Guild Wars 2

Xaylin.1860:

It will probably help Shield and have some very nice synergies. However, I don’t really like it. Solely due to the reason that this would mean baseline Shield remaining underwhelming and literally forcing you to get the weapon trait to make it work. It shouldn’t be that way.

Pretty much this. A more interesting shield trait would be cool, but shield needs to be worth taking WITHOUT having to trait for it. Once we have good base shield skills, then having the trait reworked could be a worthwhile endeavor.

Renshu.5329:

Black Box.9312:

And with the stream today, it is confirmed that guardian will still be the only shield class without a block on their shield.

GG

As disappointing as it sounds, do you have a VOD link? I’d like to personally hear that the dream is dead from them.

They never definitively said that guardian’s shield won’t be changed, but it’s been nearly 3 years and the best we’ve gotten after consistent complaint is a paltry cooldown reduction. Even if they go through with improving the shield trait, the weapon should be able to stand on its own without having to trait for it, and it currently does not. As is, it’s hands down the worst weapon in the game.

adozu.6398:

oh hey cool, medi guards don’t even need to go out of combat to do that, impressive huh?

Except not really? Not sure where you’re getting that from. The best a medi guard can do is use meditations to heal, which comes at the cost of not having those meditations if you need to use them for their individual primary purposes.

Also a good player can bait a medi guard’s high cooldown skills, which adds counterplay. There’s no counterplay to running away and coming back with a reset health bar.

And with the stream today, it is confirmed that guardian will still be the only shield class without a block on their shield.

GG

creepmatic.9435:

Black Box.9312:

The thing with symbols is that they’re seemingly meant to be for guardians like what mesmers have with phantasms. Only problem is that unlike mesmers with phantasms, guardians don’t get a GUARANTEED symbol regardless of what weapon set they are using. Smite should be a symbol and I’d argue that sword 3 could be reworked to become a symbol skill so that there will be a symbol skill on every weapon set.

And no, pls don’t nerf the minor trait. It’ll help make up for the loss of crit chance that the radiance line currently provides through precision.

Please, no more symbols. Only because we finally got a GM trait in Zeal that will benefit our symbols greatly, that doesn’t mean we need to go kitten and put symbols on every freaking thing.

Why not? Maybe once we finally have some symbol consistency, they’ll realize just how stupid the concept of area-based attacks without CC are and give us tools to keep enemies in our symbols.

The thing with symbols is that they’re seemingly meant to be for guardians like what mesmers have with phantasms. Only problem is that unlike mesmers with phantasms, guardians don’t get a GUARANTEED symbol regardless of what weapon set they are using. Smite should be a symbol and I’d argue that sword 3 could be reworked to become a symbol skill so that there will be a symbol skill on every weapon set.

And no, pls don’t nerf the minor trait. It’ll help make up for the loss of crit chance that the radiance line currently provides through precision.

The reason why it’s annoying when people run away from you is because they can then go out of combat, full heal, and return to you and start another fight while all of your cooldowns are still up. It happens with warriors and thieves all the time and it’s incredibly obnoxious.

KrisHQ.4719:

Black Box.9312:

KrisHQ.4719:

I think you have some fair points. Nothing much to discuss in regards to your trait comments. However, making Tomes like kits? No. No. No.
Having more classes that can more or less spam their skills like Ele and Engineer is not the way to go.
I would much rather that the #5 and #4 skills were actually useful, and I believe they can be with a few tweaks.
For insance, “Light Of Deliverance” should have a much shorter cast time, especially since equipping the tome also has a cast time.
It is literally impossible to time that skill, since GW2 is rather fast paced.
But being in the dilemma “Do I use my Tome now and go for the heal or do I save for later?” is REALLY healthy for GW2, and in my opinion we need more of these decisions to make.
Atm people just spam their elites; popping signet of rage whenever off cooldown, Renewed Focus whenever taking dmg, using Entangle to cleanse conditions.
Doesn’t really feel like an elite..?

You wouldn’t be able to spam skills. The idea would be that you could access the tome at any time, however the tome’s sub-abilities would have higher cooldowns to compensate. That way you aren’t locked into the current all-or-nothing predicament that it currently faces, let alone the whole “being a transformation and eliminating your utilities and virtues” predicament they face in their current form.

But having to decide if now is the right time, what you call “all or nothing predicament” is extremely healthy for the game. The game is already way too fast paced, with classes more or less spamming their skills constantly. It’s always better just to spam your abilities, rather than wait for the right moment.
And yes, this a slight exaggeration, but my point still stands.

How exactly is that “healthy” for the game? It does nothing but create this sense of
“Is this skill worth using if I only need one of the 5 skills it provides?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll take a different skill instead.”

The goal is to make all skills worth taking in at least one common situation. When you lock these 5 good, but not elite-worthy skills behind a single larger cooldown, people are less inclined to take the larger skill because it feels much less worthwhile. The cost of taking it over another elite far outweighs the benefit, which is one of the main reasons why you see nearly EVERY guardian currently running Renewed Focus.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

SlayerSixx.5763:

For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.

Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.

The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.

Show me a single class that isn’t necro (because necro is easy to drop for a medi guard) that can spam cripple/chill or daze/stuns that you can’t just up and block/blind/dodge/invuln through. 90% of my time spent pvping was on my guard, and I’ve never had issues keeping up with people (especially with traveler runes).

As for the medi guard’s condi removals, how many do you honestly need :P? Most condi builds only have like 1-2 condi bombs to drop and the first one you could usually just tank through with your defenses. You don’t need to worry about stab when you could just up and avoid everything worth avoiding.

Ever been in a 1v1 with a good power necro that isn’t just playing because lol Lich Form? A good power necro that knows how to properly manage their death shroud is a tough matchup for a medi guard. Other notable mentions are engineers, d/d eles, and even a well-played mesmer.

As for the kiting issue, medi guards don’t have as much trouble against kiting in conquest because you’re fighting over a specific point. Take the fight to something like WvW where there’s no area contention and you’ll quickly see that any decent player that wants to play keep-away can do so rather easily.

KrisHQ.4719:

I think you have some fair points. Nothing much to discuss in regards to your trait comments. However, making Tomes like kits? No. No. No.
Having more classes that can more or less spam their skills like Ele and Engineer is not the way to go.
I would much rather that the #5 and #4 skills were actually useful, and I believe they can be with a few tweaks.
For insance, “Light Of Deliverance” should have a much shorter cast time, especially since equipping the tome also has a cast time.
It is literally impossible to time that skill, since GW2 is rather fast paced.
But being in the dilemma “Do I use my Tome now and go for the heal or do I save for later?” is REALLY healthy for GW2, and in my opinion we need more of these decisions to make.
Atm people just spam their elites; popping signet of rage whenever off cooldown, Renewed Focus whenever taking dmg, using Entangle to cleanse conditions.
Doesn’t really feel like an elite..?

You wouldn’t be able to spam skills. The idea would be that you could access the tome at any time, however the tome’s sub-abilities would have higher cooldowns to compensate. That way you aren’t locked into the current all-or-nothing predicament that it currently faces, let alone the whole “being a transformation and eliminating your utilities and virtues” predicament they face in their current form.

Kanashi.5104:

@Salamander @ Black Box

What Exedore is referring to is that these trait trees are no longer “Zeal is for DPS.” Yes the skills may increase damage but the point of going into this is to specialize into symbols and what seems to be condition scaling (burning). Technically, a bunker guardian could try running zeal so that he has better area denial on the point and attempt to whittle down his opponent with burns.

He could take more damage for symbols and rely on placement to makeup for the smaller area OR he could take writ and not worry about the placement as much, but also get longer buffs and more healing.

@Salamander

because none of the other Zeal symbol traits are good

This weakens your argument as you mention this several times. All because “you” don’t think the traits are good for your style of play doesn’t mean there isn’t a style of play. I’m not saying that as a way to call you out, but as an example as to what Exedore is trying to say. Having it in a different trait lines is similar to having AH and Monk’s focus in separate lines (not comparing potency). Those who want to go into symbols will most likely, note most likely, get both.

Regardless it all depends on style of play. The idea is to open up options for meaningful play, not B-line and stacked traits.

Keep up the discussion. This has been really great so far and I believe there are other traits we could look at as well. The more solid reasons behind these ideas the more likely they will leave in impact with any of the designers who frequent these boards.

One look at the current traits in Zeal will tell you that it is still going to be an offensive-oriented spec. People aren’t going to take Zeal if they’re running support because Honor and Virtues are both far superior in terms of overall benefit to support builds. If WoP were moved to Zeal, people would just give it up in favor of whatever else they can take from Honor/Virtues. The only people that would run symbols and take Zeal would be people that would better benefit from the +20% dmg trait, and thus they would not take WoP.

Exedore.6320:

TLDR: Writ of Persistence doesn’t really support all that well outside of PvE. By not making it mutually exclusive with other symbol traits, it creates a balance issue where it couldn’t be competitive with its peers in a major trait slot. Putting it in Zeal doesn’t prevent it from being used in conjunction with a supportive build, but allows better balance through mutual exclusion.

If you put it in Zeal, nobody will take it at all because the only symbol builds that will utilize Zeal will be DPS-oriented builds that will take the increased damage trait instead. Zeal has very little synergy as far as a support build is concerned, so it just doesn’t make sense to put a support-oriented trait there, even if it is supposedly the “designated” symbol spec.

KotCR.6024:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

3: Permeating Wrath. I think one of the dev’s mentioned changing it to burn around the target on VOJ proc ? If so you would have allot of very happy guardians.

You know, one of the niché (but IMO, incredibly useful) traits we are losing is Searing Flames. This would remove a Boon from a target upon Burn application. However, the trait doesn’t seem to have been rolled into any of the new traits.

I feel the new Permeating Wrath would be a good place to put it, helping it become a bit more competitive with it’s alternatives (as the Stunbreak+Stability new combined trait on Courage use is hard to compete with).

I noticed that as well, actually. Kind of sad, because all it really needed was a little bit of tweaking to make for a nice skill that provides some good counterplay against boon-heavy opponents.

Either way, the protection mace grants currently is incredibly unreliable, because it only procs if you can go a full 3 and a half seconds of channeling without getting hit by a single attack. Mace 3 really needs to be reworked to function like other weapon blocks, so that it only counters when in melee range and has a subskill that cancels the channel and provides a different bonus (in this case, protection without having to channel for so long).

Vizardlorde.8243:

Black Box.9312:

Pitman.9210:

This trait is just terrible gamedesign. When you think about stuff like that you need to look at how fun it is to play with it and, more importantly, how fun it is to play against it. If you can’t take it off you have to wait it out but the duration on some skills is really long. In addition the ‘+20% dmg while under aegis’ trait makes waiting it out even less viable.
Just triggering it means simply no counterplay. You could try to shoot something and dodge before it hits but thats just stupid.

Honestly, I’d argue the opposite. I’ve held the opinion that Unscathed Contender is the trait that’s counterintuitive, because it encourages the preserving of aegis when aegis is meant to be used to block an attack. Of course, UC is good for that initial burst, but as far as damage boosting traits go it’s not very reliable and shouldn’t really be counted as a boost to long term DPS.

I agree on long AoE heavy fights ( world bosses) UC is hard to maintain, but on shorter or more telegraphed fights UC can be maintained most of the time especially with retreat on a shorter cooldown .

That’s my point though. It’s really only good for initial bursts, and furthermore it counteracts the purpose of the aegis in the first place: to be USED to block an attack. It’s a counterintuitive trait, much like the current iteration of Berserker’s Power for warrior that is going to be scrapped in favor of a version that will reward the USE of burst skills.

Arken.3725:

I’ve always considered Guardians to be the Retal/Protection profession but it seems unless you run heavy into Virtues/shouts, you’ll essentially have none.

That’s the problem that’s essentially plagued the class since launch from a balancing standpoint. Defensive guardian builds were really powerful, so they balanced the class with the assumption that its access to protection, aegis, condition removal, etc. was baseline when in fact you actually had to invest quite heavily into defensive traits to be able to receive them.

Only now with the rise of the medi guard are we just getting past this stigma.

Pitman.9210:

This trait is just terrible gamedesign. When you think about stuff like that you need to look at how fun it is to play with it and, more importantly, how fun it is to play against it. If you can’t take it off you have to wait it out but the duration on some skills is really long. In addition the ‘+20% dmg while under aegis’ trait makes waiting it out even less viable.
Just triggering it means simply no counterplay. You could try to shoot something and dodge before it hits but thats just stupid.

Honestly, I’d argue the opposite. I’ve held the opinion that Unscathed Contender is the trait that’s counterintuitive, because it encourages the preserving of aegis when aegis is meant to be used to block an attack. Of course, UC is good for that initial burst, but as far as damage boosting traits go it’s not very reliable and shouldn’t really be counted as a boost to long term DPS.

Retal traits need to be given another look. Nobody is going to take 3s of retaliation after using a 30s+ cooldown heal skill over fury when striking a burning target or RHS. It’s kind of pathetic that guardians are supposed to be the flagship retaliation class, and yet warriors are the ones getting 50% uptime on it when they block or receive a critical hit while we get traits that give it to us for a paltry 3 seconds.

Skills that proc via trait are independent of the skills on your skillbar. So yes, those skills will activate even if you don’t have them equipped, and you will be able to use the actual skills alongside them. The reason why Anet seems to be moving toward the trend of having traits activate skills rather than just having certain effects is so that they can better synergize with other traits, meaning that if you have both Smiter’s Boon and Monk’s Focus equipped, healing will grant you an extra 2k heal and fury alongside your base heal, as opposed to JUST removing a condition.

Jerus.4350:

Saiyan.1704:

They basically changed 10% sword increase damage to a 10% if you have retaliation. The upside is this 10% is for all your attacks, not just sword. Regardless, I rather like this change since Virtues line and GS + Stand Your Ground will give us all the retaliation uptime we could ask for.

If you look at it that way this change is a necessary buff.

Which is why it does nothing to help Sword’s position within our setups. Sword needs a sword specific trait that can keep up with the boosts other weapons got.

Sword already has the highest DPS autoattack rotation of all guardian weapons. It doesn’t need a damage trait specifically geared for it.

Honestly, Hallowed Ground and Sanctuary both have cooldowns way too high to be worth taking IMO. Just run SYG as your third skill and you should be good.

Pitman.9210:

Don’t forget that shield 5 is used in the res trait. Changing it would ruin the trait

Honestly, the biggest problem with shield 5 is just the fact that it’s channeled. Take that away, and it’s a pretty solid ability.

Shield 4, though, definitely should be scrapped and remade, hopefully with some sort of actual BLOCK included.

DroidDreamer.2861:

A one-time AOE application of Aegis by Shield in WvW? Kinda like pee’ing in the ocean: feels good but doesn’t make much difference.

Unless Shield is going to be pulsing out repeated applications of Aegis, that would be very underwhelming. Meanwhile Focus — which is already better than Shield at Blocking — gets a trained application of AOE Protection (5 seconds) each time a Focus skill is used. I get that this stuff is in development and subject to change but what’s going on? When will Shield occupy it’s rightful place as a desireable defensive offhand?

I also agree with those who note that Strength in Numbers is far better than the Shield trait, especially if a team-support Guardian must choose one over the other.

I’ve been running my Warrior lately and it’s amazing how much better Warhorn is by comparison to Shield but you don’t need to leave the class to see that Guardian Shield is underpowered.

Not to undermine your argument at all, but I think the focus trait will be protection only for the user, and not for nearby allies.

Even so, that trait still seems like it’ll do a great job of making shield feel even more terrible by comparison.

Noah.4756:

Coldtart.4785:

I’m surprised how little people seem to be talking about wrath of justice especially given all the bellyaching going on about the loss of glacial heart. Adding immob to your next attack with an instant cast is incredibly useful. It’s like panic strikes from thief but you can actually control when it goes off.

I can definitely see the use of Wrath of Justice in PvP. Although for now I am going to be skeptical about the internal cooldown of this trait. They didn’t show the ICD, did they? In some situations, without ICD, you could even get multiple immobilizes in combination with Renewed Focus, Renewed Justice, scepter’s Chain’s of Light and the signet. That’s a lot of hard CC there.

I believe it’s 30s ICD, which may be lowered to 24 if you were to take the signet trait as well (which people probably won’t, to be honest). Good for the beginning of a fight, but since your VoJ will be off cooldown before the trait it might end up being difficult to use mid-fight.

Aeolus.3615:

does that mean that all classes come with % stats from traits already packed, and then trait mastery will had the rest?

No. Just your profession mechanic cooldown. So for guardian, your virtues (F1, F2, F3) will default to having 15% shorter cooldowns each. Likewise for elementalists, their attunement recharge will be slightly shorter, thief’s steal will be on a lower cooldown, etc. It doesn’t actually affect any stats at all.

Profession mechanic cooldown reduction is receiving the first 15% as baseline and the other 15% as part of one of the minor traits of the respective traitline.

So specifically speaking for guardian, your virtues will now come packed with a 15% shorter cooldown by default, and you’ll gain another 15% if you take the virtues spec.

Arken.3725:

Again Xhyros, this is only significant in PVE where your targets are mindless botsa standing in whatever you throw. Landing symbols on a top-tier player is incredibly hard and even if you do, it lasts less than a second.

That’s why you take the new immobilize on VoJ active trait. That should work wonders for GS builds especially.

guardian.6489:

Monk’s Focus builds got buff with the new Smiter’s boon which essentially gives one more mediation in the healing slot and one more condition removing skill.

One thing I noticed is that for this it says “healing ability” whereas every other healing skill-based trait specifically says “heal skill”.

Makes me wonder if maybe it’ll proc with any sort of active healing?

I think they just need to up the duration of the retal-based traits in general. Healer’s Retribution in Radiance is 3 seconds of retal on heal skill use. Considering that the best we’ll get is a 24 sec cooldown heal skill, that’s not really worth taking over the other two options in any situation.

The shield trait as it is grants 180 toughness to the guardian while shield is out. It’s also currently in direct competition with Strength in Numbers, which grants a bonus 150 toughness to the guardian as well as nearby allies for the FULL duration of combat.

They HAVE to buff the shield trait. People aren’t going to take it for the cooldown reduction alone because shield is already lackluster as it is.

Lucentfir.7430:

Black Box.9312:

I wonder how you’d be able to throw the Zealot’s Flame from the trait though… Maybe it’d be F4?

But I think the immobilize on VoJ active hit will be really nice, particularly for GS builds that need that CC to take advantage of the new symbol traits.

I just hope they don’t nerf the actual weapon torch throw skill because throws in Zerker gear can hit over 5-6k.

They often split the coefficients between trait-proc skills and the skills themselves, so even if this were the case I don’t think you’ll have to worry about a nerf to the actual torch skill.

I wonder how you’d be able to throw the Zealot’s Flame from the trait though… Maybe it’d be F4?

But I think the immobilize on VoJ active hit will be really nice, particularly for GS builds that need that CC to take advantage of the new symbol traits.

Nikkinella.8254:

This seems like a massive buff to me. Can’t wait to melt people that are dumb enough to stand in my symbols hahahaha!

That symbol trait plus the immobilize on VoJ active should work wonders for GS builds. I might actually have to put Eternity back on my guardian.

Westwater.1095:

Ragnarox.9601:

If you didnt noticed they are removing atributes from traits so you are losing 6k vitality if you are vitality heavy…so what..guardians will be running around with 12k hp? You are joking if you are thinking this are good changes. Some of trait changes are good yes it needed to be that way in the first place. Simbols are buffed but everything else sucks. You will be oneshotted by thieves and eles while they slam you with poisons weaknesses and all increased dmg crits etc.

You put more than 2 points into Honor? Why would you build that in PvE? I’ve only had 12K health for like a year now.

4 points in Honor is often taken for extended symbol duration for hammer/mace builds, which are frequently used in high level fractals.

Oh my jebus. I think my faith in guardian may have been restored.

Hunter.4783:

Never ever ever use torch in PVP, especially as medi.

Torch is fine in PvP on a medi build. You just have to be good with it.

At this point I agree, honestly. Although to be fair, the damage itself is fine; the problem is not being able to apply it to a mobile target.

Gorath.5076:

Black Box.9312:

Drennon.7190:

It’s purely ascetics for me. I really don’t enjoy the play style anymore, but it’s hard to walk away from something that I’ve already dedicated so much time to.

It’s kind of this for me too, sadly. I love playing the battlemage archetype, and guardian fits it so well. It’s just such a shame that the class is slowly being left behind as the balance (slowly) iterates.

I do not want to spark a debate over the viability of Guardians, but can you elaborate on that?
I am currently running a Medi DPS variant (GS + S/F with damage traits) and whenever I lose a 1 v 1 i am pretty sure:
it’s because I am just a bad player. I never feel powerless or extradited, but have plenty of tools at my hands to react to any opponent I face in sPvP or WvW.
So I am convinced that Guardians currently are quite strong tbh!

Medi guard is terrible against anyone that can kite. It’s also pretty bad against sustained condi pressure. Combine the two (i.e. engineer) and you’re little more than a sitting duck.

Amins.3710:

Common now, we all know our specialization is going to be either in Signets or Spirit Weapons… cuz they’re kitten’n AWESOME

Actually to be fair, spirit weapons could very well become viable with this change, since the traits will hopefully be condensed enough that you’ll be able to invest in a bit of survivability alongside it.

If this is what guardian is going to become then I’ll gladly bow out. Like the idea behind specializations streamlining traits and fleshing out build definition, but shoutbow is already a thing and it’s already incredibly boring.

Here’s to hoping that warrior gets the shout elite spec instead.

Supreme.3164:

-Me? I have just used my surprise burst, now have to wait at least 30s for a full burst..meanwhile med guardian can advance with easy, having huge dmg coefficients even on the auto-attack be it GS or hammer.

I stopped reading here. If you’re playing an ele and you’re complaining about guardian skills having huge damage coefficients, you need to turn off the computer and take a walk outside.

Drennon.7190:

It’s purely ascetics for me. I really don’t enjoy the play style anymore, but it’s hard to walk away from something that I’ve already dedicated so much time to.

It’s kind of this for me too, sadly. I love playing the battlemage archetype, and guardian fits it so well. It’s just such a shame that the class is slowly being left behind as the balance (slowly) iterates.

Titanimite.2534:

Guardian having low hp? Nice joke, while they have low “sheet” HP they have very high “effective” HP. With the built-in regen, blocks, invuln, blinds, cc etc. They are actually one of the most tanky classes when played right even going full Medi DPS in PvP and PvE.

From my experience, Guardian will survive longer than a Warrior with a comparable spec everytime.

And yet shoutbow warrior is meta and bunker guardian is not.

Food for thought.

King Noob IV.3560:

Ragnarox.9601:

They gave us trait which increase vitality by 300. But only if you go heavy into vitality line. It’s some kind of compensation by them but it is really bad….

kidding me the vitality line is great

It’s great if you want to build as a shout bunker. It’s not nearly as great for the DPS guardian players who asked for such a trait in the first place.

Booms.3952:

Black Box.9312:

I feel like the people saying “l2p” are probably low skill players on low skill servers.

thats what you are to me and I think people who cant make guardian work in roaming should l2p

You can make it work, but it’s not good at it. Hardly a l2p issue.

And for the record, I don’t give two kittens what you think of me. No thanks to that bait.

I feel like the people saying “l2p” are probably low skill players on low skill servers.

tanshiniza.8629:

Black Box.9312:

Honestly, my advice would be to not run GS. It’s really pretty lackluster in WvW since it’s really only good for point control, and without a point to fight over people can simply run away from it. My preferred setup is to run a sword/scepter build with 6 in Radiance. RHS in Radiance allows me to forego extra precision in favor of vitality with Valkyrie gear, and sword and scepter provide a more mobile source of damage than GS.

Greatsword is great as it has a leap that doesn’t require you to have a target like the teleporting skills. I often use it to disengage and really couldn’t see myself doing WvW without it.

I’d rather have two weapons that can hit a moving target so I don’t have to worry about disengaging as much.

Because unlike in PvE, other players in PvP will actually react to what you do and require you to actually be able to adapt to unpredictable situations.

tanshiniza.8629:

You’ll always want 6 points in Valor (at level 80) as it is our best skill tree without a doubt.

That’s kind of bad advice, IMO. Valor is good in PvP, but in PvE taking any more than 2 points in it is strongly discouraged.

Honestly, my advice would be to not run GS. It’s really pretty lackluster in WvW since it’s really only good for point control, and without a point to fight over people can simply run away from it. My preferred setup is to run a sword/scepter build with 6 in Radiance. RHS in Radiance allows me to forego extra precision in favor of vitality with Valkyrie gear, and sword and scepter provide a more mobile source of damage than GS.