State of the guardian in PvE?
I can’t disagree with you. I feel like hybrid build got a really heavy nerf with HoT.
But Colin did said that a balance patch was coming very early 2016. So you won’t see any modification until then. You can post in the couple feedback posts that we have, propose ideas and hopefully devs will check them.
Its about as much as we can do until 2016
They promised balance patches every 3rd month, let us just hope they tone the elite specs down to the core classes level and stop this buff/dps snowball they started with specializations patch and let it turn to an avalanche with HoT… X is underpowered, buff it, now Y is lackluster compared with X, buff it, now X & Y are outshining Z, buff that, buff buff buff… Anything that was balanced before but didn’t receive a buff to the reach the same level is underpowered now… This raod doesn’t look healthy at all.
9 Guardians later…
As far as PvE goes, I really feel like guardians are just an inferior version of Revenants.
This is why I feel this way:
1: Revenants do more damage than guardians.
2: Both have heavy armor but Revenants get around 50% more base health.
3: Revenants have longer uptime on aoe projectile block skills (Protective Solace makes Shield of the Avenger feel like an insult).
4: Revenants can offer more overall support with Herald elite spec (potential 100% uptime on boons like might, fury, regeneration and swiftness).
5: Revenants even have more stability uptime than guardians with inspiring reinforcement.
6: Revenants can be just as tanky, if not more tanky than guardians.
Really, guardians do need a lot of attention. I find them to be a very fun class but their usefulness becomes very limited when you introduce another class that can do almost everything that guardians can do, only better.
@Tenrai
Exactly this, it was ok when they said in the past that “guardian is a mid offensive-defensive class” but now we have a new all-in-one class that does everything and better…
But the problem, imho, is not guardian but the revenant! In building it they added already existing things but improved them… Like…
1) rev has tablet with activable shield. WHY that “activable shield” wasn’t even planned for our shield of avenger? We are forced with that… Thing running around at random spamming the shield where and when it is not needed!
Or
2) herald can press 1 button (f2) and have 6sec prot on a 25 sec cd while we have to use hold the line which even traited is on a 28s cd and gives only 4s prot! (Not considering all other boons…)
Ah … :<
@Kjeldoran
That’s the thing. Sometimes it feels like when they make changes to classes or add new stuff, they only look at the class itself and not where it sits next to the other existing classes.
If they did consider how Revenant compares to the Guardian, they would have picked up on a lot of issues, not the least of which is overlapping roles where the Revenant vastly outperforms the Guardian. It’s downright depressing.
At least before guardians had some key uses compared to other classes that made them important in group content. Because of that you could forgive their lower damage. But now not only do they under-perform from a damage point of view, but even from a defense and utility point of view.
It just doesn’t make sense.
@Kjeldoran
That’s the thing. Sometimes it feels like when they make changes to classes or add new stuff, they only look at the class itself and not where it sits next to the other existing classes.
If they did consider how Revenant compares to the Guardian, they would have picked up on a lot of issues, not the least of which is overlapping roles where the Revenant vastly outperforms the Guardian. It’s downright depressing.
At least before guardians had some key uses compared to other classes that made them important in group content. Because of that you could forgive their lower damage. But now not only do they under-perform from a damage point of view, but even from a defense and utility point of view.
It just doesn’t make sense.
This.
I know Anet has probably had a lot to deal with since the release of the expansion but I think it’d be wise to consider the revenant, not just in relation to the guardian, but in relation to all the other classes. As damage dealers revenant steps on the toes of thieves, guardians and to some degree warriors, while the herald also means that they can fill a supportive roll at the same time. I really think they should’ve had that balance patch before the pvp season like everyone thought they were planning to.
I’m going to offer the ever-popular response:
No class was ever balanced, designed or conceived based solely on the skills of another.
That applies to any single skill or family of skills as well. If any consideration is made of ‘between profession’ factors, at best it’s a litmus test of what the developer deems ‘reasonable’. Based on how I’ve interacted with Devs over the years and how they interact with the community, I’m convinced there is no line of thought they enter that relates how or what Class A does because of how or what Class B does it.
The relevant question is if the whole toolset of a class enables a player to fulfill the role intended by those who conceived the class.
I believe that within the class itself, DH is a very significant improvement to ranged capability while continuing to support the theme established for the Guardian profession at beginning of the game. DH just provides another dimension that allows me to ‘play Guardian’ and that’s as I believe it should be. If anything, I think the Guardian class has done very well in Anet’s goal to maintain the flavour of the profession while adding some additional interest. I don’t think Anet has achieved that objective for all professions, like Necro/Reaper.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
I’m going to offer the ever-popular response:
No class was ever balanced, designed or conceived based solely on the skills of another.
That applies to any single skill or family of skills as well. If any consideration is made of ‘between profession’ factors, at best it’s a litmus test of what the developer deems ‘reasonable’. Based on how I’ve interacted with Devs over the years and how they interact with the community, I’m convinced there is no line of thought they enter that relates how or what Class A does because of how or what Class B does it.
/snip
This must be the reason I have never played an MMO that has decent class balance, although GW2 takes the cake for the almost seemly random numbers they place on things.
I distinctly remember when the game was first in development and a lot of players complained about how short all the boons lasted and the dev team said that was an intentional decision because long lasting boons was something they were against. Now with the release of the Revenant, you have a class that can permanently keep up their choice of fury, swiftness, protection, and stack might without having to do anything and can give an entire party +50% boon duration.
(edited by Indure.5410)
I’m going to offer the ever-popular response:
No class was ever balanced, designed or conceived based solely on the skills of another.
That applies to any single skill or family of skills as well. If any consideration is made of ‘between profession’ factors, at best it’s a litmus test of what the developer deems ‘reasonable’. Based on how I’ve interacted with Devs over the years and how they interact with the community, I’m convinced there is no line of thought they enter that relates how or what Class A does because of how or what Class B does it.
The relevant question is if the whole toolset of a class enables a player to fulfill the role intended by those who conceived the class.
I believe that within the class itself, DH is a very significant improvement to ranged capability while continuing to support the theme established for the Guardian profession at beginning of the game. DH just provides another dimension that allows me to ‘play Guardian’ and that’s as I believe it should be. If anything, I think the Guardian class has done very well in Anet’s goal to maintain the flavour of the profession while adding some additional interest. I don’t think Anet has achieved that objective for all professions, like Necro/Reaper.
The problem is that no matter how much a class might seem to improve relative to its own last iteration, when it comes to group content naturally people will want to play with classes they deem to be efficient. That’s when class comparisons will inevitably arise, especially when two classes can fulfill the same role.
Right now, the Revenant can fulfill the same roles as the guardian, only in a superior fashion. It may not seem important in lower level content where the game is easy enough to ignore some disparity or imbalance, but when it comes to difficult content like Raids, Guardians might end up being excluded altogether in favor of more efficient alternatives, for the sake of optimal group compositions.
I don’t think it’s fun for anyone who likes a class to feel like they’ll be excluded from content simply because that class isn’t up to scratch. The Devs can go on about roles or class flavour all they want, but at the end of the day, this is still a game and it needs to be balanced if the aim is to make it fun for everyone.
I think ANet did something right with the Chronomancer by giving Mesmers a unique class mechanic in the form of Alacrity. It means regardless of what other classes bring to a group, the mesmer will always offer something unique and will thus have a role that isn’t being totally overlapped by any other class. I think ANet should have done this with other classes as well, including the guardian. Sure it’s fine if some class mechanics overlap a bit, but every class should be able to bring at least one unique asset to the table to ensure that they always have a role to play in any party.
Keep in mind as well that this isn’t just a discussion about DH’s. This is a discussion about the state of the Guardian in PvE as a whole, and as far as the parameters of the discussion go, the Guardian is not in a good place. No matter how much flavor DH adds to the class it won’t matter if the class as a whole is sorely under-performing. I say this as someone who actually likes the DH quite a lot.
I’m going to offer the ever-popular response:
No class was ever balanced, designed or conceived based solely on the skills of another.
That applies to any single skill or family of skills as well. If any consideration is made of ‘between profession’ factors, at best it’s a litmus test of what the developer deems ‘reasonable’. Based on how I’ve interacted with Devs over the years and how they interact with the community, I’m convinced there is no line of thought they enter that relates how or what Class A does because of how or what Class B does it.
The relevant question is if the whole toolset of a class enables a player to fulfill the role intended by those who conceived the class.
I believe that within the class itself, DH is a very significant improvement to ranged capability while continuing to support the theme established for the Guardian profession at beginning of the game. DH just provides another dimension that allows me to ‘play Guardian’ and that’s as I believe it should be. If anything, I think the Guardian class has done very well in Anet’s goal to maintain the flavour of the profession while adding some additional interest. I don’t think Anet has achieved that objective for all professions, like Necro/Reaper.
The problem is that no matter how much a class might seem to improve relative to its own last iteration, when it comes to group content naturally people will want to play with classes they deem to be efficient. That’s when class comparisons will inevitably arise, especially when two classes can fulfill the same role.
Right now, the Revenant can fulfill the same roles as the guardian, only in a superior fashion. It may not seem important in lower level content where the game is easy enough to ignore some disparity or imbalance, but when it comes to difficult content like Raids, Guardians might end up being excluded altogether in favor of more efficient alternatives, for the sake of optimal group compositions.
I don’t think it’s fun for anyone who likes a class to feel like they’ll be excluded from content simply because that class isn’t up to scratch. The Devs can go on about roles or class flavour all they want, but at the end of the day, this is still a game and it needs to be balanced if the aim is to make it fun for everyone.
I think ANet did something right with the Chronomancer by giving Mesmers a unique class mechanic in the form of Alacrity. It means regardless of what other classes bring to a group, the mesmer will always offer something unique and will thus have a role that isn’t being totally overlapped by any other class. I think ANet should have done this with other classes as well, including the guardian. Sure it’s fine if some class mechanics overlap a bit, but every class should be able to bring at least one unique asset to the table to ensure that they always have a role to play in any party.
Keep in mind as well that this isn’t just a discussion about DH’s. This is a discussion about the state of the Guardian in PvE as a whole, and as far as the parameters of the discussion go, the Guardian is not in a good place. No matter how much flavor DH adds to the class it won’t matter if the class as a whole is sorely under-performing. I say this as someone who actually likes the DH quite a lot.
That’s not an issue for anyone that doesn’t think about how one class relates to another. It’s not a given that people tend to gravitate to ‘efficient’ classes; simply put, not everyone cares about that and with the way that GW2 works, it allows you to break away from that kind of thinking in the first place. If people are carrying baggage from other MMO’s I don’t think GW2 to help them carry it.
I think it’s an extremely subjective statement to claim that Guardians are not in a good place for PVE and not provide any evidence other than “because Class A does this” to support it. That’s a fallacy. The versatility this class has to tank, heal or do damage while continuing to support a team is exceptional.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
I think it’s an extremely subjective statement to claim that Guardians are not in a good place for PVE and not provide any evidence other than “because Class A does this” to support it. That’s a fallacy. The versatility this class has to tank, heal or do damage while continuing to support a team is exceptional.
Hi, I don’t think anyone said anything without evidence… the state of the guardian in pve is that it is useless not because it is a weak class but because revenants can do everything and better:
1) walls: rev > guard
2) heals: rev > guard
3) boons: rev > guard
4) damage: rev > guard
5) support: rev > guard
6) cc: rev > guard
7) personal defense: rev > guard
8) ranged damage: rev >= guard
9) conditions: rev > guard
10) pvp state: rev > guard (and everything else)
now, some of these points were enlarged I know (don’t cry foul) but it is true that guardians don’t have anymore a spot in pve just because revenants can do everything and better! we are not talking about “specific class mechanics” we are talking about… everythin… just… think at one thing you can do as guardian. Done? ok, revenants can do that better! and no matter how much you build your class into that specific settor, revenant will always do that better and with 1 or few button! Like… I like to spam boons? cool… I get shouts, I get virtues, I get traits for shout and traits for virtues, I get shield for extra prot, I get staff for extra might, I get mace for extra regen, I could get whatever but revenants just need to press f2 twice to get a 40% uptime on all useful boons! 40% uptime! without considering facets! a guardian needs at least a full set of boon duration equip to get that far with boon duration… well except for swiftness… -.-’’
I think you’ve missed my point completely.
Make your case about the state of PVE Guardians without reference to other classes and maybe you have something compelling a dev would pay attention to. The state of a class ingame is not dependent on the state of any other. Revs do everything better? OK … how does that make my Guardian any less effective in it’s role conceived by the devs? I doesn’t.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
I think you’ve missed my point completely.
Make your case about the state of PVE Guardians without reference to other classes and maybe you have something compelling a dev would pay attention to. The state of a class ingame is not dependent on the state of any other. Revs do everything better? OK … how does that make my Guardian any less effective in it’s role conceived by the devs? I doesn’t.
Alright I’ll take this challenge. The guardian hits like a wet noodle and is completely useless in the Gorseval fight because it doesn’t do enough damage to make that DPS check. Since both Gorseval and the adds require more sustained DPS than the guardian brings (it’s all burst so it works fine in open world PvE and dungeons where nothing has health) it is impossible to deal enough damage to finish those fights with that trashy class.
PS. I was a Guardian main for 3 years and I took the uselessness (and the fact that my fears were realized with how good Rev was) of this class as a perfectly fine reason to make my Elementalist my main. I have never ever changed mains in an MMO before in my 11 years of playing them.
Hits like a wet noodle? Completely useless?
That’s why DNT and Sickest Guild both ran a Dragonhunter in their world first comps right?
The hyperbole is palpable.
Come on buddy…
(edited by phor.7952)
Hits like a wet noodle? Completely useless?
That’s why DNT and Sickest Guild both ran a Dragonhunter in their world first comps right?The hyperbole is palpable.
Come on buddy…
Have you ever played guardian? DnT builds are the most squishies build ever and aven so (with 11k hp and basically 1 hit = death even from ambient creatures) revs have higher dps, there is nothing to “suppose” about that. Just create a guard, then create a rev and have some tests. Also it IS important to relate the state of a class to other classes just because this is a mmorpg not a single player one. You have to relate to others and if hou are useless no one will take you seriously… I’m already looking at lfg posts saying “no guard”…
Yes, I’ve played Guardian.
In every dungeon, fractals up to 82 so far, and on each of the three bosses in the raid… It’s my main.
I have an 80 rev alt as well, both with ascended weapons and trinkets.
You didn’t answer my question…
How can Guardian be “useless” if it’s been used in world 1st raid clears?
To be fair, I did phrase it rhetorically…
But the point remains.
(edited by phor.7952)
Yes, I’ve played Guardian.
In every dungeon, fractals up to 82 so far, and on each of the three bosses in the raid… It’s my main.I have an 80 rev alt as well, both with ascended weapons and trinkets.
Since an 80 guardian in full zerker has 12.5k hp, I’m beginning to think it’s YOU that’s never played guardian. Probably haven’t played Rev either. It sounds like you’re just repeating things you’ve read.
Seeing as you have both as voiced by your own admission. Take a look at both.
You will notice something the rev can actually do everything & I mean everything better then the guardian can with 1 little exception, that being projectile reflects.
And seeing as how those are also brought by mesmers & engineers who do more damage then guardians (and the case of the later do more healing and have a better condition build) there is a reason why people are complaining.
This is not even covering the fact the guardian has multiple issues with several weapons as well as quite a few traits & utility skills which are absolute crap.
…there is a reason why people are complaining.
People don’t need a reason to complain. Especially on the forums.
You’re missing the point.
Rev is a great class. One that’s easier to bring in multiples to raids than Guardian.
But to say Guardian is “useless” or “hits like a wet noodle” is 100% hyperbole.
World 1st’s have happened with Guardians in the comp! How can you ignore that?
You’re the second person who has responded by completely avoiding that fact…
Are you sure you’re not one of the ones just wanting to find any reason to complain?
: /
…there is a reason why people are complaining.
People don’t need a reason to complain. Especially on the forums.
You’re missing the point.
Rev is a great class. One that’s easier to bring in multiples to raids than Guardian.
But to say Guardian is “useless” or “hits like a wet noodle” is 100% hyperbole.World 1st’s have happened with Guardians in the comp! How can you ignore that?
You’re the second person who has responded by completely avoiding that fact…
Are you sure you’re not one of the ones just wanting to find any reason to complain?
: /
People don’t need a reason to complain, but in this case we do actually have a reason. A few actually:
1: Guardian damage is lacking vs other classes. The sad part is that some of those other higher damage classes can also bring more support and utility than guardians.
2: Most guardian utility skills have high cooldowns with low uptime on boons or effects. For example:
- empower gives 12 stacks of might for 10 seconds on a 20 second cooldown. Revenants Warriors and Eles on the other hand can stack up to 25 stacks of might with no downtime.
- Guardians get a shout that gives 4 seconds of protection and 6 seconds of regeneration on a 35 second cooldown (Hold the Line). Alternatively, Revenants can give a group 9 seconds of fury, 9 seconds of might (3 stacks), 12 seconds of regeneration, 6 seconds of protection and 12 seconds of swiftness on a skill with a 25 second cooldown (One with Nature).
- Empowering Might (give might to allies on crit) has a 1 second internal cooldown, which greatly limits how much might you can stack. Phalanx Strength and Forceful Greatsword, on the other hand, have no internal cooldowns.
How is that even fair? I can give lots of other examples but I don’t want this list to become too long.
3: Guardians are still the slowest class. While other classes have access to lots of escapes, mobility skills and permanent speed buffs, Guardians still have only 2 escape skills (one which needs to be cast on another player to work), no permanent movement speed traits and they can’t even achieve 100% uptime on swiftness UNLESS they stand still inside a symbol (which kinda diminishes the point of being more mobile).
I know ANet intended for Guardians to go into battle and stay there, but the sad part is other classes can even be more tanky than Guardians now. So we lose out on both fronts.
4: Guardians have a few lackluster weapons:
- Guardian Sword does not compete well with the damage, or the utility, of Revenant, Warrior, Mesmer or Thief Sword.
- Scepter has been all but replaced in role by longbow as a ranged damage option (I’d prefer it as a condition weapon).
- Staff is useless as a damage and support weapon and only good for mob tagging.
- Hammer has broken functionality (like auto attack popping a light field, which can mess up fire field blasting in groups).
So yes, guardians are not completely useless, but they’re certainly not in a good state, not by a long shot. I don’t see why anyone would be against them getting some reworks here and there.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
Exactly what Tenrai says.
Before revenant we had poor dps and good to excellent group support or good dpb but low to good group support, but now revs do everything at the same time and even better. That’s the point. The “record” ppl talks about was made because that guy evidently knew how to use guardian, I’m not saying that it does 0 damage! I’m saying that revs (and other classes) can do everything better! And I am 100% sure that the record coul have been done with revs instead of guards in less time just because actually there is nothing that even a “specialized” guardian build can do better than a “generic” rev one.
Most guardian utility skills have high cooldowns with low uptime on boons or effects. For example:
- empower gives 12 stacks of might for 10 seconds on a 20 second cooldown. Revenants Warriors and Eles on the other hand can stack up to 25 stacks of might with no downtime.
- Guardians get a shout that gives 4 seconds of protection and 6 seconds of regeneration on a 35 second cooldown (Hold the Line). Alternatively, Revenants can give a group 9 seconds of fury, 9 seconds of might (3 stacks), 12 seconds of regeneration, 6 seconds of protection and 12 seconds of swiftness on a skill with a 25 second cooldown (One with Nature).
- Empowering Might (give might to allies on crit) has a 1 second internal cooldown, which greatly limits how much might you can stack. Phalanx Strength and Forceful Greatsword, on the other hand, have no internal cooldowns.
How is that even fair? I can give lots of other examples but I don’t want this list to become too long.
Because we can heal from boon application.Removing the cd from empowerin g might would make it extremely strong. Stand your ground can heal for 2k with 4 allies around. Empower is a 60%+ heal if traited. besides you compare a master with a grandmaster trait.
The rest of you post is filled with very personal points of view which I almost completly disagree with since yu are exaggurating way too much.
Most guardian utility skills have high cooldowns with low uptime on boons or effects. For example:
- empower gives 12 stacks of might for 10 seconds on a 20 second cooldown. Revenants Warriors and Eles on the other hand can stack up to 25 stacks of might with no downtime.
- Guardians get a shout that gives 4 seconds of protection and 6 seconds of regeneration on a 35 second cooldown (Hold the Line). Alternatively, Revenants can give a group 9 seconds of fury, 9 seconds of might (3 stacks), 12 seconds of regeneration, 6 seconds of protection and 12 seconds of swiftness on a skill with a 25 second cooldown (One with Nature).
- Empowering Might (give might to allies on crit) has a 1 second internal cooldown, which greatly limits how much might you can stack. Phalanx Strength and Forceful Greatsword, on the other hand, have no internal cooldowns.
How is that even fair? I can give lots of other examples but I don’t want this list to become too long.
Because we can heal from boon application.Removing the cd from empowerin g might would make it extremely strong. Stand your ground can heal for 2k with 4 allies around. Empower is a 60%+ heal if traited. besides you compare a master with a grandmaster trait.
The rest of you post is filled with very personal points of view which I almost completly disagree with since yu are exaggurating way too much.
So because of one trait which gives strong personal healing, all other guardian support skills must be sub-par because you’re worried about too much self healing?
Wouldn’t it be better if our skills were balanced so one selfish skill isn’t OP, while our other skills for group support are more useful? This is what balance is about. It’s about ensuring that synergy between all our skills and traits is well-rounded as opposed to being lopsided.
In any case, it’s fine if you disagree with me, but to say I’m exaggerating is a bit much if you can’t even elaborate on exactly how. Perhaps you’d like to point out specifically where I am exaggerating so I can better respond or discuss it with you, rather than adopting the “I disagree with you but I don’t want to say why” stance? I don’t mind people pointing out if I’ve made a mistake or if I’ve missed something, but not when they’re so vague.
Because we can heal from boon application.Removing the cd from empowerin g might would make it extremely strong. Stand your ground can heal for 2k with 4 allies around. Empower is a 60%+ heal if traited. besides you compare a master with a grandmaster trait.
The rest of you post is filled with very personal points of view which I almost completly disagree with since yu are exaggurating way too much.
I’m sorry but your argument is invalid imho and here is why:
1) that trait is self heal only and to waste 2 specs just for might on crit + 72hp per boon is useless
2)empower doest heal that much just because might is not applied 1 at times but 3 or 4 at time (i don’t use staff from long time sorry) and this means that the effective heal (self) is 72×3(or 4)xnumber of allies which in the best scenario is a 1440 heal + skill heal… Cool how much? 3k? 4k at max and then? You are stuck with a crappy weapon for 9 sec…
Now let’s have some comparisons…
Warrior:
Shouts heal for 1k aoe, which means an effective 5k heal with shouts that are on a much lower cd than guardian’s one.
Revenant:
They can spam regen without care but… Oh wait wait shield skill 4 is a 1700 aoe heal which also gives protection … On a 15s cd! Mmh
Hold the line (double traited)
28 sec cd, 72×2×5= 720 self heal at best, 4s prot
Henvoy of exuberance:
15s cd, 1700 aoe heal, 2s prot (or 3 if facet of nature is active)
So?!? What are we talking about?! 2 traits waster for a skill which is evidently too much weak! …
I think you’ve missed my point completely.
Make your case about the state of PVE Guardians without reference to other classes and maybe you have something compelling a dev would pay attention to. The state of a class ingame is not dependent on the state of any other. Revs do everything better? OK … how does that make my Guardian any less effective in it’s role conceived by the devs? I doesn’t.
If you are making the case for open world meta events where there is no limit to number of people participating then I think you partially have a point. If you are making the case for raids where slots are very limited than I couldn’t disagree more. I would argue that if a Guardian’s “conceived role” doesn’t create a demand for them in a raid environment, or their role is better fulfilled by others, then due to limited slots their “conceive role” can’t be considered effective.
In my opinion, effectiveness can only be defined as a comparison between two things, since it is not defined by if you can do something, but rather by how well you can do something comparably.
In general, I don’t think you can judge effectiveness in a conceive role without comparing it to other classes, since you would have no measurement to balanced effectiveness.
In general, I don’t think you can judge effectiveness in a conceive role without comparing it to other classes, since you would have no measurement to balanced effectiveness.
The real question is if content requires the roles and concepts that determine a class, not if the classes are good at the roles they fill and how they compare to others. Let’s not forget … judgement of a class, in an MMO for content where TEAMPLAY is critical makes little sense. People share tasks and enhance each others effectiveness. Judging a class in a bubble in that situation makes little sense to me.
Personally, I think there HAS to be a way to make that judgement without comparison because the comparison is so subjective that different people can come to completely opposite conclusions on class effectiveness … we are seeing it in this thread already and all the time in threads and other games. That’s just the nature of what happens when you get class diversity; someone always thinking someone else got something they don’t. …. and for some reason, that’s generally perceived as a bad thing.
These kinds of threads usually originate from people who associate gaming pleasure with maximum effectiveness. I’m not sure where that concept comes from, but I’m sure glad I don’t have it.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
/snip
besides you compare a master with a grandmaster trait.
I don’t disagree with the rest of your post but …
I see this brought up from time to time on different things and I personally think this is an antiquated way of thinking based on the old trait system. The old trait system allowed you to invest partial points into a tree to cherry pick what you were after, so it made since that grandmaster traits need to be stronger to force you to invest deeper in the line.
But the new system forces you to fully invest into 3 trait lines so as an 80 whether something is a grandmaster or a master trait doesn’t really matter, since I’m going to be force to pick up one of each anyways.
As for leveling pre-80, grandmaster make a difference since it is deeper down the line, but I personally don’t think that an MMO should be balanced around how effective individual classes can level.
@Obtena
I agree that comparison can be subjective and I am usually against comparison on a skill by skill level like comparing Warrior’s shout A to Guardian’s shout B, but I still don’t understand why anyone would ignore pertinent data that would help make a class better and more balanced.
Nobody would but to think that we can infer that kind of data from playing the game to claim a class is in a ‘bad state’ for PVE is pretty presumptuous.
2)empower doest heal that much just because might is not applied 1 at times but 3 or 4 at time (i don’t use staff from long time sorry) and this means that the effective heal (self) is 72×3(or 4)xnumber of allies which in the best scenario is a 1440 heal + skill heal… Cool how much? 3k? 4k at max and then? You are stuck with a crappy weapon for 9 sec…
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Altruistic_Healing
Altruistic Healing procs on each individual application of Might so it is 12-60 procs depending on allies reached with a max heal of 4.2k, with an additional heal component on the end for an additional 1.5k. The additional healing on Empower also has a healing coefficient of 1.0 so with the right gear set-up and traits (I know no one builds this way) you could get it up to 3.4k. For a total of 5.7k -7.6k healing.
2)empower doest heal that much just because might is not applied 1 at times but 3 or 4 at time (i don’t use staff from long time sorry) and this means that the effective heal (self) is 72×3(or 4)xnumber of allies which in the best scenario is a 1440 heal + skill heal… Cool how much? 3k? 4k at max and then? You are stuck with a crappy weapon for 9 sec…
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Altruistic_Healing
Altruistic Healing procs on each individual application of Might so it is 12-60 procs depending on allies reached with a max heal of 4.2k, with an additional heal component on the end for an additional 1.5k. The additional healing on Empower also has a healing coefficient of 1.0 so with the right gear set-up and traits (I know no one builds this way) you could get it up to 3.4k. For a total of 5.7k -7.6k healing.
uhm… yes you are right, I’m sorry (I said it was long time ago the last time I used staff) but the point remains… once you swap to staff you have a useless (offensive wise) weapon and you can’t swap for 9 sec… in any critical scenario pve and pvp and wvw it is useless to swap and “cast it to recover”, it has really no sense to spec into healing power to get that 7 or even 9k heal if then you can’t do anything else and also you are not considering a “solo” scenario… well in this case it is much, much more, worse…
In the end most of us aren’t asking to be the embodiment of gods we are just asking for them to look at overwhelming amount of skills, traits and weapon abilities that are absolute crap & either make adjustments or rework them so that they are actually useful & balanced vs what can be done by others.
Granted this will still be a decent chunk of work due to the fact that just under half the utility skills, a good 1/3 or more of the traits & 4-5 (or more) of the weapon skills qualify for being considered crap due to the fact that nobody would ever want to use them for anything serious.
(edited by Ragnar the Rock.3174)
Guard in pve at this point is pretty meh. In high level fractals you have to kitten yourself and your build because of mobs stealing boons (hello retal!) and in raids it’s pretty useless when compared to other classes. Don’t get me wrong it’s definitely viable, just like necro was viable pre-HoT. (maybe we should get a guardian version of nemesis claiming how awesome the class is eh? >_>)
At this point both rev and chrono do what DH does better. They have better team support and in case of the rev a lot more superior personal DPS. Which is why I sadly play chrono most of the time now.
Honestly though, with keeping the other game modes in mind I can’t see a solution. The QQing about trap DPS is already so bad I doubt a DPS increase will be possible. It’s actually much more likely to get nerfed, dropping guardian even further down the list of wanted classes… So I don’t see how we could get on the same lvl as revenant any time soon.
Being on the same level as chrono is even more laughable. With the introduction of alacrity and the perma quickness it can pump out it’s on a whole other level. Even defense-wise it’s pretty much on the same level. The multiple feedbacks that are possible because of F5, the blur well and AoE F3 together prob even beat guardian projectile reflects and blocks if well executed (not that this kind of defense is necessary anywhere in game atm).
“State of the guardian in PvE?”
Trash tier. Right up there with thief
Can’t heal, druid is wayyyyy better. there isn’t even a contest
below average DPS. I don’t need to elaborate this one. If you aren’t convinced yet, chances are you never played any other class beside guard.
Mediocre support. chrono, herald, warrior, tempest is actually better.
Every guard main rerolled in my guilds, or transferred his ascended gear to other soldier profs. no point in being part of the sinking ship
The white knights will tell you guardians are in a good spot however.
AoE Aegis and Stability.
If encounter mechanics do not make at least one of these to shine, then Guardian is probably going to be a subpar choice.
“State of the guardian in PvE?”
Trash tier. Right up there with thief
Can’t heal, druid is wayyyyy better. there isn’t even a contest
below average DPS. I don’t need to elaborate this one. If you aren’t convinced yet, chances are you never played any other class beside guard.
Mediocre support. chrono, herald, warrior, tempest is actually better.
Every guard main rerolled in my guilds, or transferred his ascended gear to other soldier profs. no point in being part of the sinking ship
The white knights will tell you guardians are in a good spot however.
At least thieves still have great damage and can bring some utility that other classes cannot (long duration aoe stealth). They also have the most spammable blast finisher in the game, spammable aoe blinds and a lot of CC capabilites (which is good for taking down enemy break bars). Thief is actually a good addition to any party.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
“State of the guardian in PvE?”
Trash tier. Right up there with thief
Can’t heal, druid is wayyyyy better. there isn’t even a contest
below average DPS. I don’t need to elaborate this one. If you aren’t convinced yet, chances are you never played any other class beside guard.
Mediocre support. chrono, herald, warrior, tempest is actually better.
Every guard main rerolled in my guilds, or transferred his ascended gear to other soldier profs. no point in being part of the sinking ship
The white knights will tell you guardians are in a good spot however.
Many people do beleive that Guardian have a really good DPS right now cause of DH, I’ve been laugh at for saying a DPS inscrease of some weapon would be nice