Guild Wars 2

Quitting because of spirit weapons? Even I find this shallow and tomes and SW was the only reason I made and mained a guardian (and still do).

Anyway, during the last pvp Dev AMA, they said SW are one of the 4-5 skill types they want to improve, along with mantras, and a couple more I can’t remember.

Ragnarox.9601:

Well builds will pretty much be the same:

-Valor
-Virtues
-Purifier

or pure condi:

-Valor or Virtues
-Radiance
-Purifier

Zeal – crap
Honor – only wvw zerg

Ermm, Zeal is a must for dps DH

Fashion Mage.3712:

RabbitUp.8294:

How does purifier correlate to tomes?

A firebrand is a demagogue, and books have been historically used to spread ideology and belief.

And even if you take purifier seriously, it’s like they just wanted a synonym for healer. I would rather they called it priest and be done with it, if that was the case.

Sounds like using terrible pokemon weakness/resistance logic to justify a bad name, kind of like Dragonhunter. :0

I don’t particularly like “Purifier” but it’s still miles better than “Firebrand”. Purifier obviously correlates to the spec’s focus on “purifying” by burning (probably) and “purifying” by healing/cleansing, both of which are done by tomes.

Then tell me how firebrand is a bad name, without bringing purifier into the mix. How does it not work, what’s bad about it?

How does purifier correlate to tomes?

A firebrand is a demagogue, and books have been historically used to spread ideology and belief.

And even if you take purifier seriously, it’s like they just wanted a synonym for healer. I would rather they called it priest and be done with it, if that was the case.

I’m not that glad about it, to be honest, base guardian should have been better at condi. I don’t want the buff to come in a way of an elite spec and be forced to play firebrand to be condi.

And I saying that as someone who loved tomes so much that I’ll have a hard time being anything but a firebrand.

Asura cultural heavy armour is amazing, you don’t even have to try to look good.

Relax, the expansion is at least 6 months away, this is not HoT when they hadn’t even started working on them when the trailer dropped.

And the leaker didn’t say that holosmith is just what they scrapped together in a couple of weeks, like its implied here, he said that engi and ele are still being worked on, while the rest are more or less finished.

Scrapper was hardly the only spec that was reworked anyway, Tempest had a weapon change even, and it still turned out to be great. The problem with scrapper was that it was designed for pvp, ignoring pve.

Ragnarox.9601:

Guardian creation devs are good but I dont trust guardian balance devs.

So good that guardian had no place in pve, and even now only plays as a tier 2 dps. The support/tank class with no support. “Hey guys, we should add taunt to the game. Then give it to warriors. Actually, let’s just make warriors one of the better supports in the game, but also better condi than guardian.”

Ghotistyx.6942:

Every weapon is a condi weapon with VoJ.

And then all you deal is burning, which is super easy to cleanse in competitive game modes. Plus, it’s not like a condi weapon will not work with VoJ.

Genesis.8572:

Hopefully the name goes back to the previous leak name of “Purifier,” because “Firebrand” would make the Guardian the consecutive winner of the “Worst E-Spec Name” award.

What? Firebrand is miles better, Purifier is awful, all I think is this

Ivantreil.3092:

As someone mentioned, they look like the new type of utilities are traps.

I spoke with my guild about it, and we did tought these woudl be a type of traps that triggers boons/healing or any type of new support ability.

These ones will be traps oriented on defense and support.

DH already uses holo traps, though.

However, they could be traps like the Ranger Healing Spring, so that they are triggered by allies.

Of course, there’s always Reaver of the Mists.

I hope not. I REALLY hope not. We have no condi weapon, axe needs to fill that slot. No, it doesn’t need to take up a trait slot to do so.

GWMO.4785:

I have never been a fan continiously kitt swapping on engi. So in that sense i dont think i would like it on guardian also. Tho i do like that axe there. Wonder if that is just a (weapon) skill cast effect or an actual ghostly loking weapon like the azureflame and foefire’s essence/power

The actual weapon skin is the standard ascended axe. You can see it right above the aegis boon icon as he wields it.

So, guard axe will probably be similar to elementalist’s dagger in Air attumenet (the lightning whip), in that it has longer than melee range, but still short, and creates a ghostly weapon to attack foes. After all, Guardian has always had that Green Lantern hardlight element.

I would have liked Axe or Mace, but I guess 2 other specs get Axe and Mace is too similar to Scrapper’s hammer.

I really doubt the skills are AI. If I had to guess, they could be like Warrior’s banners, you summon holographic strictures (think WvW crafting stations), which could offer buffs to allies in the area, or maybe you could interact with them to get an effect.

Ragnarox.9601:

I hope they are like engineer kits with no cd. That would be awesome and complicated. If they were old tomes with cd that would be bummer and bad for the class.

The leaker said they are like engi kits. And judging by the picture, we get an initiative bar, so there’s some gating. Which makes sense, they can’t just give guardian 5 weapons with no drawback.

Kuya.6495:

Judging from the name and previous leaks, it looks like it’s going to be focused on condi dps.

Based on some other previous leaks, it’s a condi + healer/support.

As for the name, Firebrand has an interesting meaning:

firebrand
Merriam-Webster: one that creates unrest or strife (as in aggressively promoting a cause) : agitator
Wikipedia: A person with a penchant for militancy in speech and/or action
Dictionary: a person who kindles strife or encourages unrest; an agitator; troublemaker.

Well, stomping noobs is all thiefs are good for anyway

I have Hope on my mesmer even though it doesn’t get much use as an off-hand. I really like its looks though.

Astralaria is by far my favourite legendary, but I don’t play ranger and it’s not that good on warrior and rev. But now that Guardians and Mesmers get it, I’m totally crafting one.

Deadeye is a sniper, and Predator is a sniper rifle, so..

BlaqueFyre.5678:

All I can say is beware Guardians….

How do you like them projectile reflects? :p

Anela.3867:

I wonder if we will be able to use Dragon Hunter along with Firebrand? I don’t want to lose my legendary bow but Firebrand sounds very interesting.

We won’t. The bottom specialisation slot has a gold border, indicating that you can choose an elite spec there, and thus you can only get 1 spec at a time.

Plus, elite specs change the name and class icon and the profession mechanic, so 2 can’t coexist.

I really like the themed helmet skin, too, I’m totally wearing it on my guardian.

Firebrand, Guardian’s next elite spec

Weapon: Main-hand Axe
Profession mechanic: Tomes
Skill type: Mantras
The skill/trait unlocking page for all elite specs were leaked on reddit

So hyped

(I removed the image in case it’s against forum rules)

Yes, they can. It’s less forgiving because you can get oneshot from more attacks as Guard (12k HP vs 19k), but it’s definitely doable.

But Warrior in general is easier for that with Endure Pain and Defiant Stance, brainless long-duration immunity skills

Lahmia.2193:

RabbitUp.8294:

Lahmia.2193:

10/10 looks.
0/10 practicality.
Glad they removed. I hope Anet “tomes” all transform skills.

Yes, I hope they remove Celestial Avatar, that thing sucks. I mean, it’s a transform and we all know that transform skills are impossible to make good.

If you bothered to read wiki, you’d realise it doesn’t count as a transform. Nice try though.

That’s your argument? That it doesn’t have the transform skill tag?

It’s a profession mechanic, of course it has no other tags, that’s how the game works. But it’s differctly comparable. Heck, Necro shroud work the same as the other transforms, disabling all your other skills, and it still doesn’t have the Transform tag.

And they are proof that they can make a transform good. Celestial Avatar could be a utility or elite skill with similar cooldown, and it would still be excellent and used by all healer druids.

But when you take Tomes and slap a 180sec cooldown on them, of course they suck.

Guardian is good in pvp, and Warrior, too, after the buffs.

As for soloing stuff, there’s not much you can solo in the game. You can solo champions for the fun of it, but it’s not rewarding lootwise at all. I guess you can solo HoT hero points, and you can do so with a couple of classes, I’ve done it on my guardian and mesmer, I believe daredevil can do so, too, with all the dodges.

Lahmia.2193:

10/10 looks.
0/10 practicality.
Glad they removed. I hope Anet “tomes” all transform skills.

Yes, I hope they remove Celestial Avatar, that thing sucks. I mean, it’s a transform and we all know that transform skills are impossible to make good.

Guardians can be very sturdy, but you have to work for it. For example, Warrior has almost twice as much health as a guardian, but what guard has is blocks, blinds and heals to make up for it.

Now, this is more apparent in pvp, while pve guard can’t afford to slot in many active defenses without losing damage.

Revenant is pretty much in the middle, medium health and some active defenses.

My advice is to play whatever you want. Don’t be fooled by posts that say revenant is not good in pve. They are specifically talking about raids, and in optimal group setups. If this is what you are concerned about, there’s a lot more to worry than your class choice, you have to practice a lot and master your class, using the “better” classes won’t matter one bit if you don’t know how to perform the skill rotations. Not to mention that the meta is always changing, revenant used to be staple a few months ago.

As for pvp, you get everything for free, there’s no gearing to be done, so you can play all those classes at the same time.

Having said all that, I advise you to take a look at necromancer, too. Among the dps classes, they are extremely resilient ones with their 35k+ health bar.

I don’t think Purifier will be pure condi. My guess is that it’s a condi support, or condi healer, with the latter being more likely.

First of all, from the leak, we know the name is Purifier, which sounds like a healer/support, rather than an offensive geared spec, plus we already got DH, which is pure dps. The mechanic is supposed to be Tomes, and the weapon is a condi mh Axe.

Here’s the thing, Guardian already have Mace as a healing weapon. Yes, it sucks, but they can’t just release a second one to do the same thing. And they can always rework mace anyway. So, they give us Axe as a condi weapon, since base Guardian doesn’t have anything like it.

Second, the mechanic is Tomes. Our old tomes came in 2 flavours, one offensive, and one healing. So, the healing tome could be our version of Celestial Avatar, while the offensive tome is condi based dps.

The 10-target change should be reserved for profession unique skills and traits. Other standard buffing and damaging skills should stay the same.

So, things like Spotter, Assassin’s Presense, etc, as well as the Ranger Spirits should be changed to 10 targets.

Fields are still hard to use strategically in the heat of combat.

Is there a chance you would consider making the player’s finisher prioritise their own fields? So, even if there are overlapping fields, my finisher will connect to my own field, ignoring others. Is this possible mechanically?

Also, it feels important that a pass on existing skills is made to add finishers where appropriate. Especially pre-HoT skills.

TexZero.7910:

Ventari Rev seems like it could benefit from having a linking/leashing component to target ally, that would spawn the effect of the skills at two locations(The revenant and target ally). Has this idea ever come up in testing ?

There are no ally-targeted skills in the game, and won’t be for good reasons.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Kerivek.5740:

My main concern is the fact that Spirit Weapons went completely untouched. One of my favorite things about Guardian when I began playing back in beta was my Spirit Weapon build. Spirit Weapons seem to be relegated to the realm of “just for fun” rather than having any remotely competitive applications. I would really love to see Spirit Weapons and other neglected skills get some love rather than just tweaking what is already being used ad nauseum.

TexZero.7910:

<snip> when are elixir’s, gadgets, and gyro’s going to be viable choices over kits ?

We would really like to do some in-depth passes on underused utility types across most professions. We did not have time to do that for this update, sadly.

Kits on Engineer are an outlier; as utilities they provide an insane amount of versatility. Inherently it is difficult to bring a single skill up to the level of five skills. This is a difficult conundrum and one we discuss regularly. That said, we do have a few ideas for creating gameplay with other utility revisits in the future.

In particular I’d like to review and revisit Elementalist Conjures, Guardian Spirit Weapons, Engineer Gadgets and potentially Mesmer Mantras.

Please add Guardian Signets to that list. At the very least change Signet of Resolve from 35s to 30s.

Is there a chance you might consider reworking https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strength_in_Numbers?

150 toughness has very limited utility, especially in pve.

Zaviel.1245:

The aura would improve our group utility, but +Condi Damage is the worst of all the auras.

Power from warriors is useful on ANY build, power or condi.
Precision from Rangers is useful on ANY build, power or condi.
Lifesteal from Necros is useful on MOST builds, power or condi.
Condi is useful ONLY on condi builds.

Keep this in mind.

Toughness from guardians is useful on NO builds, power or condi.

;)

dlen.4908:

Thanks for the info! Never expected a weapon to be tied to a trait. Been using it and the Ranger’s skill set is better. Really don’t see how it is better than what I’m using. Greatsword for damage weapon with scepter/shield for cc – immobile and pushback/heal.

Honor 3rd – 2nd – 2nd
Virtues 2nd – 2nd – 2nd
Zeal 1st – 2nd – 3rd

+damage greatsword, larger +damage ranged symbols.

Not much of one for finesse! See it, hit it, make it hurt. It’s the Norn way!

Jayne Wier – Ferguson

The only thing Ranger’s longbow has over Dh is stealth and a bit extra range. Dh has more damage, more aoe, more cc.

As for what the bow is good for, it’s for ranged pressure and cc. Scepter has low damage in pvp, since the bulk of it is on a symbol they can walk out of. And the only cc is an immobilise that will be cleansed.

Fashion Mage.3712:

If it just became Blink+heal, it would become way too strong and every guardian would use it. The purpose and intentional design of the ability is to provide mobility to get to and assist allies specifically. The heal itself is also actually quite strong with healing power (4k~).

I agree that it should have less cooldown though, even if it’s just like 5 seconds less.

How is that different from Mesmers, Eles and Thiefs using their own shadowsteps? It’s stupid that guardians has 2 of them and they are both restricted. And especially for Merciful Intervention, it’s really clunky to use, because there’s no ally targeting in this game and you can whiff the entire skill if the ally moves out of the area. At the very least, you shouldn’t get a full cooldown if the skill does nothing.

Anybody has any pics of the Lake Doric Shield skin with aegis?

Papa Smurf.4792:

Symbol of Faith (Mace) – Reduce Cast time to 1/2 second, Apply 1 stack of might per pulse, 2 second duration.

Scepter got the Might symbol already, they won’t make a duplicate. Make it remove 1 condition from all allies at the beginning, like how Symbol of Energy/Blades apply burning/blind.

I like the rest of your suggestions.

What I want from greatsword:

1) Remove the projectiles from GS2. Condense all damage to the spinning attack. Have it hit 9 times total.

2) Buff the leap to 900 range.

3) Reduce the cooldowns:
GS2 8 sec
GS3 12 sec
GS4 15 sec
GS5 25 sec

4) Give us a new trait. Why does the greatsword get heals? It’s not what the weapon is for, we have mace for that.

New trait: Momentum
Critical strikes while wielding a greatsword increase your attack speed (stacking up to 15 times, 1% attack speed per stack). And 20% cdr, of course.

The problem with putting ascended gear in fractals is that you need asc to do fractals in the first place. Sure, you could spend ages grinding the T1 fractals in exotic and get your asc this way before proceeding in higher tiers, but that’s more work than maxing your crafts.

Now compare that to the completely free pvp asc gear.

Dodge is not invulnerability, it’s an evade.

Gwaihir.1745:

Alacrity? The aa chain is the best dps since casting mb requires canceling usually. 3/4/5 don’t really do damage so they aren’t used. So alacrity would be best on another party member ie ele.

I meant to say quickness, my bad.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Or is it all about 1h sword now?

This is for PVE.

1h sword is mostly for solo, otherwise scepter is better dps in group, especially against large hitboxes, and being able to fight at range is amazing in fractals.

Hammer is the other top pve weapon, for its perma protection and very comparable dps. It needs its traits to shine, and alacrity makes it so much better, so hammer is mostly for raids.

Just got patched

Bluehydra.6392:

I get it was ridiculous in PvP, but I don’t like to lose break bar value for PvE. Don’t really understand why every class got split changes but they took our daze completely on both game modes. I agree that slow doesn’t make sense, but at least it has better cc value than cripple.

They said they won’t split the functionality of a skill/trait between game modes. Like, they can’t have a trait daze in PvE and slow in PvP, the two are completely different.

The split changes will only involve number differences, specifically: damage, heal, boon/condi duration, number of stacks for boon/condi, and cooldown

Brutaly.6257:

Good changes imo, the only bad thing is that those changes is desperately needed in wvw as well. I wonder why they didnt introduce them in the entire game?

The amulet isnt and option imo but the runes can be a bit interesting, are those in pvp only as well?

Considering they doubled the effectiveness of the VoJ passive, I can see them being reluctant to port this over to pve hastily. That’s a free +100% condi duration, or 1500 expertise, when the vast majority of guardian’s condi pressure comes from VoJ passive.

draxynnic.3719:

ArchonWing.9480:

The only thing I really care about is how it affects the ability to break bars. (It’s not just a pvp change it would seem…)

Might not change it all that much, actually. Slow seems to put a significant drain on break bars. They may not break quite as fast, but a second and a half of slow might do about as much damage to the bar overall.

1,5 sec of slow is 75 damage total, the daze was 100 damage

LouWolfskin.3492:

Can we get the Core Virtue changes for PvE as well?

Seconding this.

They also increased the active portion from 1 stack to 3 stacks of 4s burning.

So F1 active can apply some decent pressure.

You should include the new rune and amulet in the OP, they seem good for burn Guardian:

Deadshot Amulet
1050 Precision
1050 Condition Damage
560 Vitality
560 Expertise

Rune of the Lynx
175 power
100 Condition Damage
+25% Movement Speed