Guild Wars 2

Mike O Brien.4613:

Obviously I go into this knowing that some players will be very upset. That’s why it’s such a tough decision.

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.” I take issue with that. We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more. Then we shipped precursor journeys for existing legendaries, and said, “We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.” While I fully get that you’re disappointed today, this is not about us shipping half an expansion pack.

Mo

And you promised more than that, including the legendaries that you’re now scrapping.
Just like people are expecting LS3 and raids, legendary armor, and more. Specifically more content.

So when people talk about half an expansion on launch they expect the rest of it to come after. And if you’re scrapping an important part of what was supposed to come people do indeed get upset.

It’s really sad you’re yet again failing to deliver promises. And there’s been plenty examples where you haven’t lived up to expectations.

I really do hope moving forward you have more uplifting news to share, as thus far anything but raids after the expansion has been a huge letdown.

For me it just shows the disconnect with the community. That you don’t know how and what to deliver to make people happy. Simple thing is you can just ask and you will have your answers, but the path of legendaries was set to fail with the unncessesary complications that weren’t rewarding.
So it’s good to see that killed off, but to indefinitely suspend the legendaries themselves is heartbreaking.

Just think it’s very sad that so much dev time has gone into something with so little to show for it. Really do hope you don’t throw out new legendary weapons and find a more suitable approach to releasing them.
As 6 devs working for 6 months for 1 legendary is laughable.

It’s cause you’re up against random MMR teams.
So anyone who’s above avarage is going to have an easy time farming bad people.

This is because there’s no placements or anything, so you don’t skip divisions. You have to free victory your way through.

Like I personally was up against people from pro guilds one match, the next one against bad people-united. Leading in a 35-500 stomp to a 500-0 stomp.

So in general, if you are any decent and have decent MMR, then you will be up against people worse than you for quite some time.
But people who aren’t that good will stick in amber for a while playing opponents significantly better than them.

So with the second season going full throttle, I’ve acquired enough tickets to get everything for the Legendary Backpiece.
Now that’s great woohoo, but… what are people supposed to do with whatever tickets more they will get?

Am I supposed to stock up on llama’s, or will there be something else to spend it on at a later stage?

OtterPaws.2036:

eekzie.5640:

Is the intent of the fix going to make it a per-skill basis?
So if I shoot 2x Scorched Earth I can hit the enemy twice per 0.5s?
Right now if I’m alone I can stack multiples of the same skill but only one will function.

Its gonna be per character i suppose, so that the limit only effects you

I hope not, that would still be really awkward.

Is the intent of the fix going to make it a per-skill basis?
So if I shoot 2x Scorched Earth I can hit the enemy twice per 0.5s?
Right now if I’m alone I can stack multiples of the same skill but only one will function.

The way the page layout is setup under normal circumstances the update button does not show up. If I zoom out, or minimize the browser, it does appear again.

http://i.imgur.com/7PutOFA.png
http://imgur.com/myCVN6q.png

Browser: Chrome
Haven’t tried it with different browsers

NTDK.4897:

you may find this interesting

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3nagvg/chris_cleary_anyone_that_finds_a_legit_exploit_in/

Contacted him, no response yet

I found a small way to make things easier in the Raid, not one that seems too impactful, but it’s quite easy to reproduce.
I took a printscreen of the encounter, but I’ll elaborate a little bit as well

I had a bit of issues taking a clear screenshot in combat, so here is one first to show the spot you can just hop onto http://i.imgur.com/RrJmdh6.jpg

Then, if the first trash mob is the green one, you can lure him right in front of you.
The teleport skill and small blue balls will still deal damage, but you will not get teleported anywhere else.
So you can just auto attack and kill the trash mob with a little sustain
http://i.imgur.com/qCCpJQY.jpg

Al Shamari.7234:

eekzie.5640:

Al Shamari, they’ve already said that exotics were too easy to acquire and they overlooked that. Their response was ascended tier. They introduced it slowly over time, giving people plenty of time to adjust.

Considering you can do almost anything in the game and earn your way to crafting ascended gear, I really don’t get the fuss.

Re-read my post, we’re in agreement

I was just adding on to your post, not disagreeing :O

Al Shamari, they’ve already said that exotics were too easy to acquire and they overlooked that. Their response was ascended tier. They introduced it slowly over time, giving people plenty of time to adjust.

Considering you can do almost anything in the game and earn your way to crafting ascended gear, I really don’t get the fuss.

Is time limit also the reason there’s so few trinket stats available?
Or am I misreading what you’re saying?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

But how about this question: Will Mordrem Blooms be used in the future, or should we use them all before the vendors disappear?

As explained here — https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Mordrem-Invasion-Update-11-September-12-30-PM/5487900 -- I do not know the answer to that yet, but have asked.

This seems to be an ongoing problem in communication in my opinion.
Everytime we get a new ‘currency’ type material for a limited duration event, we have no idea wether it’s going to be obtainable in the future or not.

Would it be a thought to get more clarity on this in general?

Good
- Nice rewards to choose from with blooms
- Good incentives to do different maps
- Fun events, could be a little more elaborate (like having to plant the bombs instead of throwing them, but you’d have to kill another type of enemy to receive protective slime so you can place the bomb), but for once it wasn’t ‘’hack down a boss in 4 minutes’‘. Might be a bit of personal bias that I prefer more thorough mechanics.
- Decent amount of blooms, albeit only when you’re getting daily map rewards (more later).

Bad
- Doesn’t make sense that there’s absolutely no XP / Karma / Silver for completing an event.
- Look at what you did right in Silverwastes. Mobs don’t give loot there, the events do. Why choose to abandon a working model?
- No real value in sticking around an event. Either do it like you already are doing… again, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You already have proper designs that make this work nicely. (See Toxic Offshoot events, or see map wide rewards in SIlverwastes)
- Overall way too easy
- Scaling issues, not much feedback to give other than it was done poorly (there’s super easy events where mobs die in 1 hit, and there’s moments where you’re level 18 at a level 27 event)
- Blooms hold decent value, but you can only earn a decent amount if you get the daily map reward. Considering the event is so short. This makes it so that you either have to grind a lot to get what you want, or you can only choose a couple rewards. This feels very punishing to the people who want more than 2 skins or 1 potion.
- Daily rewards; miss out and you’re screwed. Not a nice philosophy. These only work with long term dailies (look at daily login, good system).
- Way too short in duration.
- Having more maps or simply not putting a daily cap on the map rewards could’ve solved a lot of your reward issues.
- No real reason to be in a guild, really confusing advertisement.
- Not knowing wether blooms will be obtainable in the future is really bad communication.
- No real reasons to cooperate with other people, the event rewards make it a very selfish event.
- Gold barriers on the rewards are too punishing for new players, while it was advertised for them specifically.

All in all, I really don’t get why the event was done so poorly. It boggles me.

The saddest part is, almost all the bad things could’ve been fixed easily. This isn’t some major overhaul to the event and therefor I find it very sad that it left so many people with a bad taste in their mouth. This wasn’t a proper quality event, and not because the event itself was poorly designed.

I also don’t get why you wouldn’t rerun the event… many people want the shinies that are being offered but are held back by the immense grind that it takes to get more than a decent amount of blooms.

I would actually argue that it doesn’t require enough experience. These will be obtainable fairly fast (within months), so I wouldn’t mind having them as long term goals. Now they’re in between short and medium.

Hello everyone!

We’re Papillon Paws [Paws], a European Guild, spread across servers but we have some WvW activity on Aurora Glade. English is the only language we use.

A lot of us are well versed in the game. Not just PvE, but that’s mostly where our focus is on. There’s also a bunch of people who are still busy learning and exploring the game. We’re spread across multiple servers, as we don’t do too much WvW. But people are free to have guilds for that on the side!
So there’s a healthy spread of people for any activities you might want to do.

Most importantly, we’re looking for more friendly and mature people , as we don’t like drama and bickering.
We don’t have daily scheduled runs and all that, we believe people should be organising those things within the guild, to keep it more personal.
The only exception to that are our Guild Missions, we host them every Sunday Evenign at 20:00 CET.

If this sounds like a guild for you (or if you’ve got questions), don’t hesitate to whisper me.
Shoot a message ingame to: Niamus
Be gentle

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey everyone.

Not all feedback could be addressed this iteration in fair part due to time constraints on key members of our design team. That does not mean we are dismissing your feedback or that all the issues you’ve raised up to this point will go unchanged before expansion release.

This is a small set of changes from the first beta weekend event; we will continue to iterate on the specialization skills and mechanics and shall be listening for your constructive feedback.

We will be reviewing the Tempest traits along with casttimes vs. effects on overloads among several other aspects of the elite specialization.

This is pretty key information that people would want to hear before thinking all their feedback wasn’t heard…
When something isn’t addressed and there’s not even a word on why, then people will be upset. Mostly in reference to Elite / traits.

I don’t think these changes for the Dragonhunter are enough.
The Longbow still feels super clunky to use and doesn’t feel rewarding enough.
Also trait wise, too little to give it more umph.

I’m missing attack speed and / or damage on the auto attack.
True shot felt unrewarding damage wise considering the charge up.
Ideally a more reliable/impactful deflecting shot.
Nice to see symbol of energy changed, feels more in pace with the lower endurance vigor gives.
Hunter’s ward could use some tweaking as it was super clunky, and I didn’t like using it for that reason.

Overall all the skills just don’t feel rewarding, fluid, nor fun.

Will have to see how the traps work, not sure if I’d like the cooldown to just be baseline or not.

I don’t think the trait changes will put them in the right place yet. I wish there was more focus on things that actually impact your weapon usage, mostly the damage aspect. The vuln helps, but is already so available in game.
More focus on bleed/burn would be cool, or perhaps just pure physical damage.
I also really don’t see why zealout’s aggression is only 7%

These just come to my mind real quick

Still missing protection on Dwarf Stance
Stability road still wonky on dwarf stance (takes long for first stack to proc)
Tablet still not cast upon switch
Hammer still puts a (too thin?) wall too far in front of you
Heal skills still lacking identity on mallyx / dwarf
Too hard to maintain meaningful conditions on you to copy with mallyx
Resistance / blind not addressed

Specializations

Corruption
I actually quite like this line. I do think it should have some bigger / better numbers. Either higher condition output or more/higher modifiers would be good.
Really just misses something that scales up your condition damage (opposed to dutation).

Retribution
Really feels out of place in the current state of the game and therefor is hard to judge. I personally really don’t like ‘when struck’ kind of traits as it doesn’t synergise with dodging well. Doesn’t feel rewarding enough to use any of it in the current state. Lackluster numbers.

Salvation
The numbers feel right, but just like the centaur stance it doesn’t fit in the current game too well (as you want to avoid damage, not try and endure it).

Invocation
The numbers feel too low, no real options, and overall lackluster. Again no damage modifiers, too high ICD’s, with only a couple of really strong picks (looking at you Equilibrium & Roiling Mists).

Specializations Summary
In it’s current state they feel extremely lackluster. No hard choises, and often bad choises all together. Doesn’t fit in the current game much either.
On top of that, I really dislike that (for the revenant especially) there’s weapon related traits in there. Feels too limitive.

Legendary Stances Prologue
Currently the biggest issue is that all of the options are very niche in the current state of the game. This leaves them very lackluster as you’re stuck with no real options. I would’ve really liked to see 2 options per utility slot (so first utility, you have option A or B, for second utility you have option C or D, for third utility you have opion E or F).
I’ll go into more detail under here. Also, there is absolutely no swiftness or speedboost anywhere yet… Really expected that on either staff or centaur stance.

Legendary Dwarf Stance
- Soothing Stone
Heal is on the low end with a high cooldown (sort of on a 15s cooldown, but considering it’s tied to two drawbacks I consider that high for a ~4.5k heal), retaliation & condi removal doesn’t make up for those making it feel weak. Would’ve liked added regen after use, or maybe protection.
- Stone Road
Doesn’t pulse when you lay it down, making it super slow to respond to stuff. You can use it nicely when you expect stuff, but it still has a fairly long cast + build up time.
This leads to another issue, that it’s initially only one stack which often isn’t enough and you actually need that build up. Also, right now there’s no real need for an AoE layered stability. You want it on your team, instead of having it available for pick up on the floor. Compare it with med kits on an engineer, you pick those up when you need them. It doesn’t really work like that with stability right now.
It has a lot of drawbacks and I feel they outway the positives too much (postives are that you can stack them up as the duration of the stability is decent, and you can keep it active in an area ‘cause of the short cooldown).
- Forced Engagement
Too niche in the current PvE itteration, kind of hard to predict if it’ll be strong in HoT.
- Vengeful Hammers
Damage utility on a defensive legendary stance feels out of place. Would’ve liked some defensive rewards for hitting enemies with it.
- Rite of the Great Dwarf
Feels really clunky and because you don’t really have any significant damage reduction it still feels lackluster (traits feel too weak as relevant reduction, I’ll go over that later).

Legendary Mallyx Stance
- Empowering Misery
Feels bad using it when you don’t have conditions. I feel the balance is a bit too powerful if you’ve got many conditions and weak if you have little. The cast time also feels too high when it’s based on conditions on you (as there’s often short duration conditions on you). Also, you don’t really have a nice way to proc conditions on yourself for a significant duration as it doesn’t seem to take the self-weakness in consideration.
- Banish Enchantment
Confusion still feels very weak in the current PvE, even though the last update helped make the damage more reliable. There simply aren’t enough fast attacking enemies to make it worthwhile. And then the passive damage isn’t enough to compensate it.
On top of that, the 3 condition threshold feels too high.
It currently doesn’t fit into the game, but that might change with HoT.
- Pain Absorption
Biggest issue I have is that the blind duration really feels out of place here. While you have resistance, you can’t proc the blind to go away. I feel resistance should remove the blind as you hit an enemy through it. There’s no counter play to the blind, as the duration of it is very high, you’d have to transfer 6 or more conditions to render the blind countered by the resistance.
Aside from that, it currently feels too niche for the game.
- Unyielding Anguish
Can get a little bit too spammy, might be nice to have a ~5s cooldown.
Feels out of place in the current PvE as you don’t need denial of an area to enemies.
Threshold feels too high.
- Embrace the Darkness
Copies conditions, but doesn’t take any stacks in consideration. On top of that, the duration of the stacks is only 3 seconds. Feels really weak for it depleting all of your energy rapidly.

Legendary Centaur Stance
I can keep this quick, as it is really hard to give any meaningful opinion on this. It doesn’t fit in the current state of PvE. Bosses more often than not have high 1-2 shot attacks and the heal sustain doesn’t make up for that.
The only criticism I have is that the tablet really doesn’t feel smooth to use. Mostly coming from Ventari’s Will, it has a giant aftercast on top of a 1/2 cast time + 2 second cooldown… it really feels more like it takes a good 6 seconds to move it from one side to another.

Legendary Stances Summary
They don’t fit the current PvE game. They mostly feel too weak. The elites aren’t satisfying enough to use. They don’t synergise well with the current weapons / specializations.

The following review is only focussed on the PvE aspects of a revenant.

Weapons

Hammer
I actually really like this weapon. More a utility-supportive weapon, where positioning is most important, making it feel like a nice good play – good reward kind of weapon.
- Hammer Bolt
Really like the mechanic that it basically pierces towards your enemy (and hits 5 enemies max balance wise). Nice quirky mechanic.
- Coalescence of Ruin
Damage is on the low end, and unless there’s hoards of enemies you might as well auto attack. Feels way too weak to the point where often you shouldn’t even use it.
- Phase Smash
Really love this skill, feels nice and powerful in a healthy way.
- Field of the Mist
Really would’ve liked if you could keep auto attacking while creating the field. Aside from that, a nice new mechanic again. Really don’t like that the field is not blocking face blank projectiles. Would’ve loved a triangle shaped field in front of you.
- Drop the Hammer
Really would’ve liked if you could keep auto attacking while summoning the massive hammer. Aside from that, I feel the skill is in a nice place.

Mace
I’ll keep it simple. Damage numbers (both physical and conditional) are too low right now. Searing Fissure and Echoing Eruption don’t synergise well with eachother sadly.
Torment has the same issue as confusion that it really doesn’t have a nice place in PvE right now.

Axe
- Frigid Blitz
Nice utility skill. Pass through damage way too low. A little low on the final damage, but it has definite merits and I don’t think it actually needs more damage there.
- Temporal Rift
Works nicely mechanically, damage is on the low end. Not sure it actually needs more damage as the utlity aspect is quite nice. It does feel kind of out of place in the current state of the game, as using Line of Sight will often be more superior.

Staff
- Auto attack
Really like it, low damage is slightly compensated with the heal.
- Punishing Sweep
Too low reward for using it correctly. Feels way too weak.
- Warding Rift
Tooltip is really weird, but aside from that it works nicely.
- Renewing Wave
Nice strong utility, but would’ve liked some more healing if you remove conditions.
- Surge of the Mists
You currently don’t need enemy displacement in the current state of the game. Other than that it feels nice.

Weapon Summary
Lackluster damage wise on the damage skills. Everything taken in consideration, they still feel too weak (utility doesn’t outway the low damage… and the damage skills don’t actually do meaningful damage).

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spirit_Shard

1. Anet stopped offering the base game, you can see if you can still find it from some of the official retailers: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/retailers/
Do note that if he likes it and want the expansion, the expansion will still cost 50$.
2. The Expansion is 50$. It includes a free base game for those who do not have it yet. There is no Expansion without base game.

So yes, 50$ no matter what for the expansion.

It’s too easy to get for how powerful it is.

Really disappointed there’s still so many worthless things to not pick on a guardian

17 – Niamus
:)

Hope I can attend the event, had such a blast with the last one!

I feel retaliation is in an ok spot right now, while confusion definitely doesn’t (in PvE).
So I’m happy they’re changing it around.

I don’t feel skill points feel rewarding at the slightest. Experience right now is a joke.
Working towards masteries, for as long as it lasts, will give me way more joy than even infinite skill points would give me.
Getting something after maxing masteries may as well be a thing, we don’t know yet.

But still, I don’t share your criticism.

Maybe after a while after it’s been released, definitely not soon.

The tomes either need balancing, or replacing, in it’s current itteration to be both useful and fun. The proposed changes seem like nice replacements!

I’m absolutely fine with it, and it would fall in line with expectations. So, I’m not sure if I’ll give it any reaction.

Although I would be more content if they simply keep it to actual game purchases only and don’t shift it into the gemstore.

Zaklex.6308:

They do belong on traits, there’s absolutely no reason it’s something you shouldn’t be able to have active all the time. I like being able to make my 500 ft jumps/slides on my ranger and still be standing…or my warrior for that matter. Removing from traits makes no sense.

Why exactly?

CodeHavoc.7926:

eekzie.5640:

Nothing wrong with a diversified way of getting into it.

It’s not like signing up and hoping for an invite isn’t RNG.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/claim-your-spot-in-the-next-heart-of-thorns-closed-beta/

But going into the world looking for rare portals is.

That’s what I said, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

Nothing wrong with a diversified way of getting into it.

It’s not like signing up and hoping for an invite isn’t RNG.

Zietlogik.6208:

Chose not to make alts? I have one of every class at 80 (which means I have purchased extra character slots) Why does that matter? this isn’t a “choice” matter

Well they are only for leveling up, so if you don’t have anything to level up then tough luck… I don’t feel it’s an issue.

Zietlogik.6208:

Because I have no say in the matter when I get these, I PvP alot and these things are handed out like candy, but at least they have 1 use for me right now…to burn into skill points.

After the patch though, I will have 0 use, zero, nilch, nada…in fact I may not even be ABLE to use them just to burn. That is a bit of a slap in the face, as the precious poster said, this completely nullifies and unrewards veteran players. People who have all 80, are given useless items that give absolutely nothing in return….ya

Believe me, if I could choose to NOT get these things from PvP tracks, I would have done so ages ago.

You choose not to make alts, which is fine. You can always use them for black lion chest key farming.

Aside from that, this is intentional and skill points are so easy to get anyway I don’t feel like it’s a big loss.

How is it a massive slap in the face?
Tomes of knowledge were always intended for leveling up, not after level 80 use.
Scrolls of knowledge will maintain their current use, just in a different shape.

There will be a way to absolutely get no fall damage in a certain area in the new WvW map, so there will be something like that already

But yeah, it’s still a nice idea regardless of that and I don’t see why you couldn’t have both.

I just think that if you really want to have 3 viable options in every trait spot, then you’d really not want to include something like this.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely understand that these traits have places in the game.
Fall damage reduction during jumping puzzles is absolutely nice to have.
Fall damage reduction in wvw is definitely nice in certain places.
Reviving traits can definitely be useful when you actually need to revive, PvE/WvW/PvP.

But I really feel these things don’t belong in traits. They are too niche for that, and I really think they’re out of place.

They absolutely have a place in the game however. I really feel they serve better as food buffs. It makes it still a nice thing to opt in for, but it doesn’t cripple the specialization system this way.

How do you all feel about this? Is it too much of a trade off for your build (food vs revive&fall damage food)? Would it be missed a lot in PvP?

Pandeh.5248:

lordkrall.7241:

They will be turned into a currency that you can use to buy Mystic Forge stuff. Exactly like you can do now.

Can you give us a source for that statement?

It was in the stream. Pretty much it will maintain it’s current functionality, just that it’s going to be turned into an account wide currency.

Nice assesment Noah, and to a certain degree I agree.
I’m not sure if sword/torch will be the best thing (as you don’t need a torch for Radiant Fire, and I’m not sure if you’ll need it for upkeep of burning… the blocks & blast finisher & condi removal from focus are still pretty strong). But, for ranged encounters Scepter/Torch is definitely going to be a lot stronger.
Also, hammer / mace might be very strong for the 20% damage from Symbolic Avenger. I’ll have to see how they tweak the numbers to make up my mind.

I agree with your PvP / WvW builds.

The more I think of it, I really hope they turn Zealous Blade into Two Handed Mastery.
20% Cooldown, 10% Damage on Two Handed Weapons.

Thanks Arken!

Zealous Scepter – Completely missed that the 10% damage increase is gone
Added that

Zealous Blade – With the 20% Cooldown being relocated from Two-Handed Mastery to this trait for a GS respectively, I don’t feel that it’s a poor choise. I do agree the heal is neglible, but the damage in combination with the cooldown is what makes this a valid choise.

Renewed Justice / Courageous Return – Think I feel I adressed this nicely, I completely agree and I think my original text portrays this.

Valorous Defense – Think this one is more aimed towards WvW/PvP, which is sad as it’s a minor. I feel it would serve better purpose as an Adept.

Retributive Armor – Still a work in progress, but I don’t think it competes in the same way as it adds potential damage on top. So you’d pick it for a different reason than sustain alone.

Empowering Might – I feel I adressed this in the original post. As I mentioned in the ‘’things I’d throw out of the window’’, there’s still things that you would use if the numbers were tweaked. This is one of them!

Battle Presence / Permeating Wrath – I don’t see how these compete with eachother for sustain. One is pure party utility and the other is DPS focussed.
Battle Presence and Indomitable Courage feel like they should compete with eachother as both are strong choices.

Retaliatory Subsconscious – Same as Empowering might. The retaliation does feel way too weak, but the Aegis is strong. So maybe if they tweak the numbers it’ll be a nice option against heavy CC mobs.

Honor can provide useful sustain if you run hammer and/or mace, and opt for the Writ of Persistance.
Hard to judge now if they’ll tweak the numbers to where that feels really strong.

Arken.3725:

Also Eekzie, i’m speaking strictly from an spvp PoV. Valor is still going to be a necessity for sustain so that leaves 2 more lines. Without any real access to movement/soft cc, Guardian just doesn’t feel like a proper melee profession.

One more thing I wanted to point out was that if you don’t decide to spec at all into Virtues, the class mechanic (Virtues) will be pretty much nonexistent. Having some traits spread across all tree’s would be nice as well.

Yeah I’m still not sure how I feel about that one, I’m inclined to agree with you that it’s either no good virtues or really good virtues. Valor definitely feels mandatory for the Monk’s Focus.

Makes me super curious what the Elite Spec will add, we might just see a bunch of Zeal – Radiance – Elite Spec for PvE.

PvP/WvW wise both Valor and Honor are completely viable options. I’m thinking it’s too early to make proper statements for PvP, although build diversity still seems like an issue in PvP for me. WvW always has and had lots of build diversity ’cause you could take on so many roles (frontline / roam / mid support / etc)

Arken, I can’t say I agree more. Definitely some nice spots where a proper hammer trait can do and where it fits in more than the Virtues line as well. Sad to see 2h mastery being relocated to several different traits as well, forgot to add that.

And yeah Diogo, I completely agree with you. But in general my post was for the more veteran guardian who doesn’t need to rely on things like Altruistic Healing / Meditations or using a Staff to stay alive in PvE.

It’s like sure, if your party is dying a lot the rez trait will be good. But is that really promoting skillful play? No, which is why I don’t think it should be as an option competing with a mace and a useless trait… There really isn’t a good option there indeed!

Yeah Lucentfir, I agree that some of the things are definitely with PvP in mind.
But there’s still a dozen traits in there that have absolutely no place in the game.
Hope they really take a better look at them…

They’ve definitely been buff’d that’s not the point of this topic. Not only are there better traits overall, you also get more.

I think the main point of this is showing how many things are absolutely adding little value to both build diversity and to actually making meaningful choises. In the end, there’s not going to be that diverse.

Mostly Valor and Honor are in a bad spot.

Valor
Minor
Only might of the protector is something you will notice. But if you’re in a decent party composition, might stacking will already happen. So, all minor’s are useless.
Adept
Really niche to pick a focus over torch now it seems. So, only 1 valid option. Smiter’s Boon.
Master
Communal Defenses is the only viable option.
Grand Master
These are fun, and here I’m getting to my point. It still feels like such a waste having to slot all the way into this to get something here.

So I’m just very disappointed at some of the traits. That they’re absolutely never going to see any proper use. Both minor, adapt, master, and some grandmaster ones.
That’s the very thing they said they wanted to remove, which is why I went over every single one to show which are are absolutely lackluster for PvE. Some are lackluster for every single aspect of the game. That shouldn’t happen!

On top of this, I’ve also shown the lack of build diversity in each line. Where there’s really only a couple choises to make.

Options that feel most out of place and/or serve the least purpose
Now here I will go over every single trait that I feel serves way too little purpose in the whole game. This includes WvW/PvP. So I wouldn’t mind if all of these trait were thrown out the window. These things aren’t even niche or situational enough to be considered good. This excludes some things that serve a clear purpose in the game, even if they have an option that clearly outshines them (that is a different issue).

Wrathful Spirit
Kindled Zeal
Expeditious Spirit
Shattered Aegis

Healer’s Retribution
Radiant Retaliation

Courageous Return
Strength of the Fallen
Stalwart Defendner

Protector’s Impact

Virtues
Strong Pick – Not enough diversity but enough to make you want to have this.

Minor
Inspired Virtue — Nice and strong. Feels at place.
Virtue of Retribution — Pretty weak, bland and boring.
Power of the Virtuous — Nice and strong. Feels at place.
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Not much to add, other than that I would’ve loved to see something else in place of Virtue of Retribution or maybe something that would’ve made it interesting.

Adept
Unscathed Contender — Promotes skillful play, definitely a strong pick.
Retaliatory Subconscious — Very odd place for PvE, really makes me wish PvE/PvP were seperately balanced.
Master of Concecration — Strong pick. Could be moved to a Grand Master as it is definitely build defining.
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Struggle between 2 options and the third definitely is irrelevant for PvE.

Master
Supreme Justice — Counter productive with Renewed Justice. Just shows you again that Renewed Justice is out of place. Aside from that anomaly, it’s a decent choice.
Absolute Resolution — Strong condi cleanse choice. Feels like a valid choice. Passive effect is too negligible.
Virtuous Mallet — Feels out of place. Does not belong in virtues. Not a strong choice.
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Sad to see counter productive traits, as well as just counter productive things to activating your virtues as a guardian. Really doesn’t promote teamplay. Virtuous Mallet seems like a definite work in progress and I hope it finds it’s place.

Grand Master
Permeating Wrath — Why only the passive effect? Again, counter productive with other specialization choices. Other than that it feels alright once it’s moved to on target instead of on you.
Battle Presence — Feel like it shouldn’t be a Grand Master, not build defining. It’s just a nice passive effect to grant your team some more health regeneration.
Indomitable Courage — Really feel that if it also broke stun for allies it would be a worthy Grand Master. I’m glad you can choose it with Absolute Resolution.
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Some stuff you might switch back and forward through but definitely not too impactful in PvE aside from a few encounters.