I am, unfortunately, having this same problem.
Ohh no. Don’t you move Martial Mastery. That’s fine just where it is.
Two-Handed Training is rather fine where it is. It’s a good “niche” trait that you don’t take all the time, but is useful for the builds that spec heavily into WS/NM. Basically, it exists so that if tanky-support builds want to temporarily slot in some extra damage (such as when they’re going solo) they can do so.
I can’t believe this wasn’t mentioned before, but there’s one major flaw in the OP. You’re comparing a class with, just counting melee weapons, two two-handed weapons, three main-hand weapons, and five off-hand weapons, to a class with two two-handed weapons, two main-hand weapons, and three off-hand weapons. Of course warriors are going to have more of any given thing if you’re going to look at it from that skewed perception.
There are also a number of things that guardian weapons can do that warrior weapons cannot. Guardian weapons have heals, whereas warrior heals are only in their utilities with a specific trait. Guardian weapons can condition cleanse. Guardian weapons are much better at dropping combo fields. So on and so forth.
Male norns look like 2 gw1 male norn glued together. I understand they didn’t want norn to “just be big humans”, but the proportions of the male norns are absurd. They don’t even look like the same species as the gw1 MALE norn, forget comparing them to females from either game.
I disagree. In fact, whenever I see this argument I always wonder if the person even played the first Guild Wars at all. Yes, it’s possible for male norn in GW2 to be much larger than the GW1 norn…if they take the bulkiest body type. The “average” norn male body type in GW2 is roughly the same size as the GW1 norn, however. I think this is only a trick of perception because most people, when making norn, go for the thickest body type because people play norn to be a huge brick.
The reason for this (imo) is the fact that running speed / moving skills distance is race-independent. In addition, the animation has to look natural (norn, running like a human or asura would look like he’s doing some sort of moon-walk).
For these reasons, asuras have to run like crazy rabbits, while norn or char toons have to be more slow and clumsy.
This, pretty much. I don’t think there’s a way to make the Norn running animation look less ponderous without making it look unnatural in exchange. That said, I kind of like it. The Norn male animations do make the character feel weighty and heavy, which is exactly what they’re supposed to do. The slow jog of a run kind of fits.
What’s more jarring, I think, is the Charr running animation. They go on all fours, but because of their size, it feels like they’re running in molasses when they should be moving quickly.
Keep in mind that illusions and pets are part of the Mesmer and Ranger class mechanics, respectively. Minions are not a class mechanic for Necromancers, it’s just one of the possible utility sets they can spec in. So, of course it wouldn’t be the main focus of their balance.
What do you mean tankiest? mainhand sword is supremely more useful for a bunker/tank build than greatsword will ever be.
To add on to the above: This can certainly be debated, but the point seems moot to me, considering that main-hand sword is also in Wilderness Survival.
3. I feel like this is part of a bigger problem with Ranger trait design. It does not feel cohesive, with traits for condition damage (trap builds, bleed on crit, etc…) not being in the condition damage tree, and damage trait for GS being useless if you want to go a Nature Magic-less GS dps build. There’s just no synergy. I guess the devs have noted the problem, and we can only hope some kind of overhaul is coming.
I think this is a problem with expectations than the design of the traits themselves. I’ll toss you a non-Ranger example here: Guardians have a trait in Valor (their toughness/tanky line) that increases damage from maces by 5% called Mace of Justice. Yes, that’s a damage trait in a defensive trait line, but I believe that’s not the point. The point is that it provides a buff to a weapon that tanky Guardians are most likely going to use, because the mace is the healing/defensive weapon, which coincides with the defensive trait line. Since traits can be swapped freely, it’s likely thrown in so that tanky Guardians can trait in some more damage when they feel that they need it.
That’s the same for Rangers. Greatsword is the tankiest and most defensive weapon they have, which is probably why their traits are put into Wilderness Survival and Nature Magic. It’s giving the boost to the trait lines that are the most likely to use the weapon.
The thing about the racial elites is that while they’re nice and flashy, most of them are significantly weaker than the normal elites you could use. Become the Wolf is situationally useful, but the others are kind of eh.
First elite I think you should get, IMO, is Time Warp. It’s probably the best PvE elite that Mesmers have right now. If you’re leveling up mostly through WvW, then I’d probably get Moa Morph instead. Either way, pick a profession elite before a racial one.
Remember Norn =/= Human
However, I think that it’s this logic that’s causing the breakdown. Norn as they are now are really dimorphic, with the men getting to be positively huge while the women can’t even get close to reaching the same kind of size difference (in comparison to human builds, that is.) Now, I understand that the female form is typically slimmer and has a harder time building muscle bulk than the male form, but it still seems like there’s some bizarre sexual dimorphism when you compare the two genders.
Beyond that, I imagine it’s to minimize clipping issues with chest armor. Would be near impossible to make work right for comparatively little gain, since most everyone would likely pick shorter beards anyway.
Go Norn or go home! Norn look pretty amazing in heavy armor due to their sheer size and bulk, very good for the “large protector” kind of feel. Humans may be a little better if you’re going straight-up “paladin” type of feel, but Norn are still amazing. Also, the Norn cultural heavy armor are so much better than the Human armor.
Norn males look fine, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
You’ll find, however, that in most settings that lore bends to mechanics, not the other way around. You’re almost certainly correct in that the Guardian was designed with a high health pool in mind from its outset. That doesn’t mean, though, that lore can’t be made for its current iteration, even if it’s different from how it began.
Though, yes, bantering about minute details like the health pool is silly. Unless you’re like me and happen to enjoy writing explanations for things like that.
I’ve played a lot of RPGs, and done a fair bit of roleplaying, so when the concept of HP comes up and requires an explanation, I say this:
Wrestlers and the like will, over the course of their careers, learn tricks that help them better deal with the blows that they have to take. They may tense up muscles to better absorb a hit, turn to make a blow hit a less sensitive, non-vital area instead of a vital one, roll when they fall to absorb the impact, so on and so forth. Hit points, then, are a numerical representation of the character’s ability to safely absorb damage, a mixture of his innate toughness and his knowledge of how to distribute damage on his form and still keep going.
How does this apply to GW2? It probably doesn’t, but you can still make up lore for it and still make sense. Guardians are spell-casters that happen to be in armor. Rather than relying on an innate level of toughness and raw martial skill like Warriors, Guardians rely on their magic to keep themselves going. They just aren’t as skilled at the finer points of combat due to their different focus. On the flip-side, Necromancers, in their studies of life and death, have an innate knowledge of anatomy, and their dark powers give them an unnatural level of toughness, letting them absorb more damage than most.
There’s your lore.
“You do realize that the above statement contradicts itself. However, I think I know what you are trying to say.”
It doesn’t contradict itself at all. You don’t need burst heals for the purposes of sustaining people longer in combat, nor do you need them to bring wounded allies back into fighting condition.
There are a few flaws in the logic presented here.
First of all, people are looking at HP in terms of the heals that it gives to a single target and then judging it as a personal survivability stat. That is a problem because HP isn’t a survivability stat, it’s a support stat. Yes, if you’re talking only about the damage that you yourself are taking and healing, then you’re better off stacking Toughness instead. HP is for builds that have several sources of healing, most of which are area of effect, just like someone shouldn’t be stacking Condition Damage if they only have one source of CD.
As far as scaling goes, there are two main things to look at here. One, the scaling on many abilities is likely low because a lot of abilities are area heals. The amount of healing that HP adds to Mace 1, Mace 2, Writ of the Merciful, Staff 2, Staff 4, Regen boon, etc. is a lot higher than the numbers that it adds to a single person because they’re all capable of healing multiple people at the same time. Put on a Mace/Focus shouter build and tell me that HP isn’t worth it.
You aren’t going to get huge burst heals in this game. That’s not the point, it’s about sustainability and quickly bringing wounded allies back in the fight. Yes, some of the contribution numbers should probably be tweaked, but it’s certainly not worthless. Also, keep in mind that Cleric’s gear still gives a bonus to Power, so damage isn’t completely hosed. There’s no damage-less build in the game.
From my knowledge a majority of the Norn are Guardian due to their size & strength, being a great protector…
That’s sort of the logic I had. My main is a male Norn Guardian, because what else would you want protecting you? They’re big and strong, and attractive in that sort of masculine manner. All of which go great with the typical “knight in shining armor” or “valiant protector” feel that the Guardian has.
That said, I also have a Norn Ranger and Necromancer.
I don’t have a link handy, but there was an interview for some site that touched on this topic, and the general answer was that all of the playable races are generally open-minded when it comes to homosexuality and bisexuality. I don’t recall if it mentioned marriage in specific, but I’d still like to think that the answer is “yes.”
I don’t find this to be a real “review” so much as it is a list of complaints. Complaints that, in the grand scheme of things, come down to personal preference. People can say “This seemed like a good idea, but in the end it turned out to fail!” without actually looking at the bigger picture, and realizing that it’s not that it failed, but that the game has a different intended direction.
The best example I have: the gear treadmill. I’ve seen people say that there’s no reason to dungeon for gear because it’s not better and that this will ruin the game, and so on and so forth. They completely miss that there was another game that was wildly successful and it didn’t have a treadmill either: Guild Wars 1. You can’t say the lack of a treadmill is an objective flaw when there was a very successful game that worked just fine without it.
Keep in mind also that the third strike on the sword auto-attack hits multiple opponents. The third strike on the mace auto-attack is strictly single target, so that’s one of those things that helps boost sword overall as a damage-dealer.
Once you compare that and the difference between Protector’s Strike and Zealot’s Defense, it’s pretty easy to see that they’re weapons designed for very different trait and equipment builds. Mace has the healing on two skills, which is only really of worth if you’re stacking healing power and/or toughness. It also synergizes best with the Valor and Honor traits. Meanwhile, sword does higher damage, emphasizing damage stats, and synergizes best with Radiance traits. The question you should be asking, then, is what kind of equipment you have on. If you’re a DPS build, you put on the sword. If you’re tanky support, you want the mace.
I hope sarcasmosaur was being sarcastic.
If not, have you even looked at the body types available?
There are two extremely thick bodies. They’re built like barrels. Any thicker and they’d probably need one of those mobility scooters.
Just look at those…
Any thicker? The Norn men are easily twice that thick and get around just fine, thanks.
That’s the crux of the issue, there. There’s this unspoken rule when it comes to fantasy, especially video game, art, where females must be considered conventionally attractive by the fans or there’d be an explosion of complaining. You see this in “that other MMO” with races like orcs, trolls, and draenei, whose females look so bizarrely different from their males solely to add sex appeal. Men are allowed to be ugly. Women are not. Welcome to the double-standards of today’s society.
Guild Wars 2 managed to dodge this for the most part, especially with the Charr and the Asura. The Norn didn’t get so lucky, probably because they are closer to human overall.
Speaking as a guardian in full cleric’s gear…
Healing power is one of those stats that is only useful if you have a lot of healing that you can do for other people. It’s inferior as a survival stat, yes, and the healing that HP gives you on any individual skill is pretty low. However, once you have five heals on your bar, all able to also hit allies (for example, a mace+focus / staff shouter build) then the healing that you get from the stat very, very quickly adds up once you count all of the targets that get hit with it. It’s very much a support stat. There’s been a number of times where I’ve rescued someone from downed state, and then they ended up very quickly reaching back to 100% health simply due to all of the healing I’m constantly outputting between my weapon skills, “Hold the Line!”, Healing Breeze, and the dodge-roll heal.
It’s not like in most MMOs where you’re constantly outputting huge burst heals. Healing in GW2 seems to mostly be for the purposes of sustainability, and in that sense it’s very useful.
The logical sense behind two-handed weapon skill placements, and why this change is huge.
in Guardian
Posted by: Grakor.3450
It’s a general trend because utility skills are usually given higher cooldowns than raw damage skills. However, this isn’t always the case. Take a look at the engineer’s rifle bar:
Hip Shot, Net Shot, Blunderbuss, Overcharged Shot, Jump Shot
Net Shot, the #2, does no damage. It’s pure utility, only providing an immobilize condition on the target. Yet it is on the second slot of the weapon, even before Blunderbuss which is pure damage and shares its cooldown of 10 seconds.
Guardian changes, why I am so upset. Question about the balancing process
in Guardian
Posted by: Grakor.3450
So many MMOs go through this, major class/profession overhauls in the first few months. Players get angry they leave and you know what else? They tell their friends how angry they are. They go on unmoderated websites and they vent and that’s what leads to the downfall.
No. Not at all.
Let’s be frank here: people will rage about any change that Anet makes. People will rage at any change that Anet doesn’t make. I can go to every profession board, right this moment, and find several threads that:
1. Proclaim that this profession is the weakest in X.
2. Proclaim that the changes in this patch were stupid and buffed Y theoretically overpowered profession.
3. Proclaim that their profession has no identity.
4. Proclaim that Anet sucks because they didn’t fix certain bugs to their profession.
5. In the next thread under, proclaim that Z profession is overpowered and needs to be nerfed. Even though in their board they think they’re the weakest.
I’ve seen many, many MMOs in my time. I’ve been playing these things since DAoC. And you know what? People will rage about anything. Ultimately? It doesn’t matter. If you go rage on a third-party forum, it’s not going to make two flips to the success or downfall of a game. If that were the case, World of Warcraft would have been crushed under the bile of its own fanbase a long, long time ago.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t provide feedback. You most certainly should. However, such feedback is best done when presented in a mature, rational fashion. Raging isn’t going to do anything, nor are ineffectual threats to their success.
(edited by Grakor.3450)
All these explanations about what the Ranger is “suppose to be” go down the toilet as soon as a Greatsword-wielding Ranger walks through the door.
I don’t care what you guys got against rifles, but as soon as I saw that they could use Greatswords, a big “wtf” light turned on inside my brain.
Let’s be honest.
Theme-wise, the Ranger is just a totally inconsistent profession.
There’s nothing inconsistent about a ranger using a greatsword. The profession, as it was made now, is a naturalist that fights using a mixture of martial skill and nature magic. Greatsword doesn’t contradict that at all, nor does it have anything to do with whether or not rangers should use rifles.
ANet doesn’t want rangers using guns, most likely because it doesn’t mesh with the “nature” theme. Of course, we can debate semantics about how guns are natural and so on and so forth, but that’s a pointless debate. Whether or not guns are natural is beside the point: even if they are, they are a symbol, they represent the progress of technology in the Guild Wars world.
Regardless, I don’t think rangers need any form of gun. The two bows work just fine. If anything, I would rather see them be given staff for nature-magic, but even that is really not necessary. The only weapon I really think needs to be added to a class is hammer to engineer, since it’s a little odd that they are the only class to not have a melee weapon available to them, kits excepting.
@ Relentliss.2170 (Since quoting isn’t working.)
Now you’re just being silly. Nerfing retaliation isn’t a buff to mesmers, warriors, or thieves. The boon doesn’t punish them any more than it punishes, say, rangers. Let’s be objective and not complain about things that aren’t actually problems.
The order was changed because, as a rule, weapon skills are arranged in order of cooldown. It always increases from lowest cooldown to highest, so the order was changed to reflect the different relative cooldowns of the skills.
I can imagine how muscle memory is going to mess with some people after this, but you’ll adjust. Probably won’t even take a couple days to get used to the new layout.
I hear all of them besides the bugged “Hold the Line!” (Male Norn.)
As I recall, the jumping puzzle in Bad Blood allows retries. If you fail and fall into a place where you can’t get up from, it simply sends you back to the beginning of that section, so your character never dies except from the usual suspects (traps/hostile enemies.)
Bad Blood is, sadly, not able to be skipped. All I can do is reassure you that it’s next to impossible to die via falling in that mission.
If I were changing shield 5, I’d simply change it in a few ways, all or a couple of these:
1. Remove the detonate, and have the shield provide its healing upon being raised.
2. Provide an Aegis buff to all allies in the area who get affected by the heal.
3. Have damage dealt to any enemies that get hit with the shield when it comes up (in other words, those that would also get hit with the knock-back.)
Shield 5 isn’t impossible to salvage, but it does need some changes.
Leveling is generally easy enough that you can use any kit and do well (medkit excepting, of course.) Despite how it’s derided, I actually level just fine with my toolkit, though I pair it with gadgets instead of turrets (the rocket kick is a nice ability to have on the toolbelt if you’re going melee.)
Mesmer is an interesting class to play, I think. It doesn’t have the sheer breadth of options available as a kit-Engi, but it’s very tactical and forces you to make difficult decisions on the fly. Should I be shattering my phantasms now, or later?
Beyond that, Elementalist won’t stay kittened forever, so if you like the playstyle, I suggest you go for it. In MMOs, class balance changes so frequently that it’s really not worth it to play or not play a class just for how powerful it is in a given patch.
But really, not really. I mean, 300 healing isn’t really cutting it when you’re taking thousands and thousands of damage anyway.
“300” is hyperbole. Let’s avoid trying to make the numbers sound worse than they actually are.
Regardless, arguing healing numbers isn’t the point. The point is that it provides too many healing skills on one bar, and the heals would have to be balanced with that in mind. It wouldn’t really provide any benefit, for one. For two, it would make shield a really awkward pairing with mace, due to the lack of heals (Honor builds would always go focus for the healing.) Right now, it’s clear that they intended for shield to be paired with mace in general theme. The problem is the execution of that idea, and it’s all because of the awkward 5 on the shield. Shifting it to focus 5 wouldn’t help, it’d just move the problem.
Swapping those 5’s makes sense at first, but it can create some unintentional side-effects that may not be desirable. For example: shield 5 is the “heal” on the shield, with the dome explosion. If you swap that with focus 5, then focus has two abilities that have a healing component. This would solidify it as the off-hand to pair with mace (the healing main-hand) since it would give you a whopping four out of five weapon skills that provide some form of healing! Not to mention, I don’t think this cuts at the core of the problem, which is shield 5 not being very generally useful. Having it on a ranged weapon would make more sense, but I’m not sure it’ll create the situation we want.
I’d rather they just changed shield 5 entirely, because it’s not a very good ability to have on a weapon. Would be great for a utility, but not a weapon skill.
The wrench does good dps but who is going to go melee with an engineer?
I would. In fact, I do. I play melee on every character I have, including my necromancer, mesmer, and ranger. When I play my engineer, I imagine my big, brawny charr fighting with technical gadgets augmenting his fighting ability. Keep in mind the design philosophy that’s been taken in GW2: every class should be able to function in any role, and be able to function as both a melee and a ranged character. This is true for every profession in the game.
The problem with the toolkit is that…honestly, I don’t think that turrets would be my first choice as a set of utilities for a melee character. Turrets are about point defense, and melee tends to have to be much more mobile than ranged. If I’m busy trying to smack my turrets with my wrench to heal them, then most likely I’m out of range to actually smack my enemies. Having the wrench heal turrets is a nice little shout-out, but I don’t think it should be the main focus of the weapon, because it’s just not practical. If I were choosing, I’d rather be using gadgets than turrets.
Beyond the lack of synergy on a base level, I think the toolkit suffers another problem…difficulty in developing a trait spec. The traits would suggest that you ought to be going Tools/Inventions, but Inventions has very…overly specific traits in its grandmaster slots. One specifically buffs turret range (do you want us using melee turrets or not?) and the other is a buff for the bomb kit. I’d really like to see one of the Inventions grandmaster traits be changed to be something a bit more generally useful.
Not a huge fan of this idea personally, though I do think the toolkit needs…something to present more incentive to using it. Right now it’s just awkward, and if it’s intended to work with turret builds…well, it does cost you a turret to use.
I’m not sure what the best option would be.
You also have to consider that until a certain part of the story, Rytlock hates Logan with a fiery passion. When they finally get over that, they’re a little bit busy with other things to worry about the ghosts in Ascalon, which the Legions seem to be doing a fair enough job of holding back.
Mace is a support/healer weapon. It’s not something I would bother equipping if you have 0 points in Honor, personally.
Guardian plays no way like dervish.
Everybody thinks Guardian is like some huge tanked dude with tons of buffs that never dies.
Guardian’s only buffs are the virtues, really. And then, they suck.
Guardian is moreso Paragon, with the Shouts as buffs to allies.
I mained as a Dervish in GW1. I am maining as a Guardian in GW2. I can promise you that the two are very similar.
Honestly, I think the best Paragon analogue is actually the Warrior, with shouts and banners. Warriors are the main “leader-dude” profession now.
In terms of the playstyle offered, Guardian essentially took the place of the Dervish, while the Engineer took the place of the Ritualist. Different aesthetics, sure, but they play similarly.
I really shouldn’t have to turn off auto-attack to make a weapon viable.
I dunno. I want to like mh-sword on the Ranger, but it always feels so…awkward to use that I just end up keeping with my greatsword. For whatever flaws that weapon has, gs manages to feel far more responsive and less annoying to use.
It’s a balancing mechanic. Guardians have so much inherent defense in their skill-sets that the lower health is needed to prevent them from being too durable. As it is, we’re already harder to kill than warriors anyway.
Healing isn’t so much for personal survivability as much as it’s for group support. Really, it only is worth it if you find yourself using staff and/or mace rather often. If you’re primarily using hammer, then the healing power isn’t going to pay for itself and you should be stacking vitality and toughness instead. (Some exceptions might exist. If you’re using Writ of the Merciful, then it might be good, but I still wouldn’t bother unless you’re also using staff or mace in your other weapon swap and have a healing utility or two equipped.)
So, basically, it’s apples and oranges. Vitaility/Toughness is for personal durability, healing power is for group support.
I think the discussion of whether condition damage is overall useful for a build on a Guardian or not is kind of wasted. We’re not talking about a DPS-burning Guardian, we’re talking about the difference between cleric and shaman gear.
The overall answer is: if you’re stacking healing power, you’re probably doing so on a mace or staff build with high Honor/Valor/Virtues. On these builds, you wouldn’t want Shaman because you don’t have very good access to conditions. If you’re stacking condition damage, you’re probably going for a sword/torch build with high Radiance/Virtues. Most builds that want one don’t want the other.
I guess you could try a mace-torch build, going some combination of Honor/Virtues/Radiance, but the end result would strike me as being a little awkward.
I see shaman gear as being more useful for Engineer and Elementalist support builds, rather than Guardian.
Ghosts still have their clothing/armor and weapons with them. I presume the same logic that allows for that, allows for them to have siege weapons. The ghosts believe they should have cannons, therefore they have ghostly cannons conjured up by the force of their belief/will.
In other words, a wizard did it.
Shield is harder to use because its 5 is rather situational and hard to work into a combat strategy. It would be fine as a utility, but you generally want your weapon skills to be things that you use frequently in combat with as little “niche-filling” as possible. They’re the skills you’re using most often and the source of your damage.
That’s why, I think, most people say it’s bad. Shield’s 4 is amazing, but it gets married to a 5 that’s difficult to use except in the particular situations where it shines. Focus has a good 4 and a good 5, both generally useful in almost any occasion, and both useful for the tanky and support builds that would otherwise consider the shield.