Guild Wars 2

Now before you all jump all over this I know bunker guardians are too powerfull in tournaments ( apparently ) and I understand that needs addressing but what bugs the hell out of me is Anet say they want to nerf defensive builds, so why did they nerf guardians damage and offensive / greatsword aswell last few patches. Now they will probably nerf more defensive ability’s too which is what the guardian has the most of.

It seems weird they want to nerf a profession that has decent buffs, support and defensive ability’s for the group when that is what the class and profession was built around.

I have a feeling though since guardians have been nerfed in every single patch pretty much there will be more nerfs in this 5 pages of changes patch…. They already broke the guardian greatsword so half the time your auto attacking, cooldowns are very long and made symbols pretty crappy plus nerfed the hell out of retaliation. Retaliation was needed, it was OP but the rest they nerfed was over kill nerfing. I mean they say they want to nerf heavy defensive builds then they nerf the greatsword and damage of the guardian which it doesn’t really specialize in anyway…

Not sure what is left to nerf, they nerfed guardian damage, defense, cc, buff’s, greatsword weapon and skills..what the hell else is left? lol. Health? We already have one of the lowest health in the game…

Almost every single patch since before and after launch has had some sort of guardian nerf, when is it enough?

When we start becoming less godly not sure if its the class or just the majority of other players are just kitten at PvP tbh. There are ways to beat a bunker build.

Agree with this. If they nerf guardians, they’re so going to be run down in dungeons and PVE. They did that for retaliation and it affects guardian’s greatsword symbol capabilities in PVE. We heal half time less. We control mobs half time less. We dps half time less. We retaliated from mobs half time less. It affects alot of PVE combos. Guardian became twice weaker in PVE and dungeon. All because they nerf the greatsword’s symbol because those non-guardian pvp’ers complaint about “retaliation” in pvp.

If they’re going to nerf down guardian in this upcoming 5 pages patch, many guardians (esp we have it as our main in PVE) are going to rage and be very disappointed.

They can buff up those weaker classes. But don’t nerf down those whom players complaint against. This is a none stats progression mmo. People will feel twice the negative emotions if they realise their characters became less powerful. Unlike other mmo with stats progressions, the feelings can easily be overcome by achieving better armors. It’s a sort of “distraction” from the bad nerfs. GW2 players is vulnerable to that.

guardian is strong in 2v2 3v3 situations, they will nerf it to be chicken run in 1v1

I am not really sure how they can nerf us further without destroying the class.

I think Guardian is one of the most balanced professions at the moment.

But I might just say that because I play a Guardian

Guardians are still one of the top PvE classes. They can afford to be nerfed.

All for adjustments just I think a lot of us could just some justification. I think adding some stipulations to some skills would be interesting. Example: SY should apply 5 seconds of boons when not stripping conditions from applies but should apply 10 seconds if it does.

For the sake of Guardians, Rangers, Necromancers, Elementalists, i call upon the ancient curse of split PVE and PVP skills!

Andele.1306:

For the sake of Guardians, Rangers, Necromancers, Elementalists, i call upon the ancient curse of split PVE and PVP skills!

Why not? It’s what Rift does. Some skills work better when you’re doing one or the other.

Eh, guardians do indeed have some nerf room. In fact, all pure defensive builds do with the way the game is structured; you can gain 4x the survivability and not even lose 50% of your damage. I can bum rush a zerg in WvW on mine and tank it long enough to kill 1-2.

Defensive builds should have less damage, but NOT less survivability.
I’m still throwing out 3-4k crits with Mighty Blow in PvE, while taking roughly 30% of the damage as I do on a glass cannon build.

The issue isnt guardians in pvp.

The issue is the survivability in pve, its insane and it removes the need to dodge and make dungeons way to easy. I think we are the only class that actually can maintank pve content by soaking up damage.

So, OP, if anything needs to be nerfed its the pve side, not the pvp side. I think you got it all wrong.

Brutaly.6257:

The issue isnt guardians in pvp.

The issue is the survivability in pve, its insane and it removes the need to dodge and make dungeons way to easy. I think we are the only class that actually can maintank pve content by soaking up damage.

So, OP, if anything needs to be nerfed its the pve side, not the pvp side. I think you got it all wrong.

QFT.

Bunker Guardians in PvP is one thing. PvE Guardians are quite another. At the moment, as much as we want to move away from the other MMOs, they are the very definition of “tanks” even without speccing heavily into defense. Every group is much better off when a Guardian joins because he deals both massive damage and takes massive damage while delivering party-wide buffs. Not to mention the unneeded Energy bar because Guardians barely need to dodge.

The PvE Guardian does indeed need a nerf.

Brutaly.6257:

So, OP, if anything needs to be nerfed its the pve side, not the pvp side. I think you got it all wrong.

Sorry but this is wrong from all the point of view you see it.
The extreme suvivability of guardian is accessible to PVP and PVE, and if devs have to nerf this, they nerf it on both sides.

For the Pvp side, there arent so much glassy guardian, must of us play bunker, because they can to damage simply healing themself and protecting and this is really OP… the nerf must be done on retaliation side here, and maybe pump the overall skill damage (so or you defend, or you do damage, but you can do both at the same time)

For pve side: all the pve is unbalanced, and at least one tanky guardian is needed on a dungeon party (especially if its a pug party) if you dont want die too often. Nerf tanky builds must be equilized by a general pve tweaking.

I’m leveling a theif so that I’m ready to reroll in next patch if they are going to nerf it even more i changed to sword after they nerfed greatsword so i might reroll when they nerf that as well. i don’t think they deserved all the nerfs they could had been done different but I’m glad they didn’t nerf save yourselves in pve.
I can already kill “OP” guardians with my theif in pvp so just go ahead and nerf it even more then I’m going to reroll.

I wouldn’t mind if they nerf bunker guardians, if in return they upgrade offensive and hybrid builds. Why do you people think bunker builds will get downgraded though, did anet say anything about that? The only thing I heard was them saying burst builds will get nerfed, in the thief profession forum.

Offensive guardians are really, really bad right now, so I’m hoping trait lines like radiance and zeal, utilities like spirit weapons, and weapons like the sword and scepter, will get upgrades. I don’t think they will change the greatsword, but I hope the sword #2 ability gets a damage boost, and the sword #3 gets changed to be useful. The scepter could use a total overhaul, but at least faster projectiles.

Guardian in general has some really horrible traits, that just no one ever uses.. and other traits that used to be good got nerfed so hard they ended up in that same never-used hole. Guardian traits, and some weapons, need some serious work. Many traits are just useless and other traits are too high up in the line. Some traits would be good, such as the spirit weapon traits, if spirit weapons themselves would actually be good.

The whole guardian trait system just gives this feeling of bad quality, low investment, low care, so I hope in a few days guardians, especially offensive and hybrid builds, get some serious love. In return I wouldn’t mind some bunker build nerfs, though I don’t see what much you can do to nerf bunkers without further ruining the entire profession. I don’t think downgrades is what guardians need now, in almost all fields they need upgrades, spirit weapons, weapons, and trait lines all need to be improved.

Xyvius.1679:

Brutaly.6257:

The issue isnt guardians in pvp.

The issue is the survivability in pve, its insane and it removes the need to dodge and make dungeons way to easy. I think we are the only class that actually can maintank pve content by soaking up damage.

So, OP, if anything needs to be nerfed its the pve side, not the pvp side. I think you got it all wrong.

QFT.

Bunker Guardians in PvP is one thing. PvE Guardians are quite another. At the moment, as much as we want to move away from the other MMOs, they are the very definition of “tanks” even without speccing heavily into defense. Every group is much better off when a Guardian joins because he deals both massive damage and takes massive damage while delivering party-wide buffs. Not to mention the unneeded Energy bar because Guardians barely need to dodge.

The PvE Guardian does indeed need a nerf.

Unneeded energy bar? just loling that one. go do some arah or CoE then say that =)

The reason everyone’s expecting bunkers to get nerfed is because the meta (in PvP) is dominated with them and Retaliation has them doing damage while being able to focus mostly on defense.

Offensive Guardians aren’t as bad in PvP as everyone seems to think, but they’re not (as Eveningstar describes it) meta-good. Playing offensively is less worthwhile than going defense.

I don’t actually think this profession needs nerfs (Retaliation in general could do with a rework), but tweaking our skills won’t necessarily hurt us.

Ganzo.5079:

Brutaly.6257:

So, OP, if anything needs to be nerfed its the pve side, not the pvp side. I think you got it all wrong.

Sorry but this is wrong from all the point of view you see it.
The extreme suvivability of guardian is accessible to PVP and PVE, and if devs have to nerf this, they nerf it on both sides.

For the Pvp side, there arent so much glassy guardian, must of us play bunker, because they can to damage simply healing themself and protecting and this is really OP… the nerf must be done on retaliation side here, and maybe pump the overall skill damage (so or you defend, or you do damage, but you can do both at the same time)

For pve side: all the pve is unbalanced, and at least one tanky guardian is needed on a dungeon party (especially if its a pug party) if you dont want die too often. Nerf tanky builds must be equilized by a general pve tweaking.

My point is that its not even needed to be a bunker build in pve, you can use an offensive build and still tank which pretty much makes all other professions/players obsolete and that reintroduce the trinity back in the game.

but to be honest most classes can do this with a proper setup but guardians excel at it.

In pvp you cant do this with a dps build and then its more like Ynna says, its bunkerbuilds with retal thats the issue. The offensive builds are balanced in pvp imo.

I have no issues with defensive builds in pve, my issue, if there indeed even is an issue, is the offensive builds that can be used for maintanking in dungeons and world bosses.

Zsymon.8457:

I wouldn’t mind if they nerf bunker guardians, if in return they upgrade offensive and hybrid builds. Why do you people think bunker builds will get downgraded though, did anet say anything about that? The only thing I heard was them saying burst builds will get nerfed, in the thief profession forum.

A month ago or say one dev stated in the Ele forum that they were watching Bunker Eles and Bunker Guardians; they later clarified that “watching” does mean “looking if they are OP”, not necessarily “they are gonna get nerfed”.

My point is that its not even needed to be a bunker build in pve, you can use an offensive build and still tank which pretty much makes all other professions/players obsolete and that reintroduce the trinity back in the game.

How? Step by step me through this with close focus on the stages that “reintroduce the trinity back in the game” please, that sounds counter-intuitive without any logic explaination to support it.

Also just want to debunk something – the fact a profession CAN do something, does not mean it can do it better than any other. Unless you were suggesting that in a single build a Guardian can simultaneous out perform other classes’ focused and optimised builds… is that what you are suggesting?

thisolderhead.5127:

My point is that its not even needed to be a bunker build in pve, you can use an offensive build and still tank which pretty much makes all other professions/players obsolete and that reintroduce the trinity back in the game.

How? Step by step me through this with close focus on the stages that “reintroduce the trinity back in the game” please, that sounds counter-intuitive without any logic explaination to support it.

Also just want to debunk something – the fact a profession CAN do something, does not mean it can do it better than any other. Unless you were suggesting that in a single build a Guardian can simultaneous out perform other classes’ focused and optimised builds… is that what you are suggesting?

The answer is a high crit chance altruistic healing guardian with toughness as main defensive stat.
Ofc with the proper crit and crit/leech food and leech sigils.

Basically a dps, build with about 60% crit chance, 51% crit damage and 3300 in armor and 10 stacks of might constantly running from skills/traits the guardian has.

There are very few dungeons and/or world bosses where i cant hold aggro for minutes with this setup and versus a whole bunch of them i heal faster then they can damage me. 400hps, from leeching, with a dps build isnt that difficult to reach tbh. All with a hammer, i could get it up to about 1.2 hps with a mace build if i wanted and im certain this is only the beginning, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

With a coordinated team i estimate that i have about 1k hps from leeching and altruistic healing, on a dps build.

Sure other can use these thing as well but no other class can still have awesome innate survivability to support a high crit build. I tested this with warriors, necro, thief and ranger and all of them are just useless with high crit leech setups compared to the guardian.

And yes, if you use hammer/gs it will also outperform other meleeclasses in aoe fights. The cool thing is the more stuff to hit the stronger it becomes and then you can swap some of the knights for berserkers and still maintank.

Its setups like this that makes pve content in this game way to easy. Havent done a single dungeon, pugs or premade where i havent been the designated maintank.

Im not saying it should be nerfed but as a casual pve player and a hardcore pvp player i can definitely say that pve content is way to easy, even for me as a casual, when you are playing a guardian.

In fact the guardians is, imo, way more balanced in pvp then in pve.

All classes excel on smth:
Guardian on defense(toughness)/support
Warrior on dmg/defense(hp)/support/range and meel dmg.
Thief on stealf and burst dmg
Elementalist on range dmg/support/combo field
Engineer on combo field/support
Ranger – … I gess on pets/range dmg
Necromancer on condi dmg/defense(hp/drain)/support
Mesmer on illusions/support/defense(evade way)
If u take from guardian the only thing they are good on and dont improve other way to play it, there will be rage on devs and if not all but few ppl will leave the game because they play style is defensive(toughness) one.

sorry for bad english.

I’m almost certain that Guardian will get a few “fixes”/nerfs come the patch this week. Thing is though we are still in need of buffs (tweaks?) in other areas, like our Off-hands, Staff, scepter, so many bad traits, etc.

The problem with balancing the guardian to me is its inherit survival ability.

Relentliss.2170:

I am not really sure how they can nerf us further without destroying the class.

The class is already destroied.
Reroll like half the guard population has done.

No real ranged option vs every other real ranged option = you die/you useless/ cant defend a keep/ cant attack a keep.

Not a lot of CC on weapons compared to Warrior’s 2h hammer or other classes = you die.

Not a big HP pool = you die.

Play a warrior = Win.. big HP pool, 2 real ranged options that put out MASSIVE DPS, Great CC,

Spawn.7014:

The class is already destroyed.
Reroll like half the guard population has done.

And I’m certain you have actual numbers and metrics.
You shouldn’t make such statements if you can’t back them up.

Hey now I just started my human guardian & I love her.. she is lvl 14 atm. Please ANet, don’t kill her off with nerfs now. I have worked hard to get her where she is.

BTW.. I pve atm only. I am really not into pvp yet.

I also agree on the trait area.. that is rather ummm – boring on the traits, but hopefully will figure out what is best for her as I level on them.
Have a great day all!!

I do hope there aren’t anymore downward adjustments. Too many of those lately and we haven’t see much in return.

Brutaly.6257:

thisolderhead.5127:

My point is that its not even needed to be a bunker build in pve, you can use an offensive build and still tank which pretty much makes all other professions/players obsolete and that reintroduce the trinity back in the game.

How? Step by step me through this with close focus on the stages that “reintroduce the trinity back in the game” please, that sounds counter-intuitive without any logic explaination to support it.

Also just want to debunk something – the fact a profession CAN do something, does not mean it can do it better than any other. Unless you were suggesting that in a single build a Guardian can simultaneous out perform other classes’ focused and optimised builds… is that what you are suggesting?

The answer is a high crit chance altruistic healing guardian with toughness as main defensive stat.
Ofc with the proper crit and crit/leech food and leech sigils.

Basically a dps, build with about 60% crit chance, 51% crit damage and 3300 in armor and 10 stacks of might constantly running from skills/traits the guardian has.

There are very few dungeons and/or world bosses where i cant hold aggro for minutes with this setup and versus a whole bunch of them i heal faster then they can damage me. 400hps, from leeching, with a dps build isnt that difficult to reach tbh. All with a hammer, i could get it up to about 1.2 hps with a mace build if i wanted and im certain this is only the beginning, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

With a coordinated team i estimate that i have about 1k hps from leeching and altruistic healing, on a dps build.

Sure other can use these thing as well but no other class can still have awesome innate survivability to support a high crit build. I tested this with warriors, necro, thief and ranger and all of them are just useless with high crit leech setups compared to the guardian.

And yes, if you use hammer/gs it will also outperform other meleeclasses in aoe fights. The cool thing is the more stuff to hit the stronger it becomes and then you can swap some of the knights for berserkers and still maintank.

Its setups like this that makes pve content in this game way to easy. Havent done a single dungeon, pugs or premade where i havent been the designated maintank.

Im not saying it should be nerfed but as a casual pve player and a hardcore pvp player i can definitely say that pve content is way to easy, even for me as a casual, when you are playing a guardian.

In fact the guardians is, imo, way more balanced in pvp then in pve.

This is all true and I find it to be a problem. Guardians are ridiculous in PvE and need to be nerfed somewhat in that respect. Many of their offensive traits come from defensive lines, making it so that the tankiest Guard still has amazing DPS and >40% crit chance.

As a side note of minor quips, more than half of those with 100% world completion that I see are decked out Guardians. Oh, and Guardians seem to be the most likely Legendary weapon candidates as well.

You can’t contribute map completion and legendary progress to simply being a guardian. Guardians are a high % of the population, and they can use Greatsword which is (are) arguably the best looking legendaries. Crafting legendaries simply have nothing to do with PvE balance. RNG, farming, and post-release ‘exploits’ are how all the first legendaries were acquired.

AbsintheMinded.4609:

You can’t contribute map completion and legendary progress to simply being a guardian. Guardians are a high % of the population, and they can use Greatsword which is (are) arguably the best looking legendaries. Crafting legendaries simply have nothing to do with PvE balance. RNG, farming, and post-release ‘exploits’ are how all the first legendaries were acquired.

That’s why I said it was a minor quip. The point still stands: Guards are ridiculously overpowered in PvE. All you have to do is try another profession and it’s obvious.

I’ve tried other professions and the highest I’ve played is maybe level 10. Preaching to the choir lol.

I expect some nerfs, I just keep tooting my own horn about balancing all the stuff we do have that sucks.

cannons.8109:

People need to stop with the “amazing” “insane” dps bullkitten. I love my guardian but my dps is MUCH lower than on my thief or warrior – it’s not even close.

I believe you are taking the context out of this entire thread. The fact is, we can trait and gear for great damage, great healing, and great survivability. There are a few builds that can handle almost any situation, and you are trying to call it “BS?” Also, I believe the damage you are referring to is burst, because sustained damage is close. At least, much closer than you are implying.

Arken.3725:

I do hope there aren’t anymore downward adjustments. Too many of those lately and we haven’t see much in return.

There has only one change since Beta that I disagreed with. And that one should have just been handled differently. All the other changes (“nerfs”) were completely justified.

Ynna.8769:

Arken.3725:

I do hope there aren’t anymore downward adjustments. Too many of those lately and we haven’t see much in return.

There has only one change since Beta that I disagreed with. And that one should have just been handled differently. All the other changes (“nerfs”) were completely justified.

Even the rearrangement of skills, and symbol increase? I’m not so sure to be honest. SY was overpowered in a duel setting but could of been adjusted to grant a higher duration upon stripping conditions to make it more useful.

Edit: I’m not saying adjustments weren’t needed, just instead of a flat out nerf, why not change it instead? For instance, I don’t think i’ll ever use wrathful spirit again compared to the other traits. Instead of nerfing it from 7 to 3 seconds, changing it from ret to maybe fury would of been more appropriate.

AbsintheMinded.4609:

I’ve tried other professions and the highest I’ve played is maybe level 10. Preaching to the choir lol.

I expect some nerfs, I just keep tooting my own horn about balancing all the stuff we do have that sucks.

cannons.8109:

People need to stop with the “amazing” “insane” dps bullkitten. I love my guardian but my dps is MUCH lower than on my thief or warrior – it’s not even close.

I believe you are taking the context out of this entire thread. The fact is, we can trait and gear for great damage, great healing, and great survivability. There are a few builds that can handle almost any situation, and you are trying to call it “BS?” Also, I believe the damage you are referring to is burst, because sustained damage is close. At least, much closer than you are implying.

Exactly. Guardians are not the jack of all trades, they are the expert of all trades. We can spec for high toughness/vit (we all do, given traits) and still have huge damage and party-wide boons. Literally the only thing Guards don’t have is a strong ranged weapon.

I would suggest that the Guard trait lines be re-examined in order to put some of the more offensive traits into the power or precision lines instead of the tough/vit lines. I think it’s important that if we have high survivability, we have low damage. Look at the the GW1 monk; the profession couldn’t even do damage when he was specced defensively/to heal.

Xyvius.1679:

AbsintheMinded.4609:

I’ve tried other professions and the highest I’ve played is maybe level 10. Preaching to the choir lol.

I expect some nerfs, I just keep tooting my own horn about balancing all the stuff we do have that sucks.

cannons.8109:

People need to stop with the “amazing” “insane” dps bullkitten. I love my guardian but my dps is MUCH lower than on my thief or warrior – it’s not even close.

I believe you are taking the context out of this entire thread. The fact is, we can trait and gear for great damage, great healing, and great survivability. There are a few builds that can handle almost any situation, and you are trying to call it “BS?” Also, I believe the damage you are referring to is burst, because sustained damage is close. At least, much closer than you are implying.

Exactly. Guardians are not the jack of all trades, they are the expert of all trades. We can spec for high toughness/vit (we all do, given traits) and still have huge damage and party-wide boons. Literally the only thing Guards don’t have is a strong ranged weapon.

I would suggest that the Guard trait lines be re-examined in order to put some of the more offensive traits into the power or precision lines instead of the tough/vit lines. I think it’s important that if we have high survivability, we have low damage. Look at the the GW1 monk; the profession couldn’t even do damage when he was specced defensively/to heal whereas our damage is somewhere between a ranger and a warrior’s.

But a lot of the traits in both honor and valor tree actually reflect what’s put there. kittenmor, altruistic healing and pure of voice, purity, 20% shout reduction and 2h mastery(both support and damage) are support based.

I’m talking about some skills like Mace of Justice, Glacial Heart, and possibly even Retributive Armor in the Valor line. Two-Handed Mastery in the Honor line is also a huge problem. Warriors have to spec 20 points into precision to get 20% CD GS trait whereas Guards can get even more tanky in order to hit harder. Not to mention that the Guard’s trait affects all two handers, but that’s a different matter entirely.

Retributive armor sort of goes with the theme of that line, other professions have the same but I get what you’re saying. 20h mastery is a toss-up. I find it to be great for support( I use staff) but since the increase of one of our symbols was tossed in, this isn’t so bad. I suspect more cool down adjustments to possibly justify this.

Also, looking at the warriors, there’s a secondary effect which helps.

Some of that stuff I might agree with, but not all of it. 2H mastery makes as much sense in Zeal as it does Honor. Each shout serves its own, specific purposes and for that reason shouts do not have to be Honor.

Empowering Might should be in Radiance. Imp. Spirit Weapon duration should be Zeal. Sure, I could list more, but that’s really pointless. Many of our traits are out of place, many need to be merged, some are out of hand with the right build, and others just need to be 86-ed.

I think addressing traits is just the tip of the iceberg for Guardian tweaks.

From a purely design and balance perspective, the profession is honestly too powerful in PvE at the moment. I just want to bring this to attention because as much as I love Guardians, I don’t like being the profession everybody flocks to simply because it is extremely strong.

I can agree with EM, even though I still count that as support more than damage for it to be in the zeal tree. It can go either way. A lot of traits should be merged, symbols for one. I just believe that straight nerfs should be avoided.

AbsintheMinded.4609:

Some of that stuff I might agree with, but not all of it. 2H mastery makes as much sense in Zeal as it does Honor. Each shout serves its own, specific purposes and for that reason shouts do not have to be Honor.

Empowering Might should be in Radiance. Imp. Spirit Weapon duration should be Zeal. Sure, I could list more, but that’s really pointless. Many of our traits are out of place, many need to be merged, some are out of hand with the right build, and others just need to be 86-ed.

2Handed Mastery would make zero sense in Zeal, as Zeal is purely offensive-minded w/ spirit weapons, while Honor has a very strong emphasis on symbols. Guess what is a (mostly) unique mechanic for our 2-handed weapons? That’s right, symbols. Taking the mastery out of Honor wouldn’t make a lick of sense, while forcing a lot of symbol-based builds to spec into another line just for a single Master trait.

I would agree with you on the shouts, but our shouts are mostly about defense. So really, would such a boost make sense in the Radiance or Zeal lines? Maybe Virtue, but again…not the main point of that line anyway. So really, you have Valor and Honor as options. I’d rather have the devs work on our broken/useless traits, rather than cherry-pick what good ones we have and rearrange them in the tree to completely break our class.

All of the shouts(aside from SY) are indeed defensive. So I see what Draeka is getting at and it makes sense. Make other traits in the other trees more appealing instead.

2H Mastery makes sense in zeal, and to say it makes zero sense in one trait line because you have a symbol on those weapons (which don’t happen to be the only weapons with symbols) is assinine. Honor also happens to not be the only trait line with symbol traits. Shouts “mostly” about defense? Disagree. “SY!” is as much Offense as it is Defense, “Retreat” is used just as much for the Swiftness as it is Aegis, and for both offensive and defensive purposes. Also, that Aegis can be used Offensively for Defender’s Flame. “Stand your ground!” is similar, no more defensive than it is offensive. The only one that is pretty much defensive only is “Hold the Line.”

Also, melodramatic much? Completely break our class? I suppose you came here and read one post taking what most of us are saying out of context because you prefer 2H mastery in Honor. You certainly weren’t making a point by reiterating what all of us have said about ‘devs work[ing] on our broken/useless traits…’

True but Aegis is meant inherently for defense. It can be traited for both support and damage but it’s original purpose was defense. I’ve always considered ret to be a defensive boon but that’s just me. You can go either way to be honest just I believe they lean more towards the supportive side.

In WVW most guardians spec bunker because we are most viable that way. Our health pool sucks if we don’t wear a bunch of vitality. We lack movement speed and ranged damage so our best place is in the thick of the fight, thus vit and toughness make a lot of sense.

I’ve tried hybrid and support. Hybrid doesn’t have enough survivability (IMO) and support hurts a lot in the badge department.

Also re: support I just have to complain here, why does the elementalist heal for more than twice a guardian on traited dodge roll? A dagger/dagger elementalist kicks the crap out of all guardian builds.

Brutaly.6257:

thisolderhead.5127:

My point is that its not even needed to be a bunker build in pve, you can use an offensive build and still tank which pretty much makes all other professions/players obsolete and that reintroduce the trinity back in the game.

How? Step by step me through this with close focus on the stages that “reintroduce the trinity back in the game” please, that sounds counter-intuitive without any logic explaination to support it.

Also just want to debunk something – the fact a profession CAN do something, does not mean it can do it better than any other. Unless you were suggesting that in a single build a Guardian can simultaneous out perform other classes’ focused and optimised builds… is that what you are suggesting?

The answer is a high crit chance altruistic healing guardian with toughness as main defensive stat.
Ofc with the proper crit and crit/leech food and leech sigils.

Basically a dps, build with about 60% crit chance, 51% crit damage and 3300 in armor and 10 stacks of might constantly running from skills/traits the guardian has.

There are very few dungeons and/or world bosses where i cant hold aggro for minutes with this setup and versus a whole bunch of them i heal faster then they can damage me. 400hps, from leeching, with a dps build isnt that difficult to reach tbh. All with a hammer, i could get it up to about 1.2 hps with a mace build if i wanted and im certain this is only the beginning, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

With a coordinated team i estimate that i have about 1k hps from leeching and altruistic healing, on a dps build.

Sure other can use these thing as well but no other class can still have awesome innate survivability to support a high crit build. I tested this with warriors, necro, thief and ranger and all of them are just useless with high crit leech setups compared to the guardian.

And yes, if you use hammer/gs it will also outperform other meleeclasses in aoe fights. The cool thing is the more stuff to hit the stronger it becomes and then you can swap some of the knights for berserkers and still maintank.

Its setups like this that makes pve content in this game way to easy. Havent done a single dungeon, pugs or premade where i havent been the designated maintank.

Im not saying it should be nerfed but as a casual pve player and a hardcore pvp player i can definitely say that pve content is way to easy, even for me as a casual, when you are playing a guardian.

In fact the guardians is, imo, way more balanced in pvp then in pve.

OK – yes I do understand how the mechanics allow for the builds to work, you’ve done well at explaining that, what I am still seeing is a complete lack of support for the “reintroduce the trinity back in the game.” statement.

Also – I can see how much potential a build can have, but swapping gear and skills out and claiming “see I can do two things with one build” does’t really make them concurrently the top of two games now does it…

thisolderhead.5127:

OK – yes I do understand how the mechanics allow for the builds to work, you’ve done well at explaining that, what I am still seeing is a complete lack of support for the “reintroduce the trinity back in the game.” statement.

Also – I can see how much potential a build can have, but swapping gear and skills out and claiming “see I can do two things with one build” does’t really make them concurrently the top of two games now does it…

Can a guardian maintank, yes we can, by using the setup i describe. First part of the trinity in place, check.

Bunch of classes can play dedicated healers and support the tanking, eles are great at this and guardians are alright, Healers in place and no a healer sdoesnt need to have targeted heals for being a part of the trinity. Check out age of conan which definitely has a trinity system and the heals are based on HoTs and a very meager burst heal, less then 10% of the tanks/party HP.

In relation to the healers in AoC and ele or even a guardian has much higher heals, both per second and as burst heals.

Healers in place, check.

All classes can do damage so dps in place, check.

In short, as a guardian, i find the profession to break the whole idea of the game to be a no trinity game. As long as there is one profession that can maintank the trinity is there if just one more profession can heal, which several classes can. It pretty much speaks for it self when people are pissed off at you if you dont tank in pug dungeons.

So in most of the content there is a trinity based on tanking, heal over time and aoe burst heals and ofc damage dealers.

Arenanet has done a great job with this game but in the pve area they have failed and one part of that failure is how guardians work in pve.

We are maintanks and that is our role atm, eles/guardians are the healers and the rest do the damage.

@Brutaly just put down the internet and go home, your post and its presentation are terrible.

If a game has a health bar some people will try to make it as big as possible, if you can do damage in a game some people will try to do as much as possible, if you can fill health/armour/whatever bars up for others in a game some will do that… if you can sit in a distant corner of the world playing a mini-game people will want to be the best at that.

“tanking, heal over time and aoe burst heals and ofc damage dealers.”
That is four things – a trinity has threee, it completely ignores control and buff/debuff mechanics based roles, you attempt to use AoC to justify your incorrect statements about GW2, and trying to wade through the rest of your contradictory (and barely readable) half points to address them can wait until you’ve finished forming the thoughts.