Guild Wars 2

The other staff changes were good but wave of wrath is too big of a nerf. -20% distance would make more sense but cutting it in half is way too much. I do feel the angle change is nice and makes it line up better with the animation but just because it was adjusted doesn’t mean the rest of the skill should be gutted.

This is one of the most ridiculously awful and pointless changes I’ve ever heard read about in the patch notes and I don’t even main guardian.

Syktek.7912:

Hicci.8761:

Endless Soul.5178:

Thustlewhumber.7416:

Hopefully this will prevent most guards from just 1,1,1ing.

Translated: “Oh no, most guardians aren’t doing what I want them to do!”

Nah, the actual translation is: " Wew, I hope people stop being kittened and actually play guardian like it was meant to be and not just spam 1 like mindless bots."

So basically you think we should play guardian a certain way. So you want us to play how you think we should play.

No Arenanet thinks you should play Guardian (or the rest of the game) a certain way, and there’s nothing you can do about it except complain about it on the forums.

draxynnic.3719:

Hexalot.8194:

LOL at all the Guards in here lamenting the demise of their “loot stick”. :-D

By your post history, you’re a WvW player and apart from the WvW forum, you appear to be most interested in thief and revenant…

So, from a WvW perspective… was there anything about staff in WvW that actually warranted this change? Because it’s been virtually unseen in PvE or sPvP for a while now. I’d genuinely like to know if there was an actual call that this was OP by anyone, anywhere, that justifies this, or whether it was purely a dartboard nerf.

Because this change has pretty much guaranteed it will never be used in any other mode, and even for WvW, mightstacking can be done by other means.

Now, if the damage had been raised to something like Lightning Whip levels, I could kind of understand it. But at the moment, it feels like ‘demise’ is an appropriate term. They’ve basically boonsmited it, but in all game modes, and as far as I could see, with no indication that it was causing a problem beforehand.

Lets all be honest here (and yes I’m primarily a WvW player), the basis of the complaints about this nerf has everything to do with the fact that pressing “one” no longer will automatically fill your inventory up with loots bags… basically gaining free stuff just by being tanky enough to run through an opposing zerg while tagging downs.

You’re right that no one really “complained” that staff one was over powered before. But it just comes across as hilarious that people on this forum are finding just about every excuse for why this nerf should be reversed while refusing to admit the real reason… that it affects their wealth gain in WvW.

Hexalot.8194, its a strange nerf(*buff on tag arc *), still 300 is almost melee xD wich is the joke on a weapon u dont use the auto uless for tag, Anet want it to be a tag skill nothing more.

It wanst improvement, mostly a troll update or simple bandaid.

Lets just hope they at least rework the skill. For now the range is just a little more than melee, but does a lot less damage than melee weapons. This doesn’t make any sense to me.

Hexalot.8194:

draxynnic.3719:

Hexalot.8194:

LOL at all the Guards in here lamenting the demise of their “loot stick”. :-D

By your post history, you’re a WvW player and apart from the WvW forum, you appear to be most interested in thief and revenant…

So, from a WvW perspective… was there anything about staff in WvW that actually warranted this change? Because it’s been virtually unseen in PvE or sPvP for a while now. I’d genuinely like to know if there was an actual call that this was OP by anyone, anywhere, that justifies this, or whether it was purely a dartboard nerf.

Because this change has pretty much guaranteed it will never be used in any other mode, and even for WvW, mightstacking can be done by other means.

Now, if the damage had been raised to something like Lightning Whip levels, I could kind of understand it. But at the moment, it feels like ‘demise’ is an appropriate term. They’ve basically boonsmited it, but in all game modes, and as far as I could see, with no indication that it was causing a problem beforehand.

Lets all be honest here (and yes I’m primarily a WvW player), the basis of the complaints about this nerf has everything to do with the fact that pressing “one” no longer will automatically fill your inventory up with loots bags… basically gaining free stuff just by being tanky enough to run through an opposing zerg while tagging downs.

You’re right that no one really “complained” that staff one was over powered before. But it just comes across as hilarious that people on this forum are finding just about every excuse for why this nerf should be reversed while refusing to admit the real reason… that it affects their wealth gain in WvW.

Surely that’s the reason for some, but staff had a legitimate purpose in wvw. It was the only way to play a decent condi build in a zerg, as you could apply VoJ burning with every auto. Our ranged weapons were already bad enough, there was no need for this nerf.

And honestly, even the lootstick argument is pretty weak. It’s not like the game was affected negatively, and even so, they should have reworked the skill, not leave it like this.

Back in 2012 was expecting to play guard as main. Proper human char to relate. Never happened. Support was non existent in bers meta.

Then they released HoT with Dragonhunter. Longbow damage spec… Useless in PvE, fractals, raids.

And at least I played guardian as main in WvW. And now they nerf the main Guard weapon in WvW giving nothing in exchange, because of PvE lootstick? And lets be real WvW loot do not cover WvW expenses. And most of the time u use hammer or GS in melee train if u are proper guard, not tagging kitten.

Nerf then shortbow on thief then. Axe on ranger. And just remove necro from the game already.

On second thought, I think I’m pretty happy with this change just for the sake of spiting people who wanted it to be a farming tool rather than a support weapon.

Yakez.7561:

Back in 2012 was expecting to play guard as main. Proper human char to relate. Never happened. Support was non existent in bers meta.

Then they released HoT with Dragonhunter. Longbow damage spec… Useless in PvE, fractals, raids.

And at least I played guardian as main in WvW. And now they nerf the main Guard weapon in WvW giving nothing in exchange, because of PvE lootstick? And lets be real WvW loot do not cover WvW expenses. And most of the time u use hammer in melee train.

Nerf then shortbow on thief then. Axe on ranger. And just remove necro from the game already.

But nerf is not over yet, firebrand is coming which is worse than core guard so expect some nerfing of DH, I would say tof nerf by 20% or increase cd of F skills by 30%.

Hexalot.8194:

draxynnic.3719:

Hexalot.8194:

LOL at all the Guards in here lamenting the demise of their “loot stick”. :-D

By your post history, you’re a WvW player and apart from the WvW forum, you appear to be most interested in thief and revenant…

So, from a WvW perspective… was there anything about staff in WvW that actually warranted this change? Because it’s been virtually unseen in PvE or sPvP for a while now. I’d genuinely like to know if there was an actual call that this was OP by anyone, anywhere, that justifies this, or whether it was purely a dartboard nerf.

Because this change has pretty much guaranteed it will never be used in any other mode, and even for WvW, mightstacking can be done by other means.

Now, if the damage had been raised to something like Lightning Whip levels, I could kind of understand it. But at the moment, it feels like ‘demise’ is an appropriate term. They’ve basically boonsmited it, but in all game modes, and as far as I could see, with no indication that it was causing a problem beforehand.

Lets all be honest here (and yes I’m primarily a WvW player), the basis of the complaints about this nerf has everything to do with the fact that pressing “one” no longer will automatically fill your inventory up with loots bags… basically gaining free stuff just by being tanky enough to run through an opposing zerg while tagging downs.

You’re right that no one really “complained” that staff one was over powered before. But it just comes across as hilarious that people on this forum are finding just about every excuse for why this nerf should be reversed while refusing to admit the real reason… that it affects their wealth gain in WvW.

Remove the wealth gain and most of Frontline Guardian will either quit WvW or play another class.
This is not good for WvW meta. Frontline guard are a good asset for WvW.

i think its because guards did a lot of bullying in the zerg.

Ragnarox.9601:

Yakez.7561:

Back in 2012 was expecting to play guard as main. Proper human char to relate. Never happened. Support was non existent in bers meta.

Then they released HoT with Dragonhunter. Longbow damage spec… Useless in PvE, fractals, raids.

And at least I played guardian as main in WvW. And now they nerf the main Guard weapon in WvW giving nothing in exchange, because of PvE lootstick? And lets be real WvW loot do not cover WvW expenses. And most of the time u use hammer in melee train.

Nerf then shortbow on thief then. Axe on ranger. And just remove necro from the game already.

But nerf is not over yet, firebrand is coming which is worse than core guard so expect some nerfing of DH, I would say tof nerf by 20% or increase cd of F skills by 30%.

How come FB is wose than core?
FB is even superior to DH…

Have u checked what the skill offer and the CD’s??? its a 2012 core guard on steroids!
Meanwhile DH is useless in my view, only works against mobs and players on power creep momments.. outside that its useless….

Aeolus.3615:

How come FB is wose than core?
FB is even superior to DH…

Have u checked what the skill offer and the CD’s??? its a 2012 core guard on steroids!
Meanwhile DH is useless in my view, only works against mobs and players on power creep momments.. outside that its useless….

It can enjoy pushing out perma-quickness and perma-stability while getting 100-0’d by thieves and necros because it has no real self-defense, mobility, or range.

well.. yeah that is true…. but it is a race to who dps faster and harder, thief needs to keep range and just auto even a power ranger can auto atack to death a firebrand SW SoA + SoA shield might not be enough… since SW SoA losts it pulses is actually easy to avoid it…

Add warrior, bzerker, engie, mesmer, actually all classes can easy win a FB at distance, class is ment to be a buff bot support with some dps, not ment to win fights.

(Edit) meanwhile just receive a message on my phone: RIP guardian.

funny…

It’s like taking away Theon’s favorite toy.

Lets look at some of the arguments made by players here in defence of the staff changes since Anet refuses to provide reasoning or justification for their changes:

“The real reason everyone is complaining is because they can no longer use staff as a loot stick in WvW”

• Yeah…. so? What does their reasoning matter? A nerf is a nerf. Yes, this nerf essentially “cuts the revenue” of zerging guardians running staff but far more importantly it hurts the staff’s viability as a weapon in combat and I think that’s a far stronger argument to reinstate the 600 range (or buff it, heavily, otherwise).

• Anecdotally: I couldn’t care less for my revenue as a guardian in wvw. I’m first and foremost, a roamer, and when I equip staff and join a zerg, I do so with the intention to support, and avoid being in melee range (since I like to run a bit squishier). A staff that can only do damage at 300 range pretty much ensures that all my damage is going to come from melee weapons, ALL of which are more viable than staff which essentially knocks out one weapon from my pallette.

“Staff 1 was nerfed but all other skills were buffed.”

Uh yeah, lets look at just how much:
– Orb of Light: Reduced the extended recharge time of this skill when detonating the orb of light from 400% to 300%. Detonating the orb of light now grants light aura to allies, in addition to its previous effects. This skill has been unsplit from PvP and will use the 20% higher heal scaling in all game types.
– Empower: This skill now grants healing per pulse in addition to might. It will now heal for 17% of the previous healing value for 3 ticks and then 50% at the skill’s end.
– Line of Warding: This skill has been unsplit from PvP and how has a 30-second recharge in all game modes.

• Ok, so staff 2 got a decent buff. Still garbage for damage, still very slow and difficult to land on a moving opponent. In terms of support, this provides very little, so the other skills would have to pick up the slack (which they don’t) to justify staff as a support weapon.
• Staff 3 had absolutely nothing done with it. It’s an okay skill, not outstanding and could use some love.
• Pretty much nothing changed with staff 4. I guess it got a 1% buff to total healing lol? What staff 4 needed was to be a mobile skill.
• Staff 5 is still an extremely weak CC with too long of a cast time and almost no impact on the intended game modes.

Staff received more impactful nerfs than buffs. The ONLY game mode it ever recently saw play in was wvw and the point of it was to be able to provide support as well as strike 5 foes with every auto attack before arriving in melee range and swapping to a stronger weapon. Now, the offensive aspect of staff has been made next to useless.

Yes please, it was already next to useless in WvW and totally useless outside of WvW, no need to completely wreck it.

+1 to undoing this change, it essentially negates all the positive changes to staff that might have possibly made Staff see a tiny bit more play. No one complained about staff auto-attacks being OP and this nerf just makes no sense.

Psilence.2859:

+1 to undoing this change, it essentially negates all the positive changes to staff that might have possibly made Staff see a tiny bit more play. No one complained about staff auto-attacks being OP and this nerf just makes no sense.

its band aid change to avoid some broken gimmicks due staff range, still ANet expectesevery to move t Firebrand and wont be needing the staff.

Staff 1 was a bad skill and still is… it needs to be usefull its still useless, why not separate staff 2 skills?

KotCR.6024:

Roller.9327:

I agree with you, also Zealous Scepter now stacks might on non scepter weapons, a 600 range cone could be stacking mights pretty darn fast too….granted once Anet gets permeathing wrath and zealous scepter working together correctly lol

Not sure about this one.

Permeating Wrath might be bugged with Zealous Sceptre, or maybe an oversight.

Not tried it with Staff yet, but when attempting to use Permeating Wrath and Zealous Sceptre on Greatsword in PvE, I got zero stacks of might from the usual Symbol + Whirling Wrath combo.

When I untraited Permeating Wrath and picked a different trait, Symbol + Whirling Wrath stacked a good number of might with the Zealous Sceptre Trait as you might expect.

It could just be an outlier, but I think it’s probably the way it’s coded and as a result Zealous Sceptre might not stack Might when you have Permeating Wrath trait with any weapon but Sceptre (which it still did before so I assume maybe it still does?).

Other people will have to test and verify if it’s just a Greatsword + Permeating Wrath + Zealous Sceptre thing, or if the bug/oversight affects more weapons with the trait combo (or rather, fails to affect).

Might be different from Dragonhunter also, only tried on core Guardian so far.

TLDR; Zealous Sceptre only seems to stack Might on Justice procs if you don’t take Permeating Wrath for whatever other weapon you are using,

Ahhh it’s all bugged my friend, I’ve been trying it since yesterday’s patch released. Zealous Sceptre won’t even work with a sceptre if you have Permeating Wrath. It’s a reported bug. My idea is that once this is working again being able to stack a might on every 3rd hit with a 600 range in something like WvW may just be too much condi since 25 stacks would be +750 condi power plus 75 from Kindled Zeal would be an 825 Condi increase. This may have just been too much

Please undo it, the weapon is useless now

300 is definitely too short. It doesn’t feel good. It needs an increase

Fashion Mage.3712:

On second thought, I think I’m pretty happy with this change just for the sake of spiting people who wanted it to be a farming tool rather than a support weapon.

That seems to be the purpose of the change. I am WvW illiterate, so I cannot say what the impact will be there. The change is non-existent from PvE standpoint and for sPvP, if you are playing support or bunker, you should be standing on the point anyway.

otto.5684:

Fashion Mage.3712:

On second thought, I think I’m pretty happy with this change just for the sake of spiting people who wanted it to be a farming tool rather than a support weapon.

That seems to be the purpose of the change. I am WvW illiterate, so I cannot say what the impact will be there. The change is non-existent from PvE standpoint and for sPvP, if you are playing support or bunker, you should be standing on the point anyway.

Guardians can’t really bunker, but generally a staff guardian deals no damage anyway, so there was no point to using using the auto in the first place in PvP.

Fashion Mage.3712:

otto.5684:

Fashion Mage.3712:

On second thought, I think I’m pretty happy with this change just for the sake of spiting people who wanted it to be a farming tool rather than a support weapon.

That seems to be the purpose of the change. I am WvW illiterate, so I cannot say what the impact will be there. The change is non-existent from PvE standpoint and for sPvP, if you are playing support or bunker, you should be standing on the point anyway.

Guardians can’t really bunker, but generally a staff guardian deals no damage anyway, so there was no point to using using the auto in the first place in PvP.

There is not. It is just a filler if you are using staff and the range is irrelevant in sPvP.

From PvE and sPvP prescriptive the change is meaningless. Annoying? Ya sure, but it does not make any difference.

plz make staff great again..

Mikau.6920:

Lets just hope they at least rework the skill. For now the range is just a little more than melee, but does a lot less damage than melee weapons. This doesn’t make any sense to me.

This probably comes closest to what I think. The basic principle of lootstick was ridiculous, but what’s the point of a 300 range autoattack that does … exactly nothing? Staff AA does not deal damage, it has no beneficial secondary effects, with 300 range you probably wouldn’t even notice if the #1 skill on staff was empty. Give it some kind of “identity”.

draxynnic.3719:

So, from a WvW perspective… was there anything about staff in WvW that actually warranted this change? Because it’s been virtually unseen in PvE or sPvP for a while now. I’d genuinely like to know if there was an actual call that this was OP by anyone, anywhere, that justifies this, or whether it was purely a dartboard nerf..

Yes. It’s surprising to me that so many guard mains haven’t been aware of this issue, actually
It was a very strong weapon in WvW since it was also capable of hitting through gates and walls, which is undoubtedly the precedent for this nerf
I personally dont think it’s justified or that the problem was that bad in the first place, it doesnt hit for a lot of damage anyway and it has never been a real issue, I dont think this nerf is justified.

As a spvp veteran, with around 6k games with Guardian… I can say that the staff range is breaking it for me.

I had a homebrew DH Bunker, I did place in the plat range (barely) with the build. I am an olschool bunker guard and my build was kinda effective in the right situations.

With the new patch, the staff range is breaking my build for good. My build don’t do enough damage in 1v1 except versus perhaps, bad players or squishie dps (sustaining long fight). The range with aoe cone was the biggest part of my damage (except mace 3 and smite conditions…).

Now, I will play something else than guardian, in hope we get the range back.

I agree and +1 with OP.

It was already weak. It should be reverted back to 600 yards and give it some extra effect, maybe healing or 1 condi cleanse every 3rd hit.

I was working on Nevermore on my Norn Guard, had a outfit made and everything.

They should’ve made it so that it can only hit 3 enemies instead of 5 or give it diminishing damage based on number of enemies hit with a small base damage buff that way its also viable for 1v1 situations

I’m not one who’d generally participate in post-patch outrage, but I’ve gotta agree with this one. 300 range just feels awful, and that’s not a good thingfor a weapon’s auto-attack. If its interaction with Permeating Wrath in WvW is a concern, then I’d think LimeSamurai’s auggestion of 5 → 3 targets would be a perfectly reasonable place to go. It’d curb the problem without effectively killing the weapon in other modes.

SrebX.6498:

draxynnic.3719:

So, from a WvW perspective… was there anything about staff in WvW that actually warranted this change? Because it’s been virtually unseen in PvE or sPvP for a while now. I’d genuinely like to know if there was an actual call that this was OP by anyone, anywhere, that justifies this, or whether it was purely a dartboard nerf..

Yes. It’s surprising to me that so many guard mains haven’t been aware of this issue, actually
It was a very strong weapon in WvW since it was also capable of hitting through gates and walls, which is undoubtedly the precedent for this nerf
I personally dont think it’s justified or that the problem was that bad in the first place, it doesnt hit for a lot of damage anyway and it has never been a real issue, I dont think this nerf is justified.

Have experienced this myself. Didn’t think it was a major issue, since other professions have means of attacking through doors – I largely just thought that it was deliberate that trying to repair a door under attack involved risks, and I hadn’t seen anyone complaining about it (granted, I may have not looked at the WvW forum at a time when the conversation was happening).

That said, if ArenaNet felt that this was the issue, then wouldn’t it be more appropriate to add a check for obstructed than to effectively boonsmite the weapon in every game mode?

The main thing that offends me here is that ArenaNet has given no explanation as to why they’ve made such a substantial change.

(On that note, if ‘lootstick’ behaviour was really the problem, narrowing the cone would have been a better option than halving its range and making it slightly wider. Any of these changes should have come with some buff to it, though.)

Please Anet! Give all of the guardians out there our staff back! This change really hurt our staff

At this stage I wouldn’t mind them just gutting almost all of the skills and replacing them with something like this:

• Make skill 1 ‘Bolts of Wrath’. Increase range to 1200. Fires bolts out the end of the staff (essentially keeping the same animation as Wave of Wrath) that can hit multiple enemies if they’re between you and your target.

• Make skill 2 ‘Rays of Light’. Streams multiple beams of light down from above your enemy target burning them every second while also healing allies nearby at set intervals.

• Keep skill 3 the same.

• Make skill 4 ‘Vigorous Blessing’. Cast swirling energy around a target ally, granting continuing stacks of might and regeneration to them and allies nearby. Can target self.

• Make skill 5 ‘Warding Wave’. Projects an immense wave of cleansing energy in the direction of your choosing, turning conditions on allies into boons, while crippling enemies that it passes through.

It’d be nice to get a ‘Core Guardian’ weapon for Guardian that’s longer range than what we have without owning HoT, especially since PoF doesn’t natively come packaged with that expansion.

Albione.3894:

At this stage I wouldn’t mind them just gutting almost all of the skills and replacing them with something like this:

• Make skill 1 ‘Bolts of Wrath’. Increase range to 1200. Fires bolts out the end of the staff (essentially keeping the same animation as Wave of Wrath) that can hit multiple enemies if they’re between you and your target.

• Make skill 2 ‘Rays of Light’. Streams multiple beams of light down from above your enemy target burning them every second while also healing allies nearby at set intervals.

• Keep skill 3 the same.

• Make skill 4 ‘Vigorous Blessing’. Cast swirling energy around a target ally, granting continuing stacks of might and regeneration to them and allies nearby. Can target self.

• Make skill 5 ‘Warding Wave’. Projects an immense wave of cleansing energy in the direction of your choosing, turning conditions on allies into boons, while crippling enemies that it passes through.

It’d be nice to get a ‘Core Guardian’ weapon for Guardian that’s longer range than what we have without owning HoT, especially since PoF doesn’t natively come packaged with that expansion.

With the right balance, this would be a great rework.

Why not just swap places on skill 1 and 2.

Remove the explosion but keep the total amount of healing and increase velocity and reduced cast time. Making it the auto.

Put skill 1 on a 4 second cd and increase damage with 400% and add one stack of burning and cleansing of one condition.

The idea above to just completely scrap the current staff powers and put out 5 new effects sounds great to me at this point. Maybe keep staff 3 and 4?

I pretty much quit playing a while back when it became obvious that traditional core guard, where I have over 3,000 hours, was going to be continuously squeezed out of the game. Or so it seems to me.

The glaring reality that the elite specializations are intended to be just better, the instant 80, I mean why pretend that there is any parity or that the Intent is to have build diversity utilizing 3 different types of guardian, or that there will be parity between specializations for any other profession for that matter.

As for ‘loot stick’ aspect, the pitiful amount you get from selling blues and greens is so trivial compared to what you spend this has never made any sense to me.

The only thing I can think of is that some players had found a way to do really big damage through walls and they won’t give us the reason for the nerf because they don’t want to proliferate the tech. Yes, I buy my tinfoil in the large economy size!

I always found that having a spam attack you did not have to actually aim (fire and forget) allowed a less than gifted player like me to concentrate on positioning for using my buff powers, planning my next Wall of Reflection or Purging Flames, and just generally being in the right place as directed by the tag. The stick could put / keep a large number of opponents in combat so they could not escape, that was the thing I surged through enemy zergs for.

PS: I own the expansion, I just don’t like it. Never finished it and so can’t make a DH at present. I plan to wait a few weeks or months and see if any useful build shows up and try to learn to play it as I am ready to return to GW2 for a while. Sure was unpleasant to get a kick in the teeth just when I thought about making this game my primary again.

Thani.8569:

Remove the wealth gain and most of Frontline Guardian will either quit WvW or play another class.
This is not good for WvW meta. Frontline guard are a good asset for WvW.

I am going to get flamed for this:
Actually this is GOOD for the WvWvW meta. Guardians are one of the rare professions, which have always been in WvWvW meta since Autumn 2012. Before this patch I did sound profession counts and observed that roughly 1/3 of players in a squad are playing a guardian with reaper (necromancer) being almost as popular. This means that guardians and necros were heavily favored over other professions, also implying that guardians were also overpowered or some other professions were underperforming significantly. It is never healthy for a meta to have a situation like that.

PS. I have guardian with full ascended celestial gear and some of the stuff on that build was pretty expensive e.g. sigil of concentration on my staff. Still I am not whining. I think Arenanet did the right decision finally nerfing guardian a bit.

[quote=6684954;Deniara Devious.3948:Before this patch I did sound profession counts and observed that roughly 1/3 of players in a squad are playing a guardian with reaper (necromancer) being almost as popular.

I think Arenanet did the right decision finally nerfing guardian a bit.[/quote]

Playing with obscure numbers is just silly if it is some sort of credibility you trying to achieve by stating those numbers. If you have such an abundance of guardians on Desolation its not a class issue, its a server/community issue. I played thief the last year or so and i havent seen that many reapers/guardians in either my own server or the server we have been playing against.

They didnt nerf guardian at all imo, they destroyed the auto attack on one weapon and a weapon with a non working auto wont be used, period. And they also removed the only working zerg condition build the guardian had.

Saying something like that is good for the game (regardless of profession you play) just baffles me…

The reason why they did this is a knee jerking action based on that they realized that th staff guardian with permeathing wrath will be a condi menace when they introduce Tome of Justice and the condi mantras and will outshine the axe by a mile.

So instead of actually fixing the weapon they broke it.

It has nothing to do with guardians being overrepresented or hitting thru walls och tagging loot.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Before this patch I did sound profession counts and observed that roughly 1/3 of players in a squad are playing a guardian with reaper (necromancer) being almost as popular.

I think Arenanet did the right decision finally nerfing guardian a bit.

Playing with obscure numbers is just silly if it is some sort of credibility you trying to achieve by stating those numbers. If you have such an abundance of guardians on Desolation its not a class issue, its a server/community issue. I played thief the last year or so and i havent seen that many reapers/guardians in either my own server or the server we have been playing against.

They didnt nerf guardian at all imo, they destroyed the auto attack on one weapon and a weapon with a non working auto wont be used, period. And they also removed the only working zerg condition build the guardian had.

Saying something like that is good for the game (regardless of profession you play) just baffles me…

The reason why they did this is a knee jerking action based on that they realized that the staff guardian with permeathing wrath will be a condi menace when they introduce Tome of Justice and the condi mantras and will outshine the axe by a mile.

So instead of actually fixing the weapon they broke it.

It has nothing to do with guardians being overrepresented or hitting thru walls or tagging loot.

Another issue with looking at the players in a squad, incidentally, is that some professions are good at zerging, some are good at roaming.

I mostly play thief in WvW, for instance, partly because with my servers and timezone I can rarely rely on there being a zerg when I want one, and partly because I simply generally enjoy roaming more than zerg play. Thief is good at this thanks to mobility, but tends to melt in zerg versus zerg. Guardians, on the other hand, are solid zerg troops but suffer when roaming due to their low mobility and lack of escape options. So you’re naturally going to see more guardians in squads simply because people playing guardian in WvW are more likely to be in a zerg, without necessarily meaning that they’re dominating WvW on the whole.

TL:DR If your sample is coming out of the profession mix you see in squads, your sample is inherently biased. It’s like trying to estimate how many people in a suburb are regular readers by randomly surveying people… in a library.

Please pretty please undo this change.
It was totally uncalled for.
Wasn’t it like virtually unchanged since release? Why change it now…

One of those cases where someone wants to fix something which ain’t even broke in the first place.

Brutaly.6257:

Playing with obscure numbers is just silly if it is some sort of credibility you trying to achieve by stating those numbers. If you have such an abundance of guardians on Desolation its not a class issue, its a server/community issue. I played thief the last year or so and i havent seen that many reapers/guardians in either my own server or the server we have been playing against.

They didnt nerf guardian at all imo, they destroyed the auto attack on one weapon and a weapon with a non working auto wont be used, period. And they also removed the only working zerg condition build the guardian had.

Saying something like that is good for the game (regardless of profession you play) just baffles me…

The reason why they did this is a knee jerking action based on that they realized that the staff guardian with permeathing wrath will be a condi menace when they introduce Tome of Justice and the condi mantras and will outshine the axe by a mile.

So instead of actually fixing the weapon they broke it.

It has nothing to do with guardians being overrepresented or hitting thru walls or tagging loot.

Please let have an open discussion. First of all, guardians (and reaper necromancers) are exceedingly common on every top server in EU, not just Desolation. I have witnessed enemy zergs where the vast majority is playing these two top professions coupled with revenants, elementalists, few mesmers for utility and few medium armor professions. You basically almost never see an zerg composed 50-60 % of engineers and thieves, for a good reason. Pretty much every decent commander was assigning at least 1 guardian to each melee group and generally more than 1 guardian for 2nd stability for the commander party. Most WvWvW commanders still will play guardian. If you see this as a healthy meta, it just means you are heavily biased towards guardians. It is ok to love 1 profession over others, but let’s then at least be honest about that.

Guardian Staff auto attack was way too good, as it hits through gates and has so massively wide cone making it probably the best loot bag tagging auto attack in the game. After the 300 range nerf it is in the same ball park with elementalist air dagger #1 (lightning whip), which is probably the best auto attack for a dagger ele (btw). I would have personally nerfed it only to 400-450 range.

Guardian is still far from dead in WvWvW. There is still a good roaming spec and besides DH guardians rarely used staff anyways. AH frontline guardian can use other weapons e.g. hammer + greatsword.

Other professions experienced much worse nerfs e.g. the berserker (warrior) got a massive hit in survivability. Previously berserker burst was counted as 3 adre for adrenal health + cleansing ire, now just 1. I can attest the difference is really huge. Necromancer shroud depletes faster. I could go on. So it wasn’t just the guardian, which got hit.

PS. This doesn’t mean that guardian wouldn’t still has some garbage skills e.g. signet of mercy, which would need improvement or at least CD reduced. But every profession has some lousy skills, which pretty much nobody uses. Need I mention medkit on engineer or most of the engi rifle skills?

Extremely disappointed in ArenaNet for this change. This kind of hamfisted nerfing is really uncalled for. Reducing the range of a really beloved skill we’ve had for 5 years by 50%, a skill that wasn’t terribly far ranged to begin with? It’s beyond baffling, it almost seems spiteful. Why betray your player base like this?

Asgaeroth.6427,reducing the range isnt the problem, the problem is that ANet acknowledged as a loot stick and increased the tag front radios form 90 to 110.

in term of tag spam was a buff, wich means u have the change to tag more players that are dispersed while ktraning the smaller groups.

Albione.3894:

At this stage I wouldn’t mind them just gutting almost all of the skills and replacing them with something like this:

• Make skill 1 ‘Bolts of Wrath’. Increase range to 1200. Fires bolts out the end of the staff (essentially keeping the same animation as Wave of Wrath) that can hit multiple enemies if they’re between you and your target.

• Make skill 2 ‘Rays of Light’. Streams multiple beams of light down from above your enemy target burning them every second while also healing allies nearby at set intervals.

• Keep skill 3 the same.

• Make skill 4 ‘Vigorous Blessing’. Cast swirling energy around a target ally, granting continuing stacks of might and regeneration to them and allies nearby. Can target self.

• Make skill 5 ‘Warding Wave’. Projects an immense wave of cleansing energy in the direction of your choosing, turning conditions on allies into boons, while crippling enemies that it passes through.

It’d be nice to get a ‘Core Guardian’ weapon for Guardian that’s longer range than what we have without owning HoT, especially since PoF doesn’t natively come packaged with that expansion.

Gotta say I think this or something similar would work really well and give the staff a better identity, the 2 could even use the same animation as current 1

Deniara Devious.3948:

Please let have an open discussion. First of all, guardians (and reaper necromancers) are exceedingly common on every top server in EU, not just Desolation. I have witnessed enemy zergs where the vast majority is playing these two top professions coupled with revenants, elementalists, few mesmers for utility and few medium armor professions. You basically almost never see an zerg composed 50-60 % of engineers and thieves, for a good reason. Pretty much every decent commander was assigning at least 1 guardian to each melee group and generally more than 1 guardian for 2nd stability for the commander party. Most WvWvW commanders still will play guardian. If you see this as a healthy meta, it just means you are heavily biased towards guardians. It is ok to love 1 profession over others, but let’s then at least be honest about that.

Guardian Staff auto attack was way too good, as it hits through gates and has so massively wide cone making it probably the best loot bag tagging auto attack in the game. After the 300 range nerf it is in the same ball park with elementalist air dagger #1 (lightning whip), which is probably the best auto attack for a dagger ele (btw). I would have personally nerfed it only to 400-450 range.

Guardian is still far from dead in WvWvW. There is still a good roaming spec and besides DH guardians rarely used staff anyways. AH frontline guardian can use other weapons e.g. hammer + greatsword.

Other professions experienced much worse nerfs e.g. the berserker (warrior) got a massive hit in survivability. Previously berserker burst was counted as 3 adre for adrenal health + cleansing ire, now just 1. I can attest the difference is really huge. Necromancer shroud depletes faster. I could go on. So it wasn’t just the guardian, which got hit.

PS. This doesn’t mean that guardian wouldn’t still has some garbage skills e.g. signet of mercy, which would need improvement or at least CD reduced. But every profession has some lousy skills, which pretty much nobody uses. Need I mention medkit on engineer or most of the engi rifle skills?

I am all for an open discussion but presenting random numbers with a purpose to validate once own reasoning is not the best start in a supposedly open discussion.

I seen zergs consisting of guardians alone, i seen zergs consisting of eles alone.

The thing is that is not the norm, its the exception that validates once perception, it is a biased observation that validates once prejudice.

Sure guardians/warriors/necros are overrepresented in zergs and as frontliners, they are designed to be.

Just as they are underrepresented in roaming (why i play thief) because they are meant to be worse at that.

What you describe when assigning different profession in a zerg is a server/community issue or a GvG issue. Most of the wvw taking place isnt organized like that, you can bring what ever you want on the server i play on and i have never seen a single player being rejected due to build/profession during my time on Piken Square.

We just dont see that many guards that you describe. I am in a zerg right now and we got 7 squads, 26 players and 4 guardians/DH.

I havent said they are dead i wvw, most people play what they enjoy and i know a bunch that still likes the guardian.

Are you serious about hammer/GS as weapons in a frontliner in zergs or as a condition dps or frontliner? Exactly how would you play a hammer+gs AH guardian as a frontliner? Got to be even more boring compared to only have 4 usable skills on the staff compared to one skill on the hammer.

Dagger is a melee weapon on eles and the number of eles playing DD in zerg are miniscule, tbh i havent seen a single one in the last month or so. And even if there were eles doing that they would be in a better place since they have 4 other skills that has the same theme/range, they have mobility and they can also swap atunement and find other skills that complement the setup.
The issue is that 300 range doesnt mix well with the 4 other skills in the staff and we have no real option in vanilla guard to swap the staff for.

The whole idea that they nerfed it due to it hitting thru walls is absurd, all professions can do that with as high dps or even higher in some cases. Tagging loot is the same, all professions has access to it, the argument is not objectively valid imo.

I think you miss the point here, its not about the nerf, i couldn’t care less tbh, its about breaking a working weapon and making it worse than useless. Its like if the nerfed the auto on my PD thief to 450, how useless wouldn’t that be.

Anet saw an issue with Firebrand that the staff would perform better than the axe in condi builds and they panicked and took the easy way out. Any other argument i heard dont hold up. Its not about loot stick och tagging mobs, that is an argument invented by the players. The issue with that argument is that everyone else in this game can tag loot and fire thru walls with the same impact.

I don’t think they just got fed up with “teh lootstick” but instead there’s something going on behind the scenes.

My prediction would be that they are adding Barrier to the staff auto, as we know that the barrier update hasn’t gone live yet. It will go live eventually, before of after PoF, no one knows. ANet has stated that some core classes will get access to barrier, and guardian is a strong candidate for that.

Patience people, this probably isn’t the last we’ve seen of this topic.