Guild Wars 2

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zuko.7132:

From the perspective of an ele main I support this. Ele requires healing power to survive but the only amulets with healing power in the game don’t allow for an offensive ele build. The closest thing we have now is sages, but it offers neither enough sustain nor enough damage to actually compete.

Menders exists.

Lol if you think menders is good for an offensive build we need to have a long talk XD Power is fine. Only 560 precision so about 30% crit chance. No ferocity. No condi. Menders is a great sustain amulet. Damage? Not so much.

From the perspective of an ele main I support this. Ele requires healing power to survive but the only amulets with healing power in the game don’t allow for an offensive ele build. The closest thing we have now is sages, but it offers neither enough sustain nor enough damage to actually compete.

Ithilwen.1529:

Not only no, but kitten no. The exploiting of new players would be rampant. The unpleasantness around the “Queensdale Train” would look like a party in comparison.

Did you not read that both players have to be flagged…. Their could be no griefing… If you don’t want to deal with it then don’t flag, and no one can touch you even if they are flagged… Pls ready before posting dumb complaints….

Konig Des Todes.2086:

By all indication, what separates one of the Six Gods from other beings either powerful or claiming godhood is the source of their power. For the Six Gods, it seems to be a highly volatile, alien, magic source dubbed “Divine Magic” which cannot exist without a host – and its host is a “god”.

This may or may not apply to other gods, however, such as Zintl, Koda, and Ameyalli (and if she isn’t Melandru, Mellaggan as well).

Side note: Dhuum was usurped by Grenth in Orr. We can use the point of his fall as a commune hero challenge. However, unlike Dhuum, it seems Abaddon’s body was destroyed when he was brought down. Also, the creation of the Desolation/Crystal Desert wasn’t from when he was usurped, but defeated by the other five gods – his usurption had minimal devastation in Nightfall, though if there was no replacement then the entire Realm of Torment and Tyria would have been annihilated (supposedly).

So has Balthazar been usurped of his “Divine Magic” by someone, which is why he’s trying to regain power by taking other magics such as the bloodstone and dragon magic?

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

Imo this is what WvW is for. This is one game that I believe doesn’t need Open World PvP.

If you were looking into something like WoW, Anet will need to get more servers and make them Open World vP servers, which takes time and money. They should just focus on making what they have now better before introducing a new game mode.

No new servers. Literally just implement a flagging system, so that if both players want to fight they can. No time or money necessary. Wouldn’t take the focus away from any other development. It’s just a few lines of code. It’s fun to pvp in new places especially in cool maps from expansions. No griefing, has to be mutual. I don’t see a reason not to add it as an optional feature.

Is anyone else interested in a voluntary flagging system for open world pvp? Both players would have to be flagged so there would be no griefing. I know it’s unlikely to happen, but I don’t see a reason why it can’t. It would be really simple to implement, just a line of code that allows you to attack other players if their status is flagged. I know I would enjoy pve a lot more if there was the occasional player to fight.

Obviously he was a god, but it looks like he’s been weakened somehow…. de-deified? That or the pc is just that strong to be able to physically fight a god, which sounds kinda crazy.

Electro.4173:

Yes, this is a downside to Weaver. And that’s exactly what it’s meant to be. Its the price you’re paying for access to even more skills and the ability to mix attunements . You get even more variety than core Elementalist, but that variety isn’t going to be quite as “hot-swappable” as core Elementalist.

Letting you swap only the right side, while it would solve the “problem” you’re describing, would create an even bigger one. It’d allow you camp in a single attunement for your auto-attack and #2 skill (typically low-cooldown) while cycling through your #3, #4, and #5 skills, essentially letting you keep your best low-cooldown skills active at all times while gaining access to pretty much all your other longer cooldown spells at will. Camp Fire attunement for permanent access to Fireball and Lava Font, while still being able to use all your other powerful staff skills, for instance.

And if you just reversed the “slide” so that you couldn’t camp any attunement permanently, then it just becomes confusing and overcomplicated with stuff like on-attune / active attune traits. With the way it works now, whatever your newest attune is is going to be the one that gets both your on-attune traits and also the one you’re in for purposes of constant attune traits and stuff like glyphs. Want Fire, attune Fire, and you’ll activate all your associated traits and be able to use Fire glyphs. If you had a “reverse slide” button then all of a sudden you’re tapping Fire, getting the Fire trigger effects, but your “active” element becomes whatever you were in before, because now that one is on the left side.

Simple solution. Don’t make active attunement the one on the left. Make it the most recently swapped to one. That and reverse the slide. That solves the problem of camping and also fixes the active element problem. No over complication. Thanks for pointing that out though, I didn’t think of that.

CETheLucid.3964:

Zuko.7132:

Okay fail might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there is a huge issue.

As it stands right now, this is how attunement swapping works for weaver. Start out fire/water. Fire skills for 1 and 2. Mix for 3. Water skills for 4 and 5. Press earth. You are now earth/fire. The water slides off the weapon bar, the earth takes the 1 and 2 slots. Mix for 3. Fire slides over to 4 and 5. Press earth again. Fire slides off the weapon bar. The new earth takes 1 and 2. Old earth slides to 4 and 5. Mix of earth and earth is earth so you get the pure earth skill for 3. So basically whenever you attune to a new element it always goes into the 1 and 2 spot then mixes with whatever element was in the 1 and 2 spot before you swapped.

And therein lies the problem. If you want to gain access to the 4 or 5 skill of an element, you need to swap attunements twice, first with the attunement you want the 4 or 5 skill in, then with any other attunement to actually move it to the 4 and 5 skill. This is a huge issue because many of the 4 and 5 skills on ele weapons are intended to be used reactively. Take obsidian flesh for instance. It’s value lies in mitigating a burst. But unless you have earth attunemnt already equipped, it will take you anywhere from 3 to 6 seconds depending on current attunement recharge to be able to equip that skill, and because of that it can no longer be used reactively and thus is useless. This is particularly true for the focus which is primarily a reactive weapon with skills such as swirling winds, magnetic wave, comet, and gale, but also applies to other weapons as well. The only person who could properly use these skills with the way weaver currently works is by being able to see the future up to 6 seconds down the road. And a seer I am not, nor do I suppose many of you are either.

Obviously there are times even now when you won’t have certain skills available because you already swapped into the attunement earlier. However, the way it works now you can choose not to swap into that attunement earlier, so you can have it immediately available down the line, while still being able to swap between the other attunements. Current players of meta d/f auramancer in pvp are quite aware of this, where it is a good strategy to not swap into earth attunement until you need obsidian flesh, for fear of being locked out of it when you do need it. You can’t do this with weaver unless you stop attunement swapping all together with your earth paused at 1 and 2 skill slots in the example of obsidian flesh. Clearly there needs to be a way to be able to use reactive skills reactively without pausing all attunement swapping.

My solution is simple. Use the weapon swap button which ele currently doesn’t use to swap between which side of ur weapon bar you want to swap attuenments for. If the left side of the bar is picked things can work the way they currently do with things sliding over and dropping out. But if the right side is picked, keep the left side the same and swap the 4 and 5 skills for the new attunement. This will give weaver the ability to actually react with it’s reactive skills on the right side of its bar.

Let me know what you think

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7gGYfBxlJ8

If you were earth/? at some point and you wanted Obsidian Flesh, the next attunement swap you make will put you into ?/earth giving you Obsidian Flesh. It’s going to be a matter of keeping track of what attunement was first before the swap.

To have Obsidian Flesh at the ready, you’ll need to be in earth/? and then swap into something to go ?/earth. Probably water. Here’s hoping the sword skills for water and earth are amazing, and the the dagger air combo skill is able to compete with Shocking Aura.

It is a lot to keep track of. I do like your idea at the end to make use of the weapon swap to toggle that behavior.

correct. but that means you have to sit with earth on the bar waiting for them to burst you. A competent player would just wait till earth isn’t on the bar and they know they have 8 seconds to burst you without worrying about obsidian flesh or that if you just swapped to earth they have 4. Being able to swap earth in on the offhand via selecting the right hand of the weapon bar with weaponswap would avoid that situation.

sephiroth.4217:

Zuko.7132:

sephiroth.4217:

How Is Elementalist going to Might stack on D/D with Weaver?

it’s not gonna be able to. D/D ele still dead, at least as we know it now. Especially with shocking aura going away most of the time. Hopefully a brand new play style develops that fills the same role, or at least a role other than healbot for pvp.

I must have missed this memo about D/D being dead… how does 20s of shocking aura go away? how is Ele locked into healbot? what?

I’m D/D 90% of the time for the past 4-5 years in PvP/WvW?

I’m excited for weaver but I rely on my might stacks on D/D for my build to be effective, I really hope they don’t lower the skill floor ceiling or gut might stack rotations from Ele entirely.

in pvp d/d ele is dead, at least at the higher tiers, and is only run for fun, it doesn’t compete with other meta builds at a viable level. i meant shocking aura on air 3 for dagger will be really hard to gain access to on weaver seeing as you have to swap to air twice. also the shocking aura from overload and from elite will be gone so no more crazy shocking aura uptime, but that’s not d/d specific.

sephiroth.4217:

How Is Elementalist going to Might stack on D/D with Weaver?

it’s not gonna be able to. D/D ele still dead, at least as we know it now. Especially with shocking aura going away most of the time. Hopefully a brand new play style develops that fills the same role, or at least a role other than healbot for pvp.

Be sure and drop Bog Otter a like and a subscribe for giving us this amazing gift!

Khenzy.9348:

What you are complaining about is supposed to be a trade off. This spec is supposed to be played differently. You are also jumping into conclusions without playing it yourself or without enough info on all the new skills/traits.

Their would still be a trade off even with my suggestion. You still can’t fully swap your bar with weaver, even if you were allowed to target which side of the bar you want to change. Thus ele would still have the advantage of being able to fully attune to one element with one button press and the advantage of all attunement swaps not sharing the same cooldown. Thus there still is a trade off. As I said earlier in the post, I don’t actually know if this will cause it to fail. What I do know is that it is impossible to use many offhand weapon skills for their intended purposes, namely reacting to the enemy, without predicting 4 to 8 seconds in the future with the way weaver currently works. I think an elite spec shouldn’t prevent the proper use of core skills. I would rather have some of the weaver trait toned down and have the ability to swap properly, than the lack of an ability to swap and overpowered weaver traits to compensate for destroying the functionality of multiple skills.

Glenstorm.4059:

Dadnir.5038:

I think the real worry should be about the survivability of the weaver instead.
From the look of it the majority of the weaver will still be bound to earth and water.

This.

From a PvP perspective, all I want is to be able to play DPS Ele without getting blown up on sight by a Thief.

Really hoping Weaver comes through in that regard.

That’s why it’s so important to be able to use reactive defensive skills reactively such as obsidian flesh. Locking off our biggest survivablity skills from being used reactively will hurt eles survivability dramatically.

Waisenpai.6028:

I was at work and I saw this at my break room computer. Late to respond.

You so the clip wrong…. On wooden potatoe.

You hit fire attunement you get fire/earth hit again fire attunement and you get pure fire attument 5/5. So you just have to double tap if you want raw fire. Or you can hit fire use fire and earth and hit fire attunment to get fire 4-5 you don’t have to rotate pass everything LOL.

I SEE YOUR PAIN BUT THERE IS NO PAIN JUST KITTEN IN YOUR EYES!!!!!!!

Also dodge mini damage reduction is used to counter the necro/condi reaper boon corruption damage mitigation not actual damage, going to earth with arcane trait line will protect you or using air to mitigate raw power damage. Eles lol.

Yes you can hit fire twice in a row, but fire goes on cooldown when you hit fire along with everything else, so it will take 4 to 8 seconds to hit fire twice and get the full skill bar depending on current attunement recharge, which is exactly what i said in my post above… You can’t double tap to get fire fire. You have to hit fire wait for cooldown then hit fire again.

Ulion.5476:

We just have to wait and see how the dual skills are. IF their are dual skills per weapon combos then we will have 6 new skills for the 5 core weapon combos. We know that weaver gain extra 120 vitality plus 5% vital from power/precision. Dual skills provide a barrier (500-800 not sure how it scales). One of the GM trait weavers get is a very good condition removal. Gain 3sec of superspeed on immob, chill or cripple plus remove conditions every 0.5 sec when you have superspeed.

That vitality is from a trait that you have to choose, so it’s not base line. Honestly it’s like 2k extra health in a good scenario. I’m pretty sure barrier functions as extra health that then degenerates quickly. so that’s about 1 auto. I’m not too impressed by those but it’s something. The condi removal however is gonna be aids. Especially with fresh air and superspeed on air attune. However, I just don’t see how preventing reactionary skills from being used reactively can possibly be a good thing though, and i’m very doubtful of passive defenses being able to compensate for the loss of being able to use active defensive skills when you need them. Except for condi, we gonna be laughing at condi.

Solori.6025:

That is actually a good suggestion, but may or may not lead to an abuse of the system.
We will have to test it before we make the assumption that it will fail. With the addition of some very good defensive traits, 3 second gcd on attunements, and the fact that you will also have barriers on all dual skills ( If traited I think) the new spec may be able to make it without your suggestion because it will have those bases covered.
Again, we will have to see and test.

Even if those defenses make up for it, you still have the problem of having skills that you can’t use for their intended reactive purposes. I would rather they adjust the numbers of some of the defensive traits and barriers than kitten the functionality of weapon skills. And honestly the fail thing was more click bait lol. I think it would harm viable weapon choices though, mainly the focus. I just have an issue with a profession mechanic preventing the proper use of skills.

Snowball.3497:

This seems to be a worry for many people I’ve talked to so far, but remember we’re all judging the Weaver mechanics from the limited picture of what we’ve seen so far. We don’t know exactly how it’ll turn out, or even if it will be a problem.

To leave a suggested solution to your problem though, there seems to be at least two ways to circumvent the mentioned problem and access offhand skills of any attunement reactively:

1, Use fresh air and go into target attunement —> crit --> go into air
2, Use the utility “Unravel” (max 2 charges, one charge takes 25s to recharge) to forego the weaver attunement mechanic for 5 seconds and fully attune to the elements.

Those are some good points. I didn’t think about the fresh air thing, though obviously you do have to attack and crit for that to work, so it’s not quite as immediate as you might need it. I know about unravel, but having to take a utility just to be able to properly use ur skills seems like a poor solution to me. I’d much rather have the profession mechanic and the proper usage of skills able to coexist together, than to have to turn the whole thing off to fix a glaring issue that could easily be remedied with a slight change to the mechanic. Even with this the utility would still have it’s purpose for combos that need multiple attunements quickly or fast access to 3 skills or the effects from swapping attunements. I just think there shouldn’t have to be workarounds to have a skill do what it’s supposed to do.

Okay fail might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there is a huge issue.

As it stands right now, this is how attunement swapping works for weaver. Start out fire/water. Fire skills for 1 and 2. Mix for 3. Water skills for 4 and 5. Press earth. You are now earth/fire. The water slides off the weapon bar, the earth takes the 1 and 2 slots. Mix for 3. Fire slides over to 4 and 5. Press earth again. Fire slides off the weapon bar. The new earth takes 1 and 2. Old earth slides to 4 and 5. Mix of earth and earth is earth so you get the pure earth skill for 3. So basically whenever you attune to a new element it always goes into the 1 and 2 spot then mixes with whatever element was in the 1 and 2 spot before you swapped.

And therein lies the problem. If you want to gain access to the 4 or 5 skill of an element, you need to swap attunements twice, first with the attunement you want the 4 or 5 skill in, then with any other attunement to actually move it to the 4 and 5 skill. This is a huge issue because many of the 4 and 5 skills on ele weapons are intended to be used reactively. Take obsidian flesh for instance. It’s value lies in mitigating a burst. But unless you have earth attunemnt already equipped, it will take you anywhere from 4 to 8 seconds depending on current attunement recharge to be able to equip that skill, and because of that it can no longer be used reactively and thus is useless. This is particularly true for the focus which is primarily a reactive weapon with skills such as swirling winds, magnetic wave, comet, and gale, but also applies to other weapons as well. The only person who could properly use these skills with the way weaver currently works is by being able to see the future up to 8 seconds down the road. And a seer I am not, nor do I suppose many of you are either.

Obviously there are times even now when you won’t have certain skills available because you already swapped into the attunement earlier. However, the way it works now you can choose not to swap into that attunement earlier, so you can have it immediately available down the line, while still being able to swap between the other attunements. Current players of meta d/f auramancer in pvp are quite aware of this, where it is a good strategy to not swap into earth attunement until you need obsidian flesh, for fear of being locked out of it when you do need it. You can’t do this with weaver unless you stop attunement swapping all together with your earth paused at 1 and 2 skill slots in the example of obsidian flesh. Clearly there needs to be a way to be able to use reactive skills reactively without pausing all attunement swapping.

My solution is simple. Use the weapon swap button which ele currently doesn’t use to swap between which side of ur weapon bar you want to swap attuenments for. If the left side of the bar is picked things can work the way they currently do with things sliding over and dropping out. But if the right side is picked, slide the right side attunement over to the left side and the right side becomes the new attunement. Basically just reverse the slide. Your active attunement will always be considered the one most recently swapped to. This will give weaver the ability to actually react with it’s reactive skills on the right side of its bar.

Let me know what you think

*Edited because i found out cd on attune swap is actually 4 seconds making this problem even worse
source: https://youtu.be/i7gGYfBxlJ8?t=3m6s

Just wanted to congratulate you on your excellent click bait GR8 B8 M8 XD

Alright so i can hear some arguments for a nerf to headbutt… but a casting time nerf? that skill was already super easy to dodge. maybe nerf the adrenaline gain or the stun duration or increase the cooldown but dont screw up the actual casting time. it’s impossible to land against a competent player now.

As for shield bash… why? this skill was fine, already had an obvious animation, no one ever complained about it. this hurts core war as well as berserker. absolutely ridiculous unneeded nerf. it just feels wrong. war already had the most telegraphed animations, dont need to make it easier to dodge them.

lol all good man

This has to be changed, band together tyrians to show your support for all genders and races in Tyria!

My redesign idea is more of a buff to unused weapons and traitlines in a way that dh won’t benefit from without sacrificing existing strengths. Also stuck some of the weapon buff in traitlines to further limit benefit to dh.

Zeal:

Zealot’s Speed: Change the symbol of wrath it uses to the one on the gs and have its cooldown be affected by gs trait.

Zealous Scepter: Remain as is but add 20% cooldown reduction for scepter.

Symbolic Exposure: Currently this is a really weak trait. One of the main issues with symbols is keeping people in them. I suggest this does cripple instead of vuln.

Binding Jeopardy: Delete this trait. Instead move glacial heart from virtues to this spot. Rename Glacial Smoke, add 3 sec blind to the effect. Replace glacial heart in virtues with virtuous protection, boons you apply to allies reduce damage by 1%.

Zealous Blade: Keep the 5% damage buff and cooldown reduction. Remove the heal on attack. Cause whirling wrath to lose it’s movement penalty or drastically reduce it. Whirling Wrath heals the guard for around 300 health with each hit, but cap the num of heals at 7. This would allow whirling wrath to be a more reliable attack that cant just be walked out of. It would also buff core guard sustain which is needed. Wouldn’t buff DH because they don’t take gs and even if they did they would have to give up virtues or valor to get it.

Kindled Zeal: Dumb trait. Condi trait in power line. If you are running condi you take radiance and don’t have room for zeal anyway. Change to Zealot’s Defense. 10% less damage taken while in symbols. Gives trait option for those not running gs or hammer.

Symbolic Power: Weak trait. 10% damage buff only on a certain type of skill, which does damage over time and can be walked out of. Burning also out of place in a power trait line. Remove burning. Keep 10% buff. Add one sec of quickness on symbol creation.

Symbolic Avenger: 10% damage buff is good. 10% situational damage buff is meh. People immediately leave symbols. I suggest keep current buff but also add a 1.5 sec immob on symbols when in melee range with a 15 sec icd to help keep people in symbols.

Shattered Aegis: Keep current effect. Add 3 sec aegis on symbol creation. 10 sec icd. Trades the utility and potential damage of Symbolic Avenger for defense and immediate damage.

Radiance:

Healer’s Retribution: Keep current effect. Add a small heal to retaliation.

Perfect Inscriptions: Keep current effects. Light Aura now blinds attacker on a 2 sec icd.

Greatsword:

The changes we got recently are a huge step in the right direction. However more needs to be added. Currently this weapon is severely lacking in sustain as well as reliability, with a few lack luster skills.

Auto Chain: Vuln on first, might on second, short cripple on third.

Whirling Wrath: Remove the projectiles. Place half of projectiles damage into the base 7 attacks. Fix bug where only 12 hits are done instead of 14 when using a character besides human male.

Leap of Faith: GS currently lack sustain. Add an evade frame. Perhaps remove blind to compensate.

Symbol of Wrath: Decrease the duration to 3 sec. Keep the damage the same. Pulses 2 stacks of might with a 5 sec duration instead of retaliation.

Binding Blade: Improve the travel speed and reliability of the projectiles. Make the tick damage scale off of power instead of condi.

Hammer:

Auto Chain: Reduce the cast time of the third chain skill.

Mighty Blow: Slightly increase damage.

Zealot’s Embrace: No change.

Banish: Increase number of targets to 3.

Ring of Warding: Allies within ring take 33% less damage.

Virtues F1 to F3:

The active affects of Core Guards virtues are much weaker than DH. To compensate the passives should be stronger.

Virtue of Justice: Attacks to trigger from 5 to 4.

Virtue of Resolve: Improve the passive healing.

Virtue of Courage: Aegis refresh down from 40 sec to 30 sec. When traited in virtues down to 20 sec. And in pvp only, 10% reduced damage as an added passive to help up sustain.

Conclusion:

Let me know what you guys think. My goal was to increase the viability of core guard without buffing DH. Do you think these changes would accomplish that? The main issue is the survivability of core guard. That was my central focus. However I did add some changes to increase the damage to keep up with the crazy damage of DH, as well as some changes to skills to make them more reliable. Looking forward to hearing from you all! I would especially love an Anet Dev to tell me what they think.

I added utility in the zeal line such as cripple on symbols and an immob when traited, reduced cooldowns on weapons so their skills that offer utility are up more often, survivivability buffs with gs heal and hammer blind and aegis on symbol when traited. These help makes zeal better. However while these changes buff zeals utility, it does not do it to such a degree that it can replace valor. So DH can’t swap valor for it. Therefore only core guard can really take advantage as it has a free traitline that is not taken up by DH elite specialization.

DH as well as other elite specs could all use some tuning down. I don’t deny that. But this buff would only help core guard, as it would be suboptimal for dh to give up one of it’s current traitlines to take zeal.

Exedore.6320:

You can’t fix power creep with more power creep. Just because DH doesn’t use it now doesn’t mean it won’t use it once it’s buffed.

Perhaps they would use it for the extra damage, but they would have to give up something they already have to gain it. They would have to give up sustain from virtues to gain it. Would be more susceptible to cc and condi. Also to really benefit from the zeal traitline they would have to take something other than longbow. So they would lose the ranged damage. Furthermore because of the lack of stab and condi clear from losing virtues they might need to compensate by dropping a trap for another stunbreak and condi clear. Overall I don’t think the tradeoff is worth it for dh.

Ithilwen.1529:

Using political memes like that is going to stop my attention instantly. I presume that at least some ANET staff may feel the same.

Funny cause before u opened the post, the only thing u saw was the political meme and you clicked on it. Looks like it drew ur attention. I renamed the title in this way specifically to make more people click on it and read the contents. And I have had drastic increased viewings since doing so. That’s all I care about. The title has nothing to do with my political views, nor should they matter in a videogame.

Exedore.6320:

You realize that if you make a core spec really strong, the elite specs will find a way to incorporate it. Either all core specs have to be the same level as elites, which leads to immense power increases, or – the easier and cleaner option – the elite specs have to be brought down to the core spec level. A third option is to take 1 or 2 of the more powerful core specs and make them elite specs. That mutual exclusion indirectly nerfs elite specs.

You specific changes favor brain-dead power creep – like what elite specs are – instead of fixing what’s actually wrong.

Using greatsword as an example:

• Whirling Wrath’s damage is fine with the buff and the speed reduction means you can’t spam it and win. The problem with Whirling Wrath is the miniscule projectile damage which destroys you on retaliation and other similar effects. Just remove that aspect.
• Leap of Faith is fine. The game doesn’t need more evade, especially on a profession which has good sustain. It already has a blind on the end.
• Symbol of Wrath is not fine. The first problem is that it’s static and really easy to avoid. The second problem is that retaliation is only situationally useful.
• Binding Blades is fine. The cast time allows for it to be dodged, so you have to be careful not to spam it.

The big problem with the Zeal trait line is that it focuses heavily on symbols, but the key trait to make symbols even partly viable in PvP, Writ of Persistence (particularly for the larger symbols), is in another line and overshadowed by better choices. To make zeal fully viable in PvP, you need a trait that makes symbols snare or root opponents or re-work the line to make symbol traits optional (major trait choices).

I did nothing to buff the actual damage of whirling wrath. I agree that damage is fine, however it is much too dificult to land it compared to other comparable skills. Furthermore the cast time of binding blades isn’t the main issue. It’s the way the projectiles travel. They are too slow and unreliable. Leap of faith needs an evade because core guard sustain isnt enough against elite specs. This would help. Dh wouldn’t use gs without zeal traits, because longbow is better for dh. Also symbol of wrath is a symbol. It has to be static by it’s nature. But I agree upon a second look it could use some buffs. Perhaps reduce the symbol duration to 3 sec but keep the same damage. Make it useable while moving, and grant 2 stacks of 7 sec might each sec for 6 total.

U have to remember that buffing core skills and traits that are not used by the elite specialization will not buff it. And to gain these buffs, dh would have to give up something it currently has. So it would not buff existing dh, and if dh used it they would lose some of the advantages they currently have, mainly sustain from virtues and valor if they take zeal. And if they take one of the buffed weapons they lose longbow, massive ranged damage with cc, or sword shield, which they need for mobility, cc, and defense. I’m also fine with making some of the weapon buffs trait dependent so dh can’t benefit at all.

Furthermore with the changes to mechanics with elite specs, they are inherently stronger as they gain more or improved skills over the existing core builds. Unless they remove the buffs to profession mechanics, it is impossible to nerf elite specs down to core level. DH virtues are much stronger than core guard virtues. As such unless, anet guts DH and all the other elite specs by removing the new mechanics they sold them on, which they have shown no intention of doing, the only way to balance core specs is to buff them in ways which do not help the elite specialization builds.

Yes it is power creep. I’m not denying it. But since elite specs are powercreeped by their very nature, the new mechanics they give, they can’t be brought down to core spec level without a total redesign. Anet isn’t going to do that. Core specs need power creep to compete. It just has to be done in a way that the elite specs won’t benefit from it. I believe my changes do that.

Also core guard does not have enough sustain to defend against the new elite specs. Hence why I’m adding all these buffs. My goal is to do it in a way that dh doesn’t benefit, without sacrificing existing strengths. I believe these changes do that.

Pls tell me what you think guys. Looking for feedback. Especially you Anet Devs

choovanski.5462:

really should be in the guardian forum tbh.

still these seem like some sensible changes. staff could use a buff too i feel, would be nice for two-handed weapons to be in vogue again.

Ya i don’t know enough about bunker guard to be suggesting buffs for it. I put this in pvp forums, because I made these changes because of pvp, and they are now able to seperate pvp and pve balance.

Edit: On second thought i think i would get more feedback in guard forums. If anet dev sees this pls move to guard forums.

so thats why i chose weapons that arent meta for dh, because for dh to gain them they have to give something up

Ya they can but longbow is still better than gs unless it is traited and to trait them u have to give up a traitline dh uses.

First off, thank you for the buffs to core guard in this patch. It is a step in the right direction. But it’s not enough.

I believe core guard can be improved without buffing DH. The way to do this is to focus on traitlines and weapons that DH does not use and will not use because it would have to sacrifice essential traitlines such as valor and virtues to get it, or lose an already powerful weapon such as sword shield or longbow. I will furthermore try and place some of the weapon improvements in traits to further limit the benefit to dh.

Zeal:

Zealot’s Speed: Change the symbol of wrath it uses to the one on the gs and have its cooldown be affected by gs trait.

Zealous Scepter: Remain as is but add 20% cooldown reduction for scepter.

Symbolic Exposure: Currently this is a really weak trait. One of the main issues with symbols is keeping people in them. I suggest this does cripple instead of vuln.

Binding Jeopardy: Delete this trait. Instead move glacial heart from virtues to this spot. Rename Glacial Smoke, add 3 sec blind to the effect. Replace glacial heart in virtues with virtuous protection, boons you apply to allies reduce damage by 1%.

Zealous Blade: Keep the 5% damage buff and cooldown reduction. Remove the heal on attack. Cause whirling wrath to lose it’s movement penalty or drastically reduce it. Whirling Wrath heals the guard for around 300 health with each hit, but cap the num of heals at 7. This would allow whirling wrath to be a more reliable attack that cant just be walked out of. It would also buff core guard sustain which is needed. Wouldn’t buff DH because they don’t take gs and even if they did they would have to give up virtues or valor to get it.

Kindled Zeal: Dumb trait. Condi trait in power line. If you are running condi you take radiance and don’t have room for zeal anyway. Change to Zealot’s Defense. 10% less damage taken while in symbols. Gives trait option for those not running gs or hammer.

Symbolic Power: Weak trait. 10% damage buff only on a certain type of skill, which does damage over time and can be walked out of. Burning also out of place in a power trait line. Remove burning. Keep 10% buff. Add one sec of quickness on symbol creation.

Symbolic Avenger: 10% damage buff is good. 10% situational damage buff is meh. People immediately leave symbols. I suggest keep current buff but also add a 1.5 sec immob on symbols when in melee range with a 15 sec icd to help keep people in symbols.

Shattered Aegis: Keep current effect. Add 3 sec aegis on symbol creation. 10 sec icd. Trades the utility and potential damage of Symbolic Avenger for defense and immediate damage.

Radiance

Healer’s Retribution: Keep current effect. Add a small heal to retaliation.

Perfect Inscriptions: Keep current effects. Light Aura now blinds attacker on a 2 sec icd.

Greatsword

The changes we got recently are a huge step in the right direction. However more needs to be added. Currently this weapon is severely lacking in sustain as well as reliability, with a few lack luster skills.

Auto Chain: Vuln on first, might on second, short cripple on third.

Whirling Wrath: Remove the projectiles. Place half of projectiles damage into the base 7 attacks. Fix bug where only 12 hits are done instead of 14 when using a character besides human male.

Leap of Faith: GS currently lack sustain. Add an evade frame. Perhaps remove blind to compensate.

Symbol of Wrath: Decrease the duration to 3 sec. Keep the damage the same. Pulses 2 stacks of might with a 5 sec duration instead of retaliation.

Binding Blade: Improve the travel speed and reliability of the projectiles. Make the tick damage scale off of power instead of condi.

Hammer

Auto Chain: Reduce the cast time of the third chain skill.

Mighty Blow: Slightly increase damage.

Zealot’s Embrace: No change.

Banish: Increase number of targets to 3.

Ring of Warding: Allies within ring take 33% less damage.

Virtues F1 to F3

The active affects of Core Guards virtues are much weaker than DH. To compensate the passives should be stronger.

Virtue of Justice: Attacks to trigger from 5 to 4.

Virtue of Resolve: Improve the passive healing.

Virtue of Courage: Aegis refresh down from 40 sec to 30 sec. When traited in virtues down to 20 sec. And in pvp only, 10% reduced damage as an added passive to help up sustain.

Conclusion

Let me know what you guys think. My goal was to increase the viability of core guard without buffing DH. Do you think these changes would accomplish that? The main issue is the survivability of core guard. That was my central focus. However I did add some changes to increase the damage to keep up with the crazy damage of DH, as well as some changes to skills to make them more reliable. Looking forward to hearing from you all! I would especially love an Anet Dev to tell me what they think.

never mind realized absolute resolve is over 3 seconds, but the other bug is still there

Whirling wrath only does 12 instead of 14 hits on any race and gender besides human male. That’s a big dps loss. Screwing me up in pvp.

Also Absolute Resolution does not increase the passive healing of virtual of resolve. Missing out on about 200 hp/s

Really big issue in pvp. Not fair to be kitten cause of ur race and gender. Also absolute resolution is not improving virtue of resolve passive affect so thats another bug

Absolute resolution not improving virtue of resolves passive heal. Tells the proper healing in the trait description but actual skill doesn’t show the healing nor do it.

Female Guards are weaker than male guards. Whirling wrath does less hits on a female human than male may apply to other genders and races as well. Don’t want to have to delete my character and create new one to get full benefit of skill. With the recent buffs to gs i wanna use it in pvp but am currently kitten for using my character in pvp.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

I have a change for this coming in a future release.

Thank you for the quick response. Any idea when that release will be?

cyberzombie.7348:

70g?! Where you using exotic or ascended insignia?

the leather mats u need are like 20 silver for the basic mat, and you need a lot of them plus ectos

Well there goes like 70 gold those insignias are expensive

So i was trying to change my berserker stats from the pvp armor to marauder in the mystic forge. At first i screwed up by making the weapon inscription instead of the armor one. So i was like okay thats why its not working. But when i made the armor inscriptions it still didnt work. Wondering why? Cause I just spent a lot of gold making those inscriptions and its not working.

I’ve mainly done pvp and wvw for all of my play time apart from the story in pve and was wondering what it was pve players did. Let me know!

Gr8 b8 m8 ;D Your account name is perfect for you! Lets everyone know you are an egotistical buffoon without the bother of reading your hogwash posts

Ya i agree with chaith, everything is competitive apart from dh, but dh is still plenty competitive for regular ranked ques

I just hit diamond, it’s harder for me to progress then season 2 but still pretty easy for me. Took like 50 games with about 10 losses or so. Not sure exactly since im not logged in but around there.

The tier system is meant to put u where u belong, if ur having close matches and win about 50% of the time thus staying where u are it seems like u reached ur appropriate place

a good rev will kill a good ele 1v1

no they had no disconnect

Me and my whole team just won a game on temple 500 something to 233 and got no pips for winning. Why?