Guild Wars 2

From gw2hub (along with more Sky Pirates of Tyria updates), though it says its a preview only. very similar to the “leaked notes” we saw earlier. not everything we saw in those notes are here though, so unless they’ve changed them to be final, or this is not a full release of the full upcoming balance patch notes either.

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/sky-pirates-tyria-traits-preview-part-one

Zeal

• The Master Trait “Zealous Blade” now reads: Attacks with your greatsword deal an extra 5% damage and heal you.
• Master Trait “Scepter Power” now increases scepter damage by 10%.
• Grandmaster Trait “Wrathful Spirits” now increases spirit weapon damage by 50%.
• New Grandmaster Trait “Kindled Zeal” reads: 10% of your power is converted to condition damage.

Radiance

• The Master Trait “Radiant Fire” now increases all burning durations by 20% in addition to reducing torch skill recharge time by 20%.

Valor

• Adept Trait “Strength in Numbers” now provides up to +150 toughness.
• The Master Trait “Mace of Justice” gives up to +250 healing power in addition to 5% additional damage when wielding a mace.
• Master Trait “Glacial Heart” has now been completely revamped to: Critical hits with a hammer have a 100% chance to chill your target for 5 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 30 seconds.

Honor

• Remains unchanged.

Virtues

• Remains unchanged.

Not bad, does it specify if the trait Zealous Blade scales now?

Strength in Numbers buff is nice, brings it more in-line with warrior banners

TBH not sure what to make of their preview – there is no mention of Torment at all for instance

I do hope you guys saw this disclaimer at the top

These are unofficial patch notes – things may change with the live game.

Indeed, and thank you for the clarification. We shall see tomorrow.

Master Trait “Glacial Heart” has now been completely revamped to: Critical hits with a hammer have a 100% chance to chill your target for 5 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 30 seconds rofl from kitten cd to 30s? who will use trait what chill for 5s and can be remove in 1-2s?

New Grandmaster Trait “Kindled Zeal” reads: 10% of your power is converted to condition damage. who will use this if guardian dont have condition on weapons attacks and have only burning? with normal dps build have 1900-2000+(300 from trait) power so 2300 is 230 condition damage bonus so 230×0.25 is 57.5dmg on every 5 attacks

anet need rework :Shimmering Defense Burn nearby foes when your health reaches 25% (60-second cooldown).

Inner Fire :When you are set on fire, you gain fury( its work only vs guard or ele (or 2 war bow skills/1 engie pistol off hand skill/2 range torch skill/1 mes staff and 1 torch)

Searing Flames When you apply burning to an [sic] foe, remove a boon. This effect can only trigger once every 20 seconds. ( need reduce to 10s)

Altruistic Healing Applying a boon to allies heals you. ( trait what is only for 1 staff skill is bad

Unscathed Contender Deal 20% more damage while under the effects of aegis. (in normal fight after 1 attack suck its good only in wvw defending

and some weapon skills (1h sword (2 skill is bad need increase damage or teleport range/3 skill need use on move) (Hammer 5 skill need use on move) (rework scepter autoattack and 3 skill what vs static dummy hit 5-10 from 15 hits need change to symbol(creater symbol in area what do x dmg per 1s + every x s burning condition for better synergy from traits and condition damage )

Spirit weapons ( they need buff why use it with 30-60s cd if anybody can destroy it in 1-2 hits
Shelter: when got interupt dont get heal and got cd ( need heal when start cast heal not after 2s)

Hallowed Ground :80s cd for stability for 10s in rin when with shout got 5s + 1/2 condition remove when use rune/trait with 24s cd (trait)

Merciful Intervention: after 8 month i use it only 1 time when testing it

Signet of Mercy : 240s for signet what revive 1 player when ele got same thing with 165s and better bonus like revive 3 player/1 with full health/revive and teleport to you/or got auto-revive when use it)

Pecar.1236:

Altruistic Healing Applying a boon to allies heals you. ( trait what is only for 1 staff skill is bad

This was worded oddly, are you saying Altruistic Healing is a bad trait? Because I am pretty sure there are many guardians, including myself who love this trait, there are some nice Hammer AH builds out there.

In the spvp setting, it’s bad because it really only revolves around the staff. You’ll never get any of your teammates to sit within a symbol for more than half a second to reap any benefit. By yourself, AH is a terrible trait. With a group it’s decent but really only revolves around Empower.

Wrathful Spirits might actually be worth taking now. Maybe. Hmm. Shame I love my current build and already decided to pass on Wrathful Spirits because it was lame… now I need to figure out what I can afford to lose.

Healing power with Mace also seems nice. Going to force me to choose between longer lasting symbols, healing symbols, or Mace healing power… ugh.

It’s a nice boost for sure, my only issue is that with how AoE’s currently work, they’ll be dead in seconds. Not to mention their AI is terrible.

@Pecar I’m just wondering how did You get shelter interrupted while that skill is blocking EVERY atack while casting

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@Pecar I’m just wondering how did You get shelter interrupted while that skill is blocking EVERY atack while casting

so if see more enemy comming to you and you must start escape or dodge skill will be interupted and got full cd without heal ( when try with every other healing skills they only be interupted and got 4s cd

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@Pecar I’m just wondering how did You get shelter interrupted while that skill is blocking EVERY atack while casting

It does get interupted rarely, I think its due to the timing of when its actually casted and if you get a CC on you.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@Pecar I’m just wondering how did You get shelter interrupted while that skill is blocking EVERY atack while casting

Except any warrior attack after popping signet of might, or the binding blade pull, or probably some other stuff I can’t think about right now.

Littlefeather.8623:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@Pecar I’m just wondering how did You get shelter interrupted while that skill is blocking EVERY atack while casting

It does get interupted rarely, I think its due to the timing of when its actually casted and if you get a CC on you.

That and CC based fields. I don’t think you can use shelter and walk into something like a static field and not get stunned (without stability of course).

Pecar.1236:

Altruistic Healing Applying a boon to allies heals you. ( trait what is only for 1 staff skill is bad

Arken.3725:

In the spvp setting, it’s bad because it really only revolves around the staff. You’ll never get any of your teammates to sit within a symbol for more than half a second to reap any benefit. By yourself, AH is a terrible trait. With a group it’s decent but really only revolves around Empower.

This information is just incorrect on so many levels.

Empowering Might (Nearby allies gain might (5 seconds) when you land a critical hit.)
Pure of Voice (Allies affected by shouts convert one condition to a boon. )
Wrathful Spirit (Aegis gives retaliation when it ends. )

These are some of the traits you can pair with high crit gear and shouts that will not only spam your party and yourself with boons but also keep your AH ticking constantly in a battle. Honestly only EM is needed with a 30% chance to crit the healing will roll in regardless of you using a staff or not.

AH isn’t as powerful a heal as a Meditation build would be while solo, no. but it is not useless at all, and far from it in a group setting.

Just wanted to clarify, in case some new guardian comes to read this thread and takes away that AH is something to stay away from.

Poor update if these are them.

I’m loosing faith, quickly, in Anet.

I give every game at least 1 year as the first year is hashing out bugs / balance issue….

Anet’s report card is a C.

This is not enough to keep me playing.

Looks like I need to fall in love with my CD build all over again.

man you guardians just want it all dont you? I mean its not enough that you are already one of the most powerful classes besides memsers eh? kitten .

Lokki.1092:

Pecar.1236:

Altruistic Healing Applying a boon to allies heals you. ( trait what is only for 1 staff skill is bad

Arken.3725:

In the spvp setting, it’s bad because it really only revolves around the staff. You’ll never get any of your teammates to sit within a symbol for more than half a second to reap any benefit. By yourself, AH is a terrible trait. With a group it’s decent but really only revolves around Empower.

This information is just incorrect on so many levels.

Empowering Might (Nearby allies gain might (5 seconds) when you land a critical hit.)
Pure of Voice (Allies affected by shouts convert one condition to a boon. )
Wrathful Spirit (Aegis gives retaliation when it ends. )

These are some of the traits you can pair with high crit gear and shouts that will not only spam your party and yourself with boons but also keep your AH ticking constantly in a battle. Honestly only EM is needed with a 30% chance to crit the healing will roll in regardless of you using a staff or not.

AH isn’t as powerful a heal as a Meditation build would be while solo, no. but it is not useless at all, and far from it in a group setting.

Just wanted to clarify, in case some new guardian comes to read this thread and takes away that AH is something to stay away from.

Empowering Might has a 1 second internal cooldown so it’s use to benefit from AH is minimal, unless you’re always next to 5 people.

Pure of Voice is solid, not taking anything away from that.

Wrathful Spirit got nerfed into the ground a while back so taking this over say Superior Aria is completely asinine.

I never stated AH was useless in a group, all I said was that it really revolves around one weapon. I even explained above why this was the case. Symbols are one of the Guardians main sources of boons yet it involves remaining in a small spot, counterintuitive to the games design. Unless you’re pveing, the benefit from any symbol is severely lacking.

Edit: to the poster above, have it all you say? Last I checked this profession lacked any real ranged weapon, has poor boon uptime, any variation in condition application as well as any escape mechanisms in combat. Not to mention that to pull out this professions full potential, you MUST be near teammates.

If Strength in Numbers really gets buffed I’m dropping Retributive Armor ^o^

Amins.3710:

Poor update if these are them.

I’m loosing faith, quickly, in Anet.

I give every game at least 1 year as the first year is hashing out bugs / balance issue….

Anet’s report card is a C.

This is not enough to keep me playing.

Yup, pretty much my record. Give them a year to see how it goes normally works (SWtOR withstanding). I don’t understand what they are doing at the moment.

Away – shoutout to a fellow EB’er Got to love our matchup this week Just ran into a 60 strong zerg

Pecar.1236:

Master Trait “Glacial Heart” has now been completely revamped to: Critical hits with a hammer have a 100% chance to chill your target for 5 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 30 seconds rofl from kitten cd to 30s? who will use trait what chill for 5s and can be remove in 1-2s?

I’m going to be using this trait all the time. If you stuck a superior sigil of hydromancy or ice I’m positive the duration on chill would stack, making it even stronger. Sure it can get cleansed, but if I can hamper someone’s endurance regen and movement speed, even if for a second, it’ll make a huge difference.

Well, at least they made it worthwhile to go 20 points into zeal now? Honestly none of the other trait changes are good enough to be worth it. Spirit weapons are still insanely niche of a utility compared to shouts/meditations/consecrations, and have very little strength in any sort of AoE based fight. 10% condition damage off power? Give us something other than burn and this would be great, but with just one damaging condition this trait isn’t worth the extra 10 you have to put into it.

Radiant fire is a good strong buff, more CD reduction on torch, and extra burn duration is nice, however you still need 100% extra condition duration to get VoJ ticks to actually hit more than once, and also in any group setting any condition based build is going to trump your burn damage very hard.

Glacial Heart: This skill actually needs a revamp, not a number change like what they actually did. Hammer already has the best CC out of all of our weapons, the weapons like Mace and sword however, need one more than anything else. (mace the most) I still think glacial heart should have A) been changed to apply to all weapon crits, 25% chance of activating, 15s cd, 2s duration. This would have given us a semi constant outflow of snare, without it being OP, or being completely useless due to a quick cleanse. Or apply chill to symbols. Moving this trait as a grandmaster in zeal would have actually made it worth going 30 into zeal for along with the new zealous blade trait, and would have given us a decent amount of new builds, instead of just slightly buffing something in a trait line almost everyone uses.

Bash.7291:

Glacial Heart:

A) been changed to apply to all weapon crits, 25% chance of activating, 15s cd, 2s duration. This would have given us a semi constant outflow of snare, without it being OP, or being completely useless due to a quick cleanse.

B) apply chill to symbols. Moving this trait as a grandmaster in zeal would have actually made it worth going 30 into zeal for along with the new zealous blade trait, and would have given us a decent amount of new builds, instead of just slightly buffing something in a trait line almost everyone uses.

Anet, pay attention. We do actually put out good suggestions.

Amins.3710:

Bash.7291:

Glacial Heart:

A) been changed to apply to all weapon crits, 25% chance of activating, 15s cd, 2s duration. This would have given us a semi constant outflow of snare, without it being OP, or being completely useless due to a quick cleanse.

B) apply chill to symbols. Moving this trait as a grandmaster in zeal would have actually made it worth going 30 into zeal for along with the new zealous blade trait, and would have given us a decent amount of new builds, instead of just slightly buffing something in a trait line almost everyone uses.

Anet, pay attention. We do actually put out good suggestions.

sorry for the double post. lol. just really wanted to highlight Bash’s comments on Glacial Heart suggestions. those are awesome and i would love chill on symbols for a Zeal Grandmaster. definitely big enough reason to go 30 deep.

@Bash or any others, you reckon we’ll be getting Torment or more reliable ways of inflicting other conditions? highly unlikely.. but i can’t fathom how they seem to be pushing for more CD builds for Guards, yet all we get are burns, which stack duration.

hopefully they’ll keep revamping.

Amins, sad to hear. : (( ANet really needs to shape up!!!

do keep in mind everyone, that these again are only preview of patchnotes from GW2hub. we will only know all the changes come the patch notes tomorrow / today. also, i want to think that these are only the changes to trait lines. there is no mention of skill changes, etc. so i am still holding my breath.

akamon.2769:

sorry for the double post. lol. just really wanted to highlight Bash’s comments on Glacial Heart suggestions. those are awesome and i would love chill on symbols for a Zeal Grandmaster. definitely big enough reason to go 30 deep.

@Bash or any others, you reckon we’ll be getting Torment or more reliable ways of inflicting other conditions? highly unlikely.. but i can’t fathom how they seem to be pushing for more CD builds for Guards, yet all we get are burns, which stack duration.

hopefully they’ll keep revamping.

Amins, sad to hear. : (( ANet really needs to shape up!!!

do keep in mind everyone, that these again are only preview of patchnotes from GW2hub. we will only know all the changes come the patch notes tomorrow / today. also, i want to think that these are only the changes to trait lines. there is no mention of skill changes, etc. so i am still holding my breath.

Honestly I wouldn’t have minded only getting a slight buff to glacial heart had we gotten torment, as it would have helped with some type of condition build, and with snares. My current issue is that mesmers will now get amazing confusion stacking, torment, burning, and possible bleeds all on one weapon set. While thieves will get decent bleed stacking, almost perm poison, and torment.

Say your enemy mesmer has 1150 condition damage on their character. (this leads to 100 damage bleed ticks, and is also most likely, a gross underestimate) For a mesmer, that would mean 615 damage per second from burns. 100 damage per second per bleed stack, 151 per action per confusion stack. and 150 damage per second while trying to move with torment. 4 stacks of bleed, 4 stacks of torment and 4 stacks of confusion and just 1 second of burning could cause you 2215 damage just for walking for one second and pressing a single attack key. Now imagine that on a class that can kite and clone spam… I don’t even want to think of thieves who can easily stack bleeds higher than that, along with poison, which also kills your healing on top of it.

Honestly, I can see condition duration reduction is going to become the required meta now, just because of this one condition making kiting classes even more powerful. Why they didn’t think to give it to the easiest to kite classes in the game I really do not know. At least Necro’s get it, so that’s a step in the right direction I guess.

i am glad that Necro’s will be getting it. though again, like you mentioned, with their stated professions of speciically mesmers and thieves getting it as well seems counter-intuitive.

the idea of Torment seems more suited for classes that have “mobility issues”. sure there are ways around it for a Guard or other classes, but giving it to classes that can outmaneuver us, or use stealth as a mechanic to “refresh” fights only adds onto their capability. confusion? just don’t attack and move to avoid taking further damage. confusion AND torment? don’t attack, and don’t move. and get hit.

stealth/escape? give chase and lock ‘em down. stealth/escape + torment? actually, never mind. just run while i stand here. again, we’ll have to see the final product when notes get released AND how these new conditions and class changes are really reflected and executed in gameplay. would love to see Guards get a decent source of it to help keep enemies near us or just not get kited to death. not saying we can’t do that already though or can’t dael with kiting…. but yes.

Arken.3725:

I never stated AH was useless in a group, all I said was that it really revolves around one weapon. I even explained above why this was the case. Symbols are one of the Guardians main sources of boons yet it involves remaining in a small spot, counterintuitive to the games design. Unless you’re pveing, the benefit from any symbol is severely lacking.

This couldn’t be more wrong. AH works brilliantly with multiple weapons: staves, maces, hammers, and to a lesser extent, greatswords. On top of that, you can increase the size of your symbols by a fairly significant amount if you choose the right traits. Symbol placement is critical to them being useful in WvW and sPvP. They add an extra small heal to the other small heals that AH already provides.

Amins.3710:

Poor update if these are them.

I’m loosing faith, quickly, in Anet.

I give every game at least 1 year as the first year is hashing out bugs / balance issue….

Anet’s report card is a C.

This is not enough to keep me playing.

[smashes Symbol of Faith on the ground near this ally]
Maybe that will help?