Guild Wars 2

I think the people who are upset are upset because they seem to be ignoring the actual problems with the class. And that we have a whole array of underwhelming skills one is looking at improving.

1 year in and I don’t recall ever logging in and seeing a really nice change for guardian.

Are they looking at mobility? Nope
Are they looking how long our CD are on many skills? Nope
Are they looking at our health pool vs health regen? Nope
Are they looking at improving our basic pvp builds beyond ?/?/30/30/?? Nope
Are they fixing the condition meta that hurts us so much? Nope
Are they improving our damage in a meaningful way? Nope
Are they looking at our weak traitlines and fixing them? Nope

I think its as amusing as kitten that the classes with the least effective health have the fewest effective builds in pvp. Why? Because its such a struggle to survive we have to go high defense to last longer than a fart.

So I finally managed to get at least a half decent footage of my Symbology build – Meditation variant from WvWvW fighting against a thief. I didn’t win this one since I got jumped by two other thieves in the end, but I want to show it anyway to make a clearer picture of the potential this build has.

Except for an elementalist, a guardian and a necromancer I’ve already fought against every other class one on one and haven’t lost a single time, but I rarely win at the same time. Most of the fights end up with a draw.

In small team skirmishes it works rather well with a hammer, but I feel a bit useless in zerg fights.

Video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX2H4k7IUNo

You can also use the whip on the Storm Wizard, after deflecting one of his attacks. Just stun him with the whip, and get some extra hits in.

The whip also interrupts some of the moves that the Yeti boss does. And there are some cages that can be broken from a distance with the whip, while being on a safe spot from the lasers of the boss. The whip is also excellent for stunning monkeys. But again, I must point out that it misses easily.

I think it’s 4 per zone, correct me if I’m wrong.
2-1:
After the raft part, pretty obvious.
At tribulation cloud, also obvious.
From that shop back over the river to the geyser, hidden shop with the flute song.
Big waterfall where you climb up, be on the 2nd highest platform and bomb the very edge of the waterfall.

2-2:
Jump on the mountain at the shortcut eagle
Hole in wall at mountains with 2 flowers in a row.
Bomb the ground before the jumps over stilts over to gong tower.
Shop below gong tower with nunchuks.

2-3:
Obvious one with torch.
After first checkpoint, drop down and to the left, bomb wall (bigger wallet in there).
Last two are at checkpoint in fog, run back, turn left over a series of clouds and play flute song 2 at mouth. Bomb walls for shop on the left, elite skill in the middle (which apparently counts as shop) and deathtrap on the right.

Area 10
On Infantile, this is a very short Area. On Normal, this is the dreaded Gong Pagoda. However, we’ll be spending a lot of time here since there’s a fair amount of secrets around. There are no baubles in the Gong Pagoda itself, so you only have to worry about going in there if you’re on Normal or you’re after the Assassin Achievement.

On Normal, you’ll have to complete the Gong Pagoda first. Otherwise, you can follow the hint arrows past an apparently non-functional Dart Trap. Either way, you should reach the rear of the Pagoda, where you’ll find a [BLUE BAUBLE] and a block you can push to activate the Normal mode shortcut.

Next, head to the side of the Gong Pagoda nearest the Toad Pagoda. You can hop over to the roof to collect [2 BLUE BAUBLES].

Now comes the fun part. Back over to the grassy area between the Toad Pagoda and the Gong Pagoda. You must climb up the outside of the Gong Pagoda using the trees and clouds. Don’t worry about Dart Traps — other than the 1st Floor, there aren’t any on the outside the Gong Pagoda. Take the Owl’s tree up to the 4th Floor, then jump from the 4th Floor to an outstretched branch of another tree. Use that tree to reach the 5th Floor. Head to the back of the 5th Floor to find Clouds that get you to the 6th Floor, and another set of Clouds to reach the roof. From the roof you can make one final jump to land on top of the nearby peak with a Petal Thrower on top.

Now, we’ve got three things we need to do. First, there’s the [BLUE BAUBLE] on top of the Side Pagoda. I’m not sure if there’s another route to it, but the only way I got to work was to Dodge Jump (Jumping and Dodging at the same time) off the nearest edge of the peak towards the bauble. Normal jumping didn’t seem to be quite enough (was very close though, so maybe a really pixel perfect jump could do it). If you find a better route, feel free to share!

Next, find yourself a Key and get back up on top of the mountain. Again, ignore the Petal Thrower, and instead bomb the top of the mountain. Drop down and avoid the acid water, and bomb the wall directly opposite where the Gong Pagoda is. You can now drop down onto a Chest containing a [PURPLE BAUBLE].

Lastly, get back up on top of the mountain, and this time use the Petal Thrower to hurl yourself across to the ledge on the opposite side. You can then follow the path to a Hillbilly Still and a Raccoon Maze. Once you find the Raccoon Stump, there’s a slightly depressed part of the ground that can be bombed to find a cave, and inside you will be taught the Gatekeeper Lullaby if you have a Flute. Immediately use it to reveal a side area that was hiding a [PURPLE BAUBLE].

Assassin Count:

• 2 Assassins (2 Red) on 1st Floor of Gong Pagoda
• 1 Assassin (White) on 2nd Floor of Gong Pagoda
• 3 Assassins (Red, 2 White) on 3rd Floor of Gong Pagoda
• 2 Assassins (2 White) on 4th Floor of Gong Pagoda
• 2 Assassins (2 Red) on 5th Floor of Gong Pagoda
• 4 Assassins (4 White) on 6th Floor of Gong Pagoda
• 3 Assassins (2 Red, White) on walkway to Checkpoint

Area 11
This area is essentially a Teleporter Maze. If you’re after the Assassin Achievement, you will be required to both successfully pass the Maze, and then return and fail it. The correct route is Left, Right, Right, Forward, Forward. The best path to failure is Forward, Left. Once you’ve killed all the assassins on both paths, then you’ll get the Assassin Achievement immediately if you’ve killed them all up til now. If you haven’t, well… time to get backtracking.

For baubles though, all we care about is the correct route, as described above. If you get spun around, remember that all directions are from the position of the Exit Teleporter (the one with the sparkles going up). At the end of the correct path, you’ll finally get a [BLUE BAUBLE]. You can also reach this bauble by falling down on to it from the Shortcut Clouds on Infantile Mode.

The Checkpoint showing the end of this area is only available along the Failure Route, but it does mean that everything after this is a new Area. It’s probably best not to trigger it at all though.

Assassin Count:

• 6 Assassins (Red, 5 White) along correct Teleport route
• 2 Assassins (2 Red) along wrong Teleport routes

Area 12
After all this, it’s time to backtrack all the way to Area 4 and enlist the aid of the Shortcut Eagle. If you succeed in the little minigame of dodging owls up there (note that the Eagle’s head offers a defensive barrier against both owls from the front and you getting knocked off from behind), then he’ll drop you off at the very end of Area 12 on top of the struts of the final Bell. There are [5 BLUE BAUBLES] to collect up here.

Area 13
Just about done now. All that’s left is the final [BLUE BAUBLE] before facing the boss. With any luck, you should be done.

Area 5
The only [BLUE BAUBLE] in this area is on the Upper Floor, along the required path through this area.

Assassin Count:

• Boss Fight with Glove Assassin
• 4 Assassins (2 Red, 2 White) on Upper Floor
• 1 Assassin (Red) outside Glove Pagoda

Area 6
Just one [BLUE BAUBLE] here: on the 2nd Floor of the Dart Pagoda, in between four deadly Dart Traps. If you’re playing Normal Mode, you’ll get this one on your normal route. If you’re playing Infantile Mode, it’s probably easier to just jump towards it and die immediately after collecting it.

The Glove Gate at the top of the Pagoda cannot currently be opened, and does not count towards the Secret Room tally. There is an Assassin hiding behind the gate, but he can be killed or lured out without opening it.

Assassin Count:

• 1 Assassin (Red) patrolling outside Dart Pagoda
• 2 Assassins (Red, White) on Top Floor of Dart Pagoda
• 1 Assassin (White) behind the Glove Gate (either hit him through the gate or lure him out)

Area 7
Before you progress onwards, go around the back of the Dart Pagoda to find some clouds that can get you to the roof of the Dart Pagoda. You can now jump back towards Area 5 and collect [9 BLUE BAUBLES] from the struts of the Bell and the roof of the Glove Pagoda.

The only other baubles found here are the [2 RED BAUBLES] in the Chest on top of the Piranha Pagoda. Don’t worry about a key: we’ll be seeing a shop very shortly.

Assassin Count:

• 3 Assassins (3 Purple) along Piranha Gauntlet
• 2 Assassins (2 White) on 1st Floor of Piranha Pagoda
• 4 Assassins (2 Red, 2 White) on 2nd Floor of Piranha Pagoda
• 4 Assassins (Red, 3 White) on 3rd Floor of Piranha Pagoda

Area 8
Bomb the top of the peak immediately after the Checkpoint to reach a new Shop. Inside that Shop is a bombable wall that allows you to look out the side of the peak. Maybe there’s a Dig Spot there… haven’t tested. Either way, bombing and walking through walls is always useful to try and get that Secret Area Achievement count up, even if some secrets don’t happen to count.

There are no baubles in this area.

Assassin Count:

• 1 Assassin (Red) on 1st Peak
• 2 Assassins (2 White) off side of Pillar Jump Gauntlet (kill with ranged weapons)

Area 9
Immediately after the Checkpoint is the Side Pagoda (I only call it that because it’s a small Pagoda with no distinctive features that is off to the side of two very easy to remember Pagodas). You should be able to explore under the main Pagoda to the right. If you do so and follow the path round to the left of the mountain, you’ll eventually find a wall you can bomb in a niche underneath a wooden platform. This leads to a shop that sells the Chain Stick, an upgrade to your melee weapon.

The only [BLUE BAUBLE] in this area is found in the Toad Pagoda, a one-room death trap immediately after the Side Pagoda. Kill all the Toads with ranged weapons. Don’t try to get the Bauble yourself — the area is surrounded by Dart Traps. Use your Whip instead.

Assassin Count:

• 5 Assassins (2 Red, 3 White) on Side Pagoda
• 1 Assassin (White) around back of Toad Pagoda

Zone 2 has fallen. On one hand, writing up a Bauble runthrough didn’t take quite as long as Zone 1 once I sat down and looked for everything. On the other, I sure spent a hell of a lot of time on Zone 2 before even finishing off Zone 1 and writing the guide for it, had already found almost all of the secrets there, and it’s certainly where I’ve had my most deaths. It’s also really really REALLY long. Ah well.

Anyways, same rules as before: breakables, enemy kills, Raccoon Stumps, etc. don’t count for Bauble Achievements. I cannot stress enough that you should do this run on Infantile. Sure, it’s possible on Normal, but you will likely hate yourself by the end of it, simply due to backtracking issues.

I’ll also be recording Assassin counts in each Area, for those looking to get the “Become the Master” achievement. Note that, unlike many other SAB Achievements, this one will be given to you as soon as you complete it. You do not have to finish the zone before you get it.

===

Area 1
On the starting mountain, there’s [2 BLUE BAUBLES]: one behind the shop and another sitting in sight on a lonely pillar (jump from the tree to get to it).

Around the 2nd peak, there’s a [BLUE BAUBLE] in plain sight.

Behind the 3rd peak is another [BLUE BAUBLE].

On the final peak before the checkpoint, there are [2 BLUE BAUBLES], again rather easy to find.

Assassin Count:

• 2 Assassins (Red, White) on starting mountain
• 2 Assassins (2 White) behind 2nd peak
• 2 Assassins (2 White) around 3rd peak
• 2 Assassins (2 White) on final peak
  — A Red Assassin from the next area may charge through the Checkpoint

Area 2
The first [BLUE BAUBLE] is found on the roof of the first Pagoda, directly in front of you. The next [BLUE BAUBLE] is immediately behind the Dart Trap.

When you get to the second Pagoda, there’s another [BLUE BAUBLE] on its roof (use the Petal Thrower and push forward as you fly), and a [RED BAUBLE] in the chest. If you’re playing Infantile Mode, then you won’t have come across a shop yet — remember this chest for backtracking.

The final [BLUE BAUBLE] here is on the 2nd Peak before the Piranha Pool.

Assassin Count:

• 3 Assassins (3 Red) at 1st Pagoda
• 4 Assassins (Red, 3 White) around 1st Peak
• 6 Assassins (2 Red, 4 White) at 2nd Pagoda
• 2 Assassins (Purple, White) on 2nd Peak (use Bombs to get the Purple Assassin)

Area 3
There are no baubles in this small area. Just concentrate on the puzzle, or use the Shortcut Clouds to skip it.

Assassin Count:

• 3 Assassins (3 Red) by Piranha Pools

Area 4
As you climb the 1st Peak, look for a path to the left hugging the wall that leads to a [BLUE BAUBLE].

If you continue past the Petal Thrower, you should see a cloud to your right. Jumping across it leads to the Shortcut Eagle. You need the Glove of Wisdom to progress here, but we’re going to assume you got that on a previous run. If not, well, you’re going to backtrack anyways. There’s a [BLUE BAUBLE] sitting right in front of him. Once you’re near that bauble though, the Eagle will start talking. You have a very limited amount of time to grab the bauble and jump up to the mountain above! If you take too long, the Eagle will take you soaring off ahead, and we don’t want that quite yet!

Assuming you evade the premature shortcut, you can bomb the top of the Eagle’s mountain to find a shop. Perfect place to get that Key, and it’s one of the Secret Rooms you need to find in this Zone anyways. As for the Eagle, here’s the deal. You need to ride him to get some Baubles near the end of the Zone… but that means you have to backtrack after the ride. On the plus side, there is a way to backtrack from the very end of the Zone to here, even on Normal. This also allows you to unlock the Gong Pagoda’s shortcut from the rear. On the minus side, your Checkpoint will be set to near the end of the Zone, and any death will send you right back there. I’m going to assume you’re playing Infantile again, and that we want to unlock all the Shortcut Clouds. That means skipping the Eagle for now, and returning much much later.

Back to the Bauble Hunt. As you start climbing the 2nd Peak, look to the left for a [BLUE BAUBLE].

Once you get to the Pagoda, instead of crossing towards it, look behind and to the left for a Petal Thrower. Take it across to another [BLUE BAUBLE] and a Petal Thrower that will hurl you into a Secret Shop.

Assassin Count:

• 2 Assassins (2 White) while climbing the 1st Peak
• 2 Assassins (Red, White) while climbing the 2nd Peak
• 3 Assassins (Red, 2 White) patrolling the outside of the Glove Pagoda

Enemy Ai has always favored going after the summoned targets over the player unless some extenuating circumstances dictate otherwise. This holds true for necro minons, ele summons, ect. Why do you think the earth elemental summon is so valuable to eles? It can grab that agro super fast off the ele and the thing is actually pretty resilient (well the elite version, the regular one isn’t bad for tanking trash), same for the necro’s flesh golem (although the enemy likes to target the ranged minions first a lot too because they’re so squishy).

This is a fact of life for this game and i doubt it’s going to change soon. This wouldn’t be a problem for the spirit weapons if they didn’t get chewed up so fast or have such a limited lifespan. The way their trait lines are laid out, you’re pretty limited as to which weapons you can effectively use with them and still have a strong summon build and the ones you can use are mostly offensive and offer little in the way of supporting the weapons themselves (which I suspect the original plan of giving them health bars was that the guardian can buff them directly to help keep them alive, but the traits offer very little to make that possible).

Now yes you can use a support weapon(s) while using the spirit ones, but you won’t have the traits to devote to making those weapons proficient enough to warrant bringing along. So now you’re back to square one: bring support weapons and be able to upkeep the summons a tad longer but have horribad dps yourself, or bring the weapons designed to be used within the alloted trait lines for the summons and have good dps yourself, but have paper summons. Either way you look at it, it’s only half a build. Now some might argue they were meant to just be mixed in to builds, not run full spirit weapon builds, but the traits indicate otherwise (with one trait line having summon weapon specific traits in each major category- that usually points to a build-type) and anyway, if you’re using it in a build as a tacked on utility, then you sure aren’t going to waste numerous traits on a single spirit weapon when it servs you better to just use traits that benefit yourself. This is the conundrum of the spirit weapons. There’s no tradeoff.

With many other classes you have a trait or two that can improve your summons in some way in a semi-summon build but usually also affects other parts of a build too that is reflected directly in you the player (glyph cooldown reduction for eles, trap reduction for thief as well as traps causing vulnerability, – not going to count mesmer because that’s their class mechanic more or less- the only exception being necro which can succesfully run a full minion build and still gain benefits from it (increased toughness per minion, death nova, vampiric healing from minions, ect). Spirit weapons get none such benefits for using them that can be reflected in other parts of the guardian’s build. you get some cooldown reduction, slightly longer idle life, little damage boost, and burning (which is redundant because you can just use virtue of justice (yes it affects them now regardless of what the wiki said, I updated the wiki and provided visual proof of it happening). Now if they caused bleeding or heck even torment on commanded skill activation or something, that would be prime.

Guardians already have sports equipment covered:

OP: there have been no hints on what guardians are getting – history suggests we’ll be largely overlooked, although I’ve seen one off-hand dev comment about buffing Smite Condition.

What we would like to see is another question entirely. 2-hander Polearm, crossbow and offhand ankh would all work for me….

Really I’d be more happy to see traits reworked and skills fixed than any new weapons

current format :
1 month of major content update with
2 weeks of minor content update

e.g. :
1 month of Bazaar of the Four Winds, with 2 weeks of Cut Throat Politics
1 month of Queens Jubilee, with 2 Weeks of Queens Speech.

ANET should change it to :
2 month of major content update with
1 month of minor content update

Beat him legit after 8 tries or so, basically what you want is the following start from his side:
Burp
Drink
Drink
Drink
Water

Your response to that should be:
Water
Fake
Fake
Fake
Burp

after that just keep tabs on his water and make sure you can interupt every 2nd one(every 6th-7th turn), good luck.

Having ascended gear will definitely improve some of the numbers but it isn’t necessary to hit high DPS. Is it necessary to hit the highest DPS? Yes, because it has the highest stats.

But I wouldn’t discount a player simply because they don’t have all ascended gear. We have no idea when the OP started playing the game or when they started working on ascended gear for this character. And whatever the case, exotic gear is more than adequate to be effective in this game as it currently stands.

Hey guys, was doing some unrelated calculations and figured I’d go ahead and post these since I had to figure them out in the process.

Hammer
Hammer Swing [.8]
Hammer Bash [.9]
Symbol of Protection [Seems to be 1.0 for base strike + 1.5 for the symbol (divided by hits)]
Mighty Blow [1.75]
Zealot’s Embrace [.8]
Banish [1.0]

Greatsword
Strike [.8]
Vengeful Strike [.8]
Wrathful Strike [1.2]
Whirling Wrath [2.8 for primary strikes (.4 each * 7), .15 for secondary projectiles]
Leap of Faith [1.1]
Symbol of Wrath [2.75 (divided over hits)]
Binding Blade [1.0]

Staff
Wave of Wrath [.6]
Orb of Light [1.2]
Detonation [.6]

Sword
Sword of Wrath [.8]
Sword Arc [.8]
Sword Wave [1.5 (divided over hits)]
Flashing Blade [.2]
Zealot’s Defense [2.65 (divided over hits)]

Mace
True Strike [.8]
Pure Strike [1.0]
Faithful Strike [1.4 (only hits one target)]
Symbol of Faith [1.5]
Protector’s Strike [1.4]

Scepter
Orb of Wrath [.66]
Smite [4.95 (divided over hits)]

Shield
Shield of Judgement [1.0]

Focus
Ray of Judgement [.5]
Shield of Wrath [2.5]

Torch
Zealot’s Fire [2.25]
Cleansing Flame [3.3 (divided over hits)]

Smite Condition
Without Condition [.58]
With Condition [1.31]

Skill Damage = [(coefficient) * (weapon damage (which is a range)) * (power)]/armor

So with this you can calculate the damage of any of the above abilities for any given power.

NOTE: Symbol of Protection hits three times, not four as the tooltip states.

This won’t happen. This is wishful thinking from players, thinking “I could get my perfect build if things were like this!”.

You see, there is no rule saying that you can get everything you want just because you want Symbols, or Two Handers (but in fact you can). The problem is that people want too much.

The way it works now makes perfect sense, look:
Zeal increases damage, both Symbol traits there increase damage directly. Every trait there is damage increasing, and the only support it has comes from Spirit Weapons traits.

Radiance enhances burning and criticals, and everything in the line grants direct damage increase. It also buffs Signets, another way to increase self-DpS.

Valor increases self-survivability. Nothing there is support or benefits your party with the exception of Strength in Numbers, which could go to Honor. It buffs Meditations, utilities that doesn’t give boons or group support, but increases our combat capabilities.

Honor has plenty of boons, utilities and heals, Vigorous Precision, Empowering Might, Longer Lasting Symbols, Healing Symbols… maybe the ones that doesn’t fit as much are Larger Symbols and Two Handed Mastery. It also buffs Shouts, our utility for boon Group support.

Virtue is like mushrooms for me. It increases our Virtues, and enhances various types of things, but the keyword here is enhance. It also buffs Consecrations, which is a shame… wish they were somewhere else.

So there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this.
What you guys are proposing is to move Symbol DpS increasing traits in the boon/group support line, so you can get all your group support/boons plus extra DpS?

Perfect Inscriptions in Valor? So everyone can pick the new Signet of Judgment for even more defense? And leaves Radiance without the best enhancing Signet trait in the line?

If you guys still don’t get it, check other professions and you might understand how the traits are designed. Another quick example, from my Mesmer:

(Power Line, Adept) Illusions deal 15% more Damage.
(Precision Line, Adept) Phantasms (an illusion type) have Fury. (they CRIT more!)
(Vitality Line, Adept) Phantasms have 20% more health.
(Vitality Line, Grandmaster) Phantasms deal 15% more damage.
(Unique Line, Master) Phantasms attack 20% faster. (Enhanced performance)

It’s all scattered, and it still makes sense (maybe except the extra damage on Vitality).
Guardians wouldn’t be any different.

Dear Community,

As I read a few of the class forums and often the other forums, I have come for myself to the conclusions that a problem of the current game balancing issues and lacking PVE mechanics are an overabundance of boons on some chars or condition spamming on others.

I have the feeling that every class can either spam boons like they are from another world or spam conditions as if there is no tomorrow. This is all good and right, but the overabundance and the therefore natural course of spamming these abilities when ever they are up clearly decreases tactical use.

I for myself would like to see a more strategic use of boons and conditions all over. In general all boons should be made less available or shorter in duration. The same would go for conditions as well. This would mean a Nerf for all classes, yes and of course damage would need to be aligned with the changes as well. But it would lead to a more strategical game play, where using a condition on an enemy would lead to a more severe punishment. On the other hand, the usage of a boon would lead to a short time window where you gain a real advantage.

GW2 is meant to be a fast pace game play, where a lot of utilities are already automatically inserted into traits and are triggered in certain situations, as it would be too difficult to time that many skills. This all good and well, but the utility skills are in general too overpowered for my taste. Making utilities less spamable and more tactical would increase strategical PvP and slow down the game pace a little bit. On the other hand would it open PvE for a more group oriented experience and enable the devs to implement more strategical boss mechanics.

I.e.: Boss heals himself often, therefore poison would be a must. With the current game mechanics, either a thief or Necro would be easily able to put poison on the enemy with an up time of 250%… If poison would be on longer cd or less available, or less duration, or… it could become an interesting encounter. Same goes for a boss who attacks fast and often. Again it is possible to counter this boss with 100% up time of weakness, instead of timing weakness maybe for some special skills that gives the boss +250% attack speed for 5 seconds every 30 sec. Another way to counter this would be protection team wide, but currently it is possible to have this also up nearly 100% for melees with a hammer guardian.

Current game mechanics make damage king. I guekitteneason for this is the overabundance of protection. Half of the classes are able to have protection on nearly 100% up time in certain builds which gets them 33% damage reduction (that’s a lot btw.). To counter this damage classes need more damage naturally. This puts the support classes without protection and without damage into a bad situation, as protection is 100% up time with inherit traits and not because of those support classes. The support classes are not needed for support and are not able to kill or defend themselves against the defensive classes or the class cannons.

TL;DR
Conditions and boons are available in an overabundance and are not used strategically to counter other mechanics but instead are used as a basic nearly 100% up time mechanic for some classes. This destroys tactical game play both in PvE and PvP.

I would like to know how you think about current implementation of boons and conditions and if it has something to do with the difficulties to balance the game in PvP and PvE.
Do you also have the feeling, that maybe a change of these mechanics to more rare use would lead to a more strategical use and maybe more fun. Or would it just slow down game pace and make fights less engaging?

All they need to do is implement underflow servers.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Enhance-population-in-under-populated-areas/first#post1378255

Instead of each server having its own instance of a zone such as Caledon Forest use the overflow technology to fill each instance. Server A has 100 people in Caledon Forest while B and C only have 10 each. Currently players on B and C may never get to complete the zones champion events due to lack of players. Instead place all players regardless of server into the same zone instance until that instance is full. Then create an overflow instance and fill that one next. This maximizes the population in each zone ensuring that players actually get a chance to play alongside other players. Currently it feels very lonely in most of the zones.

After playing against Chase in various 1v1s, I can see that Radiance is indeed viable for PvP, but I’m still not doubt-free of how it performs in various other situations.

For 1v1 (and possibly defending/attacking a location), it works very well, the burst is great and comes with a barrage of Blinds and some CC.

I don’t know how it would go if the fight dragged on, if your opponent evade the burst for example, how it can hold, but that’s where the player skill comes in… if you can overwhelm their defenses and finish it quick, it’s excellent.

I don’t enjoy the bunker play style and this is much more enjoyable, and to anyone who thinks AH or bunker builds are a must for PvP, I recommend giving it a try too.

DpS Guardians, ahoy!

Hi guys.

I was analyzing the following skills:

1. Hallowed Ground;
2. Merciful Intervention;
3. Signet of Mercy.

I dunno, but in my opnion they are just useless for several aspects. Also I never seen anybody EVER using one of these skills. I never been in any situation like " since this is happening is better I use the skill #1, #2 or #3". Let’s look at:

1. Hallowed Ground:
Type: Consecration;
Cast Time: 1 Sec;
Cooldown: 80 Sec (64 traited);
Duration: 10 Sec (12 traited?);
Radius: 240;
Effect: Grants 1 second of Stability every second while inside. Also is a combo field Fire.

Why is this skill so bad? In my opnion is the cooldown time. Comparing to “Stand Your Ground!”, that last is way better in a lot ways: Instant cast; both affect alies; both give stability, but SYG gives also retaliation and its proporcion “duration / wait time without the boon” is 5 to 25 (5 to 19 traited) while HG is 10 (11?) to 70 (12 to 52), so it is 1/5 (1/4 traited) compared to 1/7 (1/4). Beside that the waiting time for reuse for SYG is 25(19) while HG is 70(52) allowing u to have Stability in short periods (Better, in my opnion). Also SYG don’t require u to “root” the area of effect to recieve the boon (this without counting that SYG can remove contitions whith trait or runes).

My suggestion: Reduce the cooldown to 70 (maybe 60, but can be too much) seconds. This only, already will make this skill a lot more useful.

2. Merciful Intervention:
Type: Meditation;
Cast Time: 3/4 Sec;
Cooldown: 80 Sec (64 traited);
Healing; 1,320 (*0.2);
Range: 1200;
Effect: Teleport to the ally with the lowest HP.

What the heck? I already feel that I have little control with Judge’s Intervention and #2 sword, this skill makes no sense. Firstly, the Healing: is none if compared with the insane cooldown, Secondly, where I will go? Even with the notes saying (I do not tested): “This skill teleports you to the closest ally regardless of health.”, the cooldown is just insane.

My suggestion: Heavly reduce its cooldown (to 45 like Judge’s Intervention?) or increase the Healing (maybe around 4000)?

3. Signet of Mercy:
Type: Signet;
Cast Time: 3 3/4 Sec;
Cooldown: 240 Sec (192 traited);
Range: 1200;
Effect:
- Passive: Increases Healing power up to (lvl 80) 180 (216 traited);
- Active: Revive a nearbly ally (closest?);

This skill is so awful becouse both passive and active effect: the healing power is the worst scaling stats (in my opinion even more than Magic Find – discussion for another topic) and can only revive from Downed State (with a VERY insane cooldown). Also this skill have almost 4 seconds of cast time, with this time I already revive someone directly. This skill makes no sense to me. Similar skills in other classes have the same problem with this skill.

My suggestion: HEAVLY reduce its cooldown (90 at least) AND reduce its cast time to 1 second at max (2 maybe, more than that, makes no sense if u can revive faster in the normal way).

What u guys think about? You found a viable and useful use of those skills? What you think that should be done? Are other skills that are useless?

Sorry for my english and thaks for the discussion!

Gary.7105:

Hello,

I love using the renewed justice to use virtue of justice on every foe. But I have no idea how condition damage scales. If for example I have 500 condition damage, how much more damage does that do?

I have a burning build in my signature that does a very respectable amount of damage in PVE. The biggest problem you will find is that you hit a wall with condition damage with Guardian because it’s not meant to be a primary damage application unlike Thieves for instance. The advantage is that you can pair this damage with ANY weapon you want so what you trade for absolute damage, you gain with versatility and supplemental damage.

I’d like to endorse http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ also.

Since their latest overhaul its incredibly easy to make builds for any format. Previously it was pvp only.

While buildcraft is a more mathy, numbercrunch kind of system, gw2skills feels more relevant to in game things. Buildcraft can show you effective power and effective health, but sometimes the math can be wonky, or people don’t read the disclaimers on how effective power actually works. Gw2skills makes the calculations itself based on your build, and you can easily see the damage tooltips change based on what kind of traits or armor you’ve equipped. It feels like you’re making real, in game builds.

Because of gw2skills, I now know that my 10k effective power (joke) build from buildcraft will have ~1.6k scepter auto attacks, and crits hitting the 4k range. Smite would deal a disgusting 30k max. These are things I never would have known on buildcraft.

buildcraft does allow you to fine tune your buffs/stats in case they missed something, and you can see exactly how much that 8sec Fury is helping your dps, which gw2skills doesn’t yet do.

Get accustomed to both imo. I use gw2skills for all my generic crafting needs, and if I need something with more crunch, buildcraft is right there.

Well to be honest, the combat in that video looks so much more alive. Yes, it might be slower, but at least there you don’t have to spam auto attacks all day. These skill videos played a big part in hyping me for the game. All of the professions look so much more fun.

I just need to take a look at my Mesmer cooldowns right now (apart from auto attack): 8s, 14.5s, 28s, 28s. And that’s already traited for 20% staff cooldown. It’s obvious that most of the time I will be auto attacking. And I won’t even start with utilities (loved that warrior chaining stomp and rush in the vid).

Marketing or not, it’s looking outright better than what we have right now – auto attacks all day long.

I think this video has some useful, constructive and well-thoughtout ideas in terms of creating and implementing control mechanics in boss encounters—the kind of mechanics that would give players the satisfaction of playing roles with decisive action, rather than being one of many dpsers.

The ideas contained within are interesting most of all because I think they could be implemented without necessarily changing the current meta for those players that enjoy the game the way it is. The kinds of fights that would be based on this meta could, if necessary, be limited to a “hard mode” of instances or different “paths” of new dungeons.

But only if necessary. I actually think this kind of mechanic revamp can create encounters for all playstyles, increasing the number of people consistently playing the game, thus increasing cash shop revenue. It’s a win for everyone.

What did you think of the video? And what do you think about how it could be implemented?

Amins.3710:

I think the biggest issue other classes have with retaliation is that there is no way to tell who has it on, when it comes to group play.

There is a visible cue for retaliation when it’s active. It may be subtle, but it’s there. On the shield arm you will see a ghostly shield similar in shape to the seraph shield. That is your visible cue, that and….well, targeting them.

And I would vote for retaliation to work on condition ticks. As it stands right now, conditions are kinda fire and forget, free damage. At least it would give these dot classes something to think about when dropping AOE damaging conditions on everyone without fear of reprisal. And it adds a layer of complexity for the person conditioned, “Do you pop your Condition Cure CD or let retaliation reward you for holding off?”

Amins.3710:

You mean that see through spikey thing that’s the size of a golf ball?

Try seeing that in a zerg. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a clearly identifiable aspect to a character…. now if they made that envelope the whole character model, that would be something worth noting.

Whatdaya want a big neon sign hovering over him the size of Jormag’s claw that says, “Don’t hit me!!!! I’ll hit you back!!!!” Please, bleeds, protection, might, stability, vigor, etc. don’t have a physical cue either, so what’s your beef again? You can ID them all by targeting someone anyway, so I don’t see the problem. If you’re looking for cues, by sheer virtue of culling and the nature of the rendering system (i.e. priority meshes/textures first, particles and visual effects last) completely negate relying on them in a zerg.

budxors.1975:

This topic is pointless to debate. It would take an entire reworking of retalation to make it viable.

A player who builds around condition damage should not have their entire build negated and turned into a negative because of a passive boon that can be applied indefinitely.

I think you missed the message where the devs are adding in mechanics like “boon hate” to help counter the abundant reliance on conditions. There’s no reason to think they won’t rework retaliation either. This boon has had an abundant history of being tuned/tweaked/nerfed/buffed, if conditions become the defacto “fire and forget” source of damage that they’re starting to come into in the meta, then they will adjust it.

Counters like retaliation don’t negate condition builds either, instead it becomes a risk/reward scenario especially, when you consider more than a few of the condition reliant classes can “eat” boons like retaliation.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Retaliation doesn’t need to counter conditions too. That is just silly.

25 stacks of bleed ~ 12,500 dps to the source of bleed? No. Just no. Having someone hit you with a 10 hit skill while under retaliation already punishes foes enough. Smoking them on DoTs would be overkill, and basically make Guardians invincible.

Think a little bit outside of the box here. If it’s changed to include conditions, retaliation would certainly be changed as well, maybe changed to return 5-10% of the damage taken? Come on, that’s first gen MMO balancing mistakes, we’re a bit beyond that now.