Guild Wars 2

JonathanSharp (Game Designer)

Class balance philosophies
We normally try to employ metered and controlled balance changes with each pass, rather than huge reductions or improvements to classes. We want to get all classes on the same playing field, and we want to avoid “whack-a-mole” style balance. HUGH increases and HUGE decreases lead to meta instability, and thusly, we try to make multiple small tweaks rather than putting in massive changes that we have to later correct.

When designing and balancing the classes, we try to make sure that class roles and identities stay intact. So, in doing so, we make sure that there are rules and boundaries outlining the capabilities and weaknesses of each class.

• Guardian
  • The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health. They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield. We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.

Source Post

Based on the above post, we are supposed to:

• Maximize boon up time
• Control positioning
• Manage condition damage better than others
• Fight in melee range effectively

Do you think they have hit the mark or at least making steps towards hitting that mark?

Nothing about Mr. Sharp’s post says we have to maximize boon up time, in the sense that we aren’t required to invest heavily in boon duration. We are, however, reliant on boons to do our job. At least, we’re supposed to be. I don’t know how true this is. Boons are a constant in a Guardian’s playstyle, but they aren’t what define us, and having boons stripped from us isn’t really going to leave us any more vulnerable than other professions in the same situation.

Area control is definitely an cornerstone of Guardian play, not just in Area Denial (shields, reflections), but also symbol placement and advancing/retreating. We are definitely at our most powerful in melee range, so that statement seems accurate.

And we are absolutely effective in removing conditions. Guardians have so many ways to remove conditions, across nearly all our builds, to say nothing of our overabundance of Light combo fields.

The description is an accurate one, though I think Mr. Sharp overemphasized or mischaracterized the role of boons in Guardian play. Boons happen, but we don’t depend on them. In fact, the presence and absence of specific boons rarely matters to a Guardian so much as the presence or absence of any boon at all.

Examples:

• Pure of Voice turns Shouts into condition removals. The actual effect of the boons are unchanged, and in many cases, the boons themselves are not as important as having conditions stripped.

• Altruistic Healing benefits from volume of boons, rather than boon uptime or specific boons. It doesn’t matter so much if you’re granting Retaliation, Swiftness, Aegis or Vigor—AH will heal you for the same amount. Here, the boons themselves don’t matter, but the frequency with which you grant boons does.

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It’s a minor quibble. The description is mostly right. Yes, we rely on boons to make up for our low levels of innate health, but a more accurate description would be: we rely on Virtues and Aegis to make up for our low levels of innate health, along with the mitigation baked into our more defensive weapon selection.

And while the Guardian is not reliant on boons to the point where we “feel the pressure” if we lose them, we do incorporate lots and lots of boons into nearly everything we do.

I’d have added a couple of things to the description: Guardian playstyle changes dramatically between weapons, moreso than warriors. The difference between mace and staff isn’t just damage or skill selection, but strategy.

JonathanSharp (Game Designer)

We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure.

That is where I derived the “maximize boon up time” from. While we may not need to invest in boon duration, having quickly refreshing sources of applying these boons seems to be important.

As you said, having boons on or not does not seem detrimental in our game play, and if anything with the majority of the players doing AH style combat because of how effective it is in our self survivability, the quantity and frequency of boons (as you pointed out) is more important.

Also many people have stated that Guardians are good at surviving burst damage but condition damage is our weakness. While we have plenty of ways to remove/convert conditions it is still a point of contention on if this is our strength or weakness.

So in the end, I think they may have missed their mark with the effectiveness of boons.

As far as area control/positioning. We do have a few good push backs and one good pull, but I am unsure if we really do excel in battlefield positioning or not. Symbols on the ground and consecrations are mainly ignored, so maybe increasing the leathality and benefit of standing in these symbols would help give us that strength in positioning they stated.

Long cooldown symbols that tick once or twice for in effect nothing are shrugged off by many players and mobs. If we want a battlefield presence we need to have these things be something people want to avoid if they are fighting us and move to if they are fighting “with” us.

I think wall of reflection does fairly well in it’s battle field positioning roll.

The problem with the “feel powerful with boons on” idea is that boons have the same effect on every class – it’s not like we get some special benefit from them. If they really want us to feel that way, then the solution may be to make it easier to stack might/fury/regen/prot/whatever on ourselves while nerfing our base stats. Not sure I’d like that, tbh…

They already have us with low base states with the stipulation that boons make us amazing, but as you said it has the same effect on everyone and we are not the only ones that can apply these boons.

We do get some benefit with boons that other professions don’t via Altruistic Healing and Power of the Virtuous. The latter being less used by the majority of players as it only applies 1% extra damage with a max of 9% extra damage if you have all boons up.

Maybe change Power of the Virtuous to increase damage by 5% per a boon? Also have a trait that increases the effectiveness of Virtue of Resolve per each boon you have, so that your regen is stronger to make up for lower hp?

what mr sharp said, its exactly my idea of the guardian. and all my proposition from my very beginning on the forum, aim exactly to this vision.

Now i dont know what they intended to ground control, because what i see is only push all of us to make a bunker build.For me ground control is another thing, something like create interdition zone where enemy cannon pass (like hamme and staff ward) or zone where the enemy is Heavily punished if he walk into it (this can be the role of simbols and consecrations, but for now are pretty useless for this role, Just wall of reflection respect in part this concept)

A warrior that rely on boons, this is only theory not well applied, id like to see trait that boost a particular boon like Vengeful, but applied to other boons. something like:

• every time you have a stack of the X boon, you gain a stack of the Y boon too.
• or every time you can gain a stack of the X boon, you gain 2 stacks.
• or the duration of the X boon, is increased by Y %

Replace the useless traits we have(like the weapon damage boost), with traits like the ones i posted, maybe can give to our class some new idea for building, that can respect Devs idea for guardian.

It sounds as if they want the Guardian to be like the Dervish in GW1. Dervishes relied on enchantments for strength and were pretty defenseless without them.

dizzyd.5213:

The problem with the “feel powerful with boons on” idea is that boons have the same effect on every class – it’s not like we get some special benefit from them.

I agree. Enchantments were class specific in GW1, so a dervish losing its enchantments was very different than say an Assassin. A mesmer could completely shut down a dervish with enough enchantment removal, but a dervish could reek havoc on a team with no enchantment removal.

Elementalists rely on boons and healing as much as we do. To say that guardians should feel strong with boons right now means nothing, since every class can feel strong with boons.

dizzyd.5213:

If they really want us to feel that way, then the solution may be to make it easier to stack might/fury/regen/prot/whatever on ourselves while nerfing our base stats. Not sure I’d like that, tbh…

I like that idea, but it all depends on how it was implemented. I don’t necessarily think we need more boons, but mechanics that interact with our boons.

A rough example would be lowering the base damage of certain attacks, but increasing their damage with each stack of might we have. We would continually become stronger as the battle progresses, eventually becoming a juggernaut unless someone hits us with a boon removal, one of our weaknesses.

Although these types of changes would drastically change the class, and I honestly don’t think Anet is daring enough to make those changes.

Since they’re rather failed at implementing our condition removal (Pure of Voice) or control mechanisms (bosses have defiance, wards easily bypassed, no cripple and few roots/snares), I’d say the Guardian is not where their vision would imply. If they fixed Pure and player ability to dodge out of our wards, I’d say they would be well on their way to fixing things. Having our weapon damage bonuses all over the place hamper more creative builds and traits, though. Still, I kinda want the devs to rethink how our virtues are affected by traits. Something like this:

1.) Remove Torch #4, Permeating Wrath, Zealous Blade, Searing Flames
2.) Torch #4 is a blast finisher, burns nearby enemies. Nearby allies (200r) are cleansed of one condition.
3.) Permeating Wrath becomes Defensive Bastion. All consecrations now cripple enemies crossing them, wards chill.
4.) Power of the Virtuous becomes 3% bonus per boon, maximum of 15% bonus in damage.
5.) Perfect Inscriptions moved to Master trait, new Grandmaster Cleansing Radiance. Activation of Justice now causes burning to nearby (300r) enemies, turning boons into burning for 1s per boon and ally conditions into fury for 1s per enemy condition.
6.)Zealous Blade becomes Zealous Resolve. Activation of Resolve removes all conditions, granting quickness for 1s per condition up to 4s of quickness.
7.) Glacial Heart replaced by Glacial Symbol. Symbols now cause chill for 1s every second to enemies standing inside.

I know a few of these are probably a bit overpowered, but I’d really like to see them explore our traits as a build to work towards, kind of like elementalists with the auramancer build. Giving these sorts of changes gives us more condition removal, control, and a bit more dps if we so choose. They would synergize well with current traits and skills, imo, and give us a few more potential builds outside of Valor/Honor. Like thieves, mesmers and rangers can dictate (for the most part) how they want to engage, guardians should have the ability to dictate the terms of how long an engagement should last. If someone decides to go toe-to-toe with a guardian, they should be forced to fight for a decent enough duration.

Building more condition removal and dps into our virtues makes us think harder about when to use them, and giving more utility to our consecrations gives the Virtue line some more versatility. Radiance and Zeal will gain some much-needed dps, though the same could be said for a full 30 into Virtue.

Some really interesting ideas getting posted here. Glacial Symbol would make things much closer to the control of position and movement. I still think a ramp up in symbol damage would be good and not be small percentages.

In essence what we are all saying so far is to make boons give us more damage the more boons we have one. Something that makes a guardian having boons different than any other profession with the same boons on.

I don’t feel weak when my boons are gone, and I sure don’t feel any more powerful with boons. That point the developer states is far from the intention. I don’t feel I’m always in control. Guardians have plenty of reflects and bubbles, no doubt. However, the only real control I have over the enemy is Binding Blade. With Altruistic Healing, I feel I can withstand enough of a beating in melee range just like a warrior. Without it, I feel as weak as any other class. As for condition removal, that’s about the only trait the Guardian has. When applied, a Guardian can lose 2 conditions every 10 seconds. The Guardian can also remove all conditions from all nearby allies and convert them into boons. Including the Soldier set and Pure of Voice, it’s very easy to lose conditions.

Based on your list and the developer’s comments, no. The Guardian is far from where it should be. A Guardian without Altruistic Healing or Wall of Reflection isn’t feared by anyone. There’s no survivability or damage capability left since boons hardly affect the Guardian’s output (damage, survivability, etc.). Really, the only boon worthwhile is Protection which has the potential of 100% upkeep only if the target is standing still. A Guardian has a lot of regeneration skills, but regeneration doesn’t stack in intensity making it extremely difficult to heal enough to mitigate enough damage to be worthwhile (even with Virtue of Resolve).

I’d much rather see the Guardian retain it’s defenses and fill a “beacon role” in a group where all allies will want to stick near the Guardian for survival. Battle Presense (if it worked properly) is a fantastic idea. Allies heal just by standing near you. If a Guardian could help heal or lower the damage an ally takes just by being in a group, it would make Guardians a top priority as both a party member and a target of the enemy team. There’s a number or ways it could go.

Lol the “we want to get all classes on the same playing field” cracked me up .

I also dont get the logic behind “powerfull while using boons”. Some other classes have better boon managment then us xD

They really should rework our boons. Less cooldowns more duration really.
Some shouts are too short in duration compared to warriors boon uptime for example.

I do think the ideal would be more traits that interact with boons, or at least give us incentive to stack boons. Right now there’s AH, and that’s pretty much it (unless you want to go deep into Virtues, and then it’s not even that great). Seriously, I don’t get abilities like 10% damage to foes with conditions (I mean, I realize most classes have a trait like that, but still) as part of the “theme” in the OP.

It’s not like we’re totally broken, but if they want more of us to go non-cookie-cutter (i.e., AH plus usually 20+ Honor), they need to make some of the other trait lines more attractive…

I really wish there is a clear message from the Devs on how we are suppose to play guardian. I mean I know the play style varies but so far they nerfed the only few advantage we had over other classes. It is frustrating to see the gold you invested in gears and rune for the certain build become less effective. Although it is not directly stated, but it certainly seems that Dev intentionally nerfed AH build.

For their vision to work, Guardians need more ways to stay in melee range.

As it sits now, this is what we have:
3 Immobilizes
1 Chill
2 Wards
3 Swiftness

-The Chill is 4s every 45 and requires a 2nd tier trait, and a specific weapon, and a critical chance build; not worth the points.
-The immobilizes on the Guardian are great.
-The Swiftness comes from 2 shouts (both 60s cooldowns) and from the Staff, but the staff is a very niche weapon and requires you to stop melee for 10s for only 8s of swiftness.
-The wards are nice, but the Line of Warding is impractical to use with melee in almost every case. Ring of Warding is nice, but it currently can be dodged out of.

If you go full melee, you lack the tools to keep any competent enemy in melee range long enough to kill them, and get easily beaten. It’s almost a necessity to use the Scepter, even though it’s rather unpopular.

Compare this to other melee, like a Thief, Warrior, Engineer Tool kit, or Ranger.

Look at a Warrior for comparison. On the GS they have 2 gap closers and a ranged cripple. On the Hammer they have a gap closer, a cripple, 2 knockdowns, and a stun. On the 1h axe they have a leap. On the 1h mace they have a stun and on the offhand they have a daze. On the 1h main hand sword alone they have a leap, an AoE immobilize, and a cripple. The warhorn can give 50% duration on Swiftness; we can only achieve this while fighting in melee if we take 2 shouts as 2/3 utilities, both on 60s cooldowns (switching to staff and then getting 8s swiftness while using the staff =/= fighting in melee with swifntess). These, in addition to other utility skills which close gaps, immobilize, cripple, grant reliable swiftness (and traits).

From a PvP perspective:

The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health.They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield.

It’s funny how we are supposed to focus on boons and area control when we are the worst in both of those aspects.

Guardian’s symbols area is tiny, taking a single step will put you outside of their area and even with the trait that increases their area,it’s still small compared to the other classes.
Just look at the elementalist area spells and effects, the necromancer wells and condition areas, the ranger traps,thief caltrops,the mesmer area effects, all of them are huge compared to the guardian’s symbol area.

Our symbols are not practical due to their size and the lack of guardian’s slow effects.You can’t force opponents down to a fight inside one of your symbols and even you have to make a step or two in combat,which means you usually get 1 or 2 ticks from the symbol.
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As for the boons, while the guardian has an average duration of boons up through shouts,they are still short compared to what durations the other classes get.
The guardian DID have a good duration of boons with the “Save yourselves” shout,but the devs went ahead and halved the duration without compensating in anyway.
Just look at an elementalist that can keep up indefinitely or at least at a very high duration at all times, the protection,swiftness,vigor,fury and might boons, the warrior and ranger having infinite fury and might, the engineer that can keep up boons such as protection pretty high as well and much more.
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They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.

The Guardian has low hp, very poor mobility,decent damage but no real burst and good defense/damage mitigation. We have good condition removal,but that doesn’t really matter due to the abundance of condition applies classes have so the very next second you will get a full stack of conditions again.

Most of our traits in our offensive trait line are useless or lackluster,our ranged weapons are average at best and we are forced to focus on defensive stats to be able to make up for our low health -because we don’t have a high uptime on the necessary boons-, so in the end we are only good for doing one thing.

That is staying still in one place to hold a point,trying to survive until your allies come to kill the opponents, but that can be done by other classes like an elementalist or an engineer just as well which can even take on other roles.

While a little more doom and gloom than I would like to put it, OneManArmy, your opinion on things mirrors mine in many regards.

We are supposed to be amazing and defensive but others can do that role as well if not better.

We are supposed to be group support and utility, but others again can do that better as well.

We sacrifice our HP and our burst for sustainable combat, but others can do the same as us with more HP and better burst.

What we are missing is our defining feature, which apparently is supposed to be boons and defensiveness. Right now that doesn’t define enough.

Yet the rest of the players hate guardians because they can’t kill us and it is so OP that we can hold a point.

So is it as bad as it sounds or do we have it where we need it as is cried about by other professions.

I cant agree more with CMF and OneManArmy.

If anyone wonders why other classes cry how hard it is to kill us heres an explanation.
We are forced to go tank and give our boons by game design.

Since everything else is mediocre compared to every other class we put every single bit of things available towards durability.

I play the class cause i expected this durability but when i see how others can achive the one thing we are good at and in the mean time having more dmg and even more tricks up their sleave i cant help but come to a conclusion: overnerfed and mediocre.

Thats all ppl see us doing so theres nothing else to cry about. Everything else we try do is mediocre at best. You dont see ppl cry about our insane dps or how we get away from everyone or how anoying we are with our kiting or how much hp we have. The majority of guardians is not specing this way and even if they try they end up heading back for durability.

There is one great contraddiction in this last patch, they want us definitely as Melee fighter only, so why they increase the travel speed of other classes, without give us tools to mantain our melee fighting range?
As i said, nerf after nerf, they are loosing focus on This class (and insist to ignore our concern, wont help at all), they are simply nerf the class because some build continue to be Strong, and they are limiting our build choice… instead of call this class guardian, its better to call it bunker ._.

Ganzo.5079:

There is one great contraddiction in this last patch, they want us definitely as Melee fighter only, so why they increase the travel speed of other classes, without give us tools to mantain our melee fighting range?
As i said, nerf after nerf, they are loosing focus on This class (and insist to ignore our concern, wont help at all), they are simply nerf the class because some build continue to be Strong, and they are limiting our build choice… instead of call this class guardian, its better to call it bunker ._.

This is what concerns me the most. Guardians are now less tanky (synergy with AH is broken) and now other melee classes have been given buffs to NOT melee guardians.

Whoever thought this up must definitely be on some medication.

“We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. "

I really hope we can get clarification as to what this means, because it seems to be a broad statement that applies to all classes. Other than retaliation (which we can do with self combos), I can’t think of any classes that have trouble applying ‘power’ boons to themselves.

erapago.4387:

“We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. "

I really hope we can get clarification as to what this means, because it seems to be a broad statement that applies to all classes. Other than retaliation (which we can do with self combos), I can’t think of any classes that have trouble applying ‘power’ boons to themselves.

Keep in mind that the retaliation preservation is the cause of all our nerfs, thats why bunker build are strong, and thats why they insist to nerf every other aspect of this class.

This is the classic problem that all gaming companies fall into. The paladin/ward warrior class has no real direction behind what it is supposed to do besides the one thing it is good at that it gives up everything else for. Then their one strength ends up being over nerfed over time.

This is just the wow classic/BC paladin all over again. Useless beyond its strength which was buffing. In the guardians case it is bunkering itself which has been getting constant small nerfs almost every balancing patch and it will eventually be no longer viable.

Edit: Oh and almost all of these classes are all melee focused with no way to stay on their target making it a joke for anyone with range kiting abilities. I don’t understand how people die to a guardian when he can really only get around 2 hits in every 10 seconds when wielding a sword because there is no way to stop the person from escaping.

dizzyd.5213:

The problem with the “feel powerful with boons on” idea is that boons have the same effect on every class – it’s not like we get some special benefit from them. If they really want us to feel that way, then the solution may be to make it easier to stack might/fury/regen/prot/whatever on ourselves while nerfing our base stats. Not sure I’d like that, tbh…

agree

Most classes provide similar boons to themselves and others. There is nothing really special about what we provide.

What we Had going for us was a constant stream of healing coming in. Enough to mitigate some burst and sustain us. Now that is really been neutered. I am not sure where this class is going now or what to roll with. While the patch may have made us more acceptable in PVE where we might have been OP, it has gimped us quite a bit in other sections of the game.

I am only interested in WvW performance, I couldn’t give 2 kittens how we perform in SPvp or in Pve. We need a boost here, somewhere. We need to be able to survive some focus fire or we really have no place on the battlefield.

I think they were spot on.

Very strong when boons are up, somewhat weak when boons are down.
Can handle conditions easily, but requires melee to deal effective damage.

Sounds about right.

Mira.4071:

I think they were spot on.

Very strong when boons are up, somewhat weak when boons are down.
Can handle conditions easily, but requires melee to deal effective damage.

Sounds about right.

Ok, but, our boons have nothing special compared with other classes boons, and yes we have to stay on melee range to fight, but we havent sufficient tools to keep that fight range.