Guild Wars 2

Lets keep this civil and friendly. no bashing no name calling etc.

NO Dragon Hunter changes thats for other topics

so what changes buffs etc you want to see?

im trying to move the guards out of medi with these

-Virtues
Should keep their passive effect after activated and reduced CD on them
Virtue of courage
-Aegis needs to reaply every 20-25 sec instead of 40 sec Non traited
Virtue of Resolve
-passive heal amount baseline should be increased to the traited version

-Consecrations
Sanctuary
– Bubble size need to be 2x bigger and heal for 2x more
– CD needs to be reduced from 2 min to 50 sec -1 min
Hallowed Ground
– CD needs to be reduced from 80 sec to 40-50 sec
Wall of Reflection
– CD need to be reduced from 40 sec to 30 sec

-Shouts
Retreat
– CD needs to be reduced from 40 to 25 sec

-Weapon Skills
Sword
-Zealot’s Defense
projectile speed increased
Castable while moving ( should not root the player )

Too many iconic cool guardian abilities that NOBODY uses because of the absurd CDs in my opinion.

The first major thing that comes to my mind:

Sword auto-attack chain #3
It needs some pre- and aftercast mechanical changes. That’d be a minor QoL change to the few situations where you can use sword, i. e. fractals or PvP.

Everything you want to be changed looks like an overkill to me. Flat out less cd and increased effects, nope, can’t agree on that.

These skills&traits are fine as they are now ~ just my humble opinion.

Symbol on Sword and Scepter.

TEGG.2859:

The first major thing that comes to my mind:

Sword auto-attack chain #3
It needs some pre- and aftercast mechanical changes. That’d a minor QoL change to the few situations where you can use sword, i. e. fractals.

Everything you want to be changed looks like an overkill to me. Flat out less cd and increased effects, nope, can’t agree on that.

These skills&traits are fine as they are now ~ just my humble opinion.

thats why nobody uses them right ? and everyone is medi.
in pve majority of these also not used for the absurd long CDs and weak or short effects for that long CDs.
same with virtues lost of guardian players even forget they exists even traited they can be meh.

you need to understand to make people move out of medi they need other abilities that are almost as good or as good as a medi but in another way.

i agree with all that you posted

not too sold on virtue passives still occurring when the active is used tho

Arnath.2319:

Symbol on Sword and Scepter.

this for sure, change smite to a symbol and make flashing blade drop a symbol at your target (increase CD to 10-12 seconds to make up for it)

TEGG.2859:

The first major thing that comes to my mind:

Sword auto-attack chain #3
It needs some pre- and aftercast mechanical changes. That’d a minor QoL change to the few situations where you can use sword, i. e. fractals.

Everything you want to be changed looks like an overkill to me. Flat out less cd and increased effects, nope, can’t agree on that.

These skills&traits are fine as they are now ~ just my humble opinion.

i agree with sword changes

the thing is, thats part of the reason why no one uses those skills

if retreat was on shorter CD, then there would be more incentive to use it since it would provide aegis in a short amount of time.

sanctuary’s CD is WAYYY to long for a skill thats not even that good (seriously, i still seem to get hit from everything while inside it)

Skyline Crash.6254:

TEGG.2859:

The first major thing that comes to my mind:

Sword auto-attack chain #3
It needs some pre- and aftercast mechanical changes. That’d a minor QoL change to the few situations where you can use sword, i. e. fractals.

Everything you want to be changed looks like an overkill to me. Flat out less cd and increased effects, nope, can’t agree on that.

These skills&traits are fine as they are now ~ just my humble opinion.

i agree with sword changes

the thing is, thats part of the reason why no one uses those skills

if retreat was on shorter CD, then there would be more incentive to use it since it would provide aegis in a short amount of time.

sanctuary’s CD is WAYYY to long for a skill thats not even that good (seriously, i still seem to get hit from everything while inside it)

not tested it.

but if i remember right AOE goes through it
Condis still ticking on you while standing in it
and warriors if they stand close enough they can hit through it with their sword because the bubble is THAT SMALL.

and the Puny heal that it gives does NOTHING even if only the condis are the only one damaging you lol

Virtues really need a huge rework.

Justice active feels incredibly underwhelming when compared to its passive counterpart.

It might be situationally useful if you’re surrounded by a decent number of allies which happen to be more condition oriented than yourself and/or want to deliver some coodinated burst, but for the most part you probably want to keep it passive (moreso if using traits like Zealous Scepter, Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath).

Ironically, every single trait that enhances the active part of the virtue is located in Radiance (2 out of 3 being minors), a traitline which looks specially condition focused since the last trait system overhaul.
Needless to say that condition/hybrid builds are the most interested ones in keeping the passive running and won’t benefit from any of this outside of the usual instant blind to prevent being CCed during a stomp.
Power builds, on the other hand, might easily find themselves having to pick between some terrible choices (look at those grandmasters) just to get some decent use of their class mechanic. The fact that a power build could still be interested on picking Radiance over Zeal should also be a clear sign of how underwhelming Zeal can be fro PvP.

For PvE things are not much different. Condi/Hybrid builds will keep it passive even when running Radiance, while Power ones might use the Justice is Blind / Renewed Justice combo for blinding trash (if Renewed Justice works, since it still has problems with respawning foes, …) and keep it passive for bosses.

Resolve has always been underwhelming.
The passive is not exactly impressive once we realize we have to pay for it with some of the lowest HPS healing skills across the whole game, and the active is something we will rarely use unless someone is really close to death (and won’t be exactly amazing for a 50s CD) or we find ourselves channeling Renewed Focus.
2 our of 3 traits which improve Virtue of Resolve work on the passive (so less reasons to activate it), while the last one adds an AoE instant condition removal to the active part which is on its own far more valuable than the whole core mechanic.

Courage is the only virtue which active seems to outperform the passive, and that’s mostly because the passive is a RNG crap: Aegis pops out of nowhere and blocks something, be it a barely threatening attack or one of the most important enemy skills (which I guess can be really annoying).
The infinite duration Aegis should be applied only on Virtue Recharge, so those annoying RNG procs become less frequent and the passive should do something different, like a 5% direct damage reduction.
Just like with Absolute Resolution, Indomitable Courage makes the active quite a beast and completely outshines the core functionallity wich in no way deserves a 75s CD (I wonder on who’s mind a single attack block looked that powerful).

I also want to finish this post with some special thanks for the virtue radius reduction for which I can’t find any other explanation but making DH ones more interesting in comparison

Zoltreez.6435:

TEGG.2859:

The first major thing that comes to my mind:

Sword auto-attack chain #3
It needs some pre- and aftercast mechanical changes. That’d a minor QoL change to the few situations where you can use sword, i. e. fractals.

Everything you want to be changed looks like an overkill to me. Flat out less cd and increased effects, nope, can’t agree on that.

These skills&traits are fine as they are now ~ just my humble opinion.

thats why nobody uses them right ? and everyone is medi.
in pve majority of these also not used for the absurd long CDs and weak or short effects for that long CDs.
same with virtues lost of guardian players even forget they exists even traited they can be meh.

you need to understand to make people move out of medi they need other abilities that are almost as good or as good as a medi but in another way.

I’ve always felt the same way. Too many skills have long cds for their short effects.

@Zoltreez.6435
@Amber.2637

First things first: what kind of content are we talking about?
You seem to talk about PvP, while I mean PvE.

As for PvE, I consider these skills to be niche skills, not main & spamming skills.
And for that, they are fine as they are now in my opinion.
(Yes, the CD on some feels high, but that makes them somewhat “balanced” in a way)

“lots* of guardian players even forget they exist* even traited […]”
That’s because they don’t know how/where/when to use them, but there are definitely situations for them, keep in mind I mean PvE.

Virtues really need a huge rework.

Do you run the Virtues traitline at all? Traited virtues definitely pull their weight. Clearing three conditions from each party member with Resolve and granting AoE stability and stunbreak with Courage, both with no cast time, are no joke. The Radiance trait which refreshes VoJ on kill is also insane. In situations with a lot of trash mobs it’s basically a permablind.

Better (faster) Hammer AA.

Marvinus.4780:

Better (faster) Hammer AA.

Haven’t they announced to give the third hammer swing a 0,5sec cast time?

- Hammer AA should be a bit faster (and do a little less dmg). Hammer should be slower than GS, but right now 3.7sec for the sequence is huge. Around 3.2 second would still be slower than GS, but feel more comfortable.

- Sword should be reworked completely and have a role. If Mace if the direct damage weapon of choice, then Sword should be the weapon of choice for condition. Plenty of ways to accomplish that, they could add a bit of bleeding and fix the third auto-attack. Zealot defense should be more useful. Either make it a good burst skill, a bit like Blurred Frenzy but with projectile defence instead of invulnerability. I would love that flashing blade was ground targeted. But like I said, plenty of possibility to make sword better.

- Shield. It’s on the right track. Skill 4 is good now, I would just change the Aegis duration to 20sec to be on par with all other aegis from skill. Skill 5 should have a smaller channelling time and longer duration. Something like a 6sec projectile protection against projectile with a 1.5sec cast time would be better. Or a instant cast time with a 2 sec channeling. Anything that allow you to continue to fight while you are protecting your team against projectile. Otherwise, WoR or SoA will always be better.

- Scepter : the AA orb should travel a little bit faster.

- Torch : Cleansing flame should be faster, do less damage and remove condition on you.

- Hallowed Ground : Cooldown should be reduced to 60 sec

- Sanctury : Cooldown should be reduced to 80-100 sec.

- Merciful Intervention : Should teleport you even if there is not ally in the zone and should be a break stun. To be more on par with Judge’s Intervention.

- Signet of Mercy : Cooldown should be around 100 sec with a cast time of 2 second.

- Spirit Weapons : Their cooldown should be drastically reduce since they start after the spirit is dead making a spirit build very vulnerable while they wait for the cooldown.

- Signet of Courgage Active: You should be able to move around while casting it. Reduce the channeling to around 2-3 seconds.
- Signet of Courage Passive : Should have a radius of 600. Optionally, I prefer that it give heal per second and not per 10 seconds.

- Glacial heart should be a Valor Master trait so that Hammer build in PvP would be decent again.

OP. You seem to want to improve skills that are already great. Retreat, WoR and Virtues are all great skill. I don’t see what would be the reason to justify a buff.

Faster hammer auto attack+less lag on auto attacks

Faster mace auto attack

Faster mace symbol

Faster mace block so you can react to big hitters and block em

Faster shield of judgement so you can react and block something

Sword 3 let us move while casting it

Faster Torch cleansing flames

Friendlier staff 2, easier to hit people with

Downed symbol to stop you from losing hp while down

A better and rewarding virtue of justice

Elite signet to pulse much much more often (and healing per pulse lowered accordingly)

Being able to see the characters hp without hovering with your mouse over them.

Faster Hammer #4 skill

Sword skill update, I really like the idea someone put forth at one time to make sword a condi weapon.

Lower cooldown on Virtue of Courage

Stronger passive heal on Virtue of Resolve

A reason to actually use Virtue of Justice’s active

Update and improve signets.

Remove the 1 icd on might of the protector and fire on block.

Rework traits. Though if they reworked virtues its wasn’t a mandatory trait line that would be great.

Darmikau.9413:

Virtues really need a huge rework.

Do you run the Virtues traitline at all? Traited virtues definitely pull their weight. Clearing three conditions from each party member with Resolve and granting AoE stability and stunbreak with Courage, both with no cast time, are no joke. The Radiance trait which refreshes VoJ on kill is also insane. In situations with a lot of trash mobs it’s basically a permablind.

I completely agree. Traited virtues are great, but that’s exactly the problem: They need to be traited to look any useful.

If I run Absolute Resolution, my F2 becomes a 3 AoE instant condi clear and I will hardly think on using that button for anything else. The added effect is just MUCH more powerful than the core functionallity.
I would say the same about Indomitable Courage. Even if a single AoE Aegis application may still be quite useful in PvE, in no way it deserves a 75s ICD (and it’s a far worse functionality for PvP).

If developers truly want to promote build diversity and active use of class mechanics, core active virtues need some big improvements (If things like AR and IC are too powerful to work on whatever those new active core ablities are, they could easily come with tradeoffs).

I want virtues to get their range back now that the devs have stopped pretending that DH is backline support.

Oh, and I want tomes back.

15% more damage on GS up from 5% and 150 heal on every GS swing.
Virtue of Justice active should do AoE blind and single target blast for a significant ammount of burst damage.
If not then why ? Could that be OP somehow ?

Oh i forgot.

Smite should be a symbol and most symbol shouldn’t be a light field.

I like the idea of reducing cooldowns on some skills or making them more useful. There are a lot of utility skills I’ve never touched as I’ve never felt a use for them.

Also, comedy answer:
Symbolic Avenger renamed to Come on, Baby, Light my Fire. When traited, you deal 10% more damage to enemies in your symbols, and all symbols are considered fire fields. Now you can blast your hammer auto-attacks all day for might instead of getting yelled at for dropping light fields.

1: 3rd attack on sword auto chain becoming a melee triple hit slash (that actually hits instead of missing)

2: 3rd auto attack on hammer being sped up to 1/2 second even if it means taking a pulse off of symbol of protection. (the god awful cast time is way to long)

3: Signet of courage, Make it heal every second (for 1/8 – 1/10th what it does now) instead of once every 10th second.

4: Make the spirit weapons not insta die again. (redesign them please)

5: Signet of Mercy, redesign it. Its crap as is.

6: Hallowed Ground. Cut the CD in half but also cut the boon duration per pulse in half. Also would be great if it actually burned enemies inside its radius.

7: Sanctuary. Just redesign it, its absolute crap as is.

8: The minor traits in the zeal line. Swap & or merge them with several of the majors. (Some majors are just no brainers over others no matter what, make them minors so there is an actual choice)

9: Wrathful Spirit. Redesign it. (guard already has a ton of retaliation & a pitiful 3 sec more when AEGIS breaks is meaningless)

10: Zealous Scepter. Discourages the use of virtue of justice. Please modify it so it works good weather or not you active the virtue.

11: Healers Retribution. Rework it and or buff it to also effect allies (Again guard has a ton of retal, this is useless compared to other choices.)

12: Perfect inscriptions. Redesign it. (Protection and resistance or protection & condi removal would be much more valuable then light aura which can already be applied via the countless light fields)

13: Radiant Retaliation. Its worthless, even if the guardian never used +power and went full dire it would only amount to about 3% more retal damage. Just scrap it and design something useful.

14: Strength of the Fallen. Get rid of the longer bleed out time and put something good on it.

15: Stalwart defender. Get rid of the toughness. Put something nice on it like a taunt or resistance on shield use.

16; Retributive Armor: Really doesn’t belong here.

17: Protectors impact. Like all fall traits, scrap it and create something good.

18: Empowering Might. Increase the duration to 8s base.

19: Writ of Persistence. Move it to zeal. (Several zeal traits could be moved/merged anyway and it has all the other symbol traits.)

20: Retaliatory Subconscious. Given the new DH trait & the CD it really should give protection and retaliation when procced.

21: Glacial Heart. Move it to zeal. (Hammer is a symbol weapon after all)

22: Battle Presence. Discourages the use of virtue of resolve. Merge it with Absolute resolution.

PS: Also it would be awesome if smite was a symbol or at least counted as one.

Mysticjedi.6053:

Sword skill update, I really like the idea someone put forth at one time to make sword a condi weapon.

Un-Fun fact.

Sword (assuming all the auto attacks hit) May have a higher base DPS then other weapons but because it has no damage mod traits it quickly falls behind hammer, greatsword & even mace due to how they interact with traits.

Knowing all this I quite frankly think they could stand to move the trait right handed strength to the grandmaster slot in radiance (Replacing the useless radiant retaliation) and improve the trait by causing critical hits with the sword to apply 4-5 seconds of bleeding.

This would mean that yes the sword can do somewhat decent physical damage, but it would truly become the prime choice for a rampager/carrion guardian once traited.

- Signets redesign, elite signet impossible to cast even with the easy overwhelmed stability on.

-SW weapon are bit of a joke, they need to last longer if players want to do anything with them, besides that they die with any weak damage, also CD’s are way to long for the nothing they had to the combat.
They went from ok’ish to not working due Anet update.

-Consecrations overall are nice, but some as sanctuary needs to be changed, increase dome size and improve healing+resistance or protection, on 8-12sec duration with 140sec CD, and probably move it to an elite skill.

- Shield trait have traits conflicts, merge some traits with +toughness (armor is so useless that traits could be merge and the add of toughness on block still would be unnoticeable).

-After merge add new trait that turns shield into a more offensive weapon, increase damage and taunt enemy if player already have aegis, (2nd aegis is not aplyed and shield taunts).

- A dev playing guardian trying to play guardian with some builds would be nice to, anything besides medi or random builds for pve.

-Also more health, competing with shouts and heal on symbol does not feel good.

Weapons:
Sword:
- Skill 2: Feels like it doesn’t connect well with skill 3. Needs to be a bit faster
- Skill 3: No root, moving with the same speed as whirling wrath
Hammer:
- Skill 1: Last hit speed increase
- Skill 2: No jump animation, feels clunky. Rather an animation that takes the same amount of time while moving normally.
- Skill 5: Movement speed 10% while using this. So even if you are 90% slower, it doesn’t cancel the skill when you want to move a bit.
GS:
- Skill 3: Jump animation is still awful, feels a bit clunky
Mace:
- Skill 1: Last hit need a bit more speed
Scepter:
- Skill 1: Increase orb velocity to the same as bow as dragonhunter

Utility:
- Merciful Intervention: Either make it have less CD or make it so that it doesn’t need a friendly target to teleport
- Hallowed Ground: CD needs to be less, around 60s, 80s is too high
- Retreat: CD should be little bit less
- All signets: Have the passiv ability even after using the signet. As things stands now, signets are almost never used(active), because the passiv effect is better.
- Signet of Mercy: Need a huge CD reduce, to 60s or even less. Not only does it provide the useless healing power passiv, but the revival takes a huge amount of time to cast. In most cases, your friends will die during that cast time. Or you will get CCed hard.
- All Spirit weapons: Increase in life, make them immun to CC(not sure about this one)

Guardian in general:
- More basic health. About the same as Engineer, Ranger, Mesmer. Guardian is a frontliner in wvw, but the needs to grab a lot of survival equipment to withstand the whole aoes and dmg during a zerk fight. Not sure about tpvp, maybe seperate them if needed. I feel this is also needed for raids later, because anet claims that one cannot dodge everything.

Kirnale.5914:

Weapons:
Sword:
- Skill 3: No root, moving with the same speed as whirling wrath

That’s a good idea I would agree on, since other classes have similar skills; ele earth dagger #2 comes to mind.

In general, as far as I get the gist of it, you guys want to flat-out buff the guard.

But don’t you think, even with his flaws, the guard is in a good spot for the current meta right now?
The mentality of “increase skill X by Y amount” won’t cut the deal in the balacing issue overall. Other classes have the same problems as guard.

All these skills you mentioned, which are considered “dead” or “useless” can serve a purpose in the current content, they are not completely off the table.

TEGG.2859:

Kirnale.5914:

Weapons:
Sword:
- Skill 3: No root, moving with the same speed as whirling wrath

That’s a good idea I would agree on, since other classes have similar skills; ele earth dagger #2 comes to mind.

In general, as far as I get the gist of it, you guys want to flat-out buff the guard.

But don’t you think, even with his flaws, the guard is in a good spot for the current meta right now?
The mentality of “increase skill X by Y amount” won’t cut the deal in the balacing issue overall. Other classes have the same problems as guard.

All these skills you mentioned, which are considered “dead” or “useless” can serve a purpose in the current content, they are not completely off the table.

barely anyone uses them
the use of them is toooooooo niche
and usualy taking them means you just cripling yourself.

I want to see the healing of Staff vastly improved to compete with Revenant and Druid.

I mean, for pete sake, Guardian is the successor of MONKS and we have the healing cross as our class icon!

We should be up to par with the other healers just by virtue of being a Guardian.

Zoltreez.6435:

TEGG.2859:

Kirnale.5914:

Weapons:
Sword:
- Skill 3: No root, moving with the same speed as whirling wrath

That’s a good idea I would agree on, since other classes have similar skills; ele earth dagger #2 comes to mind.

In general, as far as I get the gist of it, you guys want to flat-out buff the guard.

But don’t you think, even with his flaws, the guard is in a good spot for the current meta right now?
The mentality of “increase skill X by Y amount” won’t cut the deal in the balacing issue overall. Other classes have the same problems as guard.

All these skills you mentioned, which are considered “dead” or “useless” can serve a purpose in the current content, they are not completely off the table.

barely anyone uses them
the use of them is toooooooo niche
and usualy taking them means you just cripling yourself.

I can’t agree on that, how often do you play high level fractals as guard?

As I mentioned earlier, it depends on the content you’re dealing with.

And then again, other classes have these “niche skills” too, which makes it somewhat balanced in a wider view.

Kain Francois.4328:

I want to see the healing of Staff vastly improved to compete with Revenant and Druid.

I mean, for pete sake, Guardian is the successor of MONKS and we have the healing cross as our class icon!

We should be up to par with the other healers just by virtue of being a Guardian.

The support a heal guard offers, does not primarily lie in his healing output, but in his utility support: boons, blinds, reflect, cc.

In terms of raw healing he is inferior, but in terms of the amount of utility support he is superior to revenant and druid.

~ just my opinion

So you use merciful intervention in high level fractals ? Over shouts and reflect ? I didn’t play high level fracs, but I don’t see how you use this one.
Signet of Mercy… don’t tell me you use this. In all game modes pve, wvw and tpvp it’s useless.
Spirit weapons, the only useful one is the shield. For everything else, there is better options. For condi clear you have shouts traited or virtue.
Hallowed Ground… over Stand your ground ? Never gonna happen. Not in pvp, wvw or pve.

Please explain the exact the uses of these skills.

Kirnale.5914:

So you use merciful intervention in high level fractals ? Over shouts and reflect ? I didn’t play high level fracs, but I don’t see how you use this one.
Signet of Mercy… don’t tell me you use this. In all game modes pve, wvw and tpvp it’s useless.
Spirit weapons, the only useful one is the shield. For everything else, there is better options. For condi clear you have shouts traited or virtue.
Hallowed Ground… over Stand your ground ? Never gonna happen. Not in pvp, wvw or pve.

Please explain the exact the uses of these skills.

Oh boy, that is going to be fun now.
Ok, to work off your questioned skills:

Merciful Intervention
You can port after your allies in the aetherblade fractal to help shutting off the consoles, both parts of them.
For open world or WvW mobility issues.

Signet of Mercy
Tough one, I’ve seen some PvP builds going for it, but not I’m not a fan of it either.

Spirit Weapons
The shield is a must have in every projectile-heavy encounter which lasts longer than your wall. The sword is little gimmick for when you need more dps and can spare a utility slot, i. e. underwater mossman and HotW path 2+3 endbosses.

Condition clearing
For PvE, never shouts traited, always F2 traited. If you’re hipster you can even use your light fields for that.

Hallowed ground
For stability overload, i. e. Aetherblade fractal again; SYG + F3 traited + HG to cover the time needed to clear the golems at the end.

Sanctuary
For even more projectile cover, i. e. molten furnance in the AoE phase; imbued shaman boss fight. To keep mobs at bay, i. e. cliffside at the seal near his stomach.
It is even included in some PvP oriented consecration builds as far as I know.

[space for further editing]

Thanks for explaining.

But as for spirit weapon sword, isn’t it better to slot power signet for it’s passiv for more dps ?

About the Merciful Intervention, I think I never used it there, because I just run with invulnerable and often arrive faster than my party members.

Kirnale.5914:

Thanks for explaining.

But as for spirit weapon sword, isn’t it better to slot power signet for it’s passiv for more dps ?

About the Merciful Intervention, I think I never used it there, because I just run with invulnerable and often arrive faster than my party members.

If you can spare utility slots and if you need max /afk dps, take both signet and sword (best example: underwater mossman).

You should be faster with MI blinking after an ally, than running up there by youself.

TEGG.2859:

Kirnale.5914:

So you use merciful intervention in high level fractals ? Over shouts and reflect ? I didn’t play high level fracs, but I don’t see how you use this one.
Signet of Mercy… don’t tell me you use this. In all game modes pve, wvw and tpvp it’s useless.
Spirit weapons, the only useful one is the shield. For everything else, there is better options. For condi clear you have shouts traited or virtue.
Hallowed Ground… over Stand your ground ? Never gonna happen. Not in pvp, wvw or pve.

Please explain the exact the uses of these skills.

Oh boy, that is going to be fun now.
Ok, to work off your questioned skills:

Merciful Intervention
You can port after your allies in the aetherblade fractal to help shutting off the consoles, both parts of them.
For open world or WvW mobility issues.

Signet of Mercy
Tough one, I’ve seen some PvP builds going for it, but not I’m not a fan of it either.

Spirit Weapons
The shield is a must have in every projectile-heavy encounter which lasts longer than your wall. The sword is little gimmick for when you need more dps and can spare a utility slot, i. e. underwater mossman and HotW path 2+3 endbosses.

Condition clearing
For PvE, never shouts traited, always F2 traited. If you’re hipster you can even use your light fields for that.

Hallowed ground
For stability overload, i. e. Aetherblade fractal again; SYG + F3 traited + HG to cover the time needed to clear the golems at the end.

Sanctuary
For even more projectile cover, i. e. molten furnance in the AoE phase; imbued shaman boss fight. To keep mobs at bay, i. e. cliffside at the seal near his stomach.
It is even included in some PvP oriented consecration builds as far as I know.

Ya but that’s the problem. Merciful Intevention, Signet of Mercy and Spirit Weapons (except SoA) are all very situational skills. 99.9% of the time, they never go on my bar and that’s because their use is limited. Sanctuary and Hallowed ground are also situation, but in a better shape. Their long cooldown are what usually limit their usefulness. There is very few fight that will allow you to use them twice.

For exemple. I love hallowed ground in SE path 1. It’s great for the first golem so he don’t interrupt you. The shout is usually enough in good group, but in pugs I prefer Hallowed Ground. Then there is the boss on the platform. Stand your ground just doesn’t have enough duration to protect your party from doing some diving into the laval pool, but Hallowed ground is perfect. But I never use it at this boss since I also need some stability for the next fight with the golems and Hallowed ground is never ready for that fight. Same with Sanctuary. The cooldown is what usually push me away from those skill.

TEGG.2859:

If you can spare utility slots and if you need max /afk dps, take both signet and sword (best example: underwater mossman).

I still prefer Retreat (UC) and Save Yourself (Power of the Virtuous) for some active dps.

Thaddeus.4891:

TEGG.2859:

If you can spare utility slots and if you need max /afk dps, take both signet and sword (best example: underwater mossman).

I still prefer Retreat (UC) and Save Yourself (Power of the Virtuous) for some active dps.

True enough, but my statement was about /afk dps.

/quote
“Ya but that’s the problem. Merciful Intevention, Signet of Mercy and Spirit Weapons (except SoA) are all very situational skills. 99.9% of the time, they never go on my bar and that’s because their use is limited. Sanctuary and Hallowed ground are also situation, but in a better shape. Their long cooldown are what usually limit their usefulness. There is very few fight that will allow you to use them twice. "

But they DO have a purpose somewhere, they are not completely dead and need ridiculous buffing as the thread suggested.
There are other classes with dead skills who need some loving from anet: ranger shouts in PvE, necro minions, warrior physical skills … the list goes on.

Therefore my previous statement:
“[…] even with his flaws, the guard is in a good spot for the current meta right now[.]”

The problem is not if guard is good or bad for the meta. It’s the diversity for the class. Most guards are limited to shouts to stay in the meta. Utility should be situational, yes. But never so limited that it is next to useless. That’s why people suggest it needs a rework.

People want to use other skills than shouts. Spirit weapons for tpvp sounds nice if they only doesn’t die so fast. Hallowed ground is never used in pvp situations, because it requires you to stand in the aoe. The high CD makes it even worse.

An utility skill should provide some uses in every game mode. And they should be all on the same level of balance. It’s not, hey lets make some strong main utility skills for each class and some super rare used skill for a super rare situation. It’s just wrong.

And yes, each class have this philosophy.

These skills need some buff. You can’t say they are on par with the shouts in term of the amount of situation they are used. That thing is a fact. Doesn’t change whatever other classes have or not have. It still need a rework. Undeniable, really.

It is NOT some rediculous buff as you take it. It is a needed buff to become less situational.

TEGG.2859:

But they DO have a purpose somewhere, they are not completely dead and need ridiculous buffing as the thread suggested.
There are other classes with dead skills who need some loving from anet: ranger shouts in PvE, necro minions, warrior physical skills … the list goes on.

Therefore my previous statement:
“[…] even with his flaws, the guard is in a good spot for the current meta right now[.]”

Well you can say that for everyskill. I can say, hey minion master is decent in PvP and with rise it can be good so let’s concentrate on other classes with dead skills. Oh well Ranger shouts are not that bad. Sic ‘Em!, We heal as one! and Strength of the pack! and three great skill, meta PvE take trait to boost shout and search and rescue is a good situational skill. Let’s concentrate on other classes with dead skills.

See my point? It’s a tread about guardian and guardian do have skill that are near complete uselessness. Some need just a little buff, other need bigger buff. You can talk about which skill you thing this tread want to buff too much and why. But some of those skill really need some buffing. More useful skill mean more diversity within the profession.

@Kirnale.5914
@Thaddeus.4891

I think we have a mutul understanding problem in terms of: what kind of content are we talking about? (Haven’t I said that before?)

I see your points in PvP & WvW, but I’ll keep my statements for PvE.

It would make communication easier to agree discussing one type of content.

The problem is that skills are universal. They are not just for pve. Thus, making it hard to discuss on only pve, or in this case, dungeons.
But even in PvE, it’s still too situational.

What I want to see for every skill in PvE, that it is situational like wall of reflection.
It is the perfect example. You could use it in every dungeon, but also not use it if enemy’s aren’t using projectiles.

The skill I mentioned are too rare used. You explained them to me, and it makes sense on how you use it. BUT it is too limited. They hardly have their uses, over shouts, outside that area.

I still stick to my main point: […] diversity for the class

No we shouldn’t talk about skill for one specific mode. Some skills are good for all three mode and some all good only in some mode and that’s ok. But they should all have at least one mode where they are good, I don’t mind which one.

On a side note: Games usually balance skills, trait/build and everything based on PVP if they have one and focus on it. Because competition against each other requires most balance. Anet is same, they have real tourneys, a huge endgame wvw community. PvE just need to pick something. You can survive cof1 without utility at all, but you cannot survive pvp without them.

Posting this from another thread:

Spirit weapons need to go back to the drawing board. They really should have been like GW1 dervish enchantments. Enchant your weapons and have them proc an effect every 4 hits similar to VoJ. Triggering the command or chained skill would activate a PbAoe effect Shooting spirit swords from your body (SoJ), AoE knockdown (HoW), AoE daze (SotA) or Area heal/condi removal(BoT).

Some other thoughts:
- Sanctuary needs to be a bit bigger (not like the elite version back in beta), base duration increased by 2 seconds and base cool down reduced to 100 seconds.
- Perfect Inscriptions needs to remove condis again and increase the duration of light auras to 5 seconds.
-Retributive Armor and Force of Will NEED changes to be worth taking over the other two gms in their respective specs.
- Glacial Hear applies 1.5 seconds of chill on hit with a 5 second ICD.
- Binding Blade applies 2 second cripple every 5 seconds for the duration of the skill (initial hit and 5 and 10 seconds).
- Scepter symbol to replace Smite.
- Sword AA 3 to create a symbol, preferably on the enemy like hammer AA 3.
- Signets need better active effects.

Traits

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.

Weapon/offhand Skills

GS: Remove the bolts from WW and increase the base dmg. They’re too unreliable and require you to be inside your target.

Hammer: Speed up the auto a tad.

Staff: Remove root on Empower.

Sword: Remove projectiles on 3rd hit auto. Remove root on Zealot’s Defense.

Mace: Third hit auto to cleave. #3 should only proc within melee range(same blocks as ranger/warrior)

Scepter: Fix the tracking on auto, change smite to a symbol.

Torch: Allow for Cleansing flame to remove conditions on the Guardian.

Utilities

Litany of Wrath: Trade with Revenant’s Infuse Light.

Signet of Resolve: Completely change to something else, not sure.

Merciful Intervention: Change to a shadow step without the need for an ally.

Signets: Change all to be self-empowering(buffs upon activation).

Signet of Courage: Uh….lower interval to 5 seconds?

I don´t want to see any guardian changes except for some bugfixes, I really like the place the guard is in right now and would prefer other classes being balanced around it as it is a well balanced class i believe.

on bugfixes there is the shield trait that is not giving you the promised toughness and allies reflecting your staff 2 back at you with reflect skills making you unable to detonate it and sometimes bugging out the skill.

I disagree with the concept of people always crying out to the devs for buffing of their favorite class, that is what the ele community has been doing and it has nearly broken the PvP

Ulf.4937:

I don´t want to see any guardian changes except for some bugfixes, I really like the place the guard is in right now and would prefer other classes being balanced around it as it is a well balanced class i believe.

on bugfixes there is the shield trait that is not giving you the promised toughness and allies reflecting your staff 2 back at you with reflect skills making you unable to detonate it and sometimes bugging out the skill.

I disagree with the concept of people always crying out to the devs for buffing of their favorite class, that is what the ele community has been doing and it has nearly broken the PvP

So your fine with the jumbled traits in zeal?
The fact that numerous traits just aren’t taken because they are laughable compared to other options ?
The traits that discourage the use of virtues?
The fact that auto attacks on the hammer are so slow?
The fact that sword auto attacks can be reflected & often just plain miss?
The fact that 2 of the signets are pretty much useless ?
The fact that 2/4 of the consecrations are so badly designed they never see serious use?
The fact that spirit weapons are completely useless ?

He is fine. Because he never uses what you mentioned anyways. “It is balance, because I ignore them.”… is what I took from his post. Simply skipping stuff and denying that it need some rebalance.

Seriously, if he likes them so much, he should show me a build with signet of mercy and spirit weapons for any game mode. Ofc it should be just as strong as the current meta build. It is balanced for him after all, since he doesn’t want us to suggest any changes to guardian.

Nothing stands out like the failure that is Spirit Weapons.

Arken.3725:

Traits

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.

Weapon/offhand Skills

GS: Remove the bolts from WW and increase the base dmg. They’re too unreliable and require you to be inside your target.

Hammer: Speed up the auto a tad.

Staff: Remove root on Empower.

Sword: Remove projectiles on 3rd hit auto. Remove root on Zealot’s Defense.

Mace: Third hit auto to cleave. #3 should only proc within melee range(same blocks as ranger/warrior)

Scepter: Fix the tracking on auto, change smite to a symbol.

Torch: Allow for Cleansing flame to remove conditions on the Guardian.

Utilities

Litany of Wrath: Trade with Revenant’s Infuse Light.

Signet of Resolve: Completely change to something else, not sure.

Merciful Intervention: Change to a shadow step without the need for an ally.

Signets: Change all to be self-empowering(buffs upon activation).

Signet of Courage: Uh….lower interval to 5 seconds?

I agree with all of this, but add a spirit weapon rework and some cooldown reductions all around. I’m actually inclined to believe that Valorous Defense could very well be bugged, because I’ve literally never noticed it proc despite all my time both playing as and against Medi Guard.