I feel the need to clarify one thing because this is a blatant misconception on the part of many, many people who have not actually looked at the numbers:
THE HAMMER IS THE LOWEST DPS WEAPON THE GUARDIAN HAS.
That’s right, the hammer’s DPS is even lower than the staff’s. Mighty Blow is crap damage. It takes forever to execute and barely hits above a mace auto-attack. Symbol of Protection is high damage but the hammer chain is also ludicrously slow, so your average damage is actually extremely low.
Moreover, using the hammer won’t even significantly improve your survivability, because you don’t get enough hits to proc AH heals off crits compared to GS/scepter and your healing is completely halted if you ever stop auto-attacking.
As such, I recommend you only use hammer if you are in a situation where you need protection specifically. Otherwise, for a balanced defensive set, the mace is better. It does more damage, Symbol of Faith gives an near-equivalent number of AH procs over time (7 every 9s vs 8 every 10s), and you don’t have to constantly auto-attack to keep the symbol up so you can use other skills without losing survivability.
I commend the effort you made in writing the guide (and some parts of it are good) but you should really check your numbers first. Numbers are important. So is experience. Your unfounded claims fail in both.
Hammer is pretty much just an sPvP weapon. It has good synergy with GS, just ring and swap. That said I find it extremely lame for PvE for a number of reasons.
1) Perma-protection is good but you lose a ton of DPS, and I mean a TON. The best you can do with it is support but guardians aren’t really a support class in the first place so you’re going to be kittening yourself pretty severely if you go that route.
2) You can’t use an alternate weapon set. A number of weapons benefit from constant weapon swapping (scepter, greatsword, staff) but you won’t be able to use any of them because hammer requires constant auto-attacking to be useful.
3) It’s extremely boring. You walk up to a target, begin auto-attacking, go AFK, check back every now and then to make sure to target hasn’t moved. Mighty Blow is useless, Zealot’s Embrace is pointless, and Banish and Ring of Warding are highly situational. They have their uses in PvP but not in PvE.
My personal favorite weapon is actually the mace. High DPS, healing, and a situational counter make it quite useful, even with a low number of hits. Smite > Symbol clears out PvE mobs super fast though. By comparison I think I’ve only ever used the hammer like one time for one fight in one dungeon and that was only because I accidentally equipped it while trying to speed-swap to staff mid-fight.
The problem isn’t so much the damage distribution as it is the fact that damage drops of severely if the target is even slightly off-center from the AOE. I would gladly trade some of the max damage (and keep the distributed damage across targets) if only Smite would hit consistently on all targets within the radius.
NO wonder this class is so messed up …. you all have no clue wtf you’re doing. Torch is one of our best weapons period I do 10k with my torch and remove condition while doing so idk maybe you guys have a BIC lighter equipped? I only speak of PvP because and PvE comment is not relevant since it’s so simple in this game.
I think you’re the one who has no idea what he’s doing.
Sword/Torch is a bad combo for the following reasons:
1) Zealot’s Flame is decent but you get a lot of burn already from the sword just from passive justice. Auto-attack chain is 5 hits and comes out fast and ZD is 8. Since burn only stacks in intensity, you’re getting reduced benefit from the burn since you’re already burning 1/3rd of the time anyway.
2) Cleansing Flames does large total damage but is extremely slow. In the amount of time it takes to do a full Cleansing Flames you can actually get MORE damage out of the auto-attack. In fact, the only 1H weapon where Cleansing Flames beats the auto-attack in damage is the scepter. I personally tested this. It’s true. Don’t argue with it.
3) Cleansing Flames does not remove conditions from yourself, only allies.
As such, the only purpose of the move outside of a scepter/torch removal of conditions from allies, or as a poor man’s AOE if you have no other option (and you do). I suggest you test these things before you make broad generalizations about them.
I also do not recommend using Mace/Focus since the regen application overlaps between Symbol of Faith and Ray of Judgment. Also, Shield of Wrath prevents the counter from Protector’s Strike from triggering, so you lose a lot of damage and only gain a few seconds of protection. This is more debatable of a combination than sword/focus but one way or another it’s not optimal.
For sword, I recommend using focus offhand. It’s the most damage-oriented of the offhands due to the burst potential from Shield of Wrath.
Sword/torch is a bad combo since all you get is a bit of burning. Cleansing Flames doesn’t actually do any more damage than the sword auto, in fact, it does less.
@ Tomas Valheru
I think the funny thing here is that you think Backstabs are “reliable” but you can’t even hit a non-moving target with Whirlwind.
I recommend everyone here actually try PvPing with classes other than the warrior and see how “overpowered” those classes that don’t have a win button feel to them. Either that, or try snaring a target before using HB instead of doing it randomly and getting mad when people move away.
In all fairness, pretty much every board thinks their class is underpowered and that all other classes are overpowered. At least the thieves have a valid counter to all the whining because of the irony of the class with a spammable 30k burst complaining about their 45s cd 10k burst.
So yeah, thanks for that.
Best healer build is to roll an ele.
I know you’re trying to troll but the majority of the threads on these forums are actually like this.
The best ones though are the warriors who actually think they’re an underpowered class and that thieves are overpowered.
To be fair, most guardians think they’re underpowered too.
@ Sami
Warriors do waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more damage than thieves do. Thief DPS is in fact downright terrible. Even built as a glass cannon DPS thieves deal extremely poor damage. The only saving grace is that dagger auto-attack is one of the hardest-hitting auto-attacks in the game, but that doesn’t really make up for their total lack of DPS skills otherwise.
On the other hand, Hundred Blades is the highest DPS in the game. Not the highest DPS skill, but literally the highest DPS. The single skill alone outclasses the DPS output on entire classes. Add in the damage from the auto-attack, which is fairly high as well, and warrior GS DPS is miles above any else any other class can put out.
Even in PvP, a single hit from Hundred Blades is already about 2-3k. If a warrior bolas/rushes you and starts swinging, you can take as much as 10k in the amount of time it takes to stun break and roll away. Then the warrior can just Eviscerate you or just do whatever for 6 seconds and HB again.
Even in their broken state warriors are an excellent 1v1 class which is fine and dandy if 1v1 was actually a common situation.
It’s not that they’re a terrible class and I don’t even think they necessarily need a damage buff. The problem lies within their crap utility skills, all over the place traits, poor design, and lack of attention (or care) by Anet.
What? No, warriors are a terrible 1v1 class. Absolutely no ability to sustain and mitigate incoming damage makes us complete crap in any match-up against anything other than a thief, and even then thieves have better getaway abilities!
We’re also completely useless for cracking bunker builds, which is a HUGE problem as they become more and more ubiquitous.
Someone explain to me how a 10k, 3-skill burst on 45s cd is somehow more broken than a 25k 1-skill burst on 8s recharge?
The fact that there’s even a skill that deals 25k at all is ridiculous. Maybe if it was an elite or had like 45s CD.
Actually, 45s CD for HB sounds like a pretty good way to balance it. Reorder the skillbar to match while they’re at it.
Wow, this is so wrong I don’t even know where or how it came about.
HB does not deal 25k damage. It never deals 25k damage. That’s hyperbole if I’ve ever seen it. Even if you spec full, complete glass cannon and stack as much might as you possibly can it will only hit that high in WvW because crit damage is higher there, you’ll NEVER see numbers that high in sPvP.
Secondly, HB has no CC attached to it AND it is a channeled ability that is basically impossible to fully land on any opponent that isn’t sleeping.
Seriously, how do these complaints even come about? I don’t get it.
Okay, yeah, sorry, the burst is like 20k on thieves and 30k+ on warriors in WvW, and 10k on thieves vs. 15k on warriors for sPvP. 10k is not enough to even kill another a thief, while a 15k burst on a warrior will kill anything that isn’t specced to tank or is a warrior or necro. Moreover, thieves have crap DPS outside of their burst unless they’re going in for dagger auto-attack (and if they do that they’ll live pretty much exactly as long as the startup for the target’s auto-attack) or attacking with pistol, which, I should note, will also deal crap damage because that’s condition damage on a Berserker’s spec. On the other hand, warrior GS DPS is already respectably high even without Hundred Blades, and if they’re feeling lazy they can just switch to axe and Eviscerate for an easy 8k. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything survive getting hit by both HB and Eviscerate and it’s incredibly easy to land both at once. Even if you fail you can just try again in 10 seconds.
In WvW, I don’t think it’s even possible to survive a HB burst no matter how tanky you build yourself. You could be a 100% full defense spec warrior and if HB lands on you, instant death. On a target with light armor and no toughness, I think the damage from HB actually exceeds 40k, but of course you’d never see that.
And did I mention it recharges in 8 seconds? Lol.
Someone explain to me how a 10k, 3-skill burst on 45s cd is somehow more broken than a 25k 1-skill burst on 8s recharge?
The fact that there’s even a skill that deals 25k at all is ridiculous. Maybe if it was an elite or had like 45s CD.
Actually, 45s CD for HB sounds like a pretty good way to balance it. Reorder the skillbar to match while they’re at it.
@ phaeris because quoting never seems to work:
Getting hit for 10k in WvW isn’t even that much. As far as damage comparisons go, you realize you’re comparing the thief’s burst on 3 skills that take up all their traits and utilities in WvW, where you can build for something like +80% crit damage from gear alone, to one warrior skill in sPvP gear (which is only around +30% crit damage) and the warrior skill still comes out on top.
It’s easy to go OMG THAT THIEF HIT ME FOR 10K but disregard the fact that you have a skill on much shorter CD that hits for 2k 9 times in the space of 2 seconds. Except, not really because HB is obviously one of the most powerful skills in the game, damage-wise.
Another round of nerfs for retaliation but Thief still hitting too hard
in Thief
Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318
Lol that’s only 8k on the Backstab dude. That’s not even that much. Just take it and kill the thief for free badges. Or do nothing and just watch him instantly die from all the people suddenly locking onto him because now he’s standing at the front of the zerg.
If thieves actually had good traits they wouldn’t be thieves anymore.
Backstab does like a quarter of what HB does and is much easier to avoid. HB is pretty much a guaranteed kill and is reliably spammable as often as your fastest snare. Bolas is only 20s CD even untraited, compared to 45s on both Basilisk and Devourer and you have to land multiple hits to kill with Backstab even assuming you’re able to get the back hit every time.
The only time thieves deal good burst is once they get the target below half, which is a challenge in of itself since they deal so little damage and die so fast.
You guys realize you can kill a thief in like 2 auto-attacks, and you don’t even need to target him? If you see a thief targeting you just swing a few times then mash F to finish him.
Hell, you don’t even need to finish him really. What’s he gonna do, get up and die again?
Thieves have burst now? Is this a new thing with the Halloween patch or something? Last i checked thieves were still absolute crap. Same as they have been since beta.
You guys realize that Guardians are still running with traits like +5% damage with maces, +5% damage with swords and spears, torch skills recharge 15% faster, etc. and they’re still getting NERFS?
We can’t just walk up to things and instagib them with one skill either so I’m not sure we’re the class that actually needs the nerfs.
A couple of things you guys should note that I tested since I made that thread:
1) Smite deals damage based on proximity from the center of the AOE circle. Targets dead in the center usually take about 8-10 hits. Targets on the very edge of the circle may be hit as few as 3 times. Total number of hits on all targets in the circle cannot exceed 15.
2) Whirling Wrath inflicts direct melee damage as well as damage from the projectiles. Damage comparison listed is for a melee-range WW against a regular player-sized target. Damage increases significantly against a large target, especially if you can clip so you are actually inside it.
3) Symbol of Wrath should deal substantially more damage with the latest buff.
4) Torches and focuses will deal instant damage with Zealot’s Flame and Shield of Wrath. Cleansing Flames only increases DPS when used with a Scepter mainhand. Shield of Judgment and Ray of Judgment do not increase DPS.
I am currently looking into a way to calculate exact numbers from DPS. Assuming the skill tooltips are correct, I just need to know the TOTAL duration of each skill, that is, startup and recovery. It’s not a huge priority for me right now, though, so you’re stuck with the estimates till I get around to doing it.
Next patch:
- Symbols are smaller. Regular size is now melee range and exaltation size is now current regular size.
- Added kitten cooldown to mace auto-attack.
- Fixed a bug that caused scepters to sometimes deal damage.
- Fixed a bug where Chains of Light was immobilizing targets. It now correctly applies cripple for 2s.
What’s wrong with us getting buffed? We’re a joke in PvP anyway.
Do warriors actually think this or is this some kind of running joke in the warrior forums?
Is there a "everyone goes X route" trait line for initial leveling ?
in Guardian
Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318
I always though that Zeal was the weakest trait line for Guardians, am I wrong?
More like there really isn’t anything else worth taking for Guardians at 10 points. Your only other options at that stage are Master of Consecrations, Superior Aria, or Writ of Exaltation. There are a few other decent 10-point traits but for the most part they’re not that good without other stuff to supplement them. For example, Retributive Armor is good but only if you’re already heavily invested in Valor (+30% crit damage), Honor (Vigor and Might on crit) and have a decent crit rate to boot. Along the same lines, Signet Mastery is only really useful once you get Inscribed Removal.
Make Kholer, or any boss for that matter, not take 5 minutes of semi-AFK auto-attacking to kill and maybe I’ll actually consider killing me.
Enemies in general have too much health and people are rarely up for beating on the same mob for the 30th time.
In my opinion a boss should take a minute to kill, tops, from a moderate DPS team. If he hasn’t killed you by then he’s not going to kill you ever.
Why are people getting hit by backstabs in the first place? That’s the easiest thing in the world to dodge.
Hell, how are you people even failing to kill the thief the instant he’s in melee range? It takes, like, 2 seconds to kill a thief by auto-attacking.
Is there a "everyone goes X route" trait line for initial leveling ?
in Guardian
Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318
10-40: Zeal > Virtue > Honor
40-60: Honor > Virtue > Radiance
60-80: Valor > ?
The problem is that GW2 is a team game. If you’re running a crap build then all your teammates suffer as well. And healing power is the cornerstone of every crap build.
Healing power literally only affects two things to any extent that’s even noticeable: regeneration and roll healing. That means that unless your entire build is focused on rolling around healing allies, healing power is worthless. Moreover, stacking healing power means you’re not stacking a better stat. Is it worth losing 35% overall damage reduction, or 12k health, or 60% crit rate, just to boost your roll heal by 1k?
If your “playstyle” is stacking a useless stat, then fine, but don’t complain when my “playstyle” is running around aggroing all the mobs in the dungeon so I can speed things up by pulling them all back to the group and killing them all at once instead of one by one, because at least when I do that I usually succeed.
The magical time I found for me is around midnight eastern. However I’m glad that more and more people are figuring out glass cannons don’t work in this game.
Glass cannons are actually optimal for most dungeons, just because otherwise stuff takes too long to die and you go down one by one till you all wipe. Any boss that spawns adds on a regular interval will also absolutely wreck any team without DPS. I do SE explore route 3 with guildies all the time and we can basically AFK the last boss while auto-attacking, but run it with pugs not specced for DPS and we just wipe constantly.
I think the one dungeon where a more balanced build would be preferable is Arah, just because everything there does enough damage to virtually one-shot even a tanky build.
Wrong thread Reihert, this thread isn’t about the nerf, it’s about the lack of a response to all the complaints on the nerf.
You may have expected the nerf, but that’s not the point of this thread.
They didn’t need to respond to the complaints because the complaints are for the most part stupid. They already said why they nerfed Symbol of Wrath. If you think we need a dev to come to the forum to tell us the same thing they already told us right in the patch notes every time they make a change, then you’re just being massively entitled.
Moreover, there’s not even anything to explain. GS was too powerful before and now it’s not. I don’t see why so many people are having trouble grasping something as simple as this. Also, I have to see anyone complain about anything about Wrath nerf other than the fact that we lost DPS, so it’s not like we have any legitimate complaints worth addressing in the first place.
If you’re dropping an entire class because of a cooldown increase on one skill then please just quit now and give me all your gold and items while you’re at it, because you’re going to hate the game once Anet actually gets past the “making the game work” phase and starts doing content changes.
I don’t see the problem. The GS is still the guardian’s highest DPS weapon. And what does “no synergy” even mean? Did you guys just hear someone say that and figure it was a good line to drop to cover the fact that you don’t actually have a legitimate complaint about the change?
Even with the nerf, the guardian GS is still, like, the second most powerful DPS weapon in the game, as opposed to the first most powerful like it was before. Given that guardians are also insanely tanky I think not being top tier in one category doesn’t automatically mean the game is now ruined.
Healing power in general is a bad stat simply because of how it scales. We’re literally talking, like, an extra 1k healed on one or two skills and negligible gains in everything else, in exchange for potentially half your damage potential, half your armor, ability to crit, etc.
I do know people who literally do not want to do anything but heal (they might as well not even bother attacking since they do so little damage anyway) and that’s fine, but it’s not optimal either.
Guardian has extremely high DPS in general and most of it is AOE, and there may be extra aggro drawn due to all the healing and armor you’ll be doing. No one really knows the aggro formula though.
Also don’t forget that with a guardian you’ll usually be parked at the front of the group tanking all the hits, so unlike the other professions, which will be losing aggro regularly as they kite and roll around, once aggro is on you it will be there to stay.
Also, mob aggro in general LOVES thieves. I have no idea why.
Maybe you should stop relying on warriors and thieves to heal in the first place.
Simply put, mobs take too long to die. A single mob should not take five players beating on it for a full minute to bring it down. You wonder why people run past mobs when they could just fight? It’s because the vast majority of enemies offer no challenge but it still takes five minutes to take down a group of enemies if your team isn’t specced for massive DPS. Why waste that time when you know you’re going to win anyway? Just run past. The end result is the same anyway.
To be honest, I don’t see the virtue in having mobs have so much health, except that it makes the possibility of losing by attrition higher as mobs begin to deplete defensive/heal options and drop players. That said, I’m not sure why enemy groups couldn’t have less health but come in larger numbers or deal more damage. I would gladly fight twice the gravelings at once if they all had a quarter of their normal health. It would simultaneously make dungeons less tedious and also more challenging.
If we compare this to GW1, I don’t remember the instances being populated by healthsink mobs that posed no threat. Either you could handle a group or you couldn’t. If you couldn’t handle the mob, it wiped you immediately. If you were good enough, you cleared it quickly and moved on. That’s ideally how dungeons should go.
Kill things till everything’s dead. Not hard.
If the dungeon-starter leaves party: The other 4 are the ones who get kicked
Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318
No, that only happens if the only person in an explorable dungeon who has completed story mode leaves.
You get a full stack of tokens in four runs through a dungeon, and most items cost multiple stacks of a token. Is there any reason why an item needs to cost 300 tokens and not 30? Is there even any item that costs less than 10 tokens, or any price that isn’t a multiple of 10?
If you got 6 tokens per run instead of 60 and an item cost 30, you could get 8 items with one stack worth of tokens instead of 10. That’d be a lot more convenient on my backpack.
I can’t tell if this is a serious topic or not. As far as I’m concerned Guardian is the most OP class in the game and I’m pretty hard pressed to find a reason NOT to just take 5 guardians into every dungeon.
Greatsword Power: Greatsword damage is increased by 5%.
Scepter Power: Scepter damage is increased by 5%.
Radiant Fire: Torch skills recharge 15% faster.
Powerful Blades: Sword and spear damage is increased by 5%.
Mace of Justice: Mace damage is increased by 5%.
Compared to:
Crack Shot: Rifle and harpoon gun shots pierce. Rifle and harpoon gun skills recharge 20% faster.
Forceful Greatsword: Gain might on critical hit with a greatsword or spear. Greatsword and spear skill [sic] recharge 20% faster.
Sundering Mace: Mace damage is increased by 10% when a foe is weakened. Reduces cooldown of mace skills by 20%.
Merciless Hammer: Hammer damage is increased by 25% when a foe is disabled. Reduces cooldown of hammer skills by 20%.
Quick Breathing: Warhorn skills recharge 20% faster. Warhorn skills convert 1 condition into a boon.
I’m seeing a slight disparity here.
That’s unsurprising. Guardians are by far and away the best PvE class in the game. They have the best DPS, best survivability, best support skills, and best control. Try running any dungeon with 5 guardians; it’s hilariously easy. You kill everything in seconds and no one ever takes a scratch.
I always laugh when random pugs think guardians are supposed to be a low-DPS tank.
Guardian greatsword DPS is massive on stationary targets and I’d like to see anything outlast two bears.
I second cross-server search, however it’s implemented. Just some sort of cross-server LFG chat channel would work. As it is currently you can only communicate with people from other servers if they’re in your party or guild.
People actually dodge in this game? I thought I was the only one.
Seriously, I once soloed that giant boss in Harathi Hinterlands even though there were literally a dozen players fighting him, because everyone else died on the first stomp. Then they respawned, came back, and immediately died again despite having just watched me dodge the giant’s super obvious attacks for five minutes.
That was a long kitten fight.
Warriors are jacks of all trades but masters of none. Guardian has better dps/survivability, and rangers tank better. Thieves offer better control capabilities, and mesmers and engineers have better support abilities.
The warrior can do all those things at once though, just not all at the same time and never as well as any of the above. Like, if you need DPS but no guardian is around? Warrior. You need a tank but no ranger in the party? Warrior.
Warriors are still the end-all, be-all of sPvP though. Mobile damage and burst capabilities through the roof while having the highest base armor and health. Having a strong KD doesn’t help that much in PvE but it makes a huge difference for PvP.
Does this work, and if not, is it supposed to work? I just tried to team with a friend on a European server and he just got a network error when trying to enter my dungeon instance. Cross-server, same-region dungeon parties still work though.
Knight’s gear (T2 Pow/Pre, T3 Tuf) is downright amazing for Guardians if you have investment in both the Honor and Valor lines, since you take virtually no damage, hit moderately hard, and proc healing in the hundreds with every hit.
I don’t recommend Cleric’s gear even though I’ve seen some people using it, for various reasons. The biggest problem is that it gives no precision, which is arguably the most important stat for guardians since it enables their massive DPS and healing capabilities. Also, it’s tier 3 healing power, which is IMO the worst stat since it scales very poorly in general. It also obsoletes the Valor line, since critical damage is worthless with no precision, which in turn means you can’t take Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing. That means the only thing that giant stack of healing power actually boosts (slightly) is your slot-6 heal skill, which scales poorly with healing power, and your healing from regen. What that effectively means is that you are giving up about 15% damage reduction from toughness (compared to Knight’s) and a minimum of 20% in DPS in exchange for an additional 1k healed on your heal skill, and a doubling in regen per tick.
tl;dr healing power sucks, don’t get it.
I’ve had some weird things happen. I’ve seen Champion group event bosses being beat on by dozens of players, only to immediately break off, run past twenty melees and beeline straight for me the instant I use Body Shot and then lose interest two seconds after I stop spamming it.
In short, I don’t think there’s any one thing that determines aggro. It may mob-specific, or it may be based on multiple factors that aren’t that easy to determine.
It is true that a Guardian in full Knight’s gear is pretty much unkillable, though, so aggro everything you can and give no kitten. I once ran into a random Nightmare Court camp and killed like ten guys at the same time, including two or three veteran mobs, and never dropped below half health. Very silly.
Nah, if anything WW needs to aggro things better. It takes too long to clear out a large group of mobs because they don’t necessary aggro on you from 1200 range and the projectiles are unreliable.
Guardians already tear through large groups with no effort so aggroing more almost always = better since it gives more xp and loot in less time.
Is anyone getting a severe audio stutter for everything? My audio cuts out every two seconds for two seconds. On a fresh boot, I can get something like five second intervals before it cuts out.
For what it’s worth, my mobo is an Asus M4A77TD. And yes, I have updated the drivers, and it didn’t make any difference.
Help?
Really bug anyone else? Sneak Attack shoots five projectiles but you only hear four gunshots. Same with Unload, you shoot eight bullets but only hear six gunshots. The firing sound isn’t consistent either, it sounds like *bang*bang*bang*pause*bang*bang* etc. for Unload, which is really awkward.
It’s like Chinese water torture in videogame form.