Guild Wars 2

I guess I don’t understand why people continue to play in spite or come back and post here to try to convince people that the game is bad.

Personal opinions are valid but personal. There is a lot I would like to see different in this game, but I don’t log in every day in disgust or negativity.

That might mean you need to change your outlook on things or maybe do something different.

“Chocolate ice cream is a disgrace to all ice cream and people should stop eating it because it is bad”

or

“I don’t like the flavor of chocolate ice cream.”

Insert guild wars 2 for ice cream and you can see how opinions may differ and are perfectly valid, but you can’t be short sighted enough to confuse “it is bad” with “i don’t like it”. Two different statements.

….also, don’t eat guild wars 2….

Thanks, didn’t realize they were looking for likes. Threw mine in for the hell of it :p

I haven’t logged into facebook in years.

Edit: After thought…why do you still post here?

Actually, I think the simple solution would be that dynamic events scale to success and failure rates as well as surrounding players.

The more often the event is failed, the easier and easier the mobs should become till the point there are no champions.

The more often the success of the event happens, the harder it will be next time, causing incentive to spawn more difficult mobs and drawing in more possible rewards.

There will be a balancing point where players can’t push anymore and it will even out at a win/loss rate to stop spawning harder mobs and making it easier on the next try.

Hard core players could try to push the success rate higher and claim the accomplishment of hard challenges by winning “x” amount of successes on an event in a row, reaching a crazy high number of champions per an event.

Empty servers/zones with people not doing events could become soloable after a period of time that an event had no successes to it. This would allow more players to see more parts of the game…with less rewards of course because the event scaled down.

More can be done to make it different, and the more often you win an event it will not count towards DR because the event keeps changing and it isn’t a repetitive farm.

They could go so far as if you get multiple wins in a row, it will spawn a new event…but that’s for other talks to help improve the game.

I turned around and reinstalled GW1 a week or so ago and it is disrupting my ability to log onto GW2 =p. Played the game for about a week a long time ago and didn’t give it a second chance till now. Bumping around presearing still after trying a bunch of different builds and classes (and starting over and over and over cause I was trying to hit 20 without dying…I’m a masochist apparently) and not leaving till I hit 20 for the title and any other things that may give me credit for achievements in GW2.

The only down side right now is I am not logging in to do daily/monthly activities in GW2, something that I feel causes a root problem in design, but that’s for a different topic.

What I have noticed is what a lot of the old GW1 players have mentioned about the complexity and balance of the skills, classes, and combat. With the simplicity of the stats and the idea of horizontal progression, you do not get bloat and inflation of stats and gear. After a few years many MMOs talk about a stat squish because things just get out of hand after a while. This brings me back to EQ1 before any expansions, and gear increases how little to no stats on them. Gear was good just because it was gear, and not because it was a class specific, stat oriented, dps/healer/tank, set. GW1 still has some intricacies such as % of life stat bonuses or spell school orientation, but they are in the minor amounts so that gear isn’t leaps and bounds different from one person to the next.

The other thing is the way that combat seems to work. Bleed didn’t have a damage amount to it, it simply reduced health regeneration. This can be counteracted by a boon that increases health regeneration by more ticks than bleed or any conditions that may be applied. It felt more like a tug of war with HP and Energy than a number crunching game. This is a good thing because it leads way into player skill and strategy and not big numbers win.

Some of you hardened GW1 players may be more indepth than I am seeing the game. But there is something about the combat that is vastly different and refreshing to me after playing so many MMOs since EQ1. So much so that while I see the root ideas and similarities in GW2, I would like to see more of that contributed now.

I do recognize that GW1 is more strategic in combat and GW2 is more action/tactical, so the combat style in general is vastly different and at a different pace. GW2 combat is highly involved and keeps me active, which I appreciated and enjoy. I just want to bring some more complexity into the fight and skill mechanics that they were able to do in GW1 to the fast pace action oriented combat of GW2.

Excuse the ramblings of a guy who discovered a game years after other people have played and finished already =p I just find it highly refreshing and enhances my enjoyment of GW2 even more!

I know I’m gonna get blasted for this, but….I think I’m getting burnt by TOO much content.

Every time I think I’m done and I can relax again, a new living story comes in and I get hurled into the rush of things. Self induced I know, and I can always take a break…but then you get that feeling like you are missing out because it is a one time only thing.

Maybe start inserting a minor living story updates that can repeat between large story archs so people don’t feel stressed if they are not on.

Something that is slow and easy going to give people a breather from the constant zerg push go go go. I don’t mean a grindy gather 10000 candies or something, but something simple and fun.

Epic is good, story is good, but you need a rise, climax, and fall for the audience to follow along, right now we are inconstant rise/climax and it is somewhat stressful.

Like a greek plays did, end on a comedy to relax the audience (by comedy, it doesn’t have to be jokes and silly, just something calm and easy).

For the sake of answering the OP.

Modern military (more than just Army…btw Navy, Marines, Air Force) limits it’s own capabilities as a means to protect non-combatants. Go back to Cold War era mind-sets, we were on the edge of global destruction because of threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles. These do not have to be nuclear, but at that time it was current threat.

Today we do everything we can to discourage the use and proliferation of ICBMs and mindlessly tossing weapons at each other from the “safety” of each countries borders for fear of retaliation and arms races picking up again.

Drones/UAVs have limited payloads and weight capabilities, so do not expect mass mayhem from a bunch of tiny missiles or dumb bombs. Those are used for precision strikes to soft targets, not typically against large and fortified defenses. Or they are used for surveillance and reconnaissance and overwatch for friendly forces. Of course without air superiority, all those UAVs are worthless as they are slow and will be taken down with ease.

Without self imposed restrictions, a modern military can wage wars without ever leaving home or putting itself in harms way (unless the opponent can also fire back with similar weapons….which is where we are today).

So in terms of fighting Mordremoth, a modern military could feasibly rain destruction from a distance and cause meaningful damage to the target. In regards to mordremoth being underground, there are capabilities of ground penetration to certain depths, but this could be a barrier in total destruction and provide a stalemate.

The question is what are the critical nodes that maintain mordremoth’s combat capabilities? Direct attack or indirect attack are both options, so by crippling the ability to fight you can feasibly win the war.

We could force mordremoth into submission/retreat at the least. In terms of nuclear/chemical/biological agents, there are plenty options that could be used, but again at what cost? An area can remain inhospitable for years after exposure.

We also could track seismic movement and maintain generalized locations of mordremoth in anticipation of a resurfacing. At most we can clear an area and wait for it to pop it’s head up and unload more force on it, in hopes of debilitating it or forcing it back down.

[soapbox]
As horrible or glamours as people try to make war and military’s, most of us in the military recognize we are big dangerous giants who are trying our best to refrain from hurting anyone while preventing more dangerous and deadly adversaries from acting freely. The day that killing without thought becomes fun, is the day we need to stop and re-evaluate ourselves. War is about protection, not about killing.
[/soapbox]

just wanted to add my voice to the disappointment at town clothes tonics as well as other various small changes that made no sense over that last patch. Good changes, but then random little bad changes here and there that tarnish things for me.

Give back and expand on town clothes…and personality meters that mean something!

If you can’t remember, or see, or find the dart traps after the first death then I duno what to do for you.

Only thing I didn’t like was the spikes that have no warning, but that’s only in trib mode and well…you memorize them after a while. I still don’t like them but I accept it.

Why is no one playing? We got what we came for and are done.

Before, the baubles could be used to purchase legendary crafting items, so you had some people farming that, and also farming to get skins to sell.

The levels are too long/difficult to farm now I guess for the average person, but I appreciated the advancement in the challenges.

Longevity? No, I guess not. Memories? Definitely, this one will be remembered for a long time. Both good and bad I liked it overall.

brain storming ideas, may not come up with a valid solution to the problems, BUT it does highlight areas that may need to be looked at because they are deemed as a “problem”.

Lesser used abilities are that way because they are either pointless and need to be reworked, or something else is overpowered and needs to be toned down.

So polling the community will not directly help and provide us with the fixes that may be suggested here, but they help the developers get a more broad perspective, who may not play as much or in the same areas that we play in.

Also, if there is a commonality of problems from a specific mechanic of the class, that can draw attention of the devs for a fix as well.

So while, our ideas are sometimes worse than the problems themselves…they are still useful in identifying where the problems are in the first place.

A quick glance at the above suggestions help the devs look at:

- Spirit weapons are very under used due to up time and survival/vs effectiveness
- Untraited virtues could be adjusted in effect and/or refresh time
- A want to have more survival outside of 1 or 2 specific builds is desired by the community
- Signets are still undervalued
- More diversity and ease of access in movement speed is desired

What the devs decide to do to address those topics could be off the wall as opposed to what “we” feel the fix is….maybe it will be better, or maybe it will be worse, or no need to adress at all.

This…..this is what we have been begging for. “Changes” not just tooltips and visuals, but attempts to evolve and update the class.

Now are they good or bad changes? Are they OP or UP? That is to be determined, but I appreciate any honest attempt at looking at the class and trying to make fixes and changes, not just the junk we have seen over the last year.

sigh

If you want to use math, then use numbers based on facts and not things arbitrarily made up.

Here is a list of potential damage modifiers based on trait points and power, considering both are wearing full zerker with scholars and wielding the greatsword and doing a whirling wrath, not counting bolts. (We can do sword too, but figured I would do the damage based off of whirling wrath cause people like to see that).

I also gave some leeway to the builds that would use empowering might and simulated 5 stacks of might on those ones specifically when totaling the power.

Keep in mind this does not take into account crit chance or sustained dps and real fight conditions, so these are just for the numbers and not to based your actual game play on.

The worst build that I mashed together did about 60% of the damage of the most optimal build a difference of 30% loss in damage (just for whirling wrath…not sustained dps or combat effectiveness).

So theoretically if a sucky build is 30% less effective than an optimal build, and an optimal build will do 10 “dps”, then a sub optimal build should do 6 “dps” or 60% of 10.

If the optimal build dies in 15 seconds, then in order for the sub-optimal build to out damage the optimal build they have to be alive and continue fighting for a total of 25 seconds.

The “best” AH build I have listed does 76% of the optimal damaging build with a difference of 24%.

So same scenario 76% of 10 = 7.6
10*15=150 damage done in 15 seconds
7.6*20=152 damage done in 20 seconds

You can pick and choose the duration of fight and length of time alive, to skew results any which way you please.

TLDR:
The point is/was that the meta is not “the most damaging” but it retains an optimal amount of damage while providing support and maintains, just enough survivability to finish most encounters.

If you find that survivability is not enough for your specific playstyle/group/reaction time, then adjust accordingly, but understand what you are sacrificing in team play in order to gain in self play.

crapgame, please don’t respond anymore if spoj retorts one more time, I won’t and its not productive for any of us. I probably shouldn’t have even put forth the effort I did in this post and let it die, but I was tired of the made up numbers

As combat with bosses typically is hindered by Defiance/Unshakable, in order to not allow players to trivialize the encounter, it in turn causes control abilities to be unreliable and pointless to bring along as opposed to more damage.

What if they scrapped that and worked CCs INTO the encounters.

Such as bosses that are highly agile and dodge a lot. In order to lock them down you need to immobilize or stun the boss to land attacks on them and they are debuffed to take more damage when immobilized or stunned.

What if a boss has a frequently used (not excessive but more than we can dodge reliably) kill shot? Blinds and interrupts prevent them from landing this dangerous attack. After every interrupted kill shot they are vulnerable to take more damage.

Bosses with a PBAoE effect or Fury if you fight in melee? Immobilize and Chill/Cripple to maintain distance. Again takes more damage if you keep them slowed and away from players.

The idea is to promote players to play smart and “do” the encounters, which in turn rewards them with more damage done, as well as better survivability.

Right now CC effects are long enough that by the time you burn through defiance stacks you are waiting a while before you can use it strategically again.

So build the adverse of the control effects and have players learn what CC to use on different types of encounters as a sort of paper rock scissors style of counter.

Pretty rudimentary, but thought it could spark more ideas.

Ninja’s and “ninja vanish” like things are older than Naruto -_-

So for the first 6-8 months we couldn’t finish any dungeons because AH was the primary build guardians used and the game was just awful because nothing ever died because it out healed our dps??!? Or was it just as capable in a fight, albeit not as optimal and fast?

Also, the point of AH is that scales badly with healing power, so you actually want to use dps gear with it.

Players should not use AH to tank, but to “sustain” in normal combat. If the fights do not finish before other resources do, because of bad dps, gear, dodging, then having this cushion helps them.

I’m trying to agree with you guys that meta is good and the ideal way to play, In fact I run meta. Yet at the same time I acknowledge that it isn’t the “only” way to do it….

This is the whole contention. The fact that someone does not “min/max” and dares to play “your” game incorrectly. How narrow minded and unoriginal, but I can’t please everyone though, so I fold.

Enjoy lording over everyone else with your magical internet kitten of greatness. I hope many phat lewtz and fast runz come your way. Woe be the noobz who cross your path, for their lives cut short and their dreams do shatter.

Stand TALL among those who have fallen, feel great and walk forward…tall…proud….a shining example to all humanity that greatness is in your grasp, for you are able to do what someone else has told you to do, and guard it well with blind eyes and deaf ears. Go onward, brainless and unafraid, spew forth the words that others have given to you and speak! spread the glory yet to unfold that is your legacy!

….ok I’m done being sarcastic, I gotta remember this is the internet and not to try to reason with people.

Game mode changes perspective.

PvE/Dungeons – Build for dps, provide projectile reflects and aegis blocks, as well as stability when needed. Some mixture of blind debuff support as well when the encounter utilizes it.

PvP – Build for team fights with staff might typically and group multiplied heals via altruistic healing, this provides fast self heals by distributing boons to multiple people, and makes it harder to focus you down when in a group. Again provide blocks via aegis or even mace if being utilized. Also huge is group condition removal as well as area denial via wards to hold off point captures and keep points ticking as long as possible.

WvW – Stability is huge in ball zergs frontlines, after that contribute to the blast finishers with hammer if you are built that way to provide water field heals or fire field might stacks, provide some more group condition removal, and help dps and spam VoJ blinds.

Roaming WvW – Many times people rely on your blocks/blinds/grouphealing/condition removal in various ways. Again Stability is a huge contribution to allow other players function better.

In the end we provide a lot of group utility with decent damage or healing. Not the “best” at anything but strong in many things. Solo you may have mixed results in how powerful you feel, but in a group others will promote you as highly helpful, even if you don’t feel it.

That was a quick blurb as I could make it, I’m sure others can go into more detail.

Pro tip – I like the challenge and my reward is self satisfaction.

To be fair, a lot of people are screaming conspiracy theories and hate while the community team try to quell the outcry in an attempt to keep the riot down to a low murmurer. Not to shut you up, but to keep panic and mayhem low so things can be looked at/talked about rationally.

If there is a bug, then blasting them about it and calling them liars is not productive to the situation. Continue to post evidence and talk about it rationally and keep emotions controlled. Better for you and the community.

If you still think it is some sort of conspiracy theory of how the man is trying to keep you down, then I can’t help you.

After people flock to FOTM medi guards and see themselves get rolled, and then as we see less and less need for bunker guards in the current meta…I hope they will stop saying “guardians are fine..in a good place” and take an honest look at the class and balance of it in the whole picture.

wxkin.7904:

its simple revert the game back to the previous state + publish the Change log we kill the Batman.

Fixed that for you….

while “scepter” does not suck, it still has its flaws and areas it could be improved upon. Biggest problem is speed and/or tracking of the projectile, which has been acknowledged by the devs.

Still the root of the problem was consistent, while the suggestions may be out of scope for some it is reasonable to others. Constructive feedback is always more welcome than “that’s stupid”. Ideas are meant to be expressed and discussed, not just simply shot down.

In the long run, I agree that many ideas come out as “wouldn’t it be cool if”, and not totally constructive themselves. The problem with the “what’s not broke” mentality is that people become used to working around problems and then become accustomed to how they found a work around and avoid or ignore the original problem in the first place. I get this in my work area and it frustrates me to no end sometimes.

Side tangent, so we had a discussion about things being broken at my job and the story of apes and the bananas came up. Long story short, the apes were conditioned to not try to get the bananas, any time a new ape was introduced to the mix they would try to get the bananas. Since the other apes had the learned behavior to not get the bananas or something bad would happen, they would promptly beat the new ape up to make it conform to “societal rules”.

I think this is what we have going on here honestly. Ya’ll just a bunch of apes

I have to voice AGAINST the change unfortunately.

I do not use tomes, but when I do I do not use tomes for the proposed changes they have.

Currently tome mechanics favor the usage of spamming 1 for both tomes.

Tome of Courage you were provided with a significant group heal that could be layered with multiple guardians with high effects in WvW and moderate effect in sPvP. Open world boss PvE it was moderate to low usage.

The remaining skills on the Tome transition were forgettable except for that enticing AoE “full” heal, but it took some setup to use without getting interrupted (risk vs reward).

The blind/protection/condition removal/regen boon were less noticeable in effect and often used at the expense of casting the spamable heal or full heal. The AoE daze did have some clutch usage, and was a welcome tool set on the tome.

By changing the tome of courage into a signet we lose a daze and a controlled spamable heal to fight against spamable attacks by opposing groups.

Tome of Wrath also so its primary use by spamming 1 and raining direct damage and condition damage on an opposing group. The haste and AoE knock down were flashy and could be clutch, but at the end of the day, being able to control an area with consistent damage on a point was the reason to take the tome if any.

The weakness/cripple/might/swiftness are laughable and ignored much as the utility effects on tome of courage were.

So changing Tome of Wrath into a shout we lose the ability to put damage pressure on a point and aoe control via knock down.

The two bolded lines saying what we lose are the only reason, I feel anyone takes the tomes and they were useful, but not useful enough reasons when paired against the losses in effect you had from losing your weapon set and utility skills for having tomes active.

TLDR:
I think a buff to tomes with maintaining the primary heal/damage ability of the tomes would help keep them unique enough and clutch enough in a fight would be more beneficial than watering down the skills to a shout and signet.

Shorter cooldowns? Longer durations? Higher damage/heal numbers? I am not in favor of taking them away, even though I don’t use them, I see the potential and we would lose that potential if they are removed and changed.

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.

Now that the dust has settled, do you think the class revamps and trait mechanics had any effective change? Why and why not?

Many skills are really getting pushed by ANet for us to use, but I feel after the first week or so, people are reverting back to pre-patch builds because those lesser used skills are still not worth it.

• Signets are still ineffective, if anything Bane Signet for the extra passive power if PvE
• Litany of Wrath is interesting, but we seem to need Shelter too much to move away from it.
• Merciful Intervention is clunky and worse off after they made it a targetable skill.
• Spirit Weapons are still sidelined
• Feel My Wrath works well in PvE, but Signet of Courage is just not enough.
• Burning builds are useful now, but I am seeing more and more revert back to regular power based builds.
• Damage modifiers are seemingly difficult to add into builds and very limited.
• ANet REALLY wants us to “love” retaliation as much as they do.
• The 3-line trait shuffle has some of our key traits in competition with each other, making us sacrifice even more synergies.
• Shield….

I’m sure there are a lot more to talk about, but this was just a top of my head list. Overall I feel the changes came out ineffective and I’m indifferent. Not horrible, but didn’t improve much.

Without a target your orb will fire in the angle you were last “looking” so if you mouselook up (right mouse button moving your “character”) and then fire without changing your characters viewing angle, it will fire the orb up..or down or how ever you were looking.

Additionally you can move the camera (left mouse button) and even out your camera angle to watch it fire up into the air.

targetless aiming fire is useful for aiming ahead of moving targets, but you have to bring your angle down to fire straight and not into the ground. Most of us tend to play in an isometric top down view.

TLDR
My attempt to keep close to the meta while giving back “some” self survival via regen/shout and dodge heals:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAsdRlUgyC3FSIEfIFRWBRazAgHsSR8uH+BMC-jgBBYfCiUBBKzsIasFXFRjVXDT5iIqWKgIWGB-e

Trying to pull opinions out of it and just supply mechanics and facts…

Survival mechanics on guardian:

Altruistic Healing

• Group oriented.
• Only heals self, requires frequent application of boons on multiple allies to be effective.
• Hammer and Mace symbols innately work well with this but require group members be in range of symbols and to utilize them.
• Empowering Might and higher crit chance helps augment this, and opens up more mobility and range of group members up to a radius of 240 (still somewhat small, about as big as traited symbol radius but moves as you move).
• Does not give more or less support to allies, but enhances self gain from supporting allies with boons.
• Does not need a lot of healing power to make it effective.

Monk’s Focus

• Solo oriented.
• Gain self heals from utilization of meditation utilities.
• Removes almost all group utility skills and replaces them with more offensive oriented abilities to be effective.
• More often used to be mobile in combat due to teleports available and to recover from burst damage received.
• Does not need a lot of healing power to make it effective.

Writ of the Merciful

• Symbols heal self and allies per tick
• Limited effectiveness based on weapons frequency of symbol application.
• Scales decent with healing power, but fairly weak without it.
• Layers well with multiple healing sources/traits.

Selfless Daring

• Heals self and surrounding allies on dodge roles
• Synergies well with higher crit chance due to gaining Vigorous Precision in the same tree (high uptime of Vigor boon).
• Scales well with healing power, depending on if pve or pvp/wvw, but decent without it.

Virtue of Resolve

• Basic form of self survival for guardian.
• Can be traited to tick on allies at heavy investment of trait points.
• Scales poor with healing power and still fairly weak without it.
• Long cooldown if used actively instead of left passive.
• Traits provide it with more group utility if used actively, such as: regeneration, condition cleanse, retaliation.
• Layers well with multiple healing sources/traits.

Regeneration

• Available to guardians in high to moderate frequency via weapons or shouts/virtues.
• Scales well with healing power, but fairly weak without it.
• Not unique to the guardian, and others may apply more frequently or with better ticks, depending on gear/traits.
• Layers well with multiple healing sources/traits.

With all of the above supplied, you can attempt to pick and choose which ones you may be able to integrate into your own build with consideration to play style.

Keep in mind that considering current game play mechanics, healing is meant to be self oriented and survival is meant to be gained through active gameplay. Anything else is purposefully inferior though intent of game designers.

Higher damage, and shorter fight times is beneficial to all players in terms of survival and general ease of playing, due to limited resources such as dodges, control effects, and active self heals.

Group utility and boons are typically a much better way to assist each other over healing because players can stack boons to a much higher rate and frequency and achieve much higher stats and damage than when alone. So take into consideration what you can bring to a group to help play as a whole.

Typically guardian group utility is seen as condition removal, stability, projectile reflects, blocks, retaliation, and some heals. To a lesser extent we can provide decent might stacking as well.

So bring which ever group utility you deem needed in the area of play that you are in.

The current PvE meta tries to supply the most group utility while maintaining optimal damage. Self survival is gained through shorter fights and better group play. Results may be dependent on the effectiveness of the group as a whole.

AH is often seen as negative because it in itself brings less to the group and more to the guardian. It also soaks up a lot of trait points so you lose availability to other traits that could increase damage or group utility. Although it can be said that dead dps is no dps.

A bit long, but I hope the information helps you make your own decisions.

With how overpowered burning is right now, you guys would be sorely missing Tome of Wrath with that aoe burning spam on 1…imagine the mayhem and tears of all the melting people. THAT would have been burst dps on a cooldown, now its just a boon bot.

Yah we traded for a downgrade in damage, but gained pve group utility (pvp people tend to use renewed focus still, and signet of courage is meh).

Feel my Wrath is half the utility that tome of wrath was able to provide, which is simply haste on demand…i didn’t use tome of wrath for the haste though, and i dont think many did except for very small percentages of the dungeon crowd.

Signet of Courage is all the bad of tome of courage without any of the good, long cast time interrupt-able full heal. Yet you don’t gain stability when traited, you dont get increased stats when in “tome form” to soak up more damage while trying to channel it, and you don’t get an aoe heal spam on the 1 key.

I see the signet and shout as subpar potential to what the tomes “could” have been if they were tweeked more.

TheLaughingMan.4320:

CMF.5461:

I guess I don’t understand why people continue to play in spite or come back and post here to try to convince people that the game is bad.

Personal opinions are valid but personal. There is a lot I would like to see different in this game, but I don’t log in every day in disgust or negativity.

That might mean you need to change your outlook on things or maybe do something different.

How dare we criticize a game’s flaws

There is constructive criticism and worthless bashing.

My wife used to work as customer service. There were a certain set of rules and guidance that she would have to follow as per the training of the job.

Many times there would be grown adults who come in and throw a big fit about how they are not getting what they want, and they would demand for her to do things that she was not allowed to do.

Upon not doing these things, these grown adults would throw a bigger tantrum and demand to see the supervisor. More often than not the supervisors would try to cover up the scene and placate the individual (read: not want to have to put up with it) and just give the customer what they want.

This would make my wife look like the bad guy and the customers would walk off all smug and happy with themselves. Yet she was doing only what she was allowed to do. More so, the supervisor had the code that could override many of the commands that would allow the requested act to happen in the first place, so my wife couldn’t have done it anyway.

I think we live in a world where we think it is ok to throw a fit until we get what we want…that disgusts me.

You can say what you think is bad with the game, you can offer constructive criticism which would focus and pinpoint the suspected failure and offer alternative ideas which would help fix the situation instead of just throwing more wood on the fire and fueling the hate.

Helping to solve the problem often solves more problems more quickly than sitting around complaining about it.

If you don’t want to help, and you don’t like being here, then why are you here?

If you like the game, but are frustrated with how it is developing or not developing, then offer useful insights and encourage growth in areas that you do like. This is something called “positive reinforcement”.

would be nice if there was a race view to watch the moa race instead of chasing after them or waiting at the end.

Maybe a chat option to watch the races if players like

I have understanding and sympathy for the motion sickness but was referencing:

Guardian bunker has fallen to the wayside in favor of more damaging oriented bunkers, such as engies or elementalists. They can hold a point, stay mobile, and maintain self sustain while still doing threatening damage.

Guardian can still bunker, but it is challenging versus the current meta. Conditions will be your downfall, and you will lose the condition cleanse race at the moment.

Staff primarily was used with bunker guardians because of the group might it provided to help push the fight to your teams favor as well as synergy with altruistic healing to keep the guardian alive. Less about the mobility, but it helped some with the severe lack of in/out combat movement speed of the guardian.

If you build bunker as a guardian your damage is abysmally low and reliant on team members. Again you can vastly improve team damage, and can be critical in a team fight, but that is for the most organized settings.

Currently most people are trying to dps guard, since bunkering has become less effective.

If you still want to press with bunker guardian, typically you run 0/x/6/6/x picking up altruistic healing and pure of voice while running a shout build. Soldiers rune for more shout condi removal and clerics. Sigils will be energy on both weapons and your choice of maybe intellect to keep vigor up and continue to dodge roll heal between weapon swaps.

Normally mace/focus for the blocks and staff for the synergy with AH and team fights as I mentioned, but you can also run scepter to help lock down kills with immoblize or run knockbacks with shield or hammer for some points. Sword and greatsword are much less often used.

Torch may be nice for team condi clears, but hasn’t seen the light of day very much. Maybe more with current cooldown changes, yet it does nothing for you defensively. Good source of burning…but low condition damage as a typical bunker.

There are other alternatives to the bunker traits such as going 0/x/x/6/4 to pick up absolute resolution. This provides a bit more condition removal, but you lose out on AH (which is only useful if allies are near by, and if you are constantly alone, it gets less effect). You could try to 0/x/6/x/4, but you lose out on condition cleansing again. meditation heals may be interesting…but never really advertised as a bunker.

TLDR – Guard bunking relies on allies near by and more about team fights and not solo skill. Hard to do in todays meta, but still helps in most unorganized matches.

Apparently Guardian, Necromancer, and Mesmer are the only classes that have class mechanics embedded in their weapon skills. Symbols, Marks, Clones/Phantasms.

So the question is do Necros and Mesmers feel the same traitline restrictions as Guardians when selecting traits and weapons?

I feel that Mesmers mostly are unaffected because every weapon set has a Phantasm and/or Clone attached to it.

Necromancers and Guardians have had very similar class mechanic issues on sustain/mobility and the want of effective build diversity (necros wanted a power build for a while but condi was always better and guard wanted a condi build but power was better).

I feel that the Zeal line solution could be in allowing more proliferation of symbol usage across the weapon spread….but I would hate to see SO MANY light fields just strewn everywhere.

Symbols tend to be boring mechanics, that the Guardians are “known” for and expected to use as they are found on every weapon except for sword and scepter. Yet they are only efficient on hammer and mace.

Marks are a very minor part of Necromancers and are only found on one weapon, so they probably don’t care all too much about them. Wells are the known mechanic for Necromancers, I feel, and are easily obtained on any build because they are utility skills.

So the other solution would be to transfer symbols into utility skills…maybe drop spirit weapons and move them into very short duration procs on weapon skills, in a way sort of like clones and phantasms?

End of the day, symbols could use a buff or alteration to mechanics…even after the mayhem of the symbol stacking bug abuse, it shows how linear and limited they are. Best usage is on a stationary target that will soak up the full extent of damage.

This whole event would be interesting to study from a sociological or political analyst point of view.

We have two parties, which are painted to be polar opposite of each other.

Ellen Kiel

• Political color is blue
• Offers us new and different things we are not familiar with
• Protects and defends the weak
• Upholds the law
• Believes in sacrificing personal gain to help others

Evon Gnashblade

• Political color is red
• Traditional and offers to give us things we are familar with and already know
• Controls a large majority of the economy
• Opportunist with a keen eye on profit seen through the various events since launch
• Makes money off of us
• Promises to make you rich and give you things

Evon Gnashblade is purposefully written to be depicted as deceitful, manipulative, and greedy. Yet there is a fairly large vocal majority which seems to support Evon Gnashblade, even in the face of a lot of negative exposure.

People are willing to forgo all of that seemingly negative history in the promise to get “cool stuff” and “make money”. Evon makes it direct and personal in saying “I will save you money on the Black Lion Trading Company, and give you things you have always wanted!”

(yet we will still be spending money on the black lion trading company and he will still make money off of us, just it is now spun in such a way that we feel good for spending less!…..)

With the BLTC price reduction, those are items that people don’t use on a daily basis, but they are status items and fun!

Ellen Kiel is written to be a war hero, a champion of the people, and a generally good person. Yet she has a fairly weak campaign. She will reduces waypoint costs and give us something new that we haven’t seen before (Thaumanova Reactor).

From a moral standpoint, it would seem like Ellen Kiel should win, because we all like good things to happen right? Well, as mentioned earlier, Gnashblade seems to have a larger population talking about him than Kiel.

She offers us a better quality of life (cheaper waypoints, and a larger majority use waypoints everyday than people who spend money on the BLTC).

Gnashblade says he will give you things you want. Yet continues to extort money from you when he can. At the ease dropping of an opportunity of an open seat on the council, he rushes forward to claim the prize and is willing to lie cheat and steal to get there.

Kiel offers you things you are not familiar with and that is about it. She came out of nowhere, saved lions arch a few times, and now is being herded forward into competition for a seat on the pirates council. Not even her own idea.

I wonder how much this translates to politics in real life?

Here is the funny thing…doesn’t that combat look awesome?

It is slower, more controlled, things die in fewer hits.

As opposed to us standing there letting auto attack whittle away as we wait for our bigger attacks to come off cooldown. Looks static and boring sometimes.

For balance reasons if you have multiple players combat might be trivialized with the ability to one shot monsters like that though. Yet, if we can one-two shot monsters, then in a slower paced combat system like that, they could too.

Also with the aspect of group play and things dying faster, swarms of mobs becomes more interesting and dynamic. More players are better to down the multiple mobs easier versus one player running out of attacks and getting overwhelmed.

Single target abilities are faster cooldown to be used more frequently while area effect abilities should be on long cast times or long cooldowns so that group content is not trivialized by one player with good AE.

Taking note of the elementalists pushing back skelks with water spells, now area control becomes more interesting to “buy time” for other attacks or to space out enemies better. This could open up more fight mechanics with area denial to win events and keeping enemies off your defense objective. Control and support players could feel beneficial instead of everyone needs to dps to win.

The only downside to a system like this is the prospect of projectile attacks “from” the mobs. Ranged combat would have to become more controllable versus just spamming from a distance. So max/min distance, blocks, and absorption could help protect players from ranged attacks.

For boss fights, there could be long moments of invulnerability and the players have to work to create openings using skills or environment. Much like the Super Adventure Box Frog King fight. He only took three rounds of attacks, but it caused the players to move and think a bit without focusing on high HP pools and cheap spammed mechanics.

Solo would be faster in some aspects because you would be fighting more mobs more frequently as you work your way into a cave, while in another point of view you have more time to think and use skills instead of just spamming things on cooldown for the most part.

Outgoing damage looks good in those videos, but the biggest question is how would incoming damage be dealt with so that players did not get constantly one and two show themselves.

Tough Meditations

Ok, I have been doing my own test runs with this, but wanted external non biased input from others (not my own opinions but others).

The idea started with a zerker hammer/gs build utilizing on swap burst damage to hammer then back to gs for continued ae pressure.

After that I was looking at the tankier celestial builds and trying to come up with something “survival” based while still doing “ok” damage.

This build will provide you with 3500 armor and 17255 hp.

Damage rotations will provide a 3k weapon swap/mighty blow on hammer with glacial heart + mighty blow + sigil of hydromancy as well as a 3k whirling wrath potential. nets you a somewhat reliable 6k ae damage burst.

Not amazingly high, but what I was enjoying was the 3.5k armor. I feel the survival is noticeable (better than full zerker) and the damage is decent (better than a full cleric bunker build) so it was a happy middle ground for me.

Using knights amulets loses out on vitality that the zerker has, thus the push down Honor to make up for the lost vitality.

I sometimes swap elite for tome of wrath for AE point pressure, and it actually helps a good bit as long as I stay on the sidelines.

If you do swap around and go zerker I would suggest either of below:

Frozen Resolution

Freezing Blast

x/x/6/x/4 is the goal and then flavor after that to your liking. With this your WW/mighty blow swap gives you closer to 10k ae damage combo.

Feedback appreciated. Do you think the knights build does “enough” damage with decent survivability? I felt pretty strong on team fights and useful in ranked and unranked queues.

edit

Added Meditative Soldier discontinued

What if…

What if there was no auto attack and only cool downs?
Attack animations could trigger to “look” like fighting where weapons clash and people move and swing without doing damage so it looks like sparing and “melee”, but the only way to do damage is by using cool downs.

Now imagine if the cool downs are a sort of form of paper rock scissors. If I use rock you better use rock to block me or paper to counter me quickly before my rock lands. If you use scissors then I crush you. Something more elaborate than that, but to effect that simple idea but expanded.

That is sort of what I had in mind when I heard about the combat in this game. Unfortunately it really is just auto attack and cool downs. In the games defense I am more active in my combat than normal, but sometimes it just feels like a giant kite fest or a forever circle strafe.

I do understand the limitations when it comes to group combat though and how hard it is to balance paper rock scissors with 3+ combatants.

Still if they could bring more skill and “sparing” to the table instead of just large damage cool downs for the most part.

lots of access to retaliation has never been an issue, but the effectiveness of retaliation is “mostly” limited to AE situations as well as PvP.

Hammer autochain symbol I would not really call defensive damage, but mindless auto attack. I do see what you mean in terms of it giving us “protection” and thus it is “defensive” but not in line with my original intent. Also it is not “zomg” damage (though it can be fairly good high pressure…but again not really what I was going for).

Warriors are not “just” banners, but yes in a group situation, that is what they bring. Fury and might (and damage).

We bring protection and stability (and projectile reflects/condition cleanse).

In the terms of the “mechanic” of warriors, they are an in your face run up and attack, chase things down, kill kill kill.

In the mechanics of a guardian we are inherently defensive and are supposed to survive a lot of things. A lot feel we can be pigeonholed into a defensive support build though.

There are plenty of dps guards, so don’t misconstrue what I say as being guards can’t do damage.

What I wanted was to bring the theme of “defensive” damage to the table, instead of just throw more damage and buffs at the guard, I wanted to look at playstyle.

I’ll just paste my response in this thread as well in hopes a dev will see this and maybe readjust jumping:

You can see what the effect is by going to lions arch and going to the ramp directly to the left, walking out of the bank. Run at the ramp and jump right as you hit the lip of that ramp going down.

What happens is you are in a “falling” state for a split second so it prevents you from jumping and instead pulls you down.

This is adverse to what the jumping physics previously were because you were able to begin a slight fall for a split second and still input a jump command to gain some extra distance into your jump.

So they either “fixed” the physics or “broke” some jumping puzzles that used to require you to jump certain distances that were REALLY picky on how close to the edge you were when you jumped.

Now add latency into the mix and you can see how being too precise on when the player inputs a jump command can cause issues.

edit
I think gravity physics are stronger too, feels like I get pulled down pretty fast now when falling off a ledge or just jumping in general. I am going to test some falls to see if I take more damage now than before (i.e. will it kill me now when it didn’t used to)

update
Falling damage seems fine, just the animation when falling feels like an anchor pulling me down. Could just be muscle memory rejecting the end result.

deleted my response and moved it to the original thread with the video, because it was more applicable to that conversation

As far as your leveling woes:

Binding blade increases damage with power not condition damage apparently, unless they fixed that.

Stats at lower levels mean less because you do not have enough numbers to push them into meaningful areas of change. At 80, you will see it more as seen with that video.

Survival is never about outright tanking, so in order to survive you have to actively dodge/block/blind appropriately, and not rely on stat stacking to survive the hits.

That said if you pick up traits like renewed justice and justice is blind, you will see a greater field of survival in AOE trash fights by spamming virtue of justice as you make kills (lots of AOE blinds). Additionally sword/greatsword contribute to those AOE blinds to help survive.

Single target fights, mace helps as well with the on demand block every 15 seconds, it helps supplement your gap between dodge refresh. (mix in blinds as well).

Speaking of dodging, pick up vigorous precision, and you will have a faster dodge refresh, to help survival even more.

With all that said, to survive you need a moderate amount of crit chance, and the right weapons and you should be good.

Beyond the avoidance aspect, you can pick up traits further down the tree like the all well known Altruistic Healing or Monk’s Focus to gain some synergy with your utility skills and weapon abilities. Mix in Writ of the Merciful with Hammer or even Mace, and you have a decent layering of healing to help sustain in fights a bit better.

Now for damage, most open world fights while leveling, shouldn’t matter too much. I do find that while solo leveling, utilizing my condition damage helps me take on higher level foes, as it isn’t mitigated by toughness and level. (I think at 10+ levels, targets are immune to condition application).

Guardian only has burn, but it does help contribute to damage. Just don’t focus on it over power/crit/critdmg.

Again, you won’t have the stat range available while leveling to really make any of those stats shine, so I would focus on active survival and knowing the enemy target attack patterns, like you mentioned with the wasp queen.

I’m leveling a warrior right now and I noticed I’m having a much better time soloing some champions due to the layers of condition damage versus trying to raw damage thing when I was leveling my guardian. Things that are tougher die faster with that added damage.

Went back through all my shops again and got the update, screenshots to help others list out locations.

While I know you understand that clerics in pve will be considered a bad build, I want to link Obals post to you anyway:

Guardian PvE Guide by Obal

The reason I am linking it is not necessarily the zerker meta droning, but because he has very valid points on why to bring certain skills and how the guardian assists the group effectively.

Beyond that, I also want to suggest instead of pure clerics, instead you mix in magi gear with things with power/crit rating. (I know you already bought the gear sorry)

Try to hit a healing power range of about 700-900 then move the stats to something more damage oriented. The reason being that you will see just as much healing effectiveness at those ranges in terms of heals per a second.

After that, focus on layers of healing to vastly ramp up healing per second. So things like regen/vor/writ of merciful/mace auto/dodge heals. You can even throw in monks focus with just smite condition if need be for some burst healing like a second self healing skill.

By doing that you take each individual heal and combine that for a larger heals per second up to the 600-700 range depending on healing power. Works better than just healing power alone and one skill and allows you to put stats back into damage or something else.

Even in full clerics gear you won’t be “tanking” anything, so you can just get “enough” healing and then flip back to damage.

I suggest at least 40% crit chance with 200% crit damage, and aim for near 2k power, with the rest of your stats in healing if you wanted. Mix in self might stacks with sigils of battle and on crit might trait to help pad your damage. But in groups you may find someone already stacking might for you, and it becomes less useful to invest into.

The idea is to at least double your damage, and after that you can either continue to go full damage or if you want to go with healing or toughness/vitality.

I think if you do the above, you can have decent damage, but still reach the level of healing that you had desired. You will “not” be a tank though, no one is. You can however enjoy a lot of green numbers for you and your group while still seeing ok damage numbers and decent kill times.

Oh good, meaningful “gamebalance” discussion tucked away back into the guardian forum where better understanding to the playerbase as a whole will never happen and instead we get to pat ourselves on the backs and shake hands and agree with our own class based bias……..

The public is fickle and masses are easy to influence. Nature of humanity.

Been a few posts here and there about the teleporting harvesting bots and even one by devs admitting how hard it is to report them since they disappear so quickly.

I’m sure others are doing the same as me but wanted to share how I have been catching them.

Take a screen shot.

After that you can see the botters name in the screen shot and give them a whisper in game.

Once you gave them a whisper their name is in the chat box and you can now right click and report them.

Gotta catch them all, enjoy!

Obtena had a great post in another thread that pretty much said “Play to our strengths”.

That said, I took a second to re-evaluate just what our intended strengths are by the mechanics that the devs put out for us.

So what are our strengths?

• Protection
  We have more frequent sources of protection for longer durations than other professions. This makes sense since we are supposed to be the “defensive, boon based fighters”, yet we have the lowest health pool. so this is supposed to be one of the things that lets us survive.

• Healing
  Per our class mechanics, we are on the lowest tier of health pools, but we are supposed to have that offset by our virtues. Namely Virtue of Resolve. Increasing our healing power directly increases our combat survivability. The usefulness of healing power can be argued, but the best way to increase our effective health is by damage mitigation and healing.

• Regeneration
  This is not something unique to Guardians, as necromancers and other professions can have high up time of regeneration as well, but this plays back onto our effective health from the previous bullet.

• Condition Removal/Conversion
  Guardians have probably the most sources of condition removal or conversion available in our trait lines. This is probably due in part to our low health pool and the need to remove them in order to live.

• Boons
  This can be argued that boons are not specific to Guardians, and it is true, other professions have plenty of access to the boons that they need already, but we do have frequent applications of boons for self and group, which provide support/utility

• Projectile Defense
  We have multiple sources of projectile blocks and reflections, available to any build

• Stability
  We have multiple and fast refreshing, long duration stability sources which help keep CCs off of us and groups.

• Blinds
  Two low cool down blinds on sword and great sword and also spamable AE blind with virtue of justice if traited. Also a blind with focus, but less reliable due to longer windup/travel time and some bounce issues if multiple enemies near by, but still useful for a few quick succession blinds if it works.

• Blocks/Aegis
  We have a moderatly low cooldown block with the mace, but we also have on demand capability to use Aegis. The only other profession that really makes use of aegis is the mesmer, and that is on a random boon basis for the most part. Aegis has 45-60 cooldown on shout and a 30-40 cooldown on virtue depending on traits.

Some additional secondary effects that can be gained from aegis to passively activate on removal, but not very high priority on the threat/utility list. Still it is worth noting as something that we “excel” in.

This was a quick list, but what else do you guys think we “excel” at?

Update 8/4/2013

I think an overall summation of the one thing guardians do better than other professions is to apply boons to groups. We can focus on 100% protection, might, regeneration, retaliation, or even swiftness to allies around us.

The biggest problem is that we can not do that simultaneously and the other professions are able to make due without those boons up 100% of the time.

Our most beneficial addition to a group is typically protection in pve or retaliation in pvp. Regeneration and stability come in at a second most wanted boon from the guardian.

After that we are there for group condition cleansing and projectile blocks.

Is this role defining enough? when I put it that way it seems kind of meh to me.

How can we play to our strengths and become better as an individual? More often than not you may hear, if you want “x” go play “y” class. Normally you heard that if people wanted to bunker, but some of these posts are indicating that we are losing ground on that as well.

I’m liking the positives getting posted and very good point that our strengths don’t have to mean better than everyone else, but simply what we do well in our own rights.

The animations for dual wielding have always bugged me. You literally stand there with your secondary weapon as you swing with the primary weapon.

The way cooldowns work are in increasing refresh times, so the offhand weapons typically are on cooldown from anywhere between 15-45 seconds, with the exception of thieves who work on an initiative based system.

Most people probably don’t think about this, but in the past I have trained with dual wielding fighting styles, and any fighting training tries to teach you to use both hands and be ambidextrous.

Our characters use the off hand weapon as an afterthought.

The only way I could see this being remedied would be to integrate the second weapon in the auto attack chain either cosmetically or functionally. (just an animation, or have the auto attack chain include an attack from the off hand with off hand stats).

Or to reduce the cooldown on offhand attacks and adjust them to be more frequently used.

I think the first option would work more seamlessly into how the game is now. If this remedy is even considered as an update that is =p

Hammer is actually one of our better dps weapons. I almost want to say it is better than sword auto attack, but I don’t have enough in depth numbers, and I’m sure someone would refute that.

Easily hitting 1-3k autos with the addition of 1k symbol ticks and a 5-7k mighty blow.

Trait down zeal (I know everyone says its bad) for 10% on burning, 10% with symbols and then you can go down radiance if you want and get 10% on targets with conditions…if you want to keep going you can get 20% from having aegis up. A lot of people run scholar in pve.

So that is 0.10*0.10+0.10+0.20+0.10=1.76%
extra damage on non-crits, then in zerkers you easily have 50% crit chance and 50% crit damage, giving you another 200% (150% base and 50% from gear) crit damage.

Then take it back a notch and you realize that hammer works really well with AH and you can taper back the traits for some survival and pick up 30% crit damage to have a minor trade off in damage for decent increase in group play survival.

The auto attack from hammer is consistent, puts a symbol down, buffs protection, and if you want AH it heals you frequently through the fight.

My fudge numbers I ran to figure this out was to time the auto attack animations and calculate how much damage over time, and hammer/scepter come out on top (if you count smite). This does not take into account additional abilities like whirling wrath or symbol of faith since those are fairly hard interrupts on auto attack with a decent pause between up time. Whirling wrath/zealot’s defense are more “burst” abilities and less dps I feel, but I have not done those numbers which is why I won’t say hammer is our “best” pve weapon.

Now then, in pvp…….it is highly predictable and hard to do damage fast enough with such a slow weapon…..so pvp you may want something else, like sword/focus or greatsword. Those are mobile and quick attacking.

edit:

Also take into consideration that might blow is on a 5 second cooldown versus whirling wrath is on a 10 second cooldown, so you can mighty blow twice in the time you get 1 whirling wrath cooldown. You end up doing more damage with mighty blow.

And again, hammer has multiple things going on on the final hit, so it is a large hit and then 3 pulses of a symbol (all 4 hits get modified by symbolic power for 10%). So once you get the auto chain going you pretty much have a symbol ticking for 1k the whole time.