Guild Wars 2

I currently use Greatsword and Scepter/Focus combination. I also use the Unscathed Contender trait in the Virtues line.

Unscathed Contender gives +20% damage while under the effects of Aegis. I figured that it’d go perfectly with the Focus skill called Shield of Wrath, which blocks the next three attacks. So, in other words, your Aegis (which gives you +20% damage) would be “protected” for an additional three hits.

The only problem is that Aegis is used BEFORE Shield of Wrath’s blocks. Is there anyway this can be changed to make Unscathed Contender/Shield of Wrath be more viable?

That has been demanded since approximately day 1 of GW2. Maybe even earlier, don’t remember the beta weekends that much anymore. You can see how far we’ve got …

CptAurellian.9537:

That has been demanded since approximately day 1 of GW2. Maybe even earlier, don’t remember the beta weekends that much anymore. You can see how far we’ve got …

Oh, I didn’t know that. Is there any explanation for why nothing’s changed?

Would be nice to get an answer from a dev about the mechanical or balance reason why that’s the case

If you have focus 5 on, aegis up and are casting mace 3, a single attack will strike all three blocks. There really is no logical reason or balancing reason for this to be true. It’s just an extremely low priority on the dev’s side.

Kuya.6495:

Would be nice to get an answer from a dev about the mechanical or balance reason why that’s the case

Because “Guardians are in a good spot.” Honestly, the lack of care can be attributed to the fact that Guardians have mostly stayed the same since the game began while every other class has received many changes. Here is some of my favorite points showing that Anet believes Guardian is fine or needed to be ragged on forever to change (and other annoyances):

- Aegis/other blocks all being blown at the same time (this thread topic)
- Cooldowns of support skills are atrocious when compared to what classes received in HoT or in other buffs. eg. Signet of Mercy vs “Search and Rescue”
- Empowering Might vs Phalanx Strength cooldowns
- Anet missed the fact that Sword and Scepter didn’t have symbols for 3 years
- Greatsword #3 and #4 placement swap (old news but was really annoying for ~2 weeks)
- Support class not even used as support (and I believe we’re 2nd last in DPS as well)
- Spirit Weapons
- Only class that can never get away from having condi damage (VoJ) and doesn’t have a condi build

Just some of the highlights. I swear this class gets by because the people who play it are more helpful in nature than people who play other classes.

Edit: Also forgot the fact that the first minor in Zeal is still named Zealot’s Speed for when it used to drop Symbol of Swiftness in beta but was never renamed when the symbol was changed and when Symbolic Avenger was introduced and bugged they disabled it so fast yet other completely busted things get left in until the next patch (just a minor annoyance of inconsistency).

Azoqu.8917:

- Support class not even used as support (and I believe we’re 2nd last in DPS as well)

Actually guardian is 2nd highest in damage to large hitboxes and 7th in damage to small hitboxes with some of the easiest rotations available on damage builds:

http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

Damage is not the reason guardian does not get taken along in raids. The class doesn’t offer anything unique (similar to necromancer) which makes it enough of value. Similar to thief, which is in a way better spot damage chart wise.

My guess is, there is still enough guardians being played accross all game modes that arenanet does not see the need to make the class the most played again as it was for 3 years of vanilla.

I basically only use my guardian for wvw now myself.

Cyninja.2954:

Azoqu.8917:

- Support class not even used as support (and I believe we’re 2nd last in DPS as well)

Actually guardian is 2nd highest in damage to large hitboxes and 7th in damage to small hitboxes with some of the easiest rotations available on damage builds:

http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

Don’t know what you see, but I see Guardian as 8th DPS on that list and is 4th for large hitboxes (Ele, Engineer, and Thief are all higher).

Azoqu.8917:

Cyninja.2954:

Azoqu.8917:

- Support class not even used as support (and I believe we’re 2nd last in DPS as well)

Actually guardian is 2nd highest in damage to large hitboxes and 7th in damage to small hitboxes with some of the easiest rotations available on damage builds:

http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

Don’t know what you see, but I see Guardian as 8th DPS on that list and is 4th for large hitboxes (Ele, Engineer, and Thief are all higher).

How are you seeing that. For large hitboxes, all the builds above it are Ele builds, making it the second highest damaging class for large hitboxes.

Now for small hitboxes, yeah it is in 8th. But on the bright side, Guardian is 4th in direct damage dps. Crazy that we are now at the point where all the top damage builds for each class is a condition damage build, except for Guardian.

Shaogin.2679:

How are you seeing that. For large hitboxes, all the builds above it are Ele builds, making it the second highest damaging class for large hitboxes.

Ele is above it, then when you look at small hitbox both thief and engi are above what guard can do on large.

Cyninja.2954:

Azoqu.8917:

- Support class not even used as support (and I believe we’re 2nd last in DPS as well)

Actually guardian is 2nd highest in damage to large hitboxes and 7th in damage to small hitboxes with some of the easiest rotations available on damage builds:

http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

Damage is not the reason guardian does not get taken along in raids. The class doesn’t offer anything unique (similar to necromancer) which makes it enough of value. Similar to thief, which is in a way better spot damage chart wise.

My guess is, there is still enough guardians being played accross all game modes that arenanet does not see the need to make the class the most played again as it was for 3 years of vanilla.

I basically only use my guardian for wvw now myself.

Pay closer attention to what you are looking at.

Tempest, Engi and Thief all do more damage that Guardian at large hitboxes. The latter two are just listed on the small hitbox section because their damage doesn’t scale with size, like Ele and DH.

So, with ideal conditions, DH is 4th damage and 5k DPS under best Tempest build. That’s 15% more damage for Tempest.

And here’s the best part. That benchmark takes Virtues, ie it assumes 100% Unscathed Contenter uptime, which is bogus. In practice, DH is way lower than that. At the same time, Ele’s power benchmark doesn’t include Tempest Defense for breakbar phases, which is a 20% modifier.

The reality is that DH is getting outdpsed by power Engi, and that build is both brain-dead easy and a secondary build to condi, while DH only gets this one build.

DH balance is a kittenshow, plain and simple.

They’re probably reluctant to make PvE improvements since Guardian performs well in WvW (over-performs in some bulds) and WvW/PvE changes are very rarely split from each other.

Wvw guardian is support, pve DH needs damage, the two are not related. They can split skills, so that’s not an excuse either, having a system and not using it is being lazy.

In fact, wvw guardians don’t really take DH unless they are roaming, and DH is not even good at roaming. Add 5% more to Big Game Hunter and buff GS #1 and #3 and call it a day. There, no harm done, no need for splitting either.

For the condi build, give us the pvp version of VoJ, and leave only wvw with the nerfed version. Do something, anything with the Spirit weapons.

And it’s not like guardian is the only class that’s good in wvw. Tempest, Revenant are both great.