Guild Wars 2

Symbol of Protection only has one issue bugging me. Unlike Symbol of Wrath and Symbol of Faith, it is created at the position of your target or up to a fixed distance for large targets or in the event you hit an enemy closer than your target. This means you could potentially be out of range of standing in the symbol or have the Protection boon taken from you from your allies standing closer to the center of the symbol. Players can somewhat manipulate the position of the Symbol by fighting without a target, but the symbol can fail to create on the ground.

As Guardians offer somewhat of a beacon role having several outgoing effects from the Guardian’s position (such as shouts, Battle Presence, Empowering Might, etc.) it feels unnecessary to have one of the profession’s strongest weapon skills require you to constantly directly onto the enemy you are fighting where your allies are least likely to stand.

I recommend either one of two changes:

• The symbol created from Symbol of Protection is created at the position of the casting Guardian (like Symbol of Wrath or Symbol of Faith) rather than the Guardian’s target.
• All symbols (or all area skills for all professions depending on the code) prioritize the casting Guardian giving its respective boon to the Guardian before other players.

I personally don’t know which would be easier from a programming perspective, but I assume it would be changing the position of the symbol since the latter change would most likely affect all area skills and require a change to the coding to further prioritize the allied units receiving effects. The latter, however, would insure the Guardian receive the effects from ground-targeting symbols (Symbol of Swiftness and Symbol of Energy) without being in the center of the symbol. This change would better suit scenarios where a large number of players exist (WvW or world bosses).

The problem with this is that in some cases having protection dropped at the guardians location means it may not hit the target at all.

This will mean a possible huge nerf to hammer damage.

This also does nothing to address the fact that the last auto attack in the chain can take almost a second and a half to actually cast(counting the time to the next swing)

Really the idea of the hammer is a good one, they just need to find a way to make the symbol an on demand ability with a short CD instead of part of the auto attack.
(that way the auto attack can be faster, and the symbol wont be messing with blasts/fire fields etc…)

The hit from the hammer has a range of 180, and the radius of the symbol is 180. It would be rare not to hit an enemy with the symbol. In it’s present state, large enemies (such as world bosses) can have a hit-box large enough to receive hits from the hammer and creating the Symbol of Protection outside of the player’s range. I’ve noticed this most frequently at the final boss of Twilight Arbor’s first and second paths. This doesn’t affect DPS, of course, but it prevents the Guardian (as well as allies) from gaining the boon.

I suppose I should mention the hammer’s DPS is increased from Writ of Persistence by doubling the duration of the symbol. In the specialization update coming soon, Guardians desiring to maintain this DPS will take the new symbol trait (assuming the trait was not changed) which is the combination of all three symbol traits in Honor including a range increase (to 240). This would insure the symbol hits the enemy if cast at the Guardian’s position.

Another problem I am having with the hammer is something that occurs quite often with large groups of enemies. If the primary target was killed and the attack change began again, the symbol would be created floating above the enemies (and even under the ground). What’s odd is the target called for the symbol is set when Hammer Swing (the first hit) is connected and not the hit from Symbol of Protection. In these cases, the DPS of the Guardian drops. I believe creating the Symbol on the Guardian would be a better solution because the symbol would not have the potential to be created in a position where it cannot hit enemies nor buff allies.

In pve your suggestion might fly but in pvp and wvw its a straight forward nerf both to the ability to support and to effective dps. The ranged symbol is a huge controbution to damage and forcing the opponent to move.

There are a bunch of stunts you can do with the ranged symbol that would be impossible to perform with a self centered symbol.

What the hammer need is:

Faster auto attack and timed with cd on mb so mb has a clear role in pve dps rotation.
Remove the light field from symbol
Make the auto deal aoe just as it does today and 1-2 sec protection in one pulse.
Make RoW a fire field and allow us to move while casting
Increase damage on banish and zealots embrace so the fil a place in pve rotation

Hammer auto dont need the symbol to be selfcentered, it would make the weapon just as bad as gs/mace symbols in wvw on particular.

Brutaly.6257:

In pve your suggestion might fly but in pvp and wvw its a straight forward nerf both to the ability to support and to effective dps. The ranged symbol is a huge controbution to damage and forcing the opponent to move.

There are a bunch of stunts you can do with the ranged symbol that would be impossible to perform with a self centered symbol.

What the hammer need is:

Faster auto attack and timed with cd on mb so mb has a clear role in pve dps rotation.
Remove the light field from symbol
Make the auto deal aoe just as it does today and 1-2 sec protection in one pulse.
Make RoW a fire field and allow us to move while casting
Increase damage on banish and zealots embrace so the fil a place in pve rotation

Hammer auto dont need the symbol to be selfcentered, it would make the weapon just as bad as gs/mace symbols in wvw on particular.

Wait guards actually use hammer AA in pvp? and here I thought only 2-5 were used due to #1 being slow as hell, easily avoided, and requires a target within range to trigger the symbol.