Guild Wars 2

laharl.8435:

Which trait gives Vigor on crit?

5 points in Honor. Once per 5s for 5s, so essentially perma-vigor.

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

We have the #3 on hammer that is an AoE root, #5 I think on GS that can pull, #5 on spear and trident that pull or sink respectively. It’s not cripple or chill, not sure if this is what you meant, but there are these.

Oh ya, the chains on scepter root also.

Also we have the spirit hammer that can knock down, as well as the hammer itself having launch that interupts/knockdown. Also a signet that knocksdown.

We don’t really need to slow or cripple foes, because we outright stop them or put them on their backs.

Read the following post.

Silver.8023:

Yes, our nice list of control skills are useful, the thing is, however, every other profession also gets a reasonable array of control skill alongside various cripples/chills. We do not.
Warriors, Elementalists and Thieves can maintain melee range, Rangers, Warriors, Thieves, Engineers and probably a few more can maintain long range. Guardians can maintain standing on a control point yelling, “Yeah you better run!” at people.
(I’m sure there are other professions that can do all this too, I’m just listing the ones I have a better understanding of)

In addition, Engineers can easily maintain melee range, and Rangers don’t seem to have trouble either. Both of those Professions have to tools to kite easily, and all they have to do is use them to keep enemies from running away, instead of running at them.

ComeAndSee.1356:

Thiefs only have one spammable cripple and its with the Shortbow. It’s more of a head ache when you’re trying to get behind people to backstab them.

They have 2 spammable cripples and an auto-attack that inflicts cripple.

Just to expand on that though, they can easily have passive +25% movement speed, and +50% movement speed while stealthed. Plus, every possible melee weapon set they have contains a spammable gap closer. Actually, the only set they could have without a spammable gap closer is with main-hand Pistol.

You’ll have low damage with that kind of build since you won’t crit much.

0/0/30/20/20 is standard.

SoS vs BG vs #1 EU

Levian.6742:

Yea, I was giving my overall impression from levelling each to about level 15, and looking at traits lol. I wasn’t sure how much actual gameplay would differ.

Which profession would be better at getting loot bags? I’d assume warrior, because of the higher damage potential, and more aoe capabilities?

If you spam with a Staff then Guardian. Otherwise Warrior.

sandvich.8259:

WvW used to be a fun past time with some great skirmishes. Then this stupid meta got popular with blobs of people putting EVERY boon up and running around the map like pack-man eating pills.

Maybe you want to slow the blob down using say a ‘Line of Warding’ oh dear that skills useless because the BLOB has permanent stability, not because it was skillfully activated to counteract you and you could respect that if it was the case.

How about stripping the Boons from the blob? yet again that skills useless because the blob puts ALL boons straight back up. 99% of your skills as an individual player are useless. the blob as a counter PRE-applied.

The only way to counter-act the ‘blob’ is become one. This fun? I certainly think not.

Get a Mesmer, 2 Necros, and 2 Guardians.

Congrats, you just stripped all their boons, prevented them from being reapplied, and stopped them in their tracks.

If you enemies use tactics, use tactics back. Yours in the first post I’ve seen that prefers zergs to be mindless instead of running synergy builds and buffing each other.

Levian.6742:

So yea, from your guys experience, what does each of these professions excel at, and what style of build complements it most?

You pretty much answered your own question in your post lol.

Guardian is pretty much as you described it, and the Warrior is as well except they also have good zerg busting builds.

Dynnen.6405:

I was having this discussion with a few guardians I play with a couple of weeks ago. We talked about the GM Trait being the snare, but thats too deep in the tree. If anything it should be a 15-20 trait, or put into a weapon or two. Another could be a 20 second CD and 5 second duration on Glacial Heart.
We’ve got low mobility (especially when compared to warrior/thief/DD ele/mesmer) and have no cripple? /confused

The problem with making it low is that every Guardian will have it.

For example, if this was 20 Zeal then every Guardian would run 20/x/30/x/x, and most Guardians would run 20/0/30/20/0.

Plus, I think a trait this effective is more balanced at 30 Zeal.

However, there could definitely be other traits added or weapon skills with snares.

Amins.3710:

5 people at a time, but used in a choke point, it would hit a lot more than 5 popel running through it.

Only 5 people will be chilled at a time, as the Symbol would pulse once per second and inflict 1 chill per pulse.

Or I could use Line of Warding and block 500 people and completely prevent movement with 0 traits needed.

At the moment you have skills that are even better than what I’m suggesting as they give multiple second AoE chills and cripples.

Makes sense.

+1

Silver.8023:

In any case, I think adding passive snares to symbols would be a little overpowered unless they were very short durations.

Edit: Although, the more I think about it, separating it from bunker builds by using 30 Zeal isn’t a bad idea after all.

I’m only suggesting a 1s duration on the chills.

I agree that giving more available forms of being able to maintain melee range combat is good for all Guardians. What I’m saying is that this level of snaring plus the current bunker builds would be overpowered, as Writ of Impediment is Grandmaster level snaring.

I’m not suggestiing this as the end-all solution for Guardian problems, just something that works and isn’t overpowered and creates build diversity.

KensaiZen.3740:

Beserker trinkets. Where did i say full beserker gear?

Well we will just have to wait and see.

Though tbh if you have a crit chance of 40% and 80% crit damage boost. Big hits are pretty standard

Is it me or do i feel that you guys have just been running in bunker builds?

My build uses only 15 Valor. I use Knight’s gear and damage based orbs/jewels.

By the way, we already explained this to you. I’ll humor you though.

The base critical multiplier is *1.5. I have 40% critical damage, so mine is *1.9. Yours is 80% critical damage, so it’s *2.3.

My base damage with 1925 Power averaged around 1400, so a crit is *1.9 for about 2660. Yours would be *2.3, so for 3220, which is far short of the 3500-5000 you claimed.

You understand?

Heinel.6548:

Bottom line is, a chilling bunker is simply not good for the game. Hence why it needs to be deep in zeal, to give guardians an option outside of the (good as is) bunker builds.

Exactly.

Amins.3710:

The main issue with making Symbols do anything more than what they current do is that ~they effect everyone they hit~… and that’s OP.

A AOE Chill that can effect an unlimited amount of targets… super OP. This would allow a 5 person crew to utterly whipe an entire zerg that get’s caught through a chokepoint. Every single keep/tower take would have a guardian(s) posted right at the door/wall for when it fell, only to have the entire raid whiped out by the other peep’s on the siege or people set up for AOE.

This is not the answer… regardless of how AWESOME it would be. lol

It would have to be something along the lines of “symbols have a 50% (or whatever) chance on pulse to chill”.

Maybe a Chill tied to Virtue of Justice, so it Burns & Chills, and make it a Traited Slot in the first line of Consecrations… cuz honestly, our 1st slotted trait in the Virtue line kind of sucks if you’re not running spirit weapons / consecrations (25% Ret duration is SUPER redundent for guardians).

Symbols hit only 5 targets at once. If 100 people were standing in a symbol with this trait, then for 1s 5 would be chilled. The next second, only 5 would be chilled. The next second, only 5 would be chilled.

Actually, my guild uses coordinated Line of Wardings and Ring of Wardings to block zergs and those affect unlimited targets. For those, you don’t even need traits, and this suggestion is of 30 Zeal.

Obtena.7952:

I would rather see class improvements as a signet or a new Virtue. Not really a point in burying it 30 points deep in an unpopular trait line.

It it’s put in a trait, I think that the vulnerability application from Rad 10 could be more useful as a chill.

The reason it’s unpopular is because there’s no point in going deep into it…

It’s like saying we shouldn’t build a bridge here because nobody tries to cross this river. That’s because there’s no bridge yet.

Heinel.6548:

If it’s going to be a chance to proc kind of deal, I’d rather it proc on symbol crits, which force people to go even more glass cannon to compensate for the effect.

Otherwise, internal cooldown is an alternative.

I think on-crit would be fine if it was deemed too good.

Heinel.6548:

Alarox.4590:

Heinel.6548:

Maybe slightly off topic, but I think glacial heart could work if they make it so symbols apply chill (in much the same way as symbolic exposure allowing them to cause vulnerability).

It could even trade places with wrathful spirits making it grandmaster on the zeal line. It’d fix so many things about the guardian.

That it would.

However, ArenaNet wants to change things in small steps. I don’t know if they’ll ever be up for completely removing and adding Major Traits anymore since that’s an instant change… you can’t make that gradual. By the looks of things, most of our traits will stay the way they are (still 2 bugged Grandmaster traits for months).

But it is gradual. First, they add a useless glacial heart, which replaced a trait, but is mostly just filler, then they make it good, and we get a new build and a reason to invest in zeal (don’t care what happens to wrathful spirits tbh). Everyone benefits.

Back in beta there were so many people complaining about symbols because of its static nature, and as far as being area denial goes, symbols are still not up to par with everything else. The chill would make symbols something to watch out for, and as long as the guardian has to build for it (no more 30 valor + 30 honor tank) I don’t see why not.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Suggestion-Writ-of-Impediment/first#post1158251

Ganzo.5079:

Alarox.4590:

Ganzo.5079:

We know what is the class problem, but i dont think this is the solution.
We need something that can be used with all our builds (like a total simbols\consecration modification) and only when this mechanic is created, they can add improvement via traits.

So i agree with you, because we need something to keep the enemy on our range (cripple is the best option), but i dont think that a single grand master trait can help us. This, can be useful, only when guardians will have access to a deepest control mechanic.

You have to sacrifice something. If people go 30 Valor for survival, they can’t have it all. The problem IMO is that where we should have better offensive or control options, we don’t, and so the only viable choice is survival and support (30Valor+20Honor). There needs to be more of a reason to go into the other lines, and there needs to be better Grandmaster traits. At the moment, we could just rename the Guardian the “Altrustic Healer”.

Sure, but keep the enemy on range is a primary guardian need. when you have satisfied this need, you can improve it, and in this case, your idea will shine.

But this trait alone, is only another patch to our frankenstein class

It couldn’t hurt could it? ArenaNet balances very slowly to avoid breaking things, and to rework so many skills and weapons would take time. I agree that more smaller things could be done over time, but I think this Grandmaster would help in the current game, and in the future after those patches.

Ganzo.5079:

We know what is the class problem, but i dont think this is the solution.
We need something that can be used with all our builds (like a total simbols\consecration modification) and only when this mechanic is created, they can add improvement via traits.

So i agree with you, because we need something to keep the enemy on our range (cripple is the best option), but i dont think that a single grand master trait can help us. This, can be useful, only when guardians will have access to a deepest control mechanic.

You have to sacrifice something. If people go 30 Valor for survival, they can’t have it all. The problem IMO is that where we should have better offensive or control options, we don’t, and so the only viable choice is survival and support (30Valor+20Honor). There needs to be more of a reason to go into the other lines, and there needs to be better Grandmaster traits. At the moment, we could just rename the Guardian the “Altrustic Healer”.

Writ of Impedement: Grandmaster trait in Zeal. Symbols cause 1s Chill per pulse.

Replaces Wrathful Spirits.

This would do a lot for the Guardian IMO.

1.) Gives more control options which are relatively lacking if you don’t dedicate to them, and which Symbols (currently) fail to give. Using this on the Staff for example, lets you guard allies and control the flow of battle. You could have the hard counter of Line of Warding along with Symbol of Swiftness against anyone who got passed.

2.) Synergy with Symbolic Exposure (Vulnerability per pulse). Symbolic Exposure can be good as long as enemies stay in the Symbol which is difficult to do in PvP. With Chill, it would make this trait more useful

3.) Makes Symbol of Protection a more useful chain finisher. Currently enemies are only struck by 1 hit from Symbol of Protection if they’re smart, because the longer cast time ususally means they’ll know it’s coming.

4.) Gives more synergy inside of the Greatsword. As it is now, you have the Pull/WW combo, but WW can end up useless against competent enemies due to the movement speed decrease. With a chill on Symbol of Wrath you still have to work to get them hit by the Symbol, but it gives you another option to hit enemies with a burst.

5.) Turns the Staff into a potential kiting option. The Staff is mostly a utility weapon and an AoE spam. But, if the Symbol could chill then you would have the ability to kite more easily, set up Orb of Light attacks, and give yourself time to hit Empower.

6.) Makes the Mace a more threatening combat weapon rather than suited mostly just for ‘bunkering’. At the moment it’s basically impossible to fight a fast moving enemy with the mace. You have no movement impairments, and you have no gap closers (all other melee weapons do). If Symbol of Faith could chill then you would still have to work to get the enemy hit by it, but if you could get close enough then you would be rewarded for skilled usage.

7.) An effective option for more capacity to stay in melee. This is something the Guardian is missing because of a lack of cripples and easy access to swiftness, among fewer gap closing options.

The major point I want to make here is that this trait could equalize the Sword/GS and Mace/Hammer. The Sword is easily able to gap close and has no symbol. The GS has a slightly longer cooldown gap closer and less range than the Sword, and has one long-cooldown symbol. The Hammer doesn’t have a large gap closer, but has control abilities and a symbol off the ‘1’ chain. The Mace has no CC or gap closer but has a long-duration symbol on command. It doesn’t buff what doesn’t need buffing, and gives viable movement impairments to the weapons that need it.

8.) Good synergy with Zealot’s Speed (5 in Zeal). Minor, but still useful for when you get focused in melee at 25% health, and instantly are able to chill your enemy and give you a last second chance. That’s what this trait used to be for as it gave Swiftness but now just retaliation.

9.) Synergy with Honor. Pretty obvious; two potentially offensive symbol traits for duration and size.

10.) Gives more viable options than 30 Valor. Having a very good reason to go 30 Zeal opens up a lot of possibilities for Guardians, and the +300 Power becomes more desirable.

11.) Overall, balanced. Per pulse, 1s Chill. This means you have to hit them with the Symbol, and they have to stay in the symbol. You can’t spam Symbols either, so you’ll have to have skilled usage. It’s also a Grandmaster, so to get this you also have to sacrifice. If you try to go 30 Altrusitic Healing as well, then you’ll only have 10 points left and won’t benefit from Honor traits.

Your thoughts? If you have any related ideas, feel free to post them. Looking for ideas on how to make offensive/control oriented Guardians more competitive, while not becoming overpowered.

Other:

Wrathful Spirits-
Increases spirit weapon damage by 10%
Increase spirit weapon damage by 10% and spirit weapon commands cripple foes for 3s.

Scepter Power-
Scepter damage is increased by 5%.
Scepter damage is increased by 5% and Smite also inflicts 2s Cripple.

Powerful Blades-
Sword and Spear damage is increased by 5%.
Sword and Spear damage is increased by 5%, and Flashing Blade and Brilliance also inflict 2s cripple.

Mace of Justice-
Mace damage is increased by 5%.
Mace damage is increased by 5% and Symbol of Faith has 50% chance to inflict 1s Cripple.

Greatsword Power-
Greatsword damage is increased by 5%.
Greatsword damage is increased by 5% and Whirling Wrath projectiles have a 50% chance to inflict 1s Cripple.

KensaiZen.3740:

Alarox.4590:

KensaiZen.3740:

It’s almost like they wanted to design Guardian to mainly support with slight option to kittenage.

It is true they allow every class to do every roll in the game but some classes do some things better than others.

So ArenaNet’s design is “For anyone interested in Guardians: If you want to be a buff kitten or a tank play a Guardian with 0/0/30/20/20 a Hammer and Shouts. If you want to be effective at anything else, be a Warrior.”

I always thought their philosophy was thay any Profession can be built for support/survival/damage, but they all have different mechanisms, forms, and specific instances that situationally favor one Profession or the other. Not “this Profession is the best at X, play this other Profession if you want to do Y”.

Well if that were the case guardians would have access to extreme burst skills and actually have good mobility AND a ranged weapon that’s effective at 1200 range.

Guess it must be me and my imaginary world

I said I thought it was their philosophy, not that they’ve followed it.

I agree. You look at a Warrior (closest Profession to Guardians) and they have Cripple on almost every weapon. They also have collossal burst, better ranged options, and more gap closers.

Nobody complains Warriors have too much Cripple. I don’t see why it would be overpowered for Guardians to have some Chill/Cripple on weapon skills.

KensaiZen.3740:

I’ll get you a screen shot

on a side note. would you like to do the math in how he managed to get ZD to crit a warrior for 3.6k? that should pass the time while I get you a screen shot

Mighty Blow: 469 damage
Zealot’s Defense: 640 damage

27% more damage.

In addition he could have easily had more power. He could have easily had more critical damage. He could have had might stacks. He could have had +%damage traits or sigils.

That was easy.

You realize I never said a Guardian can’t hit hard right? I’ve been playing the Guardian for nearly 1000 hours since beta and I’ve tried every weapon, from tank builds to glass cannon builds. I was challenging your claims about Mighty Blow.

There’s a difference between me claiming you said something wrong, and me saying Guardians have poor damage and that ZD can’t hit for 3500. Full glass cannon, ZD can hit for 5-6k against a fully geared lv 80.

Btw you’re better off getting a video so I can see your might stacks, gear, traits, enemy profession, upscale or not, and a video of their traits/gear.

Your claims were minimum 3500-5000 per crit, with the lowest ever being 3k on a Warrior. I can go get some Might stacks, find an upscaled glass cannon Warrior, put some damage gear and traits on, and crit for 5000+.

KensaiZen.3740:

It’s almost like they wanted to design Guardian to mainly support with slight option to kittenage.

It is true they allow every class to do every roll in the game but some classes do some things better than others.

So ArenaNet’s design is “For anyone interested in Guardians: If you want to be a buff kitten or a tank play a Guardian with 0/0/30/20/20 a Hammer and Shouts. If you want to be effective at anything else, be a Warrior.”

I always thought their philosophy was thay any Profession can be built for support/survival/damage, but they all have different mechanisms, forms, and specific instances that situationally favor one Profession or the other. Not “this Profession is the best at X, play this other Profession if you want to do Y”.

KensaiZen.3740:

I guess you know it alls missed the thread called Guardian DPS

This is Amins hitting with ZD on WARRIOR

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/35725/gw466.jpg

Did you honestly think Guardians can’t get this kind of damage? you guys are amazing.

Also in the case of maths there are far more variables in increasing or decreasing the damage done thus I generalised the figure to get a rough idea.

If you’ve never crit someone for over 3k you have either gone and built a bunker and expected it to do high damage like an idiot. Or you just somehow have broken the game and the damage is fixed to exactly what you’ve calculated since somehow it hasn’t factored in might stacks or the toughness and armour of the enemy.

Your just that amazing

Only thing amazing is that you can ignore the fact that you’ve been proved wrong and have no capacity to counter that with evidence.

Your above post is a very nice attempt to change the subject away from your claims about Mighty Blow and the counters to that.

Nice attempt with “your just that amazing” in a last ditch effort to act like “these guys are crazy, amirite?” without actually proving anything except you have no willingness to deal in facts. That’s called ad hominem. The smilely face was a nice attempt at making you seem friendly and innocent while shoving a fallacy into the faces of anyone reading your post.

KensaiZen.3740:

Yaki.9563:

KensaiZen.3740:

Yaki.9563:

So basically AH and EM need a nerf. AH for it’s ezmode automatic self-heals with no basis on the gear you’re wearing, and EM because it adds too much benefit to the group for just one trait. In that “versatility” you talk about I bet you never take off AH or EM.

Why would I need to handicap myself? to make people not running a AH+EM build feel better about themselves?

Versatility through Gear with static traits. Not complicated.

Right, what’s not broken about always using the same 2 OP traits in every build. Why bother having 5 trait lines.

The other trait lines are optional. Just like every other 5 trait lines in every other class.

Why would it be broken? its not like you get huge damage from these traits or get huge defence. These 2 trait lines is balanced so you can build on what you want with equipment.

There is such a thing as a happy medium for Guardians.

When people play a game with a large degree of customization, they generally don’t want one or two things to be the absolute best.

AH+EM is 50/70 points pre-dedicated, and to maximize AH you’ll be going Hammer with Shouts.

I don’t run that build, but for most people it’s too hard to not run 30 Valor.

It’s broken not in the sense that it’s overpowered, but in the sense that other viable options are very few. Basically, the offensive trait lines for Guardians are clearly sub-par while the defensive one is nearly flawless and synergizes with almost everything, and the support ones synergize with the defensive one.

shrewd.5319:

Every tournament is the same setup. 2 elementalists, 2 guardians, 1 necro/mesmer/thief.

I’m done with this crap. Elementalists, and to a lesser extent guardians, need to be nerfed big time. The state of these two professions is absolutely ridiculous.

The problem with nerfing Guardians is there would be no reason in playing them in competitive PvP. Kind of like Engineers/Rangers. But hey, nerfing the hell out of bunker builds would maybe mean we’d get buffed in some other way (however that hasn’t happened in the past).

Chi Malady.2015:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Darnis.4056:

Chi Malady.2015:

That’s why nobody plays tournaments anymore.

False, Tournament ques have never been faster.

Despite the naysayers, I think PvP population has actually managed to increase a bit recently even with all the problems. Tourney queues are pretty quick and I think hotjoin population may be rising a bit as well. Of course, we’re talking anecdotal evidence—I’d be interested to see some numbers from Anet on how things are doing PvP-wise.

Did you guys play in the betas/first month? Tournament queues were like 1-2 minutes back then.

Hot-join barely has 10 filled servers these days. Back in the day half the server list would be full.

^

Silver.8023:

Not everyone has a passive speed boost as they have to actually equip the thing. While I like this idea, it is actually way more powerful than every other class’s passive speed boost because as a virtue, it wouldn’t take up a utility slot.

Which is why the OP is suggesting a 15% increase rather than 25% or 33%.

Yaki.9563:

KensaiZen.3740:

Alarox.4590:

Heinel.6548:

I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.

I don’t think so either. Here’s why:

KensaiZen.3740

Mighty blow when traited is on a 3.5 second timer and with the right gear does around 3.5k-5k (or even higher if you go glass cannon) Minimum non crit would do 7k damage in 10 seconds with both crits thats 10k damage. Value will go up or down depending on armour type but never usually below 3k even on warriors.

I am full Knight’s with Valkyrie/Emerald Jewels/Orbs. I have 1925 Power, 40% Critical Damage, and an Exotic Hammer.

I just walked into a borderland and started attacking Fireflies in the SE supply camp. Here are my results (I waited till I had at least 5 numbers in both):

Non-crit:
1400
1471
1360
1293
1416
1286
1314
1394
1420

Crit:
2496
2718
2528
2622
2703

Average Non-Crit: 1373
Average Crit: 2613

“around 3.5k-5k (or even higher if you go glass cannon)”
“but never usually below 3k even on warriors.”

Orly? I’m eagerly awaiting your response. I hope numbers are involved, as you are indeed correct in mentioning how I like them.

KensaiZen.3740:

Since you love your numbers,

youor crit damage is only 40%. Mine is 80%, go figure.

Full Beserker trinkets and wearing knights armour. This is where the damage comes from. How do you expect to do high damage without spec for damage? you are amazing.

As amazing as your failure in math? 1300 * 2.3 = 2990. Not 3500. Not 5000. Not “never usually below 3000”.

Nothing is as amazing as that. However, I would go with 1400 * 2.3 = 3220

Plus he’s saying never below 3000 on Warriors… assuming with the same Power and 80% critical damage he wouldn’t hit 3500 on fireflies.

BTW: I would consider full Berserkers as your trinkets as being closer to Glass Cannon.

CMF.5461:

This is exactly why I wanted to have this discussion. Can we break the mold or are we so ingrained with our class mechanics that we are stuck with bunker and AH/meditation builds?

Can someone find a better way to maximize our strengths? How can you utilize and extrapolate the information given to us by the developers idea of class balance and make us stronger with what we have? Or have we reached our pinnacle for the time being.

All I do is theorycraft about how NOT to use 30 Valor. I must have retraited 200+ times at this point. Refusing to go 30 Valor opens up a lot of possibilities build-wise though. The only problem is of how useful Monk’s Focus, Altrustic Healing, and 30% Crit Damage/+300 Toughness is, and how problematic most other traitlines are.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Poor-Guardian-Traits/first#post1144976

Health Pool:

We compensate by stacking Toughness to make better use of our multiple forms of healing, and by using Blinds/Blocks to avoid burst. They could have just said that, because that’s the exact reality of it. We don’t use Boons to make up for the low health pool, we rely on Toughness and multiple forms of healing. The only time we rely on boons to make up for the low health pool are:

1.) Altrustic Healing build (and that’s about applying boons, not the effect of boons).
2.) Regeneration focused build (that’s 1 boon).
3.) Protection focused build (that’s 1 boon)

Then there’s the Bunker builds which do all of the above. So basically, unless you’re dedicated survival it’s not about boons to keep you alive, at least to the extent that the above implies.

Area Control:

Outside of a few skills, we lack area control. Sure we have area control if you use the Hammer and Staff for 1 skill each and take long cooldown Consecrations with 10-20 mandatory points in Virtues while sacrificing any other form of utility from your utility slots.

Boon power:

I don’t really feel any more or less powerful without my boons. Sure, a bunker Guardian does, but that’s hardly the entire Profession, and all ArenaNet has done is nerf bunker Guardian boons (Protection and Retaliation). In my build I’ll have constant Vigor with random low-duration Retaliation and Protection, with some might stacks here and there.

Condition Removal:

I don’t see us having that much, really. Once again, it’s all about the Valor line. If you take Purity and Smite Condition/Contemplation of Purity then you’ll have a bunch of condition removal. Going for Inscribed Removal lacks synergy with many builds and requires the use Signets to be very useful (meaning you sacrifice a lot of other utility that’s almost mandatory like Meditations or Shouts). Going 20 into Virtues for the “remove 3 conditions” will only be sought after by full on bunker/support builds because of 0/0/30/20/20.

Melee Utility:

I agree we are almost entirely dependent on melee combat. However, we lack the tools to stay there. If you look at a Warrior or Thief… or a D/D Ele or a melee Engineer they all have no trouble getting into and staying in melee range. Warriors have long-duration cripple on almost every weapon and have gap closers on most weapons (and more access to swiftness). Thieves are self explanitory. Elementalists easily have perma swiftness or the +25% boost, along with plenty of gap closers and chill/cripple. Even Engineers have chills/cripples/perma-swiftness/gap-closers, and can keep switching back and forth between kits to spam them. There’s nothing wrong with all these other classes having the ability to get in and stay in melee range, but the Guardian is the most melee-dependent Profession and yet they’re outclassed in melee staying power.

Overall, their descriptions are very dependent on the Guardian in questions taking specific traits and weapons. Guardians aren’t the worst Profession, but they need work in a few specific areas to give them more viablity out of a niche role. With the Tank/Support aspect it’s all fine, but there’s a reason you see 0/0/30/20/20 more than anything else (or at least a mandatory 30 Valor).

Too much to disagree with.

Swish.2463:

If having events that directly effect towers/keeps/supply seems off then perhaps just randomly spawing bosses (dragons dropping in maybe) for the servers to fight over for a few extra bonus points?

Focus should be PvP and structures.

Dee Jay.2460:

Got a big Zerg infront of your Keep? Might as well hand it over because it’s nigh impossible to defeat a larger force. You can’t even channel a finisher faster than someone else can rezz their team-mate.

This is game-breaking.

It’s possible to defeat a big zerg, but I agree that the insta-rezzing makes it much harder than it has to be. If you’re taking 80 people to a keep door and they’re dumb enough to stand there getting their faces nuked by defenders and siege, you should be punished for it insteading having the hard counter of insta-rezzing.

I remember when my guild fought the WM and SF zerg (like 70-100) with about 30 people in the open field. We tried bait-and-bleed, flanking, portals, pincers, etc. If we pushed into them, we’d get out on the other side and their guys would be rezzed up in the back, and they could push us back at full force. If we used bait-and-bleed they would eventually push us back a bit, then rez the dead. The problem was that if we didn’t kill them all at once, they would rez the downed. If we rush them and went all out and killed half, they would rez them after we wiped. Not to say their skill and tactics weren’t a factor, just that it would be much closer minus the mass rezzing.

That being said, if you want to counter zergs overall then do it by making a guild. There’s nothing stopping you and everyone else on your server from doing it except your lack of initiative.

Mance.5640:

If they would make the maps bigger, then small mans/solo’s could avoid the zerg much much easier. That is the biggest problem imho.

We move a tactical group of 5-15 (depending on time of day) all through the Borderlands and do fine with avoiding zergs. You shouldn’t be able to just avoid them all by mindlessly running through a map. It would be incredibly frustrating if small groups could go anywhere they please on the entire map without you having any say in it. I think the current size is actually fine with regards to that.

However, I agree EB is a different story.

@Zergs, define zerg.

If you mean “large group of people”, and by extension are saying that big groups of people are inherently wrong to have in WvW then you’re just flat out wrong.

My guild rolls with 30-60 people at a time and murders groups of 50-100 while maintaining map dominance. Same thing with most coordinated WvW guilds. There’s a difference between a group of random people following a PuG Commander, and a guild and it’s allies following a guild commander utilizing tactics.

In addition to the above, we have our smaller groups going out to flip camps, ninja keeps and towers, distract enemy forces, bleed towers/keeps of supply, and scout all the time. We view both as being equally important. Small groups play an integral role in WvW, you just have to go through the process of getting coordinated.

Yeah the game doesn’t tell you to get small havoc-spreading groups along with a main force, but you can choose to do that and dominate. I see too many complaints that WvW is all zerg when they haven’t even tried getting coordinated with a guild.

If you want zerging to be less effective, then get coordinated and kick their kitten

FrenzyCat.9614:

If I were to try this build, what traits would I be using? The numbers don’t really tell me anything.

Valor would end in Altruistic Healing, Honor would be buffing shouts and Empowering Might. The rest is choice. That’s the standard Guardian build that offers tankiness, buffing, and little else.

The problem is that our survival comes from stacking Toughness and relying on that to make our multiple forms of healing more useful.

If you want to not drop dead and deal damage, you need to go Knight’s gear (Pow/Pre/Tuf). I find using full Knights with Beryl Orbs (Pow/Crit-DMG/Vit) is very nice for damage and giving you survival (not tank level, but much higher than glass cannon).

However, I agree with you. Other than being a bunker or dedicated support, Guardian lack a lot of usefulness. Building damage/survival or damage/support or full hybrid isn’t very rewarding (something I’ve focused entirely on for about 1000 hours now) and focusing on all damage gives you decent burst, but you become entirely reliant on your allies to not get focused and drop dead. You basically become a Thief with less burst, mobility, and you lack stealth.

Heinel.6548:

I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.

I don’t think so either. Here’s why:

KensaiZen.3740

Mighty blow when traited is on a 3.5 second timer and with the right gear does around 3.5k-5k (or even higher if you go glass cannon) Minimum non crit would do 7k damage in 10 seconds with both crits thats 10k damage. Value will go up or down depending on armour type but never usually below 3k even on warriors.

I am full Knight’s with Valkyrie/Emerald Jewels/Orbs. I have 1925 Power, 40% Critical Damage, and an Exotic Hammer.

I just walked into a borderland and started attacking Fireflies in the SE supply camp. Here are my results (I waited till I had at least 5 numbers in both):

Non-crit:
1400
1471
1360
1293
1416
1286
1314
1394
1420

Crit:
2496
2718
2528
2622
2703

Average Non-Crit: 1373
Average Crit: 2613

“around 3.5k-5k (or even higher if you go glass cannon)”
“but never usually below 3k even on warriors.”

Orly? I’m eagerly awaiting your response. I hope numbers are involved, as you are indeed correct in mentioning how I like them.

KensaiZen.3740:

Since you love your numbers,

vespers.1759:

they go down just as fast as any other class… wow 2 aegis’ block 2 attacks regardless of whether they hit for 2 dmg or 25,000 dmg.

*when a guard gets swarmed they go down. i think a lot of people tend to exaggerate on the forums. *

^

The Guardian’s survival comes from being able to take small amounts of damage over time and heal, or quickly block a few big hits. For example, the function of Toughness and Altrustic Healing is to take small damage over time, and the purpose of Aegis/Blind is to negate those few big attacks. That being said…

They are NOT damage sponges. If you get caught without your cooldowns (and don’t use them wisely when you have them), you will not be able to stand there and /dance without falling on your kitten

Mrowqa.3861:

Well as far as i noticed orb of wrath heals more dmg then full zerker sb ranger.
Imagine now orb speed of sb arrow + #2#3 skills in chain. that person woulnd’t survive those 2=3 seconds.

Mrowqa.3861:

And yes scepter auto with full zerk hits like a truck. add to that #2/#3 immo skill from it + fire /lightning sigil and noone will survive this kind of burst at least in spvp/tpvp untill they react fast to immo.

You can keep saying that or show some math to prove your point. In the meantime, I’ll prove you wrong.

Scepter auto hits for 195 damage every .83 seconds. Ranger auto hits for 97 direct damage every .54 seconds, with an additional 128 damage over 3s.

That’s about 235 DPS for the Scepter versus 416 DPS for the Shortbow.

Assuming you’re able to get someone Immobilized inside of Smite, here’s the math:

Your Immobilize lasts 2s so that’s the maximum time anyone will be in Smite. In 2s, Smite will deal (1200/6*2) 400 damage, so that’s an increase in +200 DPS. However, that’s not taking into account the cast time for Chains of Light and Smite that takes away from your auto-attack.

However, the Ranger can also increase their DPS with Poison Volley, except this has a wide spread and doesn’t need an immobilize. Assuming you only hit with 1 arrow, that’s an increase of (860/2seconds) +430 DPS.

In total that’s 435 vs 846 DPS.

Overall, the Scepter can’t burst for more damage. In addition, the Scepter fires much slower in velocity, and slower overall. Therefore an enemy dodging your attacks with the Scepter affects your DPS much more overall, and cooincidentally it’s also much easier to avoid Scepter attacks due to the slow firing speed (poor balance).

@Balance:

If you have a low damage ranged auto attack, you make it fire in rapid succession.
If you have a high damage ranged auto attack, you make it fire in slow succession.

If you have a high damage ranged auto attack, you shouldn’t make it fire in slow succession, AND move slowly in the air. All that does is double down on compensating for the high damage, and instead makes it underpowered.

20 points in Honor helps as you get some well needed Vitality and Two-Handed Mastery. 10 points in Radiance is good for PvE because you can get Blind Exposure and the ability to put 15 stacks of Vulnerability on 5 enemies if you use Leap of Faith. Valor is a line that you can not go wrong with. If you’re focusing on a group build you can go 30 points for Altrusitic Healing and shouts for utilities. If you’re focusing on a solo/damage build you can go 30 points for Monk’s Focus with meditations for utlities. Either way, you’re getting a massive amount of survival from those two traits and 300 Toughness, and you’re getting +30% critical damage and will hit much harder. I would also recommend an additional 5 points in Radiance and Virtues as you get to spam +3x Might when an enemy dies, and you can spam Vulnerability.

Try a build like this for starters:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlUgiDnGyKEfIFRuA7DAETBGz41DI6wGC

Not worth it. You need ‘Retreat’ and STG for it to be useful (and ’Retreat" is a long-cooldown that you likely use prior to battle or at the start of battle for movement speed.)

Plus, Honor has so many good traits to choose from.

KensaiZen.3740:

DPS = Damage Per Second

Condition damage = Damage Over Time

Damage/Second IS Damage/Time, because a Second is a unit of time.

All damage can be calculated in Damage/Second. It’s just easier to do it as Damage/Time (where Time = ‘X’ Seconds) for Conditions.

If my burning does 2000 damage over ten seconds (Damage/Time) that’s 200 DPS (Damage/Second).

Heinel.6548:

I think it’s highly unlikely that they’d make any drastic changes to profession mechanics.

Their philosophy on balance is small changes over time, therefore they will probably never do anything like this, as you can’t make small gradual changes when it’s only 1 big addition/change…

That being said, I love the idea.

Heinel.6548:

Maybe slightly off topic, but I think glacial heart could work if they make it so symbols apply chill (in much the same way as symbolic exposure allowing them to cause vulnerability).

It could even trade places with wrathful spirits making it grandmaster on the zeal line. It’d fix so many things about the guardian.

That it would.

However, ArenaNet wants to change things in small steps. I don’t know if they’ll ever be up for completely removing and adding Major Traits anymore since that’s an instant change… you can’t make that gradual. By the looks of things, most of our traits will stay the way they are (still 2 bugged Grandmaster traits for months).

Only the Torch’s ‘4’ skill is good. The 5 skill is only good for a burn build by activating VoJ procs. The actual DPS of the 5 skill itself is very low compared the auto attack, and compared to what skills like Mighty Blow or Whirling Wrath bring to the table, it’s just bad.

The Sword’s auto attack can be used about 3x in the time it takes to use Torch 5. Torch 5 deals 720 damage, Sword auto deals 755. That means if you just auto attacked, you would deal 2265 base damage, versus a 720 base damage with the Torch.

Compare that to Mighty Blow or Whirling Wrath. Whirling Wrath deals 819 Base damage for a 1s cast time, and can go right back to auto-attacking. Mighty Blow deals 469 base damage for a 1s cast time, and is on a 4s cooldown. Both skills hit more targets as well due to a 360 degree effect, while the torch is a cone.

Edit: Mighty Blow can actually hit harder instantly than Torch 5 because when it crits, ALL of the base damage gets the multiplier while Torch 5 only recieves about your critical chance % of it’s damage as multiplied. You hit 10x with the Torch, if you have 30% critcal chance, then it’s likely only 3 hits will crit.

Regarding the off-hand sword, I would love that. I would even use it with the Mace or Scepter. However, I agree that the 1h Sword needs a bit of work first (Zealots Defense is just bad).

Use Merciful Intervention to get unstuck. If you’re solo then cast a spirit weapon then use it.

However, I agree that it is frustrating when this happens and should be looked into a bit.

Twill.6217:

Exedore.6320:

It’s just the movement prediction going into effect. Normally people strafe and don’t wiggle, so the weapon is designed to aim at where they’re expected to be, not where they are now. Scepter just makes it more apparent because of its slower movement speed. The only way to fix this is to make all projectiles auto-hit, which goes completely against the design of the game.

why is it against game design? don’t other profession’s auto-attacks..auto-hit? doesn’t focus attack auto-hit already?

Some auto attacks like the Mesmer GS auto-hit, while others are projectile based. However, nearly all projectile based auto attacks have the speed to reliably hit in most cases.

The problem with the scepter is that you don’t even need to wiggle around to avoid most hits. An enemy starts shooting at you with a rifle/bow/staff at 900-1200 range. You launch a barrage of the slowest projectile auto-attack in the game. 3 orbs are fired at the enemy before a single one reaches them (which is ridiculous by itself), whatever will he do to avoid taking all that damage?! Move 5 feet to the right.

I use the Scepter in most of my builds, but it’s mostly a 600-ish ranged combat weapon. The only times I use it are when the enemy is a few meters out of my reach and kiting me, when long-range is the only option, or when I want to chain CC. I really enjoy the weapon, but the auto-attack is unreliable at best, and it is simply out performed by all other ranged auto attacks (which makes Guardiian ranged sPvP lopsided).

You don’t need Guardians, people just want to be carried and their idea of the easiest group is pseudo-trinity. In their eyes the Guardian is both their tank and healer.

Blaeys.3102:

Alarox.4590:

The OP raises some good points about the implementation of the Glicko system.

Blaeys.3102:

While skill and coordination can play a role, most will agree that WvW matches are usually determined by sheer numbers and how much coverage you can spread over a weeks time.

Not anyone who plays WvW more than casually and doesn’t get caught up in making excuses for their losses.

Tell that to JQ who is about to kick us out of first place, not because they have coverage advantage, but because they played better than us this week. JQ, SBI, BG, and SoS all have roughly the same amount of coverage, the winners are determined by who plays better.

Dont be insulting and keep the discussion meaningful. It isnt about excuses.

It’s why I used words like usually. Yes, they may be knocking you out of first place, but the brackets are still staying rather static – and the reason for that is that the three or four top populated servers as a whole draw in more people across more times of the day. When compared to servers further down, the first – and MOST IMPORTANT – difference is numbers – its impossible to know where the better players are because the severe number imbalance trumps everything else. Ive played on Henge of Denravi since the first beta weekend in May, so Ive seen this from both sides of the coin.

The original topic was about what caused the problem of static brackets. My opinion – it is a self perpetuating vicious cycle that feeds the higher population servers and widens the divide significantly as time progresses. It is just basic human nature.

The glicko system would work if a larger number of servers were more even. Then, the differences between servers WOULD be based on skill and organization. That is what we all should be striving for.

1.) My post was never meant to be insulting, as yours wasn’t either. However, the line of your post is basically an insult to anyone who believes that their server earns their wins. No hard feelings over anything, just pointing it out.

2.) As for the supposed issue of population imbalance, the idea of spreading all of the players out is more or less spreading the misery. Unless everyone is happy, nobody can be happy. That isn’t your intention in suggesting it, but I believe that’s the reality of it. In the higher tier servers, your server actually earns the win rather than coverage or other factors being out of the players control. That’s why people that truly love WvW flock to the higher tiers. Spreading all of the players out means everyone suffers from the coverage gaps and the lack of constant competition, rather than just the lower tier servers.

At the moment, the higher tier servers are generally more of what WvW players want. At the moment, the higher tier servers are also the ones that have most of the WvW population. Therefore, at the moment, most of the WvW population is in a situation where it’s what they want. Spreading them out generally harms most of the WvW players rather than helping them. Until someone can prove the above to be false, I see no reason why spreading the WvW players out is beneficial to the WvW community at large.

The OP raises some good points about the implementation of the Glicko system.

Blaeys.3102:

While skill and coordination can play a role, most will agree that WvW matches are usually determined by sheer numbers and how much coverage you can spread over a weeks time.

Not anyone who plays WvW more than casually and doesn’t get caught up in making excuses for their losses.

Tell that to JQ who is about to kick us out of first place, not because they have coverage advantage, but because they played better than us this week. JQ, SBI, BG, and SoS all have roughly the same amount of coverage, the winners are determined by who plays better.

The reality is that every server had coverage gaps, but it’s about how hard you play during primetimes that really matters. SoS has a huge coverage gap between NA and Oceanic, but we’ve been #1 for over a month because we’ve owned the PPT when all 3 servers are out in full force with nearly identical numbers.

Everyone even partially interested in WvW should read this thread.

Thanks a bunch Habib!