Guild Wars 2

King Cephalopod.7942:

Obtena.7952:

The problem here is that you don’t get that Anet have concepts they want the classes to follow and some of those changes they are talking about are because of straying from the concepts, not because of OP or MEH. If you actually look at the history of balance patches, many of the changes actually occur because of class concept vs. relative strength of effects. GW2 is no different.

I’m glad you want to talk concepts, concepts are my specialty. The concept of DH is a selfish backline damage dealer with limited support (relative regular guard), and traps to improve damage and survivability at close-range. It does its job decently, mainly by concentrated bursts, a large part of which is due to the daze on traps and dragon’s maw’s ward. So when they say “DH is too good at burst and disruption”, it’s very concerning since those are the two pillars the spec appears to be built on, and the spec seems mediocre overall. Unless they give a big buff to sustained damage and mobility, I don’t see this ending well.

That’s a fair CONCERN. In fact, it’s a concern of anyone that ANY balance patch is going to screw something up. The problem with this thread, as any other pre-balance QQ is that it hasn’t happened yet.

I for one think that the DH is TOO focused on burst and disruption; proven by it’s significant increase in PVE openworld capability over Guardian and it’s vastly different performance between noobs and pros in PVP.

Unfortunately, this results in not all that useful in the actual challenging encounters in PVE and much too predictable in PVP. Ironically, some narrowminded people who want more use from their Guardians in PVE are complaining about changing the very thing that can fix that problem because burst and disruption have no place in challenging PVE in this game. >< Good thing Anet is going to ignore them.

Xhyros.1340:

Guardian has the 2nd strongest autoattack chain in the game, right behind Revenant sword. Revenant sword auto is getting nerfed. Guardian will (probably) have the strongest autoattack chain, hopefully still decent burst with traps, and good offensive support with FMW.

Are you talking about mace?

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

I’m not crying wolf, I’m expressing my dissatisfaction about the current situation and after reading the whole thing (not just the guardian part), the perceived lack of interest to do anything about it.

So, if I understand you correctly, Anet releasing information about the direction they want classes to take for the next balancing patch is, in your opinion, a perceived lack of interest on their part to address the current situation in PVE? I’m just going to attribute that to the fact that your interpretation of the current situation is narrow and biased and not based on very much (if any) data. #sensationalanecdotes

So how am I wrong? You keep nitpicking, taking out the least important sentences. How exactly am I wrong about my interpretation of what guardian brings to a PvE environment? Or have you nothing constructive to say?

You haven’t shown you are right to begin with … and your arguments don’t make sense. These aren’t ‘nitpicks’. You’re making absolute statements about the effectis the balance on Gaurdian PVE state on basically … nothing. Put away the crystal balls people.

Twisting it again! What exactly doesn’t make sense? I’m talking about the state of guardian right now, at this moment. No crystal balls, no nothing. Will it all change with the balance patch? Based on the information that’s given to us, quite unlikely imo, but that’s an opinion. So for the current state of guardian, how am I (and the rest of the community for that matter) so wrong?

EDIT: Just saw your post up here. I’m not QQing trap nerf will make guardian useless in PvE. I’m saying it already was and I’m disappointed at further nerfs.

It’s simple why it doesn’t make sense; you can’t predict how the changes (that you don’t know what they are) will affect Guardian/DH in the meta. Even if you DID know the exact details of the changes, you still couldn’t do that.

Just stating a class is currently useless based on your ancedotes and unsubstantiated correlations doesn’t make it true.

Obtena.7952:

That’s a fair CONCERN. In fact, it’s a concern of anyone that ANY balance patch is going to screw something up. The problem with this thread, as any other pre-balance QQ is that it hasn’t happened yet.

I for one think that the DH is TOO focused on burst and disruption; it’s a one-trick pony for PVP and excels in PVE openworld.

Unfortunately, this results in not all that useful in the actual challenging encounters in PVE and much too predictable in PVP. Ironically, some narrowminded people who want more use from their Guardians in PVE are complaining about changing the very thing that can fix this problem. ><

Of course I and everyone on this forum will voice our concerns. It’s a FORUM, a place to discuss topics and that includes concerns based on the information at hand. What are you talking about “excels in PvE openworld”? I run around naked in cursed shore on most of my classes. I run around the expansion maps on base warrior and guardian with purposefully unoptimal traits and skills sometimes. PvE openworld doesn’t really matter. Most all of it is a blobfest or a faceroll. And making the class weaker doesn’t fix the problem. They didn’t say they’d give the DH more options, they said they thought it was too good at what it does, which is why the people here are concerned. What happens when a one-trick pony gets that trick taken away?

Malchior.1928:

Xhyros.1340:

Guardian has the 2nd strongest autoattack chain in the game, right behind Revenant sword. Revenant sword auto is getting nerfed. Guardian will (probably) have the strongest autoattack chain, hopefully still decent burst with traps, and good offensive support with FMW.

Are you talking about mace?

Why would mace have a strong auto, it’s slow as heck. It may seem strong because of how big the third hit looks, but it’s weaker than GS autos. By a lot. And NO GS in this game has good autoattack chain damage, they’re all about burst. It’s hammer. Hammer is only very slightly behind Revenant sword at the moment. Guardian hammer auto does about 99.3% of the damage Revenant sword auto does (against single targets), although it’s less stable and obviously is horrible against targets that run around.

Running around naked would not qualify as an ‘excellent PVE openworld’ build, just because you can do it. Despite how little you think it matters, there is actually ways to play and build classes to excel at OW content, just like any other PVE content in any other game and DH does that in a significant way over Guardian right now. in fact, Guardian already ranked highly as an OW PVE class before HoT.

From my interpretation, Anet is not going to take away the trick. That’s not what balancing is about. They didn’t say alot of things … do we just jump to conclusions those things thy didn’t say aren’t going to happen? Are we Donald Rumsfeld? Frankly, they didn’t say enough for anyone to conclude anything other than changes to ‘stuff’ that are ‘bursty and disruptive’. People just reading into and concluding things to with the tactics that complaining loudly gets them things they want. It doesn’t work that way people.

Obtena.7952:

It’s simple why it doesn’t make sense; you can’t predict how the changes (that you don’t know what they are) will affect Guardian/DH in the meta. Even if you DID know the exact details of the changes, you couldn’t do that.

Just stating a class is useless based on your ancedotes doesn’t make it true.

I’m not predicting anything. I’m talking about the situation as it is right now. The things I stated aren’t anecdotes, they’re facts. It’s a fact that guardian got the unique defensive buff instead of an offensive one. It’s a fact FMW pales in comparison with chronomancer quickness even if we disregard the extremely broken chronomancer rune. It’s a fact that it doesn’t bring a lot of other offensive buffs like fury and might. Maybe you keep referring to the personal dmg, but compared to group buffing that’s not even that relevant.

No I don’t know what the future holds and maybe they just worded it extremely poorly, but the way it looks to me right now it won’t solve anything. Unlike the thief preview, which shows some solid progress.

Xhyros.1340:

Why would mace have a strong auto, it’s slow as heck. It may seem strong because of how big the third hit looks, but it’s weaker than GS autos. By a lot. And NO GS in this game has good autoattack chain damage, they’re all about burst. It’s hammer. Hammer is only very slightly behind Revenant sword at the moment. Guardian hammer auto does about 99.3% of the damage Revenant sword auto does (against single targets), although it’s less stable and obviously is horrible against targets that run around.

Yeah, but that’s because the AA has an aoe tacked on and a huge cast time on chain 3 to compensate. Also everything else it does is a little wonky. 3 gets caught on terrain, not a long immobilize and a long startup. 5 makes you stand still. 4 huge cast time low damage. 2 has okay damage and is a blast finisher (good). All the damage is frontloaded on 1, because nothing else is a damage skill (2 is more for the blast than the damage, well, post JI synergy nerf). And the thing about hammer is the light fields are really obnoxious when trying to make synergy with the blast.

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

It’s simple why it doesn’t make sense; you can’t predict how the changes (that you don’t know what they are) will affect Guardian/DH in the meta. Even if you DID know the exact details of the changes, you couldn’t do that.

Just stating a class is useless based on your ancedotes doesn’t make it true.

I’m not predicting anything. I’m talking about the situation as it is right now. The things I stated aren’t anecdotes, they’re facts. It’s a fact that guardian got the unique defensive buff instead of an offensive one. It’s a fact FMW pales in comparison with chronomancer quickness even if we disregard the extremely broken chronomancer rune. It’s a fact that it doesn’t bring a lot of other offensive buffs like fury and might. Maybe you keep referring to the personal dmg, but compared to group buffing that’s not even that relevant.

None of those things prove Guardian/DH is currently useless in PVE. None of those things indicate it will be made worse after the balance patch either. Bye Bye Crystal Ball.

King Cephalopod.7942:

Xhyros.1340:

Why would mace have a strong auto, it’s slow as heck. It may seem strong because of how big the third hit looks, but it’s weaker than GS autos. By a lot. And NO GS in this game has good autoattack chain damage, they’re all about burst. It’s hammer. Hammer is only very slightly behind Revenant sword at the moment. Guardian hammer auto does about 99.3% of the damage Revenant sword auto does (against single targets), although it’s less stable and obviously is horrible against targets that run around.

Yeah, but that’s because the AA has an aoe tacked on and a huge cast time on chain 3 to compensate. Also everything else it does is a little wonky. 3 gets caught on terrain, not a long immobilize and a long startup. 5 makes you stand still. 4 huge cast time low damage. 2 has okay damage and is a blast finisher (good). All the damage is frontloaded on 1, because nothing else is a damage skill (2 is more for the blast than the damage, well, post JI synergy nerf). And the thing about hammer is the light fields are really obnoxious when trying to make synergy with the blast.

You won’t need fire fields when you get 5 guardians autoing providing 5 stacks of might each XD.

Obtena.7952:

Running around naked would not qualify as an ‘excellent PVE openworld’ build, just because you can do it. Despite how little you think it matters, there is actually ways to play and build classes to excel at OW content, just like any other PVE content in any other game and DH does that in a significant way over Guardian right now. in fact, Guardian already ranked highly as an OW PVE class before HoT.

From my interpretation, Anet is not going to take away the trick. That’s not what balancing is about. They didn’t say alot of things … do we just jump to conclusions those things thy didn’t say aren’t going to happen? Are we Donald Rumsfeld? Frankly, they didn’t say enough for anyone to conclude anything other than changes to ‘stuff’ that are ‘bursty and disruptive’. People just reading into and concluding things to with the tactics that complaining loudly gets them things they want. It doesn’t work that way people.

What I was saying is you don’t really need ranks for open world PvE. It’s faceroll. Saying DH is high rank at openworld is like saying a mouse is high rank at clicking on the Window’s start button. Yeah, one might feel better, but as long as it’s a mouse it can do the job easy.
The point of a news release of a sneak peek like this is to show us (the players) the main facets they’re implementing. If it’s big enough to make a noticeable difference it’ll probably at least get a footnote (see: warrior sustain; specific weapon reworks; base guard trait tinkering). The lack of buff to non-burst/disrupt portions of DH is, as the saying goes, “conspicuous by its absence” in light of the rather explicit intent to nerf those aspects.

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

It’s simple why it doesn’t make sense; you can’t predict how the changes (that you don’t know what they are) will affect Guardian/DH in the meta. Even if you DID know the exact details of the changes, you couldn’t do that.

Just stating a class is useless based on your ancedotes doesn’t make it true.

I’m not predicting anything. I’m talking about the situation as it is right now. The things I stated aren’t anecdotes, they’re facts. It’s a fact that guardian got the unique defensive buff instead of an offensive one. It’s a fact FMW pales in comparison with chronomancer quickness even if we disregard the extremely broken chronomancer rune. It’s a fact that it doesn’t bring a lot of other offensive buffs like fury and might. Maybe you keep referring to the personal dmg, but compared to group buffing that’s not even that relevant.

None of those things prove Guardian/DH is currently useless in PVE. None of those things indicate it will be made worse after the balance patch either. Bye Bye Crystal Ball.

What’s your obsession with the crystal ball? I’m not even predicting anything. Nor am I trying to prove anything, it’s an opinion, like everything else on this forum. I find it useless because everything it does best is not needed in PvE and everything that’s needed is done better by other classes.

The fact remains that the big step in OW PVE performance that DH has on Guardian is indicative of the massive bursty nature that it has received, reinforcing my point that I think it’s too much. It wasn’t an argument to made to demonstrate how hard OW PVE is in the game, nor does it take away from the fact that there are builds that excel in OW PVE.

So again, I guess we agree; ‘conspicuous in its absence’ doesn’t lead me to conclude anything more than what I know from what was said.

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

It’s simple why it doesn’t make sense; you can’t predict how the changes (that you don’t know what they are) will affect Guardian/DH in the meta. Even if you DID know the exact details of the changes, you couldn’t do that.

Just stating a class is useless based on your ancedotes doesn’t make it true.

I’m not predicting anything. I’m talking about the situation as it is right now. The things I stated aren’t anecdotes, they’re facts. It’s a fact that guardian got the unique defensive buff instead of an offensive one. It’s a fact FMW pales in comparison with chronomancer quickness even if we disregard the extremely broken chronomancer rune. It’s a fact that it doesn’t bring a lot of other offensive buffs like fury and might. Maybe you keep referring to the personal dmg, but compared to group buffing that’s not even that relevant.

None of those things prove Guardian/DH is currently useless in PVE. None of those things indicate it will be made worse after the balance patch either. Bye Bye Crystal Ball.

What’s your obsession with the crystal ball? I’m not even predicting anything. Nor am I trying to prove anything, it’s an opinion, like everything else on this forum. I find it useless because everything it does best is not needed in PvE and everything that’s needed is done better by other classes.

Yet when you complain they are going to nerf those ‘useless’ PVE elements, it’s a massive QQ that is given the level of utter demise of the profession.

In addition, we already know that things ‘done better’ by other classes does not make Guardian a useless class, yet this is one foundation of your complaint.

All this based on a few vague points in a snippet about class direction. Yeah, all clear now ><

Xhyros.1340:

You won’t need fire fields when you get 5 guardians autoing providing 5 stacks of might each XD.

Not gonna lie, there’s a part of me that deeply wants 10-guardian hammerway to be a thing. But hammer AA doesn’t have much on real damage rotations.

Obtena.7952:

The fact remains that the big step in OW PVE performance that DH has on Guardian is indicative of the massive bursty nature that it has received, reinforcing my point that I think it’s too much.

Balancing around open world pve is like trying to determine the max load of a freight elevator by putting a single feather on it and measuring the stress. It’s nonsense.

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

It’s simple why it doesn’t make sense; you can’t predict how the changes (that you don’t know what they are) will affect Guardian/DH in the meta. Even if you DID know the exact details of the changes, you couldn’t do that.

Just stating a class is useless based on your ancedotes doesn’t make it true.

I’m not predicting anything. I’m talking about the situation as it is right now. The things I stated aren’t anecdotes, they’re facts. It’s a fact that guardian got the unique defensive buff instead of an offensive one. It’s a fact FMW pales in comparison with chronomancer quickness even if we disregard the extremely broken chronomancer rune. It’s a fact that it doesn’t bring a lot of other offensive buffs like fury and might. Maybe you keep referring to the personal dmg, but compared to group buffing that’s not even that relevant.

None of those things prove Guardian/DH is currently useless in PVE. None of those things indicate it will be made worse after the balance patch either. Bye Bye Crystal Ball.

What’s your obsession with the crystal ball? I’m not even predicting anything. Nor am I trying to prove anything, it’s an opinion, like everything else on this forum. I find it useless because everything it does best is not needed in PvE and everything that’s needed is done better by other classes.

Yet when you complain they are going to nerf those ‘useless’ PVE elements, it’s a massive QQ about utter demise of the profession.

In addition, we already know that things ‘done better’ by other classes does not make Guardian a useless class.

It was actually not a massive QQ. It was 1 angry post you had to whiteknight about, came in with personal attacks and then kept asking for my reasoning. You wanted to stir it up, so there you have it.

And ‘we’ know nothing of the sort. It’s an opinion. One shared by a lot of people.

EDIT: You still don’t understand that I’m talking about the current situation and not the snippet? In fact my first comment was about it becoming useless in PvP, not PvE as it was already useless there. If that’s actually going to happen, who knows. I think it’s a shame tho, I was having fun with it.

King Cephalopod.7942:

Obtena.7952:

The fact remains that the big step in OW PVE performance that DH has on Guardian is indicative of the massive bursty nature that it has received, reinforcing my point that I think it’s too much.

Balancing around open world pve is like trying to determine the max load of a freight elevator by putting a single feather on it and measuring the stress. It’s nonsense.

True, I agree and I’ve not suggested they do anything like that. I’m just indicated that DH burst is significantly higher than Guardian, based on it’s OW PVE performance. I’m sure if you want to test that in whatever content you think matters, you can see for yourself.

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

It’s simple why it doesn’t make sense; you can’t predict how the changes (that you don’t know what they are) will affect Guardian/DH in the meta. Even if you DID know the exact details of the changes, you couldn’t do that.

Just stating a class is useless based on your ancedotes doesn’t make it true.

I’m not predicting anything. I’m talking about the situation as it is right now. The things I stated aren’t anecdotes, they’re facts. It’s a fact that guardian got the unique defensive buff instead of an offensive one. It’s a fact FMW pales in comparison with chronomancer quickness even if we disregard the extremely broken chronomancer rune. It’s a fact that it doesn’t bring a lot of other offensive buffs like fury and might. Maybe you keep referring to the personal dmg, but compared to group buffing that’s not even that relevant.

None of those things prove Guardian/DH is currently useless in PVE. None of those things indicate it will be made worse after the balance patch either. Bye Bye Crystal Ball.

What’s your obsession with the crystal ball? I’m not even predicting anything. Nor am I trying to prove anything, it’s an opinion, like everything else on this forum. I find it useless because everything it does best is not needed in PvE and everything that’s needed is done better by other classes.

Yet when you complain they are going to nerf those ‘useless’ PVE elements, it’s a massive QQ about utter demise of the profession.

In addition, we already know that things ‘done better’ by other classes does not make Guardian a useless class.

It was actually not a massive QQ. It was 1 angry post you had to whiteknight about, came in with personal attacks and then kept asking for my reasoning. You wanted to stir it up, so there you have it.

And ‘we’ know nothing of the sort. It’s an opinion. One shared by a lot of people.

Whiteknighting is about being reasonable and logical now? Awesome. I will wear that label proudly. At least no one will accuse me of making irrelevant correlations and uninformed opinions between facts and events, including events that didn’t happen based on facts that aren’t available. /fistpump

Obtena.7952:

The fact remains that the big step in OW PVE performance that DH has on Guardian is indicative of the massive bursty nature that it has received, reinforcing my point that *I think it’s too much.*

You might not have suggested it, but your phrasing implies you take open world performance into account when considering the validity of changes to class mechanics, regardless of whether you actually do.
As for the burst, it’s alright in fractals, but not gamebreaking or better than other classes. It doesn’t matter in open world. In raids it’s rather bad. In WvW it may be good for solo/small group roaming, but revenant hammer 2 and aoe’s take the cake for zerg backlines. In pvp no pro’s really use DH at all. So when they say burst and disruption is what they’ll focus on it’s concerning as I believe it somewhat unwarranted.

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

cranos.5913:

Obtena.7952:

It’s simple why it doesn’t make sense; you can’t predict how the changes (that you don’t know what they are) will affect Guardian/DH in the meta. Even if you DID know the exact details of the changes, you couldn’t do that.

Just stating a class is useless based on your ancedotes doesn’t make it true.

I’m not predicting anything. I’m talking about the situation as it is right now. The things I stated aren’t anecdotes, they’re facts. It’s a fact that guardian got the unique defensive buff instead of an offensive one. It’s a fact FMW pales in comparison with chronomancer quickness even if we disregard the extremely broken chronomancer rune. It’s a fact that it doesn’t bring a lot of other offensive buffs like fury and might. Maybe you keep referring to the personal dmg, but compared to group buffing that’s not even that relevant.

None of those things prove Guardian/DH is currently useless in PVE. None of those things indicate it will be made worse after the balance patch either. Bye Bye Crystal Ball.

What’s your obsession with the crystal ball? I’m not even predicting anything. Nor am I trying to prove anything, it’s an opinion, like everything else on this forum. I find it useless because everything it does best is not needed in PvE and everything that’s needed is done better by other classes.

Yet when you complain they are going to nerf those ‘useless’ PVE elements, it’s a massive QQ about utter demise of the profession.

In addition, we already know that things ‘done better’ by other classes does not make Guardian a useless class.

It was actually not a massive QQ. It was 1 angry post you had to whiteknight about, came in with personal attacks and then kept asking for my reasoning. You wanted to stir it up, so there you have it.

And ‘we’ know nothing of the sort. It’s an opinion. One shared by a lot of people.

Whiteknighting is about being reasonable and logical now? Awesome. I will wear that label proudly. At least no one will accuse me of making irrelevant correlations and uninformed opinions between facts and events, including events that didn’t happen based on facts that aren’t available. /fistpump

I highlighted some very real issues with the class. Shame you were too busy trolling and boosting your ego, you couldn’t take the time to properly read some of it.

You keep editing your post about 5 minutes after you post them. I’d appreciate it if you’d stop and take the time to write what you actually mean the first time. Guardian has little burst compared to other classes, so that shouldn’t be surprising. What you said before, that burst seemed too high as reinforced by the openworld success, is quite different from what you say now. It still doesn’t really justify nerfs in that department.

King Cephalopod.7942:

Xhyros.1340:

You won’t need fire fields when you get 5 guardians autoing providing 5 stacks of might each XD.

Not gonna lie, there’s a part of me that deeply wants 10-guardian hammerway to be a thing. But hammer AA doesn’t have much on real damage rotations.

Before HoT, I believe just using hammer auto was 2nd to guardian’s best rotation between GS and Sw/F. Though LB throws that out the window. Luckily though, Procession of Blades fits quite well inbetween hammer 2 and 3 (and the blades seem to start spinning right exactly when the symbol appears, it’s wonderful), so it’s not JUST autoattacking now; you gotta fit in Spear of Justice, FMW, and PoB so at least it’s not as stupidly mindless as Herald’s “rotation”.

Unfortunately, 10 guardians will never be as effective as 8 guardians and 2 revenants since the 50% boon uptime would turn the 25s/45s quickness uptime into 30s/45s quickness uptime, and they have that one ferocity party share trait. At least you wouldn’t need any healers with all that protection and symbol regen going around (and Wings of Resolve being a surprisingly powerful group heal).

Xhyros.1340:

King Cephalopod.7942:

Xhyros.1340:

You won’t need fire fields when you get 5 guardians autoing providing 5 stacks of might each XD.

Not gonna lie, there’s a part of me that deeply wants 10-guardian hammerway to be a thing. But hammer AA doesn’t have much on real damage rotations.

Before HoT, I believe just using hammer auto was 2nd to guardian’s best rotation between GS and Sw/F. Though LB throws that out the window. Luckily though, Procession of Blades fits quite well inbetween hammer 2 and 3 (and the blades seem to start spinning right exactly when the symbol appears, it’s wonderful), so it’s not JUST autoattacking now; you gotta fit in Spear of Justice, FMW, and PoB so at least it’s not as stupidly mindless as Herald’s “rotation”.

If I remember right the dps graphs showed hammer championing out over extended periods of time (not burst). Any idea how a DH hammer rotation would stack against other classes? Still afraid it would be negligible in comparison.

Edit: Sometimes it’s not about effectiveness. It’s about style. The dream.

Looks like we about to hit warrior status in pvp, boys.

This official confirms that Guardians will be the worst profession in game when this patch goes live.

We will be worse then Thiefs or Warriors currently are.

Traps were the single thread holding this profession from falling into the abyss, i’m not saying they didn’t deserve changes, but with zero compensation to the rest of the Guardian this profession will be the most broken in GW2 history.

We are already useless in raids, we are already useless in high-end PvP, over half of our talents/traits/weapons/skills are either broken or useless, and now they wont to remove the only semi-optimal option Guardians have left with zero compensation elsewhere?!

Whats the point in playing this game when the devs clearly have no idea what they are doing.

Arnath.2319:

This official confirms that Guardians will be the worst profession in game when this patch goes live.

We will be worse then Thiefs or Warriors currently are.

Traps were the single thread holding this profession from falling into the abyss, i’m not saying they didn’t deserve changes, but with zero compensation to the rest of the Guardian this profession will be the most broken in GW2 history.

We are already useless in raids, we are already useless in high-end PvP, over half of our talents/traits/weapons/skills are either broken or useless, and now they wont to remove the only semi-optimal option Guardians have left with zero compensation elsewhere?!

Whats the point in playing this game when the devs clearly have no idea what they are doing.

Overly dramatic are we? The most useless class atm are thieves and warriors… you can’t give that title to Guardians out of blatant assumptions because history has proven otherwise.

I’ve said weeks ago that Guardians needed a nerd Only if other classes are receiving one also. Given the announcement, it seems that other classes are receiving a nerf. So yes, we definitely do too.. given our other traits/skills are changed just like the dev stated.

I also said that thieves needs a minor (very minor) buff if other classes are receiving a nerf. We may see another power creep Thief rise but we’ll see by how much.

I sense that Engineers will be the new Bunker mesmer or another cele d/d ele like prepatch. They said they’ll increase their sustains… but “keep an eye on them”… like, really? Mobility plays a huge survivability role in this game and Engis have plenty of that.

Our 2 instant cast traps needs to keep their base line stun tbh. The other trap stuns were nice but I agree, it was over the top…

Saiyan.1704:

Arnath.2319:

This official confirms that Guardians will be the worst profession in game when this patch goes live.

We will be worse then Thiefs or Warriors currently are.

Traps were the single thread holding this profession from falling into the abyss, i’m not saying they didn’t deserve changes, but with zero compensation to the rest of the Guardian this profession will be the most broken in GW2 history.

We are already useless in raids, we are already useless in high-end PvP, over half of our talents/traits/weapons/skills are either broken or useless, and now they wont to remove the only semi-optimal option Guardians have left with zero compensation elsewhere?!

Whats the point in playing this game when the devs clearly have no idea what they are doing.

Overly dramatic are we?

It’s not overly dramatic when it’s factually correct.

Guardians are currently being denied raid spots and we have no place in high-end PvP, any nerfs made with no significant compensation will kill this profession completely.

I would be okay with a Trap nerf if, and only if, they do the following:

• Rework Spirit Weapons completely to make them viable.
• Improve Scepter and Sword.
• Fix/Rework all our broken/useless traits.
• Buff/fix our sustainable damage.
• Compensation to Traps to keep them viable after the nerf.

Would it be safe to say that Anet will compensate for the reduction in burst damage for more sustain for Guards? That’s how I read it, or am I being optimistic?

From what people have been saying on this thread, about re-working traits and utilities, they did state they were updating traits and utilities to ‘be more useful and to have a meaningful impact’. So we can only hope….or am I being over optimistic again.

In any case, it’s still too early to say what changes will occur, we’ll only find out the extent of the damage when Guild Chat is released this Friday…

I’m not the best pvper but I’m not the worst either. I dueled with a daredevil the other day in wvw and it was a good long fight till he figured me out.

The guy above me is correct. Traps work better in that game mode (pvp) because of the small capture point being covered by most of the trap.

In WvW and Pve its a different ball of wax. shrink the trap size in pvp and I bet it wouldn’t even be an issue.

However I want a heads up if we are going back to a wow style rogue wars, because I’m just going to level my thief and be done with it…and so should everyone else…..

Inb4 Guard becomes completely useless and I have to quit the game again

Well, this escalated quickly. Which is quite unsurprising, considering some of the other professions go like “buffs, buffs, buffs” while guardian notes read as “enjoy staying in garbage tier, scrubs”.

Aggrostemma.1703:

ANET must bring the Vanilia specs back and make the elites an alternative and not superlative…

My 2 c…

This. Talking PvPwise, Meditation Builds must become a viable option again and Bunker Guardian should make a comeback.

Talking about PvE I agree that direct and condition damage should see an increase, so we can become competitive and be equal to current meta PvE Classes (yeah, I’m looking at you Herald).

What I would like to see:

• Spirit weapons reworked: Been said before, still would be nice if SW could have an option to be wielded, much like Ele’s conjured weapons, while they’re not active as “pets”.
• Sustain: This goes for people who like to play Bunker builds in PvP and WvW, I think Traits like Altruistic Healing should have a passive healing factor (outgoing self heal while you have unused shouts). In the light of other classes sustain I think Virtue of Resolve should be buffed.
• Attention to 1h weapons: Sword, Mace and Scepter need to become viable options for both, PvE and PvP again. Increase Sword AA damage and make Scepter #2 become a symbol.
• Glacial heart: It must go somewhere else in the trait lines, making us chose between Absolute Resolution and Glacial Heart was, indeed, an evil move.

Will these changes make guardian competitive with the Ele/Mes/Engy/Rev?

I know what my money is on.

if they want to nerf trap, then atleast make it ground-targetable or something to make up for it.

guardian stands on the edge of a cliff, will devs push him or help him, i dont know.

Ideally the changes would be thus

1: Traps would have damage reduced by 25%, but have their Cd’s reduced by 25% as well and have either bleeds or torment tacked on to them. (would also be amazing if they became necro style marks in that they were ranged & always shared their boons with allies but were always visible.)

2: The 1/3 to 1/2 of core traits would receive substantial changes to make them work better with each other, better with utility & weapons and provide things that are actually useful. (ideally with more of the guardians sustain would be tied to a wider array of traits instead of on utility and 1-2 traits alone)

3: Hammer, staff, sword & mace would all see some changes so that they would fit better in the current game.

4: Virtues would get a bit of a redesign so that more of their traits would be built in at base to make them more akin to a mix between ele overloads and signets.

5: Spirit weapons, signets, sanctuary, hollowed ground and a few other utility skills would see massive changes or a complete redesign so as to be useful & viable vs other skill types in a wider area of the game.

Sadly given the performance of the devs working on guardian the last 3 years I expect mostly un-needed nerfs (I mean how often do you see a guardian at higher lvls of pvp or in a pug raid run) then some blah blah blah about how traits are “in a good place” mainly due to the fact that they have no idea what they are doing.

I mainly blame Anet for the issues being talked about in this post. We know they are going to be buffing core guardian’s traits and abilities (which is great), but in terms of the Dragonhunter, they were clear they were going to nerf the burst damage and disruption capabilities of the specialization without providing any path forward to how the nerf in one area is going to lead to buffs in other areas to make the class “balanced.” Right now a lot of people are under the believe that they are going to take an under-performing class that has one strength and make it an under-performing class with no strengths.

Indure.5410:

I mainly blame Anet for the issues being talked about in this post. We know they are going to be buffing core guardian’s traits and abilities (which is great), but in terms of the Dragonhunter, they were clear they were going to nerf the burst damage and disruption capabilities of the specialization without providing any path forward to how the nerf in one area is going to lead to buffs in other areas to make the class “balanced.” Right now a lot of people are under the believe that they are going to take an under-performing class that has one strength and make it an under-performing class with no strengths.

Honesty I believe that even if ANET nerfs traps they can make the DH to be in better spot. Mostly by buffing the secondary weapons/traits. And just slight adjustments like:

F abilities are instant (so you can for example WW then F2, or Banish then F1 pull).
Longer CD on True Shot (honestly I hate this ability… it deserves a longer CD because I feel “spammy-crap” every 4 seconds…)
And basically ALL the feedback we gave them in the last 3 years… (no projectile on sword AA, sword 3 unrooted, hammer 2 being ground targetted or a longer range, hammer 5 movable, faster scepter projectiles, symbol on scepter2, you name it….)

Please ANET nerf every elite spec! All of them! No exception!

Indure.5410:

I mainly blame Anet for the issues being talked about in this post. We know they are going to be buffing core guardian’s traits and abilities (which is great), but in terms of the Dragonhunter, they were clear they were going to nerf the burst damage and disruption capabilities of the specialization without providing any path forward to how the nerf in one area is going to lead to buffs in other areas to make the class “balanced.” Right now a lot of people are under the believe that they are going to take an under-performing class that has one strength and make it an under-performing class with no strengths.

Ok, there’s a fundamental error in the reasoning in this post: If they felt Dragonhunters were balanced, they wouldn’t be nerfing them. So the notion that you’re gonna get something to offset what you’re losing is NOT a given. They want them to be weaker not just as powerful but different.

It’ll be a matter of abiding interest to me too, but I’m prepared to wait until we know more than a two sentence thumbnail of what’s coming.

NumenorLord.6539:

• Glacial heart: It must go somewhere else in the trait lines, making us chose between Absolute Resolution and Glacial Heart was, indeed, an evil move.

Please, no.

Do not move Glacial Heart out of Virtues. As a primary hammer user, I prefer not to be forced down another trait line.

Absolute Resolution, while very nice, isn’t the only way to deal with conditions (eg. shouts powered with Pure of Voice and Trooper runes). Glacial Heart is an absolute must for hammer.

Saiyan.1704:

Overly dramatic are we?

Apparently, not just that guy. I think it’s amusing we have this re occurring thread every time there is a balance patch. Guardians aren’t useless or ruined yet. Feels so good to differentiate from these doomsayers.

Nike.2631:

Ok, there’s a fundamental error in the reasoning in this post: If they felt Dragonhunters were balanced, they wouldn’t be nerfing them. So the notion that you’re gonna get something to offset what you’re losing is NOT a given. They want them to be weaker not just as powerful but different.

I completely agree its not a given. But, take for example the explanation of elementalists: “This profession has seen a lot of defensive additions through recent updates and the addition of the tempest. In this iteration, we’ll be fine-tuning the defensive nature of the elementalist a little more and improving its offensive side a bit.” This is a better example of fixing the unbalanced aspects of a class, while giving them better competitiveness in other areas.

Also it looks like overall they aren’t weakening elite specializations (definitely not true for all classes) but rather increasing the viability of core classes to match the new power level.

Obtena.7952:

Saiyan.1704:

Overly dramatic are we?

Apparently, not just that guy. I think it’s amusing we have this re occurring thread every time there is a balance patch. Guardians aren’t useless or ruined yet. Feels so good to differentiate from these doomsayers.

No kidding. We still run mostly Guards (note: core Guardian, not DH) in WvW and we’re doing fine, heck, even thriving right now.

I guess we just haven’t gotten the memo yet about how broken we are.

Boreal.9826:

No kidding. We still run mostly Guards (note: core Guardian, not DH) in WvW and we’re doing fine, heck, even thriving right now.

Core Guards are doing fine in a game mode which is dead. The new maps are a elephant’s cemetary. I did leave Guardians in WvW raids like 6 months ago for Warrior and then changed again to Rev with HoT just to find that the game mode was over…

Buran.3796:

Boreal.9826:

No kidding. We still run mostly Guards (note: core Guardian, not DH) in WvW and we’re doing fine, heck, even thriving right now.

Core Guards are doing fine in a game mode which is dead. The new maps are a elephant’s cemetary. I did leave Guardians in WvW raids like 6 months ago for Warrior and then changed again to Rev with HoT just to find that the game mode was over…

Dying maybe, but not dead. Anet has stated they have plans for WvW, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.. whether it recovers, or is fubar.

You’ll find no argument from me on the new borderland maps, gimmicks like banners, auto upgrades, class imbalances and a whole bunch of other detrimental things post HoT. There are indeed serious problems (I would argue not just in WvW), and hopefully Anet will wake up. I think WvW is more important to the overall game than they may realize.

In the here and now, we’re finding lots of action in WvW. Just yesterday we had nonstop fights in the new BLs for several hours. It actually made me hate the new BL a little bit less. So forgive me for speaking of WvW as if it’s still a part of this game.

huh ?

“Completely useless in PVE” <—-Top Whiner Award goes to this you know who.
My GS = 5k+5k+7k how is that call weak? lol It is much stronger than Warrior GS AA, dont argue this, i have a warrior same gear with my guard and tested countless time.

There is no OP classes, only OP players.
Likewise there is no USELESS classes, only USELESS whiners and players.

yLoon.5289:

huh ?

“Completely useless in PVE” <—-Top Whiner Award goes to this you know who.
My GS = 5k+5k+7k how is that call weak? lol It is much stronger than Warrior GS AA, dont argue this, i have a warrior same gear with my guard and tested countless time.

There is no OP classes, only OP players.
Likewise there is no USELESS classes, only USELESS whiners and players.

The fact that you think that 7k autos is something impressive clearly shows that you never played in optimized parties.

Quite frankly, I couldn’t care less about what happens to DH. I’m more interested in seeing if they’re actually going to make some substantial buffs to lesser-used abilities/traits.

Hammer has to get a buff, nuff said.
It is a must for ward to cast during movement.
If AA 3rd won’t get faster then at least make protection stack so we can keep it for about 80-90% of the time while using the AA chain.
3th and 4th ability should either get a lower cooldown (4th) or damage increase to be a part of dps rotation.
Mighty blow feels unmighty a bit, perhaps MB should have something extra to it ?