Guild Wars 2

Elementals can’t, if you take a melee setup and are in combat, your stuck with melee range combat for the duration.

In a way no, and in a way yes.

No, because it’s nice that people can be either if they want.
Yes, because it’s just silly some classes (not all) can go from ranged to melee style combat at the click of a button – while in combat.

Well it would have been nice to see your actual Guardian.

This to me is what a Guardian should look like, just look at that fighting face! .

I think it just shows that most likely this was infact the intended change regardless of what the patch notes stated, as you state it’s very uncomforable that they would basically ruin a number of builds like this and not even give us the time of day for a reason as to why (in any of the threads).

I just can’t see how they would they make such a change to a weapon to affect retaliaiton and instead make GS symbol builds next to useless with it (and render a trait line that deals with symbols and the GS not worth taking together).

Considering the patch notes stated that it was for retaliation and what infact it actully affected (symbol builds/spirit weapon builds using the GS), and that it hardly touched (if at all) retaliation (and Anets silence on the matter), it seems to show that they must have intended this to be the target all along and that is why they won’r respond to any complaints on it (be they well put or just strait up flames).

If this is the case if find it not only shocking for the silence, but shocking that they would make such a change and then post notes that don’t match the change at all (not even close IMO).
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I’m not saying i don’t like the game or Anet (i do), but i certainly have lost a lot of faith in Anet in how they have dealt with this matter.

Remember people, if your going to do a big post about the Symbol changes, please be sure to copy and paste it in the thread in my sig dedicated to the Symbol change and what it did.

196 hours total so far with 114 on my Guardian alone (110 hours to level to 80 – i take my time to explore), so yes the cost to time ration has been worth it (and i haven’t even been to a few zones or done a dungeon yet).

I think there has been, along with a buff to the drop rate of the chests. I saw 1 or 2 keys in week 1, since then 0. Yet now chests are dropping more than yellows for me (and about as regular as green).

@nastyjma – erm we’ve been trying to get a reponse since the 7th.

I’m not saying he/she can’t enjoy the weekend – it’s just kinda of annoying when you see valid complaints go unanswered for days and days.

@ Alex Kelley.2748: It also irks me when they can post here and not in huge threads of complaints in regards to patch changes that affected things the patch made no mention of.

Game director, take a look in the Guardian section with regards to Symbols, it would be nice to have a response to the 9 page thread complaining about the patch changes or the one in my sig.

It’s the same with random objects, far to often i see things close to me appear and disappear.

Not sure what needs to be done, but it would be nice to have characters and terrain not just popup right infront of you (or just vanish).

Here’s mine, good luck to all.

Retaliation sure isn’t worthless, but it certainly isn’t ridiculous either as some others suggest.

The issue i recon a lot have is the lack of strategic play, it’s a case of “ohh look i hit that retaliation guardian 50 times and he did 10k damage on me – NERF!!!” instead of “ohh look that guardian has retaliation, i better noit just spam 50 attacks on him, i better use some stategy”.

A simple suggestion would be to keep the skills as they are now, but simply add a “this also blocks the next attack on you on activation” So using either skill not onl;y does what it does now, but it also does a block (not an Aegis – just a plain old block).

I actully can’t see the issue myself, the few threads/posts i’ve read when people say it’s OP have posted screenshots of it doing around 10k damage in around 45/50 hits (on average around 225/250 damage returned per hit).

Honestly i can’t for the life of me figure out how hitting someone 50 times and getting returned 10k damage is somehow OP – i’d say it’s actully UP if you decide to go on a full ret build considering what you have to sacrifice (and i actully think a trait should be high in a tree to increase damage from it).

This is even worse when you consider how much damage some other classes can do in 1 attack on certain builds (but they’re “balanced”).

Am i the only 1 who doesn’t want to know a thing about it?, to me the best bit is the surprise of everything and seeing it ingame for the 1st time – without knowing anything about it at all.

Heck i still think the dragon event in one of the zones (won’t state which) was awesome, i made sure not to read anything on when/where they show up, so when it appeared it was a total OMG! moment.
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So please, Anet don’t put anything about it on the easy to see places (launcher etc) so i can be surprised and not know what will happen before i even get to it.

I hope this will be an actual feature, but alas we are Guardians so it will be patched out very soon.

Shame really, as it would make the RF elite awesome as i keep not getting my inv and renewed Vitrues when i accidently move in combat (gotten to the point of i’ll actully lift my hands from the keyboard/mouse on casting it )..

@MajorShock: I think that’s my biggest issue with this whole situation, Anets lack of recompense (response).
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On the very same update Anet did a 40ms change to the Rangers bow, in that day a thread started wondering if it was working as intended and it got a response that same day on page 1 from Anet, 2 days later after some internal testing by Anet they confirmed it was.
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Now look at us. The same patch notes states our GS change was for retaliation, and yet it bascially broke (pretty much) the entire Zeal trait line for the GS (despite being for Symbols and partially for the GS) and any build that uses the GS and Symbol traits. 9 pages of complaints on 1 thread with 18k views/multiple other threads across various other sections (more on this one, the suggestion section, the bug section and even guild wars 2 discussion) and yet not 1 single response from Anet about what happened or why it was done like this.

No response on if this was infact the intended change (to basically make the GS not Symbol viable) and that they perhaps are intending to change the Zeal traits for GS, just a mistake and something they hadn’t noticed or just a bit of a joke – nothing.
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I’m not happy about this at all. I love the Guardian with a GS and i love it in the Spirit weapon build and Symbol builds and yet, the more i try and adjust to the nerf the more i grow bored of the weapon and it’s frankly ludacrus shortcomings in these regards now.

snaplemouton.1294:

The symbol AoE damage is crap…
They actually buffed the GS by reducing the CD on our leap to 15 seconds.

No it wasn’t, on it’s own it did resonable damage – however you have a whole set of Symbol traits to make it do much more. Hence the issue people are complaining about (the fact that Symbol builds got ruined on the GS).

I have no idea how anyone can say this is a buff (unless they’re having a laugh), it’s not even a slight nerf – it’s a major one.

Yes, i hated this in Rift (it had loads aswell as mounts). At least the cost stops me using them as much in GW2 though.

Love it, gimme the 1st post and the 2nd post together and all is well.

Snap to it Anet .

I’d actully say the nearest waypoint should always be free regardless of distance. I’d also like to make it just by distance and not distance and level (but hey, the 1st one would be nice).

Sometimes it feels kinda sluggish, yeah – not everytime though for some weird reason. But the bigger annoyance for me is, if you so much as much a millimeter (hard to do in furious combat) you don’t get any of the invulnerability or any of the virtues reset – yet you get the FULL 90 second cooldown.

They perhaps should mame it root you to the spot (or better yet, cast on the move ).

Not worth it for me (yet), i have my tier 3 Asura Greatsword exoticed up with the stats i want.

Asura looking sword? – check, Glowing effects? – check, Lightning on the weapon? – check, me happy? – that’s a big CHECK!.

Sure i’ll go for one at some point, but my weapon looks COOL now .

Xericor.9103:

Cant you preview items from the PVP locker?
Thats how I have been doing it and it has worked so far for me. I just match the colour and symbols.
Besides you can preview the gem shop stuff. Pretty sure I did.

Some items it’s pretty hard to do that as they have the basic icon despite not having the basic look (this mostly has to do with weapons, mostly).

@ Kruunch & Phoebe Ascension: I’d be happy with no extra boon at all just to have it back how it was .

I’m not joking.

Agreed, sure there is no dedicated healer etc, but you are given the choice to spec certain ways that help the group more than kill the targe/targets yourself. The trouble is (as you state), unless you deal the damage required to the target/targets you don’t get the full reward from the events.

What really needs to be done, is for it to see how much healing/boon supplying/condition removing you apply to other players within the event area and add this to your damage amount.

It just seems strange to be given the option to spec with full +healing (for example) at the expence of raw damage, and then be penalised for it in an event with regards to reward.

I only even use them to compliment the opposite side of my range. If i go dagger/dagger i may equip the Frost Bow incase someone gets out of range, and if i go Staff or Scepter i may equip the Lightning hammer (my favoutire hands down – i’d pay cash for the skin on any hammer) incase i have a melee range situation.

Agreed, i do like taking them on, but as you state – it’s a lot more profitable to just ignore them and go for an easy group for much more reward.

They should either drop your token idea, or at least drop better/more stuff.

You gotta love it though, Anet gives the Guardian a trait line for DPS that deals with Symbols and has traits to boost the Greatsword DPS, they then nerf the GS Symbol to make it next to useless with that trait line – and then when we complain, some people say “if you want to go full GS dps, go and play a warrior”.

Hmm, perhaps in that case they should remove all the traits for the GS and remove the GS from the Guardian.

“The 2 points being debated are “omg i cant cope with 3 buttons being changed” or the loss of dps.”
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That is not the only 2 points being debated at all.

I’d pay cash money to transmute my Guardian Focus into a Shield (seriously), but i’m honesly not sure about this overall (in saying that, the gem medium armor would look great on my elemental ).

Can all people who don’t like this change with regards to the Symbol cooldown and what it affected postpost in the below thread instead.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Greatsword-Symbol-Retaliation-Change-7-10-12

Please leave the talk about order change out of it, we need to get the actual issue of the symbol change looked at.

This post was orgianally made by Exemplar.1479.

I hope this is OK with you to post this matey, i thought your post explained the issue best and that it would make the best start of the thread.

Changes made to Greatsword by the Patch on Oct 7th 2012.

The stated goal of the Greatsword nerf was essentially to nerf Retaliation builds. So, in order to nerf Retaliation builds the following changes were made to the Greatsword:

GS #2 Whirling Wrath: No change, still a 10sec Cooldown
GS #3 Leap of Faith: Cooldown down to 15secs from 20secs
GS #4 Symbol of Wrath: Doubled Cooldown from 10secs to 20secs

Whilst a lot of Guardians am mildly miffed at the rearrangement of the skill order following these changes (as weapon skills are organized in order of Cooldown on your hotbar), that is NOT the complaint.

THE PROBLEM IS HERE.

The nerf to Symbol of Wrath on the Greatsword did NOT nerf Retaliation builds as intended. The nerf to Symbol of Wrath on the Greatsword did nerf SEVERAL OTHER builds that utilized that symbol.

Breakdown of Negative Effects.

Symbol of Wrath was previously on a 10 second cooldown, exactly the same as Whirling Wrath. This allowed a Greatsword Guardian to branch into several builds and varying combat options.

If you wanted to deal a hefty amount of AoE damage, then the Greatsword was your go-to weapon. Between the Symbol of Wrath and Whirling Wrath the Greatsword let the Guardian be an AoE damage-dealing machine. This simply isn’t possible like it was before, as a Guardian simply cannot get the same damage output in the same time-frame thanks to the increased cooldown.

This isn’t only about the loss of damage though. The Greatsword also provided BUILD DIVERSITY/VERSATILITY by having a symbol in it’s weapon skillset and some synergy in the Zeal trait line. Unfortunately, all symbol-based trait builds that utilized the Greatsword took a huge and UNNECESSARY hit this patch:

1. If you wanted to use the Symbol of Wrath as a large AoE (by traiting for increased radius) in conjuction with other Guardian AoE’s (such as Purging Flames) for great AoE damage, you could do that.

2. If you wanted to use the Symbol of Wrath to heal yourself/allies (by traiting for symbol healing) and thus provide AoE support, you could do that.

3. If you wanted to use the Symbol of Wrath primarily as a damage-dealer and way to
apply Vulnerability, you could do that (by traiting into the Zeal line).

4. If you wanted to use the Symbol of Wrath to chain with other weapon Symbols you could do so readily, as the Greatsword symbol had a cooldown that would typically be ready to go on weapon-swap if you cycled between a Mace or a Staff as your other symbol weapon.

5. Basically, the Greatsword previously had a reliable AoE symbol that would be up every fight, would help with your damage output, could catch many enemies in it (if you traited for increased symbol radius), could heal yourself and allies (if you traited for symbol healing), could apply Vulnerability to foes (if you traited for that via the Zeal line), could do increased damage (again, if you traited high enough into the Zeal line), and could be chained or used in tandem with other symbols very readily.

Yeah, the Greatsword can still do those things…but now it’s every 20 seconds. In the meantime, you’re practically stuck spinning with Whirling Wrath, using Leap of Faith 5 seconds sooner than you previously would, and then auto-attacking the rest of the time while you wait for the now abhorrent cooldowns of the Greatsword’s main damage-dealing skills.

Closing/Summary.

The Greatsword gave build variety and versatility. With this unnecessary nerf the Greatsword has become only a tool for finishers, and the symbol synergy it did have has been so severely hit that it’s simply not worth using the Greatsword in any symbol/AoE builds anymore. Yeah, it CAN still be done…but it’s nowhere near as fun or as effective as it used to be, and there is no reason for it to be the way it is now (especially since the nerf was supposed to be to perma-Retaliation builds!).

If Retaliation builds REALLY were the intended target, then work on Retaliation.

There is NO reason for the Symbol of Wrath cooldown to be THAT high. The nerf to the Greatsword has put a huge dent in the build variety and versatility it had previously, as well as hitting the damage and AoE ability of the weapon by more than any reasonable amount. On top of that, many symbol-boosting traits simply do NOT benefit the Greatsword like they used to, and this is a huge problem considering the Greatsword has a symbol in it’s skillset, and that the main trait line that boosts offensive symbol usage (Zeal) is tied to/provides traits to encourage Greatsword usage!

If the Symbol giving Retaliation is the problem, then simply make it give Fury or Might instead!, I cannot believe that ArenaNet went through with this change without considering any of the ramifications it would have on other builds involving the Greatsword.

Mods, please don’t merge this with the other Greatsword thread, this thread is to clearly explain the issue we Guardians have with the recent Guardian Greatsword patch. We don’t want this to get lost within all the other posts as the 1st few pages don’t mention anything about this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Greatsword-Change-merged

Thank you.

@Mattius, if you don’t know what the actual issue people are having is, then don’t flame people and call them pathetic for complaining about it.

Read through the thread and see what the actual issue is, yes some people are focused on the order change – but that isn’t the big issue.

I’m not gonna explain it for you, as it’s been explained already in some very good and very clear posts.

Well it’s nice to see Anet at least responded to the rangers on the 40ms issue and how they may look into again if it turns out the weapon isn’t as effective.

Now if only we could get a reponse here on what this change messed up in terms of symbol traits, symbol builds, the Zeal line in general with regards to the GS and symbols and the fact the new setup greatly increases spamming 1 on the GS.

I’m beginning to think they just don’t find what they messed up as an issue, or that it was infact intentional and that somehow the GS/symbol build was considered OP (despite not seeing a single thread/complaint on it being OP).

I’m really not liking this change, even with weapon swapping (which i always do) i seem to spend a load of time on the GS just auto atacking more than anything.

I can’t believe they haven’t even bothered to respond to the compaints about the symbol traits and the GS sytmbol nerf.

So on sept 5th it was a few days for the fix and now it’s over a month later, any news on fixing it Anet?

This is getting really annoying, at any big fight the sound goes (ecactly as the video does on page 1) and then i crash.

@SneakyErvin – i already stated that’s what i do, i use the focus as a shield because it’s a better shield than the shield is.

That’s the problem.

And are people not reading the last part of the post?, it suggests swapping both skills so the focus becomes the shield and the shield becomes the focus, so the only thing to change would be the weapons and not the skills.

I just started getting this, i thought my speakers were about to blow of something.

As the TC states, it only ever happens on big fights and the sound just cuts out and is replaced by humming (sort of a feedback sound, like if you put a guitar to its amp).

I don’t even play a norn and welll, YES!.

@ Iron Wolf, i think Anet reset all heads on Asuras to the mid position (default on the slider) and then removed the slider. This means anyone who did a custom size head when they made their character just got it changed.

You probably don’t notice as you may have already used the default position. Same with, i didn’t notice anything as i went with the standard position on the slider.
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I really hope they revert this for people, in an MMO you really shouldn’t be changing how peoples characters look, that’s up to the player to do.

Yeah but when you make a decent constructive suggestion on the current GS setup, it gets moved into the mass of complaints on the GS setup by the mods.

There have been loads of good constructive threads/posts on the issues the latest update caused, with loads of good suggestions on how to fix it – and yet they’re getting “merged” with the mass complaints and lost.

I like the Jotun GS myself, it’s easy to get (a very easy heart quest) and is very cheap (only 252 karma).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jotun_Greatsword

It looks good and has a glow on it (which is always nice).

Malediktus.9250:

The symbol nerf hit me hard, since I am using lots of traits for symbols (large radius, more damage, heal allies,..)

I myself had gone for a Greatsword/Spirit weapon build, as the main Spirit weapon traits are in Zeal it hit my Greatsword hard (2 Symbol traits halfed in usage).

I really hope they just didn’t notice what changing the symbol cooldown would affect – but i don’t have high hopes..

All the guardians who are annoyed about the GS/Symbol builds and in general what this nerf did, please post in this thread to keep it at the top. Please keep the posts in it on topic and don’t just go on about the skill order – that is an issue yes, but it’s minor compaired to what it actully affected.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Suggestion-Please-fix-Guardian-GreatSword-Traits-GS-Symbol

We really need to get Anet to notice what they messed up when going after retaliaiton on the GS.

To all the people posting about the skill bar haters, understand a lot of the issues have nothing to do with the skill bar change.

Hint.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Suggestion-Please-fix-guardian-Zeal-trait-line/first#post381980

This is the issue.

@ Pheonix, have you actully read the thread and what this change actully affected?, it is far from a minor change.

I really think a lot of people simply don’t understand the big issue with this- it broke a lot of traits for the GS and ruined the trait line that deals with the GS and Symbols for this weapon – it completly killed a Symbol/GS build.

It is not a minor change – IT’S MAJOR, and they really need to answer us on this issue.

~Dnias, read the various posts around, they broke a lot with the change.

I’ll break it down for you, the Zeal trait line deals with Symbols and has a number of GS traits – as such it’s a trait line for the GS and Symbols. Now the GS has a symbol that has a 20 second cooldown which makes all these symbol traits worthless as nothing was done to make up for the extra 10 seconds cooldowm.

Add to this that there are other traits for Symbols, so if you had gone for a full GS symbol build it is now useless.
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Considering the patch only talks about retaliation etc and what actully got affected, it is indeed broken now. No one is complaining about the retaliation part of the GS nerf, we are complaining about things like the symbol traits etc.

So please, don’t try and state nothing is broken, when infact a lot is broken.