Guild Wars 2

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

phokus.8934:

It still baffles me that they came up with the DH longbow and only included one unblockable ability while the amount of projectile reflects exponentially increased.

Add to the fact that Guardians have a crap ton of projectiles, even on their melee weapons, it adds to many frustrating matches and skirmishes.

I’ve pretty much given up on any type of remediation other than the wishful thinking that our next elite spec doesn’t have to deal with this nonsense.

With regards to the longbow, I think the community had a heavy hand in ANets decision to add that as the weapon of choice for the DH elite spec. I remember a lot of discussions on these forums pre-expasion with people asking for the Guardian to be given the longbow, mostly because they weren’t happy with the scepter as a ranged option.

Still, longbow aside, I do agree that guardians have too many projectiles to deal with. Two out of three of our sword skills involve projectiles and 2 out of five our our greatsword skills also launch projectiles. Fighting any enemy in PvE or PvP with projectile reflects is very punishing for a guardian, even when they’re using their dps oriented melee weapons.

Yep, I’ve been throwing out these numbers lately and encourage you to do the same:

Nearly one third of all guardian weapon skills are projectiles. 40% of all guardian weapon skills used in offensive pvp builds are projectiles. Of the two most common weapon sets paired (longbow & Sw/focus), 60% are projectiles. The point is, we have a ridiculous amount of reflectable projectiles for a heavy-armored melee class. The “projectile” property has got to go on some skills, namely sword auto attack.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Seems a bit too necro/mallyx-wannabe to me. If guardians get a condition elite spec at some point, it should probably focus on burning since fire is a primary theme of guardians.

I somewhat disagree with this. I enjoyed burn guard but it’s biggest problem was the fact that you could only ever apply 1 or 2 conditions at a time, so other than catching people by surprise, you aren’t going to get many kills. A condi-focused elite spec that focuses on burning but also brings 2-3 other condis to the table would be very welcome from a build diversity standpoint. Chill, weakness, bleed, vuln and torment could all make sense lore-wise or thematically for guard imo!

Charlie.1482:

GUARDIAN:
Heavy Light: Add an Icon. Increase cooldown to 20s. Increase range to 400.

Thank you for reading.

Lol no. I will continue to cc you once every 10 seconds, and then you’ll eat my 2k trueshot each time!

Spirit weapons need a heavy rework, but an elite spec isn’t the place to do that imo.

And so there do seems to be some nice choices for power builds, I’ll give you that

However, there doesn’t seem to be very much in the way of group support.

The sustain isn’t out-standing either. Swiftness on block (lets say it results in perma-swiftness while in combat) is nice but really won’t help us mitigate damage or deal with the classes that are already more mobile than us. The protection while in combat may offer a decent amount of damage mitigation, but that’s only one decent source of sustainability. For the other traits, a bit of extra health won’t do much and none of our ground-targeted skills with duration (traited or not) really provide much sustain to begin with:

Symbols? No. Well, maybe in pve.
Consecrations? No. An extra second onto hallowed ground or sanctuary will do nothing. Consecrations need a bit of a rework imo.

From a PvP perspective: The specialization seems to be lacking in a few areas though. It doesn’t seem like it would be very good at dealing with ranged attacks, heavy condi pressure, or very mobile foes (all of which base guard already has trouble with).

A few additions or tweaks to your specialization idea could solve this though: Add in resistance somewhere. Guardians really need access to this boon. Add in more soft cc that can be applied through defensive means (like, cripple, torment or chill someone when you block an attack). As is, if someone running this spec wasn’t using scepter, they’d have almost no way to stay on top of a moving target that has a couple of condi cleanses. Also consider changing a couple of the utilities to apply more powerful defensive effects (stun breaks, stability, aoe weakness or blind, blocks and aegis).

Lastly: forgot to mention this in my first post but how about an elite skill?!

Edit: it seems you added the elite skill, awesome! If it had a short cd, and resistance was obtainable elsewhere (such as through a trait), then this elite spec would offer decent resistance access.

Guardian taking on more of a necromancer feel; it’s great thematically opens up many doors for condi options for sure, but like BordeL said, this really just looks like mallyx revenant (as an entire elite spec).

Couple of quick criticisms:

- I dislike the inclusion of spirit weapons. In general I don’t think anyone wants an elite spec that has anything to do with AI, not to mention this would essentially be reusing current content for an elite spec.

- Your tier 3, trait 1 is something that should honestly just be baseline for guardians (or tacked on to the trait in Zeal).

- Not enough love for power based builds here. Not even a lot of support/healing/sustain to take this as a defensive traitline.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

I think I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve suggested sword changes in guardian threads. The devs simply seem to overlook it completely, despite years worth of suggestions and complaints about the sword’s performance in the community.

Compared to sword skills on other classes, it’s easy to see where the guardian sword is lacking. It’s damage is mediocre at best, and it offers very little utility to make up for it. If you were to compare it to Revenant sword skills for example, it loses on both fronts.

The problem therein is that no matter what I can think of to suggest for sword improvements, I simply feel far too pessimistic regarding any chance of such feedback being even heeded by the devs, much less acted upon, to even bother anymore.

Could not have said it better myself. I’m glad more people like Phyrak are joining the fixguardiansword movement here. It just goes to show that nearly everyone who makes these suggestions for guardian sword realizes it is an underwhelming weapon and needs either fixes or added functionality to bring it back in line with the weapon skills of other classes.

P.S. Phyrak, I think bleeds/cripple on sword auto chain (as cover condis) are a great idea, and if a symbol was added to sword 2 and sword 3 was mobile, then sword would be a much better burn applier!

I think if they tacked a symbol onto sword 2, bleed onto the auto, amd let sword 3 be mobile then sword would be a fantastic burn applier (with bleed as the cover condi)!

Supreme.3164:

@Stickerhappy

It’s rather laughable that DH players think that longbow is mandatory in every situation or that reflect is what blocking the spec from performing ( apparently)

The only thing that lower DH efficiency is power burst of which both tempest meta and scrapper are not capable of..in PvP

But again I extend my challenge to you, feel free to test your ele with 0 healing power against my dh..let’s see how far you go and let’s see how truthful are your accusastions

Quite literally one third of the weapon skills guardians have access to are projectiles. Of the weapons used in pvp for offensive builds, 40% are projectiles. Of the two most common weaponsets paired(longbow and sword/focus), 60% are projectiles. Yes, reflect is definitely hurting our performance. The solution though is to change some of guard’s skills to no longer have projectile properties but that’s a topic for another thread.

@Ithilwen: Eles can still maintain that defensive feel if they had more projectile destroys and less reflects. As is they have way too much access to group reflects which should be toned down (rework powerful auras). An ele having bountiful personal reflects is fine for the very reasons you mentioned, but one player being able to completely neutralize (and REFLECT) all projectiles for their entire party for nearly 20+ seconds is a bit over the top.

Hey Phyrak. You have some good suggestions here but these changes have been suggested innumerable times before. Do consider necroing the sword feedback thread!

Anyways, in case a dev ever does read this thread and considers the changes, here is why we need the changes:

Sword auto: it’s an auto attack chain on a melee weapon. There should be absolutely no projectiles to it. Also adding an additional effect onto it would be nice. Literally every other sword auto-chain in the game right now has something special about it, such as causing a condi on the third hit, except guard’s.

Sword 2 (Flashing Blade): it is an underwhelming skill at the moment. Low damage, short duration blind, and a mediocre cd. Please consider buffing some value or parameter of this skill or even adding in new functionality.

Sword 3 (Zealot’s Defense): Does not at all keep up with the current game. For a skill that roots the guard, the damage is too low. Against another player, the projectiles travel too slowly and rarely connect due to the short range. This skill needs some serious love.

Lets not forget: during the beta weekend events, revenant sword auto attack had the exact same issue as ours (third hit was a projectile). Rev forum complained, and the issue was fixed in one week. Guardian sword should receive the same respect, it’s clearly not a difficult issue to fix.

My short wish-list:

Ele/Tempest: “Rebound” and Sandsquall should not grant magnetic aura. This may mean reworking Rebound, but eles have way too much access to projectile reflect as is.

Engi/Scrapper: Change the toolbelt skill of Bulwark gyro to a projectile destroy instead of reflect. Increase cd by 5 seconds, add a light field to it.
Completely gut the damage on hammer #4, add the damage to the auto chain. Remove all or most of the evade from hammer 3. The evade, if any, should only come during the first leap, but please keep the leap finishers.

Warrior: Decrease total healing on Adrenal health by 25%, decrease the total interval to 10 seconds with 2s ticks (overall higher hp/s) and add a 9s icd. Warriors deserve to be punished for missing a burst.

I think longbow fit guardian very well but the traps are a bit awkward I’ll admit.

And yes it’s true that ANet could probably pull off giving each profession yet another of the already available weapons, but just think: bringing in 3 to 5 new weapons would breath life into the game.

Saiyan.1704:

. and being more efficient in 1v1 fights

I doubt this is true. Zerker ammy is great if you’re +1ing, and may help you down certain classes in 1v1 a bit faster, but against a decent opponent you have trouble with on marauder’s, zerker will only make it worse.

Aeolus.3615:

One thing I can’t stand about Guardian, is Anet overboosts the other classes and keep saying guardian is balanced…

Guardian’s “best” build for pvp actually isn’t in too bad a spot imo, but a combination of us having no other viable builds + overtuned scrappers and eles.

mrauls.6519:

Whirling Wrath should NOT make us move slower -__-

Agreed.

The issue escalates rather quickly depending on the answers to some of those questions. If spears were brought to land, and some core specs as well as elite specs gained access to them, that would create a balancing nightmare. I’m mainly worried about fairness here. There is no way ANet is going to design 9 new weapons. If they design 1 to 3 new weapons and each new elite spec gets 1 of them, then that would seem lazy and somewhat redundant. If each elite spec utilized those weapons in vastly different ways then that wouldn’t very well define what the weapon does (so it’s literally just a place holder for 5 more skills) and if they only gave certain elite specs the new weapons then that wouldn’t go over well for the other classes.

Edit: Forgot to be optimistic here though haha. They probably won’t be able to make more elite specs with new weapon skills for even 2 more xpacs unless they add new weapons into the game as some classes can wield just about everything that their lore allows. I’d say 2h great axes (since there are already 1h and 2h swords and hammers), a pole-weapon (by popular demand) a crossbow or ranged weapon (probably a 1 handed ranged weapon since we only have pistol atm) and an offhand are likely. Actually, if they introduced all of that with the next xpac, all 9 classes could have access to at least one of these weapons within the next 2 xpacs.

I’ve tried running this many times. It is somewhat effective and is decent in 1v1s but you really miss out by not having ToF in the build. Also, have nearly no CC or ways to chain together bursts with this build. It pretty much relies on dodging and really out playing your opponent which isn’t going to work very well in 1vx or against a smart opponent with some projectile reflect.

Le Protecteur Chef.4803:

Retreat and staff is useless in roaming :-/

The guard is the only class who need traveler and can’t use a real rune… like strenght/pack for example…

It is a pretty bad hit for build diversity, but guardians actually make pretty good use of traveler’s runes.

A word of advice for T1 roaming: try to roam pretty far out from prime hours. Not because of zergs, but because of the havoc groups. BG has a ton of havoc groups and they tend to be out about during/close to zerging hours.

Even if our traps did need a cast time, I think other things should be balanced or nerfed first. Considering our position on the pvp totem-pole, nerfing guardian should be very low on the priority list.

Wolfric.9380:

Ele neutralizes the longbow (engi add here). But against the rest a good guardian is a threat.
The problem is if you fight an ele with a guard, you are at a disadvantage and since ele support is common to needed the guard is in a bad spot.
So don´t send the guardin into the mid fight if oposing team has an ele …
Did someone try a non LB guardian? I rarlely play guardian but i don´t use dragons maw only the healing trap and TOF ….

It honestly doesn’t make much of a difference, about 40% of our weapon skills are projectiles.

The middle of DBL is called the “Oasis,” so I was really expecting a flat grassy area with a small stream or pond, some nice trees to look at and some creatures. Instead we get this unnecessary terrain, cliffs and obstacles that hinder combat.

ThomasC.1056:

Actually, if you follow the cliff to the northeast, you’ll find convenient stairs, leading you straight to the shrine you’re looking for in a direct trip. They’ve been put there in the last update.

That’s the big point with DBL : ppl thinking it’s tedious running from A to B actually haven’t explored it thoroughly, and found all the shortcuts there’re everywhere. And it’s especially sad about the last issue of DBL which is far easier.

I actually think the trip from Citadel to, say, bottom middle camp feel far longer in ABL than DBL. Maybe it takes less time, but it’s so boring !

That’s great; good to know that they are listening to players. I vehemently complained about this issue some time back haha. The issue I brought up is largely the reason I gave up on DBL and stuck to ebg for a while. I think reworking certain parts of the map like that could result in a great design that supports large scale fights like alpine does.

My beef with DBL was the fact that it takes far too long to get from point A to point B in certain areas than you would think just from their distances on the map. Example: going from the southeastern-most camp to the shrine just north of it. Looks like it would take 30 seconds right? HAHA NOPE. Have fun snaking your way down an unnecessarily elaborate scaffolding for 2-3 minutes. Even if there is a way to strategically fall down and cut minutes off of this trip, that route is not obvious enough and perhaps not even intended.

Whether or not someone is used to the way wvw played out on alpine, this just reeks of horrible design. That’s not to say DBL is bad. Certain areas of it are wonderfully designed and far more enjoyable than alpine. Even if players wanted to entirely remove DBL, I highly doubt ANET would do that. A lot of hard work was put into creating these beautiful maps and I would hope they wouldn’t get removed entirely.

Yannir.4132:

Why are people so kitten narrow-minded? UW Spear and “Land” Spear have nothing to do with each other. There are plenty of polearm variants. It could be a Glaive(which is not a spear), Poleaxe or a Halberd or any number of other things. New weapons do not have to come from the existing weapon pool.

So let’s do that again:

1. MH Axe – Because Warhorn is boring, and nobody wants it. They could just patch it in and nobody would notice. A mid-range axe as a condi weapon on the other hand? A lot more exciting, and deserving of an elite spec.
2. Warhorn – As boring as it is, it is still very likely.
3. Glaive – What people keep referring to as a landspear. Which it is not. An elite weapon, there are only lvl 80 variants of it, and can only be used by select ESpecs.
4. OH Mace – I could easily see this as a CC-OH for guardians.
5. MH Focus/OH Scepter – I don’t see these as very likely, they go against some well established ANet principles. Not entirely impossible but unlikely. I mean seriously, can you imagine going toe-to-toe against dragons with a Sam in your MH?

I was calling it ‘Land Spear’ to emphasize that it would be a weapon usable on land and to avoid confusion. As is, the weapon we know in game as “spear” is entirely an underwater weapon. At any rate, land spear, glaive polearm, etc. would be a new weapon and would not be the same thing as current spears in any way (save for appearance). A new weapon is very unlikely for many reasons. As much as I would love new weapons in the game, there would be a lot of important questions to answer: which classes receive access to these new weapons? What about the classes who don’t get them, they’re missing out right? Will only new elite specs receive access to them? Would this set a bad precedent on pay2win (for essential new weapons)? How will this affect balance across 3 game modes? What about designing new skins, legendaries and character animations?

These are all pretty big issues that would be quite taxing on a dev team and considering the content they’re currently working on I highly doubt we’ll get any sort of new pole-arm weapon any time soon.

Yannir.4132:

Agemnon.4608:
Guardian:

• Sword damage increased by 15%, no longer projectile effect.

• Flashing blade distance increased to 750 up from 600.

• Dragon’s Maw cool down reduced to 50 seconds.

• Hunter’s Ward cool down now 35 seconds.

This isn’t anywhere near enough to make DH or Guardian viable. Besides, these are all the wrong things. -.-

The problem with Guardian is sustain, or rather, lack of it. Passive health regen is supposed to be guardians thing, but warriors do it better. And they have a massively bigger healthpool in the first place. Boons are supposed to be guardians thing, but Heralds, Scrappers and Elementalists do this better. Any of this is not going to change just by tweaking weapons and utilities, Guardian needs a trait re-haul and major changes to how said weapons and utilities work.

PS Edit: Funny, for once I find myself agreeing with Supreme. This almost never happens!

True, but said rehauls aren’t going to happen for a long time. Dev teams are focused more on pve content. We should focus on pushing the easier and faster changes for now, like buffing nd tweaking guardian weapon skills since our weapons seem to seriously be behind the times.

Sylent.3165:

If we were to have a spear as main hand 900 range damage on land what are the skills are utilities you’d like to see?

I’d like something along the lines of….

Auto attack 1 – throw spear at your target inflicting cripple
Auto 2 – throw a spear at your your target to deal damage
Auto 3 – hurl your spear striking all enemies in your path grant might for each enemy struke

Skill 2 – throw your spear in a straight line knocking back all enemies. Skill can pierce targets

Skill 3 – throw your spear in the air, aoe burning all engines on impact

Skill 4 and 5 yay I can use a shield with spear!

Haven’t done much thought on utilities

Again, land spears would rock all of our socks but unfortunately it just isn’t going to happen. However, I think a paragon-like elite spec is the perfect opportunity to implement mainhand focus. You hold the focus and channel energy to materialize spears of light.

Skills (just for funsies):

1 – 900 range spear throw, 20% projectile finisher, damage is comparable to scepter’s damage. This auto attack would additionally inflict a bit of vulnerability.

2 – 900 range, 8s cd, projectile finisher. Throw a really quick spear that pierces and tethers up to 5 foes. Tether lasts for 5s, pulses cripple and damage. Flip-over skill breaks the tether, burns and dazes the target and applies aoe weakness (4s) around the target. This skill is fairly low damage. Very quick, more of a utility skill but is great for condi builds.

3. 600 range, 15s cd, 1/2s cast. Manifest a particularly shiny spear around the focus, and throw it. It is a medium speed (similar to the speed of binding blades) and wide attack (like chronomancer shield 5) that will explode in light and create a symbol of might at the target location. As the focus return to the guardian, it cures 1 condition from each ally it passes through and heals the guardian. Attack is not a projectile but it is blockable. Idea here is that the attack does a lot of damage if someone gets hit by both the passing spear and the explosion which creates the symbol. Skill is balanced by the fact that you are locked into the animation once you begin the throw and can’t cast other skills.

Anyone who play guardian hates projectile reflect atm. Quite literally, about 40% of the weaponskills that we use have projectiles including our melee weapons. I blame the out-dated weapon design more than the projectile hate, but am still of the opinion that many reflects need to be turned into destroy. Compare HoT reflects to vanilla reflects and you see how overtuned they are.

That’s an amenble solution for sure. Scrapper hammer has so many fun aspects to it though that they probably won’t nerf or rework it for quite a while. I actually think it’s pretty close to balanced: lower the damage on hammer 4 significantly, change hammer 2 to projectile destruction instead of reflection, raise the damage on hammer 2 and 3 slightly. I think that would put it in a good spot without gutting it.

Shaogin.2679:

Arcaedus.7290:

Shaogin.2679:

Arcaedus.7290:

Bulwark Gyro’s toolbelt skill should only block projectiles. It is totally unnecessary for it to reflect considering how much other reflect scrapper has.

Considering how much other reflect Scrapper has? What? You mean Hammer 2? Cause that’s it. You could maybe, maybe factor in Toss Elixir U, but that is a random chance and is hard to justify fitting into a useful build over the other options.

Scrapper is a primarily melee build. Nerfing its reflects just because reflects from multiple players is creating issues is a poor balance decision.

Shield and flame thrower both have skills that reflect. I didn’t say that scrappers should have their projectile defence nerfed, just their reflects. That toolbelt skill is an instant cast, mobile, aoe projectile reflect for 5 seconds with a 25s cd…. it’s a bit too much. It should block projectiles but gain a light field instead.

I find it hilarious that you even brought Shield and Flamethrower into a PvP discussion. Hey hey hey, wanna include Turrets with reflect shields too, or maybe Streamlined Kits trait. I mean hell, if we are just gonna make some random useless build, we could maybe put together a Scrapper that does nothing but reflect kitten.

The funny thing is that a scrapper only running bulwark gyro (in terms of reflects) gives off the impression of having too much projectile reflect. That should tell you something about how overtuned that toolbelt skill is.

Shaogin.2679:

Arcaedus.7290:

Bulwark Gyro’s toolbelt skill should only block projectiles. It is totally unnecessary for it to reflect considering how much other reflect scrapper has.

Considering how much other reflect Scrapper has? What? You mean Hammer 2? Cause that’s it. You could maybe, maybe factor in Toss Elixir U, but that is a random chance and is hard to justify fitting into a useful build over the other options.

Scrapper is a primarily melee build. Nerfing its reflects just because reflects from multiple players is creating issues is a poor balance decision.

Shield and flame thrower both have skills that reflect. I didn’t say that scrappers should have their projectile defence nerfed, just their reflects. That toolbelt skill is an instant cast, mobile, aoe projectile reflect for 5 seconds with a 25s cd…. it’s a bit too much. It should block projectiles but gain a light field instead.

I know of one guard in particular who doesn’t play DH and runs scepter/sh. S/he does pretty well and definitely fills that tank role. In wvw, having a melee weapon or melee set is great but I highly recommend pairing it with either staff for group support, or a ranged weapon such as scepter.

If you like being a tank and supporting allies you might be able to get away with m/sh and sc/f in small group setting in wvw. That’s just about the most defensive weapon set duo I can think of. For 1v1 or solo, this build won’t be very effective. Half the fun is theory crafting the build so knock yourself out!

Bulwark Gyro’s toolbelt skill should only block projectiles. It is totally unnecessary for it to reflect considering how much other reflect scrapper has.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Sandzibar.5134:

2) You state that reflectable and blockable are the same, and talk about unblockable.. I never mentioned anything to do with unblockable. mfw
3) I state that they obviously ARE NOT THE SAME as Mesmer Greatsword attacks can be blocked – but you CAN NOT REFLECT THEM BACK. It’s the same with Guardian Staff autos.

We’re talking about Projectiles. In relation to projectiles, which we are currently talking about, reflection is a property of blocking. Mesmer’s GS1, GS3, and GS5 are not projectiles, so obviously they don’t follow projectile rules. Incidentally, Mes GS2 is a projectile, and specifically has the unblockable effect, which means it can’t be blocked, reflected, or absorbed as mentioned.

As far as your suggestion, you can’t just change every single Guardian projectile into not a projectile. Here’s the list of current Guardian projectiles in question.

Sword – Sword Wave / Zealot’s Defense

• Sword Wave: actually shouldn’t be a projectile. It should act like Staff 1 which is also a wave (It should be 3 overlapping waves to keep its multi-hit nature) Zealot’s Defense, if its going to keep its functionality, should still have projectiles.

Scepter – Orb of Wrath

• Should stay projectile

Hammer – Zealot’s Embrace

• Should stay projectile as it acts like other ground-based projectiles

Staff – Orb of Light

• Should stay projectile (its annoying interaction with block and reflect should be less problematic though)

Torch – Zealot’s Fire

• Should stay projectile

Focus – Ray of Judgement

• Should stay projectile, unless it becomes and actual Ray (Jesus Beam Hooo!)

Greatsword – Whirling Wrath / Binding Blade

• Should stay projectiles

Only one skill actually should be changed from a projectile to a different skill type. Whether or not these skills should have Unblockable added is a different scenario (some probably should), but once again, the solution isn’t to just change every projectile into a non-projectile.

Mildly off-topic, but if some of these skills should remain projectiles then they should receive additional benefits/ changes. Namely, they should receive a projectile finisher. As is, they are projectiles only for the purpose of having counterplay which was fine in vanilla GW2, but hurts us now that there are so many more reflects out there.

Also, I disagree with you about GS 2. It’s a melee attack and counterplay to it should be dodging, blocking or kiting, not reflecting.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but no other class suffers even one -third as much as we do from this specific issue. I know most of these skills were created as part of vanilla gw2, but they are the perfect example of why our weapons seem out-dated and behind the times. I really really hope that someone on the dev team reads this thread and considers making changes to our weapon skills.

I think the most important fixes to guardian right now should be decided upon based on both how many players the changes will affect as well as the simplicity of implementing said changes. As such, reworks of entire skills and traitlines should come later on when more of the dev team is free.

Considering the above points, the first thing that should be addressed is our weapon movesets. Many weapon skills seem to lag behind weapons of other classes and feel old/outdated. In particular:

Sword: too much counter play for this weapon. The 3rd sword auto should NOT be a projectile, and sword 3 should either not root us, or give some additional benefit. The projectile speed should be increased heavily. Sword also needs a symbol.

Mace: 3rd auto attack should cleave, mace 2 is far too slow for such a weak effect. The regen should apply 3sec of boon like symbol of energy or swiftness. Mace 2 should also apply damage for landing the strike like the 3rd hammer auto. Mace 3 is probably the worst block-then-effect skill in the game at the moment. It only blocks a single attack before activating, can be activated off a ranged attack, can’t be activated by pressing 3 again, provides very little duration of protection and its damage to cooldown ratio is mediocre.

Scepter: needs a little love. Gives very little protection, control or otherwise helpful skills and is pretty much just a medium-low damage mid-ranged weapon.Also, scepter 2 should be a symbol even if this means nerfing the cooldown.

Hammer: speed up hammer auto chain but take a tick off of the symbol. This would keep dps the same but make the chain more reliable in pvp. Hammer 3, 4 and 5 should all have their cooldown reduced. Hammer 3’s projectile speed should be increased as it’s already a huge telegraph. Hammer 4 should be quicker and be able to hit 3 targets. Hammer 5 should not root the guardian.

Staff: alright weapon. Staff 2 needs a lot of love though. As it is now, it is a very unreliable way of either dealing damage or healing allies. Buff the effect of detonating the orb such as adding a boon, blinding foes or increasing healing done to allies.

Greatsword: fair weapon. Might duration on 3rd GS auto should be increased a bit. The retaliation on symbol 4 should be a 3 second application like symbol of swiftness’ or energy’s boons are. The projectile speed on GS 5 should be increased.

Focus: very solid offhand. Buffing the projectile speed on 4 should be done though considering how much more projectile hate was introduced into the game.

Shield: i actually think it’s in a pretty good spot now. Shield 4 could use a small damage buff. My biggest problem is actually the trait. It should do something else in my opinion. Literally anything else; adding toughness is redundant.

Torch: needs love for both skills. Torch 5 especially, it’s a poor skill. It should offer more benefit to the guardian since it is essentially a low-damage channel. Torch 5 could also do well to have some burning attached to it. Torch 4 is alright, but the projectile could really use piercing attached to it as most torch burning skills on other classes are capable of hitting multiple targets. Ours technically can, (if you stand next to them) but this is a poor way to apply aoe burn.

Longbow: great ranged weapon, but needs a tad bit of love. LB 2 should either not root or should offer some additional benefit. LB 5’s wards should affect all targets, not just the one that got hit by the final attack. It’s already bad enough that the wards can be avoided by simply dodging the final impact.

I think some or all of these changes are quite easy to implement and would positively impact the largest amount of players. This would be a first great step towards revitalizing guardian and increasing build diversity.

I think our next weapon will largely depend on what will fit into out lore without being too far-fetched. In order from most likely to least-likely here is what I think we’ll get:

1. War horn: This would fit very nicely into guardian’s lore, and it’s something we’ve all wanted for quite a while. One skill would of course be the basic aoe speed for allies + some other small benefit, but the #5 skill is something the devs have plenty of room to get creative with!
2. Axe: A bit less likely unless they add some very interesting theme or motif to the axe skills. There is potential here though! It could be a mid-range weapon that deals damage mainly through magical slash-waves.
3. Mainhand focus: Quite unlikely, but it could have some tie-ins to lore depending on how the focus is used. It could essentially become a catalyst for magic (think talismans in dark souls) and could turn us into powerful casters! This could compliment the return of tomes!
4. Off-hand mace: Same points as axe. It would need an interesting theme to it far different than just hitting someone with a blunt object. I think this is far less likely as dual-wielding isn’t really thematic to guardian.
5. Off-hand scepter: Very unlikely. No class currently can off-hand this thing, so I doubt guard would get it. Also, a guardian dual wielding scepters just seems really really off…. unless the scepters were some sort of catalyst for powerful magic, or they transformed into other weapons/tools.
6. Land-spear. As AMAZING as this would be I think this is by far the least likely option. There would be way too much to fix in the game in order for classes to have land-versions of their underwater weapons. I honestly wouldn’t wish this upon any of the dev teams at ANET, at least not at the moment.

Effects 4 and 6 on perplexity are a bit too strong. The on-interrupt effect should be the 25s cool down, and the passive on-hit effect should be one stack. Even with this change the rune would still be a very strong choice for condi-mesmers, condi thief and certain necro builds.

Just a small anecdote about perplexity rune:

I dueled a necromancer friend of mine in wvw nine times a few months ago (right before the condi-necro meta in pvp became big). We dueled 4 times (he was running a condi build + nightmare runes), and I definitely won all 4 times on my DH roamer (who has more condi-clear than you can shake a stick at). Then, a few hours later he bought a set of perplexity runes and we dueled 5 more times. The fight went from being completely in my favor to actually being slightly in his favor. Of the next 5 duels, I won twice (barely). I don’t know what else to chalk this up to other than those runes being op. On paper they don’t sound bad, but confusion can do too much damage too quickly if you are just a tad bit unlucky.

mrmadhaze.8706:

Arcaedus.7290:

Ezrael.6859:

And we also have various skills that count as projectiles and therefore get reflected back or destroyed but carry no benefits of being projectiles, only downsides.
Sword chain 3, Sword 3, Torch 4, Staff 2, Focus 4, Hammer 3, Scepter 1. ALL get reflected

The game escalated a lot with various forms of personal survival through evades, reflection, damage immunity and blocks, Guardian was left behind.

These are two very valid points and your first point is the #1 thing I want fixed due to how easy it would be to fix and how overdue it is.

I’m going to keep repeating this until it gets fixed but: during the beta weekend events before HoT was released, rev sword mainhand’s auto chain #3 was a projectile. Players complained about it and devs responded then fixed it to no longer be a projectile in 1 week. The fact that our sword auto hasn’t also been fixed is completely unacceptable. ANET: either give it a triple 100% projectile finisher, if you really intended it to be a projectile, or change it to a non projectile attack. An auto attack with a melee weapon should never be reflectable in any case. Ever.

You are right on rev’s sword but you have to understand that this class is born and built around HoT selling copies, so it had to be so strong and held by the hand of devs. That’s why for example we have a silly and totally reflectable true shot meanwhile there is a wild Unrelenting Assault like OP said.

You’re right and I’m well aware that this is the reason that their sword got fixed almost immediately. I’m glad their sword got fixed immediately but that’s not the unacceptable part. It is not an acceptable excuse to also ignore guardian sword. Fixing our sword would increase sales if anything.

So correct me if I’m reading this wrong, but you want condi cleanses to not affect damaging condis while not offering a way to deal with them? Yeahhhh no. This would be such an insane buff to certain builds (condi thief, mesmer) that they would be broken beyond all possible repair.

I agree with you that resistance shouldn’t be 100% immunity. Instead, it should only reduce condi damage by 33% but still grant immunity to movement impairing condis. To balance this, more classes should gain access to it than just warrior and revenant.

Ezrael.6859:

And we also have various skills that count as projectiles and therefore get reflected back or destroyed but carry no benefits of being projectiles, only downsides.
Sword chain 3, Sword 3, Torch 4, Staff 2, Focus 4, Hammer 3, Scepter 1. ALL get reflected

The game escalated a lot with various forms of personal survival through evades, reflection, damage immunity and blocks, Guardian was left behind.

These are two very valid points and your first point is the #1 thing I want fixed due to how easy it would be to fix and how overdue it is.

I’m going to keep repeating this until it gets fixed but: during the beta weekend events before HoT was released, rev sword mainhand’s auto chain #3 was a projectile. Players complained about it and devs responded then fixed it to no longer be a projectile in 1 week. The fact that our sword auto hasn’t also been fixed is completely unacceptable. ANET: either give it a triple 100% projectile finisher, if you really intended it to be a projectile, or change it to a non projectile attack. An auto attack with a melee weapon should never be reflectable in any case. Ever.

The thing is, we already have a projectile weapon on core guard, it’s called sword. /s

Your option 3 is great! I’d actually like if scepter auto was a channeled beam (similar to mesmer scepter) that gave a nice benefit if channeling completed (regen + might for guardian, or ‘burns off’ 2 boons on the target).

Saiyan.1704:

So does Guardian’s Shield#5 btw.
Our incredibly annoying sword auto have been projectiles since launch… yall’s new toy can share the same aggravation.

On the other hand, during HoT beta events, revenant sword auto 3 was a projectile, it got a single post complaining about it, then was fixed within 1 week. -_-

I think at least some balance should be done around 1v1 (namely, there should not be a clear top dawg in terms of 1v1ing) as it is a more important encounter than many acredit it for.

Vikkela.7261:

Traits could use some rework, but that’s just my opinion…

Whole-heartedly agree with your assesment of the zeal, radiance, honor and virtues lines!

But HEY, don’t be hatin on soaring devestation! It’s a wonderful trait and if you know when/how to effectively use f2 offensively it becomes a game changer! Deserves at least an ok-ish rating if you ask me. :p

I think our current underwater spear skills could be very easily adapted for land use.

Auto attack is a medium range (900) somewhat slow attack that deals fair damage, #2 is a mobile multi-hit attack on low cool down which synergizes with virtue of justice, #3 would be an aoe (would have to change the animation) burst attack with a decent cooldown for blasting fields, #4 would be a low aoe sweep followed by an evade backwards. This skill would creat a very damaging multi-hit light field at guardian’s original spot. #5 would be a high damage, medium range (900) pull on a 20 to 25s cd, great for both 1v1s and singling out a target amongst a group. Additionally, other condis such as bleed, torment and weakness should be attached to this weapon based on what they wanted for the elite spec.

Well as awesome as everyone’s spear suggestions sound I highly doubt they will bring spears to the land….ever. there are just too many complications: would other classes get spears? Would there still be underwater spears? Lots of skill and trait re-balancing to be done. Although…. if they ever did introduce underwater weps on land, an elite spec is the place to do it! For example: maybe an expac where every class gets access to their underwater wep as their elite spec’s weapon (although a harpoon gun would be a bit awkward… maybe a repeating crossbow instead).

@aelska:

Couldn’t agree more. I used to advocate that DH actually is in a good spot and it was other classes that were overtuned, but that statement is only half true. We have no build diversity whatsoever and to get that build diversity we are gonna need some major attention and time spent reworking the underused guardian skills and traits. Not to mention we have quite a few bugs that need to be fixed.

The problem is that ANET isn’t going to get around to doing this any time soon. In general, they are very slow to rework skills for a valid (but weak) reason. Too much of their dev team is already working on other content (raids, legendary armor, gen 2 legendary weps, even the next expansion). I’m pretty pessimistic about us getting fixed any time soon. Say hello to another year of sword auto attack being a projectile, spirit weapons being useless, having too many completely useless traits and guardians essentially just running medi builds…

TheDevice.2751:

DrEckers.2039:

Well of suffering is also a dark field, which can lead to either blinds or lifesteals making it a much stronger defensive option. Plus, it can be traited for support aspects like granting protection to allies. While PoB when traited is more control based with its daze.

What people are saying is true, you are definitely comparing the wrong skills to prove your point of favoritism for elite professions.

no. I don’t get how they are so different. They’re different skills, obviously, but they are similar enough to warrant comparison.

Does anyone know what “apples and oranges” means?

It’s an analogy that most educated folk are familiar with. Point is you’re comparing two very different skills which serve different roles. Also, even IF your argument had a solid basis, you’re comparing a HoT skill to a non HoT skill. It’s already very apparent that elite specs are far more overturned than core and does not prove that ANET favors guard.

There are enough differences between the two skills that I’d call this a false analogy (aka apples and oranges).

Jelzouki.4128:

Because your queue time would probably be 2 hours

Doubt it. Check to see if player is available > if yes, matched. If no > proceed to regular match making.

This would only add a few seconds x 10 for everyone else’s preferences. Additionlly, if this did jack up queue times, there could simply be a checkbox to disable the option. I think it would be a worthwhile addition to the game.

In my opinion this opening works superbly in Battle of Khylo. Usually people split 0-2 far, 3-4 mid, 1 home and 0 or 1 on treb. If their numbers match any of these, then the 3 far/2 home opening will nearly always net you an early advntage.

What Ross said is correct though: you definitely want someone with decent mobility as one of your 2 home, and a balanced comp (hopefully 1 of em with good mobility) to far.