Guild Wars 2

This post is, in part at least, a response to what Obtena is saying in this thread. It also fits with the broader question of what a Guardian is and what it should be.

I’m going to start by (very) briefly summarizing the position I’m arguing against, both so that people can let me know if I’m misrepresenting it and so that not everyone has to read another thread to get up to speed.

What I think Obtena is saying is that because the Guardian is supposed to play support (as is: mainly using your skills to increase the effectiveness of other players) anything that isn’t specifically for supporting other players or can be gotten through other players (since to support we need to be coordinating with others) can’t be considered a weakness. For example: Guardian’s don’t need a reliable way to keep enemies close, because their allies can provide that.

And don’t get me wrong, I love support and it’s why I started to play a Guardian during beta, but I don’t think support should be the only focus for the Guardian.

The first, and most obvious, reason is that for a good chunk of content, you can’t rely on other players. A lot of players like simply exploring Tyria and doing solo WvW, and even with events or small, unorganized, roaming parties (or unorganized PvP) you can’t comfortably rely on the skills and moveset of other players. And by now leveling a character is also mostly a lonely activity. By mandating that Guardians need other players nearby to be effective, you shut down a good part of the content or at least make it a lot more fun. So while I don’t think the game should be balanced around some things in this category (solo roaming, hotjoin…), I do think it’s important that Guardians have the same level of access to others (exploring, leveling…).

Secondly, some of our skills go blatantly against the idea that we’re only supposed to do support. Meditations, most Signets, and most Spirit Weapons are examples from our utilities and Sword, Scepter, Greatsword, and arguably the Hammer are examples in our weapon selection. If we are indeed supposed to only do support these weapons are in need of some serious changes.

Similarly, our traits aren’t all about helping allies either. We’ve got plenty of “selfish” traits that only help our own (solo) effectiveness. And with the way traits are set up in GW2 it’s almost impossible to design a profession for a single role.

And finally: Designing a profession to suit a singular role is just a horrible idea. I’m not going to bore you with the details of my previous MMO experience, but World of Warcraft used to try that with Priests. Nobody was okay with it then, nobody should be okay with it now.

Guardian is a strong support profession, built upon active defense mainly. This includes but is not limited to things like blinds, group aegis, Reflects, and some healing.

Damage prevention is the main focus of a guardian and with that it’s support is outstanding.

That said guardians can be very potent in the selfish category as well. Meditation builds(as you point out) are exactly what you’re looking for. They’re amazing. The sole reason we don’t do well in solo roaming is our lack of mobility and that’s it. In that though it’s not even necessarily the mobility as much as the inability to prevent the opponant from fleeing. If we couldn’t run away but we could also pretty reasonably prevent the opponent from doing the same all would be fine.

In my experience roamers aren’t looking for good fights, if they were guardian wouldn’t have an issue because people turning tail and running wouldn’t be a problem. Roamers are gankers, looking to get kills, if it’s not going to happen they get out of there as soon as possible.

Personally I feel guardian is pretty well rounded, could use some softCC or more mobility but other than that honestly they seem pretty ok, maybe not as powerful as some other professions but really ok. Sure we don’t have a strong condi build but /shrug personally I think those are lame anyways so it’s not a problem to me

Just to be clear, what I’m saying is simply my interpretation of the messaging that Anet has been putting out, primarily based on the Ready Up where they spoke about class balance. My interpretation could be wrong but I haven’t seen anyone really have their own interpretation of what was said there either.

It’s a little more than just mobility Jerus. It’s also lacking anyway to control your opponent. If you look at how the Guardian plays you’ll notice that it has the least meaningful passives of any other profession and has a more active role. If you were to take out the Virtue’s passives, i’d probably never notice it since they seem to be so underwhelming.

Balancing a profession that plays a primarily active role needs to be stronger than its passive counterparts. I went off-topic a little bit but I wanted to explain my stance on why the Guardian is considered so balanced.

Back to what Ynna was stating is that designing a class around 1 role is terrible and if that’s here to stay, get rid of all the damaging traits/skills and just have more support ones.

Ynna.8769:

What I think Obtena is saying is that because the Guardian is supposed to play support (as is: mainly using your skills to increase the effectiveness of other players) anything that isn’t specifically for supporting other players or can be gotten through other players (since to support we need to be coordinating with others) can’t be considered a weakness. For example: Guardian’s don’t need a reliable way to keep enemies close, because their allies can provide that.

And don’t get me wrong, I love support and it’s why I started to play a Guardian during beta, but I don’t think support should be the only focus for the Guardian.

The first, and most obvious, reason is that for a good chunk of content, you can’t rely on other players. A lot of players like simply exploring Tyria and doing solo WvW, and even with events or small, unorganized, roaming parties (or unorganized PvP) you can’t comfortably rely on the skills and moveset of other players. And by now leveling a character is also mostly a lonely activity. By mandating that Guardians need other players nearby to be effective, you shut down a good part of the content or at least make it a lot more fun. So while I don’t think the game should be balanced around some things in this category (solo roaming, hotjoin…), I do think it’s important that Guardians have the same level of access to others (exploring, leveling…).

Secondly, some of our skills go blatantly against the idea that we’re only supposed to do support. Meditations, most Signets, and most Spirit Weapons are examples from our utilities and Sword, Scepter, Greatsword, and arguably the Hammer are examples in our weapon selection. If we are indeed supposed to only do support these weapons are in need of some serious changes.

Similarly, our traits aren’t all about helping allies either. We’ve got plenty of “selfish” traits that only help our own (solo) effectiveness. And with the way traits are set up in GW2 it’s almost impossible to design a profession for a single role.

And finally: Designing a profession to suit a singular role is just a horrible idea. I’m not going to bore you with the details of my previous MMO experience, but World of Warcraft used to try that with Priests. Nobody was okay with it then, nobody should be okay with it now.

Being the Guardian class, we automatically bring support rolls to the table, whether guardians like that concept or not. I WILL bring Absolute Resolution because some classes simply have very poor condition cleanses. Same for Resolute Healer for high sustain medi celestial builds.

Spirit Weapons helps more in Pve than pvp. They take forever to cast in competitive play (should be instant imo), disregard that they get burned down in groups all too easily, the spirit hammer and sword are mainly 1v1 roaming skills.

I agree that Guardian support shouldn’t ever be the focus. But if you’re a pure dps guard, even if you’re medi, warriors still do it better. For the simple fact that they can peel off of you Easily and be elsewhere in half a second.

Most guards need to realize what they bring to the table; something more team oriented instead, of a +5% damage trait, can make the difference between you and that warrior.

I think Anet is too focused on their own bi-weekly content agenda to really pay attention to the fact that their balancing is going directly against the original mantra they stressed pre-release about any class being able to fit any role. Now, obviously some classes are going to be better at certain methods of fulfilling said roles, but it just doesn’t make sense for there to be a class that’s meant to play as a support in a game that isn’t supposed to be defined by a trinity.

Saiyan.1704:

Being the Guardian class, we automatically bring support rolls to the table, whether guardians like that concept or not. I WILL bring Absolute Resolution because some classes simply have very poor condition cleanses. Same for Resolute Healer for high sustain medi celestial builds.

I’m more or less okay with that. Guardians bring support to the table, not matter what (or at least, you need to go out of your way not to). That’s okay. Just like how other professions might bring some offensive support no matter what.

I just think that shouldn’t be an excuse to pigeonhole us into one specific support role.

Off the wiki.

Due to a diverse skill system allowing for a multitude of vastly different character builds, every profession in Guild Wars 2 is capable of fitting each of the combat roles (damage, support, control) or are sometimes even the result of a combination of them.

By the very concept of the game guardians should be more than just support. In terms of the state of those three right now, I would rate them B/A-/C- respectively. We have a place in high end pvp using support builds, but I certainly can’t say we belong there trying anything else at the moment. Damage role needs a few QoL changes in general while support role needs to keep up with the power creep in this game. I think buffing the control role will in turn help the damage role out quite a bit.

That being said, I think support plays a large part of what this class does. It’s part of the guardian’s identity, though I don’t think it should be it’s only role. Through traits, a guardian should have the option to play support, damage or a hybrid of the two.

Arken.3725:

It’s a little more than just mobility Jerus. It’s also lacking anyway to control your opponent. If you look at how the Guardian plays you’ll notice that it has the least meaningful passives of any other profession and has a more active role. If you were to take out the Virtue’s passives, i’d probably never notice it since they seem to be so underwhelming.

Balancing a profession that plays a primarily active role needs to be stronger than its passive counterparts. I went off-topic a little bit but I wanted to explain my stance on why the Guardian is considered so balanced.

Back to what Ynna was stating is that designing a class around 1 role is terrible and if that’s here to stay, get rid of all the damaging traits/skills and just have more support ones.

I see what you’re saying, and I agree on some points.

I just have to comment on the last paragraph. Don’t you feel that is a bit extremist? Get rid of everything for personal offense because we’re a support/defensive focused profession? just sounds silly to me.

Shanks.2907:

Off the wiki.

Due to a diverse skill system allowing for a multitude of vastly different character builds, every profession in Guild Wars 2 is capable of fitting each of the combat roles (damage, support, control) or are sometimes even the result of a combination of them.

By the very concept of the game guardians should be more than just support. In terms of the state of those three right now, I would rate them B/A-/C- respectively. We have a place in high end pvp using support builds, but I certainly can’t say we belong there trying anything else at the moment. Damage role needs a few QoL changes in general while support role needs to keep up with the power creep in this game. I think buffing the control role will in turn help the damage role out quite a bit.

That being said, I think support plays a large part of what this class does. It’s part of the guardian’s identity, though I don’t think it should be it’s only role. Through traits, a guardian should have the option to play support, damage or a hybrid of the two.

I agree with what you say 100%.

Also got to consider: The classes are based on MOBA characters. Gear and traits allow them to play different roles. Late game DPS> pretty much everything in a MOBA. You see this a lot in GW2 whether it be pvp or pve… since lvl 80 is all Late Game DPS is king, so long as your placement is good it beats all other factors. So if Guardian’s main role is support it will always be the paper to someone’s scissors.

I just don’t feel that my support is unique in this game either. Other classes have their own ability to supply the exact same buffs I give them either by blasting or using their own abilities. It makes the support function of the guardian seem rather weak. If I was the only place they could get might, regen or stability from, I’d be important but there are dozens of ways to get these buffs. So support seems rather pointless.

It also seems like the classes were designed by totally different people. Similar buffs last 10+ sec when cast by other classes but Guardian buffs last on average 5-7 sec. Not to mention our CD are much longer. How can I justify playing a support character when others can cast my buffs and my abilities last such a short amount of time? I might as well go all out AP Soraka and pwn mid…

Jerus.4350:

Arken.3725:

It’s a little more than just mobility Jerus. It’s also lacking anyway to control your opponent. If you look at how the Guardian plays you’ll notice that it has the least meaningful passives of any other profession and has a more active role. If you were to take out the Virtue’s passives, i’d probably never notice it since they seem to be so underwhelming.

Balancing a profession that plays a primarily active role needs to be stronger than its passive counterparts. I went off-topic a little bit but I wanted to explain my stance on why the Guardian is considered so balanced.

Back to what Ynna was stating is that designing a class around 1 role is terrible and if that’s here to stay, get rid of all the damaging traits/skills and just have more support ones.

I see what you’re saying, and I agree on some points.

I just have to comment on the last paragraph. Don’t you feel that is a bit extremist? Get rid of everything for personal offense because we’re a support/defensive focused profession? just sounds silly to me.

It is a bit silly but honestly, if that’s what is to be done since we’re locked into this “support only” role then so be it. I’m not a fan of half kitten d effort and it almost feels as if speccing other than support is just that.

Jerus.4350:

Arken.3725:

It’s a little more than just mobility Jerus. It’s also lacking anyway to control your opponent. If you look at how the Guardian plays you’ll notice that it has the least meaningful passives of any other profession and has a more active role. If you were to take out the Virtue’s passives, i’d probably never notice it since they seem to be so underwhelming.

Balancing a profession that plays a primarily active role needs to be stronger than its passive counterparts. I went off-topic a little bit but I wanted to explain my stance on why the Guardian is considered so balanced.

Back to what Ynna was stating is that designing a class around 1 role is terrible and if that’s here to stay, get rid of all the damaging traits/skills and just have more support ones.

I see what you’re saying, and I agree on some points.

I just have to comment on the last paragraph. Don’t you feel that is a bit extremist? Get rid of everything for personal offense because we’re a support/defensive focused profession? just sounds silly to me.

If Arenanets vision for Guardians is that they should do support, they should disregard everything else, give Guardians the most annoying leveling experience ever, and boost our current support capabilities significantly.

If their vision is that we should be able to do damage as well as we can support, they need to make sure we can actually fulfill the damage role on par with other professions.

I can’t help but disagree honestly.

I still see our offensive capabilities as pretty decent.

PVE I can use unscathed contender and do pretty great.

PVP I’ve had some pretty good success with meditation builds for damage

So personally I just don’t agree.

Sure I may not be top notch pvp ranking so I get where I may be wrong, but still, it’s pretty great burst damage if you play it right, just kinda long reuse on it if you miss.

pve wise…
a ‘defensive’ thing as wall of reflection can be a really really good ‘offensive’ choice.
same for the fire cleansing thingy (enter Thief SB)
and so on.

I main a Thief, and I know that when a good guard is in the party our DPS will be great because of reflects / might / etc.

TL;DR
I think it works really great, should one chose to go ‘support’ guardian.

I personally play a one-handed medi guard in PvE and find them to be very fun and effective. Sure, I may not be spamming boons all over the place, but I have great sulf-sustain and good damage. I still use consecrations like wall of reflect where needed (harpy fractal as an example), but I don’t use shouts at all and actually find them to be particularly overrated in PvE.

I believe that any person should be able to play any class in any manner they choose, so long as they play it well enough in group content so as to not hinder the rest of the group. I think if you force players to play a specific way that they’re not comfortable with just because you perceive that to be their allotted role, it’s more likely to decrease their effectiveness as opposed to increasing it.

Jerus.4350:

I can’t help but disagree honestly.

I still see our offensive capabilities as pretty decent.

PVE I can use unscathed contender and do pretty great.

PVP I’ve had some pretty good success with meditation builds for damage

So personally I just don’t agree.

Sure I may not be top notch pvp ranking so I get where I may be wrong, but still, it’s pretty great burst damage if you play it right, just kinda long reuse on it if you miss.

Well the situation stands as to why dps guardian isn’t in a strong position.

-Mobility
-Ranged weaponry
-Conditional control

The Guardian lacks all of these, especially when playing dps. The only ranged weapon we have is scepter and its auto literally misses more than 50% of the time. The other two go without saying and it’s the reason as to why it’s in a rough spot.

Edit: To me, common sense would dictate that a class that is lacking in the basic mechanics a melee-focused profession brings to the table would then have to make up for it significantly.

I like the idea of this thread.

I think an issue to raise is that we are THE support class. Ele does very well, but I think we do it much better due to the amount of group stab we can produce and burst group condi clear.

Case in point, how many times do you here people say, “Hey we could use a support ranger!” or “Hey we need a support theif!” etc.

I know the NA meta for PvP has changed, but EU still uses us.

So when you have 7 other professions that don’t live up to us in support, buffing us further puts a damper on so called “class balance.”

Ironically, 2 big game nerfs hit the guardian the hardest. The so called vigor up time nerf across all classes and the retal nerf.

Me and 2 others vs a good guard and a sucky glass ele. We keep downing bad ele and guard keeps rezing them till we die cause everything is on CD trying to keep zerk ele down and trying to take guardian out. Maybe we just sucked that bad but I still suspect the guardian deserves some credit both in knowing the class and what it can do.

No offense, but if the Elementalist really was “a sucky glass ele”, you three are the problem. Or are you packing no interrupts amongst the three of you?

Only have so many interrupts. Guardian standing on top of downed ele and rezing. Downing a glass ele isn’t really kittence they blow their cooldowns like obby flesh and that reflect skill and whirling winds. Getting that guardian off them is the prob. Of coarse if one of us had stability spiked the ele we wouldnt have looked as kittenuming opportunity existed.

You only really need two interrupts at most in that scenario. (Assuming they get one ress of by default.) Or the Guardian was using Runes of Mercy, which I find really unlikely and if they were, you should be able to get them down easily as well.

It’s really just nuking the ele after the Guardian has blown his stability. Or, I dunno, just down the Guardian. If three people coordinate their damage that shouldn’t be that hard, especially if you have some way to spam conditions.

Anet as afraid of setting guardians for more support capabilities…

Imo fix spirit traits and and their duration / defense, for those that dont know santuary and SoR also negates nades and bombs, problem is some ele AOE ground spells and mellee sills can 1hit ko spirit weapons, reason they are mostly useless on skillbar.

Also, Sanctuary need is cooldown reduced or be transformed in a good big dome elite.