Guild Wars 2

Crapgame.6519:

I hope you do delete your Guardian. Heck, do it right now. Please.

Seriously though, stop being a drama queen. We are not the best nor are we the worst and to be perfectly honest the game has bigger issues than the Guardian and class balance. There are three different meta’s of play and every kitten one is borked at the moment after almost 2 years of retail play.

I agree we do have issues but in the meta of play I run, WvW, running a full blown glass canon zerker guardian, solo, I feel its fine. This is just my opinion and it is subjective but I can win, and lose, 1 on 1 as it should be out in the open field. I have a “chance” to win in many 2 v 1’s I engage in. Do I like how some classes can reset at will? No. Do I like how other classes have more sustainability? No. Do I like how I have to give up more defensive abilities to do equal burst? No. Base health? No.

No, it isn’t easy for Guardians. And Lord knows we lost many a solid community member (trait specs, videos, etc) because of the class wonky’ness. But at the end of the day it is what it is.

Think you just made the argument for the people wanting buffs.

Ya were not the best but guardians could definitely use some changes

Apolo.5942:

Problem is, in wvw has access to the same stats, so while you can fix the class problems other classes can simply stack on its strengths, thus you end up right back where you started.

Sure you can fix you lack of crit and healing through zealot or what ever but that is not going to do you much good when others can get the same stats added to their already better ones.

No melee class should start at 10k, i thought they would have learned this when kiting killed pvp back a year ago, seems Anet is a slow learner.

The problem as you said is kiting.

We have a ton of ways to get into melee range, we just need some better ways to CC people once there so we can stay there.

As for health increases, if we got any it would likely mean we would need a nerf in our defensive & utility abilities. That would create allot of balance work & allot of room for mess ups. Frankly I’m against it.
Instead I think they should just give us access to more CC (improve traits & utilities that provide it & add some cripples to sword-greatsword)
Then get rid of the PVE-Spvp differentiation on dodge healing. As is dodge heals are halved in Spvp.

this would allow guardians to stay in melee much better and bunker with the best of them in Spvp.

Apolo.5942:

Have to agree and have been saying this for a while, stats are to restrictive on guardian.

-You have to spend 6 points in Honor to overcome the ridiculous 10k hp pool and get dodge heals.

-Regarding WvW you have to use a staff for swiftness which leaves you 1 weapon either sword or GS and staff is not really a ranged weapon so you always end up in an awkward situation where you either need to hit some one on a wall or down from one and the staff does not have the range for it. You also have a lack of sustain unless you go meditations and then your sustain vs your opponents kiting is ludicrously low.

-Symbols might as well not exists in WvW and they are a KEY component of your sustain.

-No +25% move speed trait means travelers is mandatory further restricting your stats and builds.

-Save meditations, traits synergies is all over the place, you have 2handed cd on one lane and GS sword damage and pitiful sustain in another one. You need 3 lanes for a pseudo decent Weapons build. Symbols interfere with force of will.

IN Spvp I would agree base stats on a guardian are very restrictive.
However in WvW and PvE I don’t agree with you as increased base health would likely require our defensiveness & utility be nerfed.

Agree on the staff, they really should rework it to be a viable ranged option.

Have been saying for a long time that they should cut the duration of symbols by 1/3 -1/2 but double the damage & boon applied per pulse. (this would make them much better in all forms of the game as their damage would be something to avoid & you would not have to stand still for 5 seconds to get their full effect).

They have said time & again they don’t want guardians to have access to better mobility. If they do plan on keeping it this way however then they need to give guardians a cripple for the sword, greatsword & possibly hammer.

Though It would also be nice if they made it so more runes had the +25% run speed boost.

Agree with you about traits. Too many are far to spread out.
Whats worse is there are a good 20 or so of them that are very underwhelming or just Gimmicky

Apolo.5942:

In all honestly not very optimistic.

-Regarding Spirit weapons, bow being targeted was a no brainier, but that is not the main problem with weapons, the problem with weapons is that they do not keep up with you, need a bazillion traits to run and get destroyed by essentially every aoe and boss in the game even when not aiming for them. Reworking their abilities? sure be my guest but that is not what they really need, they need not to be touched by aoe and have their move speed increased.

-Dont see them addressing the guardians meager 10k hp pool. Necros have almost twice as much hp and offensive sustain.

-No comment on GS trait balance/additions, the main used weapon has virtually no trait we can access after fixing our hp pool and getting healing medis.

-Also no changes to symbols which might as well not exist in WvW.

Agree completely on spirit weapons. The traits are way to spread out.

The health pool is not really an issue in PVE, however in Spvp it can become one as it sevrely limits the choices for amulets & runes. Increasing the base health however would likely necessitate nerfing our defensiveness.

Great sword traits are not the only ones that need fixing. Currently I could name a good 20 traits that are very underwhelming or just stupidly gimmicky.

Where symbols are concerned I have been saying for quite a while that they need to cut the duration of all symbols by 1/3 – 1/2 of what they currently are but double the damage & boon applied per pulse. (as is its often not worth standing around in a symbol the full duration its down because standing still will get you killed)

That being said I am happy they at least said they are going to look at the utility skills elites, I just hope that isn’t the only thing they do.

Apparition.1576:

Shaogin.2679:

So much fail in this thread. Get out of hotjoin and you will see very little to no MM or Turret builds. lol

To be honest I play more in hotjoin than I do in solo que (at least as engineer). What are some of the better alternatives in solo que?

Find some friends or guild mates to run with & preferably a voice chat program.

Requires you have friends or guild mates but the fun that can be had is much more so then solo que.

Apparition.1576:

style.6173:

Turrets do need a nerf. It all goes back to the comments ANET has made about passive skillplay and how they want to minimize it.

Turrets are currently the easiest to play spec in the game and get they still do very well.

I can understand your point but I want you to think beyond your point in regards to the passive playstyle and about the class as a whole (if you actually play engineer). What are the alternatives??

This ^.

If there were more builds as viable as MM necro & turret Engineer then I think allot of people would be happy to see them nerfed.

Reliance on AI is not very fun anyway.

Really I think what all summons, weather they be turrets, spirit weapons, ranger pets, ranger spirits, necro minions etc.. need to move away from reliance on AI and move towards more command ability.

This would make things happen
1: Skill would be much more of a factor as you would have to know when to command them
2: With skill being more of a factor instead of AI they could merge some of the traits for these summons or make them base line effects… thus allowing for the creation of new traits.

Main problem I and most others I know have with the hammer is 3 fold

1 : light field can override fire & water fields. (has been said above)
&
2: Auto attack chain is so godaweful slow. (they could easily keep the protection up time & damage potential more or less the same by reducing the cast time of the last hammer swing to 1/2 second but also reducing the pulses the symbol does by 1.)

3: Damage potential is lower then greatsword.

This makes the hammer good for pug groups & WvW but not something you would want to bring very often in spvp (other then for some very specific builds)

Pretty much agree with the points made by the OP.

Really the guardian just needs some quality changes.

1: There are ALLOT of traits that range from being under powered, gimmicky or just plain stupidly under performing. (meta traits are more or less alright, just all the others are bad)

2: A few of the weapons have skills that could use tweaks to make them perform better & or be more enjoyable to use (changing shield of judgment to an AOE centered on the guardian for instance, or speeding up the hammer chain but reducing the pulses on symbol of protection.)

3: A few of the utility skills could use some improvements.

4: Improvements for staying on your enemy in Spvp-WvW (they want guardians to be melee fine, they want them to get in combat and stay there fine, but guardians need a way to keep enemies in range once they reach them. A cripple added to a couple of gap closers would work wonders.)

There are lots of little examples I could give but the list is fairly long.

Main hand Axe & off hand sword would make more sense really.

Staff is more of a caster, priest, monk type of weapon.

Orpheal.8263:

Theres only 1 real and only solution to the Condition Cap Problem and that is called *Condition Tiers"

Imagine again a 50 Man Group fighting Tequatl.

These 50 people spam all their conditions against Teq.
What can you dow now, if the game is technically limited to a maximum amount of 25 Stacks, but you want that everyone, even after the 25th stack of a condition is still able to support all others with dealing conditions to teq, without that the game wastes them because they don’t get added to the stacks??

The Solution is, change a Condition that reaches 25 Stacks to a NEXT HIGHER TIER-CONDITION, what will break down the stacks again to 1.

Example.

1-25 Stacks Poison = Poison > Tier 1 Condition
26th Stack of Poison = Poison becomes Toxin > Tier 2 Condition
Every 25ths another Posion Stack, Tier 2 gets another Stack.
1-25 Stacks Toxin = Toxin > Tier 2 Condition
26 Stack of Toxin = Toxin becomes Neurotoxin

You see, that way it becomes harder and harder to reach the next Stack, so higher the Condition Tier becomes. Thats something that just only huge Zergs would be able to get to and even then mostly only, if all players of the zerg would be playing a Condition Build and spam all the same conditions together constantly without break/disrupts ect.

But thats a system, that stays within the realm of what is technically for the servers possible with a max stack of 25, without adding any more conditions, just replacing 1 condition with a next higher tier of the same condition that resets the current stack number to 1.

Example for how it could work:

Poison = Damage over Time, 33% Heal Reduction
Toxin = Same Damage over Time, 40% Heal Reduction
Neurotoxin = Increased Damage over Time that ticks a bit faster, 50% Heal Reduction.

To get Neurotoxin, you would need to get on an enemy first 25*25 Stacks of Poison = 625 Stacks of Poison which would have to be applied constantly.
So in theory realyl somethign that just a full 150 man zerg could do if at all. Naturally would require a bit finetuning, but thats for me the only system that is able to work under the limitation of a maximum 25 stack frame, while also not increasign the total amount of conditions that the game would have to calculate on enemy side.

But personally I’d find it also good in regard of game balance, if ANet would reduce the Max Cap for all conditions down from 25 to 20. under 20, it would require constant 400 stacks of poison to reach its Tier 3 Neurotoxin, whats directly a large chunk lesser and still more than enough to guarantee, that jiust only a huge Zerg could reach a Tier 3 Condition like Neurotoxin.
——
Other Condition Examples:

Weakness > Exhaustion > Fatique
Vulnerability > Fragility > Shell Shock
Burning > Inflammation >Heatstroke
Torment > Pain > Anguish
Confusion > Delusion > Hallucination
Slowness > Cripple > Obstruction
Chill > Freeze > Cold
Bleeding > Wound > Venesection

With a tiered condition system, people could fight with alot of condition builds in huge zerg fights in WvW and in PvP World Boss fights.
if the cap of a lower tier gets reached, the condition will change just simple over to to the next higher tier, which then increases alot slower for higher stacks and basically is able to reach those higher tiers only, in very long lastign battles against something, that has really alot of health and takes alot of players to beat…

However, my used numbers are are just a basic concept of how it could work, the exact best used numbers would have to find out anet self under balance tests.
I propose just only to reduce the maximum Condition Cap for easier balancing of this game in the future.

PS: a I see, I guess me and Leo had a very similar concept, haven’t read the thread completely to the end xD

That ^ could work.

Though I don’t believe weakness, vulnerability, cripple or chill should get stronger versions.

As is they are already very strong & creating stronger tiers could make even hard bosses trivial. (imagine having jungle wurm or Tequatal take more then +25% damage, or be chilled so much their CD’s take forever to recharge. Would just make it to easy)

Bleeds, confusion, burning, poison & torment however could definitely use something like this.

Kinda Like Leo G’s ideas, though they are kind of complicated.

At least everyone admits there is a problem including Arena.net Hopefully at some point they come up with a solution to make bleeding, burning & poison work better when multiple people are using them.

Terrahero.9358:

I thought the problem with conditions was that the server couldnt handle all the calculations. Imagine a fight like Tequatl, 50 or more people all applying their conditions. And the server has to differentiate between them all, calculate the damage based on everyones stats and traits, and send feedback to everyone.

It could never have been a case of “mobs die to fast”. Abilities deal X amount of damage, either directly or over time. And it doesnt matter which it is as Conditions arent magically uber powerful (despite what some would have you believe).
So if it was a case of mobs dying to fast a more logical fix wouldve been not to neuter an entire type of damage, but to just make the mobs tankier or have more hp/scaling.

Well that is more or less what they said.

Each time a condition ticks the server must check how much it ticks for & how long it has left.

So they said they will not raise the cap on condition stacks due to how much bandwidth it would take to handle it.

So in the end we & they are left with trying to fix condition caps without increasing the number of stacks that they cap at.

It really does limit the amount of ways the problem can be fixed. Hence my suggestion of increase the scaling but decrease the duration/number of stacks applied per ability for bleeds.
The unintended result of said fix however would be that condition specs that use bleeding would in turn have more or less the same maximum damage output but a faster ramp up time.

That ^ in turn could have adverse effects on Spvp if not balanced properly.

Neptune.2570:

Would have to split all bleed/burning skill between PvE and PvP; classes that apply large amounts of bleed stacks quickly (especially though AA’s are already a problem in PvP.

Don’t think you understand what I wrote.

Abilities that apply bleeds would be looked at individually, any ability that applies more then one stack of bleeding or applies bleeding for more then a couple seconds would have either the number of stacks reduced & or the duration of said stacks reduced.

The exchange would be that each stack would deal more per tick.

This means that

1: More people can bring bleeding to a fight without canceling each other out
&
2: While the ramp of time of condition specs would be slightly faster they would not do any more over all damage.

So yes it may make condition specs kill things a bit faster, but they already balance several abilities that apply bleeding differently in PVE then they do in SPvP.

Jekkt.6045:

3rd time writing this text as my internet wont let me post this…

short: remove the hard cap and replace it with a soft cap.

numbers are only examples

after 100 bleed ticks every additional bleed tick reduces the total damage of the bleed stack by 1%. assuming the 100 bleed stacks have an average bleed damage of 100/s and the 101th only 87/s thats -100.87 damage/s because the damage of the new bleed stack is lower than the average. but if the new bleed stack ticks for 120/s (which is higher as the average) the damage loss is -101.2/s ((10000 + 120) / 100 = 1% = 101.2) and the effective damage gain is 18.8 (120-101.2).

this way all the bleed ticks will balance their damage by themselves. the damage will be capped at the point when the average bleed tick of the whole stack = max possible bleed damage/second in the game. because a higher tick cant be added anymore if it already is the max.

the same could be done for duration conditions with amount of seconds instead of amount of stacks. so for example, for every additional second after 100 seconds the damage gets reduced by 1%.

i hope its understandable as it may sound a bit theoretical and complicated.. but after 3 times writing the same text i dont really care anymore^^

From what I can understand of this it wouldn’t really solve any of the problems.

In the end people would still get hosed over if more then 1 person was bringing conditions. It would just take time to happen.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

A simple solution would be to look at each ability that applies bleeding then either reduce the duration of the bleed applied or reduce the number of bleeds applied.
Overall the reduction could be about 1/3 to 1/2.
After that simply increase the scaling of bleeding to compensate so that no overall damage is lost..

As much as I appreciate where you are coming from, and can get behind the idea of fixing conditions so that the caps do not hose players, I do nto believe it is as simple as you think.

For example the value of condition cleanses and removal changes exponentially when you have application rebalanced to give less stacks with a higher damage per tick.

I mean I think you heading in the right direction, we have had hundreds of threads on the matter. But what about skills with a 2s bleed or another low amount of total condition damage? How would you work that into your concept?

Completely understand where your coming from with cleanses becoming more of an issue if bleeds become stronger.

As for procs that cause low duration bleeds. Most of them rely on crits, I would change them to on hit and change the proc chance to balance them.

As pretty much everyone knows bleeding & burning cap very easily in PvE thus making additional applications of the condition a waste. This causes much of the damage done by elementalists, guardians & engineer’s to go to waste.

This means that you never really want more then one condition user in your group (if any)

I’ve been pondering the problem now for a while & believe I have come up with a solution (at least in the case of bleeding & burning)

Bleeding, if you look at abilities that apply it you will notice something. Abilities that apply bleeds generally tend to either apply multiple bleeds at once & or long duration bleeds.

A simple solution would be to look at each ability that applies bleeding then either reduce the duration of the bleed applied or reduce the number of bleeds applied.
Overall the reduction could be about 1/3 to 1/2.
After that simply increase the scaling of bleeding to compensate so that no overall damage is lost.

Burning was a bit trickier to come up with a solution for.
In the end I found it would be best to simply make it so all abilities that apply burning to have an addendum

“If the target is suffering from more then X (say between 8-12) seconds of burning you will instead apply Y (say 2-3) stacks of agony for the duration”

(makes sense right, if your on fire and someone dumps gas on you it would make it more agonizing)

That ^ would allow for multiple (2-3) people in a group to be condition spec without canceling each others damage out.

Really most conditions could be fixed rather easily to better allow for more people to use them. (confusion & agony aside they are more or less fine as is)

Bleeding for instance. If you look at abilities that apply stacks of bleeding you will notice they either apply long duration stacks & or apply multiple stacks at once.
Simple solution would be to reduce the number of stacks applied per ability or reduce the duration of bleeds. Then simply buff how bleeding scales to compensate.

Now you can have 2-5 people (depending how much you alter it) easily applying bleeds in a group without reducing the effect others have.

Now look at burning. In closed beta it used to scale in stacks like bleeding did. It worked fine but they felt it was to similar.
How about this as a simple solution.
“Whenever a target has X or more seconds of burning on them already any new burns applied will instead apply Y stacks of agony”
Kinda makes sense right, I’d feel pretty agonized if I was on fire and someone came along and dumped gas on me, wouldn’t you ?[=

Poison is the kittene to rework.

What if in PVE only poison instead scaled in intensity. Each stack doing the same amount of damage per second as it does now but each stack only reducing healing by 10% with a maximum of 10 stacks.

Vulnerability I won’t try to rework because champions & legendary mobs already have a uptime reduction making it hard to keep up 25 stacks unless you get specific group builds.

Ralkuth.1456:

Buffed Glacial Heart (bye Hydromancy)
Buffed Shield off-hand
Buffed Mace Auto (Hammer Auto buff a bit unrealistic, I know…)
Meta Burn Guard
Buffed Guard mobility through -> Buffed Merciful Intervention (ground target please)
Buffed useless traits -> Build Diversity for Guards

Actually changing the hammer auto attack chain is one thing I really wish they would do.

As is most guardians use it because the perma protection is too good to not have. They however hate how slow the last attack is.

If Anet would simply take 1 pulse off of symbol of protection then lower the cast time to 1/2 second (from 1 1/4) then the damage would be pretty much the same protection up time would only lose 1/4 second (still easily have permanent uptime with traits) and the hammer would feel so much faster.

As for mobility buffs, they are unlikely to ever happen. Though it would be nice if you could choose the ally merciful intervention targets.

Ragnar.1546:

Warriors have access to everything but are average to good at it all. But Healing Signet?? Really?? Keep slapping poison and the jobs done, scepter has constant access through the AA chain.

Vs a Necro it’s their CC and our lack of stability which doesn’t help.

Warriors actually have pretty good uptime on stability via Dolyak signet & balanced stance.

The real problem a warrior runs into when fighting a necro is if the necro is specced for boon removal.
If & only if the necro is specced for boon removal do I have problems against them on my warrior.
Why ? Because warrior damage relies on lots of might & fury, that gets stolen or converted to conditions and you end up just being tanky.

I’m not complaining about it though, its really just one spec of necro that does it & its the main thing they excel at. (besides single target damage)

Depends on 2 things

1: how much healing you need & how fast
2: Will that extra damage (and knockback if traited) down an enemy.

If you need more burst healing then its worth it to detonate when water field is out. If not then leave the turret up.

You have allot of ways ways to interrupt people with a hammer warrior, especially once you factor in utility skills

If you could remove a boon each time you interrupt someone you would basically be able to boon strip as good or better then a necro (especially if you combined it with nullification sigil)

This combined with all the other warrior strengths would essentially make nobody ever want to play anything but warrior in Spvp & WvW.

Lol ya it does suck.

Personally I would love to see guardian shield changed to be more like the following.

#4: make it an AOE centered on the guardian.

#5: Scrap it then Make it an AOE centered on the guardian that knocks back enemies & applies a 10 second AEGIS to allies within a 240 radius. Then drop the Cd slightly to say 30-35 seconds. (this would make the shield work great with traits that focus on AEGIS)

Chicago Jack.5647:

Shield is actually a good offhand for what its intended use is. It doesn’t need changed. Offhand torch is pretty terrible, but that’s just because guardian condi damage is limited – as it should be. I don’t know what could be done with offhand torch. Ideally I’d like to see the “offensive” weapons of guardians to have the most reliable ways to peel for other players – bar none; not a single class should be able to peel for a person better than a guardian. A reliable way to say to the opposing player, “Hey I’m here, and you’re gonna have to deal with me first.” Hammer is pretty close, but needs more reliable ways to apply its skills. Scepter is pretty dumb and bad. The one saving grace it has is its reliable immobilize to setup some damage – damage setup is where this weapon should be good at. Speed buffs are probably not going to happen to guardian though.

Shield is decent but could use some quality fixes.
For instance #4 is alright if your playing scepter but because its a wave its bad for melee. Make it an AOE centered on the guardian and it would be great.

1. is also kind of meh because it doesn’t stop ground targeted AOE and it roots you in place.
   Make it something you drop and don’t have to worry about maintaining and it becomes very good.

As for condition damage. They have shown that they want condition damage to be better. The addition of amplified wrath show this. The problem is that burning by itself can’t compete with other classes that can apply 3-5 conditions at once.
If they were to allow guardian to apply a second damaging condition like confusion in low quantities consistently then condition play could be truly viable for guardian.

Agree speed buffs likely should not happen, however some way to apply cripple would be very nice as it would allow guardians to stay on target better.

Spartacus.3192:

When is the update due?

Nobody is quite sure yet.

They are previewing 2 classes per week every Friday.

They have done 4 classes so far so maybe in 2-4 weeks.

And if we are lucky they will actually look at allot of the weapons, traits & utility skills that nobody ever wants to use like they have done for the other classes.

But given how long they have let allot of these stay in their current state I’m not going to hold my breath.

mPascoal.4258:

Saiyan.1704:

I don’t think adding Another leap (hammer and gs, both have it), or a quicker way to leave combat, will make dps guards “more viable”. It just sounds like you want Guardians to play like the Warrior or Thieve.
I have no issues roaming. In fact, I for one often do a better job roaming than a Thieve or necro, who can’t stay on point or cc people off nodes. Wondering if I can go from Point A to Point B fast enouge, hasn’t crossed my mind as an issue.

It would help a lot, why you don’t see any DPS Guardians in top tier teams? It’s not because they can’t burst, but if they need to disengage, either to help or because they are in trouble, they can’t. You either enter and win or you die, and the chances to win outnumbered aren’t very good. It’s not that I want to play like a Warrior or Thief, it’s just what it lacks to be good enough for top tier. Most classes have more than 1 build in top tier, but you don’t see Guardians there beside bunker Guardians, and the play style from the bunker builds we have (2 I think) doesn’t change at all. What changes is just some traits and 1 utility and 1 weapon (focus to shield and 1 shout for 1 concecration)

They have stated multiple times that they don’t want the guardian to have a reliable way to get out of combat.
When we get there we either win or die.

That being said another way or 2 to apply cripple would be nice.

Maybe they could apply a nice 3-5 second AOE cripple to the greatsword leap, sword port & a 1-2 second cripple to the hammer blast.

As far as skills go

1: Combine Judge’s Intervention & Merciful Intervention. (if used on an ally make it AOE heal, if used on an enemy make it AOE Burn)

2: Shield of Judgment (Make an AOE centered on the guardian)

3: Cleansing Flame (Cut the cast time in half or even to 1/3, takes way to long to cast now)

4: Zealots Fire (get rid of the increased Cd it causes on zealots flame when used)

5: Symbol of Swiftness & Symbol of Faith (cut the duration of the symbol in half but double the damage & boon applied per pulse. Because standing still for 4 seconds can literally get you killed)

6: Smite (change it into a symbol so it’s effected by traits and is true AOE)

7: Signet of Wrath (change it to give + Precision)

8: Litany of Wrath (make it instant & possibly reduce the Cd to 25 seconds base)

Traits

1: Shattered AEGIS (make it apply confusion)

2: Symbolic exposure (up the duration to 4 seconds base or make it apply 2 stacks per pulse)

3: Zealous Blade (get rid of the healing its pathetic anyway, Just boost the damage bonus to 10%)

4: Revenge of the Fallen (Combine it with Strength of the Fallen in valor, then create something new)

5: Amplified Wrath (move it to radiance, then create something new)

6: Shimmering Defense (Change it so that whenever you blind you also apply confusion 2 stacks for 3 seconds or 1 stack for 5. with a 5 second CD)

7: Inner Fire (change it so that when the guardian applies burning they also gain fury 4 seconds, 12-15 second internal CD)

8: Radiant Retaliation (Make it a base effect for all classes that if they have + condition damage more then 2/5 their power then retaliation will scale off of condition damage instead)

9: Perfect Inscriptions (Make it also give + precision for each signet the guardian has equipped regardless if their used or not. Say +25-30)

10: Glacial Heart (Reduce the CD to 20 seconds & make it effected by two handed mastery)

11: Unscathed Contender (make it give + 8% damage while effected by protection)

12: Purity of Body (boost the effect or make it a base effect. Its laughable)

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

14: Supreme justice – Permeating Wrath (combine them, make the burn focused on the target then create something new to fill the gap)

It would make more sense for axe to cleave.

However if they make axe cleave then they will likely nerf the range on it which would suck.

Really they should just hurry up and add greataxe to the game already (imagine if we had a great axe with skills similar to the executioner axe toy, but for real combat)

Personally I would love to see necro’s get an elite that summons multiple minions.

Something like

Army of the Dead: Summon X (whatever disposable new minion)
These minions can be commanded to charge your enemy (one at a time) and explode applying bleeding to enemies within a 240 unit radius for 8 seconds

Maybe if they reworked the scepter somewhat

First they would need to lower the physical damage it deals by a good 25%.
Then they could add a short duration confusion (say 1 stack for 5 seconds or 2 stacks for 3 seconds) to ether blast so that scepter clones cannot cast it

Honestly I’m just surprised they didn’t nerf greatsword mobility.

As is with rush and whirlwind you can easily get out of a fight you don’t want to be in.

Personally I would love it if instead it gave a stat boost for each attunement.

Similar to what the trait lines give but on a smaller scale. Say +30 or so to effected stats.

Dirame.8521:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

5: Inner Fire (only really good against some mobs in COF, other then that its useless)

Funny thing about Inner Fire, when fighting a Warrior using longbow it’s pretty much infinite fury.

But just to add to the above. Try to also come up with suggestions for what you would put in as traits if you combined say, Revenge of the Fallen and Strenght of the Fallen.

Well ideally I would add something to make condition play more viable. As is condition playstyle is extremely squishy and very easy to counter since guardians only have access to burns.

Maybe something that gives access to confusion. Kinda fits the theme, we punish you for attacking.

Rabidd.9458:

Pretty strange buff IMO. It wasn’t really needed, kittens was already good. If they really wanted to change it to timed instead of number of hits, 3-4 seconds would make more sense.. but 6 seems pretty high. Lets see what happens.

I predict it will get nerfed at some point.

6 seconds can be very long, especially if they combine it with an immobilize & cripple

That would effectively make a warrior able to burst down anybody who doesn’t happen to have an ability handy that makes them invulnerable.

Really they should have changed the concept of it.

Something like
“Whenever you attack you grant might to nearby allies for X seconds”
that would have been much more warrior like and easier to balance.

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Think you misunderstand what I was suggesting and why.

I simply suggested they halve the duration of symbol of faith & symbol of swiftness. Then double the amount of damage & boon duration applied per pulse.

I suggested this because standing in a symbol for the full duration is likely to cause you to take in more damage then the boon is worth.

As for your builds I actually do like them & if they did this change it would make them even better.

Jayce.5632:

“100% of your condition damage is added to power against objects” would probably help.

That & could make rampager/carrion stats extremely powerful… in a bad way.

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Mace is amazing…

Actually vs other weapons it’s very meh.

This is especially true in PVE & WvW where standing still can cause you to die very fast.
This causes most people to not want to use it because it requires you and your allies to stand in a symbol for a long period to gain the most benefit from it.

Simply cutting the duration of symbol of faith in half but doubling the effect per pulse would get rid of this problem without causing major problems in terms of balance.

The torch & shield also have their fair share of problems.

Dude, thats your problem. All you think about is bunker/support. Who said anything about using it for healing? Just because it has healing abilites doesnt tie its role to simple support. Mace is amazing as a dps meditation weapon. All 3 of its skills excel at doing above average dps. I posted a link to a thread for a build i created. Since posting it i have had nothing but positive feed back from it. In-game with whispers or letters, on youtube even through email. I make my builds through actual combat usage not crunching numbers. The build is great as it is now but the ascended version which I havent released is a vastly superior in terms of stats. Just because :you dont know what you are doing doesnt make it inferior because its not in any way.

Actually I do know what I’m doing and have tried your build.

While it is quite nice it falls behind some other builds that use the greatsword or sword in terms of raw DPS.

If anything my suggestion would make your build better. The overall DPS would not be changed but the burst potential would go up.

Carighan.6758:

I really feel lore should have the final say in a lot of these cases. We are playing a RPG after all. Fire elementals should not be able to burn (that they can take fire-based direct damage is a bit of a stretch, already). Robots should not be able to bleed. Etc.

Objects cannot be confused, bled or tormented, but can be burned and chilled and so on.

That being said, currently this is unfair to conditions, but to that I’d merely say that direct damage needs to be taken into account more. Why are projectiles and swords doing full damage to oozes? Should a dagger really hurt an earth element?

So maybe we need a damage type? Direct damage can be piercing, sharp, blunt or elemental (X). And then like mobs currently say “Immune to burning” or “Immune to blind” they could also say “Immune to sharp weapons”.

This would also not really need much explanation to new players, I’d think it makes more sense than what we have right now.

While that may make allot of sense it would also make allot of specs completely useless in allot of areas in the game

Demon.2430:

Could be a solution but since you only have 1 elite it would mean less possible builds (or diversity in the same build) which I dont like.

True.

Personally speaking I wish they would just scrap it and create something new.

We already have allot of anti projectile stuff and since it cannot stop ground targeted AOE there is really no reason to use it.

Epidemix Revenge.4862:

Agreed. Really sucks to be a Condi spec in legacy for example and try to down the gate..I might as well dry hump it because it might break faster.

Sadly this is very true.

It also makes me extremely worried as a guardian & elementalist about what will happen when they finally get around to making primorius the main dragon we fight.

So much of your damage potential as both of those classes relies on your target being on fire.

Wethospu.6437:

Enemies could also attack more often.

This ^.

I have been saying since launch that the way to get rid of the zerker meta & make more styles of play viable is to make enemies do more unavoidable damage but the same or less telegraphed spike damage.

This could be done several ways

1: Make enemies attack faster but for less damage per attack.
2: More frequent use of conditions (though this route would require some classes like thieves/mesmers/rangers get more condition removal)
3: More bosses/mobs/NPC’s with access to stuns, dazes, immobilize, weakness etc…

As for weather or not this would cause other gear/trait types to simply become the meta. Possible, but it all depends on how it’s tuned.

Now as for condition specs, it will likely take allot more work than what i mentioned above to make them something more people would consider using. As is the way the scale, cap & work needs some serious work.

Narkodx.1472:

zapv.8051:

Liewec.2896:

zapv.8051:

As I explained above that simply isn’t true. Both of those traits will in all likelihood benefit the user. Furthermore, they aren’t almost useless grandmaster traits.

gotta be joking!
the description for Last refuge should pretty much read “get 4 seconds of the revealed debuff when your health hits 25%”
and you’re right its not a grand master trait, it is the very first trait so going in to that trait branch will always push the trait on you!

Lol maybe if your bad, but if your smart you will ANTICIPATE the trait proccing. With all the complaints about this trait you would think people would know by now when it is coming. I very rarely get revealed because of this trait on my d/p thief, and very often get extra stealth and escape because of it. For me, a person who uses the trait wisely it is much much better than a trait that does almost nothing. Also, I want to iterate again that thieves best pvp and pve builds dont go into shadow arts while pve necros and power pvp necros will almost always go into spite. Therefore, in the scenarios anet balances around having an almost useless 25 point grandmaster trait should be much higher priority then a trait that gets complaints because thieves get killed in wvw.

+1

Also Dhuumfire condition necro or any hybrid will also go into Spite.. it has a lot of good traits but this one is trash… in fact, I dislike all the minors in spite.. power to healing power? WHY!?

I actually kind of like power to healing power.

It makes regeneration tick for more when applied by the staff or focus.

That being said it is still underwhelming compared to other things it could give.

Frankly given the long cool down and problems with sanctuary I personally hope they move it back to being an elite, make it bigger and make it so ground targeted AOE cannot be placed inside like it was during closed beta.

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Mace is amazing…

Actually vs other weapons it’s very meh.

This is especially true in PVE & WvW where standing still can cause you to die very fast.
This causes most people to not want to use it because it requires you and your allies to stand in a symbol for a long period to gain the most benefit from it.

Simply cutting the duration of symbol of faith in half but doubling the effect per pulse would get rid of this problem without causing major problems in terms of balance.

The torch & shield also have their fair share of problems.

@ Domz I would suggest looking at a condition build.

With the way bunkers are anymore its hard to burst people down with physical damage as a guardian.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJQ7dlsApaodDxZI8DJR8QV9DEAP61kDA-TJRHwAV2fAxRAAZZAAHEAA is a good base spec.
For the other weapon set you can go sword/torch for more damage or greatsword for close range cleave and the pull.
For the last 2 trait points you can get either radiance for shimmering defense or blind exposure, Or you can get 1 honor/1 virtues or 2 virtues for master of consecrations.

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Yes guardians are great bunkers & provide allot of self healing.

However to do so they give up the vast majority of their damage. (the exception being meditation guardians who can easily be burst down due to having an extremely small health pool.)

I mean really IDK why anybody would get so upset about bunker guardians anyway. Warriors can provide much more healing to their team via shout tank builds while doing good condition damage.
Elementalists can also provide just as strong of support as guardians but at a greater range. What’s more they also provide better CC & more condition damage in the same spec.

I can understand nerfing warriors so that they cannot run away. (I have seen some completely outrun people who had access to swiftness & chill/immobilize/cripple)

That being said I do think they should be able to chase some specs down without too much trouble.

So I would be alright with a few of the weapon movement skills getting a slight nerf in range but I hope they don’t touch swiftness uptime & the ability to cripple/immobilize at a range.

Its in a decent spot between tanky & glass cannon.

I wouldn’t call it op though as your not really doing anything at a great level compared to other specs, your just kind of finding a sweet spot between them.

Besides the spec relies on stacking might & fury which means against someone who can remove boons (or convert them into conditions, or steal them) your not going to be doing hardly any damage.

Arena.net have said in the past that they intend for the guardian to have very few ways of escape once they get into a fight. That is one of the core guardian weaknesses.

They have said though that they want guardians to quickly get into a fight via Teleport’s, leaps etc.. & that these abilities should allow guardians to stay on a target very effectively and stay alive when there.

So while the chances of us (guardians) ever getting a better means of escaping fights is low it is possible that in the future they will add more abilities that allow us to better stay on our targets, survive & CC.

So if we really ever end up needing a boost I can see things like cripple, weakness, chill, daze, stun, leaps, teleports & self healing getting added/boosted before we get escape mechanics.

Well for me the absolutely useless ones would include

1: Revenge of the fallen/Strength of the Fallen (should just be combined)
2: Shattered AEGIS
3: Symbolic Exposure (can barely keep one stack of vulnerability on a champ with constant symbol uptime)
4: Zealous Blade (the damage boost is kinda eh but the healing is a joke, just change it to +10% damage and it would be fine)

5: Inner Fire (only really good against some mobs in COF, other then that its useless)
6: Perfect Inscriptions (kinda meh for a grandmaster, especially since we have no reason to use beyond 2 signets at once. Maybe if it gave precision per signet equipped then it would be good)
7: Radiant Retaliation (Should be baseline for everyone)

8: Glacial Heart (Cd is way too long.)

9: Unscathed Contender (impossible to keep AEGIS active in a decent fight. Maybe if it worked off of protection but at a lower amount say 8%)
10: Indomitable Courage & Shielded Mind (Lol basically the same trait. Just combine them.
11: Permeating Wrath & Supreme Justice (Just combine them)
12: Purity of Body (Just laughable. Make it an adept)

Then there is also Amplified Wrath & Kindred Zeal. I see those and think why are they in the same line ? Kindred Zeal is just laughable because as guardians all you really have is burning & Amplified Wrath feels like it should be in Radiance.

There are also numerous little problems/things that could be done to make the mace, shield & torch more viable. Things like

1: Make Shield of Judgment an AOE centered on the Guardian.
2: Make Shield of Absorption instead grant AEGIS in an AOE (A shield that doesn’t block really ?)
3: Reduce the duration of Symbol of Faith to 2 seconds but double the damage per pulse & make it apply 2s of regeneration per pule (Standing in one spot so long makes you vulnerable to burst)
4: Zealot’s Fire. Get rid of or at least lessen the Cd increase caused on Zealot’s Flame.
5: Cleansing Flame. Reduce the cast time by half but double the damage per tick. (As is nobody likes it because it takes so long to use)

Oh also on the Hammer #1 chain. Would it kill them to reduce the cast time for symbol of protection to 3/4 sec but reduce the number of pulses to 2. Damage would end up being the same & protection uptime would be more or less the same. It would just feel so much faster attack wise.