Guild Wars 2

The Guardian has a few weapons that just do not work well, and are virtually useless. Others just need some minor changes, and all is good. Here is one weapon I wish was looked at.

Staff

Wave of Wrath — Turn this into a PBAoE.
Orb of Light — Turn this into an orb that you fire, and when it reaches its target it explodes into an centered on its target.
Symbol of Swiftness — The swiftness boon should be applied similar to a shout. Using the ability should apply your symbol centered around you like normal, but also grant stability to those standing inside it.
Empower — This should act as a shout, applying its benefits instantly, instead of taking the Guardian out of the fight like it does not, because of the channeling.
Line of Warding — Is fine.

While I agree that the Staff is in need of a revamp, I’m not sure if I like your suggestions.

The Staff currently has little direction (for example, the Greatsword is a combo-finisher weapon). I think it should become a rather dedicated support weapon, because it’s half-way there anyway.

But anyway, I don’’t think Symbol of Swiftness really needs changing, especially not if the change makes it completely different from other symbols. And a Symbol that gives both Swiftness and Stability is a bit overpowered and makes “Retreat!” rather obsolete.
Empower is pretty okay. Yes, it takes you out of the fight, but that’s kinda the point. You sacrifice your own combat up-time to help your group.

Edit: I think the Scepter also needs changes, especially to the first two abilities.

Empower isn’t just might buff, but good mass heal too, it has very good effect so it needs to be channeled,or it would be OP.
Orb of light is kinda crappy, that’s true.
But overall staff is great support weapon.

I think focus is total crap. Long cds, not so great effects and Ray of Judgment… How the fock i should target my allies in a huge battle, when everything is so messy, there is no button “target nearest allies”.

What Guardians use Staff beyond Swiftness, and Altruistic Healing builds utilizing Empower?

It’s a really bad weapon, no where near as useable as the Great Sword, Hammer or Mace/Shield builds.

As for making the swiftness a shout, as it stands now, when you put the swiftness down on the ground, most the time you run through it, and it doesn’t apply the swiftness, and in a game where movement is the most important aspect of the game, it becomes absolutely useless.

That’s my biggest pet peeve with any weapon ability that roots you. The best defense is movement, the second you root yourself using an ability, you’re taking on AE damage, and become an easy target, which makes abilities like Empower a death trap, that offers a little heal, that won’t make up for the damage you took when you stopped to use it.

When I’m on my 80 Warrior, and 80 Thief, I love Guardians who root themselves. Saves me from having to use skills like Bolo to kill them.

Staff’s Wave needs a longer range. Empower is fine as is. 12 stacks of Might for all party & big aoe heal at end. Orb is clunky; def should explode on hit unless detonated beforehand. I like the idea of being able to heal somewhere other than at my target if I want to, but it should always detonate when it hits my target.

Bubasparks.7829:

I think focus is total crap. Long cds, not so great effects and Ray of Judgment… How the fock i should target my allies in a huge battle, when everything is so messy, there is no button “target nearest allies”.

You target foes and the ray passes over them and allies, foes are damaged/blinded and allies get regen/cure conditions, you don’t need to target an ally to make it work on allies.

How anyone can say the focus is crap is beyond me, it’s a fantastic defence weapon.
—
What i would like of staff is simple, shorten the damage arc but increase it’s range to 1200 – that would make it a decent ranged weapon.

I don’t really have an issue with the orb, i seem to use it just fine.

@Seras

On my 80 Warrior I can give myself, and the group permanent Regen, Fury, and Might without losing but maybe 3% of the glass cannon Warrior build, which does eight times the damage my utility/defense Guardian can do.

So no, Empower is not fine. Taking the Guardian out of the fight makes Empower a big issue.

jkctmc.8754:

What Guardians use Staff beyond Swiftness, and Altruistic Healing builds utilizing Empower?

It’s a really bad weapon, no where near as useable as the Great Sword, Hammer or Mace/Shield builds.

As for making the swiftness a shout, as it stands now, when you put the swiftness down on the ground, most the time you run through it, and it doesn’t apply the swiftness, and in a game where movement is the most important aspect of the game, it becomes absolutely useless.

That’s my biggest pet peeve with any weapon ability that roots you. The best defense is movement, the second you root yourself using an ability, you’re taking on AE damage, and become an easy target, which makes abilities like Empower a death trap, that offers a little heal, that won’t make up for the damage you took when you stopped to use it.

When I’m on my 80 Warrior, and 80 Thief, I love Guardians who root themselves. Saves me from having to use skills like Bolo to kill them.

Staff isnt pvp weapon, its support weapon, so ofc you will suck with it when you will try to do pvp with it I destroy rams through doors with wave, i block entrances with LoW, i heal and give swiftness for fast traveling with SoS and ofc i heal and stack might with empower. Only thing i dont use in www is orb, since God knows where it will fly when i will release it

MajorMelchett.6042:

Bubasparks.7829:

I think focus is total crap. Long cds, not so great effects and Ray of Judgment… How the fock i should target my allies in a huge battle, when everything is so messy, there is no button “target nearest allies”.

You target foes and the ray passes over them and allies, foes are damaged/blinded and allies get regen/cure conditions, you don’t need to target an ally to make it work on allies.

How anyone can say the focus is crap is beyond me, it’s a fantastic defence weapon.

Lets say i want to drop heal with it, not to blind foes, any suggestions how i should do that during mass fight in www? And blocking 3 attacks with cd of 45 sec its bs, i block more with shelter and cd is only 30 sec. Sorry but i havent seen any Guardian using focus in www.

Bubasparks.7829:

Lets say i want to drop heal with it, not to blind foes, any suggestions how i should do that during mass fight in www? And blocking 3 attacks with cd of 45 sec its bs, i block more with shelter and cd is only 30 sec. Sorry but i havent seen any Guardian using focus in www.

You can’t as that’s not how the attack is designed (remember it’s an attack NOT a heal, it just happens to have a heal aspect incase not enough foes are around), it targets the nearest people around your main target and if they are foes they get damaged/blinded, if they are allies they get regen/cured. So if the nearest 3 people are all foes then it hits all foes, if the nearest are all allies it hits all allies and if the nearest are 1 foe and 2 allies then it hits those 3.

As for shelter, that’s a heal skill and can be used with the focus (give you even more blocks). Plus the focus version lasts twice as long, is a blast finisher and if you don’t block enough attacks in the timeframe it explodes and does damage.

well i know how focus works, thing is its totally useless in WvWvW, SoW will never explode, and 3 attacks blocked is nothing in WvWvW with such huge cd, and Ray mostly will never heal and again 25 sec cd for hitting 4 targets is kinda crap.

I use to think the staff was crap for a long time, until I forced myself to play with it. Just to see if its viable. My conclusions is staff is probably the best weapon for event farming and aoe.

1. Wave of Wrath has short range yea, but its a piercing aoe with no cd. Spec right it hits for around 1.8k crits I think. Biggest problem with it is, its sort of boring. There isn’t any combo chain and it doesn’t do anything special.

2. Orb of Light is another great piercing skill. It has long range, does great damage and can heal if you detonate. It has its problems, like it tends to get stuck in terrain a lot. I don’t feel it should detonate on impact, rather if the orb reaches its max range that it simple disappears.

3. Symbol of Swiftness doesn’t need to be changed. But the skill not properly stacking and sometimes not applying does need to change.

4. Empower doesn’t need a change, it does so much already. Movement would be good too, but I’m not sure if its necessary.

5. Line of Warding of course is fine as it is. Except how enemies can dodge through it.

P.S

Put superior sigil of fire on your staff if you want to do damage with it. It also goes very well with a virtues build that revolves around condition damage and spirit weapons.

@Aza

I’m happy you’re ok with mediocre weapons, and abilities.

I want to see your 1.8k crits, and what you’re giving up to attain that, which almost sounds like a pure damage build, where you’ll have roughly 12k HPs, and die if anyone in WvWvW breaths on you.

I have four classes at 80, all exotic gear as follows; Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief.

My Warrior build provides at least five times, yes 5x the damage my Guardian can do, and can provide the following buffs permanently; Regeneration, Fury (20% Crit), and three stacks of Might (+105 Power/Condition Damage) to myself, and the entire group I’m with, on top of the +10% Critical Damage, which is also applied all but 2 seconds it takes to wait for my banner recast time.

When moving the Banner also provides a permanent Swiftness while carrying it, because I can recast it, before the original timer is off. By the time I’m done, or decide not to cast these buffs, there is a 2 minute timer before they expire.

So excuse me if I’m not ok with Empower, and Symbol of Swiftness, when I can provide so much, so easily on my Warrior, and give up virtually no damage, while my Guardian seems lackluster in the department you think they would excel at.

jkctmc.8754:

@Aza

I’m happy you’re ok with mediocre weapons, and abilities.

I want to see your 1.8k crits, and what you’re giving up to attain that, which almost sounds like a pure damage build, where you’ll have roughly 12k HPs, and die if anyone in WvWvW breaths on you.

I have four classes at 80, all exotic gear as follows; Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief.

My Warrior build provides at least five times, yes 5x the damage my Guardian can do, and can provide the following buffs permanently; Regeneration, Fury (20% Crit), and three stacks of Might (+105 Power/Condition Damage) to myself, and the entire group I’m with, on top of the +10% Critical Damage, which is also applied all but 2 seconds it takes to wait for my banner recast time.

When moving the Banner also provides a permanent Swiftness while carrying it, because I can recast it, before the original timer is off. By the time I’m done, or decide not to cast these buffs, there is a 2 minute timer before they expire.

So excuse me if I’m not ok with Empower, and Symbol of Swiftness, when I can provide so much, so easily on my Warrior, and give up virtually no damage, while my Guardian seems lackluster in the department you think they would excel at.

Then play your warrior?

@Aza

I do, but would like to see other things fixed.

jkctmc.8754:

My Warrior build provides at least five times, yes 5x the damage my Guardian can do, and can provide the following buffs permanently; Regeneration, Fury (20% Crit), and three stacks of Might (+105 Power/Condition Damage) to myself, and the entire group I’m with, on top of the +10% Critical Damage, which is also applied all but 2 seconds it takes to wait for my banner recast time.

Can your warrior heal as good as guardian all those other warriors who beating door while arrow carts raining down on them? I dont think so. You say 3 stacks of might, well how about 12 + 2 stacks of might + over 1.5k mass heal just from one guardian? Can your warrior do that? Ohh and 33% dmg reduction, and almost not ending regeneration?

As i said before staff isnt for dps its for support, and it supports pretty well. If you have four 80 lvl chars i bet guardian was least played by you Just play warrior and enjoy your game

Aza.2105:

jkctmc.8754:

@Aza

I’m happy you’re ok with mediocre weapons, and abilities.

I want to see your 1.8k crits, and what you’re giving up to attain that, which almost sounds like a pure damage build, where you’ll have roughly 12k HPs, and die if anyone in WvWvW breaths on you.

I have four classes at 80, all exotic gear as follows; Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief.

My Warrior build provides at least five times, yes 5x the damage my Guardian can do, and can provide the following buffs permanently; Regeneration, Fury (20% Crit), and three stacks of Might (+105 Power/Condition Damage) to myself, and the entire group I’m with, on top of the +10% Critical Damage, which is also applied all but 2 seconds it takes to wait for my banner recast time.

When moving the Banner also provides a permanent Swiftness while carrying it, because I can recast it, before the original timer is off. By the time I’m done, or decide not to cast these buffs, there is a 2 minute timer before they expire.

So excuse me if I’m not ok with Empower, and Symbol of Swiftness, when I can provide so much, so easily on my Warrior, and give up virtually no damage, while my Guardian seems lackluster in the department you think they would excel at.

Then play your warrior?

How does this fix anything? Seriously. This ‘If you don’t like it, then leave.’ kind of mentality is atrocious and does not encourage positive discussion. Granted you posted a very nice and thought out post and personal observation from playing with staff Aza, but when other people come in with valid arguments telling them to ‘leave’ rather than debating them just quashes any form of respectable discussion.

jkctmc.8754:

@Aza

I’m happy you’re ok with mediocre weapons, and abilities.

I want to see your 1.8k crits, and what you’re giving up to attain that, which almost sounds like a pure damage build, where you’ll have roughly 12k HPs, and die if anyone in WvWvW breaths on you.

I have four classes at 80, all exotic gear as follows; Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief.

My Warrior build provides at least five times, yes 5x the damage my Guardian can do, and can provide the following buffs permanently; Regeneration, Fury (20% Crit), and three stacks of Might (+105 Power/Condition Damage) to myself, and the entire group I’m with, on top of the +10% Critical Damage, which is also applied all but 2 seconds it takes to wait for my banner recast time.

When moving the Banner also provides a permanent Swiftness while carrying it, because I can recast it, before the original timer is off. By the time I’m done, or decide not to cast these buffs, there is a 2 minute timer before they expire.

So excuse me if I’m not ok with Empower, and Symbol of Swiftness, when I can provide so much, so easily on my Warrior, and give up virtually no damage, while my Guardian seems lackluster in the department you think they would excel at.

cough critbuild cough

Your changes would not help the staff one iota. First off, the staff already hits the maximum number of targets allowed by the game’s AoE limit, and turning it into a PbAoE wouldn’t help it deal more damage. Unless you’re wanting a kb/kd effect added on, which would just make it incredibly imbalanced.

Our orb needs to be debugged, but I don’t understand why you want it centered on the target. We can already detonate it at will, which lets us have more control over its actions. I like that; let the devs fix it, rather than making it a targetable ability.

No on destroying the symbol. Guardians often rely heavily on our symbols, and turning them into a shout just makes guardians into defensive warriors. No thanks. If our symbols aren’t up to snuff (hint: they pretty much are), then they need to be rebalanced. Not kittenized into something more akin to a warrior.

Empower heals your group on end for a good amount, and can heal you for an insane amount if traited into AH. While doing it, you can still activate your virtues, which gives you one blind and one block. Oh, and if you traited 5 into Virtues, you’ll gain some healing with each activation. If you can’t stay alive long enough to get it off, you’re not playing it right.

Again, no thanks to your suggestions. Staff changes are needed somewhat, but these add nothing of substance.

I don’t think any warrior can lay down projectile-reflecting walls, teleport into siege building plans and kill ram users through the gate.

Just to list a few things lol.

For wvw Staff Is better then specter in my opinion, staff is kinda fine, you pretty much spam 3 and 4 but its better then nothing

Ars Valde.8693:

Aza.2105:

jkctmc.8754:

@Aza

I’m happy you’re ok with mediocre weapons, and abilities.

I want to see your 1.8k crits, and what you’re giving up to attain that, which almost sounds like a pure damage build, where you’ll have roughly 12k HPs, and die if anyone in WvWvW breaths on you.

I have four classes at 80, all exotic gear as follows; Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief.

My Warrior build provides at least five times, yes 5x the damage my Guardian can do, and can provide the following buffs permanently; Regeneration, Fury (20% Crit), and three stacks of Might (+105 Power/Condition Damage) to myself, and the entire group I’m with, on top of the +10% Critical Damage, which is also applied all but 2 seconds it takes to wait for my banner recast time.

When moving the Banner also provides a permanent Swiftness while carrying it, because I can recast it, before the original timer is off. By the time I’m done, or decide not to cast these buffs, there is a 2 minute timer before they expire.

So excuse me if I’m not ok with Empower, and Symbol of Swiftness, when I can provide so much, so easily on my Warrior, and give up virtually no damage, while my Guardian seems lackluster in the department you think they would excel at.

Then play your warrior?

How does this fix anything? Seriously. This ‘If you don’t like it, then leave.’ kind of mentality is atrocious and does not encourage positive discussion. Granted you posted a very nice and thought out post and personal observation from playing with staff Aza, but when other people come in with valid arguments telling them to ‘leave’ rather than debating them just quashes any form of respectable discussion.

Oh I agree with what you are saying. But what am I suppose to do? Try to change his mind? I’m not here to do that, I only offered another perspective that he was welcome to consider. If he doesn’t want to try it thats fine too.

He made numerous comparisons to warrior and is basically stating that warrior is doing what he wants guardian to do. So why not just play one?

Personally, I think the staff is ok. The only thing I think makes staff very awkward is skill #1, every other skill is 1200 range while that one is 600 range. And fix the bugs with skill #2.

Hey everyone, I made a thread a little while ago where people could post their various weapon ideas. As such, nobody’s said anything on it but if you’re interested you could have a look! (I didn’t mention scepter, I figured I would let someone else do that )
While I don’t think I agree with the OP’s staff suggestions, things like this often pave the way for real improvement! Suggesting something isn’t a crime and making a weapon fun for everyone would be far more beneficial for both the people who don’t like it and the people that do because they may not even know the cool potential some weapons could have.
For instance, if you ask me, I think sword and scepter have a lot of potential, I just don’t think they were executed very well, staff needs a little tweaking too I think.
In any case, feel free to have a look at the thread I started or just keep discussing here, either way

Here’s the weapon suggestion thread I made:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Weapons-Suggestions-Thread/first#post678895

The Guardian GS needs SoW to be on a 10 sec cooldown with a different buff. Also Leap of Faith needs a 15-20 sec cooldown.

I think the induction times of the mace auto-attack (Mace Skill 1) are out of balance compared to other melee weapons.

Protectors Strike (Mace skill 3) is also very odd. It certainly does not work as the inscription for the skill says, and the block it applies works variably at best.