Guild Wars 2

Nike.2631:

Just pointing out that ANet seem perfectly comfortable with Battle Presence doing NOTHING for the solo player. Its a standard that could be extended to the most over-used trait in the class.

Its exactly the opposite.
Traits like battle bresence must be improved to help also the solo players.(even something “stupid” like +100 healing power with the existing effect)

That “standard” as you call it is broken, just because even if you roam with a party, exists situation where you are alone, or where your party is spread.
Really i cant immagine to play something that can become totally useless if for some reason i divide from my party members.

edit:
For AH, after the vigorous precision change, AH have lost a lot of efficiency, Its still a must have, but its healing is already cut down by a lot when you are in solo.

Quarktastic.1027:

Nike.2631:

Honestly what I’d like to see is Altruistic Healing live up to the name. Make the heals 25% stronger – but only proc off of boons granted to others, not yourself. Right now its more like Ulterior Motive Healing than any sort of altruism.

This wouldn’t change a thing. It would make AH builds even more effective in dungeons and WvW, and people would still swap to monk’s focus and meditations for soloing.

My suggestion, move either AH or monk’s focus to a different trait line.

And with this you only obtain build with both traits. Hammer builds with meditations, no matter if the choosen traitlines are (for example) zeal and radiance, 30\30\x\x\x will become mandatory then.

Nike.2631:

Honestly what I’d like to see is Altruistic Healing live up to the name. Make the heals 25% stronger – but only proc off of boons granted to others, not yourself. Right now its more like Ulterior Motive Healing than any sort of altruism.

Kinda lame suggestion. Our healthpool is really low, link this flush of heal entirely on boon on other party members, will just kill the class on solo purposes without any kind of health flush\health pool compensation. (or we will just roll only monk focus builds lol)

Tim.9850:

I agree with the first post also. I also disagree with anyone who says the complaints are not as big as people make them out to be. They definitely are that big. There is no excuse for literally destroying the spirit weapons.

I should also add, I have also not even used the 2 handed sword again since they nerfed that.

i understand you, Gs simbol build was my first decent build

Happyfool.8951:

maybe it has something to do with the dye you’re using

No its a set problem.
If you try to combine the noble set with other set pieces, you can notice the difference.
Only with a Black dye you can try to avoid this problem.

Brutaly.6257:

But i dont think we shouldnt focus on details, i think its our “job” to give proper feedback, which should contain solutions but no implementations.

Details and possible implementations are a form of feedback too, its the player point on how a mechanic have to work, just to prove that we are not kids that are searching the shiny toy that can slay anything and anyone with one hit :P

Anyway, i like your explaination regarding the mechanic ^^

Relentliss.2170:

Hicci.8761:

Guardian is already one of the most balanced classes in the game. The nerfs are never as big as people like you make them out to be.

This is not a whinge about nerfs, but a complaint that they have not looked at and done anything positive at all for us. We have some poor weapons, some poor utilities, some weak trait lines. Do something to improve the class. End of story.

@relentliss

Agree.

@Hicci
Some nerf was very heavy(or just without any kind of sense or real explaination), no matter if they dont touch your playstile, with no real compensation to balance where the class lack: Mobility or attack range.

1) Would you prefer ascended gear to be the last tier implemented for the remainder of GW2? YES
2) Would you prefer ascended gear to be equal to exotic gear in all statistics except agony resistance? YES
3) Would you prefer the level cap to remain at 80 for the remainder of GW2? YES
4) Would you prefer if WvW was set up on an equal playing field similar to PvP? YES
5) Would you prefer if WvW / PvP / PvE had separate skill functionalities? UNDECIDED
6) Would you prefer if Magic Find was removed from the game completely? YES
7) Would you prefer if Magic Find was divided equally amongst all party members? ONLY IF NUM 6 IS NOT POSSIBLE
8) Is GW2 too ‘Grindy?’ YES
9) Does GW2 need less RNG? YES
10) Has the Trading Post [and all its users/farmers] positively impacted the economy? NO
11) Do you have as much faith [and/or enthusiasm] about the game [and/or company] as you did before launch? YES
12) Do you reasonably expect [many of] your primary concerns to be addressed in early 2013? I HOPE, BUT SERIOUSLY, NO

@Brutaly

Today i was wondering about your retaliation idea, I said many times that is very good, but for me this tweak need a little change\clarification
I quote the part only for the people that did not read the first post

Regarding retaliation I would like to see something skillbased that harmonize with the other game mechanics. Why not also make this stack in intensity. You pop retaliation and when hit upon you get a damage bonus for each hit so the next attack deals more damage. And each attack you do, that hits, consume a stack of retaliation. So pop it, get hit 10 times and the next 10 attacks deals more damage. That damage should be equal to todays retaliation and increase based on power (zeal) and added to the damage of the skill used. This would mean that retaliation could crit and as a dps tool it would in fact be stronger then todays retaliation but it would take an effort to apply the damage.
Imo this would also make aegis and retaliation to have some really nice synergies and also make retaliation skillbased.

Dont you think this retaliation application can create some problem with Simbols pulses, and burning tick?
I know that in you description you stated that the damage have to be applied on the skill damage, but i want to be sure that your idea is designed only for Skills that hit the enemy directly.

Another point is for Aoe skill like Mighty blow, when you hit multiple targets, you consume a number of charges equal to the number of enemy damaged, or only one charge, because you used one skill? (This kind of question may seem dumb, but i think are really important to define a perfect mechanic)

tanshiniza.8629:

- Fix the traits lines with regards to where each traits is placed in the branch as well as improving or switching out the traits which are not worth bothering with.

-Improve the range options of this class as well as give us a few more options when it comes to keeping our opponent within melee range.

-Increased size of symbols would be an adequate fix for the current issue instead of us having to trait for a decent area of effect.

-Improve on current weapon skills for example Zealots Defence being such an easily avoidable attack due to such a narrow area of damage.

These are the major things that need to be improved. If anyone has anything to add feel free.

Just look the OP post, all this solutions, and much more, are right there :P

Heinel.6548:

The concept of a boon soldier is intrinsically flawed. Secondly, as the professions are now, elementalists are the closest to what a boon based combat is supposed to be with the phasing of attunements, NOT the mash-button-right-before-you-(re)engage that is the guardian’s or the warrior’s boon style.

The best description that can fit the guardian ATM is a magical soldier with innate fragility, that is overcome by having a larger repertoire of defensive abilities. Said abilities may be boons, it may be something else.

I agree with this.
the class description is broken, just like most of the actions made to balance it.
The reason of this (for me) is one, you cant balance a class that work, when other classes have broken mechanics and bugs unresolved. Before the balance, all things must be fixed, and the you can balance wisely.
I know that this require time, but i don’t find wise to break things, so they can be equal with other broken things.

Heck, they reworked hexes into phantasms. They should similarly turn the concept of spirit weapons into a physical manifestation of enchantments that closely follows the caster so they can be a valid replacement of AH spam for a guardian’s self defense (and possibily allow us to target an ally with it so it works for groups too). I assume the current nerf is due to spirit sword and hammer being too aggressive. They should have made it so the spirit weapons hover just beside the target and perform only utility functions (rather than adding straight DPS +CC).

I can’t imagine anyone thinking the bow and shield was ever OP. It would definitely work better as a mobility solution than the suggestion to turn symbols into auras, or to propose any drastic changes to any boons.

I dont really know if Sword and hammer was so OP, but the timing of this change dont reflect your opinion (im not saying that you are totally wrong). SW builds was used even before the fractal release for Spvp with no issues or forum whines (just look how many players are whining about how strong and OP is the guardian bunker build) but the SW change is coming now, when a lot of player are on high fractal stage, where the spirit shield Shine.
For me its only another heavy handed nerf, just to solve “a little issue”.

It would definitely work better as a mobility solution than the suggestion to turn symbols into auras, or to propose any drastic changes to any boons.

Eheh, well some proposition are just horribly unbalanced, but the ones proposed by brutaly are not, and they are well argumented. This is a summary of all the good things proposed on this forum for 5 months.(with some personal addiction by OP)
Sometime drastic changes are needed, not only nerfs have to be drastics.

Mars.6319:

I agree with the first half where you outline problems but I don’t agree with all of the changes in the second half.

I’ve been staring at my AH build for 3 weeks now trying to figure out how to change it without wrecking my Guardian and I just can’t find a way to change his spec. Having played 5 classes to 80 and Warrior being one, this seems absolutely ridiculous and is bringing back bad memories of WoW’s infamous Paladin vs. Warrior years.

lol dont you think this is a bit selfish.
you just will find a new and probably more effective build, just like all of us.
and then, forums exist also to ask help :P

Why the players that are now giving lessons of “bon-ton”, are not asking why we are at this point?

You are happy with the game, good for you, im just wondering what will you do when some modification that break the game for you will come out, and (if you decide to it) when you go to ask clarification, you receive only:

- silence
- pr made stuff
- explainations that are deliberately incomplete or vague.
- thread locking

now do this for 10 or 100 times, and in the end look your first post, and then the last.

attack poeple with anger (like sadly im used to do sometime) or totally ignoring them when they have payed for your service… are the same thing, no respect on both side in the end.

Obtena.7952:

RAVVSlathotep.5463:

So if someone is doing good with something then it means it needs a nerf?

You missed my point, which was admittedly subtle so I will let you slide. Obvious there is a reason this is getting nerfed. It’s not simply a random occurrence or as completely unreasonable as people intend to make it sound.

But
1)we dont still know the reason
2)if they are working about something else, well they can just do the nerfs, when all the modification is ready.

its like sell a car to someone without the wheels. yeah maybe the seller will procure the wheels as intended, but if he say absolutely nothing about, i have right to ask clarification or be concerned.

Aberrant.6749:

IMO Guard doesn’t need this extensive of an overhaul. The vast majority of guard issues could be fixed by adding in more weapon skills/traits to slow down our opponent (cripple), improving how symbols function, and by giving us a decent ranged option with an updated scepter (which the dev’s have said they aren’t happy with atm).

While im agree with you as this as temporary solution (im in the groups of the ones that starting proposing this kind of solutions some month ago) I have to say that this kind of shot term solution , dont fix\balance our class at all.

- low build variety will remain exactly the same.
- bunker retal build, will remain the cause of QQ on the forum == stupid nerf throug the whole class.
- the guardian will continue to be requested only as Supportive class.

Alarox.4590:

The way to fix the Guardian’s issues is not to spread AH. The way to fix the Guardian’s issues is to give us more viable options other than AH/MF. Other than that, I agree with most of what you said.

The problem is, how create other options, withotut make the guardian a real immortal selfhealing machine even when specced as glassy dps without defense?

I understand clearly what you mean, i love to have always different options to choose, its the fun to be a builder.
But i have to say that the option proposed by brutality, is simple and effective. Maybe we cannot have many options as selfhealing, but when the self healing issue is covererd, we can really build what we like to play.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

KinkyPotato.4219:

I DON’T want to be forced to play another spec or build because the gear prevents me from focusing on what I find the most fun…

Quoted for truth. This is the first time I’ve actually felt like ArenaNet is deviating far enough out of the bounds of their “your playstlye” philosophy to actually be considered, well…for lack of a better term, full of it. First time I’ve actually been irritated with them since they over-buffed Dervish later in Guild Wars.

Funny thing, or maybe really mad irony.

- Our class is pushed into the healing\supportive role patch after patch. (dont get me wrong, i dont like this role, but i respect your wish to play it)
- Our classe have no ascended gear to fulfill that role.

Ynna.8769:

• Change Retaliation so it does higher damage with a shorter duration, making the decision to use it more skill based, instead of just trying to keep it up as much as possible.

this is a double sided edge for us. this solution can work, but only if retaliation is completely removed on traits, and avaible only on utility skills or long cd weapons skills.

I just finish to read the complete “opera”

i have changed my mind, is not a good work, its an awesome work.
Ill just stop to make propositions, to support only this one that have all the things we really need.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Edit: for the spirit weapon part.

I think they need to have a clear idea about minion mechanics. Now the spirit weapons have an health bar (very low) but also a timer duration. and this just dont make sense, because the timer was here exactly because the weapon was immortal.

So, im ok if they dont want our minions immortals, but:

-Give to them Enoug HP to fill their role, a shield of avenger that die after 3 projectiles, is not a good investiment.

-Make minions Health recover, when the summoner recover health. (or just a % of the health recovered)

-Delete the duration timer.

Well the first part is very accurate, and i think it reflect in most part , not only what the guardians community See, but also what the guardians community feels.

the only thing i dont get, is how you can be always so calm (im not criticizing you), when i see modifications incomplete or just whitout sense, i only wish to take my keyboard and smash it on the hand of the change responsible XD
(ok maybe its my modder spirit that come out)

ok now, joke aside… very good work

Wolfheart.1938:

I opened a similar thread regarding the lack of Knight’s gear yesterday but am noticing that this one is more general and better worded so I’ll let that other one die and voice my opinion here.

Seems like Arenanet doesn’t like these combinations and while the lack of + healing power might be understandable (but imo not justifiable) as they don’t want to have dedicated healers, I really cannot wrap my head around Knight’s as it’s not even a min-maxing combo ( like they beloved Berserker is ).

Excatly, is not justifiable at all, like many other things.
If they dont want player with a full heal chars (i dont like to be supportive, but if someone love that kind of role, why have him to be stopped?), why they have created healing traitlines and the healing stat?
Also the lack of knight ascended option is pretty heavy.

Hicci.8761:

staff, “retreat” and “save yourself”. Also if u get boon duration runes and trait into virtues there’s your perma-swiftness.

Then use the other weapon and the last utility you have to avoid a certain death.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

kipz.8701:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

You dont have to trash your entire build.

Traits can be mixed and matched to suit your own playstyle, the way you like it.

The way ANet likes it FIXED

So its perfectly fine for them to buff damage outputs via power and crit damage but when we want to increase our ability to negate this effect its seen as unbalanced? If I recall, healing power still scales pretty terribly compared to all other stats.

Play the game for the way it’s ment to be played.
DO you have a Healer/support class in Call of Duty?

What if I want a gun that heals people? SO when someone gets shot, I can heal my team with my gun?

No… You. You are Not a healer in GW2 because that role doesnt transulate in GW2’s combat system.

Other games like WoW use the Tank/Healer/DPS roles which makes it 100% fine since that’s the core design of the game’s mechanics is to work with those 3 roles, But GW2 is designed with Damage/Control/Support in mind where all classes must use to Solo effectivly and coordinate with team effeciantly. It’s a new kind of combat system.

By adding a healer type class or stats that makes certain class valid for Healers, will destory the game design and that’s when people start asking for Healers Elementalist or Guardian healers/tanks…. No thanks -_-

So clear that patch after patch, they are pushing us on a support role only, by cutting down self healing and offensive tools.

and just to be clear, not only the lack of ascended cleric gear is hurting us, but also the lack of ascended knight, that is our main stats gear.

MagnusLL.8473:

For all those that “guardian does not need anything, you’re megagimped in anything else than support/defense because you’re really good at it so don’t cry”.

When is support/defense ever better than offense in this game?

Here is not a matter of offense is better then defense, or viceversa.
The problem is to have choices, and not follow a definite path.
They are pushing us on a strictly support role.
I like defensive classes(because of the long fight they can do), but i hate to be supportive (or at least, be support only and feel forced to be with a group 100% time), usually a roam alone on WvW, and when i start a 1v1 fight, i WANT TO HAVE the CHANCE of winning, even against a kiting kitten.
But without tools, without balance, all the whole story of the non trinity sistem or play what you enjoy to play, is only a big pile of steaming kitten.

Vitu.3580:

The healing between Warrior and Guardian is not debatable!

Guardian
-Virtue of Resolve
-Orb of Light
-Empower
-Healing Breeze
-Faithful Strike
-Shield of Absorption
-Battle Presence
-Pure of Heart
-Selfless Daring
-Command Spirit Bow
-Merciful Intervention (though I will submit this one is a bit sketchy)
-Tome of Kitten Courage!!!!!!!
or
-Renewed Focus —- Grants 2 Virtue of Resolve, and 2 Pure of Heart within 4 seconds!!!!

And almost permanent Regen uptime through utilities/runes, not to mention the multiple boons (almost permanent 12 stacks of might!) also associated with many of these abilities. One build can have access to every single one of those abilities and traits at the same time and with enough Healing Power every single one of those heals will hit for no less than 2k…..easily

Warrior
Vigorous Shouts…….so up to 3 abilities that apply healing on medium CDs with various bonuses associated with them…..

How the Kitten can you even think these 2 classes are similar in healing? How?

No class can achieve this much sustained healing, and only Elementalists can compare in boon outputs. That is just the truth.

This is only an half truth.

We have most healing effects, but how they heal compared with healing shouts?

Warrior shouts heal people for a minimun of 1400hp per shout, and used only for heal, without think of the shout effect, with traited shout you can onload per minute:
Shake it off x3: 4200 heal
For great justice x3: 4200 heal
on my mark x2: 2800.
you can onload 10k AOE heal per minute, and with a rune of soldier also something like 10+ condition cured.

All of this without any kind of healing gear.
i was used to play an arcer shout warrior time ago(my second char), maybe its a noobish build with a non pro playstile. But it was quite effective.

RAVVSlathotep.5463:

Ganzo.5079:

I have a question to the players that was in beta (i buyed the game at launchstart, the 28 august).

Was the classes (the guardian mostly) so unbalanced at that time, to require so heavy changes? i remember my friends that was playing on beta, they where all entusiast of the overall game balance.

We lacked too much stuff in the beta weekends (especially time) to find the proper meta but when you’re low-mid level you don’t have much of a problem with class imbalance. Now when you’re high level and all you have is time on your hands… That’s when you begin to notice things.

IM not talking about strictly pve feature. But mostly PvP.

I have a question to the players that was in beta (i buyed the game at launchstart, the 28 august).

Was the classes (the guardian mostly) so unbalanced at that time, to require so heavy changes? i remember my friends that was playing on beta, they where all entusiast of the overall game balance.

RAVVSlathotep.5463:

While it is an exageration, I get the feeling that this is just the beginning of the Guardians’ nerfs.

The following will be a tl;dr that just states what almost everyone knows, dipped in a bit of OPINION.

As every Guardian knows this class has a very restrictive meta: we have dozens of skills but only a couple are actually useful.
If we’re ingenius enough, we could squeeze 3 viable builds out of the Guardian: AH, SW and perhaps the Monk, as tanshiniza.8629 said.

Now, because of this horrible nerf, spirit weapons have lost its use which, ironically, goes against Anet’s Guardian philosophy of Control class, the same way the Necromancer is in no way a class of attrition, unlike the Thief.
With this, we are down to 2 builds. Now, this would be considered bad and restrictive in many games BUT in GW2 it means that we are still one of the best classes.
Why?

Because most classes are even worse off:

-the Elementalist has no viable PvE build and getting kicked from a dungeon party due to being an Elementalist is a common occurrence. It is also the class that takes the most skill to play well;
-the Engineer has 1 build for PvE and PvP and are in no way versatile like Anet’s philosophy states. Note that the Engineer used to be better but went through nerfs, the same way we’re going through now;
-I’m gonna be honest and say that I don’t know if the Ranger is decent or popular opinion says it’s FUBAR and that, like the Elementalist, you have to outskill others to reach the same objective;
-no amount of skill will save the Necromancer from being the lowest tier class. There’s only one build that is remotely useful and it restricts the movements of every other party member;
-the Thief. I bet you’re having a giggle right now because of me mentioning the Thief as a class that’s worse off than the Guardian but I’ll explain. While the Thief is the no-brainer, high tier class of GW2 alongside the Warrior, the Thief’s attrition build outshines and outperforms every other and since nobody is going to gimp him/herself, the Thief only has 1 build, even if being mediocre with it outperforms almost every other class.

I left out the Warrior and the Mesmer. Everything the Warrior does in PvE is almost always viable and, while they aren’t as good in PvP, they still pack a mean punch when paired up with others and they are also really easy to play.
Now the Mesmer is different: it started out as a versatile class, got nerfed the same way as the Engineer and now the Guardian, and is now slowly recovering.

As you can see, people call the Guardian overpowered because, as a class, it used to be a good, strong, well-built class, unlike most other classes. The thing is, those who call the Guardian OP don’t understand that the issue isn’t with us, but with every other class, but since it’s easier to simply nerf one class instead of fixing half a dozen, Anet did just that. We will be mediocre like almost everyone else because it’s the easy thing to do.

The only thing that we can do is not stab eachother and present the truth in a respectful fashion. Don’t expect them to admit they’re wrong, just hope they don’t kill another class off and force us all to reroll a baby-mode Warrior.

I was writing the same thing just now, but after read you post, i have only to say that you have anticipated me.

And if someone have any doubt about the lazy balance attitude.
Just go to read the patchnotes of the last 5 months.

Ozymandias.5704:

George Steel.1804:

fps issues, blue-screen, file archive issues

Update our drivers and check you PC. I have non of those problems on my 2 year old laptop. Don’t ascribe your own hardware problems to the devs.

I have no problem too, but its a known issue that the game engine is not really optimized and give crappy performances even on recent hardwares.

Latsch.6874:

Ganzo.5079:

This for me is the worst part in the game.(and the last patch confirm this)
The funny thing is that in a game adevertised with the formula: play what you want to play, every class fulfill every role; with every “balance” patch, they are simply cutting down build variations, to push every class to fulfill only one role.

Now after 5 years of development, and 5 months of release (but its better to call this period: payed beta) i dont think this is an acceptable result.

you know that they even admitted themselves that they will push the classes to fullfill one role only and they broke they philosophy?

look here they described how the proffessions should be in they mind
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/first#post1061889

you dont want to play a high single burst damage thief? as they would care

I played a few mmos, they failed as well, this is the reason i bought gw2 in the first place, because of the promises! – I simply say there shouldnt be any lies in the first place

and to you guys who dont believe it that i quit, yeah i cared, i had hopes and they managed to crush it, hope they are happy with my money i invested,

sry but its deinstalled

That description sadly is garbage for me.
I accept that a class have different mechanics then the others.(otherwise, the game need only one class)
i dont accept that a class is pushed to fill only one side of the Gw2 trinity, without compensate for the other 2 (and this is the GW2 fail ATM).

This game was supposed to be without trinity if i remember well. Bad joke, really bad joke.

Latsch.6874:

4. So called “Balance” Patches:
- They nerv shining proffessions without giving any kind of compensation, lowering the Damage but still have high Intiative/Cooldown Costs
- No stability for Builds, one day its a good build, on the next week its complete patch destroyed -> time investement loss (and it doesn’t STOP just look at the introduced ascended gear without even asking the comunity about it in the first place)
no one likes surprises
- AOE Boon and Damage – Max. People nervs, ruin Strategy in pve and wvw: no party pfererence over random people, take away ambush stealth strategy of large groups and surprise attacs in wvw.
- Allways incomplete Pre-Patches which include actually more Steps to work properly break the game in the meantime

This for me is the worst part in the game.(and the last patch confirm this)
The funny thing is that in a game adevertised with the formula: play what you want to play, every class fulfill every role; with every “balance” patch, they are simply cutting down build variations, to push every class to fulfill only one role.

Now after 5 years of development, and 5 months of release (but its better to call this period: payed beta) i dont think this is an acceptable result.

Iavra.8510:

Only a guardian can teleport and leap 2400 units towards his enemy and is still not able to catch him.

Holy words

Xsorus.2507:

You basically got the Ranger Treatment from Beta, for the record, Our Spirits are still completely unusable in every regard…even after 3 months ago when the head dev Jon Sharp came to our forum and said Spirits were bad and needed to be changed.

The only change they ended up receiving…. was buffing a talent that increases their chance to go off from 30% to 50%…. thing is..they still have like a 10 second ICD…..

Little difference, you can deal with ranged targets , even without spirits.
WHen guardian are asking for more snaring to be capable to deal with ranged, they cut of our ranged effectivness\defense without compensate it anymore. (and who care of the kittening battle presence it give no bonus to me)
Im really sad to say that the balancing team have really no idea of how the class work.

And instead of playing like teachers, maybe they have to read all the classes forums more often.

Obtena.7952:

Electro.4173:

Obtena.7952:

George Steel.1804:

Because it shows the complete ignorance of whoever decided that this would be a good change. If our worst utilities get nerfed, what else is on the horizon?

I think we can’t dismiss player ignorance as well … unless you are a Dev, you don’t know the motivation for the change and it might be completely inline with a future plan for the class. I certainly don’t think it’s been changed because devs are ignorant. I’m going to assume that most GW2 players have some past MMO experience will agree that lots changes are not transparent or well understood by players. It’s the nature of these things.

If it was changed because of something thats going to happen in the future, then it shouldn’t have been changed until said “future”.

Making a set of utilities useless for any period of time because they have something planned for them later is bad.

Whether it’s bad the change happened now or later is a matter of opinion really. If it’s related to some future plan, it could be necessary to implement the nerf now in case it needs to be well tested so the possibly better thing gets implemented without issue. I’m just playing Devil’s advocate here because I think the change appears misplaced, but I certainly don’t think it was done to screw people or give the impression they don’t have a clue to balancing the classes. People have a tendency to forget that whether they disagree with a change more often than not is really not cause for it to be a bad change … the devs decide the direction of the classes and these things dictate the changes.

Frankly, I think this is much ado about nothing. SW’s sucked. Now they suck more. I don’t see a place for something that sucked to begin with.

But there is no sense to make a nerf for a mechanic that is not still ready. Make changes only when all is ready (the old anet motto)

anyway we have 2 new useless triats right now.
good balancing job. -.-

Spirit weapons last longer?
- WHO CARE lol they last 5 seconds

Spirit weapon is not destroyed when commanded?
- I wonder if a can lunch the first command before the weapons is destroyed o.o

Alarox.4590:

Ganzo.5079:

correction: 2 of them are utility. My bad

Yeah, but one of them is on a 20s cooldown and stays at a distance, and the other one’s purpose is to absorb damage.

Anyway there is really something wrong with the development direction of the class, i really wasnt expect squishy WS, even after the patch note.
The famous guardian description, is nothing but garbage…

If they want just an heavy buffy class in play, why they just say to us, so i can decide if change class or directly game.

Jusanden.3897:

Just playing devil’s advocate here. I’m guessing the rational behind the spirit weapon nerfs is that it brings them in line with every single other summon in the game. The most similar being mesmer phantasms. Essentially, spirit weapons were “free” effects that the opponent couldnt really counter. Shield shuts down all ranged opposition, hammer is constant interruption, bow is constant cleansing. Unlike the mesmer phantasm versions, like phantasmal warden, and phantasmal disenchanter, they could not be stopped from doing their jobs, and thus the nerf simply brought them in line. Though now… something about that insane cd probably has to be reduced. Maybe 40 seconds instead of 60 for most SW.

You know that phantasm are weapons skill, and not utility skill?

correction: 2 of them are utility. My bad

I dont know if they just want all the guardians only player go to another game.

I dont use Spirit weapons very often, but im kinda sick of nerfs without adress the major issues.

so our Sw have a Duration timer, an health bar(than dont exist) and we destroy em when we command em?

So pratically spirit weapons are now good only for the command effect. that are:

4k AOE heal every 60 seconds.
3 sec knockdown every 45 seconds.
AOE attack every 30 seconds.
Damage and apply weakness every 60 seconds.

Well, good work on balance, for utility skills -.-

deepwinter.9015:

Hello, Guardians, just wanted to welcome you folks aboard the same boat us Rangers and Necromancers enjoy!

I’m sure we’ll be seeing the Warrior’s and their banners joining us soon; so, in the meantime, have a drink on us (made from our very own tears) and be careful of my Spirits – one sneeze will kill them all.

Only one thing, dont let the necros take the drinks, i dont like to drink blood o.o

With the new Spirit weapon change, a ranged build less effective then before.

Brutaly.6257:

First time im a bit disappointed with Arenanet, when will the lack of ranged option be fixed and when will they address the issues with zeal.

This gives me a bad taste…

I have a bad taste too, but is still better than another nerf.
Lets see the feb patch, hoping that dont come on Feb 28.

There is not much to say on this patch, a lot of hype for nothing substatial. I hope that at least the culling fix work.

The only good thing is that for the first time we are not heavy nerfed.

For the spirit weapon thing, we can see better when we can DL the patch, but i supposed only that spirit weapons now are interruptable, but still immortal.
Because IF SW have an health bar like necro pet, they have just to work like a necro pet.

Bakitten291:

We also need to just set fire to the valor tree honestly. Almost every build except for the healway requires 30 in it to be effective regardless if it is dps or tank. Is there any other class that requires this?

The valor line is essentially the jack of all trades, in a jack of all trades class, not only for AH and monk focus, but also for toughness and crit damage together.

Alarox.4590:

The problem with the Guardian is that you don’t gain much offensive/control capability if you don’t go deep into tank/support. “Just use your brain”.

the only thing we gain with deeping the tank support role, is more uptime for retaliation, that dont fix the melee control problem.
and not all “tanks” go for retal in any case.

so our problem is still here, no matter wich build we use :P

ErraticFaith.9142:

Fortunately interpretation is individual, what I ment and what you think I ment, not really that important to me.

Guardians dont have too little offence for their defence lol, because of that they shouldnt have warrior control. If they did it would be OP.

Why change guardians role indeed. Just use your brain and role something thats orientated to work well for that role, instead of expecting godmode from a support class.

Here is where you reason is sinking…guardian is not a support exclusive class!
Classes have to fulfill every role on this game, if you like to play on the rear when your ally fight, do it.
I like Prologued fight, Exaust my enemy and then finish him, but i cant, just because i have not enough tools to achieve it, even if a defensive class, is build for this, long fights.
When the fight become too long, the enemy pick his swiftness and go away, and i can do barely nothing to avoid this.

Armor dont have DR just because its a divisor in the damage formula.
There is not a prefixed % of damage reduction related to Armor, so no need of DR

Vitu.3580:

Ganzo.5079:

Of course we can use 4 weapons and 9 utilities in the same time.
IM not asking for sure for 2 or 3 cripple skills for every weapon, But rebalance our weapons skill to avoid the costant kiting\fleeing enemy.

Contrary to the warrior philosophy, a guardian dont need Ranged and mobility and snare, but range OR mobility OR snare.

The point is, just by looking at the abilities of the class you can easily see that it was designed with an emphasis on a defensive play-style through boons/heals/and control abilities. Not saying that a Guard is forced to play this role, but you have to actually try very hard to run a build that doesn’t provide at least mediocre group support.

Whereas a Warrior was designed to be a brute. They charge into a fight with the highest priority being to kill as many people as they can. Very straight forward play-style.

I would rather see a buff to our ranged weapons, primarily Scepter.

I comment the bolded parts.
Our control options are not effective for our playstile, just because we have very few of them, they have mid\long cd or are tied to a specific weapon choice. That’s why for me, every guardian weapon need at least some kind of light snaring effect, that can be usable quite often.

For the scepter buff, its matter of taste. I like the idea of a Melee exclusive class, thats why im personally asking for more snaring on Melee range, than an improvement of our range capabilities.
But these two things, go in the same direction, Be capable to handle efficiently ranged\kiting enemies.

Of course we can use 4 weapons and 9 utilities in the same time.
IM not asking for sure for 2 or 3 cripple skills for every weapon, But rebalance our weapons skill to avoid the costant kiting\fleeing enemy.

Contrary to the warrior philosophy, a guardian dont need Ranged and mobility and snare, but range OR mobility OR snare.

Vitu.3580:

I don’t know. You can’t really judge a class based solely off it’s weapon abilities. Traits are important, as are utility skills when it comes to balancing a class and without taking all into consideration you run the risk of making a class too powerful, or too weak.

The way I see it, Warrior is a straight-forward, selfish class. Yes, it has some decent weapon skills, but almost everything about the class is focused on staying on their target and doing as much damage as possible, with very little utility. So it makes sense to me that Warrior’s would have so much mobility and control (cripple).

Guardians on the other hand are much more focused on defensive abilities and group support. Don’t get me wrong, Guardians can do some very nice damage, and don’t have to be a healbotting boon machine, but that’s kind of what the class was designed to do, at least to some degree. Also, fixing wards so they aren’t such a joke would add so much to the class as far as control is concerned.

I personally think Guardians are in a good spot balance-wise, and comparing Guards to Warriors is not a good way to determine balance as they are two completely different classes.

Edit: And just so we are clear, I almost always roam solo in WvW without AH or MF.

Warrior can be as supportive as the guardian if he use Shouts or banners, and warhorn.
Just like a guardian is supportive if he use Shouts, consecrations or a staff. we have simbols, but only few poeple go to the simbol to take a buff)

Guardian are more Group oriented due to the traitline, but this is not a justification for the lack of mobility\control\range.
The comparation with warriors is actually quite good. We have to do melee damage to kill an enemy, just like the others, but actually we are not in a good spot to fulfill this damage role. (WvW talking)