Guild Wars 2

Symbol damage hasn’t changed. Neither has trap damage. What changed was a reduction in tanky builds. Sure, there are more symbols available to more weapons now, but no more at a time than have always been available (1 per weapon set + 1 auto proc). If you never complained about symbols before, then the difficulty lies now in the build of class you are playing.

I will agree that traps are terrible from both a High level play aspect and terrible to face at the lower level. It is the combination of traps (persistent aoe damage) symbols (persistent aoe damage) and weapon attacks (mostly aoe damage) that make guardians very difficult to contend with if not focused down. This is also an unfortunately low skill cap type of pressure play.

Personally if any of these aspect get addressed, I hope it is traps that get the tweaking. I would be ok with removing boons on activation as a base part of the skills, and replacing the daze from trap mastery with the current boons. Also, either add a cast time to ToF or remove the initial strike on activation.

I think at this point ALL classes simply need QoL changes. Trickle up small buffs to under-performing (or non-performing) skills/traits to get them inline with the more useful but not over-powered or ‘mandatory’ skills/traits. By taking it slow we can evaluate the state of these changes and test any new build options they may present.

Other than that I think the PvP team should look into creating ‘build specific’ amulets for each class. This would gate potentially unbalancing amulets from being abused by certain classes. Its not a perfect solution to build variety, but it is something the PvP devs could possibly do on their own.

There is a thread started by Dr Patrik.3642 that presents the concept in more depth.

Long cool-downs on stationary skills are hard to build around. I still think much shorter cool-downs balanced with shorter skill duration would be more ‘active’ and increase the mobility of the skills.

Change the ridiculously nonperforming Radiant Retaliation skill to: When under the effects of retaliation, run speed is increased 25% and you take 10% less damage.

Would tie in great with Retribution, still not be a permanent 25% speed boost to keep us ‘less mobile’ and simply give us access to another way to keep our speed up.

Personally I would like to see master of consecrations: 20% recharge reduction, 2 seconds duration increase, size of consecrations increased 20%.

Swap master of consecrations and Permeating Wrath (and combine Battle Presence with Absolute Resolution in master line, add BS grand-master that increases Boon duration by 10% for every virtue on cool-down or something like that).

Add 3-4 seconds of Retaliation to allies who pass through Wall of Reflection. Reduce duration to 6 seconds. Reduce cool-down to 25 seconds.

Purging flames now removes 1 condition from up to 5 players inside the area of effect every second. 1 stack burning for 4 seconds to up to 5 enemies inside area of effect every second.

Hallowed ground duration reduced to 8 seconds. Cool-down reduced to 45 seconds. Ice field.

Sanctuary changed from light field to a water field.

+1 Certain classes almost NEED specific stats on amulets to be competitive. For example, my Guardian is very hesitant to even consider an amulet without vitality on it. Clerics kind of worked only because it had both toughness AND healing power. If devs could tailor make amulet stats for specific classes you could create many new viable builds for each class, and easily control their balance without skill changes.

We could have a large pool of universal amulets as we have now, and a special pool of class exclusive amulets. Perhaps even tie some of them to specific trait lines.

Exciton.8942:

Good assessment.
Can we just make traps flat 1/2s cast time?
Instant cast traps just feel so wrong.

Fragments of faith kind of need to be instant to work with the auto proc trait.

Very true, you can’t win the game unless you buy the game…

Traps could use a bit of adjustment.

Activation time (not cast time, but the time it takes trap to activate once triggered) on dragons maw could be increased a small amount to make it a little easier to counter.

Test of faith either needs a cast time OR it needs to loose its initial damage.

Procession of blades feels fine to me, as its the easiest trap to avoid full damage with, UNLESS you get cc’d in place with it. But combos are skill play so I’m fine with it. If damage must be reduced id like it added back in with bleeds. It would draw out the damage longer making it even easier to negate a portion of it and would at least add some incentive and mechanics for condi guard builds.

Purification is a situational heal. Sometimes good, sometimes not good at all.

Lights Judgement is weak. Could probably use some buffing actually.

Fragments of faith is mostly in a good spot now. Damage MIGHT still be a touch high but I would adjust other traps first to see where things are before going crazy on this.

My only other big suggestion would be to make hostile traps in PvP and WvW all red instead of the same blue as ally traps when triggered. This would help players a lot to identify what traps are trying to kill them.

Oh, and I pretty much have played Guardian exclusively since launch, and I love my DH too. So I am not trying to class bash at all. Non guardians please try to understand that guardians rarely get a viable or fun spec outside of bunker or glass canon medi so yes, they are taking full advantage of DH while they still can.

You can’t pay for skill, sorry.
/thread

So has anyone else noticed that puncture shot range is more like 1500 than 1200? I can consistently hit targets that all my other 1200 rage skills cannot reach, by a pretty wide margin too. I wonder if the velocity increase did this as the projectile lasts the same amount of time while traveling faster, therefor also traveling farther?

I haven’t fount condi to be too much of a problem. With Smiters Boon, Purification is a cleans. With Hunters Fortification you also cleans a condi with Protectors Strike, Shield of Judgement, Shield of Courage, several with Fragments of Faith, several more when you get cc’d with Hunters Determination, and 1 more at 50% health with Valorous Defense. You also transfer one off of you every 10-12 seconds or so with Sigil of Generosity.

And don’t forget most of those blocks will heal you a decent amount with Purity. And give you extra toughness. And healing power if you swap to mace.

The trick is to determine what your foe is attempting to use against you. If its a burst class, burst them back. If its power attrition, don’t blow all your traps at once. If its condi, try to space out your blocks so you don’t hit the cool down on Hunters Fortification.

I have played with taking focus and swapping Smiters Boon with Focus Mastery, and Stalwart Defender with Strength in Numbers. It seams just about as effective but I like the shield push too much to want to trade.

I generally like sword, but mace just works so well with all the traits here I cant pass it up. Symbol of Faith is like a mini Healing Signet that also hits enemies for 500-1200 damage a tick. And its almost the size of your average node.

So I have been playing around with DH in PvP and found a high damage trap build that covers most of the inherent trapper build weak spots.

Longbow/Mace,Shield
Valor 2 1 3
Honor 1 2 2
Dragonhunter 1 1 1
Full traps minus Lights Judgement
Marauder Ammy and Dragonhunter runes.
Sigils of air and fire on bow, blood and generosity on mace,shield.

20 stacks of might is super easy. Good amount of fury, protection and stability. A stun break, an auto stun break, lots of blocks, some blinds, high toughness uptime (especially with mace shield combo) loads of vigor, and a whole lot of healing. There is even a decent amount of trickle condi clear, though multiple burst condi is still tough to handle.

Damage is not quite as high as some burst builds can go, but it is more than enough to crack open most bunkers.

Always preset traps if you can. All of them. I like to place a dummy trap up front and then combo the rest behind it. This can cause the enemy to blow there defenses too soon. Once traps are preset and enemy arrives, kite for a while with bow. As soon as they start to trigger traps close in with mace and reset more traps in your enemies face.

If you need some space drop Fragments of Faith and leap out with Wings of Resolve. Swap to bow and repeat.

Use shield/Spear of Justice to push/pull enemies into traps or to rake them across Test of Faith. Symbols are large and offer good healing and and lots of damage. Pick up fragments if you are in a close quarters fight and need some quick healing. Every block gives you more healing power and toughness, and clears a condition on top of negating damage.

People will curse you and call you a no skill noob. Its great.

KILL YOURSELF! Um, I mean, SAVE YOURSELVES is too strong. Everyone runs with it because it is awesome. That’s why, even after the devs made a crusade to normalize skills between PvE and PvP they left it nerfed. Just like the way too strong and popular shield. Everyone runs with that too…

EDIT: OK, in all seriousness, the major concern with these skills was the boon duration build guardian being able to once upon a time achieve 100% protection up-time. Where is your boon duration Guardian now ANET! WHERE!!!

xinkspillx: Please don’t assume my mini rant was targeted at you. While we we may not fully agree, your posts have been very level headed and good discussion.

As I stated much earlier, I can ALMOST agree with the concept of moving sustain from Valor to some place else. The only problem I run into is that valor only really helps our two most viable utility sets.

One of the assumptions I see thrown around is that Devs are withholding balancing our other skills and traits properly because Valor is too strong. Have any Devs actually hinted at this? If we move that sustain to other build variants are we trying to encouraging builds that run poor skills and punishing builds that run properly designed skills?

I love that Shouts and Meditation builds have a unique ‘flavor’ to them, with Shouts/AH being a gradual regen play style that finds its strength in groups, and Medi/MF builds being relatively glassy burst damage/burst heal trade off. Altering sustain from MF and adding more gradual regen changes the way Medi’s function. Regen is far less important to burst builds, and as Medis are already middle of the road, it could push them out of pvp (the only place where they really do well anyway).

I think there is gradual hope that our utilities will be improved. Every large update I see some small attempts to tweak a few things. Anet can be very slow and cautious about balance, and sometimes they can focus in on things and drastically change them. Lets hope for the latter, like they did for meditations so long ago.

Sooo… let me get this strait. You guys want warrior level health pool, warrior level healing and reduce our active sustain to warrior level skills. If you haven’t noticed, we are usually (not always) universally in a better place than warrior, so I can’t agree with you there.

There is a mechanic in place for Guardians already, and it is (or should be) strong active skills and boons to supplement relatively rather poor health pool, low mobility and less available cc. Yes it’s true that Guardians only have two real skill sets that can be used in full (shouts/meditations) but boosting our passive and inert sustain and nerfing AH/MH will not magically make our bad skills good, or even better.

If you had more sustain do you seriously think you would run with Signet of Mercy? Bow of Truth? Radiant Retaliation? Healers Retribution? Receive the Light? Nope, didn’t think so. There is plenty of room to improve our other utility sets and our other grand masters.

The argument that MH/AH are holding us back from balance is blatantly false. If signets get turned into useful skills that compliment our strengths and help to cover our weaknesses, you would take Signet Mastery in a signet build, not MF or even AH (signets aren’t known for granting boons). You also wouldn’t take a lot of meditations or shouts because you would be running with more signets. See how that balances out without effecting MF/AH?

I know I know, “but we could solve all our problems with just 1 core change instead of asking for a lot of skill changes”. Yup, just 1 change to health pool. Then one more for virtue for resolve passive healing. Oh, and another one for the active. And don’t forget to adjust AH accordingly. Ah, and of course the MF healing reduction. And I almost forgot the Dragonhunter Wings of Resolve would have to be looked at. And our healing skills would need a boost to cover that bigger health pool. And maybe shave protection duration/accessibility so we aren’t pure sustain monsters. And a lot of our traits and skills STILL aren’t any good so lets balance those too….

There is no magic simple fix. Devs just need to pick a new skill set to turn into viable build/play style. They gave us shouts at launch, and started meditations by the end of the first year. After meds got to a good spot they took a break, and worked on trying to make Burn Guard a thing. Now I think they want to make traps work. I think. But they will have to find a way for traps to overcome our inherent weakness to pull it off. Good Luck.

Gray.9041:

Mightymealworm.8409:

To the OP, to be ‘FAIR’ you probably couldn’t keep f1 and f2. You would have to replace them with the dodges. Then it would be ‘FAIR’. Elite specs are meant to be different, not stronger. The mechanic isn’t the same, but if its balanced and useful so what? How many useless or bad trait lines are in this game between all the professions? If the devs can make it work, by all means let it work!

firstly, I’d be pretty happy with that tbh – except it’d invalidate all the traits which operate on steal.

secondly, Chronomancer gets Continuum split without losing the other shatter skills. and Herald gets Facet of Nature without losing a legend. several elite specs get straight upgrades to the F skills

But how would you then keep Daredevil from simply overpowering Thief? I don’t know much about Chrono/Mesmer, but Necro/Reaper simply exchanges shroud skills. Same for Guard, different active Virtue effects. Ele attunement overload might be additional vs replacement but it comes with some big drawbacks. Warrior… well we won’t talk about warrior… I’m sure there is (or at least will be) a drawback there somewhere. Its not like thieves are giving up a skill going daredevil, just gaining awesome new dodges. No other class is getting this so far as we know yet (and I know a few who would trade). I say wait and see how it turns out before complaining. At least this elite sounds promising.

All I want for traps is to give them some flavor. Add some condi, condi removal, sustain, and some mobility. This might not be enough to make a trap only build viable, but traps should be high reward skills as they depend on pre-setup, positioning and controlling enemies. They also have long activation times and long cool downs.

Test of Faith: Passing the blades converts 1 condition to a boon for all allies who pass. If no conditions are present, it heals for small amount. For enemies it corrupts 1 boon to a condition, cripples if no boon present. 1 sec cooldown for both.
- This skills needs some utility, as it is very underwhelming against smart foes. The changes give some sustain for allies and yourself, while actually punishing enemies in a way Guardians have never been able to do before. You will want to dance around blades cc’ing enemies into them for maximum effect.

Procession of Blades: Make bleed per strike base.
-Bleed fits here, otherwise a straightforward trap with cover condi.

Lights Judgement: Add 1 stack torment per strike.
-Punish enemies for leaving. Even more cover condi.

Fragments of Faith: Fragments also grant swiftness.
- A touch of needed mobility. Good for escapes, distancing.

Purification: Activation creates a Symbol of Regeneration (1 sec regen every sec) and the ‘return’ also removes 3 conditions.
- Come on, its call Purification. Purify. And please add some non weapon symbols. It might seem like I am asking a lot for a 30 sec heal, but it is a very conditional heal that could easily fail. Risk reward should be quite large here.

Dragons Maw: Striking an enemy while trapped burns them. 1 stack, 1 sec. No cooldown. -OR- Striking an enemy while trapped steals health (think sigil of blood) 1 sec cooldown.
-I like both, but both would be a bit much. can’t pick a favorite. Both apply to the caster only! Or it could get crazy.
-

To the OP, to be ‘FAIR’ you probably couldn’t keep f1 and f2. You would have to replace them with the dodges. Then it would be ‘FAIR’. Elite specs are meant to be different, not stronger. The mechanic isn’t the same, but if its balanced and useful so what? How many useless or bad trait lines are in this game between all the professions? If the devs can make it work, by all means let it work!

Some things still are different. Retaliation damage, pet health… oh, and Guardian shield 4 skill still has reduced protection duration in pvp, because shield wasn’t bad enough in pve…

Brutaly.6257:

Obtena.7952:

Mightymealworm.8409:

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly is right and I’ve seen it time and again in all kinds of MMO’s. As long as Medi is THAT good, that’s all we gonna get and everything else is going to be balanced around that point, ensuring that any build where you don’t use Valor will be subpar in PVP. If you’re satisfied with that, keep denying it needs to be changed. If you’re not, you see why it’s a problem.

I can almost agree with you, but one problem is that Medi is not THAT good. It is just good, and that makes it a better offensive build than our other options.

Regardless of what level of good you want to put it at, it’s still our standard and everything is still balanced around it. Therefore …

This!!!

Medi/AH isnt that good.

The issue is that EVERY COMPETITIVE wvw and pvp build revolve around them.

This reduces build diversity and the fun in playing the profession.
Its easier to nerf one/two trait (monks focus/AH) and improve our healing (an example) skills than buffing ALL our utilities and still dont address the underlying issue.

I get it that some dont like their working builds to be messed up but if not, nothing will really change since Anet wont have the metrics or experience to properly understand whats really wrong with guardian.

It doesnt matter if:

We get faster casting on signets
Get to keep the passive on signet when on CD
Increase vit on spirit weapons
Increase size of Sanctuary,

All has been suggested but non of them would change the fact that medi/AH is mandatory in wvw and pvp. Not even if you combine them!!!

Nerf medi/ah and after that correct the real issue.

Your implying that the issue is with the core of the class, and not the mechanic of the skills. I believe our skills should reflect and circumvent our core weaknesses with active play. Shouts and meditations succeed in this, and most of our other skills fail, making builds centered around them sub-par.

You could add a 2k heal to all our skills and medi build would still be the preferred burst damage build. Spirit weapons with a 2k heal would still be bad. Most signets with a 2k heal would still be bad. Most censecrations with a 2k heal would still be super-situational. It’s the nature of the skill set, not the heal.

Medi Guards were around before the heal was quite as large, before the added fury, and before the skills were inherently instant cast. The additions were needed to make the skillset more viable against other classes burst (guards don’t exist in a vacuum) and gave Guards a new way to play the class.

This can be done now with the other skillsets, IF the devs decide to focus on them like they focused on Medi’s. AH and Shouts make support guards more tanky even with a low health pool. Med heal gives burst guards a chance to survive long enough to get their damage off without making them too tanky (excellent trade of damage/utility for heal). There is still room for a non-support based Tank build, a sustained damage brawler build, a quick skirmish build (Dragonhunter could fit here).

This can be done now by altering the current weak skills and skill set traits to overcome our inherent weaknesses, and it would be easy enough to balance it due to limitations on the number of skills and traits you can have at one time. If signets become as strong as meds, so what? To equip a signet you would have to drop a med. To gain the full benefit of the skill you would likely also have to trait for it. Traiting into two skill sets means you likely had to give something more universal up.

This seems a far easier way to balance to me than alter the core of our class and expect there to be no conflicts with every other skill and trait we currently possess.

Because of Guards low health pool, melee centered nature, and low mobility, we must make a choice on what to sacrifice. Do we remain squishy to deal damage? Do we trade damage for sustain? Do we trait against condi or do we trait for mobility? Dragonhunter could negate the melee centered aspect, and that will open new questions as to what to sacrifice for it. It needs to be worth it.

This is the question that should be asked when creating skills like traps or alter existing skills, How does my sacrifice supplement my weaknesses? Is it worth it?

Currently, it’s how do traps make my Guardian stronger? What do I need to sacrifice for them? And are they worth it?

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly is right and I’ve seen it time and again in all kinds of MMO’s. As long as Medi is THAT good, that’s all we gonna get and everything else is going to be balanced around that point, ensuring that any build where you don’t use Valor will be subpar in PVP. If you’re satisfied with that, keep denying it needs to be changed. If you’re not, you see why it’s a problem.

I can almost agree with you, but one problem is that Medi is not THAT good. It is just good, and that makes it a better offensive build than our other options. What other utility set do have that offers us the ability to move away from tank/support and deal decent damage?

Spirit weapons are AI, and as such will likely always be balanced to be sub-par in PvP.

Signets are still a hot mess. Signet of Judgement is great, but even that has a hard time finding a place in a decent build.

All but one of our shouts are defensive support with the exception of our elite.

Purging flames is a good offensive/defensive/support consecration, but the others are situational support skills.

Seeing as how any time we choose to take another skill over a Meditation, we lose the benefit of a traited Medi heal and fury (and many builds do this for Feel my Wrath, Shelter, Purging Flames, Shelter) I cannot see the argument against balancing other skills against Meds due to Meds being too strong (they are widely considered a fairly balanced build in PvP with both strengths and easy counters).

Sword could be a decent anti mid range kite weapon. AA has slightly longer range than other melee weapons (150/150/300 vs 130 for most other melee AA) and a quick mid range gap closer. If they would just make Zealots Defense mobile vs rooted you would have a great mobile weapon for closing distance with ranged.

Also, just add % projectile finisher the the 3rd strike on AA to make it more versatile. Then you can make it a condi weapon or a support weapon, just pick your fields.

I like the feedback including reasons for changes. My only concern is that it seems we are going in circles with damage. Base damage is up but with less vuln, no bleeds and less burn application is there really going to be much impact one way or the other?

Also I really feel deflecting shot would benefit from changing it to a current target from a ground target skill. Would be a much quicker reaction that that way. I’m afraid human brains just aren’t equipped with the necessary response time to intercept projectiles with another projectile mid flight.

“Feel My Wrath” could stant to have a little longer cooldown, but I wouldn’t take it past 40 seconds if you want anyone to run it against Renewed Focus. It doesn’t seem to be breaking anything in PvP at least.

I wouldn’t change Smite Condition to be less reliable though, it’s honestly the keystone holding medi-guard together. No one runs without it and the build is ‘in a good place’. Breaking it alone very well could break the build, and other builds already don’t use it because its not that strong without traits. As far as I would go with it is giving more risk/reward structure to the skills damage, like very low initial damage that is multiplied by the total number of conditions on you.

Burn application could be looked at. I would like to see stacking burns made slower to give it some of the conditions original flavor as a strong long duration DOT and less bursty. But that would have to be for all classes so its not really Guard specific.

Overall I think we took enough hits in the last few patches. Stand Your Ground got hit with stability nerf, virtues got hit with 50% range reduction, and most of our damage modifiers were simply deleted. We did get some other nice things though, so I can’t complain about it all.

I am not a fan of instant cast on DH virtues. Instant cast would allow you to ‘throw’ a spear in the middle of a dodge roll or while lying on your face from your armpit. 1/4 cast time would be fine, with traited bonuses at start of cast, like might retal condi cleanse etc… To sync it better with renewed focus allow traited bonuses to proc while casting without the active portion taking effect.

Everything with recent guardian change is more burst, less sustained damage. My old burn build had far more damage mods and permanent burning in spite of Condi clear. The new builds rely more on Condi damage and loading burn stacks, this larger reward is also fairly easily countered with Condi clearing. The big bursts can now either be wiped or avoided while the more constant single burns and reduced physical damage mods are less of a threat than before. This new damage mechanic and strategy hit bunker guards even harder. Between the loss of pressure damage, the reduced virtue range and all the crazy burst flying around bunking can be tricky business now.

And yes, sometimes I miss my old burn build too.

runeblade.7514:

I disagree.

Two Bunker Guard doesn’t equal death.

Sure it will, people still die of old age…

Well I don’t roam as I tend to be more of a PvP player so take my musings with a grain of salt…

First off I don’t like the signet. Divide the heal you get by 10 and see how much per second it heals for. Not great. Besides, if you are running mace/shield that should suffice for support. As for healing, if you are using litany you should have renowned focus for elite, that way you have a clutch defense skill. If you go with shelter you can grab feel my wrath for elite instead. If you roam with thieves they will love that. Just my 2 cents…

They should just change it to drop a symbol of judgement with a 3/4 sec cast time and reduce recharge a touch. Boom, viable.

Saiyan.1704:

They indeed have an icd. We’d be OP if that wasn’t the case :P

Even with 1 stack for 1 sec burn per hit? How many hits can anyone get per second, and even then the duration would be so short. Oh well, with icd these runes are going to the dump.

Just a thought, does anyone know if guardian runes were given an icd for burn on block? I didn’t see anything in patch notes and I’m away from my comp for the day.

Also, wasn’t shelter 3 seconds and rf 2 seconds, or have I been away from this game for too long?

Just gotta say I love the suggestion for 33% chance to cripple. 10% damage mod as gm trait does seem weak, but if 20% breaks pve dps balance cripple should only affect PvP.

This last patch just seems to be pushing us away from sustained damage builds and really only benefits our burst. Look at all the skill changes we got and categorize them between defence/support (almost nothing new, mostly a bad signet) sustained damage (significantly reduced modifiers, less might) and burst damage (all the new instant extra damage traits, more crit access, changes to fire mechanics etc…)

I really don’t think the devs are going to dramatically change any weapon skills, and I don’t think they really need to either. All shield needs is a #5 bug fix, revert #4 PvP duration back to pve values, and then some love for the shield trait. 180 toughness is pretty garbage. Especially in PvP where shields don’t add to overall armor. Shield skills as blast finishers would be my favorite for group support, or make shield skills reflect projectiles. Something worthy of a master trait that only affects 2 skills.

I am currently enjoying a power medi build centered around symbols. Zeal valor honor with gs,m/f air/fire sigil and pirate runes for bird proc to help stack my shattered aegis. Endless aoe pressure. Good in groups but beware kiters, as always it seems for guards.

It is bugged. I tested it and had a thread on it earlier. Does not stack with sigil, cannot reach +100% burn time on enemies.

I can’t seem to get the increased burn duration from Radiant Fire to work. With Balthazar Runes (45%) Sigil (20%) and 30 in zeal (30%) I should be getting 2 seconds per VoJ proc. But I only get 1 burn tick, with or without Radiant Fire, and my other burn skills don’t change in duration with it equipped at all either.

That 20% should be more than enough to cap me out at100% burn duration. Anyone else getting same results?

I love how everyone here is fighting over whether or not a class should be receiving more or less attention as if their favored class were a child competing for moms love over their siblings. Every class has problems, that’s why this forum section is here. I don’t begrudge the warrior who wants a better great sword or offhand axe any more than the ranger who wants stronger bow mechanics or signets.

So in the name of civility, please:

Step 1: Don’t act like your class has more problems than the rest. At this point in time, all classes are going to have to evolve to fit whatever the new meta turns out to be. We don’t know that quite yet.

Step 2: Don’t be afraid of others suggestions. No matter what people ask for, the Devs attempt will always be to balance a class in a balanced way. They may fail, but they will try. Ask yourself why a class having more viable yet balanced options is bad for you? Is it because you don’t play that class, or even like that class? Do you believe that it will somehow get changes and your favored class won’t? Is it simply jealousy?

Step 3: Be constructive. No one ever fixed anything by tearing everything apart. There is a reason they call it DEstructive.

Thank you for your time. May this thread die and better one take its place.

You are right, there are fewer flies in my soup. I’ll just tip the waiter and stop complaining then.

I don’t guards are asking for buffs to current builds, at least not the ones that already ‘shine’. What would be nice is a reason to go deep in zeal and/or radience. A purpose for signets and spirit weapons. A build that can compete with, not outshine, other classes mobile roaming DPS or condi tank builds.

We already know we have great support, good tank and decent burst builds. And dungeon/frac meta DPS builds are fine too, no arguments there. The perceived problem is that little progression has occurred outside of those.

I don’t think guards see the possible balance issues to be as big an issue as other classes because we are used to the inherent balance in this class. We expect trade offs and sacrifice in our builds, we know we can’t have it all in one build. We just want new toys worth sacrificing our old toys for.

It will hit for 500 in pve. In pvp/wvw (where the boon is actually useful) good luck reaching 300. This trait has replaced kindled zeal as new worst trait ever.

Radiance 6: Radiant Retaliation – retaliation damage scales from condition damage instead of power.

In one of the ready-up interviews, devs stated the damage scaling with condi would be much greater than power, resulting in a potentially more potent retaliation. After testing the new trait in pvp, damage seems to scale at essentialy the same ratio with condi as it did with power. Why would a guardian do this to himself?

Guardians can make great use of power, and very little use of condi damage. This has to be the first grandmaster trait I’ve ever seen that actually nerfs the user.

4 out of the 5 aren’t bad traits, just bad grandmaster traits. Amplified Wrath and Communal Defence would make fine Master level traits. Communal Defence would come a lot closer to grandmaster if it effected the caster and had a bit more range.

Force of Will seams OK for such a passive trait, but compared to the stat and damage boost from mace mastery it looks a little slim.

Purity of Body is incredibly weak. 15% endurance regen only when one of our most spammed virtues is off cooldown and no effect with vigor = adept level trait at best.

Radiant Retaliation serves no purpose and has no reason to exist as it currently is. Just remove it.

Devs explained this a few weeks ago. But yeah, it was one of the only new traits I was excited about too, it just feels neutered without any self benefit.

Crapgame.6519:

Mind if I ask what your set up was? I was going to try this has well but I’m thinking we may be using similar set-ups. I was using carrion with Balthazar / flame legion runes and got around 1400 condition damage.

The problem with this set up from when I ran it before was the 2200 armor You get eaten alive. sword/focus/greatsword. I also tried scepter/shield and torch.

Exact same setup. With power build the damage difference almost vanishes. All this 30 point grand master trait does is lower your retaliation damage unless you are deeply invested into condi damage, and then it brings it back to normal. They should rename it ‘Nerf Yourself’.

So, tested in pvp with full condi build, ammy and rune set. Difference was about 40 more damage per tick than with full power build without the trait. What was the point of this trait again?

Edit: wasn’t full power build, was same build with carrion ammy and condi runes. Honestly not sure that the damage scaling is any different whatsoever.

Wow, thanks for shooting down the only new guardian GM trait I was interested in.

Well, enough sulking. Time to dry your tears and get to work because, lets face it, were all going to try these out when they are released. The upcoming free trait resets will compel us all eventually. Lets get down to some theory-craft.

Zeal: Amplified Wrath- Burning damage is increased by 33%

I really do find this one so odd. It could be used to help burn damage in a power build with no use for other conditions, but kindled zeal already did that (only to a lesser extent) as we only inherently have burn. There is no longer any synergy in the line after the Shattered Aegis change except condition duration. By all means it really is not a bad trait, it just happens to be in a bad place, and I honestly can’t think of a good way to utilize it.

Radiance: Radiant Retaliation – Retaliation Damage scales from condition damage instead of power.

I can see this being very potent in wvw if the scaling truly is much stronger. And it would have to be much much stronger to make it worth being a trait at all let alone a grand-master trait. We have plenty of uses for power, and almost no use for condition damage, so this would be a very specialized build type that relies on retaliation and burning. I almost want to try it with Kindled Zeal but, if I am relying on condi and especially retaliation, I want to focus on toughness and vit, not power. That said a few special purpose Radiant Retaliation spamming guardians in a zerg could be interesting.

Valor: Communal Defenses – Grant 5s of aegis to allies in 360 range when you block an attack. 20s cooldown.

Perhaps the most interesting trait in the batch. There are some decent aegis and on block traits out there that could be given some viability. Mace is going to be a must with this one, at least it fits well in the trait line. In fact, this is the only new trait I believe really feels at home in its line. I really think this whole line will be looked upon more favorably by support builds now.

Honor: Force of Will – Gain up to 300 vitality, based on your level. (around 3k HP at level 80)

Maybe useful for zerg surfing or point bunking? I think this is one of those easy low skill cap traits that are there to support the uninitiated or casual guards. Its a chunk of stat, not much else to say. There are far greater options at that level in that line.

Virtues: Purity of Body – Resolve’s passive effects increase endurance regeneration by 15%

I just don’t feel 15% is all that noticeable. I believe the intent was to share it with allies, but that would require another grand-master trait (battle presence) just to function. Even then it is based off of the passive effect of the virtue, so does it stop when on cool down? I don’t know, and maybe I have it all wrong but this trait has all the trimmings of an adept or minor level trait to me.

Well those are my takes. Honestly the only two I can’t think of a use for are Amplified Wrath and especially Purity of Body. There are burn aficionados out there who will pick up the AW and play with it. Removing 50% endurance regeneration at the minor adept level, and compensating with 15% when not on cool-down at a grand-master tier is simply… Oh well.

Share your thoughts! What will you be trying and how?

I would welcome an abandonment on the efforts to create a ‘condi’ or burn based guardian if it would mean replacing our condi based traits and signet with something more useful. As of now, we will soon have 2 kindled zeals…2!! Only the new one is ‘better’ than the other. So so very sad.