Guild Wars 2

Scepter #2: Now is creates a Symbol of Guilt, crippling enemies inside for 5s initial, pulsing for an additional second for each second inside.

Glacial Heart: Now affects all symbols instead, causing them to pulse with chill effect every second. All symbols receive a 15% increase to radius base.. (unrelated to trait)

Eternal Spirit: Spirit weapons now cannot die from damage taken, but do die on command. However, they still have life bars. When bars reach zero, they automatically enact their command and respawn one second later. They will not disappear until timer runs out, or are commanded.

Writ of Exaltation: Now combines with Writ of Persistence, remains a T1 trait.

Writ of the Merciful: Now also removes conditions on every ally within it every second, pulsing for healing per condition removed. Base healing now reduced by 50%, but scales much better with healing power.

Unscathed Contender: Removed.

Supreme Justice: Replaces Unscathed Contender in T1 traits.

Permeating Wrath: Moved to T2. Now also affects allies, causing a maximum of 1s burning to allies caught in area. (See Purified Spirit for why)

Spirit Borders: Affects all consecrations and symbols. Turns every symbol and consecration into a Ring of Warding.

Searing Flames: Adds addendum— if no boons are removed, inflict 6 stacks of vulnerability to target for 6s.

Shimmering Defense: Removed.

Blind Exposure: Now a T1 trait, replaces Shimmering Defense.

Zealot’s Sacrifice: T2 skill in place of moved above. All flame attacks with Guardian now also set Guardian ablaze. Damage taken from burning reduced by 75%, damage taken from fire attacks reduced by 20%.

Healer’s Retribution: Removed.

Powerful Blades: Moved to T1 traits.

Perfect Inscriptions: Move to T2, effects reduced accordingly.

Purified Spirit: Burning now cleanses a condition every second for each second a burn pulses. Combines with Permeating Wrath to remove conditions on nearby allies.

Binding Jeopardy: Now also applied on cripple.

Zealous Blade: Removed.

Spirit Blade: T3 trait. All weapons increase in damage by 5% for every spirit weapon called active. Applies lifesteal to each weapon as well, but stacks in accordance to each spirit weapon. Decreased scaling with healing power to compensate.

Kindled Zeal: Removed.

Inner Strength: Replaces Kindled Zeal, adds 10% power to add to condition damage and healing power. Moved to T2.

Just a few things I’ve been mulling over in an attempt to increase synergy across the branches. A few things might be a bit overpowered, but that’s what feedback is for. =)

Unfortunately, touching retaliation would mean a complete overhaul of the Guardian’s control skills, which is not something I think the devs are wanting right now…especially since the guard is pretty well balanced atm (relatively speaking, of course).

Since our mobility is so low, and our abilities are centered around static objects—consecrations, symbols, wards—retaliation is the great equalizer. Much hilarity ensues when a d/d thief kills himself while I block with 8s of retaliation. Still, I agree that it promotes a lazy playstyle (though not entirely without a skill requisite), and should be tweaked. I’d rather retaliation cause a random condition for 1s on the attacker on hit, since the code is already there from chaos armor. It would fit the playstyle of a holy warrior very well, much in the mode of a smite, and definitely counter a 100B or HS spam by not giving retaliation an internal timer.

If retaliation is changed to a random condition, does that necessarily level the playing field to the degree of the bunker build? The bunker is at a disadvantage dps-wise, as single-stack conditions are a nuisance, not a dmg threat. It could be modified to turn enemy boons into conditions, thereby leveling the potential defense and offense of the enemy to relative parity; if they see a lot of conditions replacing their boons, they might freak out and avoid combat altogether, until their timers are reset. But, now we’ve walked into the domain of the necromancer, albeit at a severely-reduced capacity. Still, it works quite well with Radiant Power, so we don’t even need as major a tree rework. Plus, more reason for a full 30 into Radiance (or just the 25).

We could turn the boon-stripping into causing damage instead of conditions, which would seem more in line with Guardian, but still promotes a relatively-lazy playstyle that leads to a bunker build. If this were the option, retaliation as a continuous source of dps would have to be tweaked to something more along the lines of protection (limited in duration outside of a specific weapon set). I would consider turning ret into getting hit=random boon but then it’d be an incredibly powerful version of Save Yourselves!.

If retaliation is tweaked to something more active, then Guardian needs something that can overcome the mobility chasm separating us from the rest of the classes. Cripple is a good option, but that’s been primarily for classes that aren’t magic-based: thief, warrior, engineer, and ranger (yes, I know, some magic there). Necromancer and elementalist introduce chill, so I think it’s only natural for Guardian to expand upon that as a control device via magic abilities. I’m not going to talk about mesmer, since they get daze.

So where to put chill where it will be most effective? It depends. Like I prefaced, altering retaliation means a rework of the Guardian tree so that things not only make sense, but synergize well. One way to do this is:
Symbolic Exposure swaps with Vigorous Precision
Symbolic Power with Elusive Power
Zealot’s Speed to major and rework to activate @ 50% life.

Soooo….6 paragraphs later, just where in the hell am I suggesting we put chill? Two areas, actually, so that it is a viable tool in our arsenal alongside the other boons. We want an active Guardian that can 1.) survive through boons/blocks/conditions, 2.) control a specific area, 3.) force encounters within that area, and finally 4.) discover success through proper exploitation of the proper terrain, thereby winning by choosing the proper field of battle and forcing the enemy to fight there. The last one is iffy in WvW, but not terribly difficult if the devs increased the innate symbol radius by 25-50%. Note, tying chill to symbols makes the guard very powerful in pvp, but imo no moreso than the current regime.

Ack! Here’s my suggestion, finally:
—Battle Presence removed, useless
—Writ of Lamentations new GM in Honor, causes 1s chill per symbol pulse to enemies inside
—Zealous Spirits altered to cause 2s chill upon spirit weapon skill activation
—Glacial Hammer becomes Glacial Smite, any weapon critical causes chill for 4s (45s cd)

So now Zeal and Honor are well-defined in their strengths, and a rework of retaliation to cause boons—>conditions would strengthen Radiance as well. Valor gets a worthless trait reworked to be somewhat worthwhile, and Virtues remains a good as it ever was, though perhaps still containing a lackluster GM set. Chill becomes a nice tool for both area-denial and counter-mobility utilization, and retaliation gets turned into something that can be exploited by multiple trees to to reach its full potential, not just by having a high Power. Finally, Honor requires a full 30 to get maximum symbol utility, and by not combining duration and size, forces players to commit entirely to a symbol build if they want area denial.

FWB.1704:

I totally agree with smite needing to be a symbol. I’d also like to see the Ring of Warding made into a symbol since as it is right now, its on a really long CD and is highly situational (not very versatile) . Also…

Anything as long as they change the animation. I hate the current one. It looks like a bunch of condoms got caught in a gale.

Lol =)

Hehe, turn RoW into Symbol of Eternity: sucks in all enemies within range 100 of the symbol and roots them…..muahaha!

Silver.8023:

I think people are confusing Shield of Absorption with Sanctuary here.

Aye, I was mainly responding to Rayya’s comment about Sanc, though honestly both bubbles need to be looked at; SoA mainly because it bugs out and roots you in place if detonated.

Aye, adding mounts to a game designed for non-mount travel just takes time away from balancing/bugfixes/content patches the devs could do otherwise. Good for horses, no can haz mountz.

People are lazy, and thus will migrate towards the current fotm. I’ve completed plenty of dungeon paths with a wide variety of professions, and the difference in run times wasn’t really dependent on class, but on player skill. Sure, a few classes are easier to play than others, but ultimately I say run with guildies/friends for the best runs.

Wolfheart.1938:

Well I think we’ve come to an agreement, or sort of We could further discuss the strenght of WoR/SoA but I don’t think that’s the thread for it. I do understand, though, the gripe of OP with how “fire and forget” WoR and especially SoA feel, and how a better reward/risk ratio could be implemented not only with Guardians but many other classes. But I think that’s asking for too much and it’s again, another whole topic.

And yet, you can’t touch how these abilities operate in PvE without drastically affecting their play in Wv3. Same as the other suggestions to nerf the traits related to the wall: the traits are in relation to our consecrations, so nerfing that trait nerfs several abilities. PvE AI is dumb, but I would assume Wv3 opponents have at least two braincells to rub together, making any argument based solely on one portion of the game useless. If the devs decide to balance Wv3 separately, like with PvP, then the argument might hold some water…but I think we’d all be better off with the devs simply changing the battle mechanics in PvE if that’s what has everyone up in arms.

What about Smite dealing slightly less damage than the other symbols, but its secondary effect is it strips buffs off of enemies to deal damage to them? That way it helps allies, but gains access to our symbol traits. The scepter already has a control ability, no reason to give it another if the symbol was introduced and the tennis ball modified to actually be useful.

I find it hard to believe a skill on an almost 2 minute timer is OP, especially when its effect is relatively short. If any of those 50-70 people charging a keep don’t have stability in their build for Wv3, they’re doing it wrong. And yes, the bubble needs some buffing on the defensive front, as opposed to simple area-denial.

While it’d be a bit tricky to pull off for the hammer, it would be kinda cool to have our symbol button change once its been placed. Traited, it could AoE heal, blind, chill, cure condition, etc. So, just like our virtues, it presents a choice: keep the symbol down for a longer duration buff/heal, or activate it for an immediate bonus that adds ~5s to the cooldown of the symbol. This could allow the staff to be a much better mid-line weapon, in addition to our woeful scepter should Smite become a symbol.

Also, in going with the area-control idea of the guardian, why not give a symbol a blackhole-esque activation? Our symbols should be more about utility, rather than damage, especially considering an across-the-board boost to symbols would give the gs/hammer an even bigger buff over the other weapons.

I think Aegis is perfectly fine as is—plenty of traits devoted to its use, and is a powerful tool when timed right (think blocking a downed player’s skill that would knock you back). No, it’s retaliation that needs some loving.

While this is an overall piece of advice, when dealing with the flamethrower charr it’s helpful to just pop weakness on him. Adding to the utility of guardians in dungeons, Signet of Judgment causes AoE weakness alongside its ally retaliation. Popping weakness for a few seconds on those guys can mean the difference between having no life and a long burn…or laughing as he hits you for hardly 100 per hit.

I’ve done this with all guards and wars, and I’ve done it as being the only guardian on the team. It requires (gasp!) teamwork, which unfortunately is being discarded in today’s dungeon runners. I was in a CoF p2 run where, refusing to run around and die continuously, I was unceremoniously booted. We had two guardians and an elementalist, which is more than enough to keep the heals flowing and enemies nuked.

Honestly, it’s much more fun to work as a team and kill the enemies rather than unequipping your armor and sprinting around to die. Alas, that is not the “fotm” strategy as of late.

Jahn.7019:

Draeka.5941:

I’ve stopped doing WvW right now, just because it’s rather disheartening to give it another week of: log off at night with good gains, only to relog in the morning and see everything is gone. Oh, and a massive BG zerg is waiting for what measly horde we can muster in the Toast. I like the challenge for a bit, but now it’s just annoying. We might have a couple hours of good coordination among commanders, but other than that it’s a coin toss.

I’d rather see a SoR/IoJ/TC matchup, but that’s never going to happen due to the ranking structure. I think those three servers are evenly matched in skill and timezone layout. Maybe next week when BG gets promoted for Stormbluff there’ll be a bit more parity, but I’m not holding my breath.

TC has only been facing BG’s PvDoor for 1.5 weeks now, SoR has been fighting them for 7.5 weeks. If you’re already discouraged I don’t know what to say.

….that current WvW structure needs improvement? I mean, hurray for BG and I wish them well in T1 (at the current rate), but let’s not kid ourselves into thinking it’s okay to be stuck in the cycle. It’s boring being the king as much as it is the whipping boy, is all I’m saying. Us toasties need some major recruiting of entire guilds to be competitive in T2, or else we’re going to be stuck between dominant in T3 and perennial 3rd place in T2. Again, I’d much rather the rankings be able to match up TC/SoR/IoJ to see a fun fight, rather than what has been apparently going on in T2 for some time. Not whining, just disappointed really.

Yamiino.1827:

Draeka.5941:

Swifter.6451:

People put badges as a reason? LOL

I get at least 50 a day and got the things I needed from them a long time ago. Easy answer to this thread is people don’t wvw cos they prefer pve.

Certain classes, like the guardian, are at a disadvantage in WvW when it comes to farming badges. So yeah, it’s a valid complaint, especially considering how many badges are required for items.

Anyway, to the OP, I’m growing weary of WvW just because there are no persistent rewards to fight toward, and the annoying culling issue. It doesn’t even need to be an individual reward, either, but something that we can work to build for the server. Right now, there’s only “server pride,” but why would that matter at all when things reset so quickly? Yay, we beat down all the servers in our current tier to move up, now we get to be beat on for the next week…in the absence of mass guild transfers, this static nature is going to kill WvW. Having a tangible reward a server can work towards will help instill a sense of purpose to WvW beyond simple pride.

LOL guardian kicks kitten in WvW, sorry but your argument is invalid.

Did I say guardians can’t kill in WvW? No. I said farming badges, which classes like the ele are superb at doing. So no, my argument is not invalid, so please try to grow up and actually contribute something to this discussion.

Swifter.6451:

People put badges as a reason? LOL

I get at least 50 a day and got the things I needed from them a long time ago. Easy answer to this thread is people don’t wvw cos they prefer pve.

Certain classes, like the guardian, are at a disadvantage in WvW when it comes to farming badges. So yeah, it’s a valid complaint, especially considering how many badges are required for items.

Anyway, to the OP, I’m growing weary of WvW just because there are no persistent rewards to fight toward, and the annoying culling issue. It doesn’t even need to be an individual reward, either, but something that we can work to build for the server. Right now, there’s only “server pride,” but why would that matter at all when things reset so quickly? Yay, we beat down all the servers in our current tier to move up, now we get to be beat on for the next week…in the absence of mass guild transfers, this static nature is going to kill WvW. Having a tangible reward a server can work towards will help instill a sense of purpose to WvW beyond simple pride.

I’ve stopped doing WvW right now, just because it’s rather disheartening to give it another week of: log off at night with good gains, only to relog in the morning and see everything is gone. Oh, and a massive BG zerg is waiting for what measly horde we can muster in the Toast. I like the challenge for a bit, but now it’s just annoying. We might have a couple hours of good coordination among commanders, but other than that it’s a coin toss.

I’d rather see a SoR/IoJ/TC matchup, but that’s never going to happen due to the ranking structure. I think those three servers are evenly matched in skill and timezone layout. Maybe next week when BG gets promoted for Stormbluff there’ll be a bit more parity, but I’m not holding my breath.

A good d/d ele can tank better than a guardian ever could hope for, imo.

That said, any group that has a guardian in it that won’t use a hammer, and an elementalist who refuses to use anything other than fire for max dps, is not an efficient group. A good ele should be throwing out fields left and right, allowing classes to take advantage of free boons. So really, I’d rather have 2 war, 2 guard and 1 ele for an “ideal” class for ease of use.

If I see a single thief when I’m also alone, i just leave them alone. If they run ranged, I have no hope of beating them, and if they decide to go d/d they’ll just stealth the first time their precious HS spam doesn’t affect me. Same goes for d/d ele’s, though they are much more annoying since they can tank better than guardians can. Warriors are not generally a problem unless they go ranged…which, again, forces all guardians in WvW to always have the scepter equipped. Which then limits our mobility or dps overall.

Guardians are most effective in small-to-mid-sized groups, where you maximize your own self heals and party buffs, and gives you enough burst through coordinated fire to quickly down thieves and eles. Guardians are one of the best balanced classes for straight-up PvE, but in PvP it requires an enclosed space and an over-aggressive opponent to actually be really effective.

Take the bunker build, for example: it’s dependent on others to actually kill things, the guard is just there to force skill cds on enemy players. The crithammer is a good enough build, but suffers from a lack of range. If someone wants to run from us, there’s not a whole lot to do about it.

TL;DR: Find a group, stay near them. Focus fire is your friend, and get used to being severely gimped 1v1…aka, you gunna get kited.

ANet needs to revisit our whole area of denial skillset in general, though I don’t think making them impervious to crossing is the right fix. Plus, the staff and hammer can see their cd’s reduced significantly with traits, so that’s fine with me. Without a doubt changing the staff animation to be faster or cast-able on the run should be key.

I’ve written about this before, but for ego’s sake I’ll repeat it here ( =p ). Our wards, and more specifically our symbols, should be granted secondary effects. More specifically, our AoD skills should be able to be traited for chill. Why? Because it’s bypassed via condition removal, and not countered. If someone crosses into RoW when it is traited like so, they will be forced to deal with our small AoD, be it a kd or chill. They could make it a grandmaster for all I care, since it would effectively turn any symbol build into a powerhouse (within a small area, of course).

Making our AoDs more powerful innately doesn’t seem like a proper fix to me; I’d rather see the devs focus more on trait diversification. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

I was disappointed in Juggernaut, simply because it looks more like a staff than an actual hammer. And back to the OP, it’s unfortunate that you either need a fairly high HoM score (25-30 I think) or lots of gold (700+) for some of the better skins. It’s why I suggest the Punisher, since it’s fairly low in price…but then again, the karma gear isn’t too shabby.

The Punisher. That is all, there are none that can compete—price wise, at least.

Pingley.1268:

Why so negative? At least they’re making the change. Plus I think the change is GENIUS.

They should have tested this to begin with, and have the brass ones to put fractal completions in the monthly to boot. If something is glitched for a large enough percentage of the community so as to require an overhaul of the system to even allow them to play it….you don’t require it for a continuous achievement system. Terrible move on their part to introduce ascended gear and fractals in a half-finished form (their words), and incredibly stupid move to push the achievement twice while acknowledging these problems.

So no, not genius. People were suggesting these very changes the day it went live.

Honestly, he’s right. Better to not ask a question while insulting those giving the advice sought, Dream.

But, as for the question, no. Glacial Heart is pretty much terrible, unless nothing in the first two tiers of Valor appeal to you. Retributive Armor, Purity and Honorable Shield are much better options. It’s better to use a sigil to gain a chill effect than it is to rely on Glacial Heart proc’ing at just the right time. Plus, using a hydromancy sigil means you get to activate it upon weapon cd, which means you can activate chill over an area multiple times as opposed to glacial.

So yeah, another worthless trait.

Since they’re rather failed at implementing our condition removal (Pure of Voice) or control mechanisms (bosses have defiance, wards easily bypassed, no cripple and few roots/snares), I’d say the Guardian is not where their vision would imply. If they fixed Pure and player ability to dodge out of our wards, I’d say they would be well on their way to fixing things. Having our weapon damage bonuses all over the place hamper more creative builds and traits, though. Still, I kinda want the devs to rethink how our virtues are affected by traits. Something like this:

1.) Remove Torch #4, Permeating Wrath, Zealous Blade, Searing Flames
2.) Torch #4 is a blast finisher, burns nearby enemies. Nearby allies (200r) are cleansed of one condition.
3.) Permeating Wrath becomes Defensive Bastion. All consecrations now cripple enemies crossing them, wards chill.
4.) Power of the Virtuous becomes 3% bonus per boon, maximum of 15% bonus in damage.
5.) Perfect Inscriptions moved to Master trait, new Grandmaster Cleansing Radiance. Activation of Justice now causes burning to nearby (300r) enemies, turning boons into burning for 1s per boon and ally conditions into fury for 1s per enemy condition.
6.)Zealous Blade becomes Zealous Resolve. Activation of Resolve removes all conditions, granting quickness for 1s per condition up to 4s of quickness.
7.) Glacial Heart replaced by Glacial Symbol. Symbols now cause chill for 1s every second to enemies standing inside.

I know a few of these are probably a bit overpowered, but I’d really like to see them explore our traits as a build to work towards, kind of like elementalists with the auramancer build. Giving these sorts of changes gives us more condition removal, control, and a bit more dps if we so choose. They would synergize well with current traits and skills, imo, and give us a few more potential builds outside of Valor/Honor. Like thieves, mesmers and rangers can dictate (for the most part) how they want to engage, guardians should have the ability to dictate the terms of how long an engagement should last. If someone decides to go toe-to-toe with a guardian, they should be forced to fight for a decent enough duration.

Building more condition removal and dps into our virtues makes us think harder about when to use them, and giving more utility to our consecrations gives the Virtue line some more versatility. Radiance and Zeal will gain some much-needed dps, though the same could be said for a full 30 into Virtue.

With the nerfs to our “tankability”, and ANet saying they don’t want us very mobile, I have no clue what they want us to be. I’d rather have seen VP get the 1s cooldown rather than this sack o’ crap. Seriously Anet, this is turning into the travesty that was GW1 skill balancing…

They need a daily/weekly WvW achievement where doing repairs/construction/escorting/nuking yaks and towers are required for completion. Once done, it gives you 50 or so badges and maybe some karma or a siege weapon.

That way, people are able to contribute as a team, rather than zerging and tagging to get the most badges possible.

I’d love to see them acknowledge the Personal Story and allow, via their live team, us to reclaim entire parts of the Orr map. They could then get infested with pirates and/or other high-lvl critters to keep up the lvl 80 aspect of it. But if we kill the big Z, and ANET keeps talking about a living, breathing world, why not expand Orr southward with new maps while “reclaiming” the current ones?

At least we’d get new maps to get yanked around on…. =p

The biggest problem with requiring fractal completion is that a significant chunk of the population cannot complete a single fractal due to the overlooked dc issue. Honestly, ANET, wtf would you repeat the fractal requirement when you haven’t fixed the kitten dc issue?!

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

Natural.7013:

These threads are truly great examples of hyperbole. Anet needs to work out the kinks in their event systems and other aspects of the game. They need to continue to add systems and make the game progression yet progressive. It has the “potential” to be greta and we will not know if it hits the mark until we look back months or a year or two down the road.

The problem is, we don’t know if this game has a year of life in it.

Aaaaaand more hyperbole. Seriously, grab your paper bag, and settle down. Was Lost Shores a big bust? Yes, and they’ve pretty much acknowledged that with their PR-influenced word choices. I’m not a big fan of the fractals being the only method of obtaining ascended gear, but I haven’t seen any posts suggesting they move up the timetable to add such loot elsewhere in the game.

Worried about other dungeons becoming ghost towns due to the fractals? Tell the devs to add at least one set of ascended armor to each dungeon. Tell them to add in crafting recipes for armor/trinkets, and not just the forge. Yet, no one ever does this. People have been gnashing their teeth for over a week now and I can’t seem to find any decent, constructive posts. No, it’s just post after post of people screaming like they just found out their SO has been cheating on them.

So honestly, stop with this terrible hyperbole and go do something useful.

E Tan.7385:

Josher.9612:

Removing the energy/mana-like system that most RPGs have, took away a lot of depth in the combat system.

Totaly agree. Also it remove a in deep management of skill reload / mana cost.
So, most skill with “powerfull” effect will have a huge reload intead of having for exemple a high mana cost and small reload.

What you just described is not an in-depth management over the current system. If the mana cost is high, without potions you’re relying on your regen timer…with potions, you’re bypassing the system entirely, thereby requiring potions for combat (moneysink). It all boils down to timers, so go ahead and say it: you want shorter timers.

In WvW, most people tend to panic when they realize a Guardian has just teleported onto them, so any control moves you drop down right after that tele will only increase that. So honestly, all you really need are a couple roots and decent dps, with everything else being tied to survivability.

They really need to do a hotfix to remove the fractal requirement from the monthly, since so many people are simply unable to complete a single run (like myself) without dc’ing. I ran thrice thru AC without a single DC, but a small map in the fractals causes my client fits within ten minutes? o.0

Josher.9612:

Removing the energy/mana-like system that most RPGs have, took away a lot of depth in the combat system.

Not really. All an extra bar adds is more time added, depending on the system of recovery. Think of it this way:

You have 40 total energy to use on abilities. You may use potions to recover energy either instantly or over time; in the former’s case it’s redundant to timers since your inventory will be filled with potions, while in the latter you, once again, are limited by time. Not by the energy bar, but by time. Time to activate the potions, time to drink them, time to buy more potions, so on and so on. Time, time, and more time.

Saying that an extra bar makes something more deep is simply disingenuous. It doesn’t promote a fun playstyle, instead forcing everyone to take careful inventory of potions before setting out. If it’s a time-based system of recovery, you’ve just added a redundant item to the game where a hard timer on all skills would be more fair, economical, and transparent to the playerbase. I know the dev team has taken a lot of flak recently (much rightfully so, especially w/ the fractal dc issue), but they did right on the lack of an energy bar.

As a guardian, the only professions I generally avoid in combat are guardians and warriors…just because often we can’t kill one another. Thieves run from me if they get lucky, and mesmers/rangers/eles are insanely easy to drop if you know what you’re doing. Necros are a bit annoying, but no more difficult than the others.

If you’re a skilled player, though, it doesn’t matter what you pick.

TC might be able to get enough people in WvW to keep it ahead of Yaks, but the content patch means we simply won’t have enough to challenge FA to any real degree. Oh well…

Rivenguard.6740:

Main problem of the fractal dungeon is the NO WAY TO REJOIN when disconnected.

Really, spending 40-50 minutes to get disconnected (that is already a major pain by itself) and then have no way to get back is a major oversight on ANET part.

AMEN. Adds insult to injury, too, considering you need fractal completions for the monthly.

Wait until people are able to get beyond lvl 4/5 consistently….it’ll be harder to find a specific lvl group in LA than finding someone for SE explore.

Major con: being unable to complete a single one because I constantly get dc’d. And, considering the monthly requires 7 fractals, I’ll never get it done. Terrible system.

The NPCs for the questline need to be instanced; that way, debugging them should be much easier. Plus, you don’t have to worry about not getting credit for participating when 50 other people nuked the boss with AoEs within a couple seconds.

Refuse to run fractals until this gets fixed. Don’t know why Anet decided to use a different code from dungeons for fractals, but they screwed the pooch on this one.

They would be even better if I didn’t always dc during them and be unable to continue with my group. Seriously, ANet…wtf?

This, along with the community’s obsessions with fractal levels ala Ursan lvl in GW1, is why I refuse to run fractals. If you DC, you can’t get back in and either force a complete reset or hope your group can complete it without you…and you get no rewards. Epic fail.

Tyr.1965:

Ebon.7641:

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Blacksarevok.8104:

They better not have nerfed Plinx. Half the people in the game will quit.

They already are because of other stuff. This ship is sinking, fast.

lol are you for real? if anything the game is surging in popularity again with the new lost shores stuff

Its the vertical progression gear treadmill that’s coming with the lost shores stuff that will lose a lot of people.

Everyone keeps saying “vertical progression” and “gear treadmill” like those two things haven’t been discussed in dev posts. Either you trust the devs enough to stick to their word on that it’s an intermediary between legendary and exotic, or you don’t. If it’s the latter, then why are you still here? Like it or not, there already was a vertical progression with the existing weapons and armor qualities.

If 3 months pass and they introduce and even higher armor tier, I will gladly eat my words. But considering the stuff isn’t even out yet, I’ll reserve yelling at the top of my lungs about how terrible Anet is until then. And no, I highly doubt Lost Shores will lose anyone. If they are that casual, then they probably don’t even have full exotics yet. I know I don’t, and I do very well for myself in PvE and WvW. Like I said many times in these threads, does it ever occur to you that the new dungeon might be fun? Say, perhaps everyone who refuses to do a current dungeon run…might have fun in the fractals?

Brutaly, I thought the idea of breaking the trinity was more along the lines of “we don’t want a person rolling a Guardian to be shoe-horned into always support/heal/dps.” Instead, we’re able to pull off all three (like the other classes should be able to), depending on the situation.

So, I guess if they reduce the Guardian’s ability to “tank” in its current form, it sounds like they’d have to significantly increase our dps to warrior levels, or drop down our armor by a lot and change around our traits/skills so that we’re only super-effective in large groups. You know, like a scaling effect for all of our abilities. Unfortunately, it’s really hard to balance a class based around being in a team so that it’s effective solo and in a group. In other words, we need more traits/skills structured like AH.

And yes, I think Retaliation needs to be rethought. Making it be affected by traits would be a good idea, so that it can be effective only when traited into properly and can rationalize lowering the damage value significantly. Maybe one trait causes freeze (8s cd) upon being hit with Retal up, another strips a condition (10s cd), and another cripples/blinds (10s cd). Putting Retaliation traits in Radiance would be interesting, so we have a tree that affects symbols (Honor), virtues (duh), spirit weapons (Zeal) and burn/retaliation (Radiance).

Even moreso, if they make Retaliation into based off of condition damage, it will give the Guardian two conditions to build around. Thus, we’d potentially have another good/interesting build to try out.

Steely Phil.3952:

No. Not worth it at all. I ground karma for the Temple set because I wanted the Power/Toughness/Vitality stat spread. This armor is horribly ugly on my female asura so I then used transmutation stones to copy over a low level gladiator style armor I had grown to like while leveling.

If they introduce a new set I would be switching back to my master work magic find gear to grind for it (except I won’t actually do this because I’ll quit instead) and my exotic gear will have been rendered completely worthless.

There are a couple dungeons that reward Pwr/Tough/Vit stats, Honor of the Waves in particular. I don’t understand why people keep talking about the cost of exotic armor when you can work towards a full exotic armor set while earning money via dungeons. If you pay gold for an exotic set, then it’s your tradeoff for not spending time in a dungeon—for stats, of course. If you like the look of a particular set, then that’s based off of your own personal aesthetic.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

@Osprey

Really? Cause the post I read pretty much stated “Hey, we’re not going to be doing the treadmill thing that other games do where each new update provides a new set of armor better than the last that you have to get to even complete any content whatsoever”. They’re implemented a new tier of armor. Once. For going in to the very deepest parts of a dungeon that is completely doable without said armor, just not as far.

When they implement a level above ascended, then start the worry mongering and calling them liars and the treadmill is starting. Cause a single data point does not equal a trend. Until then, chill the heck out and don’t try and rain on someone’s parade who actually likes the update. Not -every- topic has to be about how ascended armor is going to ruin the game.

No, no, Endless….just hand them a paper bag and let them exhaust themselves. It’s rather depressing to have thread after thread after thread about a system that no one seems to trust the devs to do right on. Honestly…y’all have trusted the devs with your $60 to play the game, have obviously sunk a ton of hours into it to get your exotics (or be posting atm), and yet you think that this is the beginning of the frickin’ end.

From what I can tell of legendaries, there is a minute statistical difference between them and exotic weaponry; not enough to be imbalanced, but enough to still let some spreadsheet player to justify their expense. Ascended will allow those gear-monkeys something else to strive for, and from that post it seems that the devs will let those who refuse (for some reason) to run dungeons…to still obtain Ascended gear in other ways.

This is not going back on their promise any more than they already did with exotics; you can’t tell me there isn’t some form of grind to get a full set of exotic gear. Heck, to get exotic jewelry is an incredible expense. So please, to everyone bemoaning Ascended gear, please shutup until it’s in the game. Until then, we can’t be certain of its effect on the game.

And how is it affecting game mechanics beyond what exotics already do? I do pretty well for myself in WvW, and all I have are dungeon armors and crafted lvl 80 jewelry. Not exotic jewelry, mind you. Seriously, I’m trying to figure out why people are all bent out of shape over this, especially since we have a ton of new crafting recipes coming out in addition to the accessories in this patch.

Why is everyone up in arms when y’all cried out for more normal endgame, and when they give you new armor, recipes and dungeons….you complain? God forbid the new dungeon be fun and enjoyable…but no, you have to bemoan the addition of new armor.

jkctmc.8754:

@Aza

I’m happy you’re ok with mediocre weapons, and abilities.

I want to see your 1.8k crits, and what you’re giving up to attain that, which almost sounds like a pure damage build, where you’ll have roughly 12k HPs, and die if anyone in WvWvW breaths on you.

I have four classes at 80, all exotic gear as follows; Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief.

My Warrior build provides at least five times, yes 5x the damage my Guardian can do, and can provide the following buffs permanently; Regeneration, Fury (20% Crit), and three stacks of Might (+105 Power/Condition Damage) to myself, and the entire group I’m with, on top of the +10% Critical Damage, which is also applied all but 2 seconds it takes to wait for my banner recast time.

When moving the Banner also provides a permanent Swiftness while carrying it, because I can recast it, before the original timer is off. By the time I’m done, or decide not to cast these buffs, there is a 2 minute timer before they expire.

So excuse me if I’m not ok with Empower, and Symbol of Swiftness, when I can provide so much, so easily on my Warrior, and give up virtually no damage, while my Guardian seems lackluster in the department you think they would excel at.

cough critbuild cough

Your changes would not help the staff one iota. First off, the staff already hits the maximum number of targets allowed by the game’s AoE limit, and turning it into a PbAoE wouldn’t help it deal more damage. Unless you’re wanting a kb/kd effect added on, which would just make it incredibly imbalanced.

Our orb needs to be debugged, but I don’t understand why you want it centered on the target. We can already detonate it at will, which lets us have more control over its actions. I like that; let the devs fix it, rather than making it a targetable ability.

No on destroying the symbol. Guardians often rely heavily on our symbols, and turning them into a shout just makes guardians into defensive warriors. No thanks. If our symbols aren’t up to snuff (hint: they pretty much are), then they need to be rebalanced. Not kittenized into something more akin to a warrior.

Empower heals your group on end for a good amount, and can heal you for an insane amount if traited into AH. While doing it, you can still activate your virtues, which gives you one blind and one block. Oh, and if you traited 5 into Virtues, you’ll gain some healing with each activation. If you can’t stay alive long enough to get it off, you’re not playing it right.

Again, no thanks to your suggestions. Staff changes are needed somewhat, but these add nothing of substance.

I can’t recall, but did anyone beat GW1 without getting infused armor? That was a pretty big chunk of the story, dealing with the Mursaat. So really, what we have here is do the dungeon for slightly better gear, or don’t and enjoy the current game with hardly any loss on your end….as opposed to not finishing a game.

Honestly people, queue the outrage when we actually have concrete facts on the overall stats and how they affect us. I highly doubt the difference between all exotics and ascended (in normal PvE) is going to be as large as all exotics versus all rares.

AbsintheMinded.4609:

Some of that stuff I might agree with, but not all of it. 2H mastery makes as much sense in Zeal as it does Honor. Each shout serves its own, specific purposes and for that reason shouts do not have to be Honor.

Empowering Might should be in Radiance. Imp. Spirit Weapon duration should be Zeal. Sure, I could list more, but that’s really pointless. Many of our traits are out of place, many need to be merged, some are out of hand with the right build, and others just need to be 86-ed.

2Handed Mastery would make zero sense in Zeal, as Zeal is purely offensive-minded w/ spirit weapons, while Honor has a very strong emphasis on symbols. Guess what is a (mostly) unique mechanic for our 2-handed weapons? That’s right, symbols. Taking the mastery out of Honor wouldn’t make a lick of sense, while forcing a lot of symbol-based builds to spec into another line just for a single Master trait.

I would agree with you on the shouts, but our shouts are mostly about defense. So really, would such a boost make sense in the Radiance or Zeal lines? Maybe Virtue, but again…not the main point of that line anyway. So really, you have Valor and Honor as options. I’d rather have the devs work on our broken/useless traits, rather than cherry-pick what good ones we have and rearrange them in the tree to completely break our class.