Zealous Blade

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

Hey guys, just thought i’d give my opinion on its current state and what I think would be a good change for it. The concept sounded really neat when it was first introduced to the Guardian profession a few months after release. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a severe let-down. 25per hit is incredibly underwhelming, even when stacked with HP, you’re looking at about 44.

Here’s my idea to make it an excellent trait. First-off, make it a Grandmaster again. Second, change it where it only heals per skill usage on hit. Meaning that if I hit two people with an AA, I only get healed once. Obviously, only make this work with GS. Lastly, Increase the heal per hit to 300-400 and have it scale with power, not healing power.

Some of you may believe this is too strong but let me list the weaknesses.

1. Stuck on one weapon-set the whole time.
2. One of the Guardian’s biggest weaknesses is mobilty/soft cc so if you get kited, you’re looking at no return.
3. Grandmaster investment.
4. Limited to skill activation upon hit. Meaning you can’t blindly swing your weapon and get healed.

If you guys have better suggestions, lets hear em’. I’d love to make this trait useful.

Edit: Suggestions from Others:

-Separating Zealous Blade into two traits, one for damage and the other for sustain.

-Remove the healing, Whenever you apply Burning you Cripple your target for 3 seconds. 10 sec ICD.

-Small chance to apply party Protection upon crit.

-Increase scaling to .1, moderate Healing Power for moderate sustain.

- Change to % upon hit.

(edited by Arken.3725)

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Posted by: Aedrion.6483

Aedrion.6483

Scaling with power would help it, and the build, but can’t be done.

I do like it though. It would mean you can get some healing with GS abilities and not have to keep using it just to get some tiny heals.

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

But why can’t it be done? I’m sure it’s very simple switching around the scaling.

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Posted by: Aedrion.6483

Aedrion.6483

The core rules are that all healing, no matter how tiny, will always be affected by healing power, and nothing else.

It doesn’t make sense to have healing be increased by power for this and that skill instead of healing power. In other MMO’s they do that but as far as I know, in GW2, there’s no such exceptions to the rules.

If you get power, you get damage, if you get healing power, you get healing. Otherwise many abilities could heal based on precision, toughness, power, condi damage just because it would make it easier, rendering healing power useless.

I like your recommended change, but that little detail will never happen

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Posted by: Jax.5261

Jax.5261

I think this is a pretty good idea although I don’t like the idea of making GS higher sustain over all the other Guardian weapons.
Move sustain from dodge rolls / boons to weapon heals would be good idea, more versatility in the sigils, runes and utility skills.

Haven’t really thought through much in the Zeal line tbh, we’re too dedicated to specific minor traits which need to change first.

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

I understand Jax, I just believed that the concept of Zealous Blade was to provide a good amount of sustain through GS with a heavy trait investment.

Edit: I understand that Aedrion, just from a technical standpoint it seems VERY easy to adjust.

(edited by Arken.3725)

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Posted by: CMF.5461

CMF.5461

For the argument about mechanics stopping it from scaling with power, some what of a simple fix, that is doable with traits:

“Gain Healing power based on your Power”
(Power converted to Healing Power: x%)

Then you can adjust either the power/healing power conversion and or the healing power coefficient of zealous blade itself.

Replace Kindled Zeal with that trait possibly, or lump it together with another trait…possibly even automatically put it in Zealous Blade itself… but the point of builds is to sacrifice some things to gain others, so that might not be a wanted change.

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

That could work with maybe some of the minors in Zeal. I’d say that every one of those is pretty subpar.

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Posted by: Aza.2105

Aza.2105

Stacked with 1400+ healing power zealous blade gives around 54-57 hp per attack. The sustain is ok if you have healing power and aoeing, its sort of like a mini AH. At the same time the trait is impractical and adverse to the zeal line stats. The trait feels like it belongs in the honor tree now.

When Anet first buffed zealous blade I decided to give it a try. I can’t say that I’d recommend anyone to stack healing power just to use zealous blade.

I like your proposed changes arken, it reminds me of the mace auto attack and some what like assassin’s reward.

Amd Ryzen 1800x – Amd Fury X -64GB of ram
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Posted by: Harbinger.8637

Harbinger.8637

I like the idea behind Zealous Blade, but it’s still subpar. Your idea of scaling with power is interesting.

Also they could just increase the multiplier for healing power on it. It’s like .02 I believe.

Guardian WvW Guide!
Heavens Rage

(edited by Harbinger.8637)

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Posted by: notabot.3497

notabot.3497

Why do you guys need to heal so much? You already have strong normal heals, virtues, and a weapon that pretty much is useless other than healing/sustain… You want one of the stronger burst weapons to also provide sustain?

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

There are many sacrifices to this trait if implemented the way I suggested, notabot. Virtues healing for 84/sec is a joke, especially when you’re using the active quite often not only for your group but for a decent heal since the regen is very low.

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Posted by: Amins.3710

Amins.3710

Why do you guys need to heal so much?

You’re confusing a support build vs a dps build. Every aspect of the Guardian outside of a pure dps build is very well balanced. The other, not so much.

Guardian DPS builds have very little sustain. It’s ~THE~ single biggest issue w/ guardians: Lack of stats to support DPS and the amount Guards have to sacrafice to even come close to other classes in the DPS/Burst department for WvW.

Amins – Guardian
Gameplay Video’s & Forum Post

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Posted by: notabot.3497

notabot.3497

I guess I just do too much small group/solo roaming and pve/dungeon for me to really get why you would even worry about the level of support you guys are wanting. I mean fights for me tend to not last long enough for care about the small heals. When I do get the urge to zerg/large group I just swap traits and some gear to a support build and not worry about damage as much.

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Posted by: Exedore.6320

Exedore.6320

Yes, the trait is weak. But the OP’s changes would make it ridiculously strong. Keep in mind that healing signet now heals for ~400HP/sec in most current warrior builds with 0 healing power from gear (200-300 from traits).

There are three issues to consider when buffing or changing this trait.
1. Don’t want it to be easy to roll into an unkillable bunker guardian build.
2. Don’t want to make it extremely powerful for full DPS PvE builds.
3. The majority of the Zeal trait line still sucks.

To fix #1, it would make sense to make it grandmaster, but that warrants buffing it further to compensate for it being harder to get and #3. That makes #2 a bigger problem. If you made it scale with power instead of healing power, that also fixes #1, but it breaks #2.

Here’s my suggestion:
Increases damage with greatsword by 10% and attacks with greatsword heal for 60-70 (0.04-0.05)

First, all master level major traits that give a damage bonus to a single weapon offer a 10% damage increase and an extra bonus, often as a cooldown reduction. Second, the healing amount scaling with number of opponents is fine, and preferable to a static amount. By scaling it with number of opponents, you gain more healing as you, in theory, take more damage. If it were a static number, you’d have to make it too weak to prevent it from being too good in a 1v1. For the healing number and coefficient, I looked at a probable number of hits in PvE and PvP, both with a weapon swap and compared to Altruistic Healing and Monk’s Focus (Grandmaster) and Pure of Heart (Adept). Since this is a dual trait, I would expect the healing to be closer to the adept level, and definitely should not exceed the grandmaster. Scaling is kept with healing power as a way for it be improved in PvP/WvW – an environment where defensive stats are more useful – while not making it more powerful in PvE. Basically, I just doubled the numbers from what they currently are.

Fixing the Zeal trait line and fixing sPvP stats is another topic.

Kirrena Rosenkreutz

(edited by Exedore.6320)

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

The last thing I want is to make it too strong. With heavy trait investment, you’re not going to be able to pull off the normal bunker/support build. I think with the weaknesses/investments pointed out, it could potentially be balanced.

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Posted by: Lonewolf Kai.3682

Lonewolf Kai.3682

I like the trait being Master. Moving it to Grandmaster will limit builds that don’t want to go 30 Zeal.

I actually like the way Zealous Blade works now. IMO though, the only thing that needs to be done is fixing the amount it actually heals for. Switching it from Healing Power scaling to Power might do the trick, and actually makes more sense anyways. If the devs are determined to keep it with HP, then it needs a scaling buff.

“Be like water” – Bruce Lee

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Posted by: ens.9854

ens.9854

Nobody wants guardian to have more sustain, that’s the real problem. Trait just needs trashed for something entirely different… maybe something to help create the elusive guardian condi build

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Posted by: Lonewolf Kai.3682

Lonewolf Kai.3682

Nobody wants guardian to have more sustain, that’s the real problem. Trait just needs trashed for something entirely different… maybe something to help create the elusive guardian condi build

As Amins stated, DPS guardians need a comparable sustain like the other professions have, so no, the trait doesn’t need “trashing”, it needs a tweaking.

And they were already trying to do soemthing for a condi build. One of these changes, which albeit fell short, is via Kindled Zeal.

“Be like water” – Bruce Lee

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Posted by: Aza.2105

Aza.2105

And they were already trying to do soemthing for a condi build. One of these changes, which albeit fell short, is via Kindled Zeal.

I can’t honestly imagine what they were thinking when they gave guardians that trait.

Amd Ryzen 1800x – Amd Fury X -64GB of ram
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Posted by: CptAurellian.9537

CptAurellian.9537

And they were already trying to do soemthing for a condi build. One of these changes, which albeit fell short, is via Kindled Zeal.

I can’t honestly imagine what they were thinking when they gave guardians that trait.

Simply nothing. Nothing at all.

Warning! This post may contain traces of irony, sarcasm and peanuts.

There is no loyalty without betrayal. -Ann Smiley

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Posted by: Nikaido.3457

Nikaido.3457

Guardian is the only class in the game without a viable condi build. The fact that they added a trait like Kindled Zeal before introducing/modifying any weapon set to give guardians some viable condition application shows how much they know about their own game. I’m sure “burning guardians” were happy to get that trait, all three of them.

- “No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering.”

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

I understand the argument for a proper condition spec, i’m just discussing one of the traits on our Power line that needs tweaking.

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Posted by: ODB.6891

ODB.6891

What kind of sense does it make to provide the much needed sustain to DPS guardians….to only those that use a GS?!? I’m pretty sure any guardian that builds for DPS with a 1h sword or GS has the same low sustain issues.

I think Zealous Blade needs:
1. A boost to its base healing output
2. Scaling based off of power instead of healing power
3. To work for any bladed weapon (sword and GS)
4. To stay exactly where it is at master level
5. The minor traits leading up to it reworked to not be about symbols (maybe chance for protection on crit)

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

The same could be said about AH. Most of your healing comes from empower. Sure you get a bit from other sources, but it’s not nearly the same.

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Posted by: gpassucc.5961

gpassucc.5961

Really easy solution to the problems people have with this…

Have it heal based on damage from martial weapons (sword, GS, hammer). This would:
1. let it basically scale of power (since it scales with damage)
2. prevent it from being OP with bunkers using it
3. promote crazy kitten glass cannon guardians (which I love)

Would probably need to be GM trait at this point and have a carefully tested % of damage done as a heal. As a GM trait this would let you perhaps get this as well as all the meditation traits but you wouldn’t be able to get dodge roll heals as well, etc. So I think this would be fairly balanced overall.

[EG] – SoR – Persies Sunreaver (war),
Persiës Sunreaver (ele), Persiës (ranger),
Gromphe Baenre (necro), Përsies (guard)

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

I like that idea. You couldn’t run a bunker spec with it. This change sounds reasonable.

Edit: I still believe it should only heal on hit per skill activation. Keeping it as is would be dangerously op.

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Posted by: gpassucc.5961

gpassucc.5961

I like that idea. You couldn’t run a bunker spec with it. This change sounds reasonable.

Edit: I still believe it should only heal on hit per skill activation. Keeping it as is would be dangerously op.

Yeah ideally it would heal you for a percent of the damage you are currently doing, so no spamming auto attacks for heals, which wouldn’t really fit with the theme of the trait anyways imo. This could let you roll a pretty beastmode gs medi dps build though. They might need to remove the damage increase to keep it balanced.

[EG] – SoR – Persies Sunreaver (war),
Persiës Sunreaver (ele), Persiës (ranger),
Gromphe Baenre (necro), Përsies (guard)

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Posted by: Liewec.2896

Liewec.2896

i too was extremely disappointed with the trait, i was hoping that it would allow the guardian to be sort of a crusader/paladin build (especially with the also underwhelming Litany of Wrath)
i agree that the healing needs an increase, but i think it should keep its current function of healing per target hit, just healing for alot more than it currently does. (perhaps 150 per target?)

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Posted by: Althalos.6734

Althalos.6734

Let’s be reasonable here, scaling of Power is pointless, in that case it may as well be a % of damage dealt like Litany of Wrath.
For the sake of making stats like Healing Power more viable I incline more towards letting it work like now (base + HP% per hit), but make the HP scaling sharper (0.05 for starters). Right now 1250 HP effectively doubles healing from Zealous Blade pushing it to 50 health per hit. This number may look good, but 1250 HP is a heavy investment and a big sacrifice in damage compartment, so I think tinkering with HP scaling is the way to go, we just didn’t hit the sweet spot yet.
Basically my point of view about healing and sustain is – “You want more sustain? You invest in Healing Power and/or Boon Duration.” The last thing we need is another warrior class.

Althalos Dragonclaw – Seafarer’s Rest Guardian – Symbol of Hope
I use ESDF.

(edited by Althalos.6734)

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

I think scaling with Power is reasonable. This only works with one weapon, that is a very big weakness to this trait. If you’re going to isolate this to only one weapon, it needs to be strong, especially if it’s a melee weapon with little mobility.

Edit: It feels like a few completely miss the points I’ve given in the OP about how there are very many weaknesses to this trait, even if powered up. It’s not as if this applies to all weapon-types and does amazing work. (Cleansing Ire for example)

(edited by Arken.3725)

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Posted by: hehk.8705

hehk.8705

Look awesome. The problem one of the problems with DPS guardian is there are a lot of traits that are really powerful you must take, such kitten in 4th line, 5 in 2nd line, 30 in 3rd line for meditation traits and 20 in 5th line(mostly to give you sustain and some team support). This change would provide another trait that look as desirable a the others and could increase build diversity.

Only thing I fear is the healing potential of almost 700-800 a second if you are allowed to auto-attack but this seems like an awesome idea to make the 1st tree more desirable (we only now need to make the 2nd tree good for anything other than full burst).

Curie is my smooth Australian sensei.

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

Thing is, i’m not suggesting a massive boost in how much you get healed for. Not to mention you’re not going to sit on GS forever because if someone realizes you’re using that trait, they’ll just kite you and force you into a different weaponset.

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Posted by: Althalos.6734

Althalos.6734

Getting kited is not a problem for just this trait or greatsword, actually GS at least has a leap and a pull. In any form of pvp 6 out of 8 classes will attempt to kite you simply because they can while still dealing damage. And here arises the question – Are there too many class builds capable of projecting damage at range while also packing a decent ammount of crowd control? From what I’ve seen in my solo roaming attempts it really looks like that.
Fortunately the guardian class doesn’t have much realiable soft CC itself, so adding a source of cripple and/or chill here and there would be much easier than to rebalance all of the other class builds. Cripple on symbols is a popular idea, Glacial Heart is another adept for tweaking, etc.
With the access to soft CC, many of current problems of guardian class in pvp would suddenly vanish or at least fade away to some degree.

Althalos Dragonclaw – Seafarer’s Rest Guardian – Symbol of Hope
I use ESDF.

(edited by Althalos.6734)

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Posted by: raubvogel.5071

raubvogel.5071

Are you zealous if you heal on hit? I mean what does it mean?

However it could be changed to something like this:

- 10% damage and fire damage on crit
- fire blast on crit
- fury on crit
- might on crit
- further heal on crit
- protection on crit
- retaliation on crit
- +20% damage while health is below 50%

There is so much you could do better in this game… if it is meant damage it should be fully damage. If you want to make it perfect you give players the ability to choose wheter they want heal or damage by 2 traits.

If it is a damage weapons why has it heal trait on it?

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

I’d be fine with just getting rid of the 5% damage bonus all together and make it something unique and useful. I think instead of damage, sustain is needed in this line.

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Posted by: Yamsandjams.3267

Yamsandjams.3267

I didn’t read all the above posts, but it’s worth noting that the healing provided is per target hit. As such, if you’re cleaving people with your attacks, the healing effect multiplies.

This can make certain CC abilities like bane signet, signet of wrath, zealot’s embrace, ring of warding, and binding blade to be very important when using that trait. For instance, if you trap a few people in ring of warding, you can use whirling wrath to gain a lot of healing.

I find it’s also sometimes useful just for being a bit more tanky while also dealing good damage with the greatsword, but I usually don’t go that deep into the zeal tree with the builds I like to use.

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Posted by: Dynnen.6405

Dynnen.6405

I didn’t read all the above posts, but it’s worth noting that the healing provided is per target hit. As such, if you’re cleaving people with your attacks, the healing effect multiplies.

This can make certain CC abilities like bane signet, signet of wrath, zealot’s embrace, ring of warding, and binding blade to be very important when using that trait. For instance, if you trap a few people in ring of warding, you can use whirling wrath to gain a lot of healing.

I find it’s also sometimes useful just for being a bit more tanky while also dealing good damage with the greatsword, but I usually don’t go that deep into the zeal tree with the builds I like to use.

Thats the motto for this class: “This works great only when combined with other abilities.”

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

I didn’t read all the above posts, but it’s worth noting that the healing provided is per target hit. As such, if you’re cleaving people with your attacks, the healing effect multiplies.

This can make certain CC abilities like bane signet, signet of wrath, zealot’s embrace, ring of warding, and binding blade to be very important when using that trait. For instance, if you trap a few people in ring of warding, you can use whirling wrath to gain a lot of healing.

I find it’s also sometimes useful just for being a bit more tanky while also dealing good damage with the greatsword, but I usually don’t go that deep into the zeal tree with the builds I like to use.

I understand it’s provided per hit, i’m suggesting that be changed so it doesn’t become too strong. The example I was using was if you hit two people with your Auto-attack, instead of getting healed twice, you get healed once.

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Posted by: Dynnen.6405

Dynnen.6405

I didn’t read all the above posts, but it’s worth noting that the healing provided is per target hit. As such, if you’re cleaving people with your attacks, the healing effect multiplies.

This can make certain CC abilities like bane signet, signet of wrath, zealot’s embrace, ring of warding, and binding blade to be very important when using that trait. For instance, if you trap a few people in ring of warding, you can use whirling wrath to gain a lot of healing.

I find it’s also sometimes useful just for being a bit more tanky while also dealing good damage with the greatsword, but I usually don’t go that deep into the zeal tree with the builds I like to use.

I understand it’s provided per hit, i’m suggesting that be changed so it doesn’t become too strong. The example I was using was if you hit two people with your Auto-attack, instead of getting healed twice, you get healed once.

Well we wouldn’t want Anet to ‘warrior’ the kitten out of our class do we?

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

Of course not,. I just think the suggestion made is reasonable.

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Posted by: Relentliss.2170

Relentliss.2170

Zealous Blade should work like a lifesteal and use power. Anyone speccing zeal is not gearing healng power. The gear and the build just do not make sense.

We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional

Anet lied (where’s the Manifesto now?)

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Posted by: CnaeusDane.2938

CnaeusDane.2938

The original suggestion would just make guardians op. Ah only gives 70 a boon and is still extremely powerful if you just use it with might on crit. A hammer greats word meditation combo with that would be ridiculous. The problems with guardians stem more from our lack of soft cc and easy access mobility than sustain. We can sustain rather well it’s just that we can’t land the hits to finish off our opponents.

Honestly the fake balance patch, particularly the symbols give cripple on pulse would have been the greatest thing to happen to guardians in the game. Even if they changed it to a 25 trait and made it 1 second of cripple on symbol activation.

Tl;dr: suggestion adds to the games power creep by allowing ridiculous sustain in dps.

Mercenary for now.
Guardian – Vanessa Guardwell
Warrior – Cnaeus Dane

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Posted by: Yamsandjams.3267

Yamsandjams.3267

I didn’t read all the above posts, but it’s worth noting that the healing provided is per target hit. As such, if you’re cleaving people with your attacks, the healing effect multiplies.

This can make certain CC abilities like bane signet, signet of wrath, zealot’s embrace, ring of warding, and binding blade to be very important when using that trait. For instance, if you trap a few people in ring of warding, you can use whirling wrath to gain a lot of healing.

I find it’s also sometimes useful just for being a bit more tanky while also dealing good damage with the greatsword, but I usually don’t go that deep into the zeal tree with the builds I like to use.

I understand it’s provided per hit, i’m suggesting that be changed so it doesn’t become too strong. The example I was using was if you hit two people with your Auto-attack, instead of getting healed twice, you get healed once.

Oh, my bad. In my defense, I hadn’t slept in 36 hours before making that post.

Thats the motto for this class: “This works great only when combined with other abilities.”

I think that applies to most professions though. Many skills used in isolation can just be ok, but they become much more potent based on their combo potential.

As an example, consider the thief’s cloak and dagger ability. On it’s own, it’s not really that great. However, the point of it is to be able to use stealth-based attacks like backstab at a much higher frequency, or to constantly blind your foe with the cloaked in shadow trait.

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Posted by: Lonewolf Kai.3682

Lonewolf Kai.3682

The original suggestion would just make guardians op. Ah only gives 70 a boon and is still extremely powerful if you just use it with might on crit. A hammer greats word meditation combo with that would be ridiculous. The problems with guardians stem more from our lack of soft cc and easy access mobility than sustain. We can sustain rather well it’s just that we can’t land the hits to finish off our opponents.

Honestly the fake balance patch, particularly the symbols give cripple on pulse would have been the greatest thing to happen to guardians in the game. Even if they changed it to a 25 trait and made it 1 second of cripple on symbol activation.

Tl;dr: suggestion adds to the games power creep by allowing ridiculous sustain in dps.

The bolded isn’t quite accurate. Sure, Guardians can sustain rather well … when completely specced for it. However, speccing DPS changes “sustain rather well” to “not good enough”. Zealous Blade does not heal enough period. The pitiful buff they gave it last patch made the healing go from a mini-miniscule amout to just miniscule, but still not good enough. Even when supplimented with the other small heals such as VoR, and Selfless Daring (which is about to be nerfed btw), it’s still not good enough. My Virtuous Blade build utilizes such a strategy and it’s not good enough.

Add in a LOT of Healing Power and it becomes “good enough” but guess what your DPS just went to?

“Be like water” – Bruce Lee

(edited by Lonewolf Kai.3682)

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

The original suggestion would just make guardians op. Ah only gives 70 a boon and is still extremely powerful if you just use it with might on crit. A hammer greats word meditation combo with that would be ridiculous. The problems with guardians stem more from our lack of soft cc and easy access mobility than sustain. We can sustain rather well it’s just that we can’t land the hits to finish off our opponents.

Honestly the fake balance patch, particularly the symbols give cripple on pulse would have been the greatest thing to happen to guardians in the game. Even if they changed it to a 25 trait and made it 1 second of cripple on symbol activation.

Tl;dr: suggestion adds to the games power creep by allowing ridiculous sustain in dps.

Ah is very situational and only powerful within a group. Not to mention the only skill that maximizes this effect is Empower. A hammer/great sword combo would be an extremely weak combination given how easily you’ll be kited without any way to keep up with your target.

I honestly don’t think you read the op to see the various counters to this trait.

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Posted by: CnaeusDane.2938

CnaeusDane.2938

Kai I agree zealots blade along with most of the traits in the zeal trait line are poorly designed. Most of our sustain comes from the valor trait line with a few off traits in honor and virtues. But it’s suppose to be a trade off. Sustain is suppose to return poor power where as power is suppose to return poor sustain. That’s why Warriors healing signet is broken as a heal right now. It essentially getting healing surge spread out but in exchange not having a reasonable counter to it. TBH healing power is poorly done in this game, along with many mechanics.

Arken: Your reasons as to why it’s not OP are ridiculous.

1. Stuck on one weapon-set the whole time.

So we can be warriors sitting in hammer the whole time? If a set is OP then why bother switching at all. Not an actual downside.

2. One of the Guardian’s biggest weaknesses is mobilty/soft cc so if you get kited, you’re looking at no return.

So you can’t land 6 attacks that have 1/2 second cast time in 10 seconds? Perhaps 20? Because let’s say that the auto attack actually takes 3/4th time with after cast that means you can miss 9 attacks out of the 15 possible and still heal as much as mediation heals, 2k. If you’re telling me your hit rate is less than 40% then I can forgive you. But I’d say mine is at least 50% given traveler’s runes in WvW and the small areas in PvP.

3. Grandmaster investment.

30 zeal, 0 radiance, 30 valor, 5 honor, 5 virtues. 300 healing per attack land (essentially 2k every 10 seconds assuming Arken’s 40% hit rate at 3/4th cast time for auto attacks) oh and then we have mobility with meditations along with 2k heal per meditation. That means nothing. Traits aren’t balanced on the trait cost, it’s balanced on how it can be paired.

4. Limited to skill activation upon hit. Meaning you can’t blindly swing your weapon and get healed.

That’s basically the same excuse as being out kited. See above for thoughts on that.

Yes I did read your thoughts. You want to balance the game around 1 v 1 in a game where most fights are group fights. You’re telling me you couldn’t land a hit every time with greatsword in a group fight? That they’re so skilled at kiting you never land one?

Balance isn’t achieved by changing individual traits. Balance is achieved by looking at each and every aspect of the game. It seems as though you viewed this trait and the change through the eye glass of a low mobility shout guardian but didn’t stop to consider the implications of allowing such a paring with meditations.

Mercenary for now.
Guardian – Vanessa Guardwell
Warrior – Cnaeus Dane

Zealous Blade

in Guardian

Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

Alright, here we go:

Hammer on Warrior is VASTLY different when compared to the Guardian’s Great sword. You can’t compare the two, especially when the utility/damage of one completely outweighs the other.

I still stand by my point that it’s very difficult to land consistent damage with the GS. 300 health a hit isn’t going to keep you alive vs. someone who can easily avoid your damage.

What mobility are you talking about? Meditation Guardians have very little mobility and no soft cc. Not to mention Meditations aren’t a sustainable skillset, AH is. 3/4 meditations are on very long cds. Also, if traits aren’t balanced based on the cost, why do we have tiers? We might as well go back to beta where everything was available. Once again, you make no sense.

Balance is absolutely achieved by changing individual traits, along with skillsets. Skill-splitting allows for the ability to not have to look at EVERY aspect of this game. If you had to do so, it would take forever(if not longer) to achieve meaningful balance. I actually looked at this mostly through the mind of a Meditation Guardian. As I’ve stated before, that spec is meant for burst healing, not sustain. Having a little bit of sustain through one weapon isn’t going to make the Guardian a God of sustain.

Edit: Also, Great sword (in spvp) is one of the worst weapons I’ve ever used. Each skill is too slow and easily avoidable. Not to mention the average damage when heavily invested into power.

(edited by Arken.3725)

Zealous Blade

in Guardian

Posted by: CrazyCanuck.4265

CrazyCanuck.4265

Lastly, Increase the heal per hit to 300-400 and have it scale with power, not healing power.

This is just silly… 400 healing per hit with an auto attack that has a 1/2s cast time? Let’s just say for argument sake that you land an average of 5 auto attacks on ANY target within a 10s time period (for those who struggle with math, that is only 25% of the possible auto attacks you could land in that time period). Combine that with a standard medi build with 2k heals for every medi, and 8.2k heal on signet of resolve, and passive regen from virtue of resolve. Average it out over a 40s time period to account for the cooldowns of your longer cd medis and you get an average of almost 800 health per second without any statted healing power. That is the equivalent of 2 healing signet warriors, and they are considered to have the most op regen in the game at current. Explain to me how this sounds balanced in any way?

Alyrico
Tarnished Coast

(edited by CrazyCanuck.4265)

Zealous Blade

in Guardian

Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

Ok, then reduce it. Once again, the last sentence in the OP was to ask for suggestions. Getting snarky over this helps no one. Propose a more balanced change then.