people are upset for 2 main reasons.
The elite spec is crap
Most of the updated skills DIDN’T make it into this test
Mechanics we have been asking for years miraculously make it into other elite specs, such as the revi shield
So really, i would say we have a VERY good reason to be upset
Yeah, the Dragonhunter is a pretty massive letdown. Like others here have said, nothing short of a total demolition and ground-up rework is going to make it appealing to me. It’s become the nail in the coffin for my Guardian, so if I buy HoT (which I’m really still undecided on), I’ll be hopping on the Revenant bandwagon.
I have been playing my Rev lately and let me tell you, Herald is what guardian SHOULD have been like.
its not even funny anymore. The Herald is pretty much a better guardian in every step of the way. Pulsing AoE might swiftness, regen and FURY or prot given to a single spec like candy.
And check out F2…pretty much can have a free 9 sec of ALL the aforementioned boons when you are low on unkeep…
And no i am NOT asking for nerfs. unless they overhaul the dragonhunter, i too am jumping ship, because i am tired of all this bullkitten 2 years down the road (shield says hi even after 2 years)
and an INSULT to guardian players.
It is so bad compared to the core traits and weapons, i cannot begin to understand the logic behind this ridiculous attempt at an “elite spec”
Let me start with the problems:
Longbow skills are pathetic:
#1: an inferior version of trickshot that unless you are offshooting at people in a zerg, or in PVE, is just a pathetic autoattack with no added functionality and mediocre dmg. The arrow speed IS getting buffed but the functionality when it comes to sPVP and bosses is nonexistent
#2: It has a cost time and it ROOTS you in place. Has anyone in the internal team tried that versus a non-AI opponent? Has anyone ever tried the DH in sPVP AT ALL? do you honestly think you can land that on ANY remotely competent player out there? Cuz i sure as hell don’t think so. You can give the skill 20k base damage and your average mesmer, thief, ele, and even warrior now will 100-0 you with no chance of fighting back
#3: Its being looked at. the idea is ok but the velocity needs to be reduced and width doubled at least
#4: The burning on the symbol is fine, i don’t see why its being removed. its a decent source of DPS for hybrid guards, so you are technically crippling the class even more.
#5: A skill nice in theory that will never work in sPVP settings, you sit there channeling something that can be countered by anyone and chances are you will be dead before you finish the cast.
Again, you can give longbow skills a 20k modifier and 4/8 classes will be able to 100-0 you with NO CHANCE of fighting back. The skills are that bad.
After trying them for the whole day today i got disgusted and went back to my great sword and meditations which is FAR more superior than this “elite” spec
Traps:
the main problem is that traps need to be used/thrown from range. Wells and marks work like that, so why not traps? I cannot begin to describe how bad i felt when i logged into my chronomancer and found i could lay all my wells at range while the Dragon hunter…an inherently ranged class has to go MELEE range for a CHANCE that the traps will work. I don’t even need to tell you how far superior wells are to traps right about now.
The only trap worth its salt is light’s judgement, which provides some utility…the rest are a greater joke than even longbow skills.
Virtues:
The cast time needs to go. period. I don’t care if Wings of resolve healed you for 10k, or shield of courage gave you 20 seconds of stability. the fact that you cannot use them while stunned/feared/CCed means that you will die the moment you get as much as rooted and shelter is on cooldown. I cannot describe how much survivability the DH loses by just this change.
Im sorry if im using strong language right now but im clearly upset. but i think im right nevertheless. my favorite class is being turned into a joke in front of my eyes while most other classes receive exciting mechanics and the like.
having the same problem as well.
Anet needs to look at this asap
Agreed, having log in issues, from not even being able to log in, to being stuck on the loading screen when switching areas and/or loading into a PVP game and then getting “could not connect to log in server”
I would assume its because of the recent surge of f2p accounts, but this is coming irritating
At the cost of sounding mean (not that i really care mind you):
This is not wow, or any other MMO where it costs you 100+ gold to respec and regear. It takes you 2 min of your valuable time to go into heart of the mists and play around with every possible spec for your class.
The DH is still new and people have no clue what they are doing. Don’t expect any insight just yet. My best advice would be to try it out for yourself.
if you play on every game mode with your guardian, chances are you know quite a bit about it. So just go out and experiment!
Wow….just wow…not sure if the skills weren’t working properly but if it launches like this, then this is just a horrible joke.
That “No Line of Sight” happens almost every time I cast #3 & #4. The Guardian doesn’t execute the skill, instead, he freezes up and does nothing. It’s not just incredibly frustrating as it ruins the flow of combat, but it’s also a weakness in the melee aspect of the bow.
the problem is, you were using bow as a main melee weapon while in fact its a ranged support weapon.
Every time you were killed you had a bow with no weapon swap cooldown and a thief in melee range. Same thing applies to a medi guard. you cannot hope to take on a medi guard with your DH with a bow equipped, it simply won’t do.
You use a bow on a kitting mes and ranger, NOT on someone who wants to be in your face.
You use a bow from a ledge while trying to zone others in foefire, NOT while you are in the middle
You wanna call it bad design, but i call it more a L2P issue
It’s most definitely a l2p issue but I can’t help but wonder how many times a person is going to get ganked while he just switched to the bow. That’s an aspect I wanted to overstate in the video – it’s going to happen and it’s not much a person can do about it.
I think #3 should give either a stun or a knockback, in addition to the bow’s knockback trait. Only taking effect in melee range, of course :P
Agreed, switching to bow right before a thief ganks you = death. its about time they toss in some escape mechanics to the guard, or the longbow as whole.
There is this worrisome trend i have been noticing lately where most elite specs are being designed primarily with PVE in mind…
Reaper, tempest, the whole rev prof and even the chronomancer functionality is designed with PVE in mind. Thats why besides the latter, they are all crap in sPVP at the moment.
The longbow was supposed to address the issues of guardian lacking a good ranged weapon on bosses which forced you to stay ranged 100% of the time. if you look at some of the gameplay videos and new bosses in HOT, you will see a lot of them being melee unfriendly. Maybe call it a hunch, but i have a feeling the other elite specs won’t be that much better.
How exactly is the longbow a ranged support weapon? What does it do to directly help allies besides a few seconds of vigor? The only highlights of the weapon are the damage from #2 and the AoE CC on #5.
Saddly, i have to agree with you.
What Anet had in mind was a full shout build with a longbow in order to give allies the full benefit of the shouts while also adding DPS from 1200 range.
At least i am ASSUMING its what they had in mind…
the problem is, you were using bow as a main melee weapon while in fact its a ranged support weapon.
Every time you were killed you had a bow with no weapon swap cooldown and a thief in melee range. Same thing applies to a medi guard. you cannot hope to take on a medi guard with your DH with a bow equipped, it simply won’t do.
You use a bow on a kitting mes and ranger, NOT on someone who wants to be in your face.
You use a bow from a ledge while trying to zone others in foefire, NOT while you are in the middle
You wanna call it bad design, but i call it more a L2P issue
I cannot take seriously any builds without shelter in PVP as of the current <1 sec burst meta. You need shelter more than ever.
And tbh, most medi builds are the same give or take. Zeal vs Radiance are where they tend to differ slightly, but the core is the same.
Nice video editing skills, but thats as far as it went
I cannot take seriously any video where you fight someone who sits into a WW and GS Symbol for the whole duration, or who tries to kite you within your normal swing arc
I know its wvw and 80% of the players are trash but at least on SBI during my fights with maguuma at least, most of their roamers are far far better than the fights you showed. To the point where i think you went out of your way to show only fights vs baddies.
sorry if im being honest
lool godmode ele running around never dies but its all fine
God mode? I make burst an ele in a teamfight in maybe under a sec. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Eles have never been more balanced. pre patch D/D could tank 2 people on node and be fine. Now they melt in a 1v2 in 2 sec. You need to learn when to time the stuns and snares rights. Immobility and chill is the new stun now.
Don’t listen to the whiny players.
Meta has never been the most balanced. For the first time i see EVERY class in both ranked and unranked.
And whats most important, no more celestial garbage.
Burst counters celestial, as does tanks and squishes. Gone are the days where a D/D ele would tank 2 players inside a node. And then of course we had the turret engies….
All im saying is that right now every class has a viable build and more importantly has a way to counter other classes and builds.
Power ranger is stronger then before when played properly and utilizing range and height advantage. Condi ranger is deadlier than ever and pretty much can kill any class right now, when fighting on point (which is the whole point of conquest)
You can complain that x class is not meta because it was not in the latest ESL or whatever, but….its 5 spots and 8 classes. And also depends on the players and their best class. Before it used to be 3 dominant classes and the rest being bottom feeder. Now its more like 6 dominant ones and 2 slightly weaker but EVERY class now stands a chance vs any other when players properly.
And last but not least, many more builds suddenly became more viable, such as condi guard, which was a joke prepatch.
agreed, i highly doubt they will remove the Internal cooldown. don’t want those guardian AH “monsters” to come back
Only good trait line is zeal now tbh and radiance because of it lets you double dip into both power and condi, improving carrion based builds.
Valor changes are a direct buff to medi, end of story
Honor is a mess and its limiting the playstyles instead of expanding it.
Virtues is unchanged and really see nothing exiting going for it.
Next patch you are either gonna have
1- Hammer or GS/mace with 6/0/0/6/6 in PVE
2- sword/focus/torch/whatever with 0/6/6//0/6. sPVP
3- frontline guard with 0/0/6/6/6. for WvW
1 viable build per game mode….take that for what its worth (not much)
How about this?
- Shield of Absorption cooldown goes from 30s to 24s baseline.
- Shield of Judgement cooldown goes from 25s to 20s baseline.
Added to the release notes maintained in General Discussion.
Edit: For clarification, the shield recharge trait is still there on top of this. It brings the cooldowns from 24>19s, and 20>16s.
Im afraid the problem with the shield is not the cooldowns but the functionality. Especially when you compare it to the warrior and engie gear shield (same concept). A shield is there to block attacks, not give you a buff that overlaps with half of your abilities already. To top it all off, you have it competing with focus now which ALSO gets protection on skill use and has a much superior skill set.
Please consider these changes:
Shield #4
Channeled block akin to warrior and engie gear shield
Shield #5
Channeled Bubble with the initial knockback effect (similar to what it is now) , lets you move around during the channel and can knockback every player only once during its effect. Channel duration is up to 4 seconds.
The first change (shield #4) would provide the much needed selfish utility that other similar classes enjoy
The second change will introduce creative mechanics, party support and utility.
Shield has remained unchanged since the very start of beta. It has remained the most crap weapon in the entire game.
Even after the countless suggestion threads and even the devs agreeing to look at the shield, it was UNTOUCHED.
Yet there were 3 full word pages of changes for the mesmer and necro class whereas guards got boring number changes and little to no functionality diversity.
Does ANY of the devs play guardian? Have they played a guardian for more than 10 minutes? The last stream showed us mediocre play at best and this was supposed to be from their “best guardian player”
Why has the shield remained unchanged for over 2 years and NO EFFORT has ever been made to change things?
Please Anet, why is the shield in such a sad state? Do you even play to look at it?
Arguably the worst skill set in the entire game remains unchanged yet even more buffs were handed out to warriors and eles (like always)
At the same time mesmer and necro received 4x the amount of changes, and probably dev time compared to guardian
Is this offhand ever going to see the light of day?
Anet, now is the time to make changes yet you leave the skill in most NEED of changes, to rot away
Of course, and shield remains unchanged
at the same time, mesmers get 3x the number of changes which shows where most of the development times goes to
Yet you must agree changing that to a minor trait is silly to say the least
Not really, no. And it’s hardly worth complaining about in comparison to Guardians, who get Aegis on demand as a baseline boon.
And yet eles are in a better spot in sPVP right now and equally as good in PVE, so the point is moot.
They change a GM worth trait into a minor one, which is a slap in the face to every class which has to make a choice about traits. heck the whole point of traits is so you HAVE to make a choice, not be able to get all the good ones at the same time.
Elemental Attunement really isn’t even that good on its own. The only things that make it worthwhile are the protection and the condi clear from the regen if you’re running Cleansing Water. It was a silly idea for it to be competing with GM traits in the first place, if you ask me.
well thats kind of a downplay. pretty sure that even if it would only grant protection and regen people would still take it. It counters their core weakness of a low hp pool and light armor in one trait. on top it synergizes – as you said – extremely well with cleansing water.
I also think as a GM trait it is silly, yet making it a minor is just sick. you should have to sacrafice some choice for that kind of defense or even that level of QoL. Earth, Water, Arcane will be the go to build anyways. so you toss in rock solid and eles are unstopable for the most part.
The trait has virtually nothing to do with why d/d ele is in the current meta, though. Even without it, the regen can be obtained through traited cantrip use or after receiving a critical hit, and the protection can be gained through one of the 3 auras that the setup has access to. And even then, the reason why the build is so powerful is because of the combination of sustain through trickle heals and the damage built up by might stacking. Access to boons on swap is really just an added convenience.
Yet you must agree changing that to a minor trait is silly to say the least
I wouldn’t be surprised if Elemental Attunement was toned down in the process. They’ve made a lot of updates to trait lines for all the professions, so it’s too early to react like this.
Doubt it. If they nerf it people will QQ just as much as they did when it was announced it was gonna be changed to GM.
Its sad really that so much work is going into these other classes which are seeing overhaul after overhaul whereas ours has been stuck with the same crap since day 1.
PS: oh yea, we have been nerfed every patch though, so i will give you that
I, on behalf of the entire GW2 community, would like t thank you for speaking on our behalf without consultation, as it wouldn’t have been necessary anyway.
Also, thank you for refraining from giving any sort of legitimate suggestions, as those are also unnecessary.
Thank you again for insulting the devs while asking for their attention and consideration of the effort you didn’t make.
You truly are invaluable, and a rock to this community
Most agree traps suck and are so far the poorest addition when it comes to adding skills for elite specs. Just look at mesmer and necro….its much much better.
You could say that we are better off than mesmers and necros but that point fails because
1) That only applies to PVE
2) Just because our core traits are good does NOT mean they have to add sub-par abilities and traits
Shield has been crap since day 1 and everyone knows it. Yet it has not been changed and worse of all, there are NO plans to change it as of now.
Longbow aint even needed if scepter projectile speed were buffed. From the PVP stream you can tell Longbow is an overall survivability LOSS over scepter/focus. Anyone can see it clear as day.
This whole elite spec (DH) was added to band aid some of the flaws the guardian has. Its funny because if the aforementioned changes were made, Longbow and DH will become redundant
PS: How many of you are going to use the heal trap? Yeah, i rest my case
on a trait line that is pretty much mandatory for most builds.
And we get….a crappy “elite” trait line that gives access to a weapon which we wouldnt have needed in the first place if they even as much as looked at scepter and changed the projectile speed to be in line with the other kitten.
Oh ya, and we get traps which again are extremely situational, can be countered by a simple dodge and 99% of the players will not use cuz medis and shouts are simply better.
This bullkitten has to stop. Wtb a competent designer to look at guards for more than 2 sec and see how much crap traits and weapon skills there are.
TL;DR if a dev bothers to look at this:
- Shield sucks and has been nonviable since the start of times
- DH traitline is not good enough to be considered elite
- Scepter projectile range needs to be changed
- traps suck and everyone agrees on it.
(edited by Hunter.4783)
after looking at the ready up of both reaper and the dh i must say dh is horrible traps is a bad bad bad idea if you compere it to reaper; reaper actully look like necro evolve in ower case it seems just like alame copey of unsecusfull skills of ranger…
what do you guys think about dragon hunter over all and compere to the spec that known so far
You do realize the DH fixes over 90% of the flaws the current guard as in sPVP and WvW?
You do realize Medibow will kitten over every single ranger, mesmer and staff ele out there?
Traps are fine IMO:
- They will work wonders in WvW where they were initially designed for
- They also be effective at scaring squishies off points in sPVP, no one wants to sit with in a 10 sec reveal and 25 vuln debuff
You are NOT required, or even supposed to carry 3 traps with you.
As far as PVE is concerned, the guard is top 2 right now after the proposed trait and skill changes. In fact the baseline trait changes are all pretty much aimed at PVE for the most part. If anything im glad guards are not NERFED in PVE like eles were. PVE has never been where guards lacked, and Anet did amazing by making DH sPVP/WvW specific in order to address the guard flaws.
Every single complaint in these boards is aimed at our lack of PVE buffs compared to mesmer and necro. Yet people forget that both mesmer and necro are currently trash tier in PVE and its where they got the most buffs.
Chronomancer sounds amazing on paper but in sPVP and its chaotic nature don’t expect it to lay 2x moas and what not while people stand still and let them do it.
Reaper is a PVE death machine but slow as kitten, kitable and downright weak in PVP. It will get ganked and zerged down in any serious sPVP scenariors, so don’t expect things to change much
Ok people, i see A LOT of HYPOCRISY over these boards as of late:
People wanted ranged options: They got it
People complained they didn’t have enough offensive options: DH is about as offensive as it gets.
Peopled (me included) QQed day and night about virtues being the most boring kitten of class mechanics out there, and when Anet changes them into a more active mechanic, people complain their precious 1k health on a 60sec cooldown is replaced by a leap with a 3sec immob if traited….are you people kidding me?
People are complaining about traps yet praising wells which are EXACTLY THE SAME THING, and inferior from what i saw.
I guess no one imagined charging headlong into a zerg and placing 2 traps in there. Its sure to bring enough chaos to make it count. Again, guardians STILL RETAIN their tankiness, just because we got the bow, does not make us any squishier
Guardians before announcement:
“Where is my condi, where is my long range weapon”
Guardians after the announcement:
“Wah, condi, wah ranged weapon”You’re putting words in a lot of other players mouths.
Nope. It’s what the community wanted since 2012.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Lack-of-decent-range-damage/first#post1509583
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Do-Guardians-lack-viable-ranged-options/first#post2726043
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guarding-seriously-needs-a-dedicated-long-range-dps-weapon/page/2#post676379
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/lack-of-WvW-roles-and-possible-solutions/first#post201010
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Range-with-Gaurdian-does-it-worth-it
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardians-Need-Range
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/more-range-weapons-pls
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/No-real-ranged-weapon-for-Guardians
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/We-ask-for-range-buffs-but-we-get-nerfed/first#post329837
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardians-Melee-Range-Mobility-Discussion
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Suggestion-Guardian-LongbowNot counting countless more nudges in PvP General and PvE forums saying we lacked range weapons. The same goes for lack of Conditions, CC, and Peels. We’re actually getting exactly what we asked for with the exception of Traps. Even then, some people wanted snares too in one of the above links.
Goes to show voice really matters and Anet truly did come through with a lot of the things we’ve wanted.
I myself am estatic with the change, as are a lot of Guardians.
This guy beat me to it.
Guardians asked for:
- Better ranged options
- More interesting virtues
- Not being locked into a single spec
- Viable condi builds
- CC
- Ability to disengage or run away in WvW
Guardians are getting
- Longbow with fast moving projectiles (aka can’t strafe)
- More interesting virtues
- More trait options, such as medi longbow, or Shoutbow support for WvW
- Traps providing bleed, aka a possible condi build
- Long range snares through traps and bow
- Runes of the trapper providing stealth and super speed.
Also seems to me like we are getting EVERYTHING we asked for. So i would hush and wait till the stream
I have a feeling they are trying to tone down pure condi builds and try to make condis supplementary to direct damage…something you use to enhance your build, rather than center it purely around condi damage.
As other people have pointed out, the nerf to burn base damage means they have to give us some new ways to cause burning just to make up the damage loss. Some suggested abilities like purging flames now giving 2-3 stacks of burn instead of 1.
Part of me want burn to make a comeback so with the new changes i can roll 0/6/6/0/6 with carrion amulet and enjoy 20k HP while retaining superior pressure compared to the old builds, but we never know how they are going to scale it.
Still, the options are there, we just need more info on gear scaling and ofc, our class specialization
Judging by what mesmers got, it seems they are giving classes some new tools to deal with their current weaknesses, rather then giving them more of the same.
Take Mesmer: Aclarity and wells screams PVE all over to me. Phantasms staying after 1 shatter is also tied to increasing PVE DPS, some some PVP benefits ofc.
Lets look at Necro: Ofc we have no info but we know they are getting GS, which most likely will be a CLEAVING weapon, as everyone and their mother are saying a reason necros suck in PVE is the lack of cleave. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they got shouts, to again make em more desirable in PVE settings…which is where necros fall short.
Now lets take guards now:
- We are top 3 in PVE together with ele and warrior, and are most likely gonna be top 2 after the changes as eles are getting the nerf. So i HIGHLY doubt the elite spec is going to further boost our PVE DPS, otherwise its going to kitten all over the new zeal, radiance and honor traits.
- The guardian community has been complaining for years now about the lack of a decent range option especially in PVP, kitability, and lack of CC. So don’t be surprised if the Longbow is specifically designed to deal with these issues. From the videos, the projectiles looked fairly fast, so i doubt one would be able to strafe past them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got some kind of snare or pull in there too, to go in line with most ranged weapons.
-
I mean of course, nothing is set in stone but more likely than not, they will give us something to deal with our weaknesses, rather than further solidify our Presence as PVE kings (which we will be once the trait changes are rolled in). And don’t be surprised if people decide to opt out of the elite spec if they are trying to beat speed-clear records. I still think scepter > Longbow on stationary PVE targets, otherwise they will have to scrape scepter
ZEAL
Symbolic Avenger is a good option for sPvP. It enhances area denial of symbols and promotes a good burst set up.
For PvE, where enemies won’t avoid fighting on top of symbols, it’s too powerful and can easily bring autoattack hammer builds to a ridiculous and undeserved damage level.
The trait should be shaved to 10% for PvE. The mechanic remains the same and there are no CDs or timings involved, so the split shouldn’t cause any confusion.There’s a nice synergy between Expeditious Spirit and Shattered Aegis in small scale PvP which is lost by placing them in the same tier. I would downgrade the first one to master tier in the place of Kindled Zeal.
On top of that, it would be great if Expeditious Spirit would provide further (big) enhancement if only one Spirit Weapon were slotted. A competitive petting zoo build will never be welcomed, but a single spirit weapon could be tolerated and allowed to exist at competitive levels as long as the active part is what makes it great.The remaining trait slot should bring something useful for hybrid builds (but better than Kindled Zeal) and no symbol based PvE power builds which invest in both Zeal and Radiance.
Something that makes the Guardian deadlier as the end of the fight approaches could make sense for Zeal. “Gain condition damage (7% of Power) and deal increased damage (4%) for every Virtue on CD” could work.
I have been saying this time and time again,
Symbolic avenger is there to make up for the Power and crit% loss from the current meta.
In addition, they want to bring mace and hammer to the same level as sword and GS while making zeal more enticing
Fiery wraith is getting a nerf because now burning is getting to stack in intensity rather than duration. Which means it will not be up all the time. When you account for this, as well as the loss of 200 power, you will that unless symbolic avenger is kept at 20%, guardians will be seeing a DPS LOSS. Zealous blade is still a filler trait but nothing as exciting
And last but not least, unless you invest in honor, Symbolic avenger will be active for 4sec every 16 sec for the GS, which cuts its effective power to 5%. Keep that in mind before you warrant needless nerfs.
You can also camp hammer and go 6/0/0/6/6 and roll full zerker to make up for crit loss from radiance
Not sure what the dps difference is gonna be, but the support is going to be quite nice and i would gladdly roll with something like that in my 50 pugs
There is no way that 20% damage in symbols trait is not gonna be nerfed to 5 or 10%. That is just too wildly OP, no one would ever use anything other than maces or hammers for PvE unless mace and hammer damage were heavily nerfed to compensate.
Keep in mind the trait changes are there to compensate for the power and crit lost from the old zeal and radiance trait lines.
We virtually lost 200 power and 25% crit, so it has to be made up somewhere. Symbolic avenger is fine dude, it has to make up for a lot of stuff.
There is a reason some of these traits might appear and powercreeping to people, because in PVE, beside the base stats changing from 925—>1000 NOTHING else will be compensated through armor. Without the buffed up traits classes will be looking at a damage LOSS
RIP? RIP What? Guard changes are quite great along with thief, warrior and ranger.
if you want to QQ you got the wrong forum. You need to head over to the Necromancer and Elementalist forum for that!
Changes are not even close to thieves. You should look better at changes. 2,3 times if needed.
OK listen, i will admit that the changes mainly buff our PVE presence…which was fine to begin with. A lot of the changes were icing on the cake, but now we have 2 dedicated DPS traitlines which now are the MOST viable, out of the 3.
The reason guardians are rejoicing is that now we don’t have to go all over the kittening trees to get decent DPS traits and be left with only 2 trait points to do with as we please. These changes give up OPTIONS based on our weapon sets while maintaining and even improving our PVE DPS as well as support and what not.
As for PVP however…well, thats another story. The GOOD news is that condi damage is allegedly getting nerfed, which is good for us since most condi classes wreck us. In addition, CELESTIAL amulet is getting nerfed, so another win for us. HOWEVER, our valor line is only good for medis now, honor only has 1 good trait and virtue is…still the same pretty much. On top of it, we still lack reliable snares and CC and valid range options in sPVP.
What i see people doing is going sword/torch and scepter/focus in sPVP with 0/6/6/0/6 and gibbing the kitten out of people with torch. Alternatively, i can see Stella, or some other crazy mofo going 6/6/6/0/0 and gib people with the 3.5 seconds immob on F1 proc from free signet of wraith . Thats usually plenty to get a WW —> Sword 3+ focus 5 + Smite condi in.
In any case, in sPVP we got burst and some more tricks to play with. it will add a certain threat to the guardian presence in sPVP due to our insane burst…but thats about it. None of the guardian problems were addressed… for now while we still don’t have details on the specialization
Burning will be lower.
CONDITION DAMAGE reduction: bleed and torment: 38.8% ||| poison and burning: 60% ||| Confusion: 84.6%
All those ppl thinking we got buffed are wrong. We got wrecked.
I REALLY hope that this is true, as condi based classes are actually our greatest bane.
it is true that we have many cleanses, but once they run out, the guard is as good as dead and an engie with a simple pistol auto can kite you to death.
What i see them doing is nerfing the stronger builds instead of buffing the weaker ones, as to try to prevent power-creeps.
Look at D/D ele, completely butchered this patch
These condi changes will be in line with their attempt at nerfing condi engie, condi warrior, thief and mes.
Think of these changes as indirect buffs to the guard by nerfing our counter classes.
From what i understood:
Ele, + condi prevalent builds = nerfed
Ranger, Thief and warriors (physical builds at least) buffed
We kitten on both thieves and physical warriors, and more than counter pew pew rangers, so i wound’t worry too much.
HOWEVER, i am a little sad there were little to no PVP changes for the guard. All the changes seemed PVE focused, and honestly unless the longbow spec deals with our flaws, guards will continue to be the same in sPVP, abeit slightly stronger as the prevalent meta might shift
All i know is that now i can make CHOICES.
Zeal is the go to for DPS, and valor if you want to do meditations, but for everything else in between, you have CHOICES
No longer are you locked into a particular trait setup. Now you actually have some choice, at least when it comes to the 3rd trait line.
I think what they are trying to do is also change the PVE meta from swapping on sword auto when GS skills were on cooldown. I think now they want you to focus on a primary weapon set and use on swap for utility or secondary effects. Which makes sense tbh. Keep in mind people will prolly specialize into longbow when the HoT comes, so its prolly what they had in mind.
Oh yeah, and focus skills grant prot on use rolled together with reduced focus recharge skills.
Not sure why everyone is going mace or die…Thats for maybe zergs when you spearhead the zerg
For PVP…you simply take zeal and honor, and enjoy looking at thieves and mesmers simply melt while standing over your symbols
You know that thieves will simply melt now if they are standing on your symbols, right?
(look at the new zeal traits which i think are amazing)
6/0/6/6/0
Anything standing over your Symbol of Wraith simply…dies. For 6 seconds every 20 seconds seconds
Oh yeah, and using a healing skill also pops up smite condition, lulz
Funny, i thought zeal and radiance lines looked good, if not OP
Increase damage and invul from symbols AND increased damage 20% on the targets standing on symbols.
In addition, all symbol and medi traits got rolled into 1. Guard now has OPTIONS for some of the traits, especially major and adept.
you have no idea what you are talking about
PS: Eles got nerfed HARD
And to further add to my point:
From a statistical point of view, it might all work out. Since most games will have a 2 or a 3 person premade, some of them on my team, some on the other. So in the end the wins or the loses from the respective situations will balance out, but at the end of the day, i come out learning nothing from these games.
Normally after a game you would wonder what you did that made you win or lose, as well as how you can further improve on. However, if im getting carried one game, and crushed 500-40 the other, i might as well not bother trying to improve, or get better with my character, as things are pretty much predetermined from the RNG draw. Haven’t you had your fill of seeing players afk when their team is getting crushed. This is exactly what this current system will lead to.
“Oh kitten, 4 man premade, gg all, afk” is a trend which is slowly starting to develop, especially when you get 3 capped 1 min into the game, and when you get zerged 1v3 the moment you step into far. Even if players are willing to play against the odds at the start of the match, not many will play till the end.
However why do i even have to WORRY about being matched vs premades while queuing solo?
The fact that im getting premades on both sides means that there are more flaws in the system, not less. Its just that for these past few games i happened to get the “better” premade or it would be more losses than that.
Why do you have to worry?
If a 4+1 versus a 4+1 is an even match, why shouldn’t we make it? There is no right or wrong answer here, just curious as you seem to not think this is a good idea.
Evan, i have to worry because more often than not i see premades in my games.
The fact that a premade can also happen to be in my team is simply luck, or RNG. More often than not it works againt me, which is again…RNG.
My point is that as a solo queue-er you already have to deal with less than desirable teammates, which usually involves you giving 120% to make up for their lack of skill. Now you have to also deal with the possibility of facing 3 people on teamspeak who will most likely roll over your team. hence another RNG component.
Competitive activities usually tend to MINIMIZE the effect of RNG, or luck, as you might call it. The current system stacks the odds against the solo player, which is simply, not fair.
Looking at your game history over the last few days, there were only two games you lost where the enemy team had a larger party than was on your team.
Remember that when you solo queue, the rest of YOUR team could be in a party, and you were paired with an equal opposing team. Also, checking for players that queued together by attempting a party invite will at best reveal they are paired with a single other person. Players could have even partied after joining a match.
i knew i was gonna get a post like this Evan.
However why do i even have to WORRY about being matched vs premades while queuing solo?
The fact that im getting premades on both sides means that there are more flaws in the system, not less. Its just that for these past few games i happened to get the “better” premade or it would be more losses than that.
All we are asking is for a semi competitive game mode where solo players don’t have to worry about an extra RNG factor.
We are not asking you to remove any of the game features, we are simply asking for you to accommodate players who prefer a particular game style which GW2 is advertised to cater to.
Right now, walking into ranked as solo is pretty much suicide and everyone is aware of. im cool with that.
However right now it feels as if im being PENALIZED for queuing solo, even by simply having to worry and mouse over the opposing team before the game starts.
And last but not least, you guys already have a good system in place, which was the solo Queue. I think it worked perfectly. its true that premades had to wait a long time to get matched but at least it was fair for all the solo players out there.
Never ever ever use torch in PVP, especially as medi.
We are glass as it is and probably with a lower life expectancy than thieves. Focus gives you the breathing room needed to put enough pressure on the ranger before he has time to pushback and pew pew you from the ledge.
WoR is fine but when you are bunkering and there are multiple rangers.
Since the part about shouts is in a section dealing with elite specializations I’d assume that they are not talking about classes which already got shouts. E.g. no Ranger, Guardian or Warrior.
Yep, i was gonna make a post about this but i guess no point now.
From the wording of the article:
“at least one profession’s elite specialization will be a full set of six shouts”
One would reason that a class other than guardian, warrior and even ranger will get these new shouts, cuz there is no point in having these 3 aforementioned classes with 10 shouts now.
What they are doing is adding new skill line categories to each profession, each affected by a trait line.
For example, the druid ones will be nature magic, something of that sort.
Necros, are going to get skills closely related to greatsword, affected by their new elite trait line and fall into a new category again affected by this new traitline. Think of “Superior aria” like traits.
And it kinda makes sense too. this new system is not simply a badaid to horrible balancing, but will add in the new groundworks for more stuff to be added into it.
Well, SOMETHING need to happen. Either this or they bring SoloQ back. But right now the system is broken
It has been over 20 games now where i have ONLY seen premades in unranked. I stopped playing ranked for simply this exact reason.
yet in unranked its ALWAYS 2-3 teamed up, with the rest being pugs. Someones its 2/2pug vs 3/2pug. You get the idea.
However this is UNACCEPTABLE for any solo player, or anyone who is simply in the mood for some quick games.
If you are so afraid of bringing solo queue back for fear of increasing premade queues, at least reserve ranked for premades while change unranked to be solo friendly. Its pretty ironic for a MMO which is advertised as solo friendly to be so unfriendly in sPVP, arguably where solo vs premade makes the greatest difference
Please Anet, fix this. I have yet to face a full pug in unranked for a while now.
This amount of premades in that i am now seeing even in unranked is getting ridiculous.
This is the ONLY MMO in history where they let full premades fight pugs.
Guild wars 1 had PERFECT PVP matchup system. Why did you go ahead and change it?
I don’t care about MMR and how broken it might be. All i care for is that when i have 20 minutes of free time i don’t have to go loss after loss due to seeing chain premades on every game mode.
sPVP isn’t exactly as solo friendly as you hyped up the game to be.
And before some dev comes and tells me i faced 3 premades in my past 20 games or something like that…it doesn’t matter. I should not even been facing ONE premade if i decide to queue alone. Why did you go ahead and removed solo queue. it was working perfectly. if it ain’t broken, DON’T change it.
Valkyrie is generally a better choice than soldier’s if you want to maintain a decent amount of HP without taking too much of a hit to your DPS.
Problem is that valk stands in no mans land when it comes to PVE and WvW.
The guy is starting out, he doesn’t need to worry about THREE armor sets. hence why i went with the optimal choice
Ok, here is the thing;
That legendary guard build is outdated, so do NOT use it for PVE. Go for the meta instead, and slowly work on a set of ascended zerker armor/accessories. Start with the accessories as they are much easier to get, but you generally work on both at the same time.
Now here is where i tend to diverge from the rest of the flock. Since i don’t like to be rocking 11k health at all times, i tend to throw in 2-3 pieces of soldier gear into my ascended armor. Nothing too drastic, but it helps. I can also switch to a PTV weapon if the group aint doing so hot. Ofc, if your premade knows what they are doing, equip full zerg and just enjoy the pew pew.
For WVW:
If you wanna be frontline guard and roll with 0/0/6/6/2 AH build, you will need a DIFFERENT armor set. This one HAS TO BE, full PTV. The more zerk gear you have on, the more of a liability to your team you become. Downed guard = soon to be stomped guard = free rally for other team. So keep that in mind. In a zerg you are there to spread constant dmg and provide boom support and STABILITY. You wanna be part of the AoE/hammer ball. Because you have 20 people stacked at any time, you tend to want to spread the damage, to cleave as many people as possible, and thats where the staff shines.
You will need a different armor set, but exotic will work, so don’t fret. Buy it from the TP for like 1g a piece, its that easy. Ascended accessories drop like candy so you should have PTV ones about the same time as the zerk ones.
In Short, your gear and build will depend on what you want to do . Do NOT try to do everything with one set of gear/build unless you want to be mediocre and risk /kick from any serious groups out there.
Knights gear is crap because it provides LESS power than soldiers. So you end up doing similar damage BUT, you take a hit in survivability, and especially in the HP department, which you lack and need the most. NEVER EVER EVER use knights as a guard. You want to mix things up, use a SOLDIER/ZERKER mix, NOT knights.
TLDR: PVE: zerk ASCENDED armor with zerk accessories, using the PVE meta build
WvW: FULL SOLDIER armor and zerk accessories using the meta build.
Feel you are dying, or not liking the low HP in PVE? Sub some zerk accessories /w solder
(edited by Hunter.4783)
If Turret Engi, D/D Ele, or w/e Cele class gets nerfed, people will just go back to Bunker Guardian (or any other Guardian build) or maybe play Ranger.
#braindeadandeffective #GW2Meta
The pattern is just so obvious.
I would take bunker guardian and pew pew ranger over turret and engie every day of the kittening week.
Bunker guards were never as strong as turret engies currently are.