Guild Wars 2

How would you change Radiance to finally be viable?

Currently it’s the least interesting of guardian’s trait lines. I remember using it three years ago when I was going through the content for a first time, but now when the raids are out I’ve started to realize there is no place for it in PvP/WvW/PvE nor Raids. Basically everything is better than Radiance.

You can easily notice that devs were trying to do condi-retal guard possible, it didn’t work. In consequence we have Healer’s Retribution and Radiant Retaliation.

There is so many traits that will never be used once the (new) player hits level 80:

• Healer’s Retribution – you can get Retaliation from everything; the most pointless boon in the game; why would you like to get Retaliation also from your heal skill
• Perfect Inscriptions – even more Retaliation,
• Radiant Retaliation – your Retaliation deal less damage than normal,
• Retribution & Wrath of Justice – Radiant Fire is just too good to take other trait here,

Right-Hand Strength& Inner Fire & Radiant Power can be quite good in boosting critical hit chance now when ANet introduced 4-stats sets. Maybe with Power-Ferocity as main stats.

Well somewhere I would like something to help a guardian to deal with only having burning as condition either having some bleeds just to cover it or having a trait that deals about 50% remaining damage when burning expires early

And off topic I want a reason to use torch 5 maybe a fire field that burns and removes condi instead.
and they really need to improve pathing on torch 4 seems to live it own life :/

I can see why this thread went 7 days without a response.

If relation did more damage it might be worth considering, but it’s a hard sell making a condi that only works if people hit you. On the one hand if you make it too strong, you basically wipe out everyone who even dreams of touching you. If it’s too weak, as it is now, nobody will ever want to use it.

They fixed this exact issue with confusion since it was so badly designed, they might as well do something to retaliation as well. It took them two-three years or so to fix confusion though, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Retaliation did more damage in the past, but players QQ cause they dont wan tto stop atack the targets to avoid damage or wait until boon end, Anet nerfed, so players dont need to look what boons the taret has… gw2 what to expect?

Still confusion got a bit fixed because it is not a guardian condi.

There’s not really that much counterplay if the boon is up most of the time (which it is right now). Of course, a simple solution to this would be to actually make it effective but make the effect much harder to maintain.
Alternatively, they could make it stack and pulse out damage sort of like a radiating condition centered on the user. There are a few things they could do really.

Yea, the condition should easily be made relevant changing it to stack in intensity and lower its duration across the board. Or alternative, you could increase the amount of damage it can reflect back (or make it proportional to the damage the attack does) and make it last a really short time, so it becomes the sort of condition you have to use at the right moment to maximize effectiveness. Make it so you have to watch for enemy tells for big attacks that do a lot of damage as your cue to pop it to reflect it back. Sort of like how longbow skill 3 is supposed to work in theory with projectiles.

Aeolus.3615:

Retaliation did more damage in the past, but players QQ cause they dont wan tto stop atack the targets to avoid damage or wait until boon end, Anet nerfed, so players dont need to look what boons the taret has… gw2 what to expect?

Still confusion got a bit fixed because it is not a guardian condi.

Retaliation was mainly OP in WvW because Guardians could AoE retal in a group for players to kill themselves. Again, they nerfed Guard’s retal based on WvW viability without thinking of its effects in TPvP =/

Retal needs to effect us and ONLY us so its damages can increase without being OP in that gamemode they call WvW. Radiant Retaliation could easily increase to 50% higher retal damages but only affecting self. Let retal on Aegis last for 3s. This gives us that quick Retaliation pop when you know a heavy-hitting burst is coming.

Build diversity \m/

The damage difference needs to be dropped in different game modes. Retaliation needs to be a deterrent in WvW and PvP, and it isn’t. However, its also not fun to be a Flamethrowing Engi with quickness. You might end up hitting 5(3?) targets with 10 hits per channel. Before the change that would be 13750 damage at base Power. It can’t also lose its niche as the anti multi-hit. Retaliation is to Aegis as Confusion is to Blind. What I think would work better is to have a Stability-like limit to how often you can proc Retal. Something like once every .25 or .5 seconds might be enough. That way you can maintain its use as a multi-hit deterrence, but not have an Engi (or anyone else in a similar boat) completely obliterate itself before they can physically react.

And then of course Radiant Retaliation needs to scale from both Power and Condi at Power’s levels to make it more useful as a trait.

Yeah the problem was people auto exploding from retal in zerg fights when they dropped AoE.

There are a lot of things they could do for retal as a boon. Rename the boon and add some kind of secondary effect. So as well as dealing out some dmg it also heals a small amount each time you are hit or maybe some condi hate like less dmg or duration, cc reduction etc etc.

As for the actual radiance line, because its grand masters are about signets. Which dont see use because they are pretty bad and retal which as far as boons go is down the list it doesnt get taken, im guessing burn guards take it for amplified wrath? The other GM traits probably dont see use.

Reworking perfect inscriptions trait or radiant retaliation wont do a lot unless they address the underlying issue of retaliation as a boon and signets effects.

Saiyan.1704:

Aeolus.3615:

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Retal needs to effect us and ONLY us so its damages can increase without being OP in that gamemode they call WvW. Radiant Retaliation could easily increase to 50% higher retal damages but only affecting self. Let retal on Aegis last for 3s. This gives us that quick Retaliation pop when you know a heavy-hitting burst is coming.

Build diversity \m/

Preciselly, complete agree with that, yet Anet changed the damage value, to make it weak also on single target.

btw build diversity XD lel! gimmick diversity u ment.

Saiyan.1704:

Retal needs to effect us and ONLY us so its damages can increase without being OP in that gamemode they call WvW. Radiant Retaliation could easily increase to 50% higher retal damages but only affecting self. Let retal on Aegis last for 3s. This gives us that quick Retaliation pop when you know a heavy-hitting burst is coming.

This could work. But I’d personally prefer an offensive buff to Retaliation as long as it is placed in Radiance. Radiance just isn’t too much about being hit despite all the Retaliation traits.

Regarding Radiance, the traitline actually isn’t that bad. I use it in PvE all the time. The minors are pretty strong. But many majors aren’t. Plus, there are no options for survivability. Maybe there shouldn’t have to be. But Guardians need them for build diversity.

Back when there was a large Guardian rework thread I posted ideas I wrote back when I made my Mesmer rework. The issues I see with Radiance is the lack of focus on three specific themes plus some placement issues (e.g. Radiant Inscriptions and Radiant Retaliation shouldn’t exclude each other because picking Virtues would become a must to make it work otherwise). And, of course, some traits are just too weak.

Just to put it back out there again:

Adept

Justice is Blind – No change

Inner Fire – No change
Right-Hand Strength – No change
Healers Retribution – Merged with Retribution.

Master

Renewed Justice – No change.

Perfect Inscriptions – Moved from Grandmaster Major.
Radiant Fire – No change.
Purifying Fire/Wrath – Incomming condition duration reduced by 20% while affected by Fury.

Grandmaster

Radiant Power – No change

Amplified Wrath – Burning on block is now an area effect to compete with Permeating Wrath. Note: An alternative would be removing the cooldown. However, the block actually doesn’t make much sense to begin with. It is just a left over from merging traits but Radiance doesn’t have anything to do with blocking.
Radiant Retaliation – Retaliation now pulses damage on nearby enemies (240-360 radius). The damage scales from power and condition damage. Alternative: point blanket damage on application.
Radiant Retribution – Cast Signet of Judgment when hit by CC. Gain additional 20% critical hit chance while affected by Retaliation.

humm, what if we players asked a offensive + retaliation + spear build for next traitline, that could come with a movement speed boost?

Some non elite traitline that could be used alonside with DH traitline?? spear and wings

Guardian already has great defensive skills, but they went far behind other classes due class updates from time to time, this means they should not had a new traitline to cover that lackness that guardian has at the momment, but tune up what falled behind and add something new later with the new traitline.

ah… sorry the bad english :\

Retaliation could deal a lot more damage that for sure, but at the same time Retaliation cannot be granted by virtues(AoE). It would make it too strong. So guardian can grant retaliation to allies via: GS#4 (OP), “Stand your ground” and Aegis (when traited).

I wouldn’t mind if all the retaliation traits were scrapped and maybe used later in an elite spec. This just doesn’t work in the current meta.

Raylight.7825:

Well somewhere I would like something to help a guardian to deal with only having burning as condition either having some bleeds just to cover it or having a trait that deals about 50% remaining damage when burning expires early

And off topic I want a reason to use torch 5 maybe a fire field that burns and removes condi instead.
and they really need to improve pathing on torch 4 seems to live it own life :/

Dragonhunter traitline has two covering conditions. Cripple on Justice passive and Vulnerability when you cripple someone. Besides that we have slow on trap elite and some blinds and immobilizes but I think that’s it.