Guild Wars 2

I’m going to copy and paste a reply I made in a different thread about the zerker issue. In pvp you can see zerker is much different than it is in pve but a stat combo like cleric is relatively the same:

Zerker pvp: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQFARlUgiDnGyOEf4Eh1DCeQ/VVIeXPgYEbIA-TgAg0Ecp4yxlhLJXWuGFA

Zerker pve: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQFARlUgiDnGyNEf4Eh1DAeQ/VVIeXPgYEbIA-jUxAJvioxWcLiGraBTVSEV7NKiWNA-w

I’m not going to include ascended gear, there is no such thing in spvp and ascended gear just amplifies the stat disparity. Anyhow, if you compare the two stats they are relatively the same. Except crit damage is nearly doubled the amount.

Lets look a cleric pvp build vs pve build:

Cleric pvp: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJApelUgiDnGyOEf4Eh1DCeQ/VVIeXPg4DbIA-TcAgzEYp4yxlhLJXWuA

Cleric pve: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJApelUgiDnGyOEf4Eh1DCeQ/VVIeXPg4DbIA-TcAgzEYp4yxlhLJXWuA

Stats wise again they are similar. Cleric in pvp has 110 less toughness and roughly 30 less healing power. The pvp version actually has slightly more power! But not by much.
So as you can see, characters in pvp are just as tanky as their pve counter parts. In fact its not much different. But there is a gigantic disparity between the max crit damage achieved in pve and pvp.

Damage is over the top because in anet did not scale defense to the level of crit damage that can be achieved. What this means is a disproportional damage output in comparison to defense. This is why there are complaints about getting hit for 8k-14k in a single blow, because defensive stats are not scaling as well.

If I had to guess it would be that zerker stats will be re-allocated to the following: Power, Precision, Crit damage and Vitality. Like the pvp variant. The max crit damage from gear will probably out around 20% (not including rune sets), the other 30% will be achieved via trait lines. So this makes a total of 60% crit damage possible.

Bobby,

Hold the line audio is bugged for human male and female. I think it might be bugged for all races. One question though……is guardian shouts not being heard by other players a bug too? Or is it intentional?

GW2 is the only pvp game I’ve played that has a ready button after you get into the match instead of before lol.

Anet needs to follow in SoEs footsteps. They have begun to rework the planetside 2 engine to become a real multi-threaded engine. And the results show, especially for AMD users who were the primary target since the Playstation 4 is a AMD 8 core machine.

Going from 40 fps with my 8350 to 120+ on the planetside 2 pts is jaw dropping. It shows one thing, AMD cpus are more than capable of delivering performance. Programmers just have to endure the daunting task of rewriting their engines to take advantage of them.

I expect if Anet was to make gw2 a real multi threaded engine, that the performance would be very good. Those who average 30-40fps would probably average around doubled that. It would solve a lot of issues, wvw fps issues, world events fps issues etc. But it will take Anet to actually be willing to put in the resources to do it.

The future of gaming will probably be AMD 8 core since its the cpu present in both the ps4 and xbox one.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Aza.2105:

I have yet to read the counter you are trying to advocate.

I guess I will re-state it then:

It can be blocked, evaded, blinded, etc. In fact, the moment you see your block/blind/evade proc is the moment you should immediately about face and smash the thief’s face in. The thief will get a face stab for about 2 – 3k damage (very manageable) and will get revealed and be put into melee range (very dangerous for a thief).

This is a bare minimum. There are counter plays against thieves who use shadowstep (stand in the return circle, while pressuring the thief: a warrior with longbow + pindown into arcing arrow can ruin a thief’s day). There are counter plays against thieves who use blackpowder (aoe the area, interrupt the heartseeker, attack the area where the thief heartseekered to, at the bare minimum you can stand in the blackpowder and get hit for a 2k heartseeker revealing the thief). Mostly pay attention to what is going on around the area.

In the video the OP posted, a typical tell is when you see the thief pops all his signets. The fact that the people in the video didn’t have eyes on the thief throws up big red flags for me – this is a case of just paying attention.

All of this is in WvW, mind you – where the typical player will completely eat a killshot, charging the warrior seeing the glowing gun and knee down. In sPvP perma stealth thieves or thieves that devote their entire utility bar to signets are absolutely terrible builds.

You are describing stealth prevention. Not stealth counter.

Of course there is a lot of exaggeration but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t contain truth in it. Because it does.

I feel there is too many passive and fire and forget mechanics with warriors. But this applies to many classes/builds in the game as well.

There is too big of rewards vs little risk. Become immune to conditions for 8 secs, what is the risk other than the cd? In gw1 you would of become immune to conditions for 8 secs but at the cost of something else important.

Perhaps going immune to conditions for 8 secs would half your damage for the duration. With more risks involved it forces intelligent decision making instead of just doing things because your choices really do not matter.

Bash.7291:

WTB consecration Elite before heal, Anything that AoE heals from the healing skill is either stupid OP or stupid UP. One will amount to us getting nerfed to make up for it, the other gives us another healing breeze -.-

lmao. This could happen.

Aeolus.3615:

Aza.2105:

I agree, guardian has a overabundance of light fields.

They should had more field combos to teh game, and some restricted to classes.

Each symbol should had its own field, instead of all of them being light fields.

Bash.7291:

Really dont get the hate for torch #5 in this thread. Cone aoe damage, cond removal on allies and now cond removal on us. I cant see why it SHOULD do any more damage at that point considering you can clear that many conditions with it an still do decent damage to groups.

People will complain just to complain. Not all skills need to be dps in order to be good. Torch 5 is utility and damage on a weapon. That in itself is a bonus.

nirvana.8245:

EoTM is not WvW. It is a more casual game mode that will replace WvW if no changes are made.

PvD is very hardcore!

Anet says that WvW IS casual, its suppose to be the balance between pve and spvp. The stepping stone that gets players to try out spvp.

As far as I’m concerned Eotm is superior to wvw in every possible way. Since the beginning of wvw the problem was always coverage, Eotm solves that. WvW has no future because its fundamentally flawed, there is nothing Anet could do to solve the coverage and population disparities between servers.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if eotm is the precursor to scrapping the entire wvw game mode.

Lordryux.9785:

Entropy.4732:

I tried spirit weapons briefly in WvW and found them wildly ineffective. They felt like the turrets of guardians, and like turrets, badly in need of a buff and a reworking.

well since they nerfed spirit weapons they are really only good in spvp. so.. i would expect as much ive made a spirit wep build for the guardian that was actually verry effective but.. when they were on cooldown.. yea.. ur nothing but a guardian without utilitys.. its pretty funny.. yet a spirit ranger.. can have theres out.. and keep bringing them out everytime their time expires.. -_- Good balance anet. good balance.

Well ranger spirits are more in line with guardian spirit weapons now. Well sort of.

My suggestion for spirit weapons is:

1. Increase the duration of them.
2. Re-evaluate bow of truth, I never see anyone use it. And I can understand why.
3. Consolidate spirit weapon traits to one tree. Maybe zeal could become the spirit weapon tree.
4. To elaborate on the above, merge improved spirit duration with spirit weapon mastery and a fire inside with eternal spirit.
5. Increase the amount of health spirit weapons have.

With those changes I think spirit weapons would be in a ok spot.

Painbow.6059:

Amins.3710:

Painbow.6059:

Amins.3710:

Painbow.6059:

AH in pve is designed for babies who can’t reach the dodgeroll key

quit being a kitten bag.

It’s getting old.

Obviously he’s new and that’s why he’s asking.

so use a dps build with more defensive gear and don’t rely on a trait to keep you alive

There…

Wasn’t that easier than being a kitten? If you’re so good at the PvE, be insightful and share your “epic elite skillz” in a way in which people will respect you.

Be a kitten and no one will make note of anything but that.

AH is junk so I was trying to deter him from using it, i’m not a pro at pve either, but AH is awful and shouldn’t be used

Here we go again.

Not everyone wants to play a support guardian in WvW. If you are saying that is the only valid option then the OP complaint is indeed correct.

I hate it. I don’t need 15 seconds to decide if I want to join a party or not. Why is there even a NO selection when its greyed out until the timer is over?

sorrow.2364:

Zenith.7301:

NOPE. Those hp replenishments and defenses are STRICTLY tied to those defensive traitlines, you’re so disgustingly ignorant.

An elementalist without points in water or arcana isn’t healing crap, isn’t having any prot, and isn’t removing conditions ourside water dagger 5 and cleansing fire utility or phoenix.

And a guardian with a berserker swords build has neither altruistic healing or 30 in virtues and sure as hell can’t tank a lot of damage or replenish his health pool.

So get off the pipe.

There is no reason to being aggressive, so chill out, man.

First off, Guardians and Elementalists have a lot of HP replenishments regardless their traitpoint distributions. An elementalist can attune to water also without any point spent into Water Magic and a Guardian can use Shield of Assorption, Empower, Orb of Light and Virtue of Resolve also without any point spent into the Honor traitline.

Warrior and Necromancer, on the other hand, have no realiable healing by themselves compared to Elementalists and Guardians, so stop posting bullkittens. The defensive capability imbalances between Warrior-Necromancer and Guardian-Elementalist are so obvious that there isn’t even a need to explain them to you, you just need to start thinking about thet and, maybe, start playing the professions you’re talking about.

Zeon.8239:

You think Necros are horrible bunkers? Lmao.

Yeah, that’s why we’ve seen so many bunker Necros in any meta. Bunker eles and guardians, in comparison, are a rare sight.

What is this man? Warrior has better passive healing than guardian atm! To be able to get close to warrior’s passive regen, then guardian needs to use cleric set. Gimping all of his damage in the process.

I honestly don’t know what game you are playing.

If guardian is going to use empower, orb of light and shield of absorption, then they are doing absolutely no damage. So what you are saying their hp is justified if: They take honor traits, they take staff and shield.

You can’t mention the other traits because aside from AH and Monk’s focus, it offers no survivability what so ever. Your reasoning just can’t hold up, because it can apply to any class.

Here are Anets philosophy for each class, why on earth doesn’t the game follow this design anymore?

Class balance philosophies

We normally try to employ metered and controlled balance changes with each pass, rather than huge reductions or improvements to classes. We want to get all classes on the same playing field, and we want to avoid “whack-a-mole” style balance. HUGH increases and HUGE decreases lead to meta instability, and thusly, we try to make multiple small tweaks rather than putting in massive changes that we have to later correct.

When designing and balancing the classes, we try to make sure that class roles and identities stay intact. So, in doing so, we make sure that there are rules and boundaries outlining the capabilities and weaknesses of each class.

Warrior We want the Warrior to be capable of good melee damage in a sturdy body. They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet). They have a hard time taking enemy boons down, and instead, have to just go through them with raw force. They may have a hard time with enemy conditions, and may need to ask for ally help in order to keep themselves free of hampering conditions.

Guardian The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health. They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield. We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.

Ranger The ranger class combines its own innate abilities with the skills of their pets. We’ve balanced the class around the idea that you always have a pet with you to aid in any fight. The fact that the ranger can have multiple pets allows them to combine their pets in ways that most impact the current fight. We want the Ranger to have some of the evasion enjoyed by the Thief, as well as the mobility other classes employ. The class is able to deal physical or condition damage, and it can do this in melee or at range.

Engineer The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Thief Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

Mesmer Mesmers rely on illusions in order to accomplish their goals. They need illusions to accomplish some of their highest damage and control, and without the illusions, they become fairly fragile. They can deal with enemy boons better than most classes, but enemy conditions can often be a problem. They share some of the stealth and mobility that the Thief enjoys, but suffer from a low health pool if you get past all their tricks.

Ele We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

Necro The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher. While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights. They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.

Going forward
•Tank vs spike vs physical DPS vs condie DPS. We want to keep making balance changes that allow all classes to have various builds they can use. We don’t want tanks dominating the game, and we don’t want spike builds dominating. It’s healthy to have multiple types of builds in the meta, so we’ll be improving the balance to facilitate a healthy meta.
•AOE balance. We feel that in PvP some AOE builds are too strong for the opportunity cost, and we’ll be bringing those in line in the next few patches.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/first#post1061889

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Step1: play the most unreliable build you can immagine for 4 months.
step2: switch to a viable build and see how you destroy everything you encounter.

Your sig is awesome btw!

I’d rather have the leaderboards back.

I feel everyone should hold off on their concerns until after we know the full class changes.

I have the same experience as the OP. The losses are usually by blow out, 500 -100. And the wins are generally by blow out. As always I lose more points from losing than winning. Which makes progression impossible.

Over the last several seasons I noticed a pattern with the quality of matches. It usually goes something like this:

Wins: Everyone is in sync, excellent rotations and communication, respectable builds that can perform their role adequately.

Loses: Everyone out of sync, non existing rotations, little to no communications, questionable builds that can not perform adequately.

In nearly all the loses I observed, team mates can not win when they are even +1 or +2. Making one or two of the opponents able to roam free unchecked. Just this last match I did, I watched my team mates repeatedly lose 2 vs 3 fights or at the very list stalemate. It shows that something is wrong with someone/s on the team.

This happens nearly every since loss. My guess is that despite what Anet says, matchmaker doesn’t provide balanced matches but pendulum swing matches aka extreme matches. You are either winning with no competition or you are getting blown out. Very rarely I encounter a match that is competitive, were its like 500 -450.

This can’t be the same development team GW1 players came to respect, who ever makes the changes are idiots.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

It does nice damage in PvP too, Meditation build.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj53ltNJ_FE

Man, that is hot join. Anything works there. Dps guard does not do very well in soloq or teamq. Guardian has a lot of problems: Lack of mobility, lack of stability with meditation build, no way to disengage, no snares and their damage is highly telegraphed.

In short, guardian has a extremely hard time sticking to targets to deal damage. The low hp doesn’t help either. In comparison to dps warrior they are very far behind.

Here is a good quote I found describing the architectural differences between Intel cpus and Amd FX 8 core cpus. I feel the individual did a good job trying to make it very simple and visual.

A software setup with data fed in a mostly serial manner favors intel, because intel’s instruction execution protocol for their CPUs are 90% serial data…which means intel chips break down a serial stream of data faster (single threaded performance). AMD’s instruction execution protocol for their CPUs are setup to run parallel streams of data (heavily threaded performance), which most software out right now is not designed to feed data to the CPU in this manner. So, data being fed serially to a CPU designed to run parallel streams of executions is inefficient, and favors one designed for that type of data streaming.

For example…

Picture you’re at Wal-Mart (or where ever), and there are 8 checkout lanes open…the first lane has a line a mile long, and they will only allow 4 of the other 7 lanes to have a line 1 person long. It doesn’t make any sense right? For starters, they’re not even using all of the lanes available, and the ones they are, aren’t being utilized efficiently.

That’s what’s happening inside an AMD architecture FX8350 with current software…

With Intel chips right now…it’s more like the line at best buy…where you have 1 line a mile long, but the front person has 4 different cashiers to go to when they arrive at the front of the line.

So, having 1 line a mile long doesn’t slow them down, they’re designed that way…

However, once information is fed in a parallel manner to the CPU…AMD will have all 8 lanes at Wal-Mart open for business and the lines will be distributed equally with people (instructions for the CPU), but Intel will still have the Best buy type line with 4 people running a cash register…except that now there will be 4 or even 8 lines forming into that one line, which makes things slow down because they are not designed to execute like that.

I hope the analogy makes this very complicated architecture discussion make sense.

Alestes.4081:

People stopped using them because they then had to actually think how and when they used them.

Correction, No one ever used them because they were always lackluster.

People barely used them before the nerf, which is why the nerf came off as a surprise for most.

Expansive.3716:

JETWING.2759:

Why ilusionist duelist deal more damage than thieve unload?
Why spatial surge deal same dmg than evicerate?
Why mesmer are so hard to kill and hits so strong?

You are a true troll.

You’ve been complaining everywhere about the Mesmer. You’re just upset because you got beat by a Mesmer and didn’t know how to counter

Counters exist in gw2? Are we playing the same game?

laharl.8435:

Aza.2105:

laharl.8435:

Aza.2105:

Right, so you responded to me because I wasn’t agreeing that AH is bad. You confirm what I was saying. Like I said, if I so happened to be on the “AH is bad, bad players use it” bandwagon. Then you wouldn’t had singled me out. Because yeah its ok to be hostile as long as they are in agreement with you. How messed up is that?

You are a hypocrite and its not even name calling. Because if you were so concerned about how advice was given to new players as you initially said, then you would of also applied that logic to the posters who were in agreement with you but were hostile to AH users.

I asked you to find where I disagreed with such a statement “A tailored build will make you better at your job in both game modes.” Are you going to show me where I disagreed?

I don’t know why you’re going on about this hypocrite thing. I singled you out because you were giving bad advice that wasn’t helpful to a new player or the community. You’re acting like a jumped you for being rude or something, I never mentioned you acting hostile until you called me a hypocrite.

As far as disagreeing with “A tailored build will make you better at your job in both game modes.”, you didn’t, you outright said build doesn’t matter in pve. I drew the valid comparison between pve and pvp. It’s simple, if you don’t realize how a build affects pve, then why would anyone expect to realize how a build affects pvp? You’re build affects how you interact in the game world, it affects every combat situation you’re in, be it pve or pvp. This is very basic.

laharl.8435:

After colesy’s post explaining multiple reasons why a tailored dungeon build is better for dungeoning, you said “It doesn’t matter, it’s pve”. You imply that any random traits thrown together will provide the same outcome simply because it’s pve. Sorry, but that build and others like it will make for easier, faster dungeon run. Not all builds are created equal.

laharl.8435:

Simple logical deduction here. Pvp and pve are quite similar, a build tailored for a job will give the player an edge, a higher success rate or an easier run. You don’t believe that a tailored build matters in pve for a given task, when it’s obvious it does, just like pvp. If it’s so hard for you to realize this in pve, it’s equally as hard in pvp. In pvp, I run tailored builds that will excel in the task I want to achieve, just like pve. This is a very simple connection and one maybe some day you’ll realize.

Aza.2105:

Also, I never said different builds didn’t help you perform better in pve.

Aza.2105:

It doesn’t matter, it’s pve.

Performing better = does matter.

I’m still waiting man.

lol, try reading it.

I did and the only thing I see you doing is continuing to have a nice conversation with yourself.

Spirit weapons currently are underpowered and require a lot of investment to make them half way functional. I’m just going to skip to the point just in case the devs so happen to read this thread.

Whats wrong with spirit weapons

• Spirit weapons health is very low they are usually 1-2 shot by burst attacks

• The user is severely punished by using spirit weapons:

• 1. You are punished by summoning them ahead of encounter due to their low duration.

• 2. You are punished if you summon them mid encounter due to their long casting time

• 3. You are punished if they die mid encounter due to their long cooldown (with the exception of sword of justice)

• 4. The user is punished if they do not take eternal spirit because spirit weapons self destruct upon skill use. No trait should be mandatory but they should be optional.

• Spirit weapons suffer from poor AI. Watch bow of truth and shield of avenger follow a enemy target when they are suppose to guard the user

• Bow of Truth is useless, the condi removal never seems to land, its command skill doesn’t scale with healing power

• Sword of Justice and Hammer of Wisdoms tooltip doesn’t even reflect the amount of damage it does, leaving the user guessing how much it does and if it scales with stats

• Spirit weapons traits are scattered through out three separate trait lines, making it possible to only have one spirit weapon build

What should change

• Spirit Weapons should no longer self destruct upon skill use if you do not have eternal spirit. Eternal spirit should be made baseline

• Eternal spirit can be replaced by a new trait that increases the health of spirit weapons

• Shield of avenger and bow of truth AI should be reworked to ensure that it stays near the summoner and guards them instead of running off

• Bow of Truth needs to be reworked so that its actually functional. Currently bow of truth is just disgraceful and the example of how Anet appear to not care if something works or not

• Traits should be found within two trait lines not three. This leave room for the user to explore their own builds instead of being locked into one particular build just to get spirit weapons to work half way

• How severe does Anet want spirit weapon users to be punished? Currently there are three big ones I named. It needs to be limited to one, its punishing enough if they are destroyed mid encounter and the guardian is forced to re summon them. The cast time is long enough for all types of counter play. Lower the base cooldown to Hammer, Bow and Shield to 30 secs like Sword of justice.

I personally believe that the game needs a healthy dose of vertical and horizontal progression. It should not be so polarized towards either of the two.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Anet wants us to be mobile buffbots that sit in the back of the lines while everyone else does the action! I called it first!

All joking aside, I think it might be time to hang GW2 up for awhile. I’m not liking the direction the devs have been going over the past few months with it.

lol nah, I think this might be true. What else could it be? Obviously guardian isn’t meant to land damage on players consistently (no soft cc!) and they aren’t meant to be ranged damage dealers (staff and scepter suck for it!). The only thing that is repeatedly told to us is guardian is a big presence every where. So what is left? Supporting others, making them better just like what a traditional healer does. Just give buffs and heals to other classes so they can kill stuff.

So to a degree I think they are buff bots.

Hey Sensotix,

I think your initial post is great and I can agree with most of it.

I feel that what has happened with the warrior class over the year is that Anet simply started to apply guardian strengths to the warrior class. Looking back at last years description of each class it stated specifically that warrior wasn’t very good at condition removal and needed other classes to do this for them.

That their high hp pool was due to the fact that they were missing things like a powerful condition removal and the ability to sustain through long durations. Similar to how necros have high hp pools because they are expected to mitigate through death shroud and the fact that they have poor mobility.

Even on wiki it states guardian has low hp compared to warrior because they have better passive health regeneration. But this isn’t close to being true now. Anet has essentially nullified warriors class weakness but did not bother to offset their strengths to accomodate these changes.

If warrior had low tier hp or even mid tier. I don’t feel we’d have so many complaints about them as we do now.

JonPeters.5630:

Guardian:
Tanky and supportive guardians are in a strong position in many gametypes. We do feel that damage guardians are not as powerful as they could be. While we don’t want guardians to be as strong offensively as some of the other classes (given their powerful defensive abilities) we opened up more offensive guardian builds.

• Zeal V – Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.
• Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)
• Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.
• Radiance V – Searing Flames. Reduced cooldown from 20s to 10s.
• Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
• Valor V – Retributive Armor. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
• Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
• Virtues VIII – Supreme Justice. Number of attacks going from 4 to 3.
• Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse, rather than 8 seconds if you have no swiftness and 1 second if you have swiftness.

Mr. Peters,

Very positive changes. Though if you want my opinion, regardless of the kindled zeal change it still won’t be used. Its not that condition damage isn’t good rather guardian only has access to one condition: Burning. So investing in condition damage feels like a waste of investment.

Some possible changes would be: Power is converted to Vitality, Power is converted to healing power, Power is converted to toughness.

Searing Flames = Good change
Powerful Blades = Good change
Zealous’s Blade = Good change

The rest of the changes don’t seem like it will change guardian too much to be noticeable. I don’t want to go off subject to much, but it would of been great if spirit weapons were made viable. The traits are split through out 3 different trait lines, the spirit weapons themselves are lackluster aside from shield.

I always felt if they were made viable then guardian would have more damage options while wielding the hammer and sword. Even before the change that made them no longer invulnerable they sucked, after the change they were even worse.

Looking at the awesome art of guardian wielding spirit weapons makes me sad, because the class never really uses them due to how they are implemented.

Obtena.7952:

If that was the case, why did he even approach the community asking if ‘his child was ugly’?

Not like I’m going to get it, but I would love an explanation/summary of what they did with the feedback we gave them because it didn’t seem to influence changes for this patch … even though we were DIRECTLY solicited for that feedback with the guise it could change things going into this patch.

I can’t even begin to think why they would bother asking for feedback but didn’t listen to a thing anyone said.

One thing that is very clear that I understand about the class, is they are not suppose to dps what so ever. Anet even clearly stated this.

I think this is why I’m disappointed by the patch. Since they stated that they felt this would be the emergence of the power guardian. But this isn’t truthful at all. Its impossible for a power guardian to exist without significant changes to the class. None of which I see happening. I feel the class is much more enjoyable when you just play it the way they intended, heals and support with damage coming in last.

Keksmuffin.1450:

On top of that thieves and mesmers could easily interupt Signet of Resolve since it has a really obvious animation and people can see the Signet being on your bar.

Shelter can only get interupted by own mistakes (running into a Line of Warding or similar stuff) and some unblockable stuff (Fear Me, traited Reaper’s Mark or Basilisk Venom with Larcenous Strike).

So both skills can get interrupted by mistakes then. You forgot to add that when shelter gets interrupted it goes on full cd without healing you.

Abramelin.7356:

I have a question for the pro-zerker people on this thread. Are you happy with the current state of gw2 gameplay? What kind of changes would you like to see to it, if any.

For the most part they have created a self imposed hierarchy in regards to what gear a person has. With zerker being the good player and most skillful and all else being bad players. But like I said, this is self imposed. No were did Anet ever say zerker is the experienced players gear and everything else is for bad players seeking to get better.

Its a Radeon 280x/7970 series problem. Many people have it. Try to contact AMD to try to push them into looking into it.

E Tan.7385:

The problem IS NOT the backstab, the problem is the absence of stealth counter.

A skill that does that much damage with a near instant cast time, that you can’t see coming, that you can’t counter play is a problem. Stealth just intensifies the situation.

The requirements are rock bottom with backstab:

1. Go stealth
2. Doesn’t matter if you miss, do it again because you aren’t revealed
3. Hit from the back and sides despite the text specifying it only works from the back.

1. leaves room for a lot of error for the thief, they do not even have to be behind the users to hit for full damage. If they did, I believe landing it would be far more difficult and would require a certain type of setup for them to do it.

In regards to the target receiving the backstab lets look at their options:

1. Try to run
2. Aegis, Blind, Dodge
3. Play a guessing game and aoe

If you observe the cards that the receiver of backstab can use most of a common theme rng or uncertainty. With #1, you can try to run but since you can’t see the thief you can not know for certain if this tactic is countering it.

With #2 active mitigation do not prevent the stab from landing, it only slows the process down by milliseconds. So its not an real counterplay since it does not punish the thief from missing the stab.

With #3 its the most common solution thieves try to give. “Just aoe and they die!” I don’t see many thieves stupid enough to stay in aoe. In fact most thieves are often far out of distance if they do stealth to get away from aoe.

Most people know that guild wars 2’s combat system is supposedly the way it is so that each individual can read animations to determine how they will counter play. Thief however is exempt from this rule with stealth, in fact they are exempt from many different rules of combat.

If you look at my screenshot earlier in the thread, I got hit for 14.5k in spvp. The thing is, I never even seen the thief before hand. I was at the point by myself when I was suddenly dead. How can one counter play that? They can’t.

Most thief players like to assume that each player fighting against them should be psychic. Like I should of known that thief was there before hand and got my defensive skills up. Unfortunately things do not work that way.

Chaos.3579:

I agree totally to the idea that blocking,evading should un stealth the stealthed player .however Not miss(blind),or invulnerable.

Also there should be a compensation. Such as no revealed debuff on the player. Or AT least a smaller timer on the revealed. Maybe 1second revealed instead of 4.

This is a bad idea, you aren’t suppose to compensate someone for their failure. Its like missed/block/evaded skills not going on cooldown because they didn’t land.

Arganthium.5638:

hooma.9642:

Mek.2947:

The drawback is you waste 5 initiative?

if u are stealthed and miss u dont waste anything.

want to backstab guard with aegis? just attack 2 times… this example shows how bad stealthed attacks are.

If your opponent manages to pull off two Backstabs on one stealth, then either a) the thief managed to get a lot of stealth for a very long time or b) you’re just a bad player. Assuming the first isn’t true, missing your BS gives opponents an idea of where you are positioned, which in turn makes it extremely easy to counter you for a few more seconds. With Backstab’s relatively long cast time, these few seconds tend to mean that your opponent isn’t going to be able to hit you again. Unless, of course, you choose to stand still.

Backstab has a 1/4 cast time. How is that long?

Cool, giving allies boons has just become the equivalent of giving them conditions lmao.

GW2 pvp is bad. But this is the result of GW2 being primarily a pve game. Pvp suffers from having pve elements part of it. Pve mechanics never ever go well with pvp. Don’t expect any changes, just expect things to get worse.

As history shows, gw2 will always be plagued with extreme balance problems. Either stuff will be too tanky and can’t die fast or stuff will just kill too fast. There will probably will never be a balance between the two.

Only thing I can suggest is just playing another pvp game to your liking.

bhagwad.4281:

Aza.2105:

Its more like a requirement than a choice. Unlike gw1 you can’t be competitive in pvp without the xpac. The core specializations pale in comparison to the elite ones introduced in hots. So much that you are always forced to take elite specs.

Hmm….but with those elite specializations, how’s the build diversity? Like if I see a ranger, will I more or less know what they’re playing?

Diversity is in a bad state, elite specializations killed it.

alcopaul.2156:

Diage.6451:

Low complexity helps get viewers, high skill cap helps get professionals. You need both to win.

A.NET is doing the right formula here, IMHO. They “lowered the complexity” for it to become appealing to new players and viewers.

I won’t comment on the skill cap thing since I don’t play tPvP and belong to top teams like MiM, TCG or TP. All I can say the the skill cap of any game will just go higher and won’t reach its cap if there is actually quality competition going. The tactics and the way that the game is played will evolve over time. Prolly 2 years from now, we might see different tactics being employed.

And let’s be real. Professionals do it for the $$$ and fame. Why do you want to be good? Coz you want to be talked about, popular and rich even. There are professionals in respective sports. And you know what, here are the top 2 of the World’s Highest paid athlete.

1
Floyd Mayweather
$85 M $85 M $0 M Boxing
2
Manny Pacquiao
$62 M $56 M $6 M Boxing

http://www.forbes.com/athletes/list/

What they do is not complicated. They just punch each other. And it is exciting to watch.

EDIT: I don’t mean to talk low of boxing. It’s one of my favorite sports actually. Sure it requires a lot from a boxer to be on top of the game but let’s face it, anybody can throw a punch. To land it successfully, requires skill though. And I’m hoping for a Pacman-Mayweather fight to happen.

Boxing isn’t complicated? Lets see you go in the ring so you can get rocked and knocked out lmao. Its not called the “sweet science” for nothing. Boxing my friend is quite complex. I can’t believe you are comparing it to a game, guild wars 2 at that!

Also, anytime you need to water something down to attract a multitude of people, then you know its bad. Its kind of like what has happened to many games today, you know when they become consolized. Example:

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_super/6/68178/2077570-fps_map_design.jpg

This applies to gw2 as well. Except the old map would represent the intricate details of the original system, lots of variety and options. The new map is a lot like gw2. Anet decides how you will play and there is only one build per class. In other words everything has become very very simple hidden under the facade of eye candy.

I ran TA once yesterday and the day before. I got 15 deadly blossoms for my reward both days while the rest of my group got 60 deadly blossoms.

It was the first time I ran the dungeon that entire day both times. So yes its a bug and I would really like my missing 90 deadly blossoms.

PoV is still bugged, now it no longer works with stand your ground. It removes the condition but does not convert it into a boon! Do we have to wait another five months until they fix it?

The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health. “They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield.” We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.

LOL well with the aoe nerf, good bye guardian. Most of guardian’s arsenal besides 1h sword is aoe. So I’m going to guess that hammer, great sword, scepter and staff will be weakened by a bit. Sounds about right given Anet’s track record for nerfing stuff.

Evade is overpowered and always has been. The problem is evade is the dodge mechanic renamed and pinned to weapon and utility skills. Its like being able to dodge and do damage or use healing skills at once. When dodge is used all other skills can not be used since dodge takes priority.

From a broader perspective, what evade does is give specific classes access to a alternative dodge mechanic that doesn’t play by the same rules as dodge. Dodge and evade can be chained in succession giving the user large periods were they remain untouchable, which is probably what most complainers have a problem with.

The thief class is exempt from a lot of the conventional rules of combat in gw2:

1. Chill does not affect their skills
2. The class does not use static cooldowns for weapon skills
3. Stealth has no counter outside of sic em

So when you look at how evade is exempt from the same rules used by dodge and you give it to a class that is exempt from many basic gameplay rules then you can see how it becomes over the top.

I feel evade should be changed to work different than dodge or at the very least make skills that can’t be evaded. There are already unblockable skills in the game, dodge has weakness to counter balance it. Evade has nothing.

The skins look slick, especially the shield. Shout out to the Anet artists for delivering some quality skins.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Aza.2105:

Apparently you do care, which is why you created a entire post about how people should listen to you because you know better. You are looking for disciples to lead to pvp greatness. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like anyone here is willing to follow you. I wonder why?

Could it be? COULD IT BE that every one has a different perspective and experiences other than your own. Most people like you don’t know how to deal with this reality. Since you need other people to agree with you and worship you in order for you to feel justified and important. The real reason why you need people to agree with you is because you are insecure.

P.S

It seems you are the one with the reading comprehension. Its obvious that you said shelter can get interrupt. But you failed to mention that when it does it goes on full cooldown without the user receiving the heal.

Okay I forgot to mention the full CD thingy in the original post, fair enough.

Apart from that… It’s not MY opinion that Shelter is the main heal for Guardians, it is actually pretty common knowledge.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/4151192

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/4155408

Try to find a Guardian using Signet of Resolve in here.

But hey, I can really see how the personal attacks help you to bring your point across.

Personal attacks? I don’t have anything against you. Have you observed how you are interacting with other people? You opened up a thread to downplay anyone who disagrees with your idea of shelter being the best heal ever.

Then to show them that you are right you attached pictures of your pvp rank and told them to look at your leaderboard rank. Why? Just so you can again try to negate others perspective. Since from your view anyone who doesn’t equal or exceed your personal requirements in pvp doesn’t have a valid opinion.

Server: SoR
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: Mixed feelings
Should there be a Season 2: Definitely not.

I feel the seasonal tournaments are more fitted for spvp than wvw. Why? Spvp teams are static and the match will always be 5v5 each time. You aren’t limited by coverage, i.e you don’t lose if you do not play at a certain time.

WvW by nature is mutable. The biggest issue is coverage, which ever server can have around the clock coverage is the winner. Furthermore problems of transferring on and off servers mid season matches is a problem. So I don’t see how it could work, it doesn’t make sense to hold a tournament when each server doesn’t have the same population at all times.

Unlike spvp, wvw isn’t won by superior play but by superior numbers and coverage.

The designers of the lovestruck weapons must love American Mcgee’s Alice!