Guild Wars 2

Hey Deltasniper,

Burnout happens to all of us. Honestly, if you’ve got three 80’s and you feel like you’ve done most of what this game has to offer, I’d recommend taking a break. If you have a lot of time to kill due to medical reasons (I was out for surgery about six weeks back, so I know the feeling), there are a lot of other ways you could spend your time. Other games to play, other activities to keep you occupied.

Taking breaks are good. Once the novelty of a game wears off, it’s natural that our interest in it tends to plateau, if not decline. Since GW2 has absolutely no monthly fee and no tiered gear that leaves you falling behind over time, you don’t lose anything at all by stepping away from the game for a while.

ArenaNet (thankfully) does not support creating official Roleplay servers. And, just as a thought exercise, if we did have a server which enforced walking in towns and wearing town clothes, I’d flee from that server and never look back.

There’s this bizarre stereotype roleplayers keep perpetuating that RP is what happens in towns, in town clothes, inside taverns or in your home instance. It just isn’t true. I’ve been roleplaying since pre-release, and the very best roleplay I’ve ever found has always been out in the field, in the world at large, not walking laps around Divinity’s Reach or slouching over a bar in the Busted Flagon listening to roleplayers take passive-aggressive jabs at you in /emotes.

Go outside. Tyria is vast, dangerous and beautiful.

My trait build lets me grant might to allies every time i crit, faster i swing, (not to mention the 3 hit on the swords final chain) the more might i grant, the more might I grant, the more healing i get.

I use Sword as a weapon swap in Altruistic Healing too. The Might generation from Sword is indeed cool. Remember that you’ll get a lot of Vigor off sword crits too!

It depends.

Scepter+Focus survivability exists through limited kiting. It is a nice weapon for leveling as a weapon swap, though. Scepter—even if it seems counterintuitive—is a great midrange and point blank weapon, and using Smite in melee before swapping to a melee weapon racks up a lot of damage. In the first ~30 levels or so, I’d say Scepter is probably one of your highest damage weapons, and arguably your highest damage weapon for killing solo mobs.

Mace is great for leveling too, depending on your weapon swap. I leveled primarily with Sword+Torch and Mace+Shield. Mace actually hits pretty hard, but the hits come slow. And the personal mitigation from Mace+Focus is categorically superior to the mitigation from Scepter+Focus provided you’re in melee. Mace has a heal, a symbol and a potent block mechanic which, coupled with Focus’s blind+regen and shield offers a huge amount of defense.

Torch is a bit weird with Mace. You’re wrong that it’s a garbage weapon. It’s an excellent weapon, but you need to use it correctly. Here are a few pointers on Torch:

• Zealot’s Flame is a LOT of burning damage. Your first trigger of Zealot’s Flame burns everyone around you for 6s. This is especially big if you have Fiery Wrath and Radiant Power. Then, you can let it run its duration and have it stack another 3s of burning at the end for a grand total of 9s. Or you can toss the flame for…

• A pretty big spike of damage from Zealot’s Fire. This has a 1,200 range and deals solid damage.

• Cleansing Flame is a nice ability that deals solid point blank cone damage, but remember that it does have a 4.5 second cast time. Damage is roughly equivalent to a full 3-swing chain of Mace, but takes twice as long. However, if you have Virtue of Justice on Passive, it’ll trigger VoJ’s Burn effect twice on every target it hits for an additional 2 seconds of burning. Long Story Short: This is great damage if you catch 2+ enemies in its cone (which is pretty easy), and it’s great condition removal for your allies too.

Torch actually does work well with Mace for leveling. The burn effect from Torch works exceptionally well with Mace’s playstyle of keeping a couple of enemies in melee range and covers Mace’s lower damage rate and lower burn rate due to Mace’s slow weapon speed. It comes with a 1200 range spike ability too, should you ever need it.

Sword is a fantastically good weapon. It hits hard, fast, triggers Virtue of Justice Passive frequently, comes with a short-cooldown Teleport+Blind making it both mobile and effective mitigation, and it works well with every offhand. Shield for Group Support (filling in a niche Sword lacks), Focus for double blinds and better personal mitigation, and Torch for more raw damage, spike damage and condition removal.

I used to run probably the same build Relentliss is talking about. I used it in PVE as well, where it was just fantastic. I had a lot of success with it in dungeons despite lacking two utility slots.

Pros: Aggressive, high damage build with a very solid knockdown. Really impressive visually and not all that common.

Cons: Rigid and restrictive build. 20 Zeal 20 Radiance and 10 Virtues is mandatory, leaving you with just 20 points to put where you like. It also eats two Utility Slots, but they are well worth it.

Edit: This refers to an aggressive Spirit Sword/Hammer build, which is very different from a defensive Shield/Bow build. I haven’t tried Shield/Bow, but I imagine the trait spread is similar but less restrictive (you don’t need 20 Radiance)

It’s Tier 3 and expensive. However, a few Seraph weapon models are available as Story rewards—I don’t remember which ones—but they’re the Greatsword, Staff or Hammer.

Edit: That was on my Guardian. I imagine other professions get other models.

Two. Mesmer and Warrior, along with my 80 Guardians.

I enjoy alting in this game. I feel that this game encourages, even rewards, having multiple alts. There’s no tiered gear progression, so once you’ve got your exotics (you can get by with rares), you’re set. And nearly everything is account bound anyway.

My goal is to have a full set of 80 alts in exotics.

Mace is a fantastic weapon and I don’t know why more Guardians aren’t giving it a chance. Its defensive potential is quite high, and it deals enough damage to beat down your enemies while keeping you alive.

I ran a sword/mace swap setup while leveling. It was very effective.

Just bought a new (my first ever gaming PC!) rig from Falcon Northwest. It comes with an NVidia GE Force GTX 550ti =) Very happy with it.

I love most of the armor, but I have a problem with some of the Medium armor. I want to make a Norn Ranger, but I feel like she’d be better suited to wearing furs and more barbaric, stereotypically Northern leather than the long and roguish trench-coats we seem to have now.

I know some models like that exist, but they come a bit late, especially the T2 Cultural (which is one of my favorite armor types in the game).

So, here’s the thing. Historically, single-pauldrons and asymmetric armor isn’t that common. When you do see it, it’s because armor had to accommodate for additional gear (i.e, some armor was cut away or asymmetrical to accommodate for lance couching), or because the combatant wearing the armor wants to be flashy and showy.

This is why the most common images of asymmetrical armor are gladiatorial. In fact, gladiatorial armor covered the right arm or the left arm depending on the style of gladiator.

Which is to say that the type of gladiator you linked in your image was specifically designed to fight another net-and-spear wielding gladiator whose pauldron and armor would be on his left side. So in this case the armor was not designed to balance encumbrance, but designed so that two gladiators facing off against each other would have their armor on opposite arms, since they’d be facing each other. One with an armored right arm. The other with an armored left arm.

Just a bit of trivia.

I pushed two Guardians to 80. Both times, I went 15 Radiance first for Renewed Justice. It just works way too well with the speed and efficiency of solo/Dynamic Events. After that, I went 5 Virtues.

Edit: Oh. I actually used Sword/Focus, Scepter and Hammer the most for leveling. Sword is actually fantastically good with Virtue of Justice, and it gave me the best balance of defense and kill speed. Hammer was a close second, but benefited more from trait support.

Scepter, though, surprisingly deals a lot of damage when you’re of low level because of the way Smite scales. Use it in melee and swap.

I would have to guess it’s one or more of a few things… the author doesn’t write well, feels authoritative when recording one of these videos, or is just doing it because for some inexplicable reason, that’s what people do now. I don’t know.

Audience is part of it. I love to write, but it’s a lot harder to secure an audience for written media than visual media. Youtube is a massive community to which anyone can upload their work, and which everyone browses. Getting your written guides out there is a lot harder, and requires either partnership with an existing website or your own blog.

And then you have to start getting the word out on your own.

It’s amazing how much more eager we are to contribute something useful and creative when we know people want it.

Defektive.7283:

Eveningstar.6940:

Essentially, no stuns, focus on cripples/immobolizers, moderate gap close, decent damage.
Now you have a new niche.

Sounds pretty close to Sword.

Sword Focuses on Gap Closer / Cripple / Conditions.

This would be Gap Closer / Immobolize / Direct Damage

I see your point, but direct damage isn’t really a niche. It’s something every weapon does to one degree or another. Immobilize and cripple aren’t necessarily vastly different from each other, tactically.

It doesn’t seem different enough to be a true niche. A variation, sure. But in that case you run into problems of redundancy.

The issue with Greataxe is that, by design, it necessitates an aggressive playstyle. But one niche Warrior 2H weapons could certainly fit is defense/support. If you substitute, like a poster above mentioned, Greataxe for Polearm, you could conceivably make a 2H weapon that focuses specifically on defense. Space management, blocks, weakness, counters.

Plus, a greataxe is potentially a type of polearm. You’d have more visual variety in weapon design, from greataxes to halberds to spears.

Essentially, no stuns, focus on cripples/immobolizers, moderate gap close, decent damage.
Now you have a new niche.

Sounds pretty close to Sword.

I want to encourage people, who actually bother to read this, to contribute to the community by improving wiki’s and writing guides for websites

I agree with this sentiment, and I want to look in to contributing more to the GW2 Wiki.

I have one concern though. I haven’t been able to find a centralized and constructive forum for discussing theorycraft and talking about the metagame in any depth. I used to read EJ in World of Warcraft; City of Heroes had some very robust theorycraft/mechanics forums; I’m a casual fighting game player ankittenep up with UltraChen TV and SRK Forums.

And in GW1, of course, we had PvX Wiki.

I feel like deeper discussions on theory, mechanics and strategy haven’t really emerged yet. Or if they have, I’ve missed the boat. Can anyone point me in the right direction, or are we still waiting on this one to emerge organically?

Ah, Black Lion Chests. The penny stocks of the trading post.

I wouldn’t mind using a lamp in battle. I could feel like a Tyrian version of Diogenes.

I don’t know if this is a bug or just an undocumented feature but:

Sword Wave functions as a small-range projectile with a small arc, not a melee attack. Consequently, it will usually miss stationary objects that are not in its limited trajectory.

Wish I had a better way of wording that. I confirmed this by discovering that Magnetic Shield reflects Sword Wave damage back on to me.

If this is common knowledge, my apologies for stating the obvious.

Agreed. Latency has been really clean, and I’m impressed we haven’t had any major server downtime or maintenance days.

The game has flaws, but I want it to have flaws, provided we talk about them constructively, find ways to adapt and improve on those flaws. But, all things considered, this has been a remarkably smooth, polished launch.

Hard to say. It kind of depends on my build. I’ve used Greatsword with a bunch of different builds, but the most common weapon swap for me is Staff, Scepter/* and Mace/Focus.

I’ve used Greatsword + Mace/Focus while leveling or soloing to give me better defensive options. Staff pairs great with GS if I’m running Altruistic Healing (and I often am), and is a nice midline option in general. Scepter if the content demands it (certain Dynamic Events and Dungeon content really suits having a Scepter on hand.)

Occasionally I’ll swap Mace/Focus for Sword/Focus with Greatsword, but not often. This is in situations where I want to have lots of Blinds.

Resolute Healer isn’t bugged, as far as I know. It’s just situational and hard to use. The tooltip really should be updated, but the Shield of Absorption generated by Resolute Healer: 1) Doesn’t last very long (1s I think), 2) Only absorbs projectiles and does not push enemies back and 3) Functions as a brief Combo Field: Light. The lack of a knockback is, as far as I know, by design.

It’s not my favorite trait. Resolute Healer is hard to use well. I strongly recommend Protective Reviver, though. Now there’s a lovely reviving trait.

Irrespective of the change affecting you or not, the response (or lack thereof) by Arenanet sets a precedent that will affect you. When the issue at hand becomes something that does motivate you to provide feedback, do you really want to face this kind of response?

Was this a rhetorical question? Because, to be honest, yes. I do want to face this kind of response. I prefer ANet’s silence on this matter. I’d rather they not come wading in to the hundreds of angry, combative and largely irrational posts and try to throw the community a bone.

I don’t want an ANet representative to come and apologize or offer some lettered explanation every time they nerf our class. Nerfs and buffs are part of the lifecycle of MMOs, and they change the metagame. We’re the Guardian forums, so part of what we do is discuss the metagame and come to terms with the metagame on our own.

Given that a third of the hundreds of responses you cite are actually inflammatory threads declaring the downfall of Guardians, the downfall of Greatswords, the downfall of GW2 and the incompetence of ANet—no, I definitely don’t need a community representative to come down here and talk to us. That’s not good ‘customer service,’ it’s just us being spoiled and indignant.

Which are your favorites? For general use? For impressive situational use? I’m in the process of examining the way utilities work in this game, and I’m approaching the conclusion that while most utilities are remarkably low-balled (i.e, they grant relatively little value for their high recharge and require precise timing), a few can truly change the tide of a fight.

Here are mine:

I. Wall of Reflection

The beautiful thing about wall of reflection is that it’s visible. The tactical consequences of deploying a wall are readily visible. Time it right and gleefully enjoy the sight of a barrage of your enemies’ projectiles hurtling back to their owners. Time it improperly and it just sort of sits there glittering uselessly. I’ve seen a lot of success with one Wall of Reflection, for example, in Caudecus’s Manor Explorable, which features far too many long-ranged bandits firing down corridors at you, to say nothing of stationary turrets and a final Centaur boss (Butler path) that likes to toss out fireballs.

II. Stand Your Ground!

Stand Your Ground potentially trivializes content. This one ability makes Lieutenant Kohler in AC Explorable ludicrously easy. For anyone who doesn’t know, Kohler likes to launch out an AoE Scorpion Wire that drags you in front of him from about a range of 600-900. The moment he has you beside him, he’ll execute a spin attack and slice you to ribbons instantly. It’s horribly irritating for inexperienced players, and the best way to get around it is to dodge Line of Sight or just…dodge.

Stand Your Ground, however, makes all players within range immune to the Pull of Scorpion Wire via Stability. The recharge of Stand Your Ground is almost exactly the same as Kohler’s Pull. A single Guardian who’s on the ball can make her entire party totally immune to the pull in every single instance, trivializing the (admittedly already pretty simple) fight.

III. Purging Flames

I can’t get enough of Purging Flames. Perhaps it’s the pure novelty of just having a reliable Fire combo field (which produces Flame Shields and sweet, sweet Area Might), but on top of that, it’s a strong, area-based, high-damage Burning effect with a Condition removal attached to it. Even in non-Consecrations builds, I find myself hard pressed to do without this ubiquitous utility.

IV. Spirit Weapons: Sword of Justice and Hammer of Wisdom

Spirit Weapons don’t get talked about much on these forums, and I don’t know why. Maybe we’re all too hesitant to devote two of our utility slots to these weapons and shy away from the 50-trait price tag, but I ran a Spirit Weapons build for the longest time, and honesty, it’s massively fun. Decked out in traits, your Weapons do a good amount of damage when you take the added Burn effect into consideration (which can be traited as a boon remover!) and come with two very strong Commands. HoW’s Command, by the way, is probably the single strongest attack available to the Guardian, comes with a hard knockdown, and I’ve used it to knock dungeon bosses flat on their backs.

V. Signet of Judgement

Made weaker after the patch, which saddens me, but this was always an underrated ability. Many of us ran with Signet Recharge Reduction for Signet of Resolve, anyway, so this would’ve been a relatively speedy 16s recharge. The Passive 10% damage reduction is nothing to sneeze at provided it stacks with Protection (which I believe it does, but I’d like confirmation), and having an on-demand Weakness can and does save lives. Every 16 seconds, I can give an enemy Weakness for 5 seconds. More with any investment in Zeal. A 50% chance for Glancing Blows is remarkably underrated mitigation.

People in this thread say they want numbers and proof and then when you show them metrics that can measure how interest int he game has declined dramatically they say it’s not the right kind of numbers they were looking for. I’ve seen this SO many times before in other games. There are always some that will prefer to bury their head in the sand. I guess in hopes that they can prevent the inevitable realization by rest of the community? I’m not really sure, I don’t get the thought process.

Alright, I’ll try to clarify then.

You haven’t offered “metrics.” You pointed to Twitch.tv, which is circumstantial evidence at best, and then constructed a fallacious conclusion: “Because GW2 doesn’t show up on the most viewed channels, the game is dying.”

The problem: Your conclusion does not support your observations. The only thing you’ve conclusively proven is that GW2 is no longer among the most watched Twitch.tv channels. You haven’t proven that the game is dying or that it’s unpopular.

The other metric you’ve offered? A vague, generalized statement about how the “majority” of MMO communities hate this game. But you refuse to quantify this statement. What constitutes an MMO community? How many people have you polled? What constitutes a majority?

That’s why we’re saying you don’t have the right numbers: you either don’t provide any, or the provisions you offer are inconclusive at best and wildly exaggerated at worst. It’s not stupid to be skeptical of your claims—it’s sensible.

That’s the sad thing about these communities in MMO’s. They will attack you if you say anything negative about the game they like. There are always some that will prefer to bury their head in the sand. I guess in hopes that they can prevent the inevitable realization by rest of the community?

So, let me get this straight. We’re attacking you by being skeptical of your claims, but you calling the rest of us willfully ignorant gamers who bury our heads in the sand is somehow not attacking someone?

Believe it or not, I am intrigued by the possibility that this game is losing players. But I need data to prove it. Do you want me to just blindly believe something without data? Show me real numbers that reflect an overall trend over time in loss of activity. Don’t give me circumstantial evidence, hyperbole and hearsay that confirms your bias. I’m not attacking you. I’m challenging you to back up your anxiety with something solid.

26, love it. But I feel pretty old. I started playing MMOs at 18, and video games at 10.

:(

@diabluz

That is where you are so totally wrong. Most people don’t like this game. Most people actually find this game boring and have left. Hence the title of the thread, Welcome to the Minority.

…

I’m done trying to argue the obvious. Like others have said, denying that there is an issue isn’t going to make it go away. You can deny all you want, it will not change the facts.

I like how you talk about marching to your own beat since you were a kid, but then anyone who disagrees with you, or isn’t convinced, is “denying the facts” and has their head in the sand.

You want to convince me that this game is dying, you need to provide me with some solid evidence. Not circumstantial evidence (twitch.tv), not hearsay (reddit, /v/, or whatever other game community you’re talking about), not hyperbole (“the majority of the MMO community”). Evidence. Real numbers that I can measure, gauge and interpret.

I’m going to assume you’re being genuine and not trolling, but frankly, it’s insulting to suggest that we either believe your outlandish, alarmist, reactionary and exaggerated claims about how the “majority” of the MMO community (whatever in Dwayna’s name that is) hates this game and we’re somehow a minority—or, if we don’t believe you, we’re in denial.

You realize you’re actually asking us to not think critically, but react irrationally to circumstantial evidence and bad logic.

Carl Sagan and Marcello Truzi said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Show me some real evidence and I’ll be happy to hop on board your doom train.

You should probably worry less about your Guardian’s jawline, and more about your burning dog.

Yeah, I’d love to talk shop about Civ 5 sometimes. It was my obsession for a while, although I stopped playing for a bit after achieving Deity, if only because I’d pushed so hard to get to that point that I’d have burnt out otherwise.

Deity wins in Civ 5 is a pretty good example of the sort of achievement that seems difficult, daunting, frustrating and just plain stupid, but when you start chipping away at it and taking it piece by piece, you realize it’s very do-able, but just requires a very solid game plan, practice and attention to detail.

I agree with Amnon on this issue. At first I felt a bit upset that I’d have to roam WvWvW to finish my map, but after taking a deep breath and diving in to the WvWvW maps, I found myself actually enjoying it. It’s really not as hardcore a PVP mode as people make it out to be.

Think of this way: 100% map completion means you’ve explored every nook, corner and cranny of the world. The WvWvW maps are part of that world. They’re the Mistwar. You can’t say you’ve seen everything (which is exactly what “100% map completion” entails) until you’ve seen everything.

That’s why the Achievement is “Been There, Done That.” If you haven’t been to WvWvW, then you haven’t done that.

Judging the state of a game by its forum community is like judging the health of a city by its hospitals.

Forums are places people come to vent their frustrations, issue complaints and demand fixes from the Dev team. As a corollary, negativity tends to breed negativity. Therefore, a community that’s caustic and unpleasant tends to drive away everyone who isn’t also caustic and unpleasant. We’re less likely to bother contributing to a forum that’s constantly upset about something.

@Amnon

nobody said it was easy to win a Civ V match on the hardest difficulty… but that’s what achievements are – doing things that are not simple and easy.

I DID THIS! Last August. After, like…. months …of experimentation and refinement. It was so, so gratifying. Deity, Standard Speed, Korea, Two City, Science Victory, ~1750 AD.

My honest advice is to not roll a profession based on their current metagame. So don’t roll a profession just because, right now, they may seem better in 1v1. Or they happen to be very powerful in mass battles. Or any reason specifically related to game balance.

Balance always changes. If you pick a profession with an enjoyable playstyle, that probably won’t ever change much. The basic design philosophy behind every class is likely to stay the same even if the numbers change.

Rangers have pets and versatility. Elementalists have lots and lots of skills, plus attunement-swaps and a bunch of combo fields. Thieves have a cooldown-neutral playstyle with an emphasis on focused damage. Pick whichever of those styles appeals to you.

@Supervillain

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. I’ve been enjoying my Mesmer a lot after two Guardians taken to level cap; it’s a challenging and complex class, and I get the general sense that it operates by creating a controlled disorder, if that makes any sense. Right now I’m working on figuring out how to get the most out of the weapons, because their use seems counterintuitive, and changes dramatically with Traits. Guardians don’t really have that quality. We’re very much a “what you see is what you get” profession.

@Supervillain,

Intrigued by your commentary. Would you mind talking to me a little bit about how you believe Greatsword should be used, and how it’s contrary to “conventional” wisdom? I’ve been tinkering with Greatsword myself, and I’d like another perspective.

@plasmacutter,

The subtext of this thread is not a failure to hold ANet ‘accountable,’ which is a line of thinking I find a bit too reactionary to get us any sort of decent response. The argument I (try to) clearly articulate in the post is that the recent change to Symbol of Wrath didn’t break Greatsword so much as it illustrated the deeper issue with Zeal. Symbol synergy is the only thing Greatsword Zeal builds had going for it, and a Trait line should never depend fundamentally on a single skill on a single weapon. That goes against the principle of Trait lines.

@Edelweiss,

I was also hesitant to combine those two traits, but my argument is that opening up ten points for Spirit Weapons builds somewhere actually allows Zeal to solidify itself as a Spirit Weapon line that also leaves enough room open to capitalize on its Symbol traits (i.e, you can go deep Spirit Weapons and take Honor as well for Spirit Weapons + Symbols). If you’re arguing that it would give too much strength to a Spirit Weapon build, then I can certainly see your side of the argument, and I can see where you’re coming from.

@Schakal,

Really interesting idea about making Symbols something you unlock. However, (and please correct me if I’m wrong) I don’t believe there is any precedence for any Traits actually unlocking an entirely new ability. Now, there is precedence for Traits changing the nature of a skill (i.e, Consecrated Ground making Consecrations ground-targeted), so if you want to have a trait that, say, turns Smite into a Symbol, then that does seem like an attractive compromise.

Also, Spirit Weapons aren’t boons, so unfortunately they do not benefit from Boon Duration.

This is some good discussion, and I’m glad people are thinking this over. That was half my goal in starting this thread—getting some constructive ideas percolating in the community’s consciousness.

One of the reasons I wrote up Harmonious Might the way I did was to deliberately keep it a bit on the low end, for a few reasons. First, it’s easier to sell a small improvement that can be buffed later than ask for a big buff that ends up being imbalance and needs a nerf later.

To that end, I understand Harmonious Might probably doesn’t compete with Empowering Might on paper, and part of that is by design. But the design of the Trait is also pretty modular—you can tweak it by bumping up the duration or the number of Might stacks.

The other thing to think about is the way Harmonious Might would interact with other traits. Sure, on paper, Harmonious Might seems lowball, but what if you took Harmonious Might plus Empowering Might? In fact, it’s a natural combination given that symbol builds will go for both Honor and Zeal anyway. So in that sense, it’s a reward for Symbol builds.

@Danicco

I do get what you’re saying, and I’m hesitant to proliferate Symbols as well. However, I want to note that, actually, Symbols are not exclusive to 2H weapons. Mace has one, and if you want to split hairs, so does Downed. Giving Scepter a Symbol actually knocks out two birds with one stone: Scepter’s Symbol gives Guardians a little more ranged flexibility without giving us an entirely new weapon set, and furthermore, dovetails ideally into the Zeal trait line (Zeal has good Symbol support, Scepter support, and Focus support).

I get what you’re saying about Minor traits also, but right now, the Minor traits are the reason a lot of Guardians pick Zeal. Symbolic Power and Symbolic Exposure are essential tools of the Symbol build, and yet Zeal has no Major trait that helps weapons with Symbols at all. Giving Scepter a Symbol would solve that problem neatly. Conversely, a Grandmaster trait that works with Symbol builds (and Honor builds and Crit builds and Spirit Weapon builds) encourages build diversity and, as a bonus, creates incentive for going deep Zeal.

That’s the issue I want to address here. With the exception of a rigid Spirit Weapons build, Zeal is a very secondary Trait line right now. A line you just dip your Trait points into and snag one or two decent Adept traits. It has very little relevance in the overarching discussion of Guardian builds.

Um, no? I worked hard to earn my gear. That T3 Cultural armor on my shoulders? Yeah, I built that.

You’re just another part of the lazy, socialist 47% of Krytans who want free Waypoints, free Training, free Trading Posts, free Repairs, and if you had your way we’d be as underwater on our debt as Old Lion’s Arch. I didn’t fight a war with the Charr for a bunch of unmotivated hippies to ruin my glorious nation.

Here’s an idea. Why don’t you go back to Cantha? You’d probably like their isolationist, freedom-hating ideas.

IV. New Grandmaster Trait: Exalted Spirit – Your Spirit Weapon Command skills become Combo Finishers. Replace Wrathful Spirits

Exalted Spirit is a natural advancement of Eternal Spirit, which allows your Spirit Weapons to stay active even after you use Command. Right now, Wrathful Spirits grants a flat +10% damage bonus to Spirit Weapons which, besides being invisible, offers very little tactical nuance to the Spirit Weapons—skills which require a committment of Utility slots to even use. This change will accomplish the following:

Bow of Truth – Command: Projectile Finisher (20% chance)
Hammer of Wisdom – Command: Blast Finisher
Shield of the Avenger- Command: Projectile Finisher
Sword of Justice – Command: Blast Finisher

• At the cost of 10% damage, Spirit Weapons become more tactically viable. Because Spirit Weapons are already a set-in-stone build, there is very little room for maneuvering. At 30 Zeal, 20 Radiance and 10 Virtues, this build is highly specialized. The proposed change will add two Projectile Finishers to the Guardian’s current selection of “0”, and two Blast Finishers compared to Guardian’s two.

• Most Spirit Weapons builds only use one or two weapons: Bow, or Shield, or Bow and Shield, or Sword and Hammer. This limits a Guardian from being able to stack too many Finishers, and maintains a little more balance.

What do you all think? I’d like to open it up here to comments, discussion and critique. Please keep it civil, and please don’t overreact. This thread is NOT intended to bash the recent Oct 7 changes, and it is NOT an implicit argument that Guardians are somehow underpowered. It is intended to discuss the merits and shortcomings of the Zeal line and provide constructive feedback to the community (and, if we’re very lucky, the dev team).

Proposed Solutions

Zeal is not inherently a bad Trait line. It is the sum of several design choices, most of which are statistically insignificant, uninteresting or incompatible with one another. It has its strengths, but these strengths are overshadowed by the sum of several small disadvantages.

This is a blessing in disguise. Zeal can be fixed piecemeal, in steps, incrementally, and does not require big, sweeping changes. The following are my own suggestions for improving the Zeal line after some thought and consideration. Implementing just one of these changes should be, in my mind, sufficient to give Zeal the boost it needs to stay relevant.

Please give me your feedback on these ideas. Remember that the implementation of just one idea will go a long way toward improving Zeal.

I. Give Scepter A Symbol

Giving Scepter a Symbol will significantly improve its compatibility with the Zeal line, which already offers Scepter Power and Binding Jeopardy, both of which work well with Scepter. Symbolic Exposure + Binding Jeopardy turns Scepter into a reliable source of Vulnerability, with anywhere from 4-8 stacks using Scepter, Focus and Blind Exposure. Because Scepter is our only reliable Ranged weapon, every Guardian will see some use out of a Scepter symbol.

• Symbol of Vigor: Burn a mystic symbol into the target area, damaging enemies and granting Vigor to allies. Combo Field: Light
• Symbol of Vigor (Alternate): Burn a mystic symbol into the target area, Burning enemies (1s) and granting Vigor to allies. Combo Field: Fire

II. Combine Improved Spirit Weapon Duration with Spirit Weapon Mastery

Improved Spirit Weapon Duration is a Virtues trait, with no necessary or evident synergy with anything the Virtues line has to offer. Consequently, this trait is essentially a “trait tax” on Spirit Weapons, forcing a prohibitively restrictive build. Merging these two traits frees up 10 points in Spirit Weapons, allowing for the following:

• 30 Zeal, 20 Radiance, 20 Honor builds that make full use of Symbols and Spirit weapons, therefore turning Zeal into a weapon-flexible line that works fine with Hammer, Mace, Staff or Greatsword. Take 10 points out of Zeal and have enough flexibility to either maximize Radiance, maximize Honor or dip in to Valor and Virtues.

• Allow a symbol-based playstyle distinct from Altruistic Healing Symbol builds, therefore creating build diversity.

• Encourage the use of Spirit Weapons by loosening the restrictive trait tax, therefore solidifying Zeal’s identity as a Spirit Weapon + Symbol Support line with room for flexible options.

III. New Grandmaster Trait: Harmonious Might

Harmonious Might – Your Combo Finishers grant 3 stacks of Might to nearby allies. Replace Zealous Blade.

Zealous Blade is a poor Grandmaster trait. Numerically, the mitigation provided by Zealous Blade is negligibly low, even if you combine multi-hit swings. Altruistic Healing heals for twice as much, and activates far more frequently. Furthermore, Zealous Blade is totally dependent on the use of Greatsword, and the bonus disappears entirely if you swap weapons. Harmonious Might seeks to address these problems by creating a weapons-neutral Trait that still favors Greatsword, but allows for greater build diversity and encourages use.

• Precedence for this trait exists. See: Empowering Might, Honor 20, which grants 1 stack of Might to nearby allies after every crit, with a 1 second internal cooldown. You can tweak Harmonious Might’s numbers, but 3 stacks of might for a 2-3 second duration seems reasonable, and compares well to—and synergizes with—Empowering Might.

• Synergizes well with both Greatsword and Hammer, two weapons which also make use of Symbols.

• An alternate spin on Altruistic Healing. Altruistic Healing synergizes well with this trait, and two 30-point trait means you can’t stack Altruistic Healing, Empowering Might and Harmonious Might.

This is not a thread about the recent change to Symbol of Wrath. Symbol of Wrath, however, is illustrative of a larger problem with the Zeal trait line, and therefore makes an excellent launching point into a discussion about Zeal. So let’s start from there.

The October 7th patch doubled the recharge on Greatsword’s Symbol of Wrath, which inspired a response from the community ranging from apathetic shrugs to furious indignation. But I contend that change to Symbol of Wrath had a more profound effect on the Zeal line than it did on the Greatsword weapon. The Greatsword functions much as it did before, but its synergy with the Zeal line is all but broken. This is a problem with Zeal before it is a problem with Greatsword.

Zeal isn’t a bad line. It seems much maligned because most Guardians have difficulty extracting some useful builds out of it. As it stands, Zeal has three basic uses:

• An ancillary trait line you drop 10-20 points into to help round out another build, almost always for Fiery Wrath, Greatsword Power or Focused Mastery.

• Spirit Weapons, for which Zeal is an essential line. Spirit Weapons are an effective and powerful build, but rigid and leave very little room for flexibility and build variation owing to deep Trait investments.

• Symbolic support, making use of Symbolic Power (which requires 25 Zeal) and Symbolic Exposure (which requires 15 Zeal), both of which are Minor traits.

Prior to the October 7th patch, Zeal offered one more option: Greatsword Symbol support. Zeal’s Greatsword traits and Symbol traits, combined with Greatsword’s readily accessible Symbol of Wrath, made 30 Zeal/30 Honor an attractive builds, with damage, fast recharge and very powerful symbols.

Unfortunately, the build depended entirely on Symbol of Wrath. And this is a problem with Zeal, rather than Greatsword. Zeal offers very little else to Greatsword other than Symbol improvement. The Greatsword traits available in Zeal (5% more damage, 25 HP per swing) are insufficient to cover the loss of Symbol of Wrath.

An entire Trait line should never hinge on the use of a single ability on a single weapon.

The Problems, Summarized

• Zeal’s Grandmaster traits are difficult to justify and difficult to build around. Radiance’s “A Fire Inside” grants more damage and utility to Spirit Weapons than Zeal’s “Wrathful Spirits,” which is a Grandmaster Trait and provides a paltry 10% damage boost. The “Zealous Blade” trait has very little, if any, additional synergy with other traits, and contributes a negligible amount of mitigation over the course of an average fight. Furthermore, Zealous Blade’s theme (mitigation through Greatsword) is at odds with the rest of the Zeal line (aggressive Symbols, improved damage and rewards for Burning).

• Zeal’s Minor Traits support Symbol use, but its Major traits offer very little of value to weapons that depend on Symbol use. Consequently, builds that emphasize Symbol use dig into Zeal almost exclusively for Minor traits.

• Spirit Weapons is a powerful build, but restrictively rigid. A good Spirit Weapons build requires at least 20 in Zeal, 20 in Radiance and 10 in Virtue, leaving 20 points to distribute elsewhere. Because Symbolic Power requires 25 Zeal, and both Writ of Exaltation and Writ of Persistence require 20 Honor, you need—at minimum—25 Zeal 20 Radiance 10 Virtues and 20 Honor to make full use of Spirit Weapons and Symbols, which is impossible by 5 points.

• A preponderance of purely statistical traits leaves Zeal uninteresting, static and largely invisible. Greatsword Power, Scepter Power, Wrathful Spirits, Zealous Blade and (to an extent) Fiery Wrath all seem interesting on paper, but provide no interesting tactical variations.

_TL;DR: Excessively expensive Spirit Weapons, Symbol support in Minor traits but no Major traits that offer anything to Symbol-using weapons, and Grandmaster traits that are difficult to build around.

I’ve been playing MMOs for a long time. I’m also really into fighting games. I used to get worked up over buffs/nerfs/patches/fixes, but…

I don’t really care at this point. Whatever changes, I will adapt. Always.

Either you shape the metagame, or the metagame shapes you. It’s your choice.

@Fildydarie

I really like your ideas. They’d definitely go a long way to improving ‘responsiveness’ in Guardian gameplay. Much as I love this class, I will agree that we tend to be a reactionary profession with lots of auto-attacks interspersed with well-timed utilities. Because our Weapon traits are very “vanilla,” our playstyle is more defined by the aggregate traits of our build and the way those traits support our playstyle.

Just to give you an example: Altruistic Healing builds work great with Hammer and Greatsword, but also function well with Mace and Staff. So the focus is on playstyle, rather than weapon.

I think there’s a potential downside to making Traits that improve weapon use, though. Guardians depend fundamentally on the ability to swap between every weapon. Even if you usually run with Sword and Scepter, there will be fights in which you really should be using Hammer, or Staff, or Greatsword.

So part of playing a Guardian requires not limiting yourself to just one weapon.

There is a middle ground though. Instead of improving specific weapon skills, you could improve skills that are shared by sets of weapons. So instead of this:

• Faithful Strike grants your allies regeneration

You could have this:

• Improves the effect of your third attack in a weapon’s attack chain. (So Greatsword’s chain might grant Might + 1 stack of Vulnerability. Mace’s chain might grant 20% more healing than before. The third Sword chain could count as 4 strikes toward Virtue of Justice, rather than 3. And Hammer’s Symbol of Protection could grant 1s of Stability to the wielder. Stuff like that.)

Overpowered? Maybe. But it illustrates my point: Because Guardians are expected to use many weapons in many different situations, Traits that specifically reward a single weapon actually reduce overall effectiveness.

This is actually one very big reason people are upset about the Greatsword nerf. Symbols are something several weapons have, including Greatsword. If you take a build that improves Symbol use, you still get good mileage out of other weapons, like Mace and Staff, that use Symbols.

Moving Symbolic Power to Valor is an interesting idea because it illustrates the issue behind Zeal. Zeal offers Symbolic support to weapons that don’t make much use of the Traits in Zeal. I don’t think moving Symbolic Power to Valor would solve the problem on its own, unless we figure out what to do with Zeal.

Zeal is intended to be a versatile offense Trait line. It encourages and rewards aggressive Symbol use. Deep Zeal builds automatically get Symbolic Power and Symbolic Exposure, but none of the traits in Zeal do all that much to support Symbol weapons. Scepter has no Symbol, and Greatsword’s Symbol has too long a recharge to benefit from either traits.

So then Zeal’s minor traits become extremely attractive to aggressive Guardians who want to make good use of their Symbols (i.e, Mace, Hammer and Staff), but don’t have any decent choices in the Trait line to support their builds. The choices are:

• Binding Jeopardy – Actually a decent Trait if you want to maximize Vulnerability applications, but really only works with Hammer. Scepter, too, but presumably you want to focus on Symbols, which Scepter doesn’t have. (Hint: This is a GREAT reason to support making Smite a symbol.)

• Fiery Wrath – Good, but only because it’s so universally applicable.

• Focused Mastery – Potentially good, but only if you’re going Mace/Focus (which is a great setup.)

• Spirit Weapons – And if you want Spirit Weapons + Symbols, you’ll need 30 Zeal, 20 Radiance, 10 Virtues and 20 Honor. Which isn’t possible.

I’m going to do a formal write-up of this soon, but the gist of it is: Zeal’s Greatsword support was lackluster to begin with, but now it’s actually at odds with its Symbol support. You don’t get enough Symbol use out of Greatsword to justify it. It’s a Symbol line with nothing to offer Symbol weapons, and is therefore used for Spirit Weapons builds (which are awesome, but restrictive) or as a “dipping” line that you drop 10 or 20 points into for specific traits, like Fiery Wrath or Focused Mastery.

I want to advocate change to the Zeal line, and I’ll get to work on that later today.

PS: I don’t think all the weapon traits are lackluster. Right Hand Strength is amazing and the Recharge reduction traits are useful on a support-heavy profession like Guardians. I do, however, believe that the Trait lines are intentionally designed to be (more or less) weapon-agnostic, which is to say that they don’t depend on or reward the use of a specific weapon (and consequently punishing you for not using that weapon), but allow you to play a specific playstyle with any weapon you want.

Guardian role and tactics change so fundamentally from weapon to weapon, so builds need to allow you some leeway in switching between weapons.

That’s actually one of the problems with Zeal’s Greatsword traits. Not only do they suck, but they limit you to Greatsword.

I think it’s this

Human Heavy Cultural Tier 3

You are speaking from the perspective of someone that dabbled in symbols, me and others are those that fully invested in symbols., so its understandable that you and I don’t see eye to eye.

No, I play a Symbols build—among others. I have two Guardians, one of which has been Symbols for a very long time. Deep Zeal, deep Honor.

Everything you say Greatsword Symbols could do before the patch, Hammers could do as well—sometimes better. Hammer’s auto-attack produced a Symbol far more often than Greatsword. Hammer is by no means a weapon that just “uses symbols as a minor thing.” Symbols are absolutely, crucially fundamental to Hammer play. It is the defining element of Hammer play.

The only difference between Hammers and Greatsword symbols—other than the fact that Hammer symbols are available a lot more often—is that Greatsword benefits from two Zeal traits (5% more damage, 25 HP per strike), both of which suck a lot.

If you take Zeal out of the picture, Hammer is still as reliable—if not moreso—a weapon for Symbol use as Greatsword. If you include Zeal, the only benefits Greatsword gets from Zeal is 5% more damage and 25 HP per swing. Both of which are, frankly, pretty awful and don’t by any means make Greatsword the conclusive symbol build.

The problem is Zeal. It’s a flimsy Trait line and the only ways you could make it work were:

1. Use it for Spirit Weapons, in which case it’s actually quite good.
2. Use it to “dip” for other builds, particularly the 15 and 25 point Minor traits, and +10% damage on Burning targets.
3. Use it for a Greatsword Symbol build, which mixes Deep Zeal and Deep Honor for a Symbol-centric build that also grants you 5% more damage from Greatswords (lackluster) and 25 HP per swing (ditto)

The problem is Zeal. Zeal doesn’t really offer anything to other weapons, and what it does offer to Greatsword is paltry, minimal even. 5% more damage and 25 HP isn’t what sets Greatsword apart from Hammer. 3 Combo finishers, two of which offer Condition Removal, and Might with every auto-attack along is what sets it apart from Hammer.

Describing Greatsword as the definitive Symbol weapon and Hammer as a weapon that only makes “minor” use of Symbols is just categorically incorrect.

The Symbol synergy you get out of Zeal helps Hammer exactly as much as it helps Greatsword. The Greatsword traits you get out of Zeal aren’t that great anyway. Why? Because once you lose your Symbol of Wrath, Greatsword synergy with Zeal just vanishes. +5% damage and 25 HP per swing is just not enough to make it stand out.

20-second Symbol of Wrath means Greatsword lost its one half-decent Trait line. This is because Zeal needs help. We need a better Grandmaster trait, and we need something a bit more tactically interesting than 5% more damage.

I’d like to begin advocating Zeal buffs on this forum, specifically to produce better Greatsword synergy (which seems to be the whole point of Zeal in the first place). I think that can help alleviate the Greatsword situation. I also think that the SoW wrath on its own is not so big a deal, but just illustrates how dependent Greatsword was on a trait line (Zeal) that just does not deliver. If I start that discussion, will you support it?

@GrayGhost

Hammer does output the damage GS does, just differently, and at a different pace. Also, Hammer (and arguably Mace, although it’s a case of Apple v Orange) definitely does utilize a symbol as well as GS did prior to the nerf, if not better. Symbol of Protection is the cornerstone of many a Symbol build for very good reason: It’s one of our most reliable symbols.

The changes didn’t break symbol builds. It broke synergy between Zeal and Greatsword. This is a problem, but this is fundamentally a problem with Zeal before it is a problem with Greatsword. The longer recharge on Symbol of Wrath does not illustrate Greatsword’s weakness; it illustrates the Zeal line’s weakness.

Zeal has issues. It’s best for Spirit Weapon builds right now, but only offers ancillary support for every other sort of build. It’s a Trait line you dip into for damage support, burn support, and Symbol support (the bulk of which actually comes from a mix of Honor and Zeal, not just Zeal alone.)

Zeal had problems and Guardians adapted by managing to squeeze out a viable Greatsword Symbol build out of it, which depended entirely on one power—Symbol of Wrath. Now that power has had its recharge doubled, and the build falls apart. Why? Because Zeal is a problematic Trait line.

The community has caught on to this issue pretty strongly, but we’ve been advocating a reversal of the nerf, which only fixes a short term complaint. What we should be advocating hard is a Zeal buff, and we should be using the recent nerf as solid proof that the Zeal tree needs help.

I’d totally get behind Smite being a symbol. One of the issues behind Symbols, however, is that they all follow a similar formula: Deal damage to the enemy and grant a boon to allies. Symbol of Wrath gives Retal; Symbol of Protection gives Protection, and so on.

If you turn Smite into a Symbol, Vigor is probably a good boon to attach to it. Maybe Fury.

Wow, are you serious? That’s either a potentially awesome buff to Renewed Focus or a bug. I haven’t seen any documentation commenting on it. A couple of questions:

1. Does Elite Focus actually lengthen the duration of Renewed Focus Invulnerability?
2. Does Elite Focus allow you to _ immediately_ begin moving while casting Renewed Focus, or after the first three seconds?
3. Have you tried it without Elite Focus?

I’ll try it when I get home.

@Stamen,

Actually, if you want survivability, you’ll want Focus, not Shield. And Hammer is probably more survivable than Greatsword, especially with Altruistic Healing. Also, I don’t know what build you’re running. Power/Toughness isn’t a build, unless you mean you went Zeal/Valor, in which case, are you using Altruistic Healing or Monk’s Focus?

Furthermore, all-signets is probably a bad idea with Guardians if you want survivability, especially if you’re not Radiance.

But none of that matters at all. The problem is that you’re defining survivability as the ability to take down enemies quickly. If that’s what survivability means to you, then yeah, of course Guardians are going to be less survivable than a thief.

You’re building your Guardian like a thief or a warrior and expecting survivability. It won’t happen. If you want high damage and the ability to take down mobs quickly, you should consider a Burn build with Right-Hand Strength and Spirit Weapons. If you want survivability, you should look at Altruistic Healing and Monk’s Focus, plus Hammer, or Mace.

Guardians don’t survive like Thieves do. Greatsword is an aggressive weapon. You actually sacrifice Survivability to use it, and when you do use it, it’s probably best used when you have Combo Fields to activate.

Reading your post, the problem doesn’t seem to be that Guardians lack survivability. The problem seems to be that you’ve built your Guardian to farm like a Thief, and he’s getting killed and not living as long. That’s expected. Guardians don’t kill things as fast as Thieves do. Spirit Weapons + Burning, Monk’s Focus and Altruistic Hammer builds are probably your best bet for good damage and survivability.