Guild Wars 2

They should make torch do something useful for burn builds. Maybe then somebody would actually use that weapon.

How ’bout… make it consume your burn duration for immediate damage? Longer the duration, bigger the damage.

You could apply a bunch and then combust it all at once. It would be especially nice since a lot of the time you actually kill your target while it still has like 10+ seconds of burn on it. No more wasted condition!

I’d trade Torch #5 for that any day.

IMO despite what it looks like, Amplified Wrath is not a change signifying Anet’s desire to make condition Guardians work. I think what Anet is trying to do with Amplified Wrath is allow Burn to be a bit more useful as a supplemental DPS increase for the traditional builds. That’s why it’s a straight up % increase. I think making a condi Guardian is always a bad idea due to Burn benefiting less from additional condition damage. However, its base value starts off higher than any other condition.

So, there’s probably a build somewhere where Amplified Wrath adds some deceptively strong burning on an otherwise very power oriented build.

Or not.

I honestly dunno anymore, every time I try to figure out what Anet is thinking with their changes I just hurt my brain. Sometimes I sit and look at the trees and the gear and stuff and think, “What would I do to fix this if I was Anet?” and there’s just so much that’s wrong that I think rather than fixing it I’d just start over … so here’s to hoping they get it right in Guild Wars 3.

foofad.5162:

I haven’t looked at it exhaustively, but barring any additional surprises Amplify Wrath isn’t going to be enough to make even a hybrid build worthwhile in terms of competing with the standard suite of DPS builds.

Well, that’s depressing. I was hoping a burn build would be useful. I mean, isn’t that the point of this trait? How could Anet come up with some new idea specifically designed to address an issue… and yet still entirely not fix the issue? Do they not know why burn builds don’t work for us? This whole thread is dedicated to that answer. I also just read this http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/210opr/ready_up_ep8_developer_livestream_notes/cg8k05v which basically sums the problem up.

33% just isn’t enough. Even if they raised it more… making it like 66% or higher, I still think that’s the wrong angle to attack this issue from.

Zeal – Amplified Wrath : Burning deals 33% more damage.
Radiance – Radiant Retaliation : Retaliation Damage scales with condition damage instead of power.

How about these Grandmaster traits? They’re from the stream apparently. Think we can do anything with this? Certainly seems like Anet is trying to make it work. I’m still just waiting for someone to come along and be all, “nah it’s still kitten because _.” but I’m also curious what you think about it.

Rangersix.1754:

No, just. No.

We only have one condition to start with that scales only in duration.

Just… no. It’s a bad stat for guardians that is not even remotely competitive in any area of the game. You’re just setting yourself up to be a bad player.

As much as I dislike closed-minded mentalities regarding build experimentation… he’s absolutely right.

I’ve been bored of the whole zerker meta and tried to make a build similar to yours listed not too long ago OP, but I got nowhere with it. No matter how hard you try to make it work it’s not good in any aspect of the game. It’s really a shame that so much of our class and tree is dedicated to mechanically broken garbage.

I mean, imagine being a new player and looking at the Guardian description on the official Guild Wars 2 page and seeing all this flavor text trying to typify the Guardian like “The Fire of Justice burns!” but only to later come to the realization that it was all just merely that… flavor text. And don’t get me started about Spirit Weapons, look how iconic they are of the class, showing up in all the screenshots and proudly listed as a special skill of the Guardian. What a depressingly misleading showcase of the profession. None of that stuff is remotely good.

I wish burn could crit.

It’s a shame so much of our tree is dedicated to applying/altering/improving our burns when the condition itself is so lackluster. Maybe if one of our grandmaster traits made it able to crit then Guardian could have some fun with the trees instead of just power builds all day.

I dunno… I’m just spitballing.

Either way, this is a great writeup and I’m stoked to see Jon Peters sticky it. I hope that’s a sign the devs are looking into this sort of thing. It’s never good when an entire aspect of a profession is regarded as trash and ultimately ignored.

This ability’s duration was nerfed some time ago. It was 8 seconds, now it’s 5. Its cast time is so long that I believe its design was to be used preemptively. . It takes about 1.5 seconds to make the line appear, and another 1.5 to regain control of your character (stuck in animation).

Now, I wouldn’t mind the 5 second duration if its cast time was sped up. With its duration nerf, it’s difficult to use it preemptively and using it reactively to get away in a situation like WvW or PvP is impossible due to its lengthy cast time.

I’m not saying it’s a useless ability by any means. Iit still has its uses, but as a #5 it’s pretty underwhelming.