Guild Wars 2

@OP

You had a few good ideas, but I feel you strayed from improving balance to “neat ideas”. A lot of traits which were useless before are still useless now. Weapon skills didn’t need touched to the degree that you did (especially focus), the Purify mechanic wasn’t really needed, and you didn’t really make trait lines that much better or more focused, which is what they need.

Overall, you need to reduce the changes to the true problems. Don’t break what works already, especially on the weapons. Here’s my input (obviously not comprehensive).

Weapons
Most of the changes weren’t needed. Specifically:

• Staff #2 is pretty good as-is other than getting stuck on its 2.b. No need to completely change it other than to add timeout on 2.b based on its max range. #3 and #4 have the same problem in that the boons they provide just don’t last long enough. The boon duration from the trait needs baked in. #5’s problem is that you can run into the line, be knocked down, but traverse it at the same time. It ends up being a crappy knockdown instead of a ward.
• Hammer #1.c needs to change. In PvE it’s brain-dead spammy and in PvP/WvW, it’s too clunky to use. Suggest reducing the symbol to 1sec (2 ticks) and lowering cast time on 1.c slightly. #3 doesn’t need a teleport; its effect just needs to be wider so that you can stutter step and avoid it. #5 has the same issue as staff #5 where people can get through it when they shouldn’t. Otherwise, the size and the fact you have to not move while casting is part of its counter-play.
• Scepter Weapon is fine as-is. It has high sustained damage and a strong single-target CC. It was never intended to hit targets accurately at long ranges.
• Focus Fine as-is, why change it?
• Shield #4 needs to have some kind of offensive debuff (a soft CC or weakness) rather than more defensive boons.
• Sword Needs to differentiate itself from greatsword more. The #3 is supposed to do that, but fails. I like your idea and it meshes nicely with the other skills; I just really hate the taunt mechanic in general (supper annoying and buggy when used on players).
• Mace Needs its attacks sped up a bit, which you did on #2. #3 should be left alone mostly. Suggest giving it the same treatment was warrior weapon blocks where ranged attacks don’t end it. With sword #3 being changed to something which isn’t anti-projectile, I think this is reasonable.

Traits
The biggest problem with guardian traits is that they’re too scattered. The lines need to have stronger themes, which leads to better interaction and choices.

Zeal
I think this would work better as the constant aggressor offensive line, favoring 2h weapons. Retaliation would help fit that theme.

• Symbol Traits Need to remove and consolidate the current minors and make the master and GM slot ones into a major trait. Add more options to produce symbols on effect. Larger symbols desperately needs to be in this line.

Radiance
Focus on burning and skirmishing rather than heavy pressure. 1h weapons fit better here.

• Retaliation Traits Swap Fiery Wrath and Retaliation. Move/change other retaliation heavy traits.
• 1h/OH specific traits Make them more generalized i.e. no need for Zealous Scepter (moved from zeal) and Right-hand strength shouldn’t restrict to weapon type.
• Minor Traits Re-work to provide small reduction to VoJ cooldown when certain things happen in combat (i.e. hit a player with 3+ burning) instead of on a kill.

Valor
Self-sustain tree, with some group support. It has some awful traits, but they can be left for later.

• Monk’s Focus This needs toned down a little (less base but increase scaling or spread out the healing over a few seconds).

Honor
Honor is the group support line. It needs a lot of help though. Many traits are awful or require a heavy healing power investment to even be viable.

• Selfless Daring Increase base and lower scaling.
• Minor GM Replace with something else. Maybe a trait which helps with healing power scaling (e.g. percent of healing power to power or power to healing power) or just a straight bonus to healing as a minor. Probably replace the GM minor.
• Adept Major Get rid of the fall damage trait (move to Zeal?) and add another competitive option.
• Master Major Make this an offensive support slot. Pure of Heart can move to a minor or adept major.
• GM Major Symbol trait needs scrapped and replaced. The size increase goes to zeal. The healing wasn’t that much and didn’t work well with the static nature of symbols.

Virtues
Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage have too much going for them. At the same time, this line should support active use of virtues as well as saving them.

• Passive vs. Active Remove the overall virtue cooldown reduction from the GM minor. Group cooldown reductions with traits which benefit the passive.
• Absolute Resolution Only does condi removal. Other effects move to other traits. For example, the increase to the passive should be paired with a cooldown reduction.
• Indomitable Courage Only does stability + stun break. Other effects are moved to other traits.

Skills

• Spirit weapons These will never be amazing, like almost all AI skills. They can be buffed a little, but they’ll likely never be mainstream. Don’t waste too much time on them.
• Consecrations These need a lot of help. Their benefits aren’t good enough to justify making you a sitting duck. They need to be powerful enough to want to stay in them. Purge Flames should tick resistance (maybe reduce the up-front removal). Hallowed Ground should give some kind of physical damage reduction in addition to stability and have a lower CD. Shelter needs a lower CD and maybe a bit more healing.
• Signets Signets are just hard to balance. Consider swapping Mercy’s active to Courage and Mercy’s active becomes an area heal (lower CD obviously). Change Wrath to precision from condition damage to make it less niche.

Virtue Skills
Agree with reducing the cooldowns. Justice Active needs to provide multiple stacks and Resolve active needs a bit more healing baseline.

Dragonhunter
This elite spec is a mess. It needs better harmony with baseline and more depth to skills. I agree with removing boons from traps and increasing arming time – though 3s is too much. Spec design should focus more on mid-range power, though has long-range capability. This helps it synergize with its traps better.

• True Shot Increase cooldown slightly.
• Purification The healing amount is absurd. Instead, make the trigger effect fragments of faith (and remove that trap).
• Spear of Justice / Hunter’s Verdict This works really well with traps, but needs better counterplay and to be less clunky. Suggest reducing CD on Verdict but you have to wait a few seconds after Spear of Justice before using it.
• Heavy Light This is a shining example of terrible design. Put the knockback on LB#3 and tie it to the longbow damage increase trait (currently a minor).

Exedore.6320:

@OP

You had a few good ideas, but I feel you strayed from improving balance to “neat ideas”. A lot of traits which were useless before are still useless now. Weapon skills didn’t need touched to the degree that you did (especially focus), the Purify mechanic wasn’t really needed, and you didn’t really make trait lines that much better or more focused, which is what they need.

Overall, you need to reduce the changes to the true problems. Don’t break what works already, especially on the weapons. Here’s my input (obviously not comprehensive).

Weapons
Most of the changes weren’t needed. Specifically:

• Staff #2 is pretty good as-is other than getting stuck on its 2.b. No need to completely change it other than to add timeout on 2.b based on its max range. #3 and #4 have the same problem in that the boons they provide just don’t last long enough. The boon duration from the trait needs baked in. #5’s problem is that you can run into the line, be knocked down, but traverse it at the same time. It ends up being a crappy knockdown instead of a ward.

• Hammer #1.c needs to change. In PvE it’s brain-dead spammy and in PvP/WvW, it’s too clunky to use. Suggest reducing the symbol to 1sec (2 ticks) and lowering cast time on 1.c slightly. #3 doesn’t need a teleport; its effect just needs to be wider so that you can stutter step and avoid it. #5 has the same issue as staff #5 where people can get through it when they shouldn’t. Otherwise, the size and the fact you have to not move while casting is part of its counter-play.

I hear that suggestion to change hammer 1 a lot. Reason why I was hesitant is because there’s a trait that increases symbol duration with a static amount regardless of how long the original symbol lasted- so to have a +2 second increase on a symbol with a base duration of 1 second made the trait too strong. Not to say that it’s not possible to fix this- there’s ways around it (make the trait dynamic) and I plan on fixing this on the next revision. Thanks for pointing this out.

I changed 3 to improve hammer’s usability as a single weapon set (see below for a quote from arenanet’s balance preview on warrior). At the moment, it’s difficult to lock in a foe using hammer 5 (which is the main attraction of the weapon), and often requires judge’s intervention to make it work in PvP / WvW. In response to staff 5 and hammer 5 sometimes bugging out (people sometimes get through it), I guess I could include in the suggestions a fix to that. Problem is, I don’t know the root cause that’s causing it and it’s inconsistently replicable. Good call on the movement penalty while casting it- but one of the reasons why I did it is because of Longbow 5. It’s just a plain superior version of hammer 5 and was part of my “Equalization” of balance between the two weapons. (hammer 5 improved, longbow 5 reduced)

Our goal for this iteration is to give you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set so that the cooldowns feel more active and fun to play around with.

• Scepter Weapon is fine as-is. It has high sustained damage and a strong single-target CC. It was never intended to hit targets accurately at long ranges.
• Focus Fine as-is, why change it?
• Shield #4 needs to have some kind of offensive debuff (a soft CC or weakness) rather than more defensive boons.
• Sword Needs to differentiate itself from greatsword more. The #3 is supposed to do that, but fails. I like your idea and it meshes nicely with the other skills; I just really hate the taunt mechanic in general (supper annoying and buggy when used on players).
• Mace Needs its attacks sped up a bit, which you did on #2. #3 should be left alone mostly. Suggest giving it the same treatment was warrior weapon blocks where ranged attacks don’t end it. With sword #3 being changed to something which isn’t anti-projectile, I think this is reasonable.

The main reason why I changed up a lot of things with the other weapon sets (mace, shield, focus) is because (in my opinion) their skills seem to be displaced based on their themes and some of which had mechanical flaws (mace 3 was awkward to use for it’s intended purpose- being a cool block for allies that guardians are supposed to do. Instead, it’s just some counter attack. To have it AOE block projectiles would make it similar to shield 5, which would take away it’s identity).

I understand scepter skills 2 and 3 are meant to synergize with each other, but that’s where it’s identity ends. Scepter 1 is nothing more than a generic projectile that does damage and while it did it’s purpose well, there’s too many “generic projectiles” in the game. I wanted to give it a characteristic do distinguish itself from the rest and that’s what I came up with. Despite this, the change here is arguable and is not something scepter needs. It’s more focused on “diversity of design” over balance; and this applies to most of the other changes I had for the other weapons.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Suggestion-Guardian-Balance/6018560

I’ll address the attack speed of mace auto attack in the next revision. Thanks for pointing that out.

Traits
The biggest problem with guardian traits is that they’re too scattered. The lines need to have stronger themes, which leads to better interaction and choices.

Zeal
I think this would work better as the constant aggressor offensive line, favoring 2h weapons. Retaliation would help fit that theme.

• Symbol Traits Need to remove and consolidate the current minors and make the master and GM slot ones into a major trait. Add more options to produce symbols on effect. Larger symbols desperately needs to be in this line.

Symbolic avenger has the size increase now.

Radiance
Focus on burning and skirmishing rather than heavy pressure. 1h weapons fit better here.

• Retaliation Traits Swap Fiery Wrath and Retaliation. Move/change other retaliation heavy traits.
• 1h/OH specific traits Make them more generalized i.e. no need for Zealous Scepter (moved from zeal) and Right-hand strength shouldn’t restrict to weapon type.
• Minor Traits Re-work to provide small reduction to VoJ cooldown when certain things happen in combat (i.e. hit a player with 3+ burning) instead of on a kill.

I’ll consider reworking renewed justice here

Valor
Self-sustain tree, with some group support. It has some awful traits, but they can be left for later.

• Monk’s Focus This needs toned down a little (less base but increase scaling or spread out the healing over a few seconds).

I’ll consider this as well.

Honor
Honor is the group support line. It needs a lot of help though. Many traits are awful or require a heavy healing power investment to even be viable.

• Selfless Daring Increase base and lower scaling.
• Minor GM Replace with something else. Maybe a trait which helps with healing power scaling (e.g. percent of healing power to power or power to healing power) or just a straight bonus to healing as a minor. Probably replace the GM minor.
• Adept Major Get rid of the fall damage trait (move to Zeal?) and add another competitive option.
• Master Major Make this an offensive support slot. Pure of Heart can move to a minor or adept major.
• GM Major Symbol trait needs scrapped and replaced. The size increase goes to zeal. The healing wasn’t that much and didn’t work well with the static nature of symbols.

Good call on selfless daring, scaling is missmatched. Will update in next revision. Unfortunately, unless every profession gets rid of their falling damage trait (strong doubt that will happen), every profession needs to have one. Pure of heart merged into shattered aegis, symbol trait might go through a rework if I follow up with your suggestion that hammer 1 needs to be changed.

Virtues
Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage have too much going for them. At the same time, this line should support active use of virtues as well as saving them.

• Passive vs. Active Remove the overall virtue cooldown reduction from the GM minor. Group cooldown reductions with traits which benefit the passive.
• Absolute Resolution Only does condi removal. Other effects move to other traits. For example, the increase to the passive should be paired with a cooldown reduction.
• Indomitable Courage Only does stability + stun break. Other effects are moved to other traits.

Kinda already done in the suggestion.

Skills

• Spirit weapons These will never be amazing, like almost all AI skills. They can be buffed a little, but they’ll likely never be mainstream. Don’t waste too much time on them.
• Consecrations These need a lot of help. Their benefits aren’t good enough to justify making you a sitting duck. They need to be powerful enough to want to stay in them. Purge Flames should tick resistance (maybe reduce the up-front removal). Hallowed Ground should give some kind of physical damage reduction in addition to stability and have a lower CD. Shelter needs a lower CD and maybe a bit more healing.
• Signets Signets are just hard to balance. Consider swapping Mercy’s active to Courage and Mercy’s active becomes an area heal (lower CD obviously). Change Wrath to precision from condition damage to make it less niche.

I’ve done my best to make spirit weapons more than dumb ai skills, let me know what you think about them (new ones). Good call on resistance on purging flames, did not consider that. Kinda consolidated hallowed ground into sanctuary and made hallowed ground a boon ripping AOE (every profession should have at least one, in light of the rampant boon cancer in this game)

Virtue Skills
Agree with reducing the cooldowns. Justice Active needs to provide multiple stacks and Resolve active needs a bit more healing baseline.

Dragonhunter
This elite spec is a mess. It needs better harmony with baseline and more depth to skills. I agree with removing boons from traps and increasing arming time – though 3s is too much. Spec design should focus more on mid-range power, though has long-range capability. This helps it synergize with its traps better.

• True Shot Increase cooldown slightly.
• Purification The healing amount is absurd. Instead, make the trigger effect fragments of faith (and remove that trap).
• Spear of Justice / Hunter’s Verdict This works really well with traps, but needs better counterplay and to be less clunky. Suggest reducing CD on Verdict but you have to wait a few seconds after Spear of Justice before using it.
• Heavy Light This is a shining example of terrible design. Put the knockback on LB#3 and tie it to the longbow damage increase trait (currently a minor).

Replies are in indented blocks of text within your quote. Thank you for lending me your perspective.

Okay, here are my thoughts. It looks like a new version of the spreadsheet went up while I was preparing this, and I don’t really have time to go through right now to see if the changes have influenced what I’m going to say – so if something I raise seems to be something that’s been addressed by a change, let me know and I’ll check out the new version.

Because this is long enough already, assume anything I don’t comment on is something I either approve of or at least have no objection to (this is the case for some things I have commented on to):

General observation: I don’t think ‘Silence’ is really fitting to the guardian, nor do I think it’s particularly clear just what ‘Silenced’ is supposed to be (how does silencing prevent inflicting a bleeding wound? Shouldn’t it prevent the use of shouts? Etc etc…). Even without that, an unremovable debuff that basically kills any condition build for as long as it lasts seems a bit much.

I don’t think it’s really necessary at all, and if it is, I’d rather see the guardian getting access to Resistance in lieu of a new status effect, or possibly a boon to be placed on allies that prevents them from gaining conditions. Similar comments apply to Purification.

Traits:

Part 2:

Weapon Skills:

Utility Skills:

TheBravery.9615:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

I wouldn’t say that altruistic healing & monk’s focus hinder build diversity per say.

Its just that altruistic healing or monks focus are needed for survivability in PvP & WvW. Without them a guardian may as well have a sign over their head that says “Dies Easily”.

This presents a problem since altruistic healing only works well with shouts (since they provide boons to allies, which must nearby to trigger it) and monks focus only works well with meditations. The other skill types don’t provide a way to trigger either of them and thus you lose in incredible amount of sustain by using them.

There are 3 ways to solve this.

1: Increase the personal healing per second that the guardian can do for themselves & increasing the effect and number of defensive effects. _(tweaking traits, lowering cool downs on heals, increasing the amount of things that reduce/negate damage etc…)
Followed up by removing the sustain from these 2 traits.

(this is the by far the hardest but possibly best solution if done absolutely perfectly)

2: Giving spirit weapons, signets & consecrations there own grand master traits that heal, remove conditions & provide sustain on use or periodically.
or

3: Changing signets, consecrations & spirit weapons so that they provide boons either on use, pulsing etc… so that they can work well with altruistic healing.

Personally I’m in favor of a mix between 2 and 3 as is would be easiest and make these skill types more flexible.

I’m trying to do number 1, but yeah, it’s very complicated to do that correctly.

I thought about giving guardian other sources of sustainability, but I’m concerned that I’ll create a guardian that is capable of choosing all sustainability traits (e.g. if they’re situated in different specializations or classes), and becoming unkillable.

(imagine AH/MF coupled with the new Writ of Persistence and shattered aegis)

I may have made a mistake there by trying to give other specializations sources of sustain (new shattered aegis in zeal, improved write of persistence).

I could try to lower the need for MF and AH by further increasing the virtue of resolve’s passive, as well as signet of courage’s passive- but in the end, this will encourage passive play- which I’m against.

Then I would go with a mixture of 2 & 3.

By giving other skill types (mainly signets & spirit weapons) a rework in what they do at base then reworking traits for signets, consecrations & spirit weapons so that these skill types either provide a decent number of boons on use so that they trigger altruistic healing or by reworking their traits so that the traits provide sustain like monk’s focus.

This would be much easier and much much less convoluted.
It would also end up much easier for people to understand the changes without having to resort to doing the math over several pages trying to find builds with it.

@ those of you calling for removal of boons on traps and an arming time for traps.

You do realize that would essentially kill traps right ?

They are already pretty meh vs competent players because most of their damage can be avoided.
If they didn’t have the boons there would be little reason to use them at all.

@ draxynnic.3719

Wow, I appreciate your feedback. I’ll follow up with a response later. (it’s 4 am and I have work tomorrow)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

@ those of you calling for removal of boons on traps and an arming time for traps.

You do realize that would essentially kill traps right ?

They are already pretty meh vs competent players because most of their damage can be avoided.
If they didn’t have the boons there would be little reason to use them at all.

I could say that traps have killed shouts. While not really “stealing” their identity, it fulfils a similar role by doing something less (no party support), while giving something more (damage).

In my opinion, traps should have a dedicated identity of burst damage. For purposes being a “trap”, granting the user boons while also dealing a ton of burst damage is (arguably) too strong. If the removal of the boons do in fact kill the traps, I would suggest that the damage from the traps be increased, but wouldn’t go back to bringing back boons on trap trigger.

Also from an interprofession balance perspectives, guardian traps are much stronger than thief traps (by a large margin) and ranger traps (by a lesser margin).

TheBravery.9615:

@ draxynnic.3719

Wow, I appreciate your feedback. I’ll follow up with a response later. (it’s 4 am and I have work tomorrow)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

@ those of you calling for removal of boons on traps and an arming time for traps.

You do realize that would essentially kill traps right ?

They are already pretty meh vs competent players because most of their damage can be avoided.
If they didn’t have the boons there would be little reason to use them at all.

I could say that traps have killed shouts. While not really “stealing” their identity, it fulfils a similar role by doing something less (no party support), while giving something more (damage).

In my opinion, traps should have a dedicated identity of burst damage. For purposes being a “trap”, granting the user boons while also dealing a ton of burst damage is (arguably) too strong. If the removal of the boons do in fact kill the traps, I would suggest that the damage from the traps be increased, but wouldn’t go back to bringing back boons on trap trigger.

Also from an interprofession balance perspectives, guardian traps are much stronger than thief traps (by a large margin) and ranger traps (by a lesser margin).

One of the main strengths of shouts is the condition to boon conversion when traited & additional condition removal when used in conjunction with soldier rune.

As for increasing their damage, it will only serve to make them better vs idiots while they will continue to be meh vs competent player because of how easy they are to avoid.

Frankly the only way traps can ever be balanced is removing them entirely from the game for everyone.
Their balance problems go straight to their core in that they are an ambush type of utility which is always going to be good vs idiots and weak vs good players who can avoid them.

Short of that I would suggest bringing ranger and thief traps up to par with guardian traps because at least guardian traps get 1 thing right, they give you a helpful boon even if the enemy completely avoids the damage.

On hammer and Symbol duration:
The symbol duration increase in traits needs to be removed from the game, or symbol of protection needs changed to have a cooldown like other symbols. The duration increase on symbols disproportionately buffs hammer to the point where it’s still rather weak on every other weapon but makes hammer damage ridiculous (over a 20% increase to auto-attack damage from the trait alone).

Exedore.6320:

On hammer and Symbol duration:
The symbol duration increase in traits needs to be removed from the game, or symbol of protection needs changed to have a cooldown like other symbols. The duration increase on symbols disproportionately buffs hammer to the point where it’s still rather weak on every other weapon but makes hammer damage ridiculous (over a 20% increase to auto-attack damage from the trait alone).

The problem with this is where would it be moved, every other hammer skill has a purpose and simply moving it to & tacking it onto one of them could create issues.

The only real option would be to tack it onto mighty blow so that it is placed after the blast & then reduce the damage the symbol does.
That creates a problem however by taking away reliable retaliation generation from the hammer.

Another simpler option would be to do the following

1: Take a pulse off of the symbol
2: Reduce the cast time to 1/2 second and remove the after cast.
3: Reduce the damage the symbol does per pulse.
4: Increase the damage of the hammer auto attacks to compensate.

This reduces the effect of that trait on hammer so it effects it more evenly across weapons.
It also increases the hammer AA speed greatly making the hammer a more enjoyable weapon to use.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

TheBravery.9615:

@ draxynnic.3719

Wow, I appreciate your feedback. I’ll follow up with a response later. (it’s 4 am and I have work tomorrow)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

@ those of you calling for removal of boons on traps and an arming time for traps.

You do realize that would essentially kill traps right ?

They are already pretty meh vs competent players because most of their damage can be avoided.
If they didn’t have the boons there would be little reason to use them at all.

I could say that traps have killed shouts. While not really “stealing” their identity, it fulfils a similar role by doing something less (no party support), while giving something more (damage).

In my opinion, traps should have a dedicated identity of burst damage. For purposes being a “trap”, granting the user boons while also dealing a ton of burst damage is (arguably) too strong. If the removal of the boons do in fact kill the traps, I would suggest that the damage from the traps be increased, but wouldn’t go back to bringing back boons on trap trigger.

Also from an interprofession balance perspectives, guardian traps are much stronger than thief traps (by a large margin) and ranger traps (by a lesser margin).

One of the main strengths of shouts is the condition to boon conversion when traited & additional condition removal when used in conjunction with soldier rune.

As for increasing their damage, it will only serve to make them better vs idiots while they will continue to be meh vs competent player because of how easy they are to avoid.

Frankly the only way traps can ever be balanced is removing them entirely from the game for everyone.
Their balance problems go straight to their core in that they are an ambush type of utility which is always going to be good vs idiots and weak vs good players who can avoid them.

Short of that I would suggest bringing ranger and thief traps up to par with guardian traps because at least guardian traps get 1 thing right, they give you a helpful boon even if the enemy completely avoids the damage.

Could you explain your answer further? How are traps only strong vs idiots and “meh” vs competent players? It’s only a matter of time before you’re struck by spear of justice + hunter’s verdict to pull in “competent players” to eat a bunch of traps.

Exedore.6320:

On hammer and Symbol duration:
The symbol duration increase in traits needs to be removed from the game, or symbol of protection needs changed to have a cooldown like other symbols. The duration increase on symbols disproportionately buffs hammer to the point where it’s still rather weak on every other weapon but makes hammer damage ridiculous (over a 20% increase to auto-attack damage from the trait alone).

Thanks for sharing, and yeah you’re right

The next revision will deal with this issue. The problem is that the symbol’s duration is static across all (+2 seconds), so symbols with a naturally low duration benefits from it most. I might make it dynamic (% increase) and see how that goes.

On an unrelated note, I’m beginning a suggestion thread for thief and engineer.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Balance-problems-of-engineer

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Balance-problems-of-thief

If you guys want to share your frustrations with those professions, now’s the time to do so. (Otherwise, I’ll end up with a bunch of biased opinions)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Another simpler option would be to do the following

1: Take a pulse off of the symbol
2: Reduce the cast time to 1/2 second and remove the after cast.
3: Reduce the damage the symbol does per pulse.
4: Increase the damage of the hammer auto attacks to compensate.

This reduces the effect of that trait on hammer so it effects it more evenly across weapons.

Reducing the symbol of protection pulses and making 1.c faster solves the hammer clunkiness issue and the damage scaling. But you still have extremely high protection up-time. And if you leave in the symbol duration increase, you have permanent group protection from auto-attacking, which isn’t healthy for PvE, even if you lowered hammer damage across the board.

You’ve pointed out why it’s hard to move Symbol of Protection. So I think the best choice is to just scrap Writ of Persistence and move the symbol size increase to Zeal, which could better benefit from it in PvP and WvW.

Given that you would need to auto attack constantly and do nothing else I’m fine with hammer having permanent protection uptime.

The only other real options would be to redesign hammer completely which Anet is unlikely to do no matter how good the argument is.

TheBravery.9615:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

TheBravery.9615:

@ draxynnic.3719

Wow, I appreciate your feedback. I’ll follow up with a response later. (it’s 4 am and I have work tomorrow)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

@ those of you calling for removal of boons on traps and an arming time for traps.

You do realize that would essentially kill traps right ?

They are already pretty meh vs competent players because most of their damage can be avoided.
If they didn’t have the boons there would be little reason to use them at all.

I could say that traps have killed shouts. While not really “stealing” their identity, it fulfils a similar role by doing something less (no party support), while giving something more (damage).

In my opinion, traps should have a dedicated identity of burst damage. For purposes being a “trap”, granting the user boons while also dealing a ton of burst damage is (arguably) too strong. If the removal of the boons do in fact kill the traps, I would suggest that the damage from the traps be increased, but wouldn’t go back to bringing back boons on trap trigger.

Also from an interprofession balance perspectives, guardian traps are much stronger than thief traps (by a large margin) and ranger traps (by a lesser margin).

One of the main strengths of shouts is the condition to boon conversion when traited & additional condition removal when used in conjunction with soldier rune.

As for increasing their damage, it will only serve to make them better vs idiots while they will continue to be meh vs competent player because of how easy they are to avoid.

Frankly the only way traps can ever be balanced is removing them entirely from the game for everyone.
Their balance problems go straight to their core in that they are an ambush type of utility which is always going to be good vs idiots and weak vs good players who can avoid them.

Short of that I would suggest bringing ranger and thief traps up to par with guardian traps because at least guardian traps get 1 thing right, they give you a helpful boon even if the enemy completely avoids the damage.

Could you explain your answer further? How are traps only strong vs idiots and “meh” vs competent players? It’s only a matter of time before you’re struck by spear of justice + hunter’s verdict to pull in “competent players” to eat a bunch of traps.

Stability/evades/reflects counter the pull & stability/evades/reflects are everywhere these days.

The traps also do a daze before any damage is done, this means a smart player will see the daze and dodge asap to avoid all the trap damage thus making the only thing the trap good for is the boon granted.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Short of that I would suggest bringing ranger and thief traps up to par with guardian traps because at least guardian traps get 1 thing right, they give you a helpful boon even if the enemy completely avoids the damage.

Thief and Ranger traps are built for different things. Thief traps are more control based rather than damage oriented while Ranger traps are condition based. I don’t know your particular thoughts on what changes should be made for those traps, but they don’t really need as much as most of the rhetoric I hear (Especially Thief traps, which have knockdowns, immobilizes, and one has the potential to grant around 16 Might). As for DH traps, I’ve been in the camp that DH never really needed boons on its traps (except Fragments of Faith. The stability can stay). The 10s base regen on Purification leads directly into a much stronger hps than other heals, and although the Fury source is nice (and prot, and swiftness), its not exactly needed. As has been mentioned, DH traps prey on the lesser skilled, while Ranger and Thief traps are actually better in applying instant effects. The lasting DH and Ranger traps also contribute to an area denial role, which isn’t something to be ignored.

Exedore.6320:

And if you leave in the symbol duration increase, you have permanent group protection from auto-attacking, which isn’t healthy for PvE, even if you lowered hammer damage across the board.

Hammer has always done this from the beginning of the game. It has only ever been a complaint because now we have Raids (where the sustained dps of Hammer and protection is preferred over the burst of GS+X).

Normally I might consider commenting on the changes proposed by Bravery, but honestly it would be shorter for me to just post my ideal changes to the profession as a whole.

draxynnic.3719:

General observation: I don’t think ‘Silence’ is really fitting to the guardian, nor do I think it’s particularly clear just what ‘Silenced’ is supposed to be (how does silencing prevent inflicting a bleeding wound? Shouldn’t it prevent the use of shouts? Etc etc…). Even without that, an unremovable debuff that basically kills any condition build for as long as it lasts seems a bit much.

I don’t think it’s really necessary at all, and if it is, I’d rather see the guardian getting access to Resistance in lieu of a new status effect, or possibly a boon to be placed on allies that prevents them from gaining conditions. Similar comments apply to Purification.

Silence and purify are new exclusive effects for the guardian, and I have others planned for the other professions. (Warrior’s new exclusive effect will be guard break- an unremovable condition that prevents players from blocking attacks.. there’s more to it, feel free to check out the warrior balance proposal for details.)

The reason for these new exclusive effects is to give each profession a distinction and a unique contribution in combat. Everyone has access to boons and conditions- so professions that give out these boons/conditions have diminished utility. Say you’re dealing with an enemy with heavy condition pressure.. you need a guardian in your party. Say you’re dealing with an enemy with heavy blocking and defenses – now you need a warrior. By doing this, I’m giving every profession a clear and defined purpose in PvE, PvP, and WvW.

They’re not perfect and do need further work. I acknowledge that silence may be too strong if it’s unremovable, so I’ll tweak it in the next revision.

Traits:

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Zealot’s Speed: As well as changing the symbol to a Symbol of Swiftness, an alternative could be to change the name to fit the symbol it currently creates.

This is an acceptable suggestion, i’ll consider this on the next revision.

Zealous Scepter: Hrrrmn. I’m inclined to agree with the idea of making Orb of Wrath have a small AoE. See comments regarding the rework proposal for Orb of Wrath below.

I’ll consider this on the next revision.

Symbolic Exposure -> Virtuous Speed: Do you mean on cooldown or off cooldown? Needing to blow all of your virtues to get the speed buff seems like it wouldn’t actually be very useful. More generally, I don’t think the focus on symbols is really that bad, since all but two guardian weapons have a symbol (one of which is more Radiance-oriented) and the trait minor generates a symbol.

Valid point. I’ll change it on the next revision.

Symbolic Avenger: I’m not sure I agree that allies will necessarily find it easier to stay within a symbol: if you need healing, there’s a good chance that you’ll be moving to avoid hits as well. It’s probably a bit fo a six-of-one, half-dozen-the-other case, since offensive use of symbols certainly benefits from a larger radius as well – however, if Symbolic Avenger is inflicting cripple, than that would serve the role of helping to keep targets within the area.

Making players decide if they want to stay in a symbol to heal or dodge an incoming attack serves the game good in my eyes. I don’t want to create a situation where players would camp on symbols and DPS their target (of course, with the current revision, they’re allowed to do this if they happen to take both traits. I’m probably going to change this in the next revision.)

Healer’s Retribution -> Protector’s Impact: I’m not sure a warding ring is actually better for this trait than Symbol of Protection. Catching the enemy in the ring is a neat trick but one I don’t expect to be repeated often, so most often it’s going to be used to stop melee attackers from jumping you – but ring of warding doesn’t provide any protection against ranged attacks, and doesn’t have the potential to benefit from symbol traits. I think Symbol of Protection is probably more versatile and useful than Ring of Warding here. Like some people have said, I also think it’d probably be better in a symbol-oriented specialisation if reasonably practical.

Another valid point. My decision to turn it into a ring was because falling damage traits are mostly used in WvW by roamers. Not really sure how to proceed with fixing this. I could say both, but that’d be too strong. How about ring of warding + aegis?

Right-Hand Strength: Like other people have said, I’m not sure that ‘executioner-style’ is the way to go with guardian sword (or guardians in general). If we keep with the burning theme, I’d probably be inclined to make it like a weaker (but sword-only, so it doesn’t need to be a lot weaker) version of Incendiary Powder. Alternatively, it could do something like inflict Crippling when you inflict Burning while wielding a sword: this would add to the current flavour guardian sword has of being able to chase down the enemy (and means that good use of Zealot’s Defence could slow down an enemy’s kiting, making that skill more useful).

Hm. Unsure how to proceed with this.. there’s plenty of ways to go about changing this. If the executioner identity doesn’t fit in guardian, I could change it to something else, but what Identity should it get? I want to avoid traits that chain conditions (if you apply X you also apply Y) because it’s lazy passive game design. What about if critical hits by your sword decreased virtue of justice by a static amount? Would make it an ideal weapon for virtue of justice, but I’d have to balance it out because it’s an adept trait (or swap it to a master if it happens to get too strong)

Strength of the Fallen -> Vengeful Spirit: Every profession has an ‘if downed’ trait. The problem is, only a couple of them actually do anything useful to slow down a stomp, and generally aren’t worth taking over something that might stop you from being downed in the first place. This might be a suitable spot for a Ring of Warding. If all your enemies are outside the ring when you’re downed, they’ll have to deal with that before you can be stomped. If they’re inside, then they might still be an easy target for any allies you have around. Alternatively, it could have a pushback before forming the ring.

On the Vengeful Spirit idea… requiring an ally to be finished makes it a bit niche. First, it has the same problem as downed traits in general: you want successful enemy stomps to happen even less than you want to be downed. Second, it doesn’t even have the barest fig leaf of pretending to be useful in PvE. Third, even if it does go off, having the debuff only affect guardian attacks makes it even more restrictive. If we did have something like this, I’d make it trigger whenever an ally (including yourself) is downed (not defeated) nearby, and make the debuff provide a benefit to all allies.

Acceptable suggestion given the the unique situation that it needs to be in for it to proc. However, I decided to isolate it on nearby foes that defeat an ally because multiple foes can “down” an ally and you’d pretty much apply the effect to all foes, which makes it a balancing nightmare.

Strength in Numbers -> Unscathed Contender: This doesn’t really feel like a Master trait to me. Unscathed Contender has high theoretical damage, but in practice you don’t keep your Aegis for very long in most situations.

I thought about removing it, but was skeptical about doing it. I’ll think of some ideas- maybe one that’s active and not passive like this one. If people don’t like whatever that replaces it, I’ll bring it back.

Retributive Armor -> Aegis Master: This is an interesting one. I’m not sure it will actually compete with AH and MF in practice, but I do like the concept.

I plan on swapping this with another trait in the next revision so another trait competes with AH and MF. (hint: it involves symbols)

Invigorated Bulwark -> Peaceful Mace: I disagree with the rationale. Mace has an inbuilt block, and guardian generally has more access to blocks than anyone else (keeping in mind that Aegis is a block). I also don’t like the idea of replacing it with a trait that basically requires doing nothing.

While mace 3 has a built in block, the mace itself lacked a lot of blocking so the trait synergized poorly with the weapon and only the weapon, instead it relied on outside sources. That’s why I changed it. 5 seconds isn’t terribly long though.

I’m also kinda skeptical about healing power itself. It’s obvious to me that when ArenaNet did quarterly balance patches that changed healing skills, they neglected coefficients of heals, making healing power disproportionate in a lot of areas (very good scaling in selfless daring, poor scaling in actual heal skills). This needs a lot of work. Might make it increase outgoing healing power instead.

Protector’s Impact -> Resonating Symbols: Getting Stability of any symbol, even if it can only be gained once, seems like it could be a little strong. Making it only one application per symbol helps, and given the existence of traits and trait combinations that can give a lot more Stability, it may be fine. I suspect the engine might not be able to handle one application per symbol per person, though (similar things are generally done by not allowing the field to apply the boon on a character that already has it – see Temporal Curtain as an example – but that’s not going to work for a boon that is removed when it’s triggered). Might be able to make it happen by having the symbol grant Stability to allies that are in the area when it’s formed, but if they’re not there when it’s laid down, they don’t get it. (Either way, this trait will be a big buff to hammer.)

Hm. I don’t want to make it so infinite players passing through it will gain stability, that would be way too strong for an adept. Thanks for calling this out. Expect a change in the next revision.

Pure of Heart -> Resolve of the Abandoned: Interesting concept. Possibly expand the range to 1200 to limit the potential for abuse in the form of an ally or enemy deliberately keeping away, though.

I have conflicting thoughts about this myself. Might scrap it and give it to thief because it fits their theme better.

Force of Will: I generally considered this to be the trait to take if you had Honor but weren’t making heavy use of shouts or symbols – not really competing with the others so much as being what you took if the others weren’t useful. I’m inclined to think the benefit should still be increased healing: I think they idea behind that is that if you take the trait you’re relying more on hit points to keep alive, and the healing increase means that you still have a good capability to replenish your total.

I think this still looks unattractive. I’ll make changes on next revision

Glacial Heart -> Brave Soul: Seems pretty boring for a major master. On the other hand, it’s a good ‘filler’ trait if the other two aren’t useful.

On second thought, I didn’t consider courage’s longer cooldown. Thanks for bringing this up.

Indomitable Courage: One stack of stability doesn’t last long in the current meta. This would be a net nerf – random blinds you don’t control tend not to have much influence on the battle.

Yeah, that blind is kinda thrown in there. I nerfed indomitable courage so absolute resolution would compete better against it, but maybe I pushed it too far out into the nerf area. I’ll think of something.

Soaring Devastation -> Arrows of Spite: This feels like it needs to be the trait that’s useful if you’re running dragonhunter and not putting a lot of focus into traps or longbow. Yes, it’s unusual, but it’s an option that should be catered for. Soaring Devastation does this – if it’s moved, it should be replaced by something else that has a general application. (Your suggested Hunter’s Reaction doesn’t, for the reason I mentioned there: a pushback isn’t always a good thing if you want to switch to melee). The easiest thing might be to leave Soaring Devastation where it is…

good point..

draxynnic.3719:

Part 2:

Weapon Skills:

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Virtue of Resolve: I’m not sure a buff to the passive heal is absolutely necessary. A decrease on the recharge on the active would probably be sufficient to bring it on par – keeping in mind that while Wings of Resolve can be interrupted, Virtue of Resolve is usable instantaneously.

I buffed the passive heal to make it so the passive heal is a smarter choice for the guardian if the guardian is interested in staying alive. Use of the virtue’s active results in a group heal, which works best if you’re healing allies, but in the end sacrifices sustainability for the guardian. I made this change in order to give the guardian clear implications on what would happen if he/she used the virtue’s active- rather than spamming it mindlessly in hopes that it’ll save him/her.

Wings of Resolve: As people have noted, the immobilise removal was made because Wings of Resolve was too easy to shutdown previously, which could block being able to remove Immobilisation through the condition removal on using Resolve trait. That would need to be addressed before removing the immobilisation removal.

My response to this is that this applies to all skills with movement involved. An argument that it needs to remove immobilize would be invalid because then the argument to put immobilize removals on every movement type skills would be valid. It’s like complaining that your big burst didn’t hit because you got blinded. If anything, you wouldn’t be able to “leap”, but you should still be able to heal yourself in the same AOE radius on the spot you’re immobilized in if you use the skill. Action begets counters; counters should never beget counters.

Zealot’s Embrace: Like others have said, I prefer keeping it as is, possibly with higher projectile and animation speed, than turning it into a one-target immobilise and shadowstep. Partially because of the tactical benefits of multiple immobilises if you do get a line, and partially because I don’t think hammer is supposed to be a highly mobile weapon (it inhibits the mobility of others instead) and we’ve already got Mighty Blow.

I’ll think of a compromise.

Symbol of Energy: See above. It’s also worth noting that while skills usually increase in cooldown from left to right, it is within ArenaNet’s design for adjacent skills to have the same cooldown (see guardian torch, for instance).

Noted.

Hunter’s Ward: I think half the problem here is because of culling. I wouldn’t object to it being one large ring that’s reasonably predictable rather than lots of little ones, though. It also, incidentally, makes it usable for other purposes as well: the current Hunter’s Ward is wasted if nobody is in the area when the barrage portion ends, while this would allow it to create a ‘safe zone’ if there are no enemies in the area when it finishes.

Protector’s Strike -> Protector’s Presence: Personally, I like the current behaviour. What about making it a chain skill so you can end it early to buff your allies if that’s more important than getting the block and counterattack in?

Orb of Wrath: Not fond of this one.
I actually quite like the current Orb of Wrath. It’s a long-range skill that does close range damage. The balancing factor for this is that the projectiles are slow and dodgeable… individually. Throw a few of them out, and it becomes increasingly difficult to dodge them all, and they hit hard enough that you don’t need to hit with all of them to do comparable damage to most long-range weapons (except ranger longbow, of course…). Post-HoT balance has altered that, but I liked the concept of the orbs being a hard-hitting attack with a long theoretical range but a shorter effective range due to low projectile speed, which rewards using snares to prevent people from avoiding it or throwing out a bunch of them that can make an opponent have to choose between fighting effectively or focusing on dodging the hard-hitting orbs.
The proposed change feels like it would result in something extremely fiddly to use.

This was more of a diversity of design change over a balance change. There are a lot of simple projectiles in the game, with orb of wrath just being a slow moving projectile.

Sword of Wrath (Autoattack): The third attack being subject to projectile hate is an issue, but there should be ways to address that without having to completely rebuild the skill. For instance, treat it as three separate wave attacks a la Wave of Wrath.

Zealot’s Defence -> Wrath of the Blade: I quite strenously disagree with this change. I find Zealot’s Defence to be quite useful as a clutch projectile block and as a means of striking a target at a distance when closing is for one reason or another impractical but it’s also not practical to switch weapons.

Noted

Ray of Judgement -> Blinding Jeopardy: I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Ray of Judgement is a ‘generic damage projectile with a gimmicky functionality’ – the damage basically just compensates for the autoattack you used in its place (and arguably not even that). It’s a combination of blind, heal, and condition removal with a gimmicky functionality. I’m not opposed to reworking it so that the supportive aspect works better, however, since at the moment it can be a bit unreliable. Keep in mind, though, that part of the flavour of guardian offhands is that they’re useful both in melee and at greater range.

Shield of Wrath -> Purify: My initial response was ‘why are you removing one of the most popular skills’, and then I noticed that you put it in as a utility.
Nevertheless, I think condition removal is a bit too narrow to be a weapon’s primary f… role. There are certainly weapons in the game that are good at it, but none where it’s the main use of the weapon. If you combine it with the current version of Hunter’s Fortification, Shield of Wrath will remove up to 3 conditions as it is.

Not sure if purify and silence are understood. Instead of ignoring or removing conditions after they’re applied, purify and silence affects the condition source by limiting condition output or “purifying” condition output into boons.

Shield of Judgement -> Shield of the Protector: Again, damage isn’t the primary use of the skill here. The damage of Shield of Judgement, again, pretty much just compensates for the autoattack you didn’t make because you were using Shield of Judgement. You don’t use it to deal damage, you use it because you want area protection and aegis on a fairly short recharge. Your proposal would basically make it an immobile Shield Stance with a shorter duration and the potential to assist party members if they happen to notice that you’re using it and get into the tiny area (chance of that happening in a typical game scenario: highly improbable). I prefer the current functionality. If anything, make the boons apply to nearby allies in any direction and have the wave just apply for the damage (which, as previously mentioned, isn’t much higher than autoattack damage) to make it a little easier to use.

Think about the use of an AOE channeled block though, how useful it would be with proper voice communication in PVE.

Shield of Absorption: I doubt the game engine can identify an ‘energy-based projectile’. Even if it could, I prefer the current functionality on a shorter cooldown than a gimmicky projectile-to-healing effect that may or may not actually do anything for you.

I wanted to reward the guardian for using this skill to absorb as many projectiles as possible, so that’s what I came up with.

Utility Skills:

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All healing changes

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Suggestion-Guardian-Balance/6023991

Hallowed Ground: I think the main problem Hallowed Ground has is the duration/recharge imbalance. Given a higher uptime, and I think it’d be quite useful again. In my experience, mass control effects have created more of a power creep than increased presence of boons.

Purging Flames: You have it labelled as ‘test’, but what’s the reasoning? Purging Flames isn’t really so strong in any mode that it needs a nerf, it’s just a condi removal option that’s suitable for guardians that focus on burning and/or consecrations.

Purging flames and smite conditions share a similar identity, except purging flames theoretically does more. Might change it to pulsing resistance as well.

Bane Signet: Ambivalent. It’s essentially trading one control effect for another (note that the GW1 Bane Signet was also a knockdown). Refreshing Justice adds an interesting twist to it – which probably counterbalances Taunt being a weaker control effect than knockdown. Push comes to shove, though, I’d probably take the knockdown.

Signet of Judgement: Interesting alteration there. However, I don’t think that “plenty of access to retaliation” is in itself a reason to change something. Retaliation is one of the things guardians are based off: giving lots of different ways they can get it so they can proc retaliation-based traits opens up build variety by offering multiple routes to the same destination. Strip out too many and people might end up being forced into the limited options that remain.

Bow of Truth: Interesting change. I think an improved version of the current Bow of Truth would be useful to have so that if spirit weapon builds become viable, they’d have access to condition removal and extra healing. On the other hand, this could be good as well. I’d probably have it maintain a default attack without being ‘Commanded’, however: otherwise, it could be too easily broken by shadowstep tricks, portals, and the like.

Shield of the Avenger: I think the current mechanic of generating a projectile absorption bubble is one worth having, as long as the shield itself has reasonable survivability. The big problem is making sure the shield is placed somewhere useful – possibly make it so that’s it’s stationary by default, and the Command skill summons it to your location and makes the next shield pulse a knockback.

Sword of Justice: Hrrrmn. That does make it more interesting than a simple damage summon. Rather than a command skill based on your new condition, though, I’d be inclined to make it activate the ring of warding when commanded (possibly flying to your targeted enemy before doing so).

Traps In General: As long as things are balanced in general so that guardians continue to be competitive, I definitely support the 3s delay before traps activate. It’s still far too easy to just plant traps at someone’s feet and get a strong burst that way. They should be traps, not a point-blank area effect skill.
Regarding removing the boons… I’m ambivalent. Boons are a guardian thing in general, but the theme of traps… it really is a bit weird that they suddenly give boons to the user when someone triggers them, however distant. Fragments of Faith might need buffing, though: while for other traps the boon is an added bonus, the main strength of this trap is that it’s a stunbreak and Stability source that’s compatible with trap builds and traits. Without that, it’ll struggle to be competitive. Possibly the fragments could be made to grant Stability as well as Aegis.

You have a lot of good thoughts and I thank you for sharing them with me. I didn’t reply to everything because it’s taking me a while to formulate responses to every critique, but rest assured I’m considering everything you said.

edit/ Planning for Beta revision 2 on 03/10/2016

Ghotistyx.6942:

Normally I might consider commenting on the changes proposed by Bravery, but honestly it would be shorter for me to just post my ideal changes to the profession as a whole.

That’s ok too.

No worries about not getting to everything – time is a resource, after all!

TheBravery.9615:

Silence and purify are new exclusive effects for the guardian, and I have others planned for the other professions. (Warrior’s new exclusive effect will be guard break- an unremovable condition that prevents players from blocking attacks.. there’s more to it, feel free to check out the warrior balance proposal for details.)

The reason for these new exclusive effects is to give each profession a distinction and a unique contribution in combat. Everyone has access to boons and conditions- so professions that give out these boons/conditions have diminished utility. Say you’re dealing with an enemy with heavy condition pressure.. you need a guardian in your party. Say you’re dealing with an enemy with heavy blocking and defenses – now you need a warrior. By doing this, I’m giving every profession a clear and defined purpose in PvE, PvP, and WvW.

They’re not perfect and do need further work. I acknowledge that silence may be too strong if it’s unremovable, so I’ll tweak it in the next revision.

There are several lines of thinking I have here:

The first is that guardian generally does things by protecting their allies, rather than putting status effects on enemies. They do some of that, of course – no profession is one-dimensional – but putting an effect on an opponent that prevents or punishes them for doing something is more the mesmer’s schtick. It would be much more fitting for the guardian to apply a boon to allies – either Resistance, something that prevents conditions being applied in the first place (possibly a boon that stacks intensity and each condition it prevents consumes a stack, similar to Stability), or just having a lot of options to cleanse conditions.

The second is that it’s been ArenaNet philosophy from the start of GW2 that you shouldn’t need to have specific professions to clear content. There’s kitten through that idea right now that you can drive a healbot druid through, but I think that’s largely because they’ve only just started making healing a useful role again and other healing builds, with the possible exception of Tempest, are underperforming. The general philosophy is that every profession should be able to perform every role to an extent that you can run a team of all the same profession and do well, at least in PvE and if you build for it. Some professions are better at some roles than others, yes, and they do things in different ways, but you should never be blocked from content because nobody happens to have a character of the right profession. (Noting again that Druid is an anomaly.)

The third is tactical – adding a ton of new status effects and skills to use them is more work for ArenaNet, and they’re probably more likely to make changes if they’re easy to make.

Traits:
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Symbolic Avenger

Making players decide if they want to stay in a symbol to heal or dodge an incoming attack serves the game good in my eyes. I don’t want to create a situation where players would camp on symbols and DPS their target (of course, with the current revision, they’re allowed to do this if they happen to take both traits. I’m probably going to change this in the next revision.)

That’s a reasonable set of reasoning. I’d be inclined to hold back from killing the synergy of taking both, either – at that point, the player has committed two of three specialisations to having large healing symbols. That’s a big enough commitment that they deserve the benefit in my eyes.

Protector’s Impact

Another valid point. My decision to turn it into a ring was because falling damage traits are mostly used in WvW by roamers. Not really sure how to proceed with fixing this. I could say both, but that’d be too strong. How about ring of warding + aegis?

Could work. Ring of warding + protection could also work well.

Right-Hand Strength:

Hm. Unsure how to proceed with this.. there’s plenty of ways to go about changing this. If the executioner identity doesn’t fit in guardian, I could change it to something else, but what Identity should it get? I want to avoid traits that chain conditions (if you apply X you also apply Y) because it’s lazy passive game design. What about if critical hits by your sword decreased virtue of justice by a static amount? Would make it an ideal weapon for virtue of justice, but I’d have to balance it out because it’s an adept trait (or swap it to a master if it happens to get too strong)

I was considering having it interact with Virtue of Justice myself. A faster recharge of Justice might be overshadowed by the recharge-on-kill minor, however.

Here’s a crazy thought: What about turning that on its head and making the active use of Justice instantly recharge Flashing Blade and Zealot’s Defence? Neither of those skills are powerful enough that activating them back-to-back at the cost of having to activate Justice seems that it would be likely to be overpowered, but it would be a useful option to have and would definitely promote more active play.

Vengeful Spirit

Acceptable suggestion given the the unique situation that it needs to be in for it to proc. However, I decided to isolate it on nearby foes that defeat an ally because multiple foes can “down” an ally and you’d pretty much apply the effect to all foes, which makes it a balancing nightmare.

Valid point. I think the engine has means of responding to who actually inflicted the downing blow, though, so you could make it so that it only triggers on the enemy who landed the downing blow and not just everyone who’s tagged the target.

While mace 3 has a built in block, the mace itself lacked a lot of blocking so the trait synergized poorly with the weapon and only the weapon, instead it relied on outside sources. That’s why I changed it. 5 seconds isn’t terribly long though.

Peaceful Mace

I’m also kinda skeptical about healing power itself. It’s obvious to me that when ArenaNet did quarterly balance patches that changed healing skills, they neglected coefficients of heals, making healing power disproportionate in a lot of areas (very good scaling in selfless daring, poor scaling in actual heal skills). This needs a lot of work. Might make it increase outgoing healing power instead.

Mace itself only has one block, but most of the guardian’s blocks come from Aegis, offhands, or non-weapon skills anyway. Mace is the only core guardian non-offhand weapon with a block, so I think it’s fitting for a trait that triggers off blocks.

Whether the current benefit you get for blocking is the right one… that I’m not so sure of.[/spoiler]

Weapon Skills:

Utility Skills:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

@ those of you calling for removal of boons on traps and an arming time for traps.

You do realize that would essentially kill traps right ?

They are already pretty meh vs competent players because most of their damage can be avoided.
If they didn’t have the boons there would be little reason to use them at all.

You are pretty much calling for them to be removed entirely and replaced with symbols that are cast out of utility slots, which don’t count as symbols for trait purposes.

I do feel that it’s a bit weird that you can pretty much lay a trap at someone’s feet and bam, gotcha. Okay, to be fair, I did it in Guild Wars 1, but I made investments in being able to pull that off…

Traps, in my mind, should be something that is used to protect an area, not something that can easily be used as a point-blank damaging field. A longer arming time would mean that they could still be decisive in a point fight, but wouldn’t be something you can reliably plant under someone’s feet in a mobile fight.

That said, I’m not terribly attached to the idea… but I do think it could be a suitable change if traps do need to be further toned down.

TheBravery.9615:

@ draxynnic.3719

Wow, I appreciate your feedback. I’ll follow up with a response later. (it’s 4 am and I have work tomorrow)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

@ those of you calling for removal of boons on traps and an arming time for traps.

You do realize that would essentially kill traps right ?

They are already pretty meh vs competent players because most of their damage can be avoided.
If they didn’t have the boons there would be little reason to use them at all.

I could say that traps have killed shouts. While not really “stealing” their identity, it fulfils a similar role by doing something less (no party support), while giving something more (damage).

In my opinion, traps should have a dedicated identity of burst damage. For purposes being a “trap”, granting the user boons while also dealing a ton of burst damage is (arguably) too strong. If the removal of the boons do in fact kill the traps, I would suggest that the damage from the traps be increased, but wouldn’t go back to bringing back boons on trap trigger.

Also from an interprofession balance perspectives, guardian traps are much stronger than thief traps (by a large margin) and ranger traps (by a lesser margin).

I know that traps get a lot of hate, but in my opinion traps are quintessentially Guardian and are what symbols were originally intended on being … giving actual helpful boons (I’m looking at you Wrath and Swiftness) and threatening damage if you don’t avoid them. If a guardian can’t have 25% movement speed because we are suppose to be slow and clunky … if a guardian (prior to HOT) can’t have a decent range weapon because we have to be melee … if a guardian is completely design around being only dangerous if you are fighting the guardian on his own terms … then traps are the answer. They are symbols 2.0.

The only problem with traps right now is that they are a utility slot, which means you can have 5 of them on your bar at once. 1 trap on a guardian, nothing special. 2 traps on a guardian, meh. 5 Traps on a guardian, skill-less garbage that is guaranteed to kill unsuspecting players on the other side of the map. Also they should not go on cooldown when laid rather when activated and have a de-arm feature by re-clicking the trap.

• Piercing Light must have a shared cooldown of at least 5s, no more than 15, preferably 10s.
• The more a profession can heal, the leas it should be able to damage. This is not something possible to add without ‘tradeoff’ traits, like one that reduces healing in exchange of damage or vice-versa. Tradeoffs work greatly as a balancing method. Without them you only have things that go up, and people just pick the ones that go up the most.
• Areas that prevent or affect trespassers must be able to do so only once every 2 seconds. This also includes other professions, and stacking them.

MithranArkanere.8957:

• Piercing Light must have a shared cooldown of at least 5s, no more than 15, preferably 10s.
• The more a profession can heal, the leas it should be able to damage. This is not something possible to add without ‘tradeoff’ traits, like one that reduces healing in exchange of damage or vice-versa. Tradeoffs work greatly as a balancing method. Without them you only have things that go up, and people just pick the ones that go up the most.
• Areas that prevent or affect trespassers must be able to do so only once every 2 seconds. This also includes other professions, and stacking them.

1: it only dazes for 1/2 second and is among the few reliable forms of CC the guardian has.
If it were to get a CD then daze should last longer.

2: Going by that logic a druid shouldn’t be able to do any damage at all, followed closely by a rev and ele, then followed by an engineer as they all do anywhere from 2x to 1.5x what a guardian can do in terms of healing.
(instead why not make more things scale more on stats and less on traits. You also have to consider that some classes self heal for survivability because they have less damage avoidance and lower health then others.)

3: This I actually wouldn’t have much of an issue with, however it would heavily effect ele’s and anyone with allot of persistent AOE.

Indure.5410:

TheBravery.9615:

@ draxynnic.3719

Wow, I appreciate your feedback. I’ll follow up with a response later. (it’s 4 am and I have work tomorrow)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

@ those of you calling for removal of boons on traps and an arming time for traps.

You do realize that would essentially kill traps right ?

They are already pretty meh vs competent players because most of their damage can be avoided.
If they didn’t have the boons there would be little reason to use them at all.

I could say that traps have killed shouts. While not really “stealing” their identity, it fulfils a similar role by doing something less (no party support), while giving something more (damage).

In my opinion, traps should have a dedicated identity of burst damage. For purposes being a “trap”, granting the user boons while also dealing a ton of burst damage is (arguably) too strong. If the removal of the boons do in fact kill the traps, I would suggest that the damage from the traps be increased, but wouldn’t go back to bringing back boons on trap trigger.

Also from an interprofession balance perspectives, guardian traps are much stronger than thief traps (by a large margin) and ranger traps (by a lesser margin).

I know that traps get a lot of hate, but in my opinion traps are quintessentially Guardian and are what symbols were originally intended on being … giving actual helpful boons (I’m looking at you Wrath and Swiftness) and threatening damage if you don’t avoid them. If a guardian can’t have 25% movement speed because we are suppose to be slow and clunky … if a guardian (prior to HOT) can’t have a decent range weapon because we have to be melee … if a guardian is completely design around being only dangerous if you are fighting the guardian on his own terms … then traps are the answer. They are symbols 2.0.

The only problem with traps right now is that they are a utility slot, which means you can have 5 of them on your bar at once. 1 trap on a guardian, nothing special. 2 traps on a guardian, meh. 5 Traps on a guardian, skill-less garbage that is guaranteed to kill unsuspecting players on the other side of the map. Also they should not go on cooldown when laid rather when activated and have a de-arm feature by re-clicking the trap.

You know if handled right I could actually agree with you here Indure.

However if traps cool downs were moved to start after being triggered instead of on laying them then traps would need a few adjustments.

1: Cool downs (lower)
2: Damage numbers (a bit lower)
3: Boons being shared with nearby allies.

This way they are less likely to nuke someone outright, but more useful for team play.

I just started picking up guardian recently, i would classify myself as a newbie guardian. Here are some of the problem i see with guardian.
Weapon
Sword- 3rd chain on AA is a projectile, and #3 is also a projectile skill, and i rarely be able to land any hit with it and i don’t think it does its job as projectile blocking very well.
Greatsword- IMO, overall it’s a very good weapon, but why does #3 have projectile on it ?
Hammer- AA is extremely slow
Mace- All of the skills need a speed up
Scepter- My only complain about this weapon is that #2 is so ugly >.<
Shield & Focus- I think shield should get block instead of focus
Torch- I think it’s a condi weapon – no comment on it

Guardian vs. DragonHunter (Virtues)
F1 – Virture of Justice/Spear of Justice – I’m not sure what purpose does the burn serve here. SoP has lower CD and better than VoJ, adjust the CD.
F2 – Virture of Ressolve/Wings of Ressolve – Once again same problem with F1. WoR has lower CD and heal more than VoR. Add 1s of evade to WoR.
F3 – Virtue of Courage/Shield of Courage- VoC should have its CD lower, since SoC is out perform VoC, VoC + aoe block = SoC

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I made roughly 33 changes today (viewable on the cover page of the spreadsheet) based on comments from users here.

Revision 2 released. Criticism welcomed / Please vote on the strawpoll link above. Editing put on hold to collect feedback.

Dragonhunter virtues should be moved to standard Guardian.

They’re really, really cool effects (f2 could have longer range) but they’re built for a melee-type attacker.

Justice: Tether, then a pull. Only useful for ranged as an interrupt or in conjunction with other skills.

Wings cover distance and heal at the end of the jump which means that to heal teammates you have to jump where they are, often putting your longbow-carrying butt in the middle of the action. It gets worse when traited, because it encourages you to jump on enemies.

Shield will cover a ranged Guardian and a melee Guardian equally, but a melee guardian is much more likely to screen his team with the active due to stacking.

They’re all great for melee fights and only decent for ranged, and I love them because of what they add but they don’t work as well with the bow at all.

I really like those kind of threads and there are quite some nice ideas in here.

I didn’t have much time for GW2 lately but before the patch hit I made a ‘rework’ for Guardians like I did for Mesmers, mainly focussing on improving what the baseline class is already good at (or should be better at) or improving areas which suit the theme of the class. I also tried building 3 themes for each traitline without totally reworking everything. Low hanging fruits.

I’ll just leave it here as some food for thoughts even though it’s not nicely formatted.

So I didn’t realize there were links in the original post.

Speaking from an sPVP POV.

So far, core virtues still suck with changes.

Nerfs to elite spec virtues is terrible. (less cd but more cd now that you change virtues cd reduction) Removing the fun from Spear of justice being unblockable and using it to counter rev shield and alot of reflect. I’d rather never cast it and just keep the dmg buff from supreme justice which is a power creep trait.

Nerf to longbow, useless weapon, rather run scepter with focus/shield and staff, mace is good, sword is meh, gs still the same, hammers a bit stronger, torch 5 being a self root with the same range is not attractive.

From reading traits, zeal/valor/honor for the following traits. Zealous scepter, virtuos speed, ferverous precision and symbolic avenger from zeal. focus mastery/smiters boon, stalward defender, monks focus but i also like writ of persistance(with staff though) for valor. Resonating Symbols(best trait by far), strength in numbers, grandmaster is too juicy to decide for honor.

Virtues is decent, but only if i want to go master of consecrations, supreme justice, absolute resolutions, the nerf to stability stacks I just would rather symbol stability,

SYMBOL OF LIGHT!!!! omfg great heal!

For utilities, I like purging flames, CoP and either JI, signet of judgement only if I’m with squishies, bow might be good now?!?!?!

For elite,Not mentioning anything about passive procs uhm difference or CD on signet of courage so need more info if you ever want me to switch off RF.

Spirit weapons changes are too vague, are u changing the hp pool? changing the ai? I really do like hammer if it wasnt oneshotted after first command cast.

I don’t care for dh traitline so I don’t care about traps(removing the boons though is pretty crappy cause traps were never too full they just put shouts to shame, everything puts shouts to shame).

the increase CD of smite condition doesnt affect the valor heal right(put this seperate cause I’d never run smite condition on 30 seconds)

Thinking mercenary amulet, definitely but I’d love if a teammate could give me good amounts of fury to compensate(gotta love your team)

DesuNyan.4783:

So I didn’t realize there were links in the original post.

Speaking from an sPVP POV.

So far, core virtues still suck with changes.

Nerfs to elite spec virtues is terrible. (less cd but more cd now that you change virtues cd reduction) Removing the fun from Spear of justice being unblockable and using it to counter rev shield and alot of reflect. I’d rather never cast it and just keep the dmg buff from supreme justice which is a power creep trait.

Nerf to longbow, useless weapon, rather run scepter with focus/shield and staff, mace is good, sword is meh, gs still the same, hammers a bit stronger, torch 5 being a self root with the same range is not attractive.

From reading traits, zeal/valor/honor for the following traits. Zealous scepter, virtuos speed, ferverous precision and symbolic avenger from zeal. focus mastery/smiters boon, stalward defender, monks focus but i also like writ of persistance(with staff though) for valor. Resonating Symbols(best trait by far), strength in numbers, grandmaster is too juicy to decide for honor.

Virtues is decent, but only if i want to go master of consecrations, supreme justice, absolute resolutions, the nerf to stability stacks I just would rather symbol stability,

SYMBOL OF LIGHT!!!! omfg great heal!

For utilities, I like purging flames, CoP and either JI, signet of judgement only if I’m with squishies, bow might be good now?!?!?!

For elite,Not mentioning anything about passive procs uhm difference or CD on signet of courage so need more info if you ever want me to switch off RF.

Spirit weapons changes are too vague, are u changing the hp pool? changing the ai? I really do like hammer if it wasnt oneshotted after first command cast.

I don’t care for dh traitline so I don’t care about traps(removing the boons though is pretty crappy cause traps were never too full they just put shouts to shame, everything puts shouts to shame).

the increase CD of smite condition doesnt affect the valor heal right(put this seperate cause I’d never run smite condition on 30 seconds)

Thinking mercenary amulet, definitely but I’d love if a teammate could give me good amounts of fury to compensate(gotta love your team)

This ^ more or less.

Buffing the useless traits/weapon skills/utility skills so that they would be useful in a balanced way would be fine (so that there is actual choice).

And you do that somewhat (some are a bit OP, others still dont make much sense, like the 1h sword) but you also nerf a decent number of of other traits to the point that I look at them & think “Why would I ever use that now” (looking at torch and others)
(some like the damage modifier traits are needed fairly badly for numerous offensive builds to remain viable)

There is also the fact that your moving several of the things that heal guardians or allies (pure of heart as an example) out of the honor/valor lines which by definition are made for those things.
The same can be said for some utility skills that add utility/boon effects.

In the end I like a few of your ideas Brave, but I wouldn’t want the whole list.

PS: One way Anet could easily balance a number of builds in game right now would be to tweak traits that add +% damage or spike damage so that they still add that damage but as a cost reduce healing done to others. (or even to yourself by a smaller % of course)

Finalfreefall.8247:

Dragonhunter virtues should be moved to standard Guardian.

They’re really, really cool effects (f2 could have longer range) but they’re built for a melee-type attacker.

Justice: Tether, then a pull. Only useful for ranged as an interrupt or in conjunction with other skills.

Wings cover distance and heal at the end of the jump which means that to heal teammates you have to jump where they are, often putting your longbow-carrying butt in the middle of the action. It gets worse when traited, because it encourages you to jump on enemies.

Shield will cover a ranged Guardian and a melee Guardian equally, but a melee guardian is much more likely to screen his team with the active due to stacking.

They’re all great for melee fights and only decent for ranged, and I love them because of what they add but they don’t work as well with the bow at all.

You know what? This makes a lot of sense and it’s not terribly hard to change. I’ll think about it- but in order to do this, I’ll need virtues and dragonhunter virtues to be equal in strength and ability. Through my proposed changes, are the virtues equal in strength?

TheBravery.9615:

Finalfreefall.8247:

Dragonhunter virtues should be moved to standard Guardian.

They’re really, really cool effects (f2 could have longer range) but they’re built for a melee-type attacker.

Justice: Tether, then a pull. Only useful for ranged as an interrupt or in conjunction with other skills.

Wings cover distance and heal at the end of the jump which means that to heal teammates you have to jump where they are, often putting your longbow-carrying butt in the middle of the action. It gets worse when traited, because it encourages you to jump on enemies.

Shield will cover a ranged Guardian and a melee Guardian equally, but a melee guardian is much more likely to screen his team with the active due to stacking.

They’re all great for melee fights and only decent for ranged, and I love them because of what they add but they don’t work as well with the bow at all.

You know what? This makes a lot of sense and it’s not terribly hard to change. I’ll think about it- but in order to do this, I’ll need virtues and dragonhunter virtues to be equal in strength and ability. Through my proposed changes, are the virtues equal in strength?

Virtue of justice is arguably the only one equal to its dragonhunter counterpart with your changes.
And that is only if you have a few allies nearby who are using a decent amount of +condition damage & duration gear/amulets.

Virtue of resolve, while it has a wider effect radius then its DH counterpart does less then half as much healing (even before the reduction you gave it) and has no mobility effect.

Courage only grants a single AEGIS to nearby allies where its counterpart creates a forward facing shield for 5 seconds.

Frankly my suggestions would be thus

1: Make the Inspired Virtue trait into base line effects for the core (and core alone) guardian virtues.
(this will buff them somewhat to make the actives seem better)

2: Reduce the cool down of resolve to match the DH version, but leave the healing as is (its already less then half the DH version)

3: Reduce the CD of Virtue of Courage to 35 seconds and Shield of Courage to 45 seconds, then reduce the duration of shield of courage on DH to 3 seconds to compensate.

4: Make the trait Battle Presence into a base effect for virtue of resolve on the core guardian.
(this will mean the core VOR will provide AOE healing, some heal over time on active but a lower active heal then DH & no mobility. It will serve to make its activation into an actual choice)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

DesuNyan.4783:

So I didn’t realize there were links in the original post.

Speaking from an sPVP POV.

So far, core virtues still suck with changes.

Nerfs to elite spec virtues is terrible. (less cd but more cd now that you change virtues cd reduction) Removing the fun from Spear of justice being unblockable and using it to counter rev shield and alot of reflect. I’d rather never cast it and just keep the dmg buff from supreme justice which is a power creep trait.

Nerf to longbow, useless weapon, rather run scepter with focus/shield and staff, mace is good, sword is meh, gs still the same, hammers a bit stronger, torch 5 being a self root with the same range is not attractive.

From reading traits, zeal/valor/honor for the following traits. Zealous scepter, virtuos speed, ferverous precision and symbolic avenger from zeal. focus mastery/smiters boon, stalward defender, monks focus but i also like writ of persistance(with staff though) for valor. Resonating Symbols(best trait by far), strength in numbers, grandmaster is too juicy to decide for honor.

Virtues is decent, but only if i want to go master of consecrations, supreme justice, absolute resolutions, the nerf to stability stacks I just would rather symbol stability,

SYMBOL OF LIGHT!!!! omfg great heal!

For utilities, I like purging flames, CoP and either JI, signet of judgement only if I’m with squishies, bow might be good now?!?!?!

For elite,Not mentioning anything about passive procs uhm difference or CD on signet of courage so need more info if you ever want me to switch off RF.

Spirit weapons changes are too vague, are u changing the hp pool? changing the ai? I really do like hammer if it wasnt oneshotted after first command cast.

I don’t care for dh traitline so I don’t care about traps(removing the boons though is pretty crappy cause traps were never too full they just put shouts to shame, everything puts shouts to shame).

the increase CD of smite condition doesnt affect the valor heal right(put this seperate cause I’d never run smite condition on 30 seconds)

Thinking mercenary amulet, definitely but I’d love if a teammate could give me good amounts of fury to compensate(gotta love your team)

This ^ more or less.

Buffing the useless traits/weapon skills/utility skills so that they would be useful in a balanced way would be fine (so that there is actual choice).

And you do that somewhat (some are a bit OP, others still dont make much sense, like the 1h sword) but you also nerf a decent number of of other traits to the point that I look at them & think “Why would I ever use that now” (looking at torch and others)
(some like the damage modifier traits are needed fairly badly for numerous offensive builds to remain viable)

There is also the fact that your moving several of the things that heal guardians or allies (pure of heart as an example) out of the honor/valor lines which by definition are made for those things.
The same can be said for some utility skills that add utility/boon effects.

In the end I like a few of your ideas Brave, but I wouldn’t want the whole list.

PS: One way Anet could easily balance a number of builds in game right now would be to tweak traits that add +% damage or spike damage so that they still add that damage but as a cost reduce healing done to others. (or even to yourself by a smaller % of course)

TheBravery.9615:

Zantmar.5406:

power creep obviously, nerf bat kills fun and induce rage, equalizing is a nerf and a buff at the same time which is time/ money consuming on anet’s part
power creep is: fast, easy, cheap, less rage.

edit:
i mean
1. wow this other trait is not as bad as before, maybe ill give it a try some other time
2. kitten this trait isn’t as good anymore but i guess ill still run it
3. wow my build just become trash

Interesting.

Well, like I said, it won’t be possible for me to reach a consensus with everyone here, and there are multiple ways to approach balance problems. The one I’m making is strictly “equalize”.

I have still yet to make balance spreadsheets for other professions that are widely considered overpowered (reaper, scrapper, druids, tempests, and heralds) and when I do, I imagine the approval rating would be <1 / 4. The reasoning is understandable though; no one wants to see nerfs on what made their profession “meta”.

This is the challenge I face when I make these. But consider balance on a macro view (viewing all professions): is power creep healthy for this game? Do you still want to keep your dragonhunter virtues and buffing everything below it? Would you be OK with me buffing every other weaponset / kit an engineer have to their Hammer? Would you be OK with me buffing warrior’s damage capabilities to mirror gunflame?

Where do I draw the line?

Also kindly point out to me which ones made you say “why would I use that now?”

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

TheBravery.9615:

Finalfreefall.8247:

Dragonhunter virtues should be moved to standard Guardian.

They’re really, really cool effects (f2 could have longer range) but they’re built for a melee-type attacker.

Justice: Tether, then a pull. Only useful for ranged as an interrupt or in conjunction with other skills.

Wings cover distance and heal at the end of the jump which means that to heal teammates you have to jump where they are, often putting your longbow-carrying butt in the middle of the action. It gets worse when traited, because it encourages you to jump on enemies.

Shield will cover a ranged Guardian and a melee Guardian equally, but a melee guardian is much more likely to screen his team with the active due to stacking.

They’re all great for melee fights and only decent for ranged, and I love them because of what they add but they don’t work as well with the bow at all.

You know what? This makes a lot of sense and it’s not terribly hard to change. I’ll think about it- but in order to do this, I’ll need virtues and dragonhunter virtues to be equal in strength and ability. Through my proposed changes, are the virtues equal in strength?

Virtue of justice is arguably the only one equal to its dragonhunter counterpart with your changes.
And that is only if you have a few allies nearby who are using a decent amount of +condition damage & duration gear/amulets.

Virtue of resolve, while it has a wider effect radius then its DH counterpart does less then half as much healing (even before the reduction you gave it) and has no mobility effect.

Courage only grants a single AEGIS to nearby allies where its counterpart creates a forward facing shield for 5 seconds.

Frankly my suggestions would be thus

1: Make the Inspired Virtue trait into base line effects for the core (and core alone) guardian virtues.
(this will buff them somewhat to make the actives seem better)

2: Reduce the cool down of resolve to match the DH version, but leave the healing as is (its already less then half the DH version)

3: Reduce the CD of Virtue of Courage to 35 seconds and Shield of Courage to 45 seconds, then reduce the duration of shield of courage on DH to 3 seconds to compensate.

4: Make the trait Battle Presence into a base effect for virtue of resolve on the core guardian.
(this will mean the core VOR will provide AOE healing, some heal over time on active but a lower active heal then DH & no mobility. It will serve to make its activation into an actual choice)

On second thought, this is going to be much harder than anticipated to put in

Virtues, a core specialization is designed to work with dragonhunter virtues. On the other hand, dragonhunter virtues work completely differently from regular virtues and dragonhunter specialization is not designed to work with core virtues.

(e.g. core specialization of dragonhunter virtues, have a trait to increase shield of courage’s radius. Having an “elite” virtues specialization will make no benefit off of it.)

I would have to completely redesign the traits to do that.

also @Xaylin.1860 thank you for the suggestions, i’ll go over them tonight.

TheBravery.9615:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

DesuNyan.4783:

So I didn’t realize there were links in the original post.

Speaking from an sPVP POV.

So far, core virtues still suck with changes.

Nerfs to elite spec virtues is terrible. (less cd but more cd now that you change virtues cd reduction) Removing the fun from Spear of justice being unblockable and using it to counter rev shield and alot of reflect. I’d rather never cast it and just keep the dmg buff from supreme justice which is a power creep trait.

Nerf to longbow, useless weapon, rather run scepter with focus/shield and staff, mace is good, sword is meh, gs still the same, hammers a bit stronger, torch 5 being a self root with the same range is not attractive.

From reading traits, zeal/valor/honor for the following traits. Zealous scepter, virtuos speed, ferverous precision and symbolic avenger from zeal. focus mastery/smiters boon, stalward defender, monks focus but i also like writ of persistance(with staff though) for valor. Resonating Symbols(best trait by far), strength in numbers, grandmaster is too juicy to decide for honor.

Virtues is decent, but only if i want to go master of consecrations, supreme justice, absolute resolutions, the nerf to stability stacks I just would rather symbol stability,

SYMBOL OF LIGHT!!!! omfg great heal!

For utilities, I like purging flames, CoP and either JI, signet of judgement only if I’m with squishies, bow might be good now?!?!?!

For elite,Not mentioning anything about passive procs uhm difference or CD on signet of courage so need more info if you ever want me to switch off RF.

Spirit weapons changes are too vague, are u changing the hp pool? changing the ai? I really do like hammer if it wasnt oneshotted after first command cast.

I don’t care for dh traitline so I don’t care about traps(removing the boons though is pretty crappy cause traps were never too full they just put shouts to shame, everything puts shouts to shame).

the increase CD of smite condition doesnt affect the valor heal right(put this seperate cause I’d never run smite condition on 30 seconds)

Thinking mercenary amulet, definitely but I’d love if a teammate could give me good amounts of fury to compensate(gotta love your team)

This ^ more or less.

Buffing the useless traits/weapon skills/utility skills so that they would be useful in a balanced way would be fine (so that there is actual choice).

And you do that somewhat (some are a bit OP, others still dont make much sense, like the 1h sword) but you also nerf a decent number of of other traits to the point that I look at them & think “Why would I ever use that now” (looking at torch and others)
(some like the damage modifier traits are needed fairly badly for numerous offensive builds to remain viable)

There is also the fact that your moving several of the things that heal guardians or allies (pure of heart as an example) out of the honor/valor lines which by definition are made for those things.
The same can be said for some utility skills that add utility/boon effects.

In the end I like a few of your ideas Brave, but I wouldn’t want the whole list.

PS: One way Anet could easily balance a number of builds in game right now would be to tweak traits that add +% damage or spike damage so that they still add that damage but as a cost reduce healing done to others. (or even to yourself by a smaller % of course)

TheBravery.9615:

Zantmar.5406:

power creep obviously, nerf bat kills fun and induce rage, equalizing is a nerf and a buff at the same time which is time/ money consuming on anet’s part
power creep is: fast, easy, cheap, less rage.

edit:
i mean
1. wow this other trait is not as bad as before, maybe ill give it a try some other time
2. kitten this trait isn’t as good anymore but i guess ill still run it
3. wow my build just become trash

Interesting.

Well, like I said, it won’t be possible for me to reach a consensus with everyone here, and there are multiple ways to approach balance problems. The one I’m making is strictly “equalize”.

I have still yet to make balance spreadsheets for other professions that are widely considered overpowered (reaper, scrapper, druids, tempests, and heralds) and when I do, I imagine the approval rating would be <1 / 4. The reasoning is understandable though; no one wants to see nerfs on what made their profession “meta”.

This is the challenge I face when I make these. But consider balance on a macro view (viewing all professions): is power creep healthy for this game? Do you still want to keep your dragonhunter virtues and buffing everything below it? Would you be OK with me buffing every other weaponset / kit an engineer have to their Hammer? Would you be OK with me buffing warrior’s damage capabilities to mirror gunflame?

Where do I draw the line?

First off this is a bit of a simplistic way to look at it.

Just because you boost some traits from absolute crap nobody wants to use to decent choices does not mean the class gets a big power creep.
It means the class actually has alternative choices.

The only real problem is in making sure that the new/revised trait, weapon skill & utility choices cannot be stacked to create a visibly stronger build then the ones that are the best available now (Although in some rare cases that could be a good thing as well)

So yes it is quite possible to rework things on guardian, warrior etc… you just have to be careful how you do it so that balance & trait/gear choice as a whole is better instead of just creating new choices that put everything else to shame.

As Anet said before the game launched, the ideal would be that class X and class Y can do something equally well (if they spec and gear for the same thing) Getting that result however is the tricky part.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

TheBravery.9615:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

DesuNyan.4783:

So I didn’t realize there were links in the original post.

Speaking from an sPVP POV.

So far, core virtues still suck with changes.

Nerfs to elite spec virtues is terrible. (less cd but more cd now that you change virtues cd reduction) Removing the fun from Spear of justice being unblockable and using it to counter rev shield and alot of reflect. I’d rather never cast it and just keep the dmg buff from supreme justice which is a power creep trait.

Nerf to longbow, useless weapon, rather run scepter with focus/shield and staff, mace is good, sword is meh, gs still the same, hammers a bit stronger, torch 5 being a self root with the same range is not attractive.

From reading traits, zeal/valor/honor for the following traits. Zealous scepter, virtuos speed, ferverous precision and symbolic avenger from zeal. focus mastery/smiters boon, stalward defender, monks focus but i also like writ of persistance(with staff though) for valor. Resonating Symbols(best trait by far), strength in numbers, grandmaster is too juicy to decide for honor.

Virtues is decent, but only if i want to go master of consecrations, supreme justice, absolute resolutions, the nerf to stability stacks I just would rather symbol stability,

SYMBOL OF LIGHT!!!! omfg great heal!

For utilities, I like purging flames, CoP and either JI, signet of judgement only if I’m with squishies, bow might be good now?!?!?!

For elite,Not mentioning anything about passive procs uhm difference or CD on signet of courage so need more info if you ever want me to switch off RF.

Spirit weapons changes are too vague, are u changing the hp pool? changing the ai? I really do like hammer if it wasnt oneshotted after first command cast.

I don’t care for dh traitline so I don’t care about traps(removing the boons though is pretty crappy cause traps were never too full they just put shouts to shame, everything puts shouts to shame).

the increase CD of smite condition doesnt affect the valor heal right(put this seperate cause I’d never run smite condition on 30 seconds)

Thinking mercenary amulet, definitely but I’d love if a teammate could give me good amounts of fury to compensate(gotta love your team)

This ^ more or less.

Buffing the useless traits/weapon skills/utility skills so that they would be useful in a balanced way would be fine (so that there is actual choice).

And you do that somewhat (some are a bit OP, others still dont make much sense, like the 1h sword) but you also nerf a decent number of of other traits to the point that I look at them & think “Why would I ever use that now” (looking at torch and others)
(some like the damage modifier traits are needed fairly badly for numerous offensive builds to remain viable)

There is also the fact that your moving several of the things that heal guardians or allies (pure of heart as an example) out of the honor/valor lines which by definition are made for those things.
The same can be said for some utility skills that add utility/boon effects.

In the end I like a few of your ideas Brave, but I wouldn’t want the whole list.

PS: One way Anet could easily balance a number of builds in game right now would be to tweak traits that add +% damage or spike damage so that they still add that damage but as a cost reduce healing done to others. (or even to yourself by a smaller % of course)

TheBravery.9615:

Zantmar.5406:

power creep obviously, nerf bat kills fun and induce rage, equalizing is a nerf and a buff at the same time which is time/ money consuming on anet’s part
power creep is: fast, easy, cheap, less rage.

edit:
i mean
1. wow this other trait is not as bad as before, maybe ill give it a try some other time
2. kitten this trait isn’t as good anymore but i guess ill still run it
3. wow my build just become trash

Interesting.

Well, like I said, it won’t be possible for me to reach a consensus with everyone here, and there are multiple ways to approach balance problems. The one I’m making is strictly “equalize”.

I have still yet to make balance spreadsheets for other professions that are widely considered overpowered (reaper, scrapper, druids, tempests, and heralds) and when I do, I imagine the approval rating would be <1 / 4. The reasoning is understandable though; no one wants to see nerfs on what made their profession “meta”.

This is the challenge I face when I make these. But consider balance on a macro view (viewing all professions): is power creep healthy for this game? Do you still want to keep your dragonhunter virtues and buffing everything below it? Would you be OK with me buffing every other weaponset / kit an engineer have to their Hammer? Would you be OK with me buffing warrior’s damage capabilities to mirror gunflame?

Where do I draw the line?

First off this is a bit of a simplistic way to look at it.

Just because you boost some traits from absolute crap nobody wants to use to decent choices does not mean the class gets a big power creep.
It means the class actually has alternative choices.

The only real problem is in making sure that the new/revised trait, weapon skill & utility choices cannot be stacked to create a visibly stronger build then the ones that are the best available now (Although in some rare cases that could be a good thing as well)

So yes it is quite possible to rework things on guardian, warrior etc… you just have to be careful how you do it so that balance & trait/gear choice as a whole is better instead of just creating new choices that put everything else to shame.

As Anet said before the game launched, the ideal would be that class X and class Y can do something equally well (if they spec and gear for the same thing) Getting that result however is the tricky part.

From an intra-profession balance problem perspective, this seems easy to do- but ask yourself this. At meta level, are all professions considered equal?

They have to be different and relatively equal. There’s a point where continuing to make things equal destroys diversity and/or simplicity. You say you want to achieve a certain balance style, but frankly that’s just not what you’re delivering. It honestly looks like you’re just sticking your fingers in the dough because you want to, and not because it will improve the end result.

There’s also a concept of design, prevalent in every living MMO, where there is inherent imbalance. It not only creates an identity, but provides a degree of depth. Without it, many games would eventually become spreadsheets of the best build and rote routines for very situation. There is no life in a game like that.

There is certainly room to improve the current state of the game, but it’s good policy to make the least changes possible. Some aspects just aren’t competitive (Spirit Weapons, Signets, ect), and so they might stand for some more involved changes. But, many of the changes I’ve seen in both documents are convoluted for no reason, and some go directly against design philosophies used from the beginning. I still can’t decide if I want to comment on your desired changes or if I should make my own wish post instead, but what I do know is that I would not want most of whats in this thread to have serious consideration.

Ghost has it right.

You can easily improve a number of things like traits, spirit weapons & signets on guard without upsetting balance

Others like shouts could have tweaks without balance upsets.

Its all about creating decent alternative choices without making one that just dominates the others.

As far as your meta question, no all classes are not considered equal.

Rev, ele & engi far outshine guardian & likely still would even if core guardian saw allot of love. (generally because they have more flexibility of role or more flexibility while filling the same roll or just fill that roll much better)

Agree with Ghotistyx.6942. A lot of the changes were made just because you wanted to change it, not because it improved balance. Further, changing tons of things takes a lot of time. You need to really cut down your list to what is a problem and what can be reasonably changed.

I just dont understand why they nerfed the mid air port with JI. The hammer 2 burst and gs3 needs it for working. Its just a joke they nerfed it. And, when I go wvw with my guard I get so frustrated because most of the port spots got nerfed and I stay at same place when using JI. I cant even rely on it for kiting from enemies cuz most of times I stay in the same place when porting. Makes no sense they nerf this small things and they cant nerf the real op stuff of other classes like revenant sword 2 that hits you in stealth without target!!!! I hate this.

Exedore.6320:

Agree with Ghotistyx.6942. A lot of the changes were made just because you wanted to change it, not because it improved balance. Further, changing tons of things takes a lot of time. You need to really cut down your list to what is a problem and what can be reasonably changed.

I agree as well. I know that many guardians like to complain often about the “dire” problems going on with the class, but it is not in bad enough shape to need the complete overhaul you are suggesting. There are a couple of areas that may need a complete redesign (spirit weapons), but most issues with the guardian just need some tweaks or added effects.

Streamlining the list of changes would also help get better feedback from the guardian community. The current change list is so complex that it is almost impossible to give meaningful feedback and it takes far too long to parse in a reasonable amount of time.

JackaS.9426:

I just dont understand why they nerfed the mid air port with JI. The hammer 2 burst and gs3 needs it for working. Its just a joke they nerfed it. And, when I go wvw with my guard I get so frustrated because most of the port spots got nerfed and I stay at same place when using JI. I cant even rely on it for kiting from enemies cuz most of times I stay in the same place when porting. Makes no sense they nerf this small things and they cant nerf the real op stuff of other classes like revenant sword 2 that hits you in stealth without target!!!! I hate this.

This was not a guardian specific change, but a change that occurred across all classes that had a teleport, since it was being abuse to access areas they weren’t suppose to have access to.

Scrapper ftw…guardian sucks

Here’s what I could focus on:
Virtues

• Justice Active buffed
• Resolve and Courage Reduce cooldown on active.

Weapons

• Sword #3 Best option is to replace the ability. Distinguish it more from greatsword (mobility) and mace/shield (blocking, anti-projectile).
• Staff #2 Give it a timeout so it doesn’t get stuck on 2a, forcing you into 2b and activating the cooldown.
• Hammer #1c Clunky to use and scales too well with symbol bonuses in Writ of Persistence.

Traits

• Zeal Make this line more broad by making symbol traits a choice, not minors. Give some form of utility instead of just increased damage.
• Radiance Change minors to not focus on giving tons of benefit from killing mobs quickly and little benefit otherwise. Do something with grandmaster major to provide a choice.
• Valor Monk’s Focus is too strong while providing little counterplay. Needs up-front healing reduced (add over time or more scaling). There are other less than ideal traits, but each slot at least gives a bit of a choice. It’s the least bad trait line.
• Honor Relies too much on healing power scaling, especially on Selfless Daring. Needs a bit more offensive utility.
• Virtues Nothing can compete with Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage.

Skills

• Spirit Weapons They need fixed, but until AI improves, it’s wasted time. Maybe give them extra hit points in the interim, at least on sword.
• Merciful Intervention Suggest changing to a ground targeted teleport with a long CD. If allies are in the target area, they’re healed and cooldown is reduced.
• Signets Change Wrath to precision. Give Mercy’s active to Courage, reduce the cooldown on Mercy, and make it’s active a partial heal.
• Consecrations Need to be more powerful or lower cooldowns. Need a reason to stay in the affected area for the duration.

Dragonhunter
This thing is such a mess. It’s a pile of faceroll abilities with little depth. It needs to work better without longbow while not overshadowing core specs for raw damage. At the same time, it needs to have depth of skill to be competitive in high-end PvP.

• Heavy Light Should not be passive with such a short CD. Doesn’t need stability. Tie to longbow#3 instead.
• Pure of Sight Make a major trait, change to only affect longbow.
• Purification Healing is way too high
• Spear of Justice / Hunter’s Verdict This can tie the spec together very well if improved. Suggest lower cooldown on Hunter’s Verdict, need to wait a few seconds after Spear of Justice before activating it. Spear of Justice is no longer unblockable.
• Traps Boons removed from traps unless it’s crucial to the functionality of the trap. Longer activation time. Consider stronger initial effect and less duration once triggered to distinguish them from symbols.

Exedore.6320:

Dragonhunter
This thing is such a mess. It’s a pile of faceroll abilities with little depth. It needs to work better without longbow while not overshadowing core specs for raw damage. At the same time, it needs to have depth of skill to be competitive in high-end PvP.

• Heavy Light Should not be passive with such a short CD. Doesn’t need stability. Tie to longbow#3 instead.
• Pure of Sight Make a major trait, change to only affect longbow.
• Purification Healing is way too high
• Spear of Justice / Hunter’s Verdict This can tie the spec together very well if improved. Suggest lower cooldown on Hunter’s Verdict, need to wait a few seconds after Spear of Justice before activating it. Spear of Justice is no longer unblockable.
• Traps Boons removed from traps unless it’s crucial to the functionality of the trap. Longer activation time. Consider stronger initial effect and less duration once triggered to distinguish them from symbols.

Wait wha? You are suggesting DH nerf? You know that DH is just boring and predictive class that is easily killable by all specs? Do you even DH bro?

Ragnarox.9601:

Wait wha? You are suggesting DH nerf? You know that DH is just boring and predictive class that is easily killable by all specs? Do you even DH bro?

DH needs nerfs to its passive, brain-dead mechanics and buffs which add depth.

Exedore.6320:

Ragnarox.9601:

Wait wha? You are suggesting DH nerf? You know that DH is just boring and predictive class that is easily killable by all specs? Do you even DH bro?

DH needs nerfs to its passive, brain-dead mechanics and buffs which add depth.

DH actually needs more passive cause some classes can stack up 4,5 boons on passive…

DH needs decreased cooldowns … actually DH (and Guardians) need complete rework.

Exedore.6320:

Ragnarox.9601:

Wait wha? You are suggesting DH nerf? You know that DH is just boring and predictive class that is easily killable by all specs? Do you even DH bro?

DH needs nerfs to its passive, brain-dead mechanics and buffs which add depth.

How do your changes add depth to the class? All they do is slightly increase the skill ceiling while adding lots of clunkiness to traps.