Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the feedback on this guys. I want to add some clarification and then my opinions on what’s been said so far.

1. The utility of toughness would change with this suggestion. It would not remain a damage soaker.

2. It’s not bad that the game prioritizes active mechanics. I really enjoy that. I wish stats like toughness had more active mechanics to them. Take power for instance, it effects your direct damage which can only be dealt using active mechanics. I think something similar for toughness would be in line with that, hence this idea.

3. It does feel a little too similar to concentration. So perhaps a boon buffer isn’t the answer. That said, I think this moves towards making more professions useful. That would leave fewer professions out of content, not more.

4. Not sure how the suggestion to start my own group is relevant to this. I start my own groups all the time, often non-meta. Those who suggest this as if I haven’t done this assume a lot of me and we all know what happens when we assume. This suggestion comes after I have put in the effort to create my own groups, so obviously that isn’t the answer here. It also doesn’t come out of a desire to drop into any meta group without effort. It comes from a desire to see stats like toughness effect active mechanics.

5. We’ve had quite a few shakeups in GW2 before and people always complain. I don’t think that’s a good reason to disregard this suggestion, more just something to keep in the back of one’s mind. I think the focus of critique should be on the mechanics instead, which for the most part it has been, but I wanted to note that.

I think the biggest things to consider, for those interested in discussing, is what the sweeping changes would really look like in all game modes, and how those changes would effect the players.

Thanks!

Tentonhammr.7849:

No.

You basically want all these mechanics to be useless, or seriously nerfed, just to randomly shoehorn toughness into being meta or viable, when it already is- just not in any of the game modes you play. It’s critical in PvP, WvW and raids, and working just fine as it is.

I think you may have misread this post. With a high amount of toughness these mechanics would be buffed, not nerfed. Neither is this meant to randomly shoehorn in toughness but make it a trait that effects active mechanics. This could be fun for all game modes.

Of course, like both of us have said, I don’t play PvP or WvW (although I’ve played a little of the latter). But just because it’s used doesn’t mean it’s fine as is. As to raids, it is used but it isn’t critical, a group can do quite well without any toughness gear.

But rather than just saying “no” and “it’s fine” as is could you explain yourself further? Why is it fine as is? Why would this change be worse than it currently is?

I had a shower thought about toughness last night that I want to run by y’all.

TL;DR: Change toughness from an armor modifier to a defensive buff modifier.

So first, some context, the main content I play is T4 Fractals, Dungeons, and Open World content. So of course that means I don’t have much experience with WvW and PvP especially so this suggestion may not work due to these game modes. However, in the game modes I do play, I’ve been a little disappointed that toughness doesn’t have much use. I would love to play a useful high toughness character in T4 fractals but there isn’t much desire for this.

The reason for this, I think, is that GW2 prioritizes active mechanics over passive mechanics, which is great, but that means it won’t ever prioritize toughness.

So, what if toughness were changed from a trait that adds to your armor (a passive buff) to a a trait that increases the usefulness of applied buffs. For example.

• Aegis applied to you and your group changes from blocking the next incoming attack to blocking a high amount of damage of the next incoming attack depending on the casters toughness. Higher toughness = more damage blocked.
• Protection applied to you and your group changes from reducing all damage by 33% to reducing a certain amount of damage of the next incoming attack depending on the casters toughness. Higher toughness = greater protection. This should cap of course, I would say around 40% but maybe lower.
• Resistance applied to you and your group changes from making all conditions ineffective to a certain number of conditions ineffective based on the casters toughness. Higher toughness = more conditions rendered ineffective.
• Retaliation applied to you and your group changes from being power based to being both power based and toughness based. According to the wiki the formula for retaliation is 200 + (0.075 x Power). This could change to 100 + (0.075 x Power) + (0.075 x Toughness) for example.
• Stability applied to you and your group changes from making all CC’s applied to you ineffective to scaling the ineffectiveness of CC’s to the toughness of the caster. Low toughness means only softer CC’s can be blocked, medium toughness means medium CC’s can be blocked, and high toughness means the hardest CC’s can be blocked.
• Vigor applied to you and your group changes from increasing regeneration by 50% to increasing regeneration depending on the casters toughness. Higher toughness = a greater percentage of endurance regeneration. This would also need to cap, I would say around 60%.

These are all of course just possibilities and are meant to represent the idea and how I think it would work rather than an exact implementation plan.

One problem I see is what happens if the same buff is applied from different sources with different levels of toughness? I think there are a few ways this could be handled.

• 1 option would be to have the caster with the highest toughness dictate how effective the buff is and other casters increase the duration of the buff.
• Another option is to increase the effectiveness of the buff based on the collective toughness of all the casters.
• I could see some combination of both of these being other options.

So that’s my idea to revamp toughness. It’s not perfect of course, but I’d love to know your thoughts.

Made an edit to the OP which details 1 possible way of transforming stats via attunements and added notes in the notes section about the justification this mechanic.

Robert Williams.4872:

Welp, I guess this idea would be cool for the Next, NEXT expansion!

Haha yeah, glad you think it’s cool though!

Supreme.7352:

Attunement is the wrong word for this. We already have attunements in the game and attuning yourself to to something means swapping skills out for other skills. See: Elementalist and Revenent.

Yes that’s exactly what I mean here. Swapping attunements for Nemesis would be swapping weapon skills out for other weapon skills, namely swapping out power skills for condition skills when attuning to plight and vice versa when attuning to power.

Edit: I can see how that may not have been clear. I’ve edited the OP for clarity.

Reserved for additional notes.

Dadnir.5038:

Shouldn’t you just use F2 as the attunment key to flip between power and plight? Also, modifying stat won’t do any good to the game. Just make power attunment grant a stackable buff that improve your direct damage by x% each time you should have hit a foe with a condition and plight attunment reduce power damage by a %age and improve condition duration.

I thought of using F2 just to swap attunements and F1 as the burst skill but I thought this would be more…intuitive I guess? Also it makes it more like Elementalist’s attunements, which might keep the mechanic familiar and standardized. Either way would work though, yeah. I’ll add this to the notes.

As to modifying stats, why wouldn’t that work? And how would the system you suggest work better? To me it sounds like just another way of modifying stats. Perhaps I just don’t understand the inner workings here.

Thanks!

Traits – Focus on attunement usage, rage skills, Shortbows, and punishing your foe.

• Minor Traits
  • Minor Adept – Nemesis’ kitten nal (this forum is changing the first part of this 2nd word, it’s a synonym of stockpile) – Gain access to shortbows, attunements, and new bursts.
  • Minor Master – Chaotic Rage – Grant chaos armor when a rage skill is used, this trait has a cooldown.
  • Minor Grandmaster – Attunement Master – Apply retaliation to self and 9 allies when attuning to power and apply confusion and torment to up to 10 enemies when attuning to plight.
• Major Traits
  • Major Adept
    • Swift Shortbow – Reduce the cooldowns of shortbow skills and increase the direct/condition damage of shortbow the closer you are to your target.
    • Inner Peace – Outrage now also clears conditions. Rage skills and have reduced cooldowns.
    • Master of Arms – Apply vulnerability to target and protection to self when weapon swapping.
  • Major Master
    • Surefooted – Break stuns and gain stability when swapping attunements.
    • Concentration – Slowly increase effectiveness of an attunement the longer you have it active up to a cap.
    • Unpredictable – Increase damage for a short time after swapping attunements.
  • Major Grandmaster
    • Weak and Vulnerable – Inflict vulnerability and weakness when you strike a foe that is below the health threshold. Increase damage done to foes that are both weak and vulnerable.
    • Punishing Parry – Periodically use parry automatically and decrease its cooldown. When parrying, any conditions your enemy was going to apply to you is instead returned back to your enemy and any buffs that your enemy was going to gain with their attack is instead applied to you.
    • Blowout – Increase the effectiveness of burst skills at every level (1-3).

Notes

• This is a draft only. The ideas presented are simply to create a good idea of how this elite specialization would work. All elements are subject to change.
• I’ve intentionally left out numbers for the most part so they can be balanced appropriately.
• Nemesis would be balanced to be more powerful than base Warrior but not as powerful as Berserker. The intent of Nemesis is to be versatile in combat, provide additional support to allies beyond Phalanx Strength, and punish enemies.
• This will not make condition or power armor pointless as there are plenty of other classes/elite specs where it will matter what stats you use. Berserker, having a higher damage output than Nemesis, will continue to be a widely used warrior elite spec where choosing between power and condition gear matters.
• In its current form there are obvious concerns.
  • Sinister and Carrion stats have the ability to give the warrior both major and minor power stats under the power attunement and major and minor condition damage stats under the plight attunement.
  • Viper stats have the ability to give 2 major power stats under the power attunement and 2 major condition damage stats under the plight attunement.
  • Special balancing may be required for issues such as these. One solution is to simply make these stat sets exceptions to the stat swapping of attunements. So Sinister, Carrion, and Viper set’s stats remain unchanged when swapping attunements.
  • Otherwise allowing for a major and minor power or condition damage or 2 major power or condition damage stats may be an interesting and ok side effect of the stat transformations.
• Balancing may be needed between PvE, WvW, and PvP.
• F2 could be the dedicated attunement swapping button with F1 as the dedicated burst skill button.
• The way stat transformation, listed in the attunement section, works is one possible way I could see this working. It takes cues from traits like warrior’s Great Fortitude which grants vitality as a percentage of power. I use the word ‘effectiveness’ when talking about reducing stats because it doesn’t reduce the associated stats to literally 0 but rather nulls its effectiveness as power. If you have 100 power with the plight attunement active you still have 100 power it just doesn’t do anything other than give a number for condition damage to buff itself on.

Post 3 of 3.

New Weapon – Shortbow

• The purpose of this weapon for warrior is not to be the best damage dealer, but reliable support weapon for team play when attuned to power & a punishing condition weapon when attuned to plight. It’s also strongest as a melee weapon, but has range to maintain that bow feel.
• Attuned to Power
  • Moderate direct damage weapon skills.
  • Apply retaliation and resistance to allies
  • Increase damage the closer you are to your target with a trait (Swift Shortbow).
  • Burst skill – Backbiter – Fire dozens of forceful needles into your foe at melee distance.
• Attuned to Plight.
  • Moderate condition damage weapon skills.
  • Apply torment and confusion to enemies.
  • Increase condition damage the closer you are to your target with a trait (Swift Shortbow).
  • Burst skill – Back Bender – Torment your enemy with dozens of painful needles at melee distance.

New weapon skills for old weapons – Old power weapons will maintain their old skills when attuned to power and receive a new set of condition skills when attuned to plight. Likewise, old condition weapons will maintain their old skills when attuned to plight and receive a new set of power skills when attuned to power. I picture the different skill sets for weapons staying similar, but not identical, between attunements with either a direct damage or condition damage flavor depending on which attunement is active. As examples see the following burst attack suggestions. In addition to their current burst attacks, which would be associated with the proper attunement, the following weapons could receive the following burst attacks for their respective attunement.

• Longbow Power Attunement – Explosive Shot – Implant an explosive arrow into your foe which detonates for massive damage.
• Sword Power Attunement – Fury – Immobilize your foes with a flurry of heavy hits.
• Axe Plight Attunement – Nightmare Leap – Leap at your foe cutting with poisonous strikes.
• Greatsword Plight Attunement – Vital Slice – Deliver a circular attack to foes around you bleeding all enemies you hit and gain fury.
• Hammer Plight Attunement – Bone Breaker – Jump to the targeted location and slam your hammer down, crippling and burning foes.
• Mace Plight Attunement – Skull Bash – Confuse your foe with a skull bash.
• Rifle Plight Attunement – Tactical Shot – Fire a well-aimed shot, bleeding and chilling your foe.
• Spear Plight Attunement – Whirling Death – Poison all foes around you.
• Harpoon Gun Plight Attunement – Draining Shot – Fire a powerful shot that bleeds foes.

Slot Skills – Buff Rage Skills via traits for the purpose of the Nemesis to control the fight and add a new rage skill called Parry.

• Parry – Cause your opponents next attack to be a glancing blow, your next attack hits with your weapon’s damage + a percentage of the enemies incoming damage up to a cap.

Post 2 of 3.

New Warrior Elite Spec – Nemesis - The Nemesis is a warrior whose focus is on turning their opponent against themselves while maintaining an unpredictable combat prowess

Intro – I’ve been watching Wooden Potatoes’ and Boots’ series called Elite Spec-ulation which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. So I thought I’d get in on the fun and write down my thoughts on a new elite spec that I would find really fun in an upcoming expansion.

Purpose – With Elite Specs adding new weapons for all classes, other classes have encroached on the feeling of warrior’s weapon mastery, this elite specialization attempts to ensure the warrior’s position as such by making them an expert in the weapons available to them. The Nemesis purpose is to punish the warrior’s opponent and make the warrior unpredictable by providing more in-combat capability. It capitalizes on the theme of the Warrior as a weapons master by providing them with 2 attunements for each weapon: Plight Attunement and Power Attunement. Please review the notes section at the bottom for possible solutions to potential concerns.

New Adrenaline Skill – Attunements – Attunements bring a change to weapons, no longer are they only condition or power based, but can be either or depending on which attunement you have active. In addition, attunements effect your gear to appropriately support what you are attuned to. Attunements can only be swapped when adrenaline is full, this consumes all adrenaline. There is no visual change to swapping attunements for the enemy to see, all visual changes will be for the warrior only in order to maintain the element of surprise. Pressing the attunements associated F key will activate a burst skill assuming there is enough adrenaline to use it. Bursts are powerful, but not as powerful as the primal bursts of the Berserker.

F1 – Power Attunement

• Transform condition damage to power and expertise to concentration while this attunement is active.
  • Reduce the effectiveness of condition damage and expertise by 100%
  • Gain power based on a percentage of condition damage: 100%
  • Gain concentration based on a percentage of expertise: 100%
• Swap out condition based weapon skills for power based weapon skills.
• When swapping to this attunement grant retaliation to the warrior and allies via a trait.
• Pressing F1 with this attunement active will activate the F1 burst skill assuming there is enough adrenaline to use it. The F1 burst skill is power based.
• Pressing F2 with this attunement active will deactivate it and activate the plight attunement. This requires full adrenaline and will consume all of it.

F2 – Plight Attunement

• Transform power to condition damage and concentration to expertise while this attunement is active.
  • Reduce the effectiveness of power and concentration by 100%
  • Gain condition damage based on a percentage of power: 100%
  • Gain expertise based on a percentage of concentration: 100%
• Swap out power based weapon skills for condition based weapon skills.
• When swapping to this attunement apply confusion and torment to opponents via a trait.
• Pressing F2 with this attunement active will activate the F2 burst skill assuming there is enough adrenaline to use it. The F2 burst skill is condition based.
• Pressing F1 with this attunement active will deactivate it and activate the power attunement. This requires full adrenaline and will consume all of it.

Post 1 of 3.

azizul.8469:

current dailies are fine

Could you expand a bit on why you think that?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Whelp, that makes a big difference to what you are referring. Thanks for the clarification.

For sure, thanks for pointing it out.

Silent The Gray.3091:

ZacHank.1358:

Rauderi.8706:

Laudable attempt, but I’m not sure it addresses the core problem that you identified:

The busiest time of day for GW2 is reset, once dailies are finished groups become far more scarce.

Of course, some of the issue isn’t just that reset is the time to show up. Most of the game is on rails, including the core of HoT. Verdant Brink’s only worthwhile time is only 20 minutes at night. Auric Basin’s money shot clogs about 30 minutes or so out of a two hour period. Don’t even think about Dragon Stand unless you’re in the One Sacred Map.

Many of the Lv80 maps aren’t much of a go-and-play experience, or they demand being around at specific times, so that Auric Basin meta might be interfering with a Lake Doric leather “farm” run.

It really makes me miss Silverwastes, but that got exploited for chest farms or map hopping.

Yeah this suggestion definitely doesn’t solve that issue of activities that are only worth playing at very specific intervals.

I do, however, think it does help with the activities effected by a daily reward buff (as described in my latest response to Inculpatus cedo). So, at least for these activities which is a lot of content, I think it does address that core issue.

This game only supports one style of game play and that is the casual mode of gameplay, it’s unfortunate, but that is the route they’ve chosen to go, I hope that their gemstore exclusive minipets from Wintersday season 1 were worth keeping exclusive. Halloween season 1 or the works, such brilliant minds we have to work with here. Why make money when you could just not?

I’m not sure how your comment is relevant here. Would you mind expounding a bit?

Edited OP to add some clarity.

Rauderi.8706:

Laudable attempt, but I’m not sure it addresses the core problem that you identified:

The busiest time of day for GW2 is reset, once dailies are finished groups become far more scarce.

Of course, some of the issue isn’t just that reset is the time to show up. Most of the game is on rails, including the core of HoT. Verdant Brink’s only worthwhile time is only 20 minutes at night. Auric Basin’s money shot clogs about 30 minutes or so out of a two hour period. Don’t even think about Dragon Stand unless you’re in the One Sacred Map.

Many of the Lv80 maps aren’t much of a go-and-play experience, or they demand being around at specific times, so that Auric Basin meta might be interfering with a Lake Doric leather “farm” run.

It really makes me miss Silverwastes, but that got exploited for chest farms or map hopping.

Yeah this suggestion definitely doesn’t solve that issue of activities that are only worth playing at very specific intervals.

I do, however, think it does help with the activities effected by a daily reward buff (as described in my latest response to Inculpatus cedo). So, at least for these activities which is a lot of content, I think it does address that core issue.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Well, things like World Bosses, Dungeons, and Fractals rarely show up in the regular Dailies. I think most players do the fastest Dailies available, and move on to other content, or are finished for the day.

Fractal Dailies are a separate category. Are you suggesting a revamp for Fractal Dailies? If so, that would be something different, and might attract more response in the Dungeon/Fractal/Raid sub-forum.

Good luck.

Thanks!

Perhaps Dailies is a poor choice of words, but this suggestion isn’t just limited to Fractals or dungeons. When I say dailies I mean all activities in GW2 that have a reward buff for a certain amount of time which is reset on a daily basis. That means Fractals, Dungeons, World Bosses, time gated crafted items, as well as these dailies. Pretty much everything under the Daily Reset category here aside from gathering and vendors.

I say reward buff rather than diminishing returns because that’s more accurate in describing what it is. Diminishing returns is about a decrease in incremental rewards for increasing effort/resources put into an activity. That isn’t what is happening here.

So I’m not entirely sure what to call all of these. In my mind all of these are “Dailies” while the +10 AP dailies fall under the “Daily Achievements”.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’ve never heard that particular concern (that content after completing Dailies became less rewarding). I don’t know why content would become more, or less, profitable because of Dailies. Events reward the same, before and after Dailies. Many players (that have capped their Daily APs) eschew Dailies in favor of other content, so they post.

I would imagine a Google search would reveal, at least some of, the threads about ‘too many currencies’. If this new currency was Wallet-bound only, I suppose there would not be much concern. /shrug

Regardless, good luck on your suggestion.

Many events don’t fall in the dailies category which is why their rewards stay the same. Other dailies (like Fractals for instance) give great rewards for about an hours worth of content. Once you’ve completed all your recommended daily fractals the rewards fall dramatically. The same is true for world bosses, dungeons, and other dailies. I’m a part of a guild that does these activities regularly so we notice this a lot.

As to the too many currencies, I was thinking it would be wallet-bound only. I can imagine there would be an issue if there were yet another inventory slot taken up by this currency, but that isn’t what I’m suggesting here.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’m not sure I understand the pay-off of this suggestion. If post-Daily activity has “fairly high activity” (in your words) already, what would the purpose be of creating yet another currency (which is an oft-seen concern), and Reward table that would cost Dev resources?

Maybe I just don’t understand the suggestion…

First I’d appreciate it you expanded on the oft-seen concern of adding another currency. I haven’t heard of that personally.

So when I said ‘fairly high activity’ I mostly mean that the game can’t be considered dead after dailies. I think there are 2 reasons for this. 1st there are a lot of dailies to do, so while 1 may be finished there are plenty of others to do. 2nd, is that many players do continue to play after they’ve completed the dailies they want to.

That said, there is a noticeable drop off in player activity after dailies are completed. The people I’ve talked to claim that this is because those activities become far less rewarding and so they stop playing those activities. I’ve heard this a lot so I’m sure you are familiar with this notion. These reasons, I think, leads to it being more difficult than it should be to organize groups and to players feeling like post-daily content is less rewarding than it should be.

This suggestion attempts to resolve those issues by allowing content to be equally profitable post-dailies.

Sartharina.3542:

Dailies get people to log in regularly, and keeps the game at the forefront of their attention. then they do other stuff.

The big reason to do the dailies, though, is the +10 AP. The currency reward is just a way to keep gold going to players who don’t feel like playing the TP.

I think that push to log in regularly would remain as dailies would still exist just under a different reward system. Also the +10 AP would also remain as that doesn’t translate into currencies as I’ve specified.

So I still can’t really empathize with your concerns here as they seem to be addressed already.

Doam.8305:

You think that all these people logging in at reset for daily rewards can be moved around to help with population.

However all those people logging in just for daily will probably not loggin at all if the rewards are removed. Dailies make the a game a routine and those people will only be active for those rewards but will truly start playign again when there is new content. When we get a new map then the people play normally and after thats faded they return to rewards.

Gw2 is fairly active during down times and drought due to those rewards and nerfing them would just make the game a bone dry landscape and even fewer people would return to check out the new maps.

So this is not a solution to content drought. New content will still be necessary to keep player interest of course.

Nerfing daily rewards may not have the effect you think if general rewards for content are buffed. But even if it isn’t buffed, I still don’t think it would have the effect you think it would. Content is still rewarding even without dailies (which I think explains activity post dailies). But with this suggestion implemented there would be no perception that content is less rewarding after dailies are completed.

I think what you say is contradictory. If you honestly believe that nerfing daily rewards would drastically decrease player involvement and keep them from returning then how can you hold that the exact same scenario (current post-daily rewards) contains fairly high activity? That is why I noted that I believe this potential problem is unlikely. As to routine, that would remain as dailies would still exist just with a different rewards system. This is how I see it at least. Thoughts on that?

TL;DR: Skip to the numbered lists.

The 2 biggest complaints about GW2 that I hear the most often are, ’I’m never on when other people are’ and, ‘I don’t know what to do now’. This suggestion attempts to be a partial solution to both with a primary focus on the first complaint. For the record, these complaints can be easily resolved by players coordinating better and setting personal goals. That said I believe that any action taken by Anet to make these easier would be beneficial to the game.

I understand Anet’s desire to incentivize players to play on a daily basis, which is why we have dailies. However, I think the current way of rewarding players for these dailies is hurting GW2 rather than helping it in it’s current state. I’ll explain.

First I want to clarify what I mean by dailies here. When I say dailies I mean all activities in GW2 that have a reward buff for a certain amount of time which is reset on a daily basis. That means Fractals, Dungeons, World Bosses, time gated crafted items, as well as these dailies. Pretty much everything under the Daily Reset category here aside from gathering and vendors. I say reward buff rather than diminishing returns because that’s more accurate in describing what it is. Diminishing returns is about a decrease in incremental rewards for increasing effort/resources put into an activity. That isn’t what is happening here.

In my experience, many players play GW2 simply for the daily rewards and log off after their dailies are complete. The busiest time of day for GW2 is reset, once dailies are finished groups become far more scarce. Why does this happen? In short, it’s because the rewards for content drop dramatically. Players feel less incentivized to continue to play, simply because they are done gaining rewards they feel are worth their time. This makes it incredibly difficult for players to coordinate playing group content outside of daily reset hours. As a result they are left feeling 2 things, ’I’m never on when other people are’ and, ‘I don’t know what to do now’.

I see a large but simple solution to this problem: revamp the daily rewards system. I’ll break this down into 5 steps.

1. Remove all current daily rewards that can be translated into currencies.
2. Create a new currency given for completing daily rewards.
3. Amount given of said currency would scale with the difficulty and time investment of the daily.
4. Create a new rewards shop with rewards that can only be purchased with this currency.
5. Ensure that these rewards cannot be translated into other currencies. (Ex: skins & mini’s).

What are the potential benefits of this?

1. It keeps players incentivized to play on a daily basis.
2. It keeps players incentivized to play content after their daily is complete as it remains as rewarding as before in terms of non-daily currency (ex: gold).
3. With players continuing to play after their dailies are complete, it gives players who haven’t completed dailies yet an easier time coordinating to find groups to play with.
4. Since players remain online and groups remain readily available other players don’t feel like they have nothing to do and no one to play with.
5. It removes a little RNG from the daily rewards system as players are guaranteed a certain amount of currency for completing a daily and can choose which rewards they want to purchase.

What potential problems does this have?

1. The basic rewards of various activities may also have to be revamped since dailies would no longer be as profitable.
2. The problem may persist as players may still only play for their daily currency reward.
3. Players may not be incentivized enough to play on a daily basis and general player activity may drop as a result.

Personally, I see potential problem 1 as somewhat likely, 2 as less likely, and 3 as unlikely. I also see the potential benefits of this suggestion as highly likely.

One final note: this isn’t a complete solution to the issues of player availability and rewards. Some will still feel that they never can find people to play with. Many will still feel that there is nothing to do in the endgame. This also isn’t a solution that will help interval activities (like level 80 map events). But, I do think this will be a much needed push in the right direction.

So what do you think? Are the initial problems I pointed out accurate? Did I miss any potential benefits or problems? Are these the droids we’re looking for?

Link to Reddit discussion.

Mylerian.9176:

Whatever you decide try to stay away from the Metta crap. There are much better builds out there. I love my DH! Especially in WvW so much fun!

Yeah this isn’t correct. I’ve played non-meta builds enough to know otherwise.

Here’s what I would change.

1. Take permanent party protection away from just the hammer and give it to all weapons. 1 way to do this is to have Writ of Persistence give protection to allies instead of healing allies, then make every #1 weapon skill give their associated symbol like hammer has, finally change the hammer’s symbol so it isn’t redundant. Of course this would come with some nerfs to some symbols.

2. Substantially buff strength in numbers. 1 way to do this is to let the Guardian give a percentage of its Toughness and/or Vitality and/or Concentration to the party. As damage is more important than defense in GW2 the buff needs to be great enough to justify a damage loss for the party.

3. Change virtues so they aren’t identical to signets mechanically. DH did this a bit, but they’re still too much like signets in my opinion. 1 way this could be done is to make it so you can deactivate a virtue passive if you want but gain a shorter cooldown to use the active more frequently. In addition, make it so you can deactivate the virtue active if you want (making it unusable) but gain a stronger passive effect. Switching modes like this would have to be done out of combat.

4. Give every weapon (that doesn’t have one) a parry mechanic of sorts. Grant retaliation or perhaps stability to allies if the parry is successful. In the case of Longbow’s Deflecting Shot, remove the increase in damage and increase the stacks of retaliation or stability for each projectile destroyed.

5. Give Guardian more access to Resistance for allies. Perhaps change signet of resolve’s passive from curing a condition from yourself to granting resistance to yourself and allies.

Basically make Guardian fill its role as a guard/defender/protector for the party as best as possible and in such a way to move it away from a dps meta.

bearshaman.3421:

http://dulfy.net/2014/08/25/gw2-guardian-pve-class-guide-by-bordy/

Thank you! This is exactly what I’m looking for. I’ve been on this site before looking for a guide like this, but for some reason I must have skipped over this.

Buran.3796:

ZacHank.1358:

Lofty.6278:

If you’re looking for a PVP guide there’s a Dragonhunter main named Zodin on youtube who has some amazing clips that you can breakdown.

Thanks! I’m more into PvE and WvW than PvP atm but that’s definitely something I’ll be looking more into later.

Zodin is mostly a WvW roamer/duellist specialist so you should take a look.

Awesome! Thanks!

MiloIsMilo.1586:

Try this build =)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAsdTnsABNdidDBedCEEhlEiCbDygy8aZDgLQe5j+rH-TxRBQBA4JBkRlf5TfRCV/hCnSgAt/gJVCCA-e

Thanks but I’ll be sticking with GS & LB. Those are musts for me. I love them too much, haha.

Lofty.6278:

If you’re looking for a PVP guide there’s a Dragonhunter main named Zodin on youtube who has some amazing clips that you can breakdown.

Thanks! I’m more into PvE and WvW than PvP atm but that’s definitely something I’ll be looking more into later.

Thanks for the suggestions guys! This has been really helpful

VectorVineyard.8379:

If your current build is Virtues/DH than I don’t think using Virtue actives too often will be much of an issue. In fact, I’d say you get more out of Virtue traits by using them more often; you probably have lots of Retaliation and Might thanks to Inspired Virtue and Virtue of Retribution. You benefit more than me from Virtues because you use the actives more often. My damage is primarily based on the fact that I stick to Justice passive, so I don’t benefit from the buffs to actives as well as you.

Since your build is power-based, consider looking into traits described as “Deal more damage if XYZ” since those bonuses are power-based as well – examples being Unscathed Contender in Virtues, Retribution in Radiance, and Fiery Wrath, Symbolic Power, and Symbolic Avenger in Zeal.
Something else to think on is how often you apply Aegis/Retaliation, drop symbols, or use utility skills.

That said, I think Zeal would be the best bet for your third specialization. You’ve got a lot of options for buffing symbols, Aegis, greatsword, Immobilize/Blind, and burns. It’s a great all-rounder specialization.

Yup, I’m using Zeal as my third spec.

I drop symbols whenever possible and same for most utilities. I use Shelter for heal whenever it makes sense, Bane Signet for the passive, Procession of Blades whenever it’s off cool down, and Feel My Wrath whenever it’s off cool down. My 3rd utility slot usually has Test of Faith for the Protection and damage but I swap this out for whatever seems necessary like Retreat for example.

Aegis currently only comes from Shield of Courage, Fragments of Faith when I use it, and Retreat when I use it.

Retaliation currently comes when I activate virtues which is whenever possible, activating Stand Your Ground which isn’t often, and when I put down my Symbol of Wrath when using GS.

How should I think about these actions in regards to my build?

Thanks!

Ghotistyx.6942:

Virtues is a great traitline, but Permeating Wrath and Big Game Hunter actively oppose each other. Indomitable Courage would be a better choice for that grandmaster slot.

That’s what I was thinking, glad I’m not the only one who saw that, ha. I’ll give that a try next time I do Fractals to see how it goes. Thanks!

VectorVineyard.8379:

As I understand it, Permeating Wrath better suits a burn guardian than a power-based GS/LB Dragonhunter, and vice versa for Big Game Hunter. As a burn guardian myself, I would lose a good chunk of DPS by using Justice active since I would then have to spend the cooldown period without my AOE burn every 3 hits.

If PW is the primary reason for your choosing Virtues, I’d suggest swapping it for another specialization. You could trait one of the other two grandmasters for team support (another stun breaker when taking Indomitable Courage) as well. I think it really comes down to how often you utilize Virtue actives.

PW isn’t the only reason, the dps increase from unscathed contender is really nice and Virtuous Solace can be a life saver. I do tend to use my Virtues as often as possible but perhaps I shouldn’t be?

That said, what other trait line would you recommend for a power GS/LB Guardian?

So I’ve been studying Guardian and the biggest question I have is how useful Permeating Wrath is when Big Game Hunter is activated. As I understand it, Big Game Hunter would mean I’m using Spear of Justice as often as possible which decreases the effectiveness of Permeating Wrath. As a GS/LB Guardian, is Permeating Wrath still useful to take? Or should I swap out either that trait or all of the Virtues specialization for something else?

Thanks!

NumenorLord.6539:

Indeed, most are pretty old. You can always check http://qtfy.enjin.com/guardian for The RAID setup that is what most people will ask you to run once you join a Raid party. These builds include video for rotations and some skill explanation. Please note that the builds found here are also used in high level fractals of the mists and are referred as “Meta Builds”, meaning they will deal the highest damage output (Scepter) and the most utility alongside damage (Hammer).

For PvP current meta is found here http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_Meditrapper

I don’t play WVW but think some builds are also found on the metabattle page.

Now, you’ll find some people arguing that meta builds are not optimal due their “glassy” nature and I won’t even go there… But I can tell you that Guardian is one of the easiest classes due the amount of active defenses they have (blinds, blocks, reflects).

Hope this helps you.

Thanks! That raid guide is exactly what I was looking for in regards to Slot Skills. I now know the uses of these a little more and what I can swap out in certain situations.

So I guess I feel like I don’t know the class well enough to know what goal I should have to ask for templates. I do know what I like to play in MMORPG’s and have looked up guides based on that, but I’m left with not understanding why I’m taking some traits or skills over others very well. I’ll explain what I mean.

In MMORPG’s I look for 3 things in the character I play, the ability to equip heavy armor, a longbow, and a greatsword. I’ve been playing Warrior as a result for a while now since it was the only one that fit the bill till HoT. One of my guild mates said I should try out Guardian as it makes more sense for them to equip a LB and GS since they’re both power weapons on DH. As a result I’ve been following this build from Metabattle: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_GS/LB

Now some of the traits in this build make perfect sense, other’s don’t so much. I’ve asked specific questions around this in this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Trait-Questions/first#post6459980 But I haven’t received a lot of help in answering these yet and the answers I have gotten have left me a little more confused than before albeit a little more knowledgeable at the same time.

As a result, I feel like I just need to learn the class as a whole first, but perhaps I don’t. Is there a guide for the specific build I’m using that answers questions about why each trait is selected and what slots skills should be used etc?

Thanks!

I’m looking for a relatively generic and up to date guide to Guardian especially since the release of the Dragonhunter elite specialization. I’m still learning the class & am looking for something that covers the following.
1. How certain traits work together.
2. Slot skills overview and the advantages and disadvantages of each or at least the ones I should be using.
3. Build comparisons for PvP, WvW, and PvE. Ex: Why X build works in PvE but not PvP or how X PvE build works compared to Y PvE build.

I’ve been able to find a few guides for specific builds for Dragonhunters and generic but very old guides for Guardians in general but nothing very well rounded or up to date for a beginner to the class. Any suggestions on videos or text guides to look at would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Thanks Randulf! Plains of Ashford SoundTrack 03 was the one I was looking for specifically but I love all of the Plains of Ashford songs. Funny that I couldn’t find it until now.

I found it!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGNnOyGMXeE Searched for Ascalonian Soundtracks and it came right up It’s called A Land Restored. Thanks for all the help guys, I love this song.

Randulf.7614:

titje.2745:

use shazam on mobile

Tried that for the OP. All the tracks I tried were not recognised

Shoot, I got really excited for a second. I’ll see if TrackID works. Thanks for the tip!

Randulf.7614:

Ashford Abbey Theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mc0OSVrhoE
Originally a GW1 track, carried over to GW2

That is unfortunately not it. It has a bit of a sadder tone to it. Thanks for trying though!

Aeolus.3615:

What is SW shield?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spirit_weapon

Quote from the build link:
“Additionally use Shield of the Avenger Shield of the Avenger for projectile heavy fights.”

This is completelly wrong since its in heavy figths that they dont work, they barelly work even on 1 vs 1 situation even against mobs(monsters), Anet made then to not perform well for some whatever reason.
Even the Shield of Absortion, shield 5th skill should not be used under heavy aoe since does nothing against aoe, its only a very minor heal, the domes only wortk against projectiles(single target range skills) but unblocables skills will ignore the dome and hit you.

Unscathed Contender its the trait that increases damage while your have aegis not Battle Presences, imo that deppends of your playstyle, it is a nice damage boost if u are going to burst target before target can atack you, at the time he hits back by range, conditon aplying or wathever, you loose the 20% damage boost.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unscathed_Contender

Battle Presence allows you to spread your virtue heal to a passive heal to nearby 5 allies every 3 seconds, heals arround 280ish to 300ish every 3 seconds.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Battle_Presence

The activation of Aegis i dont fully understand what are u asking about, since Aegis is a boon from several skill, and the F3 Vitue, with if ur being under atack will consume the aegis and block any atack on you.
Aegis blocks 1 hit and can be countered by unblockable skills.

IF it is a pve build only ur lookign for, equip a hammer with dps stats, some players that are used to the pve gimmcick are better to help you than i am.

Thanks for the info on SW, as you can see I’m very much a noob haha.

I misspoke, I didn’t mean Battle Presence in conjunction with Unscathed Contender, I meant Indomitable Courage in conjunction with Unscathed Contender. Indomitable Courage allows Virtue’s passive to trigger more often meaning more Aegis when not using Shield of Courage. This in conjunction with Unscathed Contender would mean a 20% dps boost more often. Is this a noticeable dps increase? Over Permeating Wrath?

And I’m not going to use a hammer. It may be better dps but I enjoy the Greatsword Longbow combination too much; how it plays, how it looks, everything

Thanks again!

Amaimon.7823:

ZacHank.1358:

Done a bit of searching and I haven’t found anything that answers this question yet. In short, how do I find out the name of a song playing in game? I’ve tried searching for a couple I like based on the location they play in, and that works for some songs, but the names of others elude me. Any help would be appreciated.

Many songs are fixed to their location, so you can just type the place. The more specific, the better. Do you happen to remember where you were when you heard the desired music?

I heard them in Diessa Plateau for sure and I think Blazeridge Steppes and Iron Marches. It’s a softer song with harp and a choir, it sounds very LotR.

Randulf.7614:

ZacHank.1358:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You can listen to the Guild Wars sound tracks on YouTube (many tracks are used in GW2). Or the Guild Wars 2-exclusive sound tracks on Guild Wars 2/ArenaNet’s Soundcloud page.

Good luck.

I did find this, but it’s 150ish songs to look through. I just don’t have the time to do that and was hoping for an easier way.

There isn’t an easier way, however certain tracks only play in certain zones, so that will allow you to narrow it a little.

Yeah I’ve done this, still haven’t tracked down the tracks I’m looking for

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

So…let them play in the background whilst doing something else? You only have to look when you hear something you recognize.

Or…listen to the first few measures, and skip if it’s not what you are looking for?

I’ve done the latter and was unsuccessful which is why I’m asking. I will do the former someday but I get easily distracted easily while listening to music so I can’t really do that for a while (work is busy both at work and at home, ha). I was hoping there was an easy way to check in game what the music was or a way to look up music by location or something.

Aeolus.3615:

u would end doing zero damage for this support build to work with ( Absolute Resolution and Battle Presence) in a mediocre or low lvl, low health low surviability, would not work well in every gamemode.

Healing support scales very poorly in guardian, scrapper, warrior, ele, druid are far better in this.

SW spirits shield is not used for heavy fights, like its posted there, any aoe skill or even condi or cleave kills the SW, whatever game mode u use it.

Thanks for the reply.

So for Absolute Resolution and Battle Presence, I’m not looking at the support of it so much as the dps increase. How often does Battle Presence increase the activation of Aegis giving the 20% dps increase from Absolute Resolution? Is this worth considering?

I’ve heard similar answers about healing, thanks for the input.

What is SW spirit shield?

Thanks!

I just started playing as a Dragonhunter and had a few questions about the combination of a few traits that I’ve been unable to find the answers to online. Just trying to understand this class a bit better. Any help would be much appreciated.

First, I’m following this Metabattle build: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_GS/LB I really like the combo of GS and LB so I’ll definitely be keeping that.

1: This link has a note that says, “No trait with such title exists. and Zealot’s Aggression don’t really fit together with Big Game Hunter. This is the main reason why it’s highly recommend to use Test of Faith , otherwise you rely on other team members to bring Cripple.” I’m not entirely sure what this means but it sounds like Zealot’s Aggression should add cripple to the Virtue of Justice passive and that this perhaps isn’t working? Is that true?

2: Do Zealot’s Aggression and Permeating Wrath work together? Does the burn area also become a cripple area? Also, does the burn area that Permeating Wrath adds add to the burn stacks on the target?

3: What is the dps increase when using the combination of Unscathed Contender and Indomitable Courage? Is it comparable to Permeating Wrath? Also, what is the exact increase in frequency of Virtue of Courage’s passive while Indomitable Courage is activated?

4: Do Absolute Resolution and Battle Presence work together? If so, would this make Guardian a viable support healer at all especially when using Receive the Light? Or is the support provided by Virtuous Solace and the dps increase of Permeating Wrath too good to give up?

5. The guides I’ve looked at suggest using Procession of Blades with Spear of Justice but I don’t understand why exactly. The reasoning I’ve heard has something to do with the Big Game Hunter trait which effects Spear of Justice but I don’t understand how this is related to Procession of Blades. Am I just misunderstanding this completely?

Thanks!

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You can listen to the Guild Wars sound tracks on YouTube (many tracks are used in GW2). Or the Guild Wars 2-exclusive sound tracks on Guild Wars 2/ArenaNet’s Soundcloud page.

Good luck.

I did find this, but it’s 150ish songs to look through. I just don’t have the time to do that and was hoping for an easier way.

Done a bit of searching and I haven’t found anything that answers this question yet. In short, how do I find out the name of a song playing in game? I’ve tried searching for a couple I like based on the location they play in, and that works for some songs, but the names of others elude me. Any help would be appreciated.

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

That depends entirely on the market and your farm rate. I suggest a daredevil- with traits, skills, and boosters you can have perma swiftness. My farmer also runes of the traveler for 25% passive movement speed. Short bow for the shadow step. Item boosters and heroic boosters will increase your gathering as well- if you decide you want to do this long term get permanent gathering tools (watchwork pick axes gives you watchwork sprockets every time you gather- that extra silver adds up!).

Rough estimate, 5-10 gold in an hour. Websites like gw2bltc.com can help you track market prices for items to help you decide what to farm and what to list your sell prices as. https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/item/19702-Platinum-Ore

Sweet! Thanks!

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

Fractals are a good source, to save time and effort T3 would be better. You’re more likely to find a group, the instances are usually faster, rewards are almost as good. Raw material farming is a very consistent option- Sparkfly Fen is the best place for platinum and hard wood. Be warned though that right now, during the Wintersday event, many crafting materials are at a record low price for the year. Everyone is selling off their materials to get Winter’s Presence items.

Thanks for the tips!

Personally I’ve found T3’s to be more difficult than T4’s. It seems people know what their doing better at T4 which makes for a smoother run. Also my guild does T4’s from time to time I’ll definitely keep at that then.

As to raw material farming, are there any guides for this? Any estimate at the gold per hour?