Guild Wars 2

Kydar Schattendolch.6879:

But theres no profession, that is able to increase class specific ressources, why should thief?

Necromancer

Precision Strike
Frigid Blitz
Phase Blast
Frigid Discharge
Unyielding Anguish
Elemental Blast
Sigils, Runes, Food

Precision Strike is a multi chill while UA is a pulsing aoe chill, so there are plenty of sources.

Deadly Arts is about dealing more damage or opening up enemies to more damage under various circumstances. That’s why you have traits like Revealed Training (more damage when revealed) and Exposed Weakness (more damage against conditions).

Shadow Arts is about group support. You’ve got traits like Merciful Ambush (stealth ally on revive), Shadow Protector (grant Regen to stealthed allies), and Leeching Venoms (grant lifesteal to allies). It was even more thematic before when you traited to grant Venoms to allies, but it still retains that theme afterwards.

If you put the weapons on a spectrum, you get something like:
Power → Condi
Staff, S/D, S/P, D/P, P/P, SB, D/D, P/D.

If you put SB as the fulcrum between condi and power, there’s quite a few openings on the hybrid-condi and extreme condi spots. Rifle could fill either of those openings. There’s a case to be made for hybrid-condi as it increases versatility and power makes sense on a rifle when looking at Engineer and Warrior. It could also be extreme condi as a counter point to Staff and because Engineer and Warrior Rifles are already heavily leaning towards Power. Anet has shown a desire to open up stat arrays to different weapons, like Warrior’s Mace having a condi niche. If Thief’s Rifle is supposed to be 1200 range, conditions could be used to mitigate burst from stealth and range. Then again, it could also work like a shotgun. Either way, burning and blind are easy to associate with Rifle, so burning on AA or Stealth attack plus a “[condition] on blind” and some blinding skills could give Rifle that niche.

Immobilize doesn’t interrupt skills, therefore it should be a condition as it is.
Also, this isn’t specifically a ranger issue.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Staff healing on the auto attack because you can always adjust the numbers. I’ve always looked at 88-125 hps with a moderate investment as being a good range. Guardian has a lot of heal over time effects, so if you keep stacking effects you can get some pretty good numbers.

Also, if Orb of Light had a blast finisher on activation you could combo it with your own symbols to give it just a slight bit more functionality.

draxynnic.3719:

I’m not sure about swapping the active and passive on the Shield, since the main drawcard for it historically has been projectile hate for as long as the shield lasts. Although I guess that ‘for as long as the shield lasts’ is the problem – if it doesn’t run out of time, it’ll just keep generating that bubble until the enemy manages to kill it.

Possibly the bubble could have a roughly 50% uptime if activated on recharge? This would give it roughly the same uptime as traited Wall of Reflection, but in shorter bursts. You also get a regular knockback, but this is balanced against the shield being destroyable.

Its about having control over when the shield is popped so that you have uptime when you need it. Same reasoning for Hammer’s change. You want to choose when the knockback/blowout happens, and keep the target in place otherwise. You want control over the stronger aspects of the skills and allow the weaker ones to happen automatically. You also want an auto-attack on the Shield and Bow so they can finally interact with the Spirit Weapon trait.

Spirit Weapons don’t need a ton of changes to have a niche.

• Spirit Weapons should stay alive until killed like most Necro minions (i.e. not dying on a timer).
• Swap the knockdown and knockback effects on Hammer so that the knockback is the active.
• Swap the active and passive actions on Shield so that the bubble is the active and the bouncing projectile is the auto attack.
• Have the Bow target enemies and deal at least a small amount of damage+a defensive condition. Let the arrows either bounce or pierce targets while retaining the current functionality when the arrows pass through an ally. The Shield could instead get the piercing projectile if the Bow bounces.

Really that’s it, and Spirit Weapons will not only have a niche, but multiple builds that could revolve around the skill type. Power, Condi, AH, Support and any permutation of those would be potential routes. Such a SW Guardian could function just like an MM necro currently does, which isn’t to say that MM necro is necessarily optimal, but they at least have a purpose unlike Spirit Weapons.

Crapgame.6519:

Symbol design is bad for most fast paced game play. In order to have support specific roles that needs to change. Then there is the passing of boons and what not, well again, those can get taken and removed in most cases. Again, not in favor of support.

Shield, well, overlooked by developers when focus in most cases one could argue is better, same with mace, and then finally others utilities that block and/or reflect. I don’t know, gee devs, a wall of steel or wood and it can’t block – rollseyes. Seems an oversight.

Lastly, the game wasn’t launched with any form of healing / supporting role / tanking meta. It was added late in the game which is also why some would argue other classes can do support better.

This post is like, 2 years late man.

So your solution to an overpowered healing spec that features selfish utilities is an overpowered healing spec that doesn’t use selfish utilities?

Its just not a new argument after hearing 5 years of the same thing, and even then we’ve had plenty of qol changes in regards to ooc speed. Retreat used to be a 40s cd iirc, Staff gave less total swiftness duration, SY used to be 60s? and Traveler’s runes would peak at something like 11g per. Ooc movement speed has specifically been stated as an intentional limitation of the Guardian, and yet we now have ways to get comparable results. Our in combat speed is still quite good with the leaps and teleports we have access to, so that doesn’t really need to change.

But its easy to toss away a dissenting opinion as “trolling”.

Blighter’s Boon was mentioned often.
Vampiric traits in Blood will do it too. That was a relatively recent change, but non-Necromancer things (Blood Sigil or Omnom Ghosts) won’t work.
However, before all of those was Unholy Sanctuary in Death. Heals just for being in shroud.

Brutaly.6257:

Just make AH affect allies as well, in a 600 radius to match shouts and add an aoe heal (SA) to shouts (600 range) that scales extremely (1/1) well with healing power. Increase the gain from healing power in AH.

No need to change staff at all and it would increase the number of viable builds with a number of weapon choices.

Healing spec done!

That would cause a ridiculous hps when combined with the current healing capabilities.

The only connection to mesmer are the supposed mantras as skills. Axe has no relation, kit-like virtues are engineer related, initiative pips are thief related, and the rest of the unknown aspects have undetermined relation. Just mantras don’t make for a particularly strong case.

Stationary vs Moving targets is a valid criticism, but as was said earlier, you don’t raid in a vacuum. Obviously damage drops if you can’t share your Venoms because that’s a function of the skill, but you aren’t expected to be in a position where you’re on an island. We don’t knock classes for their Might and Fury uptimes because in a competitive raiding environment that has been taken care of, just like whether or not you can expect to have allies within Venom range. Having allies nearby would be considered a “realistic buff”.

A wide-angle, 600u wave is far more unique and interesting than yet another bouncing projectile. Guardians already have such a bouncing, healing projectile in Focus 4. Adding a healing component has been talked plenty about before and would be an easy, flavorful way to increase the support Staff can give. Not to mention, a bouncing attack that auto-bounces to the lowest-health ally is almost playing the game for you. Why would this skill suddenly be coded to be the most efficient it could possibly be and require demonstrably less thought than the previous state? Auto-attacks are never meant to be particularly interesting or have the razzle-dazzle. Auto-attacks are what you do when you don’t have, or don’t want, to do anything more interesting. They’re the bread and butter, not the dessert and garnish.

Fashion Mage.3712:

As long as the projectile is coded to target low-health allies, it wouldn’t need to be controlled.

I’m not saying a bouncing auto-attack would be particularly skillful or brainy; I’m saying that it’d be skillful or brainy in contrast to the most brainless auto-attack in the game.

So your solution to increasing the skill required to use the auto attack, is a skill that determines who to heal for you?

Apparently I died because I didn’t have a QoL change.

Here, let me list all the times my quality of life suffered because I couldn’t move at least 3% faster:

Let me list all the times I died because I didn’t have 25% movement speed:

Saiyan.1704:

When ever an aegis shatters, a unicorn flies out and poops a bomb for aoe damage.

Make it happen Karl.

The particle effects my guild in wvw would make…

You know the argument has overspent its welcome when you start RPing

oT posts optimal builds and rotations as far as they can figure out (which, not to try and diminish them, is pretty quality).

However, and despite oT giving a small blurb that evidently wasn’t well read, every class can deal viable dps. Viable dps is a much lower number than optimal dps, because if you truly wanted optimal dps there wouldn’t be a discussion about which classes you should take, the highest numbers can easily be seen.

InsaneQR.7412:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Not everything needs to stack.

Yeah i agree with you that not everything needs to stack. Swiftness, quickness, protection and resistance are fine without stacks. Aegis could be debated. But reatl is kinda meh at its state.

Maybe could do AoE dmg arround you after you get hit and a stack is removed. Make 10 stacks and you could actually do some kind of condi build with guardian.

I realize that I didn’t quite get my message across as best I could, but we’ll ignore that and continue this line of thought.

I’ve thought plenty about Retal and Aegis stacking, and I’m not sure what I’d like from them. Retal could definitely have a stacking mechanic that deals chunk damage when someone procs it, but then it wouldn’t be a defense against multi-strike attacks like it is now. I’ve made the connection before, but you have Retal and Aegis which defend against multi-strike and single spike damage respectively. You also have condition counterparts to those in Confusion and Blind. Confusion punishes multi-skill use while Blind negates single spike skills. Changing how the boons function would change their role in combat, and Retal has the potential to add a lot of damage over the course of a fight while (a guardian’s) Aegis also has the potential to drastically affect a fight. They each have a role to play and counterplay that can be used against them. I’m not sure if I’d want to change much more than numbers for either of the boons.

Every skill applies burning if VoJ is off cooldown.
ThinkingMan.jpg

Not everything needs to stack.

I wonder what might possibly be the reason for that

Acro gives swiftness on dodge just like UC so you aren’t really suffering that much.

Well, its not like you raid solo

You can always try testing yourself on the golems in the raiding area of Lions Arch. I think raid-viable dps is still around the 25k mark. You should also consider swapping Earth for Arcane and bringing Arcane Power as that’s a significant damage increase for you and your party over Earth. What you have already will be fine in dungeons and low-tier fractals though.

600 radius could cover a small african village!

Fortunately you can prove your dps is in the toilet by using a dps meter.

Did you just assume my character’s tier?

Y’know, for a name like RabbitUp, he sure is a real downer.

Coolguy.8702:

Just like your opinion. And those buzzwords are literally in warrior description

Rolling out the big guns

Game mode is a social construct!
Don’t just assume some game’s mode.

Your buzzwords mean nothing

Every profession’s forum has salt. Right now is just Thief’s time of the month.

Saiyan.1704:

Other class’s threads like Ele said they were getting mantras and axe as well… So, i’m curious exactly which class is really getting axe and mantras.

Peculiar..

Ele had Sword with Mantras while mesmer was getting Axe, which is all plausible

Rifle could even be a 600 conal shotgun blast with the snipe on the stealth skill. Or it could be reversed. It could focus on burning and midrange CC. There’s so many things you can do.

My favorite thing to read though are the comments that say: “This weapon that we know nothing about won’t change anything ever at all, but if we got this other weapon that we know nothing about instead, everything would be better”. Glad we got that input.

The easiest solution is for Spirit Weapons to act like regular Necro minions. Then Shield and Bow need a damaging auto attack so they can interact with Expeditious Spirit. If Shield swapped its command and auto, that would work perfectly. Bow just needs to have its arrows bounce between enemy and ally and that would suffice.

Just those changes would give Spirit Weapons a niche. Weapon stats could then be adjusted until they hit their sweet spot.

Developers have said that Especs will be a way to gain access to new weapons that the class in question didn’t have before.

The developers haven’t said that Especs will for sure grant other class’s profession mechanics. DH is not necessarily Guardian/Ranger despite the Longbow and Traps. Druid’s Celestial Avatar, likewise, looks pretty similar to Necro’s Shroud, but that doesn’t mean Druid is Ranger/Necro. Just look at Berserker and Scrapper. Berserker is just Warrior+ and Scrapper is completely different than anything. Herald and Tempest too.

Especs alter profession mechanics and add weapon access. Anything beyond that is conjecture until otherwise stated by Anet.

With that relatively pointless thing out of the way, I’m pretty interested in what the best leaks have shown so far. I’m not a huge fan of the Mantra skill type, but they could be pretty interesting, even moreso if that skill type has an functionality overhaul. Initiative based Tomes are legit though. One of the best solutions to Kit-like virtue use. That’s the most appealing aspect of what the unconfirmed leaks imo.

You can have 1 elite spec active at a time. Elite specs always take the bottom (gold border) spec slot.

Rampagers isn’t the best since you don’t have a lot that benefits from crits. Condi works fine with GS but far less so with LB so I’d suggest going for Maurader. You still end up with high precision, but you’ll have the Power and Critical Damage to really get use out of it. Mauraders gives you lots of damage stats while also providing a good HP buffer, perfect for casual, low-stress play. You lose only around 7% damage compared to berzerker, but gain 54% more health.

If you wanted to go condi then Sinister or Vipers would be good. Sword, Scepter, and GS would be good options with Torch as at least one of your off-hands.

Tempest gave Overloads in exchange for less attunement dancing. Sounds like this exchanges 2 elements for having access to two elements at once (sans Staff/Trident) and the Fusion skills. Sounds interesting but I’m also wondering how Fresh Air fits into all of this.

Orpheal.8263:

Localizations are part of any international games. Get used to it.

There are german forums, where this discussion would be relevant.

My favorite thing is when we start discussing German translations on an English video game forum.

Anet has lots of priorities when it comes to skill balance.

Look for Abuses and exploits
Develop a fix
Test the fix
Look at the current meta.
Check performance of “tier 1” skills.
Check performance of “tier 2” skills.
Determine changes if any
Test changes
Develop new skills
Test new skills
Check performance of “tier 3” skills
Develop changes if any
Test changes
Determine changes for “tier 4” skills
Test changes

Anet only has so many people who are involved in skill balance, and they need to go through at least these steps (likely more) for not only each of the 9 professions, but for every enemy (mobs, champions, raids, dungeons, fractals, open world, unique variations, etc), environmental, and machine (siege, generic “Press ‘F’ to use”, etc). All of these things take time, especially when you try to look at the wide game changing effects skills can have and the multiple iterations of testing needed. Just look at the Frost Gun. It wasn’t until long after Deathly Chill had been changed to add 3 stacks of bleeding per chill that the Frost Gun went from forgotten to abused. In fact, Spirit Weapons have been changed a few times, so while they might not be meta or meta supporting skills, they certainly had more attention over the years than many other skills. Its good that Spirit Weapons are likely to get an overhaul, but we can’t expect every skill to get 100% of the attention 100% of the time, especially when you have so much to constantly monitor. You can’t spend as much time developing when you have to keep the game running smoothly.

Every weapon is a condi weapon with VoJ.

RabbitUp.8294:

Based on some other previous leaks, it’s a condi + healer/support.

As for the name, Firebrand has an interesting meaning:

firebrand
Merriam-Webster: one that creates unrest or strife (as in aggressively promoting a cause) : agitator
Wikipedia: A person with a penchant for militancy in speech and/or action
Dictionary: a person who kindles strife or encourages unrest; an agitator; troublemaker.

Time to become the political terrorist I always wanted to be

The explosion radius of each grenade is increased which won’t show up on much of anything.