Alarox is correct, 30 into valor provides quite a bit when compared to the rest. This is especially true when stacked against Zeal, Radiance and even Virtues. I’d put Valor on top, Honor close behind with Zeal all the way at the bottom.
One thing i’d disagree to is I believe AH to be slightly more effective than MF even when soloing.
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bad link my friend.
This is why I said to copy/paste it to a new tab. These forums don’t like semicolons in links.
Ah I apologize, thank you.
bad link my friend.
The Variety of boons is usually limited to protection, regeneration and retaliation. There isn’t much of a variety here to be clear. Permanent vigor just goes hand-in-hand with any hit crit build so the healway guardian isn’t really necessary for that. I’m not doubting the ability to keep some might stacks up, if specced right I can see 5 stacks continuously up being possible. I’m mostly speaking from a pvp standpoint since that’s what I do on a more consistant basis.
Save Yourselves got hit pretty hard making it tough to choose over other utilities at this moment. Gaining vigor no longer provides a viable heal to the guardian anymore since the recent nerf(buff to some). EM I can see being a good source just the 1 second cooldown turns me off to it. The most reliable source for healing to me(in pve) is the hammer hands down.
Even if we take out the elementalist, you have shout-heal warriors that provide more healing to the group, rangers with Troll Unugent that rivals if not exceeds AH without any risk on top of spirits.
Ranged is definitely 1 of the more pressing matters that needs to be addressed. I just think the others that I’ve listed have significant merit as well.
Actually I have to disagree a little bit there on the heals and boons a little and here’s why.
Guardians boon upkeep is very small, most of the time we can only have 1 type of boon for 5 seconds in a long cd. Again, I see others not having some of the same issues with upkeep. Heals goes hand-in-hand with the lack of mobility recently stated. Guardians either stay in symbols/immobile(empower) or they die. It really goes against the philosophy of the games combat mechanics.
Right but you’re looking at half the selection. Thief stealth heals are insane while having the ultimate survivability. D/D eles are…well we all know. It’s true AH can do well by yourself but not to the extent other the other classes. I even looked over some of the healing skills and found the Guardians to be lack behind most other professions.
I just don’t know that I can agree to that 100%
I will agree Eles are an all around powerful class that really don’t have a weakness, other than just zerging them – and sometimes that doesnt even work.
Perma-stealth Thieves are really only a challenge if they are really skilled or if they decide they’re done fighting and just stealth away never to be seen again.
Most other classes I really didn’t struggle with solo with an AH build, and in groups AH provides so much survivability it’s insane.
I’ve actually stopped using AH though in WvW. I’m more of a glass cannon build and use Omnom Pies to compensate for my lack of survivability and that works very well, I’d even say a little better than AH. Without the Omnom Pies though I’d be screwed
I understand your argument but I believe the problem is mobility mixed in with survivability. Guardians are required to utilize symbols for much of their AH use. This in turn makes stationary to our disadvantage. I just don’t see this issue with other professions.
Right but you’re looking at half the selection. Thief stealth heals are insane while having the ultimate survivability. D/D eles are…well we all know. It’s true AH can do well by yourself but not to the extent other the other classes. I even looked over some of the healing skills and found the Guardians to be lack behind most other professions.
The issue I have Vitu is we have solid survivability through AH but elementalists and others do it better without sacrificing much. We require people, others do not.
It’s true, the variation of builds is pretty much dumbed down to two. I recently listed a myriad of reasons why the Guardian has been lacking ranging from no actual ranged weapon to access to stuns/cripples and terrible mobility.
Indeed, we all know they can’t say much because if they reveal too much information, it could backfire if said information was altered through further testing.
I enjoyed the video. It showed the developers have some transparency towards us and that means a lot.
Razer naga for all my weapon skills, Shift+1-4 for Utilities. C for jump, Space for dodge, V for heal.
I think boon uptime should be addressed as well.
I’ve been feared out of shelter as well. Yay..
This game is the best ever in nearly every category except balance. The up side to that is eventually things will become more balanced over time. They’ve already done enough with everything else.
No, no it is not. The game has major flaws in various areas, such as inconsistencies between classes, “It’s Build Wars” gameplay, Bugs, Worst PVP matchmaking/ranking/reward system I have ever encountered, 1 Game mode, Repetitive and causes people to lose interest very quickly, boring to watch, medicore combat system when comparing it to other mmos, i could go on and on.
But these problems won’t be solved for a long long long time as Anet are concentrating on PVE content and that’s where they want their game to major in PVE.
Don’t pin any hopes on this “February Patch” look how underwhelming the January patch was for PVE.
All of what you just stated belongs in the balance category which I just listed as a problem. The game only has one mode because professions currently aren’t balanced for duels. Please list more, this game offers much more than the rest and has a lot less redundancies.
This game is the best ever in nearly every category except balance. The up side to that is eventually things will become more balanced over time. They’ve already done enough with everything else.
You’re right but understand that this profession lacks quite a bit when compared to the others. Here’s a few off the bat:
-No cripples
-No stuns
-No viable ranged weapon
-Forced to stay within a single spot(symbols)
-Worst mobility of any other profession
-Required to be around teammates to be ultimately effective.(I can’t think of any other profession where you MUST be with others to bring out your full potential)
-Some of the slowest skills in the game with little benefit.(empower being an exception)
And this is just to name a few. The Guardian is indeed counter intuitive to the games combat mechanics of constant movement. This is the only profession that is crippled by such.
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I think we all need to slow down a bit as well. Looking at the majority of this patch, it was mostly bug fixes with few adjustments. I’m not sure when we’ll see any significant changes but it’ll probably be either in Feb or March.
Or even adjusted the AI, terrible before this.
Agreed, i’m all for experimenting so major props to Star and others for thinking outside the box. AH and maybe a few tweaks works for me. I’d love to have an alternative to where I don’t need it and not drop quickly.
Regardless if you’re in a group or solo, I find shouts to be vastly superior. In PvE, all benefit you so well while meditations provide a small instant benefit. Pvp, it’s a different story.
Yeah i’m calling bs on Relentliss claim. They die in 3 hits with AoE, you’re telling me that your weapons stayed alive among all the aoe of group and single fights? I don’t think so.
I run a 0/5/30/30/5 split
14,405 health, 2950 attack, 3130 armor, 40% crit chance, 88% crit damage.
Staff always while switching out Hammer and GS.
All Shouts, signet for healing, Renewed focus.
Retributive armor, purity and AH on Valor
Superior aria, Writ of persistence and Writ of the merciful on Honor
Except you can’t vary your build. It’s AH(MF to a lesser degree) or you die, plain and simple. This hasn’t changed and it doesn’t look like it will be.
Edit: I recently tried giving a Zealous blade a shot at a possible alternate to AH but man, what a terrible trait. Doesn’t stack with healing power at all.
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I don’t understand why the healing part of support is even mentioned here. We heal other classes for very little, AH keeps ourselves alive, no one else. It’s been stated before, Warriors shouts when specced without HP give more healing than Guardians.
I don’t think spreading Altruistic Healing to all Guardians is a good idea. It’s a really, really powerful trait, so just giving it away would create a whole new dynamic that might not be healthy for the profession balance.
Other options might be hard to think of, but that doesn’t mean it’s a viable alternative to just spreading our best trait. Adding some more control options in offensive lines might serve as an alternative to more self-healing. Or maybe giving a couple of escape options to the offensive lines. There are options, we can think up ideas, and if we can, professional game-designers certainly can.
AH is indeed powerful but based on those around you. Look at the Elementalist that receives the same amount of healing without having to worry about the amount of teammates around them. I think a lot of people overlook the fact that AH only heals us, while other professions provide very similar healing to not only themselves, but others as well.(ele again)
Edit: Not to mention that others don’t have to give up mobility to achieve said healing. We’re stuck in symbols or empower.
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But as a low health, low mobility profession, AH is all we have. I agree with some of your suggestions but not to reduce AH’s effectiveness.
Edit: It’s not like we can retreat and come back with a new strategy. We’re the only profession that once you’re in combat, you’re stuck. There’s no escape for us, we either win, lose or hold out long enough until reinforcements arrive.
I find the fix to battle presence to be nice but it’s one of those traits that appears to be useless to me. It encourages you to never use it’s active skill. Even with the fix, i’ll still never use it.
The aura works on allies even if the virtue is on CD from using it.
Oh no kidding, well now, that’s nice.
Edit: After looking at it again, still not worth it. My reasoning is because you’d have to go 30 into honor for it, 20 into virtues for the boost and you’ll never reach AH.
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But the issue is that AH/MF are so necessary that you really can’t spec into anything else without getting destroyed. These two(AH more than MF) are the Guardians key to surviving among all else.
I find the fix to battle presence to be nice but it’s one of those traits that appears to be useless to me. It encourages you to never use it’s active skill. Even with the fix, i’ll still never use it.
I don’t think you understand the concept of mobility. Closing a gap between enemies is relatively easy, good luck keeping up with them. There is a problem with this profession, it’s the only one that has to remain still to actually be viable.
I basically want to play a mobile profession like everyone else. Not much to ask really.
Ok, lets say that’s true. What are we going to heal with? We don’t have any healing skills that benefit both us and the weapons equally
The thing is is that you have an excellent healing skill(troll unugent) that effects both you and your pet on a very short cd. We can’t heal our very limited SW
I understand your argument but the same thing could be said about Retaliation. It’s a lazy mans boon, you fire it and do nothing.
It’s true. 30 Valor is and apparently will always be the only thing Guardians have. I love Anet and all they’ve done for us but man, the balance just puzzles me.
Or leave them to be invulnerable because they weren’t really a threat. If you tested properly, you’d notice that the weapons only attack once every 5 seconds. This is hardly a threat.
The problem was that the AI for these weapons were terrible. The hammer and sword attacked once every 5 seconds so there’s no “constant” knockdown or damage.
I just don’t get it anymore. Someone needs to explain to me why this profession is slowly but surely getting destroyed and being forced into 1 spec again.
This, I believe, is the first patch where we didn’t get hammered into the ground.(spirit weapon pun intended) But the big issue is now we’re really pigeonholed into AH/MF spec since now SW are now less viable.
While i’m happy we didn’t get nerfed for the first time in a while, these changes are….what? We still have no viable ranged weapon! Spirit weapons were terrible(besides the hammer) before, now they’re not even worth looking at. They weren’t even close to OP, if anything, they were underpowered due to the terrible AI and utility.
I understand but when you’re the only profession that doesn’t posses a specific condition/boon, there’s something wrong. Especially when you’re the slowest class to begin with.
Every Guardian runs 30 Valor, It’s our best tree by far. I would trade both Zeal and Radiance before I traded Valor. This is how good the line is.
No it’s pretty much terrible, it packs a punch if it ever hits.
You might want to switch the whole, “heal allies very well when built to.” I only say this because a Warrior could very easily spec into shout heals which stacks very well with healing power. This is giving the warrior short cool downs on 3/4 shouts given. The results are about 2300 health gain per shout when specced. Guardians on the other hand must not only spec into such a build, but have their teammates remain within a symbol to gain significant healing when empower is on cd.
Guardians healing is tied to the amount of players around us, we’re not elementalists that receive high healing regardless if he/she is solo or in a group. So if you’re by yourself, that massive healing…heh. The only weapon(s) that will provide such healing is the staff and Hammer. If this is PvP, the hammer doesn’t do anything since your symbols will never hit, and having to stand still to use empower leaves you wide open for a focused attack.(which empower will not heal through)
Quite true but self-healing isn’t absolutely terrible, just mildly terrible.
Indeed, if you want solid self-healing regardless of the circumstances, make an Elementalist. Otherwise, you better hope that some of your teammates are around you.
I’m for getting rid of retaliation all-together. I find it to be a lazy boon that actually takes no skill and it’s just spammed.