Guild Wars 2

I understand that due to Consume Conditions being changed to a corruption skill that it’ll need to incorporate a self harm condition to fit with the style, my only issue is the condition chosen to be inflicted.

This is because the heal skill is arguably our most powerful defense skill and with this change your sacrifice will be decreased…. defense? That doesn’t make much sense to me as it goes against the primary use of the skill (defense).

This is why I think the condition inflicted should change and to me, weakness fits the design more. You are using our most powerful defensive skill (heal) and as a sacrifice you are giving up dps instead. That way, it doesn’t affect the primary intent of the skill yet you are still sacrificing something to fit the corruption trait requirement.

In saying that even if the condition doesn’t change I’d really want them to look into the amount of stacks of vuln given. I feel that 10 stacks of vuln is oddly harsh and that 5 stacks might be more tolerable.

If there was an actual reason for choosing vuln as the condition self inflicted I’d love to hear a dev’s reason behind it as it may be simply that I’m not looking at the bigger picture.

I’m pretty sure this elite makes up for and exceeds any damage nerfs we received with the trait specializations. Especially when you consider this shout will not only affect yourself but also your team mates!

Here’s my opinion on how to improve on the shield’s skills.

Skill Number 4:
Instead of a cone of protection granted to allies, make it so you slam the shield into the ground and create a symbol of protection. Achieves the same idea of the initial skill BUT will finally allow sword and scepter builds access to a symbol so that symbol traits aren’t wasted if using a two handed weapon swap. This creates a big niche for the shield and will give it consideration over the focus for certain builds. This change helps it’s value in PVE as well due to the 20% more damage under symbol trait synergizing well if using a shield plus sword/scepter.

The Symbol would need a high up time to be viable I was thinking 20 second cool down with 8 second up time as base (numbers can be tweaked but you get the idea).

Skill number 5:
Currently the skill design is very strong in spvp. With the reduced cool down I think all that is needed is to fix the bugged dome so that it functions how it use to. Icing on the cake would be to initially root as the dome is created (as done currently) but then be able to move with the dome while it absorbs projectiles.

I’m definitely looking forward to these changes from a pvp medi guard point of view using the radiance, valor and virtue lines. From the changes just in Valor you now get the following that weren’t previously available/used.

- Smiter’s boon: Extra healing when used with Monks focus + more dps burst.
- Monks Focus: Now being a combination of all previous Meditation traits allows Strength in numbers to be taken in the Master line, providing significant bulk to the group/oneself plus having fury on demand.

I admit it is a bit of a blow for hammer uses with the glacial heart move but I’d argue this was just a lucky proc chance bonus to begin with and not something that was vital to a build.

I’m personally going to try out radiance mainly for the blind, but interestingly we now get a 10% crit chance increase against burning foes (should be very high up time in pvp), and 15% crit chance increase if using a 1 handed weapon. This plus the 4% base crit chance and the sigil of accuracy providing another 7% means our modified crit chance with no precision is 36%. 56% with fury (meditations will give this on demand). This much crit chance from without using precision may open up the possibility to use bulkier amulets such as solider or celestial. Providing a much bulkier guardian with very good offensive capability.

Lastly from a spvp perspective, the reduced virtue cooldowns is a really big buff with little downside considering team mates are rarely out of the 600 range when fighting on point.

Bunker Guard has gotten a huge buff with the new trait changes assuming they haven’t changed much since their last reveal. They can now spec fully into Valor Honor and Virtues in a build such as this:

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgIF7ARYA6g~

Mace/Focus, Staff
With Shelter, Smite Condition, (MI or JI), CoP and either RF or the new #5 tomb elite for utilities
Either soilder/cleric amulet (leaning towards solider now that there is more access to fury)

The biggest thing holding back the previous bunker guard was the abysmal dps it would bring to a team fight, this is some what rectified with the focused mind trait being included into the meditation GM allowing the guard to have great access to fury, along with the boon duration addition to the staff making it’s might stacks from empower potentially being worthwhile. With all the sustain coming from the meditation heals and new combined symbol heal trait (+mace regen symbol) allows the bunker guardian to pack more offensive amulets/runes/sigils or go all out with support.

The smiter’s boon trait is a massive buff to its heal adding an extra 2k heal to shelter as well as providing a significant burst in dps (plus extra condition management). If shelter becomes a concentration then this is also a massive buff due to the master’s of consecrations trait lowering its cool down and increasing it’s blocking time.

Even with all this extra sustain the bunker guard still provides its usual team buffs such as group wide stability + stun break and group wide condition cleanses through its virtues. Constant regen with the combined symbol trait + improved mace trait along with massive might stacks with staff plus CC.

TL:DR Using the build linked above, it is my hope the extra fury and extra might duration available to the bunker guard will allow it to hit harder in team fights while providing the team with all the usual buffs through the use of it’s unique and powerful virtues and mace/focus, Staff skills. All this plus added sustain through the new combined traits.

Hello all, with the recent rise in popularity of the minion mancer plus additional heals to both the spirit ranger and mesmer I think it’s time we start discussing potential ways to deal with the vast amount of AI clutter we currently have in the game. The suggestions listed below are my personal opinion only and aim to reduce some of the issues that minions and summons have.

The suggested changes will hope to achieve the following points:
More uniformity in Summon/minion characteristics
Less Combat Clutter
Increasing Active Play (for the summoner)

Generic Changes,
Targeting – auto target should be to the player and never a minion/clone. If the user wishes to target the minion/clone it should be done by manually clicking on the desired minion/clone. In the same vain, nearest target/next target should only select players, if you want to attack the AI, manually target them.

Obviously this effects Mesmers pretty drastically hence I suggest phantasms be treated differently to clones in that their current targeting system remains unchanged.

- Make the minions/summons transparent, even more so than the Mesmer clones. Enough so that the player stands out without question (even an Asura).

-Give each minion/summon a timer similar to the spirits with but make them all uniform. The active time can be debated although I think a 1 min up time is reasonable for both the attacker and defender. This stops minions being summoned at the start of the match and last indefinitely but makes the user plan on when to summon them.

-Allow attacks to pierce minions by default, preventing passive play from the summoner which currently allows him to hide behind his minions, avoiding damage. I think this is the biggest issue currently with minions. The increased transparency + ability to be pierced should go a long way to reducing that “cluttered” feeling. In the same vein due to this change effecting Mesmers the most, only phantasms can be pierced, clones absorb the damage.

*Note this should be a pvp only change

-Banners and conjured weapons should have a HP bar (pvp only)
This will promote actual thought in placement within a node and allow some more counter play to regen warrior bunkers. This also makes sense logically in that a banner shouldn’t be “immune” to damage in the thick of a fight. In the same vein an Elementalist’s conjured weapon should also have an HP bar to prevent them being left on the ground indefinitely until their timer runs out.

Exceptions – Elite Minions/Conjures
Being elite skills I think they should remain how they are currently implemented and be exempt from the proposed changes as they should still be seen as a much more powerful version of the utility skill. This effects the flesh golem and elite banner the most.

There we have it, my humble suggestions on improving the current AI/summon spam we have. Feel free to discuss/debate these ideas or suggest more/better ways on dealing with the issue.

I was in the exact same situation as you OP and after many experimental builds I’ve settled on 10/25/0/10/25. This equals to 10% damage against burning foes, +10% against foes with conditions, +20% if your aegis is up and finally +X% depending on how many unique boons you have (1% per boon). Even though elusive power (Honor 25) is tempting, I found it funnily enough too annoying to dodge all the time in melee as the endurance bar fills up surprisingly quick with 100% vigor whilst the continuous dodging eats into your DPS.

+20% damage is a huge boost which is why I think unscathed contender (Virtue 10) is worth it just for the burst, you’ll also be pretty surprised at how long you can keep it up if you go ranged as well as combining it with focus 5/blinds to ensure aegis is up for even longer, plus you have multiple ways to reapply it if it is removed (retreat, VoC, renewed focus). As a guardian you’ll have plenty of boons which justifies going 25 into virtues whilst having the benefit of have a 25%boon duration too. Using this set you’ll have at least 2 boons going pretty much at all times with might (VoJ) and vigor (honor 5) with retaliation and aegis also being up fairly frequently boosting damage to 4%. Combine this with “Save yourselves” and you’ve got a pretty decent burst of +7% damage on top of all the other damage multipliers.

The weapons I use are the scepter and focus (range) + greatsword (AOE). To get even more damage out you could take 5 from honor and put it into radiance to get the +15% crit trait and take the sword over great sword (traiting for +5% sword damage) but I personally prefer the AOE potential of the greatsword.

And finally, if you ever do fractals this build gives immense flexibility with traiting, allowing you to boost spirit weapons (eg. Shield of avenger) conjured time by 50%/reducing cool down by 20% as well as the option for traiting for consecrations when projectile defense is needed or taking the improved virtue of resolve trait instead for increased regen and condition removal.

This was just what I settled on, all the previous builds are valid and provide their own pro’s and cons so I guess it’s up to what you feel most comfortable playing with