Guild Wars 2

Guys I’ve thought about a modification for guardian torch skills which could make the weapon more viable, at least in pvp. So I’d like to hear your suggestions/critics/etc.

-Torch 4-
Opinion: This is a great skill with great protential if traited in radiance. BIG damage and a low cooldown. Why if it sounds so great it’s not used?
Problem: A) Strafing. It will almost never hit a target that is moving due to the big fail in the targeting + its projectile speed (similar to the Scepter AA)
B) Same as a lot of other guard’s weapon skills it’s a projectile meaning it can get reflected and as told before, like scepter AA it will probably not hit or hit 1/10 of the times (at least in higher pvp levels).

-Torch 5-
Opinion: Cool concept and cool animation (the blue fire on guardian is amazing).
Problems: A) Lasts for too long and obvious animation (CC fest for any class since Anet decided to go the easy spam, mistake forgiving way which I do not share at all)
B) The cleansing doesn’t work on the caster
C) Some ppl may say the damage is bad though I do not agree, the concept was to cleanse, not to deal big damage WHILE cleansing
D) You breathe fire yet you don’t burn enemies
E) Cleansing moving allies can get difficult, same as landing Wings of Resolve on your allies.

Ok that’s a summary of my opinion regarding guardian torch skills. Now the solution

I suggest changing the dynamic of 4 OR 5. I had thought of making any of the torch skills similar to the fire attack of Captain Ashym (Urban Battlegrounds Fractal) (see Attached figure). Shortly: there’s a fire explosion centered in the caster.
By making the skill an AoE explosion you would get rid of the projetile hate and allow the guardian to stay on melee range which would once again bring the guard to the concept of “King of Melee” which happened when GW2 was released.

If torch 4 was modified the AoE burning would allow hybrid condi power builds to become available, you’d affect multiple enemies withing the explosion radius granting a burning AoE, hence granting on point pressure (it would require to reduce the damage or the burn stacking though)

If torch 5 was modified the AoE skill would allow an AoE condi cleanse which would be easier to land in the midst of a battle. The bad thing is, it would only cleanse 1 condi per ally (and caster) on the radius, thus a slight damage improve OR burning stack would be cool to be added.

Anyway that’s all.. tell me your opinions. I would like to discuss more on the concept rather than the OPness or not. The attributed should be discused later, just want to debate the idea.

Personally, I’d like to see the torch shine as a burn oriented weapon, while still maintaining its “cleanse with holy fire” theme. Here are my suggested changes:

Skill 4 – Zealot’s flame/fire

This skill is fine for the most part. But It would be cool if the zealot’s flame part of the skill (where you get set on fire) removed a condition from the user and nearby allies for each second the flame is active on you. This to me would be better suited as the condition remover skill and it would be easier to affect allies with it just by standing near them rather than trying to aim with Cleansing Flame.

Skill 5 – Cleansing Flame

Personally, I’d remove the condition removal from this skill. Instead, I’d change it so that Cleansing Flame removes boons from enemies with each tick and then applies a stack of burning for each boon removed.

This way the skill would still fit the theme of “cleansing” but you’re just cleansing the enemy of boons instead. I also think it makes more sense because the skill is much easier to aim on enemies than allies. The duration doesn’t need to change because the utility and burn these changes would add would make up for low physical dps and long cast time.

These two changes together I think would greatly improve the utility of torch, and make it more competitive as an offhand option (right now, there’s basically no reason to choose any other offhand over focus).

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Personally, I’d like to see the torch shine as a burn oriented weapon, while still maintaining its “cleanse with holy fire” theme. Here are my suggested changes:

Skill 4 – Zealot’s flame/fire

This skill is fine for the most part. But It would be cool if the zealot’s flame part of the skill (where you get set on fire) removed a condition from the user and nearby allies for each second the flame is active on you. This to me would be better suited as the condition remover skill and it would be easier to affect allies with it just by standing near them rather than trying to aim with Cleansing Flame.

Skill 5 – Cleansing Flame

Personally, I’d remove the condition removal from this skill. Instead, I’d change it so that Cleansing Flame removes boons from enemies with each tick and then applies a stack of burning for each boon removed.

This way the skill would still fit the theme of “cleansing” but you’re just cleansing the enemy of boons instead. I also think it makes more sense because the skill is much easier to aim on enemies than allies. The duration doesn’t need to change because the utility and burn these changes would add would make up for low physical dps and long cast time.

These two changes together I think would greatly improve the utility of torch, and make it more competitive as an offhand option (right now, there’s basically no reason to choose any other offhand over focus).

+1, I like these suggestions. We used to have a trait (before the trait/specializations revamp last summer) that removed boons on enemies that we burned. It was kind of a bummer to see that removed and not replaced anywhere else.

I agree with Arcaedus, this is a very good suggestion. +1’d.

When burn guardians were meta (for all of 2 weeks) the Torch was fine. My only complaint was Torch#5, it’s pulse cleansing effect felt sporadic. It was unclear whether or not its cleanse effected only 1 ally at a time, or if it cleansed off multiple players per pulse.

A lot of our core builds/traits were lost in HoT and is in desperate need of a buff.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Skill 4 – Zealot’s flame/fire

This skill is fine for the most part. But It would be cool if the zealot’s flame part of the skill (where you get set on fire) removed a condition from the user and nearby allies for each second the flame is active on you. This to me would be better suited as the condition remover skill and it would be easier to affect allies with it just by standing near them rather than trying to aim with Cleansing Flame.

Skill 5 – Cleansing Flame

Personally, I’d remove the condition removal from this skill. Instead, I’d change it so that Cleansing Flame removes boons from enemies with each tick and then applies a stack of burning for each boon removed.

This way the skill would still fit the theme of “cleansing” but you’re just cleansing the enemy of boons instead. I also think it makes more sense because the skill is much easier to aim on enemies than allies. The duration doesn’t need to change because the utility and burn these changes would add would make up for low physical dps and long cast time.

I don’t agree on number 4 to be honest. It would become too powerful as it would be the main condi cleanse of the guard ( 3 sec duration of the fire x2 if radiance traited) + it would still be a big damaging skill and would still lack effectiveness because of the targetting problem.
However your 5 suggestion was impecable. I really liked it and I liked the concept as well. So +1 for the n° 5 suggestion.

holychampion.7386:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Skill 4 – Zealot’s flame/fire

This skill is fine for the most part. But It would be cool if the zealot’s flame part of the skill (where you get set on fire) removed a condition from the user and nearby allies for each second the flame is active on you. This to me would be better suited as the condition remover skill and it would be easier to affect allies with it just by standing near them rather than trying to aim with Cleansing Flame.

Skill 5 – Cleansing Flame

Personally, I’d remove the condition removal from this skill. Instead, I’d change it so that Cleansing Flame removes boons from enemies with each tick and then applies a stack of burning for each boon removed.

This way the skill would still fit the theme of “cleansing” but you’re just cleansing the enemy of boons instead. I also think it makes more sense because the skill is much easier to aim on enemies than allies. The duration doesn’t need to change because the utility and burn these changes would add would make up for low physical dps and long cast time.

I don’t agree on number 4 to be honest. It would become too powerful as it would be the main condi cleanse of the guard ( 3 sec duration of the fire x2 if radiance traited) + it would still be a big damaging skill and would still lack effectiveness because of the targetting problem.
However your 5 suggestion was impecable. I really liked it and I liked the concept as well. So +1 for the n° 5 suggestion.

Yeah, number 4 might be too strong if we take into account the radiance trait for the free cleansing flame every 10 seconds.

In that case, it might be better if it just removes one condition from the player and nearby allies on the initial cast. Either that, or one condition on initial cast, and another when the skill ends. However, if you cast Zealot’s fire (the projectile) before it ends, you don’t get the second cleanse. That way it becomes a choice between a dps spike or a second cleanse.

Don’t bring burn guard back; it was stupid

Star.8401:

Don’t bring burn guard back; it was stupid

Why not? Other classes get to have condition build variants, why can’t guardian?

Star.8401:

Don’t bring burn guard back; it was stupid

How is it any “stupid” than condi Necro, Warrior, or Mesmers? At least our class genuinly took more skill than Mesmers, and was less faceroll than Necros.

Those who complained about burn guard simply had issues with conditions in general… notably 90% of QQ threads were bad Thieves.

To put it simply, it was a cheese build, although I’d say a lot of condition builds are. It did have an interesting counterplay to it compared to other condition builds in that if you remove burning then you remove the damage, but otherwise you’ll likely die in like 2 seconds or so. I guess it was probably comparatively more interesting to other condition cheese due to this, so there’s that.

We were talking about modifying a weapon’s mechanics, don’t stray off the thread subject please.

holychampion.7386:

We were talking about modifying a weapon’s mechanics, don’t stray off the thread subject please.

On the contrary, a lot of traits & mechanics were made unviable due to the game’s patches. That’s important to note for several reasons. One, Anet is not quick to alter a core weapon skill before touching a core trait. Two, players had very few issues with Torch during the meta Burn Guard phase compared to now. That was the point I was trying to make.

Sorry to burst your roleplay weapon-changing ideologies here but i’m speaking realistically for the sake of genuine Dev feedback.

You guys have to keep in mind that when we talk guardian balance, we’re not just looking at PvP. Burn Guardians might have been strong in PvP for a short time, but considering all their damage came from one condition, it also meant that it was easier to remove that damage completely even with the most simplistic condition removal methods.

That being said, guardians also exist in PvE as well and in that game mode in particular, they are in dire straights. The torch is really just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the fixes guardian needs to become more competitive again. But in terms of this particular discussion and the theme of the topic, as well as the viability of burn guardians it subsequently entails, I do think it would be nice to allow guardians to pursue burning builds as an alternative to their current dps meta.

The issue with guardian burn mechanics right now, is that 90% of our burning comes from virtue of justice. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s an interesting mechanic and it can be fun to use, but it suffers from a case of extremes. Against single targets, it’s very hard to apply any reasonable amount of burning. The duration of VoJ’s passive burn is not very high so even if you hit the enemy a lot, you won’t achieve the condition damage stacks that other classes are able to maintain a lot more easily.

On the flipside, if you fight five targets, and thus get 5x the number of hits in to proc VoJ, you then see astronomical burn numbers, albeit for a short time.

As a whole, the mechanics are very unbalanced and, subsequently, unreliable. Guardians have no true dedicated condition weapon sets to help maintain consistent burning against single targets, and rely on a class mechanic which has varying degrees of effectiveness depending on the situation. Let’s face it though, fighting trash mobs, where VoJ is at it’s most effective, is not really where the DPS matters, because they usually melt fast against groups either way. Where dps is needed most is usually against bosses, which are typically alone, and this is where VoJ fails.

I would personally like to see weapons like torch and maybe even sword be altered more to help apply conditions more reliably, against fewer or single targets, even if it means that VoJ’s effect against multiple targets is nerfed a bit as a result.