Guild Wars 2

For sPvP they aren’t bad for bunkers. Hammer + Hammer Spirit Weapon + Eternal Spirit + Sanctuary gives you 4 back to back knockbacks plus however many the Hammer executes on its own without commands. It’s pretty fun, too. In tPvP you’ll get annihilated by some of the better decappers. Decap Engineers will destroy you.

Unlike minion master necro or spirit ranger, spirit weapons aren’t an all-or-nothing build. They all have specific roles, compared to just various forms of damage or stacking tons of boons and conditions.

Oh god, it took them years, but if they pull this off, it looks like being a Green Lantern might be possible yet again. I’m loving the sound of the other changes too, though a part of me knows that somehow, Anet will manage to run this update into the ground and STILL nerf us with some unexpected change.

Still have faith though!

Anet is claiming fake. Kind of a shame really.

Biggest tip-off was probably the EM change. They’d never take off an ICD.

I wouldn’t dismiss them just yet. I would guess it was an internal testing build. Some things will make it, some won’t.

Typically these leaks happen from the alpha build test players. There’s a small cadre of players that get to test patches way ahead of time. That’s usually the source.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/RE-Leaked-patch-notes

They have pretty much said the same thing every single time there has been a leak. Whether the notes are true 100% is one thing, but i guess we will see when the eventual patch comes out.

Bash.7291:

They have pretty much said the same thing every single time there has been a leak. Whether the notes are true 100% is one thing, but i guess we will see when the eventual patch comes out.

This is the first time they’ve stated the leaks were fake, actually. They haven’t even said a word for the elite leaks a few days ago.

foofad.5162:

Biggest tip-off was probably the EM change. They’d never take off an ICD.

Negative, the biggest tip-off was the proposed Necromancer Mark increase. It’s already 180. Also, how is this not a possible consideration? It’s a terrible master trait. It belongs in no build that I can find.

Wow anet brought the love to roaming guardians for sure on this patch. Other than the vigor nerf it’s significant buffs across the board. Especially LOVE the torch buff. Great condition cleanse and dps on one weapon. It seems to me that anet has been more on point with their patches and changes lately I’m liking it. But I don’t see the empowering might change staying as is it’s a wee bit op with no internal cd.

Oh god, it hurts. Just the fact that the leaked notes show more competence around diversifying guardians than the official team did makes me sad. Oh well.

I’ll be making good use of the torch if those changes are true. This way we can maintain pressure on a class whose aa’s apply conditions without having to attack as hard as possible while wasting larger cleanses.

wharone.1809:

Oh god, it hurts. Just the fact that the leaked notes show more competence around diversifying guardians than the official team did makes me sad. Oh well.

As if it was difficult to show more competence than the official team …

But we probably should have expected these notes to be fake, right because of the level of competence that was in some parts of them.

Mikau.6920:

xFireize.6318:

Someone posted this ~5 hours ago and got deleted.

Then its truth. When this patch will go up?

That was my post…
I think it is a great change for SPirit weapons.
And not quite good changes for sword and shield. Sword like other good guardian weapon need a symbol. Shield need better CD reduction and also re-making of skill #5

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.

• Good Change for Torch. I might try it out in PvP and specific condition heavy bosses such as General Volkov.

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.

• Potential healing skill for dungeon stacking. I will have to test it out to see if it can compete with Shelter.

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

• Step in the right direction. Although I still think it should be instant cast like all the other Meditation 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.

• Is this big enough to cover capture points? If so, it would be a nice change for decapping. Hopefully they also fixed the healing amount as it only heals for 1596.

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

• A nice change for specific situations such as resurrecting Lords in WvW. Although I wouldn’t use it in any other situation.

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%.

• I am hoping spirit weapons stay weak because AI is horrible. Anyhow, spirit weapons should receive a health buff (just like all other pet classes) as they instantly die from most type of damage. We shouldn’t be pigeonholed into a new grandmaster trait (Impervious Spirits) in order to keep them alive.

Traits

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.

• Good way to make Zeal more attractive although I think focus is already well-balanced. I’d rather see more changes to make shield more appealing.

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

• This is probably one of the best changes. I know many guardians have been asking for some kind of CC for a long time.

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

• Step in the right direction although not sure if it’s worth it compared to other traits in the same line. You can’t time the chill so it makes it a lackluster trait.

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

• Shield really needs some buffs, not just in the trait line. This should be one of our best weapons. If you look at the cooldown of shield skills they don’t give enough in return.

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%.

• Really going to miss this. RIP! At least some compensation in PvP though.

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

• Nice buff although the short duration on the Might kind of bothers me.

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

• This is still not appealing considered to what other classes get on stun.

hi guys. before anyone says, yes im a necro, though mostly power. guard is my #4.

I just glimpsed all the leaks, but THE TORCH !! It scares me to death. Its like elementalist heal and good ones who know when to use it are godly. Dont you think think its so OP, especialy considering that unlike the ele chanel, ur dealing DPS around autoatack?

Again, Im not trying to advocate condi necro. But this looks like a huge power creep. The game needs remowed condi spam and added condi sustain, not cleansing-spam new meta.

we are getting soft-nerfed every patch so i doubt this is true

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/RE-Leaked-patch-notes

confirmed fake

Too bad if they are, because that was a list of changes packed with Win.

They never said they were fake. They said they were not the real notes (as in the release notes). That doesn’t rule them out as internal development build notes.

“…and mashed them together with some imaginary notes.”
“We do not want people to be upset by fake patch notes.”

Sounds pretty fake to me.

I’d save a copy never the less because most of what has been reported over the last year or so that had a tag of leaked ended up being most accurate.

Be that has it may Guardians will probably get treated more of the same and given things we don’t want or ask for and told we are negative…

I really hope they’ve found whoever is responsible and fired them.

sorry, I meant to type “hired them”, not fired them

Tarsius.3170:

sorry, I meant to type “hired them”, not fired them

Lol – we’ll save that for the fella that posted seeking information and feedback back in December

You guys can’t be serious. Sure there are some nice changes (focus/torch/writ of debilitation) but honestly those Spirit Weapon buffs are kittening kittened. As a sPvPer there is already way too much focus on AI and it needs to be toned DOWN, not buffed in every single possible way. It’s a ridiculously cheesy gameplay, where one doesn’t actually need to do anything to achieve great success.

Thoth Divine.8642:

You guys can’t be serious. Sure there are some nice changes (focus/torc/writ of debilitation) but honestly those Spirit Weapon buffs are kittening kittened. As a sPvPer there is already way too much focus on AI and it needs to be toned DOWN, not buffed in every single possible way. It’s a ridiculously cheesy gameplay, where one doesn’t actually need to do anything to achieve great success.

Using AIs doesn’t preclude you from using your weapon skills, other utilities, planning your build, selecting upgrades, timing dodges, et cetera.

“One doesn’t actually need to do anything” is massively hyperbolic. If you have an issue with AI gameplay then I’m sure you can articulate specifically what the problem is without hyperbole.

If I didn’t have to constantly refresh any spirit weapons every 20/30/whatever seconds, perhaps I would use them more often, but having to keep pressing a button to bring them out is just a nuisance.

Why can’t spirit weapons be more like minions in the sense that you just click a button and they stay out until they die? Problem solved. That would be the only way Anet could entice me into using spirit weapons.

I tried SW’s again today. Exactly this … having to refresh too often, even with mastery traited.

Well, the initial design was that Spirit Weapons won’t be damaged by direct attack. This was the reason why they start the cooldowns after they disappear, unlike Ranger’s Spirits and Necro’s Minion (CMIIW on necro). And of course they didn’t give a crap about that coz they just wanted people to stop exploiting.

I don’t mind the cooldowns and refresh them every 20-30 seconds, as long as they don’t die prematurely.

I think the only way I could agree to some spirit weapon buffs is if they were immune to damage, had a very short duration (5-8 secs), then went on to the 20-30s cooldown.

The main issue I had with those “leaked” patch notes & spirit weapons was that they would become like normal minions (except ofc with added cooldown). Most minion builds, the most common example being Necros, require very little skill to actually pull off well and I certainly wouldn’t want to see a similar situation with Guardian Spirit Weapons.

Thoth Divine.8642:

You guys can’t be serious. Sure there are some nice changes (focus/torch/writ of debilitation) but honestly those Spirit Weapon buffs are kittening kittened. As a sPvPer there is already way too much focus on AI and it needs to be toned DOWN, not buffed in every single possible way. It’s a ridiculously cheesy gameplay, where one doesn’t actually need to do anything to achieve great success.

As a guardian, Any class that relies on minions should honestly be easy. We have so many AoE skills you should just be able to blender them to death.

Binding blade > Pull > WW > Symbol > leap of faith > weapon swap > mace symbol > Mace #3

MM, Spirit rangers, the odd spirit weapon guardians, it is very rare to see many of their minions live through just that alone. And after that the build is very weak until cooldowns are up, and by that time all of those skills are off CD anyways. Guardians are honestly a very hard counter to anything minion just because we do have a very large amount of cleave on our weapons.

Why do some people assume that because someone complain about a certain build/mechanic it automatically means that they have trouble with it? I win most of my 1v1s, especially against AI builds because of these AoE you mentioned. It still doesn’t stop me from thinking they are cheesy and small-risk-high-rewards builds. It’s not because the class I play counters a certain build that I am not concerned by other classes having trouble with it…

Oh my lawd, some of these changes would make the vigor nerf bearable in sPvP and might actually make me want to log in again.

Thoth Divine.8642:

Why do some people assume that because someone complain about a certain build/mechanic it automatically means that they have trouble with it? I win most of my 1v1s, especially against AI builds because of these AoE you mentioned. It still doesn’t stop me from thinking they are cheesy and small-risk-high-rewards builds. It’s not because the class I play counters a certain build that I am not concerned by other classes having trouble with it…

Because generally most people that complain about a spec, are having issues against said spec. As far as guardian countering it, why wouldn’t something like MM counter another build/class? It is always going to happen in PvP no matter what game you play. There are always going to be counters, some soft some hard. So why are you complaining when you know there are classes that have no issue with the spec, despite personal opinion of the spec.

I haven’t read everyone’s responses, so if this has been covered, I apologize in advance. But according to Allie, these notes are wrong.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/RE-Leaked-patch-notes/first

For all the spirit weapon complainers, this doesn’t make them much better than they already are. The exact same trait pathing is required to build for them, and they trade a damage nerf for a sustain boost. And the sustain boost still leaves them more vulnerable than they were when they were immortal and STILL were not popular.

It is to bad Spirit Weapons are in the state they are in. Spirit Weapon Guardians are what drew me to not only this class but to this game. I ran a Spirit Weapon build when the game first started and it was a blast, since then I’ve done Support, DPS, AH, Pyro builds and nothing compares to me for a good SW build. Just my .2

Even if these changes are implemented as they are listed in this thread, the barrier that makes me not want to go further than 10 in Zeal still exists…..symbol minor traits (unavoidable because they are minors). Please put something universally useful in the minor slots…not something that over 50% of our weapons do not have access to. For me to go beyond the 10 trait point mark in Zeal, there has to be something really worthwhile in the master level minor slot…something for a non symbol user (maybe something that lets me drop absolute resolution in virtues). The cost of giving up absolute resolution: 3 conditions cleansed for my entire group, retaliation on virtue activation for my entire group, regeneration on activation for my entire group, passive heal for me alone, and boon duration. It really has to be worth it to choose Zeal over that.

I like the changes to cleansing flame, but I’d still never use a torch in pve so long as the damage output of torch #5 is less than auto attacking in that same time span and it still requires me to channel.

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

ooooh how nice.. no.. nice that we finally got a source of movement impairing effect… but thieves gets a 7 second cripple on each pulse while guardians gets 1 sec? still no.. not worthy at all.

Empowering might change will be a huge boost in pve.

Those spirit weapon changes would help make them viable again. It’s too bad these notes are fake.

The only bad thing was the Empowering Might and maybe (I said maybe) the torch change. The EM obviously would be OP and the torch would only need a few cooldown increase (maybe +10 sec, to 25 sec total). And Retaliatory Subconscious would be junk as ever.

It is a shame that not even a single significative change was tried on Guard like all other classes that get a revamp on almost 50% of the traits and skills.

Well, I’m not playing as often anyways, and I feel like I’m glad they won’t implement, so I’ll may leave this game faster. Not complaining this game to be bad, but boring. There are changes that need to be made and they not even move a finger to try.

wish empowering might was in adept tier though, cant be kittened to not get my increased 2 sec symbol duration.