Guild Wars 2

Frankly given the long cast time, long Cd, & the sheer number of abilities that apply stability or teleport I would like to see it changed.

As to what it should be, I’d love to see it be a faster slightly wider cone version of the hammer 3 with a 20 or so second CD. (possibly one that also applies some bleeds)

Sadly radiant retaliation scales horribly.

If you used it with full dire gear the retaliation damage would still only be about 5% higher then if you didn’t use the trait and had zerk/soldier gear on.

And even by doing this you would lose a massive amount of DPS due to hitting like a wet noodle with even your hardest hitting attacks.

And before anyone asks, no it isn’t worth trying for a burn build with this due to the fact that even the most condi focused guardian build will still use allot of power in order to have any decent damage potential.

The trait is just one of many on the guardian (between 1/3 and 1/2 that need a redesign if they are ever going to be used for anything outside of screwing around)

Guardian, no matter the spec is on the lower end of the damage potential spectrum (it has burst but thats about it)

Also its other utility is also brought just as well or better by other classes (namely rev, ele & engineer) they however do just as much or much much better damage.
The rev and engineer also have completely viable condition builds & in the case of the engineer stealth.

The only thing the guardian really brings that nobody else does is AEGIS and given the way the raids, PvP and many high end fractals work it is nearly useless due to the damage coming in so fast.

So if you want to role play a holy knight or templar go for it, but if you want what is most effective & flexible try a rev or engineer (or ele)

If you dont care about another class being able to fill the roll better & just want to RP then go ahead.

Otherwise I’d say roll an engineer or Rev.

They do everything a guardian can do but better & have better flexibility (especially in the engineers case)
+ they also both have completely viable condition builds.

At this point all the guardian really brings that others cannot is AEGIS, and given the way that many high lvl fractals & the raids work its near useless.
The guardian is also on the lower end of the spectrum for damage where as engineer and rev are on the high end.

Sad that wanderer’s amulet does not have the same stats wanderer’s does in PvE.

If it did there would be some serious contenders for guardian bunker builds.

Short of that however I would suggest celestial. The condition damage is kinda meh but the other stats help & its power is still decent.

As for magi, If it gave power instead of precision it would be a great choice both in PvP and other game modes. However since it gives you precision & leaves you bone dry for condition damage & power I could never in my right mind suggest using it since you will be completely useless as far as helping allies get a kill is concerned. (been suggesting since launch that they change it to give power instead of precision for all game modes, I encourage others to do the same)

Arken.3725:

Purification is far superior in a multitude of situations. More healing, dazes, can be placed before hand and potentially have a 2nd charge up. Granted it won’t mitigate damage during the duration, there are so many unblockable skills in this game it’s hard to justify Shelter anymore.

Edit: Also, Hunter’s fort is still superior to Heavy Light even without shelter.

Purification does have some down sides though.

For instance the enemy must be in melee range to trigger it.

Against some smart enemies if possible they will do all they can to kite & stay at range in order to avoid traps.
Purification also does not remove conditions which is ironic given its name. (given the meta is so focused around conditions at the moment condition cleanse is extremely important)

Also while there are unblockable skills in game they are in the minority.

albotelho.2931:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Frankly I (and I’m not alone here) think they should change the traps into necro style marks.

This would come with a trade off

1: They would not be invisible anymore
2: They would not last as long once placed

However

3: They would become ranged
&
4: Any boons granted would be shared with allies.

This would go a long way towards making Dh more viable for the meta while at the same time getting rid of allot of the QQ from people being ambushed by traps.

As for the rest of the guardian traits, weapon skills & utility skills there are numerous threads on the fixes they need.

If they do this they have to change the concept, they will not be traps anymore, I doubt they will do that.

When they released the first news about DH and that it would be a trap based line my first reaction was “oh crap”, they should be marks and not traps, just like you are sugesting… marks would fit the Guardian concept better as “wards of protection”. But Anet wanted it to be more like a true hunter so thety are traps.

And in true… after I started playing it I liked it a lot, it is a more strategic playstyle, and fits the hunter concept Anet wanted.

Not much of a concept change really, wouldn’t even take that much editing to do it.

In essence traps and marks are pretty dang similar.

In the end it would also be much better for all skill levels due to the changes I listed as well.

Even if they didn’t want to call them marks at this point they could make them act like marks and just say because guardians aren’t true rangers.

If you want to heal your on the wrong class.

Someone did the math a while back and found that a druid could do more then twice the healing a guardian could.

They also found that rev was just under that & that a ele could do over 1.75 times the healing a guardian could while at the same time providing permanent vigor, various auras, a ton of protection & a decent amount of projectile reflects.

Now you might ask yourself what does the guardian have to justify its lower healing output. Well according to anet its AEGIS.
The problem is that in the raids & in PvP damage comes so quickly or there is so much pulsing AOE that AEGIS is likely only to stop a minor attack.

So if you want to heal I would suggest another class.

Guardian can tank rather well however in PvE and in PvP its burst is great at destroying idiots too stupid to dodge.

Frankly I (and I’m not alone here) think they should change the traps into necro style marks.

This would come with a trade off

1: They would not be invisible anymore
2: They would not last as long once placed

However

3: They would become ranged
&
4: Any boons granted would be shared with allies.

This would go a long way towards making Dh more viable for the meta while at the same time getting rid of allot of the QQ from people being ambushed by traps.

As for the rest of the guardian traits, weapon skills & utility skills there are numerous threads on the fixes they need.

Given how warriors & elementalists can become moving combo fields due to their new traits/skills am I alone in wishing that symbols would be placed on the guardian him/herself instead of on the ground?

That alone would make them much more useful & possibly make for some very unique/cool visuals.

All that was said above + the fact that guardian is already on the lower end of the sustained damage spread.

Losing much more would keep guardians out of raids due to the fact so many other can support just as well if not better while doing better damage.

Guards used to have a decent bunker build back at launch, however it doesn’t really compare to other bunkers anymore.

Over all guardian just doesn’t have build diversity in multiple games modes due to multiple reasons like

1: Spirit weapons are crap & die easily

2: Signets are clunky, badly designed & even their trait is meh compared to what others have.

3: Consecrations, are extremely niche and not worth using for the vast majority of things.

4: About 1/3 to 1/2 the traits are extremely poor options for 99.99% of the game compared to other options available.

5: The sword, hammer, & staff all need some love if they want them to ever see serious use for anything.

All that toughness will make you an aggro magnet and the tank wont be able to tank because of it.

It also has very low health for a tank if thats what you plan on doing.

Lastly as either a tank or a dps is has very low precision meaning even with group buffs your damage will be very low, which in the current raid environment is a bad thing due to guardians already being on the low end and every bit of dps being needed.

General bit of advice

1: If you plan on being the tank you only need a slight bit more toughness then other members of the raid to hold aggro. After that make sure you have enough health to survive (most say around 16k is fine)

2: After you reach the desired health and toughness go all out on zerk gear.

3: For getting the toughness & vitality boost you want celestial can be great due to it also having the other offensive stats and some + healing to keep you & nearby allies alive thus keeping your dps decent & aiding the healer.

4: Blocks, mace, shield, shelter are all amazing for tanking.

5: Sadly the guardian is already on the low end for damage & depending on the skill/comp of your raid you may need to swap out your guardian for another class with higher dps (which in some casses also has higher support etc… due to how anet have balanced things)

If your dead set on using the hammer however it can work.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQFASlsAhWhY/OwUIQQEHxDVNA2y6FvEJxWYDh89RB-TxRBABXpM4m9H1fKTpHe6AaUJIAXAgHeAAAA-e
or
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQFASlsAhWhY/OwUIQQELxDWVAYLVvwWCJhtg8/r/dAB-TxRBABXpM4m9H1fKTpHe6AaUJIAXAgHeAAAA-e can work.

You will have the mentioned problems of constantly overriding more useful fields, doing less damage then you would with greatsword & the weapon being slow as a snail however.

Right now not many people want to use hammer, especially in raids.

Its extremely slow, the constant light field overrides more useful fields & it does less damage then the great sword.

As for cleric I would advise against using it at all.

Toughness makes you draw aggro and if you have more then the tank he/she cannot tank.

Zealot is what you want to use if you plan on healing.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Frankly as someone who mains a guardian I would rather they change the traps into marks (like necro staff marks).

By doing so there would be a trade off

1: They would no longer be invisible.
2: They would not last as long once placed.

However

3: They would share any boons granted with allies as well.
4: Could possibly have some finishers such as blasts/whirls added onto them.

This would stop the whining from lower ranked players about being surprised by DH traps while at the same time making their utility better for group play.

I’m okay with this. Having only myself to blame for:

*Stepping on a trap
*being positioned poorly so that I can be feared/launched into a trap

is what I’m looking for.

That being said it defeats the purpose of a trap. Maybe not go so far.

hence why I said change them to marks

It helps if you have a mesmer with a main hand sword or a thief with sword/dagger however I wouldn’t go out of your way to get them.

Frankly as someone who mains a guardian I would rather they change the traps into marks (like necro staff marks).

By doing so there would be a trade off

1: They would no longer be invisible.
2: They would not last as long once placed.

However

3: They would share any boons granted with allies as well.
4: Could possibly have some finishers such as blasts/whirls added onto them.

This would stop the whining from lower ranked players about being surprised by DH traps while at the same time making their utility better for group play.

No & no.

For numerous reasons.

Reason number 1 being toughness makes you draw aggro off your tank if you have more then they do.

Reason number 2 is that even the healers have to put out decent damage in the raid & the amount of + healing power a guardian needs to be a healer means your damage will suffer (guardian damage is already at the lower end anyway).

Reason number 3 is that rev’s, elementalists & druids all do much much more healing (nearly twice as much in some cases) as guardians with the same amount of healing power.

So can a guardian heal a raid ? Yes. But they would need zealot gear to do so and would put out less DPS & quite possibly less useful support then other choices available. (especially true since AEGIS is pretty much crap in the raid due to rapid AOE pulsing damage)

Over all your better off sticking to a DPS or tank role & even then there are better choices due to the guardians innate lower DPS.

I and many guardians actually love shield as it is now.

Number 4 provides decent damage & great synergy with pure of heart & or shattered AEGIS.

5 is good for stopping projectiles & getting people off points.

If there was anything I would change it would be the shield trait in valor.

As is we can get a group wide toughness buff from strength in numbers, a personal one on shield is crap.

If it were changed to reduce shield CD’s and cause 4 & 5 to have additional effects then it would be great.

If it caused a taunt on enemies it hits with number 4 that would be great & provide some much needed CC for the class (guardian is the only heavy without a taunt atm.)

It’s debatable what the trait could cause number 5 to add. I have heard suggestions ranging from retaliation, resistance to even stability.

Shouts could use some tweaking & a few changes (buffs) that is for sure. (especially given that many other support specs support better while doing better damage)

That being said they are still better then signets, consecrations & spirit weapons.

Receive the light would actually be more useful in most cases if it were rebranded healing fart and caused us to heal enemies behind us.

I say this because in most cases we are of best use on the front line.

All this being said they really should just make it heal in AOE around the guardian similar to that shout heal that elementalists got.

Yashuoa.9527:

You cannot block traps.
They are UNBLOCKABLE.

Running through them with blocks will kill you.

I would not call them patheticly easy to counter but it sure makes a difference if you know some methods that help vs them.

Only 1 trap (test of faith) is unblockable. The rest can be blocked easily.

Guardians have some of the worst mobility in the game.

They have no + movement speed trait (others all have at least one, some have 2)

In order to maintain full swiftness they also either have to use 2 utility skills (save yourselves & retreat) the former of which is on a 60s cd, the later on a 40s cd.

Or they are forced to use the staff. A weapon with absolutely horrible damage (just enough to tag enemies in most castes) and stand still for 4 seconds every 15 seconds while waiting for a symbol to pulse 4 times.

In the end most of us aren’t asking to be the embodiment of gods we are just asking for them to look at overwhelming amount of skills, traits and weapon abilities that are absolute crap & either make adjustments or rework them so that they are actually useful & balanced vs what can be done by others.

Granted this will still be a decent chunk of work due to the fact that just under half the utility skills, a good 1/3 or more of the traits & 4-5 (or more) of the weapon skills qualify for being considered crap due to the fact that nobody would ever want to use them for anything serious.

phor.7952:

Yes, I’ve played Guardian.
In every dungeon, fractals up to 82 so far, and on each of the three bosses in the raid… It’s my main.

I have an 80 rev alt as well, both with ascended weapons and trinkets.

Since an 80 guardian in full zerker has 12.5k hp, I’m beginning to think it’s YOU that’s never played guardian. Probably haven’t played Rev either. It sounds like you’re just repeating things you’ve read.

Seeing as you have both as voiced by your own admission. Take a look at both.

You will notice something the rev can actually do everything & I mean everything better then the guardian can with 1 little exception, that being projectile reflects.

And seeing as how those are also brought by mesmers & engineers who do more damage then guardians (and the case of the later do more healing and have a better condition build) there is a reason why people are complaining.

This is not even covering the fact the guardian has multiple issues with several weapons as well as quite a few traits & utility skills which are absolute crap.

What Thad said with one exception.

during nightime events/dungeons sigil of the night will stack with force & provides a +10% outgoing damage boost.

Try rev.

You will do more damage
Provide the entire group with your choice of might, fury, swiftness, protection, regeneration & or +50% boon duration.

You will also have better group healing while providing decent damage.

You will also have a decent condition spec.

Not to mention better projectile absorbs & stability application for the group.

The only thing the rev doesn’t do as well as or better then the guardian is condition cleansing, but then again they can just absorb all conditions off of allies and keep up resistance until said conditions wear off.

One change I have been wishing they would add for quite some time would greatly effect the sword.

If they would get rid of radiant retaliation then move Right Handed Strength into it’s grand master slot with the addition of
“your critical hits with one handed weapons apply X (say 4-5 seconds) seconds of bleeding”

That ^ plus fixing the auto attack chain to be an actual melee would go a long way towards making the sword good.
It would also serve to make an actual choice for what people would want as their grand master.

What Rodney, Arken & Exe have said plus a few other things like

1: Traits that effect a virtue & either make you want to use it ASAP or never use it at all should be merged so that they better rounded. (this is true not only for virtues but for radiance and dragonhunter as well)

2: Some traits really feel like they are in the wrong tree entirely. (numerous examples but purity of body is a good one. It really should be in virtues. Instead honor could definitely use a flat + boon duration 3rd minor not tied to a weapon, since it deals so much with boons)
(Another example would be glacial heart)

Frankly I think some type of timer is needed.

The existing timers could be slightly lengthened however.

Or perhaps they could make the first enrage after the timer runs out a soft enrage with another more powerful one coming after.

The thing about guardian & DH is

1: Its very predictable, and its weaknesses are glaringly obvious once you know how it works.

&

2: It doesn’t really bring anything that isn’t done better by another class.

The only exception to 2 is AEGIS which sadly is worthless in PvP, WvW and raids due to how fast damage comes.

But hey at least traps still destroy idiots in mid-low tier and hot join.

Rodzynald.5897:

Khenzy.9348:

Oh! I love these kind of threads. Regardless of profession.

I think the hammer needs a lot of love in terms of feeling and useability, some other weapons need some love as well, sword comes to mind, scepter too, greatsword as well, but slightly less.

My suggestions:

—Let’s start with the Autoattack, it definetly feels slow, clunky, and not really fun to use at all most of the time. It also places a light field on the ground, overlapping some other more useful fields, which is a big nono. It’s also mostly unuseable in PvP due to its incredibly long cast time.

Proposed solution. Let’s ‘normalize’ the autoattack cast time, and remove the Symbol of Protection from the 3rd attack of the chain.
New attack, Protective Bash (or whatever, you know). ¾s cast time. Hard hitting attack that applies 2 seconds of protection to allies if you hit a foe.

—Now with Mighty Blow. It’s definetly lacking something and now Symbol of protection needs to go somewhere. This particular attack doesn’t really feel impactful enough, it can do decent damage and be used as a blast finisher, but it also sadly helps in the overall clunky feeling of the weapon. It needs more OMH in my honest opinion.

Proposal. Mighty Blow leap range increased to 600. CD doubled, increased to 10 seconds. Whenever you hit a foe, you drop a Symbol of Protection at their feet that lasts 4 seconds.

—Zealot’s Embrace turn. This attack is really weird and doesn’t really feel ‘sinegistic’ with the weapon itself. The description says it’s a wave attack, when in fact it really is a tiny projectile that doens’t really act as a projectile. It’s as if this attack belongs to an entirely different weapon altogether in spite of its CC nature.

Proposal. Zealot’s Embrace is now a proper wave attack. It now acts as a cone attack very similar to Warriors Hammer Shock skill. 600 range. Cast time and CD ramain the same. It now immobilizes for 2 seconds up to 5 targets in the 600 range cone attack.

—Banish. This skill has a high CD, a high cast time and is very very telegraphed. It’s a really strong CC, though. The most important issue here is that it only hits a single target. How many times have you wasted this high CD CC on a random trash mob among a clusterkitten of mobs? Or even against a random ranger pet, or mesmer clone, or even a MM necro minion in PvP?

Proposal. Banish now affects up to 3 targets.

—Ring of Warding. We all know how fluid and fun it became the day warriors could perform their Staggering Blow while on the move. It wouldn’t make RoW too strong becouse it has a decent cast time as well as a really high CD for a weapon skill.

Proposal. You can now cast Ring of Warding while on the move. You move slightly slower during the cast time (like with Whirling Wrath).

Glacial Heart trait. As many have pointed out here already, it’s very badly located which also reduces hammer viability as a whole becouse it competes with two much stronger traits.

Proposal. Glacial Heart is moved to adept in place of Master of Consecrations. Such trait now takes the previous place of Glacial Heart.
_______

The hammer would end up like this:

> Hammer Swing . ½s cast. 3 targets. 130 range.
>> Hammer Bash . ½ cast. 3 targets. 130 range.
>>> Protective Bash . ¾s cast. 3 targets. 130 range. 2s of protection to allies in 300 range.
Mighty Blow. ¾s cast. 10s CD. 5 targets. 600 range. Applies Symbol of Protection that lasts 4 seconds if an enemy is hit.
Zealot’s Embrace. 1s cast. 15s CD. 5 targets. 600 range. It’s now a proper cone attack like warrior’s Hammer Shock skill. Immobilizes for 2s up to 5 foes hit in the cone.
Banish. 1s cast. 25s CD. 3 targets.130 range.
Ring of warding. ¾s cast. 40s CD. Can now be used while on the move. You move slightly slower during the cast time.

Glacial Heart and Master of Consecration traits switch places.

Now that’s some dangity dang good changes, I’d definitely go with those, even Mighty blow seems nice but I think if it gets 10 seconds cooldown, it should definitely get a true shot damage OR more overall sustained damage, otherwise it will just be a poke>poke>bash and CC without any impactful damage on demand so our enemies might just outheal the damage or soak it in straight to the face and not get intimidated by the fact that we are using hammer. (Trust me, Mighty Blow at times feels just like 3rd AA blow)
Psst… though I cross my fingers and wish for 3rd AA to remain slow but apply some CC like 1 second daze, but that’s just me

Frankly the range on mighty blow is fine, if they just tacked on “Drop a symbol of protection if you strike an enemy” then it would be more worth it as the symbol would add to the damage anyway.

It like any guardian trap build has one major weakness.

The daze applied by traps comes before any of the damage does.

If your reflexes are decent dodge asap when you see the daze.

This is the main reason why dragon hunter was not a favorite and did poorly in the ESL.

Once you know enough about the spec & realize the tells you can negate allot of its usefulness due to the fact that once it blows a CD it doesn’t offer much.

thrag.9740:

Don’t worry OP, anet said they are going to give harder fractals better exp rewards so you can level up your tyria mastery faster. That should fix it. Even though everyone already maxed out tyria mastery via COF, I am confident new tyria masteries will be released totally making this meaningful. \s

Yh op it’s pretty bad. I continue to hope that anet will make a repeatable fractal achievement for fractals 1-100. I don’t think anet will ever successfully balance rewards, but if every fractal had a unique reward as part of a repeatable meta achievement, then every fractal would be worthwhile. Well…as long as the achievement had a GOOD (non-account bound) reward.

This ^

Unless they create some more mastery’s that can be earned in fractals there will be no point to increasing their XP reward. Most ppl will have their mastery’s maxed out anyway.

Ragnarox.9601:

Guardian is OP strong 1 on 1, but not that strong in group fight.
Rev, chrono, tempest, druid are OP in both.
Scrapper is like guard but with better utilities and survival.

Dont think I would say guard is op 1v1.

Strong vs some enemies but against skilled enemies it tends to have allot of problems.

I’d make it more akin to the trident number one skill, but with higher damage.

I would them make wave of wrath the number 2 skill.
However I would give it a 5 second cool down but with higher damage & give it a cripple+weakness to foes it hits.

Really the size increase writ of persistence provides should be a base effect.

Necro marks, ele staff skills & engineer bombs all got their traits that effect radius made base line not long back, why not do the same here.

As for the healing & longer duration, That’s debatable.

As for hammer, it needs a rework so that the auto chain is faster.
If that means moving the symbol & protection elsewhere on the hammer then so be it.

Really there are two ways they could make them useful.

1: Adjust their health levels, make their cool downs start as soon as they are summoned (IE the fix gyro’s got when engineer players complained they would suck like spirit weapons) and adjust some of the base cool downs to be lower.

This would be the easy fix & would still leave them reliant on AI.

or

2: Redesign them to be more akin to a cross between ranger spirits & warrior banners.
By this I mean they would give either a static stat buff to nearby allies or a special effect once every few seconds then could be commanded to give the guardian a special effect.

The later would be my vote but it would require allot more work.

Lastly the trait in zeal effecting spirit weapons could stand a bit of a tune up.
Instead of burning the target it would be nice if it burned the area around them when they effect an enemy.
It would also be nice if it caused them to do something when killed.

I find it insulting that they managed to change the Revenant sword auto chain before HOT release due to complaints about the auto having a projectile that misses yet have left guardian sword chain alone despite complaints since the original launch.

If they would make the guardian sword chain into a true cleaving melee attack then it would be much better.
It would also be nice if the right handed strength trait in radiance caused critical hits with the sword to apply a 4-5 second bleed.

As for sword number 2 and 3, I would do the following changes.

Flashing Blade Teleport to your targets location blinding them and nearby enemies. Once you arrive drop a symbol of might.

Symbol of Might Pulses 3 times, each pulse does similar damage as symbol of protection, however each pulse grants 1 stack of might lasting 10 seconds.

&

Zealot’s Defense Assume a defensive sword stance & block And I mean block) incoming attacks (2 second duration) For each attack that is blocked counter attack by hurling a magic projectiles damage & burn your target. (damage is possibly lower then the first attack from auto attack chain, with a 1 second burn each)_

(projectiles should have a 700 range and be quite a bit faster then the current ones, as the current ones can be avoided by strafing)

Arken.3725:

Minors

Valorous Defense: Change to grant protection at 50% threshold.

Courageous Return: Rework, downed state/revival traits are useless in actual combat. That, or move this into Honor.

Might of the Protector: Remove the ICD, 1 stack of might per block

Majors

Strength of the fallen needs some love, downed traits just never see play.

Stalwart Defender: Change this add more functionality to the shield like Warrior’s shield trait does for them.

Strength in Numbers: Increase this to 200 since Toughness scales terribly.

Communal Defenses: Increase radius to 600

Altruistic healing: Maybe merge Force of Will with this?

Retributive Armor: If this was similar to Adaptive Armor you’d see this actually utilized, just sayin’

This ^.

Also since strength in numbers gives toughness I would change stalwart defender to taunt enemies that shield 4 hits.
(really dont make sense that guardian doesn’t have a taunt)

Over all honor is fairly good as far as guardian trait lines are concerned.

It does have a few hiccups however.

Protectors Impact is well, useless. Just delete it and create something else.

Empowering Might The duration could stand to be a bit longer.

Purity of Body Really should be in the virtues trait line

If purity of body were moved it would be nice to have a 3rd minor that increases boon duration since honor primarily deals with shouts.

As far as spirit weapons go the easiest fix would be to adjust their health, damage & toughness scaling at 80 so that it is increased.

They die extremely easily if focused and are still pretty crap.

As far as signets & other rarely used skills go.

*Bane Signet" Reduce the knock down to 2 seconds, but reduce the Cd to 30 seconds and make it effect up to 5 enemies in a cone (similar to warrior off hand mace skill tremor)

Signet of Wrath Remove the current passive, instead make it increase run speed by 25%.
Then change the active so that it also applies 2 stacks of burning for 3 seconds.

Signet of Mercy Change the passive to increase boon duration by 20%.
Then change the active to grant resistance & Healing in AOE around the guardian. _(1/2 second cast time, resist duration of 5 seconds, healing similar to pure of heart, CD of 45 seconds)

Signet of Courage Change the passive to heal for about 1/9th of what it does down but heal every second.
Then change the active to break stuns for nearby allies, while granting them protection & stability.
( cast time of 3/4 second, protection and stability (2 stacks) duration of 5 seconds, cool down of 50 seconds)

My suggestions would be

Healer’s retribution Make it apply in AOE when the guardian heals

Renewed Justice Give it a secondary effect, perhaps a chance on critical to apply a short (1 second) burn.

Perfect Inscriptions Make it remove 2 conditions on signet use, reduce signet CD by 20%. _(so many ways to get light aura another is useless)

Radiant Retaliation Delete it, even with full dire gear (which nobody in their right mind would ever do) it only increases retaliation damage by 5%.

Instead of radiant retaliation bring back searing flames with a slight modification

Searing Flames When you apply burning to a foe you also remove a boon & trigger a flame blast _(internal Cd of 8 seconds).

Honestly zeal has some major issues, possibly more so then any other guardian trait line.

The minors make it so that unless your using a weapon with extremely high symbol up time you feel like your missing out on potential.

Several of the majors also are clearly superior to every other choice no matter what your doing.

Knowing this my suggestions would be thus

Wrathful Spirit Change it to grant something useful like might stacks when AEGIS ends or is broken. (As is guardians have retaliation in a ton of places and this retaliation is of such a short duration as to make no difference)

Zealous Scepter Give it a secondary effect when justice is activated. (As is it encourages you like a decent number of other traits to never actually use your virtue)

Fiery Wrath Move it to the second minor slot. (No matter how much you boost other traits they will not compete with this, just make it the second minor to encourage actual trait choice)

Symbolic Exposure Just delete it, other classes can apply vulnerability for much longer & with better ways of application. Fiery wrath will be taking its place anyway.

Symbolic Power Round it into Symbolic Avenger so as to encourage a wider array of weapon choices.

Shattered AEGIS Move it to the 3rd minor slot. (I suggest this because every guardian regardless of build has access to AEGIS)

After that all that is left to do is create some new traits that encourage a variety of choices (IE don"t suck & aren’t clearly greatly superior to other choices)

infantrydiv.1620:

Varezenem.2813:

How about
“Harbinger”
1050 power
1050 ferocity
560 vitality
560 toughness

Generally I don’t think amulets with a ton of ferocity and no precision are very good. They have marginalized uses like in Moment of Clarity ranger builds and Daredevil crit dodge builds

Actually any class with + crit traits or traits that guarantee crits can make use of them.

Engineer, guardian, warrior all have such traits.

For other classes though your right they are more or less crap.

As Viral said, dps is just too important even as a tank.

I am still in the process of helping friends (who were absent for a while) gear up but the friends I have spoken to said that aggro is a non issue so long as you stay close to the boss & have more toughness then anyone else in the raid.

Knowing that it simply comes down to staying alive.
So quite frankly I would take celestial over soldiers or valk armor for any added survive-ability I may want beyond the core zerk pieces I have.

I say this because while celestial may lose a bit of power to soldiers/valk & may not have quite as much vitality it does fill the gap with having all stats.

This means where soldiers loses crit & crit damage entirely celestial has them, along with + condition damage & + healing to help you keep yourself as well as allies alive (which reduces pressure on the healer a bit)

Some more variation would be nice.

It would also be nice if they changed magi amulet/gear in both PvE & PvP.

If it gave power instead of precision I and many other people would gladly use it.

As is nobody ever uses it for PvE or PvP because precision as the sole offensive stat is useless.

I actually like the active on wrath as is, it can be quite nice in PvP for some specs.

Though i would agree the passive needs some changing.

The change to signet of mercy is interesting.

Judgment is actually the one signet I like as is.

My suggestions would be thus

Signet of Courage: Passive heal reduced to about 1/9 what it is now, however it now heals every second.
Signet of Courage Active: Grant nearby allies protection (8 seconds) & stability (2 stacks for 8 seconds) _(1/4 second cast time & 50 second CD)

Bane Signet Active: Now knocks down all enemies in a narrow cone (900 range, 2 second knock down, 35 second CD) (think warrior off hand mace)

Signet of Wrath passive: Increases run speed by 25%
Signet of Wrath Active: Immobilize (3 seconds) & burn (2 stacks for 3 seconds) target enemy.
(CD remains the same as is now)

Signet of Mercy Passive: Increases boon duration by 20%.
Signet of Mercy Active: Grant nearby allies resistance (5 seconds) & heal them.
(The heal would start low, say 300 ish at base but scale similar to how pure of heart does. Cd would be around 45 seconds with a 1/2 second cast time)

Perfect Inscriptions: Reduces the cool down of signets by 20%, in addition whenever you use a signet you cleanse 2 conditions & gain 3 stacks of might (for 15 seconds)