Guild Wars 2

There are just too many useless traits, maybe on Guard than other classes. I’ll give some ways to fix (not make OP) them:

ZEAL – The problem: This should be more a “selfish line”, oriented to DPS, but the options are very poorly.

• I – Binding Jeopardy: The vulnerability duration is increased to 12 sec, up from 8 sec.
• IV – Revenge of the Fallen: Merged with Strength of the Fallen (III on Valor line).
• IV (new) – (Name?): Critical hits have 30% of chance to apply 1 sec cripple.
• V – Shattered Aegis: Increased the dmg. (I not tested, but this trait also works on allies?)
• VIII – Focused Mastery: -20% CD reduction and Activating focus skills remove 1 condition from yourself.
• X – Eternal Spirit: Merged with Spirit-Weapon Mastery (VI).
• X (new) – (Name?): Increases the move speed by 25% when using melee weapons.
• XII – Kindled Zeal: Replaced the effect to “apply <put a condition that does dmg here> on critical hits. Duration: ?; CD: ?”. Alternatively, it can make Vulnerability do damage (same as bleeding) – similar to Necro’s trait, Terror – in this way will offer a new play style and synergy with the traits I (Binding Jeopardy), 15 (Symbolic Exposure) from Zeal and VI (Blind Exposure) from Radiance and will fit with the theme of the Guardian.

In this way this line would be a lot more attractive, while not being overpowered. This also would fix the lack of soft CC and very low mobility that Guardian have and both options make sense in this line.

Also are a problem with focus (You’ll need to use mace), scepter and even with sword (a selfish weapon) in this line becouse of the Symbolic Exposure (15) that have no synergy with. Maybe if they change the Scepter #2 to a symbol (changing the skill to not become OP, of course) and the #2 sword to “apply symbol of fury on hit” (consideirng that the dmg from sword #2 is lame) would allow those weapons to have more synergy with the symbol traits.

RADIANCE – I think that this line is also more oriented to dmg and more selfish, but have better traits than Zeal line.

• I – Healer’s Retribution: Increased the retal duration to 5 sec, up from 3.
• III – Shimmering Defense: Increased the Health threshold to 50%, reduced the CD to 45 sec and reduced the burning duration to 4 secs.
• IV – Inner Fire: Chaged to work with #4 torch.

VALOR – Pretty much an ok line.

• 15 minor – Courageous Return: I feel that this traits should be redesigned. No idea, though.
• VIII – Glacial Heart: Reduced to CD to 15 sec (or even 10 sec) and increase the damage of Hammer by 5%.
• X – Focused Mind: Increased the fury duration to 5 sec, up from 4.

HONOR – Also, an ok line (The best line).
I only feel that Battle Presence (XII) is weak as GM trait (I can have a similar effect with only 5 point in Water line with Ele). I have no suggestions to change in this line.

VIRTUES – There are some junk traits.

• IV – Retaliatory Subconscious: Changed to “cast Stand on Your Ground when disabled. CD: 60 sec”. This change would be really good, this trait wont be a junk any more and could have synergy with shout traits.
• V – Improved Spirit-Weapon Duration: Removed. Its effect is applied permanently.
• V (new) – (Name?): Activating a virtue (or maybe only VoJ) you – only the Guardian – gets 3 sec fury. (In this way the guardian will have a effective way to get fury, without been forced to meditations and this fits with the line theme).
• X – Indomitable Courage: Merged with Shielded Mind as GM trait (considering the insane CD of VoC).
• X (new) – (Name?): Increases the Staff and Trident damage by 5%, also Staff and Trident skills heals nearby allies (not yourself) for a small amount – 60 healing per skill usage, 600 range, 3% scaling with healing power (Considering that are no traits related with staff/trident and this is a support line).

For real, what you guys think about these changes?

@edit
Added new suggestions to Zeal XII, Valor VIII and Virtues V.

Make Glacial Heart work on other weapons too (doesn’t have to be all of them).

I really like the Virtues trait line. Yes please revise Virtues IV “Retaliatory Subconscious.” I agree with the suggestion: Cast Stand Your Ground whenever you get dazed, knocked back, fear and etc. Kind of like the Warrior’s trait “Shrug It Off!”. I think it should have the same cool down as the actual shout and make it compatible with Superior Aria and Pure of Voice. Also combining Indomitable Courage with Shielded Mind would be an amazing grandmaster trait.

OP great thread, most changes suggested are not too greedy to ask for at all in my opinion. and would properly open up builds for guardian.
The amount of utterly useless traits we have says much about how little anet work on this class. We have so many traits that give us retaliation, while its been nerfed so badly to low retal damage, it really has only application when applied to a group, not only on guardian. This is strengthened by the fact that we don’t have that much protection up-time, low HP, and our main way to live is by avoiding taking hits.
traits that give bad retal:
- Retaliatory Subconscious
- Wrathful Spirit
- Healers Retribution
- (Signet of Judgment)
Not only do these give unneeded retal, it’s only 3-5 second.. seriously, not much more to add to that. should ALL be replaced with the protection boon, protection l should be at least 25% uptime for any guardian build by default , we have so many light field its easy to blast retal all day with guardian alone or with group.
Sadly this thread is one among many of thread on guardian subforums that so far have not shown to be noticed by arenanet.

Some nice proposals like in the other threads. Unfortunately no one in Anet team will read and consider this.

Eloquence.5207:

Make Glacial Heart work on other weapons too (doesn’t have to be all of them).

I actually like the idea of some traits related to some weapons, but Glacial Heart is just too bad, I even added new suggestions to this trait to make it better. The lack of soft CC on Guardian is even deeper, that’s why I suggested the new IV Zeal, with any other class that I play (Warrior, Ele, Necro and even Ranger) I have no problems with availability of soft CC to keep my enemy in combat/chase, this associate with the lack of mobility really punishes the Guardian.

I also added a suggestion to Virtues V, to try to get a reliable source to fury.

puttin a 25% speed increase that high up in zeal practically makes the zeal line a MUST have and narrows down build diversity.Guardian needs that movement speed either as a signet or a very low tier trait.

Mikau.6920:

VIRTUES – There are some junk traits.

• IV – Retaliatory Subconscious: Changed to “cast Stand on Your Ground when disabled. CD: 60 sec”. This change would be really good, this trait wont be a junk any more and could have synergy with shout traits.

This is too strong (remember this gives 5 sec of retaliation and stability to a group of people on a 60 sec cooldown in a 10 point trait line, warrior gets 8 second stability and swiftness only on himself on 90 sec cooldown), suggest changing it to the this:

-heal yourself (or group) while being stunned, feared, …
-pulse every second
- 300 health if group or 600 health if solo
-range 360

Mikau.6920:

HONOR – Also, an ok line (The best line).
I only feel that Battle Presence (XII) is weak as GM trait (I can have a similar effect with only 5 point in Water line with Ele). I have no suggestions to change in this line.

The thing I don’t get about Battle Presence (BP) is that if I had to choose for a support build I’d go with a Hammer and pick Writ of the Merciful (symbols heal allies). Writ of the Merciful is a master trait (not GM like BP) and therefore could save me 10 points. Also the symbol heal applies to myself where BP doesn’t give me any benefit.

Battle Presence doesn’t really belong in the Honor tree. It effects virtues so technically it should be moved to the Virtues tree. Then perhaps they could make BP reduce recharge rate on Virtue of Resolve to make it more attractive.

Valor and Honor are far from fine. They’re great in wvw, but severely lacking in pve.
I would like to see more group support added to valor, and elusive power in honor changed to something which makes more sense such as +10% damage when endurance is full.

Mikau.6920:

• VIII – Glacial Heart: Reduced to CD to 15 sec (or even 10 sec) and increase the damage of Hammer by 5%.

Glacial Heart should be: “Instead of burning passive Virtue of Justice applies 1 sec of chill and active applies 3 sec of chill”

there should be also master trait on zeal or radiance that should be: “Applying burning also applies cripple”

For aggressive gameplay i would like to see zeal master trait that reduces cd on weapon swapping for 3 sec and Supreme Justice should grant you much better burns that it does now.

Tim.6450:

Mikau.6920:

VIRTUES – There are some junk traits.

• IV – Retaliatory Subconscious: Changed to “cast Stand on Your Ground when disabled. CD: 60 sec”. This change would be really good, this trait wont be a junk any more and could have synergy with shout traits.

This is too strong (remember this gives 5 sec of retaliation and stability to a group of people on a 60 sec cooldown in a 10 point trait line, warrior gets 8 second stability and swiftness only on himself on 90 sec cooldown), suggest changing it to the this:

-heal yourself (or group) while being stunned, feared, …
-pulse every second
- 300 health if group or 600 health if solo
-range 360

Great suggestions! I was thinking that could be too much powerful indeed, so it could be 90 sec CD (like other classes adept traits).

Or like your suggestion, it could be: “Cast Symbol of Judgment (the downed one) when stuned, (…). CD: 30 sec”.

Noah.4756:

Mikau.6920:

HONOR – Also, an ok line (The best line).
I only feel that Battle Presence (XII) is weak as GM trait (I can have a similar effect with only 5 point in Water line with Ele). I have no suggestions to change in this line.

The thing I don’t get about Battle Presence (BP) is that if I had to choose for a support build I’d go with a Hammer and pick Writ of the Merciful (symbols heal allies). Writ of the Merciful is a master trait (not GM like BP) and therefore could save me 10 points. Also the symbol heal applies to myself where BP doesn’t give me any benefit.

Battle Presence doesn’t really belong in the Honor tree. It effects virtues so technically it should be moved to the Virtues tree. Then perhaps they could make BP reduce recharge rate on Virtue of Resolve to make it more attractive.

Great Idea! It could be on adept line in virtues tree. Would make more sense and more viable to use.

Thanks guys, all are great ideas, the Elusive Power really should be +10% dmg when endurance is full and this would be a great way to fix the lack of soft CC in a interesting way, Bojoo.

Sadly, I don’t think any Dev will look at our suggestions, or even if they look they wont evven consider, considering that they ignored they own ideas (they keep Powerful Blades +10% dmg instead something else).

Thanks all!

For all of you Guardians that say “Aegis is too strong to have it on anything lower than a 90 second CD” Look at Prismatic Understanding in the Chaos tree for Mesmer and then try to tell me how it needs to be on a 90 second CD.

Mikau.6920:

Tim.6450:

Mikau.6920:

VIRTUES – There are some junk traits.

• IV – Retaliatory Subconscious: Changed to “cast Stand on Your Ground when disabled. CD: 60 sec”. This change would be really good, this trait wont be a junk any more and could have synergy with shout traits.

This is too strong (remember this gives 5 sec of retaliation and stability to a group of people on a 60 sec cooldown in a 10 point trait line, warrior gets 8 second stability and swiftness only on himself on 90 sec cooldown), suggest changing it to the this:

-heal yourself (or group) while being stunned, feared, …
-pulse every second
- 300 health if group or 600 health if solo
-range 360

Great suggestions! I was thinking that could be too much powerful indeed, so it could be 90 sec CD (like other classes adept traits).

Or like your suggestion, it could be: “Cast Symbol of Judgment (the downed one) when stuned, (…). CD: 30 sec”.

I like the symbol idea more but I feel that the cooldown is too short (600 health per pulse aoe even better if you trait it).So I suggest a 40~90 second cooldown.

Arlette.9684:

puttin a 25% speed increase that high up in zeal practically makes the zeal line a MUST have and narrows down build diversity.Guardian needs that movement speed either as a signet or a very low tier trait.

For what WvW?

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Arlette.9684:

puttin a 25% speed increase that high up in zeal practically makes the zeal line a MUST have and narrows down build diversity.Guardian needs that movement speed either as a signet or a very low tier trait.

For what WvW?

Mainly, yea

I like the Zeal trait changes you suggested. That entire trait line has been lacking/sub standard since launch. For the “offensive” line, it contributes little to full fledged dps builds (unless you count the 10 to 15 points some people put into it just to grab the 1 or 2 “mandatory” traits). I really like the idea of having a trait that increases guardian’s movement speed while having a melee weapon equipped. One thing that make’s playing a guardian painful compared to most other classes is their lack of mobility and how long it takes to get anywhere, even when just running around the world.

I consider Aegis to be one of the more weaker boons. One block isn’t going to save you from much when most abilities are multi-hitting. The Cd and the passive on Courage is severely underwhelming in this regard.

The overall need to have Soft CC or more mobility has already been beaten into the ground. I find the Guardian to be the most melee centric profession due to its terrible ranged options.

I feel like the only reason why we’re not down at the bottom of the food chain with the elementalists is because we have better survivability. Other than that we’re just as kittened.

I think it really varies. A Guardian’s survivability is heavily dependent on either his party or fully speccing into self-preservation(clerics). I don’t see many Elementalist’s running Clerics anymore, maybe Valks but certainly not full support/bunker.

I feel as if everyone wants their profession to be able to do everything and do it well. Unfortunately for the Guardian, this doesn’t work too well. When you consider the weaknesses of the Guardian(lack of ranged, soft cc, swiftness, low health), it’s very difficult to multi-spec with excellence. I’m fine with this actually, you shouldn’t have the best of both worlds.

This may or may not have been mentioned but outside of Vigorous Precision(requires decent precision), the Guardian has no other significant passives in it’s trait line to assist. It’s all active.

Arken.3725:

I think it really varies. A Guardian’s survivability is heavily dependent on either his party or fully speccing into self-preservation(clerics). I don’t see many Elementalist’s running Clerics anymore, maybe Valks but certainly not full support/bunker.

I feel as if everyone wants their profession to be able to do everything and do it well. Unfortunately for the Guardian, this doesn’t work too well. When you consider the weaknesses of the Guardian(lack of ranged, soft cc, swiftness, low health), it’s very difficult to multi-spec with excellence. I’m fine with this actually, you shouldn’t have the best of both worlds.

This may or may not have been mentioned but outside of Vigorous Precision(requires decent precision), the Guardian has no other significant passives in it’s trait line to assist. It’s all active.

Precisely the problem, we’ve been taught by ANet the hard way that classes can excel at more than one thing at a time (I’m saying by ANet because of them we have that multi purpose warrior running around, the immortal necro that kills groups of people just by starring at them. Mesmers that kill us with Phantasms while sitting in stealth, etc). And it seems like the guardian is good at many things but doesn’t excel in anything in particular.

Arlette.9684:

Precisely the problem, we’ve been taught by ANet the hard way that classes can excel at more than one thing at a time (I’m saying by ANet because of them we have that multi purpose warrior running around, the immortal necro that kills groups of people just by starring at them. Mesmers that kill us with Phantasms while sitting in stealth, etc). And it seems like the guardian is good at many things but doesn’t excel in anything in particular.

I will not dissagree with the multipurpose warrior and the mesmer, but the" immortal necromancer that kills group of people"??? necromancers die easily in group fights, it’s our main pvp flaw. By the way don’t guardians excel in blocking and support?

Please give me something useful in radiance if I don’t want to use a sword. Half the time I leave the master trait empty when running with my greatsword only.

Tim.6450:

Arlette.9684:

Precisely the problem, we’ve been taught by ANet the hard way that classes can excel at more than one thing at a time (I’m saying by ANet because of them we have that multi purpose warrior running around, the immortal necro that kills groups of people just by starring at them. Mesmers that kill us with Phantasms while sitting in stealth, etc). And it seems like the guardian is good at many things but doesn’t excel in anything in particular.

I will not dissagree with the multipurpose warrior and the mesmer, but the" immortal necromancer that kills group of people"??? necromancers die easily in group fights, it’s our main pvp flaw. By the way don’t guardians excel in blocking and support?

Engineers block better and on lower CD as I recall. Support is debatable I’ll give you that.

Arlette.9684:

Engineers block better and on lower CD as I recall. Support is debatable I’ll give you that.

how do engineers block better? We have mending, mace, focus and aegis. On top of that we have several projectile blocks/reflects (I don’t know if you consider them as well).

In terms of active blocking, the Guardian pulls ahead. However, in terms of duration, we’re behind.

Guardians and Engineers are actually quite close in their utilities:

Fire fields
Group Healing
Group condi cleanse
LIght fields and retaliation
Projectile Reflection
Projectile destruction
blocks
blinds
burning
vigor stacking
Bad excuses for an AI option
Horrible at boon removal

which is quite amazing when you consider that you can’t look at any one skill in the Guardian’s kitten nal and say “that is obviously a clone of blank that Engineers have” or vice versa. The big difference seems to be that guardians focus more on direct + melee damage, while engineers focus more on range + condi damage. Guardians have more group boon stacking, whereas engineer boons tend to be more selfish. Guardians do more outright damage, where engineers can be a bit harder to kill.

As for blocks/invulnerability goes… hard to say. Engy blocking rate is highly dependent on picking the right skills for a few duration blocks, whereas nearly any guardian build will get multiple blocks with limited use from different sources. Overall, I’d say guardians are better at it, if only because it comes natural to them.

As for the OP’s stuff: I like the trait improvements and the trait merging, but it seems like a lot of the newly added traits are just filler. The addition of vulnerability causing damage is pretty cool for kindred zeal, which is the only real “unique” thing I’ve seen here.

The thing with movement and guardians is that they either have a lto of it, or they don’t. In WvW I’ve seen plenty of perma-swiftness guardians who are nigh impossible to catch. IMO, just giving guardians a 25% movement trait is the wrong way to go, since they already have plenty of movement skills. If anything, I think that they should either improve their teleports, or add new ones. Something like:

Mighty blow: range 600
Powerful Blades: Increases sword and spear damage, and increases sword range by 25%
Judges intervention: recharge reduced to 30 seconds
New trait: Virtue of justice, upon activation, now teleports you to your target (range: 600)
Zealot’s Speed: All symbols now grant swiftness (2 sec). Create a Symbol of Wrath when you are struck while below the health threshold.

Something along those lines. Anything but a Powered Shoes or Warrior’s Sprint clone.

Hi, thanks for the suggestions.

Blood Red Arachnid, my suggestions where not fillers, but meant to fix the problems that Guardian have. Now the real (most painful) problem is the lack of mobility and lack of soft CC. With any of my other classes I have no fear aganist a Guadian, becouse I know that he hardly will scape from me and if I’m in trouble is just too easy to flee from him. All classes that I play (Ele, War, Necro and Ranger) exept for Guard, of course, I have several ways to get mobility like signet, traits or even perma swiftness without complicate/affect my builds, with Guardian I’m forced to get Retreat to get some moviment or use the new “nerf/buff” Symbol of Swiftness that is even more awful for solo play. Also Guardian have ZERO soft CC, the only one is a trait attached to hammer and have 30 sec cooldown (is useless). Although your suggestions to new teleports and lower CD would help (the dream: if at least they fix the Merciful Intervention to be area target… – really, only a dream).

They should at least buff Retreat to apply 30s of swiftness and aegis with the same CD.

Some of the traits are so useless or have zero synergy with any thing so nobody uses. Also Retaliatory Subconscious is pure junk and Guardian have too little access to fury. All suggestions that I gave would “fix” the problems that Guardian have without making Guardian OP.

I really have a problem with the Zeal Line and the Radiance Line

Radiance is Precision and Condition Damage WHY? there is no crit chance on conditions.

Zeal is another odd line, it has a lot for symbols but there’s a few things in there that are completely useless if you are using a scepter/focus.
they don’t have Symbols!!!

Adept Trait I Binding Jeopardy Immobilizing a foe also applies vulnerability to them. Only scepter or Hammer can use this.
Master Trait VIII Focused Mastery Reduces recharge on focus skills. no symbols on focus
Master Trait IX Scepter Power Scepter damage is increased. Scepters don’t have symbols.

other classes do have precision and critical damage in the same line, so im not sure why all classes aren’t treated the same.

There are too many threads like this. Here we go again..

Virtue V: Way too op. We already have all the fury we could want by going 10 into Radiance.
Virtue XII: Shielded Mind. Virtue of Courage now applies its passive affect up to 5 nearby allies every 15 sec if they are below 50% hp.
Combine Honor I and VI. Reduce the retal on Wrathful Spirit and Virtue of Retribution.