Guild Wars 2

RabbitUp.8294:

That’s what you think the argument is?

It’s certainly the most popular argument, and it’s an argument that you’re ironically making in the very post I’m replying to.

RabbitUp.8294:

There’s no use for a full heal on such a ridiculous cooldown, when druid can heal the party to full every 12 seconds by going into Celestial Avatar and popping 1 or 2 glyphs. Yes, druid uses multiple skills to achieve what SoC does alone, but Signet takes the place of your elite and you can only do it once every 90 seconds. And druid doesn’t have to do it alone, everyone has a way of healing their own health, and a lot of classes have AoE heals.

90 seconds (72 seconds) is nowhere near “ridiculous” for a team full-heal. I’ve never heard anyone complaining about Renewed Focus when it had a 90 second cooldown (now more in PvP), but as soon as it comes down to a proper support skill everyone thinks it’s bad because it offers no benefit to themselves (and because anything harder to use than RF (ie. not remotely hard) is shunned).
Celestial avatar doesn’t full heal people, and it’s not 1200 range for the most part, so it won’t be affecting an entire team and it will require them to sit on-top of an ally getting cleaved. Of course you could be referring to PvE specifically, but again, a lot of things heal well in PvE (in fact water elementalists heal a lot better than druids do), the druid is just used because it buffs the party with offensive buffs.
I don’t really see how all classes having limited healing somehow makes a 1200-range full heal any worse, just like how I don’t see how that makes any healing skill worse.

RabbitUp.8294:

And that’s where the passive portion comes into play. As a signet, it could at least have a good passive so that until you get a chance to use the active, you can at least benefit from another effect, but SoC’s passive is worse than the regeneration boon.

Yes, but that’s under the assumption that the active bad. Except it isn’t.

RabbitUp.8294:

SoC is a skill that doesn’t belong to the game in its current implementation. In other games, where not every class has a heal, there’s no out-of-combat regeneration, and the damage is not one-shot based, then it could be useful.

The argument you’re making here is applicable to all healing, and especially sustained healing, which doesn’t quite make sense since supportive healing is used in all game modes (and SoC is a burst heal).
If you’re referring to PvE, every class can heal and yet healers are a requirement, so your argument is invalid and I’m not going to bother discussing healing skills in PvE further.
If you’re referring to PvP, nobody gets one-shotted in PvP, and nobody would use a burst skill for out-of-combat regen in any game, so that makes no sense.
If you’re referring to WvW, I don’t think I even need to bother debating about supportive healing being used there.

RabbitUp.8294:

In gw2 though, even if the perfect moment arrises, it’s very possible that by the time you finish the 2 1/2 cast, the people you are trying to heal are already downed or dead.

l2p issue.

RabbitUp.8294:

You have to jump through a billion hoops to make this skill work, that’s why the skill is bad. And even when it does work, it’s hardly a game changing effect. I would much rather have a Rebound over a full heal, at least that effect has a place in the game to avoid one-shots.

No, the skill is “bad” because why should people bother timing a strong skill when they can just use an elite as easy as an instant-cast invulnerability.
Last time I checked, Rebound isn’t even liked by elementalists, and for good reason, the amount it heals is pitiful and the only reason it’s used occasionally is because the rest of their elites are just as bad. Again, if you like what other classes have so much then go and play those classes instead.

Doomdesire.9365:

You missed my point entirely. No one will use them anyways because the buffs did nothing to add to their viability. No one here is against buffing skills that are utter garbage.

The buffs most certainly did add to their viability, and by quite a bit. Most guardians won’t be able to see that simply because that’s just the kind of crowd DH draws. I mean the best argument people have for SoC being bad right now is “It’s the best burst heal in the game, BUT THE PASSIVE IS USELESS THEREFORE THE WHOLE SKILL IS USELESS”.

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

Revealed Training

If a DH wants to be nice and give me +200 power so I don’t have to waste my initiative stealthing otherwise, ill take it as it means more initiative saved and more damage behind my Unload and Pulmonary Impact

That’s an awfully positive stance considering that almost all thieves take Panic Strike over that, and also considering that 6 seconds of revealed as a thief typically means that you’re either forced to retreat or you die.

RabbitUp.8294:

No, you buff things to match the powercreep, or nerf the powercreep. Instead, you are asking to keep the bad things bad and ignore the powercreep. You didn’t say WtPA is worthy of a nerf, you just say we don’t need a better RtL.

Not really, RtL’s cooldown was too long at 40 seconds, but it recently got a buff to its cooldown and this latest patch nerfed virtually every meta build. So they quite literally nerfed the power creep and buffed the not-power creep. In fact with most of the patches they’ve just been nerfing overpowered “meta” builds and buffing underpowered stuff (that nobody ever uses because most of the community are a bunch of sheep who just stick to the most easy-mode “meta”/overpowered build).

RabbitUp.8294:

The skill animates for 2 1/2 seconds, if I take 1/2 sec to reposition, it’s a 3 sec cast. That’s my problem first and foremost.

I’ve never been bothered by the cast time, and I’m saying this from a PvP perspective where your opponents are human beings with brains inside of them.

RabbitUp.8294:

Somehow this only applies to guardian.

We don’t need accesible movement speed increase for every class, nevermind that literally every other class has it.

We don’t need low cd heals for every class, nevermind that again, literally every other class has at least one.

Guardians have options for movement speed increases, people just don’t like using them because as soon as trade-offs are involved people don’t wanna use those options. Not that I can personally care any less about the whole movement speed QQ. If the new spec gets a movement speed increase in a trait, I’ll think of it as a boring waste of a trait slot.

Necromancers don’t have a low cooldown heal besides the Blood Fiend (which is kind of garbage last time I checked). Not that I consider “Most classes have 25s cd heals and we only have 30s heals oh no~~~” to be a legitimate concern.

Honestly you complain so much about what other classes have that guardians don’t that it makes me wonder why you don’t just play other classes.

AGGabriel.9230:

And this ->Revealed<- this they give it for US or for the thief so synergize with https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed_Training

Firstly, it’s highly unlikely any thief would take Revealed Training over Panic Strike. Secondly, if you think being revealed for 6 seconds is a good thing for thieves, I don’t think there’s any arguing with you.

Hopefully they’ll be worked on in the next patch, along with the rest of the utilities the devs mentioned they wanted to work on.

Azoqu.8917:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Meanwhile I’m lavishing in all these delicious nerfs.

If you honestly believe Guardians needed a nerf, you must be really bad at dodging obvious traps.

I’m just loving how almost all of the meta builds got nerfed while “useless” skills got buffed. There’s so much yummy QQ.

Meanwhile I’m lavishing in all these delicious nerfs.

Ventari rev is actually a pretty decent support build, but the biggest issue with it is the insane clunkiness that’s ingrained in the gameplay of the tablet. If you don’t have an issue with that then you should be fine in most game types, although in raids people generally just want whatever is optimal (and for healers that means the extra 10% damage or whatever that druids give).

Jhoul.6923:

Well… if the point of elite spec is to get a different use of a class, i dont see a prob with not having lots of heals and or condi cleanses… This spec could be focused on dmg and toughness instead of support…. that way tempest will still be extremely useful.

Still, there is no point on hanging on things that are not even confirmed.

The point of an elite spec (ideally) is to change how a class plays, but not necessarily changing what the class is already capable of doing. Focusing in two attunements in order to specialize would be the former, whereas something like dragonhunters would be the latter. If people want a lot of cleanses, they can take water or stick to tempest. It’s not like there are no options, there are just trade-offs, which a lot of people can’t handle because they just want a straight upgrade (in which case, again, stick to tempest).

Wondrouswall.7169:

On Ranger’s elite shout though? I know they said it’s to allow better counter play due to boon removal, but I call BS since it happened to only our elite. Not Dagger Storm, Rampage, Tornado, or Lich Form. They could have just done a test adjustment by lowering the stability stacks pulsed from 3 to 1 and go from there.

Rampage as One isn’t a form/transformation.

RabbitUp.8294:

The powercreep argument is myopic, you don’t keep a class down for the sake of “balance” when everything else becomes better, because that’s how guardian ended up losing all their ability to support the team.

I always have a giggle when I go to the DPS golem and in the section with the profession-specific buffs, Guardian is empty. But support class, amirite.

RtL has the problem of being unusable in melee range without wasting even more time repositioning, and being able to miss allies who move away. You are looking at it entirely from a pvp angle, as if guardian is always hiding under their teammates’ skirt. They are called “guardians” kitten , not maids. In pve, you want to be in the boss’s face as much as possible, which makes RtL clunky to use.

As for the other heals, yes it’s burst vs sustained heal, that’s why classes get options. There are weaker low cd heals, or longer burst heals. Guardian doesn’t get options and you are actually defending this.

When everything else (“everything else” being elite specs) becomes better, that’s called power creep, and the solution to that is to nerf the things that have been power creeped, not just buffing things to add to the power creep.

Oh, okay, so now aiming your camera at allies is apparently too hard. Sounds like why tomes got removed, “too clunky”. Alternatively, in PvE, you could literally just take a step back from the stack of allies and then use the skill.
I wasn’t aware that every guardian build was melee either. If I had my way with it, I’d give RtL even more range.

And who says that isn’t intentional? Not everything is available to every class, and for good reason.

Entenkommando.5208:

You can’t simply ignore it’s passive effect. It’s bad and that’s all you can say about it.
Also explain to me how in 99.9% of the possible situations where someone, who could profit from this kind of heal, would be able to wait over 2 seconds for it without dying.
For being a “burst” it would need a lot smaller cast time. Perhaps even 0.5-0.25 in PvE only as a one time life saver.

Yes you can, in fact I’ve been doing so for awhile now, and SoM and SoC have been doing just fine for me. Those aren’t the only signets where people ignore the passive either.
As long as you have a shred of skill and foresight (which most guardians don’t have, oops), Signet of Courage can be used to save someone quite easily. Waiting to cast it when someone is at 10% health obviously isn’t how to use it properly.

Signet of Courage could be on a 10s cooldown and people would still complain about its boring passive effect.

Doomdesire.9365:

And then the TS nerf in favor of signet buffs that no one will use anyways…

True Shot didn’t deserve to be nerfed (DH did though, along with the rest of the elite specs), but I don’t think you understand how balancing works. One doesn’t just leave underpowered skills underpowered because “no one will use them anyways”.

Signet of Courage is now the best burst heal in the game and the only reason people are considering using it is because its passive is a sub-par Healing Signet. Typical guardian community. :>

RabbitUp.8294:

RtL needs to go down to 2s or lower cast time. Maybe the cd reduced to 25s. I mean, if Wash can be 20s, RtL doesn’t need to be 30s.

Guardian is the only profession along with Rev with no <25s heal, only that Rev gets 2 heals to make up for it. Until recently, Guardian didn’t even have a 25s skill, but we did have the record with 2 40s heals!

RtL is perfectly fine the way it is. It doesn’t need cooldowns on the level of power creeped HoT skills to be a good skill. RtL also has a longer-range, and it heals for a fair bit more as well. I guarantee it’s infinitely more practical and easy to hit multiple allies with a 600 range cone rather sitting on one of them with a 180~ radius (while getting cleaved to death). Honestly, after all the nerfs, I think it’s debatable how good WtPA is.

There’s Litany of Wrath I suppose, but there’s not really a big reason to have a specific amount of heal skills with an arbitrary cooldown. Healing skills can be good even if they have a relatively long cooldown, it just makes them better against burst rather than sustained damage.

Kind of just seems like you’re trying to justify flavouring for it which isn’t there (as far as I can see). There’s not a whole lot of lore behind what tomes actually are, but they’re obviously very magical, and they’re books of course, so it’s safe to assume that they are associated with scholarly or at least mage-like aspects. They also have a trait where a square academic cap is shown (with little angel wings above it), so just based on that it certainly seems like they (or the spec in general) have scholarly connotations. I can’t see anything pertaining to your perception of it though, but not a lot of specifics have been revealed.

Edit: The old tomes were also described as “ancient” and were notable for having a lot of spells named after monk spells from GW1. So, if anything, they’re probably compendiums of monk magic.

What? Sanctuary never had stability, and as far as I’m aware of, it still doesn’t.

Azoqu.8917:

OK this is where we differ, I’m looking at this from PvE and you from PvP. SnR makes a mokery of any res skill in PvE

Oh, in that case I agree. I think SnR functions a lot better in PvE than SoM does.

Azoqu.8917:

Retreat blocks and attack and then heals for ~2k when traited. In WvW you might skip that trait for the staff trait so I can understand not taking it there. Concerning Sanctuary, that is a skill I have a love/hate relationship for. It heals for a ton and completely destroys breakbars but everyone runs away from it and the CD is long so it hurts for on demand healing and only emergency.

Yeah, 2k (if even) isn’t really that much healing though. As a support guardian I personally can’t live without Sanctuary, but I guess it’s a debatable skill choice. In PvE it destroys break bars, and in PvP it’s extremely solid for protecting allies, and interrupting stomps/revives (and it heals like 8k~ with modifiers).

Azoqu.8917:

Considering I think the active of SoC is complete trash, the passive is one of the only saving graces that skill could have. I’m of the opinion it would be changed to heal people you apply boons to, or heal those around you when you heal yourself.

The active on SoC is currently probably one of the best supportive skills in the game, and now it doesn’t even really need perfect timing either. There are few skills which protect your allies so well. The passive pretty much does nothing even if you hit your allies with it. I think healing allies you apply boons to would be a very interesting passive, although I think the active is perfectly fine the way it currently is.

Azoqu.8917:

Oh man, RtL and WtPA. Yes Anet has buffed RtL and nerfed WtPA so that the problem isn’t as stupid, but I remember when they were showing off the tempest (with Karl dying to Svanir in the PvP lobby) and when they showed WtPA. It drove me up the wall that it was 360 degrees yet the skills that is basically the exact same is a cone where your character will try to turn to face enemies half the time.

Honestly I’d much rather have the 600 range cone than the tiny radius WtPA has. Healing allies from a distance is kind of important to avoid being cleaved to death. If RtL lost its range, I’m not sure if I’d even bother using it.

I can’t be bothered to read most of or debate these walls of text, but I suppose I was exaggerating a fair bit when I said “completely right”, although I still somewhat agree. :0

Azoqu.8917:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Search and Rescue doesn’t instantly revive the target upon successful task and it has 600 range. Signet of Mercy being a 1s cast on a 60 second cooldown would be completely mindbogglingly broken, and this is coming from someone who actually uses it. + %outgoing healing as a passive would be fine though.

SnR might not revive instantly but it is instant cast and therefore actually usable unlike something that requires you to stand around like a tool. Plus it pulls the person to you so you could res them with their put so they stand up way quicker than Mercy will revive them. Every time I think I could res someone with that signet, I could just rub them for 1s and get them up instead. Though I guess in a healing build, retreat and merciful intervention are the only skills that do anything, so I guess you could take the signet.

Signet of Courage isn’t a revive and thus is not comparable to Battle Standard. I’ve said it before, but the passive ticking faster won’t make the passive better. It’s a supportive elite and there’s no reason you’d use it over RF for purposes of survivability.

Faster passive ticking would make the passive a ton better because you wouldn’t have to play guess work for if it will heal them or not. More often than not, you’ll heal someone up and then the signet will proc and be 100% overheal and therefore useless.

Courage and Battle Standard are comparable because they both serve the function and keeping people alive and in the fight. You only take either of these skills to keep people fighting and catching punishing mistakes.

That’s funny, because whenever I try to normal-revive anyone in PvP, I get cleaved into oblivion (at least against half-decent players). There’s a huge difference between reviving someone at 900 range instantly after 2 seconds and reviving someone by teleporting them to you and then waiting for the revive to finish. Quite frankly I don’t understand how Search and Rescue comes close to Signet of Mercy’s current state.
Also I don’t see why any healing build would ever use retreat. Sanctuary scales very well with healing and it’s one of the best protective skills in the game because it eats stability like candy. Stability skills are also typically used on healing builds as far as I know.

You don’t have to guess if it heals them or not because the passive isn’t worth keeping track of in the first place. If you’re using Signet of Courage you’re not going to be in close-range anyway, because without Renewed Focus you’ll just get insta-gibbed as soon as anyone decides to focus you. If you want the passive to be decent, it shouldn’t be close-ranged.

They both keep people alive, and yet they’re still completely different heals. I’m not going to compare Receive the Light/Wash the Pain Away/etc to Battle Standard just because those are burst heals.

Azoqu.8917:

Signet of Mercy: Passive is junk, +% outgoing healing would make it more useful. The active should be 1s cast on 60s CD. Reason for that is “Search and Rescue” which is instant cast and on 60s CD.
Signet of Courage: The active seems respectible until you realized Banner resses dead and is doesn’t “fail” unlike courage where if someone goes down at the last instant it does nothing for them. The passive needs to tick every 1-3 seconds and not be totally useless.

Search and Rescue doesn’t instantly revive the target upon successful cast and it has 600 range. Signet of Mercy being a 1s cast on a 60 second cooldown would be completely mindbogglingly broken, and this is coming from someone who actually uses it. + %outgoing healing as a passive would be a nice change though.

Signet of Courage isn’t a revive and thus is not comparable to Battle Standard. I’ve said it before, but the passive ticking faster won’t make the passive better. It’s a supportive elite and there’s no reason you’d use it over RF for purposes of survivability.

steelheart.7386:

Dude come out of the fantasy land where you live and join the rest of us in the real world. These changes were meh at best. Really glad they nerfed Renewed Focus though. Not.

If by “fantasy land” you mean the place where people don’t faceroll power creeped elite specs, then I’m perfectly fine over here thank you very much. Enjoy the nerfs though. ;0

Healing signet is a very different skill on a very different class. Their passive effects are bad, but that’s not really what I’m looking at (and signet passive effects are almost always bad anyway). 90 seconds (75 with the trait) for a full heal is really, really good, and so is having the fastest non-elite revive in the game.

After the first set of buffs they got, I didn’t even think they were bad. Signet of Mercy is probably one of the best (if not the best) revive skills in the game now (just to compare, the only other revive as fast as SoM is Battle Standard which has almost double the cooldown). Probably going to be broken imo, but I think most people will be too dumb to realize it.
Signet of Courage is looking extremely good to me too; with the signet trait it has a 75 second cooldown, which pretty much makes it the best heal in the game (in addition to its shortened cast time).

The buffs to other underpowered skills are nice as usual (Save Yourselves finally got some resistance). A shame a lot of DH’s stuff got buttkittened though, although I’m personally indifferent.

Ragnarox.9601:

If we dont get 25% movement trait with firebrand/purifier will switch to another class probably.

Seems like a fairly trivial reason to switch to a different class.

The leakers seem convinced that they’re mantras. I suppose they could be wrong though.

Edit: It’s also worth mentioning that one of the traits for the Purifier/Firebrand looks pretty similar to: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Restorative_Mantras

The sand thing doesn’t really make sense, but it seems to be the route that they’re going in. According to leakers, the sand shroud thing is gonna give barriers which absorb damage to allies. So apparently it’s tank/support.

CptAurellian.9537:

Quite an impressive amount of QQ.

but he’s completely right. XD

RabbitUp.8294:

And knowing their track history, they will load the tomes with condi removal and defensive crap that is useless in pve, so they can avoid nerfing Epidemic.

I’d cringe if it was just a cleanse bot. Tome of Courage was so much more than that.

Purifier seems to be the name that all of the leakers use (so far), and it was the name the original leak used. I suppose its possible that Firebrand is just the name they use in coding or something, but there’s really only one way to find out, so we’ll just have to wait.

Saiyan.1704:

With a name like Firebrand, I don’t see Bunker guard returning to meta. Especially when we’re getting a melee weapon.

Assuming it’s a melee weapon, and it’s very possible that it isn’t. Axes are typically 900-range weapons.

RabbitUp.8294:

And if all we get is a new way to deal DPS, I’m legit deleting my Guardian right then and there, with all the gear and a couple of legendaries, because I’m not going to wait another 2 years and buy another expansion hoping they eventually pull the class out of the garbage can.

I’d probably quit the game; it’d be insulting. I’ve waited for far too long for tomes to be a thing only for the devs to kitten them up when they finally come back.

Off the top of my head, Ether Renewal is amazing at condition cleansing (usable regardless of attunement), Cleansing Fire/Burning Fire are good cleanses (also usable regardless of attunement), Diamond Skin is okay, and Earth Focus #4 cleanses three conditions. Not to mention the possibility of additional cleanses from the new weapon or new utilities. Not everything needs top tier condition cleansing in order to be viable.

I understand that some people want their condition cancer, but I really hope this spec is at least evenly split between healing, protection, and conditions (and preferably a bit of offensive support).

RabbitUp.8294:

Anyway, base Guardian has deceptively potent healing, but it has some problems. First, it’s healing over time, lacking burst healing. And second, it has limited range as you need to be at melee range and drop symbols, so you can only heal those around you.

If F2 is close to Tome of Courage, then we can expect a 1200 ranged AoE healing autoattack, and another more potent burst healing spell, solving the above problems.

I really loved Heal Area from Tome of Courage (much more than the full heal even). It’ll be a shame if something like that doesn’t make a return on the F2 tome. Constantly throwing out long-ranged healing AoEs made it really feel like you were playing a proper healer.

I always thought that guardians had really good burst healing, but bad sustained healing. Like Receive the Light and Signet of Courage (after the buffs) are probably the best burst heals in the game, and the staff also has a few decent heals, but in between that they have no spammable healing like Water Blast from the ele’s staff. Symbol healing doesn’t really heal for much, and if one is playing a healing build they’d take Force of Will over that anyway.

In terms of PvP, the problem with healer guardians for me is that a large part of their healing is mid-range at most, so they can be focused fairly easily, and healer guardians aren’t exactly tanky either. They’re infinitely better at keeping their allies alive than druids are though.

choovanski.5462:

hmmm we could see the return of bunk guard to pvp

The reason bunker guardians aren’t a thing in PvP anymore is because it needs toughness and healing power, and with the removal of the cleric amulet, magi’s doesn’t suffice. The DH’s Shield of Courage alone already makes it pretty good for bunkering, but bunker DH’s aren’t commonly used because they lack appropriate stats. I doubt a spec focused on support and conditions will bring back bunker guardians.

RabbitUp.8294:

There was a follow-up leak post on reddit. It said there’s no healer like druid this time around, but there’s support. Now, I will be really surprised if F2 doesn’t have healing abilities, so maybe the leaker meant no dedicater healer, not no healing at all, since Firebrand should be quite flexible with the Tomes.

But, they did say this spec has “a lot of support”, so at least we can be sure it won’t be pure condi.

I’d be surprised and disappointed if the F2 tome doesn’t have healing; especially since the new tomes are supposedly like the old tomes in terms of skills, and Tome of Courage was very focused on healing. If the resolve tome has none then I’m going to assume tomes have been perverted somehow.

I also have my doubts about nothing new being added that can contend against the druid in terms of healing. If this new spec offers additional options for healing, I’m sure guardians will be considered as viable healers.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I’d be okay with this if it wasn’t for the Revenant part. We’ve already go that. Why lose the other two elements? That’s disappointing.

Because trade-offs are a good thing?

We already do have some sort of bar based on the leaked image.

This spec doesn’t really scream “mesmer-wannabe” as much as DH screams “ranger-wannabe”. Tomes and axes don’t really have much to do with mesmers for one thing.

Pretty much. I’m also excited for this new spec because it actually takes away something to give something, so it doesn’t make it a strict upgrade to the core profession.

Odokuro.5049:

Ohh great, a Guardian spec that has kits in the form of tomes, making weapon choice redundant, we’ll be like Engineers, totally dependent on these tomes and not making any real use of your weapons.

I’de rather they take out Spirit weapons, replace them with tomes now, and then with the elite spec, put spirit weapons back in, but make the weapons stronger and a lot more useful.

How exactly does that make weapon choice redundant? Just because you have more skills to choose from doesn’t make your base weapon any less important. For one thing this spec doesn’t cause guardians to lose weapon swapping (afaik), and almost nothing is known about how tomes now function. Additionally, if kits made weapons pointless, then you wouldn’t see engineers constantly using hammers, they’d just use any weapon.

So you think tomes should replace spirit weapons (ie. you think tomes should be in the core profession), but then at the same time you think kits/tomes make base weapons pointless? Kind of sounds to me like you just don’t like tomes and want spirit weapons ala power creep.

Feanor.2358:

Right, making significant percent of the traits irrelevant should be what a spec does? Somehow I don’t think so.

Which traits are you referring to? I mean there are element-exclusive traits in each elemental line, but I don’t see why a fire/air ele would take water (for example).

Same. I was drawn to the guardian because of the whole light spellcaster thing (not so much the heavy armor part though). I’m ecstatic that tomes are coming back; I just hope they didn’t ruin them and that the rest of the spec is as cool as the tomes are.

A new leak on reddit clarified how the spec works. Apparently you choose two attunements and can swap between them ala the Rev. If you’re using two weapons (ie. a main-hand and an off-hand rather than a two-handed weapon) then the first two skills are from the current attunement, the third skill is the fusion skill, and the last two come from the attunement not currently in use. If it’s a two-handed weapon, all of the skills (minus the fusion skill) are of a single attunement (like normal eles). Apparently the spec is the furthest away from completion though, which probably explains why the main leak had nothing for the ele.

Me too, but the leaker said that they were like old tomes, so let’s hope he’s not lying. :p

The leaker said the tomes were like the old tomes before they got turned into a shout and a signet. So I think it’s safe to assume that the resolve tome is a healing tome, and that the courage tome is a protective tome. If that assumption is true, this spec will probably play a lot like a monk from GW1 (which were highly sought out on every team in every game mode).

Aeolus.3615:

oh theres already leaks stuff, tough it was mostly speculation so no pistol maybe later

(edit)
So… tomes stuff are in virtues place or at least the 2nd and 3rd virtue.
basicly its a mellee weapon with a bit of extension to 400-(looks like less than 600range)
Maybe f2 and f3 will change the weapon skills, since in the traitline FB is using tome in right hand and torch in offhand.

i fear the new specs dont have place for pvp unless they will be power creep based…

Axes are typically 900 range and are often used as throwing weapons. Ranger, necro, and revenant axes are all 900 range, the exception to this is the warrior’s axe. I suppose them being 600 range isn’t out of the realm of possibility though. Take note that the spirit axes in the image don’t necessarily seem connected to the guardian; they may appear in a similar manner to the necro’s axe.

Assuming they’re properly balanced, I don’t see why they wouldn’t appear in PvP. We don’t know any specific details concerning the spec’s axe skills, tome skills, mantras, or traits, so it’s a bit early to be jumping to a conclusion.

It has (as far as I can tell) a healing tome and a protection tome; it’s very likely that a large part of this spec will focus on ranged support (unless tomes got kittenized somehow). Judging by the icons on mantras, at least half of them look supportive/defensive as well. Either way, the only other boon the symbol could apply (that isn’t already applied by another symbol) is quickness, and I find that unlikely since it has no ties to conditions.

As for the axe’s auto-attack, it doesn’t look like it attacks with projectiles. The auto-attack looked like it created a spirit weapon-esque axe to attack the target, but the player in the picture did it in fairly close range, so there’s not much way to tell how much range it has.

PvE in this game is snoresville for me, personally speaking. There’s nothing with cleaving either. Brainlessly ignoring any proper semblance of positioning and stacking on each other might work in PvE, but it won’t in PvP.

I’d rather like it if the axe was ranged personally. I don’t think this profession has any real need to get more melee weapons. Not that melee weapons fit at all with tomes anyway.
Even if the axe just has a ranged resistance symbol that’d be enough to make it different to any other axe (and any other weapon considering that no weapons can apply resistance currently), and it kind of looks like it might be getting said symbol. I highly doubt it’ll be like the necro’s axe considering that the purifier/firebrand seems to be focused on ranged support and conditions.

Xaylin.1860:

Yes, only having two attunements isn’t impossible. But it would require a lot of work. Having a scenario as others described (e.g. the game ‘remembering’ your last attunement and then changing your dual-element skill – #3 – accordingly or having Mantras or Stances to attune to a second attunement) is waaaaay more likely.

I’m not entirely sure of what you’re trying to say or how you came to that conclusion, but I’m quite certain this elite spec just has two attunements that you swap between ala the Revenant. The leaked image makes that pretty clear. I suppose it’s possible that it has a single usable attunement with a secondary attunement only determining the 3rd skill, but that seems unlikely to me since attunement swapping is kind of ingrained pretty hard in the profession (assuming I’m reading what you’re saying properly).

RabbitUp.8294:

Necros have AI that they bring to pvp, so if that’s acceptable, then Spirit Weapons should be as well.

Keeping a whole skill type at a sorry state because it’s against your sensibilities is stupid, those skills exist and they shouldn’t awful to use.

^

Lahmia.2193:

I guess you didn’t live through the pvp Turret tank Engi meta? It’s a stark reminder of why AI skills should never be top tier or even meta.

You bet I did. It got hard-countered by anyone who had enough of a brain to use a ranged build like a glass staff ele. Unfortunately, most players don’t have that quality so they just brainlessly gravitate towards the current month’s meta builds regardless of their actual effectiveness, so ANet had to nerf turrets to compensate. I don’t expect to win against a warrior (who are coincidentally fairly easy to play) with a support guardian, and I wouldn’t expect to win against a turret engi with a melee build. Sometimes using one’s brain and thinking things through is more important than raw skill. Of course the big difference between turret engis and spirit weapons is that spirit weapons have the counterplay of being focused down fairly easily, and they function a lot more like ranged weapons rather than point defense.

Lahmia.2193:

Talk about a drama queen though. I never said delete them. If people want to use them they can. But at the end of the day, AI takes no skill to use and does the work for you. That’s never a healthy thing for a game.

“I never said delete them. I just think that if you use them people should laugh at you and flame you.”

Considering that the spec used to be called (or still is called) Purifier, the symbol probably provides resistance. The icon kind of looks like the axe is thrown too, so if I had to guess just off of the icon, I’d say it’s ranged.

Orpheal.8263:

I see this spec as a more melee oriented offensive Specialization

It’s almost certainly a support/condition caster elite spec. The tome replacing justice will probably be like Tome of Wrath (1200 range burning/offensive support), the tome replacing resolve will probably be a 1200 ranged healing weapon ala Tome of Courage, and I’m assuming the tome replacing courage will be 1200 range barrier/aegis/defensive boon spam. I have my doubts about even the axe being a melee weapon, and mantras aren’t exactly the best thing to cast in melee range either.

One of the leakers actually said the utilities were mantras, in addition to posting that picture. I’m more curious about the range on the axe, and the initiative-ish gauge next to tomes. The axe in the leaked image is definitely magic-based like the necromancer’s axe, but the range on it in that image isn’t very clear.

Orpheal.8263:

Was pretty sure, that if Tomes return, that ANet would turn them into an own Skill Type so that they could be a bit more creative on new Tomes, than just only letting the class have 3

Would’ve been pretty unnecessary. There only really need to be tomes for justice/smiting, resolve/healing, and courage/protection; those pretty much cover all bases. After enough theorizing on the next elite spec, I kind of figured they’d do this since 6 tomes is major overkill.

I was under the impression that you just had two attunements that you could swap between, rather than both of them being active at the same time. The leaked image showed the air staff’s skills taking up the entire weapon bar minus the combination skill taking up the third slot.

What I’m more curious about is how the slot 3 fusion skills work. Like is there an “Air/Water” skill in addition to a “Water/Air” skill (ie. based on which element is currently in use), or is there just one fusion skill for two elements regardless of which element is currently in use. Additionally, I’m curious as to how strong these combination skills are, and whether or not the elite spec also has any F skills besides attunement swapping.

Lahmia.2193:

For one I don’t think anet should be looking to improve Spirit weapons because they are AI.

You know what, you’re right. They should just delete spirit weapons, and rangers too while they’re at it. /s

Since when has anything been balanced based on how easy it is to use.

Obtena.7952:

WE have lots of build diversity so that makes no sense.

I was referring to the fact that it’s bad that they’d let something remain in such a broken and unviable state for about 5 years straight. The fact that a class has “enough” decent skills does not excuse poorly balancing other skills. Of course, as I already mentioned, it seems like they also realize that’s bad, if that dev’s post is any indication (as well as the buffs to underused utilities like signets/consecrations).

I suspect that those utility skills can hold up two charges rather than functioning like mantras; ie. the first cooldown completes and it keeps ticking, and then after the next cooldown it holds a second cast of that skill.