Guild Wars 2

Anyone that has played the guardian for very long has noticed that the zeal line tends to heavily favor mace & hammer (so much so you don’t want to use other weapons) due to symbol traits being minors.

Here is a simple solution for how to make the trait line make a bit more sense and work better with all weapon choices.

Step 1: Make symbolic exposure a base effect.

Step 2: Merge symbolic power & symbolic avenger

Step 3: Move wrathful spirit to the second minor slot & make it apply might (2 stacks for 10 seconds) instead of retaliation (guardian already has a ton of retaliation and 3 seconds is laughable)

Step 4: Move binding jeopardy to the last minor slot.

Problem solved, the trait line now works better and you now have room to create two new major traits.

Well the vast majority of player that have zeal use a GS and Mace only became popular because of Symbolic Avenger. So you are wrong in your interpretation.

But you are right that Zeal could use some reworking and that symbol could be removed out of the minor trait. I like your idea in general, but there is a couple of thing that I disagree.

I would like to put Fiery Wrath into a minor trait because it’s so good that this almost eliminate any diversity in that slot.

Symbolic Power could become a Adeat major trait.

Symbolic exposure would be merge with symbolic avenger.

Binding Jeopardy or a modified version of Wrathful Spirit could be the other minor.

Don’t agree at all anymore. Sure, 6 months ago. But Zeal is nice for Raw Dmg.
Firey Warith +7% Dmg
Zealous Blade +5% Dmg
Symbolic Power +10% Dmg
Shattered Aegis = gg.

Writ of Persistence needs to be put as a master at the very least. Doesn’t belong in Honor, especially when competing against PoV. Also, Symbolic Avenger needs its buffed back to 20%

Writ of Persistence should just be combined with Symbolic Avenger, that would make it a much better grandmaster.

Amins.3710:

Don’t agree at all anymore. Sure, 6 months ago. But Zeal is nice for Raw Dmg.
Firey Warith +7% Dmg
Zealous Blade +5% Dmg
Symbolic Power +10% Dmg
Shattered Aegis = gg.

Agreed.
Zeal turns Greatsword into a monster, and has a ton of other great offensive options too.

Problem is that Zeal’s raw damage is only useful against braindead PvE mobs. When they actually start avoiding you in HoT, Zeal will start sucking pretty hard.

IMO Wrathful Spirit should be merged with Shattered Aegis or just completely removed. Now Wrathful Spirit is one of the weakest and useless trait in the game. Then add something that can be useful (Support/Utility/Defense/Tech).

Same for Healer’s Retribution.

Remove Expeditious Spirit, and add a more meaningful trait for zeal(guardian would not loose since skills are not being used, and are useless when player use them ).

Start thinking on add a trait line for SW In future.

For a second I thought it was 2013 again.

LetoII.3782:

Amins.3710:

Don’t agree at all anymore. Sure, 6 months ago. But Zeal is nice for Raw Dmg.
Firey Warith +7% Dmg
Zealous Blade +5% Dmg
Symbolic Power +10% Dmg
Shattered Aegis = gg.

Agreed.
Zeal turns Greatsword into a monster, and has a ton of other great offensive options too.

A 12% dmg modifier isn’t exactly “monster” material.
Symbols Symbolic power went from ‘ok’ to ’didn’t notice a dmg increase’. The only thing I like is Shattered Aegis but even that needs luck from the Gods, wondering whether or not Aegis will crit or if it’ll even hit.

What turns GS into a monster is condi builds with Carrion + Permeating Wrath. The down cleaves on multiple targets are insane. Power builds, there is no dmg modifier for multiple foes. It’s why the build will always do best 1v1 but not in 2v2+ team fights.

I think power builds needs a slight upgrade, perhaps buffing Shattered Aegis’s range.

What if we had Expeditious Spirit removed for a change of a trait that make litany of wrath healing more on crits, like healing criticals ?

or
-make LoW transfer condition to target while in effect or for X secconds.
or
-transfer condition to target when u gain fury and use loW etc…?

Fiery Wrath absolutely needs to be a minor trait, because nothing else in its class will ever be taken over it.

As for the other minor traits, Shattered Aegis, Wrathful Spirit (with a buff, because 3s retal is laughably bad), Binding Jeopardy, and Kindled Zeal would all make for far more appropriate minor traits than the symbol-based ones we have now.