Guild Wars 2

Improved Guild Buffs

Proposal Overview
Currently maintaining the various guild buffs is rather tedious and limiting would like to see some QOL changes. With how q’ing buffs works, you need to wait quite a long while for certain buffs to be researched, for example if we take the wvw buffs, the +5 supply takes 16 hours for 200 influence and the buff maintains 12 hours. Too add to that, there are many other keep related buffs that one would want to have, and there is a max 3 items queuing at a time. In practice what this makes is that we either have enough influence to speed up research or we don’t, and maintaining a constant buff during the whole day is quite annoying and not fluent. this is especially relevant for wvw since the pve buffs are mostly 24 hour format, but the q’ing remains a problem for guilds that want to have many ongoing buffs for more then 1 aspect of game. This issue relates only to buffs, all the +5% experiences and vitality and crafting success, not to general research progress and special guild events.

Goal of Proposal
Make being in a guild more rewarding, and for guilds to have more of a presence via their buff, by making all guild buffs in a 24-h format and instantly bought under a new price instead of researched via a queue.

Proposal Functionality
I would like to see buffs changed to instant buy format over research time gated, and have:
– A 24 h format (no more 12 hour buffs), and adjust influence pricing accordingly.
- Can be overwritten, so if on sunday i activated a 24h experience buff at 9 am, i can at 8 am monday reactivate it for 24 hours and not have to wait for buff to finish, makes managing easier.
This will allow for example guilds that maintain buffs on claimed keeps to maintain a proper 24 hour buff and not have what happens mostly, that midday buffs are gone and we need to ask who claimed keep and to declaim and for another to claim, its just cumbersome.
Additionally it allows guilds to have buffs even when they are q’ing week long stuff .

Associated Risks
if buffs would be purchased instead of time gated researched the expected increase in price would probably be harder for smaller guilds that don’t generate as much influence.

Thanks for taking notice.

Guardian needs buffs to swiftness uptime, and condition cleansing to make dps builds viable. i dont see how a class with low mobility, low HP and low options for cleansing outside of shouts can have build diversity.

Also, shield and torch need to be tuned heavily.

Guardian needs better ways to hold swiftness outside of staff and shouts, it has nothing to do with getting out of combat, getting out of combat is via skills such as leaps, rushes and invisibility with swiftness. What they did is make guardian clunky (slow) and nonviable as a dps dealer for many situations.

During season 1, every 2 weeks we got new content, sometimes related to S1 story, sometimes not (super adventure box, bosses). AND also, we got fixes and additions.

Now everything is milked out and seems to be saved, to be called “features” tied into packs. I read the feature pack notes, and i understand that instead of the Chinese catching up to us old players, its us catching up to stuff they got at launch. Why do we need features to be packed? why cant they be released when they are ready?
The thing that sucked about season 1 is that we were given endgame content and then it was taken away, now we get permanent content, but feels so limited compared to last season, like you arenanet are managing me as a player, feeding slowly to keep me playing but as minimally as possible bit by bit.

Please:
- Continue reworking world bosses to become raids like teq and wurm,
- Balancing pvp is one thing, but many skills are just not up to par yet, saying you want metas to settle is not a good enough reason to keep bad (completely unused) skills and traits unchanged.
- Make Super adventure box episodes 1 and 2 permanent content, that portal is just sitting there closed, why? i was sure after saying season 2 is about making content permanent SAB would be opened the next week.
- WvW seasons should be much more frequent, 6 seasons per year, not 4, the new wvw system you presented for this season should be every other month AS A FEATURE, not saying a fall season is a feature.

Please, stop limiting.

I want for guardian a finisher that the whole maps explodes and is not accessible until the next living story update.

I think one of the biggest things that makes a good spvp team good, is rotations, as in the movement of certain classes from point to point. Would be nice if Helselth gave some examples of some general rotations and how they help push you ahead of your enemy/help you catch up to a winning enemy.

I am surprised to not have seen any real mention of this, as it seems to me like a very prominent problem right now. I Would say 1 out of every 6 games 1 team or the other has 1 player less. I am not talking about someone who is just afk at spawn, but an empty spot that is at no point filled or abandoned as far as we can see from within the instance (and players get pushed into game as it starts, so its not an afk problem), suggesting it’s a technical problem, or some sort of exploit by other players.

Weird request, 1 kit is already equal to a weapon swap, and you don’t have because of this lack of utility spells since as you know, got that utility belt.
I see engineering using bomb, grenades elixir gun and toolkit very viably so that puts you in a much better position then other professions when it comes to viable skills.

We play on a daily basis around 8pm GMT, looking for a condition player to complement our power based builds. We would like players with a strong track record in spvp, able to use team speak and good attitude.
Find me in game, well try people out for some games too see how things fit.

Looking to join a group. My experience is as support guardian mostly, formerly reached the top 100 region of team q in the [BrB] group. Spend my time in gw2 between roaming wvw and spvp.

Would be interested to try out, proficient guardian.

I can no longer retrieve runes from unsalvagable armor now that transmutation stones are gone. Got wvw gear that i cannot salvage and cannot get my expensive runes from.

Hi,
Great changes to how things work in new patch.
But 1 thing that might have been overlooked, transmutation stones were functional for moving runes from 1 armor to another, especially if its armor bought in wvw that CANNOT be salvaged. Now that transmutation stones are gone, my old armor sets from wvw are locked and i cannot retrieve my runes, got my precious melandru and traveler sets stuck in them and the only feasible way i can get them now is to buy upgrade extractors, which is out of question.
Arenanet is there anything that can be done?

Will we be able to save profiles/builds via the new trait system and be able to load them up quickly.

would be a huge quality of life feature for people that use various trait builds for example, when in wvw vs when doing dungeons, or two different pvp builds
if not present are there thoughts on adding this in later on?

After reading about the new trait system, it begs to ask, will we be able to have trait profiles we can save? now that we can change traits on the go like in spvp, would be nice if we could have saved profiles for those of us who know what trait combination we want for different situation, for example wvw vs pve.

Don’t know if this post will stay for long (probably deleted) but wow, these notes are HUGE deal.
Cleansing flame – torch 5, clearing 5 condi from guardian if uninterrupted is a game-changer for any DPS guard in spvp, and roaming guardian in wvw.
New GM zeal cripple on symbols is a great new option, same of focus mastery and in general zeal looks very appealing now.
Glacial heart is now definitely interesting, especially with upcoming dual sigil on 2 handed weapons.
Empowering might CD reduction seems like abit of a overbuff, will make some spammable AH builds, but because at least requires you to HIT someone AND crit, i guess not worse.

Selfless daring buff in spvp is nice, will give bunker guards abit more relevance vs other classes that seemed to be able to tank at same efficiency while having other superior advantages.

I am excited, 30 zeal, maces and torches are gonna see some play.

the +/- condi duration foods need to be toned down, the % does not match relatively well to any other scale in the game i.e

• other foods that give 15% to ONE condition.
• a TRAIT line – this 1 food is somewhat closely equal 30 trait points of stats.
• Any countermeasure via armor – melandru gives -25% condi duration, hoelbrak gives -20%, only real negation is the lemongrass food turning this into a silly cold war.
• Boon duration food in comparison is +20% and gives magic find bonus, not a combat stat like the pizza gets with condition damage.

This food is enabling the condi-tank warrior engineer and necro too much damage, the prominence of this food use is proof alone.

So what is the chance scarlet attacks the SAB as the third update, me and my friend are in dire need for some jumping.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uoXc49pwmI

citizankane.5723:

Oren.1736:

Condi is supposed to be supplemented damage, not the one and only way to damage in itself, you guys gotta stop trying to bring your epicness in pve to pvp.
This is not to say condi does not have its problems in pve, but people cannot expect to specc full condi and think just because its brokenly unbalanced to viability in pvp its good for pve.

That don’t even make sense

Yes i got mixed up in first sentence. Point being, condi is tied into “power builds” as OP claimes because condi as i understand it is supposed to be to a large extent supplementary damage. It would make no sense if 1 stat – condi damage, was all you ever needed to execute damage in the game, therefore precision is a gating, and the procs are tied to other lines. It’s also the reason dhummfire is getting changed.
The only real problem is that condi stacks are limited in so many ways making them not good for pve. PVP determines this stufff, but hopefully they will find a way to fix condi stacking.

frans.8092:

Oren.1736:

Condi is supposed to be supplemented damage,

Really? Then why does it have a stat on gear?

The question is why does it have OTHER stats on gear, and there is only 1 stat related to condi damage, well not much of a question, more of an answer to you.

Condi is supposed to be supplemented damage, not the one and only way to damage in itself, you guys gotta stop trying to bring your epicness in pve to pvp.
This is not to say condi does not have its problems in pve, but people cannot expect to specc full condi and think just because its brokenly unbalanced to viability in pvp its good for pve.

Big thumbs up on this boss fight, is very fun, varied and rewarding. Please arenanet, figure out a way to leave it permanently. don’t let marionette be the queens gauntlet #2, quality events above the rest that leave us too soon.

Troll Unguent is stupid, fighting that build makes you want to rip your head off. In spvp i did full zerk guardian hammer GS, i could not dps it enough while it only STANDS and activates heals (no evading).
But almost all classes have really silly solo builds, nothing new about that.
Sticking to party pvp gw2, things much better in that.

ele has great mobility, its just that most players are stuck playing ele as if it was the old DD who could both rush in and rush out. Gotta pick which of the two works better for you now. I don’t see why you would have to ‘outrun’ someone, and ele can run away from anyone but thief, got swiftness, got teleport, got invulnerability.

Name.9625:

I give you a 7/10 I love the brawler aspect of it, but i don´t think your gauntlets are matching the rest of your armor.

Mine is a mix of Temple armor, Vigil armor and t1 cultural. I dyed it with Winter ice and Blue Ice.

I rate 8/10, has a simple but cool look, gives an ice cold assassin vibe. Spike shoulders like every charr with heavy armor SHOULD have.

And now, BEHOLD ME
Sporting the perfect blend of T1,2 and T3 Charrmor.

May other holidays and events allow us to treat our enemies in such fahsion
AMEN

Guardian seems to have many retaliation giving sources, while suffering from few problems:
1) Guardian is mostly proficient at avoiding damage intake, not taking it head on
2) The best way to enjoy retaliation is to have it together with protection, but we do not have that much protection uptime.
3) low HP pool
4) retaliation damage has been lowered significantly to ~230 damage per hit (depeding on power) because of its potency in group fights, making it very bad for the guardian alone.

despite these problems, we have some sources that seem to treat retaliation as if it is the mother of all punishments, giving only us retaliation for a very short duration, making those traits and skills under-powered.

Examples:

• Retaliatory Subconscious – 3.75 sec of retal when we get CC’d on a 30 seconds cooldown -> its not like after we get CC’d someone would think twice to hit us because of retaliation we gained, duration is short, cooldown is long, no reason what so ever to take this trait, at all.

• Wrathful Spirit – gain 3s retaliation on aegis removal
  OR
• Healer’s Retribution – gain 3s retaliation when using a healing skill
  -> in BOTH cases gaining 3 seconds of retaliation after effects that are every 30 sec is uninteresting.

• Signet of judgment – gives 3 seconds of retaliation and 5 seconds of weakness on use, actually very nice combo, but would be nice to have more retaliation duration, 3 is just very low, 10 seconds would be more suitable.

Good example of retaliation use:
Virtue of Retribution- Gain retaliation when you activate a virtue -> attaches to 3 skills, applies to whole group, making itself a battle mechanic that rewards its use and gives presence to the guardian.

Conclusion – traits that give retaliation to the guardian alone, are not rewarding enough when applies only to the guardian, furthermore they are for too short of a duration for the low damage they apply.
For the traits : Retaliatory Subconscious, Wrathful Spirit Healer’s Retribution it would be nice to either have times extended by ALOT, at least 10 seconds. Or i suggest even better to replace them with 5 seconds of the protection boon for the guardian alone.

KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOMS

Quackers, if you don’t omega rush EB this week, i call for you tanking in GH!
DO IT
<3 crazy quackers

Tested it myself, a single extractor removes all possible upgrades on an item.

OP great thread, most changes suggested are not too greedy to ask for at all in my opinion. and would properly open up builds for guardian.
The amount of utterly useless traits we have says much about how little anet work on this class. We have so many traits that give us retaliation, while its been nerfed so badly to low retal damage, it really has only application when applied to a group, not only on guardian. This is strengthened by the fact that we don’t have that much protection up-time, low HP, and our main way to live is by avoiding taking hits.
traits that give bad retal:
- Retaliatory Subconscious
- Wrathful Spirit
- Healers Retribution
- (Signet of Judgment)
Not only do these give unneeded retal, it’s only 3-5 second.. seriously, not much more to add to that. should ALL be replaced with the protection boon, protection l should be at least 25% uptime for any guardian build by default , we have so many light field its easy to blast retal all day with guardian alone or with group.
Sadly this thread is one among many of thread on guardian subforums that so far have not shown to be noticed by arenanet.

Does the upgrade extractor strip all upgrades off an item, or only 1?
For example, i have an ascended staff with 2 wvw +5 infusions in it, i would maybe consider using the extractor if i get both per 1 use.
Would appreciate if someone could test and see, or has past experience.

I think the only real solution at this point, if you think the guardian class is flawed and not tended properly, is to stop playing it. Arenanet have decided they do not want to seriously openly collaborate with the community on the class like they did with others. The community has said all there is to be said suggetionwise, and unlike other classes where people voiced against decisions and arenanet at very least replied " we think this works fine", we are left with nothing. This is common courtesy for the effort they asked us to bring to the CDI.
I am leaving behind a fully stacked guardian that was my main and only use for the last year. And lets see how things go from here.

I don’t think technically you can even have skill 5 work on move, it would then need to be instantaneous. I think the way it is now is fine, hard to execute but in a proper group fight getting stuck in that is high chance of death.
The only thing that needs fixing is how easy it is for some classes to cheese their way out with weird evade dodges they learned to do.

Brutaly.6257:

The only time this is a nerf is if you solo and have no second source of swiftness. That is what i know from playing wvw yesterday for 6 hours with the new staff.

If people say this is a straight nerf they are talking about nerfing the way they play it and not that the weapon it self is nerfed. Its a matter of people being really bad att adapting.

You are almost getting it, but then you keep getting hung up on the word nerf. A change is a change, calling something a nerf is always overlooking the big picture, which is balance. The staff change is great, BUT when accompanied with a proper alternative mechanic for movement with guardian that does not tie us to determinable builds. What are the alternatives? 2 60 sec cooldown shouts, teleports that only work vs enemies and rune of speed/traveler. Using non soldier runes is already hard because soft cc completely wrecks the option of dealing direct damage with guardian outside of meditations.
It is simply a poor choice to shackle a support class to be so reliant on other classes.
Our freedom to play has become so low with heavy condition meta, and this is another bite to more midrange builds. We are expected to support but the cost is too high.
If retreat was given a lower cooldown to 45 – 50 (untraited) seconds it would show they understand the change they made, for burst group speed via shout vs stacking speed with staff. because then retreat gains its utility for condi removal with a decent cooldown, and rewards boon duration stacking, If you go a far way to gain 50% boon (30 virtues +food) duration to do so.

Sadly it seems that instead of looking at the big picture, and voicing a problem, people rather find workarounds, pay loads of money for – condition damage, and limit their utility with guardian to be able to carry it around.

Guardian does not need better team tools, we are great as it is in a team.
We need the comfort other classes have with being on our own from time to time, without having to do workarounds. This is a complete revamp of a skill majority of guardians rely on for many builds and situations, and it is now restrictive.
guardian is so hungry for a weapon based mobility people use staff mainly and just for the symbol for the quick move., and learn to do best with rest of skills.
I dont want to switch utilities to run around lions arch, or stand still in a symbol every 8 seconds, its not fun, just want to run with swiftness.

Brutaly.6257:

Was the change to Sos a nerf, no it wasnt. In most scenarios its a buff and in some a huge buff. The fact is its only in one scenario its a nerf when you have no other mean of swiftness, you havent traited larger symbols and dont have time to stand still in the symbol for approx 0,2 seconds.

It is a huge nerf for the most simple case, burst swiftness in wvw. And it is clear this change was made to accompany group swiftness stacking via colabration, or for plain zerging. Playing around with traits in honor to get a bigger symbol already hurts a line that is already quite restrict in options. Fact is it was great to have that 1 proper mobility on a weapon, and not have to allocate traits and utility skills for it. And that was not even enough to get perma swiftness, you needed 30 in virtues and either runes or boon duration food to get there.
The second you start playing with utility skills and traits, guardian condi removal and sustain healing start going all wrong.
The few of us who are actually relying on staff for ourselves are stuck altering our movement to gain what we had before and for what?
Test your swiftness in a fight, suddenly that extra pulse starts getting much harder to obtain, and missing it will prob cost you the kill or your life.
Worst thing is we got no alternative to this change, retreat still on a way to high cooldown, but there will always be the guys promoting teleporting to bunnies for movement.
Fact is guardian has become a crippled class that is only relevant as support and with support.

It feels awful to have to stand and charge up my swiftness while my friends can zip along the map with their streamlined mechanics.
Not only that, the boon duration is so low, that increase % of boon duration on it is undrewhelming unless you go 100%
Arenanet, you turned a slow class into a frustratingly slow class, i feel like i am waiting for a bus in this symbol. Decided to retire my guardian due to lack of proper movement options compared to other classes. I cannot support things i cannot catch up with.

Arenanaet, please implement the season matchup system even now the season is over. Use the data you got now to re-balance servers into tiers. I can testify for silver league in EU was a blast, lots of guilds transferred to silver league because of how fun match-ups were.
Would appreciate other supportive or counter arguments from others on this.

Was not a disappointment.
Just for the better match-ups with more like mided server (silver league EU ftw) it was worth it, wvw was much more fun.
Also, after the achievement rush ended, more wvw players stayed, bringing more action.
We all know there is much more room to improve with wvw, but overall season 1 was improvement to state of wvw before.

Missed my guild GM’s, but need the merits, anyone willing to take in lil ol’ me? Any EU guild for this today friday and sat.
Thanks

I think in the end of the day the “season” worked in favor of wvw. Yes, at start wvw was unplayable, mad queues, basically turned into pve. But after a while here in silver league we just got allot of very nice guilds and their players move down from the queues of gold for high guild fight density.
Also, at lest here on AG, just more stuff going on in wvw to join on, or play along with.
For me the crowd favorite of this season goes to gandara, just very nicely organised wvw going on there for guild fights, commander zergs, and roaming.
Surprise of the season is millers, basically a whole new server compared to what it used to be, primetime is now mostly guilds, not huge zergs, so expecting matches against you guys from now on.

Elusive.9481:

I propose that towers specificly award no points for ownership until a new, gold-free, but supply-required upgrade is completed.

Very good suggestion, this would stop the karma train scene, award players for defending and upgrading on the large scale, and help spread players out of zergs.

Lets hope that once season ends, guilds in gold league start moving down to silver league. Anyhow, the placement this season of servers into leagues was with hiccups, due to the faulty ranking system. Next season Swap Kodash and Desolation, UW and Drakkar. and things will be as optimal as they could get.

Amins, your buildcrafting ability is admirable, and more importantly, you understand well that guardian is not supposed to be played alone. Got some fresh ideas from you, thanks.

I beeeeeeg of you, this staff ENTRAPMENT has gone too far, almost all other classes have few reliable options for swiftness and more then 1 leap, so giving us just swiftness is not making us even close to having compared mobility.
Please, take Torch #5, change it instead of damage to make a fire field and also grant ONLY the guardian swiftness.
This would open up so many builds for guardian in wvw and casual pve it would be ridicules.

COF p1 and p2 lf2m, ZERK GEAR ONLY!!!!

1st (Deso) and 2nd (gandara) are set for silver, will be no surprises, 3rd spot really depends mostly on how much we – AG care to get there, if we do we will, if we don’t it will be AM, who comes in 2nd this week will determine mostly. This is because we have 2 coming weeks that we can finish 1st place without having to beat the odds (millers GH UW and ranik). MS on the other hand on last week fight gandara and deso.. good luck with that.

There is always some EB dude that crys “alliance”, when it’s as simple as 2 servers fighting while the third on its own chose who they prefer to pillage, its almost always the attacked, not attacking server.
To the guy form gandara this time crying double team, from EB of course. Earlier that day we (AG) attacked you guys, and AM fastcapped one of our t3 tower (double team anyone!?!?!), which-after our commander decided he has to spend 20g on omega golems and get AM keep. We go AM keep, reach inner, and end up fighting there for an hour, while guess who? Gandara downgraded all but 1 T3 tower owned by AM (DOUBLE TEAM OMG).

conclusions – EB people usually don’t know right to left, not only is EB a silly brawlfest, it also has NOTHING to do with PPT, It’s so easy to recap your area, and holding SM is only 25 points. So if anyone is even thinks of contemplating EB as a grand example of two servers trying to lower 1’s PPT, think again, preferably while moving to an enemy borderland, and for god’s sake, bring superior siege with you.

Really fun night on AG bl, for the most part alot of spread out 20-30 man groups making tons of nice fights all around.