Guild Wars 2

Will the new Griever stats be better for power guard to increase the DPS? Or will remain berserker the way to go?

Maybe some type of hybrid build (different traits/runes than a power guard) will provide better DPS with the new stats?

Knox.8962:

I didn’t play in the stress test, but I did use firebrand during the preview weekend. I think the VoJ passive is just a tooltip error. My tests on the golem and observed results in wvw had VoJ passive working like it does for core guardian.

They are different in sPvP and PvE. In PvE the ToJ passive is 1 sec and sPvP (golems) was 1.5 sec, I believe. But in sPvP both VoJ and SoJ are 4 seconds.

They could change the burning sources to bleeding on the axe. In that way could could buff the Tome of Justice passive to at least 1.5 sec.

The About Face command (turn your character 180 degrees) doesn’t turn the camera as well while mounted, only rotates the caracter.

There are a few bugs.

Healer’s Retribution only trigger when the mantra is prepared and doesn’t work when a charge (ammo) is used.

Protector’s Impact and Liberator’s Vow are the oposite (only work on charges, not when preparing).

Smiter’s Boon is the only one – not bugged – that triggers on either one (preparing or using a charge).

There are a few bugs.

Healer’s Retribution only trigger when the mantra is prepared and doesn’t work when a charge (ammo) is used.

Protector’s Impact and Liberator’s Vow are the oposite.

And Smiter’s Boon is the only one – not bugged – that triggers on either one (preparing or using a charge).

About runes, I believe they would work in any one (preparing the mantra or using a charge).

The main problems that I found:

• Axe 2 cast time is too long;
• Tomes cast times and cooldowns are too high;
• Tome of Resolve is too weak (even if gets proper cast time and CD reduction);
• Melee mantra cones. It is not realiable to use as support. Either increase the range to 600 or change to AoE.

If there is no changes, the spec won’t be viable on PvP or WvW.

I do believe there will be some changes until the PoF release.

Vitali.5039:

Mikau.6920:

Sword: Increase the damage by 20%~30% (not sure about base or stat scaling). Even with short cast time the damage is too close of an auto attack.

Like for necromancer’s minions the only thing that change with caster’s stats it’s the condition damage and duration. So, base damage

They changed it to scale with Guardian stats in one of the “fix patches”, but the final damage is really low even in a full damage build. For the sword, it does the same amount of damage as an auto attack, considering the same time span (it has too much cast time).

I thought this trait would be changed or buffed in some way in the last big trait revamp, but it keep the same. This trait is really bad because if you are not using GS the Kindled Zeal is autopick.

The Guardian is the only one without a defensive trait/effect in the “damage specialization” line (the closest to this is Zealous Blade, but is tied to GS), so why not add some defensive effect on this trait? Like keep the current effect and add one of:

• Restore some health when hitting a foe with vulnerability (about ~50);
• Remove a condition when hitting a foe with vulnerability (5 sec ICD);
• Cause blind when applying vulnerability (15 sec ICD)…

Then we actually would have a reason to pick this trait.

Brutaly.6257:

draxynnic.3719:

RabbitUp.8294:

Knighthonor.4061:

whats bad about the tombs? Was the best part of PoF that I was looking forward to.

Resolve has weak healing, Courage’s only defensive skill is some protection and +300 toughness, but more importantly, extremely long cooldowns (Tome of Resolve 45, Tome of Courage 90s).

Baseline, yes, but you need to look at how they interact with traits.

Loremaster cuts those recharges by a third – so it becomes 30 and 60, respectively, on the order of dragonhunter virtues.

Not gonna answer your whole post since the first few sentences make the rest irrelevant.

No the trait dont reduce the recharges on the tomes. It reduces the recharge on the skills in the tomes.

Just to add up. Even if there was a trait that would reduce the cooldown of the Tomes Virtues (F1, F2 and F3) it would be a really bad design because you would be forced to pick this trait so the tomes actually become viable to use.

Hopefully the spec becomes viable till PoF launch.

You should slowly climb your fractal level to learn the mechanics so it is easier to learn what to do.

I recomend NEVER doing a fractal that you do not have enough AR (agony resistance). I insta kick anyone that dies from agony, I prefer a bearbow in my group than someone without enough AR because they are literally a dead weight.

Like others said, you should aim to DPS and avoid stats like vitality / toughness / healing. If they change the Firebrand enough from preview, then the class might become viable to use as support (along side DPS).

I started from t1, then t2, then t3 and finally I’m able to t4 without the feeling that I’m not doing enough for my group. This is a good way to learn the mechanics without the need to use tanky stats to keep up.

I do not believe that retaliation related traits are good enough because it is too hard / too high the investiment to keep retaliation up, unless the party is full of Guardians or you do not have HoT (don’t have access to DH, so you can pick Virtues instead of DH that helps keeping you up with Virtue of Retribution trait).

This is my current setup:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNArfRn0ABddiVdCGCBkdil4BzaDcvSBy7vA4CsKA0AqXA-TlRBABXt/o87hTBAAPBAzUCSp6P4pPgQAjGDA-w

This might not be optimized. You may change Bane Signet or Test of Faith for Signet of Wrath if your party is full or nearly condition that add up 216 extra condition damage to the party (100% duration intead of 50% with Wrath of Justice trait). Also, you can use Zealot Agression instead of Hunters Determination on DH line to increase the DPS (I only use this trait because I hate being stunned, also, some Fractals do not have stuns, so there is no need for this trait).

How they currently are there is no reason to use any of them. My analysis considers all game modes:

Considering the high cast time, the Sword does the same damage as auto attack, so there is no reason to use them, just auto instead of waste a utility slot. It may have some use on condi builds (traited only), but should at least be usable on power builds, even more that scales with Guardian stats now.

The hammer feels like a worst version of Bane Signet, at least before it did some damage. Bane Signet is better because it has a passive, even if hammer has more uses, also, the active of Bane Signet is a lot more reliable.

The shield is just awful, it doesn’t bring a real effect on combat, it should at least have different effects, now just feels like a very worst version of Wall of Reflection. No reason to use at all.

The bow is able to heal by a lot as a channeled effect, but it is too unrealiable. Even more considering the cast time. You end up healing less than half that actually could. And on WvW and PvP is even worse considering the movement required on these modes.

In my opinion they should reduce the cast time not only to make usable and less clunky but because there is still an animation after the casts that artificially increases the cast time. So it actually takes a lot more than already high cast time to take effect.

My suggestions to make them at least usable:

Cast times: It should be reduced a bit to compensate the “actiavtion time” after the cast. Something between 1/4 ~ 1/2 seconds (0.3 seconds?) would help a lot.

Sword: Increase the damage by 20%~30% (not sure about base or stat scaling). Even with short cast time the damage is too close of an auto attack.

Hammer: Increase the damage by 100%.

Shield: For shield I think that would be interesting to add some aditional effects so it could differentiate a bit from other projectile blockers. Add 6 seconds of Aegis to up 5 allies in the area, increase the bubble duration to 5 seconds and make as stunbreaker. To compensate, reduce the number of casts (ammo) to 2 from 3, increase the cooldown to 8 seconds from 5 and increase the count recharge to 30 from 25. All these extra effects are what the shield originally had. In that way the shield would feel a lot more different than Wall of Reflection and other projectiles blocks.

Bow: Increase a bit the radius to make a bit more realiable (to ~300 from 240) or reduce the channel time a bit but keep the same healing (to ~3.5 seconds from 4.5). Not sure about this one, maybe just reducing the cast time might become more viable. But for WvW and PvP some of these changes might be necessary.

If the Seraph were CondiDamage+Healing main and Concentration+Expertise that would be the stat to go.

Hopefully they release a stat combination like that.

They should at least rework the skill. This straight nerf makes no sense. Like someone suggested, they could make a 1200 range that hits up to 3 foes with some effect to up 3 allies. Without DH the range is very limited and we have no ranged support weapon, even more considering the nerf on Staff #1 that basically made the staff a melee weapon. The other skill changes were made just to adapt the skills, not real buffs.

bug: Valiant Bulwark reflects ally projectiles

This seems to not damage allies, but it might blocks projectiles from hitting enemies. So this is a serious bug.

But we are, the core and DH are viable :^)

On serious, like I posted on other topic, they will make changes when they realize how bad it is, hopefully soon enough for the PoF launch.

I believe they will make some changes, the spec right now is not viable. In comparasion, the Dragon Hunter were the weakest spec before HoT as well. Maybe its the fate of Guadian to have very bad specs before the launch :P

Hopefully the spec become in line with all elite specs to be viable at launch. I really liked some concepts and designs, except for the mantras melee cones. For these they could either change to AoE or increase the cones to the old 600 range and width #1 staff, then might become usable.

The axe #2 should have its cast time reduced (as well on the mace #2, then mace could actually become viable to use). Also increase up to 5 targets and add a 1~2 sec of quickness on symbol creation to allies to keep the boon symbol theme and consistency.

I just don’t know why they have so much fascination with long cast and cooldown times as Guardian, as well the turtle move speed.

How it is now, I have zero interest to build up a Firebrand. Even core Guardian seems better to play.

Not even the sword is worth to use. I do the same damage just with autos, considering the high cast time, so there is no reason to use it (just auto instead).

They need to buff up all damage and reduce the cast time a bit so they actually become viable.

Teh Symbol of Vengeance (axe#2) shows a higher damage output in the tooltip (5×2,325) than mace #2 (5×2,130) but does less than half the damage than mace.

Against the Target Golem – Medium, I do ~530 with mace (non crit) per hit with symbol. With axe, I do ~180 per hit with symbol (only the first hit of the symbol does ~500 damage).

I believe they’ll buff both mantras and tomes, they feel very underwhelming.

I still don’t know why the cast time and cooldown of tomes are so high, the effects aren’t that powerful to justify that. Even if it were, I prefer higher frequency than insane effects. The effects now are “alrighty”, they only need to reduce the cast and cooldown times and maybe do some adjustment to the numbers.

I don’t know why there are some people defending this design. Mantras are awful. No reason to use the supportive ones ANYWHERE. WvW and PvP are obvious useless, the only people you’ll hit is yourself, there is support doing that. Raids? Good luck with melee in front of you. Fractals/dungeons? Again, you’ll hit only you, if lucky, one extra guy.

They are really bad now, just bad. (I believe) What they wanted to make is to have powerful effects on lower cooldown, but restrict area. The effects are not powerful enough and the cooldown are not low enough (now they are on average 12 seconds) to justify this design. If they really want to work with 300 range and small cone, then they need to reduce by a lot the cooldown or increase the effects (huge buffs) to actually be viable to use.

Kaim.5483:

I’m laughing so hard at Mantra of Flame. 2.75s to charge and then cast a cone aoe that deals 1 stack of burning, 15s recharge, 25s if you use the third charge. The cone is small and has a range of 300.

All mantras are bad. I hope they’ll change/buff them in some way before the release.

I am trying it out, so far I hate the spec. It seems worst to use as condi build on WvW because of the nerf of VoJ passivle on the tome. Also, the cast time on tomes should be a little short, 3/4 is too much.

Also, the mantras are worst than I expected. They could at least increase the range to 600 and width to the old Staff #1. It is basically impossible to hit someone.

But I still need more testing.

[anet_irenio] on reddit:

“This was a side effect of the bugfix and is something we’re investigating ways to remedy.

It is never our intent to insert ‘stealth nerfs’; if something was changed in a way that wasn’t documented in a patch notes then 99% of the time it is because of an unintended consequence.

Please do not attribute malice where there is none.

And again, we are looking into this."

Don’t worry guys, it will become viable again

Kjeldoran.3849:

Thank you all for the help.

Mikau.6920:

Yes, Zeal/Radiance/DH full zerker would have a higher damage output, using traps and the new (hopefully not bugged yet) Sword of Justice with signets.

But for fun (why would we play the game if we cannot get any fun?), I believe the Virtues line would be really interesting because you apply retal on virtues, retal time is increased by 25% and you can renew VoJ with radiance line. With this, you could achieve easier the perma retal and even drop one if not both shouts for something else.

So Virtues line instead of Honor would also give new option to condi removal and an extra stun break with traited virtues. Did you test this?

Thank you for the imput. Virtues was my first choice in place of Honor but then I thought that with Virtues I’d had low condi removal (just f2).

Between, I have a question: how do you “survive” as guardian? I mean, the only way that I can think of when I want to “survive” are meditations and altruistic healing. Are there other ways to survive fights which involve a constant damage? (of course I’m talking about pve/fractal not raids)

On fractals I just play full zerker with full damage traits (zeal/radiance/virtues) – except I use Hunter’s Determination instead of Zealot’s Aggression on DH. I don’t have problem with survivability on T4, I guess I’m used to the mechanics of the class and fractals (I only have problems on bad pugs, but its rare on T4).

On open world I don’t have any problem with that as well, except on open HoT maps, there I change all my trinkets to soldier (I can get one shot on full zerker) and change radiance to valor to help a bit more.

Yeah, before it was working with VoJ (both untraited and traited Permeating Wrath).

Also it seems to scale with power now,but does a lot less damage (even on full zerker) and it doesn’t scales with precision and ferocity any more. So it has lower chance to crit and when it crits, it does a lot less damage.

I prefer the old bug than the new one. Now this skill is really bad.

Hopefully they fix all bugs. The Sword of Justice is still bugged :/

Yes, Zeal/Radiance/DH full zerker would have a higher damage output, using traps and the new (hopefully not bugged yet) Sword of Justice with signets.

But for fun (why would we play the game if we cannot get any fun?), I believe the Virtues line would be really interesting because you apply retal on virtues, retal time is increased by 25% and you can renew VoJ with radiance line. With this, you could achieve easier the perma retal and even drop one if not both shouts for something else.

So Virtues line instead of Honor would also give new option to condi removal and an extra stun break with traited virtues. Did you test this?

We’ll get new stat combination with the xpac, I believe its better to wait and see if there is something appropriate.

Also, how Firebrand workout. It might not be viable healing wise, considering the high cooldown on tome of resolve.

They might broke the skill on the last patch (I believe). Before I tested and it was working fine with VoJ. You should post on bug section.

RabbitUp.8294:

InViictuZz.1705:

RabbitUp.8294:

Brutaly.6257:

RabbitUp.8294:

The condition duration of axe is such a joke though, 2s seconds of bleeding on auto, when warrior sword does 8s and has a trait that increases it by 20%.

The difference is that warrior has bleeds as main condi and for FB it is a cover condi. FB does not need more bleeds.

Comparing apples and pears.

It’s not a cover condi, it’s part of its dps. Plus, warrior has plenty of burn with Berzerker.

Guardian, on the other hand had its VoJ cut in half.

what do you mean with VoJ cut in half??? The passive burning from Tome of Justice is 541 for 1 1/2 while voJ does the same dmg but with 4s. Isn´t ToJ better because it provides more dmg in a shorter period of time ??

ToJ: 360,67 dmg per second
VoJ: 135,24 dmg per second

another advantage is that you don´t have as much time to cleanse it.

All burning does the same base dps per stack, you see a bigger number on the tooltip because of traits and condi damage gear.

It’s also not 1.5, it’s 1s, half of what it is now. 1.5 must be the pvp version.

WHAT? And I thougth it could be bad on a 1.5 sec. Then would be no reason to use with Permeating Wrath. 50% nerf is just too much. From what we saw, I don’t believe that Firebrand will be self suficient as condi build without passive VoJ, even more considering the insane cast time on axe #2.

At least, only 2 more days to test it out. Every new thing I dicover I lose interest on Firebrand (And I really like Burning Guard)

They could reduce the cast time a bit because after the cast there is still a time to activation. I don’t believe that ~0.3s of cast would make them OP, considering the after cast time to actually activate.

If those are cone melee, all mantras will be useless. Receive the light is in the game with 600 range and already is bad, imagine 300 range.

These type of supporting skills (on front of you) only has a chance to work if you are behind your allies, why would they release with a melee weapon? And with Firebrand, the Scepter will be the only ranged weapon avaliable (Staff now is basically melee).

I was looking on Mesmer Mantra changes and I prefer that FB received them instead of the FB ones.

Anyways, let’s wait to try it live and see how wonky is.

I only hope that DH don’t become the only viable elite spec.

Did you post on bug section or ingame with /bug?

There will be more visible to Devs.

300 range and only allies in front? The FB mantras will be useless…

What they wanted to make in my opinion is a cond spec with some kind of support, and not a specific support spec.

My only problem with axe is the #2 skill – it has the same cast time as mace #2, which for me is the reason why mace is so weak. In PvP and WvW will be impossible to hit anyone with that skill. In my opinion, they should reduce the cast time of this skill, if it is too strong, then reduce the bleed/cripple time, but it need to be faster.

Anyways, I’ll wait to test it live.

Also, I believe the next spec will be a full support oriented, since we already have a power and a condition oriented ones.

Saiyan.1704:

Wish the cast direction wasn’t limited. I would really like to cast SoJ behind me as I try to kite.

I believe you can. Just need to your target to be selected.

They could increase the duration to 4 seconds, bring back the AoE aegis and make as stun breaker. Increase the cooldown to 8 seconds and reduce the ammo to 2 from 3.

Then might become usable.

I don’t think that is worth. Now the highest DPS is Zeal/Radiance/DH, if you kill any of these lines for Virtues your DPS gonna get cut down significantly.

Also, this will only happen if you can keep killing to refresh, so useless on bosses.

I believe the new Signet trait have more potential to increase damage as group.

Pyriall.1683:

They made them worse. If the idea was to build a burn build around spirit weapons, the previous functionality worked better. GG on making something worse that was already bad.

When they fix all the bugs, the Sword of Justice might become viable on condi builds.

Lets just hope they at least rework the skill. For now the range is just a little more than melee, but does a lot less damage than melee weapons. This doesn’t make any sense to me.

RabbitUp.8294:

Lucentfir.7430:

While this thread is 4 days old, and it’s obvious VoJ didn’t get gutted. This topic came up before when they buffed ‘Virtue of Justice’ and everyone who didn’t read clear enough lost their mind thinking they buffed DH’s Spear of Justice. Remember people Elite Specs have their own version of the profession mechanic skills.

Except that they did buff Spear of Justice. The passive applies 4s of burning, the tooltip is just wrong.

This change is only for sPvP. They changed while ago. I tested to confirm, the 4 seconds is still only on sPvP.

Also, there is another bug with them. They go into cooldown for no reason randomly.

The Shield of the Avenger is just really bad. They should increase the dome duration to 3 or 4 seconds. It also doesn’t have the stun breaker any more.

@edit
It also doesn’t apply aegis anymore.

Ah, thanks. Also, anyone knows the range? It seems very low.

@edit
I just tested and it show the blue line-range. It seems to be 600 radius.

@edit 2
From further testing: It also work with Wrath of Justice trait (Casts Lesser Signet of Wrath) and can stack up with Signet of Wrath (+432 condi damage on group?).

Now, when you activates the signet with Perfect Inscriptions its passives affects allies for 10 seconds. But how much does it increases on allies, say Bane Signet, 180 power or 216 power?

If they didn’t like the old funcionally, then they should have rework this skill. This makes no sense to nerf like this way considering how low the damage is.

As I posted on reddit and saw by other players, the Sword of Justice goes on cooldown by itself randomly when the count are recharging, but does not takes away a count, only blocks from use.

Bash.7291:

Electro.4173:

I’m a bit disappointed that despite hitting 4 times, it only procs one Burn when traited, not sure if that’s intended or bugged. Old SW proc’d burn on every hit.

The trait doesn’t actually work atm, that’s just your own Virtue of justice going off. I posted about it in the bug forum.

I have a problem with Sword of Justice. It seems to go on cooldown for no reason when the count is charging (doesn’t take a count away).

Did someone also notice that?

@edit
This is random.

The Binding Jeopardy trait (Immobilizing or blinding a foe also applies vulnerability to them.) still need a change or rework.

They should increase the damage a little bit of Staff #1 to compensate the nerf.

But overal there was a lot of good changes. Might even open up new builds.