Guild Wars 2

Tarsius.3170:

edit, whirling wrath comparison:

3 Stacks of Might

( 1100 * (2514 + (3*35)) * ((0.4 * 7) + (0.15 * 7)) / 2600 ) * ( 1.5 + 0.96 + 0.15 )=11134.12

vs

Sigil of Force

( 1100 * 2514 * ((0.4 * 7) + (0.15 * 7)) / 2600 ) * ( 1.5 + 0.96 + 0.15 ) * 1.05 =11222.13

Just looked more closely at the forumla and noticed you only factored in 3 stacks of might, and if you were using sigil of battle properly, you should have at least 6 stacks of might due to swapping to the other weapon with battle on it as well. (I guess you don’t HAVE to have both weapons, but thats how I use it).

So if you have two sigils of battle on each weapon it should be a 6 multiplier.

6 Stacks of Might

( 1100 * (2514 + (6*35)) * ((0.4 * 7) + (0.15 * 7)) / 2600 ) * ( 1.5 + 0.96 + 0.15 )=11580.51

vs

Sigil of Force

( 1100 * 2514 * ((0.4 * 7) + (0.15 * 7)) / 2600 ) * ( 1.5 + 0.96 + 0.15 ) * 1.05 =11222.13

So 11580.51 vs 11222.13

Now, if you are in a group that has max might already, then your sigils of battle do nothing for you, and force will be better.

If you are roaming solo, then battle should do more damage as long as you maintain the weapon swaps and keep might at 6 or more stacks.

Yes it is, that is what I am doing in spvp currently.

Only heals for 70ish each, and 3 procs of might with each weapon swap for 210-225ish health every 10 seconds, but the extra might is always nice.

The other option are sigils of leeching which do somewhere around 900 damage and a 900 heal each weapon swap. You will get more health out of the swap, and a small spike damage, but it wont assist the rest of the attacks you do. Kind of a toss up depending on if you want the might or not.

So 5% more damage to do more damage
3 might to have a small heal and moderate damage
or a life drain which does a small spike of damage but heals for a decent amount

I think it is worth noting that sigil of force and sigil of battle have close enough damage in them, but there is more upkeep with life if you use battle and swap a lot with AH.

If you are not using AH then go with force most likely, unless you have sustain problems, then get leeching and swap constantly.

I forget how hard it is to be visible on the “suggestions” forum, changed the title to maybe be more specific to the suggestion for those interested.

I have read it, but was throwing out a suggestion on top of what they were planning already.

As far as I saw, the largest incentive from the blog post was to provide reward chests from killing champions, which “should” give more incentive to go out and kill various champions, but typically the easiest ones will be farmed repeatedly.

Additionally the blog post targets, “end game” open world which is supposed to be Orr and Southsun Cove, since we the players are not utilizing these zones because they are not “worth it”.

What I wanted to promote was more various open world population in a wider area than one or two zones to create more “adventure” and “exploration”, at that point people are out in those areas with common goals, and now they can “group” if they are so inclined to achieve those goals more quickly and with a little bit of socialization.

An idea to provide incentive for players to populate different open world maps, would be to provide a centralized “Bounty Collector” for players to go out and hunt down and loot things in the various zones.

The tasks requested could either randomly request different players to complete different bounties, spreading more people out to multiple zones, or randomly rotate what bounties are being requested every 30-60 minutes.

These bounties could range from

• Killing x number or monsters
• Collecting various trophy items that were required in previously completed reknown heart quests
• Harvesting different tiers and types of crafting nodes to turn in
• Killing specific champions in various zones
• Assisting in multi-staged meta events and completing them successfully

Pretty much normal every day things that players can do in these zones, but reward them and in some ways direct them to visit these different zones with reason and goals.

Having a specific daily bounty would be completed once and then ignored for the rest of the day, creating short surges in open world population, so these bounties need to be repeatable throughout the duration of the day.

Having guilds and friends participate in the same bounty could be an chat option to give out the same bounty for everyone to get the same goal, instead of randomly different goals. These group bounties could be more challenging.

Possibly add bounty givers in each racial city which could provide various gains and bonuses for assisting each of those cities bounties. If enough bounties are completed a city event could happen at the end of the week, like a celebration, or a mini game.

The reward mechanism for each of these bounties could be either gold, karma, maybe a reward chest popup with chances for exotics and other items, more difficult bounties could yield better results.

These rewards should be somewhat equivalent to dungeon rewards for the demographic who do not want to dungeon, but not create competition enough where it is not worth it find a group to do dungeons with. If tokens are given then they should be at a much slower pace than a dungeon.

Going back to to city specific bounties, maybe there could be weekly events in the city that require players to have completed bounties to earn tickets to participate in some of the city events. Of course some sort of reward system is again encouraged to create incentive.

Currently the incentive mechanisms are too vague via daily directed goals and players complete the task quickly in the easiest areas then stop promptly stop playing in the open world.

So skyhammer map with the giant lazer in the middle is awesome for a hammer guardian. Knocking people over the edge left and right

Just some random lols

So the next question is, do we “need” a condition based build?

Meta seems to be condition heavy at the moment.

Is our above average (if not the best?) condition removal enough to keep up with the meta in a defensive sense?

Do we have a real position anymore in the meta pvp game.

In PvE power and crit/crit damage run the show, since conditions are not as valuable there. WvW things get skewed a lot too since the large onslaught of numbers, you can pretty much run anything.

Foodfad, you started off with a really positive outlook on burning and seemed to have found a niche, which I was totally excited for. Yet as we go down this path it seems you have stepped back and are now almost saying it still isn’t good enough.

Does burning need to be changed, or is there something we haven’t figured out just yet.

In the past the devs have said that guardians have some amazing damage through burning. Maybe we are looking at it the wrong way.

Browsing around in spvp forum and I run across this post which states that burning is what makes other condition builds viable.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/We-need-a-way-to-Reduce-Condi-Damage/first#post2435223

So the argument there is that burning is what is good and other conditions are just mediocre by themselves.

What is the opinion on that?

Maybe they go hand in hand and burning by itself is not good enough and the others also alone need burning.

The answer is, this game is using a different reward mechanism that you are used to. This has been a heartache for many people trying to play this game as they don’t get the sense of reward or progression as they had before.

As mentioned, the junk items are there simply for the sake of selling, salvaging, or putting on the trading post for others to sell, salvage, or use.

Selling to a NPC vendor results in a direct cash interaction for the lowest possible return but fastest and most guaranteed.

Salvaging can sometimes cost you financial loss, but gain in useful crafting materials. This way you can have a steady flow of crafting materials without being forced to wander around clicking the harvesting nodes if you are not into that. In addition to that, you may get rare crafting materials you can use or sell as well.

So salvaging provides you with more “resources” which may or may not be as financially beneficial as the vending of the item to an NPC, but depends on what you are trying to do.

Putting these items on the trading post now allows you to potentially make more money than dropping the item off at an NCP vendor, but this is a player driven economy which will change based off of supply and demand. Not every item has a demand, so you may be better off salvaging or selling to a vendor.

Check all your items against the Black Lion Trading Company to see if they are “worth” anything to anyone. If not, then sell or salvage.

Salvage the item if you want to try to get rare crafting mats, sell the item if you don’t care and just want to make a little bit of money.

So yes, they did test this. There is a reason for the itemization, but it is not a direct translation as seen in many other games. Most things are here for the sake of economy and crafting. Crafting is mostly for looks and build changes, but not for character progression and growth.

Making money in this game is mostly to get new skins, fund wvw, or simply just to satisfy the gold hoarder in you.

@ Lord Trejgon
OH! really, they “do” count as projectiles? Quite interesting… Like you said, ground fire fields, but really I am looking at how that works as far as group play and other fields, since we get a majority of our burning from VoJ.

As far as the #1 bullet. More burning (more stacks of burning) do not increase damage in intensity, but it does increase in duration. If I put 25 stacks of bleed on I get 25 different bleed ticks in 1 second.

If I put 25 applications of burn on (25 stacks) I have to wait for 25 full second ticks to see the burn happen, thus the 25 seconds to see the damage remark. Burn does not have a “burst” capability, it will always do the same damage no matter how many burns I put on a target.

So if my tool tip says it will do 3000 damage in burning….but I read that it has a duration of 10 seconds. In essence that is 10 stacks of burning doing 300 damage a tick for 10 seconds.

If I read that bleed will do 100 damage per a stack in 3 seconds, then I put 3 bleed stacks on. I am now doing 300 damage a tick in 3 seconds. If I put 10 bleeds on, now I’m doing 1000 damage a tick in 3 seconds. If I put 25 bleeds on, now I am doing 2500 damage a tick in 3 seconds.

So 2500 damage in 3 seconds bleed, or 3000 damage in 10 seconds burning.

One is more overall damage, the other is more damage per a second. High DPS is more threatening in pvp scenarios and faster kills in pve scenarios as well (if it can be maintained and not just burst).

Addressing bullet #2, apothecary is meh? I have not seen any functioning builds utilizing it…yet. So I will not discount it, but I have not seen a revolution on condition bunker either.

Lets put the topic back on track and discuss what guardian’s do have in terms of burning and how we can best utilize it.

Kind of a square one basics idea is how do we apply burning?

Virtue of Justice

• Active (best for group play, or if traited for secondary effects)
• Passive (procs every 5 or 4 depending on traits)

Traits

• On aegis break
• On block
• On percent of life
• With spirit weapons

Utilities

• Purging Flames
• Judge’s Intervention

Weapons

• Torch

Lets go down the list and evaluate the sources of burning.

Virtue of Justice
This is our primary way of applying burning. Best left passive to proc every 4 or kittens to gain the most damage out of it. If you have traits that give might or blind, then it can be triggered early for different reasons. Or if you have refresh on a kill, then you are wasting it if you are not triggering it before each kill.

On the other hand if in a group situation, VoJ should be triggered which can create a long enough burn that will last until VoJ is off cooldown, effectively creating 100% burning up time.

VoJ does add damage on top of our normal physical attacks which in effect adds additional hits to the targets.

Verdict: VoJ is a good source of burning, but limited to sword or groups to maintain 100% uptime on burns

Traits
These sources of burning are unreliable and very situational.

Aegis is not up frequent enough to cause a long and steady stream of burning via the trait. Best used to combine with boon removal if you burn the target trait I feel.

On block is decent, but our blocks are only found on Aegis, as mentioned above, mace, and shelter. Projectile blocks do not cause burning last I tested. So these are also situational and limited.

On low percent of life burning is a last ditch effort to gain a kill while we are staying alive. Almost pointless, but can be gimmicky to down or kill something while you are maintaining yourself in the downed state.

Spirit weapons are widely though of as a joke, but they have been buffed to cause the same burning damage as the player. Still too limited for my likes.

Verdict: Traits are too situational and not frequent enough to cause pressure via burning.

Utilities
We have two, and they are decent for the secondary effects and not the burning.
Purging Flames is great for AOE condition removal but you have to run in an out of the AOE to trigger it. Long cooldown and not a good source of burning.

Judge’s Intervention is great in terms of mobility, but not a sustaining form of burning. Combined with increased damage to burning and condition targets, this creates a nice opening burst moment.

Verdict: Utilities are good, but not because of the burning effect. Ineffective for the reasons of burning.

Weapons
Torch is the only weapon that causes burning. This can create 100% uptime of burning to a maximum of 3 targets at a time. The down side to torch is that with 100% uptime, the procs from VoJ become pointless as the torch is doing all the burning you need. At that rate you might as well trait to have VoJ provide a secondary effect on active use.

Verdict: Weapons provide no burning by themselves, except for the torch. Having more burning on weapons make VoJ passive effects pointless.

So to sum it up. VoJ is our primary and only form of reliable burning, but it causes our class to be punished if we go searching other ways to burn. It helps define us but also limits us.

The only way you can maintain 100% uptime is via sword or torch. Possibly scepter but different scenarios such as mobile fights or multiple targets hinder its ability to maintain a burn.

Other weapons hit too slow or do not have enough overlapping damage to cause multiple strikes frequent enough to proc a lot of burning. Greatsword with symbol and whirling wrath can create a good amount of burning via burst but typically not a sustained burn.

I think our class mechanics lead us to not pursue burning actively but utilize VoJ passively to cause extra damage in supplement to our physical damage.

There is a level of accuracy and timeliness that having a single press keybind can bring as opposed to mouse clicking those same skills.

There are fractions of a second in moving the mouse to the button on the screen that delay the activation of said skill, as opposed to a short and swift press of a keyboard or mouse button without having to move the hand or arm, but simply the finger.

Add to that, losing where the cursor is and having to struggle for a second to orient yourself. Another added barrier.

Now to step back a second. If the skill activations are delayed by a previous animation, in game skill queue, or even latency, then no matter how fast I press the buttons my personal reaction time is bottle necked by the game.

With that said, slower in game functions create a larger window for more varried reaction times.

Not everyone can and needs to act as swift an accurate as a precision machine.

Also factor in if your keybinds become so complicated they hinder fluid movement. In that case, you would be better off just mouse clicking if it became that extreme.

There is no “in theory” or “personal belief”. It is faster and takes less effort to move a single finger than it does to move a whole hand or arm.

This harkens back to the idea that console control gamers can react as fast as mouse and keyboard gamers.

There is a level of expertise and muscle memory, but you are still hindered by the sensitivity of the turn rate. The mouse moves much more fluidly and accurately than a joystick/thumbstick.

So much so, that console games often have a built in auto lock code added to give console gamers better feel and accuracy, versus the same exact game ported to the computer.

Now then, what keybinds or wasd, esdf, strafe or keyboard turn, or what ever else is “best”? That keeps going on to another debate. as far as the strafe versus keyboard turn, I have mouse look and toggle strafe (right mouse) that answers that for me, so I use both with the same keys.

My hindrance in my game play is I use shift states to use utilities. If I were to use a straight keybind, my reaction time and fluidity would be slightly better. Am I compelled to change? No, not right now, but I have made a few tweeks here and there and I constantly look for ways to improve…within my comfort level.

Regardless, stunningstyles has shown that he can mouse click with the best of them and even own some keybinders no matter how he plays, so congrats and good job man.

I don’t think I clarified what I was saying in my previous post.

Burning is constant damage at a good to moderate level with little effort or gearing to gain. Additional stacks prolong the burn but do not make the effect stronger.

Bleeding is low damage, but easily applied and maintained to we will say 4-5 stacks. Additional stacks will increase the damage per a second resulting in a short duration of burst.

Poison does not stack in intensity, but has a secondary effect to it (reduced healing) to make the stacking in duration beneficial.

Chill does not stack in intensity, but has two secondary effects on it (reduced movement and increased skill cool down time) to make stacking in duration beneficial.

Confusion stacks in intensity, causing more threatening damage if the afflicted target attacks. Resulting in potential burst.

Torment stacks in intensity and does more damage than bleed if you move (150%) and less if you stay still (75%). Another form of potential burst, but getting high stacks of this are seemingly difficult, so it isn’t as bad as as issue “right now”.

So the burst conditions: Bleed, Confusion, Torment
Sustained damage conditions: Burning
Utility conditions: Poison, Chill

In a 1v1 sense, there is a potential limit to the stacks/duration of burst conditions, which can be countered with smart application of condition removal. Some tweeking may be needed to manage the reapplication of conditions at an easy rate, but it is decent enough as it is.

In a team based fight, high stacks and high duration are easily achieved with the plethora of condition applications available. Condition removal is almost moot at this rate.

If burst conditions are to remain used as burst, they need to be throttled back in frequency of application. Otherwise they are just high constant damage all the time.

Currently the meta is condition based, and it is increasingly difficult to not have conditions on yourself. Even with the 25 stack cap on conditions, they are difficult to manage.

Additionally AOE condition application is fairly strong, making it difficult to survive as a group, and easy to apply against a group.

Taking all that into consideration, burning and condition damage are bad for guardians because:

More burning results in longer time to see results (25 stacks of burning takes 25 seconds to do damage)

Burning damage is already high enough, and many find it difficult to find a balanced enough build to let them wait 25+ seconds for burning to tick if they go for condition damage.

This is as opposed to spike damage conditions that will see the result of 25 stacks on the very next tick, but they are supposed to be short in duration, so that high intensity of damage “should” not persist.

I have suggested previously that guardians have the capability to trait for burning to do more utility instead of “just” burning. Such as reduced damage by attackers with burning on them. That would make guardian burns more unique and maybe open up more builds.

The other option may be to reduce spike condition duration so that high stacks are more difficult to maintain in group situations…but that will now hinder the solo player, and that is bad as well.

How do other condition damage classes achieve such high burst with conditions? Is it bleed alone? Does our condition damage suck because it is “just” burning, or are we missing a crucial aspect to our game play to make conditions good.

I don’t think giving guardians bleed will answer our condition damage dilemma, but I don’t know why burning is so bad for us if it is so good on paper.

It is difficult for a tanky/bunker guardian to get high condition damage to make use of the prolonged effect right now. Maybe our traits and stat combos are not aligned right?

As of now, the best use of burning is to modify our physical damage via radiant power and fiery wrath, as well as proc voj in conjunction with our melee attacks to supplement an extra hit or two in our skills.

Try Lyssa with Healing Breeze AND Healer’s Retribution traited.

I was not sure if I was not getting a random boon, or if it was just so happening to be retaliation the 5 times I tried it.

It is possible that with Healer’s Retribution itself is using up the ICD on other effect, which is why I was not seeing them.

Intended or not, it seems self defeatist and I would like it if it didn’t interact that way.

Oh nice, didn’t notice the updated bug thread for 2013.

Thanks for updating it!

Bonus info, the trait “Retributive Armor” does not take the extra toughness from Strength in Numbers into account.

Very tiny increase in precision if it did, but still worth noting it is not working…intended or not.

A previous topic prompted me to do some research on Healing Breeze and synergies with it.

In that topic it was noted that Healing Breeze combined with Healer’s Retribution would proc multiple boons of retaliation for each tick of Healing Breeze.

Unsure if this was a bug or intended mechanic I went and checked other on heal mechanics with Healing Breeze.

In short, Healer’s Retribution is the only one that functions this way with Healing Breeze.

I did take not that

• Rune of Lyssa (4) – This did not seem to provide a “random boon” on heal. When switching to shelter the rune appeared to work.
• Rune of Monk/Water (6) – Both of these did not appear to tick for an extra “small heal” as noted in the description. Switching to shelter and signet of resolve also did not appear to prompt an additional small heal.

All the mechanics for On Heal runes happen at end of the healing cast. This would explain why Rune of Lyssa did not seem to function correctly and why Healer’s Retribution may act the way it does.

Healing Breeze’s code may not have the same “end cast” prompt in it, since it is a channeled multi-tick spell.

The runes of monk and water are apparently bugged in of their own, so unless someone can prove they are working as intended, it is pointless to ever get 6 of 6 of those runes…not withstanding the argument that 6 of 6 is pointless anyway :p

So bug report away and maybe these things will get fixed!

So, Might gives power and condition damage.

The new grand master trait gives condition damage for power.

Staff gives 12 stacks of might.

Did staff just inadvertently become a condition weapon?

Realistically though, I think the grandmaster needs to give us more than 10% condition damage.

I know that might scream OP! But, since we have one condition, how much damage would burning need to do alone to equate to other professions condition damage per a second?

What ever the disparity is there, could be made up with guardians having access to higher possible condition damage which would in turn be burn doing as much by itself as other professions can do with burn+bleed+poison+torment+what ever.

Maybe too much? but it could create a niche of power/might/condition damage for guardians.

like 2 or 3 random thoughts merging together into a mesh of gibberish…maybe some good ideas in there if anyone wants to search for them

I see a lot of issues with the downed state and rally system in pvp, but it does create a lot of unique interactions.

Holding a point while downed, making players decide if its better to try to stomp or if they should just continue to do damage. Being able to save someone creates community effort, which is what the developers want.

There is a lot more they could have done with downed state and rally to make it better though.

I think the biggest issue are the “on kill” type mechanics that will not trigger until a stomp or full death occurs. Being downed will not trigger those effects.

I am still not sure if I care for downed state yet. I am “used” to it and I don’t hate it, but I don’t know if I like it either.

Health regen out of combat is a convenience to hasten the frequency of combat as much as movement speed is, to encourage more combat to happen.

If we could all out run each other and never worry about our health, then why would we risk our lives to fight?

If you think we shouldn’t have any health regen increase, then I again point you to older games where you would have to wait to heal. We do not have the type of spamable heals that other games have, so this hastens the wait time to fight again.

There is a small window before it starts, so if you make too many mistakes you will be low on life for a short duration and stay vulnerable to attack and death.

I agree that in combat is the default speed and out of combat is the convenience speed.

That said, I look back to my earlier posts about slow movement allows for smaller maps and closer objectives while keeping mobility low and extending possible strategies by players to impact opposing teams movement via “removing convenience”.

In PvE that convenience allows for skipping content and rushing past mobs. If you get hit, then you are slowed and have the option to turn and fight…potentially training yourself with a huge group of mobs, or to keep running and hope to distance yourself.

Most of the time the answer is to keep running, as PvE is easy enough to run through, as is seen in dungeon runs all the time today.

Movement speed buffs in combat are there to accelerate positioning and gain an upper hand (either offensive or defensive). They are typically intended to be short duration bursts of speed, but some mechanics allow some professions to prolong that movement speed advantage.

These cases of increased speed in combat create a diversity, but typically that diversity is in the tune of balance. In respect to slower more “tankier” professions, and faster more “fragile”.

The paradigm is usually that slow and tanky results in low damage while fast and fragile results in someone who has high damage.

I don’t know where that started but it stands true for a lot of the games today.

So diversity in movement plays into the fast/slow roles of types of combat.

If everyone ran at the same speed as out of combat, then some people have more or less convenience out of combat as well as in combat.

By slowing down combat movement, you allow some professions to maintain a higher rate of movement in combat than others.

Outside of combat, the playing field is more consistent with a few exceptions in reapplication of swiftness, or no built in movement speed traits or signets.

Skipping content on the other hand is another issue. We have been given plenty of tools to skip content and we do regularly. Also a lot of content seems filler and we are given wide leeway to avoid engaging in combat to just rush to the end.

I don’t know exactly where the developers stand on skipping content. We can if we want, and are given the option to.

The system is in place for developer “control” over the pace of combat in short.

Health regeneration out of combat is a benefit that allows us to be ready to fight quickly instead of having to sit and eat/meditate like in other games, as Odinsfury has mentioned.

If you ever played the original Everquest, back in the day, you might remember having to sit down to heal. If you stood up you healed more slowly, so after every fight everyone would quickly plop to the floor to heal up as fast as possible.

Also mana came back faster if casters had their spell book open. This worked in combat too. So if you played a caster early in that game, you spent 90% of combat in your book trying to keep mana up and then you stand up to cast a spell or two when it was ready to cast again.

If we healed as fast in combat, as we do out of combat, then the damage would have to happen in bigger chunks making it more bursty and harder for the players, or more quickly, making the hits smaller but more frequent, causing a flury of attacks which just seems like an endless stream of damage and hard to manage again.

Slow health gives slower pace of combat, giving players and developers, more control.

Slower movement does exactly the same as the slower health. If you played older Nintendo games on “turbo” mode, the speed on some of the games become ridiculous.

The developers felt that the pace of movement in combat is the determined pace for the feel they were trying to achieve.

Our out of combat speed is simply there to make walking around in general not seem so tedious. So if anything, the nice things they give us (faster run speed and faster health regen) make the real core of the game (combat) seem tedious.

What they were trying to make not so tedious shadows the other side and flips our opinions.

It’s a balance of quality of life and control of the game, with some hitches (ganking by large groups).

This is just me playing devil’s advocate though, I would not mind a different mechanic or faster movement in general. Still I recognize and understand that the faster we move the smaller the world becomes, so they have to factor in just how fast they “want” us to move as well.

From a design standpoint, having slower movement in combat versus out of combat creates an environment where players are encouraged to engage in the fight versus rush past everything.

Also, by limiting the speed of movement, areas designated as high combat zones (pvp maps) can be smaller while still giving the feel of distance to objectives, which creates map control.

Lastly, by creating an incombat/out of combat dynamic you create a mechanic that will cause atrophy to a large zerg group to lose numbers over time in a mobile environment where you want to weaken or delay the combat force that is marching to an objective (wvw).

The downside to these mechanics is that while you may be in combat, others may not be in combat, and they are running at full speed. This makes it feels impossible to ever run away if you have one person tagging, then the rest can catch up with ease.

Also, game play slows down making it feel sluggish as a side effect. This is good and bad, because slower combat should result in more room to make decisions for a broader demographic of people.

Is this the only mechanic that can generate these things? No, and I don’t think it is “needed” per say. I understand why they use it, but I’m sure there are better ways around it.

Random thought, what if they made Zealous Blade proc off retaliation and other periodic effects as well (burning).

That would enhance it’s already interesting offensive sustain dynamic with ZB.

As it stands now though, the more people around you the more you heal for, but the more damage you take as well, so it doesn’t equal out.

Popular opinion says it needs to heal more than 25 or maybe scale with healing power…or both.

So I have started playing my wife’s account to keep her up to date with the temporary content. She hasn’t played since before the Halloween event, so I don’t think she has any intention of playing again any time soon.

That said, I am running her around just now and she got a Golden Fortune Scrap………… fml :p

Lue.6538:

Beat him legit after 8 tries or so, basically what you want is the following start from his side:
Burp
Drink
Drink
Drink
Water

Your response to that should be:
Water
Fake
Fake
Fake
Burp

after that just keep tabs on his water and make sure you can interupt every 2nd one(every 6th-7th turn), good luck.

Great catch on the pattern. This helped me the second time through (getting achievements for my wife on her account). +1 from me

Off a whim, I stacked every possible form of condition damage and condition damage conversion stats on a build website and came up with 3507 condition damage on a guardian with 25 might and 25 sigil of corruption stacks.

This results in a 1205 damage per a tick burn.

Against a moderatly geared person with 15000 hp it would take 12 seconds to kill
A stronger opponent with 20000 hp would take 16 seconds
and a max hp target with around 33300 hp would take 27 seconds

Very unrealistic numbers but kind of shows how little burning does alone, even with the best numbers.

Combined and with damage modifying traits it is good, but I just don’t think it is worth it for large amounts of condition damage for us. Condition duration is also tantalizing but just seems like not enough to push it, since it won’t help us kill in fewer seconds with more stacks.

Back on topic though, I just want to reaffirm that permeating wrath is a nice tool for AE damage when combined with radiant power or fiery wrath.

Also the best way to increase “dps” is through AE burns like foofad has explained, so it seems that multi target burning and AE damage is our niche with conditions.

Meta is bunker for guardians, as much as I try to avoid playing it.

There are a few variations on weapons, and some are map dependent.

Getting people off the point to cap or make it contested is crucial in buying time in the game. As far as them getting back up to burst you down in 13k, no one can handle all the damage in this game. You “will” die.

Trick is knowing how to read and avoid some of the tell tale attacks that will set you up for a lot of damage.

If you get immobilized or knocked down, expect a lot of burst coming your way. Use a stun break/stability/condition removal and get out, dodging if you have to, and if it’s really bad use shelter or renewed focus if you need.

A lot of attacks have a wind up animation, or a set up move before the burst, so know how to see and anticipate those as well.

Recent example tonight, i was holding mid point (was a hot join, nothing special) and a rifle warrior was rushing me. The burst move on a rifle warrior can knock your health down really low if you let them land it.

I was playing around with sword/shield, so every time he stopped firing and just stood there pointing his gun at me, I would use a projectile block. The rest of his attacks I could survive through with little to no effort. (can’t the move when using the aimed shot?)

Other examples are if fighting thieves. If they invis, they typically have a couple of second before they attack, as they are setting up a rotation of hits/evades/invis. You can get a feel for it and anticipate the next hit and screw up their rotation with a block.

If people are about to do a multi hit, mutli target attack to a group, use retaliation and watch them kill themselves.

Little things here and there add up.

You should be able to bunker against 1 target and sustain. If you are not then you are getting out played. Although some condition heavy builds like necro or some of the engineers can give you problems.

Two targets, is doable, but over time you will find yourself struggling. Three targets or more you will want to get help quickly, unless you can severely out play them all. If you can then rock on

Also, in hot joins, bunkering is really under rated. The zerg will typically just mow you down, and normally your team will not be there to help you. This is played different in tournaments that are organized.

Right now I see guardian as less of a solo bunker and more of a team fight/bunker hybrid. I think they excel more when around other team members. Other classes can solo bunker better than a guardian with longer survival rate and more ability to kill.

To answer your question about another meta you can play for solo, Look at the triple meditation builds. Those are typically damage oriented with good survivability through monks focus and meditations. You will not be doing zomg 20k burst like a warrior or crazy backstabs, but you will be more aggressive with some good survivability.

Depends on the group and builds honestly. If there is already a source of might that has people close to 25 already, then your extra might is pointless.

But not every group and situation you run in is going to be an all warrior dungeon run. Also not every group is all zerker as well.

This is besides the point on if zerker is best or not.

If you are in that group, then your build is not optimal for that scenario, but no one accidentally walks into a zerker rush group, so you will know ahead of time what to bring to the table.

I think the word introvert works best for me.

Also the phrase: “Lead, follow, or get out of the way”

I am tired of following, and while I do not mind leading, I am not leading anyone at the moment. So for now I am out of the way.

I am anti-social to an extent, but I have no problem interacting with people and taking my time to help others I see along the way.

Being around large crowds literally drains me. I feel tired and exhausted after being around a lot of people for a prolonged period of time. In real life and in game.

At the same time I like to be the center of attention to a degree….really does not mix, I know….(blame the Gemini)

I like smaller more intimate crowds of people that I know and can understand that if I am not talking, there is nothing wrong.

Some people like to join a guild to “hear” a lot of noise. I think this is due to being an extrovert. Large crowds provide more energy for those people.

Think-say-think (introvert)
or
Say-think-say (extrovert)

Extroverted people kind of irritate me to some degree too. I don’t like needy people and extroverts tend to thrive on others to satisfy their needs. Lots of mindless talking and pointless chatter :p

Also since I was little I was enthralled with the iconic lone hero figure.

Zorro, The Lone Ranger, Robin Hood, and the like.

I remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books and the Lone Wolf series… I really enjoyed that idea of a wandering hero who helps the needy in his travels.

So that is what I tend to play… a wandering hero, searching for something, but handling his own demons and fears along the way.

Sometimes this ends up with prolonged interactions with others, but many times he continues on alone.

walks off into the sunset

Did some random number crunching with coefficients, not related to this topic, but when I was done it came to mind.

Staff auto attack with 12 stacks of might does more dps than mace auto and slightly less than greatsword/hammer auto attack without any stacks of might.

Sword and scepter do the best auto damage (on paper) than the rest.

Although, the higher base power you have the greater the disparity between staff with empower versus other weapons.

So switching drops your own dps very slightly but raises the dps of your group even more.

Now the question is:

• Do you wait till weapon swap is about to drop and then cast empower (doing less auto attack with staff)

or

• Do you cast empower right away (doing more auto attack with staff, but not getting full empower stack on swap back to main weapon)

Of course as foofad said you can have might effectively never drop off, which makes it so you don’t have to worry about the above.

I have recently swapped to endless might because of the group benefit and noticeable damage increase of my team in pvp and in dungeons. I sacrifice boon duration for other stats and pick up 2h mastery to reach the might overlap, but I lose out on AH.

…I’m ok with that, but some feel they need it, so you can adjust accordingly.

As the game has progressed, so have the players. At release a lot of people didn’t understand mechanics or other professions very well and all they knew was what was advertised.

Guardians were advertised as defensive front line support, so everyone believed that guardians were impossible to kill. Now they know the tricks and understand how to pressure the guard well.

We are still very defensive in nature, but understand what the other classes are doing and you can gain a lot of sustain.

I admit, I find it hard to not get blasted by tons of necro conditions, but the big wells on the ground are easy enough to stay out of.

Same goes for the classic 100b warrior, or a mesmer with clones running at you. Know the tells and dodge/block the big stuff. The rest of the attacks you can survive and heal through for the most part.

I’m not saying guardians are the end all of bunkering, but it does take a little bit more effort now than it did at release.

What give us sustain is:

• Protection (shouts/hammer)
• Healing (AH for team/MF for solo/Regen in general)
• Dodges (Vigor on crit/energy sigils)
• Blind/Block/Invulnerables (Aegis/Renewed Focus/Shelter)
• Control (knock backs/knock downs/Wards)
• Stability

What makes us strong as bunkers is the group retaliation honestly.

If you can survive long enough for your team to come back and then have retal on everyone while the attacking team is trying to AE the point, they end up killing themselves on retal.

I find that ranged and conditions are really painful for guardians, while melee is easier to handle.

Conditions we are better off than other professions at cleansing, but we have a breaking point and there are far more condition applications than condition removals. So use them wisely and watch the high stacks of bleeds, but ignore the low stacks if you can. Try to cleanse poison off before a heal also.

Ranged attacks are still prone to retaliation, but often come stacked with conditions, see above. Other than that you can situationally change up your utilities for wall of reflection or use things like sword to handle those. Line of sight if you can also.

Also never underestimate the viability of getting off the point to survive.

You can leave the point to run people off and stay out of dangerous AE and then get back on the point when the danger is over. You can let it uncap for a few seconds and stay contested…it’s ok really.

If you stay on the point and front the damage and die, you just gave them the point straight up. Keeping it contested at least makes it so both teams are barred from getting points from that node, making it neutral. Then you can buy time for your team to come help and reclaim that point.

It is a decent trait and not drastically behind the other percent damage increase traits:

Fiery Wrath – 10% if tgt burning
Radiant Power – 10% to tgts w/ conditions
Elusive Power – 10% if endurance not full
Unscathed Contender – 20% if Aegis active
Power of the Virtuous – 9% with all boons active (1% per boon)

So it is 1% less than the comparable traits, not too drastic of a loss. The biggest issue is the question of up time.

Do we have the up time of boons avilable to maintain a 9% damage increase?

Burning is sporadic in application but consistent through a fight. Activate it for a few dedicated seconds of burst.

Conditions are plentiful in a fight, so the chances of a target having any condition on it to increase our damage by 10% is high. Much more consistent than Burning, but stacks well with that trait as a double whammy.

In combat, dodging is frequent, but conservative/smart dodging is a sign of good play. I think elusive power is a strong trait for consistent damage increase

Aegis drops very easy in combat, especially in AE combat. Hard to keep it up for the 20% increase. This does have it’s applications with on use burst and initial combat damage if you get the jump on someone. If you start the fight ahead of the enemy you have better chances of winning, so a decent damage increase for burst, but not for “DPS” (PvE bosses you can reliably dodge signature attacks so works well in those situations).

That leaves us with Power of the Virtuous. I see it as primarily as an on demand burst trait.

Throughout the duration of a fight, you will most likely have: Regeneration, Retaliation, Vigor, and maybe Might active (4%).

Periodically you will also have: Stability, Protection, Aegis, and maybe Swiftness (4%).

On demand you can pop Save Yourselves to gain every boon except for Aegis and Stability (7%)

Also since you are down the Virtue trait line you will have Inspired Virtues and Virtue of Retribution which will let you activate virtues to gain: Might, Regeneration, Protection, Retaliation, and Aegis (5%)

You can further augment virtue activation with Indomitable Courage, which will provide Protection with activate of Virtue of Courage for another 1% increase bumping up virtue burst damage to 6%.

Add on top the fact that you get increased boon duration for going down that tree, and boons stacking in duration for the most part, you can prolong the active effects to sustain a good duration of added boon burst damage for at least 20-30 seconds if not more (too lazy to dish out the calculator).

So Power of the Virtuous has a sustained damage increase of 3-4% and a burst damage increase of 8-9%. Not bad overall, just not as good as our other traits which do the same thing.

It is 1% weaker in burst and 6% weaker in sustain. I would love to see it become a 2% increase also, which I do not see as an out of the line/over powered buff to the trait.

This would make it 6-8% sustain (still weaker than 10%) and 16-18% burst (weaker than 20% from unscathed, but more reliable).

In addition to that, other classes can “see” our burst incoming with all the boons appearing, and this causes some counter play, namely from necros and mesmers who can corrupt or rip boons off a target.

…my long drawn out way of saying I concur

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2013-02-26#Update_1_-_26_February_2013

Profession Skills

General
Reduced the number of maximum of stacks of Retaliation allowed to five (was 25). Duration still stacks.

This was done, I think, in response to endless retaliation builds, which still haven’t really gone away =p

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlUgyCXFyvDf4ES2jVCBTQ7DAEODMKjA-jQyA4rARiCUyrIasVuwWdDS5NaaHMVJRUt7oIa1A-e

I am currently running the above build, which I call Endless Might. Basically it’s a boonway/healway build with an emphasis on Might for the group and yourself. With this set up you will maintain a stack of 20+ might on yourself for the duration of the fight and at least 12 might on your allies the whole time as well.

I plan to replace the zerker armor with magi for the vitality/healing power in wvw, but it works for now.

What I have been doing is starting the fight with Empower then a line of warding and causing the npcs to run into it and knock themselves down.

Next I drop a symbol of swiftness on my fight spot (typically where i am standing behind the line of warding.

Pop Save Yourselves for Protection and more Might as well as Fury to keep damage on yourself low and switch to greatsword.

At this point you have at least 16 Might. Drop a symbol of Wrath, do a Leap of faith and start Whirling Wrath, also initiating Virtue of Justice for another blind and some more might.

From here you are on cooldown for most damaging abilities. The enemies are probably dying from the rest of the AE your team is putting out, but if you need you can pop shelter for a block and heal to recover.

If you need more protection, use Virtue of Courage and Resolve for an aegis/protection/burst heal/regen, then use Renewed Focus to refresh your virtues and prevent more damage on yourself.

Switch back to staff if the fight is still going and use Empower again to keep the might stacks up before they drop off and when you can, switch back to greatsword for more AOE damage.

Throughout the duration of the fight mobs should be dying so you can keep popping virtue of justice for blinds as the fight progresses, keeping your life from dropping.

If you need more condition removal you can use purging flames and drop 25% retal duration for faster/longer consecrations, or drop 5 points in virtues to get Pure of Voice.

The build is a pretty strong group support build while allowing you to front a decent amount of damage yourself while acting as a temporary tank as protection and regen keep you going as your blocks and invulnerabilities buy you more time.

Typically the fight is over by the time you have used up all those abilities and ready to go for the next fight.

Also works well in spvp as a team fight roamer wtih some minor bunkering capability, with endless swiftness as well as the might.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlUgyCXFyvDf4ES2jVCBTQ7DAEODMKjA-ToAA2CoI6S5lzLTXycs5MEZJC

Sorry we were talking about 2 different things. I was thinking burning duration (10% from 10 points in zeal and 20% from radiant fire trait resulting in 30% longer burns).

I think what you were talking about is “up time” meaning that burning is active 97.5% of the time, nothing to do with condition duration but the time that burn is active.

not exactly sure what the 9 and 15 represent in the equation. (cool down on torch?) but I think I know where we diverged, sorry and thanks for explaining

Keep in mind the difference between big flashy numbers of burst and high dps of sustained damage. Both have their reasons and potential in different areas.

As Tarsius mentioned the general damage % increase traits help really well all the way around and are crucial at seeing yourself hit high numbers.

Once you hit 100% crit damage (I assume this is 50% base crit damage and then 50% crit damage from gear/traits) then you are doing 2x your base damage in crits (versus just 1.5x the damage), after that the numbers start to taper off and you get less out of it as you would going for more of a flat increase in power and more chances to see those big numbers such as precision.

1000 damage with 100% crit damage would see crit damage of 2500

1500 damage with 50% crit damge would see crit damage of 3000

So in that scenario dropping 50% crit damage off and gaining more power to increase base damage is more beneficial.

Then factor in precision or you will never see those numbers if your crit chance is too low.

For high damage get your power and crit damage up and any damage multipliers from traits/gear. After that get your precision up so that happen frequently enough that you are satisfied…sacrificing from the overall damage where you need to achieve the wanted frequency of crit.

and got my chest/dive spot, happy now.

Pro tip – I like the challenge and my reward is self satisfaction.

I like to do them myself, but thanks

Difference between one woops and repeated troll. If people are actively moving then fine, but if they are just standing there rebuffing over and over you can tell the difference.

One report wouldn’t be insta ban, but if the consensus was large enough it might be an indicator that person was causing grief to the community.

No, there was guy just standing there for a while waiting for people to get to the last 2 rungs of pipes then he would pop swiftness and they miss it

Not even trying to do the jp he just sat there popping swiftness

So realized there is no “report griefing” option today.

So people in the new JP are spamming swiftness to cause others to miss jumps.

Can wait for it to wear off but still slightly silly and I wish there was a way to give them consequences.

A key aspect that often gets overlooked by players is that power is just as important as crit damage and crit chance. It is linked in a sort of triangle of balance.

Critical hits will do 50% more damage than the base damage of the attack.
Critical damage will increase the percentage of base damage done when you crit.
Critical chance allows us to crit more often.

Watching a dev video (http://youtu.be/ZkCW2B9tMjg?t=4m10s) he talks about base stats and how they go together as well as the synergies with them.

In that video he mentions that around 2k power and 50% crit damage, crit chance starts to become more beneficial of a stat to achieve higher dps (not necessarily spike damage).

So keep in mind if you have lower power, then all the crit chance in the world will still result in low damage. Keep the three up and you will find your damage doing far better.

I don’t think I’m fronting an argument so much as addressing concerns. I have said that it is yet to be determined on if it “needs to be removed”. The factors I identified I feel need to be looked at to determine if the condition is too strong or not.

So you can stop trying to create an image of me of having no leg to stand on and should not talk.

Mobility as control is exactly what that torment is.

Swiftness is a boon which allows the attacker to get out of harms way via increased mobility.

Immobilize/Cripple/Chill are conditions which were designed two fold: keep the target in harms way and to allow others to remain out of reach of the one afflicted by those conditions.

Torment is a new aspect of movement control which increases in damage if the target moves, otherwise does sub par damage if you remain stationary.

By staying still you become prone to other sources of damage such as ground effects or staying withing range of additional attackers, so the majority of the time you would want to stay mobile….not always though, which turns into a risk versus reward debate.

The question is did we need another variable in the mobility war?

Increased Movement:
Swiftness/Teleport/Stun Break/???

Decreased Movement:
Immobilize/Cripple/Chill/Torment/Knock down+back/Stun+Daze/(maybe invisibility if you want to count that)

There are already ways to control movement, did we need torment? Or could they have provided more sources of the existing movement control mechanics to those classes who may have needed it?

Necros are argued at having the worst self mobility, but the developers have stated they feel necros have great mobility control via cripples and chills and the like. They are now given another form of control when the developers have said mobility was fine for necros.

Mesmers have great mobility in the idea of they are difficult to lock down and fight with the variety of illusions, teleports, and daze/stuns available to them. They are now given another form of mobility by hindering movement of the target in catching them even more.

Thieves have a self professed advantage with mobility as they are supposed to be very squishy when caught by design, so they are given many outs and ways to disengage from combat as a core mechanic. They are now given one more movement hindering ability to stack on top of already good mobility.

All said and done, I have said a lot of negative things about torment, but I reserve my judgement on if it is bad or good. I voice my fears and continue to watch to see how it develops.

As far as my concern on the availability of the condition, it seems it is not prevalent at the moment with necros, thieves, and mesmers having a 40s, kitten 15s (only on successful block) cooldown respectively.

The other two concerns:

• is it too strong stacked with other conditions
• do the classes that received it need it?

We will see as time goes on. The developers have said they don’t like to make sweeping changes that drastically change the game, so this is their way of testing the waters I am sure.

I when I say effective in mobility, I guess what I meant is mobility control.

Either by moving faster yourself or by hindering the movement of your target.

Stuns/immobilize/snares and now also torment.

I have not had a personal issue with it myself yet, but I have yet to feel its full potential. We will see how it goes as people develop strategies and use torment more throughout the next few days.

Awesome compilation and thank you for taking the time to record and post those fights. Good study material for anyone to understand the fights, not just guardians.

Normally this won’t ever be an issue with VoJ alone.

If you start using torch, Judge’s Intervention, Purging Flames to supplement burning duration on the target and they can maintain the effect for the expected duration of the fight, the extra procs of VoJ become pointless.

The only other things that VoJ can do at that point is provide blinds and might based off of traits.

Kind of frustrating that our core mechanics can be negated with the game play mechanics like that. But this is all theoretical and normally you will not have a overlap of burning so extreme that you need to worry about it.

Now if we had a trait to have condition damage increased via VoJ procs or active use, then it becomes useful again when you have 100% burning up time on the target without VoJ.

Might on activation sort of addresses that problem in some ways, but very minimal.

I just wanted to contribute to the think tank was all.

Burning duration in essence gives us another stack of the burn effect since it only happens in whole seconds. That said the damage will take as long as the amount of stacks you have to occur.

If I have 25 stacks of bleed, in 1 second it will do 25 different bleed effects, increasing damage.

If I have 25 stacks of burning, I have to wait 25 seconds to see the damage happen, delaying damage.

Burning duration is not bad, per say, just depends on what you are trying to achieve. I am running around testing 100% condition duration and voj procs to see if I like double ticks or not regardless.

Innovation comes from experimentation, and I highly appreciate your research!

I think the issue is the availability of other conditions on top of the application of torment.

People say to simply cleanse it off, but keep in mind that you can not target a specific condition to be removed when you have a large amount on you.

Also the frequency that torment can be cast on you and the duration that it lasts is an issue.

I am sure it is all still in a balancing phase, and those two points can be addressed if need be.

The third issue the players have with this condition is the selected professions to gain torment. It is viewed that they are already effective in mobility, and an added mobility skill seems overkill and heavy stacked in favor of already disliked professions/builds.

Complaints are valid, but they have to come with quantifiable data so that it can be adjusted and fixed if need be.