Guild Wars 2

It ticks every 3 seconds instead of every 1. I’m suggesting that with such a mobile combat system, if one is forced to stay within a small circle to gain maximum benefit, it should be much stronger than those that do not. I also believe that if your abilities require long windups/animations that they should be very damaging or provide a significant benefit.

Atlas, the reason people have been saying that you’re not knowledgeable about the Guard is because of your poor references about Guard traits and statements so far. Some of them don’t make sense…for example:

“In order to stack Shouts on a Guardian to change Conditions into Boons. You would almost HAVE to stack 3 shouts because the cool downs are 30-35 seconds on the SHORTEST CD shouts.”

With shout CD reduction you have shouts on 24/28/48 second timers. Then when talking about symbol of protection you say:

“[The symbols that heal about 600 HP, not impressed]”

I’m guessing you’re talking about mace, not hammer. And if you are going deep into symbols to use them as healing, then they heal for about 200 a second. Add the regeneration ticks with the symbol of faith and its anywhere from 500 to 650 total healing a second.

Then talking about the tome of courage you say:

“[The tome that roots you in place while you get beat on, or the tome that roots you in place and has short range so you can’t actually heal the group in WvW because they moved away from you? Oh wait, they are the same.]”

The only thing that roots you long enough to ‘get beat on’ is the number 5 ability on each tome. Tome of Courage’s number 5 is a full heal for 5 targets in a 600 range. But the ability Amins was referring to is ‘Heal Area’ which is the number 1 ability on Tome of Courage. That cast time is 3/4 of a second, with no CD, and its as fast as you can lay down the ground target.

Then when talking about Stability…

“[We already covered this, Warbanner, try to keep up]”

24 or 30 second CD, compared to an elite that has a 200-240 second CD, only comes out when allies have fallen, and causes you to lose your weapons while using it. A more accurate comparison would have been balance stance or dolyak signet. These only give stability to the warrior and not nearby allies.

Then your caps lock rant about sanctuary. Yes the heal is not that strong compared to the CD (btw no one takes sanctuary without taking the CD reduction trait 10 points into virtues) Sanctuary’s healing doesn’t all come from the heal itself, it absorbs ranged attacks and you have to have stability to penetrate the dome. Say a longbow ranger starts shooting me and I pop sanctuary, then it absorbs all the rapid fire arrows. It would heal me for 3.1k + the 4-6k rapid fire damage. Its utility akittens finest.

Then it gets comical, and one of the primary reasons its obvious you don’t know wtf is going on:

“- 80% Swiftness uptime + Light Field for Condition Removal

[You didn’t quote an ability here]"

Really? You couldn’t glean what he was talking about here? There are only 3 ways a Guard gets swiftness, 2 of them are shouts, and one…well holy kitten it is a symbol thats a light field. Since you missed a chance to troll him here and did try to troll him with the ‘try to keep up’ comment about war banners its obvious you had no idea he was talking about staff 3 ability. And since no one uses Retreat! ever, and hardly uses Save Yourselves! it blows my mind that you missed that.

Also you don’t mention anything about the dodge roll. Lemme help you out real fast and compare it to warrior shouts. Since you tested it we’ll say Warrior shouts with full healing gear heals for 2400 and Guards heal at around 2k with full healing gear. With shout reduction a warrior can get a full 3 shouts of 2400 healing every 24 seconds while a Guard can dodge 5 times in that time, or 7 times with vigor. Guard wins in this category, maybe thats why you left it alone.

“[See notes on Banner of Tactics above, also +170 Power from the Warrior traits.]”

How exactly does power help out with keeping someone alive? Toughness sure as hell does, but I’m missing the power comparison.

While I agree that warriors are really really strong right Guards are in no means hurting in the support department. All of those things that Amins mentioned are true, and you can tell when a Guard is missing from the group. Warrior’s strengths have come from the last 4 patches of constant buffing and the huge buff banners got months ago. Warriors may have really strong burst healing, but they can’t compare to protection/burst/HoT that guards can give. But you are right, Guards do need to get some changes done to them. Weapons need to be re-evaluated (scepter/sword, and we need a condi application weapon) only 1 condition, excessively low healthpool, and forced into taking a lot of defensive traits/gear just to stay alive are just a few of the minor problems that add up to a big ugly one.

Last point. Is it that hard to look up on a gw2 database or look at your own Guard to see the CDs/skills/traits and understand what someone is talking about in a debate? =P

Arken.3725:

It ticks every 3 seconds instead of every 1. I’m suggesting that with such a mobile combat system, if one is forced to stay within a small circle to gain maximum benefit, it should be much stronger than those that do not. I also believe that if your abilities require long windups/animations that they should be very damaging or provide a significant benefit.

So that would make it:

410 passively with healing signet?
Adrenalin gives 135 per sec (405 every 3)
Regeneration every 10 on snares/roots with 175 a tick.

Total possible: 720 hps

That sounds more reasonable but still really defensive without having to sacrifice a lot.

And also CMF, these cannot be dispelled(except the regen) through boon-ripping means. So you’re able to stay mobile while retaining pretty decent sustain. Add-on the fact that it’s very easy to gain adrenaline so that specific trait can be up for quite a while.

Again, this is just me comparing/contrasting each professions ability to sustain and the conditions each must be in to achieve it.

@CMF, Warrior buffs have made them just silly. Heres a video =P

I understand Arken, and I appreciate it. I do think you discount the guardian abilities a little bit, but I think we all here agree that there needs to be a second look at guardians as the game has matured a bit.

While Dynnen has pointed out a few things you missed, please guys lets keep it constructive and not get into a flame war.

I’m not very familiar with Warrior, I just made a small build to show its capability. I’m not discounting the Guardian, all i’m stating is that by doing nothing more then hitting your target/getting hit, you can achieve similar regeneration as a Guardian without sacrificing mobility in the process.

The Guardians support through virtues/shouts is excellent. These provide such crucial boons to your team and assist you towards victory. I don’t think there’s any dispute to this. I’ve played spvp for about 90% of the time since I bought this game and I love my it. I just think a few things need to be looked at is all.

Dynnen.6405:

@CMF, Warrior buffs have made them just silly. Heres a video =P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEMxajr1mrA

Good lord that is a little ridiculous….

Lots of condition ticks happening quickly while not having a problem with life.

Some of that comes into L2P I think since some of these players are just running around rampant with 3 stacks of torment and such.

I do find a larger majority of WvW players not as skilled as spvp/tpvp players though, not to insult anyone.

It’s a simple fix really… adjust the skill co-efficient to VoR and Symbol healing…. they just over-buffed Warriors w/o any real testing (kind of sad tbh).

AtlasUnbound.1082:

But lets take a break from the Shout build I use, lets check out my friend who uses a more Banner oriented build.

He uses 3 banners

- 400-500 HP per second
- +170 Healing
- +10% boon duration
- +170 Toughness
- +170 Vitality
- +170 Power (from traits)
- Each one can cast swiftness
- 1 of them has a heal cast with 10 second CD
- 1 of them can AOE Rally
- That same one can cast Stability
- All of this over a MASSIVE AREA and can be taken to the next location and once they are dropped, no work need be done, its all passive.

Then he just yells “For Great Justice”

Hahahahahaha

I have been playing a Guardian since Beta, so don’t think I am unfamiliar, Blasino.3128.
All of these are supposed to be the strengths of the Guardians, yet the Warrior does it better, faster, and more often, barely has to spec for it, is much more mobile, and still does damage.

At least now that I have a consensus that you are all on the same page and similar builds I know it wasn’t me. I was playing the guardian to their fullest.

All that support and still cant take a real hit ( due to low health pool)

I can get the same effect from my Warrior and stay on the front line like a man.

P.S. Please don’t forget to spell check kids… a little goes a long way.

Why don’t you actually play a banner build before posting this nonsense.

+No conditional removal
+Regen only stacks in duration not power
+It takes 2-3 seconds just to pickup and put down a banner
+You lose all your weapon skills and do no damage when holding one
+96 Sec traited cooldown with 60 sec duration (nothing better then throwing down 3 banners in WvW just to have the Zerg run off leaving them there)
+192 Sec traited cooldown on Elite banner with 65s duration (AoE stability buff when holding banner is only 3 seconds with a 15 sec cooldown)
+Banner buffs don’t stack, Boons/condition removal from shouts do
+Your a crappy buff bot with long cooldowns and 0 killing power

Banners are only used in bunker builds in s/tPVP specifically for the regen and in pve for the 15% crit damage that is pretty much it.

Shouts are superior in WvWvW with soldier runes you get 3x 2k+ heals on much shorter cooldowns with AoE stun/condition removal and no chance of ever wasting cooldowns do to group movement.

I’d really like it if we kept this thread civil. Maybe we can find common ground on how to embrace or adjust this profession better.

Arken.3725:

I’d really like it if we kept this thread civil. Maybe we can find common ground on how to embrace or adjust this profession better.

It’s easy to keep things civil when people don’t spew nonsense.

Ok, enough of that. Yes Arken said things that didn’t set well earlier, but he is being more constructive right now and showing us what he sees on warriors. Also I believe he does want to help the guardian class and is trying to indicate areas he feels needs work. It could have been worded differently perhaps to not be so upsetting.

Take it, evaluate it and then compare. I think right now we have seen that guardians still set better off in the self sustain role, but we are lacking a few things to push us forward.

Warriors have been buffed a lot, and maybe some balance needs to come in and adjust things. Either down for them or up for others, we will see. No one likes nerfs though and warriors got the short end of the stick at the start of pvp for a long time, so keep that in mind as well.

The best we can do is show how the game is being played and highlight areas that need looking at. Hopefully the devs will take note and agree.

Amins.3710:

Arken.3725:

I’d really like it if we kept this thread civil. Maybe we can find common ground on how to embrace or adjust this profession better.

It’s easy to keep things civil when people don’t spew nonsense.

I hope you’re not insinuating anything. Like CMF stated, i’m trying to look at things in a more constructive manner rather than spamming, “nerf warz or buff gurds!” This isn’t to tout anything but I believe what I’ve stated is correct, when sacrificing mobility in a game that requires constant movement, said skills should provide a significant benefit compared to those that do not.

^^ Actually, I wasn’t speaking of Arken. /grin.

Honestly though, the only issue I have w/ Guardians right now is our extremely low HP pool.

I’ve been playing a warrior quite a bit lately, in sPvP (still can’t muster up to lvl anyhing tbh), and even in zerk amulet…. thier sustain is good if you trait for Adrenal Health + Healing Signet…. having 22k health is MONSTROUS.

Guardians are built to take the brunt of EVERYTHING… really, the dev’s intended (weither intentional or not) it to be that way..

Having said that, things have changed so much that it’s just not the case anymore… the lack of health pool, lower healing, and severely crippled in the mobility department makes us a much easier kill when focused on then before.

I think the other major issue is the death of the former glory of retaliation… prior, we could bunker down and let the retal do what we couldn’t, because our class can’t do both as good as others….

Engi, War, Ranger can bunker just as good now… but have much better ~inherent~ dps abilities, while Ele’ (whcih can bunker just as good) has that ‘on demand’ escape-ability (much like a rangers evasion).

My bad man, sorry. Just your post was just below mine. =)

If we were to get a trait that helps us gain self damage via retaliation, would that bring us back to our former glory?

Would better/more healing give us the lost ground we have with the lower HP pool?

I don’t think they are too keen on giving us more hp to be honest.

So how can we work around that to achieve success?

I think giving us more access to passive traits might help. Looking over the trees in each section, there aren’t any significant minors that offer help with sustainability besides vigorous precision. I’m fine with the current health pool, just I think there needs be more ways to sustain outside of symbols. I think retaliation is a poor way to fight back against other players. If we’re to keep it, maybe lower the duration and significantly increase the damage reflected?

CMF.5461:

If we were to get a trait that helps us gain self damage via retaliation, would that bring us back to our former glory?

Would better/more healing give us the lost ground we have with the lower HP pool?

I don’t think they are too keen on giving us more hp to be honest.

So how can we work around that to achieve success?

Retal can’t be touched because, like Confusion, it would be too OP again in WvW (zerg vs zerg)…. and just wait, w/ the new traits we’re going to start seeing 25 stacks of confusion on us real freak’n quick… then just a matter of being epidemic’d on a 16s cooldown… AGAIN.

Symbols Chilling would be a solid addition… and even though it doesn’t give us more damage.. it does give us way more defense… same w/ Weakness (as our only ability is Sig of Judgement, which the NERFED… don’t be fooled. It was nerfed)… but then again, they don’t want to give us chill on symbols because then they’ll be taking away from the chillmancer builds…

I have always been a fan of more directive and controlled gameplay instead of passive.

So a boost to retal damage with a reduction in up time sounds like a good way to provide some offensive pressure while being defensive.

And yes, I agree that we need more sources of weakness than just Sig of Judgement, especially with the longer cool down now.

Retal though, If we could gain it for self only and not for group, it may not be as overpowered as it was before. Group vs AE does make it a little ridiculous.

I’m also a fan of more direct play. Receiving damage to deal it back seems less skillful to me. This doesn’t just apply to retal but all forms of traits that activate under certain circumstances under low cooldowns.

Retal is fine. Leave it be in its corner to cry into its beer and remember the good ole’ days. Chilling on symbols would be great. Not only would it prevent enemy damage from getting to you and your teammates, it would allow us to control ground better. Also I think Guards should have torment, maybe even in symbols. If you want to walk on our ground, it’ll cost ya.

+1
since we need 15

+1

Going back to the sustain aspect, I think if they went back and looked at the base healing for virtue of resolve, that could provide a lot of more viability for other builds to make up for our lack of HP, and then if traited we have even better sustain.

I know in beta they nerfed VoR because they felt it was too strong and guardians were “impossible” to kill, but again I think this is a L2P issue, because a lot of the early players were either not skilled or didn’t have the experience that this larger and more mature player base has now.

We have figured more things out in this past year than the beta testers could do in those last few weeks/months before release.

If someone could figure out the EFH math with guardian hp+VoR versus warrior HP pool, that would be interesting to see. (I only pick those two classes because we are both heavy armor wearers, not that I want to pit guard vs war all the time)

edit:
Went back and threw down some numbers on a spread sheet.

Base line warriors get 18372 hp
guardians get 10805 hp
vor does 84 hp a sec

So now we factor incoming damage, and I did a range of 100-500 a second

Guardian Time to Die = HP/(damage – vor)
Warrior Time to Die = HP/damage

Time to Die:
Damage – Guardian / Warrior
100 – 675s / 183s
200 – 93s / 91s
300 – 50s / 61s
400 – 34s / 45sec (it filtered 45 and “s”….)
500 – 25s / 36s

So somewhere around 300 damage vor loses out. Lets trait for improved VoR which is 25% more making it heal for 105

100 – -2161s / 183s
200 – 113s / 91s
300 – 55s / 61s
400 – 36s / 45sec
500 – 27s / 36s

Again, somewhere around 300 damage vor loses out, but at 100 damage, we are healing faster than the damage can happen, which gives us overhealing of +5hp a second (ignore the number, dividing by a negative number makes it wonky).

What this is showing me at a baseline level is that guardians do well against small frequent hits and less well against larger hits.

So the question is now, are we able to get acceptable levels of healing out of VoR when geared/traited, or is it not healing enough for the current meta of damage a second?

Just for the hell of it, I put on clerics trinket and factored for Improved VoR and we get 173hps out of vor which provides this:

100 – -148s / 183
200 – 400s / 91s
300 – 85s / 61s
400 – 47s / 45sec
500 – 33s / 36s

Gearing for clerics puts us real close to warriors on higher ends of damage and makes us pretty much invincible against lower ends of damage (+73hp a second versus 100dmg), but that hampers the rest of our stats.

I think the reason why it might not be enough is because outside of symbols and shouts, you can’t really stack the regeneration like say someone who’s running healing signet/adrenaline heal with some regeneration. I think the passive trait buffs offer too much sustainability for some and not enough for others, especially when compared against a professions class skill.

Edit: When traited to increase sustainability, the loss of damage also far greater.

CMF.5461:

Going back to the sustain aspect, I think if they went back and looked at the base healing for virtue of resolve, that could provide a lot of more viability for other builds to make up for our lack of HP, and then if traited we have even better sustain.

I know in beta they nerfed VoR because they felt it was too strong and guardians were “impossible” to kill, but again I think this is a L2P issue, because a lot of the early players were either not skilled or didn’t have the experience that this larger and more mature player base has now.

We have figured more things out in this past year than the beta testers could do in those last few weeks/months before release.

If someone could figure out the EFH math with guardian hp+VoR versus warrior HP pool, that would be interesting to see. (I only pick those two classes because we are both heavy armor wearers, not that I want to pit guard vs war all the time)

---

edit:
Went back and threw down some numbers on a spread sheet.

Base line warriors get 18372 hp
guardians get 10805 hp
vor does 84 hp a sec

So now we factor incoming damage, and I did a range of 100-500 a second

Guardian Time to Die = HP/(damage – vor)
Warrior Time to Die = HP/damage

Time to Die:
Damage – Guardian / Warrior
100 – 675s / 183s
200 – 93s / 91s
300 – 50s / 61s
400 – 34s / 45sec (it filtered 45 and “s”….)
500 – 25s / 36s

So somewhere around 300 damage vor loses out. Lets trait for improved VoR which is 25% more making it heal for 105

100 – -2161s / 183s
200 – 113s / 91s
300 – 55s / 61s
400 – 36s / 45sec
500 – 27s / 36s

Again, somewhere around 300 damage vor loses out, but at 100 damage, we are healing faster than the damage can happen, which gives us overhealing of +5hp a second (ignore the number, dividing by a negative number makes it wonky).

What this is showing me at a baseline level is that guardians do well against small frequent hits and less well against larger hits.

So the question is now, are we able to get acceptable levels of healing out of VoR when geared/traited, or is it not healing enough for the current meta of damage a second?

Just for the hell of it, I put on clerics trinket and factored for Improved VoR and we get 173hps out of vor which provides this:

100 – -148s / 183
200 – 400s / 91s
300 – 85s / 61s
400 – 47s / 45sec
500 – 33s / 36s

Gearing for clerics puts us real close to warriors on higher ends of damage and makes us pretty much invincible against lower ends of damage (+73hp a second versus 100dmg), but that hampers the rest of our stats.

This is excellent!

Increased hp regen on vor could help. I also thought about more damage reduction, which could help lessen this issue.

Keep in mind, that passive health per second is only part of the thing that helps us sustain against attacks. Also, attacks can happen faster than once per a second, so you have things like bleeds or flurry attacks that strike multiple times in a channel that will do more strikes in a second than what you are healing for.

Remember that we have blocks/aegis/blinds/dodges to handle the heavier hits that our regen can’t out heal, and we can stack regeneration, as well as ah/mf/symbol heals on top of that if we want to get more healing per a second out.

Also we have a ready supply of protection to reduce incoming damage if you go hammer, and a decent duration with shouts and shield. Weakness would be nice in other areas, but guardians are defensive boon based, not offensive condition.

Now the trick is to take this knowledge and craft it into a more offensive build to create more build diversity. I am thinking a crit/healing power build may be the answer since condition damage is not threatening enough, something like brazil’s build but adjusted for more self sustain while maintaining that damage.

CMF.5461:

Keep in mind, that passive health per second is only part of the thing that helps us sustain against attacks. Also, attacks can happen faster than once per a second, so you have things like bleeds or flurry attacks that strike multiple times in a channel that will do more strikes in a second than what you are healing for.

Remember that we have blocks/aegis/blinds/dodges to handle the heavier hits that our regen can’t out heal, and we can stack regeneration, as well as ah/mf/symbol heals on top of that if we want to get more healing per a second out.

Also we have a ready supply of protection to reduce incoming damage if you go hammer, and a decent duration with shouts and shield. Weakness would be nice in other areas, but guardians are defensive boon based, not offensive condition.

Now the trick is to take this knowledge and craft it into a more offensive build to create more build diversity. I am thinking a crit/healing power build may be the answer since condition damage is not threatening enough, something like brazil’s build but adjusted for more self sustain while maintaining that damage.

Healing power + crit would be extremely hard to do. I’ve tried, when the trait change patch happened I tried a radiance build with the new mace trait in valor. With my cleric set I was able to have high healing power + crit chance. Power was on a bit of a low side….2650ish and crit dmg was 30%. But the point is that wasn’t possible before the patch.

The results were mixed, on one hand I did more dps. But on the other I lost out on important heals like dodge roll in honor. I realized, the way traits are setup, its impossible to achieve some combinations. Radiance is just too weird….crit+cond dmg (how do these two go together?) and valor is the same (tough+crit dmg). Maybe some possible solutions would for traits to be introduced to convert crit chance into healing power. Or maybe healing power can be converted to crit by a certain percentage.

:( yeah was messing with it on a build calc and it wasn’t looking too great.

The trick with brazil’s build is that he had up to 100% crit chance and just about 100% crit damage, while double to seemingly low number of his attacks into 1k+ hits pretty much all the time without going deep into zeal or valor.

But that relies on berserker gear, and there isn’t a healing power/crit damage/precision armor set to support this.

I would like it if people had battle tested and well used builds that they could represent for the guardian under the following categories that we could dissect:

Power
Condition Damage
Support/heals
Bunker/tank/anchor or what ever names you guys give them now :p

other build? support? healing? what categories of builds do people have for other builds? Pretty much we should have a build that emphasizes each trait line…ideally.

I know that we have bounced around condition builds and there are none that are really widely used, but obtena, foofad, and a few others represent them still.

I want to focus on a sort of brass tacks talks on all aspects of guardians and the strengths we have, not just bunker/healing.

I think it would be more appropriate to increase our damage negation abilities (personal and group-wide), then our increase in healing abilities. This seems like our shtick as a profession vs other professions.

I think more so for our own personal survival. Most of what we do is group-wide support that just happens to support ourselves. Maybe more skills that only affect us but are stronger? Meditations come to mind but As boon-fighters, this doesn’t seem to be enough.

Arken.3725:

I think more so for our own personal survival. Most of what we do is group-wide support that just happens to support ourselves. Maybe more skills that only affect us but are stronger? Meditations come to mind but As boon-fighters, this doesn’t seem to be enough.

This is what I was saying.

One of my ideas was to put a damage reduction passive on virtue of courage. For example, as long as its up you take 10% less damage. Etc.

I think that’s a decent idea, maybe make it so every time you crit there’s a chance to pop a boon specific to the virtues only for ourselves? I say this because I don’t think a the one second burn, small regen and aegis every 40 seconds are enough for a class skill.

Arken.3725:

I think that’s a decent idea, maybe make it so every time you crit there’s a chance to pop a boon specific to the virtues only for ourselves? I say this because I don’t think a the one second burn, small regen and aegis every 40 seconds are enough for a class skill.

What you are saying is true yeah, its not enough. In fact when you think about it, guardian’s class skill is pretty universal. Mostly every class has access to burning, mostly ever class has access to a regen, other classes have limited access to aegis but gain it when guardian uses voc.

Every other classes unique mechanic is very defining. Steal, clones, death shroud, burst damage, tool kits, pet skills. Looking at it, guardian’s skills aren’t unique at all.

The boons you get from the skills aren’t unique but the way we access them is. Yes, other professions have regen, burning etc … but they have to use specific weapons, traits, skills to get access. Ours are built into our profession … that’s unique because they are accessible always, regardless of your build.

What I think would be super neato to allow more versatility playing to our “We have Virtues” strength would be to allow the player to choose from a list of boons/conditions to associate with the Virtues instead of the three we have fixed. To balance this out better, each boon would have it’s different set of parameters for passive/active and you would be restricted in stacking … for example, you couldn’t stack a condition damage in each virtue.

I’m a little disappointed that this thread hasn’t generated a whole bunch of ideas about improving the class. Instead, it’s generated alot of controversial discussion about how deficient the class is, when it isn’t.

I don’t think that’s the case, a bunch of us have suggested a few ideas. However, there isn’t anything wrong with discussing some balancing as well.

Obtena.7952:

The boons you get from the skills aren’t unique but the way we access them is. Yes, other professions have regen, burning etc … but they have to use specific weapons, traits, skills to get access. Ours are built into our profession … that’s unique because they are accessible always, regardless of your build.

What I think would be super neato to allow more versatility playing to our “We have Virtues” strength would be to allow the player to choose from a list of boons/conditions to associate with the Virtues instead of the three we have fixed. To balance this out better, each boon would have it’s different set of parameters for passive/active and you would be restricted in stacking … for example, you couldn’t stack a condition damage in each virtue.

I’m a little disappointed that this thread hasn’t generated a whole bunch of ideas about improving the class. Instead, it’s generated alot of controversial discussion about how deficient the class is, when it isn’t.

So you are confirming that guardian’s class skills are generic.

My idea for virtues is that the should become stances. When using VoJ guard switches to a offensive stance, increasing damage, crit chance and dmg, cond dmg and every five attacks burns the target.

VoR should be a supportive stance, that increases hp regen, healing power, toughness and has reduced condition duration.

VoC should be a defensive stance, that increases dmg resistance, max hp, toughness, boon durations and gives aegis every 30secs.

Something like this would be more unique than what we have now.

Aza.2105:

So you are confirming that guardian’s class skills are generic.

I’m not sure how you got that from my post … didn’t I say that the concept of Virtues were unique?

Aza.2105:

My idea for virtues is that the should become stances. When using VoJ guard switches to a offensive stance, increasing damage, crit chance and dmg, cond dmg and every five attacks burns the target.

VoR should be a supportive stance, that increases hp regen, healing power, toughness and has reduced condition duration.

VoC should be a defensive stance, that increases dmg resistance, max hp, toughness, boon durations and gives aegis every 30secs.

Something like this would be more unique than what we have now.

I don’t know … unique is unique. Is there grades for uniqueness? As for stances, the idea is reasonable. Would you be able to swap them out on the fly?

Obtena.7952:

Aza.2105:

So you are confirming that guardian’s class skills are generic.

I’m not sure how you got that from my post … didn’t I say that the concept of Virtues were unique?

Aza.2105:

My idea for virtues is that the should become stances. When using VoJ guard switches to a offensive stance, increasing damage, crit chance and dmg, cond dmg and every five attacks burns the target.

VoR should be a supportive stance, that increases hp regen, healing power, toughness and has reduced condition duration.

VoC should be a defensive stance, that increases dmg resistance, max hp, toughness, boon durations and gives aegis every 30secs.

Something like this would be more unique than what we have now.

I don’t know … unique is unique. Is there grades for uniqueness? As for stances, the idea is reasonable. Would you be able to swap them out on the fly?

Yea you would be able to swap them out like ele attunements, they are put on cds once you swap. So you can’t juggle between them.

And to answer your question, I said what I did because you confirmed virtues are not unique by expressing how other classes indeed have access to what virtues do. Its just that guardian applies them in a unique manner. That is not enough to put it on the level of any of the other classes in game.

Essentially Virtues are Signets that apply a groupwide benefit. The benefits from the passive side each provide very small assistance to the Guardian. Obviously once you activate them it helps a bit more but puts two of them on an extremely long cooldown. I think the suggestion provided by Aza is a pretty good alternative.

I think the core of making a good build is having a good foundation to build around. Normally it seems like a good foundation revolves around can you survive. Second to that is what do you want to do in combat.

A lot of builds fall apart when you realize that you will die in seconds in pvp or pve. Pve can alieviate a lot of that by predictable attacks and familiarity with the encounters, so investing in survival skills at the moment seems to get in the way with the needed damaging aspect…but thats for another discussions.

In wvw and s/tpvp being able to survive is paramount in creating a build since you can’t kill people if you are dead yourself.

This is why so many people have revolved around the AH builds or the meditation builds, and to some extent a lot of attention has gone back to the healing power builds again.

After crunching more of those numbers with vitality versus healing power, I found that a full vitality warrior and a full vitaility guardian that traits for absolute resolution, full honor tree, and improved mace while having the signet of mercy on are very similar up to the 1000 damage range.

Guardian HP 24935
VoR Heal 178
Warrior HP 33552

Dmg – Grd / War
100 – -319s / 335s
200 – 1133s / 167s
300 – 204s / 111s
400 – 112s / 83s
500 – 77s / 67s
600 – 59s / 55s
700 – 47s / 47s
800 – 40s / 41s
900 – 34s / 37s
1000 – 30s / 33s

The guardian has better survivability up to the 700 damage per second range, then after that the warrior slips forward just slightly.

So what that shows me is that guardians do have an advantage, against a raw hp warrior if you count VoR in and provide healing power as a secondary to vitality.

Here is the only caveat….Warriors have healing signet which I haven’t accounted for, so it may be that they can reach similar levels with passive regen as well.

That said, guardians and warriors are really close, but I think it limits our builds because of what we have to invest into survival.

This is a black and white/all or none style comparison though, so you don’t have to invest THAT deep and can sacrifice some survival for more damage, but trying to just understand the synergies and mechanics to a deeper level so I/we can better build our guardians.

I am starting to get really convinced that we need to find a way to make VoR better in order to faciliate more build diversity, but right now it is too heavily invested just as AH or MF.

I do see why we have vitality and healing power traited together now though, because healing power alone can only make up for so much of our lack of vitality, we need that extra buffer.

As Obtena stated, I do not want this to be a “guardians suck” thread, but ways to discover and exploit our strengths.

It’s true CMF, I can never find myself without AH in tpvp if i’m running a hybrid or full virtues/honor for any survivability. I do believe that if you would have counted Healing Signet that the numbers would have slightly shifted towards the Warrior. This is all taking into account mobility and effective trait speccing.

No worries guys. I’m over all the mud that Amins.3710 and Savish.4205 want to sling at me.

I can move on.

Before I do though, if you play on a backwater server where they leave banners laying around in WvW… I reccomend changing servers to a T1 where you can learn a thing or two.
Come join me on Jade Quarry. I will teach you the ways of my people.

No joke, we fight groups 2-3 times our size and come out on top. Except for Blackgate, those guys got some fight in them. Fighting them on the same week a new living world event poped is a pain.

Back to the Guardian though… I really wish the staff 1 skill was more like the trident.

Possible Longbow options?

With their low health pool, you have to build them for defense or get them a little away from the fight.

Oh, CMF.5461 I will check out the kealing signet tonight and give you some feedback. Also the Defense Trait “Adrenal Health” grants Regen based on Adrenaline too. So I will test the regen with all 3 combinations of those forms of regen.

Since the Guardian has such low damage output, you would think jacking their Health Pool up would fix the balance issue. Then, despite their low damage output they would have more time to get damage out there.

Symbol attacks on the other 1 handed weapons.
Longsword symbol, Scepter Symbol.

Since Symbols can heal this would make more viable setups than just the standard staff and hammer.

The only problem I have with this is how static the symbols are. I really with they were more like temporary aura. Then it is less reliant on the competence of an ally going into the symbol for the buff, or the incompetence of an enemy to be in the symbol, or the need for the hammer to ward them into it. It would also fix a lot of the mobility issue.

When you look at classes like the Necromancer who has the ability to get 4 skills that are all marks, and pick a heal skill that is a well, then get 2 more well utility skills, it makes it easy to justify getting traits for those types of skills because there are enough of them you can get at once to utilize it fully.

With Guardian its a question, “Do I get symbols heal when I have only 1 symbol skill?”

Zealot’s Defense has a shorter range than most ranged attacks so using it vs ranged is mostly useless. (except pistol users)

I find my self with “Hold the Line” all the time. I feel like that is the singularly most useful skill in their arsenal.

I’ve advocated for the change of symbols to temporary Auras for a little while. Speaking about the current meta(AoE-Condition), the benefit gained from symbols compared to the damage thrown by AoE’s is negligible. Also, I don’t believe many would stand in these symbols to gain the minimal benefit when the potential to get condi bursted is a lot more concerning.

Obviously you’d have to adjust the symbols(auras) accordingly, but I do believe it would promote more mobile play in a very face-paced and constantly moving game.

Arken.3725:

I’ve advocated for the change of symbols to temporary Auras for a little while. Speaking about the current meta(AoE-Condition), the benefit gained from symbols compared to the damage thrown by AoE’s is negligible. Also, I don’t believe many would stand in these symbols to gain the minimal benefit when the potential to get condi bursted is a lot more concerning.

Obviously you’d have to adjust the symbols(auras) accordingly, but I do believe it would promote more mobile play in a very face-paced and constantly moving game.

Symbols similar to: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Balthazar%27s_Aura

I’d be all for that, guardian would still be area denial class. Except a mobile one. Symbols in their current form just aren’t very good. Anet promotes guardians to post up in one spot, in a game that is all about mobility and dodging.

How ironic.

Something along those lines. I’m exactly sure how you would balance it but that would definitely promote better gameplay.

Blasino.3128:

Relentliss.2170:

Its hard to say play to your strengths when the class is pretty average at almost everything.

We have to spec way deep into both gear and traits to do anything even remotely well.

About the only thing I feel the Best at is providing defense for my team mates, but it comes at a pretty big cost and is most noticeable in dungeons. And it is a YAWN playstyle that few people really enjoy.

I don’t understand what you are saying. What profession can do things well without traiting or gearing towards it?

Its kind of hard to explain fully.

I don’t seem to have to trait as much to be good at something on a Warrior. With a Guardian I seem to have to go all or nothing. It might be the big health pool or just generally stronger basic skills, but it seems like the Warrior starts at say 6 or 7 in a particular area and you can trait it up to a 10, the Guardian skills seem rather ineffective without traits so like a 2 or a 3 and then you can trait them up, some to a 10 but others only to a 7 or 8.

Take Shouts the Warrior shouts have nice benefits and nice CD’s. So they start at a 6 on the power scale. Trait them up and they are a 10.

The guardian ones are pretty weak without any healing gear and if untraited the CD seem long. So lets say they start at a 4 or a 5. Traited up I don’t feel they are as strong as a Warrior’s would be so lets say an 8 max. Then if I gear them with duration runes and healing power armor, a 10. So I have had to go all in to get my Shouts to 10.

The warrior hasn’t even adjusted his gear. He is still running the same gear and is on the same power level. So he can also do damage or something. I have had to sacrifice more to hit 10.

I feel like that with pretty much every aspect of the Guardian vs Warrior comparison.

AtlasUnbound.1082:

No worries guys. I’m over all the mud that Amins.3710 and Savish.4205 want to sling at me.

I can move on.

Before I do though, if you play on a backwater server where they leave banners laying around in WvW… I reccomend changing servers to a T1 where you can learn a thing or two.
Come join me on Jade Quarry. I will teach you the ways of my people.

No joke, we fight groups 2-3 times our size and come out on top. Except for Blackgate, those guys got some fight in them. Fighting them on the same week a new living world event poped is a pain.

Back to the Guardian though… I really wish the staff 1 skill was more like the trident.

Possible Longbow options?

With their low health pool, you have to build them for defense or get them a little away from the fight.

Oh, CMF.5461 I will check out the kealing signet tonight and give you some feedback. Also the Defense Trait “Adrenal Health” grants Regen based on Adrenaline too. So I will test the regen with all 3 combinations of those forms of regen.

Since the Guardian has such low damage output, you would think jacking their Health Pool up would fix the balance issue. Then, despite their low damage output they would have more time to get damage out there.

Symbol attacks on the other 1 handed weapons.
Longsword symbol, Scepter Symbol.

Since Symbols can heal this would make more viable setups than just the standard staff and hammer.

The only problem I have with this is how static the symbols are. I really with they were more like temporary aura. Then it is less reliant on the competence of an ally going into the symbol for the buff, or the incompetence of an enemy to be in the symbol, or the need for the hammer to ward them into it. It would also fix a lot of the mobility issue.

When you look at classes like the Necromancer who has the ability to get 4 skills that are all marks, and pick a heal skill that is a well, then get 2 more well utility skills, it makes it easy to justify getting traits for those types of skills because there are enough of them you can get at once to utilize it fully.

With Guardian its a question, “Do I get symbols heal when I have only 1 symbol skill?”

Zealot’s Defense has a shorter range than most ranged attacks so using it vs ranged is mostly useless. (except pistol users)

I find my self with “Hold the Line” all the time. I feel like that is the singularly most useful skill in their arsenal.

I’m going to stop you right here.

First, there isn’t mud slinging. You refuse to read and properly address points given to you. You show an obvious bias towards the warrior without properly giving the guardian its due. In the end it may be that the warrior is a better profession, but you fail to properly express it.

Second, your skill or server or tier 1 in WWW have nothing to do with the discussion at hand. It is unnecessary to even mention it or even suggest that we know less then you. I’m on SoR, and last I checked we are ranked higher then you. Does that mean I’m a better guru then you? No. Everyone boasts about fighting people 2-3 times their number. There is a few guardians who can actually back up that statement with at least videos. Ironically, one of them is Amin’s.

Third, Guardian has a low damage output? I really think you need to read the wiki before spewing crap like this. Most professions would kill to have the skill coefficients Anet has given us. Just because we can’t Hundred-blades doesn’t mean we can drop a good 18k of damage in 2 seconds on a person (because we kittening can).

Blasino.3128:

Third, Guardian has a low damage output? I really think you need to read the wiki before spewing crap like this. Most professions would kill to have the skill coefficients Anet has given us. Just because we can’t Hundred-blades doesn’t mean we can drop a good 18k of damage in 2 seconds on a person (because we kittening can).

Coefficients are only part of the big picture. When you start to include damage modifiers and cooldowns then a very different picture begins to emerge.

Aza.2105:

Blasino.3128:

Third, Guardian has a low damage output? I really think you need to read the wiki before spewing crap like this. Most professions would kill to have the skill coefficients Anet has given us. Just because we can’t Hundred-blades doesn’t mean we can drop a good 18k of damage in 2 seconds on a person (because we kittening can).

Coefficients are only part of the big picture. When you start to include damage modifiers and cooldowns then a very different picture begins to emerge.

Please by all means show the low damage output of a guardian.