Guild Wars 2

From the bad to worst, these are the traits I feel need a revamp.

Please +1 this post if you agree so Anet may make these traits viable, providing more choices when traiting

Minor Adept traits:

Valorous defense- Gain aegis while struck below the threshold.(50%)(90s ICD)
(The trait is self is great, the CD on it though is far to high, its only blocking one potential hit, after that hit has been blocked this adept trait is doing absolutely nothing for 90 seconds, reduce the ICD imo)

Adept Traits:

Shattered Aegis-When aegis you applied is removed, damage enemies.
(This trait is lacking compared to other available adept traits, blinding jeopardy and Fiery wrath directly compete with this trait)

Inner Fire- Gain fury when burning is applied to you.
(I just can’t agree with the idea behind this trait, burning is somewhat prevalent but you’re also taking quite a gamble when slotting this trait)

Retributive Armor- Gain precision based on your toughness.
(The amount of precision gained from this trait is too minor IMO, not worth taking over the other adept traits available)

Defender’s Flame- Burn attackers when blocking.(1s)
(This is a decent idea but the guardian already has pretty good uptime on its burns)

Retaliatory Subconscious- When effected by CC, gain retaliation.(4s)(30s ICD)
(A good trait when setting the ICD aside, reduce the ICD)

Minor Master traits:

Courageous return- virtue of courage is renewed when you rally
(I’d rather have a trait that effected me while I was alive and kicking)

GM traits:

Amplified Wrath- Burning damage is increased by 33%
(Love the idea behind this trait, but it doesn’t seem to provide good enough return, Kindled Zeal also directly competes with this trait)

Radiant retaliation- Retaliation scales with condition damage opposed to power.
(Nice idea! Except guardians don’t have viable condition builds :*(

Purity of Body- Your virtue of resolve passive effect also regenerates endurance.
(I may be wrong because I have not unlocked this skill yet, but like every other endurance regeneration buff, this doesn’t stack with vigor right? Which would make it the worst GM trait in the game >.<)

List begins good but near the end, the reasoning behind it falls a bit short. I do agree that guardians have a lot of absolutely useless traits. I mean we have a trait that increases damage down while downed by 50% If you’re down, you’re out in most cases, and this trait doesn’t even help us survive, it increases damage done? O_o

I’d love to see a revamp of many minor traits and several mayor ones. Some of the traits that have good synergy compete with eachother too, allas.

All of the Symbol traits come to mind honestly. Symbols are terrible(in pvp) that provide no significant benefit to you or hinderance to your enemy.

I don’t agree with everything on that list, but there’s a lot there that I do.

I especially hate courageous return. Anything that involved being downed/rallied is a bad train imo. What’s worse is the fact that you HAVE to take this trait if you go down the Valor line.

If the only reason Altruistic Healing needs a rework is it competes with Monk’s Focus then I think that means it doesn’t need one at all. If you use Meditations, you’re not giving a lot of boons (comparatively speaking) to other utilities, so you’d take Monk’s Focus as Altruistic Healing would be wasted. If you’re using other utilities, you’re giving off more boons (and more importantly) not using Meditations which means you’re going to take Altruistic Healing since Monk’s Focus would be a complete waste. (assuming you’re going up Valor)

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Valorous Defense
Is setup that way because it is only supposed to trigger once per fight.

Shattered Aegis
Awful trait for PvE. You are running, something hits you and removes your Aegis, you damage it, you are in combat. Annoying.

Defender’s Flame
See Shattered Aegis.

Inner Fire
Should have the added effect of Burning the foe for the same duration they just applied to you on top of gaining Fury.

Retributive Armor
Is fine. This is only an Adept trait.

Retaliatory Subconscious
Change to apply Retaliation to allies within a radius of 600 whenever you are CCed.
5 people limit, including self.

Courageous Return
The only good thing about this trait is it has no cooldown.

Amplified Wrath
This is a Grandmaster Trait for 33% increase in Burning.
Ele’s Serrated Stones is Adept and 20% Bleeding.
Necro’s Hemophilia is Adept and 20% Bleeding.
Necro’s Master of Terror is Master and 50% Fear.
Mesmer’s Master of Misdirection is Adept and 33% Confusion.
Thief’s Potent Poison is Adept and 33% Poison.
Warrior’s Deep Cuts is Adept and 50% Bleeding.
(Now you see how much they love Warriors)
This Grandmaster trait should increase Burning by 66% because it is Grandmaster.

Radiant Retaliation
This trait should not even exist. Or at least, for a Grandmaster trait it should make Retaliation scale with Condition Damage on top of scaling with Power.

Communal Defenses
Should apply Aegis to the Guardian as well when you block. It has a cooldown. It is a Grandmaster trait afterall.

Altruistic Healing
Is still the best(or among the best) trait for Guardian Survival. It is supposed to compete with Monk’s Focus because you are not supposed to be able to take both.

Purity of Body
Should be changed to apply 3 seconds of Vigor every 10 seconds on you as long as Virtue of Resolve is Passive. Applies the Vigor to allies as well if you also have Battle Presence. That way it stacks with Vigor.
10s of Vigor every 10s = +50% Endurance Regeneration
5s of Vigor every 10s = +25% Endurance Regeneration
3s of Vigor every 10s = +15% Enduration Regeneration.
The effect stays the same, but now stacks with Vigor. Downside: Removable boon.

I’ll start from top to bottom for the minors from an sPvP perspective:

Zeal:

Zealot’s Speed, Symbolic exposure and Symbolic power: All to be incredibly underwhelming outside of PvE. As I’ve stated in one of my earlier post, this skill promotes static gameplay to which any player with half a brain will avoid and even if they don’t, it doesn’t do anything detrimental to them(or benefit us).

Radiance:

Renewed Justice: As this trait only works upon killing a foe, it’s far from useful in any sort of fight. This is true with any traits involving a kill or reviving in combat.

Valor:

Valorous Defense: Probably one of the most underwhelming traits I’ve seen. One block lost upon entering combat and you’ll never see it proc again and even if it does, will you notice?

Courageous Return: Any sort of trait revolved around being revived or killing off an opponent is barely of use in combat.

Honor:

Selfless Daring: This one is borderline useless to me because its real effectiveness is only useful if you happen to have tons of HP. Unlike other dodge-roll traits, this one is heavily influenced by a stat that scales terribly.

Virtues:

Power of the Virtuous: Guardians already have a tough time keeping multiple boons on them for long periods of time, good luck finding any use for this one. I could see this being incredibly useful to say an Elementalist to which they can keep around 5 boons up constantly.

Arken.3725:

Selfless Daring: This one is borderline useless to me because its real effectiveness is only useful if you happen to have tons of HP. Unlike other dodge-roll traits, this one is heavily influenced by a stat that scales terribly.

Did you just put selfless daring in a list of useless traits? How dare you! Go play a warrior, you don’t belong on these forums, heathen!

Arken.3725:

All of the Symbol traits come to mind honestly. Symbols are terrible(in pvp) that provide no significant benefit to you or hinderance to your enemy.

not so sure about this . symbols are a real nightmare for thieves and are if theya re larger it affects bigger area on zerg fights ( special from staff ).

overall i agree with most of opinions . we had some diversity in the past , but now the limits of builds are very close to 1 or 2

p.s. the second is not the shout ofc…. i am speaking about concentration build !

Aedrion.6483:

Arken.3725:

Selfless Daring: This one is borderline useless to me because its real effectiveness is only useful if you happen to have tons of HP. Unlike other dodge-roll traits, this one is heavily influenced by a stat that scales terribly.

Did you just put selfless daring in a list of useless traits? How dare you! Go play a warrior, you don’t belong on these forums, heathen!

I’m sure this is sarcasm but i’m dead serious. I put it borderline because it requires so much healing power to be effective. Any sort of DPS build will get no benefit from it.

Edit to the post above: It could be a nightmare but again, it doesn’t take much to just stand out of it and range you down.

Arken.3725:

Renewed Justice: As this trait only works upon killing a foe, it’s far from useful in any sort of fight. This is true with any traits involving a kill or reviving in combat.

This trait is actually quite useful in spvp. You already get blind on voj in order to get this trait. Use it to help guarantee stomps. It recharges on kill, so now you have it to use again later. It won’t help against non interrupting skills, but then again, nothing much does.

Also, for the other guy that I can’t remember because I’m on my phone, amplified wrath increases damage not duration.

Arken.3725:

I’m sure this is sarcasm but i’m dead serious. I put it borderline because it requires so much healing power to be effective. Any sort of DPS build will get no benefit from it.

So because DPS builds don’t benefit from it much, it’s borderline useless? :p

Because of the pure of heart trait with cleric gear I use 0 1 1 6 6.
With my gear valorous defense and the trait pure of heart it heals for over 1k. And an extra 1k every minute and a half. You can compare it to the newly added GRANDMASTER trait which gives 3k only. For a trait which is at the bottom I believe it’s pretty amazing.

Selfless Daring: This one is borderline useless to me because its real effectiveness is only useful if you happen to have tons of HP. Unlike other dodge-roll traits, this one is heavily influenced by a stat that scales terribly.

You can’t be serious man. My entire build revolves around this. I even have 2 energy sigils for that.
It heals much less in spvp and I still believe it’s an amazing trait.

Selfless Daring is one of the few skills that scales very well with healing power.

Grimreaper.5370:

Communal Defenses- Grant Aegis to allies when you block an attack.
(I’m not very familiar with this trait but from what I am told it isn’t worth it)

Uh, not sure what you are talking about but this Trait is OP!!!.
From wiki: “This trait does not have a target limit and will grant aegis to all allies within range.”

Imagine a group of 20 guardians stack together in WvW, all have this trait… OMG

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

Harbinger.8637:

Selfless Daring is one of the few skills that scales very well with healing power.

I love many don’t read that i’m coming from an spvp PoV where Selfless Daring got nerfed significantly. Revolving ones build around this trait is also mindless in the fact that you’re promoting random dodges in the hopes that it keeps your health up.

The constructive criticisms have been interesting and helpful. Keep it up.

I’m still wondering if any of the GM traits are worthwhile. I’ve got them all now, but they seem so underwhelming compared to those used by other professions.

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

You do know that the required range for Communal Defense is quite horrid, right? Sure it might be handy in a bottlenecked situation, but that’s it. I’m not sure it’s quite GM worthy. It’s not bad, but as a GM? I dunno.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

You do know that the required range for Communal Defense is quite horrid, right? Sure it might be handy in a bottlenecked situation, but that’s it. I’m not sure it’s quite GM worthy. It’s not bad, but as a GM? I dunno.

It encourages zerg-balling. 360 radius is more than enough. I would think 240 is the minimum radius.

Arken.3725:

Harbinger.8637:

Selfless Daring is one of the few skills that scales very well with healing power.

I love many don’t read that i’m coming from an spvp PoV where Selfless Daring got nerfed significantly. Revolving ones build around this trait is also mindless in the fact that you’re promoting random dodges in the hopes that it keeps your health up.

Even though SD coefficient isn’t as high there. More then one build can use it effectively. Sure it’s not as strong on DPS builds, but that doesn’t make it a bad trait. With that being said, I do agree with you it should have a higher coefficient in pvp. I thought I remember reading somewhere that Anet was buffing it to .7 in pvp, but I guess they changed their minds.

Mostly all the traits listed by the OP are good, except a few. The problem with the traits perceived as bad is that they are only viewed that way because they do not fit into the “zerker meta”.

One example is shattered aegis, since most players are focused on “big numbers” they can’t seem to reconcile why choose it over a trait like fiery wrath.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

You do know that the required range for Communal Defense is quite horrid, right? Sure it might be handy in a bottlenecked situation, but that’s it. I’m not sure it’s quite GM worthy. It’s not bad, but as a GM? I dunno.

No its not, its twice as large as a symbol. That is quite large.

Aza.2105:

Mostly all the traits listed by the OP are good, except a few. The problem with the traits perceived as bad is that they are only viewed that way because they do not fit into the “zerker meta”.

One example is shattered aegis, since most players are focused on “big numbers” they can’t seem to reconcile why choose it over a trait like fiery wrath.

Zerker meta doesn’t have anything to do with it, especially with any trait that requires you to be downed/rallied. I’m so glad you can read people’s minds for their motivations just by reading their posts alone…. oh wait. Nevermind.

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

You do know that the required range for Communal Defense is quite horrid, right? Sure it might be handy in a bottlenecked situation, but that’s it. I’m not sure it’s quite GM worthy. It’s not bad, but as a GM? I dunno.

No its not, its twice as large as a symbol. That is quite large.

Which are also not that great when it comes to WvW….

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Mostly all the traits listed by the OP are good, except a few. The problem with the traits perceived as bad is that they are only viewed that way because they do not fit into the “zerker meta”.

One example is shattered aegis, since most players are focused on “big numbers” they can’t seem to reconcile why choose it over a trait like fiery wrath.

Zerker meta doesn’t have anything to do with it, especially with any trait that requires you to be downed/rallied. I’m so glad you can read people’s minds for their motivations just by reading their posts alone…. oh wait. Nevermind.

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

You do know that the required range for Communal Defense is quite horrid, right? Sure it might be handy in a bottlenecked situation, but that’s it. I’m not sure it’s quite GM worthy. It’s not bad, but as a GM? I dunno.

No its not, its twice as large as a symbol. That is quite large.

Which are also not that great when it comes to WvW….

Depends under what circumstance, since its situational then it means that its relatively balanced. Any time a build or skill is viable in all situations means its too powerful. The only thing you are saying is communal defenses weakness is coordination. Cool, it has a weakness do you feel it shouldn’t?

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Mostly all the traits listed by the OP are good, except a few. The problem with the traits perceived as bad is that they are only viewed that way because they do not fit into the “zerker meta”.

One example is shattered aegis, since most players are focused on “big numbers” they can’t seem to reconcile why choose it over a trait like fiery wrath.

Zerker meta doesn’t have anything to do with it, especially with any trait that requires you to be downed/rallied. I’m so glad you can read people’s minds for their motivations just by reading their posts alone…. oh wait. Nevermind.

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

You do know that the required range for Communal Defense is quite horrid, right? Sure it might be handy in a bottlenecked situation, but that’s it. I’m not sure it’s quite GM worthy. It’s not bad, but as a GM? I dunno.

No its not, its twice as large as a symbol. That is quite large.

Which are also not that great when it comes to WvW….

Depends under what circumstance, since its situational then it means that its relatively balanced. Any time a build or skill is viable in all situations means its too powerful. The only thing you are saying is communal defenses weakness is coordination. Cool, it has a weakness do you feel it shouldn’t?

See, look. You’re trying to do it again. You can’t read minds bub.

The fact that your group only has aegis for 5 seconds, that it does not affect you at all, and that AoE is king is it’s weaknesses. Should it have a 1200 range? No, that’s ridiculous, but it’s current range just encourages stacked playing, and we already have enough of that crap.

Also, Symbols are very situational, but that’s a different story.

EDIT: Let me also say that if the range were to increase, they should limit the affected to just 5 allies the same as any other ally-granted boon.

The synergy between shattered aegis, pure of heart and communal defense could be a really nice thing, and it was one setup I was keen to try when I have a chance to play again.

However I am sure i’ve read that while the damage effects are sourced from every player who received aegis from you – it is you and just you that receives all the retaliation that is reflected back, which usually means insta-death for the caster in any kind of semi-organised wvw.

I am hoping that this is not the case – but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Mostly all the traits listed by the OP are good, except a few. The problem with the traits perceived as bad is that they are only viewed that way because they do not fit into the “zerker meta”.

One example is shattered aegis, since most players are focused on “big numbers” they can’t seem to reconcile why choose it over a trait like fiery wrath.

Zerker meta doesn’t have anything to do with it, especially with any trait that requires you to be downed/rallied. I’m so glad you can read people’s minds for their motivations just by reading their posts alone…. oh wait. Nevermind.

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

You do know that the required range for Communal Defense is quite horrid, right? Sure it might be handy in a bottlenecked situation, but that’s it. I’m not sure it’s quite GM worthy. It’s not bad, but as a GM? I dunno.

No its not, its twice as large as a symbol. That is quite large.

Which are also not that great when it comes to WvW….

Depends under what circumstance, since its situational then it means that its relatively balanced. Any time a build or skill is viable in all situations means its too powerful. The only thing you are saying is communal defenses weakness is coordination. Cool, it has a weakness do you feel it shouldn’t?

See, look. You’re trying to do it again. You can’t read minds bub.

The fact that your group only has aegis for 5 seconds, that it does not affect you at all, and that AoE is king is it’s weaknesses. Should it have a 1200 range? No, that’s ridiculous, but it’s current range just encourages stacked playing, and we already have enough of that crap.

Also, Symbols are very situational, but that’s a different story.

Aoes makes communal defense work even better when one is traited for shattered aegis, not sure how that would be a weakness. Add in another guardian with communal defenses and shattered aegis and it makes it even better. The more guardians that run it the more beneficial it becomes. Have you even taken the time to extensively test it out at all?

Tarsius.3170:

The synergy between shattered aegis, pure of heart and communal defense could be a really nice thing, and it was one setup I was keen to try when I have a chance to play again.

However I am sure i’ve read that while the damage effects are sourced from every player who received aegis from you – it is you and just you that receives all the retaliation that is reflected back, which usually means insta-death for the caster in any kind of semi-organised wvw.

I am hoping that this is not the case – but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is.

I’m not sure, outside of pve I’ve tested it in hotjoin dm arena, just to see how much damage that combo can do. I do not recall myself ever dying to retaliation

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Mostly all the traits listed by the OP are good, except a few. The problem with the traits perceived as bad is that they are only viewed that way because they do not fit into the “zerker meta”.

One example is shattered aegis, since most players are focused on “big numbers” they can’t seem to reconcile why choose it over a trait like fiery wrath.

Zerker meta doesn’t have anything to do with it, especially with any trait that requires you to be downed/rallied. I’m so glad you can read people’s minds for their motivations just by reading their posts alone…. oh wait. Nevermind.

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

You do know that the required range for Communal Defense is quite horrid, right? Sure it might be handy in a bottlenecked situation, but that’s it. I’m not sure it’s quite GM worthy. It’s not bad, but as a GM? I dunno.

No its not, its twice as large as a symbol. That is quite large.

Which are also not that great when it comes to WvW….

Depends under what circumstance, since its situational then it means that its relatively balanced. Any time a build or skill is viable in all situations means its too powerful. The only thing you are saying is communal defenses weakness is coordination. Cool, it has a weakness do you feel it shouldn’t?

See, look. You’re trying to do it again. You can’t read minds bub.

The fact that your group only has aegis for 5 seconds, that it does not affect you at all, and that AoE is king is it’s weaknesses. Should it have a 1200 range? No, that’s ridiculous, but it’s current range just encourages stacked playing, and we already have enough of that crap.

Also, Symbols are very situational, but that’s a different story.

Aoes makes communal defense work even better when one is traited for shattered aegis, not sure how that would be a weakness. Add in another guardian with communal defenses and shattered aegis and it makes it even better. The more guardians that run it the more beneficial it becomes. Have you even taken the time to extensively test it out at all?

Yes I have, and no it is not worth the tradeoff to the other GM traits…. by far.

• (with the exception of PvP. It may work well there, but definately not in WvW.)

As I’ve said, it’s not a bad trait, but it’s not a great one either.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Mostly all the traits listed by the OP are good, except a few. The problem with the traits perceived as bad is that they are only viewed that way because they do not fit into the “zerker meta”.

One example is shattered aegis, since most players are focused on “big numbers” they can’t seem to reconcile why choose it over a trait like fiery wrath.

Zerker meta doesn’t have anything to do with it, especially with any trait that requires you to be downed/rallied. I’m so glad you can read people’s minds for their motivations just by reading their posts alone…. oh wait. Nevermind.

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

You do know that the required range for Communal Defense is quite horrid, right? Sure it might be handy in a bottlenecked situation, but that’s it. I’m not sure it’s quite GM worthy. It’s not bad, but as a GM? I dunno.

No its not, its twice as large as a symbol. That is quite large.

Which are also not that great when it comes to WvW….

Depends under what circumstance, since its situational then it means that its relatively balanced. Any time a build or skill is viable in all situations means its too powerful. The only thing you are saying is communal defenses weakness is coordination. Cool, it has a weakness do you feel it shouldn’t?

See, look. You’re trying to do it again. You can’t read minds bub.

The fact that your group only has aegis for 5 seconds, that it does not affect you at all, and that AoE is king is it’s weaknesses. Should it have a 1200 range? No, that’s ridiculous, but it’s current range just encourages stacked playing, and we already have enough of that crap.

Also, Symbols are very situational, but that’s a different story.

Aoes makes communal defense work even better when one is traited for shattered aegis, not sure how that would be a weakness. Add in another guardian with communal defenses and shattered aegis and it makes it even better. The more guardians that run it the more beneficial it becomes. Have you even taken the time to extensively test it out at all?

Yes I have, and no it is not worth the tradeoff to the other GM traits…. by far.

• (with the exception of PvP. It may work well there, but definately not in WvW.)

As I’ve said, it’s not a bad trait, but it’s not a great one either.

What is your definition of “great” and “bad”?

Arken.3725:

Harbinger.8637:

Selfless Daring is one of the few skills that scales very well with healing power.

I love many don’t read that i’m coming from an spvp PoV where Selfless Daring got nerfed significantly. Revolving ones build around this trait is also mindless in the fact that you’re promoting random dodges in the hopes that it keeps your health up.

Promotion doesn’t mean you have to do it, especially for a trait is a master minor you have to take anyway if you went 4 in honor.

Not a Guardian expert by any stretch but that is the risk/reward. Do I blow a dodge for healing or do I save it to avoid the attack. If nobody is fighting me I can dodge to heal up incase I take damage I didn’t see coming.

Alright, lets take a look at the Majors:

Zeal:

Protectors Impact: Outside of maybe WvW, this trait has very little value. Fall damage traits either need to be removed or merged with others.

Revenge of the Fallen: Same with Fall damage traits, any downed traits need to be removed or merged since they provide no significant value.

Shattered Aegis: This trait used to be pretty solid when it inflicted burning in an AoE instead of physical damage. This allowed for Condition Guardians to have a little more viability.

Zealous Blade: I made a thread about this one ages ago and I still believe changing this to be a % of damage done would allow it to be viable. You would have to spec offensively for it to gain any significant healing which would disallow bunker specs to utilize it.

Focus Mastery: As a master trait this needs to do more than just reduce the cd.

Kindled Zeal/Amplified Wrath: I combined these two since they both serve the same purpose, increasing condition damage(one more focused on burning). However, as the Guardian has very few variety of conditions, this is where these traits become useless.

All Spirit weapon traits: Aside from the terrible AI, low health low damage and long cd’s related to them, they’re very ineffective within a team composition. Dueling is a different story.

Radiance:

Healer’s Retribution: Ever since Ret got it’s nerf, the use has been less than desirable. Retaliation is only really useful within a group and when getting AoE’d down. Single-target Ret is incredibly underwhelming.

Shimmering Defense: The very long ICD along with a small radius is why I believe this trait to be useless. Granted it’s an adept trait that shouldn’t be too strong, this trait further exacerbates the problem with condition Guardian’s: Variety.

Perfect Inscriptions: Aside from there being no viable signet build, a mere 20% increase to their passive effectiveness only promotes players to never activate them. We need less passive play.

Radiant Retaliation: The scaling is similar to Power but again as I’ve stated earlier, Ret’s only real usefulness is within a group to apply group-wide damage instead of a single target.

Valor:

Strength of the Fallen: Downed trait, needs to be removed/merged.

Glacial Heart: RNG based, long ICD. This felt like a poor attempt at giving the Guardian much needed soft-cc.

Focused Mind: A borderline useless one in the sense that since meditations are selfish builds, shouldn’t the effectiveness of the boons applied be stronger? A mere 4 seconds of fury when 3/4 of the meditations are on long cd’s doesn’t make much sense to me.

Communal Defenses: Aegis, to me is already an insignificant boon. Applying this group-wide(not on yourself) instead of more sustain seems asinine to me.

Honor:

Wrathful spirit: This trait got a massive nerf way back when and as I’ve stated many times, single-target Ret is VERY underwhelming.

Empowering Might: The ICD is what makes this trait useless. Now granted if it was removed, it could become op. Other options are far better in my opinion.

Battle Presence: Group-wide VoR sounds nice except the healing is insignificant without a ton of healing power with Absolute resolution. PoV is a far better option for sustain.

Force of Will: Just a very plain and boring trait to help Guardian’s deal with the low health issue. Seems very similar to the poor attempt at soft-cc.

Virtues

Unscathed Contender: Since you’ll almost never have aegis for more than a second in any given fight, this trait’s usefulness is just that, VERY limited.

Consecrated Ground: By itself it’s very weak but maybe if it was combined with another trait, its usefulness could be brought up?

Retaliatory Subconscious: See other Ret traits above for my opinion.

Improved Spirit weapon duration: See Spirit Weapon opinion above.

Elite Focus: Ever since the nerf to the Tomes(removed stab), they haven’t been utilized ever since. Increasing the duration while having your entire skillset changed doesn’t seem strong to me.

Permeating Wrath: Shouldn’t this trait burn around your target and not you?

Shielded Mind: Far better options on a tier below.

Purity of Body: Far better options on a tier below.

I sort of rushed the last bit of traits.

oZii.2864:

Arken.3725:

Harbinger.8637:

Selfless Daring is one of the few skills that scales very well with healing power.

I love many don’t read that i’m coming from an spvp PoV where Selfless Daring got nerfed significantly. Revolving ones build around this trait is also mindless in the fact that you’re promoting random dodges in the hopes that it keeps your health up.

Promotion doesn’t mean you have to do it, especially for a trait is a master minor you have to take anyway if you went 4 in honor.

Not a Guardian expert by any stretch but that is the risk/reward. Do I blow a dodge for healing or do I save it to avoid the attack. If nobody is fighting me I can dodge to heal up incase I take damage I didn’t see coming.

And that’s fair but i’m comparing it to other professions where the investment isn’t nearly as high to gain benefit.

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

Woah, such hostility. I simply wanted to hear about every trait on my list you felt were up to par. Second of all I didn’t say communal defenses was bad, I said i’ve heard its not worth picking up and asked for community feedback. Perhaps you should read? Can I get a touche? btw I removed this trait from the list because of the community feedback. I do read what you guys have to say my good sir

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Amplified Wrath
This is a Grandmaster Trait for 33% increase in Burning.
Ele’s Serrated Stones is Adept and 20% Bleeding.
Necro’s Hemophilia is Adept and 20% Bleeding.
Necro’s Master of Terror is Master and 50% Fear.
Mesmer’s Master of Misdirection is Adept and 33% Confusion.
Thief’s Potent Poison is Adept and 33% Poison.
Warrior’s Deep Cuts is Adept and 50% Bleeding.
(Now you see how much they love Warriors)
This Grandmaster trait should increase Burning by 66% because it is Grandmaster.

Psst, it’s 33% increased burning damage, the others are all duration… there’s a huge difference

Arken.3725:

Alright, lets take a look at the Majors:

Valor:

Glacial Heart: RNG based, long ICD. This felt like a poor attempt at giving the Guardian much needed soft-cc.

Focused Mind: A borderline useless one in the sense that since meditations are selfish builds, shouldn’t the effectiveness of the boons applied be stronger? A mere 4 seconds of fury when 3/4 of the meditations are on long cd’s doesn’t make much sense to me.

Honor:

Empowering Might: The ICD is what makes this trait useless. Now granted if it was removed, it could become op. Other options are far better in my opinion.

Force of Will: Just a very plain and boring trait to help Guardian’s deal with the low health issue. Seems very similar to the poor attempt at soft-cc.

These are just the ones I wanted to comment on the rest I agree with you.

Glacial Heart – 50% on Crit is pretty reliable, it’s aoe up to 5 targets, with a 4 second base chill which is very long. The icd is long though and you have no way to reduce it, maybe if two-hand mastery reduced this trait since it is with hammer it could see more use. It would then be 24 second cooldown for a 4 second base chill. I think it has potential to be powerful if you just went with base duration sigil of ice+hydro+glacial you could chill someone for 8 seconds thats with no duration investment.

Focused Mind – I agree with this one 4 seconds is short I think a bump up to 5 maybe 6 seconds would be better. 2 of the meditations are offensive in nature the rest are defensive with long cooldowns so 4 seconds is a bit to short. If you popped meds off cooldown with 20 virtues it’s about 50% uptime on fury but many times you aren’t just blowing them especially COP.

Empowering Might – Agree it could it’s not necessarily a bad trait it’s similar to Forceful great sword but that is tied to a weapon with cd reduction. Not sure how I feel about this one tbh.

Force of Will – It is bland yes but I personally like this trait it’s raw stats and raw stats are never a bad thing. If it was 300 power, Ferocity, or Precision I think people wouldn’t be so down on it.

I’ve tried a chilladin in PvP and it was quite interesting. GH, hydro, ice, and ice runes made some people very unhappy. The only thing I’d change is either adding some secondary effect (5% damage/chill increase), or slightly lowering the cooldown.

Force of will is also decent, as it’s quite a few free stats. It enables me to wear the same armor in pve as wvw and 1) stay within ~15%full zerker damage (using the meta hammer build), and 2) retrait for 3k armor and 20k health for wvw. Essentialy, you’re getting 6k more hp by getting that trait than if you never went into that line, which is not an insignificant amount at all. It allows you to focus more on either toughness or damage with gear.

oZii.2864:

Arken.3725:

Alright, lets take a look at the Majors:

Valor:

Glacial Heart: RNG based, long ICD. This felt like a poor attempt at giving the Guardian much needed soft-cc.

Focused Mind: A borderline useless one in the sense that since meditations are selfish builds, shouldn’t the effectiveness of the boons applied be stronger? A mere 4 seconds of fury when 3/4 of the meditations are on long cd’s doesn’t make much sense to me.

Honor:

Empowering Might: The ICD is what makes this trait useless. Now granted if it was removed, it could become op. Other options are far better in my opinion.

Force of Will: Just a very plain and boring trait to help Guardian’s deal with the low health issue. Seems very similar to the poor attempt at soft-cc.

These are just the ones I wanted to comment on the rest I agree with you.

Glacial Heart – 50% on Crit is pretty reliable, it’s aoe up to 5 targets, with a 4 second base chill which is very long. The icd is long though and you have no way to reduce it, maybe if two-hand mastery reduced this trait since it is with hammer it could see more use. It would then be 24 second cooldown for a 4 second base chill. I think it has potential to be powerful if you just went with base duration sigil of ice+hydro+glacial you could chill someone for 8 seconds thats with no duration investment.

Focused Mind – I agree with this one 4 seconds is short I think a bump up to 5 maybe 6 seconds would be better. 2 of the meditations are offensive in nature the rest are defensive with long cooldowns so 4 seconds is a bit to short. If you popped meds off cooldown with 20 virtues it’s about 50% uptime on fury but many times you aren’t just blowing them especially COP.

Empowering Might – Agree it could it’s not necessarily a bad trait it’s similar to Forceful great sword but that is tied to a weapon with cd reduction. Not sure how I feel about this one tbh.

Force of Will – It is bland yes but I personally like this trait it’s raw stats and raw stats are never a bad thing. If it was 300 power, Ferocity, or Precision I think people wouldn’t be so down on it.

I suppose Glacial Heart isn’t terribly unreliable. My only concern is the long ICD for a master. I also thought it should be the same ICD as hydromancy.

I just look at meditations as the “selfish” Guardian spec(if you could call it that) and it’s not even that powerful for the Guardian alone. I’ve always thought of the Guardian as the “boon” profession and yet it has trouble maintaining uptime for them even when using shouts.

I’d like them to remove the ICD from Empowering might just to test it. If it’s too strong, nerf it.

Raw stats are indeed fine but as you say, i’d take an extra 300 power any day over vitality. That 3k extra health to me, isn’t going to save you.

Arken.3725:

I’d like them to remove the ICD from Empowering might just to test it. If it’s too strong, nerf it.

That’s a game tester’s job, not player’s. Were you there when Omnomberry Ghost did not have an internal cooldown of 1 sec? Just compare Empowering Might to that and add 33% since the food only has 66% chance to proc.

Empowering Might gives a very good boost of AH.

Arken.3725:

I’ve always thought of the Guardian as the “boon” profession and yet it has trouble maintaining uptime for them even when using shouts.

What’s the trouble? When is it enough? 100% up time of Protection and Stability?

Condition builds in general are okay on guardian for WvW and PvP purposes. They’re not exceptional, but they’re good. The reason I disagree that Amplified Wrath is bad is simply because burning is the only condition available to Guards on condi builds, and this trait single handedly boosts your damage output potential to pretty ridiculous proportions without having to sacrifice many defensive stats.

Kindled Zeal is however completely useless. If guards had reliable bleed available to them then it would be infinitely better than Amplified Wrath, however they don’t so theres no reason to take it.

xFireize.6318:

Arken.3725:

I’d like them to remove the ICD from Empowering might just to test it. If it’s too strong, nerf it.

That’s a game tester’s job, not player’s. Were you there when Omnomberry Ghost did not have an internal cooldown of 1 sec? Just compare Empowering Might to that and add 33% since the food only has 66% chance to proc.

Empowering Might gives a very good boost of AH.

Arken.3725:

I’ve always thought of the Guardian as the “boon” profession and yet it has trouble maintaining uptime for them even when using shouts.

What’s the trouble? When is it enough? 100% up time of Protection and Stability?

Getting aggressive already I see, alright. I never stated one should have permanent boon uptime on any specific one. Outside of shouts(which have medium-long cds), the access to boons is limited.

Arken.3725:

xFireize.6318:

Arken.3725:

I’d like them to remove the ICD from Empowering might just to test it. If it’s too strong, nerf it.

That’s a game tester’s job, not player’s. Were you there when Omnomberry Ghost did not have an internal cooldown of 1 sec? Just compare Empowering Might to that and add 33% since the food only has 66% chance to proc.

Empowering Might gives a very good boost of AH.

Arken.3725:

I’ve always thought of the Guardian as the “boon” profession and yet it has trouble maintaining uptime for them even when using shouts.

What’s the trouble? When is it enough? 100% up time of Protection and Stability?

Getting aggressive already I see, alright. I never stated one should have permanent boon uptime on any specific one. Outside of shouts(which have medium-long cds), the access to boons is limited.

Sure.. so when is it enough? I’m asking because you said “even with shout build”. I put Protection and Stability because they are not only the most powerful defensive boons, but we share them with allies as well. So I assumed those are the boons that you had trouble with. What boon are you having trouble with then?

What i’m suggesting is that for meditations is that it have some decent boons attached. There’s very little sustain. Also, I consider Vigor to be more powerful than Protection but that’s me.

Not exactly sure why we got off topic.

I’m not talking about meditations though. I’m just asking for further explanation about your opinions. If it’s derailed from topic, you did it.

So what decent boons do you think should be added to meditations? How about signets, does it need to give decent boons as well since guardian is the “boon” class? Spirit Weapon, maybe?

I refer to PvP:

If I look at other professions I see traits that change their priorities. Guardian doesn’t get any of this really. The only thing that is big is that Meditations heal and shouts cure conditions.
The thing is that we run around with
- 10k base HP (this just hurts so much with all what we have to deal with)
- no good ranged weapon (scepter is okay but cmon… thats what we get wet for?)
- no good condition removal (only if we play bunker or something)
- no swiftness (staff 3 only helps in PvE)
- no cripple (chill only with hammer, only on crit with a 50% chance, only every 30 seconds)
and probably other things.

Thats the reason why spirit weapons and signets suck. There is just so much stuff we have to worry about. On top of that comes torment. Now it hurts even more that we get kited 24/7. So we need to play Judge’s Intervention…
I think that traits are the best way to fix all this without completely breaking everything.

Just some ideas:
- increased dmg while wearing a torch
- make the “loose a conditon every 10 seconds” trait a minor trait
- chance to cripple on crit with greatsword
- stun breaker on offhand shield
- chance to remove poison when healing (should work with meditation heals)
- increased boon duration with every signet equipped

You left off Signet of Resolve. I see so many people running this heal skill over shelter and it is complete garbage. The heal skill is useless and anyone who is decent and has an interrupt on demand (most classes do) is going to interrupt this heal skill. If you play guardian I beg you to NOT be bad and use shelter or Healing Breeze depending on what you and your group need. Please don’t be a bad player, make the right choice and be half decent.

I dropped Shelter for traited Signet of Resolve long time ago. My shout build doesn’t have AH and only have 300 Healing . Traited SoR actually does a good job keeping me alive. If you don’t have a lot of Protection and Stability, Shelter wouldn’t be too bad. But if you have a lot of direct damage mitigation already, extra healing and condition removal from SoR are actually worth it. I go 2 in Radiance just to get the signet trait on my 0/2/0/6/6 build.

If your argument to not use SoR because it’s easily interrupted, then why do you suggest Healing Breeze too? Is casting 1s skill that hard? It’s not for every situation — just like most skills in this game; but that does not mean it’s complete garbage.

So you don’t like getting your heal skill interrupted. How do you feel about Shelter going on full cooldown without giving any heal when interrupted by unblockable attack?