Guild Wars 2

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1yjdsw/leaked_balance_patch_notes/

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

Obviously, nothing can be sure here, no ’’leaks’’ should never ever be taken serious until proven otherwise.

Guardian

Weapon Skills
Zealot’s Defense: This skill’s projectiles have been modified to more reliably hit foes. This skill will now absorb its own projectiles if they are reflected. The final hit of this skill now applies a 1 second burn to foes.

Cleansing Flame: This skill now removes a condition every second pulse for a total of 5 conditions removed. The caster is now also affected by the condition removal.

Spear Wall: This skill now displays the correct area of effect indicator to allies. Previously this skill displayed a round area of effect to allies with the correct functionality of a line area of effect.

Healing Skills
Healing Breeze: This skill has been re-scaled so that the guardian receives 50% of the heal near the start of the heal and then heals for 10% for 5 ticks to the caster and up to 5 allies in the cone.

Litany of Wrath: This skill now has a cast time of 3/4 second, down from 1 second.

Utility Skills
Sanctuary: This skill now has a radius of 150 units, up from 120 units. The tooltip now lists the light field associated with the skill.

Signet of Mercy: This skill now has a cast time of 2.25 seconds, down from 3.75s seconds.

Bow of Truth: The summoned bow now fires every 4.5 seconds, down from 5.2 seconds.
Command: This skill is now a ground-targeted area of effect that can be fired within 900 units of the user.

Sword of Justice: The summoned sword’s base damage has been increased by 10%.

Traits
Zeal—Spirit-Weapon Mastery: This trait has been moved to Virtues V.

Zeal VI—Eternal Spirit: Moved to the Adept tier.

Zeal VIII—This trait now improves the effectiveness of focus skills in addition to its current functionality. Ray of Judgement bounces an additional two times. Shield of Wrath blocks an additional two attacks.

Zeal X—Wrathful Spirits: Moved to the Master tier. This trait now increases spirit weapon damage by 30%.

Zeal XI—Impervious Spirits: This new Grandmaster tier trait renders spirit weapons immune to direct damage. Spirit weapons affected by this trait can still be harmed by conditions.

Zeal XII—Writ of Debilitation: This trait replaces Kindled Zeal. This trait now causes symbols to apply 1 second of crippled to foes.

Radiance XII—Perfect Inscriptions: Updated the tooltip to better represent its effect.

Valor VIII—Glacial Heart: This trait now has a recharge time of 20 seconds, down from 30 seconds.

Valor IX—Honorable Shield: This trait now increases toughness by 150 when wielding a shield.

Honor 5—Vigorous Precision: This trait now has a recharge time of 10 seconds, up from 5 seconds.

Honor 15—Selfless Daring: This trait now heals for its base amount plus 70% benefit from healing power in Structured PvP, up from 50%.

Honor VIII—Empowering Might: This trait no longer has a recharge time.

Virtues IV—Retaliatory Subconscious: This trait now has a recharge time of 15 seconds, down from 30 seconds.

Virtues V—Spirit Weapon Mastery: This trait has been merged with Improved Spirit-Weapon Duration. This trait now reduces recharge on spirit weapon skills by 20% and increases their duration by 50%.

To me, it looks like they are trying to make more Guardians use Spirit Weapons.

These sound like great changes actually. I really like Writ of Debilitation, Empowering Might and Zeal VIII. I’m sure focus users will definitely be pleased about it.

The spirit weapon changes do sound good, Impervious Spirits is a good way to reward spirit weapon players who invested to make them good. The only problem I have is that spirit weapon traits are still scattered through three trait lines. They need to narrow it down to two lines. They could remove a fire inside to another line or merge it with another trait.

Don’t know if this post will stay for long (probably deleted) but wow, these notes are HUGE deal.
Cleansing flame – torch 5, clearing 5 condi from guardian if uninterrupted is a game-changer for any DPS guard in spvp, and roaming guardian in wvw.
New GM zeal cripple on symbols is a great new option, same of focus mastery and in general zeal looks very appealing now.
Glacial heart is now definitely interesting, especially with upcoming dual sigil on 2 handed weapons.
Empowering might CD reduction seems like abit of a overbuff, will make some spammable AH builds, but because at least requires you to HIT someone AND crit, i guess not worse.

Selfless daring buff in spvp is nice, will give bunker guards abit more relevance vs other classes that seemed to be able to tank at same efficiency while having other superior advantages.

I am excited, 30 zeal, maces and torches are gonna see some play.

hmmm I must admit.. I like these changes. If these are truly what we will be seeing in the next balance patch I look forward to using Spirit Weapons.

Oren.1736:

Don’t know if this post will stay for long (probably deleted) but wow, these notes are HUGE deal.
Cleansing flame – torch 5, clearing 5 condi from guardian if uninterrupted is a game-changer for any DPS guard in spvp, and roaming guardian in wvw.
New GM zeal cripple on symbols is a great new option, same of focus mastery and in general zeal looks very appealing now.
Glacial heart is now definitely interesting, especially with upcoming dual sigil on 2 handed weapons.
Empowering might CD reduction seems like abit of a overbuff, will make some spammable AH builds, but because at least requires you to HIT someone AND crit, i guess not worse.

Selfless daring buff in spvp is nice, will give bunker guards abit more relevance vs other classes that seemed to be able to tank at same efficiency while having other superior advantages.

I am excited, 30 zeal, maces and torches are gonna see some play.

Yea man, cleansing flame change looks dope.

I would make empowering might a grandmaster on the precision trait line. It fits better there.

I also would turn inner fire into gain fury when you set a foe on fire rather the way it is currenty.

If these are true, its going to open up ALOT of builds for gaurdians. RHS + EM scepter is going to be very strong solo and group play. Torch is going to become a go to weapon for roaming with the added condition removal, and the lack that alot of dps guardians have. Zeal is also going to work really well now with other builds, as that snare is going to be great for scepter, mace, and hammer, even more so with larger longer symbols. i do however see the EM change being a bit overboard though, and will most likely get scaled back.

Oren.1736:

Don’t know if this post will stay for long (probably deleted) but wow, these notes are HUGE deal..

Don’t worry, we’re safe here. Devs rarely come here.

These are some really good changes if they’re true.

Zealot’s Defense: This skill’s projectiles have been modified to more reliably hit foes. This skill will now absorb its own projectiles if they are reflected. The final hit of this skill now applies a 1 second burn to foes.

Good buff, sword is already decent. This just makes it better.

Cleansing Flame: This skill now removes a condition every second pulse for a total of 5 conditions removed. The caster is now also affected by the condition removal.

One of the best changes. Torch is a very good offhand, but it’s always been overshadowed by Focus.

Zeal VIII—This trait now improves the effectiveness of focus skills in addition to its current functionality. Ray of Judgement bounces an additional two times. Shield of Wrath blocks an additional two attacks.

Another big change. Good reason to go deep in Zeal now.

Zeal XII—Writ of Debilitation: This trait replaces Kindled Zeal. This trait now causes symbols to apply 1 second of crippled to foes.

Great buff. Probably see a lot of 30/x/30/x/x med guards now.

Valor VIII—Glacial Heart: This trait now has a recharge time of 20 seconds, down from 30 seconds.

Better, however I feel it should go lower still. 15 seconds CD.

Valor IX—Honorable Shield: This trait now increases toughness by 150 when wielding a shield.

SiN plus Honorable Shield is an extra 300 toughness. That’s pretty significant.

Honor 5—Vigorous Precision: This trait now has a recharge time of 10 seconds, up from 5 seconds.

We all saw this coming. So can’t complain.

Honor VIII—Empowering Might: This trait no longer has a recharge time.

I don’t see this one happening. Probably revert back to one second.

Virtues IV—Retaliatory Subconscious: This trait now has a recharge time of 15 seconds, down from 30 seconds.

Still not worth taking. Make it apply Retaliation and Stability, and up the CD to 50 seconds.

WOW.

Finally? The spirit weapons will be buffed and Zeal line useful? I can’t wait to try the new Zeal XII and the new improved spirit weapons (seems better than the last try).

Also, TORCH. Its finally will be useful. I’m very happy with the Guardian changes, for the first time we’ll have something actually fixed.

But Retaliatory Subconscious is still junk =(

What is happening with the Dev team, trying to actually fix things? Any way, thank you very much for finally waking up.

All I know is they killed my condi build .

Someone posted this ~5 hours ago and got deleted.

xFireize.6318:

Someone posted this ~5 hours ago and got deleted.

Then its truth. When this patch will go up?

Alright i’ll be honest, I like these Changes. Especially with Torch. I still think the Vigorous precision change was a rough one since as a dps guardian, this was so significant in keeping me alive. Still won’t touch Litany of Wrath or the Spirit weapons. Glacial Heart is still too weak to bother with, Hydromance sigils are still better by comparison. Empowering might….wow. This is such a HUGE change for AH Guardians. This will no doubt, improve their team support/sustain.

Zeal:

Zeal still won’t be appealing to go 30 points into for top DPS builds. The Focus improvement is fairly dramatic and may actually be worthwhile for roamers. I can kind of see Zeal + Honor builds coming into play now for the cripple in zerg WvW but I don’t see it helping much with anyone else. Definitely not sPVP.

Spirit Weapons:
Impervious Hammer plus Sanctuary will be the new king of sPvP bunkers. Bow of Truth still sucks passively. Active is an improvement however it doesn’t heal enough to have it on your bar. Sword is a viable DPS tool in any build with a third wildcard utility slot if you have Impervious in dungeons but I still think no one wil actually take Zeal that far for dungeon builds.

Torch:
Cleansing Flame is still bad. The only way I see it being used is to dump your conditions and then cancel out of it to continue doing real DPS. It needs more aggressive damage or a widening of the cleave limit in order to compete even with auto attacking.

Honor:
Potentially five or more stacks per second when running Hammer. Uh… Well, people will definitely consider using it again, and it offsets Hammer ruining combo fields with too many Light applications.

Shield:
No one cares about 150 Toughness. It should have improved the Shield skills just like the new Focus change. Spherical Protection application from 4, damage and healing on detonating 5. Something like that.

Virtues:

No one cares about Retalitory Subconscious. Spirit Weapon trait merge was desperately needed and is a good change.

All in all, it’s a good day for Spirit Weapons, an okay day for Zeal as a whole, and has some tentative possibilities for improving our soft CC issues.

Anet just wants my condi build to die in a fire….. I am sad. The only thing I’m looking forward to now is the runes and sigils change, maybe that is the reason I’ve been shunted.

foofad.5162:

Zeal:

Zeal still won’t be appealing to go 30 points into for top DPS builds. The Focus improvement is fairly dramatic and may actually be worthwhile for roamers. I can kind of see Zeal + Honor builds coming into play now for the cripple in zerg WvW but I don’t see it helping much with anyone else. Definitely not sPVP.

Spirit Weapons:
Impervious Hammer plus Sanctuary will be the new king of sPvP bunkers. Bow of Truth still sucks passively. Active is an improvement however it doesn’t heal enough to have it on your bar. Sword is a viable DPS tool in any build with a third wildcard utility slot if you have Impervious in dungeons but I still think no one wil actually take Zeal that far for dungeon builds.

Torch:
Cleansing Flame is still bad. The only way I see it being used is to dump your conditions and then cancel out of it to continue doing real DPS. It needs more aggressive damage or a widening of the cleave limit in order to compete even with auto attacking.

Honor:
Potentially five or more stacks per second when running Hammer. Uh… Well, people will definitely consider using it again, and it offsets Hammer ruining combo fields with too many Light applications.

Shield:
No one cares about 150 Toughness. It should have improved the Shield skills just like the new Focus change. Spherical Protection application from 4, damage and healing on detonating 5. Something like that.

Virtues:

No one cares about Retalitory Subconscious. Spirit Weapon trait merge was desperately needed and is a good change.

All in all, it’s a good day for Spirit Weapons, an okay day for Zeal as a whole, and has some tentative possibilities for improving our soft CC issues.

Bow of truth should scale with healing power imo. Maybe the arrows can remove conditions and provide a heal. Other than that you are right, its still bad regardless of the change.

What was your build? I don’t see many dramatic changes in that department.

Edit; Oh, Kindled Zeal. Lol. That sucks.

I like this changes, finally can go damage in PvP without being mocked for it. Although it looks like there will be another UI build for sPvP and I don’t like those (Minion Master Necro, Spirit Ranger and now Spirit weapons Guardian). Never used torch, maybe that will change now.

Empowering Might is good change. Idk why they will put it back has it was. Warriors have a similar one and never had coldown (I know it’s only on GS, but hten again do they use anything else for PvE), but I was already satisfied with the trait as it is now.

Aza.2105:

foofad.5162:

Zeal:

Zeal still won’t be appealing to go 30 points into for top DPS builds. The Focus improvement is fairly dramatic and may actually be worthwhile for roamers. I can kind of see Zeal + Honor builds coming into play now for the cripple in zerg WvW but I don’t see it helping much with anyone else. Definitely not sPVP.

Spirit Weapons:
Impervious Hammer plus Sanctuary will be the new king of sPvP bunkers. Bow of Truth still sucks passively. Active is an improvement however it doesn’t heal enough to have it on your bar. Sword is a viable DPS tool in any build with a third wildcard utility slot if you have Impervious in dungeons but I still think no one wil actually take Zeal that far for dungeon builds.

Torch:
Cleansing Flame is still bad. The only way I see it being used is to dump your conditions and then cancel out of it to continue doing real DPS. It needs more aggressive damage or a widening of the cleave limit in order to compete even with auto attacking.

Honor:
Potentially five or more stacks per second when running Hammer. Uh… Well, people will definitely consider using it again, and it offsets Hammer ruining combo fields with too many Light applications.

Shield:
No one cares about 150 Toughness. It should have improved the Shield skills just like the new Focus change. Spherical Protection application from 4, damage and healing on detonating 5. Something like that.

Virtues:

No one cares about Retalitory Subconscious. Spirit Weapon trait merge was desperately needed and is a good change.

All in all, it’s a good day for Spirit Weapons, an okay day for Zeal as a whole, and has some tentative possibilities for improving our soft CC issues.

Bow of truth should scale with healing power imo. Maybe the arrows can remove conditions and provide a heal. Other than that you are right, its still bad regardless of the change.

They already do heal and cure when they hit, unless you mean the Command ability which just heals.

xFireize.6318:

Someone posted this ~5 hours ago and got deleted.

There were at least two threads here, as well as a bunch on the other class forums.

For the changes … well, nothing I’d care about. Torch stays useless unless they massively increase #5’s DPS, Zeal is not worth going into for more than II and VII and EM might become a funny gimmick, but nothing else. 5 seconds duration and 240 radius aren’t worth 20 points in Honor, unfortunately.

foofad.5162:

Aza.2105:

foofad.5162:

Zeal:

Zeal still won’t be appealing to go 30 points into for top DPS builds. The Focus improvement is fairly dramatic and may actually be worthwhile for roamers. I can kind of see Zeal + Honor builds coming into play now for the cripple in zerg WvW but I don’t see it helping much with anyone else. Definitely not sPVP.

Spirit Weapons:
Impervious Hammer plus Sanctuary will be the new king of sPvP bunkers. Bow of Truth still sucks passively. Active is an improvement however it doesn’t heal enough to have it on your bar. Sword is a viable DPS tool in any build with a third wildcard utility slot if you have Impervious in dungeons but I still think no one wil actually take Zeal that far for dungeon builds.

Torch:
Cleansing Flame is still bad. The only way I see it being used is to dump your conditions and then cancel out of it to continue doing real DPS. It needs more aggressive damage or a widening of the cleave limit in order to compete even with auto attacking.

Honor:
Potentially five or more stacks per second when running Hammer. Uh… Well, people will definitely consider using it again, and it offsets Hammer ruining combo fields with too many Light applications.

Shield:
No one cares about 150 Toughness. It should have improved the Shield skills just like the new Focus change. Spherical Protection application from 4, damage and healing on detonating 5. Something like that.

Virtues:

No one cares about Retalitory Subconscious. Spirit Weapon trait merge was desperately needed and is a good change.

All in all, it’s a good day for Spirit Weapons, an okay day for Zeal as a whole, and has some tentative possibilities for improving our soft CC issues.

Bow of truth should scale with healing power imo. Maybe the arrows can remove conditions and provide a heal. Other than that you are right, its still bad regardless of the change.

They already do heal and cure when they hit, unless you mean the Command ability which just heals.

Yep I meant the command ability. They should also increase the amount of conditions the normal bow attacks do from 1→2.

That empowered might chance will promote stacking.

fadeaway.2807:

That empowered might chance will promote stacking.

Right, because stacking isn’t a thing right now, it needs promotion for ppl to do it

It’s still more kindling to that nasty fire.

I would kill for player collision.

Really dont get the hate for torch #5 in this thread. Cone aoe damage, cond removal on allies and now cond removal on us. I cant see why it SHOULD do any more damage at that point considering you can clear that many conditions with it an still do decent damage to groups.

Bash.7291:

Really dont get the hate for torch #5 in this thread. Cone aoe damage, cond removal on allies and now cond removal on us. I cant see why it SHOULD do any more damage at that point considering you can clear that many conditions with it an still do decent damage to groups.

People will complain just to complain. Not all skills need to be dps in order to be good. Torch 5 is utility and damage on a weapon. That in itself is a bonus.

CptAurellian.9537:

xFireize.6318:

Someone posted this ~5 hours ago and got deleted.

There were at least two threads here, as well as a bunch on the other class forums.

For the changes … well, nothing I’d care about. Torch stays useless unless they massively increase #5’s DPS, Zeal is not worth going into for more than II and VII and EM might become a funny gimmick, but nothing else. 5 seconds duration and 240 radius aren’t worth 20 points in Honor, unfortunately.

Not everybody runs meta builds all the time. AH builds for WvW (you know, that place your kind frowns upon) will see a considerable buff from EM.

AH dungeon builds will also become more competitive. Toss in boon duration and EM and you have perma 25 might stacks

Dirame.8521:

Anet just wants my condi build to die in a fire….. I am sad. The only thing I’m looking forward to now is the runes and sigils change, maybe that is the reason I’ve been shunted.

I think this might not be bad … they couldn’t improve Cond builds with Kindred Zeal in there …

Bash.7291:

Really dont get the hate for torch #5 in this thread. Cone aoe damage, cond removal on allies and now cond removal on us. I cant see why it SHOULD do any more damage at that point considering you can clear that many conditions with it an still do decent damage to groups.

I’m not the most avid PVPer but this change just tells me that if you want the cleansing needed in today’s PVP meta, you have to run Torch. That’s not so bad until you realize it’s a great effect coupled to a terrible weapon.

Torch 4 = Good burst. The extra condi removal will tie in nicely to a DPS med guard

Torch is subpar in PvE because Cleansing Flame is a dps loss for the most part. However PvP/WvW is a different story. Zealot’s Flame hits extremely hard and fast, it’s great for spike damage. Cleansing Flame does decent damage, and now they are making it even more viable with the condition removing. Another thing people fail to realize is the short CDs torch has even untraited.

CptAurellian.9537:

xFireize.6318:

Someone posted this ~5 hours ago and got deleted.

There were at least two threads here, as well as a bunch on the other class forums.

For the changes … well, nothing I’d care about. Torch stays useless unless they massively increase #5’s DPS, Zeal is not worth going into for more than II and VII and EM might become a funny gimmick, but nothing else. 5 seconds duration and 240 radius aren’t worth 20 points in Honor, unfortunately.

In PVE it’s not that effective true, however in WvW for roaming, and duels Torch is very very good for DPS builds. Torch 5 Damage is situational effective, like when someone is kiting you and you’re not that much in range yet to hit them with sword or mace. Also helpful for those D/P theives that think you’ll come into Black Powder(blind field) to hit them.

Edit:

Harbinger.8637:

Torch is subpar in PvE because Cleansing Flame is a dps loss for the most part. However PvP/WvW is a different story. Zealot’s Flame hits extremely hard and fast, it’s great for spike damage. Cleansing Flame does decent damage, and now they are making it even more viable with the condition removing. Another thing people fail to realize is the short CDs torch has even untraited.

^this pretty much.

That… almost sounds too good to be true. :p Boo to Vig precision nerf, but that empowering might and cleaning flame buff is cool stuff.

Obtena.7952:

Dirame.8521:

Anet just wants my condi build to die in a fire….. I am sad. The only thing I’m looking forward to now is the runes and sigils change, maybe that is the reason I’ve been shunted.

I think this might not be bad … they couldn’t improve Cond builds with Kindred Zeal in there …

It’s cool they took away kindled Zeal but they gave me 2 extra blocks on Shield of Wrath. I can live with that.

This…..this is what we have been begging for. “Changes” not just tooltips and visuals, but attempts to evolve and update the class.

Now are they good or bad changes? Are they OP or UP? That is to be determined, but I appreciate any honest attempt at looking at the class and trying to make fixes and changes, not just the junk we have seen over the last year.

Hunter.4783:

AH dungeon builds will also become more competitive. Toss in boon duration and EM and you have perma 25 might stacks

Nope, AH in dungeons will stay a useless crutch. However, 10/25/0/25/10 and such stuff will become more interesting for people who usually don’t run in halfway organized groups.

CMF.5461:

This…..this is what we have been begging for. “Changes” not just tooltips and visuals, but attempts to evolve and update the class.

Now are they good or bad changes? Are they OP or UP? That is to be determined, but I appreciate any honest attempt at looking at the class and trying to make fixes and changes, not just the junk we have seen over the last year.

Well put, sir!

As someone who Spvp’s most of the time, I can potentially speccing quite differently as a dps Guardian. With the new implementation of cripple upon symbol activation(not sure if it’s per tick), Hammer will make a possible comeback, along with Scepter and Focus being very powerful as a second weapon-set.

Some of these seem too good to be true. Zeal VIII bouncing twice for an additional blind and up to five blocks with Shield of Wrath? That’s just a crazy buff considering no other profession gets a trait that increases the number of times a skill bounces by more than one. Impervious Spirits sounds cool at least. Spirit Weapons having some invulnerability is great. However, removing the Power-to-CondDmg trait kind of feels like they still aren’t ready for a Cond-build Guardian yet. Cripple on Symbols? We’ve all been asking for it, and this seems far too good to be true. If it is, I can finally feel comfortable in PvP.

Glacial Heart having a lower cooldown seems necessary, and I don’t see too much disbelief in that change. Vigorous Precision was mentioned before, and Selfless Daring getting buffed in PvP feels like it’s trying to make up for the loss of Vigor. No issues here.

I may be an Altruistic Healing scrub in PvE, but it works with my friends, and that’s all that matters to me. Removing the cooldown on Empowering Might? I permanently place Symbol of Protection. The auto-chain of Hammer is already amazing, but now I’ll be getting full use of every hit. Assuming no cooldown means all hits can apply a stack of Might, this is incredibly broken. Unless a boss is critical-immune, I don’t see how I wouldn’t be overhealing with every attack. This is the biggest red flag to me.

If, and I really stretch “if” here, these leaked notes are correct, the Guardian feels like it can finally lock an enemy down in PvP, have access to some amazing Spirit Weapon builds, increase the already usefulness of the Focus, and above all, utterly break face-tanking bosses with Altruistic Healing, especially with dual-Sigil slots on two-handed weapons. I expect at least 1/3rd of these changes being reverted on release. If not, I may actually start playing again. We’ll see.

CptAurellian.9537:

xFireize.6318:

Someone posted this ~5 hours ago and got deleted.

There were at least two threads here, as well as a bunch on the other class forums.

For the changes … well, nothing I’d care about. Torch stays useless unless they massively increase #5’s DPS, Zeal is not worth going into for more than II and VII and EM might become a funny gimmick, but nothing else. 5 seconds duration and 240 radius aren’t worth 20 points in Honor, unfortunately.

I agree. 240 is not enough for pugs. Don’t be one though.

I’ve seen guardians take 30 in Honor to get EM and Two-handed Mastery. Sure the trait itself looks pretty weak. However with AH, the self-heal is crazy. But of course, you don’t use AH.

Harbinger.8637:

Torch is subpar in PvE because Cleansing Flame is a dps loss for the most part. However PvP/WvW is a different story. Zealot’s Flame hits extremely hard and fast, it’s great for spike damage. Cleansing Flame does decent damage, and now they are making it even more viable with the condition removing. Another thing people fail to realize is the short CDs torch has even untraited.

Something else to add, Cleansing flame is going to become even better against groups if that EM change is actually true. Hitting max targets (30) with even 33% crit is going to net around 10 might stacks off of just one skill, 50 if you have enough allies close by. while also causing damage and curing a massive amount of conditions (assuming allies are in the mix) I honestly see torch becoming a very decent weapon in WvW if these changes are true.

Bash.7291:

Harbinger.8637:

Torch is subpar in PvE because Cleansing Flame is a dps loss for the most part. However PvP/WvW is a different story. Zealot’s Flame hits extremely hard and fast, it’s great for spike damage. Cleansing Flame does decent damage, and now they are making it even more viable with the condition removing. Another thing people fail to realize is the short CDs torch has even untraited.

Something else to add, Cleansing flame is going to become even better against groups if that EM change is actually true. Hitting max targets (30) with even 33% crit is going to net around 10 might stacks off of just one skill, 50 if you have enough allies close by. while also causing damage and curing a massive amount of conditions (assuming allies are in the mix) I honestly see torch becoming a very decent weapon in WvW if these changes are true.

Ehhh it’s not quite that simple. It’s 3 hits per second max. That means you’re stacking at most 3 might per second at 100% crit. Cleansing Flame also lasts for ten seconds total, which is ten seconds that you can’t do anything else. Which means that at most, you’re going to put (with 0 boon duration) no more than 15 short duration Might stacks on your party since they only last five seconds.

That’s at 100% crit. At 50% crit, it’s only seven and a half stacks of Might up at any one time on average, with the potential to “accidentally” burst up to 15. And it’ll disappear almost as soon as the ability is finished channeling.

Now compare that to traited Hammer symbols. Even ignoring the hammer swings that’s a potential kittens per second every second, which means that with 100% critical rate you could max out at 25 stacks of might as long as there are 5 targets to hit. Even at half that rate you’re still looking at 12-13 stacks indefinitely. And because it isn’t channeled, you can do other things while the symbol is up and while you might delay your next rotation, it won’t be for long, and you’ll recover quickly.

Also: No cooldown, unlike Cleansing Flame.

So: It still does less damage than autoattacking, it still cures conditions very slowly even though it does cure on yourself, it won’t stack might with EM as quickly as anything else AOE, and it’s still a cone which is a personal gripe of mine.

So basically, once again, anything Cleansing Flame can do other skills can do better. Which is why Cleansing Flame still sucks.

Edit: Just kidding, I just remembered CF lasts five seconds, not ten. That nullifies a large portion of what I said, but the fact that it’s channeled and has a cooldown unlike symbols still makes it inferior IMO.

foofad.5162:

Bash.7291:

Harbinger.8637:

Torch is subpar in PvE because Cleansing Flame is a dps loss for the most part. However PvP/WvW is a different story. Zealot’s Flame hits extremely hard and fast, it’s great for spike damage. Cleansing Flame does decent damage, and now they are making it even more viable with the condition removing. Another thing people fail to realize is the short CDs torch has even untraited.

Something else to add, Cleansing flame is going to become even better against groups if that EM change is actually true. Hitting max targets (30) with even 33% crit is going to net around 10 might stacks off of just one skill, 50 if you have enough allies close by. while also causing damage and curing a massive amount of conditions (assuming allies are in the mix) I honestly see torch becoming a very decent weapon in WvW if these changes are true.

Ehhh it’s not quite that simple. It’s 3 hits per second max. That means you’re stacking at most 3 might per second at 100% crit. Cleansing Flame also lasts for ten seconds total, which is ten seconds that you can’t do anything else. Which means that at most, you’re going to put (with 0 boon duration) no more than 15 short duration Might stacks on your party since they only last five seconds.

That’s at 100% crit. At 50% crit, it’s only seven and a half stacks of Might up at any one time on average, with the potential to “accidentally” burst up to 15. And it’ll disappear almost as soon as the ability is finished channeling.

Now compare that to traited Hammer symbols. Even ignoring the hammer swings that’s a potential kittens per second every second, which means that with 100% critical rate you could max out at 25 stacks of might as long as there are 5 targets to hit. Even at half that rate you’re still looking at 12-13 stacks indefinitely. And because it isn’t channeled, you can do other things while the symbol is up and while you might delay your next rotation, it won’t be for long, and you’ll recover quickly.

Also: No cooldown, unlike Cleansing Flame.

So: It still does less damage than autoattacking, it still cures conditions very slowly even though it does cure on yourself, it won’t stack might with EM as quickly as anything else AOE, and it’s still a cone which is a personal gripe of mine.

So basically, once again, anything Cleansing Flame can do other skills can do better. Which is why Cleansing Flame still sucks.

Edit: Just kidding, I just remembered CF lasts five seconds, not ten. That nullifies a large portion of what I said, but the fact that it’s channeled and has a cooldown unlike symbols still makes it inferior IMO.

Eh, I still think it will become more viable than people give it credit for. Also keep in mind that it is an offhand. With something like mace you can easily lay down a symbol then cleansing flame while the symbol is up. Or with scepter you can throw down a smite and do the same. Also with symbols, they are stationary, and can be move out of, while cleansing flames is a bit harder as you can just chase your enemies with it. Either way, the change to EM and the extra condition removals are huge buffs to torch, I guess it will just be a matter of play style choice in the end though.

I still wouldn’t go 30 points in zeal. All the minor traits are lackluster, especially in PvP, and all the major traits besides Fiery Wrath and the new focus trait are too weak to be useful.

The important spirit weapon change is that the spirit weapons don’t die on command trait is now adept level. Without that trait, spirit weapons were pretty terrible overall (some had good niche uses like shield). It makes it more likely that they can be incorporated into a build full-time.

Big changes are in the Honor line with the Vigor change, partial un-nerf to Selfless Daring in PvP, and Empowering Might not having a cooldown.

I don’t think my heart could take it if these notes are fake. I want to view spirit weapons as an option again.

Exciting….

Some life finally breathed into our class again.

Lets hope Spirit weapons never become a viable option. Imagine have a MM necro, Spirit Ranger and a SW Guardian in one match. If you plan on Running Sword/focus, Scepter/torch, you’re going to be a nightmare for Necros and Engineers.

This changes won’t affect a bit neither my WvW or my PvP builds, but can’t wait to show the naive players how useless Spirit Weapon builds still be.

Aren’t Spirit Weapons not too bad for PvP? For WvW zerg it is inefficient , but when I tried it recently for 1v1, they are doing okay. I don’t do PvP.