Guild Wars 2

I like this idea. I’d be more interested in trident -> staff than spear, if only because I still haven’t given up on getting a land spear weapon option. It seems unlikely enough that the trident would ever become a ground weapon that there would be nothing to lose with this change.

Now that I think about it, though, I really like the image of smacking monsters in the face with a candelabra.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Monks in Guild Wars are essentially priests; ranged supportive casters, not martial artists. It’d be fine if warriors or thieves got a martial artist spec (arguably Daredevil is somewhat that already), but guardians getting that would be an insult to everyone who loved monks.

Yeah, I agree with this. As much as I love the typical fantasy Monk (and I do!), and how much I love the Guardian, and how much I want a more healing-focused spec… no. Whatever you do with it, you’ll always run into the heavy armor problem. This style Monk should be in cloth, not full plate. A fists of fury Guardian will just look silly, and I can’t imagine changing the armor type of the class is even on the table.

suicidalspectre.8106:

The Great Al.2546:

This is the second expansion in a row where Ele elite spec traitline is extremely boring.

Trait lines are supposed to change your play style (see: holosmith). The traits are either % damage buffs or %health/barrier buffs. Please make the weaver trait line fun.

Also sword is somehow a weaker dagger with worse range. I don’t understand how this happened.

Guardian will take your druid away, and can have firebrand.

That would be great. At least it would give Guardian the use of a staff.

I think with Firebrand, there’s a huge disconnect between the front-line melee play style the axe encourages, the mantras wanting you to be behind your allies, and the tomes turning you into a spellcaster. A 90 degree cone on the mantras and a 900 range on the axe (the same that the Necromancer gets) would fix all three of these, turning the class into the medium range support I think it wants to be.

The class animations are gorgeous.

The mantras themselves are pretty good. With the Mantra of Solace, we finally get the moderately spammable version the “on heal” class skills ask for. Mantra of Lore was useful. I never found a use for the elite mantra. I didn’t like the preparation step, but I see its utility during combat. I just wish we could start combat fully loaded.

I’m sure it’s a lost cause, but I really wish the tomes worked with rather than replaced your weapon. If not, I’d like more powerful passive effects for the active tome. If there’s going to be a casting time to open the book up, it should have an immediate impact beyond the pages. Jumping into pure support or healing right now, particularly in melee range, is just asking for trouble.

I’ve been wanting to use an axe as a Guardian for a long time and, by itself, the axe is a fine weapon. Axe3 is a clever way to get around the lack of mobility, although it could stand to be a bit stronger (maybe larger pull range? I need to test that more), and Axe2 takes a little too long to cast, and is a little underwhelming at that. I’d be happier if the symbol had a support boost.

The problem with the spec is that nothing synergizes with the axe. It makes more sense to use a ranged weapon if you are going to use mantras, which basically just means scepter after the recent “don’t use the staff” patch. The spec would have made more sense being combined with a short bow, or putting axe as a base Guardian weapon and switching an unnerfed staff to FB-only. Staff-FB would work well if the range hadn’t been reduced so much. You’d still be playing a support-only class, but it would be solid support.

I really want to use an axe, but if the only way to do so is to take the FB spec, you’ve crippled your build before you started.

As for tomes, I said this in the tome suggestion thread (and it may just be a bad idea), but I’d rather see the tome powers merged with your normal weapon powers rather than replacing them. I’d call them “blessings,” as if your are sprinkling holy water on your weapon, and now it’s doing its normal damage, plus temporary burning/support/healing boosts as selected. I know Guardian healing has always been less powerful than other options, but I always appreciated the more passive “healing while you fight” mechanic. Having to pull out of the fight to become a 10-second dedicated healer just doesn’t feel right.

I’d like to see a version of tomes that just adds the tome’s effects on top of your current weapon instead of replacing it. If you did that, I think you could leave the cast times as is, but be able to switch to a burn/heal/whatever on an as needed basis, with the trade-off that you’ll be tearing some pages out for the weapon skill alone, not really getting the tome bonus.