Guild Wars 2

dancingmonkey.4902:

Hunter.4783:

The problem is not whether guardians are effective, its about how fun they are to play, and seeing how every class but us got new toys while our already broken toys weren’t even looked it, was a real bummer.

I am sorry, but your are a mistaken if “you” think that “you” get to decide what “fun” is. I have a great time on my guardian.

Hunter.4783:

As I said, the guardian has 2 main trait setups right now. Used to be 3, but after vigor nerf, boon duration nerf and condi buffs, its no longer optimal.

This simply false. This is actually so far from the truth that it is comical.

Hunter.4783:

Every patch, classes get changes and improvements and bug fixes, guardians get nerfs while our spirit weapons have remained worthless for well over 1 year now.

You mean similarly to how the warrior and engineer have been berfed in the last 7 patches or how the ele was nerfed into the ground month ago based on such irrational complaints?

My idea of “fun” happens to be the same as most people playing this game right now, which is build variety and balance in all aspects of the game.

The guardian was "balanced’ a year and a half ago. But not anymore. The fact is that the playstyle has devolved around 2 main builds, that is being the AH and the PVE meta one.

EVERY SINGLE CLASS, after this update got fixes and new/updated traits which have given them more options than before.
Not only guardians didn’t get any of this, but we got NERFED both directly (vigor nerf) and indirectly (everyone else getting new kitten)

Take out Wall of reflection and Shield of the avenger and I guarantee you NO ONE WILL BE BRINGING guardians in PVE. its sad when the usefulness of the class falls into these 2 simple abilities. Right now, the difference between a scepter autoattack guardian, and a competent weapon swapping one is not very noticeable as long as both bring these 2 aforementioned skills to the table.

This was a major feature/balance patch, and as such its gonna be a while before we see another one. I got one refuse to touch my guardian any more until some of these issues are either addressed, or a dev take 2 min of their life and tell us why nothing has been done to the large # of worthless traits and skills currently plaguing the guardian class

The class is extremely boring and 1 dimensional and has been reduced to 2 viable builds.

Look at all the goodies the warrior got, every single one of their GM traits are useful in some kind of spec. Every single GM trait the guardian got IS COMPLETE GARBAGE. They aren’t even worth the darn effort to go and unlock em.

Condi build with only 1 condition and limited ways to apply them? This was the theme behind the guardian changes for the past 4 months and it failed because the current dev team have no clue about guardian mechanics. I swear, if they only spent 5 min to talk to players about what players think should be changed, the guardian would be tons more interesting to play.

Arent you tired of generic Staff+hammer/GS and 20/25/0/0/25 by now? Its literally the only viable specs

SPirit weapons are still broken. 2 of the signets are worthless. Condi damage builds are non existent. 2 trait lines have been reduced to 2 viable traits. Shatter aegis mechanics completely subpar….Need I go on?

The problem is not whether guardians are effective, its about how fun they are to play, and seeing how every class but us got new toys while our already broken toys weren’t even looked it, was a real bummer.

As I said, the guardian has 2 main trait setups right now. Used to be 3, but after vigor nerf, boon duration nerf and condi buffs, its no longer optimal.

Every patch, classes get changes and improvements and bug fixes, guardians get nerfs while our spirit weapons have remained worthless for well over 1 year now.

2k+ hours into my guard, was my one and only main until this patch. Switching over to war until changes are made. Am sick and tired of running the same 2 builds.

This patch brought NOTHING to guardians but a heavy nerf (vigor).

All the GM traits are trash…even worse so.

A passive GRANDMASTER trait that gives 3k health in the hopes to fix the huge HP disparity with warriors? Boring and will never get picked over Pure of Voice.

Communal defenses sounded cool until we found out it didn’t give back aegis to the guardian AND had a 20 sec internal cooldown.

Virtues trait tries to balance the nerf to Vigor but fails because traits X and IX will ALWAYS be better. if I even went 30 points in virtues I would sure as hell pick IX and X, never this new trait.

And now, the best for last…the zeal and radiance traits…

What can I say, I thought they were a joke at the start, but lo and behold, they were not. Funny thing is that we already have another grandmaster trait in zeal which also buffs burn damage, so I wonder, why have 2 traits only the same trait line which pretty much do the same thing? Are the devs braindead when it comes to guardians? Do none of the QA ever play guardians? Was this trait a mistake?

Radiant retaliation….equally as bad as the zeal trait… Anet hopes to push guardians towards a condi heavy build while giving the class no means to apply any other cover condies nor have a reliable ranged way to spam conditions ala necro, thief, warrior, etc.
Again, this trait is an absolute joke.

Why is the community ignored when it comes to this class? Guardian is now the most boring and 1 dimentional class in the game and everyday guardian veterans and switching over to warriors.

Why are our spirit weapons STILL broken to this day? Why are half our signets worthless?

Are you saying spirit weapons and condi dmg are in a good spot?

…. are the account bound armor skin unlocks and WvW Xp so now my warrior can look as epic as my guard, sport the same legendaries and have the same masteries

So fear not guardians, we can have something to fall back on till Anet gets a clue and does the necessary changes cough spirit weapons and condi builds cough

CptAurellian.9537:

I think that build is really in a good spot (or what was the right phrase by our beloved devs?).

Yep, indeed it was my good sir.

Here is something to consider. Guardian + 2 zerker amulets = Warrior

Discuss

Crapgame.6519:

Hunter.4783:

Boring as it may be, guardian in the top PVE dog right not, tied with the warrior depending on party comp. Guardians + warriors wreck anything PVE content, so don’t get ur panties wet just yet.

PvE is a joke. We’ve already addressed that.

If you think guardian is kitten , you are either trying to solo roam WvW or need to get a clue about the game.

Play the way you want, right? This isn’t about a guardian being Dora the explorer and finding clues. It is about a class that doesn’t get the proper developer attention (see December 10th 2013 thread for example) while other classes have. Thus the Guardian in the state it is.

Remember there are three triads of play. PvE, WvW, and s/tPvP. Ironically WvW + s/tPvP = 2 which is greater than PvE / 1. Yet we can’t seem to find any sort of balance in the game. And we have already seen retaliation get adjusted since launch or changed the way it works across the triad i don’t think this new grandmaster trait will do much…

A net balances this game around the ability to solo the personal storyline. Anything else is a bonus. Which explains the sad state some classes are.

PVE may be insignificant to you but its matters quite a bit, and its the largest component of this game.
WvW is seen as group play, where guardians comprise the core of every zerg. If your gonna solo in wvw, you are taking a chance, and the game mode itself is not balanced around that aspect.
PvP I will agree with you, guardians are sad and boring.

Boring as it may be, guardian in the top PVE dog right not, tied with the warrior depending on party comp. Guardians + warriors wreck anything PVE content, so don’t get ur panties wet just yet.

Its boring that we have been using the same build for the last year, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon, but we are NOT weak.

If you think guardian is kitten , you are either trying to solo roam WvW or need to get a clue about the game.

Anything but this piece of kitten trait (Force of will)

Wow…I STILL can’t digest them giving us a glorified passive trait for a GRANDMASTER trait

Rangersix.1754:

Cross posting from another similar thread, but I’m curious for other people’s thoughts on this. Follow my thought process for a second. Let’s compare the new talent (+33% burning damage) to kindled zeal (13% of your power to condition damage).

The base damage of burning is 328/sec and scales with condition damage for .25 per point of condition damage. The new trait adds 33% burning damage, resulting in 436 damage/sec (at +0 condition damage). This results in a difference of roughly 108 damage.

In order to add 108 damage to burning, you need to have 432 condition damage. That translates into 3330 power for the Kindled zeal talent. Why on earth would anyone going for condition damage ever choose Kindled zeal over the new talent? Even for power Guardians, who usually invest into Radiance, Kindled zeal is clearly the worse of the two (at +250 condition damage from 25 points into radiance, you would need 5253 power before kindled zeal is equal to the damage added from the +33% damage trait) . How does simply adding more damage to burning all of a sudden make it viable when it didn’t before?

What was Anet’s thought process behind this new ability? It seems to overshadow kindled zeal while providing the exact same end result, to boost burning damage. The only way Kindled Zeal still can pull ahead is when you go for a power build that ignores radiance (the tree that’s all about boosting burning damage) and manages to get 25 might stacks, a warrior banner and various consumables (and avoids any and all boosts to condition damage in any shape or form).

Good catch.

This is exactly why I say that they have no idea when to comes to guardians. All the traits besides the valor one are downright WORTHLESS.

And then you have the valor one which is completely misplaced in the wrong trait line. No one in their right mind will put 30 points in a selfish line so they can suddenly become party viable

xFireize.6318:

Hunter.4783:

Cogbyrn.7283:

xFireize.6318:

I asked you this on your other thread; how many VIT do you think the trait should have so it can be categorized as grandmaster trait?

I’m waiting with bated breath for the inevitable bombastic number

You are missing the point. No amount of vit justifies such a lame kitten grandmaster trait. Not to mention that PoV will always be better.

I don’t think he is missing the point. Neither was I, hence I asked that question. You just don’t appreciate VIT so no matter the amount of VIT the trait gives will never satisfy you. With that answer, I can confirm that you are just expecting something better than PoV so you can replace it.

I am expecting something just as good as PoV, so I can have a choice for my GM trait. What trait that is? Well, its not exactly my job to by creative, the people who are supposed to, dropped the ball on that one.

In any case, check out the other “awesome” GM traits they added. I bet you think the zeal and radiance one is equally as good.

Cogbyrn.7283:

xFireize.6318:

I asked you this on your other thread; how many VIT do you think the trait should have so it can be categorized as grandmaster trait?

I’m waiting with bated breath for the inevitable bombastic number

You are missing the point. No amount of vit justifies such a lame kitten grandmaster trait. Not to mention that PoV will always be better.

xFireize.6318:

Dafuk.. You created two threads with the same crap. It seems the OP is a PvE player who doesn’t appreciate VIT. You should try frontlining, OP. Swimming in an enemy zerg is fun.

Anyway, I don’t think a VIT boost trait belongs to Zeal nor Radiance. Honor seems the correct line IMO. I know that the DPS guardian needs a boost on defensive aspect; but putting a vit boost to offensive trait line is not a solution.

You don’t boost a class defence with raw passive HP GRANDMASTER traits. After a certain point the HP pool becomes meaningless, and ye, that’s the case even in wvw. Guard buff + 1/2 PTV gear = more HP than you need.

And its funny because a the standard wvw zerg guard is shout based, and guess which trait you have to take for the grandmaster honor line? (hint: its PoV)

Honor is PLAGUED by GOOD traits,

- Shout reduction
- 2H mastery
- EM
- Symbol size increase
- Symbol heal
- Symbol duration increase
- PoV
- Battle presence (debatable)
ANY of these traits is better than the 3k one, and most would nicely fit into any kind of build, whether meditations or heck, even spirit weapons.

xFireize.6318:

I admit I’d still prefer PoV on my shout build, but 300 vitality is not nothing, especially for guardian. To me, this opens opportunities to reduce VIT on armor, and choose better DPS. ~/~/30/30/~ med guards will probably appreciate it.

Don’t be dumb. 300 VIT is too strong for an adept.

I’m not saying the trait is super exciting; but it’s still something. I’m just sick seeing a lot of guardians exaggerate and whine about how 300 VIT is nothing. I personally love Applied Fortitude. Do you even frontline brah?

PVE, guards survive with 10k health

You are failing to realize that this trait is competing with Pure of Voice and battle presence, the former being one of the best traits we have. No one in their right mind would take this new trait over the 2 old ones.

hydeaut.1758:

Low health is one of the weakest spots of Guards in wvw and it certainly is usefull in spvp.

And compare that with Ranger and Engi which are only usefull while taking special weapons/utilities which are widly considered weak (and still will be), much more situational and bound to cooldowns.

So on the one side we so far have seen traits which are universally usefull on good/rather good classes and a waste on the weak ones.

In my opinion it seems like our famous devs almost look for further unbalance.

I would say the devs have no idea what they are doing with the guardians. You don’t try to balance the health discrepancy with a GM trait. The GM trait should be the peak of a trait line and reason why u spend 30 points in there to begin with, not some boring 3k health passive. I can’t believe they are going through with this.

its the same thing as saying: here you go guys, passive GM trait cuz we have no idea what to do with honor.

I like it how they say they are trying to make I easier for new players to understand traits when in fact the current system is already so easy to understand in the first place.

Its needless change IMO

Good to see no one at A net plays a guardian still.

Do you really think people will choose 3k health over goodies such as Pure of voice and Battle presence? 3k health means NOTHING in PVP as well as fractals where u get 2-3 shot regardless of health.

Honor has some of the best traits in the game and the new trait falls short to even some of the adept traits in honor, not to mention grandmaster. Please, change this trait, or make it adept and throw it somewhere in valor or even virtues, but as of right now it does NOT deserve to be grandmaster

Sorry to sound mean but;

Do you really think people will choose 3k health over goodies such as Pure of voice and Battle presence? 3k health means NOTHING in PVP as well as fractals where u get 2-3 shot regardless of health.

Honor has some of the best traits in the game and the new trait falls short to even some of the adept traits in honor, not to mention grandmaster. Please, change this trait, or make it adept and throw it somewhere in valor or even virtues, but as of right now it does NOT deserve to be grandmaster

Now lets move down to the next traits announced yesterday and why they are such a pathetic attempt at balance.

1) Guardians will NEVER have a viable condi build, they have to sacrifice too many stats to make it viable. (low health pool)
2) Guards have no cover for burning. Having to rely on sigils of earth and doom in hopes to make burning tick twice is the most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard
3) See 1

Again, amazing armor designs Anet, keep up the good work!

I cannot express how awesome looking this armor set is!

Thank you Anet for this wonderful gem!

As for the people who don’t like it, simply don’t purchase it. And if you are offended by pixelated stuff, im sorry but you need to take a hard look at life, and get out more.

Torch 4 = Good burst. The extra condi removal will tie in nicely to a DPS med guard

CptAurellian.9537:

xFireize.6318:

Someone posted this ~5 hours ago and got deleted.

There were at least two threads here, as well as a bunch on the other class forums.

For the changes … well, nothing I’d care about. Torch stays useless unless they massively increase #5’s DPS, Zeal is not worth going into for more than II and VII and EM might become a funny gimmick, but nothing else. 5 seconds duration and 240 radius aren’t worth 20 points in Honor, unfortunately.

Not everybody runs meta builds all the time. AH builds for WvW (you know, that place your kind frowns upon) will see a considerable buff from EM.

AH dungeon builds will also become more competitive. Toss in boon duration and EM and you have perma 25 might stacks

I don’t understand why people have a problem with the armor being “revealing” on a fantasy game. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it, its that simple.

If you are offended by it…too kittening bad, you need to go out more.

I am appalled by some of the people here who want to flat out REMOVE the armor because they don’t like it or “gasp” offended by it. Seriously people? If you don’t like this amazing armor set, simply don’t buy it but wanted to remove it or change it because YOU don’t like it, is completely UNACCEPTABLE.

Again, I personally think the armor set is AMAZING. If anyone doesn’t like it, then simply don’t buy it but DO NOT dare ask to change or remove it.

The blue color adds extra flavor to the whole thing. Some people want to see their character default skin, and I understand that, but the uniqueness of this set is that it changes your default appearance.

This is one of the BEST looking armor sets to date in the history of GW2. More so because it radically changes the way your character looks, skin, face and everything.

I have yet to see a fantasy MMO pull off something like this. It is truly an amazing set.

Thanks again A net. Keep up the good work!

I would like take a moment to say the Zodiak skins look AMAZING. It is everything I would ever want from an epic armor set.

Keep up the good work Anet

Because dodging every 4 sec out of perfectly telegraphed boss attacks is harder?

Boon duration and staff have its place, namely in WvW. I take it you don’t like WvW, most players do.

Support guardian (with boon duration and staff) is also extremely important in GvG, which surprise enough, is not about PvD

CptAurellian.9537:

10 s * 1.35 [20 % + 15 % boon duration] = 13.5 s

Don’t see anything wrong there. The skill as well as the weapon are virtually useless anyway.

There is more to this game than speed running arah all day. Just like there are other guardian specs and builds which use boon duration

Empower is good and boon duration makes it better.

You can work around a boon duration build with zerker/soldier hybrid gear and GS or hammer and staff.

So, after playing around with this setup for a bit, I could say that a full glass cannon trait with zerker and zealots gear is suboptimal as of now.

My tests were done on the champ giant in cursed shores, north of meddler’s waypoint.

The thing is that, without toughness, healing power gets sort of weak and you either need to fully spec healway with boon duration and energy sigils, or you go home

What I had success with however, was 10/0/30/20/10 and 20/0/30/20/0. Meditation + GS healing + dodge healing with this setup is quite ridiculous. I added 1 cleric ring while retaining zerker accessories. Lets just say the giant was a piece of cake. Ofc you can argue that this is a “selfish” spec and in fact it is. As a matter of fact, runes of speed synergise so well with this spec which makes it shine particularly in solo/roaming mode

Mikau.6920:

Brutaly.6257:

Hunter.4783:

Already have a full set and weapon equipped. Now the REAL problem is the lack of similar stat accessories. Basically to capitalize on healing power, you either need celestial or a combination of cleric accessories.

Combine clerics and berserker trinkets. You can get almost the exact same effective healthpool and power. I crafted My exotic just now and will take them for a spin later this evening.

There are trinkets with these stats. Just search for “Sprocket” on TP.

Only exotics though, which is a bummer

Already have a full set and weapon equipped. Now the REAL problem is the lack of similar stat accessories. Basically to capitalize on healing power, you either need celestial or a combination of cleric accessories.

Its basically an offensive support guardian. You know those guardians wishing to do support in full clear? Well now they can actually contribute to doing DPS as well.

I think this prefix will end up being one of the more useful ones. We just need power, pre healing power accessories

Thing is, you don’t even need to go 30 in virtues, you can do 10/30/0/30/0 or even 0/25/0/30/15 (wvw specific)

or 0/30/0/30/10 for pugging dungeons…ahh the possibilities

Oh yah, healing power also scales somewhat with zealous blade. So maybe 20/x/x/30/x

And you don’t even need PoV, so 20 in honor would suffice for whatever trait

No one gives a kitten about this new prefix? really? I think its huge for WvW and GvG

Think this prefix will finally force people away from AH

Healway 2.0 for wvw, gogo

Also, best for people who wan to play a Paladin type Guardian

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Sounds like I missed a fun conversation.

The obvious answer is to stop pugging Fractals, I did that at around level 15 when it got obvious that pugs weren’t gonna be able to do any of it without wiping constantly.

My pugs only wipe once on the ascalon fractal when mobs agro half the map. Rest is pretty smooth. Then again, not everyone rolls with glass cannon

laharl.8435:

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

I. I also never stated that I ran as a full DPS guardian, that was simply plucked out of thin air.

aaaaaaaaah, there we go. Finally, wasn’t so hard to admit it. Thing is friend, when people on these boards refer to a full zerker guardian, its also implied they run the 20/25/0/0/25 build. Because according to these boards, this is the meta. Full zerker and this build are one and the same for most people because simply there is no point in running 20/25/0/0/25 without full zerk.

Therefore you do NOT run GC on 49 pugs. Thanks for the clarification.

FYI I am not hostile to zerk guardians, my gear is 80% zerk. I am however hostile to people like spoj and co who think there is either full zerk glass cannon, or full cleric healway and are unwilling to even bother discussing anything else in between these extremes. Hence why I call em zerk drones.

Actually, you’re coming off fairly hostile, you are the one name calling after all.

You seem to have no idea what is going on with runs outside you’re own. Guess what, people really are running full zerk in 49 pugs successfully. Organized teams like what J Eberle runs in, are running full glass cannon team, not only successfully, but twice as fast as many pugs finish in. Just because you’ve never seen runs like these, doesn’t mean they don’t happen.

Hence the catch 22 I was talking about.

Im feeling heavy nerfs to energy, doom, battle (again) and fire/air

J Eberle.9312:

I. I also never stated that I ran as a full DPS guardian, that was simply plucked out of thin air.

aaaaaaaaah, there we go. Finally, wasn’t so hard to admit it. Thing is friend, when people on these boards refer to a full zerker guardian, its also implied they run the 20/25/0/0/25 build. Because according to these boards, this is the meta. Full zerker and this build are one and the same for most people because simply there is no point in running 20/25/0/0/25 without full zerk.

Therefore you do NOT run GC on 49 pugs. Thanks for the clarification.

FYI I am not hostile to zerk guardians, my gear is 80% zerk. I am however hostile to people like spoj and co who think there is either full zerk glass cannon, or full cleric healway and are unwilling to even bother discussing anything else in between these extremes. Hence why I call em zerk drones.

J Eberle.9312:

It’s easy to advocate zerker gear because it actually works. Everyday I tour each dungeon from AC to arah in full zerk. Pretty sure it’s working outside of solo videos.

Exactly. I hear dungeon content is hard. As I said, this type of content shouldn’t even register.

I do 49’s often

And I pug it everyday. And I can tell you again full zerk in fractal 49 is not OPTIMAL. It is doable for sure, but simply not optimal or efficient. The whole notion of 11k health on a guard is stupid but again, this brings back the catch 22 I mentioned a while back.

Its the best for beating hard stuff like AC though

J Eberle.9312:

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

Hunter.4783:

im calling you all zerker drones because you are unwilling to look for other options which might open after this patch, zerker is best for running CoF p1 or for bragging about lupi solo kills.

Not so optimal when u do dredge fractal 49.

PS: I love your comeback about cleric gear. Shows your ignorance. There is more than just full zerker and cleric to this game

Uhm. You can do all dungeons in zerker gear, including dredge 49 just fine. Your argument = invalid.

#EveryoneIsIgnorantButMe

#RampagerNewMeta2014

Until u have that full zerker guardian try to stand on the switch

And your argument can be used bothways.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

Notice the catch 22 that everyone seems to be using these days?

(im not saying its right or wrong, im saying It doesn’t leave much room for discussion)

1. ) usually the guardian kites the mobs around.

2.) If they do stand on the switch they just chain exploits reflects.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

^
Never said this

Ah yes, kiting, until you realize half the mob has gone back and 2 shot the guys standing on switches.

And then you have the bomb run…

Its easy to advocate full zerk for cakewalk content until you realize that shouldn’t even register in everyone’s radars. All its there is for people to post videos soloing extremely telegraphed bosses and brag about it.

Once you get to content that actually MATTERS, you understand full zerk groups is not that ideal and you wanna have a few valk or PTV pieces in there. 11k health in fractal 49 is NOT optimal.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

run a bad spec just for one event in one fractal

ok

Ohhh? Do my eyes deceive me? So someone does run 49 fractals.

Till now I was getting only CoF heroes

J Eberle.9312:

Hunter.4783:

im calling you all zerker drones because you are unwilling to look for other options which might open after this patch, zerker is best for running CoF p1 or for bragging about lupi solo kills.

Not so optimal when u do dredge fractal 49.

PS: I love your comeback about cleric gear. Shows your ignorance. There is more than just full zerker and cleric to this game

Uhm. You can do all dungeons in zerker gear, including dredge 49 just fine. Your argument = invalid.

#EveryoneIsIgnorantButMe

#RampagerNewMeta2014

Until u have that full zerker guardian try to stand on the switch

And your argument can be used bothways.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

Notice the catch 22 that everyone seems to be using these days?

(im not saying its right or wrong, im saying It doesn’t leave much room for discussion)

guanlongwucaii.3162:

dredge fractal 49 is harder than soloing lupicus on a guardian, got it.

Countering extremely telegraphed boss attacks coming in the interval of 4sec is quite challenging. you are right

im calling you all zerker drones because you are unwilling to look for other options which might open after this patch, zerker is best for running CoF p1 or for bragging about lupi solo kills.

Not so optimal when u do dredge fractal 49.

PS: I love your comeback about cleric gear. Shows your ignorance. There is more than just full zerker and cleric to this game