Guild Wars 2

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

You aren’t quite right. Getting Stability does not break stun at all, it just means that further disables don’t work.

Shielded Mind is unique because it can break other people out of stun, something that literally no other ability can do. It’s also vastly more helpful when a stun pops up that you didn’t (or couldn’t, if it came from stealth) see coming, as by that point, you want to break the stun and doge follow-up, rather than prevent the hit that already occurred.

This isn’t a matter of one trait being better than another, it’s a matter of them both doing different things that are somewhat related.

Indomitable Courage is a preventative measure. Shielded Mind is a reactionary measure.

This ^ more or less.

Though it should be noted that stability will automatically end knock downs, fear and a few other effects.

Really they should just combine allot of the virtue traits in the Virtues line.

Allot of them are very underwhelming considering how long the CD for resolve & Courage are.

Siva Mira.3546:

The problem is that Might stacking should be a whole team job. Single person could should NOT be able to stack it as high as above 10+ and for ridiculous long period of time (I’m looking at you Might Runes)

Not so much the might runes, though they do help.

Its that some specs have a ton of ways to stack might & might runes allow it to last so long they can stack up additional might on top of it.

If they would simply take a look at some of those specs & adjust how much might they stack per ability in Spvp & WvW then things would balance out.

The problem with the classes using celestial is not the base stats but the fact that some of them can stack so much might.

They can solve the problem easily by making might stack slightly less per ability (for some specs) in Spvp & WvW.

Roe.3679:

This is what we got for having no active defenses. When general pvp meta shifts to “Focus the (whatever class you play)” instead of “Focus the necro,” you will be able to have a little fun in a meaningless game mode, too.

P. S. that’s not spam, it’s one skill. Complete opposite of spam.

This ^

The only way spectral wall can hit you multiple times is if your stupid enough to run into it multiple times.

PS: OP run some stability it eliminates the effects of CC including fear.

Shanks.2907:

Loading.4503:

What is the most useless build I can make with any armor runes weapons sigils for wvw , just because

I want to run into a Zerg and just bunker just because, not gonna contribute to anything, don’t even have to attack if I don’t need to, just wanna juggernaut it into the Zerg and have people chase me for no reason and run back out

This warrior build I made would of been perfect for being useless, running around like a juggernaut having people chase you while doing nothing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNBhYDbkpjCPLAxKE6QD8DUov9WIHMFApLitILA-TlBEABFv/gTK/A4BAAp6PcpEkPdDBAQAc0je0je0j2RP6RP6RPapAoYZE-w

Nearly 40k hp. Just run around holding a banner with perma-regen, HS and adrenal health for ~700hp a second. GS sw/w for more running around being useless.

Modified your build just a bit.

First thing I did was change the gear to nomad, less HP but more healing power, then I changed the trinkets to celestial. (more damage, more healing power, less HP)

Then I noticed Banner regeneration & dogged march tend to overlap, so I changed it to shouts heal trait. (2.5k+ heal with every shout)
Then I changed the banner to banner of tactics, you can use the banner for a 1k heal & 7 seconds of regeneration every 10 seconds.

Lastly I changed out beserker stance for shake it off, the extra condition removal & stun break is nice (+the 2.5k heal it does) then picked up for great justice (the fury & might it gives you actually allow you to do some damage + it heals.)

In the end I think it would be even more survivable + it should do more damage.
(you can swap back sword/shield for greatsword if you want. Me I prefer the blocks & stun)

Tiibags Tyler.3125:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQNApeWlsApYo9CxeI8DNRCRk1M2jtrXHscA-TVCFABV/EAwV9HZ2fALlg2qNAAzP5q8rWdALcKAEDATA-w

Prepare to be amazed!

Eh I’ve always found sanctuary to be rather useless.

Anybody with stability can walk right through it.

And they can always use ground targeted stuff to make standing inside it a death trap.

There is also the fact that since it is so small, an enemy can stand outside it and attack you through the bubble with melee attacks (greatsword, hammer etc..)

I’d get hold the line or purging flames instead. The condition removal on purging flames can help allot, not to mention the condition time reduction.
Hold the line can be very very useful due to your healing power & the protection it gives.

Artaz.3819:

The problem is that Perfect Inscriptions is how the Signets are balanced compared to cooldown.

1. Perfect Inscriptions should just be removed and every Signet then can have its base cooldown reduced by 15%-20%.

2. Several of the Signets also need to be moved to instant or 1/4 second cast times like other classes (except Signet of Resolve/Signet of Mercy). Signet of Wrath active is the biggest offender.

3. Add to Signet of Mercy’s passive to 25% increased movement speed and make it an Elite?

4. Change Signet of Judgement’s Active to Blind target and/or give Aegis boon to Guardian.

5. Combine Inscribed Removal/Signet Mastery together.

6. Add a Burn (3s) (or Torment???) on Signet use trait to target.

1: Agree completely with lowering the CD of some signets (bane, wrath/mercy). Perfect inscriptions however should just have its effect changed.

2: Also agree with speeding up signet cast time (mercy especially, having to stand over the target, only rezzing one target & using a 3+ sec cast time is crap. May as well normally rez them)

3: Idk about that. Mercy could definitely use better passives/actives but run speed doesn’t really fir with it.

4: Idk, I actually prefer the weakness it does to a blind. Blinds only last for 1 attack where as the weakness lasts for 5 seconds. The retaliation could stand to be changed though.

5: Completely agree that inscribed removal & signet mastery are under powered.
What if they made signet mastery also grant 3 stacks of might for 10 seconds when a signet is used (several other classes have this).
Inscribed removal could also be changed so that it granted multiple stacks of might if a condition is removed, Or it could be changed to grant protection (say 4 sec) when a signet is used.

6: Burning is already so widely used that anymore would be useless. Torment or confusion could have a place in some guardian builds, but we are unlikely to see them soon because Anet things burning alone is great for some reason.

Also I would suggest a change for for “perfect Inscriptions”

Perfect Inscriptions: Gain +25 precision for each signet you have equipped & whenever you activate a signet you are healed for 2000 (effected at around 10% by healing power)

Lastly I would suggest they change signet of wrath. Why ? Because +condition damage sucks for guardians & will continue to unless they add more damaging conditions to the guardian kitten nal or drastically rework how burning scales.
The change I would suggest is the following.

Signet of Wrath: Passive: Increases movement speed by 25%
Active : Immobilize the target for 3 seconds, cast time 1/2 second, range 1200, CD 25 seconds.

If you absolutely have to bunker I would say go ele.

They actually bunker better then we do, do more damage at the same time & have escape mechanics.

That’s not to say you cannot bunker as a guardian, we can remove conditions extremely well and provide some blocks.
Just well once those CD’s are used you really don’t have anything else to do or rely on, where as an ele can just switch attunements and do something else.

+ they have very very good ranged AOE which is great for wvw.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAoY3Njc0UTbtNc4mAXogcACgIvgSg64YMeWA-TpQaQA99HAlBAA is what i have been using lately and its quite nice.

I can easily handle most of the specs that spam boons

Granted the lack of real AOE does make some classes/specs like mesmers ^ full turret engineers a pain in the kitten .

Well really the only thing the axe does well on the necro is stack vulnerability.

Sadly that is not enough to justify using it over dagger which is lmao a far but power weapon.

Ideally I would say buff the damage of the #1 skill on axe by about 30%.

After that take the + damage off of axe mastery & replace it with “increases range of axe attacks by 300”

Then not only would the axe be a decent power weapon, but it would also be a decent ranged power weapon, something the necro needs.

Personally I like the idea of making spectral wall & corrosive poison cloud absorbing projectiles.

Another thing I would change is the “focused rituals” trait.
Instead of having a trait that causes wells to siphon health, what if necromancers had a grandmaster trait that siphoned health whenever you strike an enemy & healed all nearby allies for the amount stolen.

That ^ would give necromancers a nice little consistent way to help allies & it would fit the theme.

I would also bake the “transfusion” trait into the base effect of life transfer.

Other then that necro’s could really use a real ranged power option.

Short of massive changes to existing weapons or creating new ones I think the best option would be to look at the trait “Spiteful Marks” in the spite line.

What if they changed it so that it reduced all condition damage done by the staff by (say 75%) but increased direct damage by 50%

Or they could cut the duration of vulnerability applied by the axe by 1/3 and increase the direct damage by 30%.
Then simply change axe mastery so that instead of increasing damage done by axes it would increase axe range by 300.

Either would give the necro a somewhat decent ranged option.

Eh most of the necro problems can be boiled down to 3 things

1: Conditions scale for crap (effects everyone)

2: Their support & self sustain line is a joke (helps with sustain only a little and bonuses to support are so small its not worth using)

3: Lack of a real ranged power build weapon (not saying it should be as nice as the dagger because everyone has better melee then ranged, but the staff is a hybrid weapon, scepter is pure conditions & the axe neither has the range or damage potential.)

That’s basically it other then some badly designed traits (which everyone has, counted 20+ on guardian after patch)

You could also try traveler rune.

Less chill uptime then what you originally wanted & less vitality but it gives a nice rounded stat bonus +15% boon uptime & +25% run speed which can help quite a bit.

Or you could go rune of speed, gives the full vitality, + run speed and has a proc for swiftness.

While I like the idea I feel that not having monks focus or altruistic healing will be a big downside.

Without those traits guardians tend to die allot easier.

Also I noticed that your power is allot lower then what most would normally want (most people I know tend to try for around 1800 if not more).

Also should note that while purity, generocity & signet are decent for removing conditions sometimes you want to be able to remove them fast on demand.

Other then that I would always suggest shelter as your heal.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAS7dlsApao1CxVI8DNB+QVVAgdQMEH615QQuCA-TZxFABJcEAEa/BnLDo2FBAgHAAA
That ^ is what I would change it to.
Few small changes but keeps your original design idea more or less.

Sadly in the end however guardians tend to be in a bad spot when it comes to getting to staying on an enemy.
The teleports help but without more base ways to cripple/chill/immobilize we have to spend allot (probably too much) of our traits/gear etc… going for ways to stay on them.

Until that changes I would suggest teaming up with a rifle engineer (hopefully one who uses net turret), if you do the combined immobilize spam will screw over most enemies ensuring they can’t run away.

ayaname.2578:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Ya, it works but there is absolutely no reason you should need that much self healing in PvE.

Few things to note.

1: Altruistic healing will heal for 72 per boon applied per person its applied on at lvl 80.
2: Empowering might has a 1 second internal CD & 5 second base duration. (this means that while you can keep up 3-4 stacks of might with 50% crit chance there are more often then not better options)

Mainly this is a combination one would consider using in PvP or WvW where the extra healing is needed.
In PvE, the extra healing is not needed and you would likely be better off using something like http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQBgi4BJHb/oqAY/MKA which provides much better damage. (you can grab pure of voice or empowering might depending on the situation.)

sorry but the link seems to be broken. it doesnt show any build after i click it ^^

Never filled out the skills, just the traits.

For skills use shouts & either bane or judgment signet.
For gear use mostly zerker/assassin with a few valk pieces. Generally once you have around 15k or so health you should be survivable enough for exp dungeons.

For the unfilled traits you can use whatever you want, though I would suggest empowering might, battle presence or pure of voice.

Ya, it works but there is absolutely no reason you should need that much self healing in PvE.

Few things to note.

1: Altruistic healing will heal for 72 per boon applied per person its applied on at lvl 80.
2: Empowering might has a 1 second internal CD & 5 second base duration. (this means that while you can keep up 3-4 stacks of might with 50% crit chance there are more often then not better options)

Mainly this is a combination one would consider using in PvP or WvW where the extra healing is needed.
In PvE, the extra healing is not needed and you would likely be better off using something like http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQBgi4BJHb/oqAY/MKA which provides much better damage. (you can grab pure of voice or empowering might depending on the situation.)

Substance E.4852:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

The damage would just just be a little more spread out so it couldn’t be unloaded as fast.

lol, that is the exact reason why rapid fire was garbage before the buff.

Even if they reduced the damage by say 30% then tacked other utility onto rapid fire it would still be better then it was before.

It sucked before because it was barely any increase gain over simply using #1.
Since they cut the cast time in half it has become a massive damage increase over simply using #1 & as a plus it applies vulnerability.

At the end of the day after playing all classes & looking at it from both a ranger POV as well as others I can say with certainty it is bad design to have 1 single non class mechanic skill do so much damage so fast when it is on such a low CD.
Having it that way attracts lots of bad players to the class & will likely end up with a straight up nerf.

I would much rather they fix it soon with a well thought out change then simply nerf it and forget about the after effects.
This ^ is why I’m suggesting changes instead of just saying nerf it.

Chokolata.1870:

The whole point of Rapid fire is to be a DPS increase over the auto attack. Nerfing it by 30% would just put the DPS where it was.

1-steady long range pressure, if used at close range its abysmal
2-ranged burst. High numbers only if 66xxx build full glass no defense and SotW.
3-utility
4-utility
5-suicide

Stop whining and learn to play. Once you face good players as a ranger the play/counterplay gets up to another level because every tool you have can just be reflected back (pun intended). I would argue that 6×6xx or 60260 is a much better build then 66xxx. Especially for WvW.

And besides, all of these complaints are comming from WvW where you can stack over 2700 power from various sources: guard stacks, food, ascended weapons. And as long as thats there, and you have things like perplexity runes WvW is not really relevant is it?

Think you missed the part where I said I would

1: buff the damage of Hunter’s shot and point blank shot
&
2: have rapid fire also apply cripple

in order to compensate.

Over all if done right the damage would be the same over time (possibly higher) & rangers would have more utility (new cripple on rapid fire).
The damage would just just be a little more spread out so it couldn’t be unloaded as fast.

Good rangers would still dominate, heck they might even be better cause they would be able to kite more effectively.
Bad rangers would suffer because they wouldn’t be able to drop people quite a quickly.

Black Box.9312:

The trait isn’t necessarily useless so much as signets themselves are. Like spirit weapons, signet builds have never really found a place in any meta. Unlike spirit weapons, however, Anet still hasn’t taken notice of this and done anything about it.

This ^ really.

Signet of resolve is alright. Not as good as shelter in most cases but alright.

Signet of wrath, the immobilize is good in some situations but the condition damage is crap, even with a burning build there are far better options.

Signet of mercy. Where to start for this
1: Extra healing power is just a waste as you can never stack enough to make up for stupid people
2: The revive is single target (where others are multi target)
3: Has a very very (longer then other classes) long CD.
4: The revive requires you to be standing on top of your target.
5: The revive also has a 3 & 3/4 sec casting time. (may as well just normally revive them)

Bane signet, eh the power is nice. That being said
1: The CD is very very long (as a low CC class having this on such a long CD hurts.)
2: The activation is single target, telegraphed to the extreme and slow.

The traits for signets are also pretty lack luster.

Signet mastery, could use some type of activation bonus (like necro’s and several other classes have).
Inscribed removal, given how condition heavy the meta is anymore could almost stand to remove 2 conditions at a time. Or perhaps heal if a condition is removed.

Perfect inscriptions, well it just sucks. Perhaps it would be nice if it were a copy paste of elementalist’s “Written in stone” or gave a second bonus (+30 precision for each signet equipped would be great, or they could make it grant AEGIS or protection when a signet is used.)

Eh personally I would reduce the damage of rapid fire by say around 30%.

But to compensate I would put a short cripple duration on rapid fire (say 1 second each for last 4 shots) & buff the damage of hunter’s shot & point blank shot.

This ^ would ensure that the majority of the damage is not dependent on 1 skill & give longbow rangers a bit more ability to kite.

In the end this change would allow good rangers to kite enemies better while still doing decent damage & bad rangers would still suck.

If it worked with any weapon I might consider using it.

As is hammer is just to slow, painfully slow in the case of the AA chain. (would love it if they would take 1 pulse off of protection symbol but lower the cast time to 1/2 second – 3/4 second)

And the fact it only has a 50% chance on crit makes it kind of random.
Unless your running an insanely high crit chance & or sigil of intelligence it just isn’t worth using.
Even then there are often better choices like meditations giving fury.

It’s kind of sad, they want guardians to be melee fighters yet they don’t give any of the weapons besides the hammer the tools needed to stay in melee (IE snares, cripples, chills etc…)

Also don’t rule out celestial.

The + condition damage is crap on it but all the other stats are decent.
If you get any celestial gear I would suggest trinkets however.

Really as long as you pay attention & have around 15k health @ 80 you should be fine in PvE.
For PvP I would suggest getting a bit more health (around 18k or more) because spike is much less predictable & conditions are far more common.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJAWRlsApVo1CxRI8DRR8gkjtfOVVAsfGNLA-TRCBABCu/gjKBxSJFOq/AwTAwMlL5pJIRdABcJAIEg5tA-e is a good all around WvW build.

For PvE I would get strength runes instead of traveler & use bane signet instead of judgment (the activation is crap but the +180 power is nice). The strength runes will also boost your might uptime from staff to near constant & even without staff u get might from the greatsword AA chain.

If you want you can also use sigil of air & or fire on your weapons. It’s more bursty but less damage over all in most cases.

For world bosses & some events I would suggest swapping out berserk armor for soldiers. Mainly cases where damage does not matter as much & or you cannot crit your target anyway.

While the spirit weapons are nice on paper they tend to have far too little health/toughness.

This leads to them dying to incidental AOE or targeted spike very very fast.

It would be ok if their CD’s started as soon as they were summoned or if they automatically did their commands when they died.
But they don’t.

This means very few people will likely use them.

Honestly I like the idea of spirit weapons but with the way this game is they would be much better off as summonable weapons that the guardian uses (IE Ele conjured weapons) or as stationary stat buff banners with a command skill (mix of engi turret & warrior banner)

Solori.6025:

Junkpile.7439:

Problem is that dodging, evading and stuff takes skill, but ranger burst doesn’t take any kind of skill. This is reason why kitten ranger players kill other kitten players too easily.

well if you want to get technical.

No burst really takes skill.

You press a button,
5k+ shows up.

It’s just rangers got range on theirs

So now people cant ignore a ranger anymore.
and reflects will now be a thing.

Problem being reflects tend to be on moderate/long CD’s where rapid fire can be traited for use every 8 seconds.

Best solution is to

1: Reduce the damage of rapid fire
&
2: Increase the damage & utility of other long bow skills.

That ^ will ensure idiots suck while anyone with any real skill can use the class to dominate.

pho.9412:

Kako.1930:

Either that or you’ve played since the last patch lol.

I’m not against the ranger buffs, but I’m not about to say that they’re just as weak as they were pre-patch either. They’re a force to be reckoned with, and if you’re not built specifically to counter them, they can be really tough to fight.

If they had their own version of berserker’s stance, I’d say they might even be as strong as warriors now lol.

they do it is signet of stone. I don’t care for rapid fire change but add it with the lb #3 stealth is a bit much.

Combine rapid fire with might stacking, signet of the wild, quickness & stealth.

Your enemies will die at 1500+ range before they even have a chance to react.

I tried it out just after the patch. A friend was on his ranger, another on his ele & I was on my mesmer.
The ranger alone was able to down a decent number of people with rapid fire.

While I believe that while it should be nerfed rangers should receive some damage/utility added to other abilities in order to compensate.
Otherwise rangers would just suck again.

Heard about this bug then tested it in action.

All I can say is holy mother of god the golem kicks kitten now.

Really hope they fix it before tourny starts otherwise we will see hundreds of them being popped at once all the time.

I know the servers that my server tends to be put up against will use any trick they can to win including wall glitching, zoom glitching etc… so abusing this by the hundreds won’t even make them think twice.

Lifestealer.4910:

By the time you hear the super fast pew pew pew sound you would of have taken more than half the rapid fire damage.

This is especially true if the ranger has quickness.

Combine it with damage boosts and a ranger can down some classes from 1500+ range extremely quickly with no chance to counter.

For instance. I was playing my mesmer after the patch, a friend was on his ele & another was on his ranger.
By stacking might & quickness along with signet of the wild my ranger friend was able to down a few people before they knew WTF hit them.

All that being said however I believe that while rapid fire damage should be reduced they should increase the damage/utility of some other skills to compensate.
Otherwise you will end up with rangers sucking again.

Hostility.4961:

Too early to tell. Works only with gs. Gives more retaliation source and vulnerability without traits. Could be nice offensively if the enemy smacks you fast you could stack 5-10% more dmg on them. Nothing mindblowing. Not something we desperately needed. There are better runes if u want swiftness.

This more or less.

Also should take into consideration that leaping through a light field will not longer proc altruistic healing.

That being said the new aura is pretty nice and if your using a hammer in PVE content it can be pretty much abused by allies.
Did a dungeon tonight with a thief in the party and he had the aura up 24/7.

Now if only we had a reason to want to use mace/hammer in PvP, we could give out that aura all the time.

Ynna.8769:

That was a bug-fix, not a nerf. The bug wasn’t even all that reliable, since it hardly ever went of with me, meaning I’ve been playing effectively with this change already.

This ^.

Though the shield is in a crappy place.

spoj.9672:

I have no idea why you want to nerf BiP by making it an elite and increasing the cooldown.

SoV just needs a passive rework. It should actually sustain. Heal on hit or heal on skill use would allow the necro to sustain through aggressive play. Which fits the theme of the necro. I wouldnt even mind if the heal on hit was less than our lifesteal traits. It would still be better than its current passive.

The active should have its icd removed.

This ^ would actually be quite nice.

Though IDk if it should heal for less passively then the trait siphons, after all it is a heal skill.

Comparing it to the thief signet heal which heals for just over 100 per attack and the ele signet heal which heals for just over 250 per spell cast I’d say it would fir in well somewhere between the two as a passive life steal on attack (and one that should heal through death shroud)

Cygnus.6903:

Juba.8406:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

3 adrenaline per critical hit seems fair for a grandmaster trait.

why was it reduced to 1 adrenaline per critical hit?

no one knows, it got ninja nerfed sometime before the last feature patch.

to be honest all of the grandmasters traits in Arms tree line are plain useless not just Furious.

Actually, half our Grandmaster traits never see use due to being underpowered or plain useless.

Welcome to the world of guardians.

About 1/3 of all our traits are extremely under powered or only useful in extremely gimmicky situations.

Hyperion.4638:

Everyone seems to agree that vs ranger opponents you will die, than why don’t you use scepter? I will roam wvw with gs/scepter+focus, not only the scepter has a great combo of skill 3+2 but you can spam those orbs and keep the pressure up until your leap or Judge’s Intervention come out of CD, i really don’t see the big deal here, i mean in spvp i kept bigger pressure with the scepter on a range class than him on me, i don’t see it as a big problem here, plus once those 2 skills comes off cd and you can close the gap you will probably burst him to death.

Because any competent enemy will simply strafe back and forth.

If they do that & are more then 600 units away around half maybe more of the orbs will miss them because they move so slow & have no homing on them.

As for the number 2, ya the damage is nice if you can get them to stand still for about 3-4 seconds but that rarely happens.
It’s damage just takes too long to deal out.

Really SOV just needs its cool down reduced & its active made to last a little bit longer.

Aoko.3562:

Charak.9761:

Aoko.3562:

Vikkela.7261:

If you go Meditation in WvW you will need to choose either Traveler/Speed Runes, Moa Feathers or a Scepter…
Don’t want Traveler/Speed Runes? Use Moa feathers or wield a Scepter. Don’t want to wield A scepter? Use Moa feathers or Traveler/Speed Runes etc etc, it’s a vicious circle. Otherwise you’ll end up in situation where you’re just walking after a guy kiting you eating his attacks watching your own heals and meditations go on cooldowns while he will barely be using anything beside his autoattack

Melandru Runes combined with Lemongrass food just works wonders against all these condition builds, but just don’t forget to dig out that mobility from somewhere

Yeah, that’s what I figured. I was just thinking of GS+Sword/whatever for 3 blink pressure. I don’t mind scepter, I used to run it on my old build, so I may pick it up again to see how that works.

Blinks dont matter, w/o a soft cc they disengage and kite you.

Won’t that still happen with the full cripple/chill durations that will be on you with traveler’s?

It will happen either way.

The only thing medi guard is good against is melee & idiots too stupid to kite.

VS any ranged enemy with half a brain you will die because they will kite you.

The only time ^ that is not true is when you have an ally who can provide an over abundance of cripple/immobilize/chill on said enemy thus allowing you to stay on them.

Hopefully someday Arena.net realize this and add a 3 second cripple onto the sword #2 & greatsword #3. (or make Glacial Heart work with all weapons)
Until then bring an ally with a ton of CC or be prepared to pillar hump or die vs anything with ranged & two brain cells to rub together.

CMF.5461:

I would have liked to see staff auto have something connected to it, like an heal, or boon application on cast.

Orb of light is ok, but it still gets bugged out and stuck in animation sometimes, forcing a burst and longer cooldown duration. It’s application in healing has been HIGHLY mediocre at best and it is mostly just a way to push a little bit more dps out of staff…which is a joke.

Maybe make orb of light “Beam of Light” and have it work as a channeled heal and/or dps ability. It would work/look similar to mesmer greatsword auto attack but it could pierce and heal or damage allies or foes in the beam, up to 3? maybe 5 targets.

Take the burst out, as it is highly underused or buggy.

Symbol of Swiftness…. It was buff/nerfed. In a zerg, this is great now as it used to only give 1 second of swiftness if you had swiftness on already. So it works great for large group swiftness stacking while moving, as lots of people can run through it.

But now it is so much weaker running solo, we have even MORE problems with quality of life for traveling…not even in combat but just in general.

I would like to see all symbols see a fairly large increase in damage per tick, or have a way to “hasten” the symbol ticks so that they are deadly and fearful, instead of just lawl red circle ignore.

Empower works, it does what it needs to do, maybe larger range and/or extend to 10 targets? With AH that becomes OP though… at least larger range of effect.

Line of Warding….does what it needs to do also, I don’t see a great way to improve it. Used to be stationary to cast, but now we can move. Shorter cooldown would be nice.

As far as Orb of light goes.
With 6 points in honor and 2 pieces of celestial gear I get a little over 300 points on healing off it without detonation.
If they were to remove the detonation, put it in the #1 spot on the staff and make it spammable (maybe slightly lower the damage) it would be a good mix of healing & damage per second.
After they could move Wave of wrath to the #2 spot, put it on a 5-8 second CD and either up the damage quite a bit or make it remove a condition.

As for the symbol you right, It does suck now.
I have said for quite a while that they should cut the duration of all symbols in half then greatly increase the damage & double boon applied per pulse.

This would make symbols damage something for enemies to actually want to avoid instead of laugh at.
It would also make it so the guardian wouldn’t need to stand there for the full benefit like an idiot for several seconds making them a prime target for enemies.

Saiyan.1704:

Lucentfir.7430:

Supposedly we’re becoming Op now cause of the Renewed Focus to meditation change, and we have too much damage and sustain. Starting to pop up on various areas of the forums :/

-Meditations grant Fury.
-Your meditations recharge 20% faster.
-You are healed when you use a meditation.

Basically we get an extra 2k heal every 72 seconds. How exactly does this make us op? :/
They wont nerf us until they see med guards in tournaments (which they want) and doing significantly better (which we wont).

If they really want to see medi guards do well in tourny’s then they need to give the guardian some snares.

Adding a baseline 3 second cripple on to the sword #2 & greatsword #3 would help a ton.
As is anybody with half a brain can kite a guardian fairly easily.

Charak.9761:

Kay.

Mesmer/Engi still kill guards even with the extra 2k heal every 90s

Also guardians lack a real snare so kiting them is pretty easy if you half decent.

Not to mention the fact that guardians have the lowest starting health pool. That necessitates they spend allot of their traits bulking up their health & limits how they can build.

Fashion Mage.3712:

I wish its worthless auto-attack would get buffed or reworked to be made more interesting.

Personally I wish they would rework the staff a bit

Have Orb of Light & Wave of Wrath swap places.

Then take the detonate off Orb of Light & make it spammable. (1 sec ICD)

Lastly they can put Wave of wrath on a 5ish second CD and up the damage.

This would make the staff a good weapon.

As is all its good for is might stacking, line of warding is trash vs bosses & any player with a brain & the symbol takes to dang long to get the full benefit.

Well power stacking builds can actually put out some very good DPS. Problem with them is they lack the Persistent AOE that condition builds have access to.

If that problem were solved & Necro’s were to have access to a ranged power build weapon then there would be more reason to bring them.
I have suggested in the past that they simply put an addendum on to Axe Training “Also increases the range of axe attacks by 300”

This would get rid of the later problem.

It would also help if they would further look at fixing/improving/buffing the bloodmagic line so that Necro support & tankyness is more viable.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Harbinger.8637:

Better of going something like -50% cripple or immobilize duration.

That’s already on runes of the centaur, but it would fit thematically.

Perhaps they could have -33% to cripple, chill, and immob, similar to traits like dogged march and whatnot, although that’s not really that special.

A better idea might be to give it a chance to proc super speed when struck/on using a heal skill, with an internal cooldown (i.e. 3 seconds of super speed on heal, 30 second CD). This would allow people to have access to super speed who don’t normally get an option for it, and it would fit thematically with the runes. It would also make it a unique choice among the runes because no other rune set can grant you super speed.

EDIT: I would leave the +25% passive movement speed, and just change the 4 piece bonus to the super speed thing.

This ^ would be quite nice.

Or perhaps they could change the & swiftness to chance on hit to proc quickness

Either way I would be good with it as they need to make more viable runes that add + run speed so that traveler runes have some competition.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Windwalker.7421:

Carighan.6758:

Yes, ofc, the whole spec is a bit meh because it’s entirely about getting attacked 1v1. But that’s the same right now.

It’s actually getting a lot of help in that last department from both the Scepter changes, and the fact that you’re highly likely to trait IE instead of the usual 4pts in Domination. This way you can top 1800+ Condie damage in sPvP (w/SoD) w/o Might, which gives you 780+ damage burns.

Runners will have it slightly harder with the Torment from Scepter AA & Clones, and overall you’re not as reliant on the clunky/situational Scepter #2 block to get decent damage output. Both the Staff and Scepter will be able to do significant damage on their own, without relying on Clone deaths.

My guess is, despite the nerfs, it will still be stronger 1v1 then the current PU, and most likely also a tad stronger still in 1v2 or even 1v3. Although, survivability will suffer quite a bit, so 1v3 is a bit harder to judge until we play the changes.

While that was a good assessment you forgot to take into consideration all the confusion, bleeding etc… that they will also be able to put up.

Really though its not the amount of condition damage a mesmer can put up its the fact they will be able to stack it so fast & reapply it quickly in the event you manage to cleanse it.

That combined with the fact a mesmer can stealth and hide makes them a real pain to deal with.

Really instead of letting clones apply torment with scepter AA #1 they should have just let the #2 & #3 AA apply it for longer duration then what it will after patch.

This would allow you to build up as much or possibly more torment then what you could with clones applying a short duration one.
But it would take slightly longer to build up meaning that cleanses wouldn’t be useless.

Problem is with Perplexity runes and condition extension – having torment on scepter skill 2 and 3 would be so OP.

This is just a way to make the scepter another viable weapon for mesmers. So many use GS and swords only.

Either you didn’t understand I said AA (the auto attack chain) or you don’t get the notice that after the patch there will be torment on the scepter AA skills #1, #2 & #3 + clones will apply it.

By shifting the torment to only scepter AA attacks #2 & #3 but increasing their length you accomplish 3 things

1: Clones will no longer apply it with their auto attacks

2: It takes a bit more time to stack up meaning that cleanses will matter a bit more (having all 3 apply it + clones will ensure you can restack it & other conditions extremely quickly which makes it too powerful for PvP)

3: Ensures that while you cannot stack it up quite as quickly your overall damage potential is the same (or possibly more) because said stacks last longer.

Charak.9761:

Just go symbol build, protection spam is just as good.

Rangers/Eles have better group healing.

IDk about that.

I have messed around with a mix of zerker, celestial, and zealot’s and found I could manage 1k dodge heals while maintaining decent damage.

That plus AEGIS heals, communal defenses, regeneration & battle presence and we can pump out a ton of healing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApeSlsApVo1CxZI8DNR8gUVAsTOt6lH7B-TxBBABA8EASV9HzU+ln+gi2fwRlgBcKAAA-e The last 2 traits can go in either communal defenses, altruistic healing or master of consecrations.

Really though, why would you want to be a healer for PVE? beyond providing a little bit for when people make a mistake or to help cover incidental unavoidable damage there is no need.

Really its not that mesmers will be able to apply torment on scepter AA that bothers me.

Its the fact they will apply it so fast due to clones also applying it via AA, & this will make cleansing it nearly pointless due to how fast it will be stacked with other conditions again.

If they would take it off the first scepter AA so clones cannot apply it then increase the duration (even double it) for the second & 3rd AA then it would be fine.

Windwalker.7421:

Carighan.6758:

Yes, ofc, the whole spec is a bit meh because it’s entirely about getting attacked 1v1. But that’s the same right now.

It’s actually getting a lot of help in that last department from both the Scepter changes, and the fact that you’re highly likely to trait IE instead of the usual 4pts in Domination. This way you can top 1800+ Condie damage in sPvP (w/SoD) w/o Might, which gives you 780+ damage burns.

Runners will have it slightly harder with the Torment from Scepter AA & Clones, and overall you’re not as reliant on the clunky/situational Scepter #2 block to get decent damage output. Both the Staff and Scepter will be able to do significant damage on their own, without relying on Clone deaths.

My guess is, despite the nerfs, it will still be stronger 1v1 then the current PU, and most likely also a tad stronger still in 1v2 or even 1v3. Although, survivability will suffer quite a bit, so 1v3 is a bit harder to judge until we play the changes.

While that was a good assessment you forgot to take into consideration all the confusion, bleeding etc… that they will also be able to put up.

Really though its not the amount of condition damage a mesmer can put up its the fact they will be able to stack it so fast & reapply it quickly in the event you manage to cleanse it.

That combined with the fact a mesmer can stealth and hide makes them a real pain to deal with.

Really instead of letting clones apply torment with scepter AA #1 they should have just let the #2 & #3 AA apply it for longer duration then what it will after patch.

This would allow you to build up as much or possibly more torment then what you could with clones applying a short duration one.
But it would take slightly longer to build up meaning that cleanses wouldn’t be useless.

Fiorrello.8126:

Give shield 4 a 1/2 second daze on enemies and an 8 second aegis on allies instead of protection and I would be happy. Right now the protection is too short to be truely useful, an interrupt would be better and thematically the block works better for the shield.

also aegis on our shield would synergize better with our traits. Make people actually wantto take shattered aegis.

This really.

Though in PvE the protection applied by the shield is 5 seconds, 2 seconds longer then it is in PvP. If they would get rid of that distinction it would be better.

It would also be very nice if they would change the wave into an 300 unit range AOE centered on the guardian that applies 5 seconds of protection to allies while damaging enemies
As is it’s bad for someone up front because they have to turn around or dodge roll backwards to use it on allies.

As for the #5. It can be nice in some fractals but in large part it’s useless because wall of reflection is much much better.
Instead what if it did the following

1: Damage & knock back all enemies in melee for 200 units (knockbacks also interrupt casting)
&
2: Apply Aegis (6 seconds) to all allies within 300 units.

Then reduce the cool down to 30 seconds

Dirame.8521:

Hey guys, I recently had a nice discussion with GoogleBrandon over in another thread about how to improve the Blood Magic line and the discussion lead to a few ideas;

-Barbed Aura; (Adept Minor Trait) When you are hit, you have a chance to cause bleeding.

-Strenght from the Shroud; (Replaces Deathly Invigoration) For the first 3 seconds you’re in deathshroud, the Life force you lose is given to you as health. 30s cooldown

-Lifebane Strike; (Replaces Vampiric Precision) Life Blast steals health equal to it’s damage. 10s cooldown

- New Grandmaster; Awaken the Blood; Your bleeds deal 20% more damage.

-Order of Pain;(Replaces Dagger Mastery) Enemies affected by Tainted Shackles take 10% extra damage from allies.

-Demonic Claws; (Replaces Quickening Thirst) Your Axe skills now also deal damage to enemies within a 180 radius of your target. Max 3 targets.

-Spoil Victor;(Grand Master Minor Trait) Do additional damage the lower your health is.
Below 90% do 5% more damage
Below 75% do 10% more damage
Below 50% do 15% more damage
Below 25% do 20% more damage

-Blood of the Aggressor; (Replaces Ritual of Life) When you lose more than 10% of your health from one skill Steal health from that foe and apply weakness (5s). 10s cooldown

-Vampiric Swarm; (Replaces Bloodthirst) Locust Swarm also steals health and has a larger radius. Radius increase to 180. Gain Locust Swarm at 25% health.

Bring Sexy back; Replace all your traits with good traits Make up for all the things you lack.

Let me know what you guys think. We also go on to talk about Sustain in death shroud and what it could mean for the Necro but you can go and read that whole discussion if you’re interested.

Some nice ideas, though I think a few of them could be a bit over the top in terms of power.

In particular Lifebane Strike (maybe make it a constant, but at a much lower , say 5-10), Strength from the Shroud (would be far too powerful vs multiple enemies), Order of Pain (make it a few stacks of vulnerability)& locust Swarm (make it a % based, say 40-50%) could be toned down a bit.

Good ideas though & love the idea of a more vampiric necro.

Harbinger.8637:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Harbinger.8637:

cymerdown.4103:

If all you’re reducing is the cool down of the elite, then purity remains the strongest trait, generally. Typically reducing the elite cd from 90 to 72 won’t mean that you get to use it twice per fight. Purity on the other hand routinely reduces the number of times you need to use a shout for yourself, allowing you to save it for your team. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hovered a finger over a shout, just to relax it a moment later as that 10 bleed stack gets wiped passively. And that type of thing is common due to how conditions are cleared (LIFO).

MI is only a consideration in virtues bunker, and I think that’s how it stays, unfortunately. Sanctuary is pretty much the glue that holds the build together, it’s sort of the replacement for Altruistic Healing. Without it, there are too many situations where you can be collapsed upon and have no solid defense to weather the storm, not to mention all the other uses of it. MI is a cute option, and one I’ve tried out with the current implementation. I don’t think these changes will be enough to make it viable, but I’ll give it a shot.

I do think there is a way for bunker builds to make use of this change to the elite, though. I don’t want to give anything away just yet, but maybe it will be revealed at some later time.

One of the thing I’m actually really curious about trying on bunker guard is Shield of the Avenger. Now that they aren’t destroyed when commanded, you can easily pick it up with the 0/0/2/6/6 build. Two shouts and the shield, then drop Vengeful for improved spirit-weapon duration. The shield has a lot going for it; absorbs projectiles, stun breaker, weakness, and now Aegis.

It’s probably gimmicky and you’re better off going Wall of Reflection in that situation. However it’s something I want to try because I think it has some merit.

Maybe for hotjoin pvp, but never use spirit weapons for anything ranked.

They die far to easily due to having an extremely low health pool & once they die the CD is too long for them to be useful again.

Not only that but you need to take far to many traits to make them useful, if you took enough to make them useful you will end up very squishy with little ability to deal damage yourself.

They’re actually worse in hotjoin, due to the larger amount of people in them. One thing people seems to forgot about with sw, is that they benefit from everything a player would; boons, heals, stunbreakers, and etc. So they’re actually quite tanky. Also the whole point with the idea I had is you don’t have to change up your build that much, 0/0/2/6/6 is a standard bunker build for tpvp, so your not giving much up.

Well they may benefit from boons but their health & toughness are still insanely low.
This means they are pretty easy to spike down.
As for builds, you won’t be giving up much after the patch since commands won’t destroy them then.

However you will be giving up the increased spirit weapon damage & Cd reduction.

So overall unless your speccing for them completely they are just at best an annoyance that is easily killed.
And if you do spec for them they will do great damage, but will still die quite easily & spending all your traits for them will leave you rather squishy.

So it’s kinda a meh situation.

It would be great if they merged a few of their traits then created new ones that gave them increased health/toughness & some type of heal to the guardian when they attacked (kind of like MM necro’s)

Harbinger.8637:

cymerdown.4103:

If all you’re reducing is the cool down of the elite, then purity remains the strongest trait, generally. Typically reducing the elite cd from 90 to 72 won’t mean that you get to use it twice per fight. Purity on the other hand routinely reduces the number of times you need to use a shout for yourself, allowing you to save it for your team. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hovered a finger over a shout, just to relax it a moment later as that 10 bleed stack gets wiped passively. And that type of thing is common due to how conditions are cleared (LIFO).

MI is only a consideration in virtues bunker, and I think that’s how it stays, unfortunately. Sanctuary is pretty much the glue that holds the build together, it’s sort of the replacement for Altruistic Healing. Without it, there are too many situations where you can be collapsed upon and have no solid defense to weather the storm, not to mention all the other uses of it. MI is a cute option, and one I’ve tried out with the current implementation. I don’t think these changes will be enough to make it viable, but I’ll give it a shot.

I do think there is a way for bunker builds to make use of this change to the elite, though. I don’t want to give anything away just yet, but maybe it will be revealed at some later time.

One of the thing I’m actually really curious about trying on bunker guard is Shield of the Avenger. Now that they aren’t destroyed when commanded, you can easily pick it up with the 0/0/2/6/6 build. Two shouts and the shield, then drop Vengeful for improved spirit-weapon duration. The shield has a lot going for it; absorbs projectiles, stun breaker, weakness, and now Aegis.

It’s probably gimmicky and you’re better off going Wall of Reflection in that situation. However it’s something I want to try because I think it has some merit.

Maybe for hotjoin pvp, but never use spirit weapons for anything ranked.

They die far to easily due to having an extremely low health pool & once they die the CD is too long for them to be useful again.

Not only that but you need to take far to many traits to make them useful, if you took enough to make them useful you will end up very squishy with little ability to deal damage yourself.

blakdoxa.7520:

Lol may be unkillable but not like you’ll be doing any damage…

This is the sad part about bunker guardians.

You may be tough to kill but you do crap for damage.

Meanwhile ele, engi, & warrior can all bunker as well or better while doing more damage.

As for DPS guardians, when it comes down to it the thing they need the most is a reliable way to slow down enemies to keep them in range.

If they would simply add a 3 second cripple to the sword #2 & greatsword #3 they would be fine.