Guild Wars 2

Virtue changes are nice, they needed more impact as they arent instant 600 range effects anymore. I hope Shield of Courage works properly this time as well as Spear of Justice with traits like Wrath of Justice.

Longbow: Still needed that auto attack speed increase…
Also Deflecting Shot and Symbol of Energy still can’t be fired behind us?
Hunter’s Ward was bugging out and not doing any damage over the duration was this fixed? Still needs more damage on duration and less on end if its interuppted imo.

Traps: no opinions

Traits:
“Piercing Light: Added a 20% recharge reduction to Traps. "
Still keeping the bleeding on traps. Oh well, good addition atleast.

“Soaring Devastation: Increased the duration of the immobilize from 1.5s to 3s.”
Semi-random buff. I thought the immob duration was fine from last beta.

“Hunter’s Determination: Increased the duration of stability gained from 4s to 6s.”
No real opinion, I thought it was fine.

“Dulled Senses: Added that when you apply cripple you also apply 3 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds.”
Makes the trait better but doesn’t address overall issue with requiring Heavy Light

“Heavy Light: Increased the internal cooldown from 7 seconds to 10 seconds. Increased the knockback distance from 120 to 240.”
Fair changes.

Still no longbow cdr trait.

I highly doubt they are reworking any mechanics at a fundamental level. You need to come to terms with the fact the Dragonhunter will be a longbow trap elite spec. Thinking they will scrap all the work they put into making the traps because people may not use them is probably not the case. (case in point see: shield)

The delay is probably either because they are still making changes to dragonhunter and tempest or they simply did not get all the information together on friday and left for the weekend.

Shield needs to be reworked but from a class standpoint I don’t read too much into equivalence arguments. Revenant, until now, had no real defensive boons on their skills and ventari spec is literally just heals. Imo they needed a good defensive weapon as even during the beta they just felt like down state food.

I agree with OP, the entire premise of the elder dragons kills any sort of meaningful or deep interaction we can have as it all boils down to “hurr i hungry i kill.” Scarlet was not a character with good motivations and the fact they had to twist or just conjure up lore to make her seem powerful was off putting. She was not relate-able in any sort of way because they just made her accomplish things without showing us how or why until too late.

Decent villians were present in the Guild Wars 1 series. Some people would chalk it up to nostalgia but
1. The lich and his thirst for power was cliche but his manipulation made him a more interesting character especially when we found out how skillfully he used the shining blade, the dwarves, and even brought back rurik to taunt you. The eye of zhaitan only teased this idea and it just fell flat. The Lich could have even been more fleshed out if his desire for titans was fueled by some sort of unreasonable rage at his actions that led to orr’s cataclysm.

2. Shiro was a corrupted bodyguard who feared for his life so he proactively tried to defend himself but got punished. IIRC the fortune teller had predicted events in the future correctly before so he had reason to have some faith in her prophecy that he would be killed by the emperor at the harvest ceremony. His revenge rampage can be thought of as a way to get back at Cantha for “unjustly” punishing him for trying to preserve his life.

3. Abaddon outright wasn’t a bad god, he simply did not want to grant Doric’s request to keep magic free and not bind it to respective bloodstones. As a result of his “insolence” , the gods beat him down and bound him so his body slowly corrupted into the 6 eyed monstrosity it is when you meet him.

4. Even minor villians like:
-Mursaat (trying to preserve their power over Kryta and keep the titans at bay)
-Palawa Joko (needs a more fleshed out back story but is not just mindlessly evil but a man with designs for Elona),
-Mallyx (attempting to harness the power of his former master)
-Dhuum (expelled from his position due to his stance on death)
-Kanaxai/Urgoz (corrupted or conjured from the Jade Wind)

are more interesting than most of the villians in gw2.

I will say that many of the dungeon storyline villians are interesting but they are not brought out into the main stage and interact with the world. Instead they are locked away in their own little worlds which is sad because they have better interactions than any of the dragons.

Faerah.2038:

SoC does block attacks in melee, but only attacks on people with the buff active. Like I said this does not include the guardian that uses SoC…for whatever reason. I had my friend being attacked by a melee enemy while I was casting SoC on him and he was blocking.

Interesting I did not know that as I usually was trying to use it to survive myself.

Updated with changes to Wings of Resolve, Shield of Courage, Hunter’s Ward, and Hunter’s Determination.

Wings of Resolve and Shield of Courage are really clunky. Wings of resolve needs to apply the healing and condi removal when you start the jump and the damage only if you land it. At the moment you can die mid air since you do not get the heal fast enough.

Shield of Courage only blocks ranged attacks and attacks initiated from range like rush or whirlwind attack but not melee attacks or close range channels like drakes breath. It is already awkward to use it should provide either a 360 ranged shield or block melee attacks and channels as well as ranged attacks.

Hoshinohi.1896:

One question: did u ever try the full trap guardian in PVP?

Dragons maw is very strong for attacks on capture points in combination with the other traps the enemy is easely stuned and drawn right in the middle of the traps so he is unable to defend himself against multiple trap damage that also proc burning multiple times if right equipped. best in combination with different signs.

Running full traps is neither good for group play or solo play in pvp. Yes the stun from dragons maw is powerful to combo with traps but you sacrifice all group support and solo survivability to pull off a gimmick every 45-60 seconds. This is far too long to go without any utilities. Furthermore Dragon’s maw can be blocked, evaded, and you can miss it if you are blinded so your main “pull” no longer is effective for another minute.

Misguided.5139:

>Piercing Light: Awful, condi traps are not a thing. Bleed is also the weakest condition applicable and is only used as a cover condition via geomancy. Even in condi guard, you would be sacrificing a 3 stack burn skill or condi removal in order to run this and traps are far less reliable than the other utilities. Needs entire rework. -A

Procession of Blades is a 3-stack burn skill with Supreme Justice, while also doing significant damage and applying up to 10 stacks of bleed. Can’t say I love all of the traps, but this one works for me.

Requiring supreme justice for this to work is just plain bad. Compared to normal condi guard which utility are you ok with sacrificing? Judge’s intervention is 3 stack burn with no real condition and provides a useful shadow step. Contemplation of Purity removes ALL conditions from you which is rather powerful now that condition removal has some rng on it. It is also a stunbreak.

So this leaves taking Procession over Purging Flames. Procession is highly telegraphed, needs Supreme justice to apply 3 stacks of burning (which doesn’t allow you to take absolute resolution), and the enemy player would have to be CCed to eat the full duration. Purging Flames provides instant 3 stacks of burn with no prerequisite except that you land it, can apply even more burning if the target runs through the ring, removes condis on impact, reduces condi duration while inside ring. Sorry but Procession does not stack up against what the current build has at all.

Arnath.2319:

Great feedback! I agree with everything you have written, in particular:

Deflecting Shot is interesting but feels gimmicky.

I like what they were trying to do with this skill but it doesn’t work with GW2 combat, i completely agree with you. We have access to blinds in far better ways already. I would like to see this skill redesigned.

I agree with what you said about Traits too, for me Dragon Hunter traits are the biggest problem with this elite spec currently.
I completely agree with what you said about ‘Heavy Light’, ‘Dulled Senses’ and ’Zealot’s Aggression’, i think they should be combined into one grandmaster trait.

You guys merged all the medi traits into 1 since everyone needed to take them in order to be viable at dps and yet here you are doing the same thing all over again.

Exactly! I remember watching the livestream when DH was announced thinking exactly what you just wrote!

What do you think about the minor traits ’Defender’s Dogma’ and ‘Pure of Sight’?

I think ‘Defen. Dog.’ is in the wrong trait line, feels like it belongs in Valor traitline.
I am not a fan of ‘Pure Sight’ either, even with LongBow guardians are largely going to be in melee, weapon swaping once the enemy is close. Plus isn’t this trait a copy paste from Rangers?

Thanks I’m glad you took the time to read it! Defender’s Dogma is lackluster only because it interacts with one virtues. If some kind of bonus effect was applied to all virtues when you blocked something (small heal from resolve if you block, aegis cooldown gets reduced if you block from courage) it would be better.

I do not have much of an issue with Pure of Sight. The range thing is just kind of catered to longbow which is the point of the spec. If anything I would appreciate if we got a visible buff on our bar to let us know when this trait would be active.

guildabd.6529:

This trait works with wards too. (staff #5, hammer #5, longbow #5 and sanctuary)

I didn’t realize that. If the cripple effect is strong enough then perhaps hammer guard got some of the stickiness it needed. Nonetheless most of the trait line is geared toward longbow and it really feels like they just expected people to take the three traits in Dragonhunter to facilitate the whole cripple damage thing.

I personally would have a tough time taking sanctuary or staff with dragonhunter and then taking this trait as the Dragon hunter virtues are not conducive to a tanky melee playstyle that those weapons/utilities usually support. As for longbow #5, it is harder to land the end effect in PvP and taking the shield duration increase is more reasonable for consistency.

Utilities
1. Purification: Decent Heal but again hopelessly outmatched by shelter. If there was a more useful trap trait like “When traps trigger you gain fury and protection” or something it might see play. I dunno. -C

2. Fragments of Faith: Solid skill. The aegis pieces are very useful in 1v1s. Cooldown is slightly too long. I do not intend to use it either way but maybe it can fit into some builds. -C

3. Test of Faith: After more testing this is still incredibly weak in 1v1 scenarios and mediocre in team fights. Although the damage is nice the ability to proc the damage multiple times is very low. -B

4. Procession of Blades: VERY weak, the damage on it is quite low, it is not a whirl finisher, and its not even good enough if you just wanted it to proc your Justice passive. -B

5. Light’s Judgement: Bad in PvP but I can’t really recommend a change because I can see how this might be good in PvE. 20 Vunerability with multiple guardians might be good. -C

6. Dragon’s Maw: Good elite. Deals good damage and great on downed bodies to make sure teammates do not rez. Would still like some pulsing damage. -D

Traits
1.Piercing Light: Awful, condi traps are not a thing. Bleed is also the weakest condition applicable and is only used as a cover condition via geomancy. Even in condi guard, you would be sacrificing a 3 stack burn skill or condi removal in order to run this and traps are far less reliable than the other utilities. Needs entire rework. -A

2. Zealous Aggression: Damage modifier can be increased as it is conditional on cripple and the cripple on auto is already conditional. Also if the justification is that there are two other traits that facilitate the cripple effect then you realize you are forcing guardians to take a certain set of traits just to make this one work. -B

3. Soaring Devastation: Fine as is. -C

4. Hunter’s Determination: No strong opinion because I never even used it the entire time. The idea behind it is awkward because while almost perma stability is nice, but it is conditional and only really needed during stomps. This does not even really synergize with stomping because longbow is ranged so you would have to walk up, use true shot, and then stomp. In that amount of time it would have been better to just cleave the body out. -C
UPDATE: after some testing this trait is fine might even be too strong.

5. Bulwark: Not bad but underwhelming. -C

6. Dulled Senses: This is the trait that is part of the pigeonhole effect. This needs to be good on its own and it is not. If you are just using longbow it has no inherent knockback so wtf is the point? You guys merged all the medi traits into 1 since everyone needed to take them in order to be viable at dps and yet here you are doing the same thing all over again. This trait relies on Heavy Light and that is not a good thing. For the record the combo with Heavy Light is good but a combo shouldn’t be necessary for this to be a good trait. -A

7.Hunter’s Fortification: Haven’t used it but seems useful in non-longbow dragon hunter builds. Extra access to protection in melee dragon hunters seems pretty good. -C

8. Heavy Light: Good on its own, highly dislike the fact two other traits rely on you taking this. Would prefer slightly increased knockback range, it feels more like a short daze then a knockback currently. -D

9. Big Game Hunter: No strong opinions, seems fine. -C

Overall Feel
Dragonhunter is fun to play. The longbow is strong sustained damage and will probably see play. The utilities all seem weak outside the elite. Some traits need reworking or else they will never be used. Current iteration 7-8/10

I only made one other post about Dragon hunter and that was on the first day so I wanted to make a more consolidated final post as some of my opinions have changed.

Priority system
A = Required change/Full Rework
B = Recommended change
C = Ok even without change/needs bug fix/needs clarification
D = Change based on testing if overpowered

Virtues
1. Spear of Justice: Slightly underwhelming unless traited but I assume it isn’t meant to do much in the first place. Needs to work correctly with wrath of justice and blind needs to be applied on spear if traited with Justice is Blind. – C

2. Wings of Resolve: Good damage when traited. Overall I would like a range increase to 900 range (could be incorporated into a trait). On further use the healing and condi removal from wings of resolve needs to be applied at the start of the leap as currently it is possible to die mid air and get no healing or damage. – B

3. Shield of Courage: Awkwardly worded. It seems to only block ranged attacks or attacks that were initiated out of range like Warrior Rush or Whirlwind attack. Needs to block all ranged attacks in 360 degrees OR properly block melee and ranged attacks as well as close range channels. I was eating drake’s breath all day. Currently this feels like a false sense of protection.- B

Longbow
1. The auto attack speed is too slow and is still strafe-able just like scepter was. – A

2. Deflecting Shot and Symbol of Energy need functionality so we can shoot it from behind, none of the warrior ground targeted skills on longbow are limited by this. – A

3. Deflecting Shot is interesting but feels gimmicky. The idea behind the skill is nice but in practice rarely does anything get deflected due to the mobile nature of guild wars 2 combat. I use it more for the blind but even that feels unrewarding. Needs a bigger deflect radius or something :/ . -B

4. I would like to see if Hunter’s Ward could have more damage over the duration and less backloaded with the end effect. Suggestion: Add a trait that allows us to gain some armor or protection during this long cast. Ranger longbow does not have an incentive to use it for the full duration so many rangers stop after about a second. We, however, want to get the full cast off (since of the effect and long cooldown) but we cannot use the new virtues during it nor do we have any tankiness if used in medi guard. (Rangers have signet of stone, entangle and stealth to help set up) -B

BUG It appears sometimes Hunter’s Ward does not deal the damage over the duration. It only applies the end damage and effect.

Arken.3725:

One last thing to add. Bow will not see any real play in PvP due to the loss of sustain you gain from running X/Focus. There are no defensive capabilities attached to this weapon so you’re essentially a sitting duck.

I disagree, it simply requires a new playstyle with longbow as main dps and secondary weapons to swap to in case you get focused.

Those are highly subjective version of what elite specialization adds. Each of them also gives up a trait line and has to adapt to a slightly different way to play. Plus some necros would call the new shroud a downgrade as the damage on it isnt particularly high and it is really prone to being kited.

I think that people need to view DH as a different playstyle entirely and need time to adapt to is. The line is catered toward using the longbow so the virtues are more about ranged damage/defense and movement. Following this thought although the new virtues work better with longbow, they are not worth recharging. This with the idea that we are now ranged and should not need an instant invulnerability as much actually has me using the new elite trap.

Dragon’s Maw is a really nice CC tool in general, in teamfights it acts like a ring of warding but is really effective to stopping rezzes/securing stomps as it interrupts and slows.

OVERALL IMPRESSION DAY 1:

Virtues:
All seem fine but suffer from the fact you cannot pop them if you are found under pressure and need to use Renewed Focus. Not sure if intended but feels wasted and creates anti synergy with the elite.

Longbow:

1. is fine but has the SAME ISSUES AS SCEPTER when it comes to strafing. Urgently needs to be updated
2. Feels like it could do slightly more damage as it does root you. Overall ok
3. No complaints. ok
4. Needs QoL, Why can’t I shoot this behind me like warrior longbow skills that are ground targetted??
5. Want less damage backloaded on it. Make the damage over duration slightly higher and reduce end damage if necessary.

Utilities:
Purification: No opinion yet.
Fragments of Faith: No opinion yet
Test of Faith: On paper seems strong but having seen and tested ALL traps this is sorely underpowered.
Procession of Blades: Damage way too low, it is decent in PvE but noone in PvP will ever stay in it and even then the damage is not very good.
Light’s Judgement: No direct opinion, the enemies lose the 25 stack vuln once they leave the field which is awful in pvp.
Dragon’s Maw: Initial damage is good but it needs to do some pulsing damage with the slow as well. Otherwise it feels somewhat weak.

Traits:
Piercing Light: Awful, condi traps is not a thing nor do I anticiapte it will be since you are sacrificing an otherwise more powerful burn utility or condi removal utility for stationary unreliable traps.

Zealous Aggression: Damage modifier can be increased as it is conditional on cripple and the cripple on auto is already conditional. Also if the justiciation is that there are two other traits that facilitate the cripple effect then you realize you are forcing guardians to take a certain set of traits just to make this one work.

Soaring Devastation: No strong opinions, seems fine

Hunter’s Determination: No strong opinions, in theory you could use True Shot and then stomp someone but in practice this does not make any sense because by using longbow you are at range so you would need to walk up, True shot, and then stomp. 1 stack of Stability for 3 seconds is not worth it.

Bulwark: Initial impression is that I like it as is.

Dulled Senses: This is the trait that is part of the pigeonhole effect. This needs to be good on its own and it is not. If you are just using longbow it has no inherent knockback so wtf is the point? You guys merged all the medi traits into 1 since everyone needed to take them in order to be viable at dps and yet here you are doing the same thing all over again.

Hunter’s Fortification: Seems fine, havent used it enough

Heavy Light: Good on its own, highly dislike the fact two other traits rely on you taking this.

Big Game Hunter: No strong opinions, seems fine.

Also after you win a map you keep getting put back into it even though the match is over.

Keeps putting you into the same map even if game is over.

Over the last week or so the gold sellers have been slowly returning and now I get spammed every time I enter HoTM. Please get rid of them.

The traits for spirit weapons got streamlined but they are still very bad to use in a general solo queue sense. Unless your team is going to be helping you survive with a bunker guard or staff ele, you have very low access to condition clear and no defensive boons. You will heavily rely on CCing your enemies and your virtues for survival.

/2 cents

If anything the trait revamp has had more players in PvP than it has had since launch imo.

Khezekiah Bellamy.5016:

that is more a video of exploit of the super jump animation u can do with dodge jump, channeled attacks and weapon swap lol

^ Most of these aren’t even possible if it wasn’t for the weapon swap jump the OP is using. Some may still need to be looked at though.

1. Submit Profession Bugs to the Game Bugs Forum
-Keep, important for directing players on where to report

2. Post Your Build Thread
-Remove, this may have been a fun idea at launch but dominant builds have emerged and exist in places like metabattle. Different,quirky, or new builds usually find their own thread and do not use this one

3. [Guide/PVE] Guardian 101 – A Beginner’s Text
-Unless the author intends to update the guide then it needs to be removed. My personal opinion is that it is almost TOO basic and gives information that players should be able to deduce on their own or use the official wiki to find.

4. [Guide] DPS Guardian for PVE
-Author seems to update it (last was 10 days ago). Seems ok

5.[FAQ] Guardian – Frequently Asked Questions
-Useful information but needs to be updated with newer content. Suggest someone reposts more recent information.

6.[Guide]30 pts in valor gameplay (Hammer)
-Remove, far too specific for a certain build. While finding hammer builds is nice, metabattle exists and guide is outdated.

7.Post a Screenshot of your Guardian
-Keep, doesn’t really matter either way.

8.[Guide] Guardian: Dungeons and Fractals
-Keep for now, seems to be recent/updated

9.[Guide]World Vs. World, The Guardian, and You
—Keep for now, seems to be recent/updated

Note: Although I am ok with keeping guides it may be better in the long run to simply not put ANY guide as a sticky. Any regularly updating author can bump his/her own guide when he/she updates it and this removes the annoyance of seeing dead guides as a sticky.

FAQ, screenshot of character, and bug forum threads should be main three that we need as stickies.

1. If you wanted shiny stuff you are in the wrong business, pvp has never really had great rewards and you should have known this going in

2. This is only 1 legendary back piece, perhaps (probably not) they will add some version of it that can be obtained via pvp.

3. You can get legendaries or atleast a substantial amount of gems by participating and/or winning the 2-3 weekly tournaments.

4. Anet already went through some changes and you can get clovers, t6 mats, meager amounts of gold, and obsidian shards from spvp. Thanks to this we have box-ception.

5. This topic has been discussed to death, you are not some sort of prophet or genius and we don’t need this thread every time they announce rewards for pve or wvw. At this point, if they are not aware of our concerns despite several higher end pvpers telling them directly face-to-face then then they will never listen to us.

Ayrilana.1396:

Lightsbane.9012:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s the one that has the most variability in tasks that you can do.

yet ignores players who loathe that game mode.

So what would they do? Kill 10000 players in sPvP and get a legendary?

To be honest getting the title Champion Brawler should give a legendary, I do not think anyone in the game has achieved it yet. :P

Kicker.8203:

He’s not joking.
Clearly what guardian needed was 1 more instant skill that is a Meditation.

If it was at the end of the heal I’d say alright but still it would be super-powerful because it heals and gives fury too on top of skill effects.

That moment when you are trolling and someone takes you seriously…

Soilder.3607:

Ding. I thought this update added smiters boon for the first time, so I saw my chance for the gw1 reference. I didn’t realize it had already been in prior existence as a tome spell, however.

Funny that everyone assumed I mained ele. Yea its on my tag, but I main ranger actually.

Fade.1743:

Overcharge does nothing new. Yes, it’s cool and COULD offer an alternative on its own. HOWEVER, it has the same problem Elementalists currently have with their damage being stationary (as to get the full effect of an overload you’d need to make sure the boss stands in the AoE).

The except for the Elite, the shouts are not going to see use in PvE for the most part. Arcane Brilliance is a blast finisher and a pretty strong heal. Arcane Blast is still going to be mandatory. Personally, I prefer to run Arcane Shield and Signet of fire, but the only possible useful utility shout is the AE stunbreak. And you wouldn’t use it enough to capitalize with might on shout. Hell, that trait shares a slot with reduced Overload. So…yeah, not going to every happen (as does the extra reduction on protection).

I’m not talking about OPTIMAL builds, I’m talking about viable builds. Tempest could be viable IFF they look into adding some PvE element to the Adept and GM traits. For instance: making Latent Stamina work on any overload would be much more useful than attuning ONLY to water. OR making Elemental Bastion increase damage by 10% when under the effects of an Aura. Something to add to gameplay.

I think you are changing the entire topic now. The initial claim I made was that every elite spec has issues and trade offs that they need to deal with and now you are just making this solely about tempest. Tempest may need buffs but the point is its not as though the other elite specs are just straight up buffs. Saying DH adds more damage via traps does not make any sense because that decision is not made in a vacuum. You LOSE something else by using traps. Ele already has access to every “type” of skill outside of stealth. You guys can stun, invun, do AoE damage, condi damage, cleave, apply every boon in the game and more so I do not understand what you expected when you say its just more of the same.

Fade.1743:

Not every fight needs stability or condi clear. And Guardians can get that from other utilities (and do). Virtues is taken more for Unscathed Contender than the other traits. And Dragonhunter adds a bit more along with the traps which will probably be very good for damage based builds. It’s another choice whereas tempest in its current form adds no new choices. Just more of the same.

By this logic, not every fight needs AoE damage either so I guess we should ignore necros who are asking for cleave. Wells should be good enough right? Eles can do most of the things in the game already so unless you expected stealth or an entirely new mechanic like alacrity then you were only going to get “more of the same.” Even then I already said Tempest’s AoE boon share and damage gives more solo oriented weapons like dagger and scepter teamfight presence. so technically you did get a new choice.

Traps have not shown themselves to be good on rangers but I am trying to keep an open mind about them we shall see what happens. No guardian in their right mind takes virtues for unscathed contender. Either you were misinformed or meant to say absolute resolution/indomitable courage.

PlatinumMember.5274:

I remember people you like saying how the truth will be revealed during the POI and yet, here we are, all it did was confirmed the issues some of us had. The difference between you and I is, I have facts to back up my claims you. You have nothing, simply fancies and dreams.

If the tempest gets better, it would be because of people like us pointing out the obvious flaws, it wont be because of people like you making terrible excuses.

Denial is a very dangerous thing.

Nice so first I get generalized with the people who expected the PoI to solve things when I said no such thing and you can check my post history for that. I have always been an advocate of actually seeing how things play out in practice before judging them. You have no facts except opinions which you appear to think are facts. You have no experience with the skill. You are looking at words and making judgement. I am not denying anything, in fact I even said it may need to be tweaked so it only effects the 6-10 skills. Buzzword quotes mean nothing in the face of logic.

If any changes occur they should be based off play tests not the whims of forum warriors.

Fade.1743:

Thos are the problems with the weapons. You don’t HAVE to equip the weapon for the elite spec to use it. You can still run GS+Mace/Torch on Guardian.

The problem with Tempest is that it DOESN"T offer anything new. We can already do all that stuff (in PvE) on an Ele with those weapons. We actually LOSE more to run Tempest than to stick to Arcane in terms of support. And we can’t give up Air and Fire because Air is NEEDED to use Lightning Whip on dagger because for SOME reason Anet didn’t use this perfect opportunity to fix the auto-attacks of the dagger so in between abilities, we need to weave LW. And fire is needed because it’s just that good.

Just so I understand, you think that none of the tempest traits offer anything new despite the fact you do get overcharge, might on shouts, multiple aoe stun breaks, increased defense from protection etc. but other classes get much more? Dragonhunter mainly deals with longbow knock back and virtues, in fact 1 of the traits in each tier are only really usable if you take all three ( longbow knocks back, knock back applies cripple, increased damage to crippled foes). And you don’t NEED any trait line, trait lines are detemined by what is optimal and guess what every other profession also “NEEDS” certain traits to be optimal that’s just how things are. Guards “NEED” virtues because of the stability and condi removal, they “NEED” valor for the defensive and heal traits, they “NEED” radiance for the one handed damage crit chance, they “NEED” zeal for the greatsword cdr trait, they “NEED” honor for the shout cdr trait.

Fade.1743:

Except that no other reveal elite specs add more of the same. Dragonhunter adds range and offensive support to the Guardian profession who were a bit lacking on it and can compete with Virtues in PvE. Reaper adds both the Greatsword and Reaper shroud which will add the ability to cleave and limited mobility and control of fights. I’d comment on Chronos but I’m a crappy Mesmer…so I won’t insult them by trying.

So, this is unique to Elementalist so far as the community can’t see what new things the elite spec adds and that the majority of us see this as a complete detriment to use. There are currently no benefits to bringing Tempest to a group. At least from the discussion.

Are you serious? Mesmer still have to choose between shield and staff/gs/sword+torch which are all very good weapon sets. They will get another shatter but they also sacrifice a trait line and all associated benefits just like EVERY elite spec will force people to do. Guardian gets longbow and give up what? If you take out scepter focus well great you got long range and the sacrifice the active blocks and condi removal from focus as well as the GUARANTEED immob on scepter. Reaper is still up in the air as it does not even look all that amazing. The point is everything has trade offs these elite specs are not supposed to be power creep or even pure buffs, they simply offer a new play style. Tempest gives very strong AoE boon share, AoE damage while still being able to run dagger or scepter which are more solo oriented weapons.

And that is a counter argument how? You and Kodiak have been 24/7 complaining non stop and to get honest you have ABSOLUTELY ZERO stats to back up anything you keep complaining about. I will say it will be bad if it procs on stuff like auto attacks and imo should only affect 6-10 skills and not the weapon skills.

Ironic how you link some nonsense argument about “coolness factor” yet most of the complaining about the elite is that it doesn’t feel strong or cool enough. From a purely functional perspective it IS strong but there is room to tweak it. People here are just calling for complete reworks.

PlatinumMember.5274:

Manimarco Devil.1790:

For what its worth, I’m pretty sure it is inspired from gw1 energy storage skills that effected recharge and energy costs.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Energy_Storage

And how does that effect just how terrible the skill is?

Did I say it justified anything? Quit being a salty forum warrior and wait to see how it plays out. 25% CD reduced for stuff like rampage is pretty good.

Kodiak.3281:

I think there’s a disconnect here going on.

See you got a bunch of people who are all like, “Woo Tempest this is so cool, it’s all so cool!” and then you have the more level headed people saying, “None of this stuff is practical.”

Is the Tempest stuff cool? Sure. New stuff. Neat. Any of it particularly useful? Not a bit. PvE players are guessing PvP and PvP is guessing WvW and WvW is guessing PvE cause no one can actually figure out where any of this cool stuff would actually be used over what we already got.

This can sum up almost every revealed elite specialization. There are people who think its OP since all they see is additional stuff but the people who play the profession see that they will have to give up a weapon and/or trait line so its not as strong as it seems. At the end of the day, my personal opinion is the forum theorycraft warriors need to be completely ignored and we need to get actual hands on experience with the classes to see/feel how it works.

For what its worth, I’m pretty sure it is inspired from gw1 energy storage skills that effected recharge and energy costs.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Energy_Storage

Is this some kind of really bad troll thread?

Drayos.8759:

Have u not noticed ALL the reveals of Elites have been Stronger then Generally any proffession is currently?… Thats because these are set for the POWER CREEP of HoT, Which will happen, as the game introduces more and more it happens

Why do u think in WoW they had to physically reduce EVERYTHING, because how ridiculous numbers got lol, bosses had like 500billion hp and your were punching em for a Million a hit, its what happens, Ofcourse there is a reason to play any other proffession.

but you know keep QQIng on a 5 second cast with 2 Seconds of Stability Covering, Which u can just instantly interupt providing u reliese to wait for the stability to wear off, Keep QQIng on the one proffession that CANT blow ur hp out the waters within 3 seconds due to having No Zerker builds currently viable.

Keep QQing on a Proffession that is Litterally Locked into Arcana/Water no matter what they try to do, and referring to that as the Strongest proffession in the game, Yes Elementalists are strong Yes Tempest will be strong, No What they’re doing isnt Unrealistic it does match what other proffessions are getting.

but if u want to ignore the new mechanics for chronomancers being able to Double Shatter on you instantly for Even more Instant damage and able to actually pull their abilities off CD with Alacrity boon and the fact Reapers Can Pull u into them and Forever chill u just off of basic attacks to attack Elementalists about a subject that realistically wont ever happen go for it

Read those Shouts, Litterally they stand NO CHANCE of replacing Cantrips, we’ll be using Cantrips for the next 3 years with or without shout capability, we’re just too squishy and lose too much taking those away, the only way they’ll manage to swap that is litterally Deleting Soothing Disruption and Nerfing both mist form and Armour of Earth pretty hard.

I realistically dont understand how u can be here yelling how overpowered Overloading will be when as u can read 99% ofd elementalists are actually explaining it’ll be rubbish and how weak its going to turn out with those lengths of lockouts, no damage capability will be able to make those cast times irrelevent, specially as they require channeling and can be interupted by any mesmer at 1200.

Overloading will have perks and at times will be crucial and not to mention output alot of damage when we do it right, but we’ll lose ALOT of survivability with this new playstyle, not only do these effects have only 180 Range putting us MUCH closer to the fight then we already are, but we’ll No longer be using Cele Amulets

Also take into account what the proffessions losing taking off hand dagger off.

Fire:
Ring of Fire
Fire grab

Water:
Frozen Aura (goodbye to those trait benefits)
Cleansing wave (Goodbye Condi remover or atleast one of them)

Air
Ride the Lightning (there goes a ton of mobility)
Updraft (one interupt gone AND a evade gone)

Earth:
Earthquake (another interupt out the window)
Churning Earth (not too relevent, long Cast but did put 8 stacks of bleeds out)

not to mention freezing us into Elements will actually Lose us

Regen 1000 Health

Fury 20% Crit

Putting those Elements on actual CDs using Overload will

Lock us out of Sustain (Earth)

Lock us out of Damage (Fire)

Lock us out of Healing (Water)

for Unstated amounts of time, only reason i dont mention air is because they had already stated that the fresh air will actually take Air off CD when using the overload, which means we’ll keep air as a popular swap.

Now take into consideration are any of our mainhands ANY good for Camping a Single attunement

Answer? No it isnt, our main hands support our current playstyle Jack of All Trades, which consists of Constant Attunement swapping to give us exactly what we need to sustain anything, So no this will Reduce our Healing our Sustain and how much we can swap in and out of attunements.

Which means they HAVE to give us something good for all this trade off for using tempest… its basically a must or the elite will be worth dogcrap, it has ALOT to cover in 1 Item set which ALREADY puts mechanics into the game which so far will conflict with our mainhands Mechanics.

So what you are saying is you are extremely salty and do not want to see how anything plays out. Master theorycrafter here boys, pack it up this guy knows it all.

We agree to disagree then, hammer can output more damage than GS even though GS is supposed to be a damage oriented weapon. You can either spin for 1 second and maybe deal 5k damage if you get the full skill off or just roll hammer and hit 5k crit with just #2. Hammer #2 is also half the cool down so it provides more dps as well. The only advantage of GS is the pseudo mobility you get every 15 seconds (lol).

Comparing two classes is not entirely accurate I agree, but in this case the difference in effectiveness is too large to ignore. It is the closest similar skill in the game but accomplishes the same if not greater damage that is more consistent and providing some mobility.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Hammer #1-5
Problem: Animations are dreadfully slow
Solution: Would PREFER slightly quicker cast times but Hammer’s main problem is inability to access the CDR trait Glacial Heart.

“Animations are slow, but forget about that. The real problem is Hammer guards can’t use Glacial Heart”
Literally wat?
.

I probably worded it awkwardly but the point was that I feel the animations are a bit too slow but in general they don’t need to be changed as the bigger issue is that we cannot access glacial heart and hammer cdr which makes the weapon feel worse.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Shield #4
Problem: Low damage, High cd, low protection uptime
Solution: Increase damage, Make it apply 1/2 second daze, make it apply aegis

“Low damage, High cd, low protection uptime”
1.0 power coefficient. +1 power is +1 damage on 2.6k armor.
16-20s cd. On the lower end of cooldowns.
25-31% protection uptime, which is on the higher end of protection giving skills. In spvp it’s 15-18%. I’ll agree SoJ should be unsplit from spvp and pve/wvw.

All of the changes are with spvp in mind. The damage on it is complete garbage compared to other offhand skills. You cannot look at anything in a vacuum, you have to look at what these skills are up against. Shield 4 does very weak damage and the protection uptime (3s for every 20s untraited) is insanely small for the cooldown. To make it viable the damage needs to be increased to be able to atleast compete with torch 4 or focus 5 or the utility needs to be worth it like focus 4.

Anti.9156:

Greatsword 2:
dmg is fine, its a hard to land skill with much payoff (downedcleave for example) should stay that way

Greatsword 3:
fine aswell

Greatsword 5:
woudl be nice if pull(2nd attack) is instant. although GS seems in a nice spot

Scepter 1:
i agree its clunky. but the dmg is high. if we increase the projectile speed it might be op. we get Longbow in the expansion to get a good hitting ranged weapon

I do not understand this weird Stockholm syndrome that has developed. Objectively comparing Guardian GS skills to Warrior GS and guardian does not even come close to being good. While you have fun spinning around for “down cleave” (which is not even a justifiable reason to keep something weak), hammer #2 and Warrior gs #3 can do the same if not more damage in a shorter amount of time that is also AoE. There is reason the last meta had a HAMMER medi guard build but GS was still considered trash. The damage is far too unreliable, when your “utility” weapon can deal damage than the damage-oriented weapon there is a problem.

Your scepter reasoning also seems questionable to me because it is a usability issue not a power or damage dealing one. The obvious response is IF the damage magically becomes too strong then simply tone it down. It feels incredibly unrewarding to shoot your projectiles into thin air, the weapon will feel much more responsive if more of the projectiles actually hit even if it is for less damage.

I do not expect every single of these changes to be enacted. In fact many of them are conditional on whether or not other changes occur.

This post will be dealing only with the weapon sets. I welcome any discussion about nerfs if any of the proposed changes sound like they would make guardian overpowered.

Note These are not all base line changes, these are simply suggestions to improve how each weapon feels. They are mainly oriented towards dps as bunker does not really need much help. Condi is up in the air depending how Anet deals with burning.

Note Some core functionality addition changes (i.e. Shield 4 applies aegis) can be incorporated into traits

Greatsword #2
Problem: Warrior GS #3 can hit just as hard and hit multiple targets much faster. It is nearly impossible to get the full skill off and the damage on it does not warrant such a handicap. When we have to resort to traits like wrath of justice (which does not even work properly with AoE skills) then this skill is too weak for what it does.
Solution: Either increase damage or decrease the cast time so the damage is more reliable.

Greatsword #3
Problem: The animation takes too long to the point where it is faster to gain the distance by weapon swapping to cancel the animation than wait for the end bit.
Solution: Increase damage to reflect end animation as enemies can get away while the end part gets cast or make the animation faster.

Greatsword #5
Problem: Has 2 cast times when it is already difficult enough to get the binding blades to land. Blind, evade, block and then they run out of range breaking the tether.
Solution: Remove cast time on the pull. Creates greater synergy with GS#2 and will not require the GS#2 buffs mentioned earlier.

Scepter #1
Problem: Strafe-able projectiles makes the weapon feel very unresponsive
Solution: Increase projectile speed

Sword #3
Problem: Roots self during cast, is intended (I assume) to help counter range but self rooting only gives more time for ranged enemies to re-position and the projectiles you send out are not only very inaccurate the further they go, they also do not travel remotely close the distance all ranged weapons can deal damage to you.
Partial Solution: Make it cast-able while moving

Hammer #1-5
Problem: Animations are dreadfully slow
Solution: Would PREFER slightly quicker cast times but Hammer’s main problem is inability to access the CDR trait Glacial Heart.

Shield #4
Problem: Low damage, High cd, low protection uptime
Solution: Increase damage, Make it apply 1/2 second daze, make it apply aegis.

Shield #5
Problem: Does not last 4 seconds, limited usefulness
Solution: Cast-able while moving (dome does not move with you), Make knock back slightly larger, Blast finisher on detonating dome, make it last full duration other wise.

Torch #4
Problem: Travels along ground but is still obstructed sometimes even in seemingly flat terrain.
Solution: Either bug fix it so that it consistently travels along the ground or make it an actual projectile.

Torch#5
Problem: Retal food, the duration is far too long and the damage is too weak. In 4 1/4 seconds many classes can get off their entire round of burst while we are barely trying to get off this weak skill.
Solution: Either decrease duration or make it useful to use for ourselves. If we are going to be locked in for 4 1/4 seconds it should clear condis from us as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3d5n31/stronghold_pvp_how_to_make_heroes_much_more_epic/

Thoughts? I approve. I think great music can really help define how one experiences the game.

We have gaheron baelfire (if you count his fire form) and the two molten facility bosses. I don’t think there are any physically unique allies.

Storm and Heurix are pretty good imo.

Belial.9350:

Manimarco Devil.1790:

For good or bad, Gw2 is too fast paced to really say all of the plays and all the interactions occurring. The viewer must have understanding on how mechanics work beforehand in order to enjoy the game play. If you don’t know the skills being used it is really easy for the uneducated viewer to just see skills being spammed.

Same can be said for a lot of games though…

To an extent but what game do you have in mind when you say that? Games like league of legends only have fights every few minutes and have a handful of skills they need to talk about. Even then they fail to say every ability used in a team fight so a game that has 10 skills per person and those skills have interactions with runes, sigils, and traits is going to be a lot harder to play by play cast.

In general the casters do call out the major skills used like earthshaker, portal, lich, rampage etc. so I’m not sure how much further they can go to address the whole “I don’t know what is happening” crowd.

For good or bad, Gw2 is too fast paced to really say all of the plays and all the interactions occurring. The viewer must have understanding on how mechanics work beforehand in order to enjoy the game play. If you don’t know the skills being used it is really easy for the uneducated viewer to just see skills being spammed.

Yet to be determined. People are terrible at theory crafting in this game, let it actually play out before judgement is made. With that being said it would initally appear they have little to no access to defensive boons so its just raw heals which is not exactly the best type of support. Boons are important since they can proactively deal with damage while heals are only reactive.

Ok so it needs to be a critical hit on a burning target? I’ll test it out but either way the tool tip says nothing about it.

Waffler.1257:

It’s simple economics, the level of e-sports in GW2 is only large enough to sufficiently support one team at any given time. If a second team were to enter the competitive scene and practice enough to compete at the same level as the abjured, the GW2 e-sports level would no longer be able to support both teams, and consequently both teams would experience e-sports degeneration. Other teams know this, and due to the high barriers to entry of the conquest game mode, it is not economically viable to expend the required resources to compete with the abjured. Unfortunately, this leads to a vicious cycle in which the lack of competition gradually degrades the total e-sports level capacity of GW2 over time, so that eventually it will not even be sufficient to support one team. This phenomena is known as Vain Convergence.

what this guy said. There is little incentive to try to really get a team together and compete in gw2 tourneys when it takes so much time to get ready and good enough for them. The money is not there. In order to make a game into an “Esport” a lot of time and money needs to be invested by the parent company on start-up and Anet has sort of dragged their feet the entire time or simply do not have enough resources to create a real scene.

GW2 has already earned a bad rap with all their pve blunders and is labeled a casual game. Furthermore the PvE does such a bad job at teaching people nuances in the game play that when people do approach PvP they get faced with terrible match making and think everyone is just spamming skills when there are rotations and things to visually see and avoid.

On the incentive side I do not think the cash prizes are large enough nor does Anet seem to really want to increase them. They instead offer gems and in-game weapons but if you play PvP exclusively this stuff matters less. They may have gotten by in GW1 with gold trims and names on trophies but in today’s day and age talent and competition are being lured by real cash just like real sports not by in game gimmicks.

Maybe it is just the wording but it makes it sound like you get Zealot’s Flame every time you critically hit but you do not and the tool tip makes no mention of a % chance. (as in 20% chance to get Zealot’s Fire when you critically hit)

Those games though . PogChamp

Thank you for such salty insight.

Darknicrofia.2604:

Manimarco Devil.1790:

The active needs to apply atleast 3 burn stacks for it to be useful imo.

thats 15 stacks of burn on 1 target for 8 secs if your party is on the same target, 3 stacks is too much.

That’s true I didn’t consider the party wide effect. It seems really hard to balance around then, as one burning stack is nearly useless in a solo scenario and mediocre at best in group play but increasing the stacks from the active adds between 2-5 more stacks based on party size. Perhaps atleast 2 stacks? 10 stacks is not really feasible on a single person in pvp imo as AoE will trigger it on any random target.

it does not work at all with Wrath of justice. does not matter how many seconds you wait between the activation.

I was not able to test it out on multiple skills but Wrath of Justice does not work properly with Hammer #2. I was testing it on golems in heart of the mists because I never felt like I got the immobilize during the smash and I was right. Perhaps having something to do with the fact it is AoE.