Guild Wars 2

I agree! I don’t think there’s a single profession I dislike. I’ve got two Guardians, a warrior, a mesmer, an Elementalist, and I’d like to try an Engineer and Necromancer too.

My only regret is that I do not have enough character slots. :P

Ganzo.5079:

@kousei
Well you are not the one who can make this choice for me, and say to other persons “this class its not for you, change” its quite arrogant, and i really hate this type of moods, instead of being constructive, this type of comments are destructive.

i dont think that hammer and GS are the only weap for guardian, i love swap weapons but you surely can say that Gs and hammer, are the only weapons oriented to a mix of damage and support.
Im one of the player that continue to use the GS(with mace\shield) istead of rolling an hammer guard like many of us, i like the staff, but only when in not in the middle of the fight.

Maybe my last comment was not so smart, but try to understand others before talk, maybe your playstyle its not so affected by the GS change, mine is changed i bit, its a bit boring like before, i do less damage, but im effective.

It’s not arrogant. It’s honest. If you honestly, sincerely believe your Guardian is not fun for you anymore, then don’t punish yourself by playing a profession you don’t enjoy. Play something else. Play what you do enjoy, and Dwayna bless you.

And speaking of constructive comments, there is absolutely nothing constructive about saying things like “Guardians are garbage now and should be tossed into storage,” or “If they nerf Hammer, we’ll be using our bare hands.” How is that constructive? How does that sort of feedback help anyone? It’s overreaction, hyperbole, and just plain false.

And no, Greatsword and Hammer are absolutely not the only weapons oriented toward a mix of damage and support. You’re forgetting about Sword and Mace, both of which are flexible enough to be built for both offense and support, or both.

What I do know is that my Thief with dual daggers can stand up against more enemies than my Guardian with a GS.

What build are you running with your Guardian? What are your traits and weapon swaps, and what utilities? And which fights are you talking about in which your Thief can stand up to more enemies than your Guardian?

Guardians are a great defensive class, but that defense is not automatic. It takes a bit of tuning and a bit of optimization, and good situational awareness, to produce a highly survivable Guardian.

If you post your details and the fights in which you have trouble (because not all encounters are the same), we can probably help you out. Greatsword, by the way, is not the best choice for a survivability build. It’s an aggressive weapon focused on dealing damage to multiple nearby targets and triggering Combo Fields. Survivable Guardians should be looking at Hammer or Mace. Even Sword and Scepter are more defensive than Greatsword.

Retaliation doesn’t really contribute to your survivability. It just rewards you for brinksmanship.

Kruunch,

You’ve just had that light bulb moment. Don’t be frightened. It happens to every Guardian who eventually realizes all the amazing potential behind Altruistic Healing.

For further reading, check out Trungalung and Brutaly’s ongoing discussions on Crithammer and Altruistic Healing synergy.

No, Strength in Numbers is a static effect, not a boon proc. Altruistic Healing only applies to boons that you apply to yourself, or allies, or both. Might, Swiftness, Retaliation, Vigor, that sort of thing. Passive bonuses you provided to your allies do not activate Altruistic Healing.

Are you saying it’s going to be harder to find Guardians because the Guardians upset with this patch are hanging up their characters and rerolling?

That’s a good thing. Honestly, I’d rather not run a Dungeon with someone so prone to overreacting.

mulch.2586:

there is a suggestions forum

why suggest something to take away player choice?

did you realize the engineer doesn’t exactly have a melee set?

This argument gets brought up over and over again, and it’s a bit of a fallacy.

Melee weapons cannot be used at range. All ranged weapons can be used in melee range.

That’s why the argument that “Engineers don’t have melee weapons, so professions that lack ranged options shouldn’t whine” misses the point. The OP’s point is that weapon swaps limit your weapon choice because one of your weapon choices should be a ranged weapon.

This is not true in every case, but it is true that the ability to be at range and stay at range is often an advantage, and if one of your two swaps is not a ranged weapon, you potentially put yourself at a disadvantage.

The Guardian is designed for support and defense. And because in this game, support and defense depends fundamentally on good timing, our support abilities all have longer than usual cooldowns. Short-cooldown abilities encourage regular use; long-cooldown abilities encourage precise timing for a larger payoff.

Support comes, for the most part, in three forms. We have passive, ‘baked in’ effects like Symbol of Protection on our Hammer Chain 3 or Heal on our Mace Chain 3. We have utilities, nearly all of which have prohibitive cooldowns that punish careless use and powerful effects that reward precise timing (Wall of Reflection, Stand Your Ground, etc.)

But we also have utility skills in our weapons bar—lots of them. Because skills like Binding Blade, Shield of Absorption, Shield of Wrath, Line of Warding, Empower and Banish are so potentially powerful given precise timing, they all have long cooldowns that prohibit frequent use in the heat of battle.

This leaves Guardians in a peculiar position: Half our weapons are responsive, aggressive and loaded with short-recharge abilities; the other half aren’t, and depend heavily on Auto Attack (1). Sword is a great example of an aggressive, kinetic weapon that’s quite a lot of fun to play and has cooldowns short enough to encourage use but long enough to discourage waste. Mace is another great example. With a Symbol at 8 seconds and Protector’s Strike at a modest 15 seconds, Mace may feel “slow and steady,” but it’s hardly dull. It doesn’t rely so heavily on its Auto-Attack.

Greatsword is in a singularly awkward position, in fact.

On paper, the cooldowns don’t look that bad. You have a 15 second (12 traited) Leap that’s also a finisher, which is great for closing distance and staying aggressive. You have Whirling Wrath at a short 10 second (8 traited) recharge that deals solid damage to single targets or groups. Two solid, aggressive abilities on relatively short cooldowns, plus a solid Auto-Attack. That seems fair, right?

Actually, it’s not that simple.

The problem is that, on paper, Greatsword’s few short cooldown skills make it seem like a fun, active, aggressive weapon. However, Leap of Faith, Whirling Wrath and Binding Blade are all Combo Finishers, and Combo Finishers used carelessly are easily wasted.

The best use of a Combo Finisher is, unsurprisingly, while inside a combo field. Greatsword is our single most dependable source of Combo Finishers, and our only source of Combo Finisher: Leap. Prior to the October 7 patch, the 10s cooldown on Symbol of Wrath gave Greatsword its “active” playstyle by providing Guardians with an at-will Combo Field, thus ensuring that your Combo Finishers are never wasted.

In other words, Greatsword’s functionality pivots on Symbol of Wrath. Leap of Faith, Binding Blade and Whirling Wrath all have powerful synergy with Symbol of Wrath, and a big increase in SoW’s cooldown length also reduces the frequency with which Leap, Whirling and Binding can be optimally used.

Perhaps this is by design. Perhaps the change was intended to tone down a weapon that had access to a powerful Symbol, a combo Field and the ability to activate three Finishers off that one, low-cooldown, frequently-available Field. And maybe that was a problem. I won’t speculate, because that’s pointless.

But what is certain is this: The October 7 patch may not have, on paper, reduced the damage and functionality of the Greatsword by much. But it did reduce the frequency with which Guardians could optimally use their abilities. Put another way, the Oct 7 patch encourages reactionary use of Greatsword abilities, rather than aggressive use. It makes Greatsword play depend more heavily on Auto-Attack rather than abilities #2 to #5 which seems oddly counterintuitive.

It’s true that Greatsword’s function has changed. It’s no longer a reliable weapon for Symbol builds, which are now better suited to Staff, Hammer and Mace. The damage nerf is relatively insignificant, and only looks significant on paper. It’s a situational damage nerf, and not on its own a big deal.

Greatsword capacity for support through Finishers actually hasn’t changed. Previously, Greatsword was a very powerful all-around weapon that provided both strong Symbol support and three Combo Finishers. Now, the Symbol support is limited, at best, but the Combo Finisher support actually got better by a good margin.

Our one and only Leap Finisher got better. I’ll argue that we could use another one in Sword, but that’s not really relevant here. Our two Whirl Finishers remain strong sources of both damage and support.

So Greatsword is hardly a bad weapon for Support. It’s just a matter of how you go about achieving that support. Greatsword’s role has become more clearly defined. It lost one role—synergy with Symbol based builds—but it’s become solidified as a Combo Finisher weapon.

The point I’m trying to make in this thread, which I hope I’ve illustrated, is that these changes are seriously not worth throwing a fit over. Dismissing Guardians as a broken class, a useless class, one fit for storage, that’s been “nerfed to the ground”—the sort of rhetoric that’s being used in this thread—doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t help players looking for some sensible feedback on the changes, and it doesn’t help ANet on the off chance that they’re reading our feedback.

If you want to make a thread about how Greatsword lost its Symbolic support—an arguably central tool in the Guardian support toolbox—I’d gladly engage you on the topic. Heck, I’d probably even agree with you.

What I can’t agree with are these knee-jerk, over-the-top topics that spread misinformation about the degree and scope of the nerfs and create white noise over which valuable feedback gets drowned out.

The tooltip is ambiguous. The targeted area is not targeted, but always appears right in front of your character.

You can target Wall of Reflection up to a range of 900 by taking the Consecrated Ground trait, which makes your Consecrations use ground targeting.

Conclusion

The Greatsword changes do not reduce your damage at all in shorter fights (i.e, less than, say, 12-15 seconds) and may actually improve it. In longer fights, you will see a modest damage loss from the increased cooldown of Symbol of Wrath, but only in situations where you’re dropping Symbol down every ten seconds, and the enemy is staying inside the radius of Symbol for the entire duration. Furthermore, your only Leap finisher gets a lot better, and Greatsword gets significantly better at Combo Finishers, and your Blind options and Sword/Focus synergy becomes significantly better.

So, a modest if situational, weapon-dependent nerf coupled with a modest, less situational but also weapon dependent buff.

Seems like an okay trade-off. A small overall nerf at worst, but hardly the game breaking, Guardian killing, klaxon activating nerf to the ground you’re painting it to be.

Just seems odd that you decrease power output on the class when the only really damage it can do is with great sword or normal sword + shield.

The Oct 7th patch didn’t decrease the “power output” of the Guardian class by a significant amount. We had, in the long run, a modest nerf to a single ability on a single weapon coupled with a modest buff to a single ability on a single weapon. The buff to Leap of Faith is something no one is talking about, which is so weird. It significantly improves Greatsword/Sword+Focus synergy. Like, a lot.

Furthermore, Guardians can deal damage with the following weapons pretty significantly. Sword, Scepter, Focus, Torch, Greatsword, Hammer. Of these, Sword + Torch, Hammer and Greatsword deliver the most damage, while Scepter is potentially powerful at a closer range.

but considerng the staff and sceptre skills are a waste of time that leaves sword and shield or mace and shield
and tbh the mace skills aint that great either.

Staff is an excellent weapon, but it’s tailored more to support than damage, and shines with Trait support. Scepter, while dull, is effective at mid-range. And Mace is a solid weapon—just limited in its scope. It has a short cooldown Symbol, a heal on an auto-attack, and a strong block-counter that also protects nearby allies. Amazing? No. But definitely solid. You’ve also, conspicuously, left out Torch (awesome) and Focus (awesome)

And caste time on some of the "Elite " tome of wrath are pretty ridiculous one of them ha s a cast tiime of 45 seconds. To balance things how about reducing that a little.

Did you mean 4-5 seconds? Absolutely no spell in this game takes 45 seconds to cast.

There’s no guardian past greatsword, m8. You can’t even call it a nerf. It’s instant class destruction.
R.I.P. dear guardian. Was fun while it lasted.

I’m going to guess you were being sarcastic. In case you weren’t, I’m going to guess you were just blowing off steam. Because there isn’t even a fraction of truth to this statement.

And don’t try to sell me some “adapt” blah-blah-blah. I can see when a class gets nerfed to the ground. And then there’s nothing to stay for, nothing to adapt to. This patch killed my mes and my guard. Well, it’s time to play engi and war.

So what happens when Engineer and Warrior get nerfed too? What classes will you go to?

I really think you’re overreacting. The problem with your post is that it’s incredibly difficult to engage you and offer you some constructive advice when you say things like “There is nothing to stay for, nothing to adapt to.” Let’s look at what did happen:

1. Greatsword’s Symbol of Wrath went from a 10s Recharge to a 20s recharge
2. Leap of Faith went from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.

So overall, the patch changes the way you play Greatsword in the following ways:

• Symbol of Wrath contributes less overall damage in fights that last longer than 20 seconds provided your enemy stays within the radius of your Symbol for the entire 5s duration, and provided you use Symbol of Wrath precisely when it’s off cooldown. This is roughly equal to losing one auto-attack chain worth of damage in perfectly static fights every 20 seconds. In practice, roughly speaking, in a 30 second fight, this is the equivalent of losing one string of attacks, tops.

• Greatsword synergy with Zeal is now less obvious and less attractive. This is actually a pretty valid complaint. Zeal has two Greatsword traits—both of which are, admittedly, lackluster—but prior to the patch, Zeal worked pretty well with Greatsword. However, this problem is reflective of the issues inherent in the Zeal trait line, not Greatsword itself.

• Blind applications become significantly more reliable. Leap of Faith is now 15 seconds, or 12 with 20% Recharge reduction. Combine this with Flashing Blade (10s recharge), Ray of Judgement (25s recharge) and Virtue of Justice (30s—as low as 1-2 seconds with Renewed Justice), and you have the potential for constant and reliable mitigation in a way that was as easy before.

• Your only Leap Finisher in the entire profession gets 25% of its recharge shaved off. You have a much more reliable source of Leap Finisher, and Greatsword, overall, becomes less of a symbol weapon and more of a Combo Finisher weapon, allowing for significantly more group synergy with everyone else’s Combo Fields.

Celestina.2894:

Random question regarding blinds, how does blind interact with non-target things such as barrage in PVE and PVP. Does blinding the source still cause them to miss?

I’m 90% sure it will cause the first attack to miss in a multi-hit attack (like Barrage) regardless of the target being an enemy or an area.

Complaining won’t get you improvements. This isn’t a Starbucks.

Constructive posts help you a lot more than angry complaints will. If you had a constructive suggestion and it got merged or deleted by a mod, then one of three things happened:

• Your post wasn’t nearly as constructive as you thought.
• You posted at a bad time. Sad but true; trying to be rational when everyone else is throwing a fit doesn’t work. It’s like trying to be the one person at Thanksgiving Dinner trying to calm down your angry and drunk Uncle who’s getting in a fight with your misbehaving cousins.
• You were suggesting something that was already being talked about in another thread.

Complaining and getting angry might help you get a little steam off, but I promise you it won’t make a lick of difference in the long run. Constructive criticism backed up with cogent arguments and a good discussion has a much better chance.

The bad place they’re were in for PvE is not where I lent my focus. I’m strictly a PvPer (via WvW) thus was giving my opinions on their similarities from that standpoint. I should have clarified. I apologize.

Nah, don’t apologize. I totally feel you there. A dangerous Ret paladin in PVP was a thing to behold, not only because it was so rare, but because it was so difficult to pull off, and so infuriating to the adversary.

;)

I feel you to an extent. I don’t think such a blow has been delivered, at the very least one to warrant our full outright cries. Maybe I’m just not seeing what you are. The recent GS Symbol nerf was not enough, in my eyes, to warrant the level of sincerity I’m getting from your post. Obviously text does not convey feeling very well, but it seems to err on the side of aggression.

I’m with you there. I feel like the SoW nerf changed Greatsword trait synergy and changed the nature of the Greatsword weapon away from Symbols and toward combo finishers. I also feel like the buff to Leap of Faith is one of the unsung qualities of the recent patch, and actually helps us quite a lot more than we seem to be recognizing.

Animus.6073 you have another thread on the topic, but I’d rather not bounce between them, so I’ll say it here:

I appreciate your passion on behalf of your profession. I think it’s awesome that Guardians care so deeply about our gameplay, and I personally have a few “pet peeves” I plan on fiercely advocating once the time is right.

But.

I do think the general response in these forums toward the recent Guardian changes are laced with hyperbole and exaggeration that simply do not stand up to scrutiny. Like you said in another forum, you are a good writer and your posts reflect your ability to articulate your feelings. But most of the complaints surrounding the SoW change are just irrational and based on Slippery Slope fallacy (“First they came for your SoW, then they’ll come for your Hammer, and soon the Guardian will be a forgotten class”) or Hyperbole (“The SoW nerf makes GW inviable/trash/uncompetitive/terrible/kills melee, etc.”)

I just can’t throw my hat into the ring on this one. I like the general philosophy of being stoic in the face of change, but the SoW changes are just not a big deal. Or at least, not as big a deal as a lot of people on this forum are making it seem.

I totally sympathize with your sentiments and agree with your message of keeping your chin up and weathering changes, but largely because change is the status quo in an MMO, and ANet has a history of frequent and aggressive balancing—which I personally think is a good thing.

The Guardian forums became almost unreadable in the minutes following the patch, which is annoying, because constructive discussions get buried in thread after thread of hyperbole and palpable frustration. Even if you want to criticize the Oct 7 patch (and, in fact, I do), it’s hard to get a rational argument out before it gets buried in exaggeration.

By the way, as the proud player of a Retribution paladin from vanilla to Wrath of the Lich King (I had to go Holy for raids for a while, alas) I don’t think Guardians are at all like Ret. Ret was in a bad place for years, and in PVE it was simply noncompetitive by a long shot for a very, very long time.

Guardians, on the other hand, are in a good place. We’re a powerful, useful, versatile and competitive profession with adequate complexity and a strong balance of power and support. I don’t see that changing any time soon, at all.

So do I get a refund on the gold I spent on my GS and Sigil?
Are you planning on breaking Hammer next?
I really would’nt like to invest that much again, only to have nerfed by a change that should not have affect the weapon class at all…

Your Greatsword is still a solid weapon, but some of its trait synergy has changed. You’re better off keeping the Greatsword and changing Traits around as appropriate. Frankly, as a Guardian, you should never be without one good copy of every weapon type available to you anyway.

To be frank, if you’re upset about the Guardian Greatsword and Retaliation changes, I can understand. But the scope of the changes in the Oct 7 patch were comparatively tiny. Developers—especially ANet—can and do make frequent balance adjustments, which are often wider and more sweeping than re-arranging Greatsword skills and doubling the recharge on one Symbol.

My point is: If seeing one skill on Greatsword nerfed really upsets you, you’re in for a lot more disappointment. Nerfs and buffs happen, constantly. They’ll happen again. It’s just a reality of MMO design that you have to deal with. What’s amazing today might not be so good tomorrow, and what’s terrible today might be a lot better tomorrow.

I’m seeing a slight disparity here.

Confirmation Bias Fallacy. You’re seeing a slight disparity because you’re cherry picking Warrior Traits and Guardian Traits in order to confirm your bias that Guardian traits are somehow lacking.

Traits you should be looking at for a better view of Guardian trait synergy and cornerstone traits for builds:

• Eternal Spirit
• Renewed Justice
• Right-Hand Strength
• Altruistic Healing
• Monk’s Focus
• Vigorous Precision
• Empowering Might
• Supreme Justice
• Absolute Resolution

If you want to illustrate the disparity between Warrior and Guardian traits, the aforementioned list is just a small sampling of the sort of powerful Traits Guardians enjoy which are wholly unavailable to Warriors, for very good reason (that reason being Warriors aren’t Guardians.)

Humans definitely played a key role in the development of the Guardian, a quintessentially “human” profession. The skills, abilities and spells of the Guardians are passed down from the traditions of the Sunspears and various Monastic orders, before being incorporated into military culture and stripped of its theological values by way of syncretism.

Paragons and Monks were devoted to the Gods and followed certain codes of conduct. Their abilities and power survives in the modern Guardian class, although the old fashioned adherance to any code and devotion to any Gods are no longer requirements.

You’re being pessimistic to a degree which is difficult to justify. A lot of your observations are not accurate, or are exaggerated to the point of hyperbole. It’s possible you’re having difficulty choosing a profession because you’re too quick to dismiss these professions based on faulty or limited reasoning.

Guardian is the class with which I have the most experience. While I absolutely agree that Guardians lack ranged options, I don’t believe that ranged is categorically “much better” in this game than melee. Melee performs very well in most situations, and in many situations where Ranged is required, Guardians get by with their Scepter. Some situations, like Sieges in WvWvW, are definitely going to be tricky for a Guardian.

Secondly, I urge you to reconsider this idea that “support is meh until you get very good gear,” for two reasons:

1. There isn’t any such thing as ‘very good gear.’ There’s merely good gear. Exotic gear. It isn’t that much better than Rare gear and you certainly aren’t going to get any better at Support by stacking +Healing, or whatever else “very good gear” gets you. In fact, I’d argue that stacking support-only stats in your gear makes you an ineffective Guardian.

2. Support is very often baked in to all of your abilities. You don’t “support” by using heals all the time. Support is the aggregate effect of your tactics in battle and the timely use of all your skills including weapon swaps and utilities, contextualized by your choice in traits and magnified by your choice of gear.

Finally, Guardians can and do melee ‘as well’ as other classes, if not better in some cases. Guardians have fewer options in melee than Warriors. That much is for sure. Just like Warriors have fewer support options compared to Guardians. But Guardians are perfectly awesome in melee. I would gladly argue that we have hands down the best Sword setup in the entire game, and our Hammer setup is absolutely devestating with the right traits.

Now, I’m afraid I simply do not know Rangers as well as some of the experts you might find in our forums. But if your appraisal of Rangers is as fallacious as your opinion on Guardians, I urge you to take a closer, more rational look at what these professions offer.

Or, if you really want, just go Warrior. You have a lot of good things to say about them after all.

Hologramx.6402:

My guardian is still level 18 but I would like to ask a question about this.
Does it work like signets that, once you activate it, there will be no more passive effect until the cool down is over? I am curious of how much the activated VoR would be useful because the active heal is so small (if I lose the regeneration by activating it).

Yes, Virtues are essentially party-support Signets. Out of the box, they’re okay, but they really shine when traited. Activating Resolve, for example, isn’t really worth it unless it helps a lot of nearby allies, in which case you get more out of it.

The idea behind Virtues is that, while passive, they help you. But when activated, they help nearby allies. Virtues express a Guardian concept of sacrificing your own good for the good of the many.

Ticket prices are in the Black Lion Trading Company. They’re cheap. You can buy them for in-game gold after converting to gems. Five tickets for 75 gems.

5 amazing 80’s.

It won’t take that much longer.

OP,

Some very thorough explanations here and great insights. Thanks for the write-up.

Svarty,

This means retaliation should be used as a counter in specific situations, rather than a constant. In the same way Aegis is a good counter to stopping big hits, Retal should be a good counter to punishing repeated/multiple hits. The patch notes reflect an ongoing effort to make Retaliation a situational boon rather than something you leave running permanently.

Symbols builds are still solid. It’s just that GS is probably not a good choice for a Symbols build now. You’re better off with Hammer for a symbols build, and Mace as well. Greatsword now is more of a Combo Finisher weapon, and will therefore benefit more from recharge reduction, which means Honor.

One of the unforeseen effects of the recent patch was to tilt builds further away from Zeal than before, and closer to Honor. It’s a bit odd, since Honor is already a fantastic trait line for any Guardian, and Zeal is really limited to Symbol builds, Spirit Weapons and Greatsword. ….Except, well, you’re still way better off going Honor for Greatswords now.

Anyway, Symbols builds are perfectly viable. You’re just better off with a different weapon. Although, it should be said that Greatsword is not a bad idea for a weapon swap option in Symbols builds, because Symbols create Combo Fields, and Greatsword has your only Leap finisher on a short recharge, as well as two Whirling finishers.

The recharge on Symbol of Wrath also seems to make it more favorable as a swap rather than a main weapon for Symbols builds.

Good luck!

Yeah, delete the whole class. That’s not horribly melodramatic at all. Sweet Dwayna, some of you guys respond to nerfs in the most unbelievable ways.

A couple things bother me about this change:

1. The intention of removing perma-Retal from the metagame is understandable. However, I don’t think doubling the recharge on Symbol of Wrath is the most elegant or useful way to go about it, unless their intention was also to reduce Greatsword functionality. Symbol of Wrath is a mainstay of Guardian damage and Guardian combos. It’s not going to be quite a problem in PVP (which is where perma-Retal tends to make the most difference) because Symbols are so static and limited in size. In PVE, though, Symbol of Wrath has group utility in the form of combo fields, and is also the one powerful link between Greatsword and Zeal (which includes Greatsword Traits and Symbol traits). Without a reliable symbol in Greatsword, Zeal isn’t really an attractive Trait line for Greatsword.

1. The reduced cooldown on Leap of Faith is nice. It’s our only Leap finisher of every weapon we have, so shaving an additional five seconds off (eight, with a trait) is significant. However, if they really want to improve Combo Finisher functionality, we should take a second look at Scepter for a Projectile finisher and Sword for another Leap finisher.

1. I’ve always loved Signet of Judgment. It is, in my opinion, underrated. However, the change seems incredibly inelegant and will punish players who haven’t read the patch notes thoroughly. Essentially, this change makes it so that Signet of Judgment will always apply 3 seconds of Retaliation—not 5—even if a player takes Vengeance (a trait which improves Retaliation by 25%). This is going to be reported as a bug by hundreds of players who don’t know the notes and shouldn’t be expected to grasp an unintuitive change.

If they really wanted to make perma-Retaliation inviable, they’re better off removing the Vengeance trait and making it do something else, and changing the functionality—rather than the Recharge—of Symbol of Wrath.

It’s not a bug. Patch notes:

We are moving towards retaliation being more of a counter to taking many hits rather than a general boon to keep up all the time. We also wanted to improve the combo finisher of the guardian, so we reorganized guardian greatsword skills to the following:
Skill 2: Whirling Wrath (10 second recharge)
Skill 3: Leap of Faith (15 second recharge)
Skill 4: Symbol of Wrath (20 second recharge)

It’s part of an ongoing effort to change the way Retaliation is being used in the meta.

As long as we make that clear, I don’t see any reason why they would not tell us.

I can think of a few reasons. All of them have to do with the way players interpret and overanalyze every single thing a Developer says, to the point of paranoia. If a Dev says his main is a Thief, you can be absolutely sure a lot of players are going to blame him if they have a problem with Thieves in PVP. Ditto for any other given option.

“That Dev plays Elementalist? Well she obviously isn’t doing her job, because our profession sucks.” That sort of thing.

Obviously not all of us are going to respond this way, but the risk is probably too high to justify too many Devs openly taking about their gaming habits.

But I have another question. I know that the cooldown on these things activates after they’re destroyed and not after they’re summoned, but with the Eternal Spirit trait, does the cooldown activate after they’re commanded, or does it still wait until they’re duration is up?

Eternal Spirit gives the “Command” skill a separate cooldown altogether. This means you can Command your weapon several times before they disappear.

The cooldown for the weapons themselves always begin after the duration has run its course. So there’s always some downtime.

Cuchullain.3104:

The did in fact ignore my complaint and refuse to compensate me. Am I supposed to be happy about that?

Happy? I don’t know. Surprised? Definitely not, if your complaints sound at all like the stuff you’re posting here.

Cuchullain.3104:

“If you truly believe that ANet’s only goal is to lie, cheat, and make you angry, then I really feel sorry for you”

I never said any such thing, so don’t twist my words around.

Really? You may as well have. Your entire response is just an angry tirade about how ANet is guilty of lying, blowing you off, disrespecting you, ignoring your complaints, taking you for granted, damaging the integrity of their own game, lacking responsibility, lacking common sense, and ideologically opposed to doing the right thing. You compared ANet to corrupt politicians and corporations, and to top it all off, claim that the only sort of anecdote that matters is your brand of enraged vitriol.

Look, I sympathize powerfully with the problems that arise from shoddy Diminishing Returns measures and consistently shaky—to say the least—bugs that hurt our gameplay for the first three weeks or so.

But it’s incredibly hard to sympathize with you when your rhetoric is running over with vitriol.

Aha! A spirit weapons discussion! I’ve been waiting for this.

I love Spirit Weapons. I’ve been using them for a long time and trying to get the word out. They’re an excellent build, useful in leveling, in sPVP, in dungeons.

My early spirit weapons build can be found right here.

In a nutshell, there are basically two ways to use Spirit Weapons, and two ways to build them: Defensively and Offensively. I built mine Offensively, so I used both Sword and Hammer. If you build Defensively, you can actually safely skip A Fire Inside, since Burning is perfectly useless on both Shield of Avenger and Bow of Truth.

You can take Wrathful Spirits if you want, but it isn’t mandatory. As Danicco pointed out, 10% damage isn’t much for the Spirit Weapons, and A Fire Inside adds a LOT more anyway. Plus, Spirit Weapons builds are already pretty strict.

So, for an offensive build, your setup is 20 Zeal, 20 Radiance and 10 Virtues. This leaves you with a modest 20 points to spread around. A few suggestions, by no means comprehensive, of where to put those 20:

20 in Honor – Additional support to help make up for your lost Utility slots. Empowering Might is pretty nice.
30 Radiance – Even more damage and condition damage. I really like Right Hand Strength, too. There’s something to be said for using Signets for this build as well, in which case you can get some mileage out of Perfect Inscriptions.
30 Virtues – A solid support and damage option. Every build can make use of Virtues, regardless of Utilities. Having stronger Virtue of Justice, faster cooldowns on your Virtues and superior Virtue effects will help round you out.
10 Valor – You could go 20 if you want, but to be honest, the Master Valor traits don’t offer much for a Spirit Weapons build. You can’t really load up on Meditations after all, although if you want to use a Shield, this is a good option. Purity is great for any build.
30 Zeal – Good for Greatsword/Hammer setups that want more out of their Symbols. Will also crank a bit more damage out of your Spirit Weapons.

A quick and dirty run-down of the pro’s and con’s.

Pros:

• Fantastic damage. With A Fire Inside, Eternal Spirit and Improved Duration, Spirit Weapons add a great deal of cumulative damage. Take both Sword and Hammer—use them either independently or at the same time.
• Very powerful knockdown. Hammer’s knockdown is one of our strongest attacks, bar none. It hits like a sackful of doorknobs in the face, and I’ve seen the knockdown pin dungeon bosses to the ground.
• Constant damage. The weapons will (usually) stay on your target regardless of what you’re doing. Even if you’re dodging, running around, downed, reviving an ally, getting out of line of sight or whatever else, your weapons will stay on your target. Sword, in particular, has a very long duration compared to Hammer, and you’ll see quite a lot of total damage out of it.
• Flashy. Spirit Weapons draw attention. They look amazing. They catch everyone’s eye. Everybody knows your build when you’re running a Spirit Weapons. Depending on your ego, this is either a pro or a con.

Cons:

• Cooldown dependent: When your weapons are off cooldown (granted, this isn’t as long as it seems), you’re low on options and have to rely on your own power. A deep Radiance or deep Virtues build can probably lay down enough damage or support (or both) during the downtime that it’s not a major issue.
• Finicky AI: The weapons don’t always behave. They can lag behind, and sometimes they’re off in la-la land when you really need them on an enemy. Eventually you get used to their idiosyncrasis.
• Rigid Build: If you’re going an Offensive route, you’re stuck with just 20 traits to put where you want. Defensive routes can get another 30 points, but are likewise stuck dumping points in Zeal and Radiance when they might not want to.
• Utility Loss: Spirit Weapons eat, at minimum, two Utility slots. You could get away with having just one and taking the Spirit Hammer, and then traiting up your other two slots, but then you’ve devoted an entire build to just one weapon.
• Diminished Traits: Because you can only have one Utility slot free, that really hamstrings your ability to take traits that improve specific utilities. Shout builds and Consecration builds, for example, won’t work all that well simply because you only have one free slot. You could, I suppose, go Signets. Radiance does give Signet bonuses.

So, yeah. I love the build. I’m tinkering with a variation of it now.

God yes. I love Consecrations. I actually miss my Consecration-heavy build after moving on to Spirit Weapons. Purging Flames is wonderfully useful, and has been said before, Wall of Reflection is one of our most powerful abilities, period.

Zeal has some issues (lackluster Grandmaster), but it’s solid for Spirit Weapons (which I run), and Symbolic Exposure is a good trait.

Speaking in terms of PVE, Symbols aren’t as kittenome people seem to insist. They usually don’t last terribly long—long enough to deal their damage, activate their effects, provide a Combo Field and, with Symbolic Exposure, tick up to 4 stacks of Vulnerability. Which is hardly insignificant.

Symbolic Exposure works great with a lot of weapons. Greatsword has a fast-recharge Symbol. Staff has one too, and at range to boot. Hammer has a Symbol in every auto-attack chain.

Enemies are less mobile in PVE than in PVP. Most enemies probably will stay inside your Symbol radius long enough to tick all four Vulnerability stacks, provided you do it at the right time.

In PVP though, yeah, absolutely. Symbols are still a factor, but enemies will move through them far more often. They benefit more from immobile/static melee than fluid/mobile melee.

Splitting between Knights and Valkyrie’s, mostly, for a good spread to Power, Crit, Vitality and Crit Damage.

I use and love a Spirit Weapons build. I agree that the AI is a bit sluggish and there should definitely be a way to have them stop attacking your target and follow you if commanded.

However, your first suggestion would actually weaken the Spirit Weapons a lot. One of the great reasons to play a Spirit Weapon build is that they’ll attack your target even if you’re dodging, running away, Downed, reviving someone else or doing something else. So they keep damage going while you’re tending to the rest of the battlefield, or whatever.

I agree wholeheartedly with pretty much your entire post, Jenna.

Ooh, I want to play!

If Logan Thackeray doesn’t change his pants ASAP, then it will flop, just like Queensdale Map Chat. Me and my juice box all agree on this issue, and I bet that communist players share our sentiments.

Wow, this is fun.

Oh, in case you wonder what I call a good player base it would be at least 500k, preferably ove 1 million active players. I think that’s what you need to be able to grow afterwards.

What are you basing these numbers on? Are you just making them up, or is there some evidence behind it?

EVE online had about 357,000 active subscribers by 2010, and it’s still going relatively strong despite being as old as WoW. Meanwhile, Warhammer Online peaked at 800,000 and dropped to an average of 150,000 within the space of a year. Age of Conan peaked at 700,000 and dropped to under 100,000. Rift peaked at 600,000 and within a year, lost half that.

Meanwhile, City of Heroes began with less than 50,000 subscibers and lasted from 2004 to 2012 on an average of a mere 150,000 subscribers. CoH alone helped spur a spike of comic book themed MMOs, including Champions Online (still going) and DCUO (not as lucky).

WoW, on the other hand, peaked at 12M subscibers between 2009 and late 2010, and has been in steady decline, hitting just over 10M in Q1 2012. That’s a loss of subscribers that more than doubles the peak of other, smaller MMOs that have lasted years on a smaller subscriber base.

The other big hitters? Lineage and Lineage 2 and 2-3 million, Runescape at 4 million in 2009, and ToR which peaked at just under 2 million.

Oh, and the MMOs with the highest peak concurrent users? Fantasy Westward East, Zheng Tu Online, Yulgang, Wen Dao, Shaiya, World of Legend…and World of Warcraft. All of those have peak concurrent users between 400k and 2.5 million.

TLDR: Your “500k users or above for a successful game” makes absolutely no sense. Very few games actually peak at and maintain 500k+ users and succeed. Plenty of games peak higher than 500k and crash. Plenty other games never get above 500k, but last for years and years, and influence lots of games around them.

I had a really long post typed out, but I lost it. So I’ll just keep it short:

You’re operating under this weird assumption that unless a game is among the most popular in the world, it’s a failure, because no other game company will ever try to do something similar, and you’ll never see more of the sort of game you like.

Except, historically, this is not true. In fact, I can prove it. Every single MMO released in the last ten years—well, okay, nearly every single MMO—has tried to distinguish itself somehow.

LOTRO, DDO, DCUO, TOR, COH, CO, AOC, EVE, Tera, Aion, Rift. They’ve all done something different. They’ve all tried to be different in small but significant ways. They’ve all tried to innovate. They’ve all tried to change the genre. They’ve all taken risks.

Not all of them succeed, but MMOs are not some stale genre where investors just try to duplicate the #1 game over and over and over. MMOs are a laboratory of game design. Every new game that comes out learns from the mistakes and successes of the past, and then tries to make its own mark and take a few of its own risks. Some succeed. Some don’t.

GW2 is no different. It’s a big game with big ideas and big visions. Some of those ideas are going to stick around for a long, long time. Some of those won’t.

The MMO genre is under constant evolution. Even WoW struggles not to stay stale, and tries to shake things up with every single expansion. Trying to argue that this game needs to be super successful to survive or investors won’t support anything similar to that is…

..well, it’s factually incorrect. History proves otherwise.

What does the popularity of a game matter to my own enjoyment? I don’t give a kitten if Guild Wars 2 is the #1 MMO in the world or a quiet little hamlet home to underpopulated servers. Although by experience I imagine the game will fall somewhere in the middle.

First of all, let’s just be clear here. It’s not always a good thing to be the most popular, most widely played game in the world. Your priorities begin shifting. You become tethered to your massive, huge population and you have to start designing for a massive, mainstream player base, which leaves you far less capable of experimenting and innovating.

City of Heroes was one of my favorite games ever. It’s lasted a very, very long time and churned out two expansions and tons of major updates. A game like that should never have lasted as long as it did, but I enjoyed it, and the community (Virtue) was just large enough to support itself.

Is GW2 as successful as I hoped? Let’s see: It’s a fun, engaging game that’s kept me busy for hundreds of hours already. My friends and I are having a great time together in it. It doesn’t cost me a dime per month. The developers are talented and communicate frequently. So, yes, so far, it is exactly as successful as I’d hoped. Is it perfect? No. But I’m happy with it.

Kodan are totally awesome.

Harpies can bite me. “Flock to meeeee!”

Hah! I know, it’s crazy right? My first Guardian was Teresa Harcourt. I ran to 80 with a close friend of mine; we duo’d the whole way through. Me, Guardian. She, Thief.

I wasn’t satisfied with my character’s appearance and name, and didn’t want to wait for a rename/remodel service. Plus, I wanted to try a new route, go to 80 a new way, try some new crafts, and take it nice and slow. As an added bonus, I’ve tried to stay entirely in-character more or less the whole way to 80. It’s a lot of fun, actually! I had some great encounters with other players while out on the field.

I like this new Guardian a whole, whole lot, and I’m going to stick to her. No real plans to alt just yet.

Thanks so much! And thanks for the feedback about dungeons. I was under the impression AC Explore was one of the harder ones, owing to all the complaints about it. But I imagine it’s pretty difficult for players going into in their late 30’s.

I’m looking forward to working on my Exotic set. I doubt it’ll take very long—I’m a 400 Armorsmith, and I have a 400 Jeweler and 400 Weaponsmith too, and there’s really no hurry at all. I’m not competing against a new tier of gear, which is a relief.

Going to give WvWvW a bona fide shot too. I really think I can make Guardians work wonderfully over in the Eternal Battlegrounds. It’s just going to require a change in thinking and a change in spec.

Thanks so much for the kind words, everyone. I’m very happy you’re finding some use in my guide.

As for a WvWvW guide—frankly, I don’t think I’m prepared to write this. I have some experience in PVP, and I can gladly contribute to any discussions on these forums about WvWvW, but from what I’ve seen of this community, we already have at least a half dozen Guardians—all of whom regularly post here—with more experience than I in WvWvW.

So if anyone out there wants to write a comprehensive WvWvW guide for Guardians, I’d be more than glad to read it.

1. There is no achievement for winning an argument in Lion’s Arch Mapchat.
2. It’s hard to read emotions and intentions over the internet. Don’t assume by default that someone’s being short with you.
3. Unless they’re Asura. Ha ha. Get it?
4. I’m sorry. That was a pretty terrible joke.
5. Someone who doesn’t share your sense of outrage isn’t necessarily a “fanboy/fangirl”
6. If you’re a roleplayer, please don’t mock someone else’s style of roleplay or choice of character. Intentionally embarrassing someone who’s trying to be creative is pretty low.
7. If a Dungeon team is going absolutely nowhere and you want to leave, that’s fine. But at the very least, give them some advance notice and one or two more tries, and be polite about it.
8. Value your newbies. They’re your most vulnerable and most valuable member of the community.
9. If you find yourself losing your cool in-game, snapping at people or just not having any fun, take a few deep breaths and step aside for a while. Log out, if you have to. No dungeon team likes having an irate teammate. PVP’s never fun if you’re furious at everyone. And the forums are just going to rub salt in it.
10. Learn to use the Block/Report tools. Block trolls—don’t feed them. If someone’s being impossible, rude or just plain inflammatory in /map, turn them off.
11. Try and be rational and tone down on the hyperbole and angry rhetoric when posting on the forums. There’s a simple reason for this: If you want a decent discussion and you want the devs to take notice of what you have to say, be civil about it. Even if you’re upset. Especially if you’re upset. The game is by no means perfect and you very well should bring up honest criticisms and complaints. Just do it in a way that isn’t insulting to anyone who disagrees with you.
12. Having a valid complaint doesn’t make you a hater. It doesn’t threaten someone else’s enjoyment of the game. A full-throated defense of ArenaNet shouldn’t drown out valuable criticism, and very often the most loyal and passionate fans are the ones who genuinely want to see problems fixed and gameplay improved.
13. The highest form of courtesy is the courtesy you show yourself. Don’t let other people stomp on your fun or drag you down.
14. Take it easy around Trahearne. Use few syllables and talk slowly. He’s not the greenest lettuce in the crisper.

Screenshots are in the first post, but I’ll go ahead and attach one too. I’m pretty horrible at taking good screenshots though.