Guild Wars 2

Fashion Mage.3712:

Ragnarox.9601:

If we dont get 25% movement trait with firebrand/purifier will switch to another class probably.

Seems like a fairly trivial reason to switch to a different class.

Well after 5 years with traveler runes I want to try something else in wvw without moving like a snail. And pls dont say you have swiftness cause I don’t have it nor will use it unless I can change skills in combat.

Ragnarox.9601:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Ragnarox.9601:

If we dont get 25% movement trait with firebrand/purifier will switch to another class probably.

Seems like a fairly trivial reason to switch to a different class.

Well after 5 years with traveler runes I want to try something else in wvw without moving like a snail. And pls dont say you have swiftness cause I don’t have it nor will use it unless I can change skills in combat.

And what if it comes to a choice between a very useful trait and the movement trait? Like Druid with its Natural Stride and Verdant Etchings.

CptAurellian.9537:

Shall I? So I’ll take just the stuff that appears to be the most glaring nonsense, since I’m not in the mood for a giant wall of text.

Mesmer QQ – how exactly was the guard coming close to mesmers with regard to quickness stacking? With the old CD, we could provide a bit more than 50% quickness uptime in the most optimal case, i.e. with 100% boon duration, the shout trait and with a mesmer for alacrity. That’s not even close, that’s a joke.

I’m not sure what your objection is here. Are you saying that Feel My Wrath is even worse than I claimed? That only makes the +50%cd nerf even more jarring.

As for how close guardian was, you can bring multiple guardians and stack the quickenss. Or just use guardian + mesmer instead of 2 mesmers. It could have made Guardian a more attractive dps, since they bring a valuable buff along with their damage.

With regard to tanking, mesmers got that role for one simple reason: if you don’t deal damage anyway, you don’t lose damage by tanking. Even worse than druids outshining all other healers mainly due to one single buff, this flaw in mesmer design hurts all other potential tanks and mesmers themselves.

Druid healer doesn’t deal damage either, they can’t tank. PS war is forced into a suboptimal rotation damage-wise to maintain the might, they don’t tank either. Mesmer has the tools to tank and more importantly, doesn’t lose anything at all to do so, they don’t even have to change their rotation that much. Mesmer is not just a tank, they defend the whole group. Why bother with guardian and their pathetic aegis when mesmer can share invulnerability when needed just as easily?

And how does that hurt mesmers exactly? The lack of a dps build? They only play support, like guardian only plays dps, and there’s a lot less competition between supports. At least they get what they signed up for, mesmers has always been like that, but when I picked up guardian, they weren’t a necro/thief-tier selfish class.

It leads to the third point, which mirage will hopefully address. Mesmers always have desperately needed a build that allows them to be a proper dps class. The current class and illusion mechanics are massively flawed with regard to most situations. Mirage filling the dps niche would finally open up the potential for huge balance improvements for all classes.

So, you are saying mesmers are holding the whole meta hostage until they are relevant in dps before they can allow being nerfed in support, that’s not exactly reassuring.

And entirely pointless, because there’s no second place in the dps race. Either you do the most raw damage, or you bring enough buffs so that in the end, spread across the whole group, you do the most damage. Which is why guardian is in such dire need of a supportive backbone, as more and more dps builds make it into the game.

Speaking of balance, if you think that the current “80k dps in test” are relevant in any way, I dare question why you are still around in this game. Maybe you think that the devs are totally incompetent (which is a valid point of view), but then the consequences should be obvious.

You don’t get 80k because the numbers on a few skills are too high. Like you said, the devs are not incompitent, so they can balance the damage numbers on the new skills even just in comparison to other classes. And the base mesmer class doesn’t have the dps capability to deal that much damage with only a few additions.

So what that number means is that they said “poor mesmers have no deeps” and went overboard. It means the mechanics of mirage are so overtuned to produce these results, probably the profession mechanic changes, or clones doing actual damage now.
It’s a hypothesis, but if it’s true, it sounds like a balancing nightmare.

Lahmia.2193:

Ragnarox.9601:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Ragnarox.9601:

If we dont get 25% movement trait with firebrand/purifier will switch to another class probably.

Seems like a fairly trivial reason to switch to a different class.

Well after 5 years with traveler runes I want to try something else in wvw without moving like a snail. And pls dont say you have swiftness cause I don’t have it nor will use it unless I can change skills in combat.

And what if it comes to a choice between a very useful trait and the movement trait? Like Druid with its Natural Stride and Verdant Etchings.

I’d rather have a tough choice than no choice at all.

RabbitUp.8294:

Lahmia.2193:

Ragnarox.9601:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Ragnarox.9601:

If we dont get 25% movement trait with firebrand/purifier will switch to another class probably.

Seems like a fairly trivial reason to switch to a different class.

Well after 5 years with traveler runes I want to try something else in wvw without moving like a snail. And pls dont say you have swiftness cause I don’t have it nor will use it unless I can change skills in combat.

And what if it comes to a choice between a very useful trait and the movement trait? Like Druid with its Natural Stride and Verdant Etchings.

It’s rather have a tough choice than no choice at all.

See that’s the thing, you already do. Switch out that rune for traveler/speed, or that utility for Retreat. Tough choice.

Lahmia.2193:

RabbitUp.8294:

Lahmia.2193:

Ragnarox.9601:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Ragnarox.9601:

If we dont get 25% movement trait with firebrand/purifier will switch to another class probably.

Seems like a fairly trivial reason to switch to a different class.

Well after 5 years with traveler runes I want to try something else in wvw without moving like a snail. And pls dont say you have swiftness cause I don’t have it nor will use it unless I can change skills in combat.

And what if it comes to a choice between a very useful trait and the movement trait? Like Druid with its Natural Stride and Verdant Etchings.

It’s rather have a tough choice than no choice at all.

See that’s the thing, you already do. Switch out that one rune for traveler/speed, or that one utility for Retreat. Tough choice.

That one rune being all 6 runes, which is not a choice of the class, it’s generic gear and therefore irrelevant.

Retreat alone doesn’t give permaspeed, you have to slot it and trait it, and hold the staff, too. You need a specific weapon, trait and utility. The rest of the classes only need 1 utility or 1 trait to do the same, and some don’t even use a major trait.

So, yes, a tough choice, but not uniquely tough for guardian in particular.

RabbitUp.8294:

Lahmia.2193:

RabbitUp.8294:

Lahmia.2193:

Ragnarox.9601:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Ragnarox.9601:

If we dont get 25% movement trait with firebrand/purifier will switch to another class probably.

Seems like a fairly trivial reason to switch to a different class.

Well after 5 years with traveler runes I want to try something else in wvw without moving like a snail. And pls dont say you have swiftness cause I don’t have it nor will use it unless I can change skills in combat.

And what if it comes to a choice between a very useful trait and the movement trait? Like Druid with its Natural Stride and Verdant Etchings.

It’s rather have a tough choice than no choice at all.

See that’s the thing, you already do. Switch out that one rune for traveler/speed, or that one utility for Retreat. Tough choice.

That one rune being all 6 runes, which is not a choice of the class, it’s generic gear and therefore irrelevant.

Retreat alone doesn’t give permaspeed, you have to slot it and trait it, and hold the staff, too. You need a specific weapon, trait and utility. The rest of the classes only need 1 utility or 1 trait to do the same, and some don’t even use a major trait.

So, yes, a tough choice, but not uniquely tough for guardian in particular.

That one referring to a specific rune that is keystone to your build.

CptAurellian.9537:

SMesmer QQ – how exactly was the guard coming close to mesmers with regard to quickness stacking? With the old CD, we could provide a bit more than 50% quickness uptime in the most optimal case, i.e. with 100% boon duration, the shout trait and with a mesmer for alacrity. That’s not even close, that’s a joke.

When FmW came out, it was 5s for 30s CD and the only other GROUP quickness giver in the ENTIRE game was Timewarp which is 10s for 180s CD. FmW had such uptime that 5 guardians in a group gave perma quickness and just Hammered everything to death with such efficiency. Mesmers complained like no tomorrow so it got nerfed because of that and quickness stomping in PvP. You can no longer quick stomp but it has never been unnerfed. And now Mesmers give 100% quickness solo and no one bats an eye but everyone complained when you needed to 5 stack Guardians though.

With regard to tanking, mesmers got that role for one simple reason: if you don’t deal damage anyway, you don’t lose damage by tanking. Even worse than druids outshining all other healers mainly due to one single buff, this flaw in mesmer design hurts all other potential tanks and mesmers themselves.

I agree with druids being stupid because of that singular buff, all healers should have it. Instead of alarcity Revs should of received GotL, Guardian staff 4 should provide GotL over might, and Elementalists should give it via a trait in water.

Mesmers tanking is pretty stupid but makes sense because of the lack of damage. Though the fact that they have tons of blocks/invulns without trying is broken beyond belief. Guardians, who make more sense as the tanking/buffing/healing/zero damage class, give up basically everything in order to tank or heal.

Mesmers are completely broken in PvE and deserve to have their monopoly destroyed, then they can get damage.

Then there is the boon spam that Anet said was Guardians thing, then Rev came along. I’m still of the opinion that instead of creating the Revenant, that development time should have been spent making an additional elite spec for each class and putting a mist walking portion into the story that each class would get the spec from. Glint would be guardian so hard.

There is also the fact that Virtues were nerfed to 600 range instead of 1200 range that everyone forgets is another way they nerfed Guardian support.

Okay, I might weigh in a little here. Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t a valid point here – guardians absolutely should have a viable support option. But I do think some of this has been exaggerated…

RabbitUp.8294:

They destroyed the class with HoT, removed the core identity, gave support to other classes while removing it from guardian, ignored the base class completely, turned them into a blue warrior.

The professions have generally been more about playstyles then roles. Playing guardian still feels different to warrior for me. Playing DH definitely feels different to berserker. Support-wise, I think guardian still has the edge… except for might stacking through the phalanx trait.

And what did Guardian get with HoT? Unwanted in pve, as welcomed as ebola in fractals. They eventually became the dps they were supposed to be after buffs 1 year into HoT, and of course, they require the DH spec to do it.

From what I’ve seen, they’ve always been viable. Generally not the top choice, and you’ll always get people who’ll spreadsheet out the absolute optimal party/squad setup and refuse everything else, but that excludes a lot of professions, especially in fractals where you only have five and therefore at least four professions will obviously get dropped.

Meanwhile, base Ranger are top dps and Druid is everything Guardian should be support-wise.

Personally, I neither enjoy the druid playstyle, nor so I like druids being so dominant on healing. Having one profession that’s the required healer goes against everything that ArenaNet said about roles in GW2’s development. There absolutely should be other viable options.

Tempest got a healing/support and a dps spec at the same time.

Not any more. Tempest has had quite a few nerfs along the way – you can’t be a solid healer in Berserker stats any more (in fact, from what I’m seeing, even in full healing stats you can’t compete with a druid) and even in full berserker they’ve been nerfed.

Berserker was once the best condi dps and base Warrior is still a must-have offensive support.

Referenced above. I’m not as familiar with Warrior as with some other professions, so I’m not going to comment further.

revenant took their boon spam.

Revenants have largely fallen out of favour in PvE modes from what I’ve been seeing.

Guardian dared come close to Mesmer at quickness stacking, and Feel My Wrath’s cooldown was increased by 50%. Mesmer has both quickness and alacrity and is not sharing. But at the same time, they invalidate Guardian’s defensive support with their AoE distort and to rub it in, they are the designated tank of the meta. Oh, and the leaker said mirage is currently doing about 80k dps in test, so don’t forget to bow down to your butterfly overlords.

Okay. With Mesmer and Guardian being my top professions, this one I can get into the nitty gritty on…

First, mesmer players have been complaining about being relegated to support for a while now, so a DPS spec for them will be about as welcome as a proper support spec for guardian. Regarding that 80k DPS test, the same leaker pretty much said that WOULD be nerfed. This actually worries me a bit, to be perfectly honest – golem tests often relate to perfect raid circumstances, and ArenaNet is balancing PvE around raids now. The end result could be one where mesmers get the same DPS as other professions if everything works perfectly, but in most practical circumstances they’ll still hit like a kitten compared to the competition.

On the quickness thing… keep in mind that you’re comparing one skill to an entire build. Even nerfed, Feel My Wrath with the trait has 13.9% uptime, 11.1% without the trait. Time Warp on its own is about half that. Time Warp with Continuum Split and a trait can get up to 15.7% uptime, but that’s using another skill, locks your traitlines, and doesn’t provide Fury. Without Temporal Enchanter, it drops to 13.1%. (Note that all these figures are without extended boon length or Alacrity)

Of course, mesmers can reinforce this to get perma-quickness through Alacrity, boon duration increases, and other skills that provide quickness, but to do that they have to have a strict build and rotation. FMW gives all its benefits from just pressing 0 (or whatever you have your elite bound to) on recharge.

Firebrand/Purifier is the make-or-break spec for me. But to work, they first have to take a fine comb through all the garbage of the base class. Hearing from the leaker that there’s no healer in xpac 2 is not good news. And knowing their track history, they will load the tomes with condi removal and defensive crap that is useless in pve, so they can avoid nerfing Epidemic.

Personally, I’m really hoping to see the druid monopoly broken. From a similar viewpoint, breaking the mesmer monopoly would probably also be a good thing. (Frankly, I just don’t like professions having monopolies in general.)

This, however, might not need a spec as healing-focused as druid is. Druid took a profession that was relatively selfish at its core and made it into the primary healer – it needed to add a lot. Guardian, by contrast, was, pre-HoT, one of the best support professions around – even with some nerfs since, it probably doesn’t need as much to be comparable. If they base the new tomes on the old ones, in fact, we might see guardians that can compete with both druids in healing and mesmers in quickness application (possibly not beating either at their own game, but two guardians might be able to sub for a mesmer and a druid). Now, that’s an optimistic viewpoint, but it could be that the reason there isn’t an elite spec as support-focused as druid is because other professions don’t need as much of a boost to become a support character as ranger did.

Other class’s threads like Ele said they were getting mantras and axe as well… So, i’m curious exactly which class is really getting axe and mantras.

Peculiar..

Ele seems to be getting sword rather than axe from the leaks thus far, while the idea of mantras for them comes up because the screenshot shows numbers on the utility skills – although this isn’t the mechanic that is actually used for actual mantras. I’m sceptical myself – the difference from the existing mantra mechanic makes me think it might be a different mechanic. Possibly more like Diablo 3’s “charge” skills, which can be used multiple times, with each charge having its own recharge.

That said, it’s entirely possible that two elite specialisations will get the same skill type added. Both tempest and reaper got shouts, after all.

Whats with the bs in this Post guard can easily Deal 31-32 k dps in a raid setting, at least thats what i manage on vg with uc 26 k on gorse is Pretty easy and Mesmer had a great and easy cond dps spec that does Not Even even the eSpec

Which great condi dps spec? The one that’s halfway effective once or twice in a lifetime, i.e. currently at impressive two bosses?

As to Rabbit, I’ll try to keep quote wars limited, because I think that our interests actually do overlap in quite some aspects. I’m not interested in escalating a discussion that started with an “he’s entirely right”, which I still contest – however, that doesn’t mean I believe you’re entirely wrong or anything close.

RabbitUp.8294:

I’m not sure what your objection is here. Are you saying that Feel My Wrath is even worse than I claimed? That only makes the +50%cd nerf even more jarring.

As for how close guardian was, you can bring multiple guardians and stack the quickenss. Or just use guardian + mesmer instead of 2 mesmers. It could have made Guardian a more attractive dps, since they bring a valuable buff along with their damage.

I don’t contest FMW being rather bad, I contest the QQ about it and how it hurts the guardian so much. Every class has a crapton of currently terribad skills that deserve a buff and/or never deserved certain nerfs. With regard to attractiveness, I seriously doubt that the old CD would have any measurable impact. A mesmer and a proper dps slot will almost certainly be much more effective than two self-castrated FMW guards could ever be.

Druid healer doesn’t deal damage either, they can’t tank. PS war is forced into a suboptimal rotation damage-wise to maintain the might, they don’t tank either. Mesmer has the tools to tank and more importantly, doesn’t lose anything at all to do so, they don’t even have to change their rotation that much. Mesmer is not just a tank, they defend the whole group. Why bother with guardian and their pathetic aegis when mesmer can share invulnerability when needed just as easily?

And how does that hurt mesmers exactly? The lack of a dps build? They only play support, like guardian only plays dps, and there’s a lot less competition between supports. At least they get what they signed up for, mesmers has always been like that, but when I picked up guardian, they weren’t a necro/thief-tier selfish class.

So, you are saying mesmers are holding the whole meta hostage until they are relevant in dps before they can allow being nerfed in support, that’s not exactly reassuring.

The entire mesmer issue is incredibly messy. Given the current constraints in their design (i.e. lack of a proper dps spec), I see a very thin line between OPness and uselessness. I won’t dispute that, at the moment, they’re probably on the OP side of this spectrum, at least with regard to raids. And yes, it does hurt mesmers, because there’s more to this game than raids and for much of this “more”, a proper dps build is extremely helpful.

The current situation reminds me a bit of WoW in its early days. Class balance was horrible in classic, semi-awful in TBC and finally got good in WotLK (if they just hadn’t ruined the rest of the game). I see GW2 somewhere in the TBC era right now. A bunch of balance-related things are fine, some require rather little changes to become fine and some require massive reworks.

With the new addon, they have the chance to fix many of the glaring issues in one step. If they do it right (keep in mind that everyone has their own ideas of “right”), I expect that many people like you will get what they want. I honestly hope that they’ll break monopolies like the mesmers’, but you can’t just break things.

Giving mesmers a good dps spec in exchange for taking away their monopoly would be a step in the right direction. I’m still not concerned by those ominous 80k dps, because it doesn’t matter whether you have to balance a bunch of damage numbers on a bunch of new skills or on some class mechanics. Ideally, they’ll rework the class mechanics anyway for mirage, since the illusion/shatter mechanics are a disaster with regard to dps. Obviously, producing a new elite that gets to 80k (and therefore needs a giant nerf) isn’t reassuring in the first place, but hardly surprising when looking at ANets history.

And entirely pointless, because there’s no second place in the dps race. Either you do the most raw damage, or you bring enough buffs so that in the end, spread across the whole group, you do the most damage. Which is why guardian is in such dire need of a supportive backbone, as more and more dps builds make it into the game.

That second place stuff is nonsense. As long as the differences between classes are within a reasonable range, the first place issue is reserved to record runs or stupid people. The latter are probably more prevalent in this game than would be healthy, but that’s no reason to balance around them.

I can’t be bothered to read most of or debate these walls of text, but I suppose I was exaggerating a fair bit when I said “completely right”, although I still somewhat agree. :0

Saiyan.1704:

Other class’s threads like Ele said they were getting mantras and axe as well… So, i’m curious exactly which class is really getting axe and mantras.

Peculiar..

Ele had Sword with Mantras while mesmer was getting Axe, which is all plausible

Where are y’all getting the notion that the Firebrand is going to be some sort of Scholar? The Tomes? No. He uses those for fiery, inspirational speeches. They are a pulpit of virtuous endeavor, not a repository of arcane knowledge.

The Firebrand walks amidst his allies in the battlefield, torch held aloft in one hand (Flames of War will be awesome for this), axe in the other, while a tome floats before him, from which he recites magically-imbued verses that bolster his allies in the face of adversity, drive them to zealous victory over the infidel foe. And for the unbelievers who stand against his righteous path? They are welcome to burn.

(Also, I hope that in the wake of Baelfire’s death and massive Flame Legion casualties, a new Female shaman caste arises in the Flame Legion, willing to re-unite with the other legions under the command of a new high priestess who’s vaguely reminiscent of Kalla Scorchrazor (But also far different)… with other cool stuff I had in a dream about the next Xpac that the real thing probably won’t live up to.)

Kind of just seems like you’re trying to justify flavouring for it which isn’t there (as far as I can see). There’s not a whole lot of lore behind what tomes actually are, but they’re obviously very magical, and they’re books of course, so it’s safe to assume that they are associated with scholarly or at least mage-like aspects. They also have a trait where a square academic cap is shown (with little angel wings above it), so just based on that it certainly seems like they (or the spec in general) have scholarly connotations. I can’t see anything pertaining to your perception of it though, but not a lot of specifics have been revealed.

Edit: The old tomes were also described as “ancient” and were notable for having a lot of spells named after monk spells from GW1. So, if anything, they’re probably compendiums of monk magic.

RabbitUp.8294:

The leaker said they are like engi kits. And judging by the picture, we get an initiative bar, so there’s some gating. Which makes sense, they can’t just give guardian 5 weapons with no drawback.

Tomes like engi kits? Yes please.

And you mean an initiative bar like thieves have, and guardians originally had? Energy instead of CDs? Wow!

I can’t find this leaker’s comments though, so don’t want to get too excited.

GWMO.4785:

I have never been a fan continiously kitt swapping on engi. So in that sense i dont think i would like it on guardian also.

I also loathe the manic swapping but it isn’t necessary on an engineer. Just an option. Same as for most other professions.

Ignore the forum cries of “you must be swapping attunement / legend / kit / pet constantly or you’re a lazy kitten who’s not pulling their weight”. Every profession except revs have traits which promote not swapping.

I’d hope for the same with these tomes.

There was some discussion on reddit that this spec will be about condi DPS and permanently quickness. The person who said it has shared insider info before (like the new legendary torch recently).

So basically, an elite spec whose “support” is already invalidate by mesmer.

If this is true, it’s another garbage elite spec for guardian, can’t wait for 2 more years of patch notes of nerfs and cooldown reductions.

Isn’t breaking the mesmer monopoly pretty much exactly what was being called for earlier in this thread? Sure, it covers the same ground, but assuming that the mesmer will be automatically better is a bit of a stretch. In fact, if the Firebrand is able to dish out better DPS than a chronomancer while also granting permanent quickness to allies, they’d probably be quite valued, especially if the alacrity monopoly is also broken.

It’s also worth noting that the balance at the moment seems to be veering strongly towards condition builds for raids. They may rebalance back away from that before the next expansion hits, but if they don’t, then Firebrand might well be what saves guardian from the garbage heap for high-end PvE.

draxynnic.3719:

Isn’t breaking the mesmer monopoly pretty much exactly what was being called for earlier in this thread? Sure, it covers the same ground, but assuming that the mesmer will be automatically better is a bit of a stretch. In fact, if the Firebrand is able to dish out better DPS than a chronomancer while also granting permanent quickness to allies, they’d probably be quite valued, especially if the alacrity monopoly is also broken.

If if if if

You don’t break Mesmers’ monopoly by giving exactly 1 aspect of the BASE class to an ELITE spec. Perma Quickness is the ceiling, you can’t get better than that, so guardians can only hope to match them.

It’s also worth noting that the balance at the moment seems to be veering strongly towards condition builds for raids. They may rebalance back away from that before the next expansion hits, but if they don’t, then Firebrand might well be what saves guardian from the garbage heap for high-end PvE.

Are you for real? All the other classes got a condi build for free, I’m not buying an expansion so I can have the same thing the other classes already have.

No, thank you, guardian is officially dead if that’s all Firebrand is. DH is useless at power DPS, if all Firebrand does is give us a condi DPS build, even a raid-worthy one, we are still 2 elite specs behind every other class, especially those that have a condi build as base, a good HoT spec and are geting another. We are starting with 0 good builds and hope Firebrand can solve all of our problems. We are being asked to buy our buffs.

RabbitUp.8294:

draxynnic.3719:

Isn’t breaking the mesmer monopoly pretty much exactly what was being called for earlier in this thread? Sure, it covers the same ground, but assuming that the mesmer will be automatically better is a bit of a stretch. In fact, if the Firebrand is able to dish out better DPS than a chronomancer while also granting permanent quickness to allies, they’d probably be quite valued, especially if the alacrity monopoly is also broken.

If if if if

You don’t break Mesmers’ monopoly by giving exactly 1 aspect of the BASE class to an ELITE spec. Perma Quickness is the ceiling, you can’t get better than that, so guardians can only hope to match them.

Core mesmers can’t get perma quickness either – you need to have chronomancer for that. It’s also well known that chronomancer DPS is basically garbage tier in raid scenarios – they’re brought purely for the support, and they’re generally the tank because less DPS overall is lost by putting the chrono in toughness gear. So if firebrand brings perma quickness and has higher personal DPS than chronomancer, then from a teambuilding perspective, you’re trading alacrity for better damage (assuming that there’s nothing else that guardian/firebrand brings, which seems unlikely). If the alacrity monopoly also gets broken, then chronomancers could be facing stiff competition to stay in the meta at all. (However much DPS that mirage ends up doing after the rebalancing, it almost certainly won’t be able to provide quickness and alacrity like a chronomancer can.)

No, thank you, guardian is officially dead if that’s all Firebrand is. DH is useless at power DPS, if all Firebrand does is give us a condi DPS build, even a raid-worthy one, we are still 2 elite specs behind every other class, especially those that have a condi build as base, a good HoT spec and are geting another. We are starting with 0 good builds and hope Firebrand can solve all of our problems. We are being asked to buy our buffs.

Well, we’ve already heard two things – condi DPS and perma quickness. Whether you’ll have both high condi DPS and perma quickness in the same build is a good question, but it’s there. We also don’t know what else might be there, beyond an unlock image and a few statements from a leaker. Personally, though, I’d say that adding perma quickness (good support) and a viable condition build is a big addition to begin with. How good it is, of course, depends on what else is there that we haven’t seen, and how much of that can be used while still being able to access the core guardian strengths.

(Also, according to the most recent benchmarks I’ve seen, DH is pretty high up in the rankings for power builds (behind daredevil, tempest, and power engineer for small hitboxes), and the gap between DH and the top power build is less than the gap between DH and the next power build down. The problem is power builds in general having taken a big hit.)

The alacrity monopoly has already been broken with Ventari, nothing changed. And notice how alacrity was given to a base spec, Revenants didn’t have to dedicate their whole elite spec into stealing mesmer’s toys.

Chrono does 4 vital things:
1. tanking
2. perma quickness
3. perma alacrity
4. AoE distort
Bonus: Portal

You will never replace them by doing just 1 of those things. If Firebrand is a full condi dps (like Ranger/Thief levels, not Condi PS), while also providing perma quickness, it will simply get nerfed.

But let’s say it does just that, then you have 1 dps slot that provides perma quickness, and Ventari provides alacrity. So far, you have 2 classes doing the same thing a single one can, but Firebrand has high dps, so we let it fly. You still need someone to tank that doesn’t lose dps or utility by doing so.

And all that is moot, because nobody else can provide AoE distort. Why would a raid party jump through all these hoops? To do guardian players a favour?

Chrono works, it’s simple as that. Unless you offer something equally attractive, and not just an imitation, you belong in the garbage heap.

(Also, according to the most recent benchmarks I’ve seen, DH is pretty high up in the rankings for power builds (behind daredevil, tempest, and power engineer for small hitboxes)

All 3 classes you mentioned have top tier condi builds. And 2 of them are base. It’s unbelievable in how bad a state the class is when there are 3 classes with 2 builds each that do more damage than the only real dps build guardian has. And we got a power dps elite spec, DH offers absolutely nothing else.

Condi PS warrior does more damage than DH on small golem and they are supposed to be a support class.

And like I said above, DH’s golem dps is super unrealistic. You have to have perma retal or aegis to even hope to match these numbers.

The problem is power builds in general having taken a big hit.

Power Tempest looks pretty fine to me. On large hitboxes, they outdamage all other builds, power or condi; the only real competition they have is their own condi build.

Ragnarox.9601:

If we dont get 25% movement trait with firebrand/purifier will switch to another class probably.

I’d rather have perma swiftness from a trait than base 25% movement

I did have a good laugh when I saw Revenant got a new perma swiftness option to replace Herald just in time for their new spec.

At least some classes get attention these days.

RabbitUp.8294:

The alacrity monopoly has already been broken with Ventari, nothing changed. And notice how alacrity was given to a base spec, Revenants didn’t have to dedicate their whole elite spec into stealing mesmer’s toys.

First, I don’t see the relevance of it being through a base spec rather than an elite spec. Base specs are supposed to give you nice things too.

Second, and more importantly, I don’t think Ventari revenant really succeeds at granting permanent alacrity. The energy requirement is pretty high – you could possibly do it with boon length gear, but you won’t be doing much else apart from autoattacks and the heals. Combine it with something else that might appear in the future, however, and maybe it would.

Chrono does 4 vital things:
1. tanking
2. perma quickness
3. perma alacrity
4. AoE distort
Bonus: Portal

You will never replace them by doing just 1 of those things. If Firebrand is a full condi dps (like Ranger/Thief levels, not Condi PS), while also providing perma quickness, it will simply get nerfed.

I expect that there will be tradeoffs, but it doesn’t take much to offer more DPS than a chrono.

But let’s say it does just that, then you have 1 dps slot that provides perma quickness, and Ventari provides alacrity. So far, you have 2 classes doing the same thing a single one can, but Firebrand has high dps, so we let it fly. You still need someone to tank that doesn’t lose dps or utility by doing so.

Anybody can tank, it’s just that chronos can do it while still doing their other things (nobody cares about the chrono’s personal DPS, and therefore the fact that the chrono will lose DPS by wearing tanking gear). We’ll see what happens in the new meta. Maybe we’ll see firebrands taking the tank slot. Maybe we’ll see something else. Maybe it will still be chronomancers, but other things will take the place of the second chronomancer. And that’s without considering that a lot of raid bosses don’t need a tank at all.

And all that is moot, because nobody else can provide AoE distort.

And how do we know that the new elite specialisations won’t have something with equivalent functionality? Possibly even on firebrand?

All 3 classes you mentioned have top tier condi builds. And 2 of them are base. It’s unbelievable in how bad a state the class is when there are 3 classes with 2 builds each that do more damage than the only real dps build guardian has. And we got a power dps elite spec, DH offers absolutely nothing else.

And if Firebrand brings a condition build, guardians will have a condition build.

At the moment, we’re comparing specs at a time when condition largely outperforms power. Assuming that this is something that ArenaNet intends to fix, there’s not much point comparing power builds to condition builds, since we can have good reason to think they’ll get rebalanced. In the meantime, dragonhunter outperforms 5/9 professions in the benchmarks on small targets, and the gap between dragonhunter and the best power build is less than the gap between dragonhunter and the next build down.

Against large hitboxes, dragonhunter is second only to tempest for power damage.

I’d say they’re doing okay, by power standards. They’re low at the moment because they’re competing with condition builds and condition builds are just plain better than power for every profession that has them at the moment – problem being, of course, that guardian doesn’t have a proper DPS setup. Yet.

Also, on the professions doing what they do without using their elite spec… So? First, elite specs weren’t supposed to render core builds completely obsolete – taking an elite spec is still trading off the core traitline you could otherwise have, and if there are builds where going full core is better for you than taking an elite spec, that’s the system working as intended.

At the moment, it feels like you’re looking for reasons to be pessimistic. At the moment, what we’ve been told is that there are two things that will be significant upgrades for guardians… and there is likely more that we haven’t heard. I’m inclined to think that what we’ve heard so far, with the assumption that there will be more, is at least enough to wait until the official announcement before we start the prophecies of doom and gloom. (Hopefully it will be announced early enough to give the opportunity for proper public feedback.)

draxynnic.3719:

First, I don’t see the relevance of it being through a base spec rather than an elite spec. Base specs are supposed to give you nice things too.

Base specs are always accesible. No matter what happens, or what elite spec Rev gets, they will always have their Ventari and its alacrity or well as a very good condi build. Those are strong foundations for the class that allow it to branch out without losing its viability.

Firebrand can be the best thing ever and base Guardian will still be the same garbage it is today. As soon as expac 3 hits, we are back to square one, relying on that new elite spec to be as good as Firebrand, because by that time, Firebrand would have became the Guardian, instead of its elite spec.

Almost all base classes have a competitive niche, Guardian has nothing to offer besides stability, and that’s only useful in wvw.

Second, and more importantly, I don’t think Ventari revenant really succeeds at granting permanent alacrity. The energy requirement is pretty high – you could possibly do it with boon length gear, but you won’t be doing much else apart from autoattacks and the heals. Combine it with something else that might appear in the future, however, and maybe it would.

Alacrity is not affected by boon duration. Ventari can still maintain perma alacrity but its true it takes a heavy toll on its energy. And if Ventari is bad at alacrity, there’s no guarantee that a third class will get alacrity and it will be any better at sharing it.

I expect that there will be tradeoffs, but it doesn’t take much to offer more DPS than a chrono.

No it doesn’t take much to out-dps chrono, but out-dpsing chrono is not enough to replace them.

Anybody can tank, it’s just that chronos can do it while still doing their other things (nobody cares about the chrono’s personal DPS, and therefore the fact that the chrono will lose DPS by wearing tanking gear).

Isn’t that exactly what I said? You need someone to tank without sacrificing anything, because chrono loses practically nothing by tanking. If you sacrifice something, chrono is immediately a better choice.

And how do we know that the new elite specialisations won’t have something with equivalent functionality? Possibly even on firebrand?

More assumptions. Yes, if we cannibalise chrono and give everything they have to other classes, then we can replace them. That was never the question, though, the problem is that unless exactly this happens, it will be very very hard to replace mesmers.

And if Firebrand brings a condition build, guardians will have a condition build.

Tempest, Engi, Thief, Mesmer, Revenant didn’t need a new spec to get their condi build.

Against large hitboxes, dragonhunter is second only to tempest for power damage.

DH is significantly lower than tempest. Why would you bring a DH over tempest? You wouldn’t.

They’re low at the moment because they’re competing with condition builds and condition builds are just plain better than power for every profession that has them at the moment – problem being, of course, that guardian doesn’t have a proper DPS setup. Yet.

Yes, we’ve been through it already. Guardian will have to buy the expansion to get a proper build, when everyone else got one for free.

Also, on the professions doing what they do without using their elite spec… So? First, elite specs weren’t supposed to render core builds completely obsolete

Because their elites do other things

Is it clear enough? Rangers can have both condi base AND top tier support elite. Thief has the best condi build AND a better power build with DD. That’s the problem. Our base class does nothing, our elite does little.

At the moment, it feels like you’re looking for reasons to be pessimistic. At the moment, what we’ve been told is that there are two things that will be significant upgrades for guardians… and there is likely more that we haven’t heard. I’m inclined to think that what we’ve heard so far, with the assumption that there will be more, is at least enough to wait until the official announcement before we start the prophecies of doom and gloom.

That’s were we differ. Firebrand being good won’t solve guardian’s problem. Guardian is garbage, and it needs buffs. Firebrand cannot be the buff.

Okay, so your actual issue has nothing at all to do with Firebrand, but boils down to you thinking that core guardian is crap?

I disagree – there’s some good stuff in there. There’s also some stuff in there that’s definitely underperforming and can use a boost. Mind you, core guardian has been receiving boosts over the past few balance patches (symbols on sword and scepter, core virtues being buffed), so it does seem to be something they’re working on… albeit not as fast as people might like. Meanwhile, every profession has its underperforming areas.

There are also issues in that some of the mechanics in high-end PvE devalue some mechanics and promote others.

However, given that it appears that the thing you’re actually arguing over has nothing to do with the topic itself, I don’t think this is an appropriate thread for continuing it.

Core guardian now is way more build diversity than DH combinations, DH was always a sucker addon for guardian, a power creeper leecher, nothing more, and another usual mistake added by Anet with their lammer figthing gimmicks.

draxynnic.3719:

I disagree – there’s some good stuff in there. There’s also some stuff in there that’s definitely underperforming and can use a boost. Mind you, core guardian has been receiving boosts over the past few balance patches (symbols on sword and scepter, core virtues being buffed), so it does seem to be something they’re working on… albeit not as fast as people might like. Meanwhile, every profession has its underperforming areas.

Laughable. They launched the new traits that were heavily focused on symbols without first adding symbols to our weapons. That was how incompetent they are, and it took them a year to fix it.

Mesmer had a clone and a phantasm on every weapon since forever, that’s what guardian needed too, it was a fix, not a buff.

And having symbols is not anything worth talking about, they are damage skills. And even with the new symbols, our dps sucks.

Now tell me what the good stuff are. Not for you as a guardian player, but for someone that wants to bring guardian to their team, tell me a couple of reasons you would bring a guardian.

Base guardians are probably one of the better core professions right now.

RabbitUp.8294:

There was some discussion on reddit that this spec will be about condi DPS and permanently quickness. The person who said it has shared insider info before (like the new legendary torch recently).

So basically, an elite spec whose “support” is already invalidate by mesmer.

If this is true, it’s another garbage elite spec for guardian, can’t wait for 2 more years of patch notes of nerfs and cooldown reductions.

Could you link me to this thread on reddit? Personally speaking, my source told me it’s evenly split between conditions/offensive support, healing, and protection.

Weren’t you the one complaining that our quickness spam doesn’t compare to mesmer quickness spam?

Personally I don’t really care if we don’t get what other classes have, especially in a PvE context, since all that matters in that mode is whoever DPS’s the hardest. If this spec offers long-range offensive support, healing support, and protective support (split between the tomes I’m sure), and it’s all viable, then it’ll be a dream come true for me.

Sartharina.3542:

-snip-
The Firebrand walks amidst his allies in the battlefield, torch held aloft in one hand (Flames of War will be awesome for this)
-snip-

This is what I am afraid of. Torch offhand. I honestly don’t know why this isn’t more of a concern. If it is a condition based spec, ANET will have effectively made focus and shield completely useless and force us to use the most poorly designed weapon we have.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Base guardians are probably one of the better core professions right now.

At what? Wvw, sure.

But they are total garbage in organised pve.

RabbitUp.8294:

Could you link me to this thread on reddit? Personally speaking, my source told me it’s evenly split between conditions/offensive support, healing, and protection.

It wasn’t a clear statement, just weird comments here and there by people who are in the scene and know testers and have leaked stuff before.

Here's nike talking about it, and practically making a bet on it. (Read the responses and his answers.

Here's 1up who leaked the new torch a day or two before the patch.

Of course, both of them are raiders, and it could just be that they are focusing on what they care about, the quickness, and ignoring the more defensive stuff, like protection.

Weren’t you the one complaining that our quickness spam doesn’t compare to mesmer quickness spam?

No, I complained that they knee-jerk nerfed Feel My Wrath. I do not want a spec that all it does is copy mesmer and doing a bad job at that.

Personally I don’t really care if we don’t get what other classes have, especially in a PvE context, since all that matters in that mode is whoever DPS’s the hardest. If this spec offers long-range offensive support, healing support, and protective support (split between the tomes I’m sure), and it’s all viable, then it’ll be a dream come true for me.

Yes, it would be a dream come true for me, especially because like you, I absolutely loved the tomes.

But I don’t want all that to come from an elite spec. The base class needs buffs, at least the condi stuff should be baseline and have the elite spec provide a condi weapon in axe so you have better cover conditions in pvp.

All I gotta say is, IF they bring back Guard holding books in their hands and casting dps or support skills, they better be darn good. There was a reason why they removed them from the game.

Saiyan.1704:

All I gotta say is, IF they bring back Guard holding books in their hands and casting dps or support skills, they better be darn good. There was a reason why they removed them from the game.

Yes, because they refused to buff them.

Argh, I really hope it’s equal or close to DH. People saying “power you can play DH” but if the new elite specs are the new god mode specs then there’s no option. Not a fan condi guardian type builds, but I am sure other would be. Also to have Guardians finally have a long power range weapon was a blessing, I’d hate to see DH just be irrelevant, hopefully both elite specs for ALL professions are very close to each other in output and one doesn’t powercreep the other by a lot.

Asking for both specs to focus on power is how you powercreep the old specs. It’s not like you won’t be able to use the old weapons with Firebrand anyway. Now, the traits could be an issue, sure.

Despond.2174:

Argh, I really hope it’s equal or close to DH. People saying “power you can play DH” but if the new elite specs are the new god mode specs then there’s no option.

HoT brought a Lot of CC with marginal sustains. DH brought Stability and marginal sustains with F2 and F3. The new elite could be just a mirror of some CC and sustains.

For a sales pitch, they will likely power creep the elites a ton load.

Saiyan.1704:

Despond.2174:

Argh, I really hope it’s equal or close to DH. People saying “power you can play DH” but if the new elite specs are the new god mode specs then there’s no option.

HoT brought a Lot of CC with marginal sustains. DH brought Stability and marginal sustains with F2 and F3. The new elite could be just a mirror of some CC and sustains.

For a sales pitch, they will likely power creep the elites a ton load.

I hope f1,f2,f3 tome skills bring some:

F1 skills:
1# cripple
2# chill
3# burning
4# slow
5# imobilize

F2 skills:
1# regen
2# aoe heal
3# aoe vigor
4# aoe ressistance
5# enemy attack heal you

F3 skills:
1# aoe protection
2# aoe daze
3# aoe stability + aegis
4# taunt
5# block

but it would be too much xD

Y’know, for a name like RabbitUp, he sure is a real downer.

Saiyan.1704:

All I gotta say is, IF they bring back Guard holding books in their hands and casting dps or support skills, they better be darn good. There was a reason why they removed them from the game.

They certainly weren’t removed for their aesthetics or for being long-ranged support. The biggest issue with them was their cooldowns. Another issue a lot of people (who never actually used them enough to understand them) had with them was that they were “clunky”, to which I say l2p.

RabbitUp.8294:

Of course, both of them are raiders, and it could just be that they are focusing on what they care about, the quickness, and ignoring the more defensive stuff, like protection.

I certainly hope that they’re ignoring the rest of the stuff. If tomes just got reduced to being quickness spam and condition cancer exclusively, I’ll be a special kind of disappointed. I have my doubts about that being the case though. The tomes replacing resolve and courage couldn’t possibly be condition/quickness spam, not logically at least.

I actually asked my source if tomes were evenly split between conditions, healing, and protection, and he said something along the lines of “Afaik, basically, but how all of that plays out in the meta is a different story”.

Well, they went through the trouble of making 3 different Tomes, they must have something in mind to differentiate them. Logically, at least, but I’m not holding my breath, either.

Personally, I just don’t want druid to remain the “healer”. Tome of Courage was our Celestrial Avatar before CA existed, and I will be disappointed if F2 is regen/condi removal/resistance only without any actual healing. At the very least, I want Heal Area to return.