Guild Wars 2

I’m writing this topic only to focus on what our weapons need to have the most enjoyable gameplay experience.

So let’s start.

Hammer: Hammer is our best weapon now(sorrowfully i have to admit it ^^), but
Need a a bit faster attack chain.
Need to fix the 5 skill.

Longsword: A good and fast weapon, autoattack deal a lot of crits, But ZD is too stationary, you miss the target too many times. So, Why cant we use ZD on the move?

Scepter: Our Ranged Weapon, but in facts, is our massive damage melee weapon.
-So maybe, we need fast projectile with less damage, or add a chained autoattack with a mix of slow and faster orbs (thanks to edelweiss)
-we need a simbol on this weapons, there is no sense to have the 5% damage on scelpter in the zeal line, without a simbol mechanic on the weapon.

GS: Gs damage is Really good, but we need a rework on the whole weapon mechaninc… really its not funny like before…
Now use the GS = to spam all skills, switch to another weapon and wait 30 sec for the refresh of all the skills then switch and Re-do, i keep my eyes on the simbol, it really dont need damage, and it dont need retaliation too, our simbol need only a faster CD.

Mace: I really love mace, for me is The guardian weapons Now (not strong as the hammer, but is cooler :P).Anyway to compensate the lack of gap closing skill, or CC:
-Less casting time for the simbol (8 sec cd is fine, its only slow to cast :P)
- -2 or -3 sec on protector strike.

Staff: i love this weapons for dungeon runs, the simbol is strong and its ground target, so 15 sec CD are fine, orb of light is really good (i dont understand why so many PPL dislike this skill)
Only one thing dont work on Staff, the line of warding, PLEASE FIX THIS SKILL

Torch: Good and fast damage, no modification needed.

Focus: My main off hand for all the 1H weapon… not much to say, its kittening good.

Shield: i use it sometime, but i dont really like how it work:
-Shield 4 transform the protection cone in a 360° Aoe protection, or give a better CD or give us a trait that can add aegis on skill use (Thanks to edelweiss)

-Shield 5 can be good, but its really too stationary, you have to stand still but you continue to receive Melee damage after the Push away effect. Let us move during the dome effect (no push away effect during the move) or give to the chained heal a better heal effect, or some type of boon like regeneration.

Acquatic weapons our acquatic weapons arent so bad, the they have no sinergy with builds.
Our aquatic combat are pretty casual, so give to our weapons some effect that can go in combo with our trait ^^
Our Acquatic weapons have no simbols and give no buffs (exeception for retaliation on trident 4), they give us a lot of burn offects (in the water? mmm) and blind…

Fix.

Hammer :
agree on his powerful potential but they need to improve a bit the base attack speed.
Need a n.5 rework so it can be used while moving, the only way to use it properly is wasting or use “Juddge’s Intervention” trick

Sword :
agree on ZD while moving, no other changes needed.

Torch :
agree on no changes needed

Mace :
There is no cc or gap closer involved on this weapon, so it becomes useless in open pvp (WvW) and some tpvp. One cc or at least one gap closer skill will make this a more viable weapon as the 1h sword.

GS :
You’re wrong, no changes needed, GS just works fine as usual even with those cd.
The only thing that need still to be fixed is Leap of Faith accuracy, will be better if like n.2 from 1h sword.

Focus :
No changes needed.

Shield :
You’re wrong.
Actually n.4 is a pretty good dmg, since an usual off-hand is not made to do massive dmg but support the main hand weapon. N.4 just works fine with dmg and with allies buffed.
N.5 agree on a skill-move change.

Staff :
N.2 pretty hard to use properly and mostly bugged/useless.
Line of Warding works fine, the bug about skipping his effect affects many skills on guardian and not only, even Ring of Warding is affected. No changes needed but a simply fix.

Scepter :
Agree on create a symbol-mechanic on n.2
Need changes about his autoattack, too much travel time, too less accuracy.
Why simply don’t make them projectiles and maybe slightly reduce dmg to balance it?

That’s why we need a proper ranged weapon like all classes have.
Teleports, utility, and gap closer by other skills are not an excuse to avoid a proper ranged weapon.

@Ocelot
I see the class from a Pve perspective( i do Pve on 90% of my playtime), so our vision is little different i think (like on the GS case). But its good to talk about it ^^

I agree with a lot of the above. Shield 4 seems to be ok. Shield 5 ability should be an instant cast and not channeled. Staff 5 there seem to be foes that can cross line of warding, I don’t know if this is tied into the same bug as the Hammer 5 ability but it does happen. I would also like for the line of warding to block all projectiles along with foes. Staff 2 ability does seem to be wonky at times but most of the time it goes where I want it to.

@ Urban
So do you want Line of Warding working like a 2nd Wall of Reflection? and do the block-walking thing too? Seems so much overpowered, says as guardian prospective.

@Ganzo
As pvp/pve/wvw/tpvp player u can’t change a mechanic from a weapon based only a PvE prospective since it will unbalance/nerf/boost others playstile like PvP/WvW player.
My post is about all playstile and im still using GS as my main on Pve, depends on dungeons, otherwise i prefer 1h combination.
And..about GS on PvE, out of n.3 skill, the gs main dps come from autoattk so i don’t think there is a change needed on cooldown skills.
Btw that’s why u have to learn about swapping weapon, staying with 1 weapon all the time even with skill on cd is not intended as GW2 player, so swapping weapon when u have all gs skill on cd it’s totally natural.

As pvp/pve/wvw/tpvp player u can’t change a mechanic from a weapon based only a PvE prospective since it will unbalance/nerf/boost others playstile like PvP/WvW player.

And well LOL, im a weapon swapper from the beginnig, but i prefer swap weapons because a need to use a skill on the other weapon, not because im out of skills in the current one.
Yeah Most of gs damage come from autoattack, so what about the sinergies? GS need some change, before the 7\10 its was Maybe OP in PVP, and quite good in Pve, now its good on PVP but its suck for Pve, Not for damage, but from mechanics.

So, your quote is real, but is real the opposite TOO!

@Ganzo – you make a good point about the wall of reflection. maybe Anet should consider combining the two and giving us a new utility ability.

@Urban
It was actually me talking about Wall of Reflection and Line of Warding.
There is no need to combine them, they are 2 simply different skill that do different works. One is from weapon, one is from utility. Why Anet should combine them to give u a new ability? This just makes no sense at all.

@Ganzo
Maybe the GS mechanic has been nerfed for PvE player but..i do PvE as much i do PvP and I have no real issues using GS neither swapping weapon, neither with synergy.
But maybe is only a my personal opinion. Waiting for other player answering to your question.
You should try a Mesmer on PvE then, they have simply no reason there except Time Warp skill.

Ocelot.3148:

@Ganzo
Maybe the GS mechanic has been nerfed for PvE player but..i do PvE as much i do PvP and I have no real issues using GS neither swapping weapon, neither with synergy.
But maybe is only a my personal opinion. Waiting for other player answering to your question.
You should try a Mesmer on PvE then, they have simply no reason there except Time Warp skill.

LOL i have a Guardian, a thief, a warrior and a mesmer too. But im not so skilled with mesmers so i cant talk :P
Anyway i dont know wich build you are running, but after the change i have changed my build for Dungeon runs and i have changed my 2H weap from GS to Staff, to mantain a certain efficiency.

Anyway we are going a little OT ^^

Actually there is no need to be a supportive guardian on PvE since if ppl know how to do, they can survive alone, some buffs and passive healing will be enough. (except some situation)
So I decided to go as full-glasscannon build.
If I want to go deeper in 2handed like GS/Hammer :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARSlUg67GHyMEmIFRuAbGE0gVKi39uUARKC;TwAA0CnoqxUjoGbNuak1ssYQwBiJIA

Then swap 5 points in whatever u want, i prefer Virtues on PvE since he give me 3x Might Stack

Urban.4875:

@Ganzo – you make a good point about the wall of reflection. maybe Anet should consider combining the two and giving us a new utility ability.

If I’m not mistaken, during Beta there was a trait that added reflection to the line of warding (or vice versa), but was removed. I never got high enough during the BWEs to mess with the traits, and was too busy rerolling toons in every way, shape or form.

Though, just a thought, what about making our wards like shield #5, where we can explode them to cause another effect?

I agree with most of the things stated in the first post. I would only add that I would like ZD projectiles to be a combo finisher as other projectiles are.

About the shield 4, it is true that to have a limitation on the number of allies that can be affected and on the aoe effect (only allies in front of you) it makes it a bit uneffective, a 360º aoe effect would be nice.

About shield 5, I like it how it is at the moment, even though it is true you will be expose to meles after the push back effect, you can still block projectiles and you can also heal allies and have a combo field. Besides, if you are being surrounded by enemies, you can always dodge away (or simply move) and break the casting, it is not like you are forced to be there for the 4 seconds the skill lasts.

Good points.
I don’t think Zeaot’s Defense needs to be usable on the move, but I certainly won’t complain if it was.
Also: Don’t touch my Shield

And I think the Staff needs a total rework. There is no internal synergy or overarching theme to the weapon. It’s like they took all the leftover skills and put them on a big stick.

Ynna.8769:

Good points.
I don’t think Zeaot’s Defense needs to be usable on the move, but I certainly won’t complain if it was.

On Pve ZD is not a real problem, mob dont flee very often, but i was wondering about PVP in this Case.
THe only effective way to use ZD is blink to the target and then discharde ZD, but even in this case the enemy can dodge and go away, if you want to catch the enemy you have to interrupt the skill (so 2 Skills “wasted”)
Even if you use it with the only purpose to block ranged attacks, you cant move, so in fact the enemy can take advantage from the use of ZD.
But if you can move, this skill can become really strong (and 15 sec CD are fine) because you can use it when you are running behind someone and you have no teleport avaible. or you can close the gap from someone that is attacking you from distance without take damage.

Also: Don’t touch my Shield

LOL :P

edited Hammer and shield on the first post.

I like all Guardian weapons, except Scepter.

I think for Scepter, the #1 skill needs some kind of love. Other than that, everything is good. I used to hate Staff #2, but then I got higher level and it scales very well.

Sword #3 is one of my favorite skills. I don’t think of it as ranged, I think of it as a melee ability that is VERY difficult to get away from.

edit to first post: added acquatic weapons.

my only real eyebrow raising moment was when I saw that the focus is more defensive oriented than the shield.

100% agreed on Hammer being top tier.
It’s just too simple and solid.
I find it hard to believe that auto-attack chain + one blast finisher is all it took to make the weapon work. But that’s it. The constant retaliation bombardment and symbol damage is too strong. Not to mention the Altruistic Healing constant activation.

Honor & Valor Hammer Guardian takes top tier any day.

In contrast:
2. Greatsword
Nothing. You have Symbol. But that’s not even constantly triggered. You cleanse condition upon combo finishing. Every 15 seconds. You burst dps but have no means of self defense. Zealous Blade trait needs a buff to be a % damage conversion to health. 20 is just an insult.

A Zeal Oriented GS build is just poor burst with very little to show.

3. Sword
Sword+Anything has no self comboed moves. Zealot defense is good damage, otherwise it’s just dps dump. Projectile blocking means nothing when majority of your damage comes from melee. You do not want to be stationary when you’re using a sword. Take away anti projectile and give mobility. That is something I can use.

You could argue that 15% crit traitline would make Sword one of the highest dps out there, but the Radiance trait line is so terribly underwhelming. Justice Recharge doesn’t mean a lot. Unless you fight trash mobs all the time.

i wish:-

staff line of warding is instant
scepter smite is symbol
merge major trait for longer and larger symbol
add spirit cast time reduction in trait
sanctuary protects gtaoe
merciful intervention is targetable (reduce range to 450 or 600 is fine)

Maybe its a lag thing but I find the 5 skill on the gs fails to pull things more often than not. Seems like all sort of things will cause it to fail. I am not sure why. It could be because I am in Australia and lag plays some sort of factor. Be nice if it was only a 1 step cast. Push button pull people to you.

Going to propose a few buffs, although nerfs have to be made to compensate in some areas, I guess. I’d like to note that the biggest Guardian’s problem isn’t the weapons, but traits that support them. Guardian traits are a bit all over the place.

Staff:

Orb of Light can now be used again to suspend the orb in the air for some time. An ally touching the orb will get healed, an enemy touching the orb will get damaged. The orb disappears after being triggered. Up to 3 orbs can be present at any given time.

Scepter:

A combo added to the 1 skill. The first skill is the old orb, but the others are much faster projectiles or “on target” attacks (like Elementalist’s Scepter 1, for example). You still need to connect that orb, but the damage becomes more steady and reliable.

Smite is a bit too random for my taste. Change it to a normal pulse GTAoE.

Sword:

My favorite weapon. Wish ZD had less spread, some of the waves fail to hit stationary targets from time to time.

Mace:

Make the Block interruptable early to gain Protection and increase the duration of Protection a little bit. 3 seconds is just low.

Symbol of Regeneration could use a speed boost.

Overall it’s more of a PvE weapon, because it’s slow, has no CC or gap closers. Was that intended?

Torch:

It’s alright, I guess. But please, make it have a good trait. That -15% CD recharge trait must have never been taken by anybody in any situation.

Would be great if Cleansing Fire somehow benefitted the user. Right now it deals low damage (lower than 1 skill) and doesn’t remove conditions from you, so using it in a “non support” situation is a waste.

Shield:

Great for PvP, not so great in PvE. Maybe add a trait that grants an aegis on SoA use, or something.

Focus:

All is good except traits. The 20% CD reduction trait is a bit of a waste for a major slot.

Hammer:

All is fine except the speed of some skills hurting the thing’s usability in PvP. Still, I think it’s great.

Yeah, except Glacial Heart. A unique snare effect was a nice idea, but the steep cooldown, coupled with a pitiful duration make it a sad trait. I don’t know what math was behind this, but I don’t quite get it.

Greatsword:

It’s ok for what it does, I guess. Would be even better if Binding Blade was usable on the move.

Also, Leap+Light combo for Retal should be nerfed if that’s what you’ve been aiming for with Retal nerfs. Still possible to close to permanent Retal with that combo, Retal duration and Virtue of Retribution.

A slightly longer duration of Might on Wrathful Strike would be nice.

Finally, Zealous Blade. Just not good enough for a T3 trait. What was it again, 35 healing at level 80 per hit, unmodified by the Healing stat? That’s too low even for crazy AoE situations.

The issue with X Power traits:

Greatsword Power, Scepter Power, Powerful Blades… some people do take Powerful Blades, because the other traits manage to be a worse for a DPS Guardian in that line, plus it also buffs the Spear damage (or was it bugged?). The other two are a bit weak.

great thread and good discussion going.
i would love to see some changes made in the Zeal line specifically. right now, i can’t see myself giving up 30 in Honor. maybe i can give up some in Valor. but most of my points will be invested in those two lines for now.

@hammer – #5 i wouldn’t mind a instant-cast as well in place of proposed use on the move. either or though.

@scepter – #2 as a symbol i would LOVE. but would also be pretty OP. my smite hits quite hard, if mobs don’t move out of it and crits quite often.

@shield – #5 being able to move around with that would be ridiculous. pretty crazy too.

@sword – would love to see ZB upgrade to be able to use on the move. although, again, might be too strong?

@mace – can see it’s uses and maybe i need to try it out more but hard for me to give up other weapons to use this. not sure how to pinpoint, but something could be done perhaps?

i think ultimately, i just don’t like being rooted or having cast times. although sometimes, cast times can be used to your advantage as well.

Give the Guardian Staff a knockback like Mesmer Greatsword #5.
And while we’re at it, how about a Staff-centric Trait?
You got scepter, sword, greatsword, torch, even focus, but not a single trait is specifically buffing the staff. Why is that?

@edelweiss i agree on 80% of wat you say, but:

Longsword ZD is a good source of damage, but is too avoidable, look for example 100blades, it can discharge a LOT of damage, with a 180° radius, so in that case, even if a player try to avoid the move, he take good damage(break a stun is more difficult then simply roll away after blind :P). i dont think that ZD need more damage, but need something to make it a reliable move to use.

greatswordi agree on the Leap+light combo field, too much retaliation on this class.
But i dont think is fine as weapon, as i said before, damage is really good, but that fast style that we had before, is broken (or gone). now hammer is faster, and can cover field better (MB jump) for all the time you use it.

Zeal Line agree on 100%… too messy this line.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
@akamon

shield yeah maybe i have exagerated a bit :P, edelweiss solution is surely better then mine

scepter i dont think it can be OP as simbol, because if this skill become a simbol, it need a total rework on damage output, so smithe become a normal simbol with 6 sec cd, but it can be good even with 8 sec cd (like mace simbol)
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Edited some weapon on the first post.

I’ve mostly done pve up to this point.

Hammer is a mess. The 3rd chain att is waaaay to long. I can go to Starbucks grab a coffee and come back to find the last att is just finishing. I know it puts down a symbol, but come on. Switch the symbol with the finisher from mighty blow then you can control how often a circle is put down without making hammer chain so slow.

Banish. What the heck? I am melee. I have no leap or pull. Why do I want to send a foe out of my att range? It should be knock DOWN not knock back

I’d like to be able to add a heal on hammer attacks rather than have it on the greatsword.

Greatsword. Is the best G weapon. It lays down a symbol and has two finishers. It draws foes to you. It has a leap. It has a group blind. It has aoe. You can add a heal on hit to it. Btw why? And why is it in the power line? The dps is also good. Its cooldowns are a bit long, but if they weren’t there would be little use of other weapons.

I use sword myself. Its nice. Not really in love with Zealot’s Defense. Maybe if I could move or if it blocked melee too.

Staff. Its okay. I think the prime att has to wide an arch. It seems like you can hit 200 mobs at a big event. I’d rather the arch be less and the range be longer.

Line of warding should recharge faster, do damage, last longer, or heal or something else.

Shield skills have to long a recharge.

Mace. Its kinda okay, but kinda pointless. There aren’t tanks. You kill as fast as you can or you die. Its fine at low levels, but I can’t find a use for it in Orr. Why would I give up scepter or sword or greatsword for this? Give me a stun.

Torch is great.

Focus is great.

I don’t have any real issues with spear or trident. They aren’t great, but they aren’t bad.

What game are you guys playing?

GS & Hammer are, imho, the best synergistic weapon combo’s we have. You don’t even need to trait 2h. The timing works.

I think the issue is with people knowing when to swap weapons and being able to remember thier timers on the skills while doing so.

JI + RoW + VoJ+MB →Swap→ Chains +WW → find target → Leap + Auto → Swap + Imob + MB + Auto + Banish → Swap Leap…

Pretty basic stuff tbh.

Add in 1-2s for evaluating situations / switching targets and there’s PLENTY of room for combos / synergy.

the only ‘thing’ that hurts us are smart condition layers who place chils/imobs/snares then stack us up w/ bleeds/poisons/etc so we can’t purge the important one… the ones that kills us: Snares & Roots.

Hammer: Symbol of Protection should be the second skill, not the first, and last 4s like every other symbol. Switch it with Mighty Blow, which needs to come out slightly faster and not be a leap, but rather just a regular attack. Also give it some kind of secondary effect, I don’t really care what. Right now Hammer is the worst guardian weapon just because there’s nothing to do but just afk while you auto-attack for pitiful damage.

GS: WW needs a moderate damage boost (about 10-15% or so) and lose the projectile randomness. Clipping inside targets works but it’s also kind of a weird thing to have to do.

1H Sword: Crap weapon. It has high auto-attack DPS due to lots of hits to proc burn with, and a teleport, but that’s about it. ZD is totally useless since it doesn’t even do any more damage than the regular auto, so it’s only good for getting extra burns in. It’d be fine if ZD was replaced with some kind of symbol or something. Anything but ZD.

Scepter: Needs a symbol, preferably replacing Smite.

Mace: Protector’s Strike needs to be the priority block over Aegis or Shield of Wrath, so it triggers first when you’re hit.

Staff: Switching Orb and Wave would be ideal. Make Orb a regular skill that explodes/heals on contact while Wave removes conditions, or something.

I’d be happy with just making hammer and 1h sword not crap, though.

The shield #5 skill has great concept, really cool, but it doesn’t really work that well in this current form.

Perhaps it could be remade into something in line of a shield throw that jumps between 3 – 5 targets and dazes them, or that it jumps between allies adding a small reg-heal.

Guanglai, no offense, but please tone down the hate for the hammer; it is an incredibly useful and viable weapon in both PvE and Pvp…and your changes to it would probably ruin it.

Won’t disagree with you on the mace, though I would say that Smite would be awesome if it was a true AoE, and not just 15 tiny fists flying around. The staff could be modified to be a projectile, so that it would have much better synergy with its own skillset to also remove conditions. No reason to swap skills around, especially if the bugs were worked out with the orb.

I think the main problem with the sword is that its efficacy is highly dependent on your off-hand and overall build. The shield #5 needs looking into in terms of mobility/cd, but not by much.

Our weapons are fairly well balanced, if still a bit bugged; no major changes should really be necessary. I would want the devs to focus on adding/modifying traits and utilities over weapon skills at this point.

Ring of Warding is effectively a 5s immobilize that is bypassed by stability instead of condition removal. This makes it a fair bit stronger but considering you still need to bring a util to be able to land it reliably (Judge’s Intervention) it’s not really the end-all be-all of snares. You also lose a ton of effective DPS and it only works every 36s even if you trait for it. I actually prefer the more easily avoided conventional immobilize using scepter chains > signet to set up my GS burst, since scepter is actually useful in a straight slugfest so I’m not totally screwed if it fails.

That’s in PvP. In PvE the hammer is amazingly bad for many reasons which I have already stated, so I don’t see the need to repeat myself again.

Hammer: Symbol of Protection should be the second skill, not the first, and last 4s like every other symbol. Switch it with Mighty Blow, which needs to come out slightly faster and not be a leap, but rather just a regular attack. Also give it some kind of secondary effect, I don’t really care what. Right now Hammer is the worst guardian weapon just because there’s nothing to do but just afk while you auto-attack for pitiful damage.

That’s in PvP. In PvE the hammer is amazingly bad for many reasons which I have already stated, so I don’t see the need to repeat myself again.

You do realise the Hammer can actually do almost just as much damage as a GS right? The difference between the 2 is that since the GS is cooldown based, it allows the player to dump everything he has within a few seconds, potentially ending a fight prematurely compared to other weapons. The Hammer lacks the initial burst but over long fights like veterans and champions, the damage of the hammer in some cases will surpass the GS since it doesn’t rely on cooldowns. Mighty Blow also has a huge radius and will guarantee a hit on nearby enemies on a regular basis where as the damage of Whirling Wrath depends on the cooldowns of your symbol and chains.

mace damage is reactive and is more of a personal defence weapon. Sword damage is good but lacks a symbol and AoE damage. Personally I think you’re talking rubbish if you think the Hammer is the worst pve weapon because the protection symbol it gives is widely used in dungeons and bosses.

@amins
lol so the best way to use an GS is use it as second weapon for an hammer? and if someone wish to play GS and staff for example? really People cant say that GS is ok only because they use it with a weapon with a good average damage.
Now gs is a Huge concentration of burst damage, and nothing else, 3 seconds of use, and then you have to autoattack or swap weapon, and i dont think the swap sistem is made only for change weapon when you burn all the CD.
The old GS layout was fine, because you was not forced to swap instatly you weap thanks to 2 skills with low\medium CD (and SOW has the greatest trait sinergy in all the GS skills)
The only other guardian weapon with this problem is Longsword, but if you use Longsword + torch this problem dissapear because you have a costant skills recycle ^^

@guanglay
Im not an hammer lover, but im using it in theese days, and i have nothing to say, is slow but kittening good.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

That’s in PvP. In PvE the hammer is amazingly bad for many reasons which I have already stated, so I don’t see the need to repeat myself again.

The Hammer is still pretty good in a lot of PvE content. Yes, the skills, outside of the first two, are really situational, but they provide you control that no other weapon gives you. And the first two skills are pretty amazing. The first chain gives you a reliable source of what is probably the best (defensive) boon in the game and the second attack is a high-damage gap closer.
In PvP the Hammer is amazing.

Farzo.8410:

The shield #5 skill has great concept, really cool, but it doesn’t really work that well in this current form.
Perhaps it could be remade into something in line of a shield throw that jumps between 3 – 5 targets and dazes them, or that it jumps between allies adding a small reg-heal.

How does the #5 doesn’t work well? It works exactly as described and it’s pretty powerful. It’s a big AoE knockback+protection from projectiles+a Light combo field+a pretty decent heal.

Ynna.8769:

Farzo.8410:

The shield #5 skill has great concept, really cool, but it doesn’t really work that well in this current form.
Perhaps it could be remade into something in line of a shield throw that jumps between 3 – 5 targets and dazes them, or that it jumps between allies adding a small reg-heal.

How does the #5 doesn’t work well? It works exactly as described and it’s pretty powerful. It’s a big AoE knockback+protection from projectiles+a Light combo field+a pretty decent heal.

Shield #5 for me is a mistery, the knock back effect is a good source of control , and for PVP can be good (even if with and high CD for what he do) but for dungeon runs shield is pretty useless.

shield #4 hit the target in front of you, and if you play a mace\shield guardian, most of the times, the party is right behind you.
Shield #5 is useless, because boss are immune to controls, and the heal it provide is worthless.

Ganzo

i think you pretty much cleared all your problems in your own statement, but let me modify it a bit so you can see where your answer is:

“lol so the best way to use an GS is use it [in conjuction with] a second weapon. [cross out: for an hammer]?”

Yes, weapon swaping is the single most important aspect to synergy. Otherwise you’re just auto-attacking for a fast majority of your dps. Which, tbh, there isn’t anything wrong with Auto-Attack… it does great damage. It’s just when things are fluent in pvp / wvw, you’re not always able to… which is why Burst is King.

It’s begining to sound like you just want 1 weapon for ~every~ situation. That’s like saying you have a set of Utilities and never want to have to swap them out.

It’s begining to sound like you just want 1 weapon for ~every~ situation. That’s like saying you have a set of Utilities and never want to have to swap them out.

really no, maybe i espress myself in a wrong term, But smply with all the other weapons, you can chose the way to play it. for example, now im using hammer, with mace ad secondary weapon, i use hammer for most of the time, but for long fight i swap to mace for defend myself. Now with gs this is not possible, because as main weapon it suck.
And let me express, swap weapon only because you burn all the cd on the weapon is kinda lame. I love swapping because of the stretegy you can act, but be forced to swap(to avoid long autoattack phase), reduce the sistem overall strategy.

The problem with the Greatsword is that all of its skills come together in high burst. This leaves you with a lot of down-time, since you’re most effective using all your skills close together, and because of the high-ish cooldown of the Symbol, it’s not really worth preserving your combo-finishers for it.

The Greatsword is a powerful weapon on its own. It’s just very boring, because you’re auto-attacking for a long time. The auto-attack is actually pretty good, so if you’re in a situation where you just need to do damage, you don’t actually need to weapon-swap.

Ynna.8769:

The problem with the Greatsword is that all of its skills come together in high burst. This leaves you with a lot of down-time, since you’re most effective using all your skills close together, and because of the high-ish cooldown of the Symbol, it’s not really worth preserving your combo-finishers for it.

The Greatsword is a powerful weapon on its own. It’s just very boring, because you’re auto-attacking for a long time. The auto-attack is actually pretty good, so if you’re in a situation where you just need to do damage, you don’t actually need to weapon-swap.

Yes but paired with the others weapons, GS autoattack is not a thing you want to use for a long time, is kinda logic swap after burn all the skill.
before the simbol change, you had a costant skill recycle, so the use of the weapon wasnt boring (maybe static, because you attack on the simbol, but not boring), and you had more possibility of swap, because with 2 skills with mid\low CD, you can change from a weapon to GS, and be sure to have something to use (in case of fast swap tactics)

I’m a really big fan of sword/shield but I feel like it’s just missing something. I don’t know if it would be too powerful, but I’d like to see Flashing Blade be turned into a combo finisher: leap.

High damage output via skills is GOOD. This enables you to switch to a weapon, unload all your skills for a huge chunk of DPS, and switch back out. The more reliance you have on your auto-attack for DPS, the less effective DPS you will have because you don’t get any burst to recharge. For example, sword and hammer have the highest damage auto-attacks, but they have the worst skill-based bursts. By comparison, GS has a slightly weaker auto-attack but has an amazing potential for a huge burst of damage right off the bat. The same goes for mace, the recharge on Symbol of Faith is just right for a swap-on-recharge rotation. The two actually have the same auto-attack DPS, more or less, as well. Mace auto hits relatively slowly but for high damage per swing.

Again, there are numbers to back this up. GS and scepter are tied for highest sustained (single weapon, no swap) DPS, then mace and sword tied for second, with hammer and staff bringing up the tail end. If you include weapon swapping it’s a bit harder to quantify, but GS is definitely top. In terms of effective DPS via weapon swapping I’d say:

1) GS
2/3) Mace/Scepter
4) Staff
5) Sword
6) Hammer

I can run some tests on this later to confirm but I doubt it’ll come up with anything radically different.

dont think this division of “Main weapons” and “burst weapons” is a smart thing for tis game, it force you to chose predefined combinations of weapons.
Every weapon must have a decent self sustained combo , (not only smash #1, but 1 o 2 additional low cd attack or defence, where low is less then 8\10 seconds ) and then have some occasional skill with high cd(more then 15\20 sec).

now look the cd of all the guardian weapons:
————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Hammer
simbol on 3 autoattack (3 sec)\5\15\25\40, self combo in 1 and 2, occasional 3 for additional burn damage and control, 4 and 5, pure CC, maybe too slow to use, but the rest is fine. with a really good sinergy with a LOT of builds.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————
Mace+focus

autoattack 2 sec\8\15 + 25\45 : self sustained combo on autoattack + simbol, defence on 3 ( i already said that this skill need a bit low CD like 12 sec). focus is all about decence. Bit slow CD on mace + shield but same use.

Mace + torch

2/8/15+ 15/15
2/8/15+ 22/15(with zealot fire)

pretty costant damage and defence, self sustained combo with all the skills.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Sword + torch
1.5/10/15 + 15/15
1.5/10/15 + 22/15(with zealot fire)

pretty strange combination, but its not spammable.
The combo here is autoattack, ZD, cleansing flame, occasionaly zealot fire for a ranged attack), maybe 2 o 3 seconds less on ZD, can be good.
Flashing blade is a closegap\defensive skill, so its not wise to spam it.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Scepter + torch

0.25(not sure)\6\20 + 15\15
0.25\6\20 + 22\15

fast and kitten lethal at close range even only with autoattack + smithe, cleasing flame add variety on a really fast self combo.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
staff
0.5\3\15\20\40
0.5\12\15\20\40 (#2 orb detonation)

ok the orb is i bit bugged, but is still usable with good damage effect. Now we cant use the orb every 3 sec, but its pretty fast to recharge in any case.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
GS

1.5\10\15\20\30

no real self combo, maybe (autoattack + WW). Leap of faith follow the same rule of flashing blade, is not wise to spam this skill all the time, because is a great(?) gap closer\defensive skill and add not incresing damage. and even if we want to use the combo ligh field+leap combo, we need to wait the refresh of the simbol, so after the first rotation, Cd become something like this:

1.5\10\20\20\30
or
1.5\20\15\20\30 (if you need to use light field + whirl)

or

1.5\20\20\20\30 (if you need to use both, but is kinda stupid imho)

now im not complaing about damage, because i know its good, but with theese cooldown, this weapon is pretty boring to use as main weapon.

now looking the old CD

1.5\10\10\20\30

1.5\10\10\20\30 (light field +whirl)

1.5\10\10\20\30 (light field + leap)

1.5\10\10\20\30 (both)

Now looking this numers, the old layout was fun to play, due to is 2 fast cd skill, a 20 sec gap closer\defence, and a 30 sec damage\CC.
And once more, IM NOT TALKING ABOUT DAMAGE!

Cant edit.

Now, i know that there was a retaliation issue with the old cd, but after looking this numbers now i see a thing:
Devs have reduced the Sow retaliation uptime by 1\2 , but the sow uptime via leap, its the same! and its even faster if there is another guardian whit you, or if you use another simbol to trigger the effect(mace? staff?)
So the only way to fix the retal issue is: delete retaliation from SOW, and change the combo field with some other boon: vigor? regeneration? swiftnees?

I can only speak for the weapons I know.

Greatsword

- There needs to be a countdown on the second phase of Binding Blade. Right now all we have is a condition/boon reminder to tell us when the effect ends. I want a visible clock that I don’t have to hover my mouse over to tell me how much time I have left for the condition’s duration. This will help ensure that I get the fullest of Binding Blades, which is to say all the damage ticks AS WELL AS the pull.

Whirling Wrath needs to be touched upon. It says it hits 9 times. It never hits 9 times unless you’re inside the enemy. What it should do is send out 9 pulses that hit in an AOE range. Tweak the damage if necessary, but right now its not living up to standard.

Symbol of Wrath needs to be larger. If I’m facing an enemy in melee range and use the symbol, it results in them standing on the edge. One step backwards and they’re safe from harm. Yes, most of the symbol’s usefulness is due to the retaliation, but the damage is entirely ignored in pvp and wvw. I shouldn’t have to trait symbols to make a skill be 100% effective.

Leap of Faith needs to be fixed. Movement speed effects it for some reason. Thieves using Infiltrator’s Arrow can still warp the fullest distance when crippled and immobilized. Guardians that are crippled cover half the ground (300 units) with Leap. Guardians that are immobilized cover zero ground. At the same time, I am pretty sure we cover more ground if we have swiftness (800 units). I’m willing to lose that boost if it means being able to use this skill to its fullest in combat.

Staff

Orb of Light needs to be able to home into its target. Right now its useless. You don’t even need to dodge it. Move 2 steps left and you’re away from harm. Even with homing, it does need a little boost in speed. Just a little, we don’t want the staff outclassing other weapons.

Empower should be tweaked a bit. Right now it ticks 4 times. Regardless of what happens, if it is canceled early the player receives a 100% cooldown. What I think it should do is have its cooldown increased as the skill goes on. So, lets say you get one tick out but your channeling gets canceled. Your Cooldown is decreased to 25% of its original. By having it in 25% increments, it ensures the skill will not be abusable. Its the same effect regardless, but you’ll only get the heal bonus if you make it last the entire duration. When I use Empower, I use it for the final heal, not 3 stacks of might and immediately stopping due to some knockdown.

Line of Warding. Give it the same property as the knockback traps you encounter after Aldus the Stormbringer’s fight in HotW (path 1). That is to say, knockbacks that cannot be nullified by dodges or leaps. Also decrease the cooldown a smidge.

Allow Wave of Wrath to hit more than 5 foes.

Symbol of Swiftness, and by extent the Mesmer skill Temportal Curtain need to be looked at. If they simply added swiftness duration they could be abusable to maintain perma swiftness. Not good, but whats also not good is how they act now. If the player does not have Swiftness, SoS will give 8 seconds of swiftness. For every second the player stands in the symbol, they will receive another second of swiftness, but at the same time they are using a second of swiftness. They are essentially maintaining their swiftness duration as long as they stand in the symbol. That’s okay. What’s not okay is when the player has less than 8 seconds of swiftness. Instead of reseting the boon to 8 seconds, the player just constantly regenerates 1 second of swiftness every second. What the symbol should do is check the player’s swiftness duration before it does anything. If the player has more than 8 seconds, just give 1 second of swiftness per second. If the player has less than 8 seconds, the first tick should cap the player’s swiftness to 8, and then proceed as normal.

Sword

Zealot’s Defense needs to be tweaked so that the player can change the direction they’re facing. This is not hundred blades, its not capable of removing a player’s entire life bar. Therefore it shouldn’t be punished like it is. Forcing the player to stand still during the skill’s duration makes this skill a joke. I’m not asking to be mobile while the skill goes on. I’m just asking for the blades to actually hit their target. I should face the target while I strike in other words.

Scepter

The autoattack needs more speed. That is all.

Torch

Cleansing Flames needs to heal the Guardian of their own conditions as well.

Ok heres my whish for weaponchanges:

Shield:
reduce shield 4 CD by at least 10 (now 20) seconds to make it fun to use.
switch Shield 5 with Focus 5 (Shield of wrath)

Staff:
reduce width of the autoattack from 180 degree to about 100 degree conal attack but increase the range of the projectiles.
OR make it so that you hit enemies in melee multible times with several projectiles.
Switch staff 5 with shield 5 (shield of absorbtion)

Sword:
Sword 3 should pierce enemies and hits another mob behind the first

Traits:
The Torch – %CD Trait should switch position with focus -%Cd Trait. Imo torch fits the zeal line more while focus fits into radiance.

Scepter:
either increase travelspeed of autoattackorbs OR let them explode on impact for AOE damage. May also cause Burning for 1 sec.
Change animation for scepter 3 ( i think its ugly)
Scepter 2 should be a enemytarget related skill not one with groundtargeting. with a cool rapidfire animation.

Mace:
Is fine as it is but remove the casttime for the symbol. unnecessary slowdown of gameplay imo.
Smybol could be slightly larger.

Hammer:
Remove casttime of Hammer autoattack
Instead of knockback hammer4 should be a knockdown.

Monki.5012:

Ok heres my whish for weaponchanges:

Shield:
reduce shield 4 CD by at least 10 (now 20) seconds to make it fun to use.
switch Shield 5 with Focus 5 (Shield of wrath)

rember that is off hand weapon, 20\25 seconds are good for a #4 skill, it only need to be buffed a bit, on damage or on side effect.

Sword:
Sword 3 should pierce enemies and hits another mob behind the first

isnt it too strong? sword autoattack is fine, it can deal a good numer of critical hit (i have a major sigil of fire on my old sword, and its a festival of flame when i use it xD)

Traits:
The Torch – %CD Trait should switch position with focus -%Cd Trait. Imo torch fits the zeal line more while focus fits into radiance.

agree

Mace:
Is fine as it is but remove the casttime for the symbol. unnecessary slowdown of gameplay imo.
Smybol could be slightly larger.

faster, yes, is an 8 sec avoidable skill… cast time not so good here…even if is not properly an attack but more a support skill.
larger absolutely no, you can trait for larger simbols

Hammer:
Remove casttime of Hammer autoattack
Instead of knockback hammer4 should be a knockdown.

i agree on a little speedup of the autoattack animation, but not removed completely. hammer simbol is the best simbol we have now, it must have some weakness.

and for hammer #4 i have to say that is really funny knock back people from cliff on WvW, so its ok xD

My only real issue with scepter.

I’d like to see #1 be a beam (think mesmer GS auto) and #2 be a pulsing AoE symbol, it’s the only way I see it being a weapon that works with our traits and is actually useful to it’s maximum range.

@ Kita

GreatSword

- I agree. An indication of the time left on bind would be beneficial to everyone.
- Imo Whirling Wrath is fine as it is and having damage based on distance forces the player to use it wisely.
- There are already traits to improve the size of all symbols. The upgrade is enormous as it is.
- Leap Of Faith is working a lot better than it used to. I’m now seeing a success rate of 80-90%. Anet have seem to stretched the range of it substantially.

Staff

- I’d personally like to see Orb of light tweaked so it feels less awkward to use. The damage is passable but at the moment, only serves as a filler between empower and switching between my GS or Hammer.

- Empower like all other abilities will go full cooldown is interrupted. This is fair play imo and no changes are really needed. Knockdowns can be countered by having stability which the guardian is no short of.

Sword

Zealot’s defence also reflects projectiles in addition to the damage. The skill already auto targets if you are facing the wrong way. Indeed it is difficult to pull off the full attack on someone who is mobile but that seems to be a common trend with GS and Swords. Highest damage output but difficult to pull off, which is fair I guess.

I’d love for our staff skills to be more like the Necro or Ele. Big pits of nasty and helpful stuff. I’d so remove the orb and put in a regen + condition removal pit of blue fire.

I am also annoyed that the haste from staff does not seem to stack duration with Mesmer haste at all.

The 5 on the shield should work like the warriors but be traited to heal you a portion of the damage.