Guild Wars 2

Keeping Virtues on Passive

This topic has been brought up several times before, but usually within some other “wish list” type topic, so I thought I’d open up a separate one.

Currently, activating the Guardian Virtues is more beneficial than leaving them on passive, and this is especially true when investing points into the line. Guardians are supposed to sacrifice their passives for the actives, both for themselves and their group mates. However, it’s hardly a sacrifice. I was hoping to see something for the new grandmaster traits to help this issue, but obviously, it was not the case.

I’ve got an idea that I thought of when discussion of the Unscathed Contender trait usually comes up. Typically, what is said is that this trait is useless beyond PvE (unless your also not that great at dodging like me). Often, you do not have Aegis on for very long to make this trait useful. So what about changing it to a trait that states “For every Virtue on passive, gain 5% damage”?*

Another idea is to create a fourth virtue that strengthens Passives or gives additional effects to them, and the active could be a single target 10% damage modifier. A decent cool down would need to be made to make it balanced of course.

The idea is to make the Guardians use Virtues only when they need to. Make it an actual sacrifice.

So, what are some your ideas that could possibly change this?

*This is just and IDEA. Please do not get stuck on it. This thread is about improving Virtue’s Passives, not 15% damage mod. if Passive.

Reserved in case there is a lot of interest in this topic. I’ll organize the ideas here.

5% dmg per passive virtue should of been one of the new grandmasters. Cant believe burn dmg increase and retal scaling from condi dmg was even considered.

The issue I see with that is even on my triple M guardian that I blow virtues on all the time I will almost always have all three up when I enter combat an extra 15% damage on the uber glass build I run would but insane to the point of truly over powered.

What might be better is a 5% dmg increase on Justice 100 Vitality from Resolve and 100 Toughness from Courage.

2-3% per virtue then.

spoj.9672:

5% dmg per passive virtue should of been one of the new grandmasters. Cant believe burn dmg increase and retal scaling from condi dmg was even considered.

I agree, it would have actually been a better gm trait. I was very disappointed that we didn’t see something better for passive Virtues.

Lurock Turoth.9085:

The issue I see with that is even on my triple M guardian that I blow virtues on all the time I will almost always have all three up when I enter combat an extra 15% damage on the uber glass build I run would but insane to the point of truly over powered.

What might be better is a 5% dmg increase on Justice 100 Vitality from Resolve and 100 Toughness from Courage.

You do have a good point, but at the same time, you already can have 20% in an initial burst when you enter combat if you have aegis on. By this same reason, you are actually going to have 5% less DPS.

You do have an interesting suggestion as an alternative, though I’d think having 100 power or precision over a 5% modifer for Justice would make more sense in pairing with the other virtues

15% damage for a grandmaster is no where near OP. Don’t forget that you have to sacrifice other damage multipliers to get 6 in virtues and 6 for meditations. I think it’s pretty spot on, and it’s not a permanent bonus either. Reminds me of the burst damage trait for warriors.

Shanks.2907:

15% damage for a grandmaster is no where near OP. Don’t forget that you have to sacrifice other damage multipliers to get 6 in virtues and 6 for meditations. I think it’s pretty spot on, and it’s not a permanent bonus either. Reminds me of the burst damage trait for warriors.

Yep, I agree with that.

Personally, I’d like to see something in the Adept Major traits to help further boost passive virtues as an alternative to the ones we have now.

Another way to promote keeping the virtues on passive would be to just buff the passive effects. There are some traits to buff them now, but perhaps a baseline buff to the passive effects is in order?

The idea of having 3 skills i never want to press angers my blood…. Seems like your wishing for some kind of passive build where all you do is press number 1. angers me i tell you, ggggggrrrrrrrrr

Don’t we already have a lot of damage modifiers?

And yeah passive play… Yeah you might be brewing up a storm…

There’s no incentive to keep the active going.

Doing 400 burning on every 5th attack is nowhere as good as 3 might, blind and big burn. Healing for 100 per second is okay-ish… but it stacks horribly with healing power and the active heal is much better. Getting a random Aegis is beyond bad, Aegis is only useful if you can time it to actively block something you do not want hitting you. This goes for the minor trait in 5 valor too.

I never keep them on passive, as soon as they have a use, I pop them. Incentivising a choice by adjusting the passive is something I’d love to see!

Exactly. This kind of trait works better with guardian virtues than it ever could on warriors burst skills. Burst skills are rarely useful so keeping the passive dmg is always best. Guard virtues are almost always useful and used, so having a dmg mod to make you really think about whether you need to cast the virtue or not is a nice addition imo.

spoj.9672:

Exactly. This kind of trait works better with guardian virtues than it ever could on warriors burst skills. Burst skills are rarely useful so keeping the passive dmg is always best. Guard virtues are almost always useful and used, so having a dmg mod to make you really think about whether you need to cast the virtue or not is a nice addition imo.

Have you ever played warrior? Sure, greatsword burst is garbage but the rest are pretty kitten good. Hammer, longbow, mace, sword and axe are all useful. Especially with cleansing ire. You can cleanse up to 6 conditions every 8 seconds! Throw burst mastery in there and you’ve got yourself OP mechanics.

Edit: Unless you’re talking about PvE, I was thinking of PvP/WvW.

he is talking about pve, where you are only ever going to be using lb/axe burst skills (even maybe gs in pure gs EA builds because of slight DPS increase?)

nobody would take berserker’s power in pvp game modes.

Temariah.9372:

Another way to promote keeping the virtues on passive would be to just buff the passive effects. There are some traits to buff them now, but perhaps a baseline buff to the passive effects is in order?

Yep, currently the buffing traits do feel like they don’t give enough for the investment. I think this is a good suggestion and one I’ve advocated in the past as well.

Bloodclot.4896:

The idea of having 3 skills i never want to press angers my blood…. Seems like your wishing for some kind of passive build where all you do is press number 1. angers me i tell you, ggggggrrrrrrrrr

Thing is, you wouldn’t want to keep them on passive all the time. There are a great number of times when you have to use them, or it means life and death.

No, I don’t want a passive build, but something that beefs up the passives a bit to make you actually use them in a strategic way rather than activating them as soon as the CD is finished.

blakdoxa.7520:

Don’t we already have a lot of damage modifiers?

And yeah passive play… Yeah you might be brewing up a storm…

My idea was just a suggestion to replace a current modifer trait that’s rarely useful outside of PvE. The suggestions don’t have to be damage modifiers, so please do add a different one instead.

And see my response to the second sentence above.

Aedrion.6483:

There’s no incentive to keep the active going.

Doing 400 burning on every 5th attack is nowhere as good as 3 might, blind and big burn. Healing for 100 per second is okay-ish… but it stacks horribly with healing power and the active heal is much better. Getting a random Aegis is beyond bad, Aegis is only useful if you can time it to actively block something you do not want hitting you. This goes for the minor trait in 5 valor too.

I never keep them on passive, as soon as they have a use, I pop them. Incentivising a choice by adjusting the passive is something I’d love to see!

Great example of why passive Virtues are flawed.

my heal virtue passive is 217

I never want to cast it

Hmm want balance between passive and active? Why not make the active effects weaker?

Sarcasm aside, I think the passive effects are fine.

The virtue themselves don’t have strong active effects. They are strong because of traits. If you want to compare the passive and active, treat them as they are not traited.

The active effects are strong, but they come with cooldown.

spoj.9672:

5% dmg per passive virtue should of been one of the new grandmasters. Cant believe burn dmg increase and retal scaling from condi dmg was even considered.

I know several people tried the new retaliation trait but honestly we should take a poll and see how many people used any of the new traits. The only problem with this is the sample would be small but I’d bet a soda most people are not using any…

While I think using them on cd is bad, it is also bad to encourage them to stay passive. One of the worst traits in the game from a gameplay design standpoint has to be the mesmer Mantra trait that encourages you to have mantras charged but not to use them for a damage buff. It would be the same issue here if you gain damage per Virtue charged- effective, yes, but it just creates a different problem.

I actually think Virtue of Resolve is pretty nicely designed. The passive heal is very nice if you combine it with other methods of survival like protection, regen, traits, sigils or from teammates. But the active heal is also very nice in times where you really need a heal right now. Arguably it depends on what build or gear type you are using but I think that is fair, the same can be said by most classes and their F-abilities.

I think a good way to look at Virtues is that they are essentially Signets. So what classes has the best mechanics to make signets work well? I would look there instead for a way to improve Virtues. And if not, just redo them from the ground up. :P

resolve is an ohsht button for when you’re getting bursted.

I think it’s a horrible idea to encourage purely passive use of virtues. I think there’s currently a very good balance between passive and active use where both options are viable. 15% damage from passive use is just stupid and would encourage the wrong kind of gameplay. This game doesn’t need another Healing Signet.

Charak.9761:

my heal virtue passive is 217

I never want to cast it

If you reached a whooping 217 per second with it, that probably means you’re loaded with healing power and have alteast 4 in virtues for the more powerfull effect.

Which means Passive vs Active is something along the lines of:

217 passive healing per second on self vs 2400 AoE healing too allies, 1500 regen on 5 allies, cleanse 3 conditions from allies and 3 seconds retal on a 50 second cooldown.

Still a MUCH better active.

xFireize.6318:

Hmm want balance between passive and active? Why not make the active effects weaker?

Sarcasm aside, I think the passive effects are fine.

The virtue themselves don’t have strong active effects. They are strong because of traits. If you want to compare the passive and active, treat them as they are not traited.

The active effects are strong, but they come with cooldown.

I’ll give you points for a good arguement here. Though your statement about them not being strong untraited is quite arguable. The traits do make a bit of difference, HOWEVER the Passive parts of those traits aren’t that great for the investment. What makes those traits so desirable? The Active part.

Crapgame.6519:

I know several people tried the new retaliation trait but honestly we should take a poll and see how many people used any of the new traits. The only problem with this is the sample would be small but I’d bet a soda most people are not using any…

I’ve tried them… and then realized how inferior they are to the other choices that were already there. Haven’t touched them since.

Amethyst Lure.5624:

While I think using them on cd is bad, it is also bad to encourage them to stay passive. One of the worst traits in the game from a gameplay design standpoint has to be the mesmer Mantra trait that encourages you to have mantras charged but not to use them for a damage buff. It would be the same issue here if you gain damage per Virtue charged- effective, yes, but it just creates a different problem.

I actually think Virtue of Resolve is pretty nicely designed. The passive heal is very nice if you combine it with other methods of survival like protection, regen, traits, sigils or from teammates. But the active heal is also very nice in times where you really need a heal right now. Arguably it depends on what build or gear type you are using but I think that is fair, the same can be said by most classes and their F-abilities.

I think a good way to look at Virtues is that they are essentially Signets. So what classes has the best mechanics to make signets work well? I would look there instead for a way to improve Virtues. And if not, just redo them from the ground up. :P

The Passive vs Active argument is really just Opinion vs Opinion. However, that being said, I’m not really advocating on keeping Virtues on passive ALL the time. In fact, if you’re actually playing that way, you’re playing the Guardian class wrong. What I am advocating is stronger passives for when they are on passive. Traited and unspec’ed, they aren’t that good. When you do trait and spec them out, they go to just “okay” instead of “aren’t that good” when they should be “great”.

VoR active is only good when traited and pumped up with Healing Power.

Looking at Virtues as Signets is terrible, but you are right. That’s what they essentially are, and as a class mechanic, they should be better than what you can get as another class.

Yaki.9563:

I think it’s a horrible idea to encourage purely passive use of virtues. I think there’s currently a very good balance between passive and active use where both options are viable. 15% damage from passive use is just stupid and would encourage the wrong kind of gameplay. This game doesn’t need another Healing Signet.

See my reply to Amethyst Lure.

Also, let’s not get stuck on “15% damage for passives” and instead suggest other changes, which btw, I will be removing from the opening post. This thread isn’t about that specific suggestion, it’s about improving the passive part of Virtues.

I use the passive already on my glass cannon build. I now burn on every third attack and everytime I apply burning I remove a boon. So no more pesky protection/regeneration. It slices through tanks like butter.