Guild Wars 2

Yep, always good fun to drop a hundred bucks on a Saturday only to miss out on a sale that ends in the middle of the day on MONDAY. I am ALL ABOUT not getting to buy the things I wanted to with the gems I paid for and can’t have.

Red Jay.2516:

@ Pariah

I find this argument hilarious, due to the fact that norn females follow human anatomy perfectly. In fact, they look more human than human females themselves.

I call it “wowsyndrome”

I call it “sexual dimorphism” myself.

A single Norn is capable of wiping out a Charr warband if they encroached upon Norn territory during Guild Wars 1. Though it was stated that if the Charr sent even a quarter of their military in, they could wipe the Norn out, due to the Norn not fighting in groups, it was also stated that the Norn absolutely crushed the Charr forces sent through the Shiverpeaks to attack Kryta.

Furthermore, the first Norn encountered by the players in GW1 was Jora. When they ran into her, Ogden Stonehealer was extremely worried about her killing himself, Vekk, the PC, and their 3-7 allies in short order. To put this in perspective, his advice when the Destroyers attack is to run away. His advice when he sees Jora is for nobody to move.

This is advice one normally gets when facing a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Eir, as stated earlier, carried a 500 pound statue from her home in Hoelbrak, to the Asura Gateway, then to Snaff’s workshop. Also, as the books have shown, Eir was basically a walking ballista, so far and hard could she fire her bow.

The books also gave us Gullik Oddsson, who very casually wiped out a Charr scouting party and survived Ascalon City—and not, like, survived by running away or sneaking around the ghosts, he picked a fight with them directly.

So yeah, as far as lore goes, Norn are the strongest single combatants. Oftentimes, if an Asura has no golem to ride around in, a Norn’s shoulders are the first place they go to. That doesn’t really have anything to do with this, except for being awesome >_>

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-outlines-guild-wars-2-live-game-development/

^Mentioned that bugs and game balance are handled by the same team, FYI.

Warriors are not OP. I’ll run a Warrior off or fight him to a complete standstill if he doesn’t have backup. And I lol at the glass cannon hundred blades build. Just before I kill it, that is.

Maybe I’ll lol a little more after if it was a Charr. >_>

Everything else aside, “stop whining because other people have it worse” is an absolutely terrible argument in a game. Necro issues deserve to be looked at, I’m not arguing that. But this forum is where Guardian issues are looked at. And just because Necro’s nowhere near where it should be does not mean we lose the right to tell ANet what we think about their changes to the Guardian.

I want the order back. If the move’s too powerful, fine, change it. But don’t change the skill order after I’ve ingrained it into my mind.

Also I agree with GreyWraith. If our ability to stand still and punish attackers is reduced, our ability to chase them down and hurt them should be increased. 10s on the leap isn’t OP either, since that’s the same cooldown our 1H sword has on its closer.

Svarty.8019:

Ynna.8769:

Every 10 days, the same thread pops up.

This is because it’s still not fixed yet.

I like the cut of your jib.

More or less, when something’s wrong, you have to say it’s wrong, until it’s put right. I trust ArenaNet to fix stuff like this, since they’ve been reliable in the past, but that’s no reason to stop reminding them that it needs to be done.

And the only good thing about the Ele tornado is the knockback it provides. Yes, I know. Guess what? That still makes Tornado and Juggernaut more useful than either Tome against anyone who’s paying attention, at all, because nobody can stop the Juggernaut from stomping or the Tornado from blowing them backwards.

1. I just stated those for fun. They were never meant to be taken seriously.

2. No, no they are not. They WOULD be, if they weren’t literally all of them interruptible. The Tomes WOULD be nice, powerful elites, if I could use them in a fight without having to sit still during an interruptible six-second cast to use the good spells on them. Renewed Focus WOULD be good, if it wasn’t three seconds of invulnerability that still took condition damage, could still be interrupted, and didn’t make you immobile for the duration. It’s still a decent elite, but not on its own merit. It’s good because it lets you pop your virtues and get them back, so you don’t lose the passive effects or can pop them again.

3. Don’t tell me to reroll, and don’t tell me the other professions don’t have “greener grass.” I play those classes. And I play guardian. And I LIKE guardian. That does not mean the other professions don’t have an advantage in terms of elite skills. The Warrior Juggernaut elite, which changes their weapon skills and locks their utilities, is very similar to the Guardian tomes. One difference is, Juggernaut buffs damage, while the tomes buff health. Another difference? Juggernaut grants Stability for the full duration, the tomes grant protection or regeneration, which is completely worthless, because even someone up at four in the morning and half asleep can see a Guardian suddenly stop moving around and start posing, and think “Hey, I need to interrupt that guy in the next six seconds” and then do it. Or Lich Form, which grants—hey—stability. Tornado? Stability. Rampage as One? Stability. PLAGUE? STABILITY. Every single elite that locks you into a form without your utility skills grants stability except the Guardian’s. Rampage as One isn’t even a transformation, it doesn’t lock you out of anything, but it still gives the Ranger and their pet Stability.

4. Liking a class and wanting to play it does not mean I have to pretend there are no issues with it.

Elite: Spirit Armor
Recharges your virtues. For 20 seconds, all allies have Retaliation and armor equal to yours (no effect if armor rating is already higher).

Elite: Spirit Army
Summon all four Spirit weapons. When they reach the end of their lifespan, they automatically activate their “use” ability

Elite: Reversal of Fortune
For 20 seconds, any time you would be affected by a condition, you are affected by a random boon instead. Converts all existing conditions to boons.

I still say Renewed Focus is not to be underestimated, though.

No, Melchor, the Focus does not have a group defense skill. It has a skill that CAN affect multiple party members, but that skill is an attack that requires an enemy to target if you want to use at all. Meanwhile, both shield skills are more than capable of aiding in the defense of an entire group.

If I had to suggest a fix for Shield 5, it would be a skill that grants Aegis and Retaliation to everyone around you for 5s, while the knockback component gets moved to Shield 4 in place of the damage component. But, I’m not even going to pretend to know whether or not that would be balanced.

EDIT: That being said, I don’t have any particular problems with Shield 5 as is. But it seems like all the variations of shield <→ focus threads stem from people not liking shield 5.

I still disagree. The shield is there for protecting a group, not the Guardian alone. If someone has a suggestion to improve Shield 5, I’m all ears, but not a skill meant for personal defense only.

Bear form hid armor in GW1 as well.

It’s been explained by the novels that transforming also takes in the mass of your clothes. So your armor becomes your fur, etc.

The Revenge skill has a long cooldown, and it’s only temporary unless the Warrior can kill someone.

No, Guardians are in the middle as far as usefulness goes. Some classes don’t even get an interrupt or escape that’s off cooldown in time to avoid the first wave of stomps. Other classes can chain their escape moves to survive a stupidly long time (THIEVES).

We’re not bad off, not by a long shot, but we could be better.

No.

If sPvP affects PvE, then PvE will begin to affect sPvP.

No.

I have to say, the Norn make me happy. It’s a shame everyone shares dialogue once the paths merge, because up until that point, Norn characters have absolute confidence in themselves, and it’s hilarious to see your character not give two kitten what they’re about to fight, they are going to win and there is nothing that can change that.

It’s an entire race of people who speak like Superman if he had Batman’s confidence.

And then the converged story turns all the races to srsface. I am sad =(

I would say the focus myself, simply because the torch has a smaller range to its attacks, and Torch #4 has a melee component.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—Guardians don’t put shields on to protect THEMSELVES. They put shields on to protect OTHERS. And there is no bodyblocking in this game, so the only way to protect others is through AoE effects.

Regardless or whether or not the shield’s skills are worthwhile at the moment, they are a perfect fit for the theme of the Guardian, and I disagree that the focus block needs to be switched, as it not only has an offensive component to it, but is actively used by many players for the AoE blast, and thus fits the focus more than the shield.

You want a shield to help your personal survival? Play a Warrior or an Engineer. Guardians are out there to shield everyone else as well.

And Sokelial, you’re just blind ;p

They’re not pronouncing it incorrectly, they’re pronouncing it differently. There is a distinction.

Or do you believe that you and a crap ton of random people playing the game knew the proper way to pronounce jotun, and not one person who wrote, spoke or listened to the dialogue knew?

Wow, Knuckledust. That was….well, at least you’re right about 90 Toughness being insignificant?

Here’s what’s illogical to me: telling a group of people to bunch up on one spot in a dungeon and expecting them to do it.

Unless I’m bouncing between multiple ranged walls against a solely ranged enemy, they’re not going to do it. They’re not going to have TIME to do it, and bunching up in a boss fight is likely to increase overall damage sustained, even if it lowers the damage done to an individual.

I’d much rather have a group that’s spread out, and only one person eating damage, than a bunched up group where EVERYONE is taking less damage, but still getting the crap knocked out of them.

Oh, and lulz at the WoR reference, since I stated that ranged fights were the exception to spreading out, and the Shield is useful in that particular instance too, thanks to it being able to block range, in the FIRST post you responded to.

Also lulz, as I never once stated that the shield is amazing. Not ONCE. I don’t worship the shield, but I don’t sit there and try to pretend the Hammer is be-all end-all better, either. I simply stated that there are situations where the Shield Prot boon is much more useful than people are making it out to be.

And one of the fundamental building blocks of this game is adapting to situations. Hence why you should always be carrying a full set of weapons—to maximize your options and use what’s best for each situation. So yeah, in the scenario YOU described, the Hammer may work better. In the scenario I described, the Shield may work better.

That’s kind of the point.

Again, I say, if you dislike the shield, fine, you want improvements made, great, I welcome them. But bad logic is not an acceptable reason, and saying the Hammer is better as a blanket statement is bad logic.

Nepocrates.3642:

SuperLuigi.3720:

It changed your 1-10 story quest.

On my Guardian, I chose Wolf as my spirit, and my storyline involved solving the question of why Minotaurs had recently become so violent (the first part of the quest very neatly tied into the “stop the rampaging Minotaur” event near Bear Shrine, actually).

I’m guessing your story was not so much about minotaurs?

EDIT: I know choosing Raven has something to do with collecting steel, too.

Really cause I chose the Raven and I had to determine why the Minotaurs were all rampaging and free the Minotaurs spirit. There where no collecting steel that I can remember.

Yeah, it’s already been said that that was a different choice, it was my mistake :p

Ahh, fair enough, Exedore. That seems like a very silly way to display damage, but fair enough xD

Aza.2105:

Luigi,

That still doesn’t seem practical. You won’t save anyone from death with protection boon and its harder to catch other players with Shield of Judgement than it is with the Hammer chain.

Reason? Most people tend to keep moving and the shield is a small frontal cone. There is ZERO reason to even consider the shield as option at this time. You shouldn’t be protecting it, you should be voicing to Anet to change it.

What? What sort of crazy moon logic is this?

You think it’s easier to…what….get ahead of a person, find a convenient enemy, and wind up the FULL Hammer chain……than it is to simply fire off the shield blast? And the shield blast is both instant and easy to aim, so no, I don’t find it easier to work my way through the Hammer chain while trying to get ahead of a fleeing comrade.

And your argument that I won’t save lives with Prot is invalid, as I HAVE saved lives with Prot before. I’d hit someone with it, and they managed to get their heal off a couple seconds later with 19 health left, and did not die. Without my Prot boon, they would have died.

You don’t like the shield, I get that. But that is no excuse for using bad logic to support your dislike.

Svarty, the “60% chance to remove boon on crit” rune is useless against Aegis, which blocks the next attack anyway.

Aegis is far from useless. Very, very far from useless as is. Rapid-firing attacks increase in damage with each hit, from what I’ve seen; an Aegis in the middle breaks that chain and restarts the damage cycle at the initial hit amount.

Not that I’d be against making Aegis block for two seconds at a time….oh, how sweet it would be to become completely unstoppable….

I’m fine with them as is. The shield has the proper theme to it, in my opinion, as the Guardian puts on the shield to protect others, not himself. Since bodyblocking isn’t really a thing in this game, the only viable way to shield allies is with AoE effects like the ones on the shield. The Focus is more of an offensive weapon—even if it’s Guardian-themed offense that incorporates defense. Keep in mind, Focus 4 and 5 both have damage components, while only Shield 4 has one.

So no, I have to disagree about them being switched.

Why take the Shield over the Hammer for the prot boon?

Simply put, people don’t pile up in dungeons, or anywhere that’s not a zerg (not counting certain fights where blocking ranged spells means an easy win, in which case Shield gets to go anyway). Or, simply put, I can save someone who’s running for their life with a Shield Prot, instead of needing an enemy, five seconds windup time, and the guy to stop running for his life.

Not that this debate means much to me, since I switch my weapons around all the time anyway. This is not a class where I feel like choosing two weapon sets and keeping them forever is a smart move, I put on whatever’s going to best help me complete my objective.

“….there are…..five of you?”
“We thought four would be enough, but Olafdottir insisted on coming.”
“….I will NEVER understand the Norn.”

This in response to what all clues pointed at being the end of the world at the time.

Why did I pick Norn? Because they would bleed awesome, if you could cut them.

Schakal.6091:

Malediktus.9250:

Warmaster Forgal also mentioned a Dolyak spirit I think.

AFAIK Dolyak and Bull are two names for the same Spirit.

No, both dolyak and bulls exist in the world, so there is both a Dolyak and a Bull spirit.

The Norn’s vision of the world seems to jive closely to Plato’s allegory of the cave—that there is one perfect version of everything (in the Norn’s case, Spirits), and that everything else is a copy based on that original mold. I can’t recall if I read or imagined that they believed in spirits of things like mountains or elements, but what we do know is that if there is an animal, the Norn believe in that animal’s Spirit of the Wild.

EDIT: This is one reason that the Norn alone have those who will voluntarily follow the Elder Dragons—Jormag has a lot of the powers expected of Spirits of the Wild, in that it can control those in its own image (much as the Spirit of Minotaur incites minotaur rampages in response to the sacrifices being made), and it can grant great power to those who worship it (just as many other Spirits of the Wild can do).

PotatoKnight.3507:

Female norn have bigger swords than male humans, FYI.

But female Norn, and both RJ and I pointed out, are considered the physical equals of male Norn. And all races being equal for gameplay purposes aside, the Norn are far and away the strongest of the five races, physically speaking. Eir, in the stories, is basically a walking ballista, and is known to have carried a five-hundred-pound bust of Zojja from her home in Hoelbrak through the Asura Gates to Snaff’s laboratory. Eir was not noted to have any remarkable physical strength by anybody.

So if one Norn female can carry five hundred pounds of dead weight, why should any Norn female have issue with a greatsword?

Norn elites are quite useful. Bear Form’s Charge is incredibly awesome, Wolf form regens health on attack (making it useful to get into a toe-to-toe battle, even for a Guardian), and Snow Leopard has stealth. Raven Form offers no particularly valuable move, unfortunately, but three out of four forms are far from useless.

Harbinger.8637:

Charge. Nice and simple.

Charge is a Warrior skill.

Yeah, Renewed Focus is underwhelming compared to the Tomes.

You can also cast it eight times in the same time you could use a tome three times.

While I agree that our elites are fairly lackluster, the ability to blow your virtues without losing their passive effects should not be underestimated.

Hassohappa.9278:

If we aren’t tanks please tell all the mobs to stop focusing me.

Tell them yourself. Drop CC, run past allies, get out of their range, ask for help from your team.

Not human. Doesn’t have human proportions.

Palad.5718:

A norn female is also decidedly less bulky than a norn male. It has no reflection on gameplay, but it makes a little more sense that a mountain of a man can effortlessly swing a blade that takes a great deal of strength.

However, it makes no sense that a female Norn, still some ten feet of sheer muscle (female Norn are physically on par with male Norn), has more trouble with a greatsword than a human male.

Video James.9218:

Frankly, I feel Norns should use Johnny Bravo’s “The Monkey”.

I was all determined to defend the Carlton dance unto death.

Then you had to go and suggest this, and now my allegiance is torn.

HOW DARE YOU SIR

Not likely.

The Norn honor the spirit of Owl through their racial “call Owl” ability, just as they honor Issormir with the Wurm summon.

There’s also a shrine in Hoelbrak where the fallen spirits are honored, Owl foremost among them.

It changed your 1-10 story quest.

On my Guardian, I chose Wolf as my spirit, and my storyline involved solving the question of why Minotaurs had recently become so violent (the first part of the quest very neatly tied into the “stop the rampaging Minotaur” event near Bear Shrine, actually).

I’m guessing your story was not so much about minotaurs?

EDIT: I know choosing Raven has something to do with collecting steel, too.

True, the smaller stature a character has, the easier it is to lose them in a crowd.

However, is this an issue in sPvP, which is the only place where everything else is even?

Even if it is, I’m not sure making size affect things like bubble would be the right way to reward larger characters. Although I wouldn’t necessarily be against it, given that size has affected me negatively in more than one jumping puzzle. =/

Wow, my underwater experience as a Guardian has only been surpassed by my underwater experience as a Ranger. I can battle a dozen mobs underwater and come out practically unscathed, and that’s at melee range for the 2 skill on the Spear.

Your mileage may vary, I guess.

DesertRose is right. The knockback is bigger, the combo field is bigger, the heal goes further if you pop it, and the area that your teammates can stand in and be protected from ranged attacks is larger, all if you rolled the largest Norn in the game as opposed to the smallest Asura.

It does make a difference—a huge difference.

The first set is one of the Norn racial armor tiers. It’s basically Eir’s armor. I want to say it’s tier 2, but I’m not sure.

Aye, now that I know about it, that’s rather disappointing, especially with how effortlessly the male Norn swing their blades about.

Someone else has mentioned this problem before, and provided video proof that size does affect SoA’s radius.

Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Wall of Reflection works against projectiles, but fails against cones and AoE moves. But, it never claimed to reflect those in the first place.

Sanctuary’s knockback is considered a form of crowd control, which triggers the boss “stack CC resistance” buff. I’ve kept a boss sitting in my Sanctuary field, and he’ll get knocked down, gain his resistance stack, and then that stack will burn away while he stays in Sanctuary until eventually the boss is knocked down again.

All throughout the beta I figured that was done on purpose—I thought all the intro bosses would basically insta-gib you, then spawn easily-killed level 1s, specifically to show players the downed state in the starter area.

I now know I was wrong.

Snow Leopard has stealth.

A twelve-foot Norn walks up to you.

He’s holding what looks like a sword to you, but he’s holding it like it’s a dagger. In his other hand is a cannon the size of an Asura that he’s hefting like a pistol.

He stops in front of you, then teleports behind you. Then he asks for your gold.

Do you stop to argue with the twelve-foot teleporting death Norn? No sir, you do not. You give him your money, and you hope he likes your floral-print wallet.

Sounds like an effective thief to me.