Looks like knockback skills should no longer be dodge-able through … yay!
( if you look through most class notes, you’ll see some kind of reference to the dodge mechanic and knockback )
Warrior
Reckless Dodge: This trait no longer enables players to break knockback effects.
Elementalist
Evasive Arcana: This trait no longer enables players to break knockback effects
Necromancer
Mark of Evasion: This trait no longer enables players to break knockback effects.
Guardian
Absolute Resolution: This trait now functions with Battle Presence.
Battle Presence: This trait no longer misses pulses or spams “immune” text.
Empower: This skill now appropriately applies might for 10 seconds.
Selfless Daring: This trait no longer enables players to break knockback effects.
Shield of the Avenger: Fixed the damage displayed in this skill’s Command variant.
Spirit weapons are now susceptible to attacks.
Sword of Justice: Fixed the damage displayed the descriptions for this skill and its Command variant.
Sword Wave: This skill is now able to strike gadgets that are low to the ground.
Zealot’s Flame: Added burning information to this skill’s description.
Mostly good, although I hope they haven’t made spirits really squishy
Update: I take it back, the spirit weapon nerf is huge – hammer/sword get destroyed by simple white mobs after a few hits apparently. ( not tested it yet myself ) Update2: Just added to patch notes:
Ranger
Spirit health increased by 25%.
which kind of adds insult to injury – although I’m happy rangers have had their pets buffed
So…. They listed numbers that should be there already. And finally fixed sword wave and battle presence. With all of our other issues im not sure if I should be happy for the fixes or upset for the lack of other fixes. Namely OUR FREAKING SCEPTER.
There is not much to say on this patch, a lot of hype for nothing substatial. I hope that at least the culling fix work.
The only good thing is that for the first time we are not heavy nerfed.
For the spirit weapon thing, we can see better when we can DL the patch, but i supposed only that spirit weapons now are interruptable, but still immortal.
Because IF SW have an health bar like necro pet, they have just to work like a necro pet.
Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs.
It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill"
LOL
First time im a bit disappointed with Arenanet, when will the lack of ranged option be fixed and when will they address the issues with zeal.
This gives me a bad taste…
I have a bad taste too, but is still better than another nerf.
Lets see the feb patch, hoping that dont come on Feb 28.
Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs.
It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill"
LOL
hmm I guess if spirit weapons can now be bound, interrupted, slowed, knocked back or blinded, it might have big implications of SW builds. If it means they can be destroyed then I really hope they have a LOT of HP
I hope this actually means attacks and not damage. I mean, I’m all for them getting snared/interrupted/etc, but not simply vanish 1s after creation just because some random AoE goes off in their general direction.
On the whole I’m not impressed with this patch though. We still have lists of known issues for every single class since launch that have yet to be adressed.
Valiant Aislinn – Aveneo Lightbringer – Shalene Amuriel – Dread Cathulu
Fojja – Vyxxi – Nymmra – Mymmra – Champion of Dwayna .. and more
Highly Over Powered Explorers [HOPE] – Desolation EU
This isn’t a major profession change update. We knew that going in if you kept an eye on the devs. Battle Presence becoming fixed and compatible with Absolute Resolution is a good plus in my opinion. The Spirit Weapons thing remains to be seen as no information is given as to their health values or if they’re immortal but just susceptible to things like stuns and immobilize. Empower being fixed again is appreciated.
I’m just glad my Engineer has a fighting change again.
I really hope this doesn’t mean spirit weapons have a health bar and will therefore be totally useless. Destroy on command unless traited is a pretty heavy price anyway i would have thought. Not that I use them much atm other than shield of the avenger. Still, I’m wondering what the source of inspiration for this was?
Hello, Guardians, just wanted to welcome you folks aboard the same boat us Rangers and Necromancers enjoy!
I’m sure we’ll be seeing the Warrior’s and their banners joining us soon; so, in the meantime, have a drink on us (made from our very own tears) and be careful of my Spirits – one sneeze will kill them all.
Hello, Guardians, just wanted to welcome you folks aboard the same boat us Rangers and Necromancers enjoy!
I’m sure we’ll be seeing the Warrior’s and their banners joining us soon; so, in the meantime, have a drink on us (made from our very own tears) and be careful of my Spirits – one sneeze will kill them all.
Only one thing, dont let the necros take the drinks, i dont like to drink blood o.o
Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs.
It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill"
LOL
Sooooo…nothing really changed then…Was hoping they’d fix a few things that actually caused major issues but what the hell I’ll take this random near useless stuff.
Calm Caril – Level 80 – Guardian
“Jim’ll Fix It and if he doesn’t it’s not broken”
There goes my duelist build in WvW.
I was heavily relying on the hammer for damage spikes vs tough opponents.
Not to mention that the shield will get obliterated in ground AoEs.
On the other hand, they might still prove useful as meat (spirit?) shields.
Guess I’ll best go and check it to find out the verdict.
You know my Guardian has a largely Spirit Weapon based build. I loved these things and… I did think they were a bit OP but I didn’t think it was game-breaking. I actually named one of them because of how often I used it and how integral it was to my performance in battle. (Sword of Justice, his name is Chaltier.) I’m a support!Guardian so I used the sword to supplement the DPS I didn’t do. Somehow or another I seem to have ended up with legitimate feelings for this thing because I feel like my favorite character has just been killed. I feel like an idiot too because seriously it’s just a Sword summon, it’s not even an actual character. It’s not even really dead either it just can die. I really hope things turn out well and they’re still applicable because they were probably my favorite part of this class. (Aside from boons and heals) So let’s try to think positive! Maybe now they’ll function like Ranger pets or something like that? I’m hoping they’ll be more like pets than phantasms because if these guys start dropping like flies, they’ll need some serious tweaks.
While i’m happy we didn’t get nerfed for the first time in a while, these changes are….what? We still have no viable ranged weapon! Spirit weapons were terrible(besides the hammer) before, now they’re not even worth looking at. They weren’t even close to OP, if anything, they were underpowered due to the terrible AI and utility.
It’s not that big a deal tbh… not a lot of us actually run spirit weapon builds lol Though it does drastically nerf the hell out of SW builds, it does make battle presence support based Guardians shockingly good (high healing guardians no longer have to get healing utilities when they are healing for 500hp per tick)
Increased support ability, nerfed damage ability. It becomes clearer and clearer that they do wan’t us to only play support lol
Though 10 second might for empower might is fantastic. Especially for hybrid builds that use EM as a good basis for damage boost. A sustained 15-16 stacks of might with mighty blow is a massive burst
Winters Ascension The White Guardian
Sophia Theos Beast Master
[Fissure of Woe]
This, I believe, is the first patch where we didn’t get hammered into the ground.(spirit weapon pun intended) But the big issue is now we’re really pigeonholed into AH/MF spec since now SW are now less viable.
This, I believe, is the first patch where we didn’t get hammered into the ground.(spirit weapon pun intended) But the big issue is now we’re really pigeonholed into AH/MF spec since now SW are now less viable.
More than less viable.
Alarox – Human Guardian
Rampage Wilson – Charr Engineer
Sea of Sorrows
I just don’t get it anymore. Someone needs to explain to me why this profession is slowly but surely getting destroyed and being forced into 1 spec again.
Just playing devil’s advocate here. I’m guessing the rational behind the spirit weapon nerfs is that it brings them in line with every single other summon in the game. The most similar being mesmer phantasms. Essentially, spirit weapons were “free” effects that the opponent couldnt really counter. Shield shuts down all ranged opposition, hammer is constant interruption, bow is constant cleansing. Unlike the mesmer phantasm versions, like phantasmal warden, and phantasmal disenchanter, they could not be stopped from doing their jobs, and thus the nerf simply brought them in line. Though now… something about that insane cd probably has to be reduced. Maybe 40 seconds instead of 60 for most SW.
Edit: okay a ton of people are taking my argument the wrong way. I’m not comparing them to the phantasms, only the balance philosphy behind them. Phantasms, as stated by Anet are balanced around the fact that they are powerful, but have 2 chances to counter. Spirit weapons used to have no ways of countering the summon in itself, rendering them supurior to every single other summon in the game. What I’m trying to say is that this brings them in line, at the cost of uniqueness. I’m not arguing that it was called for, that it was neccessary, i think its totally out of the blue and not. But the logic behind the nerf exists and does make sense to a degree.
so our Sw have a Duration timer, an health bar(than dont exist) and we destroy em when we command em?
So pratically spirit weapons are now good only for the command effect. that are:
4k AOE heal every 60 seconds.
3 sec knockdown every 45 seconds.
AOE attack every 30 seconds.
Damage and apply weakness every 60 seconds.
Well, good work on balance, for utility skills -.-
Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs.
It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill"
LOL
The problem was that the AI for these weapons were terrible. The hammer and sword attacked once every 5 seconds so there’s no “constant” knockdown or damage.
Spirit weapons nerfed? The heck, man? I have never seen a single complaint about Spirit Weapons being broken. If anything, dedicated Spirit builds are one of the least common and least effective Guardian setups. Why are they getting nerfed, of all things?
I’ll have to do some testing to see how much of an effect it actually has (I suspect it’ll be big though, realiability is one of the few things SW really had going for them since they don’t do that much damage / support and if they can die that goes out the window), but just the idea of nerfing something for no reason really ticks me off.
Was going to switch my Guardian over to a Spirit Weapon build for something new, and now I’m not so sure. I always considered their being a temporary summon as the counter to being invulnerable. The spirit weapon attack rate is already slow, and the attacks pretty obvious – if they can be interrupted, you negate them even if they have high HP. If they are just squish, drop a few AoEs and you negate them. It was a build that had a limited use in small scale fights/pvp as you give up shouts/concencrations in favor of a minion.
Here’s hoping they don’t lose that limited use as well…
Spirit weapons nerfed? The heck, man? I have never seen a single complaint about Spirit Weapons being broken. If anything, dedicated Spirit builds are one of the least common and least effective Guardian setups. Why are they getting nerfed, of all things?
I’ll have to do some testing to see how much of an effect it actually has (I suspect it’ll be big though, realiability is one of the few things SW really had going for them since they don’t do that much damage / support and if they can die that goes out the window), but just the idea of nerfing something for no reason really ticks me off.
I dont know if they just want all the guardians only player go to another game.
I dont use Spirit weapons very often, but im kinda sick of nerfs without adress the major issues.
Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs.
It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill"
LOL
Just playing devil’s advocate here. I’m guessing the rational behind the spirit weapon nerfs is that it brings them in line with every single other summon in the game. The most similar being mesmer phantasms. Essentially, spirit weapons were “free” effects that the opponent couldnt really counter. Shield shuts down all ranged opposition, hammer is constant interruption, bow is constant cleansing. Unlike the mesmer phantasm versions, like phantasmal warden, and phantasmal disenchanter, they could not be stopped from doing their jobs, and thus the nerf simply brought them in line. Though now… something about that insane cd probably has to be reduced. Maybe 40 seconds instead of 60 for most SW.
You can’t really compare phantasms to spirit weapons, as phantasms are balanced around only being out for a few seconds, while spirit weapons have only ever been effective if they are around for a long duration. The spirit sword is now basically a 30s cooldown skill that deals a fraction of your auto-attack dps for a few seconds, then dies.
Alarox – Human Guardian
Rampage Wilson – Charr Engineer
Sea of Sorrows
I was planning on making a Guardian to put a Juggernaut on before long I was always debating between warriors because they have fun weapon skills and boring utilities, or guardian with awesome/fun utilities (spirit weapons among them) and boring weapon skills. Now Guardian has neither the fun utilities I wanted, or the fun weapon skills… I really don’t want to play Warrior..
I really hope it’s not a response to the complaints some classes have levelled at the shield being “too good” for Fractals… ( really they should just have fixed fractals than try and give SW rubbish survivability )
It’s true. 30 Valor is and apparently will always be the only thing Guardians have. I love Anet and all they’ve done for us but man, the balance just puzzles me.
Just playing devil’s advocate here. I’m guessing the rational behind the spirit weapon nerfs is that it brings them in line with every single other summon in the game. The most similar being mesmer phantasms. Essentially, spirit weapons were “free” effects that the opponent couldnt really counter. Shield shuts down all ranged opposition, hammer is constant interruption, bow is constant cleansing. Unlike the mesmer phantasm versions, like phantasmal warden, and phantasmal disenchanter, they could not be stopped from doing their jobs, and thus the nerf simply brought them in line. Though now… something about that insane cd probably has to be reduced. Maybe 40 seconds instead of 60 for most SW.
You know that phantasm are weapons skill, and not utility skill?
correction: 2 of them are utility. My bad
Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs.
It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill"
LOL
Relating spirit weapons to phantasms is just LOL. They’re cooldowns are much shorter, trigger on cast (not illusion death), can have up to 4 handy (2 weapon, 2 utility), plus Mesmers have spammable clones. Add in the fact they’re not linked to you so they have to pick between attacking you OR your phantasm if you spread out instead of just AoEing you.
In short, this nerf made Spirit Weapons the worst minions in the game…
Yeah, but one of them is on a 20s cooldown and stays at a distance, and the other one’s purpose is to absorb damage.
Anyway there is really something wrong with the development direction of the class, i really wasnt expect squishy WS, even after the patch note.
The famous guardian description, is nothing but garbage…
If they want just an heavy buffy class in play, why they just say to us, so i can decide if change class or directly game.
Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs.
It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill"
LOL
What I’m hoping (always trying to be the optimist here) is that the nerf to Spirit Weapons now is in anticipation for something in the future that will make them a more effective option or a change that is necessary to ensure a future planned change doesn’t make them OPed. This happens alot more in MMO’s than people realize because it tends to be over the long term.
Right now, I can’t think of any reason anyone would focus on a spirit weapon, let alone a build that focuses on them. They are one trick ponies and if optimism has a place here, this would be the first step to move awa from those isolated instances of utility to more prominence. Question is how long it will take to take the next few steps to give them a place in Guardian builds.
On the other changes … I like the battle Presence fix for Absolute Resolution. That’s a very strong passive heal when skilled to healing power. Someone with more daring and gold needs to check that out to see how it works.
Well look on the bright side…. at least they didn’t nerf what good traits we did have lol SW builds are so uncommon I doubt that many people will be effected.
It was nice to go back to using them now and again just for fun but now its not even worth it.
Winters Ascension The White Guardian
Sophia Theos Beast Master
[Fissure of Woe]
Can anyone comment on the shield’s surviveability in instances yet?
i am not able to play for a day or two.
While i never had a build based around SW, i did used to switch to them at ranged boss fights or underwater to increase my dps. Now there isn’t any point in that either.
You know… for a game that’s supposed to be focused around WvW and PvP… sure does seem the VAST MAJORITY OF kitten is focused on PVE.
At least when DAOC & WARHAMMER had PvE updates, it was still really RvR/PvP focused in nature.
….. Yay… more lame dungeon fixes.
And yes, culling is an issue, but that’s an engine issue, not a content one and that should have never had happen in the first place. The built it cheap just to get the revenue.
SW builds are so uncommon I doubt that many people will be effected.
Thats the funny part. It was so uncommon and it was hurt by the nerf bat. kitten a.net. Warriors can solo Arah path 2. how about making hundred blades deal a fixed 500 damage for the lulz? WTF!?!?!
I was always debating between warriors because they have fun weapon skills and boring utilities, or guardian with awesome/fun utilities (spirit weapons among them) and boring weapon skills. Now Guardian has neither the fun utilities I wanted, or the fun weapon skills… I really don’t want to play Warrior..