Guild Wars 2

I dislike how torch/focus/shield has no symbols. It may be because it would synergize to well with mace 2, symbol of faith but I feel its something that would be needed for the class.

The 2 skills right now that are okay but not great is shield 4 and torch 5.

Shield 4 is another skill that has low buff timers and decent dmg, but I’d love if instead it was symbol of aegis, reapplies aegis every few seconds 4 seconds each aegis.

Torch 5 is okay for hitting targets that are slightly too far away from auto range, but for targeting for cleansing its meh(since it does not cleanse yourself) and for burning it only shows as 1 hit for your passive. I’d personally like it as Symbol of Cleansing but I could see if ppl would want it to do burning (though symbol of energy, bow 4, already burns targets).

This is just a selfish wish cause I like symbols and I dont want to run GS, would rather run Sword+Shield or Sword+focus but I dislike the no symbols.

Symbol of Cleansing on the torch would be awesome. Cleansing Flame’s low range really gets in the way of it being a decent support ability anyway, and it’s not like it does a lot of damage either.

Off hands don’t need symbols if all main hands did. One symbol per loadout just like how Mesmers get one clone and one phantasm per loadout.

That is true, yet would eat into the viability of sword. If scepter 2 was a symbol that’d be fine but only thing sword could have is in the auto chain and not a personal fan of that.

Some people believe Flashing Blade should get a symbol after the teleport, which I’m not a fan of, but it is an option. I would prefer changing Zealot’s Defense into a symbol that has same functionality (projectile defense and perhaps projectiles themselves).

Ghotistyx.6942:

Off hands don’t need symbols if all main hands did. One symbol per loadout just like how Mesmers get one clone and one phantasm per loadout.

On the contrary, Sword skill 4 generates a clone, so Mesmers offhanding a sword have access to both a phantasm and 2 clones.

I feel like Focus’s Shield of Wrath could have it’s explosion changed to generating a symbol, or Torch’s Cleansing Flames could be turned to some sort of burning symbol.

They don’t have symbols for a reason …. it would be way to easy to gain a super effective symbol build. Besides … what is the point of complaining about it almost 4 years later? Like it will change?

Obtena.7952:

They don’t have symbols for a reason …. it would be way to easy to gain a super effective symbol build. Besides … what is the point of complaining about it almost 4 years later? Like it will change?

Oh no, guardians having a semi-effective build!? What ever will we do? :0

The point of “complaining” about it is that it’s an interesting topic for discussion. So if you don’t want to discuss it, then bugger off sweetie.

Ray.8259:

On the contrary, Sword skill 4 generates a clone, so Mesmers offhanding a sword have access to both a phantasm and 2 clones.

True, but that’s an exception, and two clones compared to one is not the same as one clone compared to zero.

If two handed weapons have one symbol, then it makes it easy enough to have Sword and Scepter also have a symbol with Mace being the example. Having access to two symbols at once might be interesting, but that should then imply we should have two symbols for every weaponset, which means more symbols for GS, Hammer, Bow, Staff, etc. That’s a lot more design than just Sword and Scepter.

Obtena must be used to settling for low standards and expectations in real life or something.

I’ve never seen someone defend GW2’s most mediocre, bland and noncompetitive profession with all of its uninspiring, mechanically boring, and synergistically lacking traits so hard for so long.
It’s supposed to be a fun video game, not an Excel spreadsheet!

Super effective Symbol build! Oh heavens! The possibilities of build diversity scare thee!
When was the last time a non-PvE enemy stood in a symbol for longer than 2 ticks of damage anyway.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Some people believe Flashing Blade should get a symbol after the teleport, which I’m not a fan of, but it is an option. I would prefer changing Zealot’s Defense into a symbol that has same functionality (projectile defense and perhaps projectiles themselves).

Personally, I think that a Symbol on #2 would be nice. I guess #3 would work, too, but it wouldn’t be my pick. The reason being because it probably means we will never ever be able to move while using Zealot’s Defense.

My preferences (in order):

Sword:

• Fury (#2 or #3) or
• Aegis (#3 – 2s at best, might need to buff Mace #3 to keep it the defensive choice)

Scepter:

• Might (#2, rework the trait and move it to Virtues)
• Quickness (#2, still rework the trait )

Obtena.7952:

They don’t have symbols for a reason …. it would be way to easy to gain a super effective symbol build.

Oh noes… that would be crazy.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Obtena.7952:

They don’t have symbols for a reason …. it would be way to easy to gain a super effective symbol build. Besides … what is the point of complaining about it almost 4 years later? Like it will change?

Oh no, guardians having a semi-effective build!? What ever will we do? :0

We could start by not being sensational and ridiculous. If you doubt the truth of my statement, then go ahead and discuss that.

Ezrael.6859:

Obtena must be used to settling for low standards and expectations in real life or something.

I’ve never seen someone defend GW2’s most mediocre, bland and noncompetitive profession with all of its uninspiring, mechanically boring, and synergistically lacking traits so hard for so long.
It’s supposed to be a fun video game, not an Excel spreadsheet!

Super effective Symbol build! Oh heavens! The possibilities of build diversity scare thee!
When was the last time a non-PvE enemy stood in a symbol for longer than 2 ticks of damage anyway.

No, I’m just aware, based on my experience with MMO’s what happens if you do get a build like that … you don’t get any others. Case in point: medi-guardians. Why is it that you think we DON’T have a plethora of effective builds? Oh right … because Anet buffed the hell out of meditations when they were already the preferred PVP choice a few years back. Even traps are losing their luster now that people figured that out … where do you go? back to the highest-effective builds we have.

Honestly, it doesn’t take a whole lot to know why we don’t have offhand symbols. Jeez, we don’t even have symbols on all the MAIN hand weapons.

Symbols have huge handicaps: usually are only usefull vs PvE and even then the area and damage buff they provide is small-. They should be more like usefull fields for auto-blasting, but sadly most of the best field/blast combos in the game fell in a few classes (Eles, Engineers, Thieves… ) so symbols aren’t very good to be honest.

It’s not really about how good or bad they are; you also have to consider the potential that stacking two symbols + other AoE effects Guardians have.

I can stack symbols with the staff and the longbow, and let me tell you, it’s not exactly a Meteor Shower.

OK, but that’s not the same thing as having access to two weapons with symbols simultaneously. If off hands had a symbol, you do stack two simultaneously and get access to three or even 4 if more than 1 offhand had a symbol. You could symbol bomb everywhere with almost unlimited restrictions if that were the case. Not to mention how all the add on effects would stack.

The bottom line is that anyone that gives a rat’s behind about balance in this game knows why we don’t have offhand symbols.

Ezrael.6859:

Obtena must be used to settling for low standards and expectations in real life or something.

I’ve never seen someone defend GW2’s most mediocre, bland and noncompetitive profession with all of its uninspiring, mechanically boring, and synergistically lacking traits so hard for so long.
It’s supposed to be a fun video game, not an Excel spreadsheet!

Super effective Symbol build! Oh heavens! The possibilities of build diversity scare thee!
When was the last time a non-PvE enemy stood in a symbol for longer than 2 ticks of damage anyway.

But remember; “the Devs don’t balance based on performance”.

Obtena.7952:

OK, but that’s not the same thing as having access to two weapons with symbols simultaneously. If off hands had a symbol, you do stack two simultaneously and get access to three or even 4 if more than 1 offhand had a symbol. You could symbol bomb everywhere with almost unlimited restrictions if that were the case. Not to mention how all the add on effects would stack.

Two stacked symbols aren’t impressive, and if you double “not impressive”, chances are it’s still not going to be particularly impressive.

Obtena.7952:

The bottom line is that anyone that gives a rat’s behind about balance in this game knows why we don’t have offhand symbols.

Apparently that’s only you. /s

Could be interesting for PvE. Still don’t rly see how it’d improve the guards position in pvp tho. Ppl that stand in symbols are the same idiots that facetank traps and we rly don’t have trouble with those kind of players…

But yeah, I’d love to do something more in raids than spam hammer auto. :P

Fashion Mage.3712:

Obtena.7952:

OK, but that’s not the same thing as having access to two weapons with symbols simultaneously. If off hands had a symbol, you do stack two simultaneously and get access to three or even 4 if more than 1 offhand had a symbol. You could symbol bomb everywhere with almost unlimited restrictions if that were the case. Not to mention how all the add on effects would stack.

Two stacked symbols aren’t impressive, and if you double “not impressive”, chances are it’s still not going to be particularly impressive.

Obtena.7952:

The bottom line is that anyone that gives a rat’s behind about balance in this game knows why we don’t have offhand symbols.

Apparently that’s only you.

Based on this thread, you might be right. People think that implementing broken ideas is a substitute for a under performing class. It’s not, but I’m sure they believe it is. Frankly I don’t even think this would be an improvement in PVE or PVP … you already said yourself that spamming symbols wouldn’t be that good … so why even push for such a poor idea? Oh I know, just to be disagreeable … or maybe just to complain about having another ‘spirit weapons’ or ‘consecrations’ … Clever move.

Obtena.7952:

Based on this thread, you might be right. People think that implementing broken ideas is a substitute for a under performing class. It’s not, but I’m sure they believe it is. Frankly I don’t even think this would be an improvement in PVE or PVP … you already said yourself that spamming symbols wouldn’t be that good … so why even push for such a poor idea? Oh I know, just to be disagreeable … or maybe just to complain about having another ‘spirit weapons’ or ‘consecrations’ … Clever move.

Well in PvE right now it’s all about symbols… Spamming hammer 1 with quickness to get overlapping symbols basically. Agreed on PvP tho.

Admittedly, that’s ALWAYS been a good PVE approach with hammer, but it has nothing to do with access to more symbols via off hand weapons.

Obtena.7952:

Admittedly, that’s ALWAYS been a good PVE approach with hammer, but it has nothing to do with access to more symbols via off hand weapons.

Well, you said it prob wasn’t a good move for either pve or pvp. For pve it actually could be, imagine a build where you do more than 1111111111111111111 because they buffed some offhand weapons. I’d say that’s an improvement.

Tho tbf what I’d really love is a DPS build that is not so reliant on how much the boss moves…

I was referring to simultaneous symbol bombing. I won’t debate it’s an improvement or not … depends on how it’s implemented.

I do think every potential weapon layout should have access to at least one symbol. There are way too many symbol traits in the Guardian specializations to justify any weapon set (much less multiple possible sets) being completely unable to use said traits. They should be a core Guardian mechanic, because the traitlines treat them as one.

However, I also favor putting them on the mainhand weapons that currently don’t have them rather than the offhands. Most of the offhands don’t really have room for a symbol without some kind of sweeping change to the way one of the skills work. And Mace already has a symbol, so while I certainly don’t think a possible 2-symbol build would be “broken” I do think it’d be more in-line with other similar concepts to leave it at one per weapon set.

I like the idea of making Zealot’s Defense a projectile-denial Symbol. Sure, it’d be a bit different than other symbols, but it would still fit the overall concept of support. Could either have it be like Corrosive Poison Cloud where it just destroys projectiles that pass through it, or have it just give projectile immunity to anyone standing in the symbol’s radius (the latter being more in-line with other symbols). And pretty much everyone agrees that it needs a major rework anyway.

Scepter is a bit more tricky. I’m sure some will say “No, its easy, just make Smite a symbol and call it a day”. But that would pretty drastically alter Smite’s basic concept, which is burst damage in a small area, and as a consequence pretty drastically alter the Scepter itself as well. Symbols aren’t bursty in the slightest. Smite as a symbol would have to do a lot less damage (unless it was going to be called a symbol in name only, not functionality). It’d no longer be able to hit a single enemy a large number of times, which reduces synergy with Justice as well as the Zealous Scepter trait. Without Smite, the Scepter’s damage, which is currently fairly respectable at least in situations where you can actually hit with it, would plummet. Which, since its entire purpose is as a DPS weapon, would be pretty problematic. They’d have to make Chains of Light a more damage-oriented skill to compensate.

So that probably means Chains of Light would have to go (or change dramatically), one way or another. Either it goes in favor of a symbol skill, or Smite becomes a symbol and Chains of Light becomes a burst skill of some sort.

Making Chains a burst skill would probably help the weapon more in PvP, so that may be the way to go. Perhaps it could be a “pseudo-DoT” in a similar vein to Binding Blades, but do a lot more damage and perhaps pulse a smaller amount of damage to nearby foes, giving it a bit of AoE application as well. That would also allow it to keep its current visuals, the chains wrapping around the foe to burn them with energy for their duration or whatever.

Similar to Meteor Shower, Smite could be a Symbol for the field, but still provide the multiple hits per second as it does now. Its total amount of hits would be something I would want to preserve, and that would be a way to do it.

Chains of Light would be an interesting option too. Considering the public’s like of Symbol of Energy keeping its burn on application, Chains could perhaps have the immobilize happen on activation with normal symbol effects happening afterward (and that would have the effect of keeping people inside the symbol, fancy that).

I won’t stop saying as long as it isn’t true, every weapon set needs a symbol.

I just realized that every forum has that one poster that feels they know everything and it’s their job to let others know just how much more they know.

Thanks for bearing that cross Obtena.

I don’t know how the rest of us could find our way through the darkness without your shining beacon of correctness guiding our way.

I got your back … You can thank me later for one less useless or dumb play concept Anet doesn’t put in the game that everyone will QQ about.

Obtena.7952:

I got your back … You can thank me later for one less useless thing Anet doesn’t put in the game that everyone will QQ about.

How have they not snatched you up to work for them, or at least hire you as a consultant?

I hate to see that kind of smarts go to waste.

What makes you think they didn’t?

Maybe they did. For all we know you could be Karl’s personal assistant.

Maybe that’s why the profession is in such good shape!

Keep up the good work and stay the course! Don’t let these people tell you things need to be changed.

Starbreaker.6507:

Maybe they did. For all we know you could be Karl’s personal assistant.

In a sad way, that would be all too appropriate.

Starbreaker.6507:

Maybe they did. For all we know you could be Karl’s personal assistant.

Maybe that’s why the profession is in such good shape!

Keep up the good work and stay the course! Don’t let these people tell you things need to be changed.

Maybe you want Guardian to be THE class preferred by scrubs, but I don’t.