The condi druid thing is irrelevant to this discussion. We are talking about Guardians.
Yes, builds like the staff WvW that are nerfed … I don’t see the problem with that because as I’ve said, that logic dictates that Anet should never change the game ever because game changes affect builds. Besides, if that’s still an optimal WvW build, people will still use it, even nerfed, so you are wrong that these builds will not be played anymore. If it never was an optimal WvW build and people play it now, those same people will still play it regardless of the change. I’ve already explained this.
I’m not ignoring your arguments; they simply don’t make sense to me. I can’t see any logic behind saying the game shouldn’t change because of negative impacts to specific builds or effects. It happens all the time; it’s not exceptional. It’s normal. It in fact, needs to happen. You probably can’t see that.
And you just go back to copypaste mode. It’s pointless for me to continue, optimal becomes an empty buzzword in your mouth.
VOJ will no longer be vital if your argument is that Guardian doesn’t have condi weapons. We are getting one. It will allow Anet to support condition build on Guardian much better than they can now. That STILL doesn’t prevent people from using the non-Firebrand condi builds that you claim they won’t be able to use.
And you might be loathe to admit it, but there are reasons for these. if you are objective enough, you might think of some. Just because you might not like those reasons doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Yes, there’s a reason, to sell the expansion.
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healer guard is kind of a niche forebrand brings it in line with druid tempest and scourge.
The only healing firebrand has is locked behind a 45s cooldown tome, good luck with that.
Spirit Weapons were mentioned by a dev alongside Physical skills for Warriors.
Its going to be a meaty balance patch like the June 2015 patch which prepped the way for HoT.Is there a link to this? All I care about is a change to spirit weapons
_I think this is what he referred to: https://youtu.be/8KrspncZEPw?t=7m18s
This is what gives me some expectations at least.That just says there will be a balance patch, which we knew since we get one at the end of every pvp season.
yea we don’t know when this is happening. He says “You’ll be seeing a balance pass in the next release”
Is he talking about the expansion? Cause thats months away and guardian SW’s have been terrible for years. I’m honestly done waiting for them to not be terrible…..
Next release means next patch, August 8th.
My point is that that dev post has nothing to do with spirit weapons, it just says there will be a balance patch on Tuesday, which we already knew.
The only info we have that they are working on spirit weapons is the link I posted.
Nope, still not there yet. I am still talking about dps, just because a build is hybrid and can’t do as much dps as a pure build, it doesn’t mean you don’t care about optimising that dps.
As for examples, I did provide them, you just ignored them. Condi druid was an example from a different class. For guardian, wvw zerg guardian can play condi using range weapons and/or staff. In case you forgot, guardian is designed around VoJ and thus has no condi weapons. But staff auto hitting 3 with VoJ + Permeating Wrath does burning with every attack. Builds like that are nerfed, and firebrand doesn’t help, since it’s entirely melee focused with no added survivability, which is a suicide combo for wvw.
And it’s not only about existing builds, it affects all future builds for guardian. Again, guardian is a class with no condi weapons, VoJ is vital.
You also completely ignore what I said that this is also a nerf to power DH, when that build is already overshadowed by every class in the game except Mesmer. And that’s on top of the change to Toxic Sharpening Stone, again, another nerf.
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See, you think optimisation is about the one top dps build. You can’t understand there are situations and game modes that require more things than pure damage, and builds that optimise their dps for those scenarios.
You brought this style vs performance distinction up yourself. It was never about that. If you can’t understand there’s space for something other than the top dps condi build, you will never understand my argument no matter how many times it was explained to you. Unless you choose to ignore it, of course.
We will know in 4 days.
You don’t have any supporters yourself.
In the end, you can’t support your stand, your only MO is eating Anet’s kitten.
That could have happened without changing VoJ.
That could have happened without even making an elite spec, like it happened for ranger, revenant, elementalist, thief.
In fact, it could have happened by buffing VoJ to the pvp values.
Guardians will have a focused condi build that Anet can properly deliver to players. Obviously it would be stupid for Anet to give us a new condi elite spec and have players like yourself complain that it’s not better than the mish mash of random burning skills that make up our current condi spec we have now …
As opposed to the mish mash of the same random burning skills plus axe?
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Then tell me what positive effect this change bring to the game.
It’s pointless. You will defend everything, like a true guardian clown. Like that’s literally your entire argument, bow down and accept any change without question or critique because change happens.
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Well, I took a closer look at our heal skill:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Flare
Only 4k heal + barrier and convert 1 boon into torment + cripple…
meanwhile Warrior’s new heal:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Natural_Healing
A whopping 12k heal, 7 boons & 7 condi’s removed..
Even warrior’s heal can counter our heal in 2 ways: either no boons to corrupt or easy condi removal..
Yeah, shafted
Why did you specifically pick this heal to compare it to?
First of all, Scourge’s heal is a supportive one, as it gives barrier to nearby allies, while the warrior one is selfish. So, compare it to Wash the Pain Away and stuff.
Second, Natural Healing removes boons from warrior himself, which is a pretty big drawback.
Mostly because that 1 skill renders our entire boon corrupt useless…
Just imagine that heal skill in PvP…
Happy scourge watching warrior arrive and sees all those glorious boons to corrupt.. But before the warrior is in reach: BOOM, boons gone…
Nothing to corrupt… We’re rendered pretty useless due to 1 warrior skill.. Just 1 to counter all our boon corrupt.. Just 1!
Good thing we have barrier though
I know I am exaggerating a bit here but you get the point…
So warrior now has no boons and his heal skill is down. Why is that threatening again?
Scourge hardly relies on boon corruption, Necro in general is more than capable of generating conditions and scourge only adds to that.
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Spirit Weapons were mentioned by a dev alongside Physical skills for Warriors.
Its going to be a meaty balance patch like the June 2015 patch which prepped the way for HoT.Is there a link to this? All I care about is a change to spirit weapons
_I think this is what he referred to: https://youtu.be/8KrspncZEPw?t=7m18s
This is what gives me some expectations at least.
That just says there will be a balance patch, which we knew since we get one at the end of every pvp season.
people that care about performance over style will gravitate to the most effective builds, condition or not. I don’t understand how you ignore that fact …
This right here is the crux of the problem. Your argument is that killing off these builds is no loss, because people will play something else. My argument is that it matters that these builds would die.
Your approach is nihilistic and pointless. Why buff an underperforming build? People will gravitate to more optimal builds anyway. Who cares if a class sucks, people will gravitate towards better classes. Why don’t we just delete guardian. People will play something else.
Because it’s not about building the optimal condi build. It’s about being able to play a condi build at all. Not everything is optimised dps, there are hybrid builds, too, that might emerge with our existing and future elite specs. A nerf to VoJ closes the door to everything but firebrand.
People that want to play suboptimal builds are not excluded from playing them because of changes to the game. If it’s not about playing the optimal condi build as you say, then how does a 1/2 second reduction in passive VOJ prevent you from playing non-optimal condi or hybrid builds? That makes no sense. Why would even care if your damage is decreased if you are already choosing to play builds that aren’t optimized for whatever kind of damage you want to apply?
Because they ARE optimized within certain parameters. Condi druid is optimised within the parameter that you are still a support druid that will choose certain skills and traits to support your team. But you will also pull the most dps you can. Such build would be hurt by nerfs just the same.
To go back to guardian, wvw burn guardian is not going to go into the zerg’s face and hack them with an axe. They use ranged weapons. Those builds are nerfed.
Firebrand is not replacing guardian. Is this that hard to wrap your head around?
Firebrand might be the intented condi dps, but the price we pay is that it will be impossible to play condi outside of firebrand.
What’s hard for me to get my head around is that you think I said Firebrand replaces Guardian … I didn’t say that. I said that if Firebrand becomes the optimal condi build, then that’s what people will use that care about their condi damage.
The price we pay is that other condi builds aren’t as good? Who cares? … again, your complaint makes no sense in a game where there are optimal builds for power and condi damage. This isn’t a new concept. Don’t pretend that we are losing some kind of vast diversity in condition builds because of this VOJ change … that’s a fallacy. The people that care will take whatever build is optimal. The people that go for style instead of performance won’t even notice.
Because it’s not about building the optimal condi dps build. It’s about being able to play a condi build at all. Not everything is optimised dps, there are hybrid builds, too, that might emerge with our existing and future elite specs. A nerf to VoJ closes the door to everything but firebrand.
Condi druid is not the optimal condi build, condi ranger is, but it’s still played. Why? Because you can make it work and still have druid’s supportive aspects. You are support first and foremost, but you squeeze in some damage because you can afford it.
Guardian already struggles pulling a condi build together, but now it’s completely out of question, power builds outside of firebrand will always outperform condi builds.
So you’re going to insult me because Firebrand isn’t in the game yet … but you’re complaining about a game change that isn’t in the game yet either… but that’s perfectly awesome and reasonable in your mind … GG.
The fact is that this change will be completely irrelevant once you get a superior condition build, which is what Firebrand appears to be. You’re making mountains from molehills here. I can’t seriously wrap my head around the idea that you are complaining about condi damage for builds that will be substandard condi builds in the future anyways. That’s just … complaining for the sake of complaining.
Firebrand is not replacing guardian. Is this that hard to wrap your head around?
Firebrand might be the intented condi dps, but the price we pay is that it will be impossible to play condi outside of firebrand. Dragonhunter didn’t come with nerfs to the class because DH is the better power build.
And if the devs can’t design a condi build with VoJ in mind, they just show themselves to be the talentless hacks they really are.
A. This is the tooltip AFTER you spec into firebrand. I honestly dont see what does it say about play without Firebrand.
True, we can expect some balance changes and it might affect vanilla VoJ, but this isn’t it pal.You thought you could play condi without Firebrand
Honest to god I just cannot seem to grasp what the hell do you people want anymore. WHY, dear god, WHY would you possibly try to run a condi spec without Firebrand if Fireband is an INTENDED condi spec?
Would you try running a healer ranger without Druid? would you play Auramancer without tempest? would you play Bruiser necro without Reaper?
What is it that you want?!
Those classes weren’t nerfed so their specs could have a role. Some of them were BUFFED so the spec would have a strong foundation to build on. Look at the rework Revenant got in preperation for the condi spec, look at the condi buffs ele got that tempest is a top dps condi build even before Weaver is released.
And what guardian gets in preperation for firebrand? Nerfs.
God, you are so detached from reality. There is no first-rate build, firebrand is not in the game, wake up.
This second-rate build you are moking is all guardian has.
We are losing base class strength that can be used with Dragonhunter and future elite specs in favour of one specific elite spec. Yes, firebrand will be used if it’s the best condi dps, but the class as a whole will be weaker.
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Nice counterargument. Prove me wrong with numbers, not empty words.
Even if VoJ was half of guardian’s condi output, that’s still more than 10% less damage on the build that was weak to begin with. VoJ should have been buffed, not nerfed.
But the guardian community is what it is, it’s only natural the class reflects it.
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You thought you could play condi without Firebrand? Think again.
VoJ passive down to 1.5 sec of burning. Reminder that it was 4s in pvp.
I don’t see the problem here, especially if Firebrand is already an intentionally strong Condi spec. Let’s not pretend that we have a plethora of builds all doing the same thing to give us diversity; that’s not how GW2 works ever.
If the new condi spec meta is Firebrand, then the people that want to optimize condi play will use it. If the old Guardian core spec is still the better condi damage spec, then they will use that, though I hardly see that happening.
I mean, you have a flawed reasoning in the first place; people don’t play ‘whatever they want’ when they optimize a build in the first place … those that do couldn’t give a rat’s behind about their performance otherwise.
It’s not about playing what you want. It’s about gutting the base class when it was already weak to put the condi build behind the new paywall.
Meanwhile, revenant, ele, ranger, thief all got BUFFS to the point that their condi builds are top meta, not the 29k joke guardian is, and the first 3 of them are getting a condi spec on top of it.
Guardian is getting a 25% reduction to their condi output. But no wonder you are defending this, this community is half the reason guardian is the joke class.
Apparently people have a hard time reading. Tome of Justice =/= Virtue of Justice
The virtue passives don’t change.
Just because it didn’t change with Dragonhunter, does NOT mean it doesn’t change with Firebrand. The active benefit for Firebrand is FAR more potent than the active portion of Core or Dragonhunter. To keep the Elite spec even remotely in line with Core and Dragonhunter in power level, it’s only logical that the passive would take a cut. Quite honestly I was fully prepared to see the passive virtues cut out entirely from Firebrand.
The other 2 Firebrand passives are the same. Only VoJ is different. Keep thinking this is not a change to the base VoJ.
The base class is gutted because of some duration of burning removed from passive VoJ? That shows a pretty strong lack of understanding of how condi Guardian works. No wonder you’re complaining. Guardian is NOT getting a 25% reduction in their condi, only passive VOJ is. A condi Guardian relies on much more than passive VOJ for it’s damage output.
PvE condi is all about VoJ. The only other sources of burning are Torch #4 and Purging Flames, and the rarely used spirit weapon.
It is also another nerf to power dps, on top of the nerf of Toxic Sharpening Stone, since VoJ’s burning is a small but noticeable portion of that build’s damage.
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Spirit Weapons were mentioned by a dev alongside Physical skills for Warriors.
Its going to be a meaty balance patch like the June 2015 patch which prepped the way for HoT.Is there a link to this? All I care about is a change to spirit weapons
_
The Sc+T/GS build is that middle ground. Hammer guardian is solidly in the “burden to the team” territory.
Maybe in theory, but when you can use Stone Spirit for perma-protection, why take a hammer guardian?
Because your group doesn’t have a second druid/ranger to give a stone spirit to the 2nd party, but does have a guard with a hammer.
Then you use lfg.
Boon duration on food and gear (like platinum doubloons) is getting changed to concentration with much lower values, so it might be impossible to realistically maintain perma quickness without investing in contentration armour/weapons.
Well, I took a closer look at our heal skill:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Flare
Only 4k heal + barrier and convert 1 boon into torment + cripple…
meanwhile Warrior’s new heal:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Natural_Healing
A whopping 12k heal, 7 boons & 7 condi’s removed..
Even warrior’s heal can counter our heal in 2 ways: either no boons to corrupt or easy condi removal..
Yeah, shafted
Why did you specifically pick this heal to compare it to?
First of all, Scourge’s heal is a supportive one, as it gives barrier to nearby allies, while the warrior one is selfish. So, compare it to Wash the Pain Away and stuff.
Second, Natural Healing removes boons from warrior himself, which is a pretty big drawback.
This is wrong. Damage absorption is, pound for pound, better than healing. Drastically more useful.
Explain this one.
It is a general theme shared across many online games – Shields and Absorbs work better against burst. That’s the same reason why in PvP more often than not Vitality is taken over Toughness (e.g. Mercenary’s Amulet>Destroyer’s Amulet), even in nearly full power metas.
Besides, Shields are less prone to overhealing – but that might not be that true in gw2 due to seemingly low cap on max shield. We will wait and see.
The cap looks to be generous, WP said it scales with vitality (or max heath, it’s not clear), but in his video he had about 24k HP and the cap was a bit more than 11k.
If you can find people to carry you, good for you. But if you are not even willing to put the minimum amount of effort, don’t blame it on the community’s mentality.
If Ashes scale with your allies stats, then it might be the better trait for full support builds with mistrel gear or similar and firebrand will replace chrono for the condi subgroup.
Nvm, ignore me, you are right, I assumed all mantras shared the same recharge timer, but it seems some of them are 12 and some 15.
First of all, if you look at the damage its not even a nerf at all
Secondly, we do not know if tome of justice has a pvp version and we only see the pve one in the tool tip
Third, the specs aren’t released. People have found conflicting concepts in other traits/skills that may need to be polished a bit.Current :
Burning (Passive Effect) (4s): 524 DamageTooltip in screenshot :
Burning (Passive Effect) (1 1/2s): 541 Damage
The tooltip is pulled from pvp, all elite spec testing that streamers did was done in the pvp lobby. And I’m not even focusing on the pvp change, I said this is a 25% reduction, if I’m to take pvp into consideration, it’s downright depressing.
Second, condi damage is standardized, so there’s no such thing as a high damaging burn, only duration and stacks.
Unless there’s a gamewide change to burning, it just means that Aurora Peachy was running some condi damage in her build.
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I believe the default mantra recharge is 15 seconds (12 with the trait), so the heal recharge won’t match the trait icd.
I’m more bothered by the animation than anything else. I would welcome an auto attack chain for that alone.
They will just make the spirit weapons pulse some throwaway boons (Bow regen, sword might, shield protection, hammer fury) and call it a day.
“I play on a static using good builds, but troll once in a while, so playing troll builds in pugs is totally viable, you guys xDDD”
Good one. Don’t go around people to play hammer guardian, especially when some can’t afford to have backup alts.
You thought you could play condi without Firebrand? Think again.
VoJ passive down to 1.5 sec of burning. Reminder that it was 4s in pvp.
I don’t see the problem here, especially if Firebrand is already an intentionally strong Condi spec. Let’s not pretend that we have a plethora of builds all doing the same thing to give us diversity; that’s not how GW2 works ever.
If the new condi spec meta is Firebrand, then the people that want to optimize condi play will use it. If the old Guardian core spec is still the better condi damage spec, then they will use that, though I hardly see that happening.
I mean, you have a flawed reasoning in the first place; people don’t play ‘whatever they want’ when they optimize a build in the first place … those that do couldn’t give a rat’s behind about their performance otherwise.
It’s not about playing what you want. It’s about gutting the base class when it was already weak to put the condi build behind the new paywall.
Meanwhile, revenant, ele, ranger, thief all got BUFFS to the point that their condi builds are top meta, not the 29k joke guardian is, and the first 3 of them are getting a condi spec on top of it.
Guardian is getting a 25% reduction to their condi output. But no wonder you are defending this, this community is half the reason guardian is the joke class.
Apparently people have a hard time reading. Tome of Justice =/= Virtue of Justice
The virtue passives don’t change.
Just because it didn’t change with Dragonhunter, does NOT mean it doesn’t change with Firebrand. The active benefit for Firebrand is FAR more potent than the active portion of Core or Dragonhunter. To keep the Elite spec even remotely in line with Core and Dragonhunter in power level, it’s only logical that the passive would take a cut. Quite honestly I was fully prepared to see the passive virtues cut out entirely from Firebrand.
The other 2 Firebrand passives are the same. Only VoJ is different. Keep thinking this is not a change to the base VoJ.
^
Any elite that needs more than one button pressed is too “clunky” for this community.The old tomes also weren’t “patched out” in my opinion. They were stripped down to the only things they were used for… tome of wrath was changed to just the AE quickness and fury, the main reason anyone ever used that tome… and the tome of courage was changed to just the AE full heal and an AE passive health per second, also the only reason anyone ever used that tome…
Well then you, like most people, don’t actually know why Tome of Courage was used, because it wasn’t the full heal.
You’re right, the full heal was too slow to be usable at all. I can’t really remember why anyone ran Tome of Courage in the past, I was personally a bigger fan of Tome of Wrath… I think I recall Tome of Courage having an AE stun or daze on it… but the full heal was definitely the big important skill on the Tome of Courage, or at least, it was set up to be.
Edit: It had a ground targeted heal, a bouncing blind, regen and protection, ae cone daze, and the long cast full heal. Still, it’s not that great since I seem to recall the tomes locking you out of your utilities, meaning that if you were focused or stunned you could do nothing about it. Taking an elite just for a 3 second cone daze and protection seems pretty weak too when compared to renewed focus.
Tome of Courage had pulsing stability and protection. It was hard to get focused or cc’d.
Just spamming the auto alone could heal a whole group back when there was no such thing as a healer and everything that healed allies either had a huge cooldown or abyssmal values.
They could also just give firebrand, tempest and ventari their own special buffs.
There is a trait that when applying quickness, you also give 2 stacks of the new buff that applies burning to attacks. So Firebrand does have a unique buff, but it really only affects condi builds in a good way.
That’s not a buff. Unless you think Venom thief is a support class.
Maybe in theory, but when you can use Stone Spirit for perma-protection, why take a hammer guardian?
It’s called having fun.
Raids are not solo content. Unless you have 9 other friends, have fun getting kicked.
Apparently people have a hard time reading. Tome of Justice =/= Virtue of Justice
The virtue passives don’t change.
Never change, guardian subforum. Never change…
We are like our main class that way; a stagnant, rancid cesspool.
Thats the VoJ tooltip when u spec to Firebrand. VoJ changes depending on what specializations and traits you have on. When u go DH it changes/swaps its skill tooltip from core tooltip to DH. What you see in those screenshots is Voj changed/swaped from core tooltip to Firebrand tooltip. Doesnt mean core tooltip is changed from 4sec to 1.5.
Altho that said i think we can expect some nerfs and cd’s to our burn applications now that condi firebrand is here. It is going to be a condi bursting monstrosity of a class.
The passive portion of VoJ is not affected by specializations. DH burns for 4s in pvp, it’s just that the tooltip wasn’t updated when they buffed it.
And no, it doesn’t make sense to nerf the identity of the class to ship replacement buffs behind a paywall.
You thought you could play condi without Firebrand? Think again.
VoJ passive down to 1.5 sec of burning. Reminder that it was 4s in pvp.
There’s only one 600 range PBAoE skill per tome.
Maybe in theory, but when you can use Stone Spirit for perma-protection, why take a hammer guardian?
Shoot, hammer guardian is still viable.
No, it’s not, it does 10k less DPS than standard builds.
Explain me how can a class based on condition dmg be good in PvP or pve with only 1 dmg condition.
In PvP easly cleaned, in pve fire boss are imune
Condi tempest has only 1 condition.
Regardless, firebrand does both burn and bleed.
There’s no doubt firebrand will be used in zergs, they are in improved version of the stability share core guards.
I kinda like the minor trait that gives you super speed when dodging. Kinda imitates the little movement speed you get from dodgerolling in combat.
However, wouldn’t that also make it easier to see who the real mesmer is? (the one that runs faster than the clones.)
The one running, fast or not, is the real mesmer, as clones generally are stationary.
In any case, there’s a trait that makes clones dodge, too, so they would gain superspeed.