Guild Wars 2

Excellent changes.

Might i add:

Sword
#2 remove the short freeze after you blinked so you keep up with the pace.
#3 usable while moving

Hammer
#2 Increase range. If that is considered OP add in ground targeting (increasing skill floor) and proper boost to range.

Torch
#5 Remove targeting and make it a proper AOE in a cone in front of the guardian (you can just strafe to avoid it atm)
#5 Cleanse conditions from the guardian as well.

Staff
0s cd on #2 effectively making it #1. Increase orb speed and damage/healing. Remove the “second” effect.
3s cd on #1 effectively making it #2 and increase damage with 200% and 2s burn to each target hit.

Traits
Place all symbol traits in the same line

Ofc they should get adjusted in WvW as well.

The issue is that the passive is stronger than the active and doesnt promote using them.

Its just so messed up that they are so much better in DH compared to vanilla. Its one of the main reason dh is prefered over vanilla. They have better impact in addition to the improved functionality of unblockable cc, frontal bubble and huge healing AND added mobility and lowered cool downs.

Just adjust the cd to pvp level and make it the same in DH and vanilla.
Increase burn duration on justice
Increase healing on resolve with, not just the active but the passive as well which is needed in both pvp and wvw.
Remove aegis and add a boon that actually is useful in wvw and add 25% movement on the passive.
Make a trait that makes all elites reset virtues and remove that from Renewed Focus.

After that reduce the healing from monks focus and voila, we got more build diversity.

Its so kittened that all competitive builds has meditations/DH in them, its pure failure.

Good changes imo, the only bad thing is that those changes is desperately needed in wvw as well. I wonder why they didnt introduce them in the entire game?

The amulet isnt and option imo but the runes can be a bit interesting, are those in pvp only as well?

Mikhael.2391:

Humm maybe yeah. also i would like some changes in the hammer trait. Maybe domethi g diferent from the chill?

1:st i would like it in an other traitline, that is the important part imo.

Second i could actually see that the trait would apply burn on everý third hit, including SoP. That would make it so it has lots of synergy with other traits and trait lines and open up some build diversity in both pve and pvp/wvw.

Or why not bleed so we would have access over time to a reliable cover condi.

Mikhael.2391:

Brutaly.6257:

1. Remove one tick from SoP and adjust the casting (and dps) of step three in the chain to maintain overall damage.
2. Increase range on mighty blow .
3. lower the speed on Zealots embrace to what it was before but increase damage so its a part of a damage rotation in pve and a burst rotation in pvp.
4.Increase damage and make it two/three opponents. Making it more valid in pvp and making it a part of a burst/dps in rotation in pvp/pve.
5. Make it possible to move while casting ring of warding and make it a fire field.

Imo this would make the weapon up to date and more fun to play.

Also lower cd on RoW and Banish. Those are crazy long cool downs (RoW especially) considering that the amount of stability has increased greatly. This is a flaw many guardian skills have, the cool downs are not in relation with the impact of the skill. Imo no weapon skill should have more than 15s cd. Its just boring to swap to a weapon and find only 3 skills (one of them is the chain) being off cd. I think its counter intuitive to the weapon swapping concept.

I like your ideas m8 but those seems like near perfect changes that wont happen ever unfortunatly. I think the increase damage on 3 and 4 would have to be very small otherwise every hit from hammer would be big.

It depends on the reduction on the chain. My point is to maintain overall damage (DPS) on the weapon but incorporate more skills (and skill) in order to achieve it.

To be honest, chain MB, ZE, Banish and RoW as skills are very telegraphed and i can actually see a slight DPS increase in the weapon if the player had to use 4 skills to achieve it. This would increase burst in pvp and also making it more fun in pve and at the same time force the palyer to swap to an other weapon (in pve) in order to maintain dps, given that som damage was distributed from the chain into skill 2-4.

1. Remove one tick from SoP and adjust the casting (and dps) of step three in the chain to maintain overall damage.
2. Increase range on mighty blow .
3. lower the speed on Zealots embrace to what it was before but increase damage so its a part of a damage rotation in pve and a burst rotation in pvp.
4.Increase damage and make it two/three opponents. Making it more valid in pvp and making it a part of a burst/dps in rotation in pvp/pve.
5. Make it possible to move while casting ring of warding and make it a fire field.

Imo this would make the weapon up to date and more fun to play.

Also lower cd on RoW and Banish. Those are crazy long cool downs (RoW especially) considering that the amount of stability has increased greatly. This is a flaw many guardian skills have, the cool downs are not in relation with the impact of the skill. Imo no weapon skill should have more than 15s cd. Its just boring to swap to a weapon and find only 3 skills (one of them is the chain) being off cd. I think its counter intuitive to the weapon swapping concept.

I was hoping for changes to stuff that actually increased build diversity not improvement to more meditations.

My hopes were more like:
Superior aria removes two conditions
Superior aria heals allies for x amount and scales 1 to 1 with healing power
Cool down is reduced on most of the shouts and boon duration adjusted accordingly.
Altruistic healing now also heals allies
Third step of hammer auto has reduced casting time and one procc from SoP is removed to keep dps at the same level as previous.
Mighty blow is ground targeted and has increased range.
Banish and zealots embrace has increased damage so they now fit into a damage rotation in pve.
Ring of warding is now a firefield and the guardian can move while casting RoW
Skill 1 and 2 on staff has now switched places and both have 0s cool down. Wave of Wrath also can be charged by holding the mouse button pressed and the longer you keep it pressed the more damage it will make and the longer the cd. The increase is progressive so holding the button over time will increase overall dps.
Empower can be used while moving
Line of warding is now a firefield.
Glacial heart is moved to valor
The reduced cooldowns introduced on virtues is now moved from DH and made innate
All symbols can now be casted while moving.
Signet of Courage now heals every second and cool down is reduced by 100%. The skill also scales much better with healing power.
Perfect Inscription also grants the guardian the passives from signets even if the signet is on cool down.

Spiritweapons are now stances that grants allies a permanent buff depending on the weapon the guardian has activated it also grants a small extra buff when activated.
Using an other utility skill removes the buff from the spirit weapon and puts the spirit weapon on cool down.

The buffs are:
Increased power and condition damage (10%)
Regeneration (200hps)
Clears a condition on a set time intervall (one each 5 second)
Reduces incoming damage (10%)
All spirit weapons effects stack with signets passive effects.
Changing spirit weapon is instant and puts the stance on 12 sec cd
Expeditious Spirit reduces the cooldown and also makes activating spirit weapons stunbreakers and clears one condition.

These changes would open up a lot of build diversity but tbh i have stopped thinking anything but meditations in guardian will ever be viable/competitive.

Imo it would be much better to add 5 sec resistance (team wide) to feel my wrath.

And/or adding 3s resistance (and a reduction to the cool down) to the guardian to SyS which would make that skill usable.

Renewed focus is the best/most commonly used elite we have so making it stronger would just reduce the build diversity even further.

Tbh i dont understand that we even consider suggesting changes to meta skills when its the trash we need fixed. Shouts, signets, sw and consecrations need a remake and they need it badly.

@emkelly

Anet stated a long time ago two important things about the guardian:

1. They are supposed to be the best profession at area control, at least anet “gave” this ability, when they described the different professions, solely to the guardian.
2. Virtues were ment to be powerful when used and active use would mean that you lose the passive. The guardian should be encouraged to actively use the virtues.

Until DH was released none of the above was true.
We were terrible at area control due to lack of utility and weapons skills that actually gave area control. I played necro when i wanted area control.
The virtues were weak and in some cases not even worth using. In some builds the passive was much more powerful compared to the active.

DH gave the guardian the ability to actually being played as the profession was ment to be played according to anets vision for the profession.

The thing is that those things should be in the vanilla guardian and not in DH. The problem isnt DH, its actually the guardian. Imo they should move the virtues upgrades and make them available for the entire profession and instead use the stances that was available in closed beta as the virtues upgrade in DH. So in some sense i do agree with you but the problem isnt that DH is to powerful, its that the base guardian is to weak.

We can agree on that if the profession is played to its max and with the best effect for team success no one uses more than two traps, so why even bring up a trapper build that has zero impact in team play but gets away with some cheesy kills in point.

Personally i just think traps are boring in their design and i must say when i see a bunch of guardians in the opposing team i just swap profession and deal with it. My condi/shout warrior eats guardians for breakfast no matter what spec they are using and i do it on the point filled with traps. I just have to wait a couple of seconds before i place my massive kitten on the point.

emkelly.2371:

DH is poorly designed (like all Elite specializations), and because of the way it’s designed, it is specifically overpowered in SPVP, no where else.

Not entirely correct- Its over powered in
-Low level pvp
and
-with opponents with low skill level
and/or
-when classes are stacked in low level pvp.

In general i agree but the issue is that this would further improve the meta symbolic build and weakening one of the optional builds, namely AH-builds.

AH-builds actually are sort of viable due to how symbols do work, reapplying boons over time and trigger AH on each application.

What should be done is that the boonapplication should be self centered around the player instead tied to the symbo location and also add the range on the boons to about 450. Ofc applying boons over time just like symbol do atm.

This would not just improve the symbol in all types of builds but also improve other builds more than the current meta symbolic/medi build and it would be a boost to AH in particular.

EDIT
Hell just make the symbols to be tied to the player instead of ground targeted and they would also do the job they are supposed to do, make the guardian a viable “area controller”

Ghotistyx.6942:

lots of good stuff

What Ghoistyx writes pretty much sums it up.

Meditations are atm both our bunker, dps and support build.

So just decrease cooldowns on shouts, lets say no shout should have more than 30 sec cd and add 3s resistance to SyS so that shout can be used in condi heavy environments like it was supposed to be used.

Add in 2 condi removal and a 1k aoe heal on pure of voice that scales 1/1 with healing power and it would actually be our go to build for support and bunkerish gameplay.

Meditations woiuld still be supreme in dps builds and “selfish” builds and would also be the choice in symbolic builds due to the symbol trait position in honor. PoV cant be used in a symbolic build.

Every time i play my warrior i think that this is how shouts should work and just adding 1k heals to guardians shout wouldnt replace the shout warrior since they can have higher aoe heal with no healing power what so ever.

I think 2 condis and a 1k heal and the shouts having 20-24 s cd with pure of voice wouldnt be unbalanced at all.

And most of all it would give us a build with 100% uptime on swiftness with two shouts and offer a very fun gameplay that is close to 100% support.

Spartacus.3192:

I’d rather they make the Pure Of Voice trait make shouts convert 2 conditions to boons instead of 1. That would give more build variety and make Shout guard with trooper runes more fun.

This and a 1k aoe heal when using a shout. If the heal scaled well, like in selfless daring, there would be a very valid bunker /support option for pretty much all game modes. Full cleric and remove 3 conditions with each shout and 2k aoe heal. That is something i really would enjoy playing as a support centric guardian.

Josh Davis.6015:

Nabbo.2845:

Josh Davis.6015:

We’ll look into this.

Could Mace 3 block more than just one attack before it triggers? With the current amount of things flying around it’s entirely useless as a defense mechanism. Or at least give it a duration (.75-1 sec block) with the ability to trigger a counter attack while it’s still casting

I agree that it could some love. We’ve already got it on our list for investigation.

It would be very rewarding to see that list considering that the players list is like 60-70 items long on this outdated profession.

It could be a good thing exchanging notes so we know what to expect in the future.

I concur! Instead of palying a pretend game just remove the stuff that isnt used.

Add in signets, shouts and consecrations while you are at it. They are all for gimmick and “incompetence builds”. Btw you can do the same with approx 70% of our traits as well. You probably got the numbers, just act on them.

I am all open for helping out with needed changes but i am just tired of trying to suggest stuff when nothing really happens.

Now i am off to “The division”.

I actually played solo roaming with a hammer/lb build yesterday using 2 traps and 4 shouts without a single point in valor. I went for my celestial armor with rune of the trooper and used sigil of blood/energy in the bow and energy/perception in the hammer and omnom food for life steal.

I invested in honor, virtues and dh.

And i can say i didnt lose out on one single encounter where i wasnt out numbered.

Will swap my armor if i get the resources to convert my condi armor to some thing with power/precision/healing power.

Will work some more on this and optimize the stats but also try to get some soft cc in since main issue is people getting away from me.

Might swap the hammer for gs to get a gapcloser and/or swap in judges intervention.

Its a good build though and playable.

We were a bunch that explored life steal build a long time back and didnt get them to be competitive but the long bow offers a very different playstyle compared to the core guardian and it might be possible that this playstyle can benefit from life steal builds.

@Viralseed
lol, its was reading skills that were lacking, sorry.

I dont think they have a clue regarding the state of the shout or any other utility for that matter. The constant (relative) buffing of medis shows that.

SyS has poor synergy with traits, its the worst shout for AH builds and it offers no boon conversion from PoV.

It has the longest cool downs of our shouts.

From a boon perspective it gives less total uptime on boons compared to our other shouts when in a group situation.

It doesnt remove conditions, just transfer them to the player with the lowest healthpool. Its more or less a mind game, lets move the conditions and render the guardian useless. Its just bad design and especially in the current state of conditions.

They could add stability, quickness and resistance and still it wouldnt be that powerful. It would still have less heals from AH, it would still not convert to boons but now at least it would remove some of the condi pressure.

If it becomes to powerful why not make it the elite and boost it so it get on pair with shelter.

What needs to be done to our shouts is that pure of voice needs to be stronger. Imo removing 2 conditions, a 1k aoe heal and reduced cd would make it a contender to medis.

CD on retreat needs to be lowered, with PoV it should give 100% uptime on swiftness.

They should really look at the warrior here and the low cool downs. No utility shout should have a cd higher than 20s when using pure of voice. Beside stability shouts are very lackluster atm and its due to the increased condi pressure. Shouts where good back in the day when condi pressure was lower but there has been a power creep here and atm trooper runes and pov dont cut it with the high cds on our shouts.

No it doesnt seem broken, just balance it with decreased duration. The amount of conditions and power/duration of condition has increased so its overdue imo. Why not 3-5 s duration and 30 sec cd. And it doesnt absorb dozens of conditions, the fact is that the conditions do the exact same damage and its just a game of healthpools.
And if you are playing your guardian to its brim chances are that you are in the front already soaking up the majority of damage.

Tbh close to no one uses this shout anymore. Its just to dangerous and actually requires other skills to be used.

And lets not exagerate, such a change wont ruin balance. It would only make shouts relatively stronger compared to medis. If you are right this would alter meta, i seriously doubt that.

Memory serves me wrong apparently, played ah/shoutbuilds since early access and i cant recall sys just giving two boons. I cant for my life recall that it ever given me stability. lol im getting old.
You learn something every day.

Drayos.8759:

if u want a Proffession with a good History and Representation, Chronomancer / Reaper / Scrapper / Revenant and Tempest are prolly better options in all honesty.

I seldom play anything else than pvp now a days and almost exclusively premade.

I just have to QFT on this one. I swapped my guardian for revenant since the guardian is just so lackluster in the current state of the game so my team dont even want me on it.

There is zero representation of DH in the games i play. Tbh its close to zero guardians tbh.

Just add resistance to the shout. There are multiple “new” boons that are missing and all of them should be added so the shout works as it was intended at launch. For every boon they dont add in the shout gets relatively weaker and just more dangerous to use.

In this case i would trust “our” FAQ.

“Q21
If I have Pure of Voice traited with Runes of the Soldier and use “Save Yourselves!” in what order do these remove and convert conditions.
“Save Yourselves!” will always trigger first, stripping conditions from Allies in range and stacking them on yourself. Allies will not get the benefit of boon conversion from Pure of Voice.
The 6th Soldier Rune will then remove a condition (see note) from yourself and Allies.
Finally Pure of Voice which will remove another condition from yourself and allies and grant a corresponding boon to the players that were cured.

Note: Condition removal is often assumed to purge most recent condition, but when multiple conditions are applied simultaneously, the effect appears to be random or based on some obscure priority mechanism."

Khenzy.9348:

• @Brutaly, I’m afraid we wont see a smoke field on guardian for a while, they’re not really thematic to this profession at all, and I don’t see it as a necessity in the slightest.

Before DH i would have agreed with you but after the launch of traps and in combination with rune of the trapper it fits the theme imo.

Ofc it isnt a necessity but adding a smoke field to LB would spice things up and would infact add a ton of back line support to DH. Just drop the LB symbol on your team (vigor and smoke) and trigger it with a blast from hammer or a projectile from true shot. Combine this with stealth from traps and we got some decent disengage as well.

Arutha.9874:

I suggest Glacial Heart instead of chilling on crits(horrible synergy) instead swaps light fields to ice fields while wielding a hammer.
(read my virtues and radiance/signets feedback threads for more)

This is one of the suggestions already made in the thread and i do agree, this would be very nice in all game modes.

I think most of us want to keep the suggested changes really simple and realistic because we believe that if they are easy to implement there is a greater chance that they are implemented.

Personally i would like a symbol but with only two ticks and a faster third step and on top of my wishlist is a fire field.

What i would like to see on aa (besides making it faster) is that there was two damage components on each swing. One direct damage and one aoe damage.
With that setup it would be pretty neat that instead of chill on glacial heart, glacial heart should improve cd AND adding conditions to each of the aa.

This in combination that each aa would hit 6 times (3 direct and 3 aoe) on a single target would make:
1. Hammer a weapon that could create cover conditions.
2. Hammer really nice weapon for burn builds due to multiple hits in combination with permeathing wrath and cover conditions from glacial heart.

Why not just copy the conditions from warrior 1h sword to glacial heart.

Arken.3725:

Know what would be a welcome sight? Replacing all of the Symbols light-fields with Fire-fields. I’m partly serious.

If you look at the state of the game i think you are entitled to be partly serious.

What i would like to see is that different symbols have different combo fields. Fire, smoke, lightning and water would be very nice. With the addition of DH/trapper runes i think all of them fit the theme of the Guardian.

Tbh in the current state of the game light fields are close to worthless.

Phoenix the One.4071:

Why not just lower the CD on every hammee skill? I mean Might blow might hit 4 CD with Trueshot on 4 and CoR on 2, both 1200 range, I see no problem in having it on 4 sec cd, even as a blast finisher.

It wont address the issue that spamming aa in pve is the optimal damage rotation. (Boring)

It wont adress the issue that glacial heart is blocked by an essential trait in pvp. (other weapons are better)

It wont solve the issue in pve that the symbol blocks more important combo fields. (Non guardians dont want to have hammer guardians in a large part of the pve content)

It wont solve the issue that MB isnt a gap closer even if one might perceive it as such. (In fact the freeze will instantly make out of range after you land it. Hence i want it to be ground targeted)

It wont solve the issue that skill 4 and 5 absolutely needs to be used with a specific utilities (Judges Intervention) in order to work in pvp. Bound to use one build medis and forced out of investing in glacial heart since improved virtues are a no brainer in pvp.

Etc.

The issue with hammer isnt cool downs. One of the issues though is that reduced cool downs dont improve overall dps. Casting times, low damage and slow and clunky gameplay are some of the issues. Non of them are addressed by a cool own reduction. This has become even more evident after HoT due to the power creep and increased fluidness of other professions and even our LB.

@Khenzy
Nice stuff even though i still would like to see some sort of aoe from the hammer aa.

If they put SoP on MB would it still be a blast finsher? Mb would still need a boost in order to be part of a damage rotation in pve.

The changes to 3 and 4 are nice but i would also like to see a damage increase so they are on par with todays MB. With some damage add and the casting time you propose uit would make them part of a dps rotation in pve and a burst rotation in pvp/wvw.

Personally i would like to see Banish to affect 3 opponents and the damage component to be a self centered aoe.

RoW should have been gotten the same treatment as staggering blow, especially since Anet made that change as a QoL change and its really weiord that they didnt think that the guardian hammer deserved the same treatment.

In a perfect world RoW would be a fire field or smoke field. That would bring some really nice synergies with DH line and trapper/DH runes.

Indure.5410:

@Brutaly
If Glacial Heart stays exactly as it is now then moving it to Valor is good since it is largely a PVP trait.

But, if they make any changes to Glacial Heart so that it becomes worthwhile in PVE then it becomes more detrimental in Valor.

True, i do agree, if hammerskills are changed so -20% cd on skills actually influence dps in pve or that the trait it self changes so it has a major impact in pve valor isnt the best place to put the trait. Even more less so if the symbol traits are merged, imo the best place to put the trait might be the line where/if they decide to merge symbol traits.

@Indure
Ofc you are correct, the real issue isnt that its in virtues. Its what it competing with in pvp and wvw. This is whats needed to be changed.

The reason i think it should be in valor is that valor is more or less mandatory in a competitive build in pvp/wvw and it would boost hammer relatively more to have it in a traitline that im willing to invest in when i play those formats.

Hammer being one of the best weapons for AH builds would make it possible to go for honor (shout trait) and it would leave a choice of either DH or virtues.

So the single reason why i want it in valor is to make AH builds relatively stronger compared to medi builds.

And i couldnt agree more, writ of persistence should be moved so all symbol traits are in the same traitline and also placed in such a fashion so a full blown symbol build is possible.

You are ofc right, im mixing stuff up here. Sorry OP.

Well the easisest way to determine that is how many seconds of burning you get from a skill.

lets say you get 3,5 s from passive VoJ. This means the skill will only tick 3 times even though you invested in 0,5 more seconds in duration. Either you invest more or you invest less. Im a bit unsure about the specifics after they changed burning as a condition so i wont swear on it but the general idea is correct. Just invest enough to get a new tick, no more and no less.

Ofc you need to make this decision based on the other skills you are using (burn on block, JI, Purging flames etc) and intuitively decide what is a good balance. Imo in a perfect world each skill should generate an exact time of burning and this would mean no investment you made in gear/food is wasted.

If you do this check you might find that sigil of smoldering isnt needed to maintain the same burn duration as with balthazar runes alone.

I havent checked this but i suspect i could remove the smoldering sigils and use something else and still have 19,8k burning on JI and PF while still having 4s burning on passive VoJ.

I would say its more important to have the “right” burn duration so it matches the skills you are going apply burning with.

Btw i have the same as you in my build and i think its very adequate in wvw.

Gaveon.6749:

From my understanding a full condi guard really needs, Supreme justice from the virtue tree.

Virtues are more or less mandatory in any burn based build.
Supreme justice
Permeathing wrath, makes the passive VoJ an aoe. Test a procession of blades with and without this trait on a stack of enemies. You will understand why this is a must to a burn build :-)
Procession of blades (multiple hits means lots of burning)
Purging flames (3 stacks of burning in one skill)
Judges intervention (3stacks of burning in one skill)
Whirling Wrath (multiple hits means lots of burning)

I would go for runes/sigils that boost duration on burning,

Did some small alterations and this build deals 20k of burning from Judges intervention and purging flames alone. With no stacks from the sigils mind you.

Btw Big Game Hunter is very questionable in a burn build since a burn build almost requires that you never use active Virtue of Justice. Its weird but that is how it is.

Now add in that you drop procession of blades and do a whirling wrath to trigger permeathing wrath :-)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJATWnsABddiNDBmDBEEhlAiS+77+03KAeg3MbIawJE-TBiAQBJ4SAAj9HQn5P8prBjK/Qo6PA4JAINlgkC4RxWA-e

Ragnarox.9601:

#1# Auto attack could use some speed incrase without symbol at the end
#2# could use some range increase to 600 plus base dmg buff by 100 points
#3# could use activation time buff to 1/2 sec
#4# activation time buff to 3/4 plus adding blind
#5# total change from ward into protective barrier like fractal hammer (moving sanctuary) 3sec duration 60 sec cd

this is my ideal hammer and i could use it instead of my GS

I would find this acceptable also if Anet:

Make all the steps in the chain aoe to fulfill the description that Anet published about the hammer.
Increases damage on 3 and 4 so they fit into a damage rotation

Imo 5 is good if they just make it possible to move while casting. But i have to admit, a moving sanctuary (dome and heal) would be pretty neat. Just make it a fire or water field and it would be close to hysterical.

@arken
I think fire field is an interesting suggestion, it might actually make bunkers valid again. The longer the fight the more dangerous it becomes. Its also a huge buff to ah compared to medis.

@timston
Any solution that dont adress:
Speed of AA
Imobility on 5
Placement of glacial heart
Wont even be close to enough for pvp and wvw, the upsides on hammer wouldnt be enough compared to the other weapons we have.

Any solution that dont adress:
The lightfield in sop
The fact that MB isnt a part of the damage rotation
Wont be close to enough for pve. It would still be the most boring weapon in the game.

Hoping that anet would roll back a bug fix just so MB can work smoother with JI is a bit far fetched tbh.

Rodzynald.5897:

Brutaly.6257:

The more i think of it moving glacial heart and making it transform SoP into an ice field is an easy but yet interesting solution.

Just remove one second of SoP, reduce casting time on aa and up the damage on skill 3 and4. This with the new and improved glacial heart sounds pretty sweet tbh.

Considering that SoP is already like two seconds, it should stay as it is (or make protection last longer if SoP gets reduced to one sec). But it might work out, I think we could also drop a 600 yard ground targeted mighty blow and I’d call it a day

It applies the first tick when the last hit on the chain makes contact. Most players actually missed this and thinks its just two hits from the symbol. It ticks for a total of 3 ticks which makes it 3 seconds of protection. Making it 2 seconds would actually make writ of persitence relatively stronger for a hammer guardian.

My Juggernaut is waiting for better times ;(

Mine along side my celestial armor servs well on my revenant.

But the juggernaut really misses the guardian even though rev is kind of fun.

The more i think of it moving glacial heart and making it transform SoP into an ice field is an easy but yet interesting solution.

Just remove one second of SoP, reduce casting time on aa and up the damage on skill 3 and4. This with the new and improved glacial heart sounds pretty sweet tbh.

As been said i also think we should focus on one weapon at a time and keep that thread floating until someone responds.

An other thing is that changes should adress all sorts of gameplay. From a purely pvp/wvw perspective sword is nice and the only change needed imo is that you should be able to move with no penalty while using skill 3 and that damage should be boosted so it has higher dps then aa.

Personally i would like skill 2 to be ground targeted or that it teleported in the direction the guardian is facing if no target is chosen, so it can be used as a mobility skill.

Rodzynald.5897:

Dang, symbols should have their very own trait line

If we compare to the necro staff we need to invest just as much in different traitlines to optimize our symbols. The difference is that necros has 4 wells with very high uptime on the staff which makes it understandable but the guardian can have two symbols in two different weapons.

So yes, i think that the symbol traits should be in the same traitline so we dont have to invest silly amount of traitpoints in order to boost two weapon skills. This in combination with really boring/weak traits pretty much excludes proper symbol builds.

The weird part is that Anet said way back that guardians were supposed to excel at area control and the bizarre thing is that its traps and DH that finally made that possible in a, imo, kind cheezy way.

Either one traitline for symbols or merge all symbols to our staff and move the staff skills to the other weapons. But its kind of off topic. Sorry.

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly.6257:

Timston.1976:

It needs minor tweaks not large ones.

True!

1. Make each hit with the hammer chain pulse x second(s) of protection and do aoe damage. That would improve its user friendliness in both pve and pvp. It would also make hammer valid choice for burn builds due to permeathing wrath.
2. Increase range on skill 2, damage is fine. In a perfect world it should be 900 range and ground targeted. The animation is already in the game on the revenant hammer. This would add more mobility.
3. Increase damage on skill 3 so it fits into a damage rotation
4. Increase damage on skill 4 so it fits into a damage rotation and/or make it aoe, hitting three opponents in a cone.
5. Make it possible to move while casting skill 5 and make it a fire field. Warriors use the exact same animation on their hammer so its already in the game. Why not make wards be affected by symbol traits as well.

6. Move glacial heart. This is the most important one in pvp/wvw.

All set to go. No need to overhaul something that in essence is good but suffer from long cd, long casting times and low damage which makes the weapon dull in pve and clunky in pvp/wvw.

Heh, I guess what is minor or major is a pretty subjective thing. Still, many of these suggestions make sense. Hammer users are only punished because most the awesome happens on 3rd chain of auto attack.

Besides the chain change everything is already in the game, to me that is minor. Changing cd, casting times and damage is minor.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Glacial Heart doesn’t really have synergy with Zeal though.

However, my interest was piqued at Glacial Heart changing SoP (or perhaps every Symbol) to an ice field. Ice fields don’t have to pulse chill (and this one shouldn’t), but combined with Mighty Blow, and ask of a sudden you’ve got frequent Chill Aura uptime. That would be amazing defensively with Prot and Aura while providing chill on being hit.

I agree, zeal/radiance imo make the least sense tbh, hammer is close to useless as it stands as a condi weapon in wvw and pvp. Imo honor or valor would be more fitting. Major trait in either honor or valor would be acceptable.

I seriously like the idea of glacial heart making symbols ice fields. I can also see that they add other traits in other lines that alter symbols in a similar fashion. That might make symbol builds competitive in pvp/wvw.

Would be really interesting if they:
Remove one tick from the symbol
Reduce casting time on aa to maintain dps
Change glacial heart as described and move it to valor/honor.

I would definitely settle for just those three changes.

And why not a wishlist this close to christmas.
In general i like the idea of traiting and adding effects to our symbols.
Why not a radiance trait that make symbols lightning fields and selfcentered and that follows the Guardian when he/she moves.
Or a honor trait that makes symbols water fields
Or a zeal trait that makes them fire fields.
Or a DH trait that makes them smoke fields

Judging by what you say the most urgent aspects of hammer that should be changed first are:

1. The placement of glacial heart, for the most convenience it should be moved to valor or honor

2. Mighty blow damage OR range increase and ground targeted (this is up to the devs).

3. Ring of warding should be cast even while moving (perhaps at least slower like whirling wrath).

I think the pve guys would say that SoP is one of the major issues since its spammable and risk overwriting more valuable combo fields.

Btw excellent that you put in the effort and try to change this. As a hammer veteran that has swapped for Revenant due to the changes to glacial heart i can see a future where i will be back on my guardian.

Timston.1976:

It needs minor tweaks not large ones.

True!

1. Make each hit with the hammer chain pulse x second(s) of protection and do aoe damage. That would improve its user friendliness in both pve and pvp. It would also make hammer valid choice for burn builds due to permeathing wrath.
2. Increase range on skill 2, damage is fine. In a perfect world it should be 900 range and ground targeted. The animation is already in the game on the revenant hammer. This would add more mobility.
3. Increase damage on skill 3 so it fits into a damage rotation
4. Increase damage on skill 4 so it fits into a damage rotation and/or make it aoe, hitting three opponents in a cone.
5. Make it possible to move while casting skill 5 and make it a fire field. Warriors use the exact same animation on their hammer so its already in the game. Why not make wards be affected by symbol traits as well.

6. Move glacial heart. This is the most important one in pvp/wvw.

All set to go. No need to overhaul something that in essence is good but suffer from long cd, long casting times and low damage which makes the weapon dull in pve and clunky in pvp/wvw.

Seriously reducing MB damage would kill the weapon for pvp. Its the main contributor since no one stands in the symbol. It would be even more so if anet fixes so mb and aa are balanced so they are a part of a dps rotation in pve.

Adding a symbol to mb would probably force anet to remove the blast finisher which probably is the best blast finisher in tjhe game. This would totally destroy the weapon. A symbol on MB would also keep the current state when hammer “overwrites” more valuable symbols in pve.

I would prefer a total removal of the symbol as long as they keep MB as a blast finisher.

Ragnarox.9601:

3rd chain to 3/4 sec and protection nerf to 1 sec
2# attack buff to 2000 base dmg like LB#2
3# cast time 3/4
4# cast time to 3/4
5# casting while walking

I would play with this.

Add some range (200 more) to 2# and ofc move glacial heart and i can live with those changes as well.

Just make the protection be selfcentered with 600 range and not ground targeted aoe.

Rodzynald.5897:

Ground targeted MB would be more skill based, but then it should have dramatic damage/conditions increase (along with CD) to be really punishing once someone ends up under that AoE.

I am all for a increased cd on #2 (if ground targeted) as long ss the other skills get shorter CD. Long cool downs is one of the downsides to the guardian.

8-10 seconds with >25% increase in damage and applying aoe chill, 700-900 range.

Personally would like the sword blink and GS leap to be ground targeted as well. Sure it would increase the skill cap dramatically but also address some of the in combat issues we have, like kittenty mobility.

Its not outdated imo. The issue is that there are to many things that never have worked properly.

if they fix signets, spirit weapons and to some extent virtues (CD, passive effect contra active effect) and consecrations (CD in particular) and balance survivability between traitlines (or innate) we will see more build diversity. This would make it a lot more “up to date”.

So no, its not outdated, its just to much stuff that is unused due to poor design.

Been playing hammer since closed beta (pvp/wvw/pve) and i love it but it is outdated atm.

What needs to be done is:
1. Remove one tick from SoP and reduce casting time on third step of the auto.
2. Make the current SoP a pure aoe (no symbol/combo field) and add a rather strong selfheal (not teamwide that is a mace job) or instant x seconds of protection
3. Slight increase in range (+200) on MB and add some sort of condition, why not chill and just delete glacial heart). An other way is to increase range dramatically and make it ground targeted. The last being my personal favorite, its so much more fun playing with ground targeting. how about 900 range ;-)
4. balance the damage between skill 1 and 2 so both are used in every dps rotation in pve.
5. Increase damage on #3 so it is a part of a dps rotation in pve. Speed up the “projectile” speed.
6. Increase damage on #4 so it is a part of a dps rotation in pve and make it affect 3 players.
7. Let us move while casting #5 and make it a fire field and also apply burning to players that crosses it or bounces into it.
8. Move the hammer trait. Its current spot in virtues effectively eliminates the weapon from pvp and wvw.

As a 95% hammer guardian in all game modes i think:

Reduce cast time on third step in the chain
Remove one tick on the symbol
Increase range on 2 so you at least gain some distance
Increase damage on 3 and 4 so they fit into a dps rotation which would make the weapon more fun in pve. Dont change casting time, add damage instead.
Make i possible to move while using 5, just like the hammerwarriors (same animation) got back in the day as a QoL change.
Make 5 a fire or water field which would benefit both pve and pvp/wvw.

The weapon, atm, is to difficult to master for the masses imo.

Obtena.7952:

Rodzynald.5897:

I don’t get this “being in a good spot” argument that I hear most of the time, would someone care to explain ?

No problem.

Anet management says we are in a ‘good spot’. Some people think that means something it doesn’t, so they use it mockingly whenever possible. The reality is that Anet means “Guardian profession is where we want it to be in terms of performance”.

Its actually really cool that you so boldly make assumptions regarding what people understand and then use those assumption and try to belittle the individuals you disagree with. A classic ruler technique but retorically poor.

It might be so that people that use this reference use it as an ironic remark to communicate that they dont share Anets opinion but in fact do understand what they ment with that line.

It might also be so that you have no clue what so ever regarding what i mean when i make the reference. This is very likely imo, based on your previous post in this matter.

Well i dont think he is being dramatic one bit. Besides the ignorans guardian part. In essence i think he is spot on.

They unstickied all threads and based how anet done in previous releases its actually a clear indication that they have set on a solution.

It was the same in closed beta, open beta and when they did the skills update way back, balance update or what they called it.

What we see now is what we are going to get. Its not about guardians alone, we will only see minor tweaks from here on in.

They stated that they develop in 7 weeks cycles (if memory serves me right) for each iteration. We are basically running out of time.

But by all means keep hoping.

ronpierce.2760:

Guys, cmon now. They unstickied all of the BWE2 change threads because BWE3 changes are coming soon. Relax lol….

And your point is?

Ragnarox.9601:

Brutaly.6257:

Nike.2631:

Huh. Unstickied… without a fresh update from the designer.

Weird to unsticky their own feedback thread. Hmm.
At least we should get some sort of response to all the feedback and then they can lock it.

Well its over, what you see (now) is what you get (in expansion). sadface

I didnt want to be “that guy” but that was my thought exactly. I think we seen this before and after all “Guardians are in a god spot”. 3 builds and a handfull of good traits and two sets of working utilities is all we need apparently.

White Knight! Done! :-)

Or make them wells by all means. A well could be used to trap stuff!

Edit: I forgot, an adept trait that places a mark/well when dodging would be nice. Now valor could be excluded and the DH actually add diversity to builds.

Diversity isnt the same as an increased number of choices but an increased number of valid choices.