Guild Wars 2

I originally started with a rework to shouts, then moved on to Honor because of Pure of Voice, and that connected me to staff. I’ll try to explain why I changed some things as I go along but I’m not very good at that so if there’s anything that’s confusing you, please ask/tell me to elaborate.

We’ll start out with shouts:

“Receive the Light!” – Reduced cooldown from 40s to 30s. Healing value to allies reduced by 30%. This ability now heals in an area around you(radius 360), instead of in front of you. This skill can now be used underwater. These are merely QoL improvements. It is also the only non-elite ability for guardians that has any serious healing value to allies, when we have traits to improve outgoing healing but nothing worthwhile to use it for. I directed it more in the direction of Tempest’s shout heal.

“Hold the Line!” – No longer gives Protection or Regeneration, these have been moved to “Retreat!”. Added in a damage component, damage comparable to Tempest’s “Feel the Burn!”. This skill now grants allies in range Might(5 stacks, 10s duration) and is a blast finisher. This shout always sounded to me as having a rallying effect. Having it do damage fits better as a concept as well. Guardians also didn’t have any damaging shouts to begin with, this(as well as elite shout changes) changes it.
Edit: At second glance, this explanation is all over the place. “rallying effect” is a bit misleading, what I mean is that “Hold the Line!” could be an offensive buff.

“Retreat!” – This shout no longer gives Aegis. Instead it gives Protection and Regeneration that were moved from “Hold the Line!”. Uptimes remain the same, swiftness duration also remains unchanged. Now breaks stun. This is mostly a thematical change. When you shout something as silly as “Retreat!”, it should give something worthwhile in return. Now, I did not forget Aegis, I just have something else in mind for it. See traits for more.

“Save Yourselves!” – Reduced cooldown from 50s to 35s. Now also gives Resistance (5s duration). This skill no longer breaks stun. Removing the stunbreak component justifies the cooldown reduction, the Resistance component is just something this shout needs in order to not be a suicide button.

“Feel My Wrath!” – Added a damage component comparable to Reaper’s “Chilled to the Bone!”. Increased cooldown from 45 to 60s. This skill always lacked the weight that an elite should have. Elites should also not be spammable.
Edit: On second glance, is 60s too much?

No changes to “Stand Your Ground!”. It works well, and doesn’t need any changes. I compared Guardian shouts with Tempest and Reaper mostly and went in their direction. Imo, Warrior’s shouts need some love too but I’m not getting into that here.

We’ll move on to Honor traits next:

Selfless Daring – Base healing brought up to 550 from 129. Scaling from Healing Power brought down from 1 to 0.6.
Pure of Heart – Scaling from Healing Power brought up from 0.5 to 0.6.
Empowering Might – Increased Might duration from 5s to 12s.
Purity of Body – Merged with Battle Presence in the Virtues line.
Writ of Persistance – Moved to Minor Grandmaster slot.
Pure of Voice – Also grants Aegis(5s). Added 1s internal cooldown.

This leaves 1 Major Grandmaster slot empty. I’m thinking of something that would give offensive support since Honor is the support traitline. Any suggestions?

And lastly, staff rework:

1. Wave of Wrath – Also heals allies. Base value 65, scaling from Healing Power is 0.1
2. Orb of Light – REMOVED
   replaced with
   Anvil of Light – Call down a column of holy fire that heals allies and damages foes
   Damage x4: 652
   Healing x4: 235 (Healing Power scaling 0.2)
   Duration: 3 seconds
   Radius: 180
   Combo Field: Fire
   Range: 1200
   Casting time: 0.5 s
   Cooldown: 8 seconds
3. Symbol of Swiftness – RENAMED
   into
   Symbol of Persistence – No longer gives Swiftness, instead pulsing 1s of Resistance. Cooldown increased from 15s to 25s. Everything else is unchanged.
4. Empower – You can now move while channeling this skill. Also grants 10s of Swiftness.
5. Line of Warding – This skill now also blocks projectiles.

These are only based on a few days of casual thoughts, so do point out if anything feels out of place or overly powercreeped.

Haven’t played Guardian much in these last days so I won’t comment the shouts,but I would like to make some comments on the staff.

1. This is merely a cosmetic change but since your variant of staff now heals…wouldn’t something like Mystic Strike….since Wrath heals no wounds but deals damage.

2.I feel that fire combo field fire makes it a tad to good for a weapon focused on support…Vigor on the other hand would make for a wonderfull adition.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

Haven’t played Guardian much in these last days so I won’t comment the shouts,but I would like to make some comments on the staff.

1. This is merely a cosmetic change but since your variant of staff now heals…wouldn’t something like Mystic Strike….since Wrath heals no wounds but deals damage.

2.I feel that fire combo field fire makes it a tad to good for a weapon focused on support…Vigor on the other hand would make for a wonderfull adition.

1. I kept the original name on that one, never really considered changing it. But you may be right, and Mystic Strike does actually sound really good.

2. I modeled this skill looking at Elementalists staff #2, Lava Font, and took some elements from Guardians trident #3, Pillar of Light. Comparing with Lava Font, I did shave off almost half of the damage, and 1 s from the field duration. I intentionally didn’t add any boons to it because of Altruistic Healing which was, atleast once upon a time, typically used with staff.

The main idea behind the fire field was that support isn’t merely healing/boons, there is offensive support as well. Fire fields could be used in raid scenarios without interfering with the other fire fields, and this would make them supportive as well.

With all that said, I did start to consider the Might stacking potential all these changes would make, and got worried it might really be a bit much. So as I don’t really want to add more boons, how about we take away the field properties and just increase the damage and healing values by a slight margin?

Maybe it’s me but I see Guardian more focused on the defensive kind of magical support while hiting people with a bunch of melee weapons….that’s why I suggested Vigor in place of a fire field – which feel quite comon and easy to find these days : longbow from warriors, most of the stuff the elementalist has access to as well as some engi utilities ranger trap and torch. Combo field fire is something which should be reserved for supports focused on the more offensive side of magic.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

Maybe it’s me but I see Guardian more focused on the defensive kind of magical support while hiting people with a bunch of melee weapons….that’s why I suggested Vigor in place of a fire field – which feel quite comon and easy to find these days : longbow from warriors, most of the stuff the elementalist has access to as well as some engi utilities ranger trap and torch. Combo field fire is something which should be reserved for supports focused on the more offensive side of magic.

That’s the thing, guardians already have access to fire fields with Purging Flames and Hallowed Ground. They are just very impractical because Consecrations generally have long cooldowns and little synergy with anything, that’s why nobody uses them. And there are also no healing or elite consecrations. Consecrations are next on my to-redo list.

So while it may sound weird to you, Guardians do have this holy crusader thing as well. It just sucks currently. The fire field really wouldn’t be anything new. Just a fresh spin on an old theme.

I wouldn’t use wierd to describe Guardian with access to an easy spamable fire field which has some really good healing on papper, it’s just that I see Guardian oriented around boon support rather than combo field generation…I won’t go into how Herald gives us a run for our money and beats us with our own money at times…but yeah maybe your change is for the best.

Let me give a more thematic name for Anvil of Light -> Cobalt Maelstorm or Cobalt Storm …in honor of the most thematic GS for a Guardian, Cobalt -> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cobalt

some nice ideas but i disagree with the retreat changes. I like the AEGIS and swiftness. We are slow as heck and with the current swiftness plus Pure of Voice and some boon duration i can have 100% uptime on swiftness