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Healing is not the best support, arguably not even good support, reflects/absorbs, condicleanse and stability are the best support we have and dont necessarily require us to have terrible damage.
Barriers don’t stop you from healing; you aren’t giving up any protection-based support by having a lot of supportive healing. Healing is also the only form of support in the game that scales multiplicatively (healing power ratios and %outgoing healing), so a pure support build will most likely use healing power.
Assuming the user has Zealot’s gear, they aren’t damageless either. I’m hoping a zealot’s amulet is added to PvP.
With 1400 healing power and Absolute Resolution, it heals for 210 health per second. You need at least +20% outgoing healing to allies to make it reach 250. Not sure how one could possibly get it to 400.
I’d rather have another source of stability (assuming I’m using shouts) and a stunbreak instead of a healing aura that won’t be active 80% of the time.
BP was only good because it functioned if VoR was on cooldown. I wouldn’t even take BP as an adept trait now, there’s basically no reason you’d pick it over Indomitable Courage.
Already was weak, now is totally useless.
^
ANet’s idea of balance.
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Warrior: buff buff buff buff
Guardian: buff buff buff buff buff buff buff buff
Mesmer: buff buff buff
Necro: nerf nerf nerf buff nerf.Sounds like anet “balance” to me
Guardians got buffed?
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Are consecrations not gaining the 900 range from Consecrated Ground as a baseline effect?
I’d like to see people get Light of Deliverance off reliably without the stability, vitality, and toughness that Tome of Courage provided.
^
I’m pretty sure a bit more math and extensive stress tests was done that concluded these changes. Grouch wasn’t even the one who made that Carrion build, it was done from some one else who’s apparently (to ArenaNet’s stadards) known for theory crafting.
We really have no idea how they stress tested Guardian’s specific skills but I highly doubt it was done by two incompetent people… not that Grouch and the War were incompetent, but you get my point.
Quite frankly, the way ANet makes their decisions seems inscrutable to me. I don’t bother trying to understand the ridiculous reasoning they might have behind their decisions; assuming they actually have reasons for what they do. I don’t believe they do any real math or “extensive testing” though, because if they did, then we should have seen the numbers on skills being fine-tuned ages ago in small balance patches. Instead we got tool tip fixes.
I’m personally excited for my Mesmer. If I don’t quit the game outright, I think that’s what I’ll probably start playing the most.
Chronomancers are looking nice, and so are ventari revenants. They appear to have the selfless supportive potential that guardians should’ve been given ages ago. Of course, instead of being given more support, they’re nerfing guardian’s support by nerfing virtue range and Battle Presence. Could’ve fixed tomes too, instead they just got removed because the devs couldn’t be bothered. Could’ve been given a spec that allows guardians to be more supportive, instead they get a ranger wannabe spec.
I really enjoyed the playstyle of a full support guardian, but I don’t see them as viable anymore. For me, the only thing that could bring me back to this game is a supportive tome spec.
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I like how Jon was pretentious enough to state that this was just a “potential idea”. I knew this change was going through the moment one of the guardian’s traits was renamed to “Smiter’s Boon”.
It’s okay though, since the majority can be pleased a little bit at the expense of the minority. Kind of, since the meta is just going to be RF anyway.
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“Dragonhunter seems pretty boring to me, at least I still have tomes! * tomes removed* Oh, at least I still like the base prof- * virtues nerfed* Uh, well, er… at least Healing Breeze is still a reference to monks? * name changed*”. Oh well, sorry for still having a tiny bit of faith in you ANet. My bad.
Consecrations weren’t even given the range trait as a baseline effect, and that trait no longer exists.
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The guardian was fun while it lasted. I think I’ll be switching over to revenants when they’re released, assuming I’m still playing the game.
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I love how cynical you’re being. :p
I am expecting guardian buff to falling dmg… yaaay. (and I am scared of guardian changes)
It’s funny, because I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually did something like that.
no longer losing damage to Vuln-not-working-with-conditions as compared to Power
I guess you’d be fine with condition damage being reduced by protection then?
Too late as they added resistance buff….
That’s true, although resistance seems to be exceedingly rare at the moment.
no longer losing damage to Vuln-not-working-with-conditions as compared to Power
I guess you’d be fine with condition damage being reduced by protection then?
Personally I’d like to see gear offer stuff like % outgoing healing to allies, condition duration, boon duration (a significant amount, not that shoddy amount that giver’s provides), etc. Maybe even gear which provides profession mechanic CDR. In other words, stats that are basically unattainable via gear (boon/condi duration can technically be obtained on gear).
For example, a “priest” amulet/gear-type that offered %outgoing healing/boon duration/healing, or a “diminsher” amulet/gear-type that offered condition dmg/condition duration/whatever.
Thoughts?
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I would have liked to have seen a practical version of Renewing Blast. I think it was a nice trait, but it needed serious revision. They could’ve made it bounce to allies or something, but it looks like it’s just being removed.
If you actually played the game, instead of calling whatever you don’t like as " trolling ", you’d know the answer to your first question already.
I don’t really see what your first comment achieved aside from being a bit kitten-y. He’s asking these questions because he wants to know whether he should play the game or not.
I absolutely love it. I’ve been hoping they’d put this in for at least a year now. For those who played GW1, they’d recognize it as the Dervish’s Avatar of Dwayna outfit: http://blog-assets.bigfishgames.com/uploads/2013/08/DervishDwaynaAvatarMonk.jpg
The fourth Dye changes the hair colour on the helmet by the way.
The tooltip is inaccurate indeed. If it was accurate, that would translate to 10% of vitality to +%outgoing healing to allies. This would mean that having 1000 vitality would provide like 100% outgoing healing to allies. What they really meant was 1% of your vitality is added to your % outgoing healing to allies. So for example, 1000 vitality would provide 10% outgoing healing to allies.
All monks were fun to play, in my opinion. Kind of bothers me that they were left out from the game because “healers”, yet Ventari revenants exist now.
One step closer to holy trinity with Ventari
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Fashion Mage.3712
But a Zerk can still support or CC or Heal, a Zerk ele traited correctly can still heal for 500-700 HP.
Gear makes it more effective not defines it, Traits, weapons sets and utilities defines it.
A berserker player can only do all of that because the support and CC they use (from utilities typically) all have high base values and little-to-no scaling values, so they don’t have to give up anything proper to use it (PvE-wise). Other roles are different. A support character can’t just slot damage utilities and suddenly gain an enormous amount of damage.
And healing for 500-700HP is pathetically weak. If I was that zerker ele, I wouldn’t even bother casting that.
It defines it along with traits, weapons, and utilities. One cannot properly play their role without having the appropriate stats for it.
A perfect example are staff elementalists, staff elementalists using berserker gear can immediately be considered glass cannons.
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One step closer to holy trinity with Ventari
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Fashion Mage.3712
While I’m up for the trinity I don’t want GW2 to break word on its promise of people being forced into roles just to complete content. If I can clear content as a tank , healer then I should do able to do it in a all DPS group to as well.
Well as it is, it’s virtually only DPS. If there’s not going to be a trinity, then things besides dps need to be able to complete content as efficiently as a bunch of dps characters.
Gear doesnt make a role. IDK why you think this.
It’s part of what makes a role. Glass cannons cannot be glass cannons with nomad gear, just as healers cannot be healers with berserker gear.
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I don’t have a problem with this honestly. Look at what you’re giving up as a Revenant by using a support build. You pretty much have to use staff, which is a huge kitten because it’s short ranged and it does no damage (and its your only weapon set)
Personally I wouldn’t touch the staff if I was a ventari/healing revenant. Going into close-range while using the Ventari legend seems about as much of a good idea as walking into close-range as a glass staff elementalist.
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or the lack of it rather. Considering that Ventari seems to be a 1500 range healing legend, and also considering that the majority of healing that a ventari rev can do is supportive (they can stack like 100~% outgoing healing to allies), the close-ranged staff doesn’t actually seem like a good idea for them to use. I don’t see how a healer revenant would last very long on the frontlines in PvP or WvW since they’d likely be focused immediately, and as far as I know, revenants don’t seem to be getting a long-ranged support weapon.
I kinda like this though. Let the Rev be the defense class, Guardian really isn’t anyway. It’s a high dps Class that excels and mitigating damage for those around it.
Well that’s not exactly what guardians are supposed to be. “Guardians specialize in protective and defensive magic.”, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way sometimes.
The Revenant is basically what Guardian should be.
Hopefully they will change or buff the Support spec of Guardian.
^This.
To be honest, it actually kind of annoys me how selfless and supportive revenants can be relative to guardians. I wish I could stack that much % outgoing healing as a guardian.
With the new specialization, it seems that guardians are moving even further away from support.
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I agree, I’m hoping the supposed future tome elite spec fits the healing/smiting/protection stuff that monks did.
Actually I think there’s nothing wrong Dragonhunter, name aside. What I wrote in tl;dr of my OP was just a joke. I think it’ll have it’s purpose in the game. Also ppl instead of asking for betterment of existing range options asked for bow without getting into too much detail and Anet gave us their take on it.
Also such things take a long time to develop which is why I think this good time to start thinking about new stuff and improving old. After all Jon Peters asked us to give our input on Tome substitutions. This time I think we as players should go into greater detail and be more specific about it, so that devs may get a clearer picture and/or inspiration for future specs.
I saw quite a few people mentioning that they’d like to support using the bow, but instead it’s just dps with some control. In fact, the response to the leaked longbow seemed to be quite positive besides the few people who didn’t want a longbow at all. The difference between the leaked longbow and this one, is that the leaked one had a dps stance and a support stance. This longbow is essentially just the dps stance, and in my eyes, the spec is very much like a ranger-wannabe.
I’d definitely love to see underwater weapons being used in ground combat and that spec should bring something new to the class. However I don’t think they should stick to that idea blindly so that guards eventually get guns/daggers/rifles etc. I’d rather see new ways to use existing weapons in order to preserve guardian theme, otherwise what the point of having different classes. In the example above I suggested giving them Light armor (if that’s even mechanically possible) which could bring potentially different playstyle through traits. So far most of us are of opinion that weapons are the ones that bring new way of playing the class. Why shouldn’t armor be that defining feature instead?
I wouldn’t mind seeing new skills for old weapons either, but I suspect that future specs would simply just bring new weapons rather than revising older ones.
I’d very much enjoy the ability to use light armor on guardians, of course there’d need to be some sort of benefit for doing so (like reduced cooldown on the spec mechanic for example) unless the player is forced to use light armor.
Tome as Virtues could be incorporated properly with existing virtue traits if the cooldowns are nailed just right. Not too prohibitive, but not as liberal as ele’s attunement swapping. Also bear in mind that we will have only 3 trait lines in the future so grabbing Radiance and Virtues trait lines just for two minors would be a bad idea if nothing else synergizes with the build you had in mind.
In this case I wouldn’t really say it’s a matter of synergizing or not; it’s more of a matter of whether or not it would work at all. For example, how would a tome switching mechanic work with Absolute Resolution and other traits like it?
True, having Tomes as Virtues would be a drastic departure from standard guardian play, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. New Virtues that are coming with Dragonhunter are already miles away from what we’ve been playing since release. I think that where our opinions differ is that I’d like Tomes to bring new playstyle, while you want them to compliment existing ones. Nothing inherently wrong with either of them, they just differ.
I’d prefer them to offer new playstyles as well, but my problem with them replacing virtues is if they become like attunements where you can’t really efficiently stay in one, and as a result you cannot focus completely in a single playstyle. It’s a common complaint with elementalist players who would would prefer to stick to a single element or so instead of being forced to use all elements.
I’d be okay with tomes replacing virtues assuming that one could specialize and focus in the use of a single tome or two rather than being forced to use all of them in order to be efficient.
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Staff: I enjoy the weapon a lot, although I do believe it requires changes. The change I believe it should get the most is receiving a different auto-attack. The weapon is clearly a support weapon, but instead of having a supportive auto-attack that heals, buffs, or helps allies in some way, it gets a farming tool that usually isn’t even worth using in proper combat scenarios. Something like the trident’s auto-attack would be great (with proper base and scaling values).
Having an increased range on Empower would be nice, although perhaps not entirely necessary. Orb of Light could also use some cooldown buffs on its detonation cooldown.
Torch: Torch #5 needs buffs. I’d prefer it to keep its selfless supportive nature, but in order to keep it that way it requires a decrease in channel time, an increase in target limit, and an increase in range. Alternatively it could be made more selfish, even though the guardian already has a lot of selfish options. Torch #4 is perfectly fine.
Shield: The protection nerf should be reverted in PvP. The shield heal could also probably be changed to not be pathetic, and the barrier should stick around rather than having to be channeled.
Scepter: I enjoy that it offers a ranged option for guardians, but besides Chains of Light, the weapon is pretty boring. So I think it could use some changed to make it more interesting to use outside of Chains of Light.
Focus: It’s fine in my opinion. Relatively fun to use. Maybe it could use some slight changes.
Don’t care much about the other weapons, but they mostly seem in a good condition. Perhaps maces and swords could use some changes.
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I’m under the impression that specializations focus on new ability types and traits rather than abilities of an existing type and traits that focus on base class abilities/weapons. The tome specialization should focus on the tome ability type rather than focusing a bit on tomes and helping to fix Spirit Weapons. As for a new weapon, I’d say tridents would be the most appropriate, but that’s assuming that ANet would be okay with allowing underwater weapons to be used above water.
I don’t think the tomes being the replaced virtue mechanic would work very well with pre-existing virtue traits. Additionally, them being kits allows one to focus on adding the playstyle of a tome or two to a mixed build as opposed to something like the elementalist’s attunements where one would have to use all attunements in order to be effective.
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I am using tome of courage quite a lot during mass PVE events to keep the NPCs alive.
Using Tome of Courage (and a healing build), it’s not that hard to hold forts in the silverwastes singlehandedly just by using Light of Deliverance, followed by Heal Area spam on the warmaster (followed by a guardian’s normal healing/protective abilities).
And please stop with the healing crap on guardian, it was never meant to be a healer. If you really want gruesome healing go specc a warrior in clerics with banner regen or shout heal and then delete your guardian. Or an ele for that matter…
What the guardian is “meant” to be isn’t specific, nor can you make such a statement on it (unless you can read the minds of the devs), but a guardian can quite easily be a healer (regardless if it was intended or not). What people don’t understand is that -unlike many other MMOs- healers are not a necessity due to the core mechanics of GW2, but they still do exist.
Guardians can outheal three warrior shouts with literally a single ability (Healing Breeze), and they don’t need a grandmaster trait to do that, I think that should say something. Comparing a shout warrior’s allied healing to a support/healing guardian’s allied healing is a joke. An elementalist’s allied healing is okayish but only really shines in zergy situations. Shout warriors and elementalists obviously have more benefits than healing, but don’t refer to them as “gruesome healing specs”. In terms of allied protective abilities, support/healing guardians are also pretty much unmatched.
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Spirit Hunter sounds nice to me since guardians’ abilities seem to have some sort of relation to spirits.
A) Tomes will be brought back with a Tome – centric spec.
Why do you think they’d necessarily be back? Because ANet said they “hope” to bring back tomes later? Excuse me if I don’t take that seriously, but unless ANet gives a definite answer instead of that sketchy “maybe” statement, I don’t want to see anything removed.
If it came down to losing the ability to use tomes for a whole year in return for the tome elite spec, then maybe I could live with that. If it was something like two+ years, then I wouldn’t bother holding out for the tome elite spec. I’m assuming it’s going to be the latter, if ever.
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Or maybe it’s just badly designed.
Yup and instead of actually agreeing that the only way to see anything happen was to ask ANET nicely to do a poll..everyone argues…this is why we cant have nice things… T.T
You’re assuming ANet cares about the views of the players. When a single dev couldn’t even take the time to reply “We’re thinking about it” or “Sorry, we can’t/won’t change it”, I think that says a lot.
I would love to have a dialogue with the Devs, but it takes at least two people to have a dialogue, and the Devs remain silent.
This isn’t Riot. :p
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The only trap he used was the elite trap and with sceptres immobilize you could swap that out for something more useful like the new elite shout or the cookie cutter Renewed Focus.
Were tomes actually already replaced in that build of the game?
Not to mention you are supporting Shouts being one more of the same thing the class already has, when specs were about getting something new.
The point of specializations was to allow one to specialize in a certain aspect of the class, and at the same time was supposed to offer something new yet fitting for the base class. This is the case with reapers and chronomancers. For example, reapers do what necromancers do except strictly at close-range with an emphasis on the chill condition. Dragonhunters being ranger wannabes with extra control is the opposite of “specialization”; for the most part it’s a lot more like a jack-of-all-trades spec that completely disregards the base class and goes off on its own tangent. This is especially the case with the DH’s traps.
As for the shouts, considering they tend to affect foes, it falls in line with the Necromancer’s motif."
If this is a convincing argument for you, then Dragonhunter’s traps all have pretty blue lights and chains made out of light, so they fit the Guardian perfectly.
AoE debuff shouts on necromancers vs DPS/condition traps on guardians. The former seems much more appropriate for its respective class considering that necromancers are known fairly well for debuffing.
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mountains of text just about label. the only thing that bothered you is a name tons of reasons and other options.. I wonder do you feel the same about the word “cucumber”/“salad”/“name”/“text”…
if anything I think they demo of the dragonhunter wasn’t successful not because of a label but because it showed ANOTHER support build for guardi which is ok but showed us no real reason to become one unlike chronomancer and reaper that were attractive
how the dragonhunter preform in HOT is a mystery since so far in pve support builds are mostly not needed.
Are you implying that DH makes a guardian more supportive?
I’ve seen quite a few complaints about the specialization itself. Not as much as the name, but still.
Exactly. There are some complaints but the dev bandwidth is consumed with this kind of nonsense.
That’s actually a pretty good point. :p
Of course, this all could’ve been avoided if a dev had popped in for five minutes to state “We’re not changing it, stop giving feedback” or “We might change it, continue giving feedback”.
While I’m extremely excited for the might-be-happening tome elite spec, I don’t relish the idea that the earliest it would turn up is in like 2 years. If it even turns up at all that is. ANet never said it would be the next spec after DH, or the spec after that. So if people have faith that they’ll actually release this spec, and at a reasonable time, then there should be no problem with changing the current tome elites only when that specialization arrives. Personally I don’t even have enough faith in them to expect this hypothetical tome elite spec to show up at all, but yes, I agree that it’d be an “everybody wins” scenario, and I’d love for it to happen.
I’ve seen quite a few complaints about the specialization itself. Not as much as the name, but still.
As Genesis said, the name is probably the only thing that ANet might be willing to change. I really doubt they’d change anything significant regarding the new virtues, the longbow, or traps.
The fact is, it is a “tide-changer” only in PvE where Damage is still preferred over anything else or in two cases in pvp:
1. The opponent is brain-dead in which case you would not need the “tide-changer” anyways.
2. Your team is absolutely crushing, again, in which case you would not need the “tide-changer”.
Any smart team would instantly lock you down if you got the tome out.
Now, the Elite Signet, if it went through, would still offer quite a bit of healing, so I really see no need of keeping the Tomes and being limited to one semi-decent Elite skill.
It’s situational in PvE because damage is preferred there, but I’m afraid PvP isn’t quite as brainless as PvE. In PvP, pulling off good usage of ToC involves the right build, good foresight, and/or good positioning. In relatively fair odds, I’d love to see “any smart team” locking down a skillful tome user who has a brain. Placing Hallowed Ground, Sanctuary, or other such protective abilities in a big team fight will almost always guarantee pulling off whatever tome ability is required unless it’s like a 1v5, especially with Elite Focus which would now be baseline. Alternatively you could just position appropriately so that you won’t get interrupted, assuming the enemy can even bypass its (soon-to-be baseline) innate stability as well as the daze from Pacifism. If Light of Deliverance gets interrupted, there’s also always the four other powerful abilities that ToC offers. I’d argue that Heal Area has the potential to be much stronger than LoD.
Again, it’s not an easy panic button like Renewed Focus, but when it’s skillfully used, it becomes a tide-changer (as an elite should be).
Signet of Courage loses every single ToC spell besides LoD, and the other spells in ToC are actually quite powerful, especially Heal Area.
In my eyes, that signet is just a watered down version of ToC made for children. I don’t have any interest in a signet build either, and I don’t think most guardians do. So what is the purpose of dumbing down the ultimate support ability into a signet (which is an unsupportive set of skills)?
If any tomes at all should be replaced, it should just be Tome of Wrath. Even though ToW would synergize extremely well with longbow guardians and is indirectly buffed due to the quickness and burning changes, so I don’t even think that should be removed unless its replacement is a really well-designed skill.
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Wells and traps are both AoE, but they’re definitely not the same thing.
People are complaining that speccing into DH hurts your ability to support -especially at range- because of the virtue changes, which goes against the “backline support” lie that ANet advertized for dragonhunters. Just because the virtues are more active now doesn’t necessarily mean they’re better designed now. Not that Virtue of Resolve is as weak as you claim it to be. What support guardians are losing by speccing into DH is a 1200 radius 2500-3000~ heal which cleanses 3 conditions and provides regeneration, in addition to the other virtues which are no longer supportive minus VoC (which is very close-ranged for something supportive).
I can’t speak for others, but personally I wanted a ranged option that supported all kinds of guardians. In other words, offensive guardians in addition to support guardians. Instead the dragonhunter is a rather selfish offense-only spec that literally nerfs your supportive ability. It’s a nice ranger wannabe spec, but that’s not what I was hoping for.
A bow guardian charging into a zerg doesn’t sound very smart to me. Unless specced for it, guardians aren’t really that tanky, and if you’re not specced to do a lot of damage, then why use a bow at long range? If you’re using meditations to keep yourself alive, then would you even have space for that many traps?
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Damage is not support. I couldn’t care less about how overpowered the replacement elites could be if they’re as bland and boring as the ones proposed here. If you want to use a bland and boring elite that is also proven to be strong, you can continue to stick to Renewed Focus. I’ll stick to something that’s a tide-changer in the right hands rather than a simplistic and slightly overpowered utility skill in the elite slot.
Why the hell would you take a DH as a bunker/support player?
That’s the point, as OP stated pretty clearly. DH brings angelic imagery that support guardians would be more interested in, but no support guardian would ever spec into DH since it nerfs the player’s support.