Guild Wars 2

Everything I have said, or could say on this subject has been echoed repeatedly over the last month on several merged threads. I accept that either A. ANET get’s it and just doesn’t care, or B. They simply don’t get it, and need it explained to them like a 2 year old. Either way I am taking a break from fighting the “good fight” Instead I am going to focus on what has been working for me in game. Fractals runs have been somewhat of a positive for me as of late. I don’t get great drops every run, but every once in awhile I will have a run that nets me 4-5g in sellable mats, globs, and cores/lodestones. This by no means is going to make me rich playing the game, but it does a good job of keeping me afloat. I know a lot of people spend their time flipping the TP for profit, but I signed up to play GW2, not Market simulator 2012. I have dabbled in flipping the TP and I have determined that I do not have the time, nor patience to spend all day on that task. I have spent a considerable amount of time running popular farming spots for T5-T6 mats, but the holiday events have made this less of an option as I just get ugly sweaters now instead of mats. (On a personal note 1 week is long enough to run an event ANET. After that it just gets obnoxious.) Before the event I was getting about 4-5 T-6 mats and 10-20 T-5 mats a day farming these spots. Best case scenario if I’m looking at getting a 250 stack of a T-6 mat strictly through farming I can expect it to take a little over a month and a half. That is if I am farming for a minimum of 3-4 hours a day every day during that time. Now taking into consideration random Fractal run drops, and the random loot bag T-6 mat you could shave that down to about 35-40 days of nonstop farming 3 to 4 hours a day. Still not great numbers. Bare in mind this is for just one stack. Any meaningful recipe in the game is going to take much, much more than that. Then factoring in things that don’t come as easily (Mystic coins, skill points) and you have a lot more work ahead of you. Some people feel that the work pays off. I have a harder time justifying it. GW2 feels more like a hamster treadmill with a shiny object dangled in front of it. We just keep running endlessly trying to get an object that will always be just out of reach. Then, if we are so lucky as to break the cycle and get the item they just introduce some new shiny thing that’s a bit better than the first one starting that cycle all over again. Yet, we sign up for this, and commit ourselves to it, because it’s addicting, and we tell ourselves its fun. I guess the bottom line is we pick and choose our battles. We choose to play GW2 instead of another MMO. If we don’t like the way it’s set up we can play other games. I guess some of us stick it out, because we have foolish hope that it will get better. Maybe it will. In the meantime I guess I will just keep farming for ugly sweaters.

Why did we need another thread on the exact same subject with the exact same data as the previous thread that was 26 pages of hard data? Also, I thought I was playing an MMO. Not a RnG data simulator. Since when does a company demand hard data from it’s fan base? Isn’t someone in the company getting paid to do that? I don’t spend all of my time farming mats when I play, but to the untrained eye it would certainly seem that way. Prior to hitting 80 I had plenty to keep me busy, but I have been 80 for quite some time now. Whether its farming for mats in Orr, or rerunning the same dungeon every day for more tokens everything I do in the game anymore feels a bit like a grind. I don’t complain about it. I set goals for myself and work to achieve those goals. Between the huge spike of inflation on the TP, DR, and the seemingly inexplicable decline of non trash drops I cannot keep up anymore. Now we see an influx of people throwing legendary weapons onto the TP. I personally do not like the direction the game is headed. I also do not feel that ANET is taking this issue as seriously as they should. I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet, but there needs to be a drastic change to the RnG system, and it needs to happen sooner than later.

I play almost daily. I am the fractals coordinator for my guild, and as such I run fractals 4-5 times a day for guild members who need it. Since November 15 for all of my fractal running, and regular farming (In which I do use MF gear) I have pulled exactly 1 Exotic. It was a light armor boot worth roughly 59s on the TP. I get maybe a rare drop, or 2 every other fractal run. Usually an unnamed weapon of some kind. “Dagger”, or “Spear” out of the chests, but almost never from a mob. I cannot say that this is how it should be, or not. I have seen others get different results, but that’s how it has been for me. Since the Wintersday event started my results have been skewed by recieving “gifts” in place of normal drops. What I can say is that I have gotten literally hundreds of Ugly sweaters, and nothing else of note. I would much rather have the T-5, T-6 mats I was getting previously before the event instead of pointless gifts. For as ground breaking as this MMO is I cannot believe ANET could not think of something better than RnG to distribute items. I don’t believe the drops rates are correct right now. I know the event is messing with them. I will wait until the event ends before drawing any more conclusions.

@bri
I was very lucky in pulling a Midnight Ice on my attempt. Since I already had it I had no problems selling it for 6g. I tried twice more with about 30 dyes total. Like you on these last tries I ended up with only a handful of dyes I didn’t already have, and I did not make all of my money back. I did get a few uncommons and 1 more rare I didn’t have, so I still feel that to me it was worthwhile to try. My eventual goal is to have all the dyes. Not so much, because I intend to use them all, but so that I can see the pallet in action and know what dyes to get for my alts moving forward.

@Antitheist
I agree with you. A reduction in mat costs is more favorable to me than increasing a %.
I don’t mind farming for mats. (Ironically, isn’t that something ANET keeps chirping about? You don’t have to farm in this game? I call nonsense on that.)

On a side note: Coriander seeds are currently selling on the TP for around 6s a piece. At this point if I was to farm for them again I would more than likely sell them outright instead of using them in a dye recipe.

I am not upset about the results. I knew full well going into this that it was going to require time and effort. I also knew it was not a guarantee of success. Having never used my 400 cooking skill for anything but Omnomberry Bars I wanted to try something different. What some people have suggested is whining was simply my account of the process. I also understand that 2 attempts is not a large enough sample size, but I play fairly casually, and don’t gamble trying to flip the TP, so I don’t have just tons of gold to spend on it. This was not a ploy to make money for me. It was to see if I could find any of the dyes I didn’t already have. For the record had I pulled an abyss I would use it right away, not sell it. After 2 attempts I honestly felt I would be better off just buying the unidentified dyes outright and that assumption proved to be correct. After that I had no more reason to continue the experiment as I had found a better way to accomplish my goal.

I know some of the people reading this are “experts” at the game, and think I am dumb for doing something they knew all along. I wanted to see for myself, and I did. I have no regrets. This post is not a cry for pity. I will tell people where they can stick that pity. It is simply an information piece and a heads up for anyone else who was wondering about this subject themselves. Do with the info what you will. If it helps you great! If you didn’t find it helpful what did you really lose? You were sitting here killing time reading these forums anyway. As for wanting a bigger sample size. Be my guest. If someone has the time and resources to tackle it they are in a better position than I am. For me? I am going to continue using what works for me.

On a side note. (A happier note I will add) I took my own advice and bought 33 Unidentified dyes for just over 4 gold total. I got 5 uncommon dyes I did not have, a rare dye I was missing, and a Midnight Ice dye I already had, but was able to reinvest back for 6 gold netting me a 2 gold profit overall. I then took the leftover dyes and forged them for extra chances, and ended up with 2 more dyes I needed to complete the set. This more than made up for my crappy experimentation with crafting dyes.

I have been a level 400 cook for some time now, but I had previously never bothered making dyes through the profession, because I used to get dyes frequently in drops. After ANET “fixed” the dye drop rates and the price of dye on the TP went through the roof I decided it was time to test out the profession and see if I could craft some of the harder to get dyes I was missing. I decided if I was going to do it I would shoot for the moon and try and get a dye in the Rare Grey category. With the price of Abyss dye sitting at 20g on the TP currently what could it hurt?

Getting the 100 Black beans, and walnuts respectively was no problem. I spent about an hour running around Orr for the Truffles which was also not that big of an issue. Where I started running into problems was the Coriander Seed. First off, to farm for these it requires you to harvest Mature Herbs. There are only a few select areas in the game where these grow. In each of those areas I could only find 2-3 Mature Herbs growing. To make matters worse when you harvest mature herbs you only have a slight chance that you will actually get the Coriander Seed itself. Long story short I spent the better part of a full day farming for these and scouring areas for mature herbs. In the end I did not get a single seed. Now, I know I could have spent the next week, or 2 revisiting these areas in hopes that I I may get lucky enough to find all 25 of these that I needed, but I was tired after 4 hours of farming and just wanted to get it done, so I broke down and bought the remaining ingredient off the TP for just over 2 gold.

At this point I was ready to make my dye, and see if I could get lucky and find a dye I needed. As it turns out the % chance of actually getting a “rare” dye from the “rare” dye recipe must not be that high, because I ended up with a common grey dye I already owned worth about 52 copper. To this I was not mad. I knew it was only a chance to get a rare, not a promise, and seeing as how I still had plenty of the other mats I needed I decided to gamble one more time. I went and invested 2+ more gold in Coriander Seed, and set off to craft a dye again. Once again I was given another common grey dye worth a little less than half a silver.

At this point I have learned my lesson. I spent 4+ gold, and more than half a day worth of playing to scrounge together the mats for this experiment. What I learned is that I could have saved myself hours of farming, and a lot of trouble if I would have just invested that same 4+ gold on Unidentified dyes on the TP for 12 silver a piece. I could have gotten roughly 33 tries instead of 2. More importantly it would have taken less than a minute on the transaction. I could have then used that time running dungeons, WvW, or other more productive things.

In conclusion, this post is not a complaint per sey. I knew what I was getting myself into when I went about the process. I just feel that others could benefit from my experience and avoid the same trouble I went through. If you really want dyes there are much better ways to go about it than crafting. The ends do not justify the means.

As a small note to ANET on this subject. The act of crafting a rare dye is very tough. The mats are not easy to come by and are fairly expensive to buy on the TP. It would seem that if people are going to invest that much time and effort into crafting the rare recipe in hopes of getting a rare dye the least you could do is adjust the %, so that there is a reasonable chance that it may happen. Getting 2 commons in a row out of a high end recipe is pretty disconcerting.

bluewanders.5297:

Sir Digby.8160:

Still waiting on the patch. Still no word from ANET. Is it just me, or does ANET have some serious PR issues? They talk a big game about transparency and communication with the community, but talk is cheap and they have yet to deliver.

So then don’t wait. Play any of the hundreds of things to do in the game already. Or watch tv. Or make and origami kitten. Why all the QQ? Really? Are you guys 5 years old?

By this point in your life you should have been able to develop skills for keeping yourselves occupied without the intervention of outside sources.

The patch will be out when it is ready to be pushed out… and there might be a hundred different reasons why that wasn’t at the time you were expecting. Occupy yourselves like a dignified human being and stop crying about your disappointments for the world to read. It’s unsightly.

Looks like the only one crying here is you. I made a statement and moved on. You are the one flinging insults and being a troll. Get over yourself.

On a side note. Threads like this wouldn’t exist if the information was accurate in the first place. Having a delay is one thing. Announcing a time that people plan their day around and then standing them up without a single word is something else. If they had just made a general statement about the delay none of this would be an issue. It is exactly the lack of communication that is the problem here. It shows that they cannot be trusted to keep their word. It is poor customer service. You can say what you want about me. I don’t care what you think. It doesn’t change the fact that I took time out of my day to deal with this patch at the announced time, and it didn’t happen. Now I will be playing the guessing game as to when I should expect the patch since ANET cannot be bothered to communicate with us. Contrary to your beliefs I am not in the minority here.

Still waiting on the patch. Still no word from ANET. Is it just me, or does ANET have some serious PR issues? They talk a big game about transparency and communication with the community, but talk is cheap and they have yet to deliver.

Kerithlan.1659:

My current build has been totally hilarious. I know it’s impractical but I am such a fireball that I never stop cackling. It helps that I wield a Fiery Dragon Sword to complete the ensemble.

I use a 1h sword, torch, Judge’s Intervention, Purging Flames/Merciful Intervention/Sanctuary (as needed), Signet of Wrath and Hounds of Balthazar (Human, but Renewed Focus works too).

I’m fully committed to Radiance and Zeal. My traits are Shattered Aegis, Fiery Wrath, Binding Jeopardy, Blind Exposure, Right-handed Strength, Radiant Fire, Defender’s Flame. Obviously I swap them around periodically but in general that’s what I go with.

On all of my armor I have only stacked condition damage, condition duration and precision. I expect critical hits most of the time.

This build is hilariously splashy without sacrificing too much survival/durability. Between Aegis popping up often, 2-3 teleports, two different blinds and where necessary condition removal, I only find myself dropping back to heal when my allies simply cannot keep up and need support.

It is highly impractical and I am 100% incapable of fighting Destroyers but it is probably the most fun I’ve had in Guild Wars so far. I’ve spent several years wishing for Smiting Prayers to be decent. Now I can do that.

The point is that I can be very offensive in situations where I really shouldn’t be. This is because of Torch skill 4 and burning, mostly. The torch is my favorite weapon simply because skill 4 is so versatile. It’s a single-target, high-damage, 1200 range pull; at the same time, it’s a “three random foes are set on fire regardless of if I can hit them or not” button that I can activate while stunned or performing other actions. I’ve won many fights against much stronger foes by simply surviving while burning does its thing.

This build sounds very close to the same strategy I use. (In the post right above yours.) Granted I’m using the Mace/symbol abuse for now, but I have been known to swap to sword for kitten comborific nonsense. I went back to mace, because I really needed more survivability as I solo a lot.

I run a condition damage. (Yes, I said condition damage) Guardian symbol build that burns mobs to the ground with ease. I run Mace/Torch (Mace for the #2 spammable symbol) to devastating effect. 15 Radiance means that I can abuse Justice Virtue to no end. While most people do not associate Condition damage with Guardians I find it to be very effective. With skills like Fiery Wrath the amount of sheer DPS you can produce gets obnoxious. It also lends it self well to defensive play as the rest of your skills are geared towards healing and condition removal. Purging Flames is a great example of a utility skill that keeps things burning while benefiting the group. Defender’s Flame also gives you a guaranteed burn on blocking which your aegis automatically provides insuring that even if you get hit first your enemies will be on fire from the get go. I run 15, 15, 10, 30, 0. Everything is geared towards making symbols bigger, last longer, and heal allies. It also means that my virtue of Justice is always ready to use, and that my aegis is constantly resetting itself. In large mobs, and boss fights I can easily outlast most monsters, because my key abilities are constantly recharging and up ready to use. I don’t claim it’s the best build out there, but it works very well for me. If Offense is what you are looking for this is a good way to go.

I was the one who wrote a “not so nice” rant thread on Reddit about my Clock Tower experience as a Norn. I addressed my feelings on there, but I don’t think I adequately said what I needed to say. I want to start by apologizing to you Josh. You did not deserve to be called a jerk. In fact, it is your hard work, and dedication to this puzzle that gives me hope for the future of this game. Jumping Puzzles are my favorite part of the game, and I do want hard, challenging puzzles in the game. I actually really enjoyed the Clock Tower. It was not the content of the game that set me off. It was the reaction of people to me (as a Norn) I shouldn’t have to turn off my HUD, or block 50+ people just to do an event, because I’m getting cussed out for being a Norn. (All of my characters are Norn.) I eventually gave up on the Tower, not because it was too hard, but because my playing a Norn was causing too many other people grief. I don’t want to be “that guy”

Don’t stop making difficult content. I for one will be one of the people looking forward to the challenge. It is a shame that so many people chose to take the low road, and be nasty about the Tower. This is not indicative of the community as a whole. I have put it behind me, and look forward to whatever November will bring.

GS basically became an aesthetic item on my character. Sometimes I wave it around in Lions arch, because it looks neat, but outside of that I don’t use it anymore.

I will address a few things I have read recently on the topic.

1. Yep, it’s still a bad fix. Oh well, ANET has their reasons even if I don’t agree, or like the change I’m done complaining about it. It’s obvious they don’t care about transparency, or working on it, so what’s done is done.

2. Guardians have a lot of build choices. I treat GS like it’s not an option and focus on what ever else is available, because I would rather be playing than arguing with people on here.

3. The people complaining about these threads are worse than the people complaining about the nerf in the first place. Your complaints are not constructive. Your snide remarks, and cynicism just make you sound like trolls.

4. We get it. You don’t like the change. I don’t either. Almost a month has gone by and it’s not going to change. Time to move on already.

5. ANET I am very disappointed in you. That is all I really need to say on this subject. Peace out.

I use Mace/Torch to great effect. Symbol build for the abuse of mace #2 and plenty of burn improving traits. Add in the blinding and vulnerability and stuff falls over dead with little effort.

I repeatedly run dungeons. I do multiple paths. I have yet to be in a party that does not finish the path we are working on. Sometimes I wear my regular armor, sometimes I wear my magic find set. You would never know the difference unless I told you. Generally I do not notice a sizable difference in the production of my character either way. I also tend to try and play smart. IE: Not standing in red circles, knowing my boss fights, ect. I understand that there are bad players in the game. I also understand that certain builds require specific stats. That being said, I really don’t think removing MF is going to solve anything. Those players are still going to be bad no matter what. My opinion is that it is already hard enough to make money in this game, and I am going to use whatever small advantage I can to keep up with the over inflated price of things in the auction house. If you want to stop MF use then start with the problem itself (The over inflation caused by botting, and chinese gold farmers.) MF use is just a symptom of a much larger problem. Until the prices on the AH come back down to earth many people (Myself included) are going to do whatever it takes to keep up. Frankly, Plinx farming for 8 hours a day every day is not how I want to spend my time playing the game. I will continue to run dungeons. Sometimes I will wear my MF gear. Chances are you won’t know when it’s happening,

Like many people I use more than one set of armor for different things. As an example I have my main set of armor I use for Dungeons, sPVP, and WvW. I also keep another set of Magic Find armor on me for farming purposes. Right now you have an armor tab, and a street clothes tab. I have nothing against street clothes except for their lack of functionality in game. I think it would be nice to have 1 more armor tab, so that I can easily transition from one aspect of the game to the other without having to waste an entire bag worth of inventory slots on my spare armor, jewelry, and weapons for my other build. This would also benefit those people who collect armor for aesthetic purposes.

Some of that “transparency” regarding the baffling great sword change made to Guardians that did not “fix” retaliation in the slightest would be nice.

The honor trait path has 3 skills that help Symbols. Symbols are larger, symbols last longer, and symbols heal others. I use all three and that accounts for my extra large symbol. I cannot speak for others on that though.

It’s 15, 15, 10, 30, 0. I use sybols are bigger, last longer, and heal. I also use burning foes take 10% more damage, 100% chance to burn on block, and burning removes boons.

5. Testing in PVP was a bit different. I opened up initially with staff. People see staff they assume glass cannon and run in for the kill. That is when the ruse ends and you switch to mace as they close distance and slam them with your virtue and let the burn down begin. If you can time it right you can pull off staff number 4 as they begin closing, and before they know what hit them they are being nailed with a might buffed mace assault and an out of control burn. While they scramble to recover and cast condition removal you can smack them down. If it then becomes a fight I have learned my survivability kicks in and I can usually outlast anyone I go toe to toe with. The trick is picking your fights carefully. If your opponent is ranged then stick on your staff and throw up wall of reflection. They will be forced to adjust to what you are doing. Most of the time this will goad them into making mistakes. People will catch on after awhile, but they will hesitate to approach you from then on which gives you an advantage.

6. Understand that this build is what works for me. It may go against your play style. I built it with doing PVE, WvW, and sPVP in mind. I wanted a build that could hold up in a dungeon, or defending a castle. I am happy with the results. Remember you do not have to go all in with one skill, or trait style. You can find balance that works and it’s what I have tried to do here. I am happy with the results.

Like the title said this is not a thread about the change to GS. We have had plenty of discussions on that topic already.

What I would like to talk about instead is where we go from here. I for one did not sit around waiting for something to happen. My Guardian is my main, has been since day one of the early access, and will continue to be so from here on out. It is the class I love, and support.

I am going to share with you the adjustments I made in my play style since the GS change. The first thing I did was take stock of my investment. When the change was made I had already committed to Exotic gear with full superior runes. Between making the gear itself, and then getting the runes in place I spent more than a moderate amount of gold. At the time I was running a GS symbol build designed to take advantage of the quick comboing of the GS (as were many others, after all it was the best build available at the time.) I realized that I would need to craft some new weapons, and make some trait adjustments. I reset my traits and picked up an exotic staff, followed by an exotic shield and mace combo. Both of these weapon choices allowed me to keep an active symbol, so that I wouldn’t lose the advantage of the armor I had already invested in for my symbol build. I really liked the glass cannon staff build I had been reading about and wanted to implement that into my regular build, but I didn’t want to lose the survivability of the Mace/shield tanking spec. I decided on a compromise. Let me break down some important aspects of the Guardian, so that you can understand my logic.

1. The importance of 15 Radiance cannot be overstated. Regardless of weapon choice, or build 15 Radiance insures several key things. First it increases burning exponentially. As a Guardian you are naturally going to cause burn. You might as well make it count for all it’s worth. An extra 50% on burn damage is noticeable. Especially when your traits are set up to cause burning when you block, when you attack, when you activate, or lose aegis, every 5th attack passively, and every time you activate your virtue. That is a ton of burning! and secondly it allows your blinds to create vulnerability.

2. Right about now you are asking why Burn is so important. Not using a GS, or one handed sword for DPS means you need to make up for the gap in DPS that staff and mace leave. Mace has an obvious drag in animation time on it’s third attack. This is somewhat made up for by a powerful symbol on your number 2 skill, and the fact that the 3rd regular stike hits harder. It still leaves a gap in DPS that the burning makes up for.

3. Staff in WvW allows you to aoe down several people at once when they are bunched up at a castle. This is most effective with +crit gear, but that leaves a big gap in defense that the rest of the staff skills simply do not make up for on their own. Staff is a fantastic support weapon for groups, but used on it’s own for soloing outside of mere tagging is asking to die. For that reason I chose to use it as a support weapon and not alter my gear with +crit. Guardians have low health to begin with, so having that extra defensive boost means more from a survivability standpoint. Where staff does shine is it’s number 4 might buff. Being able to stack tons of might in a fight, and then swap to mace is devastating. I really see staff as a situation based utility as opposed to a weapon.

4. Mace/Shield was the next logical step for a symbol build after GS. Mace provides a low cool down symbol that has powerful healing and damaging effects. It also allows for passive condition removal in parties. While the Mace animation is slower it still packs a punch. It also provides another burning effect on completion of it’s number 3 skill. I chose shield over focus simply based on testing. I found that the shield provided more of a defensive benefit when paired with a mace in close quarter melee combat. Being able to drop number 5 and throw my enemies out of my bubble buys me time to recover from low health, or conditions. Sometimes that couple of seconds is the difference between getting downed, and winning a fight. The rest of my trait points were devoted to making my symbols count. Bigger symbols that last longer and heal people around me. This impact was immediately felt upon entering Cursed Shores and pulling 5-6 level 80 risen at a time. I was able to drop a ton of burn damage and drop the first 3 enemies in less than a minute with the symbol hitting everything. Not only that I noticed my health barely budged, because I did not compromise on my defensive stats. (Toughness over Vitality is the way I built my armor)

It’s funny. All the people telling the community to stop posting are missing the point of what having a forum is all about. This is the place where we can voice our opinions, on topic, about issues we have facing our class. (Guardians) There is no better place for this dialog. If it was a non issue you would not have this many people still talking about it. For those people saying we should drop it, quit whining, stop complaining, ect. Here is some advice.

1. If you do not like the conversation in the forum, don’t read it.

2. Problems do not solve themselves by burying your head in the sand and ignoring them. Communication is key to resolving issues. Asking ANET to at least acknowledge their paying community isn’t asking much. It’s what those of us in the real world like to call customer service.

3. Starting your post by saying, “I don’t get what the problem is.” tells me that you are not qualified to comment on the subject. If you don’t understand the problem in the first place you have no business giving criticism, constructive, or otherwise. Educate yourself first. If you are not going to be constructive then you are just trolling. No one wants to deal with a troll.

4. The “nerf” happened. It’s done. What people continue to fail to understand much to my amazement is that this thread is NOT ABOUT THE NERF. It has been repeated several times. This thread is about communication. The people who still fail to get that are the reason posts like this exist in the first place.

5. Calling peoples posts “irrational”, or insulting them, because you don’t agree with their viewpoint does not help you get people to see your point. It just makes you look like a jerk. No one is going to listen to someone who berates their audience.

6. Not only should ANET respond to this. They should give it the attention it deserves. If this was 1, or 2 people whining about a minor button change they would be justified in ignoring it. That is not the case at all. They have alienated, and upset a huge section of their player base. As a business when you upset paying customers you have a responsibility to address the concerns. Every company in the world has that responsibility if they want to stay in business. ANET is not immune to it either. This is the sort of thing that will make the difference between someone continuing to support this game, or move on and give their money to the next MMO that comes along. It dictates their future expansion sales, and unless something changes it will spread to other forums when they decide to nerf something else in the future. They are setting a poor precedence for themselves by ignoring the elephant in the room.

7. Let’s really look at what’s being asked of them. ANET let us know you are listening. That’s it. Nothing more. No one here is asking you to fix this overnight. You have done far more for much less.

Krosslite.1950:

seems just fine to me. I really haven’t noticed any real difference in the game play. Just have to hit a skill in a different spot then before.

There is a fundamental disconnect here if you do not see the problem. Either you are new to playing Greatsword on a Guardian, or you have failed to see the hindrance is not in the placement of skills, but in the cool down time of the symbol. The added 10 seconds means that your symbol traits have all been reduced to 50% effectiveness, and that you are now forced into an auto spamming “1” mode while you wait for cool downs. In cases like sPVP this will get you killed. Outside of the fact that the Greatsword used to combo well which it no longer does.

@Shaen

It’s only ridiculous if you are one of the people hell bent on trying to make the weapon work better now than other options Guardians still have. The utility of the weapon is lost. Anyone who has spent any time working with the GS since the nerf understands that it is a shadow of it’s former self. Maybe impossible is harsh, but have you tried to use it effectively in PVP since the change? You are asking to get slaughtered.

I myself chose to move on to different weapons. I’m working with a glass cannon Staff build that is good in WvW, and a Mace/Shield Symbol build that works very well in PVE.

As for your other comment:

Early on I did not complain. I gave constructive criticism and kept my comments on the topic of fixing the actual problem. I even gave suggestions on possible fixes to the ret issue. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that those posts were getting ignored. (Just like everyone elses.) Maybe they do read them, but not even giving a simple nod to the players shows poor communication, and a lack of respect to the player base. Karma Crimzin said it best. It’s not about the current nerf. It’s how they addressed it, or in this case didn’t. It makes me wonder how these things will be handled in the future, and admittedly it is worrisome. It really takes a few minutes to make a post saying, we hear you. Even if they are not going to change anything at least we don’t feel like we are talking to a brick wall.

@Mattius

I don’t know where you are coming from, but I don’t base how I play a game off one choice a company makes whether, or not I agree with it. Saying that I won’t be happy until it’s reverted simply is not true for me. I would be content with a simple acknowledgement. Just knowing that they give a “kitten” about their player base would improve things a lot. Don’t misunderstand me. It’s not about the nerf. It’s about the lack of communication on the subject.

Here is a simple list of the side effects of this change.

1. Made a viable weapon harder, if not impossible to use effectively. Incidentally, this did not even fix the problem ANET was trying to solve in the first place.

2. Flooded the Guardian forum with complaint posts. This not only has damaged the constructive conversation about Guardians, but also created more work for the Mods.

3. Regardless of how you feel about the change it is fair to say it alienated, and kitten off the majority of Guardian players. This change was made with no prior indication. It was dropped on us without a second thought to consequences. It was a poor, knee jerk decision based on speculation and hyperbole.

That being said it could have been addressed in a timely manor by ANET. They would have to be completely out of contact with the community not to recognize the out lash. This would have been less of a problem if ANET would at least make a statement, or address the concern, but they have not bothered to do so. Instead, we are left to fume about it, and move on to other characters and in some cases other games.

This should be a lesson to ANET in how NOT to conduct communication with your community. Come on ANET. It’s time to make this right.

Bump, because this needs attention.

I did post about this in the suggestions forum. I thought adding a confirm button to karma vendors was a good idea, but that post got shuffled away with no feedback to the bottom ranks of the forum. I figured I must be the only person with this problem. I lost 20,000 karma because of this crap. Now I refuse to use a Karma vendor unless I know exactly what I’m buying when I open the window. I know 20,000 isn’t the end of the world, but when you are saving up for a Legendary it is a frustrating setback.

On more than one occasion now I have been looking at the “preview” feature on a piece of equipment from a vendor just to have it straight out purchase the item when I right clicked on it. I am not sure if this is a bug, but it has happened to several of my guildies as well. The last time this happened it cost me 20,000 Karma for a piece of armor I wasn’t even looking at at the time. The game needs a confirmation button when making a large purchase like that, so that you do not “accidentally” purchase an item just by hovering your mouse over it.

I have since moved on from the GS, because even though I could struggle through using it’s new format it just isn’t worth it. It is no longer fun to play, just a chore. I didn’t want to lose all of the gold I invested in my armor for my symbol build for Superior Runes and such, so I swapped over to Mace/Shield as an alternative symbol to replace GS. It is an okay substitute when there is simply nothing better to use. The animation on mace is way longer than it needs to be, but I deal with it. I honestly don’t feel like ANET thought this through. The very least they could do is address this with the community. They would have to be blind not to see the outcry from the community since the 7th on this issue. It wouldn’t take more than a couple minutes, and it would let the community know that they are listening. Instead they are too busy fixing Asura head sizes. I guess they consider Guardians a throw away class.

The OP is not alone. While I do not expect a refund on the Sup sigil, or Weapon (Mystic GS) I was using (It would be nice to have my 50 Skill points from crafting it back) I couldn’t condone scrapping all the work I had done to get the correct Superior Runes, or Exotic armor for my symbol build, so I did the only logical thing I could and switch to another weapon that granted a symbol. I went back to a Mace/Shield combo. It works, but it’s much slower to kill things. It takes roughly twice as long to kill one mob as it used to with GS. My Guardian is my main. It is the character I have taken through 100% completion and the one I enjoy playing the most. I am not going to simply “reroll” as some people suggest. I have invested a ton of time and effort into my main. Those people saying that this change was “not so bad” do not understand what this change has done. It is not a simple matter of relearning a few keys. I don’t even care about that. (It is however, quite annoying) It is that the change has completely trashed the build I was using. The extra 10 seconds added to the cool down timer on the Symbol have made it unreliable. At best you are going to be a sitting duck for 15 seconds of a fight while you spam the “1” key over and over waiting to recharge. If you have ever done this in PVP you know it’s suicide. Not to mention the implications it has on the PVE environment. The old GS setup allowed you to transition from one combo into the next one with synergy allowing you to keep steady damage and movement on grouped up mobs. Now you can no longer do that. If you get into a fight with a group of mobs you will run short on damage 1/4 of the way through the fight and then have to rely on spamming heals and “1” until you can use your skills again. In the case of an enemy like dredge who are immune to blind your leap “finisher” if you can even call it that does next to nothing. On a 15 second cool down you might as well just keep spamming “1”. I didn’t whine about the change. When I realized my build no longer worked I switched weapons, spent more gold than I should have needed to, and moved on. I’m posting now, because after reading comments like, “quit crying and reroll a warrior.” I felt that the problem should be explained to those who simply don’t get it.

Here is mine yesterday after getting through a hidden jumping puzzle.

I posted this elsewhere, but I wanted to make sure it would be seen.

I don’t post often, and I usually am even keeled when I do post. I am not one to arbitrarily complain about changes, but in this case I feel that the “solution” ANET has provided was a kneejerk reaction, and sloppy at best. For me it is not about relearning 3 buttons. That part is irrelevant in my eyes. It is the fact that the cool down time changes have ruined the synergy of the weapon itself. I used to be able to keep a steady combo and reliable damage on my opponent allowing me to control mobs, and flow from one attack process to the next. Now, because of the altered cool down times, and the displacement of keys I end up spamming the “1” key for long periods of time to little, or no effect on mobs while I wait for the other skills to recharge. In the meantime I have lost momentum, and my opponents are having a field day with me in that moment of pause.
Let’s face it, Guardians were already struggling in the DPS department in the environment prior to this change. We don’t do reliable burst damage outside of the Whirling attack that requires close quarters, and is not effective from range. Our choices for ranged combat are limited (As they should be) so our one big advantage was steady damage from Greatsword. Now even that is gone.
If ANET is reading this. (They should be) I would seriously reconsider this choice. This is a case where the solution is worse than the problem. You have essentially made the Greatsword an unusable option for serious players. Our one small competitive edge is gone. Now our only option is to play a strictly support role, and just hope we are in a group. Soloing has gone from something I never minded doing, and in most cases enjoyed to a tedious chore. PVP itself has always been a challenge for Guardians. Our lack of DPS even before the nerf was obvious.
The other area of contention I have is that this nerf has eliminated an entire build for the class. To have a successful symbol build that takes advantage of the symbol boosting traits you need to have reliable, useful symbols to take advantage of. Having a 20 second cool down on our most useful symbol pretty much nullifies any advantage you would get from this build as all of your symbol benefiting skills have just been cut to 50%. I have to assume that whomever adopted this change did not test the practicality of it, or think about the repercussions of such an action. Either that, or they just simply don’t care. I would hope that it is not the latter. I would like to think that is not the case.

This is a problem with a solution. Just not THIS solution. You can still make things right and fix what you have done. There are other ways to correct retaliation. You can simply have the damage output calculate by the number of hits taken. This will still keep the synergy of the weapon while only rewarding extra damage to those who are taking more hits. This makes far more sense than rearranging all of the skills, and screwing the cool downs up. Right now, if you are reading the forums, and Reddit you will know you have kitten off almost all of your Guardian players with this ill timed choice. It’s not too late to do the right thing.

The point here for me, was completely missed. I don’t post often, and I usually am even keeled when I do post. I am not one to arbitrarily complain about changes, but in this case I feel that the “solution” ANET has provided was a kneejerk reaction, and sloppy at best. For me it is not about relearning 3 buttons. That part is irrelevant in my eyes. It is the fact that the cool down time changes have ruined the synergy of the weapon itself. I used to be able to keep a steady combo and reliable damage on my opponent allowing me to control mobs, and flow from one attack process to the next. Now, because of the altered cool down times, and the displacement of keys I end up spamming the “1” key for long periods of time to little, or no effect on mobs while I wait for the other skills to recharge. In the meantime I have lost momentum, and my opponents are having a field day with me in that moment of pause.

Let’s face it, Guardians were already struggling in the DPS department in the environment prior to this change. We don’t do reliable burst damage outside of the Whirling attack that requires close quarters, and is not effective from range. Our choices for ranged combat are limited (As they should be) so our one big advantage was steady damage from Greatsword. Now even that is gone.

If ANET is reading this. (They should be) I would seriously reconsider this choice. This is a case where the solution is worse than the problem. You have essentially made the Greatsword an unusable option for serious players. Our one small competitive edge is gone. Now our only option is to play a strictly support role, and just hope we are in a group. Soloing has gone from something I never minded doing, and in most cases enjoyed to a tedious chore. It’s not too late to do the right thing.

Not a boast, but my Main is an 80 Guardian that I have been perfecting since day one. I knew before this game came out that I wanted to play a Guardian and I have not been disappointed. The reason I mention it is, because I have had a chance to really grind out every weapon combo for Guardian and spend time figuring out what works. Greatsword is by far the most efficient weapon build for grinding in the game hands down. That being said, sometimes you really need a ranged weapon to deal with certain fights. For this I have been using Scepter/Torch, or Scepter Focus. Spamming auto attack on scepter while dropping 2’s AOE attack is an effective way to keep a tight amount of damage going out, while dodging around to prevent incoming damage. It’s boring, but it gets the job done.
By comparison I tried out a Warrior alt and went Duel wield Axes. Holy cow that is a blast! I really wish Guardians had something similar. Even at 80 I still find myself going back to Greatsword. Unless something changes it is going to stay the premier weapon for the class.