Guild Wars 2

Overall I was quite surprised by the nerfs warrior got in the upcoming patch.

The hundred blades skill was quite avoidable.

If anything on the greatsword needed a nerf it is whirlwind & rush. & by nerf I mean making them require a target which they move you towards.
As is they can be abused to run away from fights to reset CD’s or fights completely.

Dirame.8521:

Aeolus.3615:

Dirame.8521:

Funny, Warriors can’t handle Condi guard or Medi guard but because they can handle symbol guard, Guardians are officially in need of help?

A warrior can handle a condi guard? yet hey can handle heavy condi spammers.. you must have fighting really bad warriors.

Guardian has a lot of things that the other classes do not. Blinds, Aegis and Stability. It’s the same reason why Medi Guard can beat Warriors.

Aegis is actually of very little use in pvp due to the fact it only blocks one hit which tends to be AA hits.

Blinds are useful vs some specs, mainly extremely slow hitting ones. Vs fast attacks it’s useless though unless their going to do a well telegraphed attack.

Stability, well your right it is quite nice. It does give us an edge against the countless Hambow warriors.

Poplolita.2638:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Poplolita.2638:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Poplolita.2638:

Roe.3679:

We, as a profession community, had left so, so much feedback, much of it overall balanced for ourselves and the good of the game.

We got about a third of what we should have, and the nerf to lich duration brings the overall quality of the patch from a Necro perspective down.

It’s not just that. Go to the guardian subforum. And then compare it to this one.
Anet basically did everything guardians asked for. They buffed a profession which is already good in every game mode. The change they made for guardian is basically what they should have done for necromancer. I don’t get that, and I pretty much feel offended at this point. I might as well talk with a wall. They even completly disregarded your amazing “list of traits/skill they should change” which is really sad.

If you actually played a guardian you would realize that most of the changes won’t actually change anything.

The only guardian change they made that will matter at all is making merciful intervention ground targetable & even then it’s a small AOE which requires an ally inside it.

As far as quality of life things go, both the necro & the guardian could use some love for several of their weapons.

How the hell did you come to the conclusion that I don’t play guardian? Also, serious question, are you bad? I mean really, you came up with a post full of misinformations about a class good in every game mode.

No weapons need a quality of life change. You seem to not be aware that quality of life =/= buff.

The fact that you don’t think that both guardian & Necro could use some love with weapons & traits tells me all I need to know about your experience.

I’m telling you our weapons (Axe and focus) need buffs, not quality of life changes. But ya, go for it, it seems you’re only able to make false assumptions.

Note: The fact you even put guardian at the same level as necromancer in term of balance is disgusting.

Please stop posting before embarrassing yourself further.

I don’t put them at the same level of balance.

What I’m saying is they both have a decent number of weapon skills that need fixes/buffs etc… & they both have a decent number of traits that are either broken, terrabad or extremely gimmicky (useless outside of very select situations)

Aeolus.3615:

so spririt weapon will still die in 2-3 hit or even right after being casted?

Basically yes.

They don’t have enough health or toughness to stay alive beyond 2-3 focused hits or incidental AOE.
And since their AI is stupid anything with cleave will down them before they do any good.

This ^ might be somewhat tolerable if the CD started as soon as they were summoned, but since it starts after they die/expire its not.

Some people might use the bow now on very very select occasions but all I predict people will ever use with any frequency is the shield because there are some situations where you simply have to have projectile absorbs.

Really at this point I would be fine with them doing 1 of 2 things
1: Scrap them completely and remake them more like elementalist conjure weapons
or
2: Make them do no damage until commanded & provide a passive buff to allies (basically what shield does now) but make them invulnerable.

At least then they wouldn’t be reliant on stupid AI or get themselves killed before they are of any use.

Shanks.2907:

ArchonWing.9480:

What if it were symbols causing chills (1s cooldown), instead of hammer crit hits?

It is quite unimaginative. A boring passive proc that you can’t choose when you’d like to use it. And the fact that it’s only on one weapon really drops it’s usefulness.

I liked my idea of a symbol trait a while back. The idea is that each of our 4 symbols give give their own soft cc effect. GS symbol for chill, hammer for cripple, mace for weakness and staff for immob. A trait playing into what a guardian already uses giving us different sorts of soft cc for different weapon sets.

I had an idea similar to that a few months back.

It involved moving Symbolic Exposure into a major slot & changing each of the symbols to give an offensive effect.
Faith – Weakness
Swiftness – Chill
Protection – Vulnerability
Wrath – Confusion

As for giving Guardians soft CC. It really is something they lack & hinders their ability to stay in melee in PvP, which in turn limits what teams will use them.
A simple solution would be to add a cripple effect onto sword #2 (3 seconds), Greatsword #3 (3 seconds) & Hammer #2 (1 second)

Emapudapus.1307:

Getting heals/siphions while in ds isnt matter if we need buff or not. This mechanic should be standard and if would be too strong they should balanced us somewhere else. Its just lame that many traits and spells (regen, siphion and other players aoe heals) are not working with our core mechanic.

This really.

It would also be nice if it showed some difference between when your in death shroud and when your not on the UI for allies.
Not to mention it would also be very nice if we could see the CD of utilities/elites/heals while in death shroud.

As for life siphons. I believe (along with many others) that they should heal you while your in death shroud. I mean most abilities have a long CD or are only single target with a decent cast time so it’s not like they could be spammed.

Lastly when it comes to heals passing through death shroud to heal you. I believe it also should happen. Albeit at a very reduced rate, say 20-30%.

The combination of these 2 things would give necro’s better sustain without it becoming stupidly OP.

Sagat.3285:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Eh Siphons inside death shroud could become rather powerful.

Though I do like your idea for a trait rework.

Maybe if they allowed healing effects through death shroud at 25% effectiveness?

How? The only dps skill you have is #4 with high CD and Life Blast need to be traited to pierce and only in a straight line, there is no need for exterior healing to affect us in DS jusf our traited ones because you don’t give a class a trait that the class couter by themselves.

Imagine your in a 5v5 fight and pop life transfer.
That’s anywhere between 40-80 healing per tick, with just basic life siphoning.
Add in life siphon on crit another 40-80, and + effectiveness to life siphoning you get a 2k heal and possible extra 2k damage.

That could be a little bit much.

Besides wouldn’t you prefer ALL heals get to you at 25-35% effectiveness instead of some life siphons.

Poplolita.2638:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Poplolita.2638:

Roe.3679:

We, as a profession community, had left so, so much feedback, much of it overall balanced for ourselves and the good of the game.

We got about a third of what we should have, and the nerf to lich duration brings the overall quality of the patch from a Necro perspective down.

It’s not just that. Go to the guardian subforum. And then compare it to this one.
Anet basically did everything guardians asked for. They buffed a profession which is already good in every game mode. The change they made for guardian is basically what they should have done for necromancer. I don’t get that, and I pretty much feel offended at this point. I might as well talk with a wall. They even completly disregarded your amazing “list of traits/skill they should change” which is really sad.

If you actually played a guardian you would realize that most of the changes won’t actually change anything.

The only guardian change they made that will matter at all is making merciful intervention ground targetable & even then it’s a small AOE which requires an ally inside it.

As far as quality of life things go, both the necro & the guardian could use some love for several of their weapons.

How the hell did you come to the conclusion that I don’t play guardian? Also, serious question, are you bad? I mean really, you came up with a post full of misinformations about a class good in every game mode.

No weapons need a quality of life change. You seem to not be aware that quality of life =/= buff.

The fact that you don’t think that both guardian & Necro could use some love with weapons & traits tells me all I need to know about your experience.

Eh Siphons inside death shroud could become rather powerful.

Though I do like your idea for a trait rework.

Maybe if they allowed healing effects through death shroud at 25% effectiveness?

Poplolita.2638:

Roe.3679:

We, as a profession community, had left so, so much feedback, much of it overall balanced for ourselves and the good of the game.

We got about a third of what we should have, and the nerf to lich duration brings the overall quality of the patch from a Necro perspective down.

It’s not just that. Go to the guardian subforum. And then compare it to this one.
Anet basically did everything guardians asked for. They buffed a profession which is already good in every game mode. The change they made for guardian is basically what they should have done for necromancer. I don’t get that, and I pretty much feel offended at this point. I might as well talk with a wall. They even completly disregarded your amazing “list of traits/skill they should change” which is really sad.

If you actually played a guardian you would realize that most of the changes won’t actually change anything.

The only guardian change they made that will matter at all is making merciful intervention ground targetable & even then it’s a small AOE which requires an ally inside it.

As far as quality of life things go, both the necro & the guardian could use some love for several of their weapons.

While a couple of the ideas posted here like moving Amplified wrath (which has been suggested everywhere) make sense, the vast majority of them would make us guardians over powered.

Abe Kleine.3568:

Fashion Mage.3712:

SilkySmooth.1574:

Ghotistyx.6942:

(did you know, SW count as allies?)

no it does not.

Yes they do. AH can even be triggered off of them.

Really? Well that’d be cool if they didn’t die in less than 3 seconds

Lol ya, I actually liked them better during the beta.

They did absolute crap for damage even after traits (unless you specced to make them burn & used carrion amulet)

But they were unkillable which made them great ways to annoy enemies.

At this point though they need to do 2 things

1: Consolidate a couple of the traits for them. (going into 3 different tree’s just sucks & leaves guardians extremely squishy.)
&
2: Increase the Health of spirit weapons (at level 80 they have less then 15 thousand health and no toughness beyond base. This causes them to die extremely fast)

Bash.7291:

CMF.5461:

Torment is a viable answer to limit mobility with a risk/reward and cleanse type counter play. I know originally people felt it was not iconic to the archtype, but just thinking mechanics.

Ive said it before, i will say it again for the 324907309790759047905743th time, Master trait in radiance, torment on crit, call it “punish the wicked” Gives us something actually condition based IN our condition line (radiant retaliation is crap) and ties into the theme nicely, helps with soft cc as it punishes movement, and opens up new types of actual condi builds instead of the only one which is actually hybrid.

I could live with that.

Kind of similar to a change I suggested a while back.
Make Radiant Retaliation base for everyone of every class. Then move shimmering Defense to the grandmaster tier & change it to the following.

Shimmering Defense : Whenever you blind or burn a target you apply X stacks of torment for Y Seconds. 5 second internal CD per target.

That ^ would mean yes you can kite but doing so will still cause you some damage.

Another simpler idea I had was to put a 3 second cripple onto sword #2 & a 4 second cripple onto greatsword #3.

Warriors will still be much more popular then guardians for reasons

1: They have higher burst potential

2: They can bunker just as well if not better in some situations, they also do so without loosing nearly as much damage potential due to having double the starting health pool
(guardians may have protection but given the god awefull cool downs for abilities that apply it & how slow the hammer auto chain is it just is to easy to counter.)

3: they have more build options that are viable at higher levels of play

4: Warriors have a great deal more crowd control, snares, cripples, stuns, dazes etc…

So in the end all the guardian really excels at is condition removal & being tanky as long as the long CD abilities last (assuming they are not immediately converted to conditions or stripped or stolen.)

As Ten said above they really should either increase the duration of might applied.

Somewhere between 7-10 seconds would be nice.

They can’t remove the cool down sadly due to altruistic healing. It would be stupidly OP with staff, hammer or greatsword if they did.

Obtena.7952:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

However they could have done allot more.

No, they obviously did everything they had time to do. In case you haven’t noticed, they did work on 7 other professions and the volume of changes they made to those classes were similar to what we see here. We got an equal share, just like everyone else.

Oh I agree with that.

Given the amount of time, personal & resources they allotted they did all they could.

But there are allot more things that should be done. Most of the guardians problems have existed since open beta.
It’s not only true for guardians either. Every class has some issues that have existed since beta.

So were the changes nice? Yes. But there is so much more that could be done. Heck a large number of good ideas have been created by the community. They could look through some of the more popular ones and use them.
However they do it further fixing the classes is better for everyone & a happy player base is more likely to expand and spend more money.

messiah.1908:

med guard got some huge love
more pvp and wvw med power guard will flourish (might push warrior aside?! )

Doubtful.

Guardian lacks one of the key things needed for a melee class in pvp.

That being enough cripples/chills/immobilizes to keep the enemy in range.

Meditation guardian also can’t pump out the raw burst that a warrior can or stun as often.
So it’s fairly safe to say warriors spot in pvp melee is safe from us.

Don’t get me wrong, its alright to have a guardian on your team for condition removal. But you won’t see them replace warriors for pvp melee.

Heck guardian still won’t be able to bunker in pvp like ele, warrior & engineer can either. So we also have that problem.

Harbinger.8637:

I can’t believe some people are already complaining. These are some very solid buffs all around. I’m very excited to see how these play out come the 9th.

I’m not complaining about the changes that were done, they are fairly nice.

I just think there was allot more that could have been done.

As I said in another thread
Guardians still have 18+ (give or take) traits that are very under powered or just plain useless, 6 (give or take) utility skills which nobody will ever want to use & 8 (give or take) weapon skills which could use improvements so that they work better for the role they want them to fill & or are more user friendly.

So the changes that did happen are nice, just there is allot more they could do.

Obtena.7952:

Abe Kleine.3568:

Thief.5186:

Abe Kleine.3568:

Epidemix Revenge.4862:

Pretty sweet changes…. Best buffs of all the classes maybe. At least for Med/

Not everyone plays medi 24/7

So because the build you don’t play all the time is what got the biggest buff, these are bad changes…seems legit

I play plenty of other build, but this just didn’t feel right at all, I was waiting for some major changes that would give guardians that something that they really needed, and with a coy little smiles the man proclaims “well, thats all for guardian”

Please identify what Guardians really needed that they didn’t get … just because Anet doesn’t meet your expectations doesn’t mean they didn’t hit the mark on the patch.

From where I sit, SW’s just got interesting. Granted, I don’t think Med’s needed more love but it would be stupid to complain about being buffed don’t you think?

Granted the changes that did happen were nice.
However there are still quite a lot of abilities & traits that are under performing or just stupidly bad.

I still count about 18 (give or take) traits that are useless, 6 (give or take) utility skills nobody will ever use outside of extremely gimmicky situations & 7 (give or take) weapon skills that could stand for updates/reworks to make them work better for their given role & or user friendly.

So were the changes bad, no. However they could have done allot more.

While I can agree with some of the damage of 100 blades being shifted to the last strike I don’t think warrior greatsword damage was what most people complained about.
Really the problem had by most people with warrior greatsword was the fact that whirlwind & rush could be abused to run away from the fight.

This effectively allowed warriors to run away from fights using the same tools they got into them with.
It also kind of counters the idea of warriors being strong front line fighters that get into a fight & finish it.
What your left with when you see a warrior using a greatsword is the thought “oh great he is going to run away like a wanabe thief the second things don’t go his way.”

Having the scepter apply torment is one thing, however having the clones apply it may be a bit too strong.

If they were to make the second attack apply 2 stacks of torment for 4 seconds then make the third apply 1 stack of confusion for 3 seconds then remove the torment from the first so clones could not apply it then it would be fine.

The real problem with it is that since clones can apply it it will end up stacking extremely fast meaning that any condition removal will be more or less useless.

oxtred.7658:

maeggle.6021:

Don’t use an upleveled, and don’t go EOTM

FTFY

Anyway, yeah retal is annoying on fast hitting AOEs classes ( >>>engineer<<<). Frost bow is a good utility as a 80 berserker spec’d ele against non-heavies zergs, so basically a pug environment. It could work for organized raids, I used it sometimes back when i could bear zergs, with fb4+ meteor shower+ tornado ( wich is nerfed but even without that’s good aoe damage), but as an upleveled you’ll do less damage than the retal tick.

This ^

Besides as far as boons go retaliation is useless in 1/3 of the game due to the fact its better (and much more possible) not to get hit at all in PVE.

Happyangrycatfish.1725:

I’ve tried it you have to get the ability off before your down to half health so you don’t fall low. Lots of times I got it off too late and didn’t have time to regain health. I’d rather run the healing signet or Shelter.

This ^.

It’s just not worth using even if fully specced for meditations.

Maybe if they made it instant & boosted the healing %. Something like 30 % would be better.

Arena.net have said that they want it to be hard for necromancers & guardians to get out of combat once there.
This is why guardians do not have passive speed boosts, why necromancers do is anybodies guess.

Sadly they feel that passive speed boosts make it easy to get out of combat.

Most players however would say that passive speed boosts play a small roll in doing that.
Most classes that can escape combat do so by movement abilities which require no target, abilities that cause damage avoidance, teleports & stealth. Or a combination of all of them.

Really I would not be against a passive movement speed boost, however I feel it should be something that you have to sacrifice something for.

For instance, if they were to remove the + condition damage from signet of wrath & replace it with +25% run speed. Then it would be quite nice. (I & many others would prefer it gave precision however).

Frankly I would be fine if they simply reduced the duration of symbol of swiftness by half then doubled the boon & damage applied per pulse.
Having to stand still for 4 seconds is just stupid and likely to get you killed.

Obtena.7952:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Obtena.7952:

Ynna.8769:

I don’t think a ranged weapon is inherently against the Guardian’s concept. And even if it was, I’d take it as evidence that the Guardian was designed badly in some way or another. I mean, look at the Scepter. We have a ranged weapon, so why are we arguing about whether or not the Guardians should have one?

I’d prefer if they’d just improve on the Scepter. That would be less work and wouldn’t bring us closer to feeling like a Warrior.

But the need for a ranged weapon is there. WvWvW remains a pain without a ranged weapon, especially at lower levels.

And let’s not argue about the aesthetic. Everyone will feel differently about it.

What you think and what Anet has outlined for the class concept in the video update a number of months ago are clearly two different things. Perhaps you didn’t see it but they were pretty definitive; They WANT Guardians at the front; part of the approach to make that happen is a weak ranged component. It’s also why you can likely bet that if there is some improvements to the weapons in the class, it won’t be giving ranged awesomeness unless the devs do a 180 on the class concept.

I took something a little different away from that.

They want guardian ranged options to be less useful then melee ones, but not technically “Weak”

There is also that part of the selling point of GW2 was that you could spec to do most anything you want to do.

So maybe they could get rid of a few of the useless traits guardians have (or merge nearly useless ones) then create new traits which bring ranged options a little more up to par.

This would be fairly balanced, you would have to spec to make ranged options “good” and they still would not be quite as “Good” as melee options after you spec for melee.

Words like ‘good’ or ‘poor’ are relative. Considering what the devs are targeting for the Guardian concept, the current spread of ranged options fits us really well … they suck just enough to make people go melee … or … they are good enough to make ranged a last resort. Whatever wordplay you want, it’s straight from the horse’s mouth.

As you said in another post, the problem isn’t our ranged options, it’s our ability to control the fight in close quarters. If there is any suggestions that would address that, it would be the most likely to garner everyone’s attention because it aligns to the concept.

My suggestion for fixing it would be to
1: Add a 3 second cripple onto Flashing Blade
2: Add a 4 second cripple onto Leap of Faith
3: Reduce the Cool down of Glacial Heart to 15 seconds
4: Cut the cool down of virtue of Resolve & Courage by 30% or so in solo & team PvP.
5: Cut the cool down of Save yourselves in half for PvP (Duration is already halved)

This would be some of the base things I would suggest.
There are also tons of traits (around 20) that are either very lack luster or make you wonder WTF they were thinking when they were made.

mPascoal.4258:

I think this could be a great idea but as ppl here said It’s most likely not gonna happen. Neither this or anything like this

ANet wanted us to hold ppl, support, be in the heat of battle, them gives us a game where none of that kitten is useful except of some areas in PvP (and NA PvP meta doesn’t even uses bunker guards so, romaing I guess, where ANet doesn’t even look) and refuses to change it.

And this is pretty much it. Since they will stay with the same idea they will not make this viable. Has they will also never make getaway options for us or movement speed increase

Lol the problem with their “vision” for the guardian is they refuse to give the guardian the proper tools for holding ppl in melee.

Sure the guardian can get there rather easily via leaps or teleports but people can easily escape because the guardian lacks enough cripples, immobilizes, chills & burst to keep them there.
Heck in the current build options the guardian can’t even bunker as effectively as a elementalist, warrior or engineer due to reliance on longer cool downs & a low health pool which necessitates spending more points for health which in turn ends up with less for damage/utility potential.

So there are really only 3 options to make mix use of.
1: Improve ranged to be more viable for when you cannot get into melee & stay there.
& or
2: Give the guardian more access to cripples, chills, immobilize & burst
& or
3: Create new or adjust existing abilities so that they are not as strong per use but can be used more frequently (guardian has strong abilities but the long CD’s make them very easy for skilled players to counter.)

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Ezrael.6859:

I hope Zealous Blade is improved.

The healing is too weak and the damage increase is negligible.

It should be raised to a base of 50 and apply to all weapons.

Remove the 5% dmg for GS.

And where would you propose the dmg % trait for the GS come from?

There aren’t a lack of badly designed, under performing or traits that make you wonder WTF was the designer thinking.

So assuming you made Zealous Blade heal for more & made it effect all weapons you could still find plenty of other places for a greatsword trait.
Not that I think it should effect all weapons, but it could definitely use a buff.

Last time I counted there were about 20 traits for the guardian that fit the criteria I listed above.
Could be more or less depending on your personal preferences but still that’s allot of space for merging traits, reworking them & or creating new ones completely.

Obtena.7952:

Ynna.8769:

I don’t think a ranged weapon is inherently against the Guardian’s concept. And even if it was, I’d take it as evidence that the Guardian was designed badly in some way or another. I mean, look at the Scepter. We have a ranged weapon, so why are we arguing about whether or not the Guardians should have one?

I’d prefer if they’d just improve on the Scepter. That would be less work and wouldn’t bring us closer to feeling like a Warrior.

But the need for a ranged weapon is there. WvWvW remains a pain without a ranged weapon, especially at lower levels.

And let’s not argue about the aesthetic. Everyone will feel differently about it.

What you think and what Anet has outlined for the class concept in the video update a number of months ago are clearly two different things. Perhaps you didn’t see it but they were pretty definitive; They WANT Guardians at the front; part of the approach to make that happen is a weak ranged component. It’s also why you can likely bet that if there is some improvements to the weapons in the class, it won’t be giving ranged awesomeness unless the devs do a 180 on the class concept.

I took something a little different away from that.

They want guardian ranged options to be less useful then melee ones, but not technically “Weak”

There is also that part of the selling point of GW2 was that you could spec to do most anything you want to do.

So maybe they could get rid of a few of the useless traits guardians have (or merge nearly useless ones) then create new traits which bring ranged options a little more up to par.

This would be fairly balanced, you would have to spec to make ranged options “good” and they still would not be quite as “Good” as melee options after you spec for melee.

I like the idea of a eastern themed guardian using a bow with “Light Arrows”.

However like others I believe they should improve existing ranged weapons before they create new ones.

Some examples.

Scepter
1: Get rid of the orb, make it a channeled beam of light that does damage every second & can be used while moving. (this would allow them to increase the speed making it finally useful on moving targets further then 600 units away)

2: Turn smite into a symbol (this would make it true AOE & add some utility to scepter to compensate for the fact it has lower damage then sword & greatsword)

Staff

1: Swap the #1 & #2 abilities around

2: Make Orb of light faster & get rid of the detonate. Then make it spammable. (damage may have to be adjusted slightly)

3: Increase the CD on the wave to 5 seconds, but increase the damage to compensate.

Torch

1: Zealot’s Fire, Get rid of the cool down increase it causes to Zealot’s Flame

2: Cleansing Flame, Cut the cast time & number of conditions removed in half. But make it also effect the guardian.

Bam problem solved.

After that if they want to create a bow using light energy then by all means go ahead. At least after our current ranged options would be worth using as well.

The problem is not so much celestial gear so much as it is the way the spec is used with it.

If the spec’s ability to stack might were somewhat reduced then all would be fine.

(im not saying it should be nerfed to uselessness, just have its ability to stack might reduced a little bit)

BrunoBRS.5178:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

lvis.3824:

Thief changes are good?
From what Pov?

Just check all the profession subforums and you will get an idea about how feels great and who doesn’t .

Dagger did not need cleave, its a singletarget DPS weapon, nn for cleave .

And the poison changes are so crappy, you’ll have to spend all your traitpoints to make them usefull – great …. Not one traitline, no TWO !
Tell me of any profession that needs to do that ?

Dude, Venoms were like that before. The only change is that now you get a bit more reward out of that same investment that you already had to make.

yeah, but the point is, it was a problem in beta, it was a problem at launch, it will still be a problem after this patch. devs really need to stop treating venoms as if everyone wanted to use them on a 6/x/6/x/x build and nowhere else. why can’t we have them untraited? why can’t we have venom builds that don’t need 12 freaking points? why can’t we have venom builds without venom share?

Well its a step in the right direction.

And I agree it shouldn’t take that many traits to make them a good build because having to invest that many traits limits the diversity possible with builds.

However you should have to invest some traits to make abilities more powerful/useful.
If you didn’t have to then there would be no point in having traits.

The debate between our points of view is really about “How Many” traits should one have to invest to make a particular set of abilities worth using.

Raiyo.1584:

Dirame.8521:

Linnael.1069:

You are not in a position to talk about high level PvE if most bosses you fight are walking around more than 20% of the fight. Stop Trying.

What? I don’t even…

Seriously mate, if you want to have a kitten fight with someone, go outside.

As for me, I’m just trying to help bring the right factors to the forefront.

I’m going to assume 14 stacks of torment are on the target at any given time, as this the the amount you can pull off with the specc I’ve put together

The 14 stacks on average last for 8s. For each second, 1 stack does 109 damage when the target isn’t moving.

109 × 14 = 1526 × 8 = 12,208

When the target is moving it does double that amount, so 24,416.
And this is not including might stacks, corruption stacks, or other on the spot damage boosts.

In my mind, that’s pretty substantial for a single condition.

Also, just to clarify, I’m not saying that everyone is going to want condition Mesmers over DPS classes (because frankly that will never happen until anet changes dungeon ai mechanics). I’m just suggesting that this condition on the Scepter is great additional damage since it is rarely stacked by most players.

it looks insane but by that time it will be already cleansed .

Considering same mesmer can also apply confusion, bleeding & burns then just stealth reset the fight & re apply them good luck.

Think you guys are forgetting about all the confusion & bleeding & burning a condition mesmer can stack on with that torment, Torment which will deal double damage to moving targets.
Also there is the fact that with runes & food that torment can have around double duration. Which could bump the number of stacks up to around 14-16

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArf2kknxBNUrNCuxY2JC5kxUTZD4XA-TxRFABfoPwF1fEe/BnU+BwpAI5nAQWKBJEwi5A-e

May not have much AOE or burst but the amount of condition damage is just insane.
And if carried to Spvp with a similar build there just isn’t enough condition cleansing to beat it.
Only way to counter it will be to hope you get lucky & can burst them down extremely fast which likely won’t happen due to stealth skills.

lvis.3824:

Thief changes are good?
From what Pov?

Just check all the profession subforums and you will get an idea about how feels great and who doesn’t .

Dagger did not need cleave, its a singletarget DPS weapon, nn for cleave .

And the poison changes are so crappy, you’ll have to spend all your traitpoints to make them usefull – great …. Not one traitline, no TWO !
Tell me of any profession that needs to do that ?

Guardian actually has to spend all of their trait points to get spirit weapons halfway decent.
Even after they do they still die to incidental AOE.

Plus spending all their trait points this way leaves the guardian extremely squishy & without condition removal.

Thief & ranger changes were good.

Warrior changes I was a bit surprised with, the main problem people were complaining about was not that they did so much damage with greatsword, but that they could abuse mechanics of it to run away.

Was kind of surprised with Ele changes. Making summons more commandable is a good thing.

Thing that threw me off most so far was the scepter changes for mesmers. Allowing the mesmer to apply more torment is one thing, but allowing all the clones to apply it as well will likely lead to some already strong condition mes specs to become downright godlike with how much damage they can do.

Looking at all the changes in total I am very hopeful for Necromancers & Guardians.
They have allot of traits, utility skills and some weapons that could use some love.
(don’t get me wrong their meta builds are alrightish but they have so many things that are not meta that just make you wonder WTF was the designer thinking)

Really I wouldn’t expect the government to do anything.

Assuming the scumbags are even in the US.

If they are in another country then there is absolutely 0.0% chance anything will be done to stop it legally.

If NCstoft were to show some balls and trace the twitter accounts of the people taking credit for it however they could simply make said persons name publicly known & wait for “Karmic” justice to happen.

Really I wouldn’t expect the government to do anything.

Assuming the scumbags are even in the US.

If they are in another country then there is absolutely 0.0% chance anything will be done to stop it legally.

If NCstoft were to show some balls and trace the twitter accounts of the people taking credit for it however they could simply make said persons name publicly known & wait for “Karmic” justice to happen.

Ynna.8769:

Maybe they were counting on Burning being more important than it actually ended up?

That ^ could be.

In the closed beta burning scaled like bleeding does now, in intensity.

It worked great, but they felt it was too similar to bleeding so they changed it to scale in duration.

That lead to burning being in the sorry condition it is now.

Its just one of the many utility skills, traits & weapon skills that makes no sense why it was designed that way.

Guardian has some good meta builds but it also has a ton of those things that make your wonder WTF were they thinking.

Lmao it would make so much more sense if it gave precision or run speed instead as a passive.

Also a nice little idea for how Sanctuary could be changed.

As is now Sanctuary sucks for multiple reasons

1: It’s so small that enemies can stand outside of it and melee you while your inside.
2: Ground targeted effects still bypass the bubble.

1 combined with 2 mean that enemies can kill you just as easily while your inside it as they could outside it, whats more they can use fear, knockback effects & launches to make you move out of it.

What if it were changed in the following ways

1: Make it apply 2 seconds of protection to allies per pulse
2: Make it apply 1 second of stability per pulse
3: Triple the its size

That ^ would make it worth considering for use.

Really guardians don’t need a movement speed boost, though I would not argue against signet of wrath being changed to provide one as a passive.

What guardians really need is more access to either cripple or chill.

What if they reworked Glacial Heart to fill this role.
Make it a Valor adept major, reduce the Cd to 10-12 seconds, reduce the duration to 2-3 seconds then have it work with any weapon.

This would effectively allow guardian to stay in range once they get there.

Kraljevo.2801:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

13: Shielded Mind – Indomitable Courage (combine them, they basically do the same thing anyway. Then create something new to fill the gap)

This would be way too strong. Think logically mate.

AOE stunbreak + stability? Why run anything else in zergs other than guardians?

Stability already removes stun, knockdown &fear effects when applied.

Besides the fact it has a 90 second CD & 5 target limit with only 2 second duration more then balances it out.

Buran.3796:

For PvE just go full berserker in your gear, using greatsword and sword + focus or scepter + focus to complete the map. Due the large amount of blind and block sources the Guardian has the map completion is utterly trivial with this class.

Things change a ton in PvP and WvW; in PvP you can either go for a tank (holder) role, which means using staff, mace, focus, shield and scepter most of times (hammer and gretsword can be fine along the staff) or go for a dps build (usually based on meditations, using gs + sword/focus, gs + scepter/focus or sword/focus + scepter/torch ). At high level of play 99% of time only bunker guardians are used. In WvW the most common guardian builds -in raid- wield staff + gs or staff + hammer and they are usually tanky and focused in the last 3 lines of traits (mostly for group support=, whereas roaming guardians can go either support or dps.

But notice this: guardians are great in duels, but otherwise terribad in roaming due the lack speed (no constant swiftness) or stealth, and they mobility skills -which are great as close gappers and to enter in combat- are severly lacking for avoiding combat.

As a player which mains both guardian and warrior, imo warriors are in better shape now.

This is more or less true.

Arena.net have also said that they want guardians to have a lack of ways to get out of combat but want them to stay in combat easily once there.
The sad part about this is that guardians don’t have access to the needed tools (snares, cripples, chills etc…) in the needed quantity for this role.

That means unless you have a friend with you providing an excess of those things you will be kited rather easily.

ArchonWing.9480:

Well, that’s pretty eye opening. How does it compare to wall of reflection?

In Pve & WvW wall is much better.

IN Spvp however missile deflection can be quite potent.

It works with sword & mace blocks as well.

I have gotten numerous stupid P/P thieves to kill themselves, & caused allot of other specs to think twice before they open up on me with ranged burst.

Tarsius.3170:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

“Unscathed Contender” While under the effects of protection you deal +8% more damage.

A full dps guard has relatively little access to protection though, and you probably wouldn’t want to squander it as a pre-cast for burst.

Depends on your build & the group your with.

A guardian using Hammer for instance has pretty much permanent protection.

Also most elementalists will run with elemental attunement and can give a good sized chunk of protection
Spirit ranger with stone spirit can grant it
Chaos armor will also grant it on occasion

Also it would help out anybody using mace, shield, Hold the line or save yourselves.

So in the end it would be allot better then it is now considering in any challenging fight AEGIS is unlikely to be up that long.

ArchonWing.9480:

Hmm, would it be better if Unscathed Contender worked like Scholar runes and did more damage above 90%?

That would help in PvE or WvW.

Aza.2105:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Little idea I had.

What if they reworked Glacial Heart.

Make it something like

“Glacial Heart” Whenever you blind a target you also apply chill to nearby enemies.
2 second duration, 180 radius around blinded enemy & 10 second cool down.

This would effectively give the guardian more uptime in melee and limit how much they could be kited offsetting the fact that guardian burst potential is much much lower then other melee specs.

I don’t think they will change glacial heart again. I personally feel that giving glacial heart a damage modifier for hammers would make it more useful. Maybe a 10% dmg increase + the rng proc would be ok.

Eh maybe.

But as is the Cd is so long its pretty much useless.

As for something to buff the hammer I had an idea a while back about how they could change unscathed contender.
As is now it only works if AEGIS is up, lets be honest in any serious fight its unlikely to be up long.
But if they changed to to the following it would be much better

“Unscathed Contender” While under the effects of protection you deal +8% more damage.

Little idea I had.

What if they reworked Glacial Heart.

Make it something like

“Glacial Heart” Whenever you blind a target you also apply chill to nearby enemies.
2 second duration, 180 radius around blinded enemy & 10 second cool down.

This would effectively give the guardian more uptime in melee and limit how much they could be kited offsetting the fact that guardian burst potential is much much lower then other melee specs.

As someone who has played every class since 80, has everything in ascended gear & has done my fair share of wvw, pve & Spvp.

I’ll tell you one thing

The only thing the guardian does that the warrior doesn’t is apply protection.

Everything else (with the possible exception of condition removal) the warrior can do just as good if not better.

This means that generally speaking with the way WvW & Pve are designed the warrior is better because you cannot make up for stupid people being stupid.

Spvp on the other hand is where the differences come into play, they have more condition removal then warriors for their allies & themselves.
However they also have a much harder time staying on target & cannot burst anywhere nearly as effectively as a warrior.

Take from all this what you will.

Keksmuffin.1450:

ArchonWing.9480:

In WvW, the guardian’s low hp is partially mitigated due to the existence of guard stacks. Yes, everyone can get them, but because it’s a flat boost it benefits classes with low health a lot more.

Also, people have been threatening (across the boards) to reroll to warrior for the longest time but you get the same people going “reroll a warrior” repeatedly without progress. I didn’t know leveling took so long. Remember legendaries are account bound so you can move them.

Not targeted at anyone specifically. But given all the warriors I’ve seen as of late that get 1 pushed by my engie, I guess people really have been rerolling warrior— and it hasn’t helped them much. :p

Well most of these guys want the stuff warrior has for guards… cripple, movement speed, more movement skills, bigger hp pool. Going warrior seems more logical than keeping to play guard and keeping to complain. Let them reroll, I won’t miss them.

I prefer active defenses and active support even on zerker specs over being a facetank hp bag which only support is ccing stuff, killing something before it kills their teammates and sometimes a warbanner.

I more or less agree with you.

The guardian does not need movement speed buffs or a health increase.

That being said there are allot of things that could be changed, ranging from traits that are under powered or just plain gimmicky, utilities that could use buffs or complete reworks & core class abilities that could stand to be reworked (like symbols & how burning scales)

I do think that guardians should have access to cripples on the sword & great sword however. Without them staying in melee range is made much harder then it should be, especially when compared to other melee classes.