Guild Wars 2

SpectralDagger over on Reddit posted some interesting information on NA Pro Week 7 PvP. I don’t personally PvP often, if ever, but the data is interesting;

http://imgur.com/FigyFg7
http://imgur.com/F8IuGEU

Simply put, the Guardian saw zero play in these 4 games, while every other class saw playtime.

I’d think this is some pretty clear evidence that the class needs a developmental review when it is not even considered in pro play.

core guardian needs a major overhaul, symbols need a rework to something more flexible in a game that stresses mobility and dodging, weapons need to be looked at (more shield CD buffs incoming). perhaps devs can also swap the base HP with rev since rev has more uptime on dodges, evades, blocks and defensive boons such as protection and resistance.

The class is in a awful position. There’s really not much else to say.

It isn’t viable.

A simple aegis re-design would solve a lot of issues.
If it were kitten block I would have a reason to run a shout giving aegis.
It would also make building for most traits worthwhile now. Lets face the facts and realized that the F3 passive will never proc. It will always be used before the passive even gives the measly 1-aegis block.

In a recent on-point the devs stated themselves that guardian at a high level was not viable whatsoever. Then they said that they could not buff dragonhunter since any low level scrub can be decimated before learning to play the game properly.
There are some things they religiously stick to guardians(light fields, retaliation, melee projectiles, aegis etc), but to improve the guard they need to realize that none of these synergize nor are viable for anything but a joke build.

Guardians are totally not competitive at all. The class offers too little; Retaliation is a joke, Aegis CD are too long, guardian heals are insignificant compared to the likes of eles and druids, guardian boon support builds are vastly superseded by other classes . In short, other classes are able to DPS just as well, they can tank better and they provide way better support than guardians. So what’s the point of playing guardians?

Guardian is like a relic from the past; while the others classes have received polish and fine-tuning on their respective class mechanics, Guardians have remain relatively unchanged and it shows.

anking.6245:

SpectralDagger over on Reddit posted some interesting information on NA Pro Week 7 PvP. I don’t personally PvP often, if ever, but the data is interesting;

http://imgur.com/FigyFg7
http://imgur.com/F8IuGEU

Simply put, the Guardian saw zero play in these 4 games, while every other class saw playtime.

I’d think this is some pretty clear evidence that the class needs a developmental review when it is not even considered in pro play.

Wow, that’s pretty kitten ing evidence right there for the current state of guardian. Are you paying attention Anet? I have put my medi-trap roamer away for now since I can’t even beat thieves anymore with it and get insta-downed due to the low health pool.

I hate laying circles on the ground so that pretty much eliminates ele and necro. I hate anything with stealth so that leaves out thief and mesmer. I’ve tried rev and its not very fun for small scale combat, so I guess I’ll stick with zerker warrior for now until guard gets fixed.

It is not Guardian that is that weak, it is the other classes that do to much when they sacrifice is litle compared with guardian, while those classes still outperform guardian playing defensivly or offensivly.

This is why guardian isin bad shape, Anet desings “placebo gimmick” to make players efective while playing other classes and dont abandon the game.

Not surprising, and hasn’t been for the longest time.

#lolesports

If a guard goes full zerk he is left with 11k hp. 1 unblockable comes through that and it’s game over.

If we go full tank we have no attrition damage like a bunker ele or engi.

I actually saw a post on the pvp forum today saying they “need to nerf DH hp”. I almost ripped into the poster as guard is the lowest hp tier and it’s his lack of skill that makes it hard for him to not step on a trap.

I don’t expect any viable fix for guardians anytime soon. On Point squeamishly addressed how little clue they have as to how to fix the class.

I wish aegis was similar to GW1 with 50% block chance, not one and done. It’s impossible to survive any focused attack with it like it is.

After the mockery that this profession has been from the devs and creators no wonder were left behind in pvp big leagues and even a pvp match and even in PVE now from the looks of it
-extremely low HP to start with (11K zerk/ 17K marauder/or other)
-no condition acces properly (a simple burn that ticks 200 dmg others just apear on the oponent just for 1s)
-no damage done properly that we can survive after (kamikaze shot he survive you dead)
-no survivability vs the conditions that were faced against (cancer conditions eats you slowly)
-no proper traits/skills that we can work with (more than 75% is junk right now)
-no reasonable weapon that be efficient in long/mid/close distance (LB got nerf ,hammer slow/useless, mace junk shield just a lost dream)
-no mobility(all have swiftness easy access we don’t, use some long cooldown skills for 10 sec run and fall behind fast)
-no boons sustain properly (3 sec near all)
Befor the launch of HOT i saw the DH put my hopes in it that it will be capable challenge in pvp vs the other professions now its like what the hell is this a class or a dead weight in the game
A profession/class that has been baptised with a noble name(and again DH) and made after to laugh on
It is this the future ?

Another thing to mention is that the guard can last about 15s after using Renewed Focus. After this you will have no option but to die if you fail to finish the fight. Our toggle skill bar we had in tomes were inexplicably removed, we have no engi kits, mes’s auto cd from continuum, ele x4 skill bars, death shroud, rev legend swap, or other toggle skill bars. These are what give a class time to fight while waiting on cool downs. Once you’ve used your options as a guard its game over. Warriors lack a skill bar toggle to my knowledge but their recent buff has made up for that.

I really can’t understand why the hard route was taken to create DH. They stuck for absurdly to not doing anything paragon related that they screwed it up. They could have readded tomes and the guard community would have rejoiced.

The guardian has no viability this season.
Build is as a tank, get killed by everything 1v1.
Build dmg? deal no dmg.
Support your team? Well thats a joke.

This season everything is atleast 50% better then the guardian.

My main is guardian, I have been playing it for a long time, and i’ve reached legendary at each season by playing it (in soloQ!). This is my opinion:

Guardians were designed to be the “king of melee”, by forcing their ennemies to stay close(sword #2, greatsword #3 and #5, hammer #3 and #5, staff #3 and #5, scepter #3, Judge’s Intervention) while able to provide decent support to the allies (retalation, protection with shout or F3, heal with F2, and even stability !). It was also possible to stack might by using shelter, but it has been nerfed (internal cooldown …). As a drawback, the lack of mobility prohibits the guard from escaping any fight, so they are forced to stay to the end of the fight. The low hp pool makes also them vulnerable. “High risks, high rewards”.

HoT brought a lot of changes, including the easy access to stability and other boons, condi removal and heal, to most of the classes. Ofc these changes are unbalanced compared to “pre-HoT”, and we cannot blame Anet for trying to make money on something they worked on. All the classes have been granted easier access to melee fight (stability, dodges, protection, blocks, might, invulnerability, projectiles reflection, damage reduction, healing etc.) when guards, instead of accentuating this “king of melee” aspect, have been allowed to somehow fight range with a longbow (which is so much powerful compared to the other weapons that there is no way to play without it although it’s contrary to the class design). Guard are therefore no longer king of melee but are allowed some range, where now most of the classes are immuned to. That makes the guard being outdated.

Of course Anet has not been totally blind towards these problems and has tried to “fix them” by making longbow utterly overpowered (in term of damage/CC) aswell as the traps (damage/CC/boons). These changes have been reversed for the bow (HUGE nerf: -20% on #2, and #5 that has a tremendous cast time, that can be easily interrupted, for a “maybe” hit). Stay the traps that have an insane lame gameplay (put them and wait !), which works incredibly good at low-level (“omg im stucked omg cant dodge omg im dead”) but are no versatile at all and are easily counterable at higher level (it is possible to dodge/invu/blink + it lets the guard defenceless). IMO, it is not possible to balance them properly due to the mechanic itself.

Guards are not in a “unbalance” shape, they are simply outdated. Adjusting numbers on damage dealt will not be viable in long term. Traits, weapons, virtues and abilities need to be reworked, CC abilities of all classes should be toned down while adjusting the boons that a class can apply.

However, a lot of smaller changes can be made, such as: removing projectiles status for all melee weapon, evade while doing F2 (wings of resolve) + heal and condi removal at beginning not at the end, making the F3 (shield of courage) not interruptible (I do not take 2 entire traitlines just to see my 5s block-breakstun-stab that has a 70s CD being “interrupted”), remove the “might of the protector” trait icd, allow back to use Judge’s Intervention with mighty blow, etc. . These changes are easy, and imo nearly mandatory, but will not prone build diversity and personal skill, which is sad. An overall rework has to be done.

@aelska:

Couldn’t agree more. I used to advocate that DH actually is in a good spot and it was other classes that were overtuned, but that statement is only half true. We have no build diversity whatsoever and to get that build diversity we are gonna need some major attention and time spent reworking the underused guardian skills and traits. Not to mention we have quite a few bugs that need to be fixed.

The problem is that ANET isn’t going to get around to doing this any time soon. In general, they are very slow to rework skills for a valid (but weak) reason. Too much of their dev team is already working on other content (raids, legendary armor, gen 2 legendary weps, even the next expansion). I’m pretty pessimistic about us getting fixed any time soon. Say hello to another year of sword auto attack being a projectile, spirit weapons being useless, having too many completely useless traits and guardians essentially just running medi builds…

Will the devs take this in consideration? i dought it, i bet in the next patch will get another fix(nerf) in the already broken profession what’s next virtues/meditations HP or another crack in the LB

By just trying to fix a class with damage to cover what a class lacks or its inital design cant fit on the lame try out meta, shows how little Anet cares or knows about game balance….

It grinds my gears………

Traits could use some rework, but that’s just my opinion…

Vikkela.7261:

Traits could use some rework, but that’s just my opinion…

Whole-heartedly agree with your assesment of the zeal, radiance, honor and virtues lines!

But HEY, don’t be hatin on soaring devestation! It’s a wonderful trait and if you know when/how to effectively use f2 offensively it becomes a game changer! Deserves at least an ok-ish rating if you ask me. :p

Vikkela.7261, SW could be designed to have no traits, just need to remove the trait and make it vanilla :P, SW trait fixed.

Vikkela.7261:

Traits could use some rework, but that’s just my opinion…

That’s a nice diagram for illustrating how much trash guardians have.

Gwaihir.1745:

Our toggle skill bar we had in tomes were inexplicably removed

You can thank the great fan base for that. “Yeah, Signet of Courage is totally gonna be better than Renewed Focus, who cares if tomes are more interesting, delete them!”. Oops. :0

Fashion Mage.3712:

Vikkela.7261:

Traits could use some rework, but that’s just my opinion…

That’s a nice diagram for illustrating how much trash guardians have.

Gwaihir.1745:

Our toggle skill bar we had in tomes were inexplicably removed

You can thank the great fan base for that. “Yeah, Signet of Courage is totally gonna be better than Renewed Focus, who cares if tomes are more interesting, delete them!”. Oops. :0

Its true =)

But main problem is guardian virtues F1-F3, virtues has bad design and withou Renewed Focus nobody uses them.

When you use

F1 you are 20 sec withou condition dmg = condition guardian is gone.
F2 1.6k heal 45 sec CD and turn of your little HP regen 84/s
F3 one single aegis with 60 sec CD

DH has same bad passive effect on virtues but better active, this is why 95% guardian players play DH. Solution is rework core guardian virtues on better active effect.