Guild Wars 2

As the title says this is about the lack luster traits the guardian has & the state of how some traits will be compared to what they are now.

Symbolic Exposure: As is its the same as on live, but that doesn’t make it a good trait. For starters you have to use a mace or hammer to get any real use of it, even then the vulnerability it applies only lasts a maximum of 5 seconds per pulse (with full + condition duration) and a whopping 2 seconds against champ/legendary NPC’s.

Symbolic Power: Again you need a mace or hammer to get any real use out of it. The chance to burn is also rather laughable.
(the two traits above would be much better off if they were buffed dramaticlly then made adept & master traits)

Wrathful Spirit: Wow a whopping 3 seconds of retaliation. This trait would be much more suited giving stacks of might, or even fury. It would also make sense to have it place swapped with a greatly buffed symbolic exposure seeing as how AEGIS is something guardians have ready access to no matter their spec.

Zealous Scepter: Honestly I cannot ever see this trait competing with firey wrath even after the nerf it got. A simple little change would be to make it grant might to all nearby allies when it procs.

Binding Jeopardy: Given how many guardian specs & weapon sets have access to either a blind or immobilize this would be much better suited having its place swapped with a greatly buffed symbolic power.

Radiant Power: Considering on live this trait gives a flat 10% damage boost against foes with any condition its current iterration can be viewed as a nearf from what it is on live.
The least it could be is what it is on live or a +20% critical chance boost.

Healer’s Retribution: Oh yey more retaliation.
Perhaps this could be modified slightly to grant retaliation to all nearby allies when the guardian heals.
At any rate this trait feels like it belongs in the honor or virtues line.

Amplified Wrath: Did this trait really need a 1 second internal cool down ?
Given the cool down perhaps it could be changed to a chance to apply burning on critical hit instead of on block. (ala burning precision from the elementalist)

Perfect Inscriptions: When looking at the combined traits this takes the place of on live you can note that they reduce signet CD, remove a condition on use & increase the passive effect. Here they seem to have lost the condition removal and gained a light aura on use.
Frankly the light aura is rather useless as it can already be gained rather easily.
What if instead it granted condition removal and a short duration protection or might stacks on signet use + signet Cd reduction & passive boost.

Strength of the Fallen Better theory crafters then me have already done the math and found that this trait could actually hinder you in PvP due to how long you could be kept in the downed state.
Best idea would be to get rid of the downed state health degeneration modifier and give it another effect.

Stalwart Defender: The toughness on this trait is laughable compared to the focus trait & engineer shield trait.
What if instead it caused shield skills to grant AEGIS and taunt effected enemies.

Protectors Impact: This trait is niche at best & could really use a secondary effect.
What if it also caused AEGIS to daze the attacker that broke it, or something else.

Retalitory Subconsious Given this trait was shown with a 30 second cool down it is kind of lack luster, especially since many guardian specs have such high retaliation up time already.
What if it were to give protection instead of retaliation.

Lastly lets not forget the fact that the trait powerful blades has been left out.

That combined with zeal traits means the hammer or mace could have as much as 20% if not more damage then the sword/ scepter and around 15% more damage then the greatsword.

This could have a major impact on the use of those weapons unless some changes are made.

You forgot a lot of lackluster traits. I’m on my phone so this might take a while

Zealots speed still doesn’t grant any sort of swiftness.

Shattered aegis’s dmg still isn’t high enough to justify a GM slot

Zealous blade’s healing is still probably a joke.

Renewed justice and courageous return are completely useless in combat.

All of the retaliation traits. Retaliation is still the worst boon in the game.

The new retributive armor is also incredibly weak and provides zero sustain.

Force of will is still very boring and incredibly weak when stacked against pure of voice.

Battle presence is also a joke that encourages you NOT to activate your virtue.

I am speaking strictly from an spvp point of view. I’m sure I missed a few as well.

Was just watching the ReadyUp & reading about the June 23 Specialization Changes to the other profession was exciting & intriguing, but then sadly got to Guardian & my excitement drop alot.

Going through the other professions it really felt like Arenanet was trying to Push & Expand these profession core gameplay & concepts. And for me this is what I felt was missing when I compared the Guardian’s updates to the other Profession’s.

I can see improvements here & there, as well as some shavings but not one of the changes got me excited or felt like: Yes! this will really add something exciting &/or change the core game play

Add in the note with regards to Shelter (no skill category) & it almost felt like Arenanet was afraid to touch the Core Guardian as It’s In A Great Place. Yes Shelter is a great current skill but just this one note symbolises all the Guardian changes coming for me;

Guardian’s in a Great Place NO NEED to Push or Expand Core Guardian Gameplay.

Sorry maybe abit extreme, maybe not (wont know till changes) but I just can’t get excited about these changes. I was hoping for something that pushes & expanded Guardian gameplay alot more then what I current can see. Just so much felt lacking.

• Could other’s maybe point out what I could be missing? Or is this feeling much the same?
• What could we hope to change if needed before patch day?

Over all thank you Arenanet for all the hard work your done so far, I’m looking forward to seeing how all this all plays out.

Is it just me or, out of all professions, guardian’s fan feedback was the most ignored? Most (all?) of the issues are still there. Honor’s restricting adept line, shield’s boring trait, greatsword’s meaningless heal, underwhelming party might stacking, underwhelming retaliation traits (well, the boon itself is questionale), condi-retaliation directly competing with condi traits…

The damage nerfs were expected, and I did like some other changes (glacial hammer trait is back). I’m just disappointed that some of the most glaring issues were ignored, especially after how awesome they were at handling elementalist’s feedback.

Have they field tested these changes or beta with a some public players to see how will it work because i m not seeing this work well with the near perma pour of conditions from other professions that they will have in abundance and the guardian/DH having only some skills that have godly cooldown that can convert or dispel
burning seems dead to me(for the guardian) the ele and the warr have more burning pour and dmg that the guard

I feel until retal becomes a percentage of dmg it will either be to strong (group play) or too weak (1 v 1). It’s great against many quick hits but very weak against slow big hits. It could have the confusion / torment treatment;

eg. small fixed dmg per hit + % of dmg per hit (% being most of the dmg).

It’s also starting to feel the other classes have better support trait options creating better & more interesting support gameplay & starting to provide better support overall.

Lastly the spec paths within the specializations just do feel as through out to me. Unlike Ranger & Engineer when compared our traits feel like they just don’t sync as well with spec lines & between specs.