Guild Wars 2

I wouldn’t mind an elite spec which disabled two of an ele’s attunements but enabled weapon swap.

Infusion.7149:

Might I remind you of Empower , Line of Warding, + Symbol of Swiftness?

Yes, I’ve considered those already. I use the staff quite a bit (in all gamemodes) even though I think it’s a mediocre weapon at best.
Ignoring AH, Empower is okay-ish (with healing power and % outgoing healing), and Line of Warding is also okay, but I’m not gonna pretend that SoS is any good. Other classes can already easily apply swiftness or just have a passive 25% movement speed buff, especially in WvW where you can just swap out weapons momentarily to cast a swiftness ability. On top of that, they can apply swiftness without having to stand on a stationary AoE. SoS is just a poor man’s Temporal Curtain to me, although at least it actually does something supportive unlike Wave of Farming.

Not really. Wait for the next expansion.

I would imagine it’s used a lot in WvW because of the semi-broken synergy it has with AH rather than what the staff itself does. Also because it’s a good farming stick.

It’s boring and it’s out of theme with what the rest of the weapon is (support), a change is very necessary. Auto-attacks aren’t there to be farming tools.

The 1200 range would be nice but it still doesn’t really solve the issue of it not doing anything supportive.

I’d personally be quite happy with the healer-y/support-y envoy idea. I can’t really think think of anything else in particular; maybe a long-range AoE nuker spec, like a dark staff ele.

MadRabbit.3179:

Fair enough. So in the questions of revealing truth, why don’t you provide some concrete examples that demonstrate instances where Arenanet has used player feedback in it’s decisions?

(snip)

Give me like 3-4 examples. Connect the dots. List changes and source it to player feedback. It seems to be your job to direct developers to feedback, so there should be no one better qualified to do this. You should have first hand knowledge of what feedback was responsible for what changes.

If you do this, I give you my personal assurance I won’t ever criticize Arenanet again for not listening. I’ll still criticize you for your lack of bidirectional communication, but at least, we’ll have established the unidirectional communication actually exists.

I am convinced that the degree of toxicity and bitterness that has become rampant on the forums is largely due to the silence from your company and the feeling of not being listened to is making everyone is who trying to help make this a better game feel resentful.

Very well written, and sadly not even a brief response to your post. I’m just going to go ahead and assume that means ANet isn’t listening very well.

Rodzynald.5897:

First thing:
As I said before, you want Paragons then you know where to find them (Now a savage version in Far Cry: Primal). I doubt that devs would want to stab their own lore in the back by giving every race a Paragon spec.
Unless they will only name it “Paragon” but it won’t be like its GW1 counterpart then Im okay with that.
Seriously, heavy armored class with shield that relies only on a thrown weapon feels really weird.
Second thing:
We discuss pole weapons, not javelins or spears. Polearms are not meant to be thrown but to be used in close and medium ranged combat to fend off and impale enemies.

In the end of the day, Paragons are gone along with human gods, we have to deal with it.
+ We already have 3 main ranged weapons and one of them is already for support (on land).

Almost all of the guardian’s weapons are melee, the scepter is pseudo-ranged, and the staff is mid-range (and is probably better at farming than supporting).
My point was that thematically and gameplay-wise, polearms have nothing to do with tomes. Tomes as they existed in the game were either long-range healing and defensive support, or long-range AoE DPS and offensive support. Thematically speaking, tomes are purely magical weapons typically associated with monks due to their gameplay-style and monk prayer references. In terms of gameplay, polearms would either be a condition greatsword or some other melee weapon. Thematically polearms are martial weapons. I mean, polearms are nice, but personally I don’t want them anywhere near tomes.

If the spec focuses on tomes, it’ll be a long-range support spec, which’ll be new to guardians and largely new to the game as a whole because real long-range support is nearly non-existent in GW2.
If the spec focuses on polearms, then it’s either just a melee dps spec or close-range support spec, both of which are identical to the vanilla meditation/shout guardian and defeat the point of an elite spec. If tomes are changed to conform to that spec and are just made into more close/mid range support despite the fact that guardians already have a ton of that, then that’d be extremely disappointing because they’d lose half of what made them so fun and unique. The spec should be based around tomes, not the other way around. Quite frankly, the moment ANet destroys what tomes are supposed to be is the moment I quit the game for good. The only reason I didn’t quit when they were removed the first time was because my friends wanted me to keep playing.

As for paragons, I don’t personally care if they get in or not, but it’d be nice (I’m more of a monk supporter really). With a modicum of creative thinking and writing, I doubt lore would get in the way of it either.

As much as I like polearms, I don’t think they would fit at all with a tome-themed spec. I say save polearms for a paragon spec, and save tomes for a monk spec.

I just want tomes back, so basically healer-oriented and/or long-range support. I don’t know what to expect though; I’m not going to pretend that ANet’s insane “logic” is predictable.
If I had to guess, I’d either say tomes because they mentioned they’d like to bring them back at some point, or necro wannabe because obviously people who play guardians want to play necros (kind of like DH except with rangers).
There’s also the possiblity that they’ll ruin what tomes are supposed to be and turn them into something other than long-range support.

The one thing I like about DH is how it breaks the bull**** range restriction placed upon guardians.

Staff:
- The staff’s auto-attack should be something actually supportive instead of a farming tool. The Trident’s auto is a good example of what it should be (properly tuned of course).
- Orb of Light could use a better targeting method (maybe something like Bow #3 without it hugging the ground), and better healing scaling.
- Symbol of Swiftness should provide a short burst of superspeed instead of swiftness since a stacking movement speed buff on a stationary AoE makes no sense.
- Empower should have a range increase. Essentially stunning yourself in close range is a very bad idea, and using it in mid range only to have an ally move out is equally as frustrating.

Mace:
- Could be moved towards more of a tank/bunker weapon rather than going half dps, half bunker, or rather than pretending to be a support weapon when it absolutely isn’t.

Torch:
- Cleansing Flame having the range it does makes no sense. For one thing, the ability is clearly supposed to be supportive, and having to use something like that while hugging an ally and eating AoEs is stupid as all hell. The target limit being so low also gets in the way of it cleansing allies properly, which is its only use.

Utilities:
- Spirit weapons need serious tuning.
- Merciful Intervention needs proper tuning, namely a cooldown decrease.
- Signet of Mercy’s passive should be changed from healing power to % outgoing healing. Its active should also have some sort of extra benefit considering it has a longer cast time than other revives.
- Hallowed Ground should provide something like resistance or maybe pulse aegis at certain intervals. Regardless of what is done with it, it competes with (and loses to) Stand Your Ground too much.
- Litany of Wrath should be tuned properly.
- Signet of Resolve could be moved towards more of an anti-condition heal.
- Bring back tom- I mean, make Signet of Courage less of a pain to use properly. A four second cast time on a full heal was only justified when it was part of Tome of Courage. Would be nice if the passive effect targeted low health allies as well.

Traits:
Zeal:
- Wrathful spirit needs something more.
- Zealous Scepter shouldn’t be in Zeal and it should provide a cooldown decrease to scepter skills. The scepter is a symbol-less weapon, and the Zeal trait line focuses on symbols. Alternatively, Smite could become a symbol.

Radiance:
- Healer’s Retribution is garbage.
- Perfect Inscriptions’ needs something more. The light aura thing doesn’t really make much sense on it.
- Radiant Retaliation needs to be tuned properly, but if retaliation is considered bad design, they could change it to something like “Retaliation pulses damage around you instead of its normal functionality. Scales with condition damage and power”.

Valor:
- Stalwart Defender should be merged with Strength in Numbers or Communal Defense or vice versa, and Glacial Heart should be moved here. These are basically three AoE defense traits competing with each other on the same slot. Alternatively, one of these could be buffed up and swapped with retributive armor.

Honor:
- Protector’s Impact is a joke trait.
- Empowering Might’s might duration is pathetic. Its AoE radius is also pretty terrible.
- Honourable Staff’s boon duration should display properly.
- Force of Will should not be competing with Pure of Voice. Especially now that Healing Breeze is a shout for some reason. They could merge Force of Will or Pure of Voice with Battle Presence I suppose.

Virtues:
- Battle Presence is complete trash. It was already mediocre before it got nerfed.

Base Virtues:
- Should have their 1200 range back.

I actually thought this was a joke for a moment. Glad the Vigilant Amulet hasn’t been removed though (as far as I can see).

Matt Stacey.7415:

Imagine if Chronomancer allowed for Continuum Split (F5) but sacrificed one (or a few) of the shatter skills in it’s place? Then mesmers would all cry out that (rightfully) mechanics have to be sacrificed to play the new elite spec. So why does reaper forcefully replace an existing mechanic? Isn’t the point of the elite specs to unlock more mechanics?

Oh no, trade-offs! Anything but that~! ;-;

ANet? Responding? Get real~

I rather like the idea of that “Virtuous” trait. I always thought virtues losing half of their range was completely ridiculous and uncalled for.

A nice set of changes in my opinion. I especially like the suggested changes to Hallowed Ground.

Replacing Orb of Light with Symbol of Judgment might be a little broken if it had a similar cooldown (since it would still be #2). I’d personally prefer Symbol of Swiftness being replaced by it and upping the cooldown slightly.

Concentration really shouldn’t be considered a defensive stat. Regardless, I just want there to be an amulet that has concentration and expertise so that buffer/debuffer builds can actually exist.

or extend the range. I’d be fine with it being mobile, but blocking would make it pretty overpowered. Plus I’d rather it stay as a primarily supportive weapon rather than a bunkering weapon (I think the mace is better suited for that).

“We’re removing the Vigilant amulet because it offers 1050 toughness”

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cavalier_Amulet
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Knight_Amulet
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crusader_Amulet

I mean, if you guys aren’t going to use logic, at least stop pretending that you have any.

What the ****? Did anyone actually complain about this amulet? Don’t just remove stuff randomly because it has the toughness stat. Seriously, the logic the devs have behind the changes in this game is absolutely ridiculous and it gets worse with every patch. I don’t see why a simple solution like removing 500~ toughness and providing more power or concentration/expertise isn’t being done (even though removing all defensive amulets is a terrible idea to begin with and I’m not even going to pretend that 1050 toughness alone is a problem).
At the very least, provide an amulet that still has concentration and expertise (or at least just concentration).

Coxy.5269:

Sigh. There goes boonshare mes. Which was already close to trash anyway.

Was anybody actually complaining about this? Will a new amulet which has concentration as a stat be introduced?

Ikr? I’m pretty sure no one had a major problem with it. If there’s no replacement, I’m going to be rather upset.
The worst part is that one of the devs won’t even legitimately respond to criticism of this poor attempt at “balancing”. “Balancing” by removing content is utterly idiotic, and if I were in their shoes as a designer, I’d be embarrassed.

Not really good reasons against a monk elite spec. A monk outfit existing is not an argument against a monk elite spec. You criticize a monk elite spec because another class has a healing-based spec (even though smiting/protection =/= healing), but then you propose a paragon elite spec for a class that already has six shouts. Don’t get me wrong, a paragon elite spec would be okay, but your reasoning is kind of terrible.

Druids are badly designed as well in my opinion.

Notable none-shall-pass-ish barriers are Line of Warding (Staff), Ring of Warding (Hammer), Hunter’s Ward (Longbow), Wall of Reflection, and Sanctuary (which recently got buffed too). Dragon’s Maw, Shield of Courage, and Shield of Absorption are fairly none-shall-pass-ish too.

Agemnon.4608:

Forced light armor usage would be a great idea but base guardian already has good healing. I think thief should be monk as the initiative system seems appropriate for the class. You would have different punches, kicks, and a couple of offhand healing moves like chi wave that either damage and heal or just heal. Weapons would be no weapons equipped (bare hands) and would have the equivalent stats of an ascended mender’s weapon. I think something similar to monk would be great but with emphasis on CC and bust damage not healing and burst damage. The black belt I think would be totes great for guardian and would also have a rad no weapons equipped moveset like throws and a karate chop with daze.

Monks in Guild Wars =/= martial arts monks. Monks are essentially Guild Wars’ priest/white mage.

http://imgur.com/a/0MtxA

My idea for what a monk/tome elite spec would be like. I’ve posted a similar idea like it before, but I thought I’d give it a better try with That_Shaman’s tooltip builder and some extra work.

Maybe it could also force light armor usage or something, but I doubt ANet would go that far when making an elite spec~

Trait icons are by me. Rest of the imagery is from GW1 (I believe).

Infusion.7149:

Seeing how staff 2 (on a very low cooldown) and 4 are both heals, I don’t feel this is necessary. Staff has been used heavily in WvW & the damage isn’t quite as poor as druid staff. Staff 1 also hits 5 targets in a generous arc, even through walls.

Staff on guardian is slightly weaker damage compared to revenant staff, but revenant staff is melee.

Guardians have mace for healing by the way.

I don’t like to pretend that the mace is actually good for healing allies.

Would be very nice. I certainly find it appropriate that a support weapon’s auto-attack actually supports.

A lot of the other skills on the staff could use some addressing too, but the auto-attack is really the only glaring problem I have with it.

I’d be really excited if the ele got an elite spec which allowed you to focus on one or two attunements instead of four.

Infusion.7149:

Fashion Mage.3712:

raubvogel.5071:

take a look at https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Necrotic_Grasp and be happy. at least from a dmg pov

I see your Necrotic Grasp and raise you Wave of Wrath.

Wave of wrath has a large radius; it is mostly used for tagging at roughly melee range.

The damage modifiers on Orb of Light / Symbol of Swiftness aren’t bad & Empower is a must in WvW.

I never said the rest of the guardian’s staff was bad, although Orb of Light and Symbol of Swiftness have mediocre damage at best.

To contrast, Necrotic Grasp can be used to generate a lot of life force in a crowd; Wave of Wrath is used for farming. It’s not worth the time it takes to cast in any serious fight.

^This.

15char

Kam.4092:

I think you need to read the definitions of sarcasm and pretentious. Then read his post again, and mine. He basically talked down on the game, and then made some sarcastic comments that could be mixed with being passive aggressive. To top it off then, his reply to me summed up his attitude. My reply was defending the game and telling him how he chose how to vent poorly, and that this type of thread did not need to be made.

I told him they could tank in raids, but he was in a dungeon.

Inserting a 3 boss raid that allows different uses of profession mechanics and gear options, does not mean the game overall is going to be reflected of what raids are.

Trying to tank in a dungeon like you would in a raid would not work well, and just slow things down. I know because I’ve tried doing what he’s said before. It’s just simply something that you can’t really do in this game.

Oh, sorry, I misread his post and didn’t know he was talking about dungeons specifically. Still don’t feel he was being sarcastic though, but otherwise I generally agree with you.

raubvogel.5071:

take a look at https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Necrotic_Grasp and be happy. at least from a dmg pov

I see your Necrotic Grasp and raise you Wave of Wrath.

Spirit weapons are generally just a huge tuning disaster. Too long of a cast time, they don’t last indefinitely/too short of a duration, their cooldowns don’t start immediately, enormous cooldowns, attack intervals are too slow, numbers too low, they’re extremely frail (which would be a good weakness if they were actually strong), etc. There’s a ton of simple easy-to-do changes the devs could do to fix them, but balancing underpowered things and tuning things properly seems like something ANet is incapable of doing for some reason.

Something that particularly annoys me with the bow is that there’s a cast time when activating its command despite the fact that no other spirit weapon has this. The area for its command isn’t really big enough for its kind of ability either (a heal over time). It should be as large as something like Healing Rain.

Why are people pretending that healers aren’t a thing in raids? Even tanks are a thing, even if they mostly use berserker gear.

Kam.4092:

You type this so sarcastically it’s insulting to read. If you want to tank always, then this game is not for you. This game does not have the whole “trinity” system other MMOs have.

I don’t think you know what sarcastic means. I’m inclined to agree with his response; the only thing insulting to read is how pretentious your post is.

Remember monks? :0

Arddyn.7683:

What are you basing this on? Healing power works extremely well with the honor traitline giving you up to 1k heals on aegis and your dodges. It also works well with the regen from your heal skill, and even with your f2 virtue. Would you use another amulet with a similar build?

Forgot about the honor traits, especially Pure of Heart. My bad.
My initial concern was that you weren’t using any ally healing abilities so the supportive potential of healing power wasn’t being tapped into, but it does look like it provides some decent self-sustain, although it is ultimately selfish in this case, which isn’t necessarily bad (assuming you make use of that survivability).

Healing power seems like a wasted stat on that build.

I was expecting less. Pleasantly surprising.

How on earth did you manage to grind that much gold without going completely insane in the first place?

1# – Wave of Wrath -> Healing Ribbon: Fire off a ribbon of light that tracks foes. Upon striking an enemy, the ribbon splits off into two other ribbons which heal allies (does not target self). 200 (0.5) damage. 400 (0.35) healing. 1200 range.
[Reasoning: Wave of Farming isn’t a real auto-attack, it never will be, nor does it in any way fit with the theme of support that the staff has. If people wanna farm with it in PvE and WvW it can be moved to a bundle skill or something. What the auto-attack should be is something with a lot of supportive potential like the elementalist’s Water Blast.]

2# – Orb of Light -> Ground-targeted instead of aimed manually. CD decreased to 2.5 seconds. Detonation radius increased to 300.
[Reasoning: The way this skill is currently aimed isn’t very good since aiming it at allies (its only use) involves losing lock of your target and then having to lock-on again after aiming. There’s no reason the cooldown on this should be this long, the heal isn’t particularly big or anything and the damage it deals is average at best. The detonation radius could use an increase primarily because the heal is already fairly difficult to land consistently.]

3# – Symbol of Swiftness -> Applies 3 seconds of superspeed instead of 4 seconds of swiftness.
[Reasoning: Applying a stackable movement speed buff on a stationary area of effect is embarrassingly bad design, mainly due to the complete lack of common sense behind it. Applying a short burst of speed instead of a stacking speed buff makes much more sense for this kind of ability.]

4# – Empower -> Radius increased to 900.
[Reasoning: Since you can’t move while casting it, allies move out of the 600 radius rather easily unless you’re right next to them. Of course, casting it too close is akin to rooting yourself while surrounded by several enemies.]

5# – Line of Warding -> No changes.
[Reasoning: There’s nothing really wrong about this skill. Could use a bit of a cast time decrease.]

Thoughts?

I bet it’d be better if it actually had an auto-attack.

More like let’s hope that the devs realize that skills besides meditations exist.

Timston.1976:

Do you guiz think bunk guard will be back aswell?

It’s a possibility since the only somewhat bunker-ish amulet left is Cleric’s (which bunker guardians use). I kind of feel like druids would just be better in that regard though.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

1: A weapon you summon for personal use similar to an ele conjure weapon, albeit one with high up time and allot of flexibility in what it can do since it is for your use only.

That should be saved for the supposed return of tomes.

Weren’t burning guardians meta not too long ago before broken elite specs got introduced?

Alin.2468:

Dr Patrik.3642:

What is so bad about energy sigil that it has to be so heavily nerfed? The only classes it will really affect are ones that rely on dodging to stay alive. So given the current information, those classes will be weak after the patch anyways.

In my opinion it had to be nerfed so it can be harder.
By getting a boon you will use it’s effect after 5 seconds; meanwhile Vigor can be corrupted into Bleeding.

That’d be fine if vigor was actually useful.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

And the reason for removing settler while keeping magi …is?

Well, for one thing, Magi’s is completely garbage. All of its stats don’t have any synergy with one another. It needs serious buffs if anything.

Hammerguard.9834:

OMG Mender’s is my dream amulet.

Ikr?

ArchonWing.9480:

Is that everything we’re getting for this quarter?

Lol. No comment.

Alekt.5803:

Fashion Mage.3712:

What does the Tempest line offer that you find is of particular importance to a glass staff build?

Staff has the highest base damage on weapon. Overloads offer a reliable source of damage unlike garbage Eruption, Ice Spike, and Lava Font. Rest of staff are mostly quickly casted, or lingering source of CC and support, so it synergize with a conjured weapon and overloads.

Tempest also allows to have condition clear without the need of cantrips, and also gives a reasonable amount of sustain thanks to Wash the Pain Away and Elemental Bastion. This is the most important thing.

Sounds reasonable. How do you safely get in/out of range to use your overloads though (assuming you stay at long-range as is typical of normal glass staff eles)?