Guild Wars 2

Post your thoughts on the upcoming changes for the Guardians (at least the ones that were mentioned).

Personally I can describe them with one word, not needed. We get our useless heal to be not so useless in group situations, in other words we’re getting more support healing while losing some Selfless Daring heals (for those that were running support Guardian), due to internal CD on Vigor proc.

That was the whole highlight of the changes coming to our class, that and the 10% overall dps nerf for crit damage users.

Oh and let’s not forget a 1/4 second lower cast time on the next to worthless meditation skill (compared to Shelter).

I find this troubling because, Guardian was already a must have in wvw for his support. It was probably the only aspect of the gameplay that didn’t need any changes and yet they change exactly that. The fact that they chose that as their highlight tells me that there was nothing else note worthy to mention. So in a sense we get another patch of cosmetic changes just so they can pat themselves on the back and say “We’re adding stuff to the Guardian class as well.”

Nothing has been said about the pressing issues of mobility, escape mechanics, Soft/Hard CC, scepter speed.

It just feels like this balance patch will pass by the Guardian class once again.

Your thoughts and feelings on the upcoming balance patch?

Post the source for these changes?

Pretty meh IMO … Improving to heals to make them balanced with heals we use. Change to VP which won’t affect build decisions.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Post the source for these changes?

twitch.tv/guildwars2

i’m sure it’s in the highlights already if not go to past broadcasts and play the most recent one.

….Goodbye zerker guard?

Arlette.9684:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Post the source for these changes?

twitch.tv/guildwars2

i’m sure it’s in the highlights already if not go to past broadcasts and play the most recent one.

Thanks. Sounds like an interesting watch. From the sounds of the posts though, support healing has been buffed, and healing is always a plus in my book. :p

So long what little offensive guard sustain

They were from the livestream earlier today.

Guardian Specific
- Vigorous Precision is now a 10sec ICD (up from 5sec). Similar traits in other classes have or will be getting the same nerf.
- Litany of Wrath will have it’s cast time reduced. They’re experimenting with 0.5 and 0.75 seconds.
- Healing Breeze will have some of its healing front-loaded instead of distributed evenly. The very first tick will self heal 40-50% of the total amount (exact number still being worked out) and the following ticks heal the remainder to self and allies distributed evenly.

General Changes
- Two-handed weapons will now have two sigil slots
- Sigils of different names no longer share cooldowns. So you can use Battle and Energy and both will proc on weapon swap. The exception is that you can only have one type of stacking stats on kill sigil.
- Some on-crit sigils will now be on-hit. No specifics known.
- Rune sets are getting a complete review. The bonuses are being stacked more toward the 4, 5, and 6 piece. Boon and condition duration increases will generally be increased. Weak rune bonuses will be improved.
- Crit damage is being changed to Ferocity. Ferocity will convert to crit damage just like Precision converts to crit chance.
- With the ferocity change, PvE/WvW damage for full zerker builds should decrease by about 10%.

The reason you don’t see that many guardian changes is that guardians are in a pretty good state. They’re great for support, great PvE DPS, and found on most tPvP teams. At the same time, they’re not way too strong at anything. Other professions are in much worse shape and got more attention. Fixing everything in one patch is near impossible, and even then, it would disturb gameplay so much that it might end up breaking something that’s working well.

The thing I’m most excited about isn’t that you can now put two sigils on Greatswords, but rather that they won’t share a single ICD. That’s huge. Energy+Battle is now an option for example.

^^ At first I thought it meant double two-handed weapons no longer shared cooldowns. Then I realized it only effected sigils, hahaha. I thought 20/25/0/0/25 double Greatsword was going to be a thing, haha.

I’m worried about the boon duration runes. I heavily invested in 2 sets of boon duration (1 DPS oriented, 1 Tank/support oriented). If they’re planning to reduce the 2nd bonus of rune of strenght to 10% might duration, then the boon duration will be what? 5%? The boon duration set will be worthless… and I heavily invested in 2 sets =(

Not entirely sure of the specifics surrounding the healing breeze changes (like how much does it heal for now exactly?), but I think I enjoy these changes, especially those general changes. I’ve always thought healing breeze should’ve been even more supporty.

These changes sound like trash. I hope that’s just not it. Nerfing the vigor with nothing to compensate?

“Hey, x class is too reliant on y. Let’s nerf it w/o giving alternatives!”

Fashion Mage.3712:

Not entirely sure of the specifics surrounding the healing breeze changes (like how much does it heal for now exactly?), but I think I enjoy these changes, especially those general changes. I’ve always thought healing breeze should’ve even been more supporty.

It heals for 50% of its value when used, then 10% of the value on each pulse for a total of 5 pulses over 5 seconds(1 pulse/s). The second part is what heals allies too, so you can expect allies to get healed for about 50% of the value stated on Healing Breeze(provided they stay in range of the cone for 5 whole seconds). They said about 4500 or so, and scales “really well” with Healing Power in the livestream.

ArchonWing.9480:

These changes sound like trash. I hope that’s just not it. Nerfing the vigor with nothing to compensate?

“Hey, x class is too reliant on y. Let’s nerf it w/o giving alternatives!”

Actually we are all getting compensated. We can now have 2 sigils in a 2-handed weapon and also have each sigil on their own internal cooldown. So if you use your 2nd sigil as Endurance(50% Endurance back on swap), it compensates.

Obtena.7952:

Pretty meh IMO … Improving to heals to make them balanced with heals we use. Change to VP which won’t affect build decisions.

So you’re saying guardians with full DPS builds will still be able to ‘face-tank’ every encounter even without permanent vigor? Also note that enemies take longer to kill as well due to the nerf to critical damage.

Noah.4756:

Obtena.7952:

Pretty meh IMO … Improving to heals to make them balanced with heals we use. Change to VP which won’t affect build decisions.

So you’re saying guardians with full DPS builds will still be able to ‘face-tank’ every encounter even without permanent vigor? Also note that enemies take longer to kill as well due to the nerf to critical damage.

Like I mentioned above, maybe not with “full DPS”. But if you take the new sigil mechanic, Sigil of Endurance(on one set or both) could get you close. However, I dont know if putting in Sigil of Endurance would be considered “full DPS”, as that sigil slot is easily worth +5% damage from a Sigil of Force.

They made it very very clear that they want people to use Sigil of Battle with Sigil of Endurance together because we now can. I think they said it at least 5 times.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Not entirely sure of the specifics surrounding the healing breeze changes (like how much does it heal for now exactly?), but I think I enjoy these changes, especially those general changes. I’ve always thought healing breeze should’ve even been more supporty.

It heals for 50% of its value when used, then 10% of the value on each pulse for a total of 5 pulses over 5 seconds(1 pulse/s). The second part is what heals allies too, so you can expect allies to get healed for about 50% of the value stated on Healing Breeze(provided they stay in range of the cone for 5 whole seconds). They said about 4500 or so, and scales “really well” with Healing Power in the livestream.

ArchonWing.9480:

These changes sound like trash. I hope that’s just not it. Nerfing the vigor with nothing to compensate?

“Hey, x class is too reliant on y. Let’s nerf it w/o giving alternatives!”

Actually we are all getting compensated. We can now have 2 sigils in a 2-handed weapon and also have each sigil on their own internal cooldown. So if you use your 2nd sigil as Endurance(50% Endurance back on swap), it compensates.

That’s still a direct hit to people that use one hander/offhand.

Though I’m curious on the change to begin with. Are two handers that inferior to one hander/off handed that they need 2 upgrade slots?

ArchonWing.9480:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Not entirely sure of the specifics surrounding the healing breeze changes (like how much does it heal for now exactly?), but I think I enjoy these changes, especially those general changes. I’ve always thought healing breeze should’ve even been more supporty.

It heals for 50% of its value when used, then 10% of the value on each pulse for a total of 5 pulses over 5 seconds(1 pulse/s). The second part is what heals allies too, so you can expect allies to get healed for about 50% of the value stated on Healing Breeze(provided they stay in range of the cone for 5 whole seconds). They said about 4500 or so, and scales “really well” with Healing Power in the livestream.

ArchonWing.9480:

These changes sound like trash. I hope that’s just not it. Nerfing the vigor with nothing to compensate?

“Hey, x class is too reliant on y. Let’s nerf it w/o giving alternatives!”

Actually we are all getting compensated. We can now have 2 sigils in a 2-handed weapon and also have each sigil on their own internal cooldown. So if you use your 2nd sigil as Endurance(50% Endurance back on swap), it compensates.

That’s still a direct hit to people that use one hander/offhand.

Though I’m curious on the change to begin with. Are two handers that inferior to one hander/off handed that they need 2 upgrade slots?

2 sigils in a 2-handed is a minor point
The major point is “each sigil has their own cooldown”.

Some people were simply not using Sigil of Endurance because it would put Sigil of Battle on Cooldown and vice versa. Now we get can slot both in the SAME weapon set.
I dont see how 1-handed get nerfed. Maybe because it is not superior to 2-handed anymore? 2-handed supposedly has more weapon damage, but who knows, they could nerf that or buff 1-handed damage.

Good changes I think. Guardian is in a good position all around. Dps needs some help, but they already acknowledged that.

The sigil thing and cooldown thing is going to be huge for WvW guardians. I can think of a number of combinations that will be significant. I think this change will benefit guardians more than most other professions.

ArchonWing.9480:

These changes sound like trash. I hope that’s just not it. Nerfing the vigor with nothing to compensate?

“Hey, x class is too reliant on y. Let’s nerf it w/o giving alternatives!”

The vigor change isn’t limited to guardians. All similar traits will get the same treatment.

Vigorous Precision needed a nerf, and I think we all saw it coming. No class should have permanent Vigor. Litany of Wrath buff is a solid idea too. The heal is decent, it just needs some tweaking. Also the buff to Healing Breeze to make it more viable and competitive with the other healing skills.

Anet all said many times during the stream that there are a lot more changes coming. However that they couldn’t get to them all, because the time limit they had during the stream.

If they lift the nerf from selfless daring in PvP, I’d be a bit better with the vigor nerf. But, unfortunately this will hurt offensive builds much harder as almost all of them use this as a means to make up for our squishy health pool.

Litany needs instant cast to be even close to our other heals. It’s biggest drawback is our lack of locking an enemy down long enough to reap any meaning damage/healing.

Healing breeze will still suffer the most from long channel (5 seconds!?) Combined with poor targeting.

For pve it won’t make much of a difference other than it will make things take slightly longer like we really needed that when all we do is the same stale content over and over again. I haven’t used vigorous precision for a long time and it’s really not needed anyway. RH strength will be even weaker now. The 20/25/0/0/25 has been the way to go for awhile now once you have gotten used to dps guard and 10/25/0/10/25 if not. Fractals would still run the current hammer builds but maybe add in an energy swap for archdiviner and dredge power suit. Shelter is better than the new heal still as well.

I am tired of them tweaking healing breeze. They need to understand that there is absolutely nothing they can do to it that will convince me to use it.

I giggled when they addressed Litany of Wrath by saying they’re reducing the cast time. The issue isn’t the length of the cast time, it’s that it has one at all.

Yay, nothing new for us! /yawn

Anyways, there is ONE thing that I do see becoming a possibility for us, an semi-possible condition build. Now that sigils only share CDs with respect to name, it might actually be possible to base a build around them. Something like sigil of geomancy/sigil of doom + our innate burning. Also with the unknown Rune changes, it could mean even more possibilities. The issue with this though, is that no matter what, every other class is still going to have better access, since they can just do the same thing, plus have the extra conditions….

However, I think Might stacking is going to be the way now, Even more so for RHS builds as you will be able to stack sigil of battle, sigil of strength and EM for some pretty nice constant might stacks.

I don’t mind eating more direct hits with that vigor nerf, but at least can our HP pool be moved to mid tier?

xFireize.6318:

I don’t mind eating more direct hits with that vigor nerf, but at least can our HP pool be moved to mid tier?

I think the idea in the long run is for guards to stack non berserker to get their HPs up.

JoxerNL.3752:

xFireize.6318:

I don’t mind eating more direct hits with that vigor nerf, but at least can our HP pool be moved to mid tier?

I think the idea in the long run is for guards to stack non berserker to get their HPs up.

Yup and I stack Vit on my build. Dodge, Block, and Aegis are the reasons our HP pool is in the lowest tier. So if my dodge is taken away a bit, I’d like to get a bit compensation too.

xFireize.6318:

JoxerNL.3752:

xFireize.6318:

I don’t mind eating more direct hits with that vigor nerf, but at least can our HP pool be moved to mid tier?

I think the idea in the long run is for guards to stack non berserker to get their HPs up.

Yup and I stack Vit on my build. Dodge, Block, and Aegis are the reasons our HP pool is in the lowest tier. So if my dodge is taken away a bit, I’d like to get a bit compensation too.

Hey dont get me wrong, I completely agree.
just stating what I think the devs want in the long run, no matter how much I disagree with it

I didn’t say you’re wrong! :P

Anyway, maybe the compensation that we get is we kinda a little tankier because of DPS nerf? But then aren’t they buffing conditions too? Hopefully they’ll make more balanced changes.

Bash.7291:

Yay, nothing new for us! /yawn

Anyways, there is ONE thing that I do see becoming a possibility for us, an semi-possible condition build. Now that sigils only share CDs with respect to name, it might actually be possible to base a build around them. Something like sigil of geomancy/sigil of doom + our innate burning. Also with the unknown Rune changes, it could mean even more possibilities. The issue with this though, is that no matter what, every other class is still going to have better access, since they can just do the same thing, plus have the extra conditions….

However, I think Might stacking is going to be the way now, Even more so for RHS builds as you will be able to stack sigil of battle, sigil of strength and EM for some pretty nice constant might stacks.

Dont forget Sigil of Torment!
Burning Guardian Tormenting the Geomancer of Doom!

I am actually a little disappointed with the changes. I’ve always felt that vigorous precision was to help offset the low health pool. There are so many weaknesses to this profession that adding another seems a little foolish. The proposed change to Litany is also very saddening, even if you were to make it instant, i’d still take Shelter only because you’d have to do consistent damage to make up for the health needed, which is one of the Guardian’s weaknesses.

Might stacking for the win. Good changes imo, it will favor skill based game play. The nerf on vp isnt to bad. You just need to focus your build and play wisely and you still have perma vigor, or at least close to depending on changes to the runes.

Elusive power and hammer just got more interesting and did empowering might.. Time for a knights guardian with em and battle!?

The changes to runes will impact anyone running mix-and-match sets. Plus, there will be speculation in runes on the TP, so prices will go up. Some of the current crap runes selling for 3 silver might actually become useful.

Two sigil slots in 2-handed weapons will be nice and coupled with the streamlining of cooldowns should make sigils easier to deal with.

I’m not too worried about the crit change – the guardian has almost always been about damage modifiers rather than excessively high crit damage stacking – those won’t change with this patch. One would hope that it will hit other classes harder…

Although the vigor nerf will have some impact, I think the double sigil and icd changes is a big plus ( yay! I can have hydromancy AND energy, intelligence and battle … force and night? )

I’ve still been stubbornly experimenting with Litany of Wrath in WvW skirmishing, and a reduced cast time will be most welcome ( although I still think it should be instant cast )

I suspect we might see a nerf to boon duration since 2+2+2 rune set combinations will no longer work ( or the 3+3 healway? ). If that’s the cast I think it’s a little bit of a shame they are discouraging rune mixes which gave builds a tiny bit of extra depth and variety.

TheGuy.3568:

….Goodbye zerker guard?

More like goodbye guard. Or at least goodbye roaming guard. Is not like guardian had a condition or cc viable build if suddenly dps builds stops to work. Which is what will happen.

Having the Vigor on critical hit traits have an ICD is a nerf, but I think it’s healthier for the game in the long-run. Engineers already lost their perma-vigor setup last patch, so I think it’s good that Mesmers and Guardians are following suit. I am interested to see how my Guardian plays in WvW raids and sPvP without perma-vigor active.

^ I don’t agree because in this game in PvE tanks aren’t viable: you can’t tank a hit that insta-kills you (Arah abomination) so rely in evades (that requires some skill to use) seemed a good trade for a support class which has laughlable HP.

Losing both vigor (which was already nerfed time ago) along with 10% extra damage seems a fatal blow to a class which lacks any viable condition dps build. Some classes like condition Necros or condition Warriors were already a ultra-hard counter to meditation Guardians due they outperform us in HP, sutainibilty and constant damage (Necros even in burst damage) so with a 10% less damage and less evades they will laugh even harder in our faces.

I also disagree about the “good state” of the class in the different landscapes of the game: for PvE our only use is to provide Wall Of Reflection and Stability, otherwise I would chose a Warrior or Engineer as a partner everytime in the game. Of course we are still strong in WvW raids, but for roaming/duels the incoming patch will ban Guardians to oblivion.

Arken.3725:

I am actually a little disappointed with the changes. I’ve always felt that vigorous precision was to help offset the low health pool. There are so many weaknesses to this profession that adding another seems a little foolish. The proposed change to Litany is also very saddening, even if you were to make it instant, i’d still take Shelter only because you’d have to do consistent damage to make up for the health needed, which is one of the Guardian’s weaknesses.

I don’t feel it was ever Anets intentions to have any class with perma vigor uptime. Guardian’s low hp pool makes sense when you consider the amount of healing sources and boons they have access to.

A net notice that no one uses healing breeze and decides to buff it, good. Increasing the healing amount is however not what it needs. It is a 5 second channel spell to heal everyone in front of you. For the love of GOD, if you design our class to be primarily melee oriented and staying in the front, then make the heal AoE around us, that is what it needs.

Aza.2105:

Arken.3725:

I am actually a little disappointed with the changes. I’ve always felt that vigorous precision was to help offset the low health pool. There are so many weaknesses to this profession that adding another seems a little foolish. The proposed change to Litany is also very saddening, even if you were to make it instant, i’d still take Shelter only because you’d have to do consistent damage to make up for the health needed, which is one of the Guardian’s weaknesses.

I don’t feel it was ever Anets intentions to have any class with perma vigor uptime. Guardian’s low hp pool makes sense when you consider the amount of healing sources and boons they have access to.

A dps meditation Guardian has a lesser combined healing potential than a Warrior just using the Healing Signet passive effect (not counting shouts, tactic banner, etc.). A meditation Guardian has also a small access to boons due their own nature. The patch makes our class useles for WvW outside raids/zergs, and redundant in any PvE content in which Wall of Reflection isn’t required.

The patch does nothing to enhance the build diversity for Guardians, kills entirely one kind of build, and doesn’t adress the lack of usability of wasted space in our trait lines (dem spirit weapon traits).

Perikittenor.1892:

A net notice that no one uses healing breeze and decides to buff it, good. Increasing the healing amount is however not what it needs. It is a 5 second channel spell to heal everyone in front of you. For the love of GOD, if you design our class to be primarily melee oriented and staying in the front, then make the heal AoE around us, that is what it needs.

If one is playing a heavily supportive guardian, mid-range and long-range are definitely possibilities considering that such a guardian is almost certainly going to use a staff. I use staff/scepter+focus for example, and healing breeze generally works for me even if I’m close up to the enemy.
I for one would really hate it if it become a short-ranged Point-blank AoE, especially since one can’t “target” specific allies to focus the healing on them.

One thing though, I just wish that it would release the healing cone in the direction that I’m facing rather than where the enemy is or where I’m running.

Buran.3796:

A dps meditation Guardian has a lesser combined healing potential than a Warrior just using the Healing Signet passive effect (not counting shouts, tactic banner, etc.). A meditation Guardian has also a small access to boons due their own nature. The patch makes our class useles for WvW outside raids/zergs, and redundant in any PvE content in which Wall of Reflection isn’t required.

The Healing Signet got nerfed in this very patch, so I’m not sure that comparison holds much weight. Also, the healing a meditation guardian can put out just with Monk’s Focus is pretty large in my eyes. Not that I think that warriors are balanced.

Kumu Honua.2751:

ArchonWing.9480:

These changes sound like trash. I hope that’s just not it. Nerfing the vigor with nothing to compensate?

“Hey, x class is too reliant on y. Let’s nerf it w/o giving alternatives!”

The vigor change isn’t limited to guardians. All similar traits will get the same treatment.

That doesn’t really make me feel any better. And honestly I fear more for my ranger who really only has dodges/vigor as a real defense and they have a trait that’s arguably better than VP.

I mean, not all classes have said trait, and I wonder how many classes have such a low health and is so reliant on close combat with active defenses.

The actual problem is that would it change my build at all? Does it look like more options? Probably still going to take the trait anyways but I’ll let the meta peeps figure it out.

The argument that just because on profession got nerfed doesn’t necessarily mean another should. Each profession plays/survives differently. A blanket nerf(Guardian/Mesmer) like this makes no sense. And just to reiterate, the weaknesses are as follows since I failed to mention them earlier:

-No soft CC
-Low health tier
-Meditation lacks any boons for surviving
-Lack of Swiftness
-Unable to spec condition
- Easily kitable.
-Some of the most obvious animations in the game tied to skills.
-Lack of Ranged damage

There is no other profession that has this many weaknesses.

These weaknesses are a detriment to a profession that is primarily Melee archetype. Outside of Bunkering, it’s incredibly difficult to do anything else in sPvP that’s viable. Also, before some of you mention that Monk’s Focus contributes to the Guardian’s Survivability, remember that 3/4 meditations are one very long cd’s so a 2k heal isn’t going to let you last in a fight of attrition.

My main thoughts on the changes while watching the livestream are simple to sum up: I like the healing increase because I like supporting my team, but the change is obviously going to lead to a more widespread expectation that Guardians focus on healing, including strong opinions on how you should spec, what armor you should wear, etc. In short, you will be expected to be a healing bot. Which would be fine as far as I’m concerned ( I always played a healer in other MMO’s!), except the game really only rewards dps, and I’ve seen no sign that AN plans to change that. So it seems a little screwy to me that they would try to force classes into roles for which the game’s reward system penalizes them. Just my 2 cents!

Arken.3725:

The argument that just because on profession got nerfed doesn’t necessarily mean another should. Each profession plays/survives differently. A blanket nerf(Guardian/Mesmer) like this makes no sense. And just to reiterate, the weaknesses are as follows since I failed to mention them earlier:

Exactly. Blanket nerfs without context aren’t a good idea, unless you want to homogenize each class to the point where distinctions are meaningless.

Let’s say that condition damage was nerfed on Necros and Guardians. Would be okay to say to necros, “Hey guardians got condition damage nerfed too!” Clearly one values condition damage more than the other.

Fashion Mage.3712:

The Healing Signet got nerfed in this very patch, so I’m not sure that comparison holds much weight. Also, the healing a meditation guardian can put out just with Monk’s Focus is pretty large in my eyes. Not that I think that warriors are balanced.

Warriors take a dent of 7,5% (from 392 x sec to 362 x sec in their Healing Signet passive regeneration, which means not much (anyway that signet didn’t bother me at all) while we take a massive cooldown penalty in our active defense. Is not even remotely equal. In a 60 sec rotation the three meditations + Shelter + F2 passive + F2 activasion still fell behind the sustained 392 x sec from Warrior’s (not even taking into the equation banners or healing shouts).

Also, Warriors currently had 3 viable healing skills (all of them valuable, people is abusing HS just because doesn’t require any management), whereas Guardians had one good healing skills (Shelter) another mediocre one (Signet of Resolve) and two useless ones (Heling Breeze and Litany).

I don’t want nerfs against Warriors, I think we had the tools to deal against them; with a 10% reduction in or dps and a 1/3 reduction in our evading potential I no longer known how a Guardian can deal against a condition bunker -no matter what class- if equal skill is involved. Is like a feather weight against a cruise weight.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Lord-Helseth-Opinion-on-the-Ready-up/first

Judging by the dev post in the above thread, I am led to assume that there is going to be massive nerfs to certain sigils in order to balance the changes. Given that there are a lot of powerful combinations that involve the energy sigil, I am going to assume that it will be nerfed into the ground. My WvW guardian heavily relies on energy sigils, so if the nerf occurs I will be annoyed and prefer to just revert back to 1 sigil on my two-hander.