Guild Wars 2

Red.3572:

JonPeters.5630:

The change to sword damage from 5% to 10%. I’ve seen a lot of talk that maybe it is not really needed. The fact was this was a lackluster trait and this is a lackluster change to it. I would love to do the right thing here and have a change that MH sword wants rather than just 5% more damage.

Thoughts?

Jon

Hi. The reason most people think ’it’s not really needed’ is because the raw damage on Guardian has never been the issue, it’s the amount of sustain/utility you have to lose as a DPS guardian (which is what I assume you’re trying to fix). Even still:

Powerful Blades:
5% damage increase when using a Sword or Spear. Critical hits gives one condition and it’s remaining duration back to struck targets (20 second cool down).

This would help with some of the sustain Guardians lose when trying to spec as DPS in PvP. Also has synergy with Radiant Power.

More importantly though, I think DPS guardians would benefit from better Hammers and Mace weapons. The last hit of the Auto hit on each takes slightly too long at the moment. Shave that down and these weapons become better DPS options, which are worse damage than sword, but better sustain/soft CC.

So idea:

Mace:
Faithful Strike: 1 second cast —> 1/2 second cast (like sword)

Hammer:
Symbol of Protection: 1 1/4 seconds cast —> 3/4 second cast.

Glacial Heart:
5% damage when using a hammer. Critical hits with hammer chill enemies (100% chance. 10-20 seconds cool down).

This is what I think is more required for Guardians than extra damage on Sword. The damage isn’t the issue.

Devs should also make Faithful Strike be able to cleave. Either that or significantly increase the amount of damage it does. Since its single target.

Behellagh.1468:

/long text.

In short AMD FX cpus have totally different architecture and are being forced to try to run like a intel equivalent cpu would. When programmers utilize all 8 cores on a FX cpu the difference is massive.

A example of that is Planetside 2. On live I average around 40fps. On the pts I average around 90fps+. The pts has many of the amd optimizations present on it for testing. I don’t believe SOE took the time to make their engine multi threaded because they felt bad for AMD users. But they did it simply because the PS4 is a Amd 8 core, to which the pc version benefits directly from.

I expect this to be a repeatable pattern in the future, more developers will begin to code for AMD 8 core architecture. Only because consoles are a primary focus for their development. Its a big win for AMD I’d say. I wouldn’t be surprised some time in the future when Intel users start complaining about poor performance while AMD users do not.

JonPeters.5630:

The change to sword damage from 5% to 10%. I’ve seen a lot of talk that maybe it is not really needed. The fact was this was a lackluster trait and this is a lackluster change to it. I would love to do the right thing here and have a change that MH sword wants rather than just 5% more damage.

Thoughts?

Jon

Guardian doesn’t need a damage increase. They need more accessible forms of chill or even cripple.

Or perhaps give them a new type of skill that teleports targets back to you when they move too far away from you.

Similar to this: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Scorpion_Wire

Ultimately the crux of guardian issues is that there is no way to consistently damage targets who choose to kite. And there are no adequate ranged options to deal with players who kite. Something must give, either guardian is a heavy armored melee class who needs snares and other disables to stay on the target or they are a heavy armored class with excellent range capabilities.

Here is a good quote I found describing the architectural differences between Intel cpus and Amd FX 8 core cpus. I feel the individual did a good job trying to make it very simple and visual.

A software setup with data fed in a mostly serial manner favors intel, because intel’s instruction execution protocol for their CPUs are 90% serial data…which means intel chips break down a serial stream of data faster (single threaded performance). AMD’s instruction execution protocol for their CPUs are setup to run parallel streams of data (heavily threaded performance), which most software out right now is not designed to feed data to the CPU in this manner. So, data being fed serially to a CPU designed to run parallel streams of executions is inefficient, and favors one designed for that type of data streaming.

For example…

Picture you’re at Wal-Mart (or where ever), and there are 8 checkout lanes open…the first lane has a line a mile long, and they will only allow 4 of the other 7 lanes to have a line 1 person long. It doesn’t make any sense right? For starters, they’re not even using all of the lanes available, and the ones they are, aren’t being utilized efficiently.

That’s what’s happening inside an AMD architecture FX8350 with current software…

With Intel chips right now…it’s more like the line at best buy…where you have 1 line a mile long, but the front person has 4 different cashiers to go to when they arrive at the front of the line.

So, having 1 line a mile long doesn’t slow them down, they’re designed that way…

However, once information is fed in a parallel manner to the CPU…AMD will have all 8 lanes at Wal-Mart open for business and the lines will be distributed equally with people (instructions for the CPU), but Intel will still have the Best buy type line with 4 people running a cash register…except that now there will be 4 or even 8 lines forming into that one line, which makes things slow down because they are not designed to execute like that.

I hope the analogy makes this very complicated architecture discussion make sense.

Sunshine.4680:

I use the trait inner fire to gain fury when set on fire, well I use torch 4 which says you are setting yourself alight to burn nearby foes etc. So does this not count at all?

Torch #4 really doesn’t apply the burning condition to you, which is why you don’t get inner fire. Its unfortunate but inner fire has no synergy with the torch.

spoj.9672:

Actually I think you will find most people are paranoid and take every critism as a personal attack when they really shouldnt. I will admit things do escalate quite easily but the majority of posts from those of us from the dungeon forums are simply factual critisms that get misunderstood because people dont like being wrong.

Calling people paranoid is just another means to self justify what you do, in order that you don’t see yourself as being wrong. You have one thing right, many people do not want to be wrong. What you haven’t done is apply what you have said to yourself.

What do you think generally happens when someone presents a different perspective in regards to their experience in game? People such as yourself try to enforce your ideal of the “right way to play”. And if they refute what you are saying, here comes more of your buddies who “agree” with you and gang up on them. Which makes you feel even more justified and right, because you have people who are saying the exact same thing as you.

Look at what has been done with AH, you and others here have created a whole stigma upon it, a self created definition that if you use it you are bad and if you don’t use it you are good. How messed up is that? You have basically put yourself on a pedestal, a throne and feel that you are so exempt and above others that you actually have the power and authority to define what is good and bad. When in reality what is good only describes yourself, nothing more. Since you can’t be seen as bad.

One size does not fit all, what is true for you, what works for you will not necessarily work for another. This is something that must be understood.

Lets face the facts, no matter how much anyone here tries to preach these “effective builds” the reality of the situation is pve does not require it.

ZoroDaOtter.3859:

Jon is still nowhere to be seen.

Probably busy, I’m sure he’ll get around to answering some questions.

What Anet needs to do with rework shadows and reflections so they are gpu dependant. Right now, both shadows and reflections seem to be draw by the cpu. This causes a massive fps hit.

I have two gaming machines, one is a i7-920 with a geforce 470, the other is a Amd fx 8350 with a Radeon r9 280×. The intel machine outperforms the 8350 by 10fps at equal settings. When shadows and reflections are disabled the Amd can pump out the same fps.

Fixing shadows and reflections would be a boost to intel and amd users.

Anicetus.1253:

Finnway.2183:

Anicetus.1253:

A good player won’t use AH.

I kind of disagree with this. A bad player with a good build is still a bad player, so the reverse is also true (as evidenced by DnT)

Okay, let me specify this.
I won’t use AH unless I’m doing some fancy play how you want stuff.

This is what you really mean, you aren’t in the position to determine who is good or bad. No one here is. Every time someone in this thread mentions what build a good player will run, they are only speaking about themselves. Which is why someone describes what a “good player does”, it always describes perfectly what they will do.

Sylpheed.8163:

Okay, first of all Anet has stated that they don’t want Guardian to be another Warrior class. Each class should bring something to the table, and they’ve said countless times that they want Guardian to be more of the support role, but also be able to perform in other areas (DPS, etc). Yeah, a lot of these buffs are underwhelming but they’re buffs regardless, and it shows that they want to make more builds a bit better. They’re not going to give us 3k+ health for DPS builds, or other broken stuff that many people have suggested.. That’s ludicrous. We practically have the best support and insane sustained healing / survivability /tankiness. Our DPS builds and damage are fine, and all we lack really is soft CC to help stay in melee range of targets and maybe a bit of condition damage. So many complaints and counter suggestions in this thread would just make Guardian even more broken. We are by far the most balanced class, and I’ve enjoyed it being this way since beta. I’m sorry, but you should go play Warrior / Thief / whatever other classes you can’t handle on your guardian if you want to be “OP”, not that they even really are.

I agree with them, Guardian should not become another Warrior. However the key element that separate Guardian from Warrior are not viable. I’m talking about spirit weapons.

One of the biggest differences between the two classes is that Guardian is a heavy armored summoner. Maybe if Anet took a hard look at spirit weapons and made them viable we would get more variety of builds.

Stormcrow.7513:

Over a month ago there was a dev post regarding performance that indicated that they are rolling out performance patches within the 4-6 week timeframe.
We hopefully will be seeing one shortly and perhaps even with the next patch.
I doubt that there will be a miracle patch but any amount of incremental performance boost would be appreciate.

Can you provide the link?

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

That is true.
Hopefully AMD Mantle will change everything… So i hope that many of great games will have/support AMD mantle.

It will use 8 cores!
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/graphics-cards/amd-mantle-a-low-level-api-with-high-level-potential-1190692

If BF4 would use only 2 cores … no CPU would be able to give playable framerates in MP 64… Unlike other developer they actually care about it.

I wouldn’t say they don’t care. I’m sure its a concern of Anet to give users the best possible performance. But there are a lot of barriers I think. The engine is old, its dx9 based and making a truly multi threaded mmorpg is probably no easy accomplishment. To my knowledge there aren’t any real multi threaded mmorpgs on the market.

Yet, mmorpgs would benefit from it the most since they are very cpu demanding. In regards to Amd cpus, they are interesting. We usually see them performing poorly thats because most games are only running one primary thread, maybe a thread for audio and physics. Amd’s single core performance is weak, so it doesn’t see high fps numbers.

Amd optimization would be nice, its possible but probably would require a rewrite of the guild wars 2 engine to be really multi-threaded. Planetside 2 is doing the same thing, the devs analysis of amd cpus is interesting. Here is what they said:

We have the exact same kind of Achilles’ heel on the PC too. People who have AMD chips have a disadvantage, because a single core on an AMD chip doesn’t really have as much horsepower and they really require you to kind of spread the load out across multiple cores to be able to take full advantage of the AMD processors.

Our engine sucks at that right now. We are multi-threaded, but the primary gameplay thread is very expensive. The biggest piece of engineering work that they’re doing right now, and it’s an enormous effort, is to go back through the engine and re-optimize it to be really, truly multi-threaded and break the gameplay thread up. That’s a very challenging thing to do because we’re doing a lot of stuff – tracking all these different players, all of their movements, all the projectiles, all the physics they’re doing.

It’s very challenging to split those really closely connected pieces of functionality across in multiple threads. So it’s a big engineering task for them to do, but thankfully once they do it, AMD players who’ve been having sub-par performance on the PC will suddenly get a massive boost – just because of being able to take the engine and re-implement it as multi-threaded.

Source: http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2013/08/05/the-ps4s-big-challenge-is-its-amd-chip-that-heavily-relies-on-multi-threading-says-planetside-2-dev/

If Anet was to follow suit, then AMD cpus would see a massive boost in gw2. But as the ps2 dev said above, its a difficult task. We don’t know where Anet’s priorities are and if they have a team working at this time to re-optimize their engine to be multi-threaded.

1. I believe Anet specifically stated that they didn’t want guardian’s ranged weapons to be too powerful because its a melee class.

2. Anet has stated that guardians are suppose to slow moving.

3. Anet has stated that they do not want guardian to do much damage.

4. Anet has stated that they want guardian to teleport to a target and stay there.

5. Anet has stated that like warrior, guardian is a melee oriented class.

It just doesn’t make sense.

1. How does the slowest moving class expected to be a melee oriented character? Better yet, why does the slowest moving class have the worst range options? How does a melee oriented character have worst options than a ranged character to be in melee range? Once a guardian teleport to the target, how does it make the target stay put?

The only thing that their design points to is that guardian is suppose to be something they stand against, a dedicated healer/support class. Just like traditional healers they only stand out in groups, solo they are underwhelming. That their entire design is based around making other classes better.

Cloudwalkernz.1328:

I just met a guy with 5 legendary in a dungeon PUG. I have a legendary as well but that guys just made me feel so under-equipped – almost feel like naked even!

Come to think of it, most people in Pug nowadays have at least 1 legendary. Many have 2 or more. If you use the number of people standing outside of the LA bank as an indication, 8 out of 10 people must have at least 1 legendary. The last 20% must be people who have just started, people playing alts, or people simply don’t like the looks of the legendary.

I think it is about time to make legendary weapon legendary again:
TIME TO RAISE THE LEVEL CAP!

This will make all current legendary obsolete. New better looking and harder to get level 100 legendary can be introduced. Image your legendary weapons are rare again and not a standard issued piece of tin foil that everyone who wants it has.

You all agree with me? Yes!

Raise the cap because someone has more than you? I disagree, I have a legendary and I’m working on my second. And I’m not a bit concerned about those who already have two, three, four or however many legendaries. Stop worrying about what others have and you don’t.

Redscope.6215:

Jon:

• Increase Virtue of Resolve’s Passive
• Combine Writ of Exaltation and Writ of Presence
• Make Shield of Judgment provide Protection AND Regeneration
• Make Shield of Absorption destroy projectiles inside the dome
• Reduce both shield skill cooldowns by 5 seconds

Are these things really too much to ask?

The guardian’s support role is strong right now, but he’s not a tank. There’s a difference. Tanking is always support, but support is not always tanking.

Sounds great!

Positives:

Fresh content every 2 weeks, each with a unique theme.
New rewards and skins. It makes gw2 retain some freshness.

Negatives:

The living story mechanics feel a bit repetitive. While each release is different it always retain a similar pattern: Introduced to the new characters, plot and so forth through a cutscene or instance. Then you fight mobs over and over again until you get enough achievements to progress to the next portion of the story. Then you make it to the final portion to which you are left hanging.

The living story feels short on story elements. If Anet can somehow manage to get the short story elements posted on the official site weaved into the actual story telling in the living story. Then I feel it would be in a great place. There has to be a balance between combat and story telling. Right now, the story telling feels like its getting the short end of the stick.

Also, I think gw2 could use more dark and serious story lines. So far, the living story has felt rather light hearted in comparison to the themes found in gw1.

Overall, despite the flaws that exist imo. I find living story enjoyable and so do my friends who play with me.

Makoto.9647:

And this is a bit disappointing. They made the game and said that the classes would be able to fulfill many roles. But in contrast to other classes Guardians are forced in to a supportive zerg class. We who picked the class and were thinking of going other routs promised by Anet possible for all classes?

This applies to every class in the game I believe. Most are forced to run a few builds because others just don’t work well.

Also, I wanted to add for Jon a brief summary of what I understand about Guardian’s design.

Guardian is a melee oriented class, who is slow and defensive. Not meant to be fast since their presence is strong in group settings like wvw. Their range attack options are inadequate yet they have nothing to consistently stay on top of targets while using melee skills. I just do not understand the design philosophy for the class. Why isn’t guardian a primarily ranged class with heavy armor? It would make more sense due to the fact that they are slow and stationary.

There was a stream several months ago, were one of the developers specifically stated that guardian is meant to teleport to their target and stay there. This is sort of true, when you teleport to a target in pve mobs stay there with you. However in pvp, when you teleport to a target they are unlikely to stay there with you.

I’m not trying to be sarcastic or anything. I just want to understand what the devs imagine for the class. Once again I state from my perspective a melee oriented class that can’t stay in melee range consistently makes no sense. A slow, defensive class with poor access to mobility who has inadequate ranged options doesn’t make much sense.

Out of all the classes, guardian is the only one who seems to have this issue.

Anet’s vision of guardian is some what hard to understand, a few things I have gathered from what I read from Jon’s post’s in regards to guardian is:

1. The class isn’t suppose to be mobile, its suppose to be slow.
2. The class is a defensive class, its not suppose to do as much damage as the other classes.

Both in my opinion are at odds with being a melee oriented class. Especially the first. As a melee class if it can’t be mobile, how can it keep pressure on anything? Which is dps guardian’s primary problem.

The second is understandable to a degree but only a bunker guardian can fulfill the term being defensive. But then it runs into the problem of not being able to do damage at all. While a offensive guardian has no defensive characteristics of the class. It shows that theories on Anet’s papers aren’t exactly playing out in game.

If we are indeed suppose to be a melee class, who isn’t suppose to be mobile, who doesn’t suppose to do as much damage as the other classes then do not punish guardians for not being in melee range and for not being able to dish out as much damage as the other class.

Because for now both strengths of guardian are severe weaknesses. I personally feel guardian doesn’t need a damage boost, in the long run it will either be ineffective or possibly overpowered. The class doesn’t need that.

What it does need is a rewarding experience of being defensive and being stationary. The class initially had retaliation, which some what dealt with kiting problems and put purpose on being a stationary class. It was nerfed to the ground.

Offensive guardians just need better access to defensive capabilities. Likewise defensive guardian shouldn’t be so polarized to were their damage is completely insignificant (perhaps rebuff retaliation?). Spirit weapons could also help guardian’s ranged problems if they worked.

At any rate, something needs to be done. The class doesn’t need to become warrior 2.0. Yet, the class shouldn’t be severely punished for working as intended: being defensive and slow. Anet has said it themselves, they do not want to create a dedicated healer in gw2. Yet, guardian feels awfully close to that.

mistsim.2748:

I think the biggest vigor culprits are actually guardians. Vigorous precision needs a serious nerf. Permanent vigor on the guard is ridiculous

I can understand what you mean, however that would significantly nerf guardians. They have no means to escape or reset fights efficiently. Vigorous Precision is what helps them with survival.

Perikittenor.1892:

Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
:Nice but it is still overhealing alot. You need to understand that this will always trigger when we have full health the first time, and after that. It depends whatever we are virtue or shout to even make it useable.

This is exactly what’s wrong with it, thanks for putting it into words.

Maybe they could put a slight delay on the heal, lets say 5 secs. That way it actually heals damage.

Hey Jon,

What is up with the attention to pure of heart, it was buffed not too long ago and now its being buffed again.

CMF.5461:

foofad.5162:

Mace also has identical autoattack timing to hammer. It’s basically the same rhythm.

noticed it before and didn’t think too much about it, but looked at it again just now and it is kind of interesting.

mace/hammer have the same auto attack time

sword/greatsword have the same auto attack time

…staff/scepter differ slightly but are close to the 1s timer.

the 1h and 2h counterparts are similar to each other, which I’m sure was intended, but you would think they would emphasize speed for 1h and damage for 2h. Or is that just me?

Interesting about the mace auto attack time, I never paid attention. I mainly use hammer but why does mace feel so slow and sluggish? Is it because of skill #2 having a 1s casting time?

Hey Jon,

What is the idea behind the pure of heart buff? I’ve seen it buffed twice, once in a patch we got not to long ago and now. Even with the buffs I can’t seem to find any practical use for it. On paper receiving a heal when you lose aegis seems good, but in practice mobs and players do so much damage that the heal goes unnoticed.

Obtena.7952:

Kindred Zeal will be a thing as along as Anet wants to give people options for gameplay instead of THE build for a particular situation. I’m happy to see focus on it. It’s a good indication of the divergence between the direction Anet want the game to go and the ideas that some people have of ‘how the game should be played correctly’. The wider that gets, the more silly the concept of ‘playing the correct way’ becomes.

While buffs are nice, these seem insignificant. Single digit relative increases won’t even affect my build decisions. It’s still unsettling that core deficiencies that I think exist with the class aren’t addressed. Of course, my priorities aren’t theirs so I will have to continue to cross my fingers.

What is ESPECIALLY nice is that they give us all an indication of what they think the concept for Guardians is and where it should be in terms of damage, etc… in their opening statement. Something like that should be sticked and referred to every time I someone wants to make a comparison to Warriors.

As for specifics:

Shattered Aegis: This is competing against a 10% modifier that’s almost always applicable. The damage it will hit for better be REALLY good.
Kindred Zeal: I can understand the motivation to keep the burning damage on par with regular hits but a 3% increase is insulting
Retributive Armor: Does a 2% increase even HAVE an impact on a precision to crit rate conversion of 21? I don’t think it will. WEAK!
Supreme Justice: While this will be a high significance on a select group of builds, still a very limited application.

The rest are OK.

I can’t imagine shattered aegis hitting for very hard since its a adept trait. My guess is that it will be maybe 500 base damage or so. If its too high it will be overpowered and nerfed.

I can’t disagree with anything you are saying here really. I do think its cool how they laid down their ideal for guardian. Its very clear that they are definitely not suppose to be for dps.

JonPeters.5630:

Guardian:
Tanky and supportive guardians are in a strong position in many gametypes. We do feel that damage guardians are not as powerful as they could be. While we don’t want guardians to be as strong offensively as some of the other classes (given their powerful defensive abilities) we opened up more offensive guardian builds.

• Zeal V – Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.
• Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)
• Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.
• Radiance V – Searing Flames. Reduced cooldown from 20s to 10s.
• Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
• Valor V – Retributive Armor. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
• Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
• Virtues VIII – Supreme Justice. Number of attacks going from 4 to 3.
• Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse, rather than 8 seconds if you have no swiftness and 1 second if you have swiftness.

Mr. Peters,

Very positive changes. Though if you want my opinion, regardless of the kindled zeal change it still won’t be used. Its not that condition damage isn’t good rather guardian only has access to one condition: Burning. So investing in condition damage feels like a waste of investment.

Some possible changes would be: Power is converted to Vitality, Power is converted to healing power, Power is converted to toughness.

Searing Flames = Good change
Powerful Blades = Good change
Zealous’s Blade = Good change

The rest of the changes don’t seem like it will change guardian too much to be noticeable. I don’t want to go off subject to much, but it would of been great if spirit weapons were made viable. The traits are split through out 3 different trait lines, the spirit weapons themselves are lackluster aside from shield.

I always felt if they were made viable then guardian would have more damage options while wielding the hammer and sword. Even before the change that made them no longer invulnerable they sucked, after the change they were even worse.

Looking at the awesome art of guardian wielding spirit weapons makes me sad, because the class never really uses them due to how they are implemented.

Its probably more beneficial in wvw than it is in pve outside of the nightmare events.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Aza.2105:

Hey Colin,

I would like to see Anet address the insane particle effects.

I can never anticipate when to dodge the statue of dwayna attacks because of this. You can barely make out the enemy model. Particle effects are nice and all, but in gw2 they are overly done. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this issue in any mmorpg I’ve played.

Yeah we’ve done a number of steps already this year to improve it, but we have a long ways to go to get it cleaned up to the point we’re happy with. It’s something we’re continuing to work on for sure, but we’re focusing way more on game performance currently before we turn back to the FX side.

Sounds good, I’m glad your team acknowledges the issue. Also, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question.

Will we see client side performance improvement? I have a Amd 8350-FX, I seen absolutely no fps difference between my Radeon 6970 and Radeon R9 280×.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Until we get a report option for being AFK, I suggest just report them for botting.

So should players have to tolerate being undermanned? Why not add a /resign command like there was in gw1?

BurrTheKing.8571:

Why is everyone aiming their pitchforks at HS and BS?

HS is only worth using with soldiers gear due to the higher health pool and increased toughness. With Berserker gear Healing Surge is more useful.

Warriors has most of these trait and buffs before the healing and were still not viable. Their healing has to be good because they lack Protection, Stealth, Clones, etc.

I don’t believe I’ve seen a single warrior use healing surge since the healing signet buff. And my perspective on your statement in regards to the lack of protection, stealth and clones…..is warrior has a higher health pool and armor.

Guardian has protection to make up for low health, they do share the same armor as Warrior.

Mesmer has clones and Stealth to make up for having the lowest armor in the game but mid tier health.

Thief has stealth to make up for low lier health and med armor.

So there is some sort of balance there. Its just not that they didn’t give warrior those tools for no reason, if they had then something would have to give. Either warrior’s armor or health.

Rune of the Noble is wonderful for might stacking.

Bloodgruve.6038:

I’ve been running mace DPS in PvE for some time now. If my testing isn’t terribly inaccurate, Mace has the same if not higher DPS potential then Sword and GSword if Protectors Strike is triggered quickly for damage. A 7K PS strike is not uncommon for me in PvE. Its not the best on moving targets but if the group is stacked it does awesome. It also feels more like a ‘Guardian’ weapon.

Blood~

It doesn’t make sense to have higher dps potential than sword/gs, protectors strike is on a 15sec cd. And you have to wait for the enemy to hit you to activate it.

CMF.5461:

I really feel that mace could be our version of the defensive but heavy hitting weapon like the warrior hammer.

The potential burst of Protector’s and Faithful Strike back to back are easily 2 4k crits back to back, couple that with a smart weapon swap or a useful off hand (torch has good 1 hit burst, or even focus, but thats a long cooldown).

Greatsword is nice because multiple hits add up to big damage, but the chances of landing every one of those hits and having them all crit appropriately diminish the effectiveness. Same goes with scepter smite.

Single hit large damaging abilities are great and amazing burst, but as you mentioned harbinger, it is difficult to use and easily kited. Mace also relies on someone hitting you while channeling protector’s strike. I think it could use some tweeks but overall it has great potential.

I keep trying to juggle moderate healing power with good crit/crit damage with mace to make it a defensive but damaging weapon, but healing power/precision/power or healing power/precision/crit damage does not exists :p

Its too slow and sluggish to do anything. That is its primary problem and for what protectors strike does, it should do at least 2x the damage it does. Enemies should be punished when you land a counter attack, as it is now its the same as mighty blow but with a 4x cooldown.

The first two mace attacks are extremely slow. Symbol of Faith….why does it have a 1 second casting time? Even when symbol of wrath was our #2 skill for great sword, the cast time still was 1/4. Faithful strike’s wind up time is too slow, making it extremely hard to land the attack in pvp.

So here is what happens. You end up spamming auto attack and only landing the first two hits and using protectors strike. If you use symbol of faith you will lose out on damage and once its placed on the ground, enemies will just leave the circle.

Mace is in serious need of a revamp.

1. Symbol of Faith change the CD from 1sec —-—> 1/4 sec.
2. Faithful strike changed CD to 1/4 sec.
3. Protectors Strike double the base damage.

CMF.5461:

I’m kind of surprised people are still responding after a clear and definitive answer, including a information source link was provided by Aza (thanks Aza!)….. /boggled by others still posting opinions instead of reading what was already said.

Kind of on topic but turning it around:

So after noticing that, I was going through trying to find a way to utilize the burst potential.

Sequencing mace 3 -> Torch 4(secondary) -> Swap to Hammer -> Hammer 2 = 15-17k crits total

Or can combo mace auto attack flowing into mace 3 then hammer/hammer 2 if you don’t want to use torch.

Repeatable combo every 15 secocnds, and while you wait for weapon swap you can queue it up to combo that backwards with

hammer 2 -> mace swap -> mace 3 -> torch 4(secondary) or mace auto attack.

Now is it sustainable? Best option is probably meditations build for the crit/crit damage/medi heals.

Yea don’t worry about it. I’m not sure if there are a lot of people who know. Mace isn’t very popular so its really no surprise. I found out by accident when I was playing around with different builds. I noticed when I was fully buffed that protectors strike hit for the same damage as mighty blow. But when I looked at the tooltip, the damage didn’t add up.

I figured it was: The tooltip was wrong, Protector’s strike was bugged and doing too much damage or Protector’s strike had its own unique damage modifier that was undocumented.

Purging Flames skill fact is the exact same. 20% condition duration reduction, but the boon icon shows 33%.

It got a tool tip fixed, apparently it always did that damage its just the tooltip displayed the wrong amount. I noticed this too, but thought I was crazy when I would see the big numbers.

Protector’s Strike: Updated the damage skill fact to more accurately display the correct amount.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-October-15-2013/first#post3079024

Oxxy.7068:

There’s a saying in my country that says something along the lines of “the worst kind of blind is the one that doesn’t want to see”, that said, i hope you have fun in-game.

And how would you apply that saying?

spoj.9672:

Its not really subjective when its already been explained that you can get more survivability and more damage along with better group support by not taking 30 in valor. I dont understand why you are trying to argue against us. We were making valid explanations and alternatives and you seem to have a problem with that. This falls under the circumstance of forum stubborness and argueing for the sake of argueing. Anyone asking the same stuff ingame would actually be receptive to the advice given.

Its subjective since its only true for you and others who so happen to agree with you. You can pull out numbers in respect to how long it takes to finish a dungeon. But its irrelevant since its a self created goal. Gw2 dungeons aren’t on a timer, so creating a build that gets you through the dungeon as fast as possible means very little unless you as the individual cares.

If you feel I’m trying to argue then that is your problem not mine.

Oxxy.7068:

Aza.2105:

but so far the only thing you have proven about AH is that you personally aren’t a fan of it.

I sure hope you aren’t serious here.
Anyhow, i like the concept of AH, but there is no reason to pick it up instead of any other actually good traits.
Also, there’s something you misunderstood here: I’m not saying “OP can’t use AH because i said so”, what i did here was to show anyone reading this thread and interested in pve that there are way better options, i even posted an AH build earlier in case OP really wants to use it.
And while everything is viable, there’s a gap between doing AC in 10 minutes while not really caring about speed and spending 25 minutes trying to make it as fast as possible because your party is made of bearbows rangers, healways guardians and minion mancers necros.

No, I’m quite serious.

There are other alternatives to AH sure, better? Subjective. I’m sure you would do well in dungeons regardless of what gear and build you choose vs someone who doesn’t have any idea about the game mechanics but so happens to have the gear and build you run with.

What you mentioned about bearbow rangers etc seems like a issue with pugs. I personally don’t deal with pugs often, I’ve been playing with the same group of people for close to 4 years.

Oxxy.7068:

Not having to min-max doesn’t make AH any better at PvE. Plus, you’d spend 3 silvers re-specing for WvW.

I understand what you are trying to say, but so far the only thing you have proven about AH is that you personally aren’t a fan of it. There is nothing wrong with that, you have the choice, just like players have the choice to use it.

Even if they choose AH, it will have little effect on their pve experience. The biggest barrier is understanding the enemy and game mechanics. Once that is overcame then ones build has a very little effect on what can be achieved. There isn’t much in pve that pushes one to change up their build or gear.

spoj.9672:

pve is not competative so it doesnt matter!

Its not a debate about pve and pvp and being condescending towards players who enjoy pve. I have respect for players who like pve and pvp, there is nothing wrong with either.

My point is that there is nothing in gw2 that requires you to min-max anything, those are all goals created by oneself not something the game mechanics force you to do. The only barrier that exists is more so of a intellectual and observational barrier i.e the intelligence to know how to dodge and to see when to dodge.

Rednik.3809:

Change to sPvP only (since it’s ok for PvE and WvW).
Nerf regen by 1/3, buff heal on use by 50% and shave 5sec from CD. Bam, balanced.

You can already have healing signets cd 16secs by picking up the trait signet mastery. So you want the cd to be around 12-13 secs then? That would be overpowered.

So this debate is over……pve?

Brutaly.6257:

Its garbage and if people find it useful is more or less a sign that they arent aware of their options.

Playing with random cc in wvw/pvp is just bad, why? Well cc is used to mitigate damage or do damage and for a cc to be efficient at that you need to have control over when they hit so you can trigger them before your burst or prevent the enemy burst.

This is why instant cc, even with short duration, in other games are so powerful, they are on demand.

Revamp it!

They have revamped it twice and apparently the devs still aren’t seeing why it just isn’t good. RNG is never ever a good thing.

A good idea I read sometime ago was to change glacial heart to effect virtue of justice. Every 5 attacks (4 if you trait supreme justice) your attacks chill your target for two seconds. Give it a short ICD so things like hammer auto attack doesn’t permanently chill the target.

Regardless anything is better than what we have now.

Guardian Trait- Honor Line

Writ of Persistence does not work with the Hammer’s Symbol of Protection, Writ of Persistence tool tip states it adds 2 secs extra duration to symbols. This works for Symbol of Faith, Swiftness and Wrath but it does not work for Symbol of Protection.

Thanks!

LoneWolfie.1852:

When it comes to week 7 I wonder if it will be dejavu all over again. You guys must have fun (?) 2v1ing servers. Shows how much skill the servers have.

SoR got 2v1 hardcore from monday to about wednesday. Hence how they lost the weekend lead.

Sadly, I don’t think there is a way to prevent ganging up on one side.

Yaki.9563:

Doesn’t everyone stack in PvE? Seems to me that would make it easy to hit everyone with the cone. Situationally useful, nothing wrong with that.

Well the problem is not being able to tag allies with it. The problem with healing breeze is its by nature averse to guardian’s design.

CMF.5461:

This is the split personality from the mechanics of the game and the core of this profession at play here.

There are no “healers”. The group oriented healing will be weak, and you are better off with self oriented healing, stated so in their own interviews and game descriptions.

That said, we are supposed to be support/defensive, and since a lot of our abilities become group oriented, they are reduced in effect in order to not create the “healer” role.

So fine, we can support a little bit in the healing aspect, but for the most part everyone should worry about their own health….but then things like healing breeze never see use.

So how do they try to fix it? They make it heal allies more……….but we shouldn’t be healers?

So beyond the fact that the mechanics are backwards, and we should be upfront fighting and not behind our allies healing, it is also fulfilling a role that no one is supposed to take, and that is to pretend to be a dedicated healer.

Devil’s advocate here….we “could” use this ability while everyone in melee range is on one side of the fight, and we are on the other side of the target, thus healing through the target being hit….ok PvE maybe this works, PvP of course it ends up being pointless due to mobile fighting…among other things.

Clearly Guardian is a healer or can be. Orb of light (detonate), Empower, Healing Breeze, Virtue of Resolve, Battle Presence (for heals over time), Writ of the Merciful, Tome of Courage and Shield of Absorption (detonate). All of those heal allies substantially. How isn’t that considered being a healer? Support would be skills that reinforce allies like aoe stability, wall of reflection, shield of absorption etc.

Anet even said recently that they didn’t want a dedicated healer. But what do we have here? A dedicated healer, the only difference is the game mechanics do not require them.