Guild Wars 2

Hammer may be different than greatsword however the point you obviously missed is that if a weapon is OP there’s no reason to switch.

If you can’t land a 40% success rate on your attacks there are some more issues at hand here. Yes it has avoidable damage, I agree. It’s our most obvious weapon and in a 1 v 1 can be difficult to land hits. However as I already pointed out most fights are group fights. Roaming in WvW is about the only exception to this and even then that’s very rare to find a 1 v 1 fight. In Tpvp a guardian is not going to run DPS over other classes.

I won’t even argue the mobility, since you and I have differing opinions on what constitutes mobility.

As far as sustainability with meditations, how aren’t they sustainable? If you go complete glass sure, you’re gonna be squishy. Running a 0 0 30 20 20 build with meditations I can still get my 50% critical chance, 60% damage, 3k armor, over 3k attack, along with fury. Add the healing from absolute resolve as a passive, Smite for 2k heal every 16 seconds that can’t be interrupted, Merciful Intervention being glitched (or just not working as described) to heal 4k min and you’ve got some serious healing coming from all sorts of places. (I’ve proced as high as 8k, still haven’t figured out why. Thinking it’s the number of targets in an area glitching the skill.) As far as long cool downs, 16, 36 and 48 are hardly long cool downs in a game where fights can last easily 5 minutes. Against a skilled warrior I’ve had 20 minute 1 v 1’s. 16 seconds is nothing. If you just run full glass and expect to have sustained then you should just reroll warrior.

Your type of balance is to adjust under powered traits to make guardians as strong as warriors. 300-400 healing a hit is NOT balance. When I could out heal healing signet just because I auto attack through a zerg with no trade offs that isn’t balance. Did you even perhaps consider the PvE implications? I could run 30 0 30 10 0 with hold the line, stand your ground, and an extra utility slot with soldiers runes and just never die to the vast majority of mobs or even bosses. Over 10 seconds I’d receive 900 healing from virtue of resolve, 420 from AH just from the GS might on AA, and 6000 from this new trait of yours. You’d out heal healing signet and adrenal healing by about 2k if not more.

If you were to suggest increasing the scaling to say .1 healing power while making it a grand master trait that’d be more reasonable. 25 base, every 10 points of healing power gives 1 point more healed. 600 isn’t an unreasonable amount healing power to run while using DPS but would give 60 more healing for a total of 85 per hit. If it’s so difficult to land hits then it would be balanced to say every hit heals.

It basically sounds like you want guardian to be as easy as PU condi staff mesmer or healing signet ham bow warriors. You don’t balance the game by bringing a class up to meet the top classes, widening the gap between certain classes/builds, you bring top classes down and slightly adjust skills to work in a reasonable way. 300-400 healing a hit is NOT reasonable. Perhaps your rage against other classes (I use to be a fan of the stream, much less so after reading your ideas and hearing you rage) has caused you to lose touch with reasonable skills/traits. A lot of classes have skills/traits that are extremely powerful, and they do need adjusted. The answer not to boost the “lesser” classes skills/traits up to that, because you’ll never balance a game with a power creep like that.

It’s fair enough, all I’ve been suggesting was from an sPvP point of view for balance. There’s a reason why skill-splitting has been so beneficial. I honestly didn’t take into account the PvE aspect because it’s something I didn’t care much about. Split the skill then if that’s your intention. My goal was never to create an overpowered profession that’s ridiculously to play. I also appreciate that you used to watch my stream. The thing is this has not stemmed from any sort of rage but rather a proposal to make a trait into something useful.

Derailing this thread into what I rage about doesn’t contribute to the discussion at hand. Not agreeing me is one thing, judging someone over it is another. You’ve made your point and I acknowledge that yes, it probably will be too strong. So instead of mulling over the obvious now, lets discuss a way to make it not so strong.

Edit: Here’s a change i’d like to see then.

-Reduce it to 100-200(ballpark)
-Have it scale back to healing power since it’s soooo unheard of to change it to something else.

Now you appear to be quite frustrated to be told you’re wrong. But you’ve also not paid attention at all to the points I’ve brought up. The game will never move towards balance if there is no downside to taking things. Seeing as the stat system in this game is linear and stacking absolutely everything into a few stats is extremely beneficial there has to be trade offs in traits and skills. It’s not unheard of to scale things off of power – retaliation scales off it. However retaliation isn’t 100% up time in a standard build and it scales at 0.075. You wouldn’t put a necro heal skill that scales off of the condition stat. Then there’s no trade off. It’s why Dire is so stupid – there’s exactly zero trade off for condi builds.

I already suggested a 25 base, with .1 scaling which would bring the healing to just under 100 with moderate healing power. Even if the base was increased to say 40-50 with .05 scaling that’d give a moderate healing power build about 70 healing a hit at the trade off of less power and give max healing power builds about 100 a hit, which is more in line while still giving it a higher base for power builds. Even though it’d be a better skill part of the problem lies in the fact that the other skill trees have so much more to offer for 20 points than zeal does. Either all the traits including the minors have to be reworked so it’s worth wild to push in or a trait has to be extremely powerful borderline op.

Edit: As far as splitting skills I support that, while anet clearly doesn’t, traits are another matter. If we split traits we might as well make new classes just for PvP. PvE shouldn’t need to be balanced but traits that would break PvE shouldn’t be allowed in just for PvP purposes. It’s tricky yes but anet has already dug their balance grave instead of considering rebalancing conditions and boons and taking a second look at traits.

I never succumbed to frustration but rather understanding that I was off. I don’t appreciate the personal attacks. As far as your suggestion goes, that seems fair. Hopefully others may offer some input on what they’d like to see changed.

And just to reiterate, there were downsides that were listed. I guess this was ignored as a well. Also, there’s no such thing as right or wrong in a discussion for what one considers to be fair. So get off your high horse.

Nikaido.3457:

I’m sure “burning guardians” were happy to get that trait, all three of them.

lol

Carry on.

The problem is that you’re a streamer and rather vocal forum guardian and the suggestions I’ve seen made by you are usually extremely powerful and or unnecessary changes. Leads to other guardians wanting more and more from their traits when they could experiment with what we have. I have no problems with changing traits or skills but in a way to slightly modify the weaknesses. Zealous blade isn’t a horrid trait, it’s that by comparison other traits are better

That’s fine, I completely understand. That’s why I’m more than willing to compromise. Aside from my zealous blade suggestion, I’m not sure what other suggestions I’ve made that are outlandish as this.

Now that we’ve gotten past that, lets move forward to a balanced change.

Am I the only one who wants to see this trait split into two separate traits, one for damage and one for sustain? Trying to find a balance between damage and healing for one trait makes it comparatively underwhelming at both, while becoming OP once it’s buffed to be effective at either. Just drop the heal per hit, bump the gs damage increase to 10% like the master trait Powerful Blades for swords in the radiance line, get rid of one of the useless spirit weapon traits in the zeal line and make it a heal on yadayada whatever hurray sustain. Just my thoughts.

I see no problem there. I was actually thinking they just remove the % increase and focus on the healing factor. Your idea could work and help those understand that you can’t have everything.

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.

The whole concept that guardian needs more self healing is the problem. The issue with greatsword, and most guardian weapons in general is their severe lack of soft CC (cripple, immob, chill). If you play the typical greatsword, sw/f medi guardian, your only source of cc is binding blades which is horribly easy to dodge, and on a long cooldown. If you want to make this trait useful without making it overpowered I suggest removing the healing entirely and adding something along the lines of “Whenever you burn your target with greatsword, cripple them for 3s.” Give it a 10s internal cooldown and keep the 5% damage increase bit and you have a trait that actually makes running 20 into zeal worthwhile while still not making any particular build overpowered.

I actually really like your suggestion. I just think one issue is that Zeal offers barely any sustain. This would reduce it to zero.

Zeal isn’t suppose to offer sustain though. You have sustain through Valor, through shouts in Honor. Passives and condi clears in Virtues as passives. Zeal is suppose to be the damage line. If every tree had sustain then we’d be immortal.

Fair enough, just my issue is why bother giving it such a miniscule amount in the first place? I’d be fine if they did something like CrazyCanuck and had a different effect upon burning. I thought that was a pretty good idea.

Arken.3725:

I actually really like your suggestion. I just think one issue is that Zeal offers barely any sustain. This would reduce it to zero.

I don’t think it is necessary that zeal have sustain. 30 into valor for meditations is more than enough sustain imo. Sure you probably wont be able to pull off 1v3s like mesmers and thieves can in certain builds, but that isnt an issue of sustain or healing, rather an issue of overpowered traits for an already broken stealth mechanic.

Right, i’m just basing this off of what I believed the trait was supposed to accomplish. I’m fine keeping sustain to certain trees so you can’t have the best of both worlds.

I actually just sent him a message (Via Email) with a long list of suggested changes to guardian I’ve been thinking about that would include giving increased soft CC. Part of that is changing the zeal line to have slightly increased damage for certain traits but mainly giving the option to have cripple pulses in zeal. If you’re actually interested I can send it to you as well.

The major parts are giving glacial heart a symbol that does some damage but mainly gives chilled, increasing immobilize duration by 1 second on binding jeopardy, making the 25 minor symbols pulse cripple and the grandmaster allow some symbols to be ground targeting. (I put my original zealous blade of 40 base with .05 hp scaling in it as well.)

Absolutely, i’d love to see it. Do you mean Zealots Embrace or Chains of light?

Both, increase the duration of all immobilize skills by 1 second. So signet of wrath, zealots embrace and chains of light. It brings the up time of immobilize from about 10% uptime compared to recharge to 15, 16 and 20% for the three skills that give it. If you happen to have an email address you’d like to pm me I’ll send you the wall of text. For the most part they’re minor trait change ideas but overall would represent large changes.

I think guards already have enough heal options. I think it would be better to change zealous blade to a chance to grant protection on critical. This would give it more synergy with radiance and remove incentive for bunker guards to try and get it. Bunker guards are going to have a low critical chance already…so putting in a zealous blade medium chance (somewhere around 30%) to grant party protection would work.

Not everyone wants to trait valor to dps. This gives zeal a decent option…decently deep into the zeal line.

There’s no reason to go into zeal for protection though when hammer has protection on auto attack and is an extremely solid weapon. If you don’t want to go into valor then honor with shouts paired with virtues is another solid choice. You need to manipulate your gear to adjust for the shortcomings of changing your traits however. Zeal is meant to be a power/dps line, not a sustain line. It needs to be more enticing of a tree either by offering more utility or by increasing damage but to offer sustain with damage is almost as bad as the decision to pair critical damage with toughness when zerkers or knights works so well with us to increase precision.

To the comment earlier that “Zeal isn’t suppose to offer sustain”.

In the interest of build diversity, I do think that sustain type mechanics should be peppered around the trait lines with differing flavors of “how” they sustain.

Otherwise you are always forced down the same tree and then trait points become limited to distribute else where.

OR

Current sustain mechanics need to be “more” accessible by bringing them lower down the trees.

Currently we have three-four ways of sustain. AH and MF (trait specific), Writ of Merciful (limited mobility/weapon specific), and Regeneration.

Writ and regen come at the expense of building for healing power, thus severely limiting build diversity through gear selection.

AH and MF are extremely down a tree, thus limiting build diversity through trait points.

Zealous Blade, I feel, was an attempt to give dps guards more sustain within another tree. It is not enough though, which is why anet went so far as to let it scale with healing power a smidgen, to see what they can adjust. Still feels lackluster.

All in all I think all of the traits need to be reorg’ed a bit, but yes I think we ALL need to step back and re-evaluate our opinions on how things “should” be and avoid shoving our opinions in other people’s faces.

CnaeusDane.2938:

There’s no reason to go into zeal for protection though when hammer has protection on auto attack and is an extremely solid weapon. If you don’t want to go into valor then honor with shouts paired with virtues is another solid choice. You need to manipulate your gear to adjust for the shortcomings of changing your traits however. Zeal is meant to be a power/dps line, not a sustain line. It needs to be more enticing of a tree either by offering more utility or by increasing damage but to offer sustain with damage is almost as bad as the decision to pair critical damage with toughness when zerkers or knights works so well with us to increase precision.

Not everyone wants to use a hammer either. You seem to have quite a narrow view of what should be allowed. Not quite sure ANET or anyone else shares that view as they clearly meant for zeal to have some sustain…since they created the existing zealous blade trait with healing on it. Not seeing why protection is a bad option for GS since it is apparently not a bad option for hammer or mace. Its not like there aren’t precedents for sustain options included in damage trait lines. This is no different. The only issue really up for debate here is the effectiveness of the one that is already included in the zeal line and how to improve it (since it is widely accepted to not be effective enough to even warrant taking it).

Just because one weapon is good..does not mean others should not be as well.

On a side note…boons are utility and protection is a boon.

If you don’t want to use the options available to you then you shouldn’t play that style. You act as if every class has free reign to run whatever traits they want instead of being limited to what works. Zeal is designed to deal damage, not sustain you so you can play a complete glass and survive. Every class has to have trade offs for certain things. I’ve always wanted to run sword shield which isn’t as optimized as other weapons for my hybrid play style but you make it work if you don’t wanna play certain things. Putting a little bit of healing on a skill doesn’t mean it was meant to be sustained. Why would they want you to be able to run full glass and just heal up with one trait?

I like the suggestions we have such as it applying a boon to the Guardian. I don’t think it needs to be just about hindering one’s opponent.

To comment on CMF’s earlier post about sustain, we are pigeon-holed into speccing so far into Valor for any sort of sustain that speccing into anything outside of that is pretty much certain death(0/0/5/30/30 bunker builds excluded). Allowing for the ability to achieve some sustain without being forced into one tree would promote more dynamic builds.

At first I looked at Zealous Blade and thought this was a neat idea to give the Guardian sustain but limit their abilities since the only way one could achieve such sustain was to never swap. Obviously doing this would eventually get you killed since that skillset isn’t fast enough as others in terms of providing consistent damage.

Edit: Also, outside of PvE; Mace and Hammer will give you almost no protection uptime for obvious reasons(mobility). Going to edit the OP to include these suggestions.

But that’s the point of having trait lines. We have various options to sustain outside of valor, it just requires smart play and utilizing your strengths. The whole problem with making zeal have any sustained is this: Whats the trade off. Because limiting the damage gain is not a good trade off. If I can run 20, 10, 30, 5, 5 have sustain from blinds, virtue boons, vigor, meditations and zeal then whats the trade off? I could just run hybrid zerker armor and have the best of all worlds.

I see what you’re getting at. But I think when you see the access to such sustain, utility and boons that it’s really not all that impressive. Lets use that build for example:

Your protection access is pretty much nil since the only way you’ll get it is through VoC which is on an 86 second cd for a 5 second duration. Afterwards, you’re looking at being subjected to some serious burst.

Vigor as we know it is going to be nerfed but let me give my personal reasons for running it. As I’ve stated before, you’re limited to your boon access so I honestly believe that vigor is the only thing keeping me alive in my dps build.

Meditations provide excellent burst healing but are not viable in a much longer fight. 3/4 meditations are on long cd’s. Investing 30 into Valor to achieve this is fair but since there’s no other way to sustain(outside of AH), it’s a must.

Just to go off-topic for a second, if the Guardian were to receive Healing Signet, you’d never survive when utilizing a dps build. The lack of long duration invulnerability prevents this. Now obviously if you allow this while keeping Shelter, it becomes grossly OP.

Again, i’m speaking from an sPvP point of view so your experience outside of that will differ.

I disagree completely about that in SPvP. In TPvP at higher level play with premade teams I agree, they’re smarter than that. But in TPvP you’re also not going to run a DPS guardian over other classes as it stands. The value of SYG is too great.

However I have two different builds I’ll run – a 15, 0, 30, 20, 5, 0 build which would be modified to the above if greatsword had more healing, mace focus hammer. I have zero problems fighting people with my symbols because the AoE overwhelms them. Sadly that’s just testimony. The second is a build theorycrafted by myself and a good friend – AFeeblechild. He’s testing the build as a complete, 100% zerker, guardian, vs a PU zerker mesmer.

Starts at 4:48.

Tested in WvW, both wearing equivalent armor with just food buffs.
He’s running 20, 0, 30, 20 for improved symbols. Only sustain is his meditations yet each 1 v 1 match lasts 2-3 minutes.

I will never say meditations don’t give sustain. Especially with Merciful Intervention giving ridiculous healing. Will it let you fight vastly out number fights? Of course not. Few guardian builds can against equally skilled players. Does he win? No, perhaps not, but that’s because PU is extremely powerful in 1 V 1 (You can actually see several points in which aegis is triggered and saves the mesmers life) and it’s a test build. Easily could shift his stats to make him survive and win. Is he destroyed in under 30 seconds? No, it sustains him through the fight through several rotations.

CnaeusDane.2938:

If you don’t want to use the options available to you then you shouldn’t play that style. You act as if every class has free reign to run whatever traits they want instead of being limited to what works. Zeal is designed to deal damage, not sustain you so you can play a complete glass and survive. Every class has to have trade offs for certain things. I’ve always wanted to run sword shield which isn’t as optimized as other weapons for my hybrid play style but you make it work if you don’t wanna play certain things. Putting a little bit of healing on a skill doesn’t mean it was meant to be sustained. Why would they want you to be able to run full glass and just heal up with one trait?

Its funny how you try to make it an all or nothing choice. You are doing your best to ignore things like the radiance tree offering blinds for sustain….while also being a dps tree. Ignoring that valor is a tree that also offers damage increase via its crit damage bonus…while offering substantial sustain via traits as well.

I’ll spell this out, since previous posters’ comments did not sink in, you have no right to force your set of restrictions on others. No right to tell others how to play. No right to tell others what weapon, gear set, or play style is appropriate. Your argument that somehow we don’t want to use the available options is pretty laughable. That’s like telling any player that has a legitimate gripe about an underpowered trait that they should just ignore it and use different traits…and never even bother to discuss the underpowered trait. If that’s how it worked…there would never be any improvements in this game…there would never need to be any balance patches.

Every class does have trade offs. Every trait line has trade offs. That being said, if the options available in those trait lines is so underpowered that it is a no brainer not to bother with it…then there is an issue. You act like traiting zeal would be no trade off. Look at what you would be missing out on if you don’t take honor, virtues, or even valor. Even ANET admitted to zeal needing work..that’s obvious from how many guards actually trait past 10 points in it. Its fine if you don’t want to use it and if you never plan on using it….if that’s the case…why are you even in this discussion about that trait? What does it matter to you one way or the other in that case? Is your sole purpose in this thread to tell others how to play or what they should/shouldn’t have? You have spent a considerable amount of time attacking the OP and white knighting a trait that is widely accepted as being under powered…why is that?

There have been several suggestions about how to improve this trait. The design of this trait is clearly a compromise with damage and sustain…are you really disputing that? Are you really disputing that it does an entirely ineffective job in the sustain part? Are you disputing that damage oriented guards are lacking in sustain to a large degree…especially with the incoming vigor nerf? I’m at a loss as to why you think that the answer to a problem is to ignore it. That is never effective.

1. radiance tree offering blinds for sustain: Yes. It can offer blinds for sustain. On a 30 second base cooldown, unless you invest 15 points into it which is then mostly effective for zerg fights or PvE. If you invest into virtues you could decrease the cooldown to 21 seconds – just over twice the time a flashing blade takes to recharge. Going 15 deep increasing critical chance by 7% – an increase of about 1.035 sustainable damage given the base critical damage of 150%. That’s 3.5% increase for 15 trait points. It also requires two different stats in order to maximize the damage instead of just scaling as was suggested on power, which is one stat. That’s balanced. Requires trade offs, the damage increase requires almost fully going into the line to maximize it (Oh, funny, if you go 20 in you’re forced to use a sword. Hmm.)

2. you have no right to force your set of restrictions on others. No right to tell others how to play. No right to tell others what weapon, gear set, or play style is appropriate. Your argument that somehow we don’t want to use the available options is pretty laughable. That’s like telling any player that has a legitimate gripe about an underpowered trait that they should just ignore it and use different traits…and never even bother to discuss the underpowered trait. If that’s how it worked…there would never be any improvements in this game…there would never need to be any balance patches. I think you need to take a moment and think about that.

My restrictions? No, these are the games restrictions which were put in by developers. Nothing is stopping you from using whatever trait set up you want. Except for being easy to kill. There’s a reason thieves are forced to run a bare minimum of 15 into shadow arts if they want to run stealth. More often 30. There’s a reason Rangers are forced to run 30 into beast mastery. Warriors required to run 20 into defense. Eles have to generally run 20 into water. You want to act like guardians are the only class with restrictions. No. We aren’t. And we’re still in a pretty solid place. The reason traits aren’t scattered about to give random amounts of viable sustain is so that the game doesn’t become completely broken so that there’s only one viable build because those traits are so powerful. It’s one thing to address an under powered trait. It’s another to try to make the new trait so powerful that it would dwarf existing traits. I already offered a solution that would increase the viability of the trait while not making it over powered. But you probably ignored that because you want to add protection to the class with the absolute highest protection uptime. Yes, let’s give guardians 100% uptime cause I’d start running signet of judgement. Why? Cause that’s 43% total damage reduction. For very few traits. That’s maybe a greatsword given the protection recommendation, 30 into honor and I could run traveler’s runes for boon duration and virtues for condi removal with a zerker set.

3. There have been several suggestions about how to improve this trait. The design of this trait is clearly a compromise with damage and sustain…are you really disputing that? Are you really disputing that it does an entirely ineffective job in the sustain part? Are you disputing that damage oriented guards are lacking in sustain to a large degree…especially with the incoming vigor nerf? I’m at a loss as to why you think that the answer to a problem is to ignore it. That is never effective.

Yes. I am disputing that DPS guilds don’t have effective sustain. You know why? Meditation heals. Already disputed that above. Can put energy sigil on any weapons. Immediately replaces my lost vigor uptime. Am I ignoring it? No, I already thought of it. I’ve already adjusted for the upcoming nerf. I’ve already offered my suggestions. But I’ve also exclusively played a guard for over 2,000 hours. I’ve played enough to see what would be over powered. I’ve played enough to know I can’t play every weapon set with every trait. That’s not how games work. You make moderate improvements to those skills that are lacking. Guards problem isn’t sustain. It’s control. If I could kite people through symbols that pulsed cripple holy kitten my fights would become 100% easier. No, I’ve never had a problem with Guardians general sustain. I can use my blocks effectively. I’ve got a problem with soft CC. And while Crazy offered one alternative it was generally skipped over because people want sustain.

I see what the issue is here. You are under the assumption that the only thing that matters is whatever mode of pvp you play. You are assuming the only dps build is a meditations build..since that’s the default dps build for pvp. Pvp tinted glasses. That’s why it hasn’t occured to you that the popular pve meta is GS+sword/focus. That being the case, it isn’t so crazy to consider that a player may use a GS and a sword. Of course your meditations build has survivability…because it is the toughness line with self healing built into meditations as well as damage. This introduces a bit of hypocrisy with you saying that dps specs do not need sustain…since your pvp oriented one does have it. The argument that since other classes are pigeonholed…then we should be too is a bad argument. The whole build diversity line they fed us a while back means that all classes should be working towards fixing bad trait lines. This is supposed to be a discussion on whether or not zealous blade needs improvement and how to implement…not about whether other classes need similar review.

The problem guards have in pvp is control. That doesn’t mean that the one trait in zeal that is about sustain needs to be made into control instead. Especially since that is clearly not the design of that trait.

“Your restrictions” that I was referring to are in regards to your adamant opposition to having any form of sustain in the zeal line…despite ANET obviously having it there…just to an ineffective degree. I was also referring to your comments about changing gear sets to accommodate, versus fixing an overly weak trait. Neither of those are the game’s restrictions any more than any underpowered trait on any class is a game restriction.

No one is saying guards aren’t in a solid place. What is being said is ZB is a weak trait for what it is designed to do.

I’ve played every kind of PvP this game has to offer. I’ve also played every form of PvE. I’ve got the best gear. I’ve gotten my titles I desire. Don’t try to tell me I have one viewing lens when I’ve referenced both TPvP, SPvP, and WvW. Just because a skill has healing attached to it does NOT mean that it’s suppose to be able to sustain you through a build. Oh, hey, Absolute Resolution increases my passive of Virtue of Resolve. Does that mean I should be able to only run that? No. The OP suggested 300-400 healing a hit. That’s essentially adding a healing signet to greatsword. Add protection so that Guardian has 100% uptime. Yes, that’s also just as bad as a healing signet. ZB as a trait is NOT designed to sustain you through a fight. It’s designed to give minimal healing so that you don’t have to worry about running as tanky as you would without it. Guardian has a trait line designed to sustain us plus 2 off sustain lines. Please give me other classes that have a strong sustain in an offensive trait line. I know most general traits of every class, and I can’t think of one.

CnaeusDane.2938:

I’ve played every kind of PvP this game has to offer. I’ve also played every form of PvE. I’ve got the best gear. I’ve gotten my titles I desire. Don’t try to tell me I have one viewing lens when I’ve referenced both TPvP, SPvP, and WvW. Just because a skill has healing attached to it does NOT mean that it’s suppose to be able to sustain you through a build. Oh, hey, Absolute Resolution increases my passive of Virtue of Resolve. Does that mean I should be able to only run that? No. The OP suggested 300-400 healing a hit. That’s essentially adding a healing signet to greatsword. Add protection so that Guardian has 100% uptime. Yes, that’s also just as bad as a healing signet. ZB as a trait is NOT designed to sustain you through a fight. It’s designed to give minimal healing so that you don’t have to worry about running as tanky as you would without it. Guardian has a trait line designed to sustain us plus 2 off sustain lines. Please give me other classes that have a strong sustain in an offensive trait line. I know most general traits of every class, and I can’t think of one.

Considering the majority of your justifications were pvp oriented ones…it is a fair assessment that you were only concerned with pvp ramifications. I think you are also thinking that sustain means complete survivability. That’s not what is being said either. I pretty much agree with you that anything near what healing signet gives is completely over the top. I think the OP agrees with that too now. I am also not talking about anywhere near 100% uptime of protection…despite that being exactly what the hammer gives. The main reason I even mentioned protection as an alternative to the miniscule healing currently attached to ZB is that zeal is not a healing tree and we already have enough healing options. You may disagree, but I still think ZB is where it should be and I don’t think there is anything wrong with having some sustain in a damage oriented tree. Just because we are ahead of the curve versus some other classes, does not mean this the wrong design decision. On the contrary, this is what the other classes need to have…that’s what leads to build diversity. Options that do not involve being forced down certain trait lines.

All this being said, I would be hard pressed to find any reason to abandon the points I do have in honor and virtues to go deeper into zeal as the trade offs are too severe…hence the reason for improvement in the zeal traits to make it a viable alternative instead of a waste of design/trait space. To answer your question…no, I don’t think you should only need to run absolute resolution to deal with conditions…that’s why we have utility slots for purging flames, etc…but I’ll digress on further responses to sarcasm.

You wanted examples of “strong sustain” in offensive trait lines:

Ele: Air – soothing winds Fire: burning fire
War: Strength – restorative strength, great fortitude, building momentum
Mes: Dueling – critical infusion, desperate decoy, deceptive evasion

Those are the classes I have played enough to know well. I consider all of those traits to be stronger than ZB. I am not trying to take these out of context as guardians have other options, but so do these classes. No trait exists in a vacuum.

PvE is a joke in this game, so I don’t know why that’s even a factor, especially when I had already stated that the OP would break PvE and that skills should not be balanced in a way that is balanced in PvP but breaks PvE. When the technique to beating a dungeon is to stack, use FGS and run against a wall, something anet said they would not fix, it’s not even an issue though. So that leaves the forced PvP/WvW end game. And no, you don’t need to have 100% uptime on the weapon to increase the overall uptime to 100%. Hold the line, Save yourself, Virtue of Protection, Shield, add a weapon that adds protection and it all adds up. Did I ever say ZB or the whole zeal tree didn’t need an overhall? No, it needs some love. But to add more of what our other lines offer with little to no trade off is a problem that started at the beginning of the thread. It’s the problem that plagues the game as it stands. Easy to use traits/skills that are so simple that they carry the player. It’s one of Arken’s biggest complaints about classes, I know engi in particular. Passive skills that require no change in game play but make your character extremely powerful will never allow for balance. It’s why I already suggested increasing ZB to 40 base with .05 base. At 1000 HP it would increase to 90 hits, but also require 30 into honor + full clerics armor and/or trinkets. It seems you’ve mostly ignored all the previous posts in order to push your own agenda.

Warrior: Restorative strength adds a few condi clears. Condis which are already affected by dogged march. Great Fortitude does not add sustain. It may add bonus HP as Necros tell us, bonus HP is not always sustain. Building Momentum is the warriors version of vigor on crit, which is vastly worse. It gives 15 per 9 seconds where vigor will give a bonus 25 just in 5 seconds.

Ele: Burning fire is 20 points in to remove 3 condis, just like AR. It’s a nice addition, but still requires other supporting traits to make full use of it. Soothing Air doesn’t increase survive unless the build already has healing power – which scales in a terrible way.

Mes: Critical Infusion is the exact same as Honor 5 and is also being nerfed. Deceptive Evasion requires a dodge roll and actually hurts mesmers as it easily gives away positions. It can be used through conditions for damage but it’s not a end all be all for surviving. A lot of shatter mesmers won’t run it due to the fact that it gives them away. Deceptive Decoy is the only thing that comes close. And even then it’s generally not trading out the sword training.

Aside from mesmer, none of those can be considered sustain. And even Mesmer is very limited.

ODB.6891:

Considering the majority of your justifications were pvp oriented ones…it is a fair assessment that you were only concerned with pvp ramifications. I think you are also thinking that sustain means complete survivability. That’s not what is being said either. I pretty much agree with you that anything near what healing signet gives is completely over the top. I think the OP agrees with that too now. I am also not talking about anywhere near 100% uptime of protection…despite that being exactly what the hammer gives. The main reason I even mentioned protection as an alternative to the miniscule healing currently attached to ZB is that zeal is not a healing tree and we already have enough healing options. You may disagree, but I still think ZB is where it should be and I don’t think there is anything wrong with having some sustain in a damage oriented tree. Just because we are ahead of the curve versus some other classes, does not mean this the wrong design decision. On the contrary, this is what the other classes need to have…that’s what leads to build diversity. Options that do not involve being forced down certain trait lines.

All this being said, I would be hard pressed to find any reason to abandon the points I do have in honor and virtues to go deeper into zeal as the trade offs are too severe…hence the reason for improvement in the zeal traits to make it a viable alternative instead of a waste of design/trait space. To answer your question…no, I don’t think you should only need to run absolute resolution to deal with conditions…that’s why we have utility slots for purging flames, etc…but I’ll digress on further responses to sarcasm.

You wanted examples of “strong sustain” in offensive trait lines:

Ele: Air – soothing winds Fire: burning fire
War: Strength – restorative strength, great fortitude, building momentum
Mes: Dueling – critical infusion, desperate decoy, deceptive evasion

Those are the classes I have played enough to know well. I consider all of those traits to be stronger than ZB. I am not trying to take these out of context as guardians have other options, but so do these classes. No trait exists in a vacuum.

Your argument is flawed on the level that you are only concerned with one playstyle. You want to be able to do good dps and have high sustain. Whether it be pve/pvp/wvw, that is a single unique playstyle. So why does it not make sense that this single unique playstyle only have 1-2 viable builds and force you down 1-2 specific trait lines? If you decided you didn’t care about sustain and you just wanted max damage, your only reason for going into valor would be for the bonus crit damage/access to fury from meditations if you decided to run those. If you decided you didn’t care about damage and just wanted max survivability/sustain then you still have several build options, one of which being altruistic healing, but several of which will not need more than 10, or any at all into valor. Your playstyle is what is limiting the build choices, not any specific trait, and if you think your playstyle should be viable no matter where you spread your traits then I dont know what to say to that…

CnaeusDane.2938:

PvE is a joke in this game, so I don’t know why that’s even a factor, especially when I had already stated that the OP would break PvE and that skills should not be balanced in a way that is balanced in PvP but breaks PvE. When the technique to beating a dungeon is to stack, use FGS and run against a wall, something anet said they would not fix, it’s not even an issue though. So that leaves the forced PvP/WvW end game. And no, you don’t need to have 100% uptime on the weapon to increase the overall uptime to 100%. Hold the line, Save yourself, Virtue of Protection, Shield, add a weapon that adds protection and it all adds up. Did I ever say ZB or the whole zeal tree didn’t need an overhall? No, it needs some love. But to add more of what our other lines offer with little to no trade off is a problem that started at the beginning of the thread. It’s the problem that plagues the game as it stands. Easy to use traits/skills that are so simple that they carry the player. It’s one of Arken’s biggest complaints about classes, I know engi in particular. Passive skills that require no change in game play but make your character extremely powerful will never allow for balance. It’s why I already suggested increasing ZB to 40 base with .05 base. At 1000 HP it would increase to 90 hits, but also require 30 into honor + full clerics armor and/or trinkets. It seems you’ve mostly ignored all the previous posts in order to push your own agenda.

Ahhh…there we go with the honest admission…the dismissal of pve. Thank you for being honest. Lets just throw in every other class’ imbalances and over powered skills to obfuscate the ZB issue too. Lets throw a health serving of blame at me and point some fingers while we are at it.

My only agenda was to get you to stop for a minute and acknowledge that ZB is weak, it is a sustain type trait, and it could use some work. I was actually content just reading this thread and making my one suggestion until you decided to come out with guns blazing. Those comments tantamount to telling posters to reroll or get over it were just too tempting to pass up. Like I said earlier, I agree with you that the original numbers suggested by the OP for ZB were too high. I did read your previous posts about the percentages. I also read your subsequent posts dismissing any notion of sustain in the zeal line…which I completely disagree with. I also completely disagree that there would be little to no trade off when adopting zeal over lines such as honor or virtues. This conversation, however, was about ZB in particular. Which is an overly weak talent at what it is trying to accomplish, which is provide some measure of sustain to dps specs…which does not mean clerics gear or 30 in honor. That’s why I initially suggested it be crit chance based and grant protection instead…which I thought was a reasonable compromise. Especially since Hammer dps builds already have near permanent protection and are not considered OP.

Are…. you completely kittened? I have already publicly stated, if not in this thread, that zeal is the guardians worst trait line. I already said it could use some love, already gave a suggestion. You also told me that valor doesn’t have proper sustain yet list Soothing Air, Burning Fire, Restorative Strength, Great Fortitude, and Building Momentum as proper sustain skills in DPS trait lines. As far as PvE I already stated my concerns about the balance giving the OP 300-400 suggestion, stated PvE should not be broken to balance PvP, and stated I’ve played every aspect of the game and take all parts of the game into consideration. Yet you’ve completely ignored everything I’ve said and decided to try to make a “point” that is the exact same as everything I’ve said, which you’ve ignored. You are what’s wrong with this game right now. You’ve ignored every thing I’ve said or just flat don’t understand it and sit there trying to tell me I’m wrong. I have to wonder how long you’ve played this game, as your trains of thought generally indicate to me that it hasn’t been long enough to learn all the mechanics. I’m just gonna go ahead and ignore you, as you’ve chosen to ignore every point I’ve made already. Good day, I’d say it was nice debating but really it wasn’t. It was you just spewing nonsense with nothing to back it up.

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Your argument is flawed on the level that you are only concerned with one playstyle. You want to be able to do good dps and have high sustain. Whether it be pve/pvp/wvw, that is a single unique playstyle. So why does it not make sense that this single unique playstyle only have 1-2 viable builds and force you down 1-2 specific trait lines? If you decided you didn’t care about sustain and you just wanted max damage, your only reason for going into valor would be for the bonus crit damage/access to fury from meditations if you decided to run those. If you decided you didn’t care about damage and just wanted max survivability/sustain then you still have several build options, one of which being altruistic healing, but several of which will not need more than 10, or any at all into valor. Your playstyle is what is limiting the build choices, not any specific trait, and if you think your playstyle should be viable no matter where you spread your traits then I dont know what to say to that…

I am under the impression that ZB is designed to support that one play style. It is relatively deep into the zeal tree, where only dps players will typically be looking to go. I am not looking to have “high” sustain, but decent sustain..yes. I am looking to have sustain that is not a severe drop off from trading may 10 points out of honor or virtues to pick up that same number in zeal. Currently, it would make no sense to pick up ZB as it is a tiny boost to damage and no boost to survival….versus what you would pass up in any other trait line. That is the problem I see and that is not flawed logic. What exactly is ZB there for? If not to support a dps play style? What exactly is zeal there for? If not for a dps oriented player to choose traits from? Not quite seeing how my argument or logic is flawed. Yes, my build choices are limited by my play style choices…but it is further limited by overly weak traits…which is what this argument is about…how weak ZB is.

Alright, let me try to get through the last couple of posts. I just want to reiterate that the Guardian DOES NOT have the highest protection uptime at all. This would go to either Rangers, PU Mesmers, Elementalists and to some degree, Engineers. Guardians actually have little uptime due to the high cd of the skills that apply protection.

I understand what you’re saying Cnaeus about Hammer but as I’ve stated earlier, it’s reliability for protection is terrible at best in pvp. I also agree that my original change to ZB was a bit much, the last thing we need is another HS. I’d still like to see it scale with power and have a decent coefficient.

The ability to have it all without giving something up isn’t something i’m looking for. As Cnaeus stated, my BIGGEST gripe in this game is passive traits that give too much benefit to the user/hinderance to the enemy. I hope Guardian’s never receive such a trait during the games lifetime. I’m trying to figure out a balance for this trait to make it appealing for users past the 10 point mark in Zeal.

CnaeusDane.2938:

Are…. you completely kittened? I have already publicly stated, if not in this thread, that zeal is the guardians worst trait line. I already said it could use some love, already gave a suggestion. You also told me that valor doesn’t have proper sustain yet list Soothing Air, Burning Fire, Restorative Strength, Great Fortitude, and Building Momentum as proper sustain skills in DPS trait lines. As far as PvE I already stated my concerns about the balance giving the OP 300-400 suggestion, stated PvE should not be broken to balance PvP, and stated I’ve played every aspect of the game and take all parts of the game into consideration. Yet you’ve completely ignored everything I’ve said and decided to try to make a “point” that is the exact same as everything I’ve said, which you’ve ignored. You are what’s wrong with this game right now. You’ve ignored every thing I’ve said or just flat don’t understand it and sit there trying to tell me I’m wrong. I have to wonder how long you’ve played this game, as your trains of thought generally indicate to me that it hasn’t been long enough to learn all the mechanics. I’m just gonna go ahead and ignore you, as you’ve chosen to ignore every point I’ve made already. Good day, I’d say it was nice debating but really it wasn’t. It was you just spewing nonsense with nothing to back it up.

Hold up, now you are making up stuff. I never said that valor does not have sustain. I am also not reading through every post you have ever made to see that you already know that zeal needs work….because everyone knows that zeal needs work.

Go ahead, keep it coming. Keep attacking me instead of the issue. Throw in a few more insults and names. It really is getting to me…it really is lol.

I have not ignored anything you have said. In fact, I have been responding to exact things you have said. I have not been making the same points as you, I have been agreeing with certain things you have said and completely disagreeing with other things you have said. Again, I have no interest in searching for your posts outside of this thread…only responding to ones in this thread. You asked for examples of “strong sustain” traits in offensive trait lines from other classes, because one of your repeated arguments (in this thread) was that sustain traits do not belong in zeal (offensive trait line). I provided several from several different classes…to see you summarily dismiss what didn’t fit your argument…as expected. That is what can be considered ignoring what someone said.

Feel free to ignore me or continue to get mad with the name calling and insinuations.

ODB.6891:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Your argument is flawed on the level that you are only concerned with one playstyle. You want to be able to do good dps and have high sustain. Whether it be pve/pvp/wvw, that is a single unique playstyle. So why does it not make sense that this single unique playstyle only have 1-2 viable builds and force you down 1-2 specific trait lines? If you decided you didn’t care about sustain and you just wanted max damage, your only reason for going into valor would be for the bonus crit damage/access to fury from meditations if you decided to run those. If you decided you didn’t care about damage and just wanted max survivability/sustain then you still have several build options, one of which being altruistic healing, but several of which will not need more than 10, or any at all into valor. Your playstyle is what is limiting the build choices, not any specific trait, and if you think your playstyle should be viable no matter where you spread your traits then I dont know what to say to that…

I am under the impression that ZB is designed to support that one play style. It is relatively deep into the zeal tree, where only dps players will typically be looking to go. I am not looking to have “high” sustain, but decent sustain..yes. I am looking to have sustain that is not a severe drop off from trading may 10 points out of honor or virtues to pick up that same number in zeal. Currently, it would make no sense to pick up ZB as it is a tiny boost to damage and no boost to survival….versus what you would pass up in any other trait line. That is the problem I see and that is not flawed logic. What exactly is ZB there for? If not to support a dps play style? What exactly is zeal there for? If not for a dps oriented player to choose traits from? Not quite seeing how my argument or logic is flawed. Yes, my build choices are limited by my play style choices…but it is further limited by overly weak traits…which is what this argument is about…how weak ZB is.

Imo it is there purely as a dps increase for greatsword, that also gives you 200 power for going 20 into zeal. Do I think it is a minimal dps increase? Of course it is. Do I think it could have more functionality that would make sense for it being in a dps line? Of course I do. Is it the only weapon specific trait that is like this and also requires 20 points into a trait line? Not at all. Quick example off the top of my head. The only trait that a thief has for shortbow is a simple 5% damage increase with 0 other functionality that requires 20 points into Shadow Arts to get. The point of these traits are not to be keystones to hinge a build on. They exist to provide a little extra then what you would get otherwise, and generally only worth taking if you are going for something further in the line, or just want the passive bonuses that line has to offer.

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Imo it is there purely as a dps increase for greatsword, that also gives you 200 power for going 20 into zeal. Do I think it is a minimal dps increase? Of course it is. Do I think it could have more functionality that would make sense for it being in a dps line? Of course I do. Is it the only weapon specific trait that is like this and also requires 20 points into a trait line? Not at all. Quick example off the top of my head. The only trait that a thief has for shortbow is a simple 5% damage increase with 0 other functionality that requires 20 points into Shadow Arts to get. The point of these traits are not to be keystones to hinge a build on. They exist to provide a little extra then what you would get otherwise, and generally only worth taking if you are going for something further in the line, or just want the passive bonuses that line has to offer.

I can understand that argument and rationale. I am of the opinion that a 20 point trait does need to offer more…just like you said. That’s why I think it does need to provide something competitive to choosing a trait in a different line. Currently the opportunity cost is just too much. That’s my whole argument today…that it attempts to give some amount of sustain…but fails to do so in any competitive fashion to the alternatives. I think that the other classes need the same consideration.

ODB.6891:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Imo it is there purely as a dps increase for greatsword, that also gives you 200 power for going 20 into zeal. Do I think it is a minimal dps increase? Of course it is. Do I think it could have more functionality that would make sense for it being in a dps line? Of course I do. Is it the only weapon specific trait that is like this and also requires 20 points into a trait line? Not at all. Quick example off the top of my head. The only trait that a thief has for shortbow is a simple 5% damage increase with 0 other functionality that requires 20 points into Shadow Arts to get. The point of these traits are not to be keystones to hinge a build on. They exist to provide a little extra then what you would get otherwise, and generally only worth taking if you are going for something further in the line, or just want the passive bonuses that line has to offer.

I can understand that argument and rationale. I am of the opinion that a 20 point trait does need to offer more…just like you said. That’s why I think it does need to provide something competitive to choosing a trait in a different line. Currently the opportunity cost is just too much. That’s my whole argument today…that it attempts to give some amount of sustain…but fails to do so in any competitive fashion to the alternatives. I think that the other classes need the same consideration.

Yeah, idk, I’m of the opinion that it should just offer something else entirely. Not try to compete with other traits, but rather offer something unique that the guardian is lacking, hence my suggestion for the addition of a soft CC. The problem I have with it adding to something the guardian can already do pretty well with other traits is that the trait will either be so minimal that it will be worthless (as it is now), or it will be powerful, and when combined with those other traits will lead to overpowered capabilities. I don’t really see any middle ground that can really be achieved between it being useless and it being overpowered due to the already strong sustain that a guardian can achieve. I open to discuss other suggestions that you think might be more reasonable than the OP though.

Are you referring to sustainability Crazy?

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Yeah, idk, I’m of the opinion that it should just offer something else entirely. Not try to compete with other traits, but rather offer something unique that the guardian is lacking, hence my suggestion for the addition of a soft CC. The problem I have with it adding to something the guardian can already do pretty well with other traits is that the trait will either be so minimal that it will be worthless (as it is now), or it will be powerful, and when combined with those other traits will lead to overpowered capabilities. I don’t really see any middle ground that can really be achieved between it being useless and it being overpowered due to the already strong sustain that a guardian can achieve. I open to discuss other suggestions that you think might be more reasonable than the OP though.

That’s where this gets difficult. I imagine ANET is having this same issue. There isn’t much, in regards to functionality, that guardians do not already have. Its going to be a tall order to introduce something new to guardians.

At best there could be a reorganization of how we gain access to things we already have. For example, every guardian in pvp wants some type of snare…and with good reason. We already have chill…but it is extremely restricted by where the talent is placed (glacial heart) and is only available via one weapon. Changing that one talent (moving it to a more accessible location and opening up weapon choices) would solve that problem. I was thinking the same thing about protection with zealous blade. Instead of having to have a hammer/mace…or relying on long cd shouts/ traited VoC, maybe give some small percentage of uptime (via critical chance…to further restrict and limit it) from using zealous blade. Other than things like this…I am at a loss too.

I just know that I would never choose the current zealous blade over either absolute resolution, unscathed contender, or master of consecrations in virtues. As a guard with zero in valor and only 10 in honor…there would have to be something seriously juicy in zeal to make me go beyond 10 in zeal. That opportunity cost just makes me think that maybe zeal does need something powerful…especially considering that it would involve a serious trade off to drop anything in honor/virtues to get it.

“The design of this trait is clearly a compromise with damage and sustain…are you really disputing that? Are you really disputing that it does an entirely ineffective job in the sustain part? Are you disputing that damage oriented guards are lacking in sustain to a large degree…especially with the incoming vigor nerf?”

Right there you just asked me if I was disputing that damage oriented guards are lacking in sustain to a large degree. If I’m disputing it, then I’m disagreeing with it. If I disagree with it, then your stance is the opposite, which would be “Damage Oriented Guards are lacking in sustain to a large degree.” Pretty sure that’s how english works.

Also as far as going into the zeal tree, it’s going to have to be soft CC to entice people into zeal. As it stands symbols are powerful, but require multiple traits over multiple lines to maximize it. It’s the same problem spirit weapons have. Combining a few of the symbol traits would be effective, but they’re also very powerful when traited so it won’t be easy.

CnaeusDane.2938:

“The design of this trait is clearly a compromise with damage and sustain…are you really disputing that? Are you really disputing that it does an entirely ineffective job in the sustain part? Are you disputing that damage oriented guards are lacking in sustain to a large degree…especially with the incoming vigor nerf?”

Right there you just asked me if I was disputing that damage oriented guards are lacking in sustain to a large degree. If I’m disputing it, then I’m disagreeing with it. If I disagree with it, then your stance is the opposite, which would be “Damage Oriented Guards are lacking in sustain to a large degree.” Pretty sure that’s how english works.

Didn’t you say you were ignoring me?!? Please do it already.

So basically you don’t have an answer so you’re trying to ignore the problem. Hmm.

CnaeusDane.2938:

So basically you don’t have an answer so you’re trying to ignore the problem. Hmm.

No. I just found that your absence and the resultant absence of hostility, name calling, trading of barbs was refreshing. I notice your immediate return also included some not so subtle barbs and would appreciate it if you would honor your previous commitment to ignoring me.

I disagree about symbols being powerful. Not only is it difficult to keep someone in it, the damage is easily mitigated through armor/health. It’s not front-loaded. If it applied some sort of condition then I could see it being strong.

Symbols require using rather glassy builds if you want to see the difference. Part of it is that Symbol of Wrath is such a high base compared to the other symbols so it’s hard to compare. Wrath has something like a 1k base where as the others have relatively low, 168 from faith, 185 from swiftness, 388 from Judgement (downed) and 555 from protection. If you combine last longer with are larger they can be very potent, but you’ll never really see the symbols in action as much. It’s most noticeable with hammer where you’ll get a double tick off and see a 370 base + kitten base attack ticking at the same time. The problem with giving them conditions is the delicate balance. If they tick multiple stacks at once, then it can be abused. Put a mace symbol down for 8 second CD with last longer trait, for 75% uptime and switch to a hammer in between for 66 mace uptime and hammer symbol as well. If the timing is fortunate for the guardian, or unfortunate for their foes, you could potentially pump 3 symbols out with 5 into zeal. Triple symbols is uncommon, but double isn’t rare at all. It’s why i’d suggest making cripple on pulse 25 or 30 into the zeal tree. A worth wild investment for control, but also doesn’t make it over the top since they’ll trade a dodge to get out of the symbol.