Guild Wars 2

There is just way too many traits for symbols. 7 traits to boost symbols.

Yet there is only five symbols that the guardians have.

Guardians can only have a max of 2 symbols because they are all in the weapon skills except symbol of judgement which doesn’t really matter.

Some of the symbols need to merge or get removed for other traits or add new symbols to keep the traits equal.

That’s not really a good way of thinking about it. There are three Major traits to boost symbols in Honor, and 3 Minor traits in Zeal, plus our token fall damage trait which creates a symbol. Of those, only five directly modify how Symbols function. Essentially, this sets up a synergy between the Zeal and Honor so that there is a particular reason to go with both of those trait lines at the same time. But it’s not as if there’s an overabundance of symbol related Major traits – I mean, look at Spirit Weapons. They have five actual Major traits to chose from, spread all over the field.

I kind of look at them in an offensive/defensive way.

in zeal you have offensive oriented symbol traits
in honor you have defensive oriented symbol traits

If you want to break it up even more, then we have utility traits for symbol in larger symbols, longer symbols, symbol when falling, symbol on low health (can be offensive because retal and damage ticks, or defensive if using symbols heal).

offensive has vulnerability symbols and more damage symbols.

defensive has symbols cause healing.

I guess you could argue that vulnerability is a utility trait which would change it to 5 utilities, 1 offensive, and 1 defensive trait for symbols.

For the most part I undervalue symbols though, since they are not strong enough to pressure enemies nor defensive enough to protect allies.

The best symbol utilization would be with hammer and mace since they are persistent and frequent.

Staff and Greatsword can create some nice little burst, but mostly used for the boons they provide and combo fields.

My biggest problem with symbol trait is that hammers use them most, yet in the zeal tree which focuses on symbols has absolutely nothing for hammers. I can’t get the GM symbol damage trait without having to choose something useless for my hammer.

@Wukunlin as CMF said Zeal tree are focusing in it’s minor traits on offensive aspect of the symbols.
also I doubt if Your build/skills/whatever ends on hammer :P

@foofad actually Spirit weapons traits have similar thing like symbols:
Zeal traits for spirit weapons focuses on more burst way of using it (there are boosting damage done in time period and decreasing cd on it), while Virtues line trait improves it by increasing time in which they can make its effect (similar to idea of condition damage and condition duration), and Radiance one is thought something like “hey, You are already improving burning – so maybe consider another source for You of this condition?”

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@Wukunlin as CMF said Zeal tree are focusing in it’s minor traits on offensive aspect of the symbols.
also I doubt if Your build/skills/whatever ends on hammer :P

I don’t see how that justifies useless major traits?

Which traits do you think are useless?

when I want to make a hammer dps build, symbolic power (GM minor trait) would be a logical one to aim for. I need to choose 2 major traits. Fiery wraith is obvious, but then what? binding jeopardy won’t work because procing it with hammer 3 decreases my dps. I’m not planning on jumping off a cliff or committing suicide so protector’s impact and revenge of the fallen are out. Shattered aegis doesn’t help because by targets are burning all the time from VOJ anyway. Only useful spirit weapon, comparing to other utility slots we have, is the shield which is very situational so traitinng for it will be useless most of the time. GS, focus, and scepter traits are useless in a hammer build for obvious reasons.

If you want to say, don’t make a hammer dps build then the problem becomes the minor traits being useless because symbol cd are so long in other weapons so these traits do nothing most of the time. You can argue mace has decent symbol uptime but I see much better traits for mace in other trees.

Again, not a great way of thinking about it. 25/15/0/30/0 is an awesome symbols build in PVE using Hammer + Mace/Focus. Fiery Wrath + Focus Mastery. Run some boon duration with Exaltation and Persistence and you’re going to have basically infinite Regeneration and Protection and good damage. Just parking at a monster and spamming Hammer isn’t doing anyone any favors, weapon swapping is where it’s at.

foofad.5162:

Again, not a great way of thinking about it. 25/15/0/30/0 is an awesome symbols build in PVE using Hammer + Mace/Focus. Fiery Wrath + Focus Mastery. Run some boon duration with Exaltation and Persistence and you’re going to have basically infinite Regeneration and Protection and good damage. Just parking at a monster and spamming Hammer isn’t doing anyone any favors, weapon swapping is where it’s at.

This makes 0 sense. Even with symbol lasting longer trait, as soon as I swap out of my hammer my whole party loses out on protection until I switch it back. Mace dps is awful without traits so I also lose out on dps.

The traits themselves are fine, they are just in weird places.

Zeal 15 is fine as is.

Zeal 25 is a joke, it needs to be Symbols do 50% more damage, not 10%, and then we’re talking. I’m also very open to the chill suggestion for Zeal 25.

Honor III (Larger) and VII (Last Longer) need to be combined, and left at the Master level. (I guess this opens up an Adept trait slot, but whatevs)

Honor X (Heals) needs to use the same coefficient as Regeneration does (like Mace II Symbol of Faith) to justify being a Grandmaster trait.

Wukunlin.8461:

foofad.5162:

Again, not a great way of thinking about it. 25/15/0/30/0 is an awesome symbols build in PVE using Hammer + Mace/Focus. Fiery Wrath + Focus Mastery. Run some boon duration with Exaltation and Persistence and you’re going to have basically infinite Regeneration and Protection and good damage. Just parking at a monster and spamming Hammer isn’t doing anyone any favors, weapon swapping is where it’s at.

This makes 0 sense. Even with symbol lasting longer trait, as soon as I swap out of my hammer my whole party loses out on protection until I switch it back. Mace dps is awful without traits so I also lose out on dps.

The traits themselves are fine, they are just in weird places.

Ray of Judgement and Symbol of Faith + Hold the Line stacks over 30 seconds of Regen with a 40% Boon Duration runes (against a single target; i.e. ray only bounces to you). The 6~ seconds of Protection can hold your party over between weapon swaps every 28 seconds traited, so every third swap.

If you have 40% boon duration and Writ of Persistence, what happens is this: Every 3.3 seconds (autoattack rotation speed) you cast Symbol of Protection which ordinarily pulses 3 times, but instead pulses 4 with the Writ. Because you have 40% boon duration, this is increased to 5.6 seconds worth of Protection. So every 3.3 seconds, you generate 5.6 seconds of protection. That means that in 3 rotations (9.9 seconds, aka enough time for weapon swap to cool down) you’ve generated 16.8 seconds of Protection when only 9.9 seconds have elapsed. If you swap weapons right then, AT MOST you’ve lost 3.2 seconds of protection for your party. If you instead let four AA rotations happen, you generate 22.4 seconds of Protection in 13.2 seconds, with 9.2 seconds left over, meaning that if you swap every 4 AA rotations your party loses .8 seconds of Protection. That is easily covered by Hold the Line.

What do you gain? 8.4 seconds of Regeneration from Symbol of Faith alone.

Also: Mace DPS is fine, especially since you’ve traited heavily into Symbols.

so after all that, sacrificing whatever stat points I could’ve chosen instead, and occupying a utility slot, I get… 8 ticks of regeneration???

Are you seriously trying to justify a bunch of non-symbol-using weapon traits in a symbol tree by a little more than 100 heal per second???

and lol mace dps is fine

No, I’m telling you that Focus Mastery is useful in the Zeal line, and completely refuting your argument that swapping out of your hammer will somehow reduce your party utility via Protection. Swap to Mace so you can keep a symbol going, get tons of regen and blinds from Ray of Judgement, plus a dramatically lower cooldown on Shield of Wrath which persists through weapon swaps.

Except you proved me right that I will need 40% boon duration, and have to use HTL to make up for swapping out of my hammer.
“Tons of regen” is stupid because it stacks in duration so it is always that pathetic 100ish heal per second, less if your party is poisoned.
More blind and shield of wrath is nice but how does that synergize with my symbols again? Mace again? Please, the auto chain doesn’t even cleave properly, and the single target damage is still inferior to hammer, even scepter has better single target dps than mace.

Even without 40% boon duration it’s still 16 seconds of Protection every 13.2 seconds, so you’re going to have some left over when you swap. Regardless of that, if your concern is Hammer Protection uptime for your party, why aren’t you running Persistence with boon duration?

I didn’t say that Focus directly synergized with symbols. I’m merely saying that if your concern is that you have to “waste” a major trait in order to get the symbol damage mintor, then picking up the Focus duration trait is actually quite good for your off-set. If you prefer Scepter, Scepter Power is in there too – just use that.

foofad.5162:

if your concern is Hammer Protection uptime for your party, why aren’t you running Persistence with boon duration?

because boon duration is useless since staying in hammer practically gives my team full protection uptime anyway

foofad.5162:

I didn’t say that Focus directly synergized with symbols. I’m merely saying that if your concern is that you have to “waste” a major trait in order to get the symbol damage mintor, then picking up the Focus duration trait is actually quite good for your off-set. If you prefer Scepter, Scepter Power is in there too – just use that.

Which is my point in the first place – available major traits in the symbol trees are mostly for weapons that barely uses symbols.

I can’t get the GM symbol damage trait without having to choose something useless for my hammer.

All symbols should do spike damage instantly when placed and then continue to do damage gradually. They should also apply a condition on cast depending on symbol and weapon type. All main hand weapons should have a symbol too.

Right now they are boon pulsing light fields, pretty boring for having so many traits devoted to them.

Not really viable as a playable build, but I was messing around with symbols a while back and I ran staff/greatsword in spvp.

I was able to spike damage people with double symbol and whirling wrath to sometimes insta kill them or at least 80-90% them down.

Problem is that most people ran right out of the symbols and I did no damage.

I did get an amazing kill that I wish I recorded where a guy was running for the point and I dropped a line of warding, tripped him, and then double symbol/ww him dead.

He whispered me “at first I was angry, then I was impressed”

lol.

My current build is 20/15/0/30/5, with a focus on symbols all around. With full clerics gear and boon duration up as much as possible, you can take on just about anything.

It’s not a spike damage build, by any means. It’s a pressure build. You lose the ability to use Sword or Scepter effectively (no real great loss there, lets be honest). Mace / Focus has some good combo fields, Hammer is a no brainer, and GS / Staff is an excellent combo for groups or solo in PvE.

You won’t be the main damager, nor should you be. You provide constant dps pressure to foes and constant dps relief to allies. 5 berserkers going through a dungeon run will wear themselves out at some point. 4 berserkers and a symbol guardian will have longer sustainability and more efficiency. You may take a little longer, but the run will be a little easier every time.

25 in zeal is useless for the symbol damage boost. You get more damage overall with 5 points in virtues by spreading stacks of might on each mob death. It’s not much by itself, but it all adds up over time.

I haven’t used it in sPvP, but it sounds like it would need major tweaking. You can solo trash mobs in Orr with no end in sight, but another player is another story all together.

i played a 25/10/0/30/5 or 25/15/0/30/0 build for a while in WvW. stacking healing power as well for the sustain. i’d imagine if you’re “good enough” you could do without healing gear. but even then, the damage i was packing with the symbols was really strong. in group play, hammer was more suited since i was able to more reliably drop the symbol on hammer with more enemies around. in 1v1 or 1v2’s, GS shines more even with a shorter uptmie on the GS symbol. and obviously, i’ll switch to zealous blade. if not, i will be running focused mastery since my secondary set is mace/focus.

and i really don’t think mace hits soft at all. of course scepter hits harder than mace. but if it’s symbols you want, mace is easily one of the best choices. like otehrs have mentioned, being able to drop double symbols on an enemy and you can Row (hammer) or binding blades (GS) enemies into them for just a tad bit longer. an extra tick or so could make all the difference sometimes.