Guild Wars 2

X T D.6458:

As someone who is personally fights oriented, I like ppk. What I would like changed is for kills with siege to not count for it, because siegehumping needs to be nerfed not encouraged, its a plague and ruins wvw.

I think it would be better if siege damage against players was heavily decreased in favor of siege being more focused on causing aoe condi/CC. Implementing what you’re asking for sounds far more difficult in terms of coding.

Dril.2495:

I’ve been playing the pretty standard meditrapper build with rune of the traveler and paladin amulet. So far going really well. Currently swapping out test of faith for CoP (condi->boons) when against necro’s to help manage those (which it really does, makes the matchup very doable especially in bigger teamfights)

Currently sapphire with only having been able to play a few hours each day the past 3 days. Feels like i can impact the fights, outplay potential is there.

A good engi/druid still seem a pain in the kitten to 1v1 but even then we have plenty of tools to stay alive for a while (untill some1 helps), and 2v1 a DH provides soo much that you can always kill them pretty quickly. Otherwise running away works too!

Overal pretty satisfied with our current position in pvp.

Not having been able to play much the past few weeks, I’m curious; how do you feel that build with paladin amulet performs vs. marauder’s amulet? I use a similar build with marauder’s amulet instead of paladin (Smite condi, ToF, CoP. No JI, bite me), and I actually am able to wear down the majority of scrappers (not on point though) and druids. I haven’t pvped with paladin’s amulet that much yet, but I sense that the lack of damage would leave me at a stalemate vs. the high sustain classes due to the lack of dps. I guess the tradeoff is that I’d have a much better game in 2v2s and up, whereas marauder’s definitely gives me better dueling game.

Thoughts?

This build is going to perform pretty well in duels, and excellently against projectile-users. As part of a havoc group, I hope you have access to swiftness though. Mobility is something you somewhat lack even though you can burn through GS3, Sw2, and JI. Trust me, as a dedicated guard roamer who has resisted switching to traveler’s runes for nearly a year, I love the quality-of-life change these runes bring enough that I doubt I’ll ever go back. For example: Lets say you JI + ToF combo, but the person manages to block all of your combo, and doesn’t move outside the ring. You then think to tether them with f1, walk out of the ring, and pull them across it. This becomes a much more fluid and quick combo with that +25% movement speed.

One problem I can see though, is your low toughness+ hp paired with what is essentially a full-melee build. You aren’t going to last very long if harrassing zergs, or even in XvX encounters. I’ve tried a 2500 toughness, 16.5k hp build (very close offensive stats to yours) before for full-melee, and it doesn’t turn out well for you once you get 3+ enemies who can cleave.

IMO, your stat distribution is a lot more suited to GS/Longbow which you should try out even if you dislike using it. The results don’t lie here. You could also try running scepter over sword. Scepter gives you some okay dps (low burst), and is a lot more helpful for your havoc group (JI + scepter 3 to lock down a foe, you can catch someone over 1500 units away with this).

Also, when roaming, scepter gives you better dps than the sword which has a LOT of trouble keeping up with a moving target. If you really like using sword, I recommend trying out zealot’s aggression (DH master trait). This will allow you to stay on top of your target more, and the trait more heavily compliments the GS & Sw/X playstyle. I have fun with this build when playing as part of a havoc group myself!

Note: If the idea behind this build is to min-max, and take advantage of runes of durability, don’t forget that runes of the pack can also do just this, but give you a little bit more mobility.

If you’re having difficulty, have a guildie train you. After a few fights, or even just set-up scenarios of you walking into traps you’ll learn which panic buttons to use when caught off-guard and how to appropriately punish the DH after surviving traps.

If you’re complaining about the damage you receive after managing to fall into traps with no utilities left, then you have no excuse; traps deserve to deal that sort of damage to someone who is unprepared to deal with them. There are much worse skills to have to deal with against other classes if you’re out of sustain. At least with traps, a dodge with some fast reflexes can get you out if all else is on cd.

Hexalot.8194:

Arcaedus.7290:

Reverence.6915:

Melanion.4892:

Arcaedus.7290:

X T D.6458:

Many on BG and JQ dont care about winning and PPT. We come for fights, because winning and ppt are meaningless. Yaks bend is kittenous garbage server that does nothing but pvd and siegehump. If there was anything on the line, like a tournament I can assure you BG and JQ would be out in force and YB would be crushed.

Many on YB come for fights, but are unable to fight on even grounds due to having considerably smaller forces. JQ and BG have kittenous garbage players that run in much larger groups, often times team up to fight YB, and complain like sore losers just because YB uses allowed game mechanics just to stay competetive. I guess at the end of the day, these players can rest assured that they’re clearly more “skilled” as those 10 YB wouldn’t have killed their 20+ man zergs without siege weaponry.

See, I can do it too.

Do people… honestly think like this? Like… serious question. I’ve met maybe 3 people who had those opinions and I pretty quickly told them to kitten, but for the most part I feel like people who zerg are fairly aware that they’re zerging. Right? Am I just hanging around with the wrong people? I stopped going into public teamspeaks a while ago.

Pretty sure that guy’s so far up DK’s rear end he can’t even see his own ACs anymore.

I hail from a small gvg guild thar xferred to YB long before it arrived at its current place. We despise siege, and our commander would chew us out for deploying, building, or using siege. The thing is, when you face opponents that you can not defeat despite superior tactics and superior builds/team comp, you have to change your strategy.

We tried everything under the sun in terms of build and team comp, but with little success. We weren’t having fun anymore. After trying ppting for rallies instead of looking for fights, we found that fun, and started getting bags again. It’s funny, you cap an objective, hold it, build a dash of siege, and these extremely intelligent zergs will come by and die. Repeatedly.

It’s okay that you don’t understand, but please stop characterizing an entire server based on your experiences and limited point of view. Trust me, your servers have used similar tactics in similar situations and are no more skilled or honorable than us.

Here is where your logic fails. YB has always been known for seige humping… it’s deeply ingrained into your server’s culture… and that reputation has followed YB as they moved through the tiers. When they were still in the lower tiers, YB was known for its “defensive” skills… i.e… holding up in towers behind a barrage of siege. When they hit t2 it was the same complaints again… YB won’t leave their towers unless with overwhelming numbers. And now that I’m finally facing them in t1, I can see for myself what everyone was talking about when it comes to that server.

Certain guilds/commanders are rather fond of siege. The thing is, if the siege is there, players are going to use it. It’s faulty and pretentious to not use it based on some obscure code of honor. Don’t lie, you or any other player would use the siege if faced with the similar situations. Siege is meant to be both offensive and defensive. The fact that YB takes points AND holds them denotes an intelligent use of siege and at the very least, a moderately competent level of fighting. Anyone who makes the argument that siege carries YB is making excuses.

Also, I highly disagree about YB not leaving towers unless they have overwhelming numbers. I’ve seen this behavior from BG more than I have from YB which goes to show that it’s a matter of perspective. You’re going to notice what you do well, and what your enemies do poorly when forming stereotypes.

It’s possibly true that YB makes greater use of siege than its competitors, but you shouldn’t use that as a way to claim that the entire server is cancerous or garbage. YB has good fighters, and bad fighters just like JQ and BG.

This build isn’t bad, and I tend to use something similar for stronghold actually! So one thing i’d recommend is to take a meditation instead of SYG. DH makes for a much better downed cleaver than stomper (I usually leave this job to thief, mes, war, or ele) due to LB 5, LB 2, and traps. You get a bit more out of another medi than SYG shout imo. If you want a build that feels very similar, I recommend replacing SYG with Contemplation of purity. CoP gives superior survivability, and you can always save your f3 (or RF) for stomping/rezzing.

Good luck and have fun out there!

Reverence.6915:

Melanion.4892:

Arcaedus.7290:

X T D.6458:

Many on BG and JQ dont care about winning and PPT. We come for fights, because winning and ppt are meaningless. Yaks bend is kittenous garbage server that does nothing but pvd and siegehump. If there was anything on the line, like a tournament I can assure you BG and JQ would be out in force and YB would be crushed.

Many on YB come for fights, but are unable to fight on even grounds due to having considerably smaller forces. JQ and BG have kittenous garbage players that run in much larger groups, often times team up to fight YB, and complain like sore losers just because YB uses allowed game mechanics just to stay competetive. I guess at the end of the day, these players can rest assured that they’re clearly more “skilled” as those 10 YB wouldn’t have killed their 20+ man zergs without siege weaponry.

See, I can do it too.

Do people… honestly think like this? Like… serious question. I’ve met maybe 3 people who had those opinions and I pretty quickly told them to kitten, but for the most part I feel like people who zerg are fairly aware that they’re zerging. Right? Am I just hanging around with the wrong people? I stopped going into public teamspeaks a while ago.

Pretty sure that guy’s so far up DK’s rear end he can’t even see his own ACs anymore.

I hail from a small gvg guild thar xferred to YB long before it arrived at its current place. We despise siege, and our commander would chew us out for deploying, building, or using siege. The thing is, when you face opponents that you can not defeat despite superior tactics and superior builds/team comp, you have to change your strategy.

We tried everything under the sun in terms of build and team comp, but with little success. We weren’t having fun anymore. After trying ppting for rallies instead of looking for fights, we found that fun, and started getting bags again. It’s funny, you cap an objective, hold it, build a dash of siege, and these extremely intelligent zergs will come by and die. Repeatedly.

It’s okay that you don’t understand, but please stop characterizing an entire server based on your experiences and limited point of view. Trust me, your servers have used similar tactics in similar situations and are no more skilled or honorable than us.

Criticisms:

I agree with Ragnar that the Signet of Courage active needs to be changed rather than tuning the numbers associated with it. The ‘cast for 5237429378 seconds, then heal people,’ functionality would be better off on either signet of mercy, or even tomes (which we hope to reclaim in a future elite spec).

Changes to scepter are great, but this would leave sword as our only weapon without a symbol though. To counterbalance this, I think sword should gain a symbol (on sword 2, would be a high damage but low duration symbol).

The aegis refresh rate for VoC should not be any less than 30 seconds in my opinion (and perhaps 25 seconds if traited). Anything lower gives us too high of an aegis up time.

Increasing scepter auto attack velocity would be great, but if you couple that with the 1200 range, it might become slightly op as a “mid range” weapon. I think increasing scepter projectile velocity, but decreasing range to 900 would be best.

I don’t think your changes to staff are the ideal changes. Empower for one is a fine skill as is. It’s intention is to be used as a team-skill. Staff 2 on the other hand suffers from a rather poor mechanic. I think a better change to staff 2 would be to change the orb to a ground-targetted attack like so:

Fire an orb of light to the target location that pulses healing to allies and damages foes. (same cd). Flip skill —-→ Detonate the orb of light to blind and damage foes and grant regeneration boon to allies (9s cd).

Praises:

I like your changes to the base cd reductions for our virtues. In my opinion, our virtues need a LITTLE extra something added on to them (like what Ragnar suggested) to make them worthwhile without taking the virtues trait line.

Your changes to hammer are by far and large my favorite changes here and largely represent what us guardians want out of hammer! The only thing I’d debate though, is making MB a ground-targetted skill.

Your changes to scepter would be very welcome and I definitely dig them. They seem very well-balanced and would make scepter great for condi builds too (paired with your trait suggestions in part 2 of this post).

Your changes to spirit weapons are very novel, interesting and would bring a breath of fresh air to SWs. I like the idea that they add utility and can be made into team-utility. The problem is, they add too much passive play and not enough active play. I recommend that the SWs have cooldowns around 25-35s, last 15-20 seconds, and have actives that can be used roughly every 5-15 seconds.

I love your changes to the shouts, probably my second favorite changes you’ve made here. Retreat is put in the perfect spot now imo. I would debate SY though. Given that it’s a 48s cd when traited (which is fairly high), I think it should give 3s of resistance.

I think Hallowed Ground and Sanctuary would be in a better spot at 50s cd.

Criticisms:

In general, you have overtuned many traits (some of which have gone on to the realm of being OP).

I don’t have any exact math or applicable situations to back this up, but I’d be willing to wager that retal on a full power/condi build should not be hitting any more than 250 to 325 (balanced for 1v1), and your fixes would put it at somewhere between 500 and 650 (350 to 450 in pvp). This adds a HUGE chunk of damage and would be op especially considering that a guard could build to have near perma-retal up time.

Making guardians choose between Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage is a huge no-go. This would kitten off the vast majority of guardian players. I’m also against the Strength in Numbers and Battle Presence change as this leaves medi guards with weak choices for our master-trait in Valor. I’d prefer a communal defences (with reduced ICD) and battle presence merge if anything.

Having all of our symbols be fire fields would be op and not very thematic of the guardian class in my opinion. Perhaps an elite spec we’ll get in the future could focus on changing functionality of symbols which would be awesome, but I think they’re fine as light fields.

The aegis refresh for the virtue should be 30 seconds (down to 25 seconds if traited) imo. Having a base of 20 seconds with a 15s refresh would give us some very high aegis uptime.

That being said, you made some great changes that I REALLY like:

-Glacial heart. This is an amazing change, and would definitely make me use hammer again. It would solidify hammer’s role as a defensive/CC weapon, and coupled with your hammer changes in part 1 of this post, hammer would easily have a place in the pvp-meta (or would at least be competetive enough to make it fun to use). I honestly hope ANET considers your suggestions here, great job!

-Spirit weapons: I very much like your changes, and throwback to GW1, but at the same time I love the active effects of our current spirit weapons. I think a hybrid of current SW + your suggestions might work best: We receive a SW tethered to our current weapon that adds certain effects and boons. Activating the SW would cause an effect similar/identical to our current SW actives:
Sword would create a mobile-light field that applies vuln and damages, hammer would cause a leaping hammer to strike/knockdown your target/600 range, Bow would do the same as it does now, and shield would break stun/give aegis to allies and create a projectile-blocking bubble at your current location.

-I like your changes to the Zeal traitline. I think a better rearrangement of the SWs would be this though: Spirit weapon dura increase by 33% should be attached to the GM trait, and “spawn a splinter weapon,” should be the adept trait.

-I like your merges for Zeal and Radiance in general.

X T D.6458:

Many on BG and JQ dont care about winning and PPT. We come for fights, because winning and ppt are meaningless. Yaks bend is kittenous garbage server that does nothing but pvd and siegehump. If there was anything on the line, like a tournament I can assure you BG and JQ would be out in force and YB would be crushed.

Many on YB come for fights, but are unable to fight on even grounds due to having considerably smaller forces. JQ and BG have kittenous garbage players that run in much larger groups, often times team up to fight YB, and complain like sore losers just because YB uses allowed game mechanics just to stay competetive. I guess at the end of the day, these players can rest assured that they’re clearly more “skilled” as those 10 YB wouldn’t have killed their 20+ man zergs without siege weaponry.

See, I can do it too.

StickerHappy.8052:

This is the thing, 1v1 Yes These examples I mentioned are unkillable. But lemme reiterate this again PvP is 5v5, It is a Team Game

@Malchior

You are right. Here is the thing though. There were more people complaining about DS (which isn’t a problem in a team setting) because of that 1v1 MENTALITY and Anet absolutely guts a subpar trait to begin with, into uselessness.

Why? Because of the whining.

They could’ve just toned down the protection spam, not because it’s strong, because it affects allies via aura sharing.

I think this is a totally bs reason for not balancing skills/traits. Skills/traits should not solely be balanced around 5v5 conquest.

The previous iteration of DS was definitely not okay. Maybe it was balanced in a 5v5, but in 1v1 (and many 2v2s) it nearly invalidated all condition builds. Don’t even try to argue this; there wasn’t a condi build alive that could take out even a slightly above average ele (lets say 60th percentile) using DS. DS was balanced in the fairly common (but not all-encompassing) 5v5 scenario, but it was ridiculously overpowered in 1v1s and even some 2v2s (team mates may heal the ele). Previous DS was NOT balanced, don’t try to argue that it was.

I have my tab target keybind set to “target next.” i’ve noticed that if I have nothing targeted, and press tab, the enemy closest to the center of my screen tends to get targetted first. If not, i’m only 1 or 2 tabs away from my intended target.

Saiyan.1704:

Vulcan.7035:

These are real concerns… I’m asking them to give us the full answer because I want to hear where they’re coming from and hopefully get the chance to voice my concerns.

Sigil usages, traits that are full of dust from never being utilized, utilities like Spirits never been used apart from pve… yea, this stuff can be said about every class.

Spirit weapons isn’t exactly #1 priority that I want changed on Guardian… they’ve never been meta nor has they ever been in high demand by the community. “Real concerns” is class balancing across the bored; leveling the Specialization power creep back down to Core specs.

That’s the real concern at question.

Saiyan nailed it.

ANET is definitely aware that SWs need a rework. They probably plan on doing said rework too, but not in a timescale we’d hope for as they have bigger fish to fry. Since they can’t promise us a due date, they remain silent about it.

The best things you could do would be to either necro a SW thread, and continue the discussion there, or make a thread detailing a new vision for SWs along with evaluations for why these changes solve current SW problems.

reikken.4961:

not a bug. it’s intentionally useless
dunno why they didn’t just remove it

They should have just nerfed it down to major sigil’s effect: +25 endurance on weapon swap. I don’t think anyone was looking for energy sigils to be nerfed or removed and it’s weird that they would do that.

This may be overpowered in tandem with the conflagration skill of the wrath tome, but would you consider a chant that constantly pulses out damage? It would synergize well for burn builds, and would certainly gain some interest if an elite spec like this were released.

Well regardless of what ANET does next, I REALLY hope they look at your idea of tomes replacing virtues (much cooler than having 4 utility skills-worth of books lol). It would make for a very cool way to bring back tomes, and would freshen the heck out of our class-function! I would like to point out that synergy between the Virtues line, and the proposed tome-virtues you listed above is very off. If a tome is only on 20s cd, that greatly increases usefulness of our f3 almost to the point of being op. Same could be said for our f2 cleansing conditions – I mean, that tome already cleanses conditions on self and allies, so you’re getting huge amount of group condi cleanse from f2 alone without having to take shouts or medis).

I’d say tomes should have these cds: 20, 40, 60s cd, and they go into cd once you exit them. However, like you said, you can remain within a tome as long as you like with no time limit. This would make for the best balance imo.

You have some great ideas here:
-Elite spec seems very thematic, lots of room for lore, great animations and FX.
-Combat wise, it seems well-thought out. Having the class’ support aspect primarily come through tomes is well-complimented by a “pop it, and move on,” type utility, and a warhorn-offhand.
-Unique form of team-support provided through chants.

Some feedback/critique on the elite spec:

Focusing mainly on team support/healing is not a good idea imo. Team support/healing should always come as a secondary focus, and should be paired with great damage, or great defensive capability. As such, either one or more of the chants, warhorn skills, and/or the tomes should be upped in their capabilities to further define the spec as either more offensive/defensive oriented. Team support and healing is not enough.

Some additional buffs/nerfs/changes to the skills and traits: I like the ideas for the warhorn skills, but I honestly think that the swiftness + condi clear could be grouped together on the 4 skill, with the mobile light field + a unique functionality placed on the 5 skill.

I don’t really like the idea of chants as a whole, they would seem a bit out of place in this game given the fast-paced bursty nature. If the numbers were pumped up too much, the chants might be overpowered as well.

Traits look great, but I would much rather have something that is suited to more “team-oriented burst heals,” such as “gain + 500 healing power for 5 seconds after blocking an attack” on longer cds rather than small healing power multipliers.

Lastly, you say the spec is a bit more focused on the regeneration boon (which is one of the more useless boons in the game currently), yet none of the traits really benefit you for having the boon on. Perhaps include traits that up the power of regeneration, and traits that give you additional perks for having regen on, and for applying it to team mates.

Having a skill that is balanced around team-play, and overpowered in 1v1s is unacceptable.

I would like to point out that while on paper, rev sword 2 seems op, in practice it is definitely not due to points people mentioned above.

Indure.5410:

Like Reikken said you can dodge through the traps without getting most of the damage or the effects. The only traps that are going to really mess you up are Test of Faith and Maw. For ToF just don’t walk though the boundary and for Maw if you get trapped in it immediately use Renewed Focus and walk out of it. If you can find a place on your bar for any form of stability your going to be in a much better place since it will counter the DH pushing/pulling you around. Keep in mind DH is either going to have 2-3 traps or 2-3 meditations 9/10 times so they are hard press in fitting any stability into their builds so CC works excellently against them (especially immobilize). Lastly look for sigils with additional conditions that can help cover your burn stacks, because a DH is going to be removing condi’s (especially just 1 stack) far too often for you to do threatening damage.

Good advice here. Generally try to wait for a DH to blow smite condition before you immob. Most guardians will readily cleanse immob with SC, but will not blow CoP, or their f2 (unless low hp) on immob alowing you to land just about whatever you like.

As for sigils, I find that geomancy + doom (if you like using greatsword) provides great coverage for a JI + burn stack burst.

I highly recommend taking Indomitable Courage for your virtues GM trait. The stun break + stab does wonders for you, whereas burning in an aoe for your f1 procs won’t be that useful if you’re getting downed quickly.

After running a similar build, I’d say for a meditations build smiter’s boon is much more valuable than focus mastery (even if you are using a focus). Considering medi-trapper’s low armor, one of the most important methods of sustain we have is burst-healing.

Smiters boon gives you that, damage, fury, and condi cleanse on 30s cooldown. All of these factors combined gives you a lot more utility and sustain than 8s of protection from focus skills. Also, keep in mind that focus #5 will already block 3 attacks for you which partially reduces the utility of that 4s of protection, and focus #4 blinds opponents which also partially reduces that utility.

Miles Smiles.8951:

Kuya.6495:

Evening!

So i’m kind of at a loss on whether to use contemplation of purity or test of faith and similarly whether to use hunter’s fortification or heavy light.

Hello!
Well, I think that despite the recent nerfs ToF is still a very-very great utility (dmg, cross dmg, insta cast interrupt, prot, cripple) and you’ll never be at a disadvantage running “Hunter’s Fortification”, even when you’re not facing heavy condition comps, which is very unlikely these days. Also “HF” trait gives you more reason to run ToF instead of CoP.

Arcaedus.7290:

Here’s something you might want to consider: Judge’s intervention may not be as valuable as everyone leads it on to be.

I like to use the following build in solo q:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJARDHdDhVdCWDB8DhlEiKL/+vAUW07aZDgEA-TpRBABPcEAA4QAE4+Da8AA24CAEfZAA

Well, I’m glad that works for you in spvp but still I for one would prefer “Judge’s Intervention” to “Contemplation of Purity” right along no matter what; especially if I ran GS in conquest, like you do, which I wouldn’t actually.

For the longest time I’ve always used JI too, but I encourage you to try playing without it from time to time; you may be pleasantly surprised! What really gave me problems were players who knew DH very well and would throw on stab, invuln, evades, etc. To negate the JI + ToF + Trueshot combo. After that, all I had was heal, virtues and RF so I’d usually be forced to retreat. By taking SC, ToF, and CoP I’ve been able to stay in skirmishes for much longer (get to hit off more trueshots), and win the vast majority of 1v1s, or at the very least force my opponent to retreat. Compared to JI, you’re going to actually be using CoP for its full functionality giving you much better sustain, and arguably still a decent offensive option due to the boons. Again, just my experience. This difference of preference could be attributed to a difference in play style.

Here’s something you might want to consider: Judge’s intervention may not be as valuable as everyone leads it on to be.

I like to use the following build in solo q:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJARDHdDhVdCWDB8DhlEiKL/+vAUW07aZDgEA-TpRBABPcEAA4QAE4+Da8AA24CAEfZAA

Between the traveler runes, GS 3 (or sword 2, I often times use sword/focus over GS), and f2 wings I think I have plenty of mobility and don’t feel like I am missing out on JI. I left the healing skill and two traits in DH blank as I change these all out based on the ally/enemy team comp, map and game mode.

Thoughts on JI: It’s a great utility skill, but I believe you get more offensive power while still maintaining the sustain by taking ToF over JI. ToF makes you a great on-point skirmisher and tips the scales in your balance when facing reapers and scrappers which are currently our biggest threats. JI on the other hand is more useful for rotating between points. It is a wonderful skill if you’re part of an organized team who calls targets (gives you great response time for coordinating a burst). Many think JI is absolutely necessary, but ….you miss out on a big chunk of sustain if you drop CoP for JI, and you miss out on offensive power if you drop ToF for JI. In my experience, I’ve been needed as a strong on-point skirmisher and contester rather than a +1er, and this build has proven far more effective for me time and time again in both 1vX and group skirmishes compared to the standard medi-trapper build.

That’s my experience, hope this helps!

If you’re running meditations, it’s not so bad. You have more more condi cleanse than just about anyone else in the game. CoP is good to save for later in the battle.

Reaper and rev corrupt boons, but their strategy is to condi bomb, wait for you to cleanse/use CoP, (guards tend to get boons later on in the battle, so they save corrupt till later) then corrupt. If you use CoP last in your chain of condi clears, you should be able to out-pace their condi damage. Also, if you’re REALLY worried about condis, save your CoP until you’re near death, and immediately follow it up with RF.

Cleansing chain for me usually goes: SC—> f2 —>heal —> SC <-→ f2—>CoP—>RF—> repeat

On the downside, I’m finding myself having to kite the living shroudnuggets out of reapers. You really can’t manhandle them like you can some classes.

Fluffball.8307:

I am not interested in this video and did not watch more than about a second at a time, but I did find the choice of builds he fought very suspicious. Core warrior? Trap DH? 100% glass chrono?

You either making a bragging video against weak specs or you make a video where you sustain for like 45 minutes against the same guy because both of you are running dueling specs. Bah humbug.

Core warrior is still okay at 1v1 duels (trama was apparently the only one to beat hizen in a duel but he didn’t show that duel). Also, I’d hardly call zodin a trap DH. He uses 1 trap… And most DHs use test of faith, it’s too good of a skill to pass up. Cake players are very salty, but they’re decent duelers and excellent roamers. The fact that hizen beat them shows that hizen has an excellent build which counters most power-based roamers and on top of that he is quite skilled. A lot of people don’t want to admit it just because they feel insulted that he calls himself a “pro” ranger. I dislike arrogance as much as the next guy but he honestly is pretty good.

In general I have difficulty fighting a good druid, scrapper, or reaper on point. I’ve been able to beat just about every class/build as long as I kite, but the objective of conquest is capping/holding points.

In a roaming situation such as in wvw and even stronghold to a degree, you can kill just about anyone 1v1, but in conquest your best bet is to even out the odds, +1 fights, harass/kite, and try to avoid 1v1s (ESPECIALLY if you lose to the person the first time).

Necro can be beaten as a meditation DH. The method I found most successful was to spend most of your time in longbow, and kite the necro. Hit with as many powerful blows as possible (LB 2 and 3, Test of Faith, traited F2 leap, smite condi) to force the necro out of utilities/shroud. When you feel you have an advantage, capitalize on it by bursting with greatsword. If you don’t like using greatsword, using x/focus as a defensive option if you exhaust all of your utilities.

Otherwise, you’re not going to fight a good reaper on point 1v1 and win.

A very slight damage nerf so that we see chill damage ticks of around 425 where it used to be 700 would be ideal imo. I like that a reaper can apply so much chill and for a long time as it’s a primary focus of the specialization.

Imo, they should nerf chill in general to give only a 33% reduction in skill recharge rather than the current 66. If you don’t have very much condi clear, this can be devestating to you.

Indure.5410:

Luthic.7290:

Timston.1976:

This STUNBREAK when traited can be interrupted. So if I’m getting chain cced and I want to pop f3 but since they are chain ccing you your sunbreak gets interrupted and you go bye bye.

I personally dont use a traited version of the f3. So that cant be it. I just thought interrupt mechanics only worked on things with cast times. So because this has no cast time it was my belief that it should not be able to be interrupted. Its also odd to even hear that a stun break can be interrupted.

You would just think that they would either give it a 0.25s cast time to be more transparent about the situation or actually make it go off instantly and prevent a “instant cast” skill from being interrupted. Esp a full cd :/

I heard someone else make a compelling argument along the same line of thinking. It’s current cast time is so quick that no one can react and actively counter the ability fast enough, so why let it be interrupted since the interruption is completely luck based.

That might be me, haha. I’ve heatedly made this argument many times. The average human reaction speed for a visual stimulus is around 0.3 seconds. Great gamers are known to be a bit faster, so lets bring that down to around 0.22 seconds. On top of that, after you hit a button to use a skill it takes a finite amount of time before the skill actually lands on the opponent (even for instant cast’s like mesmer’s daze mantra), and on top of that we have latency issues. In essence, you aren’t going to be interrupting a 0.25 second cast without a healthy serving of pure luck.

I can’t recall a duel or 1v1 I’ve had where my f3 actually got interrupted other than getting trapped in a Dragon’s Maw trap (and this is more my own stupidity than the other person’s skill).

I don’t think ANET ever plans on making DH’s f3 instant cast. While it does suck that our f3 is interruptible, I’ve found ways to work around it. Namely, you let f3 be an early panic button. If it’s interrupted then it’s less of a big deal. Also, use it actively rather than as a stun-break. You can still get quite a bit of use out of it this way (block a burst, get 4 stacks of might, allow you enough time to get off a burst of your own, safe stomp).

Dril.2495:

Hmm its hard to tell atm due to unranked not rly giving very skilled opponents most of the time. But from my personal experience i think dragonhunter will have a solid spot in the next meta.
Thiefs are fine 1v1, in bigger fights they can be tricky.. but they are very fragile so if your team can help they should be punished fast.
druid/engi feels like beatable matchups for now, need to fight some top top ones to check if they can actually beat me.
ele/mesm weak now, revenant was alrdy a relatively easy battle, now its even easier.
it really is just necro that causes most problems, and so far i dont feel like its that uphill of a battle, with smite conditions removing 2 on a relatively short CD, and then using your CDs/positioning properly its deff a battle that can be won.

So how exactly do you see guard not having a place without changes? i think its a top 3 class atm

Oh and smite condi removing 2 conditions is a biiig difference, you can use it for dmg purposes but really just keeping your condi’s low is so nice and you can’t deny that. You can use it almost immediately on the first set of condi’s that he applies on you and just keep shooting from far away, by the time he finally gets to you (keep distance with whatever you got), you can pop some traps and its not even that unlikely that you’ll have smite condi up again. popping heal in a dire situation once again will remove 2 more AND if hes close deal a nice bit of dmg.

Either way i think dragonhunter will be viable at the very least, if not one of the stronger classes in the meta.

Side question: Im currently still running rune of the pack, do you think this will stay the best rune to use? or maybe could it be better to go with a rune that doesn’t provide any buffs? Im thinking with all this boon convert it might be more of a downside to get the proc from pack than a benefit? idk maybe it depends on how many necro’s the enemy team has)
Opinions?

Good analysis, but have you actually done much pvp since the patch hits? I’m rather curious as to how we’re faring against boon-corrupt city at the moment; wish I could get on to see for myself.

Also, that’s a great point about rune of the pack. If you’re using a marauder’s amulet you’re going to be sitting above 50% crit anyways, so perhaps a power/x rune would be more helpful than the power/precision of pack. The boons it gives might actually be a liability. You can most safely bet that even 1 necro means your boons will be getting corrupted, but if the enemy team has 0 necros, pack rune would still be the go to imo.

Before the patch though, all traps would apply an unblockable daze upon being triggered even if the trap’s trigger damage itself was blocked.

The significance of that patch note means that now, the daze portion of the trap is applied seprately of a trap’s trigger damage. So while test of faith’s trigger is unblockable, its daze is not.

It’s probably because we already have adequate, unblockable CC (Heavy Light, and our f1 pull) as is, and having all of the traps apply unblockable daze gave us too much unblockable CC in the eyes of ANET.

+1 to this. It’s one the most useless ways to cure conditions in the game at the moment. Spirit weapons in general could use an overhaul and they could definitely start with this bow.

An actual range cap would be nice (maybe 1500, furthest you can strike someone from)… At least as someone who also enjoys WvW, I’m getting pretty sick of laying down a trap to slow down a zerg, only to get 4-6 seconds of chill on me when the zerg is hardly even visible on screen.

I was most disappointed that they didn’t give any love to some of the more underused skills and traits of each class. I suppose a balance team can only do so much at a time but it’s disheartening to see my favorite classes still funneled into the same builds just to be competetive.

Considering that the balance team thinks rev hammer 2 is in a good spot @ 4s cd (should be 5 imo), I would say trueshot would be in a good spot at 5s cd. It does seem to be a tad bit too op at 4sec (both pve and pvp), and 5s would put it at a sweet spot if you ask me. At 6s cd, it would lose its ability to pressure opponents and extract dodges in pvp, so I really hope they stop at 5s cd for now.

Dislike this change. It’s a nerf, and a pretty unnecessary and vapid one at that.

The logical solution (that should also satiate pvpers) would be to keep well of precog applying blur, AND also make blur prevent capture point contribution. 1. The skill still essentually retains its place as a strong defensive utility for self and team. 2. The aoe can be half placed on a point by a smart mesmer so if other teammates are fighting on point, they wont lose capture contribution. 3. The skill remains balanced as mes can still be pulled out of well if they are tethered before casting it.

ANET, can we please receive some input as to why you made the choices you made? From my point of view, the fact that you didn’t change WoP in the way I just described strikes me as you lacking the competance to code blur in such a way to have it prevent capture point contribution – that would be ok if true, but please, feed back!

DHs do need a nerf, but then again so does practically every other elite spec and arguably more than DH does.

For wvw roaming I find anything under 14.5k-ish hp to be too risky; it puts you on the verge of being 1-shot. I have seen guardians very successfully duel and roam with 13-14k hp though.

If you invest in marauder’s gear, I’d recommend shooting between 16 to 16.5k hp as you’ll naturally fall in this range with a few pieces of marauders, and a soldier trinket.

Excellent gameplay, and great edits/music! Very much enjoyed the videos.

I have a question about the build used in the third video: how does it do against condition-based builds? I ask because about 50-60% of mesmer roamers I encounter are condi-based. Med guard seems to match up so poorly against them to the point where I’ve changed my build when I know I’m about to fight one.

The plateaus of Wyvern Cliffs in Verdant Brink is where I got mine. The wyverns are a bit tough, but once you figure out how to deal with them they’re not bad.

-For fire wyverns, try to engage as many as possible, and let them fly up into the air. Move far away from them to avoid the aoe. Once they return to the ground they’re easy pickings.

-For electric wyverns, try to engage them 1 at a time if possible. Roll behind them to avoid their sweeping beam attack, and dps them as quickly as possible.

I managed to farm my wyvern scale in under 25 minutes with no item boosters! I only killed adolsecent/juvenile wyverns. Good luck on the bow, it’s subtle but sexy!

As a guard that has extensively played with and against traps in spvp and wvw roaming, I would say some or all of the following changes would do the best job of balancing out traps:

1. Decrease the trigger damage of Test of Faith. It is unblockable, and hits quite hard for an instant-cast skill. The vast majority of trap QQ is due to this trap alone. That being said, if a guard is skilled enough to get an opponent to cross the barrier multiple times, that guard should be rewarded.

1. a) Alternatively: Increase the damage taken when crossing the ring for Test of Faith, but add a 1/4s cast time to this skill.

2. Add an initial application of burn to one of the traps. Light’s Judgement and Dragon’s maw are good candidates.

3. Decrease the cooldown of Dragon’s maw by either 5 or 10 seconds. It’s a good skill, but doesn’t need to have such a high cool down. It might encourage more guardians to use this elite rather than RF.

3. a) Alternatively, consider keeping the cooldown as is, but turning Dragon’s Maw into a fire field (once triggered).

4. If a DH places a trap in plain sight of an opponent, there should be a small and very subtle red circle (similar to what you see when you trigger an enemy DH’s trap) to show that the DH just placed a trap. This would encourage trappers to actually set them up like traps rather than face-roll everything, and use traps as in-combat skills.

4. a) Alternatively, increase the visual noise of the trap-laying animation slightly. As is it is not terribly obvious when you are in the middle of combat.

5. Make Procession of Blades a whirl finisher. Speed up the whirling, but decrease the damage-per-strike.

6. Consider changing Dragon’s Maw to a trap that pulses damage and burning the longer you stay in it, rather than doing a lump sum of up-front damage. Buff the total damage of the trap so that staying in it the entire time would result in the opponent taking a bit more damage than how much it currently does. This would synergize a lot better with traits/burning builds.

7. Fragments of Faith: Wonderful trap, probably my favorite trap! Fan-girling aside, I think this trap could use a bit of work: Decrease the cooldown by 5 seconds, let the aegis fragments spread out a bit more (twice the radius of the trigger), and let the trap be a blast finisher when triggered.

These changes would encompass a greater -team dynamic of the trap. Also, this trap should be the ONLY instant-cast trap in my opinion.

If you use Hunter’s Fortification, shelter is definitely a better choice. You’ll be clearing 2 conditions in most cases, sometimes 3 every time you heal which is great against condi revs (they’re always attacking you rather than striking in bursts, so they’ll proc your 1s ICD every time).

If you aren’t using that trait, I recommend purification, especially if you are using the minor trait Piercing Light.

On the contrary, I would say longbow damage is quite decent if you have a fairly zerky build. Metabattle even recognizes it as part of an ideal rotation along with GS for general dungeons/pve.

One thing I would advise is to take the trait Unscathed Contender in the virtues line. You can actually make a bit more use of this trait with longbow compared to with melee weapons. That combined with the +13% damage modifier, another +10% from Big Game Hunter and runes should let you pump out some nice dps overall.

Keksmuffin.1450:

F3 goes on full cooldown because the stunbreak is from indomitable courage is instant and when a skill had some sort of effect before it gets interupted it has to go on full cooldown. Otherwise you could abuse it by stunbreaking and then interupting the skill yourself which would basicly give you infinite stunbreaks.

I agree on the rest though. The F2 thing is stupid and should get fixed already.

The alternative (how it works now) is pretty bad too and definitely unacceptable. 4s stunbreak is op by any measure, but losing access to stability, a frontal shield, and protection for 65s because of random chance is definitely NOT cool. Lets be honest, no1 has fast enough reflexes to intentionally interrupt 1/4s cast time, so getting interrupted while casting this skill is essentially due to random chance.

The best solution imo is for the devs to take a hint from Well of Precognition (chronomancer skill): instant stunbreak, 3/4s stab WHILE casting, and then casting the skill locks you into the animation so you can’t do something to interrupt it. Being locked into a 1/4s cast time for an extremely strong utility is a good tradeoff imo.

As it is now the skill can be interrupted (due to random chance) and you miss out on the boons and the shield AND the skill goes on full cd. Very bad setup if you ask me.

Imo, the best short term solution is to give 3/4s stability that starts upon casting it so that it’s less likely to be interrupted. This skill should really be an instant cast stun break, stab, and courage, but lock you into a 1/4s cast time before the shield pops up.

I rather like the “nerf” in some scenarios, it helps me output 2 phantasms very quickly. The loss of block duration is a bit of a bummer but so far I’ve counted 1 scenario where I really missed the block, but about 6 or 7 where I really appreciated 2 extra phantasms much quicker.

Does burn guardnreally beat a DH in 1v1s? I remember before HoT, standard dps medi guard had a clear advantage against burn guards in 1v1s. Dps guards gain a lot more from DH spec than did burn guards so I would think they’d still have quite a bit of an advantage in 1v1s.

Fay.2357:

The actual reason bunker Mesmer shouldn’t be nerfed is because it has some very strong counters to it in the form of reaper and DH unblockable pressure.

They help and are the strongEST counters, but not very strong overall; bunker mes is just too much. I main guard. Over the past week of fighting bunker mes I’ve noticed that a good bunker mes who makes note of me will be able to avoid bursts that I set up. Stab on shatter counters my pulls, precog well counters my traps+burst, and their blocks/raw defence/protection counters just about any dps I can output.

Unless it’s 2v1 (or 3v1 if at mid), I usually don’t even try to take out bunker mes, and even then I won’t engage unless my other mate is running some sort of marauder build. It’s just a futile fight. Bunker mes work similar to other bunker builds in the past, but there is even less room to burst them down.

In terms of balance, I honestly I think the best minor nerfs would be to not allow point capture on blurr from precog or sword #2 and perhaps changing precog to only apply blur at the end of the well. Converting these skills to invlun would be a nerf to guards as we wouldn’t be able to pull, so definitely a no to those suggestions.

If you like to do solo-pve, I highly recommend either plenty of blocks (focus 5, mace 2, Shelter for the heal, Renewed Focus elite), or a build that uses meditations. Meditations give you decent burst and okay dps while giving you sustain (through healing). On the other hand, plenty of blocks ensures you won’t have to dodge nearly as much and can focus more on damage.

Here’s an example build similar to what I use for solo pve. (I also like to WvW, so I don’t optimize for pve)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR5NlsAhChgrQgfIOiHqaA0A17dfjhjInivYMC-ThSBABccQACc/BuUS8wDAwMlgXpc7G1fQR3gGHBAAuAAkBgZMA-e

Note: I defaulted to full zerker gear here as that tends to be the most effective for killing things. You have enough sustain/stunbreak/condi clear to be able to solo most everything that is soloable. At first I would highly recommend at least enough vitality to hit around 14k hp, and at least 2100 armor so you don’t get bursted too quickly in unexpected new scenarios. Once you become very proficient you can honestly go full zerker and do just fine! The empty util slot is up to you; slot whatever the situation calls for. I like to default to the sword spirit weapon if no particular situation calls for a utility I have.

Nova Stiker.8396:

ArenaNet already made changes to problematic skills, change distortion from a evade to invulnerability and problem solved.

This would be an indirect nerf to guardians. If you get tethered, you should be able to be punished with CC if your opponent successfully predicts you using sword #2 or that well. OP has the right idea: can not capture point while under the effects of blur.