Guild Wars 2

This game isn’t balanced for 1v1. This is world vs world, not necessarily player vs player. And there’s nothing wrong with choosing your fights.

Besides not having time to prove myself to every random that comes across (and will most likely run away anyways), there’s absolutely no reason for me to believe this is a fair fight since there’s plenty of “roamers” that run back to their friends when they’re losing and then also gank pvers and then brag about it on forums. Such badkittens.

So sorry, there’s too many thieves and warriors that make several passes at you and then realize how worthless they are and just turn tail. Wasting time isn’t particularly fun.

If you want duels, there’s always obsidian sanctum.

Yo, just because you guys ran out of money to buy more guilds does not give you the right to forcefully merge servers.

But in all seriousness, the numbers problem is because wvw is stagnant and that doesn’t really convince people to come in. Add in that it’s easier to train in EOTM and wvw rewards remain mediocre and we’re basically playing on the same wvw maps since release excluding bloodlust and wvw population will just continue to shrink. Consolidating servers merely is a band-aid fix to a stab wound.

SBI is home to a bunch of dedicated regulars that have been with the server through thick and thin and are willing to learn. While we may not have the most skilled groups running around, our militia tends to be very resourceful and have entertaining chats, both on map chats and teamspeak is guaranteed.

SBI is also home to Bannok who has led us bads against terrible odds and come out with full bags. I think that concludes my argument.

We also, like, totally pwn Teq. Now before you go kitten ing about megaservers, organizing and ferrying people in is no small task!

I sometimes use torch if going for a sword/scepter meditation build. It may be good to have some reach when using sword (threaten people with zealot’s flame) or double teleport on them and shove it in their face but the 5 skill is awful most of the time unless you’re trying to blind hit a escaping thief with a sliver of health left. Torch is just too telegraphed but at least it can be scary

Mace is sometimes okay if I want a dps build with high survivability but I don’t want to litter light fields everywhere. Pretty niche and I rarely use it— usually hammer does its job better. The main problem with mace is that you have no control or mobility so landing hits can be tough.

Shield is pretty much only used for me now in the pavillion. It’s a pretty sad case on how Guardian blocks are so lousy larger scale besides shelter (but that’s our heal skill). Compared to something like the warrior’s block on their shield or the engineer’s gear shield is just pitiful.

I think the natural counterpart of shield is scepter since the knockback and the cone effect would be most useful from range, though I’m not sure anymore.

Are necros frequently used in top level spvp?

Yes, I think it was way too OP for guardians to slowly plod away from a fight, but you know, flying across the screen or arbitrarily vanishing in stealth is perfectly fine.

Can’t wait til Necros going into death shroud puts them in combat. Oh, I should keep my mouth shut.

Ok shield knockback I can see, but the rest? Really? What if a doe just walks into it?

Typical tunnel visioned crap for balance changes just for the sake of it.

Like Guardians had too much mobility…

I think Guardians should start with the highest base armor. That means the low health is still weak to conditions.

Make inspired virtues built into the class by default and let virtues 5 boost passive effects instead.
Buff “Retreat!” by giving it a shorter cooldown
Let the guardian move 1 second after casting shield 5. Shield 4 has to have less of a cooldown, and torch 5 could use some extra damage.
Spirit weapons need to not expire and/or die so fast.
Make glacial heart have a shorter cooldown.

That should be enough.

Well, they could have just called it “vendor junk” but they needed something that sounded cooler.

To be fair though, if you replaced the names of 90% of my loot with “vendor” junk, nothing would have changed.

World chat is most likely the best solution if they insist on megaserving everywhere.

I fail to see the exclusiveness of an item that would have been granted to half the servers anyways.

Not to mention you have more tickets than other people to spend on other rewards too; I’m not even getting the skin.

It’d be like if you got a $500 prize and someone got a $250 prize. A mistake caused them to compensate all with $100 more, and now you’re mad they can buy something that costs $300, and somehow there’s no difference between a $600 reward and a $350 reward. Well, there is; it’s just not the difference you want.

Did they ever say the skin was exclusive? Did they ever say the point of season 2 was to win one? Did they not include other rewards? Wasn’t the situation changed? Isn’t receiving 100 more tickets an objective benefit to you, regardless of how small it is?

You can’t just make up intentions you know.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Letting players exchange Ascended mats is a bad idea. Anet set it up so that certain content provided certain drops. Players who want to make their Ascended gear, need to go out and seek all the various content that provides the mats they need. By having an exchange, you create an Easy Mode button. It let’s you bypass the intended mechanics, and cheapens the process.

If you want Dragonite, go farm World Bosses.
If you want Empyreals, go farm Dungeons.
If you want Bloodstone, go farm Champ bags.

The thing is the world boss and especially temples have been made much more of a pain to do thanks to megaservers and just aren’t as reliable anymore. In fact, I’ve done a grand total of two temple runs since megaservers and I was happening to do map completion at those times. The things are always open! For Teq, I’m just fortunate enough to have contacts to get them done.

I think that line of logic runs more true for legendaries to have mastered all content. As for what you see as cheapening the process, from my point of view that’s taking it too far; I find the time gated materials are by far the bottleneck in this equation, and wvw/(especially eotm) players can play the way they want because they get tons of all 3 materials by playing their preferred content.

At this point, I consider all 3 materials junk drops and aren’t even worth the time to refine— I just flat out delete them out of my bag. Now with people complaining, I can’t but feel there’s an imbalance. I’d just tell them to play EOTM, but sometimes they get crappy colors and can’t train.

Also, proving cost ineffective alternatives is pretty consistent with the design of this game. For example, if one is unable or unwilling to do guild missions, they can get ascended earrings at a fairly high price of laurels/ectos. Often, there is a workaround to doing the “intended” content, but it comes at a cost and also provides a material sink.

I’m aware of the bunker meta for large scale wvw, which is ironically made worse by the silly attempt to change the pve zerker meta by changing it in a mode that doesn’t even have that problem. WvW does have far more build diversity when it comes to stats; the amount of good stats for wvw is bigger than that for pve.

But this is nor here nor there. And I’d imagine they won’t just let you arbitrarily change stats for an item as it is something specific for legendaries.

I think it’d be a good idea if you could salvage ascended stuff for their materials. For example, salvaging a cleric’s sword could result in 1-2 deldrimor, 1-2 spiritwood, 5-10 dark matter, and a chance of the inscription and ectoplasm.

It’s sorta hard because ascended items are already rare and the chances of getting a desirable stat combo is even more rare. And we have a situation in pve, which ascended items play the bigger role where only 1 stat combo is desirable.

Zerker meta isn’t bad in and of itself
Rare ascended weapons aren’t bad in and of itself
Rare ascended weapons that have many variable stats aren’t bad in and of itself.

Together they make ascended drops a non-factor, though.

Thus far, I’ve only received the following ascended items:

Cleric weapon from Teq chest.
Celestial Armor, Apothecary Ring, Rabid Armor from wvw chests.

And this is after many, many chests of these sort being opened. The celestial and rabid piece found use in wvw, though I’d imagine pvers would consider these aside from the celestial to be a slap in the face. In any case, it should be a joyous event, instead of "hmm, I’m going to put it in my bank until I know what to do with it (usually never). In any case, it feels very weird that finding an expensive exotic item is cause for more celebration.

My server is dumb? Probably. Although this is how I imagine OP talking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bobp5OHVsWY

Great thread though.

You can show off your legendary in town or a non-combat zone. In combat, I doubt anyone’s focusing on your legendary when they’re getting hammered.

Pistol, Rifle, and Shield are good weapons and I use them a lot, so…

The real problem is we need better skins for our kits, instead of looking homeless when you equip one.

Mysticalz.2165:

Zatoichi.1049:

So, first place servers get 2 mistforged weapons, and 6th – 9th place servers enjoy the same pristige of a 2nd place server in the form of a mistoforged weapon? That makes perfect sense… Might as well just change the name of mistforged weapon to zenith part 2 and call it a day.

U are obviously a PvEr that’s gotten the Meta for the AP’s and the sweet sweet skin.Server ranking in the tournament is about prestige and bragging rights not about how many weapon skins u get,sheesh.

Yea, and it’s not like there’s not other stuff you can buy with the skin. I don’t care about the skin— I’ll just pick up another ascended piece.

The meta was so easy to do too.

Thanks for the reply; that was well handled.

In real life, saboteurs and spies are frequently imprisoned and killed. You seriously think it’s realistic for the country that’s being sabotaged and spied upon to do nothing? Real life also doesn’t have zombie armies that can instantly run back from their “spawn”. You can’t just mention real life just and conveniently ignore other aspects.

This is a video game first and foremost and any semblance of real life is largely irrelevant ever since Anet decided that this mode was to be somewhat competitive with their season crap. People can cling to the note that “wvw wasn’t meant to be balanced”. And sure it is true to some extent; however, hasn’t anyone felt that it’s been used to justify the amount of care given to wvw? (aka none). I mean since balance doesn’t matter, that means it’s fine as-is, and all complaints remain irrelevant. Therefore, don’t ever complain about wvw; beyond bugs and polish as it is working as intended. Hey you know that ferocity nerf that made the condition/bunker meta even more effective? Nope, who cares. Pve balance is more important. Wvw wasn’t meant to be balanced. And that’s more realistic anyways. You think your weapons and abilities wouldn’t become obsolete over time? That’s realism bro! The cold harsh nature of the world where survival of the fittest rules and where machiavellian wannabes reign. You should be glad that they’re just less effective instead of obsolete, since Anet has already shielded you partially from harsh reality.

Oh, and as for those crappy wvw rewards? Hey, war is destructive and not really that profitable anymore as it once was. Well, at least not that much for the soldiers. I guess Anet nailed that.

Well, I guess fractals should give dragonite, since ascended is most needed there. I can see why megaservers have made things very annoying.

Personally, I have way too much of any of these due to playing wvw, but how about just adding these 2 recipes

5 Emperyal Stars + 5 Bloodstone Brick + 1 glob of ectoplasm + 1 essence of luck = 5 Dragonite Ingots
5 Dragonite Ingots + 5 Bloodstone Brick + 1 glob of ectoplasm +1 essence of luck = 5 Emperyal Stars

Also, salvaging ascended gear would result in materials too.

As someone who’s dealt with business issues a lot, I understand that a good deal of customers are scum, entitled, and think it’s a simple issue when it’s clearly not. And there’s certainly a lot of that here too.

However, that doesn’t really change the nature of my job, as long as they’re paying customers. When demands are unreasonable, then they won’t be met, that’s fine, but the most important part, especially to the customers that are decent human beings and that will stay with you is to be forthright, and to make your words mean something. That means, “We estimate this time frame…” instead of a vague “it’s done when it’s done”. If it’s wrong, then well, it was an estimate, not a guarantee. It doesn’t matter if that customer is screaming, it’s not right for me to dismiss it as “dude, you could live without it for a few more days, couldn’t you?”. It may be right, but it doesn’t matter. The customer’s time is important!

And to be fair, I think the last response about the developers having families and stuff to be a little unprofessional even it were funny, but this isn’t a serious climate so it can pass. Yea, I wish that kind of excuse would work where I was around. It does exhibit a certain attitude though. Well, I don’t care too much, though there are many around here without a sense of humor and that’s hard to account for.

I think both customers and employees of Anet should realize that the customer frustration is directed towards Anet as an entity, not at the employees, necessarily, and it is wrong for angry gamers to shoot the messenger. That is, I understand that well, things are outside your control, but at the same time one can’t take it personally either. Too much.

Ultimately, my point is that it is really wrong to levy attacks on dissatisfied customers because it’s ultimately irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if the item in question is required or not. If I buy a chocolate bar at the grocery store and it turns out to be in terrible safe, you’d bet I’d be complaining, and if they tried to tell me “well, you don’t need chocolate”, that would be a good reason to avoid that store. The unfortunate truth is that if customers put up with the businesses’s negligence, there is no incentive for them to change, really. Though this goes the other around too… if the customer is complaining regardless but still here, then why bother.

Overall, I think this company could have more respect for its customer’s time (hey that search function…) when it comes to issues such as this and bigger ones. If this was an isolated incident, people would most likely be screaming less, but there’s been other fiascos and also lack of communication with other big changes such as megaservers and stuff so this kind of dissastication tends to fester. I mean the product is good but it could definitely be better and improving communication I think will save hassle on all ends. There’s a lot of people out there willing to shell out more money for this game. Give them a reason to I’d say.

Azhure.1857:

Naevius.3185:

>>Without a difficult death system nothing is truly difficult in the game.

If I pose the problem “What is 2+2?”, it does not get harder just because I threaten to shoot you for a wrong answer. Your logic is flawed.

I think your logic is flawed.

The threat of consequence for a risky action is a great motivator. For some people the threat alone would make it harder for them, because they’d take measures to avoid it (as they should). While others would find it more difficult if they did indeed die in the game and it had some form of penalty (granted being reset is far too extreme).

Currently in GW2…

Player: 2+2=4
ArenaNet: Good job! You’re doing great.

Another player: 2+2=22
ArenaNet: Good job! You’re also doing great.

I thought it was more on the line of:

Player: 2+2=4
Other players: You’re exploiting! Why do you kick me for counting instead of adding? Nerf addition meta plz!

In all seriousness, I think the wasted time is penalty enough, as most of this game’s rewards seems to be about convenience. To me, I think extremely harsh penalties for dying is a somewhat dated concept that just makes gaming more tedious.

I mean, sure old-school style “headbashing until you overcome its content” may have its place, but I wouldn’t want it throughout the game.

-Rushes out Season 2 even before stuff like account wxp was installed
-Some people didn’t even have season 1 rewards
-Pile on more content rather than fixing broken ones
-Act surprised.

I had already taken this level of silliness into account (In fact, I expected something to be wrong beforehand), but it appears there is much to learn.

But hey, thanks for the 3 greens and metabolic primer! At least something was right.

I guess it also has to do with some classes and builds just being better at roaming. Given the ascended grind, it may not be feasible for people to craft a set just for roaming unless they really like it. It can get expensive, like I can’t imagine a roaming guardian without speed or (preferably) traveler runes. Yes, you can make do with exotics, but I assume a lot of roamers care about min-max (dem food, sigil, and guard stacks).

Seems too lopsided. Either hard counter them or be hard countered. And regardless, they usually have friends.

Though once in a while there’s a truly skilled player that flat out kills me and sometimes even with the same class/build, and those are the moments where I get encouraged to “get gud” or whatnot. Especially if they don’t stomp me or something. Then it’s just like “come back when you get better nub”.

Yea, you’d expect stuff like gold spam would go away instead.

Coming as a guardian main, toss elixir B just feels woefully inadequate as it requires almost perfect use due to a short duration, it’s not instant, and you can’t get stunned first.

How about making drink Elixir B break stun for yourself instead so you can toss B if you get stunned, or would that be too much?

There’s a difference between sexy, and just showing a lot of skin. The later can just be tacky or even obscene. We have plenty of nude statues for art lying around, and certainly I don’t think people think that’s pornographic. (Though of course, nudity or semi-nudity in video games rarely is used for that reason) By drawing attention to certain parts of people, say to their behind and crotch would just be sexual to a point to make it just unsightly or even obscene. But it doesn’t always have to be like that.

Although I have to say. What does Anet have against symmetry anyways? The light whispers leggings for human females just happens to show a lot of skin, but through a slit on one side? That just looks stupid. It made my character look like she either tore it or bought it from some kind of donation bin. And you can see this with a lot of armor that seems to have holes in it for no apparent reason then just to expose skin, and I say at least make it symmetrical.

And take the t3 human cultural armor for light. To me, it looks awful and more like suited for the circus. It looks like some weird kittenization of a swimsuit and a dress, yet doesn’t have the aesthetic appeal of either, and given the drapes (why anet, why do you love drapes?) isn’t a very functional piece of wear. I’m just like, sure I’m a guy and no expert in female fashion, but I can’t imagine anyone actually wearing that thing. It’s certainly exposing of someone’s figure, but I wouldn’t call anything like that sexy. I would say the same for a lot of the looks in that Tera game to. A huge “meh”.

But yea, please no more boob windows, or random slits, or stuff. Or at least make it consistent. Even dyeing the things just gives me a headache.

To create something better, we must focus on the person’s whole figure instead of singling body parts for objectification. If you design an outfit to show bewbs, then please go toss it in the trash. Though this is a very human-centric view that may apply to Norn. I’m not sure what constitutes sexy for Asurans, Charr, and Sylvari though one must use their imagination.

Basically make attractive outfits that people wouldn’t mind non-gw2 players seeing. I hope that makes sense.

I think the point about transparency is vital.

Gw2 has too many misleading tooltips and ninja changes that aren’t obvious in-game. Not everyone looks on these forums or whatever, after all. And the game’s mechanics are just woefully inconsistent.

Although the tooltips have gotten better, I do feel like Anet goes too much like “here, deal with it” way too much.

Taygus.4571:

Xenon.4537:

Why do people do this in groups? Can’t you solo it just as easily?

because if 5 people are going to key farm.. why not do it together?

its not hard by any means, but its an mmo, and people like to do things together

Ah, sharing the pain. Actually, that’s quite prudent.

I’ve never played Gw1, so not really into the lore.

I get the feeling that Guild Wars 2’s story tends to avoid painting others as a bad guy. Everyone has their motives or is a force of nature, and we must all sit together at a campfire and sing kumbaya or something. And then when we get actual villains, we get nonsense like Scarlet. The only real schemers with personality were the occasional bad guys in the human storyline (though I’ve only picked humans) but they were similarly one note. As for the rest of the stuff, well pirates gonna pirate, inquest gonna inquest, flame legion is going to kill, and bandits are going to steal stuff. I guess the Nightmare Court seems interesting enough given Anet’s penchant for evil salads. It’s no surprise that characters like Evon who isn’t a bad guy seem but more like a being of his own mind as opposed to the boring Kiel seem more interesting.

The good guys are similar. They’re just goody goody and stuff, and may occasional crack an inappropriate witticism and initally argued (which didn’t really matter anyways since Mr. Tree was so charismatic and brought them together) but they could really fit into any random children’s cartoon. Which is mostly why people think the writing can be a kittenildish. When Goku from Dragon Ball has more depth than your PC, we have a problem.

I don’t know really. I think it’d be nice to blur the story a little. Let us heroes engage in a little bit of moral ambiguity or even outright evil, and maybe even work together with an antagonist. It would make choice a lot more meaningful, if you choose to work with a shady figure or kick them out of the window. You really want to feel like you’re interacting with something rather than just a mindless NPC.

I mean, who wouldn’t pay gems just to beat up Traherne?

The problem with CC is a constant refusal to put diminishing returns on it. Thus you get the situation of the ping pong ball in any player vs player interaction with emphasis on stability to counter it, and stupid limitations like this in PvE. They couldn’t balance it properly in this game mode, so they pretty much just disabled it altogether against these bosses otherwise you’d just chain stun them for 2 hours and watch them die eventually.

I really don’t know what to do myself anymore.

Oh we’re talking about reflects. That too.

It adds nothing to the game. I mean, I’ve played an engineer for over a hundred hours, and I’ve never stared at another engineer’s hobosack to note what kit they’re using. I can’t even say I can tell bomb or grenade apart if you suddenly told me.

“Omg those things are in the air, it must be grenades”
“Omg it that gun is farting, it must be elixir gun”
“Stuff on the ground exploding, it must be bomb kit”

I can imagine it makes even less sense to non-engineers, who just laugh at the lack of style

Hobosacks help no one. Toss them away.

This game has a large component about aesthetic progression. Or did you forget? Do you not want people spending more money on the gemstore? In fact, why don’t you just take a few dollars out of your wallet and light it on fire? It’s the same thing really.

I use Q for loot, so I can QQ over all the bad ones.

I absolutely hate this. Maybe make it so it can’t charge underwater or something, but that thing needs to be able to swim.

I find that the golem is more likely to stand around when I use staff; if I run up and use a dagger or something, it’s more inclined to realize it should hit that target.

Warrior definitely will go faster. Nothing can catch them it seems.

However, mobility warriors seem pretty weak and useless, so I guess there’s no fear in letting them catch up to you.

PS Screw Empathetic Bond

People die to retaliation? lol

I throw grenades into 40+ strong zergs and I might go down to 70% health. I doubt the ranger pea shooter has ever been worse, though I guess I don’t zerker in wvw.

Rangers aren’t bad in anything that really matters. Aka, even in areas where they are suboptimal, it’s hardly needed to optimize anything. In general, rangers are better the smaller the numbers are involved. In a zerg, they must put much more effort than Guardians, Warriors, Elementalists, or Necromancers. On the other hand, a good ranger duelist is a fearsome one.

They also faceroll open world pve even more so than any other class, being able to afk solo many champions, and are very powerful in high end pve content as long as you don’t bearbow crap. In general, if you see a ranger offering you spirits and spotter, you are in good hands.

That being said, this class suffers from a lack of polish. It could use a number of QoL changes as well as rethinking of certain traits. All classes have their crap skills/traits, but rangers have so many that don’t do anything unless you trait them, due to a lot of them revolving around the pet.

Also ranger pets have vastly improved AI and usually do what they’re told now. Downing your pet is now largely a player skill issue as opposed to a few months ago where f2 skills might as well have never existed.

Eurantien.4632:

Kilger.5490:

Trappers can get good aoe damage. However they take up your utility bar which is where all the stun breaks go also, making you vulnerable to all kinds of kitten.

Why take up 3 utility slots when you can run an engi and either use bombs or nades and get the same effects with 2 extra skills while only taking up 1 utility slot?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury

Anymras.5729:

Ranger pet names also aren’t one of the most common meta-achievement rewards.

Right, they just have to stare at them all the time unless they want to never enter combat.

Anyhow, my point is, that if they can’t make such simple QOL changes after so much time that we’re going to be screwed on the sack issue for quite a while. And the lack of an official response that means anything is just proof.

It’s just an unfortunate truth that Anet would rather add more Living Story crap then make proper, simple changes.

It’s pretty pathetic really and the game is not heading in a good direction. The focus on aesthetic progression has been lackluster in favor of more achievement and living story grinds. I mean putting a helmet turns your character bald, which makes hairstyles and helmets mutually exclusive. It would be too much effort. And then there’s the town clothes fiasco which apparently would take too much effort too. Right, if they won’t put any effort into the key mode of progression in this game, what are they going to put effort into?

Yargesh.4965:

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

Grownups don’t whine?

They shouldn’t usually but we all have moments of weakness. Now excuse me while I tell at those kids to get off my lawn.

However, physical age is not always a sign of being grownup; we do have a lot of people that never grew up and you see these “adults” throwing worse tantrums in public places worse than some kids would. If you see someone posting about how old they are as an argument without a corresponding argument, it’s pretty much the same as someone trying to prove something by how many achievement points they have— plain ol’ insecurity. Same goes with the “I have a life”, “I have a high paying job” I have many partners of the opposite gender" stuff that gets thrown around.

Piercing arrows is not a bad trait. Problem is that it competes with Eagle Eye, Spotter, and Signet of the Beastmaster. Even Read the Wind to some degree.

There needs to be some trait merging. Merging the signet traits together into signet mastery and Eagle Eye into piercing arrows (which it really should, for crying out loud) I don’t think would be OP at all.

Also IMO you’re overrating 1500 range a bit. It’s good no doubt and I think rangers are good tower defenders but in the open field you really have to be moving around a lot regardless. But definitely, the more rugged the terrain is, the better it is for the ranger.

Rangers are getting there though, slowly. My pets survive a lot more because their skills actually work now

And OP, I did watch your video. You did fairly well; the aoe damage was consistent but it wasn’t particularly high, and since the a portion of your damage potential (pet) is with you on the structure, you’re still at a disadvantage compared to say grenade engineers and whatnot. That being said, you surely contributed something, and thanks for showing stuff in action. I lament my piece of scrap metal isn’t able to record anything. Though having large fights without exploding in wvw is already a minor miracle.

In any case, enjoy your bags.

It’s pathetic in a game where progression is defined by appearance customization and we get this awful sack that ruins our backpieces.

At the very least get better backpack skins.

Of course, last I checked Ranger pet names don’t save if you replace them with another pet still, so all I can say, is don’t hold your breath.

Prestige is made up by human minds. It has to be coveted for there to be prestige. Someone might think “Yakslapper” is a worthy title because most people won’t get it. But if people see it, many might think “oh cool” or more likely “Poor soul”.

Most LS items come off to me as a “I grinded this Living Story and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” item. To be honest, I don’t mind that at all. That is a valid purpose. What skill is there to do a LS meta anyways?

And truth is, most people just don’t care about you. Even if you were the only with a skin, you’d probably get a few looks and be forgotten again. Which of course if you only base value on it, that’s about as forgettable as you’ll be.

Besides, what about that Liadri mini? That means way more to me than most of the stuff in this game.

I don’t play a thief, but in wvw you have to fight those things.

It should be the opposite. Offensive is suicide. I love it when thieves come and kitten in because it’s not an exchange they can win. One thing people seem to forget is that guardians also have blinds to screw with your damage, much like you have blinds to do the same. If you haven’t gotten most of their health in your first flurry of attacks, you need to bounce. And yes, don’t go near them when that shield is on. The other thing is that guardians frequently possess fast hitting and multihit attacks and a lot of our dps comes from AA meaning the effect of blind on them is not as big.

I hate patient thieves. Those that harass you with shortbow and don’t close in until they’re ready to win the fight. You try to close in but they just use their superior mobility to get out of the way. Make the guardian waste their cooldowns.

But it’s not easy. Thieves seem easiest to fight on my condi engineer or when I’m using medi guardian, and most likely for good reason. On the other hand that’s the only guardian build I know that can beat them.

Well, I guess if you feel like you don’t need survival, than it’s a good place to put it in radiance. It would be hard to place the lone point anyways elsewhere.

Purging flames is pretty reliable for me, however hardly perfect, and I will concede that 3/4s cast time is not insignificant and sometimes a more “clutch” skill is more important. Sometimes, you may be dead anyways in 30 seconds so having an extra cast might not even matter. An interesting note about guardians is that our skills generally activate fast outside of consecrations and this is why guardians can put out reliable dps. Even our “slow” hammer still has things like Mighty Blow to just shoot out and overwhelm enemies. So in a number of ways, I can see why you wouldn’t really want skills with activation times to ruin the flow, so to speak.

I’m referring to Renewed Justice, not Renewed Focus as being dubious. While it’s certainly a good trait to have, I feel that it sometimes relies too much of a snowball effect to maintain. In general I like it on dps builds that go deeper into the tree which have to take it anyways.

You do bring up a good point about the purpose, and mobility isn’t the primary use esp in big fights, so bringing stuff up like JI would be out of place.

I still think Purging is a better way to fight conditions because it has almost half the cooldown and works on more than yourself. I do understand that COP is instant, gets off all conditions off you, and breaks stun, but I haven’t really liked it outside of a dedicated meditation build where you also get perks like heals and fury. However it’s possible to use it as a clutch button to get yourself out of a pinch, though I guess that’s just not my style

As for the whole power vs precision debate, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a scenario where precision could beat power for guardians, especially with the ferocity hit though I can be proven wrong. For your first build of AH/EM, oil is a good idea because you need it to power altruistic healing. The second build is only proccing off Vigorous Precision of which minimal crit is needed to maintain that.

Anyhow, I think I’ll have to try something similar. My feeling is that these builds sacrifice very little yet maintain rather good damage, which makes zerg surfing a lot less boring. The main perk is seeing a build that takes advantage of Force of Will too.

World Bosses— Low effort medium reward (11111 stay alive)
Big World Bosses (Teq)— Medium effort, Medium-High Reward (You might actually fail but there’s a bit more stuff to open)
Champ Trains— No effort low reward (follow the leader)
Dungeons— High effort High reward (You have to learn to dodge and use good builds)
Queen’s Pavillion— High Effort Medium Reward (Coordination required)
WvW zerging— Low Effort Medium Reward (111111 and gear tanky)
WvW outside of blobs and trains (Escorting yaks, defending towers)— High Effort Negative Reward (Pretty much anything that helps your server isn’t rewarded well and in fact costs a lot. )

1st build:

I think conditions would be a big issue, as you only have purity and CoP which is on a long cooldown. Hoelbrak is nice though. So conditions over time aren’t too big of an issue but if you get something like immobo on you that would be problematic.

The other problem is that you really don’t have any mobility. No leaps or teleports though I guess you have 2 immobilizes. Personally, I would want JI instead of the signet.

Finally, Renewed Justice is a somewhat dubious investment outside of zergs since that’s the main situation where you will be able to take advantage of it. It’s solid, and I like it a lot, but it’s also expendable.

As for the healing build, I like it a lot more. I would ditch COP. It just has no real place here; you’d be better off with a traited purging flames which is better for your group. This also allows you to do something useful with the first virtues slot— Unscathed Contender on a melee build is pretty worthless outside of fighting dolyaks and sentries.

For zerg play, I’d take signet of judgement instead— the aoe weakness will have a bigger impact, it’ll make you harder to kill, and most importantly it’s a stunbreak with a low cooldown.

This build on the other hand has the luxury of taking Strength in Numbers over Purity because absolute resolution+renewed focus+ purging flames is more than enough condi clear especially since you take Hoelbrak. Strength in Numbers brings also group support.

I mean 3300+ armor with the occasional judgement signet for another -10% plus + 2000 power, 30% crit chance, 19k base health, close to 1k dodge heals, mass condi clear and support? I think it’s a great idea!

Also take power food over precision food. Power gets more damage out and you’re not proccing anything significant that needs good crit.