Guild Wars 2

As of this moment the guardian has 2 heal & 2 elite skill that don’t fall into any skill category, as such I would like to discuss were the community thinks these skills should fall. One should look at the favour & function as well as how the traits of said skill categories will effect these skills. So the skills;
Heal Skills

• Healing Breeze: Self heal with heals per pulse (5) to allies & self over a 3 sec duration.
• Shelter: Self heal & block for 2 sec.
  Categories available as options are: Consecrations, Shouts, Spirit Weapons & Symbols

Elite Skills

• Tome of Courage: Replaces weapon skills with new skills for 30 sec (believe elite focus baseline). These skills provide – No Damage, AoE Heal, Bouncing Blindness & Condition Removal (bounces between enemies & allies), AoE Protection & Regeneration, AoE Daze & AoE Full health Heal.
• Tome of Wrath: Replaces weapon skills with new skills for 30 sec (believe elite focus baseline). These skills provide – Damage, AoE Burn, Bouncing Cripple & Weakness (bounces between enemies & allies), AoE Might & Swiftness, AoE Fury & Quickness & AoE Knockdown.
  Categories available as options are: Consecrations, Shouts, Signets, Spirit Weapons & Symbols

Skill Categories Trait Effects
Consecrations – Master of Consecrations:

• Recharge reduced: 20%
• Duration increase: 20%

Shouts – Pure Voice:

• Recharge reduced: 20%
• Conditions Converted to Boons: 1

Signets – Perfect Inscriptions:

• Recharge reduced: 20%
• Effectiveness increased: 20%

Spirit Weapons – Expeditious Spirit:

• Recharge reduced: 20%
• Apply Burning

Symbols – Writ of Persistence:

• Heal
• Duration increase; 2 sec
• Radius increase: 60

Please note Trait effects are the ones listed in the AMA live stream (Ready up episode 32), also Meditations has been left out as this is the only skill category that as corresponding Heal, Utility & Elite skills.

One thing to note after listing the Skill categories trait effects I found then to be fairly boring on average considering all except Master of Consecrations (Adept) are Grandmasters which should be gameplay changing. When selecting these traits other then ‘Pure of Voice’ I really wouldn’t be changing my gameplay when using these skills with these traits & without these traits. Yes they enhance the skill but I would still use the skills in much the same way. So now I’m going to go a little off topic but some ideas to enhancing the gameplaying effect of these traits;

Skill Categories Trait Effects Additions

• Consecrations – Consecration are an odd group in that their are offensive & defensive area denial skills in a way. What I really want to do is enforce this aspect making the gameplay about area denial by adding the ‘Warding’ effect (from Staff Line & Hammer Ring of Warding) to all consecrations. Another alternative could be adding the new condition slow.
  1. Consecrations – Master of Consecrations: – Also adds a Warding effect to the edge of all consecrations. (Would re-enforce Sanctuary warding requiring 2 stacks of stability to cross).
  2. Consecrations – Master of Consecrations: – Also applies Slow to enemies (1 sec per pulse, pulse every 2 sec).

• Shouts – I feel the condition convert to boon already changes the gameplay when using shouts but there could be a larger change but through maybe another trait ‘Retribution – radiance spec line’ turning shout into a kind of offence gameplay through use of the new control effect ‘Taunt’ and focusing on retaliation.
  Shouts – Retribution (Another trait radiance spec line) – Reduces shout effective radius but also applies Taunt to enemies within range. (2-3 sec looking at at a minimum 2 auto attacks with a little travel time)

• Signets – A full signet build has a massive weakness to condition with also very little boon application for a guardian. Also the new merged signet trait has lost ‘Inscrided Removal’ which removed 1 condition on signet activation. So I would like to add a little bit of condition protection back to this build but not through removal but with the new boon resistance.
  Signets – Perfect Inscriptions: – Also applies Resistance on Signet activation (2sec)

• Spirit Weapons – Have the problem of being temporary and that the cooldowns start after they expire/destroyed which means small window of use with the downtime being a massive disadvantage. So I would look adding a 2-3 pulse boon application in this downtime.

Spirit Weapons – Expeditious Spirit:

1. Sword of Justice – 3 pulses over 30 sec apply 3 stacks might (8 sec)
2. Hammer of Wisdom – 3 pulses over 45 sec apply 2 stacks stability (8 sec)
3. Bow of Truth – 3 pulses over 60 sec apply Resistance (2 sec)
4. Shield of the Avenger – 3 pulses over 60 sec apply Protection (4 sec)
   Note: skill time also effected by reduce recharge on trait

• Symbols – This trait is good and greatly enhances symbols & adds a healing element to all symbols but I feel it doesn’t change the way you play with then. Now I looked at the Ranger and with the removal of spirit movement and thought this is not a playstyle they want with spirit but could this work with symbols. So instead of increasing the radius how about making the symbol centred on the guardian and move with the guardian.
  Symbols – Writ of Persistence: – Also has Symbols are now centred on the guardian and move with them.

Now I’ve applied my additions to the skill categories trait effects, here’s my choices for the unclassified skills;

• Healing Breeze – Consecration – I just feel favour, function & category trait effects places Heal Breeze here.
• Shelter – Shout – This just didn’t feel right to me to be a consecration and category trait effects for shout can work quite well with this skill.
• Tome of Courage – Shout – Taking the supportive nature I can see this fitting nicely into the shout category.
• Tome of Wrath – Spirit Weapon – This for me fits with the favour, function & category trait effects of spirit weapons but I would look at a skill rename & graphics change. I’m thinking Armour of Wrath and turning this into a true transformation skill that adds a spiky ghostly armour effect over you that you can still see your char through. Skills need no change but additional you can now move when transformed.

Running Totals

Healing Breeze:
4 – Consecrations
5 – Shouts
0 – Spirit Weapons
0 – Symbols
0 – Keep Unassigned

Shelter:
4 – Consecrations
1 – Meditation
1 – Shouts
1 – Spirit Weapons
1 – Symbols
2 – Keep Unassigned

Tome of Courage:
3 – Consecrations
1 – Shouts
0 – Signets
2 – Spirit Weapons
0 – Symbols
1 – Keep Unassigned
1 – Different skill categories for Tome of Courage & the transformation skills

Tome of Wrath:
2 – Consecrations
1 – Shouts
0 – Signets
3 – Spirit Weapons
0 – Symbols
1 – Keep Unassigned
1 – Different skill categories for Tome of Wrath & the transformation skills

Edit: Added Running Totals to track results, I’ll try to keep it a 1 vote per poster

Going off topic from your own topic in one post. well played OP.

honestly I think you want shelter to be a shout and thats why you classify it as one. :-) Healing breeze is already emitting from our mouth therefor its pretty obvious that it well become the shout.

shelter fits consecration like nothing else. Combine it with the trait would be OP though. 20% off CD and a longer duration for more procs of might and burn: yes plz!
a shout that blocks seems too far fetched.

The tomes need to be the same class simply to have the same mechanic. spirit weapon could feelt right however the corresponding trait does not. however they can just add to the description and it would be fine I guess

I think that while the general idea of completely unified skill catagories is nice. There are going to be some problematic skills across all the profession that don’t really fit the already existing mechanic and tomes are probably one of the more glaring examples.

They may just have to bite the bullet and just add ‘tomes’ to some of the tool tips.

Ok let’s go :

- Healing breeze is becoming a shout (It’s easy they already said it, plus with healing breeze, you breaaaaaath some life to your allies)
- Shelter is becoming a consecration (there is already a signet and a meditation so it leave only consecration and spirit weapon. This is clearly not a spirit weapon, plus this skill “protect” and it’s the theme of consecrations)

Tome of wrath and Tome of courage : probably one will become a shout and the other a consecration. And this will probably :

Consecration : Tome of courage (the altruistic purpose of this tome fit the consecration theme)
Shout : Tome of wrath (I’m sure it’s gonna be fun to shout damage at our enemies! and when in anger a lot of people shout a lot)

Ain’t it awesome how we’ve got totally different thought here?

Bezagron.7352:

Now I’ve applied my additions to the skill categories trait effects, here’s my choices for the unclassified skills;

• Healing Breeze – Consecration – I just feel favour, function & category trait effects places Heal Breeze here.
• Shelter – Shout – This just didn’t feel right to me to be a consecration and category trait effects for shout can work quite well with this skill.
• Tome of Courage – Shout – Taking the supportive nature I can see this fitting nicely into the shout category.
• Tome of Wrath – Spirit Weapon – This for me fits with the favour, function & category trait effects of spirit weapons but I would look at a skill rename & graphics change. I’m thinking Armour of Wrath and turning this into a true transformation skill that adds a spiky ghostly armour effect over you that you can still see your char through. Skills need no change but additional you can now move when transformed.

Healing Breeze: I believe their direction with this skill is already a good one. It makes more sense for it to be a shout.

Shelter: This skill is already strong and it honestly doesn’t fit any of the categories. The only category that it would fit is meditations, but that would be too powerful with the new trait OR the current traits for that matter. It needs to stay unassigned.

Tomes should stay how they are now in functionality. Changing them into different skills completely would be a lot of extra work on the programmers. The suggestions themselves are “cool” but not practical for development purposes.

Considering the magical nature of Healing Breeze, I’d say it makes more sense to be a consecration, and functionally it also fits consecrations ranged supportive nature (not that making it a shout is ridiculous either).
The one thing I really dislike with it being a shout is that in order to decrease its cooldown, one would need to take Superior Aria, which clashes with the new Force of Will, and honestly, taking Force of Will with Healing Breeze seems like a no-brainer to me unless you’re using a full set of shouts. However, someone using shouts wouldn’t be using Monk runes either (they’d be using trooper runes), so it clashes even more. Ultimately, it being a shout will limit its potential and synergies heavily.
tl;dr: Healing allies and shouts ironically don’t mesh well guardians.

I agree that Shelter should remain unassigned, or get a bit of a nerf to some part of it if it does get assigned to a type. I don’t really see why the most popular guardian heal should get a significant buff.

I think Shelter could be classified as a meditation and Litany of Wrath should just be scrapped, lol… Shelter as a medi might be a little OP, but it could be rebalanced a little, and I don’t think it fits any of the other categories. Certainly wouldn’t make sense as a consecration, since they’re going to all be ground-targeted.

I don’t want to pick up a few traits to make Shelter 100% effectice since we added a category to it. We could easily call it a ward but that would be silly. I think they should be left as they are.

As we already have a shout heal now, I’d like to see Shelter become a Spirit Weapon (add the spirit shield to the FX). If spirit weapons are traited to cause burning Shelter burns all enemies within 200.

And tomes as Spirit Weapons rocks on all kinds of levels.

(I would prefer healing Breeze be a consecration, but ((shrug)) its never going to appeal to me as long as I have to be behind my allies to use it…)

Thanks everyone for the replies, sorry it’s taking so long myself. Now for some replies;
Regarding Healing Breeze as the skill currently functions I lean towards it being a consecration for similar reasons to Fashion Mage. I see it’s primary function is to Heal Allies over Time with it’s secondary to heal you, making it a consecration would extend the heal duration (hopeful add pulses), reduce recharge & with my addition effect slow or zone enemies. These still allows you to take Force of Will & Monk Runes to improve outgoing heals.

If I was going to turn Healing Breeze into a shout I would look at changing its graphic effect & function regarding the cone application & turn it into a shout effecting all allies (5) within range.

The graphic effect could turn this into a more healing breeze effect and less fire extinguisher, but I like it’s current cone function which for me has a higher risk reward skill play having to be in the thick of it and aim the skill rather then the fire and forget of shout (only making sure there within range).

Also as a consecration it provides better options to allow you to take out going heal improvements & lastly Warrior’s already have heal on shouts if traited.

Also please note added a Running Total of Category likes to the second post.

Shelter was another interesting one and in a way I agree which others about keeping it unassigned but it would feel very strange if all other skills within the game were assigned.

Now because I assigned Healing Breeze to consecration (Which is what I like), I no longer have consecrations as an option. So looking at the remainder Shouts, Spirit Weapons & Symbols I felt Shouts best fitted Shelter’s gameplay, build options & favour.

Shout support is usually In the Thick of It, so having a channelled block fixes like a glove & falls perfectly into this gameplay. It also fixes for me better with shout build options, with traited condition cleanse & Trooper Runes which will provide 1 condition removal & 1 convert to boon.

It only has the problem of no ally support as part of the base skill, which all shouts have. Thinking of this I would look to add some ally support toShelter by also applying the boon Aegis to allies with range on completion of the channelled block, which I would remove from the skill “Retreat” replacing it with Resistance.

Regard Shelter as a Meditation it does fix med gameplay with the channelled block, but I like Litany of Wrath offensive function and feel this fits better with med offensive gameplay. It just doesn’t provide enough for most players to take over Shelter. I would look at improving Litany of Wrath;

Litany of Wrath:

• Also provides Aegis (6 sec) & Resistance (3 sec)

Note: added comments regarding meditation category

Tomes were again interesting and I quite like my thoughts regarding Tome of Wrath graphic, movement & Spirit Weapon category and believe this is were this skill should go.

For Tome of Courage I felt this could better round off the Shout gameplay but I found one massive problem of it being a Shout if it received the benefit to the weapon skills from Shout’s build options;

• Traited condition cleanse
• Trooper Runes

If these applied directly to the transformation weapon skills, I feel this is too strong, so I would only apply then on the elite skill activation.

Now the supportive nature of Tome of Courage does lean itself to to either Shouts or Consecrations and I can see it as either one:

• As a Shout more condition cleanse.
• As a Consecration longer transformation, either one great.

So now I can’t decide between Shouts & Consecrations for Tome of Courage. But would really love Tome of Wrath to become “Armour of Wrath” and a Spirit Weapon. Want I’ll really looking at is rounding out Heal, Utility & Elite skills throughout each of the skill categories.

For tomes, my vote goes to both of them being consecrations due to their shared highly magical themes, as well as a similar function. In the least, Tome of Courage should be a consecration. Tome of Wrath fits both consecrations and spirit weapons imo.

Healing Breeze – Shout
Shelter – Consecration
Tome of Courage – Spirit Weapon
Tome of Wrath – Spirit Weapon

Thanks for the replies running total has been updated.

Just a question regarding the unclassified skills:

Do players believe these skill can be directly added to a existing skill categories as they have currently been implemented or do these skills need some modification to better fit these skill categories?

For myself I believe most unclassified skill could use some modifications, as the current implement unmodified skills feel very strange when trying to apply the current existing skill categories. This is because skills in existing skill categories function a sustain way, which for me the unclassified skills don’t function in these ways. As such they were left out of these skill categories when first designed.

Healing Breeze – Shout
Shelter – Consecration
Tome of Courage – Consecration
Tome of Wrath – Consecration

Is really hard to assign the Tomes. I don’t think they fit as Spirit Weapon becouse they don’t create NPCs. And Tome of Wrath already have burning on #1.

Healing Breeze is clearly consecration. However, if you mix up some mechanics you can easily make it a meditation. The first two seconds of cast time heals yourself, then the second activation heals allies in front of you. (The first click twice healing skill, could be very interesting, the guardian could leap away and charge the healing breeze healing himself, then leap back in and activate the breeze which then heals allies. This would make healing breeze a much more useful strategic tool for groups.)

Shelter is a symbol. The guardian is immobile and the area immediately around him generates a force field. It operates like all the other symbols already.

Tomes should be multi-classed. Reading or activating the time should count as a meditation or mantra. Then each of the individual skills in the time should have their own classification. The spells in the books are pretty varied in play mechanics, so couldn’t possibly all belong to one trait line. Being elite skills, it only makes sense that they are more complex to classify.

Or make the tomes mantras that take 10-15 seconds to charge and then when activated each spell would have one charge. By taking the grandmaster meditation trait each spell would then have 2 charges.

In fact all the Norn transformation skills and the Asura Golem suits should similarly have their individual skills be classified and not all fall under a single heading. The variety if game mechanics involved with each different skill necessitates that they not all be in the same category.

Running total updated

Yes I think Tome’s are a quite interesting when thinking about which category to assign. Also some very interesting ideas regarding multiple categories effecting the Tome & the skills differently. Not sure how effective the Tome would be on a whole and I lean towards modifying the Tome to fit one category getting 100% effectiveness out of the whole Tome then splitting but I could see this maybe working.

One thing I really believe is splitting the Tome’s into different skill categories. I would be looking for each skill category to have a skill that can be slotted into Healing, Utility & Elite slots with regard to adjustment of current skills & future skills to be added. Again the best categories for Tomes I feel are Courage – Consecrations & Wrath – Spirit Weapons.

I really like the Mantra idea & feel mantra’s as a skill category could work very well with Guardian’s, but with regard to the idea above I would look at assigning Tome’s into the current skill categories first. Mainly because I would hope if Arenanet is adding another skill category to Guardians they would create new skills for this category & not reassign existing unclassified skills to it.

Shelter should be a concentration since its support oriented. Range is Point Blank so no ground target. problem solved..

Mikau.6920:

Healing Breeze – Shout
Shelter – Consecration
Tome of Courage – Consecration
Tome of Wrath – Consecration

Is really hard to assign the Tomes. I don’t think they fit as Spirit Weapon becouse they don’t create NPCs. And Tome of Wrath already have burning on #1.

I agree. just revamp Tomes into Kits…