Since there’s been a decent amount of discussion about polishing the Guardian’s Torch and Shield recently, I thought I’d bring our Focus up for discussion as well. Specifically, I’d like to talk about its #4 skill, Ray of Judgment.
Now, don’t get me wrong – this isn’t meant to be a whine thread. I love using the Focus in PvP, and Ray of Judgment is great when it works like you hope it will. However, it seems to me that getting RoJ to work properly is disproportionately difficult for the benefits it conveys. This difficulty comes from two primary sources:
1) The cast time. 3/4 of a second doesn’t sound too unusual, but since RoJ is a projectile dependent upon your character’s facing, the cast can fail if your opponent moves at too sharp of an angle to you while you’re casting. This can put the skill on a full cooldown without allowing it to properly activate, and it can be frustrating trying to get the skill to fire at all during teamfights where both you and your target are constantly moving.
2) The bounces. RoJ is capable of bouncing to both allies and enemies, and it seems to prioritize its bounces by whoever is closest to its current target. Unfortunately, when you’ve got multiple players involved in a fight, these positions change rapidly, and trying to get RoJ to bounce to a particular target can be difficult, especially with the 3/4 second cast. Even when it doesn’t cancel, using this skill with precision outside of small fights is often an exercise in futility.
Perhaps these difficulties could be justified if RoJ had a powerful effect. The Blind and the cleansing are nice when they hit where you intend, but they’re not outstanding when compared to the other AoE blinds and cleanses available to Guardians. The 3 second Regen RoJ provides is more of an afterthought than anything. The projectile these effects are attached to is slow-moving and does mediocre damage, and it can lose bounces when used at long range. Also, the skill only seems to bounce 3 times after the initial hit, rather than the listed 4.
To reinforce my points, let’s compare Ray of Judgment to a similar skill on the Necromancer’s offhand Dagger, Deathly Swarm:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deathly_Swarm
Deathly Swarm has a 1/4 second cast time, slightly higher base damage, twice the Blind duration, transfers conditions instead of removing them, can copy up to 3 conditions onto each target, and enjoys a CD that’s 7 seconds lower than Ray of Judgment’s. RoJ’s advantages are the potential to cleanse conditions from allies, a longer range, and the ability to grant 3s Regeneration boons. Additionally, RoJ can hit one enemy twice in small fights. Both skills are slow-moving projectiles susceptible to being outmaneuvered or dodged.
Other points to consider: Ray of Judgment cannot cleanse conditions from allies precisely in any sort of teamfight, and it loses bounces at range, so these advantages over DS are dampened. The Regen boon, as previously stated, is negligible due to its very short duration. RoJ’s blinds are also less reliable, since the skill may bounce only to allies after the initial hit. In the majority of situations, RoJ is completely inferior to DS. DS is easier to use, more reliable, has a more potent effect, and can be used more frequently.
This is not to say that RoJ cannot be useful, but the power of the skill seems misaligned with the effort required to use it effectively. So what could be done about it?
1) Reduce the cast time of the skill. A 3/4 second cast is just too long for a skill that requires proper facing to use, and effects like Blind and cleansing are less effective when they aren’t available on-demand. Make it 1/4 second, like Deathly Swarm.
2) Additionally, make the skill only bounce between enemies to improve its reliability, and change the cleansing effect. Either make the skill cleanse one condition from the user for every enemy hit, or have it cleanse one condition from allies who are near each enemy struck by the skill. The former change would still leave RoJ considerably weaker than DS, so adding another effect may be necessary to bring it up to par.
Optional: Bring back GW1 Ray of Judgment. Please?
There are plenty of other potential fixes as well. Speed up the projectile, reduce the cooldown, add more effects onto the projectile, etc. These are just my own thoughts about the skill, and I welcome any disagreement about the problems or my recommended changes. It could be that I just need to L2P. However, the recent condition-heavy metagame has made every failed RoJ hurt much more than it used to, and I’d love to see the skill get some improvements.
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