Guild Wars 2

Well, the change to sigils of energy is a very unpleasant surprise. No more triple dodge to avoid follow up moves after initial one. Now it will be reduced into nothing and be replaced by some damage sigil instead. More brainless damage bombing I guess. The removal of rune of mercy is understandable, but removing durability rune? I really was quite fond of that one, and I’m sure alot of others loved it aswell. Guess most people who were using it is now going back to Rune of the pack or the traveller runes, or some other rune. So in other words… more damage possibly.

The removal of the amulets however, I like seeing celestial and settler going, the other two being taken away doesn’t make much sense though. I’d welcome the addition of the new four amulets though.

Under no condition can we have two.

Well, the trap daze stacking is pretty silly, wouldn’t be surprised to see it go. Though if A-net would nerf the damage on trueshot, people would just autoattack instead. Because it wouldn’t be worth being a sitting duck for damage that isn’t worth it, with such an animation for it aswell. When it comes to the passive knockback trait for the bow, I would rather it be placed on Bow 3 than random shots. Better for both skillful play and counterplay.

When it comes to the traps and their damage? I think the damage is fine. If they’ve nerf them too much in damage, then people would just waltz back to meditations. Think removing the daze is the best way to go about the traps.

@ Karl McLain

I like the latest changes, the pull on tether is awesome. We guardians really needed a CC like that. The slight changes to the traps will make them look more favorably, I’d however still say a few of them needs a little more of a push. The change to Fragments of Faith is understandable, as it wasn’t meant to hit three times. I welcome it being made into a stunbreaker and giving stability. (We also have a trait which now stunbreaks and gives stability to us, when we are disabled I’d believe?)

Now I’d recommend doing something about…

1. Wings of Resolve getting interupted mid-animation. An evade is a good idea, but instant is even better. Mostly because we guardies wants to use our virtues mid shelter/renewed focus. To cleanse conditions, blind or add more defensive buffs when we’d exit the channel.
2. Hunter’s ward casting time needs to be reduced to 2 sec.
3. Heavy Light needs to be attached to a bow ability (Bow 3), to better use it and to also be able to counter it better if you’d face a DH, by dodging. Need to reward good dodging…

/Dez

@ Karl McLain

Firstly, I want to say that the changes made to the bow itself to this point has been done very nicely and should be praised for. I however have a few suggestions regarding the Dragonhunter specialization, some of these suggestions may have been previous mentioned, but I’ll write them here anyhow.

1. Heavy Light should be removed as a GM trait and added to Bow 3.

Reason: Because the players playing the Dragonhunter wants to control when and who gets knocked back, not having it being a passive that triggers every 10 seconds. Placing this thing on Bow 3 will also make it easier for anyone facing the dragonhunter to actually avoid being knocked back, by dodging this attack. Will provide abit of counter-play. Also makes it much easier to make combos with knockbacks/pulls. That may make one one or two of the traps more attractive to some people aswell.

2. Make Bow 5 slightly quicker in its execution. I would suggest a cast time of 2 sec. It also doesn’t seem to damage downed opponents apart from with its last hit. Is this intentional?

3. Make the virtues instant. I know they’ve were made to be more physical, but there is some issues with that.

a) F1: People who might go with Radiance skilltree will want to use their F1 ability to blind downed opponents mid-stomp to avoid being feared/knocked back/pulled.. etc. Or if they’ve want to avoid a follow up move after having been stunned.

b) F2: This virtue is interupted alot in larger fights, which is really annoying. But not only this, the most annoying part is that you cannot use it while using Shelter or Renewed focus to clear any conditions that be on you, unlike the vanilla virtues. I also suggest this ability to be changed from a leap into a teleport. Perhaps with a slightly altered visual aswell, despite the fancy wings. Just like F1, this one cannot be used when stunned either.

c) F3: This ability is the least affected by the non-instant virtues. It however be also slightly annoying not being instant cast.

The new virtues description:

“The guardian’s resolve has further increased, allowing virtues to be manifested as physical aspects. "

This meaning that the guardian has gotten more powerful in its use of the virtues, despite of them becoming physical. After all, if the guardian’s resolve has indeed increased (gotten more powerful) then it doesn’t make much sense to them having been nerfed in cast-time. Right?

With that out of the way, next up is…

4. Traps.

The main issue with traps is that most guardian players put them up against the current options they’ve have for healing, utilities and elite. Which is either shouts or meditations. Both of those have healing, stun breaking and condition removals in common. Basic, with traits or with runes, or all of them.

Suggested changes:

Add GM trait for traps:

When using traps, you are healed for ??? (1000-1500?) and remove 1 condition.

Dragon Maw: Stunbreaker.
Fragments of Faith: Stunbreaker.
Test of Faith: Stunbreaker and dazes those which passes its border.
Procession of Blades: Healed for ??? (120?) per hit with trap (max 5 enemies).
Light’s Judgement: Remove a condition every 1 sec for 8 sec. 1 per pulse.
Purification: Remove 3 conditions.

That’s my two cents. Thanks.

///Dezuel

Hello fellow guardians,

I am Dezuel, I’ve been playing guardian as main since beta and always liked the class. Even if I’d seldom written on the forum, I’ve been following many threads made here. Now I decided to make my first.

Since Arena Net did the changes to the skilltrees, I’ve done abit of testing and found a rather neat build that I wanted to share with you, it can still be tweaked and have a few things swapped for it (Runes, weapons, traits.. etc), but the main idea is to use Hammer 2 and Torch 4 for damage bursts.

I did notice that Valkyrie amulet had been changed aswell, now giving power, vitality and ferocity. How can one make up for the loss in critical chance? Sigil of Intelligence and a few other ways, fury helps a lil bit. Grabbing the sigil of air for secondary sigils works well too.

So allow me to introduce my VVR Valkyrie build

On heavy armor dummy, it deals like 6k damage with hammer skill 2, then 3k for the two following autoattacks, then possibly also triggering sigil of air…

So dealing nearly 14k damage right there, then swap for scepter+torch for 5800’ish damage + 1800+1800 (Oh and another sigil of air trigger for 1800)

So get possibly around 11k on second weaponset. However! You’ll have to actually manage to land the attacks too. The best part about this build is that it has 20k HP aswell, making it tougher than many zerker builds due to its extra health. Even if toughness isn’t the highest, but can swap amulets and stuff for that and get from trait.

It won’t crit as often after the sigil of intelligence runs out, but 4% + 20% from fury and a few other things get the percentage up abit.

Ps. Nevermind the nightcore music and the strafing to the left in the video ^^

Leave a comment about what you think.

Josh Davis.6015:

How about this?

• Shield of Absorption cooldown goes from 30s to 24s baseline.
• Shield of Judgement cooldown goes from 25s to 20s baseline.

Added to the release notes maintained in General Discussion.

Edit: For clarification, the shield recharge trait is still there on top of this. It brings the cooldowns from 24>19s, and 20>16s.

As a few have stated before, the problem doesn’t lie in the cooldowns of the shield, but rather what the skills actually do. My suggestion for change for it, would be to make skill 4 into a knockdown, then change skill 5 into a bubble that goes with you. (Make it look like mesmer staff 4). While its up, it blocks projectiles (not absorbs) and when you activate it (if you chose to do so) it dazes those around you for a moment.

So in other words.

4th skill: Knockdown and small damage all in cone

This would give us a lil more CC ability, and this comes in handy for both those who wants to play a offensive type or a defensive one.

5th skill: Block projectiles+Knockback when activating

To make it so you can move with the bubble, be you intending to use it to close in on a ranged foe or to just have more mobile and fun gameplay. Then activate it to cause knockback. Will give the opposition some idea when a knockback is coming aswell.

Just a few other suggestions:

Torch 5 skill: Make this skill apply daze, when a foe is hit by it. Suppressing fire anyone?
Staff 2 skill: Make its tracking a lil bit better.
Staff 4 skill: Change animation on the male variant to the female one. (Covering down doesn’t look very empowering to me :P)

Well, that’s what I’d suggest for changing a few things.

I’ve get the feeling we’d be part of a social experiment.

I’ve know the previous ones, I’ll add some extra.

GS 5: Use this one, and then quickly jump while in animation, it’ll make you get a angle above the usual (Higher up). Thus can help ignore AI minions, other players, clones etc… when trying to pull.

GS 3: As booms wrote above, it is really a handy one. It’ll also allows you to ignore some falling damage at some points (unless the falling distance is too great).

Sigil of Fire: Not really limited to guardian, but it be useful if some have trouble fighting thieves and mesmers which stealth alot. If you manage to hit a stealthed foe, the fire-blast shall reveal the exact location of the stealther with the blast orginating on them. Providing they’ve have no AI/clones with them that is.

I’d write a few more sometime laters…

I’ve been using the 4+3 quite alot prior to this change, it made you get like 9 seconds of retaliation. (At least with the build I was using). In comparison, you’d get this aura, which would give 10 seconds (without matters of build, runes and so forth involved) and also applying vulnerability. So this is a minor buff for us, and the effect looks pretty neat in my opinion.

I’d agree with Fiorrello’s suggestion pretty much, or change the daze into a knockdown, also would work out well. I’d also wish to see a shield trait that’d let shield 5 reflect projectiles. Overall, we need some daze attack and either cripple/torment to a weapon aswell. To interupt and to mess with kiters abit, providing you’d hit.

My suggestion is to for example make torch 5 apply torment, 1 per 2 sec or apply daze.

And perhaps apply cripple to sword 2 or sword 1. Guardian hammer could use a slight speedbuff to its autoattack and skill 4, aswell as making skill 5 castable while moving. Same goes for sword 3.

ArenaNet just needs to change glacial heart to 10 sec CD and make it available to all weapons, then it is a viable and even nice option to pick.

It’ll need to be instant, as some others have stated above.