Guild Wars 2

I think the Guardian would be better served by some base game mechanic changes myself. Considering all our symbols are light fields, changing the combo effects would go a long way. Like blasting the field, instead of granting aoe retal, instead cleanse one condition with a 5 player cap. Also with the light aura changing it from a retal a hit, to cleanse one condition per hit.

This will make our symbol application more valuable in all game modes and also apply some incentive to take perfect signets in the radiance for on demand condi cleanse in a condi spam meta.

Hello,

Here are my suggested Guardian changes:

Profession mechanic

• Virtues: They should pulse a boon with a slight delay, similar to Herald’s facets.
F1 = might; F2 = regeneration; F3 = protection

• Wings of Resolve: Extend its range from 800 to 1,200. While airborne players should receive Resistance until they land. It should innately remove one condition

Weapons

• Greatsword: Greatsword’s second hit in its auto attack chain should apply cripple for ½ a second

• Longbow: Reduce the cast time of Hunter’s Ward from 2 ¾ seconds to 2 seconds

Utility

Meditations

• Combine Contemplation of Purity and Smite Condition together. This new meditation skill should convert all conditions on the player to boons and should deal damage based on if a condition was converted or not. Give it a cooldown of 30 seconds

• Judge’s Intervention: Reduce the cooldown from 45 seconds to 35 seconds

Elite

• Dragon’s Maw: Players trapped inside the maw should lose a boon every second

Core Specialization

Virtues

• Inspired Virtue: Boons should be applied on key release

• Absolute Resolution: While F2 is passive, resistance should be applied for 2 seconds every 10 seconds

• Indomitable Courage: It should allow aegis to stack up to two times. While F3 is passive and a player does not have aegis, the player should receive protection for 2 seconds every 10 seconds. The timer should start after the player is without aegis

Loving the idea of “purify” and “silence” and how they would be exclusive to Guardian. I do not agree with the trap change. A change like that would warrant guardian receiving the current trap trigger boon upon deploying the trap (basically changing when Guardian’s receive the boon). Virtuous speed would be a godsend… I’m praying it makes it through. Spear of Justice needs to be unblockable. There’s way too many blocks going around (mesmer, revenant, engineer, etc.). Shelter is not used in PvP anymore for a reason… It needs to have a cooldown of 20 seconds. Shield of Wrath meditation? Good freaking idea! Guardian downed #1 should have a 25% chance to purify an enemy.

Unless you change purify to a resistance effect and silence into a daze effect they will be terribly OP.

As for the rest of the changes, some are nice but many of the reductions you put in make me wonder why your changing anything.
By making the reductions elsewhere your leaving the guardian in much the same spot it is now. (albeit its offensive build options would be diminished and it would be pigeon holed into a defensive nature)

If your goal is truly over all balance then why not just leave the guardian alone as is then go over to the ele, engi, rev etc… and nerf them down to guardian level then call it a day, it would be much easier then all this.

I am a bit busy at the moment with final exams, so I haven’t been responding; but I have been reading everyone’s posts.

Thaddeus.4891:

ronpierce.2760:

I wasn’t specifically talking about DH. There’s a reason DH is not meta, part of that is our “strongest” and best put together things are traps, which are niche at their very core.

I was referring to the uniqueness and complexity of some of the other Elite spec skills and weapons. Especially weapons. While you could tone them down, at its core, a Guardian GS is pretty well put to shame by the Hammer of a Scrapper.

Also, my point is, clunkiness versus shiney new skills are part of that potential for power, as well as the need for all skills to come off as “usable”. Look at sword for example and compare it to Revenant’s sword (though revenant sword has design issues too between single target and multi-target). Blinding Flash is bland, and frankly weak, can’t be used to move forward, like a forward phase retreat, etc. If everything had to be toned down to the level of Hammer/Sword, I wouldn’t be very happy because for the most part, they’re clunky to use and not very fun.

Would also be similar to reverting Warrior Hammer back to it’s slower and immobile former self. There are a lot of things that just need to be reviewed with a modern philosophy lens, in my opinion.

A happy middle ground would be good. Some bumps/fixes/changes to less fluid things, and some nerfs to some things that are a little too encompassing, like the Scrapper hammer.

The other thing is you have to consider how it feels to lose a lot of what you’ve been given. That’s one of the most potentially dangerous aspects of powercreep is that it isn’t easily reversible because it just doesn’t feel good to feel like the Developers are trashing your stuff for some false sense of “balance” or appropriate “power level”. Because for the most part it IS arbitrary. The danger in power creep isnt the power itself, but how much becomes obsolete due to the power creep, especially as developers become tunnel visioned on a specific set of items (such as their fixation on meta builds and elite specializations).

Quality of Design, Diversity of Design and Balance are 3 totally difference things, but you seem to put them all together.

For example, the Guardian Sword is about Quality of Design. Like you said, Blinding Flash is not that useful and the sword auto-attack have work bad in a lot of situation.

But Guardian GS vs Scapper Hammer is all about diversity of Design. The GS isn’t badly design, it’s actually really nicely designed. They are just designed for different thing, so one is better suited for some content, while the other one is better suited for something else. GS have a really great design for PvE and WvW Zerg. You have a leap, you have a symbol, you have a really great CC for some situation, etc.

And finally, you have balance. That’s just the numbers. Something could be well designed, but poorly balance. Or the other way around. For example. You could remake the Guardian sword so it feel more useful. Make Blinding Flash work more like a teleport or a forward phase retreat as you said, rework the auto-attack so it doesn’t bug and change the skill 3 to be useful. That would fix the bad design problem. But it won’t fix the balance issue that Sword is one of the worst dps weapon of the guardian.

I agree that you don’t want to destroy the good design that came with the elite spec. But you can drop balance them without doing so. But like i said and like you said too, you can’t just nerf the elite spec or people will be upset. A middle ground would be the best option here, but I don’t think that it’s what anet want.

As for power creep, you are right and wrong. Yes one problem of power creep is that designed tend to power creep only a part of each profession, making the remaining of the profession weaker by comparison. But the power creep itself is bad because it make older content obsolete. Take dungeon for exemple. My guardian used to do 8k dps when the game started. Now? we do like 20-23k dps. So if you were fighting Subject Alpha it would take you between 24 and 30 seconds to kill him at the end of CoE and he would be able to attack you maybe like 9-10 times. If your group was bad, it could wipe easily.

Now? It would take less than 9 seconds to kill him. Even with a bad group, he will die before he can kill the group, meaning ; you don’t need to dodge, heal, use aegis, blind, protection or anything. The power creep make old content easier and make mechanics completely useless.

Of look at the Effigy in CoF path 1. They also nerfed it, so it wasn’t totally because of the power creep, but we used to need poison and to hunt down crystal to kill him because otherwise he would have too much regen. Now? We kill him in 6 second or less and we couldn’t give more of a crap about his regen. Hell, he doesn’t even have time to do much attack anyway.

This posts adequately explains some reasoning. While I’m trying to achieve balance, I can’t ignore diversity of design and quality of design. That’s why some of the changes seen in this proposal are being made- to distinguish themselves apart.

Dragonhunter needs vigor somehow, when I fight revenants i feel like I need to dodge too many skills and I get outsustained so fast. Specially if they go retribution line we do like no dmg on them while they still force us to dodge their combos and the fight can take long, so at the end, my endurance and cds will be gone and I will get oneshooted. I need vigor for being able to dodge more often, also because the virtues can be rupted while casting them the class can be easily outplayed without the boon, specially by thieves. That is the main reason I still play scepter focus over bow, this one is too offensive and has lack of sustain considering the meta builds. But then I got another problem, scepter deals too low dmg vs tanky revenant, tanky scrapper, druid.. Should have the dmg buffed for being viable again imo.

JackaS.9426:

Dragonhunter needs vigor somehow, when I fight revenants i feel like I need to dodge too many skills and I get outsustained so fast. Specially if they go retribution line we do like no dmg on them while they still force us to dodge their combos and the fight can take long, so at the end, my endurance and cds will be gone and I will get oneshooted. I need vigor for being able to dodge more often, also because the virtues can be rupted while casting them the class can be easily outplayed without the boon, specially by thieves. That is the main reason I still play scepter focus over bow, this one is too offensive and has lack of sustain considering the meta builds. But then I got another problem, scepter deals too low dmg vs tanky revenant, tanky scrapper, druid.. Should have the dmg buffed for being viable again imo.

You can stack 10 seconds of vigor every 15 seconds by standing in the symbol created by LB skill #4 for the full length of its duration.

JackaS.9426:

Dragonhunter needs vigor somehow, when I fight revenants i feel like I need to dodge too many skills and I get outsustained so fast. Specially if they go retribution line we do like no dmg on them while they still force us to dodge their combos and the fight can take long, so at the end, my endurance and cds will be gone and I will get oneshooted. I need vigor for being able to dodge more often, also because the virtues can be rupted while casting them the class can be easily outplayed without the boon, specially by thieves. That is the main reason I still play scepter focus over bow, this one is too offensive and has lack of sustain considering the meta builds. But then I got another problem, scepter deals too low dmg vs tanky revenant, tanky scrapper, druid.. Should have the dmg buffed for being viable again imo.

Would much rather see revenant, scrapper, and druid to get nerfed down instead of everyone else buffed up.

I agree with the above, rather see certain classes get a rework in how their skills work though.

Example is Rev’s Sword#3 teleport+Evade (invulnerable). The only thing us guardians can prevent that 5k+ burst is our F1 pull… it can miss and we have to initialize it before rev uses the skill. If he’s a good rev… he simply wont use it when tethered :/

In other words… certain classes needs counterplay and it’s not just Revs.

Humm i hardly see those classes getting a bit more balanced, game is very gimmick based and DH is the proof of that, if they balance them they take out the main “objective” that this game has.

DH fits in this damage optimization role, besides any other role than that any guardian build is extremelly easy to defeat (IMO), and if other classes (lets ignore player skill and reflexes for a momment) starting to find guardian a competitor, like some find DH trapper hard to 1vs1 , they will ask for even more nerfs.

If any changes occur, traps wont be effective has other classes are and other classes are overall much better, traps to be effective guardian needs to be squishy againt other damage optimized build, if a guardian fails to trap target he is in a very bad situation.

Aeolus.3615:

Humm i hardly see those classes getting a bit more balanced, game is very gimmick based, if they balance them they take out the main “objective” that this game has.

DH fits in this damage optimization role, besides any other role than that any guardian build is extremelly easy to defeat (IMO), and if other classes (lets ignore player skill and reflexes for a momment) starting to find guardian a competitor, like the DH trapper, they will ask for even more nerfs.

If any changes occur, traps wont be effective has other classes are and other classes are overall much better, traps to be effective guardian needs to be squishy againt other damage optimized build, if a guardian fails to trap target he is in a very bad situation.

This statement is very vague. Please elaborate more.

edit/ you elaborate more just as I posted this lol

@TheBravery.9615, sorry i really need to loose the habit of post then edit it :<

I don’t like your take on Dragonhunter, simply because I feel you’re making the equation that Dragonhunter = Guardian, which isn’t true.

Dragonhunter was supposed to add an All-out Offensive version of the Guardian, analogous to what an Inquisitor would be to a Paladin (One kills heathens in the name of faith/God, while the other protects the innocent in the name of Faith/God) just without the religious connotations. The name itself was inspired by Witchhunters, and we all know those were ruthless “Shoot first, ask questions later”-kinda people.
The whole idea of Elite Specializations was to add a different Flavor to each Profession and completely throw the concept on its head, not ONLY adding to what was already an integral part to the Profession. The Dragonhunter personifies Zeal, which is the Offensive portion of Guardian. Other Elite Specs will probably focus on different aspects.

But let’s talk about your Weapon changes first:

Greatsword: Nothing to add, looks fine.

Hammer: You’re basically killing the DPS on the Hammer for a slightly faster Auto-chain, and the Ring of Warding change is uncalled for as it is a very strong Lockdown mechanic (Especially for professions that move a lot just by attacking). I would suggest merely reducing Activation Time from 1s to 3/4s.

Staff: Piercing Light is unbalanced and OP as they come. 5s Silence on an 8s CD means that a Guardian only needs about 60% Condition Duration in order to keep it up 100% With this skill Alone, which is a Piercing, 1200 units Non-Projectile with an Activation time of 1/2s. AND it Reveals for 5s. I will propose changes to Silence and Purify down below, but in their current iterations and with their current durations, those Conditions are very OP.

Longbow: Made entirely, and completely, useless with those changes. PvP Viability goes out the window if you gotta “Reload” your only source of consistent Damage (Since you suggest nerfing damage on Deflecting Shot to nothing, nerfing Symbol Damage and added nothing to Hunter’s Ward) for 3 1/2s after each shot. That’s a death sentence. In PvE, the DPS drop would be so enormous that noone would bother using it, you’d probably get better DPS with Staff.

Defender’s Arrow is an unnecessery change. The Longbow is not a defensive weapon. Deflecting Shot rewarded skillful use with a big Damage Increase, fitting both the Defensive concept of Guardian, and the Offensive direction that Dragonhunter was headed.

I’m going to suggest the following:

• Increase the Cooldown on True Shot to 5s, up from 4s. Reduce Damage by around 17~22%, and Power Scaling by about 10%. Remove Lockdown, but keep the Activation Time the Same.
• Remove Blind Component from Deflecting Shot. Add that it grants Aegis to Allies it passes through, and gain the Damage Bonus if this happens. (Does not affect the Dragonhunter himself).

Mace: Protector’s Strike was very Hard-hitting, so the Mace loses a lot of Spike Potential with this, as well as a Block Skill. This synergized very well with Communal Defenses. I don’t particularily dislike your change, but I feel it won’t really change Mace’s situation much.

Scepter: This is a big one, much to go through here. First, the idea of the Auto-attack is very interesting in Theory, however I don’t know how it’ll look in Practice. One important thing to consider is how it’ll perform In Melee, as there the slowness of the Projectiles won’t be an issue and you might be pushing what’s supposed to be a Guardian’s fallback weapon into another Melee weapon through this. Still, 10 orbs is a LOT in order to gain the expected AoE Damage Burst out of it, which might end up being too gimmicky to reliably use over another weapon.

As for the change of Binding Light into Frozen Light… Guardian has very little Synergy with Chilled. The Hammer had use of it due to the fact that a slow-moving target was easier to Strike with Symbol of Protection or trap in a Ring of Warding, however Scepter as you’ve designed it isn’t gonna have much use of it since the Orbs home in regardless.

Here are my suggested changes:

• Orb of Wrath: Simply add Burning (1 stack, 2s) to each Orb and cause them to deal AoE Damage in a small area around their target (About 180 units), in order to give it a DoT Component that synergizes better with the Guardian’s other traits.
• Smite: Changed into Symbol of Smiting. Now last for as long as other Symbols (4s Base) and has 5 Pulses that deal consistent Damage and grants Might (1 Stack, 5s) to Allies within. Synergy again, also now causes consistent hits against all Targets, rather than the RNG from before.
• Binding Chains: Changed to both work as a Single Target Lockdown, and AoE damage Component. Now Immobilizes (1s) your Primary Target, before causing a surge of light (x6 hits) that cause Vulnerability (1 stack, 4s) on nearby enemies.

Sword: Needed an upgrade quite badly. However, you didn’t fix the primary issue with Zealot’s Defense which was the horrible accuracy and pathing with its projectiles. The Auto-attack idea is quite interesting, I’ll admit. I wonder how it will look in practice, however (Consider Animation Differences between Humanoids, Male Norn, Charr and Asura.)

Here’s a few suggested alterations:

• Sword of Wrath (AA Chain): Keep the first and second animation Intact, but move the Zealot’s Defense animation to the last instance while keeping the part where it Destroys Projectiles. No need to keep the Fired Projectiles, however.
• Zealot’s Defense: Reworked to rather than sending out several projectile instead Produces a Wave much like Wave of Wrath or Shield of Judgement, only with the Addition that the Guardian Blocks incoming Attacks during the Animation (About 1/2s). Uses Ranger’s Sword #1 Animation (old Hamstring). Cooldown at 8s base.
• Flashing Blade: I like your change, let’s keep that.

Focus: Hoooo boy, you reeeeeally went overboard with this one. This Focus is OP out the whazoo altogether, and will completely throw any other Off-hand out the window in seconds. 10s of being unable to land Conditions, on a 20s (Base) Cooldown? And it Pierces? And Blinds? Waaay too much.

Meanwhile, 5’s “Shield of Wrath” was one, if not the One skill that made Guardians effective. To remove it for a skill that is basically an AoE Version with a redonkelous Activation Time is quite the Hit to the Focus, almost enough to balance it out. Almost.

As with Staff, I’ll go over the possible changes down below we we’ll discuss Silence and Purified.

Shield: Like the 4 skill, but it might be quite OP in Team Fights since it’s an AoE, meaning the Guardian can basically make the team Invulnerable while they wail on enemies. Some slight change is necessery.

Changes:

• Shield of Judgement: Make it into a PBAoE which causes the Guardian to Block incoming attacks for 2s, while granting Aegis to nearby Allies in a 240 Radius. If Fully Channeled, all Allies also gain Protection (3s).
• Shield of Absorption: Make the Channel 2s, but the Shield Duration 4s, meaning that the Guardian must channel it for a while at least, in order to reap the rewards.

Torch: Good enough changes, don’t have anything to add here.

Silence and Purified:
Alright so, these basically do the same thing except that Purified causes enemies to grant Boons when they try to add conditions to foes. All-in-all, both these conditions are Pretty kitten powerful, and we’re talking Fear/Taunt and Resistance-levels of Powerful here. 10s Durations when hitting 50% or even 100% Condition Duration in PvE is common practice means they’re way overtuned since they basically shut down Condition Builds altogether, and completely so.

Here’s what I suggest:

• First, remove Purify. Instead, add a Grandmaster Major trait somewhere (Honor, possibly) that causes Silence to act like Purified, rather than creating two separate Conditions for it.
• Second, either curb Silence’s Base Durations down to somewhere around 2-3s Base, or 5-6s for Long CD Utility Skills.
• OR, cause them to act like Blind, where they block the next attempt at applying a Condition but are then Consumed.

As I’m mostly only a PvEr I’m going to talk about what needs to change to improve guardian on that front.

Right now guardian isn’t in a terrible place PvE-wise. Probably in a better spot than it had been for a long time. However there’s still a lot of stuff extremely lackluster that would improve a guardians position without making it overly powerful.

- Damage:
Guardian dps is decent. It isn’t absolutely godlike, but decent enough to bring it along. Sadly it depends on a whole lot of variables.

The most important one is that it’s highly susceptible to movement of the boss. All your damage is focused on overlapping symbols with permanent quickness access. Those 2 things could see guardian at the bottom again very soon depending on balance changes and design. It’s already not that great in wing 2 because of the amount sloth and matthias move around.

On top of that any balance changes to the hammer, like no more symbols on auto attack as I’ve seen a lot of people suggest in the past, would absolutely kill their dps. If they would change permanent quickness on chrono, which is not unlikely considering the complaints that some classes really just auto attack a whole fight long, it would also be a lot more damaging for the guardian than for most other classes.

The way I see it being fixed is by buffing other weapons sustained DPS. Best option would be sword of course, as it would be a lot less reliant on symbols which makes guardians just as viable as other classes on bosses that are mobile. Especially considering how lackluster the weapon is atm.

- Utility:

You’d think with wing 2 being about reflects, condi removal, etc guardian would be in an awesome position there, but at least in my opinion it mostly feels clunky and bad. Some of that has obv to do with the mobility of the bosses (see dmg) but generally our utility isn’t that fantastic either.

The biggest offender is imo the shield of the avenger spirit weapon. It’s still highly uncontrollable, on a dreadfully long CD and has an annoying RnG factor. IMO you should make uptime 100%, cut the cooldown in half and give it a 10sec uptime. This way it would be an actual viable skill to use, less susceptible to movement of the boss on a normal cd when compared to poison cloud/feedback/swirling.

Condi removal when not traiting into virtues (which you can’t rly do with the current hammer 1 spam build without losing a huge chunk of dmg) is also surprisingly bad. I know people have been using the save yourself + contemplation of purity combo to get around sloth’s spore attack but even then I feel the cd on SY is just so long for what it’s worth.

Using the bow spirit weapon as a condi clear is obviously just laughable. It’s just… really really bad. Please just completely redesign that skill to do smth useful. Which leaves us with purging flames, which is the only skill that’s fine rly.

TheSwede.9512:

I don’t like your take on Dragonhunter, simply because I feel you’re making the equation that Dragonhunter = Guardian, which isn’t true.

Dragonhunter was supposed to add an All-out Offensive version of the Guardian, analogous to what an Inquisitor would be to a Paladin (One kills heathens in the name of faith/God, while the other protects the innocent in the name of Faith/God) just without the religious connotations. The name itself was inspired by Witchhunters, and we all know those were ruthless “Shoot first, ask questions later”-kinda people.
The whole idea of Elite Specializations was to add a different Flavor to each Profession and completely throw the concept on its head, not ONLY adding to what was already an integral part to the Profession. The Dragonhunter personifies Zeal, which is the Offensive portion of Guardian. Other Elite Specs will probably focus on different aspects.

But let’s talk about your Weapon changes first:

Greatsword: Nothing to add, looks fine.

Hammer: You’re basically killing the DPS on the Hammer for a slightly faster Auto-chain, and the Ring of Warding change is uncalled for as it is a very strong Lockdown mechanic (Especially for professions that move a lot just by attacking). I would suggest merely reducing Activation Time from 1s to 3/4s.

The change to hammer auto wasn’t originally part of my plan. It was influenced by feedback gathered in this discussion thread- people wanted a faster attack, so that’s what I did.

In response to the ring of warding buff, I designed it balancing it with longbow’s hunter ward in mind. (hunter’s ward being superior due to it’s range, cripple, damage, and the fact that it spawns up to 5 separate mini ring of wardings) However, it’s not to say that I am right here. It’s a valid concern you brought up, and I’ll try to think of other ways. Thanks.

Staff: Piercing Light is unbalanced and OP as they come. 5s Silence on an 8s CD means that a Guardian only needs about 60% Condition Duration in order to keep it up 100% With this skill Alone, which is a Piercing, 1200 units Non-Projectile with an Activation time of 1/2s. AND it Reveals for 5s. I will propose changes to Silence and Purify down below, but in their current iterations and with their current durations, those Conditions are very OP.

I should probably make it clear that silence should not be affected by condi duration stats. Thank you for your suggestions on purfy/silence. I’ll make a note to nerf this a bit more.

Longbow: Made entirely, and completely, useless with those changes. PvP Viability goes out the window if you gotta “Reload” your only source of consistent Damage (Since you suggest nerfing damage on Deflecting Shot to nothing, nerfing Symbol Damage and added nothing to Hunter’s Ward) for 3 1/2s after each shot. That’s a death sentence. In PvE, the DPS drop would be so enormous that noone would bother using it, you’d probably get better DPS with Staff.

Defender’s Arrow is an unnecessery change. The Longbow is not a defensive weapon. Deflecting Shot rewarded skillful use with a big Damage Increase, fitting both the Defensive concept of Guardian, and the Offensive direction that Dragonhunter was headed.

I’m going to suggest the following:

• Increase the Cooldown on True Shot to 5s, up from 4s. Reduce Damage by around 17~22%, and Power Scaling by about 10%. Remove Lockdown, but keep the Activation Time the Same.
• Remove Blind Component from Deflecting Shot. Add that it grants Aegis to Allies it passes through, and gain the Damage Bonus if this happens. (Does not affect the Dragonhunter himself).

Note taken. My change to trueshot was a design decision to make the skill more situational rather than something that people would just use when it’s off cooldown. I’ll probably revert defender’s arrow back to deflecting shot then.

Mace: Protector’s Strike was very Hard-hitting, so the Mace loses a lot of Spike Potential with this, as well as a Block Skill. This synergized very well with Communal Defenses. I don’t particularily dislike your change, but I feel it won’t really change Mace’s situation much.

Scepter: This is a big one, much to go through here. First, the idea of the Auto-attack is very interesting in Theory, however I don’t know how it’ll look in Practice. One important thing to consider is how it’ll perform In Melee, as there the slowness of the Projectiles won’t be an issue and you might be pushing what’s supposed to be a Guardian’s fallback weapon into another Melee weapon through this. Still, 10 orbs is a LOT in order to gain the expected AoE Damage Burst out of it, which might end up being too gimmicky to reliably use over another weapon.

As for the change of Binding Light into Frozen Light… Guardian has very little Synergy with Chilled. The Hammer had use of it due to the fact that a slow-moving target was easier to Strike with Symbol of Protection or trap in a Ring of Warding, however Scepter as you’ve designed it isn’t gonna have much use of it since the Orbs home in regardless.

Here are my suggested changes:

• Orb of Wrath: Simply add Burning (1 stack, 2s) to each Orb and cause them to deal AoE Damage in a small area around their target (About 180 units), in order to give it a DoT Component that synergizes better with the Guardian’s other traits.
• Smite: Changed into Symbol of Smiting. Now last for as long as other Symbols (4s Base) and has 5 Pulses that deal consistent Damage and grants Might (1 Stack, 5s) to Allies within. Synergy again, also now causes consistent hits against all Targets, rather than the RNG from before.
• Binding Chains: Changed to both work as a Single Target Lockdown, and AoE damage Component. Now Immobilizes (1s) your Primary Target, before causing a surge of light (x6 hits) that cause Vulnerability (1 stack, 4s) on nearby enemies.

Might reduce the number of orbs needed for the AOE burst then. Thanks for your observation.

Sword: Needed an upgrade quite badly. However, you didn’t fix the primary issue with Zealot’s Defense which was the horrible accuracy and pathing with its projectiles. The Auto-attack idea is quite interesting, I’ll admit. I wonder how it will look in practice, however (Consider Animation Differences between Humanoids, Male Norn, Charr and Asura.)

Here’s a few suggested alterations:

• Sword of Wrath (AA Chain): Keep the first and second animation Intact, but move the Zealot’s Defense animation to the last instance while keeping the part where it Destroys Projectiles. No need to keep the Fired Projectiles, however.
• Zealot’s Defense: Reworked to rather than sending out several projectile instead Produces a Wave much like Wave of Wrath or Shield of Judgement, only with the Addition that the Guardian Blocks incoming Attacks during the Animation (About 1/2s). Uses Ranger’s Sword #1 Animation (old Hamstring). Cooldown at 8s base.
• Flashing Blade: I like your change, let’s keep that.

Focus: Hoooo boy, you reeeeeally went overboard with this one. This Focus is OP out the whazoo altogether, and will completely throw any other Off-hand out the window in seconds. 10s of being unable to land Conditions, on a 20s (Base) Cooldown? And it Pierces? And Blinds? Waaay too much.

Meanwhile, 5’s “Shield of Wrath” was one, if not the One skill that made Guardians effective. To remove it for a skill that is basically an AoE Version with a redonkelous Activation Time is quite the Hit to the Focus, almost enough to balance it out. Almost.

As with Staff, I’ll go over the possible changes down below we we’ll discuss Silence and Purified.

Shield: Like the 4 skill, but it might be quite OP in Team Fights since it’s an AoE, meaning the Guardian can basically make the team Invulnerable while they wail on enemies. Some slight change is necessery.

I designed shield 4 to primarily be used for difficult pve encounters (if they ever existed…). Quite sure that it won’t be OP outside of that because it’s a self rooted ability with a radius smaller than sanctuary.

Changes:

• Shield of Judgement: Make it into a PBAoE which causes the Guardian to Block incoming attacks for 2s, while granting Aegis to nearby Allies in a 240 Radius. If Fully Channeled, all Allies also gain Protection (3s).
• Shield of Absorption: Make the Channel 2s, but the Shield Duration 4s, meaning that the Guardian must channel it for a while at least, in order to reap the rewards.

Torch: Good enough changes, don’t have anything to add here.

Silence and Purified:
Alright so, these basically do the same thing except that Purified causes enemies to grant Boons when they try to add conditions to foes. All-in-all, both these conditions are Pretty kitten powerful, and we’re talking Fear/Taunt and Resistance-levels of Powerful here. 10s Durations when hitting 50% or even 100% Condition Duration in PvE is common practice means they’re way overtuned since they basically shut down Condition Builds altogether, and completely so.

Here’s what I suggest:

• First, remove Purify. Instead, add a Grandmaster Major trait somewhere (Honor, possibly) that causes Silence to act like Purified, rather than creating two separate Conditions for it.
• Second, either curb Silence’s Base Durations down to somewhere around 2-3s Base, or 5-6s for Long CD Utility Skills.
• OR, cause them to act like Blind, where they block the next attempt at applying a Condition but are then Consumed.

Thank you for providing feedback. Particularly like your suggestions to purify/silence; they’re something I could work with. I’ll try to get around to editing this when I have time.

Remove traps from DH…. how about that?

Cause if power creep gets reduced DH traps are good as Spirit Weapons.

Aeolus.3615:

Remove traps from DH…. how about that?

Cause if power creep gets reduced DH traps are good as Spirit Weapons.

This more or less.

I still stand by what I said earlier in the thread.

If your going to nerf anything on guardian then that means you will have to nerf ele, engi, rev & necro even harder if you want to achieve any sort of balance.

So why not save all the trouble and just start with them then see how things are.

TheBravery.9615:

TheSwede.9512:

I don’t like your take on Dragonhunter, simply because I feel you’re making the equation that Dragonhunter = Guardian, which isn’t true.

Dragonhunter was supposed to add an All-out Offensive version of the Guardian, analogous to what an Inquisitor would be to a Paladin (One kills heathens in the name of faith/God, while the other protects the innocent in the name of Faith/God) just without the religious connotations. The name itself was inspired by Witchhunters, and we all know those were ruthless “Shoot first, ask questions later”-kinda people.
The whole idea of Elite Specializations was to add a different Flavor to each Profession and completely throw the concept on its head, not ONLY adding to what was already an integral part to the Profession. The Dragonhunter personifies Zeal, which is the Offensive portion of Guardian. Other Elite Specs will probably focus on different aspects.

But let’s talk about your Weapon changes first:

Greatsword: Nothing to add, looks fine.

Hammer: You’re basically killing the DPS on the Hammer for a slightly faster Auto-chain, and the Ring of Warding change is uncalled for as it is a very strong Lockdown mechanic (Especially for professions that move a lot just by attacking). I would suggest merely reducing Activation Time from 1s to 3/4s.

The change to hammer auto wasn’t originally part of my plan. It was influenced by feedback gathered in this discussion thread- people wanted a faster attack, so that’s what I did.

In response to the ring of warding buff, I designed it balancing it with longbow’s hunter ward in mind. (hunter’s ward being superior due to it’s range, cripple, damage, and the fact that it spawns up to 5 separate mini ring of wardings) However, it’s not to say that I am right here. It’s a valid concern you brought up, and I’ll try to think of other ways. Thanks.

Staff: Piercing Light is unbalanced and OP as they come. 5s Silence on an 8s CD means that a Guardian only needs about 60% Condition Duration in order to keep it up 100% With this skill Alone, which is a Piercing, 1200 units Non-Projectile with an Activation time of 1/2s. AND it Reveals for 5s. I will propose changes to Silence and Purify down below, but in their current iterations and with their current durations, those Conditions are very OP.

I should probably make it clear that silence should not be affected by condi duration stats. Thank you for your suggestions on purfy/silence. I’ll make a note to nerf this a bit more.

Longbow: Made entirely, and completely, useless with those changes. PvP Viability goes out the window if you gotta “Reload” your only source of consistent Damage (Since you suggest nerfing damage on Deflecting Shot to nothing, nerfing Symbol Damage and added nothing to Hunter’s Ward) for 3 1/2s after each shot. That’s a death sentence. In PvE, the DPS drop would be so enormous that noone would bother using it, you’d probably get better DPS with Staff.

Defender’s Arrow is an unnecessery change. The Longbow is not a defensive weapon. Deflecting Shot rewarded skillful use with a big Damage Increase, fitting both the Defensive concept of Guardian, and the Offensive direction that Dragonhunter was headed.

I’m going to suggest the following:

• Increase the Cooldown on True Shot to 5s, up from 4s. Reduce Damage by around 17~22%, and Power Scaling by about 10%. Remove Lockdown, but keep the Activation Time the Same.
• Remove Blind Component from Deflecting Shot. Add that it grants Aegis to Allies it passes through, and gain the Damage Bonus if this happens. (Does not affect the Dragonhunter himself).

Note taken. My change to trueshot was a design decision to make the skill more situational rather than something that people would just use when it’s off cooldown. I’ll probably revert defender’s arrow back to deflecting shot then.

Mace: Protector’s Strike was very Hard-hitting, so the Mace loses a lot of Spike Potential with this, as well as a Block Skill. This synergized very well with Communal Defenses. I don’t particularily dislike your change, but I feel it won’t really change Mace’s situation much.

Scepter: This is a big one, much to go through here. First, the idea of the Auto-attack is very interesting in Theory, however I don’t know how it’ll look in Practice. One important thing to consider is how it’ll perform In Melee, as there the slowness of the Projectiles won’t be an issue and you might be pushing what’s supposed to be a Guardian’s fallback weapon into another Melee weapon through this. Still, 10 orbs is a LOT in order to gain the expected AoE Damage Burst out of it, which might end up being too gimmicky to reliably use over another weapon.

As for the change of Binding Light into Frozen Light… Guardian has very little Synergy with Chilled. The Hammer had use of it due to the fact that a slow-moving target was easier to Strike with Symbol of Protection or trap in a Ring of Warding, however Scepter as you’ve designed it isn’t gonna have much use of it since the Orbs home in regardless.

Here are my suggested changes:

• Orb of Wrath: Simply add Burning (1 stack, 2s) to each Orb and cause them to deal AoE Damage in a small area around their target (About 180 units), in order to give it a DoT Component that synergizes better with the Guardian’s other traits.
• Smite: Changed into Symbol of Smiting. Now last for as long as other Symbols (4s Base) and has 5 Pulses that deal consistent Damage and grants Might (1 Stack, 5s) to Allies within. Synergy again, also now causes consistent hits against all Targets, rather than the RNG from before.
• Binding Chains: Changed to both work as a Single Target Lockdown, and AoE damage Component. Now Immobilizes (1s) your Primary Target, before causing a surge of light (x6 hits) that cause Vulnerability (1 stack, 4s) on nearby enemies.

Might reduce the number of orbs needed for the AOE burst then. Thanks for your observation.

Sword: Needed an upgrade quite badly. However, you didn’t fix the primary issue with Zealot’s Defense which was the horrible accuracy and pathing with its projectiles. The Auto-attack idea is quite interesting, I’ll admit. I wonder how it will look in practice, however (Consider Animation Differences between Humanoids, Male Norn, Charr and Asura.)

Here’s a few suggested alterations:

• Sword of Wrath (AA Chain): Keep the first and second animation Intact, but move the Zealot’s Defense animation to the last instance while keeping the part where it Destroys Projectiles. No need to keep the Fired Projectiles, however.
• Zealot’s Defense: Reworked to rather than sending out several projectile instead Produces a Wave much like Wave of Wrath or Shield of Judgement, only with the Addition that the Guardian Blocks incoming Attacks during the Animation (About 1/2s). Uses Ranger’s Sword #1 Animation (old Hamstring). Cooldown at 8s base.
• Flashing Blade: I like your change, let’s keep that.

Focus: Hoooo boy, you reeeeeally went overboard with this one. This Focus is OP out the whazoo altogether, and will completely throw any other Off-hand out the window in seconds. 10s of being unable to land Conditions, on a 20s (Base) Cooldown? And it Pierces? And Blinds? Waaay too much.

Meanwhile, 5’s “Shield of Wrath” was one, if not the One skill that made Guardians effective. To remove it for a skill that is basically an AoE Version with a redonkelous Activation Time is quite the Hit to the Focus, almost enough to balance it out. Almost.

As with Staff, I’ll go over the possible changes down below we we’ll discuss Silence and Purified.

Shield: Like the 4 skill, but it might be quite OP in Team Fights since it’s an AoE, meaning the Guardian can basically make the team Invulnerable while they wail on enemies. Some slight change is necessery.

I designed shield 4 to primarily be used for difficult pve encounters (if they ever existed…). Quite sure that it won’t be OP outside of that because it’s a self rooted ability with a radius smaller than sanctuary.

Changes:

• Shield of Judgement: Make it into a PBAoE which causes the Guardian to Block incoming attacks for 2s, while granting Aegis to nearby Allies in a 240 Radius. If Fully Channeled, all Allies also gain Protection (3s).
• Shield of Absorption: Make the Channel 2s, but the Shield Duration 4s, meaning that the Guardian must channel it for a while at least, in order to reap the rewards.

Torch: Good enough changes, don’t have anything to add here.

Silence and Purified:
Alright so, these basically do the same thing except that Purified causes enemies to grant Boons when they try to add conditions to foes. All-in-all, both these conditions are Pretty kitten powerful, and we’re talking Fear/Taunt and Resistance-levels of Powerful here. 10s Durations when hitting 50% or even 100% Condition Duration in PvE is common practice means they’re way overtuned since they basically shut down Condition Builds altogether, and completely so.

Here’s what I suggest:

• First, remove Purify. Instead, add a Grandmaster Major trait somewhere (Honor, possibly) that causes Silence to act like Purified, rather than creating two separate Conditions for it.
• Second, either curb Silence’s Base Durations down to somewhere around 2-3s Base, or 5-6s for Long CD Utility Skills.
• OR, cause them to act like Blind, where they block the next attempt at applying a Condition but are then Consumed.

Thank you for providing feedback. Particularly like your suggestions to purify/silence; they’re something I could work with. I’ll try to get around to editing this when I have time.

On the last part concerning silence & purified.

Why not just make them resistance & daze effects.

Those effects are in game already and have counters thus they are much easier to balance and won’t require the extra work of having Anet coders to look at every class & every ability to see if they will interact with them or cause them to be canceled out.

jonemirant.1653:

Guardian is already a deadclass, why bother “balancing” it, just delete the class entirely or make a new class.
(…)

And I don’t understand why people say "omg, please nerf DH traps, please nerf DH LB, please nerf DH SoJ, they are so “disruptive”, please nerf!" Oh excuse me! So its too disruptive to ask you to walk into my traps, stay there and let it kill you, (…)

Guardian should be removed, it will never be balanced, while game will flip metas, while boosting only a niche of classes to and overboosted performance state, it will never be atrue balanced game (will hardly be, i dont think that is what Anet wants), to cover the low number os skills per weapon they change power damage from time to time, so players cant be bored to play the same weapon over and over «, it is a bad design.

And it is easy to see whay people want DH trap nerfed, most players play this game because it is easy to kill anyone with some classes if something gets in the way and they cant just press skills to kill the target as they are used to do it, it becomes to strong for them, players want easy classes to defeat, placebo wars with classes carrying more players than the otherway.

I’ll get to necromancers/reapers and the other “meta” professions as soon as I can, but I’ve been busy with “real life matters”. I’ll get to it eventually…

Aeolus.3615:

jonemirant.1653:

Guardian is already a deadclass, why bother “balancing” it, just delete the class entirely or make a new class.
(…)

And I don’t understand why people say "omg, please nerf DH traps, please nerf DH LB, please nerf DH SoJ, they are so “disruptive”, please nerf!" Oh excuse me! So its too disruptive to ask you to walk into my traps, stay there and let it kill you, (…)

Guardian should be removed, it will never be balanced…. -snip-

Guardian is one of the more balanced classes in the game bro lol… you sound like a Thief or Warrior.

Classes aren’t bad, players are bad.

Saiyan.1704:

Aeolus.3615:

jonemirant.1653:

(…)
(…)

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Guardian is one of the more balanced classes in the game bro lol… you sound like a Thief or Warrior.

Guardian is balanced but other classes will be always overboosted in preferance over guardian, wich gets the class outdated really fast.