Guild Wars 2

Aza.2105:

No offensive guardian traits into zeal.

I don’t know what you are smoking, but I don’t want any lol. Fiery wrath says hello. Not many players from any class will turn down 10% additional damage if they are going dps.

I see some steps in right direction (Meditation istant as baseline with fury on a 20 pts investiment sounds awesome), but there are still improvements needed.

AndrewSX.3794:

I see some steps in right direction (Meditation istant as baseline with fury on a 20 pts investiment sounds awesome), but there are still improvements needed.

I’m sorry, but the only worthwhile mediation that wasn’t instant was Smite Conditon… and even then, it’s just a timing issue and most burst builds were running Focus, which you had a 3-4s time on that anyhow….

Merciful Intervention is just HORRIBLE. It’s so unreliable you have no idea where you’re going to end up or whom you’re healing,.

Aza.2105:

Bailey.6892:

Extremely disappointing but it is what I should expect from anet.

Still would love to see shield skills improved, cool downs reduced. Have shield 4 apply weakness and an anti stealth debuff like the wvw trap.

And it would be awesome if our save your selfs was a true counter to necro’s pull all conditions off our allys and transfer them to our target.

It is all well and good to be forced to be support although our support is far to weak. With heavy targets 3.5k plus armor getting hit rapidly for 8k hits of damage we can not keep them up. healing needs to be a viable counter to damage.

Thats why every class has their own self heal.

Guardian’s aren’t suppose to be healers….and save yourselves wouldn’t make sense to transfer conditions to the target. Thats what necromancer does, not guardian.

And yet we have so many heals, our supposed regen is one of the reasons we have such a low health pool. And yet it comes no where near to compensating for the massive damage the other class’s deal to us even with armor over 3.5k. Our shield is far more useless than a warriors shield, or regen is less and our ability to support is not as good either.

Retal is pretty much a joke now, and does not reflect damage as it indicates. Sadly I have never seen a guardian and went o poop with any of my characters. I have said free badges if they don’t make it inside a tower.

ODB.6891:

Aza.2105:

No offensive guardian traits into zeal.

I don’t know what you are smoking, but I don’t want any lol. Fiery wrath says hello. Not many players from any class will turn down 10% additional damage if they are going dps.

Thats not what I meant, the person I responded to was saying that guardians spec into power and crit for dps. Meaning specing into the entire zeal tree, fiery wrath is good. Its the only good thing about the zeal tree.

Amins.3710:

Obtena.7952:

Amins.3710:

The Key to that quote: SUPPORT.

We are already 1 of the best support classes in the game: Ele is probably the second.

We don’t need ~more~ support.

Well, that’s a perception issue … players have to recognize the concept of the class. Fundamentally, it’s support and the devs are going to push that as long as they think that’s what they want the class to do. It’s a natural progression.

“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

No where in this quote does it say we are fundamentally a support class.

It says we protect and smite.

Currently, we’re all protect.

Don’t tell me it’s a “perspective” issue.

Yeah by reading that description it gives the idea that guardian has a dual function. They can smite while at the same time supporting allies. For example we do have some skills that smite/hinder enemies while supporting allies. Ray of judgment comes to mind, it has a dual function.

However when you look at most of the other guardian skills, that theme tends vanishes leaving the class with primary support.

Aza.2105:

Amins.3710:

Obtena.7952:

Amins.3710:

The Key to that quote: SUPPORT.

We are already 1 of the best support classes in the game: Ele is probably the second.

We don’t need ~more~ support.

Well, that’s a perception issue … players have to recognize the concept of the class. Fundamentally, it’s support and the devs are going to push that as long as they think that’s what they want the class to do. It’s a natural progression.

“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

No where in this quote does it say we are fundamentally a support class.

It says we protect and smite.

Currently, we’re all protect.

Don’t tell me it’s a “perspective” issue.

Yeah by reading that description it gives the idea that guardian has a dual function. They can smite while at the same time supporting allies. For example we do have some skills that smite/hinder enemies while supporting allies. Ray of judgment comes to mind, it has a dual function.

However when you look at most of the other guardian skills, that theme tends vanishes leaving the class with primary support.

This patch would be a perfect time for them to do the OPPOSITE of what they’re doing to every other class…. buff our offense, as we’re already one of the (if not ~the~) best defensive class.

Amins.3710:

Aza.2105:

Amins.3710:

Obtena.7952:

Amins.3710:

The Key to that quote: SUPPORT.

We are already 1 of the best support classes in the game: Ele is probably the second.

We don’t need ~more~ support.

Well, that’s a perception issue … players have to recognize the concept of the class. Fundamentally, it’s support and the devs are going to push that as long as they think that’s what they want the class to do. It’s a natural progression.

“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

No where in this quote does it say we are fundamentally a support class.

It says we protect and smite.

Currently, we’re all protect.

Don’t tell me it’s a “perspective” issue.

Yeah by reading that description it gives the idea that guardian has a dual function. They can smite while at the same time supporting allies. For example we do have some skills that smite/hinder enemies while supporting allies. Ray of judgment comes to mind, it has a dual function.

However when you look at most of the other guardian skills, that theme tends vanishes leaving the class with primary support.

This patch would be a perfect time for them to do the OPPOSITE of what they’re doing to every other class…. buff our offense, as we’re already one of the (if not ~the~) best defensive class.

I don’t foresee it happening unfortunately. Anet hasn’t really lived up to the promise that any class can fill any role. Its not just a problem with guardian. But I think guardian has it the worst.

Guardian and every other class should be able to play any role effectively. If a dps sacrifices the ability to heal and mitigate damage. Then they should have the tools to make sure their role is fulfilled. This is rarely the case in this game though, which is the reason why classes tend to get locked into certain roles.

Guardian’s biggest problem dps wise is that their over all design makes no sense. Who designs a melee class with no type of consistent snare, no type of way to keep pressure on the enemy? Who designs a melee oriented class to sit on one point? The design is counter productive and its easily seen how counter productive it is when you move guardian into open pvp.

Point denial is bunker tools, which are generally useless to dps builds.

Melee dps needs: Snares, roaming tools and retreating tools.

claps

now i can restat my weapons for valk or knight. ofc it hinges on the relationship between boon duration and the granted fury duration, but i’m excited all around. unless the healing MF provides is replaced with fury….in which case it’s back to AH for me. and that will be a sad day. i like my super mobile bursty guard

kiba.2768:

claps

now i can restat my weapons for valk or knight. ofc it hinges on the relationship between boon duration and the granted fury duration, but i’m excited all around. unless the healing MF provides is replaced with fury….in which case it’s back to AH for me. and that will be a sad day. i like my super mobile bursty guard

They are not taking away the healing, your literally going to have a new hybrid DPS tank build.

well it sorta makes the ascended gs i crafted less desirable.

having meditations instant cast will make w3 a bit easier on me in zvz. 1v1’s should be even more laughable now

Really? You can’t imagine how that paragraph relates to support? Astounding. That’s OK … I can imagine how that paragraph DOESN’T relate to DPS.

Obtena.7952:

Really? You can’t imagine how that paragraph relates to support? Astounding. That’s OK … I can imagine how that paragraph DOESN’T relate to DPS.

Are you being that Dense?

How about you re-read what I said.

There is an ~and~ statement in there. Pretty sure of it… yep, just double checked… it’s there.

Not being Dense at all …

That paragraph is a textbook version of support class and based on that concept, it makes sense to me that the devs are making the changes I’m reading about. I don’t really get what the problem is here, other than your misconceptions of how the devs should be developing the Guardians class.

Hunter.4783:

CMF.5461:

^ PvE (15 characters)

Ya,

However, people have tried to make meditation roaming guards to work but so far to no avail.

What? It’s not the best, but there are a few of us that roam just fine.

Obtena.7952:

Not being Dense at all …

That paragraph is a textbook version of support class and based on that concept, it makes sense to me that the devs are making the changes I’m reading about. I don’t really get what the problem is here, other than your misconceptions of how the devs should be developing the Guardians class.

It helps to remove your chin form their nuts when trying to be objective Obtena.

Protect & Smite.

Dual Function of a class.

Very Simple.

I’ll try to slowly write it out so you can follow the arguement:

We are leaning heavy on the support. We could use more offense.

They are buffing our defense more.

I feel they should buff our offense.

Simple enough for you? I know it’s a saturday….

10-30-30-0-0 zerker meditations should be more fun now.

I believe Protect and Smite qualify as support but that argument is not really relevant anyways.

Regardless, if your underlying problem is that you feel they should buff our offense … they are doing that by giving us more access to fury.

At this point, I think some ??? are appropriate.

You now have healing and reliable fury (20% Critical Chance) as well as group support.

The tree already gives 30% Critical Damage on top of toughness, this will let guardian make a reliable hybrid DPS/Tank without much sacrifice at all, in fact it makes them one of the best ones, especially in WvWvW, due to meditations being huge AOE damage and they can also drag you out of situations and closer to allies.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Those patch notes did nothing of the sort… Fury is not a buff to offense, it’s just another Boon, which does nothing to the underlining dps function of the class, as boons are stripped.

Traits Obtena.

Now you’re reaching.

Amins.3710:

Fury is not a buff to offense….

Oh wow. I have nothing.

Amins.3710:

Fury is not a buff to offense

El Oh El.

Obtena.7952:

… they DID that by giving us more access to fury.

agree…….gives me other gear options (valk) if i wanna keep right hand strength…..or 5 points i can put into another trait line….not to mention possible other dps builds that include 2-hand weapons.

Obtena.7952:

Amins.3710:

Fury is not a buff to offense….

Oh wow. I have nothing.

Clearly you don’t run around w/ Thieves, Warriors, Engi’s or any other class that is constantly dishing out Fury to the group.

Or you don’t run around w/ Fury on Burn.

Or you don’t run around w/ SY.

Or you don’t run around w/ Citidel Runes…. Or Pact Runes…

The list goes on and on…

It’s a Boon and it’s widely given to ueveryone in the party by pretty much every other class…

So please, leave it at that, because I"m already constantly running w/ Fury from the members in my group.

Amins.3710:

Obtena.7952:

Amins.3710:

Fury is not a buff to offense….

Oh wow. I have nothing.

Clearly you don’t run around w/ Thieves, Warriors, Engi’s or any other class that is constantly dishing out Fury to the group.

Or you don’t run around w/ Fury on Burn.

Or you don’t run around w/ SY.

Or you don’t run around w/ Citidel Runes…. Or Pact Runes…

The list goes on and on…

It’s a Boon and it’s widely given to ueveryone in the party by pretty much every other class…

So please, leave it at that, because I"m already constantly running w/ Fury from the members in my group.

Amins.3710:

Fury is not a buff to offense

20% Critical Chance doesn’t help Guardian at all. Its not like your defensive tree also gives 30% Critical Damage or anything.

While not as bold as Amins’ has worded things, I am on the same side of the fence I think. Fury is nice, but not going to suddenly change our game. We had it, in small amounts sure, but we had it and it didn’t make a huge difference.

If you ran with allies, it was even less than an issue.

The best argument that fury will bring more positives is that it allows us to trait into things besides crit chance. But that just gets into min/maxing at that point and nothing game changing.

We already have good reach of precision/crit chance, especially with 1handers.

Yes, it does bring more to the defensive guardian..maybe, but that won’t be a DPS overhaul for them, it just lets them get more on crit effects (energy for dodge rolls). 5-9% crit chance while defensive versus 25-29% crit chance. You won’t be rolling in the 10k crits, but you will have a frequent enough crit rating to take part in your already built in defensive synergies.

Offensive guardian’s on the other hand already had decent damage, but lacked in survival. Will this 20% more fury free up enough traits/stats to give them sustain? My initial thought is no.

I await the patch to see what we can develop out of the meta though. I’m ready to be wrong, but I’m anticipating to be underwhelmed.

CMF.5461:

The best argument that fury will bring more positives is that it allows us to trait into things besides crit chance. But that just gets into min/maxing at that point and nothing game changing.

you may or may not be right…..it will take some theory-crafting and play once the changes are in to see if its genuinely beneficial.
too early to say this won’t be a significant positive.

Amins.3710:

Clearly you don’t run around w/ Thieves, Warriors, Engi’s or any other class that is constantly dishing out Fury to the group.

Your right … I don’t evaluate the value of developments based on a vary narrow scope that is limited to my own personal interests and I’m very certain that it’s not how the devs do it either.

Four Anet devs are sitting around a table and one says:
“OK guys, we need to improve Guardians but …
…. for WvW
…. who team with Theives
… in a scenario where they are getting their boons wiped
… when it’s a full moon
… on a Tuesday”

I get you don’t like it. That doesn’t make it a bad improvement. And my objectivity is lacking? Please.

For sure it is a positive, but I omit the word significant until I see it happen.

Clearly, the Interest of Buffing Guardian Offense is ~just my own~….

And by Buffing our Offense, you mean buffing our Sustain and Soft CC in the Zeal and Radiance lines, right?

I mean, you were able to detect all of my personal interests in between all those lines of text, right?

You’re reaching again Obtena.

CMF.5461:

For sure it is a positive, but I omit the word significant until I see it happen.

very true.

i just feel good about a buff that adds fury (+ 20% crit chance) to a trait line that was toughness + %crit damage……….makes it almost a 3-stat line if you go meditations.

I won’t argue the solid synergy in that tree. Toughness -> Precision, crit damage, fury

Of course you can only pick 3 traits, so you have to choose between faster meditations or toughness → precision.

Master and grandmaster will always be focused mind and monk’s focus at that rate.

You guys should split this thread into a pvp/pve thread. Right now I think most of the issues are that you are mixing the two up. Do that and I think most of the arguments will disappear.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

You guys should split this thread into a pvp/pve thread. Right now I think most of the issues are that you are mixing the two up. Do that and I think most of the arguments will disappear.

I only speak from WvW.

I don’t hit my head against brink walls… ala pve.

CMF.5461:

I won’t argue the solid synergy in that tree. Toughness -> Precision, crit damage, fury

Of course you can only pick 3 traits, so you have to choose between faster meditations or toughness -> precision.

Master and grandmaster will always be focused mind and monk’s focus at that rate.

true.

but the choice is easy if you go dps….you take the med cooldopwn reduction (the tough to prec trait only ads you 3-4% crit chance as a non-toughness gear player).

i can see instead replacing some of my zerk gear with valk gear and actually have decent survivability with no loss to dps.

Amins.3710:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

You guys should split this thread into a pvp/pve thread. Right now I think most of the issues are that you are mixing the two up. Do that and I think most of the arguments will disappear.

I only speak from WvW.

I don’t hit my head against brink walls… ala pve.

Same, except spvp/wvw. You are mixing it up with the PvE crowd though, and the difference in skills/traits/abilities etc needed for each are so completely different.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

You are mixing it up with the PvE crowd though, and the difference in skills/traits/abilities etc needed for each are so completely different.

this.

Amins.3710:

AndrewSX.3794:

I see some steps in right direction (Meditation istant as baseline with fury on a 20 pts investiment sounds awesome), but there are still improvements needed.

I’m sorry, but the only worthwhile mediation that wasn’t instant was Smite Conditon… and even then, it’s just a timing issue and most burst builds were running Focus, which you had a 3-4s time on that anyhow….

Merciful Intervention is just HORRIBLE. It’s so unreliable you have no idea where you’re going to end up or whom you’re healing,.

The point is that: 2 out of 4 Meditations where istant, yet we had a “Meditations are istant” trait which is quite a waste. Now it will be somewhat useful, with Smite conditions for sure – depends how long fury will be, but point still stands. Especially if you consider the current amount of fury avaible to Guardian which is…umh…0. Except Fury when burning (but Torch “Set yourself on Fire” is not a real Burning and don’t trigger it, would have been more interesting), the few secs from SY! and some runes.

The 4 Meditations themselves are okish imo – they are a “selfish” playstyle, sure – except Merciful Intervention, i agree. But the main problem is that i never felt the need of using it tbh, even before thinking about how good/reliable it could be.
Smite and Purity are condition cleansing (2 different flavours of it), and Judge is a istant 1200 teleport (used manly paired with Ring of Warding in WvW), not so bad skills imo.

That said, “Steps in right direction” =/= “Guard is now perfect”.

Amins.3710:

You’re reaching again Obtena.

There is no reaching. I just take a step back, look at what’s being proposed and think of the places it can be used and what it’s impact might be. When I do that, I don’t see a reason to be upset about the proposed changes …. EVEN from a PVP/WvW perspective. What we have seen is, at worst, a neutral impact for those elements of the game.

I see sensational responses, not because the change is bad, but because of how it affects the parts of the game people are interested in. That’s not being objective.

I think the people who are upset are upset because they seem to be ignoring the actual problems with the class. And that we have a whole array of underwhelming skills one is looking at improving.

1 year in and I don’t recall ever logging in and seeing a really nice change for guardian.

Are they looking at mobility? Nope
Are they looking how long our CD are on many skills? Nope
Are they looking at our health pool vs health regen? Nope
Are they looking at improving our basic pvp builds beyond ?/?/30/30/?? Nope
Are they fixing the condition meta that hurts us so much? Nope
Are they improving our damage in a meaningful way? Nope
Are they looking at our weak traitlines and fixing them? Nope

I think its as amusing as kitten that the classes with the least effective health have the fewest effective builds in pvp. Why? Because its such a struggle to survive we have to go high defense to last longer than a fart.

Already thought purging flames and meditations were extremely effective, what a useless update preview (besides showing that telling us in advance that purging flames will be probably be overpowered). What about the underused abilities? Healing breeze, spirit weapons, signets…etc.

They are buffing Healing Breeze as well.

Healing Breeze…

I never said it would be an amazing buff . You can’t deny that it’s certainly a buff, though…. in a playstyle that isn’t highly rewarded in this game.
If those leaked notes are correct it also appears that most minions (spirit weapons) will also be getting a hp boost. I’m going off memory here though so I could be wrong.

I do completely agree 110% that Zeal needs a good looking at.

From a Tpvp point of view, the class is fine. Is everything perfect? Of course not, but it’s far from broken… The only thing it really lacks is easy access to swiftness outside of Staff, but then you don’t need massive amounts of run speed to rotate points.

The annoyance of having to become a condition bot because of all the condi spam? Hell yes but every class has to deal with that. It’s so bad that two class are all but gone from high-level meta because they just can’t deal with the pressure…

Zeal tree? Yeah, it’s mostly a joke, but that’s because it has zero utility, not because it’s damage traits are weak. Some people cite warrior as an example. Some of the strongest War builds at the moment either don’t spec highly into Strength (the Zeal counterpart) or don’t spec into it all. Utility is what keeps you up to wade through the bs of various meta’s, not 10% damage with this weapon or under this condition. This is why these type of trait-lines are generally garbage for PvP…

Last thing is class archetype: Some classes, while having varying ability to bend to different roles, will always point towards a specific direction. You won’t see a Thief bunker for example outside of some broken mechanic (perma evades making it a target you don’t want to play slot-machine on with your CD’s). Despite what Arena Net may or may not have have said/wrote, that’s the way it is.

I know WvW and PvE have their own unique problems, but from a Tpvp standpoint, the only thing wrong with Guardian is the environment it’s in, not the class itself. An environment that has already pushed out two other classes, while guardian still sees play…

Keep in mind Monk’s focus scales 40% with healing power now.

What IF we went 20/0/30/15/5 with zerker trinkets, celestial gear, divinity runes and traited meditations. Wouldn’t we get healing, DPS, burst AND tanking all in 1 build?

Dodge healing should be close to 1k, prot and regen from virtues. We get some small sustain from zealous blade. Fury from meditations, about 90%+ crit dmg…

Just some small brain storming but I can see this opens up some possibilities.

Hunter.4783:

Keep in mind Monk’s focus scales 40% with healing power now.

What IF we went 20/0/30/15/5 with zerker trinkets, celestial gear, divinity runes and traited meditations. Wouldn’t we get healing, DPS, burst AND tanking all in 1 build?

Dodge healing should be close to 1k, prot and regen from virtues. We get some small sustain from zealous blade. Fury from meditations, about 90%+ crit dmg…

Just some small brain storming but I can see this opens up some possibilities.

Fury isn’t an offensive buff man. Didn’t you know?

Daecollo.9578:

Hunter.4783:

Keep in mind Monk’s focus scales 40% with healing power now.

What IF we went 20/0/30/15/5 with zerker trinkets, celestial gear, divinity runes and traited meditations. Wouldn’t we get healing, DPS, burst AND tanking all in 1 build?

Dodge healing should be close to 1k, prot and regen from virtues. We get some small sustain from zealous blade. Fury from meditations, about 90%+ crit dmg…

Just some small brain storming but I can see this opens up some possibilities.

Fury isn’t an offensive buff man. Didn’t you know?

You’re clueless. Your post history says so.

Amins.3710:

Daecollo.9578:

Hunter.4783:

Keep in mind Monk’s focus scales 40% with healing power now.

What IF we went 20/0/30/15/5 with zerker trinkets, celestial gear, divinity runes and traited meditations. Wouldn’t we get healing, DPS, burst AND tanking all in 1 build?

Dodge healing should be close to 1k, prot and regen from virtues. We get some small sustain from zealous blade. Fury from meditations, about 90%+ crit dmg…

Just some small brain storming but I can see this opens up some possibilities.

Fury isn’t an offensive buff man. Didn’t you know?

You’re clueless. Your post history says so.

Amins.3710:

Fury is not a buff to offense

Very clueless.

I’m pretty sure he either misspoke or didn’t phrase what meant correctly, but I’m fairly confident Amins meant fury alone will not solve our offensive problems. I kind of agree with him on feeling a little pigeonholed into the support role only and Anet only focusing on that aspect.