Guild Wars 2

Its about time they get an overhaul or undergo considerable change

Its ridiculous that without heavily investing in radiance or virtues trait lines, F1 and F2 respectively might as well not be present in the game.

Guardian is the ONLY profession right now where you could very well remove the F1-F3 skills and still retain 99% of functionality.

Passive effects need to be stronger while the active needs an additional effect not affiliated with virtue line traits. Its ridiculous that activating an untraited F1 gives you 1 more seconds of burning while putting the skill on cooldown for 20+ seconds.

F2 and F3 are both boring, lack imagination and need to be made stronger.

As i said, right now, i might as well remove F1-F3 keys and still retain 99% of effectiveness

I think I would like to see something done with them too. I never really cared for Virtue of Justice much. The cool downs are pretty long on them and they all kind of seem to be lacking something. Guardians have skills that have similar effects but with shorter cool downs.

I agree they need some updating.

I think the quick simple fix would be for the passive to remain even once activated.

Arnath.2319:

I agree they need some updating.

I think the quick simple fix would be for the passive to remain even once activated.

I don’t like how the passive effects end when activated too. I was thinking of mentioning that in my first post also, but I wasn’t sure how other people felt about it.

Ironically, they got nerfed and lost 600 range, turning them into sub-par shouts in addition to sub-par signets.

they should be reworked or buffed ALLOT

the healing Virtue needs like 50% buff to its passive healing ( Not the active one )

The virtue that gives aegis needs to apply it every 20-25 sec instead of freaken 40 sec ( 40 sec realy ? you engage in pvp and die or win befor it even reaplies itself looool )

The burning one is well not that bad like the other 2 realy ( i think the burn duration could be increased by 1 sec.

Just to requote myself on base virute thoughts

Bezagron.7352:

Regarding core virtues, DH virtues have shown me is so much more fun being able to actively use virtues more then once. Overall I would also like to see a reduced cooldown applied to core guardian virtues as at the moment their active effects are miles worse off then DH’s.

& my previous idea regarding VoR & VoC which looks at reducing their cooldowns & transferring some of the Virtue’s line traits into the baseline virtues. This should help improve the base core virtues without increasing there overall power level beyond what’s now achieved when traiting;

Bezagron.7352:

Xhyros.1340:

Take the virtues traitline. Or: don’t use them stupidly. Why would you hold on to resolution or courage if you’re about to die and popping them would allow you to live? Should make it so rallying refreshes all virtue cooldowns so you won’t have the excuse of thinking you’ll get picked up so better save those virtue passives.

Not sure I agree. Why should we be forced to take Virtues just to have worthwhile actives. Typically profession specialisation lines should be the major line for enhancing &/or change the gameplay of the base profession mechanic. They should be worthwhile skills in themselves at untraited. I just can’t agree that base VoR & VoC are reasonable skills for the cooldowns.

VoR – Healing (approx 1.6k) yourself & nearby allies (5 targets) is worth a 50 sec cooldown & the loss of the passive health regen. Not that it should be a full health but to compare Receive the Light heals for 5 × 1.3k on a 40 sec cooldown without the loss of a passive regen.

To note the passive regen was an important part Arenanet discussed in why guardians are one of the low health pool professions. 50 sec without is approx. 4200 lost healing (84 per sec, no traits & no healing power). So using the active skill is a loss of 60% of your healing or looking at it another way it’s a punishment of 160% for using it over a 50 sec period.

VoR – New Active (40 sec cooldown)
Healing: 1,225 (slightly reduced)
Number of Targets: 5
Regen (5 sec): 650
Conditions Removed: 1
Radius: 600

Looking at this active your still losing slightly less then 60% of the total healing but also have the addition benefit of removal of a single condition which should encourage active use. An advantage for foes with increase active use is decreased in overall healing also more vulnerable windows were VoR won’t be available as it’s on cooldown.

To note this is a selfish analysis only looking a benefits to the guardian but this is still the risk & cost the guardian is taking on for activing VoR.

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VoC – A single aegis to yourself & nearby allies is worth a 75 sec cooldown & the loss the passive. Looking at Retreat you get the same aegis 20 sec plus 20 sec of swiftness to yourself & 4 allies in the same radius on a 40 sec cooldown. Which is the same cooldown on the passive application.

Aegis is a amazing for high damaging single hitting skills but is easy to identify, remove or bypass by unblockable or mutli-hitting/channelled attacks.

VoC – New Passive
Aegis Refresh: 30 sec (still provides a 150% punishment for activating with regards to aegis)

VoC – Active (50 sec cooldown)
Aegis (20 sec): Block the next incoming attack.
Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 600
Protection (5 sec): -33% Incoming Damage

This changes F3’s active from protection of a single hit to Burst/Spike protection. One aspect of F3 is if used in the right circumstances you still typically going to have a 49 -45 sec window without benefit from VoC.

To note a single aegis bar 1 shot mechanics generally does not provide enough benefit if used in emergency situation. Again for foes you’ll get the same benefit similar to VoR in more active uses of VoC means less random aegis from passive & greater windows were VoC would be on cooldown.

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Lastly were not changing the overall power of virtues as typically in most viable builds virtues is a required spec line. There might be a little power creep in the active effects as you’ll be able to use them more often but I believe this will be countered by the increase downtime these virtues will be on cooldown. This should open up more core spec/build options as it would reduce the need for Virtues.

What this provide as well is better sustain of our low health pool through our virtue which could also open up more flexibility with our utility skill choices.

Base virtues definitely need to be updated. The cooldowns are atrocious, and a perfect example of just how well the Guardian balancing philosophy of “higher cooldowns because your skills affect allies too!” has worked over the past 3 years. Please lower them to respectable levels. Speaking of the base virtues, without traited bonuses:

Virtue of Justice – There are literally zero situations in which it is beneficial to activate this now. It’s a pure DPS loss, even with a party of 5, to spread a single burn stack to allies over keeping it to yourself for 25 seconds. The passive is great; the active needs to be buffed.

Virtue of Resolve – Yet again, the tradeoff for this is ridiculous. 84 HP/sec covers maybe about 1 bleed stack. Even with the lowest base health pool, this is hardly noticeable. Worse still, even with the passive at such a paltry level, it’s still not worth using the active for a low 2k allied heal at the cost of having NO regen for 50 seconds. Because then you’ve just effectively cut that healing in half, to 40 HP/sec. After playing Guardian for 3 years, I could probably count on one hand the number of times the VoR active heal has actually made a difference for myself or allies. Buff the heals/Reduce the cooldown/Add additional baseline effects for the active. Please do two of the three.

Virtue of Courage – Where do I even begin? 75 seconds, for ONE party aegis. Really? My Mesmer can get up to 4 seconds of invulnerability with a shatter, on a lower cooldown with this. Not to mention how a single minor trait grants that to nearby allies as well. VoC is obsolete even to our own skill pool now, too. Retreat granted aegis on a 60s cooldown. That was deemed not enough, so now it’s on a 40s cooldown. Now our shield (finally) grants aegis on a 20s cooldown. Who the hell thought that 75s is a fair cooldown for this? Give it a lower cooldown at the very least. An additional effect for both the passive and active would be nice as well.

We should not have to take GM level traits just to make our class mechanic actually noticeable. The Virtues traitline is essentially mandatory in all builds right now for this exact reason. Without traiting into them, they might as well not exist. Most Guardian builds wouldn’t really be missing out on much.

What? The guardian has something on the function keys? Indeed, i vaguely remember that, but i couldn’t remember when i last time used them…

This needs to go back up. Core virtues by itself are crap. You shouldn’t have to trait virtues line to have functional F1-F3 skills

What I hate about VoJ is that it’s only good if you have condition damage. Why not also make the 5th attack do extra damage as well as burn. They would both scale off of power and condition damage so you could have one or the other or a little of bit depending on the build. This would also extend to the active effect. There, VoJ isn’t bad for a power build anymore.

VoR: increase the base healing and regen, otherwise its fine.

VoC: remove aegis. Merge it with the trait in virtues that give stability and stun break. Instead, make VoC grant 10% damage reduction for its passive effect. Active would give allies and yourself 25% damage reduction for x amount of seconds.

Justice: Passive is good but the Active is abysmal(especially as a condition spec). You’re better off unbinding it so you don’t fat-finger the ability.

Resolve: Passive healing is also abysmal with the active ONLY being good if traited. If not, you’re also better just unbinding it.

Courage: Passive is below abysmal. Self-Aegis every 40 seconds, I don’t know about you guys but I put Aegis in the category of “useless” along with Retaliation unless you can constantly stack it(which you cannot). Active is absolutely terrible, group-wide aegis every 75 seconds? This one probably needs the most changing of all.

Virtues are the weakest class specific abilities. You hardly lose anything for activating them, so it’s not a big sacrifice that they make it out to be. They need to have much more impact, and even when you specialize into virtues, they still don’t feel that important other than a free cleanse. This seems to go against the design philosophy that guardians make strategic decisions and sacrifices when you just leave them on passive and have better results.

AWACS.6537:

Virtues are the weakest class specific abilities.

You didn’t actually just say that, did you?

’Cause about 1.7 million rangers might have an alternative proposal for that honor…

More seriously, when a class is in a good place — and that is a fair description of the guardian — the changes you’re actually gonna see will improve our worst builds, not all builds and certainly not our BEST builds.

Nike.2631:

AWACS.6537:

Virtues are the weakest class specific abilities.

You didn’t actually just say that, did you?

’Cause about 1.7 million rangers might have an alternative proposal for that honor…

he said weakest, not stupid AI

ranger pets are actually pretty strong

Skyline Crash.6254:

he said weakest, not stupid AI

ranger pets are actually pretty strong

The same 1.7 million still don’t agree. Hence probably the single most popular suggestion/request during the Ranger CDI being “How can we get rid of them ENTIRELY?”

Regardless, while we might see some QoL changes to virtues the fact remains as long as we have solid builds for every play mode they’re not going to make substantial changes to a profession-wide mechanic. Even if they utterly suck (they don’t), the total package doesn’t.

Nike.2631:

Skyline Crash.6254:

he said weakest, not stupid AI

ranger pets are actually pretty strong

The same 1.7 million still don’t agree. Hence probably the single most popular suggestion/request during the Ranger CDI being “How can we get rid of them ENTIRELY?”

Regardless, while we might see some QoL changes to virtues the fact remains as long as we have solid builds for every play mode they’re not going to make substantial changes to a profession-wide mechanic. Even if they utterly suck (they don’t), the total package doesn’t.

virtues dont utterly suck, but they are underwhelming for sure. DH is looking more and more interesting because it changes that with the more “involved” active effects.

and my suggestions for VoJ and VoR aren’t outlandish or anything. just slight buffs

Tbh i think guardians can use a huge buff, not in damage perse but more in cd reduction from skills. If u look at consecration skills, wich are nice but some come with a heft 120s cd, that is way to much for a normal utility skill. If Anet would drop most cd’s by a nice margin skills other then shouts become interresting. Oh and remove consecration skills from the virtues tree, cause imo it is out of place there.

Talking about virtues, they could use a serious buff, virtue of justice could get a damage buff, or maybe a damage nerf but with a longer duration on activate instead of adding 1!!!! sec to a effect. that is close to nothing. increase the passive healing is a good idea too, as well of reducing the cd of that virtue by half. that way u will use it more often and the impact will be bigger when u do. And about the aegis virtue, reduce the cd by a half too. Also with the apply part. This gives guardians a more guardian feel.

If a net would apply the changes i mentioned above, guardians would get a serious buff on all guardian fronts, wich would make them more usefull in most game modes.
Its weird to get a new expansion and having a raid where u dont need the uber protection class of the game. Make guardians better at what they should be able to do. Guard and protect.

I think Inspired Virtues should be baseline, since the baseline ones are so uninspired.

Currently I think Guardians are too tied down to this tree and thus 2 or 3 of the trees aren’t even given a chance. It reminds me of rangers in the past when they had to go all the way down to GM to make sure their signets weren’t complete garbage and that trait would compete with other good ones. That was a fine example on top of many on why ranger traits were garbage at that point but it was dealt with.

Nike.2631:

Regardless, while we might see some QoL changes to virtues the fact remains as long as we have solid builds for every play mode they’re not going to make substantial changes to a profession-wide mechanic. Even if they utterly suck (they don’t), the total package doesn’t.

That is a bullkitten argument.

You can remove F1-F3 all signets and spirit weapons and guardians won’t suck. Doesn’t mean its ok to do so! If anything it screams “please don’t forget me!”

Broken and weak class mechanics need to be looked at, end of story.

Hunter.4783:

Nike.2631:

Regardless, while we might see some QoL changes to virtues the fact remains as long as we have solid builds for every play mode they’re not going to make substantial changes to a profession-wide mechanic. Even if they utterly suck (they don’t), the total package doesn’t.

That is a bullkitten argument.

Well if game balance 101 is out of bounds I’m sure this thread will be a constant source of inspiration to the Devs.

You can remove F1-F3 all signets and spirit weapons and guardians won’t suck. Doesn’t mean its ok to do so! If anything it screams “please don’t forget me!”

Did I say spirit weapons couldn’t be better? No? Oh, that’s because improving under-used tools is how you increase build diversity and a good thing. But fact remains buffing ANY PART of our strongest, most prevalent, most pervasive build is gonna be way down the list of strategies. As long as the class is generating metrics that show it’s in a good place we’re not gonna see class-wide mechanics getting tinkered with.

Broken and weak class mechanics need to be looked at, end of story.

Good luck convincing anyone with actual say in the matter than f1-f3 are weak or that medi-guardian needs to be better.

I don’t think you’ll succeed.

Skyline Crash.6254:

virtues dont utterly suck, but they are underwhelming for sure. DH is looking more and more interesting because it changes that with the more “involved” active effects.

And yet not a day has gone by without someone decrying that they have a cast time. They no longer work while CC’d. They can’t be dumped en mass while the Renewed Focus channel is running.

In other words they gave up something very powerful to get those more active effects. Trade-offs were made.

If we’re just talking more flashy I’m sure there’s room to discus additional FX when virtues are activated.

and my suggestions for VoJ and VoR aren’t outlandish or anything. just slight buffs

You’re right, they’re not outlandish, but the VoJ buff would be straight up buff to power builds which are already wildly prevalent game-wide, the VoR buff is a flat increase in survivability for a class that’s not struggling competitively, and the VoC buff is again more survivability for a class that’s not struggling with the added downside of losing some of the synergy that exists between traits that affect aegis and VoC.

Hunter.4783:

Nike.2631:

Regardless, while we might see some QoL changes to virtues the fact remains as long as we have solid builds for every play mode they’re not going to make substantial changes to a profession-wide mechanic. Even if they utterly suck (they don’t), the total package doesn’t.

That is a bullkitten argument.

You can remove F1-F3 all signets and spirit weapons and guardians won’t suck. Doesn’t mean its ok to do so! If anything it screams “please don’t forget me!”

Broken and weak class mechanics need to be looked at, end of story.

This goes back to the argument for equalization of skills. There isn’t anything unreasonable to what Nike is suggesting and it’s even MORE relevant when it’s made for base skills that every build has access to. I don’t see how anyone can make a reasonable request to buff core skills like virtues because as much as everyone scoffs at the idea, we have been told that Guardian is where they like to see it in terms of balance.

I would like to see some changes to the traits so one trait will impact BOTH the passive and active use of Virtues because some right now favour one or the other, which I don’t believe is offering good choices to players. Other than that, I don’t believe the core functions of virtues should change.

Nike.2631:

Good luck convincing anyone with actual say in the matter than f1-f3 are weak or that medi-guardian needs to be better.

I don’t think you’ll succeed.

To be honest, I think there are a lot of people in this thread alone who are suggesting that at least the untraited base versions of each virtue leave quite a lot to be desired. I’m not sure what falls under your undoubtedly subjective definition of people with “actual say in the matter”, but I’d file that under “hard evidence” myself.

Virtue of justice – Passive: gives 2 might every 5 sec , burn target every 5th attack
– Active: Gives 5 might + instantly burn target for 3k (cd 30 sec)
Virtue of Resolve – Passive : Heal guardian for 250 every 2 sec.
– Active : instantly heals guardian for 2k hp (30 sec cd)
Virtue of courage: – Passive: Gives aegis every 20 sec
– Active: give aegis (40 sec cd)

VoC passive is not just bad but unhealthy for the game, as every Aegis ouside of the first one (if VoC passive is up at the beginning of the fight) is going to produce a completely random result.
IMHO VoC passive could be changed to a straigth small damage reduction (5% could work) while the active could remain untouched but with a huge CD reduction (a 30s base CD could work).
As a tradeoff, the protection from inspired Virtue could be reduced to 3s while a beast like Undomitable Courage should probably double both the base CD of VoC and its passive damage reduction.

VoR active is great if you pick Absolute Resolution, and incredibly lackluster otherwise (even more if you pick traits boosting the passive effect, like Battle Presence, or just investing in Honor).
I guess it’s possible to save some lives from spike damage if running a supportive build with enough healing power, but even in this case the CD looks huge for the amount healed and the passive effect loss is still there.
I would also bring down the CD of this virtue to the 30s mark and, like I suggested for Undomitable Courage, make Absolute Resolution increase it as a tradeoff for such a powerful effect.
By having all three virtues on a much lower CD, it should also be possible to introduce interesting “on virtue activation” traits and increase build diversity by not pidgeinholing Guardians into virtues. Zeal (which is seriously lacking atm for PvP) could get a much needed redesign and include things like “gain Resistance (3s) and/or Swiftness (5s) / Superspeed (3s)”.
The Resistance part could also come by default as a selfish effect for VoR active tbh (although in this case 30s CD could be too low).

VoJ is probably the trickiest one.
The passive is great for condition/hybrid builds, adn since this kind of builds are probably going to invest into Radiance, the active part (which would be next to useless otherwise) also gains some alternative functionality. For organized PvE, where there’s usually a lot of might stacking, even power builds can get some benefit from it.

Supportive/Bunkerish specs don’t really get a lot of use for the passive (since they’re not damage oriented builds to begin with).
They can, however, make some use of the active. Since they are natural team fighters and usually bring some AoE might stacking potential, VoJ active can be used to increase the damage output during a coordinated spike.
I find this bonus spike damage a bit lackluster in the current state, so I would suggest changing the single 4s burning stack for a couple of 3s stacks. This allows for a quite higher burst if used properly.
I would also change the Might from Inspired Virtue to either 5 stacks for 5s or 3 stacks for 10s/15s.

Power based offensive builds are the ones who get less use from VoJ.
Since Guardians don’t really excel at self might stacking (specially after the changes on Might of the Protector) outside Staff, which belongs to supportive builds, those burn procs aren’t a great deal for offensive power builds.
The active doesn’t look great either since it’s about even more burning. Only if going into Radiance can a power based offguard truly benefit from VoJ, and if I have to be honest, that line looks extremely condition focused under the curretn trait system (just look at the grandmasters).
As a solution, I would insist on a Zeal rework, providing there some way for the Guardian to either stack might decently on himself or get a non burning related benefit from VoJ.

Ragnarox.9601:

Virtue of justice – Passive: gives 2 might every 5 sec , burn target every 5th attack
– Active: Gives 5 might + instantly burn target for 3k (cd 30 sec)
Virtue of Resolve – Passive : Heal guardian for 250 every 2 sec.
– Active : instantly heals guardian for 2k hp (30 sec cd)
Virtue of courage: – Passive: Gives aegis every 20 sec
– Active: give aegis (40 sec cd)

hmm I do not see the benefit on F1. It still wouldnt be that good to activate it. on top its pretty OP in WvWvW with traited radiance. you be throwing 1200 range unblockable 3k burn spears all over the place. the recharge trait is the main problem why the active will never be super strong.

I think condi cleanse on F2 should be baseline in self. if traited it extends to group and while being on passiv and increase the active heal.

Personally I think we could use the 25% movment speed in honor and tie it to one of the adept fall trait.

alternatively you can add it to shattered aegis: as long as you have aegis you have 25% movement speed.

Virtues are fine imo but was the range nerf needed?