Guild Wars 2

The ICD is once per dead person. 3 months of aegis will still only block one attack, and corruption/stealing doesn’t care how many revives you had to make.

It would be a different issue if the boons procced on initiating a revive

Players did missions with Jalis by their side in GW1. They were together about as much as Master Togo or the Heroes were in their required story sections.

I think the more important consideration is the niche each legend could fulfill which is where Togo and Pyre are the strongest right now.

Every pull has the potential to do that. I’ve seen Temporal Curtain launch people off a wall so that they clear the berms, and drop them down the cliff on the other side.

Those are just offerings from Metabattle. Many more builds will still be effective in whichever gamemode you choose. PvP especially offers the most mutability for personalizing builds since anything PvE is built around hard numbers and zerging in WvW is about bringing group support.

Go oldschool and run Hambow, or swap Hammer in the metabattle build for Mace+Shield. Find something that works with your playstyle and just go. Don’t blame your performance on your circumstances.

Scepter+Shield is a defensive set to Sword+Torch’s high offense. Cleansing Flame (not that you use it much) is easier to land with Sword and the Zealot’s Fire is easier to land when you’re trying to stay in melee. Shield gives Scepter a “get off me” with Shield of Absorption and Shield of Judgement’s cast time fits better with the extra space you’d get from staying away. Plus, between Zealot’s Defense and Shield of Absorption, you have a projectile destroyer on both sets.

Zelulose.8695:

Its easier to nerf one thing than buff every class.

Hunter’s Verdict actually works while most of the other pulls don’t

GS/Hammer
Phalanx Strength
Shout Frontliner

All these builds are featured on Metabattle which means they’re popular and well-known. None of them feature Berserker, and there’s one for each gamemode (PvP, Fractals/PvE, and WvW respectively). There are plenty of options that don’t require HoT.

I don’t quite understand how no one has mentioned this yet, but neither Jalis or Ventari were humans. They are a Dwarf and Centaur respectively. Mallyx is a Demon, Glint is a Dragon. Only Shiro is Human.

As far as options, I wouldn’t mind seeing:

• Master Togo
• Pyre Fierceshot
• Jora or Asgeir Dragonrender (the guy who punched Jormag’s Tooth out)
• Vekk or Snaff
• Riannoc or Trahearne

We’ve got Primordus and Jormag as the main two targets, and Kralkatorrik as an extension of Aurene. The list above is organised as a mix of what I would like and what it likely because of the happenings in LS3. Togo because of the Ritualist, Pyre because of missing niche, Norn because of Jormag, Asura because of Primordus, and Sylvari because w/e.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

I thought that too but then warrior is dagger/dagger if the leak is true?

Daggers were “light” main hand weapons. The general convention was that no class could wield a light weapon in the main hand with a heavy in the off-hand but warriors have all of the heavy off hands. Dagger/sword. Dagger/axe. Dagger/Mace. They are already breaking convention. Focus might be much more likely than you think.

I’m happy with the idea of axe though. Aesthetically, I think it goes better with the sword, focus, torch and pistol mesmers have as off-hands.

That’s not the conventions I meant. There do exist Warrior concepts that would use a dagger, but within Guild Wars 2 Foci are classified as off-hand only. Making a Focus main-hand would be the same as making Spear usable on land. Dagger is already used as both a main-hand and off-hand. “Light” and “Heavy” aren’t actual distinctions in GW2. Now, I could see Focus being used in the main-hand as there are also plenty of concepts that allow for that, but its on a different level of possibility than using an existing main-hand weapon.

Again, I wouldn’t believe the “leak”. I’ve seen the Guardian and Necro espec ideas on these forums, the Stormbow was specifically said to not be the legendary longbow. The only thing they have is Eureka and maybe the newest pvp map (they rely on you making the association).

It’s not impossible, but far less likely than using what’s already been established.

It’s not like people are banned from playing multiple professions. I claim to be a Guardian main, but really I just play whichever of my 24 characters tickles my fancy.

All we know about SoI is that it will share finite durations of boons. Honestly this is a good change. It’s not terribly difficult to reach some extremes in edge cases and that is what the change is going to address. Boon Share isn’t an issue, it’s the extremity at which is can occur. Heralds trivialized boon duration by granting 50% for basically free. SoI exacerbated the issue with uncapped sharing.

These changes aren’t going to make the sky fall. SoI is being changed for the same reasons Ranger’s WHaO was changed.

I, too, designed an elite spec idea that featured Retaliation. Retal does fit well with the Necro for various reasons. One in particular is the lack of active defenses. Retaliation can provide a deterrent to whacking on the Necro while making a callback to GW1.

Juggle makes an in-depth point, and don’t forget, a Thief spamming SB5 to get out of dodge is a Thief that’s not dealing damage. If all you have to do is get close to a Thief to make him stop attacking, that’s a pretty effective counterplay that doesn’t require doing anything to the Thief himself.

You have to beat story mode(?) to permanently unlock the track, do someone that upset at any pve might not do it.

That still doesn’t solve the problem

Just look at Ranger for inspiration.
don't hate on my pun

Xstein.2187:

Imbued Shatters: Your shatters now become blast finishers and you gain access to a manipulative skill for 4 seconds after a shatter. Note: Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration may need small, undecided damage nerfs with this spec.

Mind Wrack: Protection (1 sec)
Cry of Frustration: Stealth (2 sec)
Diversion: blink to your target
Distortion: Swap positions with the selected or most recently summoned illusion

Distortion: Swap positions with the selected or most recently summoned illusion

Because if there’s anything I’ve ever wanted to do as a Mesmer, its get into any tower, keep, or SMC and portal my zerg into Lord’s.

Sc/Wh should actually average out to more Burn stacks than D/D just based on weapon skills. I’m assuming 100% condition duration, Pyromancer’s Training and Persisting Flames, all other traits don’t matter.

• Flamestrike: ~7 stacks
• Dragon’s Tooth: maintains 3 stacks, spikes at 6
• Wildfire: 4 Stacks with 41.66% uptime (1.66 stacks)

• Drake’s Breath: maintains 4 stacks, spikes at 8
• Burning Speed: 3 stacks at 50% uptime (1.5 stacks)
• Ring of Fire: 2 stacks at 66% uptime (1.33 stacks) if stationary. An almost negligible additional stack if mobile.

Sc/Wh can maintain 11.66 stacks of burning while D/D maintains 6.83. Sc/Wh spikes at 17 stacks while D/D spikes at 13. This doesn’t take Power damage into account where D/D beats Sc/Wh. Sc/Wh can also stack and maintain more bleeding from Earth than D/D can (30.5 vs 25.33). This assumes you’re camping Earth. Proper DPS will be swapping from Fire to Earth and back with Overloads, but with Alacrity that should be about 11.5s cd. I’m not going to try to do the math to figure out how much burning and bleeding that averages out to be. I’m already wary of what I’ve done so far.

A potential elite spec that features a Shotgun Rifle and Gadgets (a la Engineer) would thematically fit perfectly as a Spec Ops aesthetic. It could even pay homage to the Commander profession in GW1. Melee Rifle can still fill niches that the Thief is missing and none of it requires gamemode splits. Especially not drastic ones.

1200 or 1500 sniping from stealth doesn’t have to be broken. Is it harder to balance than other options? sure, but its not impossible. I’ve already mentioned one way a sniping stealing skill can be designed to use but not abuse stealth. It could also be designed closer to Gunflame where you fire the projectile from range, but its the Burn ticks that do the real damage. That would provide more opportunity for damage mitigation than a single packet burst.

As its been said, numbers are easy to balance. Its the theming and design that’s most important. Any concept can be broken by good or bad numbers, but they don’t determine whether its designed well or not. Pick any theme you want and then use math and intuition to determine if the performance is where it should be.

If you’re going to run Ankle Shots you might as well run Sigil of Incapacitation as well for higher Cripple uptime. Otherwise, Practiced Tolerance might be better. P/P Thief is by far one of my favorite specs.

I’d prefer an arrow target for Scored Earth. Whether or not it happens I’ll still use it because its fantastic thematically.

SoC gives a hps similar to VoR, just at a longer clip. Like most people, I’d prefer if it would proc much more often. Being traited increased the hps by a significant amount, but who is going to take a signet build and pump healing power? I suppose you really could take Radiance, Honor, and Virtues but it feels like a lot of specialization for not a lot of work. Signets in general don’t feel quite solid enough, and that’s something that could be improved upon in the future. Whether or not it comes from Tomes returning, or from Signets taking on more of the skills Tomes used to have doesn’t matter entirely.

Right. The idea is that progression was going to be mostly horizontal, but its inevitable that more options will create some vertical space. As long as everything fits will within the “accepted power range”, then Especs will fulfill their primary objective of granting new playstyles.

Viper PvE Ele

This is what I came up with between my own opinions and what you mentioned already. Its pure theorycrafting, and I haven’t bothered to run the numbers through any sort of deep comparisons, so take it as you will.

Weapons: Dagger vs Scepter is interesting, but I went with Scepter because I feel it hold up better when auto attacking. Flamestrike has that second attack that allows it to maintain even more burning than before and frequent blast finishers like Dragon’s Tooth are always enjoyed. On the Earth side, Hurl now adds a lot of long bleeds to pair with Stone Shards. I chose Warhorn because of the boon sharing and duration increase from Fire and Earth. Wildfire and Duststorm also add a good amount of extra damage.

Utilities: Wash the Pain Away, Arcane Brilliance, and Resto Sig are all options. I think the utility of WtPA is more desired though. Signet of Fire will probably do more DPS than most other options. Glyph of Storms and Glyph of Elementals should both be activated in Fire and probably add top DPS. Frost Bow also adds a lot of DPS and potential breakbar damage.

Traits: Fire is obvious, and Tempest’s Overloads add a lot for condition builds. Earth doesn’t really offer too much for Raid style PvE, so Arcane is the next best choice. In Arcane specifically, Elemental Surge and 2 Arcane skills could be interesting when activated in Fire Attunement, but Bountiful Power should win out overall. Pyromancer’s Training probably beats out Power Overwhelming in DPS and Persisting Flames might beat Pyromancer’s Puissance. You could maybe use PP as a Condi PS War replacement, but I’m not sure if it will actually work. Tempest doesn’t offer a ton through traits, but Unstable Conduit is added DPS and Imbued Melodies adds Boon Duration both individually and by proccing Sand Squall. If IM ends up not being that useful in practice then Elemental Bastion becomes the obvious choice.

I’ve always liked the idea of Condi Ele, especially with Scepter. After seeing the more recent balance changes to Flamestrike and Hurl I really wanted to make one regardless game mode. Now that I have a character slot free, I’m in a good position to do it.

Ohoni.6057:

Sure, but if it’s not high damage long range then it’s junk and I do not want it at all.

Your opinion doesn’t prevent something from having the potential to be different.

Coldtart.4785:

Elite specs, as defined by Anet, are supposed to change the way the core class plays, not replace it. It is entirely expected that changing the way the class plays will make the elite spec better at some things than core, but tempest does not do this. Tempest is the same elementalist we’ve been playing since launch, but with a heaping serve of power creep.

Just because they failed to accomplish their stated goal for essentially every elite spec doesn’t mean I won’t hold them to it.

Anet never said there would be 0 power creep either, but you’re the most on the money so far.

Elite Specs are the way to evolve the class in the future by providing new things. These new things will culminate into a new play style. Anytime you add new things you’re going to have an amount of power creep purely because its new. The important part is that the base profession is still there. Elite Specs are there to provide a branching path into something that couldn’t be done (or done well) before.

Nike.2631:

A quick aside about PvP/PvE splits… They are one of the single dumbest things you can do to a game. Any time you introduce barriers to player understanding between major gameplay modes, you shave years off that game’s lifespan. Its that bad. You want to create every opportunity for players to migrate between your gameplay options so that when they’re bored with one part, they shift to another… without having to re-learn what their skills do.

And ultimately it’s a sign of weakness in the design… that they’ve made the PvE experience so mind-numbingly easy, so poorly executed in terms of hostile AI that a skill that unremarkable in one arena is overpowered in another. That’s how things like ludicrous NPC HP creep get rolling in the first place. Instead of USING all the nuance already present in your game, you tack on an extra 0 at the end of their hit point value.

For all it’s many sins, one thing SWtOR did exceptionally well was present major bosses that on the whole appeared to be using the same skills as the players used. Sure, you might telekinetically rip loose and hurl a boulder once every 8 seconds and the mean old nutjob jedi might string together six of those attacks, one every 1.5 seconds, but at least you felt like everybody was playing with roughly the same deck. And it worked the other direction two – one boss had an awesome double sword toss (whereas players could only throw one sword at a time) that eventually propagated back to players after a level cap increase. Guild Wars is one of those games that would instantly be 5 times better just by having more typical landscape mobs self-buff or cross-buff (yay Dredge!). Not because they ’d be tougher (well, that would help too in most cases…) but because suddenly boon strip, boon steal, and boon corruption would be RELEVANT in more than just SPvP.

Other players represent the apex predator of the game, the enemy that fights back with cunning and a WIDE array of abilities. Rather than split your mechanics, you need to move NPCs upwards towards that threshold. A skill’s PvP behavior is and should be the benchmark for the skill, with its PvE behavior the afterthought even in a predominantly PvE game.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Its another feather in the cap of GW1. Enemies and bosses to the largest extent would use actual player skills (which you’d then capture, especially Elite skills). Certain skills were worth interrupting, certain enemies would use almost player-worthy builds. Its an immensely important aspect in a game that isn’t quite used as much as it should.

maddoctor.2738:

Take a look at PVE blob fights and compare it to sPVP fights, they are very different things, that’s because most skills are balanced for 5 players while in PVE open world encounters there are way more players around. It’s not possible to balance those mob groups for 50 and 2 players at the same time.

In GW1 all mobs had player skills and they always came in big groups, more often than not very well balanced groups, with a variety of builds. That’s great in an instance or small scale fights in general but it doesn’t work very well in huge fights with loads of players.

From a design standpoint, it isn’t that particularly hard. GW2 is already deep into scaling anything based on level or players. Random Centaur mobs, for example, could be further designed to be Warriors, Engineers, Guardians, etc rather than the same thing with different auto attacks. There’s enough that pop up during any given event that they can afford to use the exact same skills the players are. Let Rifle wielders use the Warrior or Engineer skills. Let Torch users display the same animations as the Guardian, Ranger, or Mesmer. Even simple builds of 3 skills only brings more variety than what’s displayed. Champions and other higher level “bosses” can scale their attacks based on the event scaling system already in place. At Maw (since its on my mind), the Svanir Shaman can cast a normal Ice Spike, but it appears once per 3 players. Code in a pattern for it to fill and you’re golden. Some enemies are already close, like Rotbeard and the Balthazar Champion in Cursed Shore. They have a skill similar to Mind Stab just without the boon removal and way too much damage. Increase the attack rate of the average enemy so that Confusion and Retaliation have more usefulness.

I’ve been typing longer and going off-topic a bit more than I wanted to, so I’ll try to bring it back. A Rifle on Thief can be designed many ways, particularly in ways different to the current Warrior and Engineer offerings. I hope that in the next expansion, we’ll be able to see enemies using the theoretical new skills, and the current ones we have now.

Why couldn’t a Shotgun Rifle have 450 range autoattack? What about it being Burn and CC based and having a long activating 1500 range snipe as the Stealth skill? Or maybe it fires darts that stick and deal damage over multiple ticks at 600 range and the Stealth skill is an immobilizing bayonet charge followed by point-blank blast?

Rifle can be designed so many different ways that are just as or more thematic and fitting than Laser Greatswords or Phantom Hammers.

PvE as it stands now mostly just cares about trash clearing and sustained damage. Sustained damage for mesmer is either Conditions or Phantasms. If Mesmer had an easier time setting up Phantasms, or having them persist for a bit after a target dies (so phantasms would also be useful in high killrate scenarios) would pay dividends towards a damage spec existing.

Burst is more effective in PvP and is already pretty good.

draxynnic.3719:

While this does make it a little more suspect, it also doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

People were proposing a melee ritualist who drew power through channeling the spirits of the dead into their own body as early as 2013, when ArenaNet’s policy was still “we don’t need expansions, we have Living Story”. Speaking personally, I got mesmer sword pretty much bang on months before mesmer was officially announced, when a lot of people were claiming that a cerebral spellcaster-type like mesmer couldn’t possibly have a melee option because they’re a spellcaster and spellcasters don’t use melee weapons (sound familiar?).

Revenant was going to be a core profession, but development didn’t finalize for release and it was replaced by engineer instead. This was stated by Anet when Revenant was being revealed. IW Mesmers were a thing in GW1, and caster classes were known to wield various melee weapons in different builds.

Anet has said the Stormbow skin was not going to be a legendary. Afaik only Eureka and the pvp map were correct guesses. Everything else is unknown, or I’ve seen it at some point on the forums. The Warrior, Necro, and Guardian especs are all things I’ve definitely seen as random posts on these forums over the past year.

P/P is viewed as a hybrid set, as evidenced by the Might stacks it now generates plus the comments when those Might stacks were added. Especially now with Daredevil, P/P can reliably use Sneak Attack similar to P/D. It can still build around Unload, so its Power build remains.

D/D has been pushed more towards the condition role. It has Poison on auto attack and Poison application on any dagger attack. D/P is more reliable to build around Backstab even if Shadow Shot outshines even that.

Earlier in the game’s lifespan weapon sets acted rather differently than they do now. However, each combination has been gradually pushed towards more specific roles. A few people haven’t liked some of these changes, but I think they’re better for the game overall. Now with Elite Specs, its much easier to identify niches where a new weapon and new skills could provide new playstyles. Whether or not a Rifle is a long range sniper, a shotgun style shock trooper, or anything else, it’ll be easier for it to have a defined role.

Ohoni.6057:

Not as good as it was pre-patch. They reduced the range and seem to have reduced the damage of the #2 ability against most mobs. Seemed nice on paper, in practice it’s a bit of a wet noodle. I know this, I’ve been using Scepter/Focus constantly in both PvE and PvP on one of my most common characters.

Most PvP metas have switched to Long Bow, or if they really have a purpose for an offhand, as Scepter it the only ranged MH weapon available. I enjoy Scepter, just don’t paint it out as being some awesomely balanced weapon.

I grabbed the info from Metabattle right as I was making the post. If anything its been Scepter replacing the LB builds, because I certainly haven’t been seeing the reverse. If anything the range reduction made it even better as a midline weapon by encouraging that spacing. Engaging that weapon at range is just as dangerous as up close.

Right, but that’s kind of my point. You obviously could build in elite spec traits that would make an Ele more survivable in melee, the problem is, how would players abuse that? The bunker Ele is already a bit of an issue, and a pure melee Ele would need to be even better at it. Maybe it could be balanced to work well with a sword build, but then would it remain balanced if they went Staff or Scepter/Focus and just because this unkillable medium to long range monster? I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it likely would take a lot of work to make a glassy class into something that could facetank and yet is also balanced.

It really boils down to choosing the right options to give such a character (which again, seems pretty self-explanatory). There are styles and types of skills that benefit ranges more than others, so the key is identifying what those happen to be. In the case of Guardian’s Scepter, its immobilize is both offensive and defensive in nature. It doesn’t have much defense itself, so it provides high pressure mixed with whatever offhand you choose. An Ele Sword similarly could have much of its defense in the weapon set (evades, blocks, gap openers, w/e) while the traits and skills are designed to work in more specific circumstances. Its not that crazy to think about when we have examples of this working within this first wave of especs. There’s nothing you can reasonably expect that both innately prefers one of the current ele offerings and is unfixable from conception. As the developers have said before, the numbers are easy to balance.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, but as someone who used to love Guardian Scepter, the trade-off to that is that it’s never been great at any range. It’s versatile, but melee is better in melee, ranged is better at range. Dagger already fills that role for Eles.

Guardian Scepter has always been one of the better ranged dps weapons in the game, and especially now with raids promoting sustained damage over burst and the recent symbol patch, its the best its ever been. One of the early scepter solutions in pvp modes was to treat Scepter as an enhanced melee weapon, but with various projectile changes and especially the symbol change, it holds its own well at any range. Its a featured weapon on many Metabattle builds, so the community seems to be in agreement with scepter effectiveness.

But again, Dagger already fills that role just fine. Eles don’t need a new weapon that can “play around within 600 range.” They would need either a weapon that is brutal within melee distance OR a weapon that is competitive at 900+ ranges. It can be brutal in melee with a token medium range attack or two, but not enough that you could actually stick at those ranges.

Furthermore, if they did get a weapon that would be brutal in melee range, they would also need way more options to stay alive in melee range. However good a tank a Tempest may be, the new elite spec (which remember would not be able to use any of the Tempest kit), would need to be even tankier to be survivable.

Identifying specifically what the dagger lacks and filling that niche is the simple way for Sword to both be featured at 130-600 range and be stay unique to dagger. Tempest was pretty good, but other skills would be better at allowing a Sword ele to stay in melee range. Stances are the first that come to mind, but there are plenty of others if we look into other professions. The total package of an elite spec will determine the overall effectiveness of itself. It sounds redundant but its somewhat important to remember.

I really want Sword for purely personal reasons, but I’m confident whatever elite spec we get will be sufficient for each individual profession.

On the subject of sniping with a Rifle. Early in beta there were skills (Meteor Shower was one) where the skill changed the longer the skill was held down. This mechanic survived in siege weapons like the Trebuchet and Catapults. In fact, such a skill has already been used Sniper Shot

A Thief, upon stealthing, could gain access to the sniping skill. The longer it was held down the more powerful the shot becomes. However, a fully charged shot might last longer than stealth. Such an idea would be both similar and different from Warrior’s Killshot while keeping the theming of the Thief. It would certainly make for interesting interactions with current and future traits.

Zoberraz.2694:

Coming in to ranger, I was disappointed to see the axe being a mostly thrown weapon (offhand 5 being the exception). Not to mention something as big as a battleaxe being thrown over and over with unlimited ammunition was kind of jarring (thrown daggers/arrows are easier to swallow). But axe was done; and I’m reluctant to see dagger go the same way (offhand 5 is enough for me).

Everything is infused with magic. That’s how armor universally protects regardless of actual material or coverage, and how Warriors can boomerang a Greatsword every 15 seconds

StickerHappy.8052:

Dust/Sand Trap inc.

The horrors of Crystal Desert and everything spamming traps and then Throw Dirt.

Same as the actual skill. kitten untraited, 36 traited.

It works well in this style of build. The damage to healing conversion also applies to your condition damage and retaliation, so your burn ticks can still heal even if you can’t apply physical damage. But as I mentioned, burst is still a weakness. Shelter remains a good option outside of the unblockable skills. LoW has a higher hps even without dealing damage than Shelter, and unblockable skills are more prevalent.

It’ll be up to you getting a feel for using both and determining which you prefer. Since there’s no Purification option, its a choice between Shelter and LoW.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, it can’t be great at both range and melee, because that’s too many things. It needs to either be great in melee while only a nuisance at medium range, OR great at long ranges and pretty weak in close. It can’t be allowed to do both things well for balance reasons, and it can’t be medium range focused because Dagger already covers that.

Lets not get too carried away. It is possible to be both great in melee and in range. Guardian Scepter has no appreciable drop off within its effective range. In addition, plenty of Melee and Ranged weapons have overlaps, so although I wouldn’t expect it, Sword could absolutely still play around 130-600 range.

Were I to design Sword, I’d definitely make it pure melee. With a good set of utility skills, I think there’s plenty good to gain.

I don’t see the problem. They haven’t committed to anything more than what they’ve said. I personally like the replacement elites, even if SoC could be better. Tomes being brought back would also be nice, and more applicable to the game as it stand currently.

Holland.9351:

A dev said months ago that they were thinking of giving Ranger mainhand dagger instead of fixing sword. But now they fixed sword autoattack, so now I wonder what mainhand dagger will be. Yes, probably a forward leap in there.

Actually, autoattack shadow step to target…

You’re gonna have to provide a link

I’d love to see more out of SW, but their uptime makes it a little hard to justify. If they lived until killed that would fix one of the largest issues with the skills. They just aren’t useful enough for their temporary nature.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Thanks! With the radiant line alone that gives fury + 10% crit = 30% crit uptime, would you think I need any more crit stats?

Even better is running 1H Strength, Sword, and Scepter which essentially gives you 45% crit for free (Sword’s Symbol grants Fury with decent uptime). After that, you can still get away with Vipers for the extra precision to help reach 100% burn duration. I’d use enough Dire to reach the amount of Toughness you need, and then use either Vipers or Carrion depending on how much Vitality I feel I needed.

Burn Guard is something very similar to what I run myself. You have everything you really need except maybe some numerical defense.

One powerful burst is: Start in Scepter, use Shield of Wrath 2s before engaging. Chains of Light + Judge’s Intervention, Smite, swap to Sword, Flashing Blade, then double throw Zealot’s Fire. If everything fires you should easily hit 30k+ over 5s, and not much is going to survive that. The nature of Burn Guardian also lends itself well to sustained damage, so your auto attacks will still be applying good pressure. Your weaknesses are being bursted yourself without cooldowns, so just try to never let off the gas. Don’t forget you have a burst every ~10s by double throwing Zealot’s Fire, and Purging Flames is both defensive and a very good offensive option when the enemy has used up condition clears.

Scepter/Sword already exists with Mesmer, but Dagger/Sword has not been done.

I would much prefer MH Sword (as I’ve already mentioned). I don’t really care too much how its designed, as I’m confident whatever it is will be sufficient for its purposes.

Its not worth trusting that “leak”. I remember some of those Epec ideas being on the various profession forums long ago. A few aspects were/seemed true enough, but that’s how every leak tries to gain traction. A little bit of truth doesn’t make it all truth.

They’d have kept their promise either way.

Crit is a little important for proccing Radiant Fire and to enhance your power damage, but other than RF you don’t proc burning through crits.

Carrion, Viper, splashes of Dire all make for some good options. Guardian weapons all scale well with Power because they don’t naturally apply conditions, so hybrid is almost always the way to go.

Burning is usually applied extremely quickly, so even if they cleans you’ll be applying it right back. With Radiant Fire you have a condi burst every 10s on Torch, and Purging Flames is the condition version of Test of Faith. Between those two and the frequent application of your other weapon skills, you can compete well enough. Additional conditions are always beneficial, so don’t forget about sigils and the like.

Zedek.8932:

By design, it seems more like our class is a mix of assassin/ninja/rogue. To be agile, close to our foes (actually very close to them in order to take their stuff with F1) and all, not sniping with a rifle.

Well, that’s why you’d have an Elite Spec, to give professions a different playstyle.