Guild Wars 2

Let’s make a build!

I’m gonna go classic burn guardian with a twist!

Let’s do a shout burn guardian!

I’m going to trait for shouts with a Sage’s amulet. All these shouts at 24 second cooldown, but feel my Wrath is 20 seconds and receive the light is 12 seconds! Each cleanses 3 condis, so I will never have to worry about conditions ever! Maybe even a soldier’s rune for 4 condis AoE! Who needs ele cleanses anyway.

But the burn will be fun! In virtues, I’ll take Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath. My sword auto chain will apply 15 stacks of burning! But wait! My quickness uptime will be massive with honorable staff (no staff required) and traited shouts!

But of course, I’ll take Radiance too! You gotta get that extra burn duration AND damage! But the best part? 1 out of every 3 hits will be affected by blindness! I shine bright like a diamond! Or even the sun!

The alternative for people who don’t need AoE cleanses is meditations! With permanent protection and really low cool down heals from traited meditatons, I’ll never die!

Who needs dragonhunter anyway? I’ll become my own burning dragon! The burndian!

Since HoT’s release, every class has been streamlined to fit the meta, but that’s mainly because in order to even attempt to survive, players have to take very specific traits or set ups. With how strong conditions are right now, and how easy it is to do AoE, you need to take lota of condition cleanses.

All Engineers must take Alchemy if they want to survive. Necros have to go condition damage or hybrid because power necros don’t have cleanses on their weapons. All Mesmers must take cleanse on shatter or else be fodder. Warriors and Revenants can try to just eat the conditions with stances and resistance, but one corruption and it’s over. (Revs survive because of having the Herald heal and passive Dwarf 50% less condition damage. Warriors have Defiance stance heal, but without healing signet, they die instantly.) I could go on.

With these very specific set ups, most classes are stuck with taking the elite specialization plus one defensive trait line. That only leaves one specialization open for variance, and even then, it won’t change that much for the whole atmosphere of spvp.

I’m running one right now with rifle, vipers amulet for kicks, even though merc would be better. It is very susceptible to reflects without Signet of Might (can’t bother running signets when I need the survival with stances and outrage). I run traited mace for shorter cooldowns vs passive endure pain. Vulnerability stacking leads to intense physical and condition damage.

Can’t do kitten to anything with stability spam. I run the taunt for a chance of AoE confusion and possible instant 12 stacks of confusion, but Champion trait wins with the most utility.

Fights against good thieves are fun. Condition necro depends on whether or not they are traited for passive Plague Signet. Otherwise, it’s 50/50.

Shield is usually the best choice because you’d normally already be traited for it. It helps with closing gaps and surviving really powerful bursts and reflects. Tremor can have its moments, but they only matter if you live.

I do not understand the idea behind the change to toughness… You want toughness to be activated for a certain amount of time, and also reducing incoming damage?

Bunkering is definitely possible right now… Most of the metabattle builds use the paladin’s or mercenary’s amulets.

I hope you mean changing just bleed stacks in particular to do more damage. A burn guardian burst does enough damage. Doubling it would be disgusting. I can see a fix to bleeding for PvP, but in PvE, bleeds are in a good spot right now.

The duration of those conditions are brutal. Every class would 100% need to go full condition cleanse to even attempt to survive that (if they don’t already do that already. Engineers and Scrappers MUST go into alchemy to survive as it is).

Necromancers, as strong as they are in the meta right now, are only strong because of their chill damage and durations. They are very vulnerable to crowd control, and adding a cast time to death shroud would just add more to that weakness. There are ways to prevent Necromancers from getting life force, and the easiest way to understand that is to play as one.

The Ranger pet changes I can approve of, since the HoT pets are just that much stronger than the base pets.

Simply adding health to the Warrior would not fix what they need to survive. Warriors lack condition removal and can only get it with cleansing ire, trooper runes, and weapon swapping in the discipline line. That’s why some people have adopted to stances to simply ignore the conditions and kill the other person faster than they kill you.

Mesmers can already be bunker enough. The last PvP season of mesmer bunker is one I do not want to relive.

Overall, a lot of this post is in good faith, but was not executed correctly. Condition ranger and condition elementalist were the first addressed, and both of them are not spectacular at what they do (specifically Elementalist. Condi druid with traps is hell to deal with on a point), and do need reworks, but a lot of the changes are over the top. The changes to conditions would only help the builds that already deal disgusting condition damage (Necromancers and mesmers). Individual tweaking to skills would be a better place to start than rewriting the entire game.

Shiro’s heal skill is six life steals… that can’t be blocked or evaded? I’d argue to just wait it out, but not getting hit by six attacks in twenty five seconds seems really difficult, unless you are a daredevil or a dragonhunter. Even then, twenty five seconds of avoiding attacks while the revenant has Shiro’s chasing ability seems nearly impossible to avoid.

Is poison the only way to reduce the effectiveness of the heal? Are there any other ways to play against it?

EDIT: Does blindness cancel out a heal?

I’ve been watching videos recently (specifically Skullagrim’s recent shield destruction video) and it makes lots of sense for warhammers to utterly destroy shields.

Shouldn’t the most obvious animation with the most power on a Warrior’s hammer be unblockable?

It gIves more strategic use for the skill as opposed to being just part of a stun chain, especially in a time where Warriors simply aren’t relevant.

And honestly, I think it would be kittening sweet to crush a little Chronomancer with a mighty swing.

Thoughts?

Most of the points were already listed. Diamond skin would cleanse all of those conditions. With Wanderer’s amulet, the conditions stick around and do more damage over time, but if they are cleansed, then it technically isn’t more damage.

Having Power gives more versatility. Builds with massive condition removal won’t hard counter you when your direct damage is actually quite decent.

Some builds just don’t benefit from precision at all. You don’t need critical hits to do anything on a Reaper UNLESS you go into the curses line. Then every crit matters (and 13% of precision gets added to condition damage). The Spite trait line has nothing in it that requires a critical hit.

It’s simply based on your build. If you don’t need critical hits, then the mercenary amulet gives you the same toughness as Wanderer’s, same condition damage, 1050 power and some extra vitality too. It simply depends on the build.

Rampagers is Precision main.

If you wanted the most condition damage, Rabid would be the most condition damage. However, if you’re trying to avoid all toughness, then Rampagers would be the easiest choice.

EDIT: Carrion probably the best choice.

Indure.5410:

I think all your points on the Radiant tree are correct and I like the consolidation of Healer’s Retribution and Master Retribution as well as moving Wrath of Justice. But, I still don’t see myself choosing any of the new traits you added even though I do like the ideas behind them. I could see Blinding Blast being okay for power builds depending on the damage of the blast.

I calculated the damage to be half of the Superior Sigil of Fire’s proc but made it have the ability to crit. I can imagine another big blast in WvW could be desired for the big hitters. It’s nothing too original.

The combinations of traits and removing others is basically what’s more important. This line is basically dead with how weak these signets are compared to every other class, and is only taken by burn guardians. I don’t even know if Inner Fire is even good enough as a trait flat out. If those could be tweaked, Anet can put whatever they want as new traits.

The Radiance specialization for Guardians is the backbone for the massive ticks of burning that a condition guardian can dish out. However, that’s the only way this trait line is currently truly effective. Some of the traits within this line are either too weak to ever consider taking or simply do not compete with the other choices. In this post, I will suggest a few tweaks to this specialization that will allow it to flow easier for more build variety while also suggestion new traits that could bring light to new playstyles.

The traits regarding burning in the Radiance line are easy enough to identify and flow with each other. Inner Fire helps proc more crits to activate Radiant Fire, which makes burning that much more accessible with Amplified Wrath.

The next major grandmaster, Perfect Inscriptions, revolves around signets, making their passive effects stronger while also granting light aura, an aura that grants the user retaliation and applies vulnerability to foes. Other parts of this tree work around retaliation, specifically Retribution, a 10% damage increase while the Guardian has the Retaliation boon on them.

This could possibly sync well with signets, but another trait in the same category, Wrath of Justice, fights for a spot. Wrath of Justice would activate the light aura from Perfect Inscriptions, but it becomes a choice of 10% damage vs more retaliation uptime and a possible immobilize. In my opinion, this choice shouldn’t even have to be made. They would synergize more together, not cutting off choices that a Guardian could have.

My solution to this would be merging the Adept Major trait Healer’s Retribution with the Master Major Retribution, then moving Wrath of Justice to the empty Adept Major category. With this set up, a signet Guardian doesn’t have to choose one over the other and instead gets the extra damage boost while getting that combo of Perfect Inscriptions and Wrath of Justice. This leaves an empty slot in the Master Major traits.

The last Grandmaster trait in this line is Radiant Retaliation. This trait conflicts with others on multiple levels. Perfect Inscriptions already works with Retaliation, so it’s a choice once again between more damage vs more retaliation. However, it also combats with Amplified Wrath. Why would you have retaliation scale with condition damage when you can just have your burning, your only damaging condition as a guardian, be more effective? RR is an already weak trait that fights both of the stronger ones in its line. I suggest removing it for something new and more useful.

With an empty Master and an empty Grandmaster major, a new set of traits could be added. To have this work more with the play on Radiance (something bright) and with the critical chance increase that Right-Hand Strength gives, I suggest a focus on blindness and critical hits for two new traits.

New Master Major

-A Light in the Darkness – Gain increased critical hit chance against blinded foes. (10% increased critical hit chance.) Critically hitting a blinded foe applies vulnerability to them. (1 stack for 8 seconds, no ICD)

New Grandmaster Major

-Blinding Blast – Critically hitting a burning foe triggers a blast of light on the foe that deals damage in an area and applies blindness. (Damage: 133 (0.375). Radius: 240. Number of Targets: 5. Blindness: 3 seconds. 10 second ICD.)

In PvE, this blindness combination would really dish out more damage for the smaller enemies around the world, keeping them locked down with the blinds and the added critical hits. This works especially well on enemies with defiance bars, since blindness never actually affects them and isn’t taken off when an attack is made. A very long, if not, permanent increased critical chance on the bigger enemies would bring the Guardian up to par with the other elite specializations when it comes to damage, like in raids.

In PvP, however, blindness doesn’t last long on enemies, so the effects of A Light in the Darkness won’t be too pronounced, but can be timed with various combinations for increased damage spikes. For example, with Wrath of Justice, the blindness would be applied with the immobilize, leading to a bunch of increased critical hit chances to a stuck target’s back. A greatsword’s pull followed by a blinding leap could leave enemies spinning (from Whirling Wrath, of course.)

The blindness from Blinding Blast wouldn’t activate nearly as much as a Thief’s, a Mesmer’s, or a burning Elementalist’s, but it adds to the idea of ‘Radiance’, blinding piercing light, and a more damaging playstyle, like the rest of the specialization.

These two together with the Zeal specialization’s Binding Jeopardy would lead to vulnerability application rivaling a Necromancer’s or Explosives Engineer’s, but would have to push into two offensive specializations, rewarding more risky playstyles.

With this post, I hope to bring more light to the situation behind the organization of the Radiance core specialization. With these suggestions, I hope to bring a brighter future to the older specializations that might not see as much love as the elite specializations.

Note that all puns were deliberate.

TL;DR

- Move Wrath of Justice from Major Master to Major Adept.

- Consolidate the Major Adept Healer’s Retribution into the Major Master Retribution.

- Remove Radiant Retaliation.

- Add new traits in the empty slots.

Suggested traits

Major Master

- A Light in the Darkness – Increased critical chance to blinded foes. Critical hits on blinded foes apply vulnerability.

Major Grandmaster

- Blinding Blast – Critically hitting a burning foe triggers a blast of light on the foe that deals damage and applies blindness in an area.

Tim.6450:

Boon corruptions When stab is corrupted it is not turned into fear.

I can add to this.

When Stability gets turned into Fear, it appears as “Immune”. It appears as though the Fear appears before the Stability is corrupted, which negates each other out as opposed to entirely ripping them.

In the attached screenshot, I have included myself casting “Corrupt Boon” on a friend who had 1 stack of Stability and 5 stacks of Might. The Might was corrupted into Weakness, as usual, but a big fat “Immune” appears when Stability should turn into Fear.

Perfectblue’s solution worked for me.

Honestly, if we were going to have Confusion on a Necromancer, they shouldn’t have Burning too. That is when I would allow it. It does make sense that Necromancers “confuse the oppenent”, but that is what Fear is for. Make Dhuumfire a Grandmaster Curse trait and put “Fear applies 3 stacks of confusion” with a x second cooldown. This is only a suggestion, but Necromancers already have a ridiculous amount of unique conditions to throw out there easy enough.

It makes sense to state that the bleeds are very long duration. 12 seconds on an auto attack is very long, but the sword main hand alone doesn’t do much else. There is Flurry, but Savage Leap is a cripple and Final Thrust is pure power. There needs to be something strong there to make opponents think “I should get away from this Warrior.” I would argue a shorter duration would make the weapon simply not strong enough .

Yamsandjams.3267:

Compare this to the engineer’s explosive shot, which only has a 2 second bleed, which is only applied to enemies that are directly hit and not in the AoE. Even though the engineer has a ranged attack, they would need to hit 4 times to inflict the same amount of bleeding the warrior does in one attack.

Your point is totally valid, but I think it lies more toward that skill requiring a buff. However, that pistol can also apply blindness, confusion and poison. The sword can only apply bleeds and cripples.

Tim.6450:

I can question that since people are complaining of scepter autoattack and that’s only half the bleed.

The issue with that auto attack is that it ends with poison, which is a new damaging condition into the mix at range. The chance on crit for bleeds is also higher (50%) and it can be paired with Dhuumfire for 3 damaging conditions on just auto attacks. Thank goodness that nerf is inbound.

I would agree with less bleed stacks on Pin Down, but it gets rid of some of the need to dodge that attack, especially with this unknown animation inbound. I really like

4. change deep cuts to +50% bleeding duration while wielding a sword. It’s very similar to 2 but it includes precise strikes but also sigil of earth.

Can they do that?

In order for this trait to be assessed as OP, we should be reminded what its intentional effect was at release, since it has not been changed since. At launch, the Warrior could only bleed from swords (main hand and offhand), rifle auto attack, and crits from the trait “Precise Strikes”. Let’s take a look:

Sword 1 Chain: One 8 second bleed, followed by another 8 second bleed on the second attack. The third attack now does cripple, but used to do a nice chunk of power damage. With “Deep Cuts”, this attack now applies one 12 second bleed per swing. It makes a normally weightless auto attack become a threat, since the Warrior has to be at close range to apply it.

Sword 4: Impale used to be 4 stacks of 12 second bleeds being applied over time (source). Increasing that to 18 seconds would make one individual bleed a problem, since the rest would be cleared. (Note: This does not bleed anymore and instead applies 2 stacks of 12 second Torment and 3 more 12 second stacks over time.)

Sword 5: Riposte is also 4 stacks for 12 seconds, but instant. Upping it to 18 makes it lethal, but getting hit by Riposte should be punished, since it requires a close range block to deliver the bleeds.

Sword F1: Flurry is 8 stacks of bleeds lasting 2 seconds long. This attack is the strongest argument to why “Deep Cuts” is a 50% duration increase. Deep Cuts ups this to 3 seconds, resulting in a full tick of damage added on. Any less and the extra bleed duration would be for show.

Rifle 1: One bleed for 6 seconds, upped to 9 with “Deep Cuts”. Because everyone uses the Rifle for condi builds. Bleeds here are more for cover up on the cripples and vulnerability the Rifle provides.

Precise Strikes adds a 3 second bleed on a 33% chance on crit. This one is strange, since it adds 1 1/2 seconds to bleeding, making it 4 1/2 seconds, wasting a half a second. This could flow more.

Deep Cuts, with these examples, show that it rewarded players in melee range with a sword with, preferably, high crit chance. High risk, high reward.

Now, however, is different. Impale now does Torment, so no more bleeds there. But, Pin Down on the Longbow is a different story. It used to be just an immobilize. Let’s take a look at it now.

Longbow 5: Pin Down applies immobilize and 6 stacks of 12 second bleeds. Upped to 18 seconds with Deep Cuts. At range. Ouch.

Now we can see why condition Warriors suddenly became popular. Adding an animation and a longer cast time with this skill is a great way to go, since it is an obvious big hitter, but 18+ seconds of 6 stacks of bleeding with one push of a button is ridiculous to read, and most of us can see the effects, especially since it comes with immobilize and is easily followed up by a blind and possibly burning too! The Longbow was meant to cover up the bleeds but instead adds more stacks of bleeding faster than two swords, all while being at long range.

TL:DR; Deep Cuts was meant for the sword bleeds. The buff to Pin Down could have been too much.

Proposed changes:
1. Decrease the bleed duration on “Pin Down”.

With the new animation being added to “Pin Down”, another nerf may not be needed. However, getting blindsided by one “Pin Down” is still enough alone to kill someone, since other conditions will be applied with it.

2. New “Deep Cuts”: Bleeds applied from swords last 50% longer.
Possibly Increase “Precise Strikes” duration from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
Possibly New “Impale” adds one stack of bleeding for 12 seconds on impact and 4 stacks of 12 second Torment over time.

This more drastic change would keep “Deep Cuts” where it should be, with swords. This could make “Precise Strikes” less useful, so a tiny buff could be implemented. The new “Impale” I added is just a slight damage nerf (Or buff with “Deep Cuts”?) is to keep the sword bleeds more obvious for this trait.

Silhouette.5631:

Oh look a person who didnt read my entire post. God i love you people. Reduced boon time. God forbid you kite for two seconds for those 10 stacks of shielding to drop, bam problem solved

Also which is more likely, a party of 5 guardians, or a part including two warriors that are going to try and evicerate and kill shot you at the same time. Yeaaaah one of those is already happening as we speak

Having Aegis stack would get rid of any need to dodge anything. If a big attack is coming, everyone smashes Aegis and rides out the entire attack without any dodges or need to react. Unless you plan on making the duration one second long, it will promote passive play. I don’t even wanna imagine a PU mesmer who RNG’s Aegis in a row.

Silhouette.5631:

Like regular attacks? like stacking fury and might? It would be fine if it was just yourself, but 5 ppl? all of which arent always even in your party. explain to me how u keep track of those boons. No its not spam, its recognizing that you or your teammates are about to get hit, and popping a shield. if some1 else pops one to. woopty do, why would they be punished for using it at the same time as you, instead of it apply to the next attack thats GOING to happen. most attacks take half a second. should we really have to slipping in boons for 5 different people in that ammount of time? Attackers dont get punished for attacking at the same time, they dont ahve to wait in line, they get to lay into you simultaniously, why shouldnt shields work the same?Right now its only a boon in name only. Its duration stacking is pointless. its more like a special effect. all im asking is it be treated like every other boon that can be stacked LIKE CRAZY (ive gotten up to two mintues of fury before). you think those should be capped to? What about protection? Cap?. Having a 20 second aegis, getting stacked upon by other 20 seconds, THATS passive.

Sorry to say, dude, but Aegis stacking would promote passive play. Imagine 5 berserker guardians all running “Retreat!”. They could pop their shouts and their Virtues of Courage and have 10 blocks on them for the next 20 seconds. A warrior has Shield stance, which is3 seconds of blocking attacks, but being unable to attack back. The same guardians can also blind you for more failed attacks and faceroll you to death.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Harbinger.8637:

Necro can already trait for AoE fear when downed.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fear_of_Death

Who would ever use that? besides on failhammer.
If i look at other prof’s it’s all traits that go +25% dmg + 25% healing on downed etc..
necro traits: siphon 50% more hp on a single target skill interrupted and put on cd when the wind blows and the fear AoE proc on downed not preventing anything since you can’t cast or time it.l

That trait is currently slightly broken. Not only do you fear on down, but you fear on death. It’s a nice parting gift as well as alerting my allies that I am downed and giving me more time to survive. I usually run another trait, though.

The siphon 50% more health is literally do 50% more damage and heal 50% more. I used it on my old dhummfire build, even when not specced into damage, and I could see the effects immediately.

To the OP, the 2 skill should remain single target, but not remain as boringly obvious as itis. It is the easiest downed CC skill to dodge.

Why not just make banners do damage on summon anyway? The cooldown and animation is long enough to reward you with SOME damage. New trait can go here instead.

Berserker’s Might is weak and would synergize with Berserker’s Power… If they both weren’t grandmaster traits. Could be brought down a tier.

I’m not sure what to think of when Cull The Weak comes to mind. The only three weakness applications Warriors get are Mace autoattack, Hammer 2 and Warhorn 5. The mace autoattack will only hit something if they are stunned for the full 3 seconds (which could be better used doing something else instead of that long chain) and the Hammer 2 is single target cleave. The Warhorn is an AOE weakness which lasts a while and, when traited, has a relatively short cooldown. This would be a nice trait to have for a support stun build… Except it is only a 5% increase of damage when the condition can easily be cleansed (and it will be the only condition you apply, minus crippled.) Definitely needs to be 10% at least. I guess it synergizes with Sundering Mace, but all of that speccing into the mace for a 15% damage increase on something that is difficult to apply.

Vigorous Return should just be mashed in with Sweet Revenge. If you’re gonna consider speccing for being downed, you might as well get a better chance of surviving.

Fast Healer is definitely powerful when mixed with Mercy runes. 800+ toughness, 20% increases revive speed, and more health when revived. It is insanely wonderful, but you need to have the runes for the full effect. Most of the traits in this tree are for support warriors anyway, so who else would revive you than him? Also, wasn’t Reviver’s Might buffed to 3 stacks? When used with OP rez banner, you can give you and everyone you rezzed 15 stacks of might, not including the might stacks they make on their own… Certainly game changing.

The longbow traits are in a strange area. The Longbow might have been more of a support weapon when first added (fire field + blast finisher) but when it was given 6 stacks of bleeds on pin down… Might belong better in the Discipline or Arms trait line or change the weapon back to being more supporty.

Other than that, the traits for Warrior work really well. Almost too well. Other classes don’t compare, which is where “OP warrior” came from.

As stated before, the Healing Signet flows very well with a lot of the Warrior’s most powerful mechanics at this time (blocks, stances that improve defense, other forms of regeneration), but this is all done without any hint of speccing into healing power. The only healing power any warrior would ever run is in the bonus stats in the Defense trait line (which only gives 10-15 more HP per second). If someone was going to get a passive regeneration of 600+ HP per second, they should at least be specced into healing power.

Granted, the only warriors who would ever expect to debate on speccing into healing power are in the Tactics tree (Shouts heal or Inspiring Battle Standard). If a warrior wanted max healing potential, they would have to choose x/x/20+/30/x, making them a bunker.

Making the passive base lower and making it scale higher with healing power is a start, but it would turn off the signet to other builds and possibly putting the warrior into a bad place again except being a pure bunker or using another heal skill. Making a heal skill only work for a certain specc limits builds, so one change isn’t enough. Once again stating something everyone knows, the active needs to be changed.

The active as it is now is simply “Heal yourself.” No gimmicks, like ‘cure three conditions’ (Mending) or recharging all of your Phantasms (Signet of the Ether), just “Heal yourself.” That’s… Lame. It’s not even a worthwhile heal. Increasing the base heal of Healing Signet would be a decent addition with a change to the passive, but it’s still really boring.

Healing signet has a 20 second (or 16 second) cooldown. The active can’t be anything game changing. The Signet of Renewal is only “Heal yourself” as well, but it has a MASSIVE heal spike BUT has a very long cooldown, even when traited.

My idea is to make the Healing Signet do something more. Even if it is a little change. Just something more. Even if it says “Heal yourself. Deal a small amount of damage to 5 enemies,” would be something. That would give the runes that grant some extra effect on heal skill use some actual love on Warriors (at least, give people some ideas that those runes exist for low cooldown heals.)

TL;DR: Make passive base lower while scaling better with healing power, but make the active heal more and/or have a bonus to it.