Guild Wars 2

I am offering this idea up as a solution to making Spirit Weapons a viable but also enjoyable play style for the Guardian. I’ve tried to design my ideas around the more popular guardian build utilities, but in a way that’s different. I also tried to solve some of the key problems with guardians (mainly their ability to be easily kited). The feasibility of implementing something like this may be a technical overreach, but I constantly see people talking to the “potential” that Guild Wars 2 has and this is what that potential is to me.

WARNING: I work for the gov’t. With the recent shutdown, I have had nothing but time on my hands to think about this, hence the ungodly length of this post XD. Continue reading at your own risk.

Main Objective

Currently, spirit weapons aren’t only lackluster in effectiveness, but also enjoyment. Rather than pressing a button and then waiting for a generally long period while it passively runs around doing things, I envision Spirit Weapons existing for shorter durations but with more powerful effects. The idea is not to run into battle with Spirit Weapons out ready to do your work for you but to use them when they are necessary to give you a legitimate advantage. I also want to keep Spirit Weapons away from being primary sources of damage (this game doesn’t need any more phantasms XD) and steer them towards other uses. Hence, Sword of Justice and Hammer of Truth will hit for about 1000 per hit in a generic power based build.

A more detailed description of how I would change each weapon follows.

Note: Due to the shorter durations, Sword of Justice and Hammer of Wisdom will now spawn at the targeted enemy to maximize the chance of getting all 3 hits within its duration. Bow of Truth and Shield of the Avenger spawn at the Guardian.

Sword of Justice

Duration – 6 sec
CD – 30 sec
Range – 900
Attack frequency – 3 sec (3 total hits)

Summons a spiritual greatsword that attacks the target enemy (again, about 1000 for a generic power based build). Each successful attack burns the target for 3 sec. [This grants the guardian a reliable source of burning to better synergize with the trait Fiery Wrath and Radiant Power. If all 3 attacks hit, totals to 9 sec of burning. Kind of a soft opening to the thread, but it gets better!]

Command – CD 45 sec
The sword lunges at its target and destroys on contact, leaving the target immobilized for 3 sec.

Hammer of Wisdom

Duration – 6 sec
CD – 30 sec
Range – 900
Chill range – 120
Attack frequency – 3 sec (3 total hits)

Summons a spiritual hammer that smashes its enemy, chilling nearby targets for 2 sec with each hit. [Used as a means to close the gap by using the only snare that makes sense for a Guardian, chill. 8 Sec of chill total if all hits land, but avoidable by dodging/blocking hammer swings.]

Command – CD 60 sec
The hammer breaks itself on the target, stunning it for 2 sec.

Bow of Truth

Duration – 5 sec
CD – 45 sec
Cleanse Frequency – 1 sec (5 total cleanses)
Range – 600

Summons a spiritual bow that cleanses 1 condition off the guardian every second for 5 sec. [The idea here is to make the bow competitive with our other forms of condition cleanse so that it’s actually used. Also, to help with the problem of conditions immediately re-stacking once you cleanse.]

Command – CD 90 sec
The bow shoots all remaining arrows and destroys upon depletion, removing 1 condition per second for 5 seconds on all allies within a radius of 600. [Possibly OP but hopefully justified by its long cool down.]

Shield of the Avenger

Duration – 6 sec
CD – 40 sec
Radius – 600
Attack Frequency – 3 sec (3 total hits)

Summons a spiritual shield at the Guardian that protects allies by weakening nearby foes for 3 sec.

Command – CD 60 sec
The shield explodes, breaking stuns on all nearby allies and granting them protection for 5 sec. [Shield may seem a little lackluster at the moment, but just wait!]

Traits

Traits are what turns a build into a BUILD and that’s what I aim to do here. Not just by passively adding damage or duration, but by actually affecting how a utility works or when it might be useful. I think I’ve achieved that as described below.

I first state the current trait and then explain what I would change in brackets.

Zeal

VI Spirit Weapon Mastery – Reduces recharge on spirit-weapon skills (20%). [I’m cool with this, pretty standard for an adept tier trait.]

X Eternal Spirit – Spirit Weapons are not destroyed when commanded. [I’m cool with this too. Being able to instantly immobilize a target after summoning Sword of Justice and getting swiftness (more on this later) makes for a very good gap closer, or stunning your target to guarantee a chill, or shield’s stun break and protection to counter burst all seem like very cool ways to make spirit weapons effective.]

XI Wrathful Spirits – Increases spirit-weapon damage by 50%. [Like I said, I don’t want spirit weapons to be primarily used for damage, but to gain cool effects. This trait is gone, and I am replacing it with a much more involved Grandmaster Trait explained at the end of this section.]

Radiance

VIII A Fire Inside – Spirit Weapons cause burning (1s)
[Renamed to “A Blessing Inside”. Spirit weapons now grant the Guardian a boon when they land an attack/cleanse. This is to make up for the loss of boons gained from Meditations or Shouts.]

Sword of Justice = Swiftness (3s).
Hammer of Wisdom = Fury (3s).
Bow of Truth = Regeneration (2s per condition removed).
Shield of the Avenger = Aegis (Infinite duration, but obviously expires when hit. The idea here is to use this utility to mitigate burst. Getting 3 instances of Aegis over 6 seconds helps with that, but also synergizes very well with the Honor trait Pure of Heart (heals on Aegis removal) and Unscathed Contender (+20% damage with Aegis). You can use Shield of the Avenger with Pure of Heart to gain about a 2k heal (No healing power) as a defensive, or offensively as a source of aegis when you’re not being focused to do some extra damage. I told you it got better!

And now, for the grand finale!

XI Wrathful Spirits in Zeal
This is a Grandmaster trait. I am investing 30 of my trait points to get this ability, and in my dream Grandmaster traits are EPIC. Therefore…

Renamed to “Spiritual Attunement”
While a spirit weapon is active, the spirit attunes itself with your currently equipped weapons, granting your weapon skills additional effects. [Each active spirit weapon will add an effect to 1 skill per weapon, of which none will overlap. This would allow you to have 3 spirit weapons active, affecting 3 different weapon skills for a given weapon. For dual wielding, Sword of Justice and Hammer of Wisdom will affect main hand weapon skills, while Shield of the Avenger and Bow of Truth will effect off hand weapon skills.]

There are a lot of combinations here, but like I said I got nothing but time. YOLO.

NOTE: Keep in mind that these effects only occur when that spirit weapon is active.

Sword of Justice

Greatsword – Whirling Wrath grants 5 seconds of Might per hit. (Yes, every single hit, including AOE).
Hammer – Increases the damage of Banish by 100%.
Staff – Symbol of Swiftness cripples foes.
Sword – Gain “super speed” for 3 sec when using Flashing Blade.
Scepter – Smite removes 1 boon per hit on enemies.
Mace – Protector’s Strike instantly does its damage and grants protection, but does not block attacks.

Hammer of Wisdom

Greatsword – Targets hit with the first chain of Binding Blade are stunned for 1 sec.
Hammer – Enemies who are knocked back by Ring of Warding have 2 boons removed.
Staff – Enemies who are knocked back by Line of Warding have 2 boons removed.
Sword – Zealot’s Defense reflects projectiles.
Scepter – Orb of Wrath chills the target for 1 sec per hit.
Mace – Every attack in the Mace’s auto attack chain heals on impact.

Bow of Truth

Greatsword – Each tick of Symbol of Wrath heals allies for 1k.
Hammer – Zealot’s Embrace now immobilizes all enemy players within a 300 radius for 3 sec.
Staff – Orb of Light heals for 300% more.
Focus – Ray of Judgment heals you for 500 per bounce.
Shield – Shield of Absorption reflects projectiles.
Torch – Zealot’s Flame removes conditions from nearby allies while it’s active.

Shield of the Avenger

Greatsword – Leap of Faith stuns targets for 1 sec.
Hammer – Mighty Blow chills targets for 2 sec.
Staff – Each tick of Empower grants allies 1 sec. of stability.
Focus – Shield of Wrath grants you aegis and detonates instantly (only 1 block, but guarantees that you have Unscathed Contender).
Torch – Cleansing Flame burns targets for 1 sec per hit (finally!).

Some of these may seem OP, but remember that in order to get this, you need to have Spirit Weapons. That means giving up useful shouts or meditations. It also means traiting 30 points into Zeal, which means giving up survivability elsewhere in your build. After all that, these effects are only active while that specific spirit weapon is active.

Aquatic Weapons
Good joke.

Conclusion

I know that this is crazy long and I have no idea whether it will be received well or received at all by the community but I plan on playing GW2 for a long while. With the recent outcry for constructive criticism I thought I would share my ideas. I am not so naïve to think that any of this will actually get implemented. I know it would take an insane amount of work and time to get something like this done. I am more so writing this to depict the potential that I believe GW2 has and what I expect it’s developers to output. Not because I believe we, “the almighty paying customer” deserve it or anything like that, but because we’ve seen them do it before.

Anyways, I look forward to the responses from anyone bored enough to read this whole post XD. Feel free to comment on anything you would change, take out, or maybe some cool combos and scenarios you could see coming out of this.

-KO