Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing symbolic lately and noticed that a few main-hand weapons are pretty subpar compared to sword and longbow. Here’s what I’d propose to bring them in line:

Staff

• Change autoattack to have same speed as scepter. Currently it occurs much less frequently despite having the same casting time.
• Reduce Symbol of Swiftness CD to 10s. Right now it’s no better than Symbol of Punishment yet has a much longer CD. Its boon is crappy enough (why do I need swiftness while standing still?) so at least let me take advantage of the damage. I wouldn’t be opposed to increasing the damage by around 15%, no more than that.

Scepter

• Reduce Chains of Light CD to 15s. Currently it’s a skill that only immobilizes and nothing else yet has an incredibly long CD. Either that or make it unblockable, though I prefer the former. I guess the immob could be increased to 3s instead but I think a CD reduction is the best option.

Mace

• Reduce cast time on Symbol of Faith. It’s wayyyy out of line with other symbol-producing skills. I think 3/4s cast time with very little aftercast would be fine.

Hammer

• The weapon is basically unusable without Judge’s Intervention -> Ring of Warding, which itself has a long CD. At the moment, why would I play hammer in order to use that combo for +1s when I could just play thief?
• The AA’s symbol should be switched to Hammer 2, which should have its CD increased to around 8s, and the blast finisher from 2 should be added to the end of the Hammer AA chain. It’s too much work to only get that symbol at the end of the AA chain, realistically your target has to be perma-stunlocked or immobed in order to pull off even a single chain. This is Guardian, not Warrior.

I think they should go a lot further on the staff changes. Literally the only reason some people like the auto-attack is because they use it to farm, which is honestly quite sad. I don’t think speeding up the attack would change that much, and I don’t think it makes it more of a support weapon like it’s supposed to be either.

The whole point of the staff is to support, so increasing the damage on its symbol seems like a meh buff when they could simply just make it grant a better boon (like short durations of quickness or superspeed).

I agree on the mace but I’m not sure if the scepter justifiably deserves any buffs.

As for the hammer, I find that symbol on auto-attack to be quite interesting personally. Without it the auto-attack would be extremely bland. The weapon itself is quite interesting, it just might need some buffs.

Fashion Mage.3712:

I think they should go a lot further on the staff changes. Literally the only reason some people like the auto-attack is because they use it to farm, which is honestly quite sad. I don’t think speeding up the attack would change that much, and I don’t think it makes it more of a support weapon like it’s supposed to be either.

The whole point of the staff is to support, so increasing the damage on its symbol seems like a meh buff when they could simply just make it grant a better boon (like short durations of quickness or superspeed).

I agree on the mace but I’m not sure if the scepter justifiably deserves any buffs.

As for the hammer, I find that symbol on auto-attack to be quite interesting personally. Without it the auto-attack would be extremely bland. The weapon itself is quite interesting, it just might need some buffs.

I think quickness would be a bit overpowered :o but it does need to be a boon, since otherwise the Honorable Staff trait would be useless. Either Vigor or Resistance are the only remaining unique options, I’d support Resistance since it’s such a limited application, but Vigor would be more in-keeping with the Honor line. If it were Resistance then it would allow bunker guards to spec out of Valor for once, which would be nice.

I mentioned a buff to the staff AA simply because it’s an inferior version of the scepter AA. Slower, shorter range, slightly less damage. The only thing it has going for it is that it’s not vulnerable to projectile hate, that’s it. At the very least it should do higher damage or have similar cast time since it’s limited to 600 range, though it could heal instead for like 200 baseline with a 1.0 heal coefficient. But healing would only be viable if it keeps the 1s casting time.

I thought quickness could be nice since a staff-user themself probably wouldn’t benefit that much from quickness and thus it would be primarily supportive, although resistance is probably the best boon alongside quickness as well (in fact Resistance is arguably stronger). Resistance fits the defensive support theme of the staff, but it may be a bit too strong for a weapon skill. I still think like 2 seconds of superspeed would be perfect in this case since it fits the stationary symbol more than a buff that stacks.
Vigor is already applied by the longbow’s symbol.

Honestly I think the staff’s auto-should just be completely replaced. If it gets healing, it’d probably be a really low amount because its area of effect is so huge. I’d kill to have something like Water Blast or Light of Judgment replace Wave of Farming.

Fashion Mage.3712:

I thought quickness could be nice since a staff-user themself probably wouldn’t benefit that much from quickness and thus it would be primarily supportive, although resistance is probably the best boon alongside quickness as well (in fact Resistance is arguably stronger). Resistance fits the defensive support theme of the staff, but it may be a bit too strong for a weapon skill. I still think like 2 seconds of superspeed would be perfect in this case since it fits the stationary symbol more than a buff that stacks.
Vigor is already applied by the longbow’s symbol.

Honestly I think the staff’s auto-should just be completely replaced. If it gets healing, it’d probably be a really low amount because its area of effect is so huge. I’d kill to have something like Water Blast or Light of Judgment replace Wave of Farming.

I like the wave though I’m biased because I want to use this in a symbolic build, but it’s currently not really competitive. If its goal is to heal allies then it should stay a skill that doesn’t lock onto enemies though, so projectiles are kinda meh.

To me the staff auto looks like fanning something. And we know what gets fanned irl – flames!

I would like to see virtue of justice passive hit all staff aa targets when it activates. Also to let it have burning upkeep 100% if proper condi duration is build.

Another option might be slight heal that gets “fanned” into any allies in aa’s cone. Since guardian is supportive and staff is to be THE support weapon…

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I would like to see virtue of justice passive hit all staff aa targets when it activates. Also to let it have burning upkeep 100% if proper condi duration is build.

A ridiculously overpowered suggestion lol.

Assuming each target are within 240 radius of each other…
In a mob if three, 1 AA would mean each target would receive 3 stacks of burn because you’ve just made F1 passive active, act independently for each target hit.

So in a mob of five, each target would receive 5 stacks of burns on just 1 auto attack hit. On just the second successful auto attack swing, each would have 15 stacks of burns…

Are you deliberately trying to break the game? XD