Guild Wars 2

- Communal Defenses and Stalwart Defender should be merged into a single trait.
- Glacial Heart is moved to Valor to fill up the empty slot.
- A trait which restores the 600 nerfed range from virtues can be placed in Glacial Heart’s old spot.

Rework all of the upon revival/kill and falling traits. They’re useless while actually fighting.

Rework all of the traits that discourage the use of activating your virtue’s(Zealous Scepter, Purity of body, Defender’s Dogma, Zealot’s Aggression)

Valorous Defense: This one is completely useless, I’ve never noticed when it’s actually helped.

Zealous Blade: Increase the healing and have it be 10% dmg bonus instead of 5.

Symbol Avenger: Needs a damage increase.

Shattered Aegis: Needs a radius increase

Rework Radiant Retaliation: Have this something be power-based.

Stalwart Defender: Give this a unique attribute like Warrior’s Shield trait.

Communal Defenses: Radius increase.

Retributive Armor: Complete rework, this thing sucks.

Empowering Might: Remove the ICD and increase the range.

Remove Kindled Zeal, replace with Writ of Persistence.

Retaliatory subconsciousness: buff the crap out of this, the protection on cc is FAR superior than this.

Merge Permeating Justice/supreme Justice: No one takes these and even if they’re merged, I doubt anyone will take it.

Just a few off-the-top of my head.

-Lists traits that discourage virtue use.
-ignores the biggest “offender”
-lists two traits that “no one takes”
-literally two of the most important traits for an entirely new playstyle since the specialization patch

I cannot see good reason to make a single one of these changes.

Stalwart Defender could use something more exciting, but merging it with Communal Defenses isn’t the answer
There really aren’t many other traits that need to be changed, or that wouldn’t be better served with far different changes.

More changes:

Rework all retaliation traits(overhaul retal itself).

Glacial Heart: Move to master valor

Stalwart Defender/Strength in numbers: Merge these or something. Also, the toughness needs to be increased from Strength in Numbers since Toughness itself scales terribly in comparison to Power.

Amplified Wrath: Remove the burn-on-block, increase burning dmg to 20%

Unscathed Contender: Change to a 5% bonus when you have protection.

Battle Presence: Change to allow for VoR to keep its passive

Edit: Didn’t include any DH traits since they’re not finalized.

Arken.3725:

Rework all of the upon revival/kill and falling traits. They’re useless while actually fighting.

Agree on falling. Revival might be more interesting in raids soon.

Arken.3725:

Rework all of the traits that discourage the use of activating your virtue’s(Zealous Scepter, Purity of body, Defender’s Dogma, Zealot’s Aggression)

Agree. Still feel that Purity of Body should be added to Battle Presence.

Arken.3725:

Valorous Defense: This one is completely useless, I’ve never noticed when it’s actually helped.

It’s free Aegis. I don’t mind.

Arken.3725:

Zealous Blade: Increase the healing and have it be 10% dmg bonus instead of 5.

Yeah.

Symbol Avenger: Needs a damage increase.

Yup.

Arken.3725:

Shattered Aegis: Needs a radius increase

It’s not thaaat bad, really…

Arken.3725:

Rework Radiant Retaliation: Have this something be power-based.

I personally disagree. Posted a different idea on the most recent thread.

Arken.3725:

Stalwart Defender: Give this a unique attribute like Warrior’s Shield trait.

Moving it down a tier could help. Won’t be more sexy but would be picked.

Arken.3725:

Communal Defenses: Radius increase.

Hm. If I it remains without target cap…

Arken.3725:

Retributive Armor: Complete rework, this thing sucks.

It could actually be interesting. If it didn’t increase Ferocity but Precision.

Arken.3725:

Empowering Might: Remove the ICD and increase the range.

Or at least lower it to 0.25s or 0.5s. Considering Phalanx Strength there is no way to justify the cooldown on this trait.

Arken.3725:

Remove Kindled Zeal, replace with Writ of Persistence.

Personal opinion: Nope. Looking at Mace and Hammer this is extremly important for supportive Symbol builds. But Zeal doesn’t do them any favour. I’d rather see Kindled Zeal reworked into something else. For example, there could be an additional effect when a Symbol is created instead of prolonging the Symbol. Damage burst. Blind. Or Cripple. Wink, wink.

Arken.3725:

Retaliatory subconsciousness: buff the crap out of this, the protection on cc is FAR superior than this.

Just merge it with Unscathed Contender.

Arken.3725:

Merge Permeating Justice/supreme Justice: No one takes these and even if they’re merged, I doubt anyone will take it.

Have been saying this for ages. Virtues is just cluttered with traits which require taking a specific other trait to work.

Arken.3725:

Glacial Heart: Move to master valor

So much against it. I’d rather see Glacial Heart in Honor or Radiance. People wanting in Valor just goes back to Meditation builds but conceptually it just doesn’t belong into Valor anymore.

Arken.3725:

Amplified Wrath: Remove the burn-on-block, increase burning dmg to 20%

I’m not sure if I’d trade the burn on block for +5% burning damage…

Biggest reason I went with wop being in zeal is because all of minors are symbol related. My opinion but I consider zeal to be the unofficial symbol line.

1: Symbolic Exposure. Just get rid of it it doesn’t last long enough to stack up anyway.

2: Fiery Wrath. Move it into Symbolic Exposure’s slot (the first major will never be a choice with it being there)

3: Wrathful Spirit. Make it give something useful like might stacks (guardian already has an abundance of retaliation)

4: Zealous Scepter. Give it some type of active effect to go with the passive (it discourages activation of justice)

5: Symbolic Power. Merge it with Symbolic Avenger (as is using anything but a hammer or mace with zeal feels like a waste)

6: Healer’s Retribution. Redesign it (guardian has a ton of ways to get retaliation as is)

7: Perfect Inscriptions. Change it (Light aura is pretty much useless, Resistance or protection would be great however)

8: Radiant Retaliation. Scrap it & create something useful (even if the guardian were to have a viable build that used dire gear this trait would only account for a 3% retaliation damage increase over what could be achieved with power)

9: Strength of the Fallen. Scrap it ( its actually a bad thing to have this trait in PvP due to how much longer it will take to respawn after being downed)

10: Valorous Defense. Change it (protection would be so much better then a single AEGIS)

11: Stalwart Defender. Change it (Strength in numbers is so much better due to effecting allies. Perhaps if defender reduced shield CD’s and caused 4 to taunt enemies)

12: Retributive Armor. Scrap it and make something that helps the guardian survive (valor line is about survival after all not damage)

13: Protectors Impact. Scrap it, its useless for fights and for most everything in game.

14: Empowering Might. Increase the duration of the might applied to 8 seconds base.

16: Purity of Body. Make it a flat 15% endurance regen gain all the time ( as is it discourages you from using resolve)

17 Retaliatory Subconscious. Change it (Instead of AEGIS it would be great if it applied protection since a Dh trait will be dropping AEGIS when controlled)

18: Glacial Heart. Really could stand to be moved to another tree (if the changes listed above are made zeal will have an opening)

19: Battle Presence. Change it (as is it discourages the use of resolve. It needs an effect on resolve activate)

Arken.3725:

Biggest reason I went with wop being in zeal is because all of minors are symbol related. My opinion but I consider zeal to be the unofficial symbol line.

Which is the main problem with zeal.

Due to the minors being symbol traits you feel like your wasting allot of potential if your not using a mace or hammer.

Minors shouldn’t make a tree feel like that. They should boost the effectiveness of something the class is capable of no matter what weapon set they are using.

Completely agree dude, i’m just working with what I have and WoP belongs there because of that fact. Now if all of the minors changed then it would be vastly different.

Xaylin.1860:

Arken.3725:

Remove Kindled Zeal, replace with Writ of Persistence.

Personal opinion: Nope. Looking at Mace and Hammer this is extremly important for supportive Symbol builds. But Zeal doesn’t do them any favour. I’d rather see Kindled Zeal reworked into something else. For example, there could be an additional effect when a Symbol is created instead of prolonging the Symbol. Damage burst. Blind. Or Cripple. Wink, wink.

Writ of Persistence needs to be in Zeal with the other symbol traits. If you’re running a support dungeon build, you’re picking Zeal anyway. If you’re running a support build in PvP or WvW, you’re better off with Pure of Voice or Force of Will.

Exedore.6320:

Xaylin.1860:

Arken.3725:

Remove Kindled Zeal, replace with Writ of Persistence.

Personal opinion: Nope. Looking at Mace and Hammer this is extremly important for supportive Symbol builds. But Zeal doesn’t do them any favour. I’d rather see Kindled Zeal reworked into something else. For example, there could be an additional effect when a Symbol is created instead of prolonging the Symbol. Damage burst. Blind. Or Cripple. Wink, wink.

Writ of Persistence needs to be in Zeal with the other symbol traits. If you’re running a support dungeon build, you’re picking Zeal anyway. If you’re running a support build in PvP or WvW, you’re better off with Pure of Voice or Force of Will.

Even with that, I think Zealot’s Speed needs a change since it doesn’t give any…speed…

Arken.3725:

Even with that, I think Zealot’s Speed needs a change since it doesn’t give any…speed…

Just a name change, and maybe 5-10s cooldown reduction.

Regarding core specialisation lines & traits in light of elite spec reveals it would be nice to do another pass on these with the idea of themed lines that’s been talked about with elite specs. the trick is to create more then top, middle & bottom (TMB) with maybe top-bottom &/or bottom-top (diagonals). The TMBs could be the stronger themes with the diagonals being slightly weaker so it’s like if your going Top adapt using any other traits other then top is is wrong & damaging your build.

I feel these theme lines allow players greater understanding of play styles targeted by traits & make it easier to analyse & provide feedback on these traits performance. An example is like, Expeditious Spirit in Zeal what are the other traits you would be looking at combining in Zeal for the playstyle your looking at with Expeditious Spirit?

I see:

• Fiery Wrath ties in with spirit burning but feel Wrathful Spirit should sync because of the tie in with it’s name.
• Kindled Zeal improving burning
• Expeditious Spirit.

But what is the play style their aiming for? Is it performing & seeing game play?. I would say it’s a burning condition build but sees little play as other burning options perform better. Now of note if these three traits are a line theme why not position them in a way that helps indicate this (All Top Traits).

Lastly minors traits need to indicate the specialisation line’s overall theme but also mesh with with the game play within theme lines within the spec. At the moment most do but I feel issues with Zeal’s & symbols.

Zeal
One aspect I have is symbols traits don’t feel like they belong in zeal. Zeal feels like it should be the major offensive core spec line but half of the weapons used in offensive guardian builds don’t have symbols. So a slight redesign:

Zeal – Minors

• Zealot’s Speed - Create a Lesser Symbol of Swiftness when activating virtues (Change to match functionality with naming).
• Symbolic Exposure - Symbols apply vulnerability (2 stacks each pulse 10 sec) to foes (Strengthened).
• Empowering Might - You & nearby allies gain might (10 sec, ICD 1 sec) when you a land critical hit (moved from Honor).

Lesser Symbol of Swiftness
Damage (3x): 1287 (Dmg = 0.195 * Power)
Swiftness (4 sec): + 33% Movement Speed
Number of Targets: 3
Symbol Duration: 2 sec
Symbol Radius: 120

Zeal – Majors

• Zealous Scepter - Chains of light blinds foes around your target on a successful hit (Radius: 240). Scepter skills have reduced recharge (Might building has been moved to wrathful spirit & empowering might).
• Wrathful Spirit - Aegis gives retaliation (3 sec) & might (2 stacks, 5 sec) when it ends.
• Fiery Wrath - Increased damage (7%) to burning foes (No change).
• Blinding Jeopardy - Immobilising & blinding foes also applies vulnerability (8 sec) (No change).
• Zealous Balde - Attacks with greatsword deal extra damage & heal you. Greatsword skills have reduced recharge (No change).
• Kindled Zeal - Gain resistance (2 sec, 20 ICD) when struck with burning. Gain condition damage based on your power (Strengthened).
• Expeditious Spirit - Transfers 1 damaging condition (bleed, burn, confusion, poison & torment) to spirit weapons on summon, & command ability. Spirit Weapons have reduced recharge & are summoned with retaliation (5 sec) (large change turning spirit weapons into selfish condition removal & leaving the burning to other builds).
• Shattered Aegis - When a aegis you applied blocks an attack or is removed it damages nearby foes (Strengthens skill by giving some punishment for boon stripping).
• Symbolic Avenger - Symbols have increased damage, a chance to burn foes & your damage when standing in symbols is increased (Combined symbolic power & avenger into one trait).

Ghotistyx.6942:

-Lists traits that discourage virtue use.
-ignores the biggest “offender”
-lists two traits that “no one takes”
-literally two of the most important traits for an entirely new playstyle since the specialization patch

I cannot see good reason to make a single one of these changes.

Stalwart Defender could use something more exciting, but merging it with Communal Defenses isn’t the answer
There really aren’t many other traits that need to be changed, or that wouldn’t be better served with far different changes.

Lets see some board troll and probably someone who rarely does ranked pvp or one of the better guardians around. I know who I am listening too.

Arken.3725:

Biggest reason I went with wop being in zeal is because all of minors are symbol related. My opinion but I consider zeal to be the unofficial symbol line.

I’m aware of that. We already had that discussion 2-3 months ago.
However, I still prefer WoP being in Honor.

Exedore.6320:

Writ of Persistence needs to be in Zeal with the other symbol traits. If you’re running a support dungeon build, you’re picking Zeal anyway. If you’re running a support build in PvP or WvW, you’re better off with Pure of Voice or Force of Will.

I actually prefer Radiance and Virtues over Zeal. Suits my playstyle better and is more versatile. I didn’t crunch any numbers but I’m quite sure the damage isn’t significantly lower either.

The thing is that the healing from WoP wouldn’t make much sense in Zeal. The healing would also be significantly weaker when not combined with the additional duration and being left in Honor. That’s why I prefer adding something different to Zeal. Like an additional effect on cast.

But maybe it would just be easier to add one of the Minors to Symbolic Avenger and fuse the other two into a new Master Major. Blinding Jepoardy and Fiery Wrath are pretty good contenders for being Minor traits. I’m also sure that this way people would feel a smaller need to move WoP into Zeal. Zeal would simply offer offensive options for Symbols but won’t force it onto you. Honor would be the supportive option.

brannigan.9831:

Lets see some board troll and probably someone who rarely does ranked pvp or one of the better guardians around. I know who I am listening too.

You seem unnecessarily upset. Even top pvp players don’t always make the best balance decisions, otherwise they might find better employment actually being in charge of balance.