapons are useful in almost all situations, both the sword and hammer attack and when you command them they attack some more. The shield is always putting up its barrier (which granted is more situationally useful) and commanded weakens foes. The bow though can go its entire duration without being used until commanded. That is why i believe that the bow should instead every “Blank” amount of time fires into the lowest hp target (IN the area) healing that target for a moderate amount of HP. AND when commanded it rains arrows from the sky giving a low healing and curing one condition each pulse (effectively curing all conditions of allies) So it still fills its role as condition removal just in a more useful and controllable way while also being useful its ENTIRE duration. (as you can see i really want he bow of truth to be cool)]
Merciful intervention
(now i’ll admit i haven’t given this one the tried and true test so that can be my own personal lack of knowledge)
But this partially idea to me is a good one. An on demand straight forward heal. Now i think there are three problems with it. First is how unpredictible the teleport is knowing who has the lowest health is almost impossible in this game and you are highly likely to tele to not even a player and from my knowledge of the game there aren’t abilities that target friendly players. Second is the lower than decent power of the heal and Last just like ContemOfPurity is the CD, a whopping 80 secs! (64 traited) a fight changer like Sanctuary, then its the heal amount around 1.3k at lvl 80 (give or take healing power, How much is that though? Well lets look at it relative to the other heals guards give out. Staff, orb of light gives out about 1K bursted 12 sec CD (10 traited), Empower gives out about 1.5K 20 sec CD (16 traited), Healing breeze 1.9K 40 secs, Virtue of resolve 100+ passive, 1.8K active (60 sec CD (with out traits). So MI is inbetween but has the highest CD of them all with no added benefit. SO [Suggestions!! – Change the CD of course 20 – 40 secs tops, OR even better change how the abilities works so that the Guard drops a light field that does burst healing and sticks around doing overtime healing or granting regen. Making it actually useful for the 80 sec CD]
Signet of Mercy (of course)
I’m actually going to stay away from this one i’ve seen a few idea about the general class rez functions so i’ll leave that one alone.
(edited by Kentrey.3251)
3. Traits (almost there)
Now trait lines are something that are a bit more opinionated since there are so many combinations and uses with skills and weapons that alot of ones seen and useless are actually not half bad. But these are going be a very observations and improvements i’d like to seen made in general
Zeal
Decent tree mostly. A lot of greatsword and spirit weapon focus. Few Dmging Traits that are fairly viable. _[I feel the falling dmg and symbol of protection is a bit misplaced here. Now if it was a symbol of wrath that would make a bit more sense. And the greatsword attack healing you is a bit sad to have as our last major trait since the trait itself is so weak. And the minor of symbols is cool to have but one handed weapons don’t really have access to those (outside of mace) minors making it pretty useless for them (not that that is a bad thing) just a change so a few more off hands or main hands having different symbols would be nice]
Radiance
I would say a tree in need a bit of tweaking due to its lack of use (as a general perception). Using signets should be a bit more attractive than it is. Giving either a stat for how many you are using or giving retaliation or burning on use. The tree itself isn’t too bad just there isn’t much of a reason to go condition dmg as a guardian as apposed to putting more point towards power or survivalbility. It could use a bit of all around buffs.
Valor
As shown by how almost all guardian builds use this tree all the way, I think this one is perfect the way it is. Everything from Major traits to minor It has places it fits in and excels at and there are a lot of them.
Honor
I believe to be guardians second best tree. Very solid some things feel oddly place like two handed weapons skills recharge which i’d believe to be in the Zeal tree or Aegis giving retaliation which i’d also but in the Zeal tree but over all very good well made tree
Virtues
Well made “Creativity named” tree. All the Virtue based skills are very good. The concentration skills also feel like they naturally belong, along with more quirky ones like retaliation lasting longer along with elites. Some skills feel misplaced like spirit weapon ones, Unscathed Contender, and Retaliatory Subconscious. But minor traits are really strong and all around good tree.
4. Additions! (Woot woot save the fun for last)
Additions are things i would personally like to see guardians have in the future maybe in later patches, or even expansions.
1. – Spirit Weapon Elite. Greatsword "Summon a might Greatsword to smite your foes, It swing in a giant arc slicing your enemies. Command it to Spin dmging all foes in the area thus destroying the sword. (Can you imagine running around with 4! Spirit weapon on of them being a giant GreatSword)
2 – Signet Elite – Reduce Condition Duration, Active become immune to condition (which would include stuns) for 10secs
3. Combo fields – Don’t get me wrong i love fire ….not too fond of light seeing as we have so much condition removal. But what i want is more Smoke or Water either or would be amazing!
4. Weapon choices – Bow (Low distance dmg, decent team support, and decent cc ability)
1- “Arrow of Light” Shoot a Holy Arrow at a target exploding on impact dmging nearby foes healing nearby allies.
2 – “Soul Shot” Shoot an Arrow that deals more dmg based on how high your health is
3- “Trailblazer” Create a Area that gives haste (or regen) to all allies that move though it and burns all foes who enter
or 3- “Holy Water” Create a Area that gives haste (or regen) and cures conditions to all Allies that move though it.
4- “Confounding Light” Mark a Target after a short delay all nearby targets are crippled and confused
5 – “Quiver of the Savior” Your next 5 attacks cause your foe to burn for extra dmg and you to heal for another amount (allowing you to switch to another weapon to use it as well)
Just an idea.
But this is all just my thoughts as i’ve been playing the guardian since i start playing the game. Whats truly important is what you guys think. Do you agree with my points of view? Do you think they need to be tweaked slightly? Or are they wrong all together? Did i miss something that needs to happen? What are things you’d like to see in the future? Or direction the class should be headed?
It takes the voice of the people to propel change. i wanna know your thoughts on this. So Speak up! And thanks for taking the time to at least glance over all this
For merciful intervention – since Anet is adverse to providing any kind of targetted healing, I would like to see it as a skill that can teleport a targetted player to your location. Only then would it live up to it’s name imho
It would probably have to only work on party members or people in downed state ( or provide a confirmation popup ), otherwise it would get abused by trolls.
Staff 1 is brilliant, one of the best tagging tools in the game, though number 2 is a bit useless, nice idea, but pretty pants.
Scepter 1 is awful, needs a major rework.
We need a better ranged option, i like a longbow idea, but buffing projectile speed for scepter 1 or making like trident 1 would do for now.
We need more movement speed increaese, so we can get swiftness without having to take a weapon, 2 elites and also traits+runes for it.