I saw Tomes are now eliminated as skills in the update. Does anyone know what would be their equivalent/replacements? Those were my big elite skills that I loved.
Tome Replacements?
The tomes were largely converted into the two new elite skills.
Tome of Wrath became Feel My Wrath while Tome of Courage became Signet of Courage . Both skills lost their AoE control elements, but give much better access to the other major skill people tended to use them for.
Mixing insults with your post is like pooping in a salad.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
Deleted unfortunately. Simplified/watered-down versions exist as Feel My Wrath and Signet of Courage, although one of the ANet devs said that they’d like to bring tomes back in a future elite specialization. When, or whether or not that actually happens is unknown. Personally I wouldn’t expect much; ANet has disappointed me enough.
The tomes were largely converted into the two new elite skills.
Tome of Wrath became Feel My Wrath while Tome of Courage became Signet of Courage . Both skills lost their AoE control elements, but give much better access to the other major skill people tended to use them for.
Feel My Wrath is great in PvE and decent in PvP, but Signet of Courage is basically just a terrible version of Tome of Courage.
(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)
Tomes were kinda useless, at least Feel My Wrath gives me a reason to slot something other then Renewed Focus. Its a good change.
“We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.”
Its a good change.
Don’t say that as if it was objective. It was a good change for people too short-sighted to see the use and appeal of tomes; even then I think everyone can agree that Signet of Courage isn’t very good. Either way, with the tome elite trait becoming baseline, the new Force of Will, and the changes to burning, I’d imagine tomes would’ve been pretty good right about now.
Feel My Wrath is great in PvE and decent in PvP, but Signet of Courage is basically just a terrible version of Tome of Courage.
SoC is pretty good if you’re having trouble in Thaumanova Reactor fractal heat room. It heals past Poison, Agony, and any other healing reduction. Had a bit of trouble during a 5 Guard run.
Its a good change.
Don’t say that as if it was objective. It was a good change for people too short-sighted to see the use and appeal of tomes; even then I think everyone can agree that Signet of Courage isn’t very good. Either way, with the tome elite trait becoming baseline, the new Force of Will, and the changes to burning, I’d imagine tomes would’ve been pretty good right about now.
You’re welcome to your opinion. But I say let those books burn. If Anet had given us the Shout and Sig at the start then changed them to the books later every one would be in agreement of just how bad they were. Feel petty cut and dry to me.
“We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.”
(edited by Talyn.3295)
Its a good change.
Don’t say that as if it was objective. It was a good change for people too short-sighted to see the use and appeal of tomes; even then I think everyone can agree that Signet of Courage isn’t very good. Either way, with the tome elite trait becoming baseline, the new Force of Will, and the changes to burning, I’d imagine tomes would’ve been pretty good right about now.
They were collectively pretty bad. Timer too short (even traited), effects too short, casts time was too long, and unless traited you couldn’t even fire off all the given attacks, much less wait to time them correctly. (Unless you perfectly ok with wasting a huge amount of its uptime for a couple of attacks)
They would had made tons more sense if they were based on Charges (with a long decay timer); or had them as a stationary version of the Ventari’s Tablet field mechanics we are seeing now (albeit much bigger), to turn the area into an arena. Then source all wave attacks from the Tome toward the player, and make the faster skills more mobile.
And thats what the redesign was meant to do…. make those 2 skills much more mobile, since the big problem with Tomes has always been timing. It was nigh useless in PvE just because the output of those skills are more sustain themed.
Thanks, all. I discovered Signet of Courage after I asked the question. Lol. It’s okay, though I miss some of the other skills. It’s better than not having it at all I guess?
Thanks for the tip of Feel My Wrath. It’s still not as useful as the tome, but whatever. Games change, nerf happens. *shrugs
Tomes could return in the future Guard elite specialization.
I still don’t like signet of courage for the fact that I can’t move while activating the skill.
Those armadillos would be a lot cooler if they looked more like real armadillos. mmm armadillos
-BnooMaGoo.5690
-BnooMaGoo.5690
You couldn’t do the same with #5 on tome of courage so I dont know why you’re complaining. Its an Ok signet I prefer it more so than the tome. If anything you wish to have the tomes back because you like the style and appearance but in reality tomes were clunky, annoying, and time consuming to use. Every guard in my guild always ran renewed focus. We had no need to run tomes because we had mesmers running Timewarp for AoE quickness and Elementalists with healing and condi removal. so That made tomes utterly worthless in their mechanics. I loved tomes dont get me wrong but the mechanics for them were so very wrong. They were so badly botched…..they should of made tomes a kit rather than a summonable booklet. But if you’re gunna praise and make them seem like they were the highlight skill arc of the guardian than prepare to be disagreed with. What they should do next time if and when they bring back tomes is make them a kit for guardians. And not what they were before. They should not have cooldowns and they should accurately reduce the functions, damage, timers, and abilities for them to equalize them so they are not to terribly over powered.
You couldn’t do the same with #5 on tome of courage so I dont know why you’re complaining. Its an Ok signet I prefer it more so than the tome.
The difference is that Tome of Courage (with the trait, which would’ve been baseline) provided everything you needed to pull off Light of Deliverance (in addition to its unrivaled allied healing and cleansing). When using Signet of Courage, you don’t have perma-protection, you don’t have boosted vitality/toughness, and you’ll often end up using at least one virtue and/or one utility to pull it off, and if you don’t then you’ll likely be dead.
(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)
I love the shout, it basically does what we used ToW for anyways, big damage.
The signet, I feel, might need some tweaking. The healing is strong but extremely unreliable and the active is useful only for PvE, where you can pull it off.
Signet of Courage:
Passive: Heals nearby allies for 500 every 5 seconds. Radius 450
Active: Gain stability for 10 seconds (5 stacks) and restore 5 nearby allies to full health. 4 seconds cast time, can be cast while moving.
That’s just my two cents to make it worthy of being called Elite.
With how overpowered burning is right now, you guys would be sorely missing Tome of Wrath with that aoe burning spam on 1…imagine the mayhem and tears of all the melting people. THAT would have been burst dps on a cooldown, now its just a boon bot.
Yah we traded for a downgrade in damage, but gained pve group utility (pvp people tend to use renewed focus still, and signet of courage is meh).
Feel my Wrath is half the utility that tome of wrath was able to provide, which is simply haste on demand…i didn’t use tome of wrath for the haste though, and i dont think many did except for very small percentages of the dungeon crowd.
Signet of Courage is all the bad of tome of courage without any of the good, long cast time interrupt-able full heal. Yet you don’t gain stability when traited, you dont get increased stats when in “tome form” to soak up more damage while trying to channel it, and you don’t get an aoe heal spam on the 1 key.
I see the signet and shout as subpar potential to what the tomes “could” have been if they were tweeked more.
(edited by CMF.5461)
With how overpowered burning is right now, you guys would be sorely missing Tome of Wrath with that aoe burning spam on 1…imagine the mayhem and tears of all the melting people. THAT would have been burst dps on a cooldown, now its just a boon bot.
Yah we traded for a downgrade in damage, but gained pve group utility (pvp people tend to use renewed focus still, and signet of courage is meh).
Feel my Wrath is half the utility that tome of wrath was able to provide, which is simply haste on demand…i didn’t use tome of wrath for the haste though, and i dont think many did except for very small percentages of the dungeon crowd.
Signet of Courage is all the bad of tome of courage without any of the good, long cast time interrupt-able full heal. Yet you don’t gain stability when traited, you dont get increased stats when in “tome form” to soak up more damage while trying to channel it, and you don’t get an aoe heal spam on the 1 key.
I see the signet and shout as subpar potential to what the tomes “could” have been if they were tweeked more.
Yes I would totally love 2 stacks of burn for 2 secs while locking myself out of everything else >.> WW can give more stacks with VoJ thats how great the tome was.
Yes I would totally love 2 stacks of burn for 2 secs while locking myself out of everything else >.> WW can give more stacks with VoJ thats how great the tome was.
You don’t know how many stacks of burning it would’ve caused. Although conflagrate never did bad damage in the first place.
If the tomes were given a few buffs or were even just left alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d be to guardians what Rampage is to warriors right now (another skill that nobody used before).
On average it seems that burning went from 1 stack for duration into 3 stacks in intensity. That said it may have provided 3 stacks per for 3 seconds, providing about 6 stacks on average and the 9th stack dropping off constantly.
Beyond that WW is prone to multi hit weaknesses, in tune of retaliation. In WvW retal is much more prominent, and getting in the “thick” of things can equal death on top of killing yourself with WW.
Tomes provided some range and averaged out ae target damage with strikes, so you would not kill yourself on retal and you would not be standing in the kill zone while “locked out of your skills”.
l2p? But too late now, its all gone cause people couldn’t see beyond their own nose.
edit:
Just mashing together numbers real quick, a single stack of burning in condition gear now does about 450 damage traited with increased burning damage. 6 stacks of burning would be doing about 2700 damage a second to 5 targets.
Conditions have an increased cap way past 25, so multiple guardians stacking the old tomes on a zerg could be doing stupid amount of damage. 5 guards averaging 6 stacks each would have been 13,500 damage a second to 5 targets….
Damage so stupid it would have been broken admittedly, which is probably what provoked the change of tomes in the first place.
Not because the devs had our interests in mind, but they wanted to remove something they were not interested in or capable of trying to balance, so they put a bandaid patch on it and called it good.
We got less because they were afraid of what we could do in the future…thats like an back to the future nerf :p
(edited by CMF.5461)
Yes I would totally love 2 stacks of burn for 2 secs while locking myself out of everything else >.> WW can give more stacks with VoJ thats how great the tome was.
You don’t know how many stacks of burning it would’ve caused. Although conflagrate never did bad damage in the first place.
If the tomes were given a few buffs or were even just left alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d be to guardians what Rampage is to warriors right now (another skill that nobody used before).
an attack with no cooldown would never get more than 2 stacks per use and conflagrate always did less damage than sword/GS/Hammer AA in the same timeframe saying it was better than staff AA doesnt make it good. The only advantage it had over a weapon AA was the 5 target cap instead of 3 cause you could get longer burns through VoJ.
an attack with no cooldown would never get more than 2 stacks per use
Kind of like how you wouldn’t expect an auto-attack to be able to two-shot you (Lich Form)? Anything goes with elites, and an auto-attack which inflicts three stacks of burning is definitely not out of the question. Even with two stacks I wouldn’t say that’s weak either.
As you can see from CMF’s calculations, Tome of Wrath likely would’ve finally been great. With burning duration it would’ve been able to inflict three seconds of burning (for up to 9 stacks) as well.
The only advantage it had over a weapon AA was the 5 target cap instead of 3 cause you could get longer burns through VoJ.
Difference between those auto-attacks and conflagrate is that conflagrate is a 1200 range AoE. While mindless PvE trash mobs might take those weapon auto-attacks, players in PvP or WvW won’t just sit there in a bundle and take it. Conflagrate wasn’t exactly easy to avoid considering that it just popped up out of nowhere.
(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)
an attack with no cooldown would never get more than 2 stacks per use
Kind of like how you wouldn’t expect an auto-attack to be able to two-shot you (Lich Form)? Anything goes with elites, and an auto-attack which inflicts three stacks of burning is definitely not out of the question. Even with two stacks I wouldn’t say that’s weak either.
As you can see from CMF’s calculations, Tome of Wrath likely would’ve finally been great. With burning duration it would’ve been able to inflict three seconds of burning (for up to 9 stacks) as well.The only advantage it had over a weapon AA was the 5 target cap instead of 3 cause you could get longer burns through VoJ.
Difference between those auto-attacks and conflagrate is that conflagrate is a 1200 range AoE. While mindless PvE trash mobs might take those weapon auto-attacks, players in PvP or WvW won’t just sit there in a bundle and take it. Conflagrate wasn’t exactly easy to avoid considering that it just popped up out of nowhere.
How many times did you 2 shot someone with conflagrate before? That would probably be the same number of times you wouldve 2 shot ppl if the tome had remained. 0 times right? The only use the tome saw was giving golems quickness in wvw cause RF>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tome of Wrath offensively and defensively.
(edited by Vizardlorde.8243)
I actually couldn’t care less about the tomes. If it worked with your style of play then that’s cool and its too bad that its gone. That being said, I like the new elite skills. Did anyone notice that the shout has a 30sec cooldown? That is really really short for an elite skill imo. And the passive skill on the signet can actually scales really well with healing power.
Healing Passive Heal: 808 (0.5)
that combined with virtue of the resolve passive seems like more than enough healing for a lot of situations.
How many times did you 2 shot someone with conflagrate before?
What’s your point? You said a 0 second cooldown skill would never get 3 stacks of burning, and I said that that kind of logic shouldn’t apply to elite skills, and for the most part, that kind of logic really doesn’t apply to elite skills.
If you’re trying to imply that burning wasn’t that great before, and it still won’t be on the tome, well that simply isn’t true. There’s a reason guardian burning builds are kind of a thing right now.
(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)
chaplain,
A lot of people, myself included, feel that Signet of Courage has too long of a tick refresh, and it would be better suited if it was 3-5 seconds instead of every 10 seconds. A lot of damage can happen in 10 seconds and having more health in smaller chunks returning back to you more frequently would be better suited. In addition to it’s tiny radius could stand to go up to maybe 600 / shout range.
Also it still retains a significantly long cast time for the full group heal, which sounds reasonable. Then you realize that the old tomes could be traited to innately provide stability AND increased your stats to provide you with “transformed” health, providing a larger sponge to soak up damage while standing still and channeling for 4+ seconds. As it is now it is too difficult to cast in times of need either
A) people or yourself will be dead by the time you cast it
B) easily interrupted unless blowing another utility for stability, causing even more investment and loss for little reward
I did use Tome of Courage extensively for large group WvW group fights, because being able to maintain a high degree of healing via Heal Area was effective and could push the tide of the war, especially with multiple guardians. NOT because of the full heal which rooted me and was more risk than reward.
Feel My Wrath is perfect….for PvE players. Because incoming damage is not typically an issue with high outgoing dps, easily manipulated fight mechanics, and dodging/blocking/blinding. So there is no real need for Renewed Focus, but it was typically taken in old PvE builds because locking yourself out of a dps rotation of weapon swaps was more negative than positive. Now PvE players have a fire and forget source of damage/group utility. The only thing PvE players used Tome of Wrath for was a precast haste then dropped it back for initial engagement of the fight.
PvP/WvW people are experimenting, but I personally did NOT take Tome of Wrath for the haste. I took Tome of Wrath for conflagrate and area denial/pressure. It surprised many groups of people to be bursted down from a single guard from range, and if you have multiple guards it stacked the effect on a point target.
Single target to target engagements, Tome of Wrath was negative because it locked you out of utility and weapon skills, thus the more survival oriented Renewed Focus was taken ~90% of the time.
Yet when you have Necro wells, Ranger Barrages, Warrior combustive shots and arching arrows, Ele firestorms, Engineer grenades, Thief cluster bombs, Mesmer chaos storms and shatters…..then you had the guardian who could maybe lay a staff symbol down or run into the center of battle and embrace the melee damage and maybe get themselves downed….OR you could take the book and contribute to the ranged point AE.
I admit I ~90% of the time did NOT use tomes, but when I did it was NOT for the effects that were given to us with the new shout and signet. So for me, the new tome replacements are a nice gesture, but I feel they missed the target with what tomes were used for, which explains why tomes continued to suck for so long. The devs didn’t understand their strengths and weaknesses, so they didn’t know how to balance and improve them to useable gameplay.
As a class, we retain a low health pool and not sustainable healing, thus we rely on burst healing and a lot of active defense to survive. Renewed Focus provided a lot to the active defense as well as feeding into our other class mechanic of virtues and group utility, so it made it a superior elite to take.
After the changes, I guess the PvE guys have a fun boon bot shout now for haste? We were not really hurting for crit chance/fury so that’s just a mindless bonus that no one really cares about.
For the rest of us, nothing has changed post tome removal.
Then you realize that the old tomes could be traited to innately provide stability AND increased your stats to provide you with “transformed” health
Don’t forget the 1200 range AoE daze that Tome of Courage also offered to help you pull off LoD.
I did use Tome of Courage extensively for large group WvW group fights, because being able to maintain a high degree of healing via Heal Area was effective and could push the tide of the war, especially with multiple guardians. NOT because of the full heal which rooted me and was more risk than reward.
To be completely honest, Heal Area was probably the main reason I loved Tome of Courage so much (although I loved all of it). I would’ve been somewhat okay with Heal Area as a low cooldown consecration elite.
I only ever used Light of Deliverance if I really knew someone was going to get hit hard in the next few seconds.
(edited by Fashion Mage.3712)
How many times did you 2 shot someone with conflagrate before?
What’s your point? You said a 0 second cooldown skill would never get 3 stacks of burning, and I said that that kind of logic shouldn’t apply to elite skills, and for the most part, that kind of logic really doesn’t apply to elite skills.
If you’re trying to imply that burning wasn’t that great before, and it still won’t be on the tome, well that simply isn’t true. There’s a reason guardian burning builds are kind of a thing right now.
Burning builds are a thing because you can stack 15+ stacks with permeating wrath and supreme justice which your AMAZING TOME negates. And that logic does apply because lich form’s strongest skill is the auto attack by now its a running gag that power necro’s only need to press #1 to win because all of their high damage skills like LB and dagger are on AA. Every transformation elite has a strength and lich form’s is Burst damage no other transformation elite can come close to it except maybe rampage and that’s still lower cause its cc focused. Tome of wrath was more buffing oriented than dealing actual damage.
Burning builds are a thing because you can stack 15+ stacks with permeating wrath and supreme justice which your AMAZING TOME negates.
Permeating Wrath doesn’t increase the total number of stacks you would apply, and Supreme Justice only contributes a small amount but only to sustained burning rather than burst burning like you’re implying. Unsurprisingly, I’m pretty sure most burning builds use Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage instead.
And that logic does apply because lich form’s strongest skill is the auto attack by now its a running gag that power necro’s only need to press #1 to win because all of their high damage skills like LB and dagger are on AA. Every transformation elite has a strength and lich form’s is Burst damage no other transformation elite can come close to it except maybe rampage and that’s still lower cause its cc focused. Tome of wrath was more buffing oriented than dealing actual damage.
Tome of Wrath’s most powerful skills (outside of PvE) were probably Conflagrate and Judgment. Zealot’s Fervor was also good, but I wouldn’t say it was the focus of the tome. I usually just used it to decrease the cast time on Judgment or speed up Conflagrate spam.
If buffing was really the focus of the tome, I would’ve imagined Smiter’s Boon to grant a lot more stacks of might and the duration of Zealot’s Fervor to last longer. I would say buffing was only a part of what it was supposed to do. I don’t think it was intended to be its primary strength either, since it’s “ultimate” ability (Judgment) was a huge AoE CC nuke.
So is Rampage’s “strength” gaining ridiculous mobility/damage/tankiness/control/immunity to CC (ie. auto-winning) every fight where its used?
Ok obviously you dont know what you are talking about so im done here.
Saw that coming. :p
What they should do next time if and when they bring back tomes is make them a kit for guardians.
Funny that this should come up; because, I recently posted that exact idea of a future Guardian elite specialization returning Tomes as kits: