Guild Wars 2

The GS symbol won’t do much when no one stands in it. Staff I can see.

CptAurellian.9537:

I suppose you become some kind of heavy battletank now, with AH and the new Zealous Blade? Didn’t test it that way, but it’s surely an interesting combination.

I don’t think that would work at all. You don’t apply boons when hitting with the GS(unless third attack) so what healing would you get?

Scepter is still able to be strafe-dodged. It’s a nice buff but I don’t think it was enough.

Again, putting in a sigil will solve your problems instead of vesting 20 into zeal. I really hate to say it but the trait is still bad.

The greatsword trait buff is trash, still only heals for 25 a tick. Definitely not worth it. 8(

Lokki.1092:

Pecar.1236:

Altruistic Healing Applying a boon to allies heals you. ( trait what is only for 1 staff skill is bad

Arken.3725:

In the spvp setting, it’s bad because it really only revolves around the staff. You’ll never get any of your teammates to sit within a symbol for more than half a second to reap any benefit. By yourself, AH is a terrible trait. With a group it’s decent but really only revolves around Empower.

This information is just incorrect on so many levels.

Empowering Might (Nearby allies gain might (5 seconds) when you land a critical hit.)
Pure of Voice (Allies affected by shouts convert one condition to a boon. )
Wrathful Spirit (Aegis gives retaliation when it ends. )

These are some of the traits you can pair with high crit gear and shouts that will not only spam your party and yourself with boons but also keep your AH ticking constantly in a battle. Honestly only EM is needed with a 30% chance to crit the healing will roll in regardless of you using a staff or not.

AH isn’t as powerful a heal as a Meditation build would be while solo, no. but it is not useless at all, and far from it in a group setting.

Just wanted to clarify, in case some new guardian comes to read this thread and takes away that AH is something to stay away from.

Empowering Might has a 1 second internal cooldown so it’s use to benefit from AH is minimal, unless you’re always next to 5 people.

Pure of Voice is solid, not taking anything away from that.

Wrathful Spirit got nerfed into the ground a while back so taking this over say Superior Aria is completely asinine.

I never stated AH was useless in a group, all I said was that it really revolves around one weapon. I even explained above why this was the case. Symbols are one of the Guardians main sources of boons yet it involves remaining in a small spot, counterintuitive to the games design. Unless you’re pveing, the benefit from any symbol is severely lacking.

Edit: to the poster above, have it all you say? Last I checked this profession lacked any real ranged weapon, has poor boon uptime, any variation in condition application as well as any escape mechanisms in combat. Not to mention that to pull out this professions full potential, you MUST be near teammates.

It’s a nice boost for sure, my only issue is that with how AoE’s currently work, they’ll be dead in seconds. Not to mention their AI is terrible.

In the spvp setting, it’s bad because it really only revolves around the staff. You’ll never get any of your teammates to sit within a symbol for more than half a second to reap any benefit. By yourself, AH is a terrible trait. With a group it’s decent but really only revolves around Empower.

I understand these notes are subject to change but, I honestly find the implementation of a trait that boosts condition damage seem absurd for this profession. I’d be willing to bet that most of those who play this profession would agree with me in saying that this profession is NOT a condi profession at all. The degree in which this profession applies it’s only damaging condition(burning) is minimal at best.

I really believe that this should be scrapped and just focused on giving Guardians more access to direct damage in different ways. The only way this profession could succeed as a condition profession would be the implementation of a higher variety of conditions. Even with burning, Guardians don’t apply it as well as some other professions.

Indeed, and thank you for the clarification. We shall see tomorrow.

Not bad, does it specify if the trait Zealous Blade scales now?

You could do that, but your uptime still wouldn’t touch another professions. As a Guardian, you’re a Magic melee fighter that relies on boons. When your boons have little uptime, what’s the point?

Nike.2631:

Just a word to people considering new Spirit Weapon builds: Battle Presence affects the spirit weapons and can keep them in the fight quite a bit longer than otherwise.

Spirit weapons actually seem to benefit from all your party buffs. You have a LOT of options for enhancing spirit weapon builds .

I agree completely, the only problem I see is that the spirit weapon traits are scattered throughout multiple trees.

Of course I do, my main spec is support/dps. It’s a small boost in my opinion.

Oh no, Guardians have the damage, just they’re the slowest profession at delivering said damage. And to Shimmer, dps Guardians “ridiculous” boon uptime is a joke, the most you’ll ever see is 5 seconds on a very long cool down. This also applies to the variation of boons. I tested a common Elementalist build and just kept switching attunements, using auras and I was able to keep 5 boons on me up permanently. It would have been 6 if I was fighting and receiving vigor.

So no, Guardians don’t have solid boon uptime at all.

I understand Sandra but again, if the values on Zealous Blade remain unchanged, a mere 5% dmg bonus attached to it won’t really make it worth it.

Except it’s not a freebie since you have to spec into a less than desirable tree to obtain it. You get a 1.6k heal from resolve on a 60 second cool-down, AH which by itself, is terrible. Empower which is a 1.5k heal on a 2 1/2 second cast while you’re immobilized and susceptible to more damage than the healing you’ll receive and a very slow AA from mace granting you around 330 on the last hit.

I’m not stating these are terrible but they are less than desirable than others especially when you can obtain similar healing while being more mobile. These numbers aren’t huge in the grand scheme of things, especially when you’re looking at their cool downs. Going back to Mace, the amount of healing you’ll (potentially) receive from the AA is absolute crap to the damage you’ll receive on the other end.

Oh also, Shelter is a nice healing skill but can be interrupted causing it to go on full cd without any benefit.

Edit: Also, AH is essentially useful for only one weapon, Staff. A grandmaster traits only real use for one skill is awful.

You’re going to be taking damage from all angles(ranged) and even less so from this point. The benefit of a 1k heal while potentially being hit by 3-5 people is severely outclassed by a skill cast at ranged, acquired without any commitment, and heals for more per use. Even if you were to hit all 5 people with your AA from the GS, you’d only be benefitting from 100 health and the effort is much more involved.

We keep going over “potential damage” in this thread. So you’re saying you’ll constantly hit 5 people for the full 8 hits from Whirling Wrath giving you 1000 health? Good luck with that. It’s not entirely different, both provide a healing benefit under very similar circumstances.

Not to mention that all spells casted are ranged thus giving the Elementalist an advantage to stay out of melee range and benefitting from the healing. While as a Guardian utilizing Zealous blade, you’re knee deep in combat getting hit from all sides hoping this measly trait keeps you somewhat alive.

Edit: And there’s a solid difference in how you attain each trait/skill. One is given to you while the other MUST be specced. So one would think that to acquire something that something else must be given up, it should be stronger than a skill already given to you.

I understand that but if say you compare it to the Elementalists healing skill, they get around 200 health each time a spell is cast. They don’t even have to hit their target. 25 is really small and of course, you have to hit something.

The orb speed increase will be a nice buff, I just don’t see it fixing the dodge strafing much.

I’m speaking from an spvp standpoint. It hinders damage by the obviousness of the skill being triggered.

Regardless if these notes are real or not, there have been quite a few changes that to me, don’t seem to be enough.

30% increase of a slow weapon is still….slow. I’m cautious about Zealous blade being terrible as it was before just with a tiny dmg bonus. Pure of heart still isn’t worth it since Superior Aria is well….a superior choice.

While I understand these aren’t official, i’m just speculating that this route for guardians, is the wrong one. Symbol traits need to be merged, minor traits need to be looked at especially.

I keep stating this point and i’ll stick to it, even if these changes were implemented, the Guardian profession will still be a highly immobile one with a focus on standing in a tiny spot(symbols) which is counterintuitive to this games design.

I was thinking on similar lines to why the more mobile professions are receiving a new condition while some who are much slower don’t. To me, it should have been given to the Guardian along with Necromancer, these professions are very slow compared to the rest. When compared to others, this profession is severely lacking in condition application.

It CAN be a good weapon if it hits. Problem with this is against a somewhat skilled player, you’ll hit maybe them 2/10 times until you realize you must go melee.

Also, I was surprised they didn’t merge the Symbol traits(assuming this is final). Still too many majors to choose from when they’re better options available.

Damage builds are sort of mid-tier at the moment for Guardians. While a lot of damage can be achieved, the slow and highly telegraphic displays of each skill hinder it. There aren’t many other professions who are crippled by this that can still pull Momentous damage.

Right, but again, the speed at the moment is absurdly slow. A minor increase to something so slow won’t help much.

I’m still unsure about all of these changes. A 30% increase to scepter 1 is nice but it may not be enough to stop the strafe dodging. Looks they they’re addressing the GS in zeal but the one issue I have is this, did they actually fix zealous blade or does it still heal for a crappy amount. If it’s the latter, then I won’t bother with it.

It doesn’t make sense to give the highly mobile classes(thief and mesmer) more movement impairing conditions. This condi should be for the slower ones.

Unfortunately it’s not a ton of stacks since there’s a 1 second ICD.

I do hope there are some changes to this profession. It’s too reliant on party members to bring out its full potential (which is fine). I just want more self sufficiency. Also, the traits are pretty bad when compared to some other professions.

Of course it’s simple, but I don’t believe it’s fair. By adding a wardrobe, making it so you don’t remove your previous piece but just covering it with the cost of a stone makes sense.

This is pretty much was suggested by Retro, Anet gets to keep the trans stones and we get to apply whatever skin we want without destroying the previous piece or cluttering up inventory space.

Bump, this seems like it would do the most good for both the developers and the community. It’s worked in other games, why not here?

With the current system people are discouraged from transmuting to a new piece because it destroys the old one. Having a locker(like one in spvp) would make sense but more in depth. More people will buy these skins if they know there’s no risk to the previous piece.

In the long run they’ll be making more money. I’d be willing to bet that most if not everyone who has played has bought very few transmutation stones. Making more skins and a way to keep your previous set would be huge for them. The sales for transmutation stones is probably very small. Giving people the option to keep their hard earned piece of armor is key here.

In essence here you’re losing a piece of gear to gain another. At max level you might have a dungeon piece that has a nice rune on it but you end up finding another slotted item that you think looks better. Now you have to destroy the previous item to gain a new look.

Edit: That or you buy a similar piece of armor with the same stats/runes that might cost you more anyway.

I propose a completely overhaul to the current system for changing skins on armor in relation to the transmutation stones. Currently, anytime you find a piece of armor you really like, you use a transmutation stone to “rip” the stats from one and the appearance of another. One of the many problems with this system is that unless you buy another piece of armor with the same stats of your current piece to transmute, the one you may have worked hard for will be destroyed in the process.

While I understand Anet needs to make a profit from a game without a subscription, I find this system to be lacking. An alternative would be to completely remove all the transmutation stones and give every player a locker to put the gear they like inside to change at will. There’s a system already in place from other MMO’s, Lord of the Rings online being one of them. While this would hinder the sales of transmutation stones, I believe if A-net starts pumping out quality skins for both town and combat, their sales will skyrocket.

As it stands, I’ve bought the game at release and have bought 0 transmutation stones since release. This is in part due to the fact that I don’t want to destroy a piece of armor/weapon i’d worked hard for in place of another better looking piece.

Here’s a read on the diary for the lotro system to give you an idea how it works.

http://archive.lotro.com/news/798-developer-diary-wardrobe-system

Guardians are Just heavy plated dervish. We need scythes for the sale of having scythes. :-)

Ingame name: Arken Elric
Main Class / Potential Classes (Incase team requires): Guardian. Ranger secondary.
Region:NA, EST
Practice Times: I work 24 hours shifts but am off 5 days a week. I can give details when the time comes.
Experience: Rank 47 with quite a few tournaments under my belt.
Other (Anything else that you would like to add): Looking for a serious team.

Watch this awesome video of a good Mesmer kicking kitten

Master Charles.7093:

continued…

“Team Deathmatch limits roles and in doing so, limits builds. This also leads into some professions being shunned in teams because there is no mainstream build for them. Other game formats, like Conquest offer additional roles such as area control, both defensive (bunker builds) and offensive (trap rangers, necros), mobility vs static, etc. In general, any format that favors balling up and entire team is bad.”

The same can be said for conquest. Conquest created bunkers, then burst. TDM would support a dynamic for balanced builds. Conquest requires someone to stand in one place: how fun is that? Admittedly, mobility disparities could be a factor in TDM, but they are even more so in conquest, where people are expected to run from point to point, always having an incentive to disengage from battle.

“Balance is put under a microscope in Team Deathmatch. Because of limited roles and playstyles and the relatively short time in which most matches are decided, balance between professions is crucial. In an RPG where skill variety and profession identity is important, it’s near impossible to achieve this. On the other hand, the conquest format reduces the burden of balancing by providing alternative strategic decisions to overcome some profession imbalances. Balance still matters, but it doesn’t need to be as tight as for Team Deathmatch.”

Balance should be under a microscope. You still have 1v1 scenarios in conquest, and when one class’s build completely trumps any possible build of another, it feels like paper, scissors, rock. Balance is fairness, and I don’t really see any excuse or medium for less fairness.

“Team Deathmatch isn’t fun to watch. To an observer that doesn’t know a lot about the game, it just looks like a huge ball of particle effects and then someone dies. To be a good e-sport, someone with basic understanding needs to be able to observe progress or quickly make sense of what actions accomplish. When you have a score and a node control list, it’s clear who is winning. Also, Conquest tends to avoid a full 5v5 and often has encounters ranging from 2 to 6 players, which are much easier to follow.”

The same can be said for conquest. Who cares about the non-existent observers at this point? I think being saddled with esport expectations is the main factor that has killed PvP up to this point via this ‘conquest only’ stance, which has facilitated crap balancing few people can stand.

My best guess why Anet would only allow one game mode since beta: conquest is the best idea they can come up with for e-sports. That’s where the biggest pvp money is at, so not only will they not abandon it, but they won’t even allow anything else. At this point, the player base is so small they’re probably even more scared to introduce any other mode in fear of dividing the PvP community away from the prospect of big profits, yet I would argue a lot of money was made off of straight sales from hyping a good PvP game, and a lot more could be made just from having one.

This man deserves a medal for putting forth a reasonable and non-aggressive argument to adding TDM. Balance being the biggest factor should not be shunned just because a certain game mode allows for more than just fighting. Team(and solo) fights WILL happen and those with the best builds will win. This, in turn will allow for said team to take the point anyways because of these imbalances.

Personally, I find it to be more entertaining watching strategic fights than strategic point holding. Observing someone hold a point in spectator-mode will put me to sleep. This game has the best combat system ever made, we need to put it to use in more ways than one.

Adding some sort of Arena mode(2v2,3v3) would be a great asset to this game, balancing permitted of course. I believe that there would be a lot of strategic value in this game-mode. There are some really skilled players out there who would rather prefer to read their opponents rather than cap points.

I’d like to join this list if that’s alright. 1v1, tournament and hot join play.

New weapons for all. I loved playing the dervish in guild wars 1 and the closest thing we have is guardians. Just an example, maybe add scythes?

Indeed but if each profession is only fighting their profession, there would be no imbalances/bias towards them.

I’d like to see tournaments similar to what some of you may have seen in old school EQ where each profession fights to see who’s the best.

For spvp, i’d say the toning down of the three professions I feel to be a bit much. Engineer, Elementalist and Ranger. I won’t go into details for those who needs buffs since most of us pretty much know it already and i’d rather not beat a dead horse.

Elementalist= Answers everything, has almost no weaknesses(beating a dead horse)
Ranger=Excellent survivability, dmg and mobility. Elites are extremely powerful(looking at you, spirit). Excellent AoE condi.
Engie: Condi/burst is insane with massive cleave.
Guardian: Excellent survivability but has to sacrifice mobility for this comp. Very short boon duration but good control through wards.
Necromancer: Decent AoE condi(engineers do it far better), Lich form provides excellent dmg with power builds.
Thief: Excellent mobility and burst, lacking survivability in massive team fights.
Warrior: Stun-lock build is insane, but that’s all they have.

To me i’d put them above engies for just for traps alone. Their survivability is also far better.

Very surprised that people are putting Ranger on average or below average.