Guild Wars 2

Right now, in terms of practical use, I find that Renewed Focus is great, low CD and its useful to self and to the party if you traited Virtues. I find all 3 elites great but I have a little problem;

Tomes, while definitively not underpowered, feel underwhelming,and when I say underwhelming I dont meant as in the spells dont feel powerful, but rather that the elite feels alien and too short lived for its purpose, even if traited for 30 secs duration.

For such a fun skills, they seem to last 5 second at most, they make you feel powerful and like a holy mage but by the time you are getting the flavor of it, it runs out, leaving you with a very bitter taste and a long CD.

Suggestion: Increase the CD on the #5 spells to 40-45 seconds (instead of 30), increase the CD of some of the other spells too, perhaps even tone down the effects a bit, but increase the raw damage of some of those spells. But allow the Tomes to be sort of a toggle, that once you turn it down, it goes on a 1 minute cooldown.

Using Tome of Wrath #1 is fun, like…REALLY fun, it would be great to have it more often available, same with the knockdown and the cripple, as well as the buff….and you know what, the entire kit, same for the other tome. As for balance, I highly doubt people would sit on it all day since it locks you out of weapon skills and utilities, but I would love to use it in big team fights for more than a heartbeat.

Some might argue that the skill would lose its “powerful” status but I think that a guy holding a giant book looking all almighty and casting 1200 range cool looking abilities would never get old.

Thoughts, improvements?

Just for clarification, are you asking that the duration of the tomes be removed with a increase of CD on the tome’s skills as balancing?

Not a bad idea if so. Another spin would be to increase the duration of the tomes, reduce the tome’s skills potency as balancing. Or decrease the CD entirely and decrease the tome’s skills potency as balancing.

Tomes would be really fun and add diversity if they were used as a toggle weapon option rather than the thing we have now.

Ofcourse they would need a total revamp if that happens.

I love the idea of tomes, but hate the implementation of them. It leaves guardians little option but to slot anything other than renewed focus; which is a great ability, but it doesn’t necessarily seems ‘elite’ to me.

Love the idea of it being on a really short cool down with longer cool down on the abilities. The weapon swap would be best, but wouldn’t really fit with the concept of elite skills, so the cool down option could work close to that if done right.

Perikittenor.1892:

Tomes would be really fun and add diversity if they were used as a toggle weapon option rather than the thing we have now.

Ofcourse they would need a total revamp if that happens.

I use the Tome from time to time but more importantly I zero in on the opposing enemy in WvW when I see them bust it out. The support/healing one is good but boy does it scream ATTACK ME.

Crapgame.6519:

Perikittenor.1892:

Tomes would be really fun and add diversity if they were used as a toggle weapon option rather than the thing we have now.

Ofcourse they would need a total revamp if that happens.

I use the Tome from time to time but more importantly I zero in on the opposing enemy in WvW when I see them bust it out. The support/healing one is good but boy does it scream ATTACK ME.

It does scream attack me but i don’t always see that as a bad thing. Now i am slightly over killed on toughness but when i bring the book out i have. 30k hp, 4500 armor and perma protection. If they even attempt to attack me with none condition attacks i usually laugh and walk around with the book shouting. And even against condi it has a projectile to cleanse on yourself.

The downside is that i lose my Virtues while using the book, cause you know. Guardians are not supposed to use Virtues, and i lose my utility skills cause fudge yeah why the fudge not!!! So yeah, those things are kinda annoying.

Perikittenor.1892:

Crapgame.6519:

Perikittenor.1892:

Tomes would be really fun and add diversity if they were used as a toggle weapon option rather than the thing we have now.

Ofcourse they would need a total revamp if that happens.

I use the Tome from time to time but more importantly I zero in on the opposing enemy in WvW when I see them bust it out. The support/healing one is good but boy does it scream ATTACK ME.

If they even attempt to attack me with none condition attacks i usually laugh and walk around with the book shouting. And even against condi it has a projectile to cleanse on yourself.

You know, reading what you just replied with made me giggle a little bit by the image of a guardian walking around holding a book. I mean it is a neat animation and all but for some reason it just hit me So thanks

I in no way mean this in a bad way – just saying when I read it I smiled.

I’ve always thought Tomes would be vastly superior if they replaced your Utility and not Weapon skills. I.e., letting you continue fighting as normal while replacing your #6, 7, 8, 9, 0 with the Tome skills.

Against kittened foes they are, you will become a god walking amongst mere mortals, until you meet someone who know what stun and interrupt is.

Then you realize that the book skills are terrible if your opponents can press a button. The passive stats are nice though to mitigate some damage and aggro foes away from your weaker zerker allies, and by foes i mean other players. Cause if you bring that kitten out, be ready to be the primary target by anyone that see you have it out.

So it is not a terrible elite, especially not against people who would be stated as being, special. But for its cooldown it usually does not pay off.

“Missread what you meant Kilandros, and your ide sounds awesome. Even more awesome than keeping utility and trading of weapon slots for the tome ide.”

Tome of courage is my favorite thing in the game and it’s not true that good players can just cc you, you can cast stand your ground as its casting, you can put hallowed ground up, you can get stealth/stability from a teammate etc., with healing power Tome #1 is a very powerful heal, all of the abilities are super strong IMHO.

Get some support from your group if you cant make the most of it, it’s not an easy thing to use and takes timing and seeing what may be about to unfold damage-wise.

Here is a vid I made recently with Elite Focus(30 sec tome) healing in small group WvW, I feel like it’s key to winning hard fights and it can make normal fights easy against a group that won’t get a full heal or near perma regen/prot or 2 wide radius aoe dazes etc.

Wanna point out another thing, burn all your cooldowns before a tome, after you make the most of the 20 or 30 seconds in tome you can come out with all or most of those cooldowns back up.

Also I shouldn’t just mention small group stuff, I feel like too many Guards dont run tome with healing in a zerg fight, I love jumping in on a huge keep push and spam #1 for 30 seconds on the frontline while dodge rolling with sigil of stamina, really gives the frontline a full head of steam getting constant 2k heals. Anyways yea i’m a bit of a Tome fanboy.

Well don’t throw the get support from group as a thing. If you are allowed to be protected by allies, are not your foes allowed to coordinate. Or are you using the book in a 5 vs 1 fight?

The stability before you go into the book is one of the few things that are really good however and that one is a good point, but it is kinda obvious already and i think most of us use it, yet sometimes you cant time them together as you might have used one stability to get you out of a pinch.

Fortus.6175:

they make you feel powerful and like a holy mage

Ikr? :p

Personally, I think a duration buff would be nice (along with increasing the cd on the #5 skills), perhaps via the trait that increases their duration. Alternatively, they could do something like the elementalist’s conjured weapons, and essentially let you pull out weaker versions of Tome of Courage and Tome of Wrath. I’d really love that.

Also:

Tome of courage is my favorite thing in the game and it’s not true that good players can just cc you, you can cast stand your ground as its casting, you can put hallowed ground up, you can get stealth/stability from a teammate etc., with healing power Tome #1 is a very powerful heal, all of the abilities are super strong IMHO.

This.

Perikittenor.1892:

Well don’t throw the get support from group as a thing. If you are allowed to be protected by allies, are not your foes allowed to coordinate. Or are you using the book in a 5 vs 1 fight?

The stability before you go into the book is one of the few things that are really good however and that one is a good point, but it is kinda obvious already and i think most of us use it, yet sometimes you cant time them together as you might have used one stability to get you out of a pinch.

He means like have someone stealth you so you can pop the five heal.

I usually end up using it without stealth. In the middle of a fight, people might have burned their CC already and you can maybe get the 5 skill off 50/50 of the time. All the book’s skills are great though. Sometimes there’s not even a need for the 5 skill.

The thing that bothers me about it is you can’t revive someone with it on.

Never said the tome (yes tome, Courage is awesome but Wrath is terrible) was bad, i am actually using courage about 90% of the time rather than renewed focus. But it would be nice for it to be different. It is rather easily countered considering a 180 second and it would be nice to either buff or change it.

Of course buffing would not imply to make it really really insane, but maybe only a small increase in duration. Wrath do however need a rework.

I think the problem is when to use the Tomes, just like all skills there is a time and place for them to be most effective. While getting through the new LW content I should have brought a Tome because RF primarily sat there without a reason to be popped. While I did use the Virtues, nothing had yet prompted me to tap all three and then RF.

However now that I think about it, I could have used Wrath more than Courage a few times. I do think the Tomes are fine though, again to my first paragraph, it’s all about when, where, and how to use them.

They should make tomes like engineer kits. But nerf them to accomodate that change.

Aza.2105:

They should make tomes like engineer kits. But nerf them to accomodate that change.

hummm i would love if guardian tomes worked like that :|.

Am i the only one that tends to run into 3 stun lock wars and their d/d ele friend in WvW when trying to use tomes?

Perikittenor.1892:

Tomes would be really fun and add diversity if they were used as a toggle weapon option rather than the thing we have now.

Ofcourse they would need a total revamp if that happens.

Yes! I’ve been saying that about a lot of skills for a long time now.

Giving them the ‘engi kit’ treatment would be awesome.

Engineer: Mortar
Guardian: Both Tomes
Warrior: Rampage
Char Racial: Charzooka
Asura Racial: Powersuit
Human Racial: Grenth Reaper
Norn Racial: Animal forms

Of course…. the downside is they’d all need to be heavily rebalanced to account for the toggle/unlimited duration.

But it’d be REALLY awesome and add tons of new options and gameplay in the long run.

I’ve always liked the tomes. I would like it if they lasted a bit longer even if it was at the expense of longer cooldowns. It is pretty fun to use. I have a dedicated healer in the group I usually run with, so I rarely have a need for Tome of Courage, but Wrath is fun to bust out when you have a team supporting you and can just start blasting people with it. Alone it’s a bad idea to whip either of them out. I learned that the hard way a long time ago when I first made a guardian.

No, decrease the cooldown of all 5 skills, i mean the kitten it is an elite skill! The duration should be 30 seconds by default and the cooldown of the elite itself should be about 120s.

I really don’t know but buff the kitten all the elites really hard. They are all extremely underwhelming and don’t feel anything elite… Most people just stick 99% of the time to renewed focus cuz it has at least some use (still totally underwhelming). Take some examples form guild wars 1 where there were elites that killed whole groups (Ray of Judgment). Where is all this super strong stuff? I really miss it. Everything feels underwhelming.

Oh btw i mean all the elites of all professions, even more the totally ridiculous bad racial. they are for nothing kitten .

Yeah, the GW1 elites were real elites. Most of the elites in this game feel like utility slots.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Yeah, the GW1 elites were real elites. Most of the elites in this game feel like utility slots.

QFT

I don’t use tomes because the cast times are brutal. 3/4s x3, 2s, 4.25s. The spells are powerful, but it takes so long to do anything. It just feels clunky. I get it, the aoe full heal is powerful, but it’s an elite — it’s supposed to be powerful without having some huge drawback. 4.25s channel time is a pretty freaking big drawback, especially when you have to stand still to do it. Combat in this game is so mobile, and tomes root us in place for massive periods of time. Whenever I tried using my healing tome 5, I found that the guys I was trying to heal done instinctively ran the hell away rather than staying in the fight to die. When I try to use the aoe daze, the fight has already shifted away from me and there’s few enemies nearby.

If I could move while using the tome’s powerful skills, I’d consider taking it.

If you’re good at positioning and timing, then you’d feel how powerful they really are.

The tome heal allows your team to facetank some bosses in dungeons or resist an onslaught in a huge team fight in WvW. It seems to work fine to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of the tome. They look cool and the spells are powerful, but I hardly can pull off wrath #5. Either I have to move, or the enemies go down by the massive damage other players are doing. Also, I can pull off some other attacks/spells while I cast this spell. It is mitigated a bit by the #4 which gives quickness, but still…

As far as Elites go, Renewed Focus is fine and well, and I use it, and it’s helpful…but only so long as you never ever try to compare it to the elites of other professions.

Honestly, I’d trade my right kidney for Signet of Rage. Can you believe Warriors get 30(s) Swiftness, Fury and Might stacks on a 60 second timer? With the signet recharge trait and boon duration they can go inf. pretty easy.

Sure, 2 seconds of invuln then recharging virtues is nice, but it absolutely doesn’t compare.

I could never really get behind the tomes.

From an SPvP point of view the tome elites are rarely used. In fact, I can’t remember seeing one used in competitive play since March.

Tomes are extremely underwhelming since they have extremely low CDs, very long, easily interruptable casts, and very obvious animations.

I like the idea of making it a separate weapon choice, similar to how Engineer kits work. I think the best way to implement that would be the following:
(Template: Skill Name | cast time | CD | mechanic)
Tome of Courage – instant | 15s | Summon a tome that replaces your weapon skills with powerful healing and support abilities. (Utilities are disabled while using the Tome—Virtues are still available).

• Heal Area – 0.5s | 0s | Every time you cast this, consume a Heal Area stack. Can only have up to 10 stacks. Passively gain a stack every 4s while Tome of Courage is in your skill bar.
• Purifying Ribbon – 0.75s | 3s | Same behavior but add ally targeting, so you can have the initial Ray hit an ally first for better condition cleasing. Right now it’s very RNG.
• Protective Spirit – 0.75s | 15s | Same behavior.
• Pacifism – 2s | kitten | Remove 1 boon, daze for 3s and apply Aegis to all allies in the AoE range. (Blockable by Aegis or any other block).
  • Boonrip Table: Stability, Protection, Might, Swiftness, Regeneration, Fury, Vigor, Retaliation.
• Light of Deliverance – 4.25s | 180 s | Full heal and cleanse all conditions of nearby allies (Max 5).

These changes would allow Tome of Courage to be a strong pick, but not extremely overpowered so as to overshadow Renewed Focus. It also makes it not feel like an absolute waste if you are CC’d out of it (like any good player will do to you if they see you pop a Tome).

Tome of Wrath – instant | 15s | yaddi yaddi yadda

• Conflagrate – 0.5s | 0s | Similar behavior Heal Area but damage enemies instead.
• Affliction – 1.25s | 15s | Change to AoE instead of projectile. All enemies in the AoE range are crippled, weakened (5 stacks) for 10s.
• Smiter’s Boon – 1s | 15s | Same behavior but increase duration to 10s.
• Zealot’s Fervor – 2s | 30s | Same behavior but increase durationo to 15s and 5s accordingly.
• Judgment – 4.25s | 90s | Remove 1 boon, knockdown foes for 3s. Allies gain Might (2 stacks) for 5s for each enemy that is knocked down by the effect. (Blockable by Aegis or any other block).
  • Same boonrip table as Light of Deliverance.

Lastly, the Elite Focus trait should reduce the cast times of these abilities by 20% and increase the maximum number of stacks the Guardian can hold from 10 to 15.

I am a PvX player, have ran many dungeons on my guard as well as relatively high fractals, but these days until next Tuesday I play mainly organized WvW.

I find tomes to be very underpowered in comparison with Renewed Focus. If I use a Tome of Wrath on a dungeon boss it is nearly useless in comparison with being traited into virtues and buffing the DPS toons in my party both defensively and offensively at same time. The damage increase for them is far greater then what the tome provides, hence Renewed Focus wins hands down.

In WvW likewise, both Tome of Wrath and Tome of Courage are nearly pointless in comparison with Vitues. Main reason: Lack of Stability while using the tome. In order for the tome to be effective I have to have another guard in my party providing stability for me while I use it. I tried it many times. I think I actually managed to get a “Judgement” off on my opponents maybe twice, literally, since the game launched due to its cast time. Yea I know I can pop my own stability then go tome, but that is not enough, boon stripping, and CC make it an overall worthless ability without being to pop my own while in the “tome mode”.

One solution that I see, is to let us continue to use our virtues while we are using the tome. That would make these far more usable, or maybe scale down some of the abilities and reduce their cooldowns, for example, on Judgement and lower its cast time accordingly, etc.

These need to be seriously reworked.

Tongku.5326:

In order for the tome to be effective I have to have another guard in my party providing stability for me while I use it. I tried it many times. I think I actually managed to get a “Judgement” off on my opponents maybe twice, literally, since the game launched due to its cast time. Yea I know I can pop my own stability then go tome, but that is not enough, boon stripping, and CC make it an overall worthless ability without being to pop my own while in the “tome mode”.

I think this is crazy, just pop stand your ground as tome is being cast, or put hallowed ground down, or ask a groupmate for stability or stealth. It IS enough, I cast full heals uninterrupted all day every day and it wins fights, and aoe dazes and I give out 14 and a half seconds of protection/regen, all the time, on cooldown, with 30 seconds of tome of courage.

I almost NEVER get interrupted with my tome out and I reset fights all the time, after a year of using tome of courage i’m going to say some of you just need to try harder and practice. It’s the most powerful ability in small group wvw in the game to me very clearly.

It’s also powerful in zerg fights, spam #1 while dodge healing with sigil of stamina for max possible group healing in the game.

Hallowed ground is an amazing ability that compliments tome of courage, it is truly amazing in small group play or zerg play(on a chokepoint/area of high CC), there are times where I see more than one problematic necro and I may put purging flames on instead but hallowed ground is a key player in winning fights quite regularly for me and my group, if you’re a healer, you put it down, you empower, healing breeze, tome full heal, whatever, not much is going to stop you.

Tomes 14 second regen/protection in a tough fight can mitigate more damage for 5 people than anything, 33% damage reduction, think about how much that adds up to over that long with regen ticking over 300.

Tome of Courage is heavily a group based elite and the more teamwork and communication you have the more it can turn fights around and win them I find, sometimes it should be used at the very start of a fight when you know your group is about to take a ton of damage, sometimes it should be saved… I think it’s the most difficult yet most powerful thing a guardian can use in group wvw.

To Incomingray.8075.

i will admit that hollowed ground, will directly support you in ways that enemies will have a huge disadvantage to counter, yet i find it weird that you rely on a 80 sec cool down to make a 180 sec cool down effective. I do however have some complains on your other reasoning.

I find it weird that you state that you have to rely on your allies, and yes. We all do rely on our allies for support in different situation. But if you are allowed to rely on your allies to give you stability and protecting you. Are not the enemies allowed to rely on there allies? Or are we talking a 5vs1 situation here, where you need to use the book?

If you can rely on allies to give you stability, I am rather sure. The enemies can rely on allies to strip boons on you as well. For me, skill number 5 in Courage will almost never go off, even when allies give me stability.

But i do however find the book 1: Target area healing
To be awesome.

And 3: Cone regeneration and protection (10) seconds, never add boon duration unless you state you are doing so.
Also awesome.

Number 2: has the potential to be awesome, cure condition and blind foes with bouncing effect, but as we all know it almost never hit its target.

Number 4 lack the same problem 5 do, cast time and have to stand still. 4 is a lot faster however and usually it will go off but not as often as you would like. What i find the book do as a awesome job however, is that it will lure hostiles away and make you into a sponge for almost all damage, and considering the +1000 toughness and +50% max health(think it is a % increase on toughness, but I am not sure.). It really do work wonders, especially since they can’t ignore you as well.

Tome of Courage is the only elite you should be running in WvW unless you’re roaming or driving. You don’t need stability to use it properly, you just need to understand positioning.

Perikittenor.1892:

To Incomingray.8075.

i will admit that hollowed ground, will directly support you in ways that enemies will have a huge disadvantage to counter, yet i find it weird that you rely on a 80 sec cool down to make a 180 sec cool down effective. I do however have some complains on your other reasoning.

For me it’s a 64 second cooldown, lasts 12 seconds due to the trait, I certainly don’t rely on it either, alot of times I get a mass invis or pop stand your ground or just watch what’s going on and try to cast it at the right time.

I find it weird that you state that you have to rely on your allies, and yes. We all do rely on our allies for support in different situation. But if you are allowed to rely on your allies to give you stability and protecting you. Are not the enemies allowed to rely on there allies? Or are we talking a 5vs1 situation here, where you need to use the book?

I find it weird that you somehow read that I have to rely on my allies I didn’t say I rely on them for anything… but yeah it’s a group elite.. mainly I get mass invis from a mesmer sometimes stealth from a thief, people can run all sorts of interference. I really don’t need stability or stealth either, they are just good insurance when it’s available, if we’re facing some kind of organized group i’ll try harder to go into tome with stability or a stealth ready.

If you can rely on allies to give you stability, I am rather sure. The enemies can rely on allies to strip boons on you as well. For me, skill number 5 in Courage will almost never go off, even when allies give me stability.

People very rarely strip stability off me, our group heavily employs arcane thievery on our focus targets that have stability however, it works great, people can try it on me but I often cast SYG while summoning tome and their window of opportunity to react is very small, there just aren’t that many good organized groups out there stripping boons on the right target I find.

But i do however find the book 1: Target area healing
To be awesome.

And 3: Cone regeneration and protection (10) seconds, never add boon duration unless you state you are doing so.
Also awesome.

I would say #3 is beyond awesome, I added boon duration because I think any healer build will have 20 or 30 in virtues anyways and alot of people have some boon duration in their runes, my regen/prot last 14.5 seconds and I can cast it twice, thats half a minute of my group taking 33% less damage, I can put hold the line up before and after also, in some fights #3 is the most important thing tome can do, think how much damage is mitigated in a tough outnumbered fight with the 30 seconds of protection.

Number 2: has the potential to be awesome, cure condition and blind foes with bouncing effect, but as we all know it almost never hit its target.

It hits targets just fine for me, weird.

Number 4 lack the same problem 5 do, cast time and have to stand still. 4 is a lot faster however and usually it will go off but not as often as you would like. What i find the book do as a awesome job however, is that it will lure hostiles away and make you into a sponge for almost all damage, and considering the +1000 toughness and +50% max health(think it is a % increase on toughness, but I am not sure.). It really do work wonders, especially since they can’t ignore you as well.

I manage to get off both aoe dazes with elite focus usually, tricky part is making sure they don’t all have stability and you aren’t blinded, clear blind or their aegis with #2 or a few seconds of patience and then cast if you have trouble with it, in my experience it’s super effective.

Check out my video peri to see how it’s working for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdPs52iTeA8

Oh yeah one important point, be an Asuran Guardian! Sometimes I get my casts off cause i’m small and hiding.

Incomingray.8075:

Tongku.5326:

In order for the tome to be effective I have to have another guard in my party providing stability for me while I use it. I tried it many times. I think I actually managed to get a “Judgement” off on my opponents maybe twice, literally, since the game launched due to its cast time. Yea I know I can pop my own stability then go tome, but that is not enough, boon stripping, and CC make it an overall worthless ability without being to pop my own while in the “tome mode”.

I think this is crazy, just pop stand your ground as tome is being cast, or put hallowed ground down, or ask a groupmate for stability or stealth. It IS enough, I cast full heals uninterrupted all day every day and it wins fights, and aoe dazes and I give out 14 and a half seconds of protection/regen, all the time, on cooldown, with 30 seconds of tome of courage.

I almost NEVER get interrupted with my tome out and I reset fights all the time, after a year of using tome of courage i’m going to say some of you just need to try harder and practice. It’s the most powerful ability in small group wvw in the game to me very clearly.

It’s also powerful in zerg fights, spam #1 while dodge healing with sigil of stamina for max possible group healing in the game.

Hallowed ground is an amazing ability that compliments tome of courage, it is truly amazing in small group play or zerg play(on a chokepoint/area of high CC), there are times where I see more than one problematic necro and I may put purging flames on instead but hallowed ground is a key player in winning fights quite regularly for me and my group, if you’re a healer, you put it down, you empower, healing breeze, tome full heal, whatever, not much is going to stop you.

Tomes 14 second regen/protection in a tough fight can mitigate more damage for 5 people than anything, 33% damage reduction, think about how much that adds up to over that long with regen ticking over 300.

Tome of Courage is heavily a group based elite and the more teamwork and communication you have the more it can turn fights around and win them I find, sometimes it should be used at the very start of a fight when you know your group is about to take a ton of damage, sometimes it should be saved… I think it’s the most difficult yet most powerful thing a guardian can use in group wvw.

Hollowed Ground is completely useless due to combat mobility. The few times I got my judgement off was exactly as you stated, in choke points vs pugs. Unfortunately, 75% of the time we go against skilled groups, anyone standing in or near a choke on eitehr side will just keel over like a zerk pug regardless of what they have or have not running on them.

Yea, go ahead, pop all your stabilities, aegis, hallowed ground, etc, stand in the choke and wait for the super tight super organized 28 man hammertrain backed up by 10 necros and 4 mesmers, see how that goes for ya. Your tome sure is gonna go off a lot while you’re bounced around like a ping pong if you dont just melt in the 1st second.

Right now virtues are superior due to their insta cast and mobility. Being stationary due to Hallowed Ground or Purging Flames is the last thing we do when fighting.

On the flipside, purging flames is great in PvE, stationary condi removal + might stacks via fire field + extra dmg on dungeon bosses works super. Just like the the healing tome works on the zerk warriors …

Tongku.5326:

Hollowed Ground is completely useless due to combat mobility.

Strange how you call something that grants combat mobility useless due to combat mobility, i’m not trying to solo a 28 man, its a key player in winning fights frequently for me, i’m sorry it’s completely useless for you in how you play.

Perikittenor.1892:

The downside is that i lose my Virtues while using the book, cause you know. Guardians are not supposed to use Virtues, and i lose my utility skills cause fudge yeah why the fudge not!!! So yeah, those things are kinda annoying.

at the least this needs to be changed, why do we lose access to our virtures and utilities when using these elites?
Is this the case for other “transformation” elites. aside from having a bulleye on your face when you use it I avoid the tomes because the duration is really short and the control/playstyle is far too jarring for me. I’d prefer they’re more like a new weapon set so I still have access to my other abilities.

Incomingray.8075

You are still assuming to much, and as we all know. Assumption is the father of failure.
Use concrete facts rather than assume a lot.

Not everyone uses boon duration. Not everyone uses Virtue traits, not everyone is fighting against poor enemies.

If you start to calculate with positive bonuses such as your allies give you stability, then you calculate that the opponent can remove it.

And Yes rajule.8054.

As far as i know, all transformation are considered to be so overpowered by Anet that anyone that uses them, lose all weaponskills, Utility skills, healing skills and class specific skills. And that is why we see a lot of Tomes or a lot of Warriors with there transformation, or Norn with racial transformation. Hell i see atleast fifty Azura create Golem suits a day(Not being sarcastic at all)

To be honest, besides Engineer kits who actually work in a awesome way. Tomes are considered the strongest Transformation skills in the game. And we still lose Utility, Healing and Virtue skills while we change to it. Oh and when the tome disappear it will lose the boon no mather the duration, (Courage lose Protection. Wrath lose retaliation)

Perikittenor.1892:

Incomingray.8075

You are still assuming to much, and as we all know. Assumption is the father of failure.
Use concrete facts rather than assume a lot.

Not everyone uses boon duration. Not everyone uses Virtue traits, not everyone is fighting against poor enemies.

If you start to calculate with positive bonuses such as your allies give you stability, then you calculate that the opponent can remove it.

I’ve been very specific about the situations i’m talking about its use in(wvw, always full of good and bad players), and really 10 second protection 14 second protection either way it’s helpful but i’ve been talking about being a healing based Guardian which means you at least have 20 in virtues probably 30, I really think you’re nitpicking over nothing, no boon duration doesn’t change things all that much.

Also are you aware that Hallowed ground keeps reapplying stability, it’s not just a one time stability that can be removed easily, just want to make sure, with some people saying it’s useless it makes me wonder.

Incomingray.8075:

I’ve been very specific about the situations i’m talking about its use in(wvw, always full of good and bad players), and really 10 second protection 14 second protection either way it’s helpful but i’ve been talking about being a healing based Guardian which means you at least have 20 in virtues probably 30, I really think you’re nitpicking over nothing, no boon duration doesn’t change things all that much.

Also are you aware that Hallowed ground keeps reapplying stability, it’s not just a one time stability that can be removed easily, just want to make sure, with some people saying it’s useless it makes me wonder.

This. Strip it as they might, with each pulse Stability is granted. It would take hardcore coordination of more than one profession to keep on stripping each proc of Stability on one Guardian with a Tome. I don’t think that happens.

I like Tome of Wrath for trolling in WvW when we hold a chokepoint. Get at least 5 guardians with it to hit that Judgement as your Mesmers use Null field to strip the frontlines stability for some laughs as you kd at least 20 people (if you are lucky). Though it is situational, more for trolling, only thing i can really see for great usage of this tome besides chokepoint laughs, are Smiter’s Boon for fast might stacking (but there are better and more reliable ways to build might). But alas, it is funny to see a Gandalf defense, where your guardians cycle through their tomes, Sanctuary, line of warding and ring of warding at chokepoints to farm the enemy.

Either reduce CD or increase duration, but Im definitely down for 90-120 sec CD

While the CD of #5 skill Judgment of Tome of Wrath is way too long and there is no longer stability granted, Anet should really make it immune to blind when casting the skill like engineer since a simple blind can easily prevent the skill from hitting which is ridiculous because there is no condition removal while holding a tome. I can say that I only used this skill in PvP and WvW no more than ten times since I started playing this game a year ago.