Guild Wars 2

Azure.8412:

I’m pretty sure most Rallians, like myself, are happy that MERC went to JQ. The more fights the better.

…. And as an SoR you couldn’t fight merc when they were on BG? That logic….

Pechic.8406:

Bash calling them cheaters was just trolling I think you missed the smile there. And WvW have bugs and none of them are small. There is more bugs than in Living Story that is made every 2 weeks …

That was more directed towards the post that said to fix the game or ban them, even if meant as a joke, its fairly tasteless to say.

It is a bug. As was mentioned, Once the timer starts, it doesn’t seem to pay attention to points lost to decay. You have to actually go and stand on the point for a second once the timer starts. I could be wrong, but that seems to have been the issue when it happened a few time in my matchup. So please, just stop assuming someone is a cheater because of a small bug.

Pendragon.8735:

mistsim.2748:

but isn’t this what WvW needed? everyone was complaining about zergs. now you’re complaining about lack of zergs.

It’s actually not that hard to zerg this area still actually. The close proxmities of the ruins actually benefits higher population servers just like everything else in WvW.

They should have spread these out to the corners of the map I think to kind of stop the sort of steady stream of same players going back over and over to the same place on the map.

Say put one at the Ice worm, one where the quagg weather island was, one south of the centaur camp.

I guess my complaint is there isn’t a lot of tactical thinking or choices to make about the ruins, its just a place to send all the people that don’t care anything about the score, or overall wvw strategy. No logistics to it. Just run into the center and fight, and hope you have the most skirmishers around.

Except those that are trying to cap the nodes do care about points, mostly the points per stomp. Also it gives smaller guilds like mine an area to roam and contribute without balling up into the zerg. Also the proximity is nice as it gives the smaller groups a chance to run and grab camps and yaks as well, if they were scattered around the map it would be fairly pointless and honestly more likely to be zerged on a blob’s way to a point. Can they be zerged now? yes, but the issue is that by zerging the points, not only are you leaving your PPT spots open, but also leaving 4 other cap points open as well.

Also, one of the BIGGEST complaints regarding WvW was the lack of open field fighting. Too much sitting in towers/keeps with siege. Making an area dedicated to it was one of the best ideas Anet had, and I thank them for that from a small guild/roaming point of view. I do agree with the people complaining about the Bloodlust buff though. It works for my current match up due to even coverage and no snowballing, however for almost all the other match ups it is an issue. I would suggest they make the buff borderlands specific, with the points per stomp spread across all WvW.

akamon.2769:

so no one will help me test out the mega laser finisher? ; ))
c’mooon just me, myself and my mini quaggan/princess miya/or what have you depending on my mood. : ))

and for those who celebrate it (or not ; )))- happy mooncake day (mid-autumn festival and all variations of it)!

Sorry, done for the night, besides the finisher isn’t that good, SAB finisher is far cooler.

Ken.4065:

A BG guild named PLX
how did you get in a T2 tower while the gate still up???

There are these things called walls… and catapults, and sometimes when a catapult meets a wall, magic happens… But this is really a talk your parent should have with you

TheThiefMaster.3812:

Lol it’s funny seeing people claim that the only reason BG has been holding the bloodlust buff is because we zerged the new areas, I lost count of how many times our small roaming group had to run away from big Sor zergs trying to cap points in JQ BL last night.

Our Zerg hardly ever showed up there , at least not in JQ’s new area, it was small groups including us and RIOT that were taking and defending points last night and we had a hell of a time doing it I must say.

Its been the same way on BG BL, its nice seeing some of the smaller guilds come and do the points like intended, but I can’t count the amount of times 5-6 of us have had to book it due to zergs. (the pic is from shortly after the patch, but it has happened against both servers.

I have wanted to for a while, but my comp already is a piece of crap and A) I dont feel like slowing it down even more due to the recording and quality is going to be horrible because of it -.-

The BIGGEST issue with the old orbs (besides the freaking hacking) and the new bloodlust is the stacking. Make the kitten buff specific to a borderland, that way when the coverage issues start to show, and a server has to go down to 1-2Bls +EB they aren’t even worse off because they have no way to cover that extra BL’s buff.

I will say though, that I wish they could have brought orbs back in some way compared to this. The excitement of stealing an orb on an enemy BL was honestly one of the things I miss the most in WvW.

Yaki.9563:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Off hand sword my #1 request.

My #2 would be a shout that gives fury, might, and quickness.

I want a shout that heals all party members to full. On a 30s cooldown.

Im pretty sure he meant swiftness, no need to be a sarcastic jerk about it -.-

Ok, seriously Daecollo, your are trying way to hard…

Just a slight correction on what brutaly said, longer lasting symbols is actualy master tier, so if you wanted it you would need to switch off 2h mastery.

As far as having a 1h secondary build, wouldnt 10/30/0/30/0 be better? you get the extra damage increase of dodge, and also get the supports like EM or PoV. I ask simply because i really dont pve that often, mostly just WvW/sPvp when i can.

I think half the issue is the amount of survivability they have given classes, without requiring much investment. Conditions against a gaurdian can be dealt with, its the annoying “if you don’t invest in condition removal we win, if you do, you sacrificed enough that you cant kill me, so its a draw” issue.

Hunter.4783:

Yet none of these seem to make any difference to the “Bash guardian”! The audacity some people have….heh

/sigh love the attack regarding my apparent “OMG GUARDIANS ARE #1 ROAMERS LAWLS” that you seem to have picked out of thin air. I never said guardians are the best roamers, in one of my posts I said you have to be extremely aware of your current situation, and of that around you due to lack of escape, and in the other post I pointed out that you made a baseless statement essentially saying that any guardian that says they are good are only playing against “mediocre” players that are either up-leveled or not even wearing exotics.

Hunter.4783:

I have played both Chris’ and stunningstyles AH version of healway and I can tell you that the only players you will be able to kill are the mediocre ones. It goes without saying a S/D thief will tear you apart. So will a necro (they kitten everyone tbh) as well a mes.

Most videos display 1 sided fights vs non exotic/ascended opponents and give a wrong idea of the build and general status of this class. From roaming on my thief I can tell you guards are the next easiest thing after an ele to taking down

So we should take a random opinion that has no poof backing it up, against a possibly biased video. Yeah, sounds like a great idea :P

Kidding aside, it is a rather pointless and tasteless claim to say that everyone must fight mediocre enemies just because they win. Who is to say that you don’t on your thief? Your personal experience does not mean it is an absolute, if it worked that way then I could argue that I personally don’t have any issues with thieves, so therefore you must be play against mediocre people.

Relentliss.2170:

For a DPS spec, your best to find someone not quite at full health and then try to down them with Whirling Wrath and JI. Let’s face it not all servers are equal, if you play in Tier 1 you know that most people are pretty tanky and unless you get really lucky your not going to dps them down in any build. The PVT armorer in that tier is wore out from all the labor. Also, there are huge zergs roaming around all the time and avoiding them is pretty frustrating. And last I checked I didn’t have stealth. You’d have more fun joining the Mele train.

Step down to T2 and beyond and people are often a lot squishier and some of our DPS and hybird specs work. Playing on JQ and saying spec X Y Z won’t work because SoR and BG are all running tank builds is probably true. But drop down into T2 or beyond and a lot fo those builds work a lot better.

See, that isn’t a build issue though, thats an anti-blob issue. I have to agree that roaming isn’t that much fun in T1, but that is because 5 seconds into a good fight, the zerg comes rolling through. Annoyingly, it is something guardians have to deal with, but I think alot of it is really just situational awareness. knowing when/how to ditch a fight, and where to fight is alot more important to us because we don’t have things like stealth, and also require use of extra “mechanics” (bunnies) to move quickly. The only issue with fighting someone tanky, is the increased risk that comes with the amount of time it takes to kill them, not generally the actual difficulty of killing them, as most of the more tanky builds are going to be group designated anyways, and suffer if you catch them solo.

You have to actually cross the flames to cure multiple conditions. Not sure if it is a bug or intended.

That isn’t being bad at 1v1, its being bad at chasing…

the 5% on hit really seems to proc a decent amount in zerg fights, just because of all the aoe and random damage being thrown about. the only downside is that pack’s effect only lasts 5 seconds pre boon duration, where as something like citadel is alot nicer since its a full 30 second duration. But yeah, it does help, and is a free 1k heal with AH as well.

Jericho.4521:

Where is all this guardian whining coming from all the sudden? Is it warrior envy or something?

Ive always had a few things I would like to see changed on guardian, but there is some really random QQ coming from this thread for some reason. Guardians are still in a pretty decent spot, I think the issue is that we don’t really fit into the current condition bunker meta too well. But honestly, I cant see this trend lasting too much longer, necros got toned down, spirit rangers got hit this last patch. The only thing making warriors OP is their passive signet, which I wouldn’t be suprised if it got toned down too.

I think people really need to calm down and realize we are at a good fairly balanced (but still needing some slight fixes cough cough zeal) spot, and that some of the condition builds need to be toned down some.

Rigel.3092:

Is this a WvW small group and/or roam build? What Tier are you in? Your toughness levels concern me, armor value is decent. If I may, I am going to offer a much better build that is comparable to yours but its survivability is far more than yours.

Again, this is just an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad2oZjIuKX0&list=TLmtkx4Cl4NNQ

Read the OP, says right in there mid to large group fighting. Tier shouldn’t really matter as once numbers start going to 15+ there is not going to be any build difference between that and if you were fighting 60 people.

Also his build has plenty enough armor, I personally run around that much if not less and have no issue in large group fights. As for being comparable it really is not, his will have much better damage in trade for your survivability, however his active healing is also alot more than what the build you show has, so how much more survivability you have is really up for debate.

@Brafius:

No problem, as far as runes go I would stick with what you have, boon duration with EM/Staff is really good for team fights and also helps with hammer’s protection and any boons you give through blast finishers. If you really want to try some other runes out though I would suggest a few different ones that run a gambit of defensive and offensive styles. 6xMelandru’s for some added defense/condition duration/stun duration reduction, 6xHoelbrak for power, might duration and condition duration reduction, 6xPack for power/perc/chance to give fury/might/swiftness to allies (which will trigger 15 procs of AH total) Or 5x citadel + 1 orb for power/really good fury uptime. Honestly though, I would stick with what you have for now, since you said you are going to stick to mid/large group fighting.

looking at your build here would be my suggestions:

Food: if you are running larger groups, lemongrass all the way. the current condition meta is insane, and with our lower health pools, we really need all the condition removal we can get. if you are running small groups then omnom might be ok, but honestly your crit is a bit low to make the best out of it (it really works best with higher crit builds, just because of the ICD)

EM vs THM: EM all the way. 35%ish chance to heal you for 350 and the ability to keep up around 5-6 might stacks on allies is amazing. As much as I love THM, EM is just the better choice with your build in regards to survivability and group support.

Oil vs Stones + sigil: I would use stones and sigil of perception in your situation. Oil + perception would be too much crit, Oil + bloodlust wouldn’t be enough, So I think that stones + perception would be correct, especially with your possible might stacks.

Bonus tip!: Switch out signet of judgement for contemplation of purity. though the sigil is nice, and gives both aoe retail and weakness, you NEED some form of on demand condition removal outside of the passive ones, even more so when you end up screwing yourself with SY (which is going to happen at some point, as it does to all of us) And also for when your just get overloaded on conditions, because if you get stuck where all 3 of your passives are on their 10s cds, you are fairly screwed >.<

Christos de Soufre.3802:

People don’t rely enough on their weapons for mobility. Too much worrying about perma-swiftness and whatnot. I’m pretty sure that I won’t be able to find a use for these new runes. They’ll mostly be for people that can’t get used to taking advantage of leaps/teleports/weapon swapping to staff for their mobility.

As far as mid-combat goes, sPvP arenas are small and your ability to chase shouldn’t need more than mobile weapons to supplement it. Triple or double med is pretty popular there anyway, which often entails at least JI being on the bar. WvW-wise, SY and/or JI in conjunction with any combination of staff, GS, or sword should be sufficient.

The cost is just too high (in my opinion) to settle for such random stat distribution. The only thing these runes are good for are for running away or moving a little faster when you don’t want to run staff for getting around the map. There are better ways to get around being kited. Different weapon choices for one, or subbing in either SY or JI or something (I’ve never run Retreat on my bar for a fight and I still have superb combat mobility).

Random stats + 25% movement isn’t a fix, it’s a crutch. One that you give up either a lot of sustain or a lot of damage potential for. That said, I’m sure there are people who are willing to give up as much as they will for that crutch. Our mobility shouldn’t have to come from runes though. It should come from either traits, utilities, or weapon skills.

Plus, 25% movement speed isn’t going to save you from cripple, chill, or immobilize.

As I have said before, weapon mobility is great, but the issue is that everyone outside of mes/necro is most likely going to have some sort of swiftness, you can teleport to an enemy all you want, but when they run faster than you right off the bat, you might get 1-2 hits in before your out of range again. You know me well enough to know I try ALOT of builds, and nothing has kept me on a target better than being able to have swiftness, and with these runes, alot of people wont have to worry about it as much.

I doubt that nobody is going to use them, for me it allows me to actually move away from shouts for my mobility (finally no retreat!) however with the skyrocket of price, mostly because the stupid TP wouldn’t work for me when it went back up, I will have to save a fair share of gold just to try them out….

Considering no other movement speed bonuses stack, i doubt it, though it would make me cry a little if it did -.-

It is currently not available in Spvp, which is odd because it is just a redo of an already existing rune.

O.o well um… wow. boon duration, celestial stats, and move speed…. wow

Honestly. I do not really have an issue with the current re-specing method. It is pretty quick and painless compared to how other games used to be, and even easier with the waypoint system that lets you move to one almost instantly from any map.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|b.1g.h2.f.1g.h19|1.1g.h19|1n.74.1p.74.1n.74.1p.74.1n.74.1p.a1|4v.0.2v.0.3t.0.1p.61.1p.61.1c.61|0.u47b.a4.u29b.0|2e.1|w.18.19.17.1i|e

Insert 250 power and 80 toughness into the manual field for bloodlust stacks, and strength in numbers fix (since the calc is somewhat out of date)

This is the build I have been running lately for roaming, it has decent condition removal (1 every 10 sec on crit, and 2 every shout use.) but can also be customized to have more with soldier/hoelbrak/melandru runes, and also condition duration reduction food. Armor and health are also decent enough as well. The build is somewhat low in self healing compared to most meditation builds/healway, however the damage output i find is pretty high, and most of the times shelter/virtue use should be plenty enough.

Scepter is almost required to roam with this build, as I find it is really one of the only effective ways to deal with kiting classes like eles/engineers. Torch is great to keep burning up, and torch throw is also amazing single target damage. torch #5 should only be used if you are facing multiple enemies, or against anything stealth.

Because I always play some type of magical swordsman in every game I can. Be it Pally, Death/Dark knight, rune blade, battle mage, etc etc. Guardian is also the only character that I feel works with my play style, and also the only one that I felt I have really been able to master in a sense. Also, I played a ret pally in WoW since BC days… so damage guardian ahoy!

Ultimaistanza.4793:

Bash.7291:

Jubelum.3472:

Well if you’re looking for proof of a double team, here’s the first photo. It shows the Borderlands at 12AM PST a couple nights ago as it was 2 nights in a row. Notice the even distribution of EB and SoR BLs while JQ and BG have all their keeps and towers in their own BL.

I’m not angry that you double team us, I’m flattered that you double team us, I’m disappointed that you lie about it and act like it’s not coordinated.

Please don’t make me dig up old screen shots during NA time of the same thing happening to BG for an entire week. Your weak time is your weak time, That doesn’t mean coordination, it means both servers saw you as weak and went after you.

It’s a coordinated attack pure and simple. I mean, we’ve had guys get mistyped messages from Waha saying stuff like, “Sorry I took your Lake tower”(which is BG’s side). " Pugs keep attacking."

lol, please keep going, SoR forum trolls are really trying hard today I see.

Edit: Oh, just looked at your sig, explains why.

Stephen.9852:

It’s not a troll, once I get something tangible I might post it. Until then I guess complaining I get from JQ players about coordinating a 2v1 with BG is as much evidence as I’m going to get.

Also IRON + Waha stuff is their own business, afaik they arent even fighting each other full Strength ever? Makes that kind of drama go over my head to be fair.

As far as the community thing I really tried with JQ’s community, go to the forums there and read sometime.

So yeah, word of mouth… great evidence. I heard that Iron’s GL is actually Waha’s secret lover and that they just use the game as a place to let out their frustrations with each other. I mean, I heard it from some guy so it must be true right?

Jubelum.3472:

Well if you’re looking for proof of a double team, here’s the first photo. It shows the Borderlands at 12AM PST a couple nights ago as it was 2 nights in a row. Notice the even distribution of EB and SoR BLs while JQ and BG have all their keeps and towers in their own BL.

I’m not angry that you double team us, I’m flattered that you double team us, I’m disappointed that you lie about it and act like it’s not coordinated.

Please don’t make me dig up old screen shots during NA time of the same thing happening to BG for an entire week. Your weak time is your weak time, That doesn’t mean coordination, it means both servers saw you as weak and went after you.

I am curious to see this build… well at least the non asuran one! lol

Stephen.9852:

Robot Chocken.7012:

Sardonia.8196:

morrolan.9608:

FearedbytheGods.8617:

The WvW political climate has switched, JQ SEA focuses SoR now because of IRON trolls and other antics from SoR.

JQ and SoR did support one another at this time, but it is gone.

IRON has become a liability to SoR.

Whats funny is that by doing it Waha completely denies JQ the chance of winning the match up.

This is something I do not understand either. By 2vs1 BG, JQ would have a great chance at winning.

Waha is not denying JQ anything. ATM is doing the same thing that IRON can do to us. Nothing wrong with that on either side. SoR only targeting JQ is stopping us from having the chance to win. It is also stopping them at having a chance for the win as well.

You know that what JQ SEA is doing and what IRON are doing are completely different. JQ + BG are working together in tells to attain a 2v1 on SoR. IRON goes 1v1 against JQ in the time slot to make them pay for collusion until the matchup is back to 1v1v1 with 2v1’s relative to map dynamics on that specific map. Coordinating with other servers is cheese tactics, everytime ICoa would whisper WARD to 2v1 SoR on a map we would walk over and sucker punch ICoa straight in the mouth.

Anyways, the fights have been good this week. Maybe next week we can go back to the 1v1v1 and other time zones actually fight each other.

Anyone have any SS of these tells from eachside to coordinate 2v1s? It is amazing the depths that all of the forum trolls go to to try to ruin the name of one another without proof to back it up.

Aside from that, to any of the people i fought south side of SoR BL, GFs all, had a great time roaming today.

Edit: apparently he deleted his post, but whatever.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Without any points in condition damage burning is equal to roughly 8 stacks of bleeding.
burning 328/s
bleeding 42.5/stack/s

with 1000 points in condition damage:
burning 578/s
bleeding 92.5/stack/s
With slightly over 1000 in condition power 6 stacks of bleeding = burning in damage.

The three professions which are able to inflict massive bleed stacks quickly are:
thief (P/D)
warrior (e.g. dual swords, but certain rifle builds are also able to do that)
necromancer

Warrior can keep up that bleed stack as well (unless cleansed). But is the dual swords warrior really the overpowered build now? It has no protection, no aegis, not that much mobility nor burst. At least here in EU the mace/shield+greatsword warriors seem to be the flavor of the month. And sword/warhorn + hammer warrior is still the base of the zerg warrior.

Like I was trying to point out in my 1st long message. Every single build has some weakness. My current engineer is a heal bot. She can heal like no tomorrow, but burst can still take her down fast. So a guardian, which is built for dps and burst, can take her down. Remember no stability at all. But if you play a bunker guardian, as most seem to do, then of course a heal bot with tons of sustain and different types of damage (hybrid combination damage + condition damage) will slowly win the game. A typical altruistic healing bunker guardian has much more blocks, aegis, better access to protection and regeneration, higher armor etc. compared to my engineer build. Plus it also offers more team healing. A spirit or pet bunker ranger should also be in upper hand in most 1 vs 1 situations. A bunker guardian will can laugh at most thieves, but if aegis is down the burst from a full glass D/P or D/D thief can hit over 20k against 3k armor. Condition thief and perma evade sword thieves can also be really annoying to fight against. I would say the medium armor professions are at upper hand when it comes a typical pro zerg guardian bunker.

As you see everything is a trade off.

Just a note, Bleed on crit trait + sigil of earth with a decent crit with longbow on warrior will also give a good amount of bleeding and burn.

And who needs protection when you can do that with 3k+ armor 26K+ health, and 500+ healing per second without even grabbing any healing power from just signet and adrenal health. throw in shout heals or banner regen and yeah…

Martolly.2576:

play support and shut up.

condi is not an issue for any real guardian.

Thank you for your amazing insight, you are an amazing and insightful help to the guardian player base….

Deniara Devious.3948:

The fights turn to my favor, because my engineer can actually outheal the damage guardian can dish on me, as almost all WvWvW guardians are bunkers or semi-bunkers. A full zerker guardian would be dangerous as the burst can kill anything short of a full bunker in a flash, but those are rare as hen’s teeth.

You pointed out the exact point of this thread, and I don’t think you even got it. It is becoming extremely hard to run a DPS spec as a guardian due to conditions, thus we are being pushed back into the bunker builds again just to deal with it. Meanwhile, warriors who used to have the hardest time against condition builds are getting better condition removal from just one trait than we do in many.

Warriors are honestly living proof that guardians just need one more solid condition to be condition viable. Granted, warriors have a huge access to bleeds with bow and s/s, but even giving guardians something like torment on crit would make us extremely viable with conditions. For now we are just going to be stuck on the sidelines as pure group support bunkers, since our damage wont break the current meta of condition tanks due to the lack of ways to circumvent high armor/health regeneration. Either giving us conditions or a way to strip boons seems to be the only way i can see our damage builds having a chance of surviving anymore.

Pretty much agree. We might have some decent condition cleanse, but this is starting to get stupid. Between being forced into melee and soaking up everything that gets thrown at us without much room to avoid, and the insane amount of re-application condition builds have, it really is becoming an issue.

It also seems like the devs are hell bent in making things that give conditions to other classes and not to us. The new runes could only apply to a few of our skills, half of which have distinct animations, or are on long CDs. Outside of that we are still left with burning, which is just not enough.

Also keep in mind, there are other ways we can interrupt as well. Banish, Binding blade pull, Shield #5 Bane signet activation, also as was mentioned earlier certain racial skills like the asuran one that can dazy (cant remember the name) might also work as well. However, I think it is just like every other form of condition we can possibly get, a bit too far of a stretch to really base a build off of, and requires too much effort compared to a reguar build.

Well that makes sense now. I thought I had seen my shouts remove 3 conditions but I wasn’t sure if it was just a case of the other one just fell off or not. Guess it is a bug -.-

Knox.8962:

I think the best way to achieve that is by making the minor traits more generally useful for multiple types of builds.

Honestly, the only one that has minor traits that don’t fit in to all builds would be zeal. Radiance is useful since most guards use VoJ in some form, the valor Aegis traits are nice for a bit of self defense and might on block works well with any source of block such as shelter and focus #5. Honor’s vigor on crit works for any build for extra dodging, along with modifying those dodges to heal/cause you to do extra damage, and the virtue line minors also fit in well because, well people use virtues, and added bonuses to them are welcome. Overall the only trait line that has poor minors for other builds is zeal, because it forces a focus on weapons with symbols, which leaves out all offhands, and 2 1h weapons. And also they have a poor execution for them as well as I mentioned in past posts and in my overview of the traits.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Bash.7291:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Would it be less synergetic or even too linear or boring to condense traits, utilities, and weapons in to certain trait lines? i.e. Symbol traits go in to Honor and no where else. 1h traits in radiance. 2h traits in zeal. boons/virtues in Virtues. Defensive traits in Valor. Healing/Support traits in honor. etc

Not sure if this was meant for me or the other guy, but personally I think that each tree should have some specialization, but also have traits that can effect multiple aspects of gameplay for the class. Mesmer is a good example, Different trait lines have weapon traits, and seem to be more specialized towards that weapon. but there are also traits in multiple trees that effect phantasms, which are on every weapon. Some are more offensive in the more offensive trees, and then others are defensive in the defensive trees.

Another example is warrior, which has sword/GS traits in the same tree, Axe in another, but also has a generic speed increase when using melee weapons trait, that could benefit no matter what trees you are going into. I think we need some sort of specialization per trait line, but also the right amount of generic traits that could make sense to go say, 20 into a line for. Like my suggestion in radiance to add a chance for torment on crit, you could pick up inner fire at 10 for fury when burning, pick up torment on crit at 20, it the traits work well together, but at the same time you are not limited on weapons. If you wanted to specialize though, you could and go the full 30 for RHS. I think that the specialization of a tree really needs to come from the GM traits, where some of the lower ones can be specialized, but other fit into a general context of what the trait line is supposed to be about.

I think maybe what I am digging for is the ability to build, trait, and gear towards whatever I choose from options that Anet has provided for me. More personal touch to my playstyle then having to just accept unchangeable minor traits and what’s available to me. I could just be playing the wrong game lol

Yeah, I do not see that happening. the minors are almost all set to focus on one thing, zeal is symbols, radiance is VoJ, and a random GM one, valor is about aegis and blocking, honor is about dodges, and virtues is about… virtues >.> and a random boon GM. overall though they are very cohesive to one another, so I do not see them being able to be switched around at any given point.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Would it be less synergetic or even too linear or boring to condense traits, utilities, and weapons in to certain trait lines? i.e. Symbol traits go in to Honor and no where else. 1h traits in radiance. 2h traits in zeal. boons/virtues in Virtues. Defensive traits in Valor. Healing/Support traits in honor. etc

Not sure if this was meant for me or the other guy, but personally I think that each tree should have some specialization, but also have traits that can effect multiple aspects of gameplay for the class. Mesmer is a good example, Different trait lines have weapon traits, and seem to be more specialized towards that weapon. but there are also traits in multiple trees that effect phantasms, which are on every weapon. Some are more offensive in the more offensive trees, and then others are defensive in the defensive trees.

Another example is warrior, which has sword/GS traits in the same tree, Axe in another, but also has a generic speed increase when using melee weapons trait, that could benefit no matter what trees you are going into. I think we need some sort of specialization per trait line, but also the right amount of generic traits that could make sense to go say, 20 into a line for. Like my suggestion in radiance to add a chance for torment on crit, you could pick up inner fire at 10 for fury when burning, pick up torment on crit at 20, it the traits work well together, but at the same time you are not limited on weapons. If you wanted to specialize though, you could and go the full 30 for RHS. I think that the specialization of a tree really needs to come from the GM traits, where some of the lower ones can be specialized, but other fit into a general context of what the trait line is supposed to be about.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Exedore.6320:

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Vulnerability on symbols in Zeal is a perfectly fine mechanic, but the vulnerability applied needs to last considerably longer. I would say 3-4 seconds per application instead of the 1 second now.

Does the vulnerability stack per tick in the symbol?

If it was per tick and using your suggestion, we’d see around 4 stacks every 9-12 seconds and the hammer can consistently keep the vulnerability up. That’d be very helpful for hammer being a support oriented weapon but also being effective at damage.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbolic_Exposure

Currently each application of vulnerability does last for 3 seconds, however that means at any given time only 3 stacks of vulnerability can exist on something per symbol. (even if the symbol is a longer duration, the stacks will slowly fall off just like with the might stacks from EM.) at most, you can have 3 symbols up at a time leading to 9 stacks of vulnerability, but even that would require perfect execution of a casting symbol, switching to GS to use wrath, and then getting knocked below 25% health for Zealot’s speed to activate. Even though symbols are AoE and you could hit 5 people with vulnerability, the amount is almost completely moot due to the low duration and the fact that only 2 weapons can “spam” symbols.

Like Brutaly said, if it was like necro staff where one was up every few seconds, but every other skill on the staff was a symbol too, the traits could make more sense, but right now it is just a weak trait.

Brutaly.6257:

Personally i would like both empowering might and elusive power in zeal and have the symbol tratis in zeal to be moved to honor. This would radically improve the value of zeal and make it more suitable for other weapons than scepter/gs. And at the same time make symbolbuilds and area control a very valid option. Sure its a huge nerf to AH but that would be good for the profession. It would make more builds valid.

Honor has both health and healing power and symbols are about area control which demands sustain and hence why i think the symbol minors from zeal is more suited there.

Regarding the staff, i feel the same. And even more so after playing my power necro. That staff is just a work of wonder imo and when you have 4 symbols/marks on one weapon its justified to spread out the traits as they have done. I dont know how o fix it since i find it unrealistic that Anet would move all symbols to the staff which would justify todays spread out traits.

Elusive power is a bit of a tricky one for me. It fits the minors of honor perfectly, but at the same time, has nothing to do with the group mechanics of honor at all. I don’t personally think it would fit well in zeal either, because at that point you would have 20% damage (10 from fiery wrath, 10 from elusive power) in one trait line at any given time. I think just changing elusive power to something else might be a better idea, because honestly what is the point of having a personal damage buff in the group support trait line, other than to boost the already popular AH/EM builds.

As much as I hate it as well, I think you might be right regarding symbol traits. I love the idea of a split between offensive/defensive, but when larger and longer symbols are actually both, it kinda defeats the point of having them in two different trees. Honestly vuln on symbols can be dumped, since the trait was lackluster anyways, move symbolic power down to honor and change it so that when allies stand in symbols they do x% more damage? larger and longer symbols could be merged to make room for this trait as a master level.

See, I think the issue with moving shouts to valor is that valor is meant almost purely for self support/sustain, and almost anything that has to to with groups (which would be shouts) is in honor.

As far as weapon traits I think the current layout is:
Zeal: GS damage + effect /Scepter damage /focus CD
Radiance: 1h sword damage /Torch CD + effect/ 1h Crit
Valor: Hammer Effect /Mace Damage + stat boost / shield CD + stat boost
Honor: 2h Weapon CD
Virtues: None

You notice two things. There is no straight forward staff trait, and some of the traits make no sense being where they are. 2h mastery makes no sense in honor, scepter/focus make no sense in zeal, and hammer only feels like it is in valor because of the protection on symbol, but honestly that is the only real defensive thing about it.
Also, there is alot of difference between the weapon traits, as some are just Cds, some are effects, some are just damage, and some are a mix. It would be nice to have some more uniform sense of them, like how Mesmer weapon traits are, either stat + effect, or CD + effect.

Also I failed again at getting honor/virtues done, but some of the points you guys made gave me some new ideas, so expect some changes in what I have for zeal as well, Mostly trying to move weapon traits around to make zeal 2h and radiance 1h, also I have a question for you guys because its been bugging me and I cant decide on it.

Empowering might, any opinions on if it should go to zeal, radiance or stay in honor. It could make sense in all of them since zeal is about boosting damage, radiance is about crits, and honor is about group support, which EM falls under all of the criteria. However it would severely change the AH/EM build, and could possibly give way to much sustainability to a more dps spec. But yeah, any opinions.

Yay I can finally log in again. Just a quick update, will be posting honor/virtue today, as I am finally free to finish them.

ImagoX.4718:

Bash.7291:

See thats part of the issue right now, there is pretty much one build for dungeons, 0/x/30/30/x with zerkers gear. There is no real deviation from that at all in terms of effectiveness.

Says who? I dungeon-run with guildies typically, and the “anchor man” for the entire group is a Guardian running Cleric’s gear (not Zerker) with a spread of traits that encompass 4 of the 5 lines with only a Grandmaster ranking in Honor (along with 15 in Radiance, 20 in Zeal and only 5 in Virtues). I love playing in that group: we’ve always got tons of Might, symbols all over the place we can build off of and combo from, healing, the works.

I might not know everything, but I know enough about Guild Wars to say without hesitation that there’s no such thing as a single way to play ANY of the classes (only the best way that meshes with a particular player’s style).

I assumed that cpt was talking strictly about damage AH builds and not anchors, to which there is pretty much only one damage AH build. I should have said that more clearly in my post.

@cpt: What other damage builds are viable for guardian in pve dungeons? I run them infrequently so the only one i know of that most people are ok with are zerker ah/em builds. Almost every damage build is extremely selfish for us and for group orriented play are not very welcome to groups, except for anchors, which are not really there for damage