Showing Posts For MercenaryK.4180:
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Thank you Oakos, now I can sleep better knowing that MMO really has been around for such a long time! I kept thinking of MUDs and was scouring for that, but they don’t count as MMO. It’s kinda weird to look back and think that MMO isn’t really that new at all.
I couldn’t get past the very first sentence of the TC claiming to play 20 years as a pure healer in MMOs.
^
That doesn’t make sense. The statement that Virtues was designed for 1-5 players doesn’t mean the effects scale based on the number of players, nor that it was implied it should.
If you start scaling the Virtues based on the number of players, then there will be a range when the Virtues are underpowered & overpowered, putting Virtues in a worse spot.
Virtues are not balanced for PvE vs PvP vs WvW they are balanced for combat which is tuned for generally 1-5 combatants. Whethe or not they are effective in a given encounter depends on that encounter. Sometimes they are more useful as passive abilities and sometimes they are more useful as actives. Finally, they are not balanced against other skills specifically, they are balanced as the class mechanic of the Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.
Interesting…so that is how you look at the Virtues.
- Is this how you look at all class mechanics, or is it different for each class?
- Out of curiosity, how would you describe the Guardian? I think people are confused and don’t even know what the class’s ‘focus’ / niche / purpose is.
- 1-5 party members? I ask because your comments make me wonder if I’ve been looking at Virtues in the wrong angle. Basically – how do I play this profession like it was intended to be played?
Unless you are in a rush to get to 80 then pretty much all of the guardian weapons and many utilities are viable in different parts of the game, so levelling is good opportunity to experiment and get comfortable with using them.
The basic traits mentioned above are always a good idea, but be sure to mix things around every few levels to get an idea of how useful ( or useless ) some of the others are.
QFT
The best part of leveling is having a lot of time and opportunity to learn the profession’s skills and utilities. I stayed away from guides until I was level 80 so I had plenty of time to learn all that I could from my own mistakes and accomplishments.
And honestly level 20 is a very low level to judge the Guardian’s potential and style. Your number one problem is not adapting to the zones you’re in. One ‘build’ will not suffice. You have to learn how to change your weapons and utilities.
However, I don’t ever feel kitten or like I screwed myself by activating my Virtues.
This herein lies the problem. There is no “sacrifce” when using your Virtue actives. Passive effects need some help here so that you do feel the bite when activate them. The untraited versions need a bit more, and the traits that affect them need a lot more.
Why did you use one sentence out of a paragraph and interpret it out of context?
Actually, I was just using your quoted passage, not necessarily responding to you.
I know. That’s not what I was asking.
However, I don’t ever feel kitten or like I screwed myself by activating my Virtues.
This herein lies the problem. There is no “sacrifce” when using your Virtue actives. Passive effects need some help here so that you do feel the bite when activate them. The untraited versions need a bit more, and the traits that affect them need a lot more.
Why did you use one sentence out of a paragraph and interpret it out of context?
I’m pretty sure Burn stacks in duration, so your 900 Burn isn’t overridden by a 400 Burn from another source.
Guardian burns are sort of a joke. It’s futile for them to stack condition damage & duration, as burn benefits more from duration than damage (for Guardians), otherwise we’re sacrificing a whole lot for just one condition.
There is the Pyroclasm build for Guardians…
Another combination, while maybe not the best, is to use Smite Condition. It is only 1 condition but now you have more control in attaining the higher amount of damage, it can be lowered to 16s CD with a trait, and if you really like Meditations you can pop Fury.
Alas, that is futile if you manage like Aeolus says, which I have, and pull large stacks of conditions -_-
Holy Hell, that vid, chicks play this game?!
Also notice how that team was coordinated to have 20+ stacks of Might. With that much Might, and I assume the Guardian had the Signet for passive power (am I wrong?) he is able to do crazy damage.
In PvE against like world bosses I rock the Scepter because rarely do bosses move out of Smite radius, and are often large enough to eat every hit (target size matters too).
Add in Vulnerability and Scepter has the potential…but it’s niche is harder to fill that that of the Greatsword (imo)
This week is the holidays.
All in due time though.
I think the Aegis visual effect is more for the sake of players knowing whether to use auto attack vs a high damage skill, but then again it’s probably only looked for in sPvP.
With the nicer skin shields yeah Aegis does ruin any vanity pictures, but to be honest that’s a shallow complaint for a skill to be altered….
It’s a nice skill but honestly the cooldown is the reason I don’t use it. I prefer skills with more specific uses and applications on shorter cooldowns than an all-in-one on a 60s (base) cooldown.
That’s how I feel at times when choosing between traits and skills. The skills with high CDs are often powerful but you have to sacrifice a trait for another trait that reduces the CD by 20%, which is rather lackluster when your chosen traits are primarily CD reduction, you begin to wonder if that 20% is really worth the trade off of another powerful trait.
That’s the thing about the Virtues trait line – notice how a lot of the traits are strictly benefiting/altering the passive effect or its frequency, not the active effect.
I don’t think you fact-checked that statement. Shielded Mind – Turns active into a stunbreak. Indomitable Courage – increases frequency of passive, gives 3 seconds of stability on active. Supreme Justice – increases frequency of passive, duration of active. Absolute Resolution, increases strength of passive and cures 3 conditions on active. Inspired Virtue – apply boons on active.
The preference is toward active effects if anything.
Touche’. I think I should have specified the number of traits that improve the passive effects vs traits that improve the active effects vs traits that do both.
I’ve been very specific about the situations i’m talking about its use in(wvw, always full of good and bad players), and really 10 second protection 14 second protection either way it’s helpful but i’ve been talking about being a healing based Guardian which means you at least have 20 in virtues probably 30, I really think you’re nitpicking over nothing, no boon duration doesn’t change things all that much.
Also are you aware that Hallowed ground keeps reapplying stability, it’s not just a one time stability that can be removed easily, just want to make sure, with some people saying it’s useless it makes me wonder.
This. Strip it as they might, with each pulse Stability is granted. It would take hardcore coordination of more than one profession to keep on stripping each proc of Stability on one Guardian with a Tome. I don’t think that happens.
The active effects are fine, and even awesome when you start to trait them, it is the passive effect that is so lackluster il rather get a free choice from a Warrior trait. One Aegis every 40 sec, 100 HP/s and a burn every 5 attack, yeah.
Feels really sad and not defining our class at all. And yes, Guardian should be about group stuff. But, diversity please. If we want to be selfish we should be able to be so.
That’s the thing about the Virtues trait line – notice how a lot of the traits are strictly benefiting/altering the passive effect or its frequency, not the active effect. It’s kinda messed up in a way but sorta cool when you trait Virtues, because the major traits allow you to either buff the party or your self. While Tier 1 is kitten poor on effecting the Guardian itself strictly, the further you go you start to see traits that help both the Guardian & allies, and then just allies.
But ultimately….. if Guardians want to be selfish it’s also very easy to do as they have the deciding factor as to when Virtues are used. I can decide to pop VoC when I’m about to get hit vs anything else. ANet makes it hard for us to be innately selfish vs freedom of choice.
But now we’re getting into the foundation/reason/purpose of the Guardian, which is typically overlooked and neglected. If I wanted to be the ultimate bad kitten I would have rolled a Warrior.
The purpose for it is not to give yourself boons however. The main purpose of the shout is to save your allies from kitten loads of conditions.
Sure use it for the boons, but remember. The skill is meant to absorb condition to aid allies. Not to work as a solo multiplier.
This is exactly my point. Guardians aren’t rewarded for using the shout to remove as many conditions as possible. it doesn’t matter how i use this skill the bonuses i receive for using this skill are always constant (buffs and their duration) this makes me think “why does it matter if i remove 1 or 5 conditions? okay if i remove 5 i help my allies more but hinder myself more. (as to removing 1)” if i’m rewarded for removing more conditions it will make
me think “I transferred 5 conditions onto me but the extra bonuses i receive for removing this many conditions will mean i’m happy to do this”you’re right in saying i’m aiding allies but i’m also hindering myself unless i run contemplation of purity which i believe shouldn’t need to be used with this skill if i want to reward myself for removing more conditions.
Seldom are the Guardians skills about rewarding itself over assisting party members. It isn’t a selfish class, but a selfless class.
The Paragon in GW1 has a skill called Cautery Signet, in which all conditions are removed from all party members, but you gain 1 second of burning for each condition removed. This skill by itself is crappy when more and more conditions are removed because now you’re enduring massive health degen for quite a long time – as conditions could be very rampant in GW. But by using Remedy Signet, you lose one condition, and that would remove your burning.
So to say it is dumb to have to carry CoP when using SY! is stupid in of itself – this game is designed to utilize multiple skills in unison for amazing affects. To desire a utility skill that has no loop holes or totally sufficient in all ways is not the theme of the game. About all skills are empowered by another skill or trait in some way.
CoP + SY! = Lots and lots of boons & boon duration for the Guardian. I don’t know of what other class can nullify party wide conditions, get boons from that skill, and then eat every one of those conditions into boons. from another skill. That’s why CoP and SY! are functioned that way. Once you start removing a ton of conditions you need CoP or other methods of condition removal otherwise you’re going to kill your self off.
It’s the role of the Guardian. I …….. didn’t think this was hard to realize.
You admitted yourself that these presumably adequate potentials are there when traited for it, meaning the guardian has to give up other things by investing at least 20 points to Virtue. In other words, why do we need to be bound in specific set up just to be adequate? I get it that Anet wants people to learn to activate them smartly by giving high recharge. However, these recharges are put ridiculously high compared to their active effects. What more, we are striped of passive effect (F2,F3) that make up for our low health pool during that recharge duration, rendering us under-performing for an extended time period, while for the most part other classes do not suffer that disadvantage DURING RECHARGE of their class mechanics. What is asked here is not anything extremely overpowering, a current bar is simply to get their recharge reduced by 10-15s. If you might ask, “oh how 10-15s going to change anything”, then you are probably agreeing that even more need to be done.
The purpose of the Guardian’s Virtues is to make a sacrifice between their own survival for the sake of the party’s survival. If you reduce the cool downs then there is no sacrifice and a Guardian becomes a Virtues bot without worrying over the loss of their passive effects. The last thing I want is to be a profession of ez-mode.
Look, if I’m in a party and I’m activating my Virtues for MYSELF, I’m not playing the Guardian right. I should be activating my Virtues for the party members rather than my own survival. If you’re traiting in Virtues its because you want to buff the party more than be a damage dealer – the Guardian is all about sacrifice in every aspect. You trait for damage you provide little support (outside of killing stuff fast), you trait for support you rely more on your team to do all the killing.
Also there are classes that suffer when their class mechanic is not available – we Guardians are lucky that we don’t suffer as greatly as them because our passive effects are just enough to give us some support but not engage in God Mode.
However, I don’t ever feel kitten or like I screwed myself by activating my Virtues. When I do activate them, I feel like I just saved a party members life, gave them more breathing room, or just provided a huge source of damage to everyone.
You need to stop looking at JUST the Guardian when considering Virtues because Virtues AREN’T just about the Guardian – they effect everyone else. 10 to 15 second cool down without traits is just OP – you’re going to be spamming Virtues more often which leads to a lot more heals, blocks, and burns. And this is just from one Guardian.
I can’t stand the cone. If you’re in melee and attacking a monster, you have to deselect the monster, face an ally you want to heal, and then use it. It’s extremely clunky. IMO it should be omnidirectional, and making it a consecration sounds like an even better idea. Drop it on the ground like that Necromancer healing well. That would be neato.
…. You seriously have to de-select the monster? Last I remember using it I just turned my Guardian to face my allies and hit Healing Breeze. I never had to select an ally to use it or de-select the monster we were fighting. That sounds like you need to toggle your auto-targeting sort of game options.
Yeah, the GW1 elites were real elites. Most of the elites in this game feel like utility slots.
QFT
Aegis will always block a single attack. That will never change.
Probably, and sadly that will result in a effect that will be wasted 50% of the time against less clever people, and wasted 95% of the time against average intellect people.
The problem lies in how people treat the Aegis buff – since it’s a one time use powerful boon that blocks an entire attack – proc’ing it at the right time is paramount. This player base/community loves the ‘boon & forget’ mentality, which is incredibly ignorant considering the potency of the boon in discussion.
It’s easier for people to throw up Prot and/or Regen and not think about what’s going on than it is for some one to know when to hit VoC or, in this discussion, activate a Signet (which the Guardian has a few that are 1 second or less activation time), and block a hard hitting attack. In which case we can all agree, hopefully, in those coordinated moments, we can say we’d rather have Aegis for full nullification than say Protection that allows us to eat 66.6% of the attack.
Since the discussion of Aegis’s usefulness is often tied to PvP & WvWvW, can we honestly say we’re good players and still be surprised by the certain attacks that are coming our way? I mean, when I see a good player’s youtube videos, they’re anticipating a lot of attacks and have great timing when it comes to dodging, and pulling the right skill to use at the right time.
Why is Aegis exempt from being mastered in such a way? Because it is a boon deemed to be a ‘boon & forget’ type?
Aegis will always block a single attack. That will never change.
Aegis on use?
(looks at VoC)
Need moar Aegis!
Positioning is a problem when you’re in the front? Seriously? You pop HB, turn your character to whatever degree that your allies are from your front, and turn back when it’s done. Thatz hard??
HB is more for carrying badz than anything else. But that doesn’t make it a bad skill.
When you’re leveling you’ll be changing gear so often it isn’t worth worrying about. I found it that in PvE your leveling experience relies more on having gear with an item level requirement closest to your level – this should provide enough stats & defense – and it relies on what weapon you use. I didn’t learn until later that the GS makes leveling the Guardian pretty easy and painless.
If you really want to pay attention to certain stats on gear try to keep it around the stats you mentioned. You probably won’t need Condition Damage or Healing Power just yet. Power should be priority and then based on how you feel in terms of survival/dying, toughness or vitality, with precision taking last place.
At least that’s how I feel. It’s only PvE and when leveling you don’t need to take your gear choices super seriously. Just don’t be level 55 with level 30 gear.
For a class that is designed with terrible long range attacks Healing breeze is terrible, for if you are not standing at the front. You most likely don’t know what you or your commander is coordinating.
And since Healing breeze is not on yourself and on a additional allies around you, it will in most cases miss. Currently it is not in need of a “buff”, but it is in need of a mechanic change. Where it heal around you rather than infront of you.
Quoted for being incorrect and ignorant.
If you can’t aim a wide cone effect skill at a group of players that are reasonably nearby, you shouldn’t be playing this game at all. The Guardian also gets a heal out of it as well.
I’ve seen this skill heal an absurd amount of HP – each tick is about, what, 1.6k with relatively low Healing Power and it ticks what, 4 times or so? That’s quite a bit for healing party members in this game.
I think Healing Breeze is pretty good all ready for what it does and the role it’s made for. In my opinion in zergs it’s amazing – I’ve saved so many people from a well used Healing Breeze, and I don’t even gear for Healing Power. It’s more of a ‘heal them’ than ‘heal you’ so of course the other two healing skills will trump Healing Breeze when its concerning you.
During the Mad Realm I saw waaaaay too many zergs fail so I went with more of a support/damage reduction build and it was rewarding. I don’t find that this skill particularly is great if you want to heal just your self….which I think people get confused about when discussing Healing Breeze.
You should look deeper than ‘mobs more spread out’. Otherwise you’re missing the point.
The Shield isn’t a trash or garbage off-hand.
People either
- Don’t know when to use it
- Don’t know how to use it properly
It takes positioning to use #4 effectively. You want to put your self in a direction that will catch as many enemies and allies in a cone effect. There’s no excuse to not hit more than one ally / enemy (unless there’s only one).
- has lots of uses in just one skill. A lot is thrown into it that’s pretty amazing. Knock-back, project absorption, combo field light, and a heal. The more I understand this skill the more uses I can use it to its best.
For the OP, if you have the opportunity to unlock the Zenith Ward skin, it meshes incredibly well with the Aegis effect.
I played around on the skill builder concerning Healing Power, traits, and VoR – I can max it out (I think it’s maxed) at 735 HP / 3 sec. This effect is also shared with nearby party members, so we’re looking at a decent Regen that’s constant and cannot be stripped/removed unless the Guardian activates it, which is just shy of a 3k party heal. This is with 1824 Healing Power (not sure if it can go higher unless I mistakenly overlooked it).
VoR is more of a safety cushion for the Guardian and the party – remember that every profession can successfully heal & protect it self – tampering with VoR and you create a dependency on the Guardian and/or reinforce glass cannon builds. I’d hate to see the Guardian pigeon-holded into being a VoR machine.
VoC traited can provide 3.5 sec of Stability party wide, not including Boon Duration boosts – so you can essentially with several Guardians prevent any CC to all party members. This does not consider Shouts and Consecrations. Reducing the CD – outside of traiting Virtues, and you got more Stability and Block, both of which are incredibly powerful Boons – imagine these Boons having more up-time in WvWvW. It’s feasible if a couple Guardians simply just time their VoC popping.
The strength of Guardians’ and their Virtues is with coordination in a team, and their weakness is without that communication. GW2 is more lax compared to GW1 when it comes to this – GvG was intense where everyone was watching skills and their activation times. I don’t see this much at all in GW2.
I remember when fighting the Skeletal Lich in the Mad Realm; he would pop his AoE Fear, and a couple of times I noticed when I used SYG! people would just …. stand there, not realizing they have Stability/control. People typically don’t expect that coordination / thinking, and that’s a MAJOR problem.
I’m trying to dig at the root of the problem, and I don’t believe its our Virtues that need attention. I think it’s either the content or the players them selves. Cause honestly I feel the Virtues have A LOT of potential without having to gear/gimp yourself into a shoddy set-up in order to have maximum effects.
So let’s figure out whats at root before we look at the icing on top of the cake. Cause otherwise we’re, to be blunt, wasting our kittening time and being kittenes. I’d rather not be ignorant.
Virtues are balanced the way they are so that they cannot be abused when Guardians get together in a group. Currently it’s a healthy balance so that even if several Guardians do party it up in any format, their Virtues will not become OP.
ANet learned their lesson when Nightfall was released and GvG matches were predominately 8 Paragons spamming shouts and being unstoppable. Paragon shouts were nerfed thereafter and continued to be nerfed because the more Paragons in a party the more powerful they the Paragons and the rest of the party members become.
GW2 does not have a limited party size in hence the Virtues cannot be buffed further than what they are without crazy re-design. Hell, in my opinion the trait that removes VoJ CD when an enemy is killed is pretty sweet – in the right scenario your entire party is applying massive Burns for a good duration. Against a single target and you got a very very powerful Virtue.
Aegis is fine as it is. Just because you lose Aegis on a 40 damage hit or a 4,000 damage hit doesn’t warrant its change. It takes some math but if you can figure out when VoC will reapply Aegis you ultimately gain more control over the battle, i.e. knowing when to dodge, when to pop other blocks or VoC.
I’d rather not ANet hold my hand and making it simple for me to save my kitten . I’d rather learn how to do it with what I currently have than engage in ez-mode.
I think the problem is when to use the Tomes, just like all skills there is a time and place for them to be most effective. While getting through the new LW content I should have brought a Tome because RF primarily sat there without a reason to be popped. While I did use the Virtues, nothing had yet prompted me to tap all three and then RF.
However now that I think about it, I could have used Wrath more than Courage a few times. I do think the Tomes are fine though, again to my first paragraph, it’s all about when, where, and how to use them.
The change to sword damage from 5% to 10%. I’ve seen a lot of talk that maybe it is not really needed. The fact was this was a lackluster trait and this is a lackluster change to it. I would love to do the right thing here and have a change that MH sword wants rather than just 5% more damage.
Thoughts?
Jon
You should look at the traits that buff the Mace, Shield, and Great Sword, because they’re unique and different from each other. Let that be some inspiration for tweaking the MH sword, because yeah, _just_5% more damage is lackluster.
- Cripples on auto-chain #3 (AoE cripple 1s-2s bad?)
- Increase damage by 5%(10%) & raise ______ stat (Crit-damage for flavor)
- 5%(10%) damage and bleed on-crit (lack of condition builds narrows us)
I like 3 a lot because I look at Zeal and Radiance and think to myself “Well, all I got is Burn”. If Bleed was added to our stock of conditions, I’d be more inclined to explore those trait lines. I hate feeling I wasted 30 points for 300 condition damage which does jack for us – the Pyroclasm build sticky points out that burn/condition duration > condition damage.
The change to sword damage from 5% to 10%. I’ve seen a lot of talk that maybe it is not really needed. The fact was this was a lackluster trait and this is a lackluster change to it. I would love to do the right thing here and have a change that MH sword wants rather than just 5% more damage.
Thoughts?
Jon
Maybe this has been mentioned all ready and I missed it, but you spoke of conditions being weak on the Guardian – why not make the sword damage remain at 5%, but give a condition on-hit / on-crit? Bleed is the typical one, unless you want some thing else so it isn’t too common in traits across all professions (but then again you said not to compare professions). So +5% damage & bleed on-crit?
Or…………think back to how the Paragon functioned. I was a fan of the Paragon, it was quickly one of my favorite professions. I recall reading that the Guardian was a mix of Monk & Paragon, and one aspect of the Paragon has been missing: effects when burned/burning is applied.
Could there be a trait that actually causes a reaction to when burning is applied?
Sword +5% damage – +5/10/15% damage if target is on fire . It’ll probably be 5% because I can see this being OP in some situations that I cannot explain.
But really, I liked the fact that whenever the condition Burning is present, Paragons had skills that were all ready good, but got even better with the presence of Burning! How come that hasn’t been applied to Guardians? It would really make our Burns more about duration than condition damage – which would neglect the need for another condition. True we have a lot of access to burns, but considering the relatively medium/long cooldowns, we could potentially have some good lengthy burst moments, with a decent length of time between said bursts.
Maybe I’m just craving some Paragon mechanics to be carried over to the Guardian, or I want to see the focus of Burning be actually beneficial to the Guardian via triggering additional effects on skills, instead of “Let’s spam some conditions!!”
I always thought Burning was exceptionally dangerous in GW1 – in GW2 I don’t feel Burning is really that scary – hence why I’d like to make the Guardian’s Burning skills revive that fear.
TC you know a single post can have multiple ideas within it – so your logic behind your actions is severely flawed, and this forum(community) has proven time and time again they can handle various subjects within one single topic – look at builds, they cover all sorts of points of interests.
The fail train is a’comin’.
Evon’s fart joke actually made sense to situation. Mouse farts are, naturally, insignifigant compared to a hurricane, which is the point Evon was making. He was taunting Kiel by saying she thinks she’s more important than she really is.
Marjory’s is… wierd. I don’t really get the point she’s trying to make. The veil went down… quickly, as farts are? Without notice, because during a party who’s going to notice a fart? Or is she saying it was very noticable and everyone turned to the source?
At a Moot, Norns are going to drop farts as hard and fast as they can, because they’re all drunk and don’t care. So I guess that’s where she was going, also calling a Moot – a Norn’s coming of age/proving themselves – to be nothing short of a frat party.
When I heard this, I, my Norn Guardian, took offense.
“………… No one farted at my Moot ……..”
Zerging is a player problem and has nothing to do with ANET. Players will find the path of least resistance and use it to the max; this happens all the time in every situation. We, the players have created this problem ourselves (content locusts).
remember GW1? the party exits an outpost and they have their own zone instance. i was kinda hoping for something like that with Zerg Wars 2. the way they were advertising the game and stuff while it was in development kinda made it seem that way.
No. That was a horrible experience. It’s total isolation outside of the town post with only your guild – if you even are in one – to communicate with. And no one else could help you, unless you felt like starting the quest over.
While I liked GW1, with so many personal instances, it sucked kitten once you realized “Oh that was cool…and no one is around to see it”. GW2 you have A LOT more moments where you run into people and develop your own story – I’ve had many of those and still do, and they are awesome.
Also, zerging IS a player problem, not ANet. How would you really like ANet to pull in the reigns and control even further EVERY aspect of how we play the game, versus TOTAL freedom? I never HAVE to join the zerg – I’m free to go about my own ways and get the accomplishments. Often times I do break from the zerg because
A) The zerg can be kittened
B) The zerg is often kittened
C) The zerg gets boring quick
D) Some, maybe under half, of the achievements are done without the need of a zerg(a small party can even do it)
So zerging is the path of least resistance. There’s nothing stopping people from alternative methods of play, except ez-street-wayz.
VoC occurs at a rate of 30sec when traited. Every 5th hit with say, staff or sword would be easily achieved and almost create a perma-block boon, totally OP.
I like the idea of people thinking of ideas for the Guardian, but can ideas that aren’t….. I dunno…. insanely OP or pulled out of some dark recess of the brain?
I can imagine an ANet employees grief to some extent when visiting the forums.
“Let’s see what ideas are floating around on the forum today…”
click click …….. click click
“………….. I don’t know why I come here for inspiration.”
I have to chime in that the proposed idea is just bad. In fact it would make the Guardian OP. I enjoy the Guardian, he’s my main and honestly I have a hard time picking up other classes because ’they’re not the Guardian’. I say that not to boast my knowledge of the Guardian’s mechanics or expertise, but that I enjoy the Guardian, A LOT.
Your idea would be good ONLY DURING solo-play. Imagine SEVERAL Guardians hanging around – your changes would be OP, and that’s why the Virtues are currently the way they are. Think about it – there isn’t a cap on the number of party members for the active effect. All it takes is for a couple of Guardians to get on TS and time their Virtues. But that’s not to say one Guardian alone can’t make an impact – but the more Guardians around the more powerful their Virtues are when strategically used.
Now I’m sure if the patience and time was taken to learn boss mechanics, the Virtues would only grow in their potency as they are then triggered at ‘exactly’ the right time -making the Guardian indeed a masterful tactician of the battlefield.
Some times I think people want the Guardian to be some thing it wasn’t originally designed to be – that people think the Guardian suits their style of play but it obviously doesn’t (which is obvious when you read certain posts) and they want it to – and some times people value the Guardian not from what it can do or offer, but what other classes do (Guardians can’t drop bandages, make clones, or stealth) and class envy develops (which is like cancer if you don’t know of it).
the bread and butter of guardians “is” support.
Might/stability/retaliation/condi cleanse is what we do best I think most would say.
I think the whole point of this is NOT to farm them up. The whole point of it was to get rid of all the EXTRA candy and bags from last year. Of course this is of no use to anyone that was not here last year or who really wants these items but that’s my thought process on all of this…….
-shrug- all I can hope to try for is the mini and even then I’m not sure it’s worth trying for…
Oh, this explains why I feel punished for being new. Phew, that free trial week lead me to feeling bad for being a new player! I am forced out of experiencing new content via holiday items!
Thanks ANet! The best holiday of the year, and the coolest looking in terms of game content, has swiftly kicked me in the balls for being the new kid in the room…kittens.
For someone who’s played GW1 Necromancer, you sure designed a skill that doesn’t even suit ANet’s style of Necromancers. It’s pretty bad to be honest, and having played a Blood Necromancer in GW1, I’m guessing you really didn’t play a Blood Necromancer and you’re just …..nevermind.
I can’t get past the “leaps rapidly” as I imagine a repetitive leap attack, but with how the game would probably display this, you’d leap to your target and do bunny hops – essentially humping your target. Wonderful.
Blood Necromancers had to sacrifice their own health as part of a spell cost, and unfortunately that isn’t part of the game mechanics here. Blood Necromancers could do awesome stuff so long as they were smart and knew how to manage their health & energy – you had to be a good player because there was high risk for high reward.
Honestly with the way skills are all about activation time and cool down with no apparent cost, you’d have to create a skill with a secondary skill that gives you the option of improving the skills potency by sacrificing a percentage of your health.
Hmm……now that’d be interesting, and would fit the Necromancers theme. Blood Renewal was one of my favorite skills in GW1 because you sacrificed 33% of your life for some health regen. If the boon lasted its duration, you were healed for twice the health you sacrificed.
Another good idea for a skill would be, say, a mark that links you to your target, does some damage, causes weakness/vulnerability/cripple/whateveryoupickoneortwo, and then the second chain skill would be like ’sacrifice life over X seconds channeled to drain life from target. If duration is uninterrupted you get Y damage as life."
I think that’d be a decent start – you got your plain ol’ skill that isn’t useless, followed by a chain skill that forces you to be uninterrupted, otherwise all that sacrifice was for naught. If you pull it off, you get some life back and you caused damage.
Male Norn does have a body type that’s pretty obese or at least lacking some muscles but is all about size. A lot of the armor pics you see on the wiki are of a male Norn sporting that body type, and it ruins the armor imo (you’ll know it when you see it).
Ascalon armor and Crucible armor looks pretty tight for a Guardian as long as you got the right dyes. The Crucible armor definitely reminds me of the Batman armor from GW1, which I’m glad they copied because it was awesome to look like a medieval Batman (Zurzick armor). That was worth the grind.
I logged in just to tell you that your Norn is too small, and what the kitten were you thinking? Norns are giants among Humans and give a Charr standing upright a run for their reputation.
I learned somewhere that the Signets are great for new players because you’re not entirely penalizing yourself by not activating your utility skills when you should – the passive effect is still active. I used a Signet build when leveling and felt it really helped me get used to the game. Think of a full Signet build as a training bicycle for GW2.
That doesn’t mean I still don’t use a few of them. Signet of Resolve and Signet of Judgment are good to use, and maybe Bane Signet if you can time the knockdown.
Honestly when in the Mad Realm I should have packed Signet of Mercy to help out the zerg. Truthfully I was carrying Consecrations and latter switched to Shouts. It’s all about how you want to play the Guardian and contribute to other players. AoE Might, Cleansing, and Shouts are all good and dandy. If I brought a Signet for an AoE Rez, no one would have complained and I’d have still kept the zerg going.
Once in awhile when roaming I’ll bring Spirit Sword to help with mobs. What I’m having a hard time justifying unlocking is the Bow, Hammer, and Shield. None seem worth the points when I’m working towards other skills that’d be of more use.
People are too wound up after this patch. If you guys want some good comedic relief, go read ranger posts lol.
I never really understand responses like this. What do you want us to compare kitten list and feel better. Still got kitten at the end of day. Play both classes and you got a double serving.
We should complain. It is not a bad thing to let the devs know what we want vs the whole, “I am going to quit!” thing. We let them know on warrior and it might have taken months but they got around to making things better….then OP. Then player rushed in who quit the class and told vets who said things were too strong that they were wrong. And I know that once guardian gets it’s buff the same will happen.Even at the risk of cheese dominating the landscape we must continue to inform the devs of what we do not like. It is for the good of the game.
Once upon a time, years and years ago, the Monks of Guild Wars 1 revolted against their mandatory position as only good for healz. They rebelled and complained, gathered together and refused to provide healz until ANet gave them the attention they wanted and provide for them a solid source of damage. ANet listened.
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