Guild Wars 2

For Akamon.2769

One knockback every 40 sec on up to five enemies is not that good. It is on demand but it is not that big radius and the cd for a knockback itself is terrible. For WvWvW it would be aswesome and a few aspect of it is during a zerg.

Blocking all blockable ranged attacks for give or take 4 seconds on the melee train, is rather good for the group, but it will leave you out in the open in exchange. But if we also blocked attacks while “chanelling the skill”, it would synergies alot bether with our on block traits and justify the 40 second cd.

For a class that is designed with terrible long range attacks Healing breeze is terrible, for if you are not standing at the front. You most likely don’t know what you or your commander is coordinating.

And since Healing breeze is not on yourself and on a additional allies around you, it will in most cases miss. Currently it is not in need of a “buff”, but it is in need of a mechanic change. Where it heal around you rather than infront of you.

Never said the tome (yes tome, Courage is awesome but Wrath is terrible) was bad, i am actually using courage about 90% of the time rather than renewed focus. But it would be nice for it to be different. It is rather easily countered considering a 180 second and it would be nice to either buff or change it.

Of course buffing would not imply to make it really really insane, but maybe only a small increase in duration. Wrath do however need a rework.

Well don’t throw the get support from group as a thing. If you are allowed to be protected by allies, are not your foes allowed to coordinate. Or are you using the book in a 5 vs 1 fight?

The stability before you go into the book is one of the few things that are really good however and that one is a good point, but it is kinda obvious already and i think most of us use it, yet sometimes you cant time them together as you might have used one stability to get you out of a pinch.

Conclusion:

As one easily notice the Warrior vs Guardian show up as very different ways to use there GS, one favors mobility, soft cc and single / cleave target burst.
The other one focus heavily on Area damage, while directly comparing the Autoattack it is obvious that the Guardian AA will deal more damage, but in return will provide less of group or even self buff as a bonus.
The Whirling vs Hundred where one will deal a lot more damage, but will target less foes and also be easily avoided in return.
So if you think Warrior lack mobility, then think again.

Guardian GS to add what it is and not against Warrior.

Guardian
- Autoattack
Strike 296 (0.800) – Vengeful strike 296 (0.800) – Wrathful strike 443 (1.200)

Notes. Although it says 1/2 cast time the actually attack speed is 0.83
Final strike will add one – three stacks of might depending on how many targets you hit and the might stacks will last for 5 seconds.

- Whirling wrath
Spin around for 3/4 time striking one to five foes seven times, and sending out seven projectiles. Will allow movement at 50% reduced speed
Strike 139 (0.400) damage
Projectile 139 (0.150) damage
Combo finisher Whirl

Notes. One of the signature attacks of the GS and you can not wait for it to go off cooldown especially if you have five people around you, The numbers are however rather lack lusting as people actual have the ability to dodge. And the combat display bug has yet to be fixed. Oh and Whirl finisher is terrible. For instance
Whirl + Light field = condition cleansing nice right? NO. You send out 5 cleansing projectiles with very small hit box, at random direction with zero homing capability and assuming they do hit, they remove one condition.
Base value on projectile and strike may be different.

- Leap of Faith
406 (1.100) damage
1/2 cast time.
three second blind.

Notes. 15 second for a low damage ok scaling attack that will hit up to five people and blinding them for 3 seconds or the next attack, whatever comes first. Blind is good in SPvP(i assume, barely play it), and for WvWvW. But terrible for PvE since it will do wonders on trash but only reduce damage on a boss by 10% for the next attack. The leap is really sluggish and for a short distance, considering the cooldown.

- Symbol of Wrath
185 (0.550) damage
One second of retaliation.
1/4 cast time.
180 Radius
Can damage five foes and buff up to five allies.
Combo field Light

Notes. Will pulse each second for up to five seconds. So the damage and retaliation is for each second a enemies stand in it, really lack lusting considering 20 second cooldown and that retaliation is not really that good, and a kick in the nuts is the Combo field being light, the worst of all the combo field, yet i will admit. It is better than no combo field at all.

- Binding blade
369 (1.000) damage
Will affect up to five foes.
600 radius
Will apply a damage dealing condition on foes lasting for 10 seconds, but the condition will be removed if you pull foes. The condition can not be removed.

Notes. One of the really good Guardian GS skill, and one of our few control skills. Will sadly only affect five people so no Siegrazer here, generally a really good skill even though it got a 30 sec cooldown. Only sad part is the Radius is rather low, and sometimes when you pull a foe. They for some reason don’t go all the way but stops halfway.

VS

Warrior

- Autoattack
Swing 259 (0.7) – Slice 259 (0.7) – Brutal strike 333 (0.9)
Swing and Slice will also applies one stack of vurnability for 8 seconds.

Notes. Guardian autoattack actual deals slightly more damage but the overall chain of the attack (Guardian 2.5 seconds) vs (Warrior 2.4 seconds) is slightly slower.
Warriors do however have 2 stacks of vulnerability on mobs for 8 seconds and that is a lot better than one – three stacks of might since 1 vulnerability = 1% damage increase for the whole party. While Might = +35 power and condition = a 1% damage increase for yourself if you have 3500 attack.

- Hundred Blades
203 (0.550) x 8
406 (1.1) x 1
3,1/2 second channel
8 second recharge time

Notes. Hundred blade will deal massive amount of damage to anyone being caught in it, and for a fairly low coldown.
it does however have drawbacks, it is only a cleave (up to 3 targets) and it is a cone frontal attack so hitting targets is less viable than
with whirling wrath for instance, however the damage is a lot higher.

- Whirlwind Attack
259 (0.7)
Combo Finisher Whirl
Evade: ¾ s
Range: 450
recharge time 10 seconds

Notes. A decent attack that can be used to escape gap closer or even to evade, but it is not suited for damage against a one vs one.
During the spin it will deliver four attacks to anyone within range but each strike is only cleave so not really good for aoe as well.

- Bladetrail
277 (0.75) damage
cripple 4 seconds
Combo Finisher Physical Projectile
Range: 900
recharge time 15 seconds

Notes. A good weapon skill set to a melee one, will make it easier to catch foes or run away, the skill can even double tap foes if they get hit by the blade returning.

- Rush
628 (1.7) Damage
1200 range

Notes. A strong and easy to hit attack for fast movement either to the target or away, with a fast recharge it really shine as a gap closer.
The downside is that the damage although rather nice, is only towards one target.

If you want to play Guardian over Warrior you need to understand a few things. We have 10.8k base health, almost no soft or hard cc. Loooooooooong cooldowns, bad traits(well two trait lines are fine). And only one viable build to play competitive so far.

Oh did i forget we have less sustain that warrior and damage. Well atleast i remembered. So to sum it all up.

- If you the above is not a troll post and i assume about 99% of all Guardian will assume it is, here is my tip for you. Stay Warrior as it is, you have everything except group stability and reflect bether or equal to that of Guardians, and a higher base health as topping on the cake.

Against kittened foes they are, you will become a god walking amongst mere mortals, until you meet someone who know what stun and interrupt is.

Then you realize that the book skills are terrible if your opponents can press a button. The passive stats are nice though to mitigate some damage and aggro foes away from your weaker zerker allies, and by foes i mean other players. Cause if you bring that kitten out, be ready to be the primary target by anyone that see you have it out.

So it is not a terrible elite, especially not against people who would be stated as being, special. But for its cooldown it usually does not pay off.

“Missread what you meant Kilandros, and your ide sounds awesome. Even more awesome than keeping utility and trading of weapon slots for the tome ide.”

Glacial hearth should be a symbol wide trait. Add a new hammer trait, fix our symbols now.

Balance the one we have, add more and fix the traits. They are scattered all around with minimal effects.

And adding soft cc to the sword trait would not be a good thing. We do need soft cc but we need it on almost all our weapons, setting it to one weapon would only force more Guard to use that weapon rather than add diversity.

Do like the bleed on sword but i am not sure the dev team want that.

Crapgame.6519:

Perikittenor.1892:

Tomes would be really fun and add diversity if they were used as a toggle weapon option rather than the thing we have now.

Ofcourse they would need a total revamp if that happens.

I use the Tome from time to time but more importantly I zero in on the opposing enemy in WvW when I see them bust it out. The support/healing one is good but boy does it scream ATTACK ME.

It does scream attack me but i don’t always see that as a bad thing. Now i am slightly over killed on toughness but when i bring the book out i have. 30k hp, 4500 armor and perma protection. If they even attempt to attack me with none condition attacks i usually laugh and walk around with the book shouting. And even against condi it has a projectile to cleanse on yourself.

The downside is that i lose my Virtues while using the book, cause you know. Guardians are not supposed to use Virtues, and i lose my utility skills cause fudge yeah why the fudge not!!! So yeah, those things are kinda annoying.

Sachit.9753:

Perikittenor.1892:

I know this is not a realistic game, but do they really think it was easy dodging in plate armor back in the medieval times.

Do you think one could swim with it?

Hehe no not really, but then again we dont have traits to improve our swim speed ^^.

And AH would be kewl if it were passive. aka no trait, Not saying it should be but kitten son. That would be awesome.

No we are not. But our shield is totaly bullshait as it is right now, either add stuff or lower cd.

Tomes would be really fun and add diversity if they were used as a toggle weapon option rather than the thing we have now.

Ofcourse they would need a total revamp if that happens.

One last note, the main reason i did compare the two “Shout vs Meditaton” Is the last Grandmaster traits vs eachother. Someone probaly did the math before but im going to post it again so people can see, how much bullkitten some of the “balance” is right now

Shout
Average cooldown (25 + 25 + 30) / 3 = 26.6666666667

Healing per use 1,480 (0.9), assuming 0 healing power

1480 × 3 = 4440

4440 / 26.6666666667 = 166.5

So Warriors Grandmaster equals 166.5 HP/s for one up to five people.
Assuming 0 healing power and missing the 20% recharge trait.

Guardian
Average cooldown (45 + 50 + 20) / 3 = 38.3333333333

Healing per use 1,960 (0.4) assuming 0 healing power.

1960 × 3 =5880

5880 / 38.3333333333 = 153.391304348

So Guardian grandmaster equals 153.391304348 HP/s for only yourself.
Assuming no healing power and whitout the 20% recharge.

- Am i the only one that find it weird that not only is Warriors shout healing more per second but also applying to more people and scale +125% bether with healing than our grandmaster?

- Now ofcourse there are other factors but this highly illogical and inbalanced as fudge.

I myself would love nothing more than to see a Nerf to our VP but a huge buff to Aegis applications and self sustain in exchange. Enough with this Plate class that think it is a Thief.

I know this is not a realistic game, but do they really think it was easy dodging in plate armor back in the medieval times.

Perma stealth may be dead at dec 10, but it is not now. Nor has it been for a year +- some buffs nerfs that might have made it viable, on a second note my post was slightly for lolz and the one above me directly pointed out why thief never needed vigor.

But yes i have to agree with you that Guard should not be about dodging, they/we should be about blocking, aka Aegis. Not only is Aegis a make or breake buff. But it is also applied very scarcely for ourself and for our allies we wish to protect. Sure blocking once every 90 sec might be good against a PvE boss with the AI slightly bellow a carrot, but it is terrible against humans with more.

Once again i will note a game that made the general feeling of playing a Guard
TL2 Engineer.

There i give passive Regeneration and Passive armor increase to everyone near me, i give Aegis on certain spell activation. Eachtime i get hit i charge cores so my Aegis that i give will be stronger for each core extra i have charged up and i also apply Aegis randomly to myself trough a % chance when taking damage, Add that i can hard cc mobs for a short stun in melee, and reduce damage enemie mobs do to me. That made me feel like a Guardian, buffing and protecting my allies while standing at the front soaking most attacks.

GW2 Guardian make me feel like a Wizard that think he can do stuff in melee cause i wear plate.

My point was the wording of natural is slightly miss leading, since you do need traits for it. Should he have worded it “Traited condi removal from virtues”, i would have been fine with it.

Sorry for the mid edit during the post, realized i had more on my mind than i wrote at start.

Painbow.6059:

You can be very high damage and very high support, that is the beauty of Guardian. You can run a 10,30,0,5,25 dps sword focus build using full zerk gear, bring shield of avenger and wall of reflect, along with all your blocks and blinds and natural healing/condition removal from virtues you are very survivable. You are able to hit your enemies hard and protect your allies well. Don’t be fooled by pugs opinions on every guardian should be a tank and can’t deal dps.

Don’t like to breake your bubble but, virtues don’t have natural condi removal. They require 20 points in Virtues to cleanse 3 condi on up to 5 people(yourself will always be one of those) every 60 second(-20% for the traits passive effect so 48 sec recharge.)

The natural healing will be with 0 healing power you will reach the number of 80 but assuming the trait above +25% so 100 each second. Until you decide to activate it to cure allies and/or yourself from condi, then you lose the passive regen.

The blocks will be 5 blocked attack every 45 second assuming you trigger Virtue on Courage everytime it and the focus go off cooldown.

And so far you only have two blinds, but i assume you have the Traits Justice is blind and renewed Justice so those will add up a really nice ammount of blinds on foes.

Amins.3710:

My mom says “if you don’t have anything nice to say (about the balance team), don’t say anything at all”.

nuff said.

My mom teached me to stand up for the weak instead of standing at the side doing nothing.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”

Yes, yes he did. Guess the perma stealth thief never encountered another perma stealth thief. Oh wait a min, that actual make sense.

- Indeed i could not agrre more with most people. Our symbols are extremly weak, especialy damage wise considering how easy they are to escape. They are also not balanced at all, for instance both mace and hammer can have a 100% uptime on there symbols and they provide regeneration and protection.

- Then we talk about our two remaining symbos, the staff and GS. Sure staff is great for team mobility and in this game mobility is king. But GS is really lacking since a (untraited) GS will have a 5 second retal every 20 second assuming you stay inside it for the full duration. And i don’t even think retal is that good compared to hammer or even mace version of there symbols.

- Don’t understand this the wrong way, against a player that is so bad that they should be slapped straight retaliation is awesome. But against a player who has rapid attacks that is acctualy smart, they will etiher remove your boon or wait for it to end.

- Make more weapons with symbol, balance our current one we have. And merge some of the symbol traits, having three major and three minor traits that will add as a total of 3 stacks of vurnability, 10% damage, 2 seconds longer duration(1second for Hammer), 60 added radius and healing everyone inside them, and those are all split in two different trees.

- Please, when i started playing Guard i though it would be more about the symbols, so i implore you. Add more traits, merge more and balance the symbols to be exactly what they are supposed to be. A area denial for foes and a buffing zone for friends.

akamon.2769:

^^^ this is what i think as well. : )) it’s kind of nice that the Guardian shield doesn’t do just what any old shield would do. adds a little more flavor to the class itself. i know it’s hard to fathom and embrace a shield that doesn’t block. but the shield on the Guardian, though does not block physical melee attacks, it’s a group support mechanic and protects the entire group of people from projectiles, which i kind of enjoy as well (though i really only use it for pushing or insta knock back lol)

Aaaah the young and there ideas, i guess you never used it in WvWvW. For if you did, you would know that standing still in the middle of a zerg and activating it and letting it run its course will only end with one conclusion. You my good sir, is dead. So dead you would wish we had defensive block on it.

As it is now, the 40 second cooldown is way to high, to not allow yourself to block attacks directec towards yourself.

It is 5 second protection, and we never said that it needed more protection duration. It does however need either a secondary boon or a condition on foes. And the skill number 5 is not that good against a good players since they will beat you to a pulp while channeling it, that is why we give it as a suggestion to allow yourself to block while channeling it.

But would you consider giving the shield 5 a channel self block as well during its duration op cause its current effects are so strong apparently?

Tarsius.3170:

ezhcim.3075:

This is the only thing I hear in support of the shield as it is right now. Personally if I could choose between 1 skill to push people off cliffs with a very high recharge rate or an overall stronger and well rounded weapon with 2 useful skills in most situations I would choose the latter.

Granted it’s between weak and useless in 95% of PvE but very good in PvP and WvW

Knocking people of ledges is all fine yes – but really #5’s best feature is that it’s a 0 cast-time interrupt which you can actively use to negate any big attacks you see coming as well as an ally anti-stomp mechanism.

The fact it absorbs projectile’s and heals too is just icing on the cake. All it really needs is a slightly reduced cooldown ( and a blast finisher would make it perfect )

So by your logic weapons that can interrupt enemies should be worthless? Guess Warrior hammer skills did not understand that logic.

We don’t have 12k hp, we start with 10.8k Hp. Or at least i am pretty sure the low tier (Thief, Elementalist and Guardian) Do

Spreadsheet of doom from hell.
——————————————————————————————————

Warrior
“Fear Me!”

60 Recharge time
Induce fear in your foes.

400-600 range: 1 s
200-400 range: 2 s
0-200 range: 3 s
Range: 600

“For Great Justice!”

25 Recharge time
Grant fury and might to yourself and allies.

Fury: 8 s
Might: 25 s
Radius: 600

“On My Mark!”

30 Recharge time
Call out target foe to make them vulnerable.

Vulnerability: 10 s
Range: 1,200

“Shake It Off!”

25 Recharge time
Cure a condition on yourself and nearby allies. Also breaks stuns.

Radius: 600
Breaks stun

Guardian
“Hold the Line!”

35 Recharge time
Grant protection and regeneration to allies.

Protection: 4 s
Regeneration: 6 s (780 health)
Range: 600

“Retreat!”

60 Recharge time
Grant aegis and swiftness to up to five nearby allies.

Aegis: 20 s
Swiftness: 20 s
Range: 600

“Save Yourselves!”

60 Recharge time
Draw conditions from nearby allies to yourself. Gain multiple boons for a short duration.
Will draw all conditions on five nearby allies upon you.(Hence the nickname “Kill Myself”)
Will grant all but uniqe boons and Aegis to yourself for 10(5) seconds.

Range: 600
Breaks stun

“Stand Your Ground!”

30 Recharge time
Grant stability and Retaliation to yourself and allies.
(Tooltip only says Stability normaly)

Stability: 5 s
Retaliation: 5 s
Breaks stun
Range: 600

- Ok phew now we have that sorted out, sorry about the long post but i assume not everyone know what each of the “Shout” is doing.

- Once again we will start with Warrior Again, even though this is the Guard Forum

Warrior
Discipline

Inspiring Shouts(Adept) – Gain adrenaline when using a shout.
Adrenaline: 8(=27% Adrenalin)

Tactics

Lung Capacity(Adept) – Reduces recharge on shouts.
Recharge reduced: 20%

Vigorous Shouts(GrandMaster) – Shouts heal.
Healing: 1,480 (0.9)?

Guardian
Honor

Superior Aria(Adept) – Reduces recharge on shouts.
Recharge reduced: 20%

Pure of Voice(GrandMaster) – Allies affected by shouts have conditions converted to boons.
Conditions converted to boons: 1
Spreadsheet

Condition—————Boon
Bleeding——————Vigor 9 sec
Blind————————Fury 3 sec
Burning——————-Aegis 4 sec
Chilled———————Vigor 9 sec
Confusion—————Retaliation 5 sec
Crippled——————Swiftness 9 sec
Fear—————————Stability 2 sec
Immobilized———-Swiftness 9 sec
Poison———————Regeneration 5 sec
Torment——————Might 3 stacks 9 sec
Vulnerability———-Protection 3 sec
Weakness—————Might 3 stacks 9 sec
———————————————————————————————————

- Mechanics spreadsheet is over.

As added before.

- So during 55532 seconds Guardian will trigger on average 3 × 1333 shouts.

- And Warriors will trigger after 55532 seconds about 3 × 2083 shouts.

Rather big difference, but then again we are talking about some really big numbers
Lets see if we can make this slightly easier to calculate with. Lets divide it all by 10 to make some easier numbers to calculate with. So instead we have.

During a 5553 second fight the Warrior will trigger 208 triple shouts, and the Guardian will trigger about 133 triple shouts.

So to directly compare we have.

Guardian
(3×133) / 5553 = 0.0718530524 Condition converted each second.

Warrior
(((1480 + (Healing Power x 0.9)) x 3) x 208) / 5553 = 166.310102647 HP/s.

Now they both assume 0 healing power and 0 boon duration but lets kick this a little further since we got here already lets calculate the average duration on each Guardian Pure of Voice proc since that is the main effect of the Voice to convert condition rather than remove.

So during this 5553 time event we have 3 × 133 = 399 procs of pure of voice
And there is 12 condition it will transfer into into 9 unique boons so how will be calculate this. Well from the spreadsheet i know the duration of each and every single boon so lets calculate.

So as a total we have out of 5553 seconds with perfect timing on removing shouts and having conditions up every time we use it will add

598.5 seconds of Vigor = 11% Uptime
99.75 seconds Fury = 1.8% uptime
133 seconds of Aegis = 2.4% uptime
166.25 seconds of Retaliation = 3% uptime
598.5 seconds of Swiftness = 11% Uptime
66.5 seconds of stability = 1.2% Uptime
166.25 seconds of regeneration = 3% uptime
598.5 seconds of 3 x Might = 11% Uptime

So that is basic the core of the Shout Guardian, assuming you use the three fastest recharge and retreat as the third one and you always have a condition when you trigger them on end of cool down.

That is the end the first chapter, any questions?

Once again a big and long reading post.


So once again lets start this topic by comparing average cool down.

- So lets start with the average cool down, once again i will remove one of the 60 second for both of the classes since you can’t have 4x utility slots.

Guardian average recharge on shouts = 41.6666666667 Whiteout recharge trait.

Warrior average recharge on shouts = 26.6666666667 Whiteout recharge trait.

- So what do they contribute with this, well as i will post bellow is every single utility by themselves.

- So far we have concluded that warriors shout has a average shorter cool down, now that by itself means nothing since they may have different effects, but it does have one direct impact. Rune of the Soldier will have a greater effect if you can trigger it more often.

- There is also another point to take into consideration, first is in theory Pure of voice will remove one condition per shout and replace it with a boon, see spreadsheet bellow. Boons are overall good but can also be stolen and dispelled but so can conditions as well so there is no direct counter against the two there. Except that Guardian shouts lose one potential buff if not used when a allied has a condition on them.

- Now we come to a harder part of the comparison, the healing amount. They are both affected by poison so lets counter that out, they are equally affected by allied amount(1-5) so lets remove that as well. And they both have the same range so that will also nullifies each other. But lets get to the point.

- Shout Healing will heal instantly for a base amount and then scaled 90% of healing power.

Regeneration will heal for a set amount and then scale 12.5% of healing power each second. so the question is. Who of the two will heal the most during a set amount of time?

- Well in burst healing it is rather obvious that the shout win, but we are comparing overall healing rather than burst. Lets check the numbers. We already know that Warrior heals for 1480 and scales 90%
While Regeneration heals 130 and scales 12.5%

- So how do we compare them, this is the hard part. Neither are constant and can be applied unlimited and they work differently but lets give it a try and if i fail please insert correct math so i can adjust.

Guardian has one shout that grants regeneration “Hold the line”, it is a 35 second cool down with a 6 second duration. With 0 healing power that will be
6 × 130 = 780 / 35 = 22.2857142857 Healing each second over those 35 seconds

Now lets move on with it, this is only one stack of regeneration and it can easily become more than that. But, that is the lowest value it can reach assuming no condition was cured to grant regeneration, one target and no healing or boon duration.

Warrior shout(one of them) will heal yourself for 1480 / 25 = 59.2 each second
Once again assuming no healing power, but boon duration would not affect this however.

- Now lets not forget that the Shout “Hold the line” also applies protection so lets do the average damage reduction on that(Yes will be a burst damage reduction in game however). 33%, 0.33 × 4 = 1.32 / 35 = 0.03771428571 =3.8% Average damage reduction.

So far we have tested Two shouts against each other, but. As people might know none of them was traited, lets try and do the math for all of the shouts combined and see what there overall effect will be.

Also please take into consideration that even though i am writing the overall effect in most ability’s like for instance the above case “Hold the line”, that should not be how they are considered since they are burst effects rather than overall.

- But lets move on, since we have a Average effect of the Warrior shout cool down and they all apply Healing we can use that to compare with Guardians opposite, aka Pure of voice. First lets see where they meet by doing some math. And ops that is rather high. 55532.78 well ok. I guess we have to move on for now.

- As mentioned before someone would find in interesting to compare the two different shout builds vs each other, now they do work in different ways. For instance Warriors shout are mostly offensive support while Guardian is defensive support.
This time it will be more obvious that the Guardian is a defensive support role and the warrior is a offensive support role.

- I will however start the comparison with 0% boon or condition duration and then add my conclusion on the effects later rather than as the first discussion.

- And remember, this is a raw comparison, there are other aspects to take into account so once again. Do not take all the data directly as it is, Raw data is not balance.

- And i always did consider the Warrior Banner, although slightly more immobile yet with good coordination used to give up to 15 players permanent regeneration and buffs spread along 5 people each buffs consisting of two stats that get improved. And with the added benefit of other boons such as even 5 more stacks of regeneration and burst healing, with cooldown on the player and not the banner, swiftness, fury and if one would assume the Elite skill an additional 5 people that can get regeneration and might(3stacks i believe) and fury and group stability with once again cooldown on the individual using the banner rather than the banner itself.

- Now banner warriors might have gotten a slight nerf due to the recent priority change to focus on your party members and that is why it might not be regeneration from 5 – 25 people anymore.

- I always feel the shout Warrior was the lazy buff warriors way rather than the banner.

I could add that as well, the reason i put meditation vs shout. Was there similarity and traits and what role they do perform. I only find it odd that there Grandmaster VS our GrandMaster is such a big difference between, especially if you consider the overall cooldown.

Or they could have the water field as a added effect rather then remove something to add something that is slightly bether, remember. Even though we are called Guardian that is not restricting us to not get “balance” stuff like warrior usualy gets

Kewl or one could change the combo field from the all mighty light field that apparently is so good into a water field, and set it as a priority.

Spreadsheet of doom from hell.
————————————————————————————————————————————
Warrior
“Fear Me!”

60 Recharge
Induce fear in your foes.

400-600 range: 1 s
200-400 range: 2 s
0-200 range: 3 s
Range: 600

“For Great Justice!”

25 Recharge time
Grant fury and might to yourself and allies.

Fury: 8 s
Might: 25 s
Radius: 600

“On My Mark!”

30 Recharge time
Call out target foe to make them vulnerable.

Vulnerability: 10 s
Range: 1,200

“Shake It Off!”

25 Recharge time
Cure a condition on yourself and nearby allies. Also breaks stuns.

Radius: 600
Breaks stun

Guardian
Contemplation of Purity

60 Recharge time
Convert the conditions you are suffering from into boons.
(Long list so check the wiki.)
Breaks stun

Judge’s Intervention

45 Recharge time
Teleport to your target and burn nearby foes.

Burning: 3 s (984 damage)
Damage: 122 (base)
Breaks stun
Range: 1,200

Merciful Intervention

50 Recharge time
Teleport to the nearest ally with the lowest health and create a healing area around them.(Nearest ally so ignore the tooltip above)

Healing: 1,960 (0.6)?
Range: 1,200

Smite Condition

20 Recharge time
Cure a condition and damage nearby foes. More damage if a condition is cured.

Damage with no conditions: 207 (0.58)?
Damage with condition: 463 (1.31)?

- Ok phew now we have that sorted out, sorry about the long post but i assume not everyone know what each of the “Shout” and “Meditation” means so i had to get it out there now lets move on to the next part.

- We will start with Warrior Again, even though this is the Guard Forum

Warrior
Discipline

Inspiring Shouts(Adept) – Gain adrenaline when using a shout.
Adrenaline: 8(=27% Adrenalin)

Tactics

Lung Capacity(Adept) – Reduces recharge on shouts.
Recharge reduced: 20%

Vigorous Shouts(GrandMaster) – Shouts heal.
Healing: 1,480 (0.9)?

Guardian
Valor

Meditation Mastery(Adept) – Your meditations faster.
Recharge reduced: 20%

Focused Mind(Major) – Meditations grant Fury.
Fury: 4 s

Monk’s Focus(GrandMaster) – You are healed when you use a meditation.
Healing: 1,960 (0.4)?
————————————————————————————————————————————

- Mechanics spreadsheet is over.

- Now this is a topic i have yet to see and therefore i will post it myself. I know one cannot directly compare two classes since there is a lot more to consider rather than direct traits and effects but there are some intuits shait going on here in my opinion.

- This will be a long first post and yes i am sorry about that.

- So to get the core component of the class we have to understand the basic goal of each of the two class, i am going to refer to the wiki on this so it might and probably is outdated but that is the best i got.

- Warriors - are masters of martial skills. They rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive. They’re versatile in combat and benefit from offensive and defensive abilities. Warriors inspire allies and demoralize enemies. As a soldier profession, warriors wear heavy armor.

- Guardians - specialize in protective and defensive magic. A deep sense of loyalty to their allies fuels their passion and power. As a soldier profession, guardians wear heavy armor.

- So that is the core concept of the two classes now lets get to work shall we.
The below post will show you a spreadsheet of all the meditation and shout mechanics. But i warn you, it will be a wall of text so if you already know the mechanics skip them.

- Now let the discussion begin, As i can see it most of the Warriors shout do what they intend to do for a offensive class focused on supporting. Giving exactly that a offensive support with the exception of “Shrug it off”.

- Both classes have rather similar traits when it comes down to it, they both have recharge reduction both have healing on activation as Grandmaster and they both have one additional trait that both give it in two different ways. Warrior gain adrenalin and Guardian gain fury.

- Now lets start the direct discussion about Guardians version, first off two of our meditation are offensive tools one with teleport in it and one with condition cleansing. Now this for me At least seems awkward, for a class that is about protecting allies.

- This once again become really awkward when you start comparing both Guardian vs Warrior as there version heals themselves and an additional 4 allies for a smaller base but a lot higher scaling value than the Guardian. And add to that that there version that removes condition will cure Allies and act as a stun breaker(self only as a breaker i assume) with only a difference of 5 second, while our version deals damage(We are supposed to be defensive support right.

- That adds even more to the awkwardness of what they want to achieve with Guardian Meditation, Then we have the additional trait recently added in a patch and probably not fully balanced yet but it last for 4 seconds(No Guardian that run full meditation is ever going to have boon duration, but with boon duration of 100% it becomes good) it is really lack lusting, once again it feels weird as it only buffs ourselves.

- And Warrior has an additional choice if they want to use Runes so all there shouts will remove one additional condition of yourself and four other allies within range. While as far as i know there is no Runes to buff meditations.

- We do however have one benefit over the warriors so far when comparing traits, we have all our three in the same tree while they have two in the same and one in a different so we do have that on them at least.

- So what does this add up to. Well i am not against Warriors gaining a supportive role, we all should be able to contribute with more than one role but our classes are defined that Warrior is supposed to be the offensive support. While we are the Defensive support, Yet when one compare the two builds traits and skills against each other, it feels almost like the opposite. That the Guardian is a overall offensive skills while the Warrior has defensive support.

- And as a final notice as i have posted before if one compare the current cool down on average to a Warrior vs Meditation, Warriors average is a lot lower if we use the three fastest shouts vs the three fastest meditations.

Without Traits 20% as both classes have it.
Fourth one was excluded as they both have 60 seconds cool down.
Warrior average cool down = 26.6666666667 on the three fastest one equipped.

Guardian average cool down =38.3333333333 on the three fastest one equipped.

- I know Meditation is supposed to be a more selfish spec but for me, it makes no sense currently if we compare the two against each other. Especially since Guardian is supposed to be more defensive support class overall while warriors is supposed to be offensive.

- And that concludes my demonstration any questions?

In my opinion shield 4 and 5 need a slight buff to make them on par with there long cooldown. Here are my examples given.

Shield 4 – Is a rather strong burst damage attack that scales good with power, however the team protection 5(3) Seconds is only good if we have boon duration and lets be honest, not every Guard wants to have that, however tha also makes it hard if they want to reduce the coldown. Examples to change it would be.

- Add a secondary boon either regeneration or Aegis would make it more suitable or to throw out a weakness or a short daze or stun, on enemies and it would be set.

Skill number 5 – is good for team survivability but it leaves us extremly vurnable from melee enemies this is due to the fact that we have a long cooldown on it we have to stand still and we dont block melee attacks, sure people get knocked away but there are ways to avoid the knockback, stability or even a timed dodge might save you.
examples to change that i would like to see is.

Due to the long cooldown 40sec, i would like this to also block all attacks directed towards you while hunkering down. This would provide it to behave like a shield actually do and block attacks, and also synchronize with alot of our “proc” on block traits.

Yes we should worrie. Vigor or to be precise Vigorous Precision, is one of our only good and i will admit(easily) accessed traits. But it is also our only way to gain vigor, besides kill myself utility.

I don’t want them swapped either and the skill 5 would be fine even with its current cooldown. If we blocked all attacks(not unblockable ofc) ourself that are direct to us while sitting down.

Skill 4 need alot of work however. It is really good if you run boon duration, but here is a kicker. Not every Guardian do.

If you survive a fight with more than 1 hp that means you went with to much survivability in PvE.

Yes 5 second(3SPvP) protection is as good, as good as 3 second unlimited block.
We should acctualy totaly nerf that op kitten to give like 1 second protection(0.5 in SPvP)

Cause god forgive Guardian got something equally or even stronger than Warrior.

Zach.3264:

I’m by no means sticking up for Warrior here.. but comparing the two isn’t the correct way to proceed. They are supposed to be different classes for a reason.

Sure Warriors can have good Damage and Survivability, but their utility skills are dull and they lack group support. Going full DPS gets extremely boring after a while, at least with Guardian you have the choice to switch between the two (or even hybrid).

Wall of Reflection is probably my favourite ability ingame. It’s value in WvW is absolutely priceless.

I guess Warriors don’t see shout healing and condition cleansing as group support, or banner for passive stats and perma regeneration as group support tools.

Don’t forget Warhorn to perma swiftness and condi cleanse that turn condition into boons, or hammer for hard cc to the group. But i guess those things are not group support.

And don’t throw the dull card out there. You want to know what is dull?

Warrior – Major

Vigorous Shouts
Shouts heal.

Healing: 1,480 (0.9)

Group healing
Average cooldown on shout = 26.6666667 If the three fastest one are equiped.

Guardian – Grandmaster

Monk focus
Using a meditation skill heals you.

Healing: 1,960 (0.4)

Only self.
Average cooldown on meditation: = 38.3333333 If the three fastest one are equiped.
——————————————-

I think the numbers speak for themself, add that Warriors shout also can be boosted by using the soldier runes to cleanse more condi for the group and i start to wonder what the hell the dev is acctualy thinking about Guardians vs Warriors Team support.

Aza, you are my hero. Great ideas.

I only wish we were not the class that has 50% less than the class above us in GW dev team posters, and we are the class with the least dev posts. Maybe we are top tier in GW dev team readers.

One can only hope.

Acctualy, Warriors have bether self cleanse than Guardians at this very moment. And they have reached our area cleansing aswell or almost we have a choice now.

Guardians either go Boonduration to have boon’s that acctualy do something.

Or we go Soldier to cleanse more.

If we go Boonduration, warriors can cleanse more than we can in a AoE situation.
If we go Soldier rune for more cleansing, our boon last less than the time it takes for your shout sound to finish.

They do seem reversed. But you know what would make the shield one good?

If we ourself blocked all ranged and melee attacks directed at us while we stand channel the shield 5 skill.

Also skill number 4 needs a buff or a cd reduction.

You wan’t to know what is so kitten funny about this intendeed nerf?

This is one of the only things Guardian has that people whine about. Ever seen people whine about Guardian being fast, No.

Ever heard people whine over Guardian CC be that soft or hard, No.

Ever hear people whine about our offensive Conditions, No.

All that people whine about is our Vigor and they are going to remove the only good component we have, don’t see this the wrong way. In any other casses it might have been overpowered. But for Guardian it is not, why?

Cause all our other traits are pure and utter bullkitten. When a Guard pick traits they ponder if they want to get a slap in the face or a number two in our face. Those are currently our options.

You don’t buy it for the Wolf, the wolf skills is only slightly fun. But worthless.

You buy theWolf skill to support Anet developers with money so they can earn a buck or two by keeping the game alive, but as a Guardian. Don’t buy it, they keep screwing us over with each patch and they wont address our core problem. So my personal oppinion would be to no sponsor them untill they get there act back.

The game had alot of potential and still has, they only need to start fixing the class(es) core mechanics and balance it around. Ussualy i say that Guard is in a bad spot and although that is true, we are not alone there.

Il rather see them buff/Fix our other utility and improve our melee and soft cc so we can stay in melee with our prey rather than improve our ranged weapon(yes weapon, singular. Staff is not a ranged weapon).

As dev has said, Guardian are supposed to be a melee focused class and there i want us to stay. Our problem currently is exactly that, staying in melee.

Odokuro.5049:

People tend to forget what the class itself is all about, and just see numbers, percentages, ect.

As a Warrior yeah I have good sustain/dmg/survivability ect. But we do get most of our mobility through our weapons, such as the GS and Sword skills, We have a lot of hp because unlike Guardians we can not cleanse or give ourselves buffs like protection on demand, ect. and I have seen some freakishly fast moving Guardians so don’t give me the whole, “We’re slow blah blah” crap because that is bull-kitten… Use a staff, us retreat shout, ect.

Thanks for applying our only two swiftness ability in the game, it is good they are easily accessed and have a good combination on short cool down, especially since one of them is so op it will be nerfed for roaming.

And i’ve never seen a freakishly fast Guardian, i have no idea what you are talking about. And i doubt anyone else can comply with what you said, sure we can be annoying as fudge by teleporting. But they requires a target be that friend or foe.

And yes, you can cleanse yourself. Infact not only can you cleanse yourself bether than Guardians, you can almost out shine us in AoE cleansing aswell now.

And finally you are correct about protection, you don’t have that one i will admit to that. But what if i told you, Not every Guardian want to play shout. Silly i know.

They do care, but the amount of care to Guardians are currently that of a mother to a Child. Where the Warrior would represent that mothers first child. And Guardian would represent that woman thirteen child.

The first child will get spoiled and all the love in the world to grow up with fond memory of its childhood.

The thirteen child will learn success the hard way and will eventually become a very successfully businessman, or a murdered who strangled and maimed animals before going on to humans. Rather thin line but 0.5% of us are up to greatness, and the other will still reach the news one way or the other.