Guild Wars 2

Guardian shield isn’t terrible. Shield 4 has 25-30% prot uptime and a 1.0 power coefficient on a 600u cone. If you want more damage, add more power. If you still want more damage, use a weapon built for damage instead of support.

Shield 5 gives a control effect, aoe projectile defense, and possibly heals on a reasonable cooldown. Admittedly it has some bugs and QoL changes to work through, but the design itself is solid.

I mean, it’s not like people are complaining that GS doesn’t give enough Prot, instead they switch to a weapon or set up that gives them what they need.

Lampshade.7569:

Black Box.9312:

10% is pathetic for a grandmaster major trait. It needs to be at least 15%.

How about 10% and symbol generating abilities recharge 33% faster?

Somebody plays Mace

Black Box.9312:

Mightybird.6034:

what if we do a Captain America thing with guardian and make the shield offensive? like a thrown kind of thing? damage/knockback/daze/retal/might/??/etc

I’ve thought about something like this. It could have a bouncing effect, giving protection to affected allies and maybe inflicting weakness/vulnerability/daze on enemies. They’d have to give it some decent damage though (more than the current SoJ).

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Shield

The name of the game for guardians is hybrid damage (carrion, sinister, celestial, rampager). We don’t have many skills that proc damaging conditions alone, but by combining what we do have with the power damage we naturally do well makes for a scary dual threat. In open world (and especially fighting mobs higher level than you while leveling), aoe condition damage is quality.

All shield really needs is for SoA to proc on the move and have the bubble stay until burst. A blast finisher on pop would also be nice, as even if the bubble is a light field, you still have the oldest combo field having priority, and you’re guaranteed retaliation in there isn’t a field already down (tons of synergy with traits). Shield 4 provides a power coefficient of 1.0, 600 range, and provides 25-30% aoe protection uptime just by itself. With boon duration and Hold the Line, you won’t even need Hammer for a larger area prot.

With those shield changes, Sword+Shield, Shouts, and Radiance, Honor, Whatever (probably Virtues), would definitely fill a niche and be very strong against projectiles. WoR would just make it overkill.

Shield doesn’t need an overhaul, it just needs some QoL adjustments.

Scepter 2:Symbol of Smiting, lasts 3s, hits 3 times per second, gives 1 might for 1 second per pulse.

Sword 3: Symbol of Absorption, lasts 2s, absorbs projectiles in the area.

Keeps a lot of the functionality the skills originally had. I’ve always been a proponent of every weapon having a symbol, and I liken then a lot to mesmer illusions. Every weapon set for mesmer has one clone generator and one phantasm generator. Having every weapon set for guardian have a symbol generator (off hand symbols unnecessary) would be great.

Bhawb.7408:

I believe it was soldier. Also just as a note because I feel like being nitpicky there is no such thing as base damage for direct damage.

Soldier honestly seems too low, but I don’t think it was outright mentioned in any case. We’ll find out one HoT drops. And as far as base damage goes, it’s easy to know what is meant when referring to the number on the left of the coefficient.

Those are numbers from tooltips. If you notice any of those skills for elite specs shouldn’t have coefficients with them. That Necro was probably running celestial or were maybe running rabid with some stat enhancing effects like the trait in DM giving 14% toughness as power while in shroud. Once we can get actual base damage and scaling, we’ll know how good it is.

I mean, plenty of people are able to break 25 stacks of burning alone. Quark is probably hitting 5 targets with plenty of aoe and Supreme Justice, maybe with Torch traited also. With 100% burn uptime (4s passives), Quickness, GS/sw+t, Purging Flames, Symbol Burns, and Permeating Wrath, it’s not unlikely to hit those numbers of stacks.

The new dungeon build takes all those condition traits, but runs full zerker, so only having 36 condition damage is also not unreasonable. Sword is replaced with Mace though.

Nomad could be okay, but you’d need to make judicious use of stat enhancing effects, like toughness into power etc.

I’m going to have a Spite/Blood/Reaper build focused on life steal, wells, and spin2win. This should pair nicely with my other Necro, Curses/Death/SR for a condi MM.

Don’t forget about Reaper too. All those traits that proc after 50% are going to be very nice with Gravedigger. I’m certainly going to be running a Spite/Blood/Reaper build focusing on life steal and GS so I can spin2win with the best of them.

ITT: no one knows what they’re talking about (other than wanting ricochet back, that’s kind of hard to mess up)

Shelter wasn’t touched, that’s why shelter wasn’t nerfed. MotP was what was changed, so call it for what it is, a nerf to MotP.

Shelter wasn’t directly affected in the update, all I wouldn’t call it as Shelter getting a nerf. The synergy was disrupted for sure, but I would call it a nerf, not phrased like that at least.

Only the auto attacks were datamined, which are usually hack n slash for any weapon. Skills 2 and 3 are where you get your nifty tricks, but those datamined skills were just copies of dagger.

I’d consider pairing it with shattered aegis and whatever trait gives retal from aegis. Iirc, retal deal damage based on the source.

Something like this comes to mind
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgIBeALsA7Q~
Dire and some mix ins, and a few traits could be mixed around.

Datamining doesn’t actually prove anything. Ele sword skills were supposedly datamined, and a warhorn skin was mined, but nothing is confirmed until a blog post.

Clarion Bond was always supposed to have a 30s cd. Ever since it was introduced. It’s yoer own fault for not knowing this.

Nade barrage is apparently a much more difficult fix than this was. The bug source might not have been found yet, or the fix is under testing. Regardless, that bug had nothing to do with Clarion Bond, or Rangers at all.

Mace fits much better in Honor than Hammer does. I could see Glacial Heart going down to adapt, and Retaliatory Subconscious moving up, refreshing Virtue of Courage instead on granting aegis.

You spent 137 seconds on a skill and you think it’s balanced?

Don’t hurt yourself on that hubris.

In both the original trait stream and the updated trait stream, this trait had the same cd as the actual Hunters Call. This was a bug fix, not a nerf. It’s your own fault for being salty at the change.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Ghotistyx.6942:

There’s the potential for such a gimmicky build to have at least one burn tick for 23.5k damage. The only issue is getting all 38 (conservative estimate) stacks to tick at once (with 25 self-might). The total damage dealt is absolutely catastrophic.

#HailRodgort

Did you throw in some vuln?

I did not. I don’t think anything I listed (in an earlier post) added vuln, but I could be wrong. With a teammate or yourself adding the extra oomph (there’s still room for you to add more burn stacks, like PF and swapping H for GS), one could see how we could blow that number up even more.

There’s the potential for such a gimmicky build to have at least one burn tick for 23.5k damage. The only issue is getting all 38 (conservative estimate) stacks to tick at once (with 25 self-might). The total damage dealt is absolutely catastrophic.

#HailRodgort

I want spirit weapons to be invincible again and get +50% damage back. They should also stay out permanently until killed like necro minions. Sword and Hammer also need to cast JI when you activate their skills, and bow needs to bounce to foes and deal at least 700 base damage.

Hammer, traited Scepter+Torch with Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath. MK runes, maybe Fire and hydromancy sigils for extra lulz.

RoW+JI, swap to sc+t, pop " FMW ", Litany, ZF, Smite, Cleansing Flame. /kneel, consecrate your sacrifice to Rodgort, moment of silence.

Well yes, I’m aware of that skill and that sig. That’s no reason to not have that functionality. Access to a mechanic means different things for different professions. Rangers and Engis can each drop fire fields that pulse burn, but Bonfire and Fire Bomb mean different things to them. A revenant not using Mallyx won’t ever have that functionality (though they also have a trait that does similar).

Plague copying conditions to foes would give the skill a functionality fairly reminiscent of GW1 Disease. And we really shouldn’t care what revenant’s can do since Mallyx is essentially Corruption skills done again, but Mallyx elite and Plague serve different functions.

I had a thought. Forgive me if it’s been mentioned previously.

Remove bleeding from plague (keep self bleed, basically each skill has just one, unique condition)
" Plague now copies your current conditions to foes in the area. "
Has much more synergy with recent changes.

They didn’t believe me, but I knew Rodgort would be proud.

Burn all the things!

Just in case anyone was questioning the purpose of this thread…

ITT: no one knows what they’re talking about.

If you click the skill it’ll pop down at your feet.

We don’t already know that. Most because some info has been datamined doesn’t mean it’s confirmed. Most look at guardian Longbow skills.

I’m definitely going to have a Wells and siphon build going, especially when reaper pops. GS and either staff or D+wh depending on the feel of vampiric presence. Siphons have always been fun to play, and now they’ll be even more fun.

I used to run Rifle/GS, and I still could for a more bursty version of what I ran. Now however, I think going for heal shouts and Rifle/sw+wh would give me much more group support and survivability. It’ll be something I’ll need to play around with.

It’s a secret to everyone

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

The point is if it doesn’t scale massively better with condition damage (at least 2x better) then there is no point in the trait because your base power is 1k and can easily reach 2k using carrion/rampager gear which is always going to be better then something like dire/rabid.

If you check the wiki, you only need 927 ConD to surpass an equal investment in power based retaliation, which is easy to get when building for that. Even with the updated base stats you won’t be pressed to hit 1k, and after you’ve got the threshold condi will still always beat power.

Also, word on the street was RR was getting even better scaling, but that’s just conjecture for now. The only thing that’s really killing it is the bug preventing that scaling.

Jasher.6580:

So the consensus is that there is a huge possibility that condi Ranger will do better in boss fights but Power will do better on trash mobs?

Condi could finally be viable?

My pants are getting tighter!

It’s not that condi will be viable, but that I welcome our new hybrid overlords.

It’s not mandatory. You can be tanky without running vital persistence.

Like someone mentioned, they talked about this in the video you can watch on YouTube. They were seeing 5k damage ticks of burning without the icd. The icds on both Amplified Wrath and Might of the Protector are fine. We have many more sources of block than just shelter.

I think what was meant to be said was, “Quickness it a boon, and would stack in duration as opposed to intensity”.

Most boons stack duration up to 9 times, with retaliation being an exception. Retaliation happens to stack 5 times, which makes that a moot point. You wouldn’t need to play in a beta to safely predict that.

If you’re thinking of traited signets and RR, those are mutually exclusive.

If you aren’t, then yeah. There could be some interesting things going on with RR once we get more full patch notes.

Friendly PSA: just because you don’t see an icd, doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Especially if it currently has an icd, or if recent iterations have already explained this.

lordhelmos.7623:

I’d like to see what your “complete analysis” looks like. It’s easy to come in here and bash my thread. Can you back up what your talking about?

I am in no way required to provide my own analysis. Of course it’s easy to come in and say your thread does not accomplish what you stated in the title. This is not my problem however, it’s yours. It’s up to you to either actually do an in depth analysis, or to change the title of the thread to more accurately represent what it accomplishes. Currently it’s a complaint with no significant substance and a comparison to something not warrior related.

As I mentioned in a similar thread,

Shield 4 scales 1:1 with power, has 600 range, and while traited, provides 30% protection uptime with no boon duration. Pair it with Hold the Line and you’ve got your 50%+ protection uptime.

Shield 5 provides a knockback, projectile defense, and a 1300+0.2*Hpow heal every 19 seconds while traited, which could be anywhere from 68 to 84 hps iirc.

The cooldown reductions have helped a lot, and it certainly has a niche when paired with the main hand weapons. Generally when you have “weak effects” on a weapon set you should expect lower cooldowns, and that’s exactly what shield has gotten.

This isn’t an in depth analysis on Rifle. It’s a short and incomplete comparison to Rangers Longbow that didn’t really accomplish anything except add more whine.

I would’ve brought some cheese had I known before hand.

Shield of Judgement has a 1.0 power coefficient (302 base), 600 range, and provides 25-30% protection uptime without boon duration.

Shield of Absorption provides a knockback, aoe projectile defense, and a heal for 1300+0.2*Hpow (which could be anywhere from 68 to 89 hps off cd when traited)(also has synergy with Protective Reviver in Honor. That cooldown will also be reduced while traited)

I don’t really get the complaints myself. Being able to pop these skills every 16 and 19 seconds is great, plus the extra 180 toughness. I understand you could take Strength in Numbers, but this gives you a different option. Perhaps your party needs the faster shield skills more than the 150 toughness, especially if someone is already providing that benefit. Being able to use the shield skills more often allows you to be that much more supportive. Something like Sw/Sh and Radiance, Valor, and Honor would allow you to have a lot of projectile defense and bring a lot of utility to your party.

Nike.2631:

I can generate mediocre-to-useless effects 20% more often? Yay?

I still don’t know in what universe a heavy armor melee class gets forward firing cones to buff/heal allies (shield 4 and minty fresh breath heal). If my Allies are in front of me, I’m doing something WRONG.

Your allies could be hitting the enemy from the back. Your protection would then affect any near aoe damage they might take, or whenever the enemy decides to change target. Our maybe you’re the one hitting it from the back, in which case the protection of quite useful. Positioning makes it work.

FMW is going to be great everywhere. Imagine with me for a second:

Medi/shouts with current pvp valk amulet. Radiance, Valor, Honor. JI, CoP, SYG, FMW. Not as bursty, but tons more survivable. Quick stable stomps, group utility, quite a few weapon options.

Hybrid/Condi Guard. Radiant Fire, Supreme Justice, Permeating Wrath. Pop Torch 4 and FMW, Cleansing Flame sears through its channel delivering all those delicious aoe burn procs, then toss #4 to finish. CF is no longer a dps liability, plus retains its ally condi removal. Rinse/repeat every 24-30s.

I can’t wait to get my computer fixed to I can actually play with these changes. FMW really should end up mostly replacing RF in pve, and will have its uses in wvw and pvp.

Ragnarox.9601:

That shout would be good if we HAD some movement slowing effect. But ppl will easy go out of your combat range if they see you used that “Hail to the king baby” skill. Shouts are bad in pvp and wvw somewhere between spirit weapons and sigils.

If only Hammer had a trait that caused chill 33% of hits (granted, presence of an icd is unknown)

Imagine if you had crafted Juggernaut and Moot, and the skull updates changed from H+M/T to GS+S/F. It would be a great change because you’re benefiting from it. Opinions are relative.

Also, of you said you want to use the optimal builds, but technically optimal is singular. I don’t get why you’d complain about being so restricted when you’re looking for the top performer (GS+S/F isn’t the highest either. That distinction goes to Scepter and Torch). If you’re talking about viable builds (usable for the content) there’s plenty that will exist.

If you absolutely cannot stay guardian, Ranger GS+S/Wh will have very nice builds for pve and wvw.

The burning on SW strikes would deal more damage than the 50% increase. Honestly I’m fine with them scrapping that benefit is that even if the case, since the trait consolidation is the real prize.

Well, build a bridge and suck it up Mr. rocket scientist