Guild Wars 2

In my eyes the lack of cripple on any guardian skills is quite annoying. Nevermind the fact that they are quite immobile in the first place with very little swiftness output and a bugged staff, but I feel that much like every other class which get a cripple skill on their sword only (virtually any other class who can equip a sword get at least cripple with its skills) the guardian should not be left out?
Especially with the recent fanwave of stability the guardian really lacks alot of cc potential which shouldnt be for a heavy armor class.

They have quite a few immobilizes. Isn’t that better?

Not really, because the immobilizes aren’t as frequent as cripples generally are.

I never really notice this being a problem. We have too many other things applicable in a melee fight. If they gave us that too we would be overpowered to be honest. Haven’t you see ALL the videos on you tube of guardians taking on 3-4 people at a time. If we had that too lol……..nerf city bro.

Guardians have access to many teleports and leaps on short cooldown. Add a cripple to it and it would be difficult to kite them at all. And btw, with a shout build it is not that difficult to get perma-swiftness (or close to it).

green plum.7514:

Guardians have access to many teleports and leaps on short cooldown. Add a cripple to it and it would be difficult to kite them at all. And btw, with a shout build it is not that difficult to get perma-swiftness (or close to it).

Many? Guard has 1 600 range teleport on sword that requires a target and 1 600 range leap on greatsword. Other than that, all guard has is judge’s intervention, a teleport on a fairly long CD that also requires a target.

Mighty blow on hammer is not a proper leap. It is a blast finisher that does not cover ground any quicker than running normally.

This is something that many of you know I’ve been harping on about for a while now.

OP mentioned:

…virtually any other class who can equip a sword get at least cripple with its skills…

They do! It may not always be on swords but every other profession has a decent selection of cripple on their weapon skills alone! I’m counting Engineer kits too.

If you compare the cripples, immobilises and gap closers between Guardians and pretty much any other profession, you will find that the Guardian comes out on the bottom. A possible exception would be immobilises, however, the amount of immobilises Guardian has access to is comparable to every other profession’s but the other professions also get everything else.

Add a cripple to it and it would be difficult to kite them at all.

You mean like how it’s difficult to kite every other profession?

I don’t see why the old argument of, “They can heal!” is supposed to be the trade-off for this, the low health pool is the trade-off for good heals If it isn’t, then what is the low health the trade off for? How many things are we supposed to give up because we can heal well?
Keep in mind, Guardian’s playstyle is generally somewhat immobile anyway which as the OP mentioned, amplifies the problem.

Your meant to melee stuff, not to cripple it and kite

JJBigs.8456:

You’re meant to melee stuff, not to cripple it and kite.

When Guardians are asking for cripples, it’s most often because they want to melee, but have difficulties doing so because *they*’re being kited. Most people who chose the Guardian realized they weren’t going to be a ranged powerhouse (although I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking we’re supposed to have at least somewhat effective ranged options).
A cripple would enhance our ability to “melee stuff” more than it would enhance our ability to kite.

A cripple would enhance our ability to “melee stuff” more than it would enhance our ability to kite.

Exactly. We are the only profession that is designed to only fight in melee range yet we struggle to ever keep the enemy nearby. And yeah, we can teleport and leap but that means you can land one, maybe two hits and that’s it.

I’m actually getting kited forever by every profession except for necros (only if i can keep swiftness up which requires high boon duration and 2 shouts) and maybe mesmers. /edit: …and other guards.

Yeah, Necromancers only have slightly more ways to get out of a bad situations than we have. And most Mesmers I encountered, don’t really need to bother, since if they play well, I won’t be doing much damage to them anyway.

Using the sword as an example, since the OP mentioned them, let’s look at the professions who can use swords and see who can maintain melee range with them.

Just a reminder, we’re just looking at swords right now. Swords.

Warrior – Good duration cripple, Immobilise on the burst and has a nice spammable leap finisher skill.

Thief – Cripple in the attack chain, immobilise on the teleport skill.

Mesmer – Can summon an illusion that leaps to the target, cripples them and can then choose to swap places with the illusion.

Ranger – Cripple in the attack chain and then a mini-leap skill as the third attack. A leap skill in and out of melee range.

Guardian – One teleport on a good cooldown.

They all have gap closers. Only one of them is missing a cripple…

Before someone says, “Sword Wave has the longest range out of any melee attack!”, it’s not a melee attack, it’s a short range projectile, it’s more comparable to Elementalist’s Dragon’s Claw (Dagger #1 in fire) than anything else. If you manage to hit anything with it at its maximum range, you will only hit them once anyway, being able to hit a target three times is Sword Wave’s only real draw, when it hits once, it’s useless. You would not use this skill for its range.
Before someone else says, “Zealot’s Defense is a ranged skill!”, have you used it at range? Using it at range only further increases the distance from you and your target as they can move and you cannot.
Those two skills do absolutely zero towards keeping a target within melee range.

So what’s my point? Every profession that can use swords can leap/teleport around whilst generously applying various cripples and sometimes even immobilises with the exception Guardian; one of the two professions designed to be more effective in melee range. This is using only the sword remember.

GS + Sword/Focus build w/ JI.

3 Teleports
3 Blinds
1 Pull.

If you can’t stay in Melee distance w/ these, you need to re-evaluate your playstyle…. maybe watch some video’s.

The ONLY time you will have a problem is w/ Hunters….. freaking HUNTERS!!! lol

Now, if you’re trying to chase someone who’s running away. That’s a different story, they’re “running away” and not fighting.

But if they’re staying within 1200 range. No Issue….

If you swap out Scepter – you get ranged + imobil

If you swap out Hammer → Sword/Focus – you get imobil + warding + MB

If you swap out Mace → uh… you’re support, /assist your friend.

If it’s still an issue with you: Sigil for chill.

If it’s still an issue for you: Food that grants chilling

If it’s still an issue for you… watch more video’s.

If you can’t stay in Melee distance w/ these, you need to re-evaluate your playstyle…

I have been playing with those 3. First of all, blinds do nothing to stop your opponent from running away. The pull is extremely predictable and as stated above:

Exactly. We are the only profession that is designed to only fight in melee range yet we struggle to ever keep the enemy nearby. And yeah, we can teleport and leap but that means you can land one, maybe two hits and that’s it.

Most guardians play like D/D bunker eles not doing much burst but rather try to grind their opponents down due to being superior in longer fights. A teleport doesn’t really help with staying in melee range in this situation.

Sigil for chill […] Food that grants chilling

We shouldn’t be the only profession that has to rely on sigils/food for this.

Blinds top them from using skills to get away from you, outside of dodge rolling, allowing you to get a few hits in. Best make them count.

Watch more video’s.

If I had cripple, my truck would cause more roadkills. I dunno fellas, I feel it would be OP. If you want to keep an enemy near you, try rolling signet build.

Guardian’s have these specific weaknesses to help balance out our strengths. We’re very immobile, lack real ranged potential, and don’t have many ways to stop people from running from us.

Give it up your not getting cripple you don’t need it. And if you do something maybe wrong with your set up. No one is trying to be mean here you just don’t need it.

Cripple isn’t as good as you think.

If you ask for cripple it WILL come with a damage rebalance and overall it will be a nerf to guardians. Cripple works better for ranged people to kite since it doesn’t actually stop movement, you’ll still have to continuously move to adjust yourself, which means you can’t really unload the biggest spikes, which requires the target to be right beside you for at least a couple seconds.

If you look at warriors who do DPS builds, they all take knockdown/immobilize utilities + gap closers, just like what is required for the guardian as well. They don’t waste time crippling. The ones who do, fail. Or they are bunker builds. Warrior bunkers need to kite to survive (guardians don’t).

Comparing weapons from different classes also doesn’t make sense. Since different class has their various abilities weighted differently between weapons and utility. You need to compare complete builds. People who compare only the weapons are mis-representing the class gap to bolster their arguments. The reason why guardians are utility heavy is because the class is easy to turtle. And turtling makes for un-fun gameplay because it causes stalemates most of the time.

why would I need cripple? I mean, the only use I could see is if they are trying to get away from me and I don’t feel like leaping/teleporting/blinking/yanking them back/walling them off/walling them in/or just hitting them from range.

cripple? psh

The thing about all this is that all the other professions also have gap closers, immobilises, knockbacks, knockdowns, some of them also have pulls, most, if not, all of them have many different leaps and they all still have access to cripple.

As I said earlier, how much do we have to give up because we can heal well?
- Low maximum health.
- Laughable ranged damage.
- Lower than others in terms of mobility.

I would take all of the above there without complaint if we could at least get some weapon skill cripples. If I want to use up all my utilities to control a target, that’s a reasonable alternative as other professions do it too. The problem is though, if I don’t want to use them up on control skills, my options are severely limited.

My point is, having the option to build for good control is nice and I think it’s good to have that option but I shouldn’t have to build specifically for it as a melee profession. Especially when the others don’t have to and still get access to good snares.

@Heinel – The fact is, regardless of how any other class plays, be it Warrior or otherwise, they can bring whatever they want really and still get access to cripples without thinking. Even if they aren’t going to use them, they still get them. I compared a single weapon for each class that can use it for the purposes of showing just what one weapon brings to the table in regard to sticking to a target, the problem is also apparent across other weapons. All the other professions there have different play styles, yes, however, all their sword skills behave somewhat similarly. They all get a good gap closer, they all have some kind of big damage move and they all get cripple, except Guardian. Of course builds come into it, I’m not an idiot but I’m using that example to highlight the problem.

I wouldn’t go as far to say that a Warrior that uses cripple fails. My wife plays Warrior pretty hardcore and I’ve seen the crap she can pull off with it. She doesn’t need to bring Throw Bolas or Bull’s Charge to be effective in melee. If that were the case, remove all cripples from Warrior skills and see what happens.

Can a Healer Guardian heal 400 per tick, like a Banner Warrior? A legit question since I don’t play a Support Guardian.

xFireize.6318:

Can a Healer Guardian heal 400 per tick, like a Banner Warrior? A legit question since I don’t play a Support Guardian.

If you mean 400hp per second, just battle presence and regeneration will surpass that.

Guardians have so many blinks, immobilizes (which are 5,000 times better than a cripple,) and chill (via hammer trait) and movement speed increases that having a snare is essentially pointless. In the time / effort it takes a thief to dodge roll twice, and use all their intiative to run away from me I’m literally on top of them in 2 moves: Judge’s Intervention, and Flashing Blade. Tell me again how we lack mobility please.

Setun.4368:

Tell me again how we lack mobility please.

We lack mobility because we specifically need to take skills in order to become as mobile as other professions. We have to put quite some effort into just getting close to our enemies and then when we get close, unless we specifically build for it, we can’t keep them close. I know we have the tools, but if I take a Shout-build, I’m screwed. Either I give up two utilities (a gapcloser and an immobilize) or my weapon choice is completely dictated by mobility.
Then, all our mobility skills are mobility skills are dictated by a target (let’s not talk about Merciful Intervention), which doesn’t lend itself to positioning or retreating.
Because have you tried retreating as a Guardian? If the enemy has any sort of root, you need to use at least two utilities to make a decent retreat with a chance of survival. This is a kind of mobility the Guardian simply doesn’t have access to.
Finally, as people often point out, Guardians are melee fighters first. Now we can argue if this should be the case or not, but currently they are. This means that the damage that we do and the usefulness of our skills is directly related to how well we can keep an enemy close to us. And this is, honestly, not very good.
And most Guardians build to outlast an opponent (since our options for burst are limited), which makes one immobilize not enough.

I’m not saying that we don’t have options. I’m saying that the options we have are limited, and that they don’t play well with the reality of the Guardian.

Setun.4368:

Some stuff.

What you’re forgetting is, a lot of builds don’t actually use 1h sword and a lot of builds don’t use JI. Guardians actually get a comparable amount of immobilises as the other professions, who also get cripples to supplement the immobilise.

So what you essentially said is, we can only maintain melee range if we pigeonhole ourselves into using 1h sword+X/Hammer, bring JI and trait for a random, long cooldown chill that relies on crits. Right? Even then, if your foe cripples you, you’re pretty much stuffed if you can’t burst them down and they’ll still be able to get away relatively unhindered if you don’t.

What would another melee fighter have to do to achieve a similar level of snares and mobility? I said similar, not precisely equivalent.
Warrior – Equip any melee weapon configuration that isn’t mace+sword/axe/shield (even then they’ll at least have a stun).
Thief – Anything with offhand dagger although mainhand sword would probably have more options than dagger or pistol mainhand.
Ranger – Equip any melee weapon that isn’t an axe (technically axe isn’t much of a melee weapon on Ranger anyway).

This is without investing any traits or utilities and ignoring that all three of those professions also get reliable ranged cripples on their ranged weapons, excluding Warrior longbow and harpoon gun (which still get immobilise) if you count underwater and let’s not forget they can actually do damage with their ranged weapons on top of that.

Look, I’m completely for different play styles! I love that each profession plays differently! However, surely anyone can see there’s a distinct discrepancy between the level of melee control the Guardian has compared to the other professions that can melee. Especially when the intention for Guardian, as mentioned by ArenaNet devs, is to “…share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.”

Before someone says, “Homogenisation this and homogenisation that!”, the fact that there is only one cripple and one chill effect in the game that multiple professions can apply in different ways proves that this is already a deliberate homogenisation move to make the game mechanics simpler.

Edit: Put the quote in.

It all boils down to how you use said abilities to your advantage. Judge’s Intervention and Flashing Blade are both great closers and distancers depending on the situation. I’ve used both skills numerous times to get out of a bad situation by keeping away of my surroundings and targetting something as random as a rabbit to use my skills to get some distance. Retreat is an amazing skill because not only for the swiftness, but the free aegis (which if popped gives might and retaliation if specced) can blow that immobilize or what have you that would otherwise do you in. I will say however that it is a tad annoying that Judge’s Intervention and Flashing Blade have to have a target to work, but at the same time I can’t complain seeing as how being able to cross 1,800 meters between 2 skills whether or not you’re immobilized, snared, chilled, etc is sexy as kitten.

As someone who plays mostly sPvP, the ability to cross 1800 units (it’s not meters is it?) doesn’t weigh up to the need for a target. There’s not a lot of Bunnies in Khylo.

Setun.4368:

Some more things.

However, if you’re snared, crossing 1200 every 45 seconds and 600 every 10 seconds isn’t going to stick you to your target for long at all and still requires the use of a specific weapon and ties up a utility slot, if you’re also running with Retreat then you’ve only got one utility left that’s flexible and I’m going to assume SYG, SY or CoP is going there. Making build diversity relatively low if you want to stay close to a target.
That critter technique, while useful, still also requires more effort than other profession’s equivalent and is far more reliant on having a target nearby.

This is an example of what I mentioned earlier, having the option to tailor your build specifically around mobility is good and should be available to every profession, which it is currently. The problem lies in that if Guardians don’t wish to do so, they most certainly lack a lot of snares in comparison to what other professions get with little or no thought at all.

Pvt Frosty.6973:

can’t quote coz body length

None of those problems will be fixed by cripple.

First, What you should expect in a fair fight:

With an offensive guardian build you only need to get a few hits in to kill someone. The whole fight shouldn’t last more than 20 seconds. On GS and Hammer, the CC abilities themselves are also full on attacks. If you can disrupt a heal skill with the pull or a knockdown it’s pretty much impossible that anyone would survive. JI’s 1200 range teleport give you the element of surprise that’s not unlike stealth if you engage from behind (I know culling is bad you don’t balance around culling). If that doesn’t work then you are facing a bunker. Pick a new target.

Second, the problems:

The first complaint here that one could make would be that spike guardians don’t have any reliable escape options the other glass cannons have. But the guardian is also the class that’s best suited towards an offensive but not full on glass cannon spike build. The autoattack-centric dps means their main damage source is resource-free and always available. There’s not many must-dodge burst abilities that people watch for. This is where the differences comes in. Classes that has more abundant snaring capabilities are also more burst centric, and their playstyle revolves around aligning these two elements together at the same time to achieve a kill. The guardian damage source is constant, and the only thing you have to jiggle is to keep people in range. This alone gives you more freedom than 100b-warriors (one shot or go home), and even thieves, who have to manage initiatives. When those classes mis-aligned or their combo is countered, they are left with no option other than escape. Guardian with at least some staying power can try to continue to maneuver themselves around the fight and pressure their targets to death.

The second complaint is that bunker guardians cannot kill. When you face a target that kites you all the time and you can’t really bring them down, you are actually getting killed by a (semi)bunker. This problem only exists in WvW as that’s where solo roaming is rampant and the game is not balanced around that. This is where the guardian is truly seeing trouble and it’s a WvW thing. In sPvP, bunkers do not chase, so anyone can run if they please. Whether this will eventually be fixed remains to be seen. There are some points for and against fixing this issue. For one, different classes are supposed to serve different function in WvW. Guardians cannot solo roam (as effectively, but still somewhat viable) just like thieves cannot zerg ball. Then there’s also the issue that WvW is supposed to cater to casuals and solo roaming is a big part of it. If anything about the guardian were to be changed for this though, it has to be localized to WvW only. As the guardian is in a good state in sPvP.

The third complaint has to do with running from zergs. In terms of mobility, guardian is on about the same level as mesmers, but mesmer has stealth. Not sure if design choice but the guardians tool set does not include something that can allow them to reliably extract themselves from sticky situation. I personally think this is a bug. The teleport skills should teleport you forward (or backward in case of merciful intervention) when no targets are selected or available. Leap skills behave this way. Instant leap skills (phase retreat) also behave this way. There’s no reason the guardian teleport skills don’t behave this way. Barring that, there’s always the option of making merciful intervention ground targeted. This is again up to Anet to say, however.

I wasn’t specifically advocating Guardians getting a cripple there, just pointing out that mobility (as defined by Setun) of a Guardian wasn’t as good as was believed. I’m not even sure if Guardians need a cripple. They could use it, but the issues we have because of not having access to cripple can probably be solved in a different way.

Ynna.8769:

I wasn’t specifically advocating Guardians getting a cripple there, just pointing out that mobility (as defined by Setun) of a Guardian wasn’t as good as was believed. I’m not even sure if Guardians need a cripple. They could use it, but the issues we have because of not having access to cripple can probably be solved in a different way.

K I quote someone else.

Silver.8023:

Setun.4368:

Some more things.

However, if you’re snared, crossing 1200 every 45 seconds and 600 every 10 seconds isn’t going to stick you to your target for long at all and still requires the use of a specific weapon and ties up a utility slot, if you’re also running with Retreat then you’ve only got one utility left that’s flexible and I’m going to assume SYG, SY or CoP is going there. Making build diversity relatively low if you want to stay close to a target.
That critter technique, while useful, still also requires more effort than other profession’s equivalent and is far more reliant on having a target nearby.

This is an example of what I mentioned earlier, having the option to tailor your build specifically around mobility is good and should be available to every profession, which it is currently. The problem lies in that if Guardians don’t wish to do so, they most certainly lack a lot of snares in comparison to what other professions get with little or no thought at all.

I see your argument and I understand where you’re coming from, but Guardians have a lot of options with regards to control via weapon skills. Hammer, Greatsword, Sword, Scepter, Staff, Spear, and Trident all have some form of immobilize, barrier combo field, sink, pull, and chill (if hammer traited) that can hold lots of people in check. Heck, I LOVE the #3 hammer skill that immobilizes anything in a line to death. But as for building mobility any class in this game who doesn’t invest in a certain weapon type / utility slot for mobility will suffer what a lot of people here are complaining about. I can tell you one of the reasons why I love Guardians so much is that they’re way more mobile than Warriors, and my main was originally a Warrior when I first started. It’s all a matter of choice whether or not you want to be tanky or supporty without much self-speed enhancement reliability, or be ‘bouncy’ as it were.

Blind Exposure → Halting Darkness: Applying blind also applies one second of immobilize.

Problem solved?

I would support this change.

ZoroDaOtter.3859:

Blind Exposure -> Halting Darkness: Applying blind also applies one second of immobilize.

Problem solved?

This would be broken as hell.

Adding an internal cd would help this. Guess about 3 secs would do it. Warriors already got a similar trait with cripples and, as already pointed out, are able to cripple quite a bit.

On second thought…why don’t we just wish for our own version of chilling darkness: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilling_Darkness

I would love to give up on glacial heart in exchange for it.

This won’t be fixed anytime soon. We have a thread about these issues every week, and have had them constantly for months…

Guardians who just want to support/tank (majority it would seem) are satisfied. Other professions see Guardian as AH tank builds, so if you buff Guardians in any way there will be massive QQ. From ArenaNet’s perspective, there won’t be enough gain to warrant any significant changes. The only changes we may get are nerfs in case something turns out to be too effective in “end-game” fractals (spirit weapons anyone?).

The issue I see with Guardian is that our damage style doesn’t match the way we are built.

There is little synergy.

Guardians are built around consistent damage, most of it coming from auto attack.
Our weapon skills tend to be built around utility more than damage. (No high damage longer cooldown skills).

Even Zealot’s Defense and Whirling Wrath aren’t that much better than auto attack on a single target + Zealot’s roots you in place and has trouble hitting anything that’s not moving, it doesn’t do enough damage to justify an immobilise combo.

Whirling Wrath needs to hit multiple targets to become really worthwhile, and as a Guardian in pvp, if you have enough targets around you to do good Whirling Wrath damage it also means there’s loads of AoE hanging around that you yourself are gonna eat.

We have teleports and immobilise, these synergise better with a high damage long cooldown attack though. Immobilising a target to autoattack isn’t something any other Profession needs to do.

Teleports again, take you right to a target but then if you can’t follow it up with burst they just move out of range again, due to other Professions having much more passive / active mobility with evasive skills and Swiftness. + Crippling / Chilling us in return to kite away.

Our consistent damage from autoattack synergises better with access to cripple and swiftness, rather than immobilise and teleport.

Guardian is too pigeonholed into similar specs right now, the playstyle is very bland compared to the rest. Due to our playstyle being based on melee range more than anyone else we also need to consider a lot more survivability when building either a damage spec or tanky spec.
+ Things like the Guardian heal skills having much higher cooldowns, 30s, 40s, 40s. It’s a lot easier to judge when to burst a Guardian down and you have a much bigger window of opportunity.
Our consistent damage with a lack of ability to stay on target consistently gets easily countered by their shorter cooldown heals.

P.S. Virtue of Resolve and 2127 base Armour does not make up for how much damage we have to take just getting to our targets and trying to stay on them.
Being in the middle of every fight and eating every single AoE skill around.

I usually play supporty tank and I’m not really satisfied . There’s no real reason I play this way other than it’s just the way I prefer to play Paladin/Guardian type characters. I’ve tried many other builds but I always revert back to this style.

For me to kill something, I need to stick to it for a little longer than most and because my weapons and utilities are geared more towards group support with a dash of damage on top, when I’m caught out or should I try to be somewhat effective on my own I’m pretty much just a punching bag that people can run circles around.
Even with cripples sprinkled here and there in my weapons, I would probably still be as such and I don’t think I would be able to hold a determined player for too long in melee which is fine with me as that’s how it generally works with the other professions but I would like the option of snaring someone, should I need to, through skillful use and judicial timing and possibly come out on top. You know, like how every other profession can, despite whether they’re building for tank/support or not.

Now before someone says, “You can’t have everything!” I agree! I don’t want everything, I’ve already given up a pretty large portion of damage and I’m fine with the smaller than usual damage I do as I chose that, all I want is a means to more easily be able to administer what sustained damage I do.
If you’re someone thinking, “Ah there’s your problem, you built for tank/support”, that’s the point. Other professions can build for tank/support and still get easy access to cripples and snares etc. “But Guardians can heal a lot!”, so can Elementalists, maybe we should take cripples and even chills away from them too!

My biggest problem is how bland we play.

We have several builds, but just one effective playstyle.

99% of the Guardians in tournaments are bunkers. And any team asking for a Guardian wants a bunker.

I’ve built for more damage before but it can be so easily countered, it was fun to play as a Guardian doing damage (and that’s the playstyle I want), but it required support from my team, specifically a Necro in Plague form spamming chain AoE blind so I could get my melee damage off without dropping instantly while Whirling round.

I want to be able to create different effective builds for another playstyle rather than a healing support tank.

As I said I’ve made DPS, but if you’re playing that role for a team you are so much better off building for that role on any other profession.

I’d like to see a condition damage spec work for Guardian for a start though with just burning it seems difficult, perhaps a trait that let our burning stack would allow us to use just burning as an effective damage source.

The issue really for Guardians is application of damage, it’s mostly melee range, which as I said before means you will take a lot of damage getting to your target, take all the AoE flying around and you need to work to stick on your target with poor tools to do so, when the other professions have so many ways to maintain kiting distance.

Guardian sadly has little to no ways to keep a target from opening gaps and about zero ways to disengage.
It can be played as a line-holder but how effective is that offensively? This game is all about mobility.

But everyone else has one is not a valid reason to give guardians cripple on a weapon. Only one other class can grant protection from weapon like the Guardian can it has 3 different weapons that can provide it.

Moddo.7105:

But everyone else has one is not a valid reason to give guardians cripple on a weapon. Only one other class can grant protection from weapon like the Guardian can it has 3 different weapons that can provide it.

Because Guardians lack large burst, effective ranged weaponry, and are arguably the most melee-dependent profession in the game. Essentially, the entire implementation of the Guardian screams “melee” and yet, Guardians don’t have many ways to get into melee nor stay in melee. And they don’t have large burst, so staying there for 1-2s doesn’t do much.

There is nothing more frustrating than playing an offensive Guardian against another good player. As my Engineer I can shut down any offensive Guardian, sadly. I get perma-swiftness and he has perma-cripple on him. All I need to do is strafe away from Whirling Wrath/Mighty Blow and dodge a select few key abilities. He gap closes? I knockback, or immobilize, or use my own leap.

People use comparisons to prove a point so you don’t have to type something like I did above. For example, Warriors have more gap closers, cripples, burst, and movement speed increases. However, even in going full damage/control as a Guardian, you won’t have as much of any of the above that a Warrior has. The last time I remember a Warrior being called OP it wasn’t because of his CC or movement.

People are giving plenty of reasons. Other people are just saying things like, “They can stop damage!” or, “Guardians are the best healers!” or, “My Guardian with a very specific build completely different to yours doesn’t seem to have a problem!” and completely ignoring the reasons said by others and not addressing the issue at all.

The reason is we need cripples as that Guardians do mostly sustained damage and a large percentage of that sustained damage is administered in melee range. If we can’t keep (I said, “keep” not simply, “get to”) targets in melee range for a reasonable amount of time, the sustained damage becomes no damage. The unreliable ranged damage and symbols’ natural encouragement to remain stationary in a very movement heavy combat system really only amplifies the problem.

Edit: I was originally directing that at Moddo but I realised I read his post as “nobody has given a valid reason as to why Guardians need cripple” my apologies there. However, I think the “everyone else can” argument is still valid as a lot of people say, “Guardians don’t get cripple because they have a different play style!”, well, all the other professions also have different play styles yet they can administer cripple liberally and not have to depend as much on certain builds to do it. Why not Guardians? What is it that they do that requires a lack of cripple? They are, in fact, more reliant on a target being in melee range than any other profession and are the least able to keep them there.

Setun.4368:

Guardians have so many blinks, immobilizes (which are 5,000 times better than a cripple,) and chill (via hammer trait)

Just a short hijack, but you should really rethink that part. Considering the CD this is maybe the most useless trait we have.

Amins.3710:

GS + Sword/Focus build w/ JI.

3 Teleports
3 Blinds
1 Pull.

If you can’t stay in Melee distance w/ these, you need to re-evaluate your playstyle…. maybe watch some video’s.

The ONLY time you will have a problem is w/ Hunters….. freaking HUNTERS!!! lol

Now, if you’re trying to chase someone who’s running away. That’s a different story, they’re “running away” and not fighting.

But if they’re staying within 1200 range. No Issue….

If you swap out Scepter – you get ranged + imobil

If you swap out Hammer -> Sword/Focus – you get imobil + warding + MB

If you swap out Mace -> uh… you’re support, /assist your friend.

If it’s still an issue with you: Sigil for chill.

If it’s still an issue for you: Food that grants chilling

If it’s still an issue for you… watch more video’s.

This is the best awnser.

Guardian don’t need cripples, we will overpowered with it.

Silentstorm.7531:

I never really notice this being a problem. We have too many other things applicable in a melee fight. If they gave us that too we would be overpowered to be honest. Haven’t you see ALL the videos on you tube of guardians taking on 3-4 people at a time. If we had that too lol……..nerf city bro.

I hate people who say this so I’ma give my usual response.

Any class can take on 3-4 people it just depends on how good those 3-4 people are. I’ve killed my fair share of larger groups in my time but I’ve also died in 1 vs 1 scenarios simply because that person was better than I was. I’m not the best Guardian in the world but I’m pretty darn good and honestly if I go up against other good players I can only hold my ground against 2 of them at maximum and that’s if I’m playing like a skilled ninja in heavy armour.

It’s all about the scenario you find yourself in and the skill of your opponent so at the end of the day this kind of comment is useless in judging how well a class can perform or not perform cause if I ended up fighting a zerg of the players I’ve been killing recently I’d probably wipe the zerg single handedly haha. Just kidding but you get what I mean.

Silver.8023:

Warrior – Good duration cripple, Immobilise on the burst and has a nice spammable leap finisher skill.

You forgot something:

Warrior – No protection, no regen (lol @ banners), no aegis, no blind, no retaliation, nothing to prevent damage

All they got is DPS + CC + mobility.

Sorry bro, you cannot have it all. Get used to it. The grass is always greener on the other side.