Guild Wars 2

My own observations about the Firebrand thus far:
- The trait “Healer’s Retribution” does not seem to apply retaliation when using it together with the new mantra heal.
- The trait “Wrath of Justice” does not trigger a Lesser Signet of Wrath when striking an enemy with Tome of Wrath’s damaging effect.

Possibly more to come.

@ Karl Mclain:
Not related to the changes, but I have no idea how to get this across otherwise.

Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have these kinds of threads more regular, and take the suggestions into account during the big skill balance patches?

As a player who has played Guardian as his main character since launch, it might be time for me to finally provide some feedback about the Core Guardian.

ZEAL:
Minor:
Symbolic Power:
Maybe make this trait a little bit stronger by increasing the duration of the burn applied?

Major:
Zealous Scepter:
Since every minor trait of Zeal is focused on Symbols, this is a strange place for a scepter trait to be in, since it has no Symbol on it. Either change Smite on scepter into a Symbol, or change this trait so that this trait triggers with every weapon.

Shattered Aegis:
This trait seems a bit lackluster for it to be a Grandmaster. Maybe it is an idea to add something to it? Vulnerability, or weakness?

RADIANCE:
Minor:
-

Major:
Right-hand Strength:
Why is the recharge decrease limited to only sword? Roll every main-hand recharge trait into this one.

Radiant Fire:
Currently the boon Zealot’s Flame only applies burning to the enemies around you. Change this trait so that it burns your target and enemies surrounding it, to synergize this trait more with ranged weapons (including the Dragonhunter’s longbow).

VALOR:
Minor:
Courageous Return:
It would be nice to see this trait changed so that it can trigger in active combat, instead of when reviving or rallying. Maybe let it trigger when you’re out of endurance?

Major:
Defender +Strength In Numbers:
Maybe roll this trait into one, or make one of the two an adept trait. It seems a bit strange to have a choice between two toughness increasing traits in the same level. Maybe swap one with Smiter’s Boon.

HONOR:
Minor:
-

Major:
Invigorated Bulwark:
Why is the Invigorated Bulwark buff limited to wielding a mace? Change it up so that any weapon can be used with this trait.

Protector’s Impact:
I know every class (as far as I know) has a fall damage reduction trait, but please, can’t we remove these? They are hardly used except for in WvW, or breaking out of maps. If you want to keep the fall damage reduction, just make it a sigil or something, or a rune set, just don’t let it take up a valuable trait slot.

Honorable Staff:
Merge the boon duration with some other trait, but please don’t let the boon duration be bound to a specific weapon. We already lost our base boon duration in Virtues with the trait system revamp.

Pure of Voice:
Maybe convert two conditions? Or change it so that shouts apply resistance for a few seconds.

VIRTUES:
Minor:
-

Major:
Glacial Heart:
This trait line seems a strange place for a Hammer trait. Maybe change it into a trait affecting Virtue of Courage, or swap it around with Shatter Aegis from Zeal? (So that you get a choice between improving Virtue of Justice, Virtue of Resolve or Virtue of Courage, just like with the Grandmaster traits.)

Copy from my reply on the reddit thread:

I think at the moment the Dragon Hunter is in a pretty good state.
The only complaints I have are the synergy with the Guardian traits, BUT considering some of the Guardian traits are in a pretty strange state (For example “Zealous Scepter”, a trait for a weapon with no Symbols in a line where the minors are based on Symbols), maybe it are the Guardian traits that need adjustment to provide more synergy instead of the Dragon Hunter ones.

After quickly comparing the minor traits of the Dragon Hunter to the minor traits of other classes their Elite Specializations, it seems to me that the last minor (Pure of Sight) is too specific.
Most other classes their minor traits revolve around their new mechanic (for example the Tempest minor traits revolve around the overload mechanic), while Pure of Sight purely revolves around our weapon. This to me feels a bit lackluster, and a minor trait affecting our new Virtues seems more appropriate to me.

I also agree that the new virtues are a downgrade compared to their original ones. They are also not affected by most of the traits affecting virtues.
I don’t really have anything to say abour Spear of Justice, I think it is quite a fun skill to use.
The current status of Wings of Resolve and Shield (?) of Courage however is in my opinion quite bad, they both are a downgrade compared to their Virtue counterparts. Both their effects should be instant, currently their effects are just clunky.

Kumion.7580:

Syraxis Windrunner.1973:

… – There needs to be more synergy with the traps. Traps are not ground targeted, which if you’re a melee is fine, cause youre right there with the enemy. “Setting up” an enemy is difficult, due to the fact that there are so many, and most of them ranged with little to no los breaks. Youre better off using the traps with melee. …

While I agree with Syraxis’ other points as well, this is the one that stood out to me the most. A guardian using the elite spec would be doing himself a disservice to use traps at this point. Here’s why: if you take trap utilities instead of symbols, you can use only one trait in the elite trait line to make your traps bleed. Symbols, on the other hand, are functional with utilities, weapons and up to three trait lines if your symbols cause burning.

Specifically, Honor has writ of persistence and protector’s impact. Zeal has zealot’s speed, symbolic exposure, symbolic power (for burning), and symbolic avenger. If your symbols burn, Radiance can further enhance that with inner fire, radiant fire, radiant power, or amplified wrath. Even if you’re not traiting for all of that, why give up all those options?

The traps were kind of fun to use, but ultimately not worth it when compared to symbols and other traitable choices. I expected more synergies between weapons/ utilities/ and traits. It’s just not there.

Edit: Also, I still think the name of the elite spec is ridiculous.

You talk about taking traps over symbols, but this is not possible at all. Symbols are all weapon skills. Traps are utility skills, could it be that you are confusing symbols with consecrations?

As someone who plays ONLY guardian, this change does excite me. Currently the only Elite Skill I use is Renewed Focus.
Changing the two tome skills would most likely get me to use those in situations as well.

I am also looking forward into the future, where the tomes could be added to another Elite Specialization for the Guardian, more meaningful and more fleshed out.

They are both very important to me, you cannot have a good story without having good lore as well. I am bothered however with the increasing amount of silly lore-breaking items they are adding to the game. Quaggan backpacks, holographic wings, halo, devil’s horns, THE ZODIAC ARMOR, etc.
In my opinion these items do not bring anything good to the game, they only add a ‘asian mmo-feeling’ to the game, since items like those are generally found in the asian mmo’s.
I am all for new items and such, but let them be coherent with the world and the living story. The recently added Zodiac armor really had NOTHING to do at all with the current living story. They should add items related to the current ongoing living story, not something completely random.
Taking the Phalanx armor as an example (since the Zodiac armor is just really bad), they should have added NPC’s who wear the armor-set. Pact elite soldiers or something like that. This alone would make the items feel more related to the world.

Did anyone of you play Guild Wars 1?

As a player of Guild Wars 1, I think the solution could be quite simple.
All ArenaNet has to do, is to implant the same system they used in Guild Wars 1, the build template system, being able to save builds as templates.
I believe the counter you described would suffice to make this system not OP, (the 10 minute cooldown on the swap), they could even make the swap cost silver, as it currently does to swap traits.

Sidenote: I find it strange that Guild Wars 1 already had solutions for the problems currently in Guild Wars 2, examples being the problem you described, and the issues with overflows (which was solved in Guild Wars 1 with the district system, which allowed you to select which ‘overflow’ you wanted to be in. This system was way more userfriendly and allowed it for pre-made groups to be easily in the same ‘overflow’. But I am really getting out of topic here).

Let me be entirely honest here, the things you listed are not really problems that need immediate fixing.
There are other areas which need more reworks/fixes than the issues you listed.
One area of the game I’d like to see a rework in, are the dungeons.

For example, stacking is still a viable tactic in most boss encounters.
A reason for people to stack is because the boss fight otherwise requires more time, and is more difficult. ArenaNet should remove the ability to stack, but not without resolving the underlying issue, why people are stacking the boss. The boss should be looked at and be tweaked.

Another example would be the difficulty between dungeons;
Ascalonian Catacombs, for example, has almost every of it’s three explorable paths run, while Caudecus’s Manor’s explorable paths are run far less, due to it being more difficult.
A sollution could be, to make path 1 the most easy path (with the lowest daily reward), and 3 the most difficult one (with the highest daily reward).
Path 1 of every dungeon would be the same diffuculty, and so on for every other path (Path 2 of every dungeon being the medium difficulty, and path 3 being the most difficulty). In terms of daily reward, it would be ideal if 2x path 1 would require the same amount of time, and would give the same amount in a daily reward, as 1x path 3.

I just tried this fractal, on lvl 22, and I have to say, for my party, it was impossible.
We ran a party of two Guardians, two Warriors and a Necromancer.

We couldn’t even get past the button phase.
A way to solve this issue is to make the Dredge NOT respawn when killed.

PvE:
- Roles (support and control are lackluster compared to damage)
- Ascended items (Ascended items really pin you down stat-wise, aquiring new gear becomes harder because of how time consuming/difficult it is to obtain)
- Item stats (You get shunned for not wearing full Berserker gear by quite a few people. Higher damage is unfortunatly more effective than more support(entwined with my first point)

Although I have not beaten the dungeon yet, I disagree that this dungeon needs to be nerfed.
The people who want to do easy dungeons already have enough dungeons to pick from.
One thing that needs to be changed however, is the loot.
From what I’ve heard, the loot is not to par to the amount of time you invest into the dungeon.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

SAB is some of the best fun I’ve had in GW2 to date. Sure, it kind of breaks away from the serious lore…. but so what? It’s a ton of fun, and that’s what’s important.

No offence, but if SAB is the most fun you’ve had in GW2 to date, aren’t you playing the wrong game?

Assassin X.8573:

Didn’t he use a staff or mace/shield in the book? Anyone verify this?

If I recall correctly, Logan first used a hammer in Edge of Destiny. He later took on the sword of his brother, after he died.

I want to know how serious we should take the things said in that interview, because quite some things, as others have mentioned, go against the lore presented to us in the original Guild Wars.

It would be nice to see a reaction from Ree or Jeff.

I disagree, ArenaNet SHOULD make use of this kind of Living Story in the future.
They only should make it a personal choice, based on the character, and keep the benefits for winning hidden.

I am also heavily in favor for more Sylvari armors!

I use Signet of Resolve. It really is a no brainer.
The base healing on Signet of Resolve is the highest and it scales the best compared to the amount of healing power you have. (Unless you run some very specific builds like mentioned about, which I don’t).

In my opinion they should buff the scaling with healingpower on the other heals.

These posts really deserve a read by the developers, it shows you have put a lot of thought into these suggestions.
I would love to see Anet turn the world-boss fights from what they are now into boss fights of epic proportions.

One thing I don’t understand is the following;
Why does Wave of Wrath have a 600 range while Orb of Light has a 1200 range?
Wave of Wrath is supposed to be our main attack, so naturally we’ll stay in a 600 range of our enemy, what use does it then have to have a secondary skill with a longer range?

I am curious to see what trait balances they were talking about in the SOTG.

Celestina.2894:

FloXun.1456:

Let me be honest here..
I find that the heavy armor for males, is kind of disappointing..
The tier 2 set is nice and all, but I get so annoyed by the fact you can’t change the skin colored part on the pants.. :|
I wish Anet adds more Sylvarish armors in the future.

^Same

As much as a love the sylvari, they have one massive flaw:

So many armor sets just look weird on them, mostly in regards to heavy armor.

Not only that, but the whole feel of the heavy cultural armor is weird. The light and medium sets acutally look like things that grew out of their own bodies, with leaves etc. While the heavy sets (aside from tier 3 with exception of the shoulders), look like something they just ‘wear’.

I would like to see more armors added in the future, hell, even put some new armor sets in the gemstore.
I would also like to see more race specific armors, I play a male Sylvari Guardian, and I would like to see some more Sylvarish armor for him to choose from.

Let me be honest here..
I find that the heavy armor for males, is kind of disappointing..
The tier 2 set is nice and all, but I get so annoyed by the fact you can’t change the skin colored part on the pants.. :|
I wish Anet adds more Sylvarish armors in the future.

OP, what name find you more fitting than?

Instead of writing him out, I think they should improve on him in the future.

Only adding something about Wall of Reflection because I really do not feel like to even get drawn into this useless arguement.
OP wants the Guardian to be the tank role from the Holy Trinity, something which is NOT going to happen, Anet wanted to move away from the Trinity.

Now about WoR: Don’t stand behind it, stand inside of the combo field.

Short detour about Malyck;
It is stated on the wiki that Malyck decided to head into Magus Falls to find his people and tell them of the Grove. Apparantly Magus Falls lies in the GW1 areas of Magus Stones and The Falls.
There is an interesting thing I discovered in that area, specifically in the area north of The Falls, Reed Bog. In Reed Bog several Sylvari-like “structures” can be found atop of thick branches.
Could it be that the Tree Malyck sprouted from lies in that zone?

Screenshot of these structures: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Reed_Bog.jpg

These one-time only landscape altering events would be a great addition!

A suggestion for the game:
Add a daily/weekly poll to gather feedback from the players on different subjects.
There could even be a reward tied to the answering of the poll.

I would love some more Sylvari armor and I love the ideas posted here for hair/faces/etc.
I’d also like to see the removal of the ‘skin-colored’-parts on the Sylvari armors.
It can be quite annoying when you try to dye your armor a certain way and the skin-colored part ruins it.

I’d like to see Smite (scepter 2) be made into a symbol, would make it more viable running with it for certain trait builds.

New look for my Sylvari Guardian.

New look for my Sylvari Guardian.

I do not understand why you need this?
Doesn’t the trait trigger when you reach 25% health?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defy_Pain_

My Sylvari Riagán, member of the Durmand Priory.
I am still in doubt whether I should replace the cultural tier 1 shoulders.

Race: Sylvari
Sex: Male
Class: Guardian

When equipping the Strong Splint Legs on my Sylvari Guardian his upper legs get abnormaly large. I’ll attach a screenshot of the equipped strong splint leggings as well as a screenshot of the Draconic Legs for reference.

Attatchments are in order:
- Bugged Splint Legs
- Screenshot of Hero Panel
- Reference image of ‘normal’

You know what you should do?
Play for fun.

I named my Sylvari Riagán, meaning impulsive, which I find fitting for your average Sylvari.

Buy a Hall of Monuments Portal Stone from Scornheart (in Hooligan’s Route) in Lions Arch. Once teleported to the Hall of Monuments your character is safe from harm. Leaving the HoM will also get you back to the place where you used the Portal Stone.

My Sylvari Guardian in his natural habitat:
http://i.imgur.com/Vsgf4.jpg

I honestly find that our elite skills are underwhelming.
I really dislike both tomes, and although Renewed Focus is a nice panic button, it usually only delays your defeat.

Now I think about it, why do we not have an elite skill related to our spirit weapons?
Wouldn’t one, which summons a usable spirit weapon, be nice? (Although that might be to similar to the Elementalist conjured weapons).
Or we could have a new elite spirit weapon (staff?)