Guild Wars 2

Alissah.9281:

omg I’m really excited for this

I just hope they don’t nerf our perma vigor, as Jon said they didn’t like people having it perma :/

Perma-vigor and clones on dodge. Yeah…nothing to see here. Move along…

Butnaked.9287:

atreyu.9624:

Butnaked.9287:

As long as you understand the difference. Things that happen in wvw are impossible in spvp. Devs shouldn’t even consider wvw when they talk balance.

Okay, but WvW is still part of the game. If a class it’s OP (not talking about anything in specific here) in one or the other game mode, Anet is probably gonna do something about it, no matter what they balanced the game around.

Ok lets think about this. How much of it is warrior and how much of it is bloodlust, food buffs, bonuses from towers/keeps, ascended gear, weird stat combos, wvw bonuses like guard killer and TONS and tons of support from other classes. And while were at it lets not forget that other classes can do this too, I got 3300 armor and have token 50% from backstabs.

If you’ve built a 10/30/30 H/LB bunker/condi war in sPvP and you aren’t dominating, there’s just no helping you.

Butnaked.9287:

Things that happen in wvw are impossible in spvp.

Wrong. Plenty of builds directly translate to WvW from sPvP with just more stats.

Devs shouldn’t even consider wvw when they talk balance.

SO wrong. They’ve split up skills from sPvP, WvW, and PvE. There should be balance in all play modes.

for spvp/tpvp the es/sb nerf is too much.

There isn’t even that much nerfing listed. So much wrong in your post…

People care about WvW balance much more than sPvP. That’s where the majority of the PvP is happening right now in GW2.

sirloin.9145:

The warrior ho duels!
I welcome nerfs to the warrior in the sense u should not get it all in one spec! (dps, cc, regain, condition removal etc).
what i think you have failed to see is that some classes can avoid our dps while hitting us. a BIG issue is to counter chills and blinks from certain classes in some builds (necro, enginer and messmer). Chills and blinks makes it hard to get to your target while you are eating their dps. When you get to the target they will probably have full endurance while i will have blown all mine and a lot of cds just to get to my target. They will then avoid most of my abilities. Thieves avoidances can be countered because you don’t need to eat dps output to get to them (they will often get to u). My suggestion is to give warriors a singel target pull with a reasonable cd.
Give warriors something to counter chill builds and messmers blinks!

Mesmers just need their perma-vigor nerfed and an ICD on creating clones from dodge rolls. Then they won’t faceroll to win so much.

Dynnen.6405:

JonPeters.5630:

Guardian:
Tanky and supportive guardians are in a strong position in many gametypes. We do feel that damage guardians are not as powerful as they could be. While we don’t want guardians to be as strong offensively as some of the other classes (given their powerful defensive abilities) we opened up more offensive guardian builds.

• Zeal V – Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.
• Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)
• Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.
• Radiance V – Searing Flames. Reduced cooldown from 20s to 10s.
• Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
• Valor V – Retributive Armor. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
• Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
• Virtues VIII – Supreme Justice. Number of attacks going from 4 to 3.
• Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse, rather than 8 seconds if you have no swiftness and 1 second if you have swiftness.

Most of these changes are pretty solid. However there are still major problems with the weapons and other traits. Some of the symbol traits need to be combined so that you can run something along with the symbols if you decide to go full into symbols. Also there needs to be some sort of dynamic play with symbols, such as causing chill on pulse or even changing hammer symbol of protection (light field) to symbol of protection (frost field). Sword 2 and 3, Scepter 1, 2, and 3, Hammer 2, 4, 5 (using hammer 2 down or up a hill will cause the AOE to detonate above or below the target and doesn’t hit it, Hammer 4 should be an 3 target aoe which would change it from a troll attack to a useful CC [maybe change the range from 750 to 500 if its aoe], hammer 5 has the same ‘clunkyness’ that warrior’s hammer 4 had), Off-hand 5 ability cooldowns on shield/focus are quite long, maybe shave off 5 seconds from them, torch 5 needs to cleanse on the Guardian as well as friendlies. Spirit weapons need something done to them, they are nearly useless in wvw. Purging flames needs to remove condis on pulse, and last time I checked was still bugged.

In closing I will add that Guards can hold ground well, we just can’t keep someone on that ground. Please give us the tools to keep people fighting on our ground either through chill or symbol improvements. There are also quite a few other good suggestions on the Guardian forums.

Thanks in advance!

There are tons of good suggestions in the guard “Collaborative Development” thread.

Its like they’ve just ignored guardian concerns for the majority of the game. Ranger-only players complain a lot, but at least that class has had multiple viable PvP builds.

First off, this small list of changes is already more balance than the “big October” patch.

My opinion so far…

Elementalist:
The main issue with Arcane is that it provides % boon duration and % cooldown reduction. Two of the best stats you can get on an ele. Move boon duration into water and move vit into arcane. Tempest Defense cooldown reduction over 50% could be problematic as it allows AoE stuns and Merciless Hammer-like damage for 4 seconds.

Guardian:
You’re serious right now? After all the time that’s been spent on traits and useless skills in the guard sub-forum you’re going make near-meaningless changes and nerf the swiftness symbol? You guys hate this class or something? I can think of 3 major things that are balanced and have been called for by many players in-game and on the forums:

• Combine Writ of Exaltation and Writ of Presence
• Increase Resolve’s Passive
• Re-evaluate the Aegis boon

Granted going through and rebalancing Aegis would take longer than a Dec 10th patch would allow, but it should definitely be on the radar. It should have been on the radar since launch, over a year ago.

Mesmer:
If you really don’t want classes with perma-vigor, change Critical Infusion. The only other classes that have a trait like this are the guard and ele; and they’re not placed in a crit heavy line. This class always has vigor up. And the next trait after that is obviously Deceptive Invasion. Perma-vigor and clone on dodge is so OP it isn’t even funny. Mesmer needs an ICD on Deceptive Invasion and Critical Infusion should be 2s of Vigor on a 10s cooldown.

The reason why the mesmer “depends” on Dueling line is because the first 20 points are just too powerful to ignore. Nothing you can do short of making him more OP could ever change that.

Warrior:
Its a start, but I don’t think its enough yet. Dogged march doesn’t need to grant regen and Healing Signet definitely needs to be changed. I think it should be changed all together into a support-heavy passive healing skill. Cleansing Ire needs an ICD on incoming adrenaline when struck. Crack Shot moving into Adept may make a Greatsword/Rifle damage build the new OP war. We’ll see.

teg.1340:

There are so many warrior QQ threads nowadays with so many false facts. So I think it’s time to clarify some of those:

- Unsuspecting Foe doesnt work with knockbacks or knockdowns, only with stuns. Hammer only got 1 stun which last up to 2s.
- Adrenal Health ticks every 3 seconds, not every second. So nop, it doesnt heal for huge amounts. Most warriors use their burst as much as they can, so at average they are at 50% adrenaline which results in an average 125 hp / 3s = 41hps. With full adrenaline its 120 hps.
- Warriors strong healing skills compensate for the lack of all the defensive stuff other professions got, e.g. Protection, Aegis, Blinds, Weapon Heals, Stealth, Pets, Clones, Blinks, massive Evades
- Healing Signet and Healing Surge both have pros and cons. Healing Signet is useless against huge spike damage. Thats where Healing Surge shines. Example: In a 40s battle you can use Healing Surge twice for up to 20540 hp. Thats 514 hps vs 407 hps with HS. The reason most warriors just use Healing Signet is that just few enemies run zerker builds. Healing Signet shines against condition and bunker builds. Simple as that.
- Endure Pain lasts 4s not 8s. It doesnt remove conditions and it doesnt negate condition damage.
- Almost all warrior skills have very obvious animations, thus are easy to dodge.
- All warrior mobility skills rely on the actual run speed. They are hard countered by cripple, chill, root and boon stripping (in case of swiftness stripping). They all have a fairly long traveling time.
- Mobile Strikes only removes immobilize at the beginning of the skill. You can still immobilize the warrior during traveling time of the skill.
- Warriors can reduce cripple/ chill/ immobilize duration bei -98% via Dogged March, Melandru Runes and Food. But this is easily negated by +Condition Duration food. So with +40% condition duration food the reduction is back to -58%. If the warrior doesn’t use Melandru its only -33%. So a 3s cripple will last 2s, long enough to counter most of the warriors mobility skills.

Nice big fat “Don’t nerf me bro!” post. See how much it didn’t work?

The biggest benefit that the signet provides is its constant, uninterruptable, infallible healing. It removes the ability of a well-placed interrupt to devastate your match, and it removes the requirement of the individual to pay attention and heal as necessary.

Its too much easymode.

This would put the warrior back to a good place:

Traits:

• Unsuspecting Foe moved to Master Tier
• Forceful Greatsword moved to Adept Tier (probably not, but I’d like to hope)
• Warrior’s Sprint moved to Strength Adept Tier
• Short Temper moved to Discipline Adept Tier
• Adrenal Health made Major trait in Master Tier
• Cull the Weak made Minor trait in Master Tier
• Cleansing Ire has an internal cooldown for adrenaline gain of 1s
• Dogged March provides 1s of regen down from 3s

Skills:
Healing Signet:

• Base heal over time reduced to 92/sec
• Base active heal doubled to 6550 (remember it can be a 16s heal)
• Passive heal over time is now applied to nearby allies (5 max)

Banners:

• Banners only provide bonuses while in-combat
• Banner skills cannot be daisy-chained between players

Combustive Shot:

• Radius at 3rd adrenaline level reduced to 240 from 360

Traits and signet are just way too OP. Right now wars are mind-numbingly easy to play because they don’t have to worry about healing and have 25% movement speed on an uber-bunker.

Cry and flame all you want, but its got to happen. I’ve been telling you guys war is getting nerfed for months. “Don’t nerf me bro!” doesn’t work. Coming on the forums to profess how the class is not OP blatantly shows the class is OP.

Your tears will be delicious…that is all.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Tremain.4623:

Unsuspecting foe: 10% crit. That is decent enough and comparable to other classes traits, like thieves extra crit from behind which is actually 7%. And the passive in signet of healing needs to be about half, buff the active to compensate.

I won’t comment on Unsuspecting Foe (because I don’t use it or any stun lock build), but nerfing the signet by half?

Do you realize it currently heals competitively with (not greater than) a 3 bar Healing Surge?
<25 sec battle, healing surge heals more
30 sec battle, you need 15 sec of poison to have healing signet and healing surge heal the same amount
40 sec battle, healing surge heals more

Edit: I will agree that the active needs to be changed. As it stands, unless you need that (small) burst heal, it is pointless to ever activate it.

Just a little misleading here. Let me lay out some facts for you guys. First of all, you can only assume what you’ve said is true if the following is also true:

• You use surge earlier than the first 30 seconds of the fight
• You always use surge at a full adrenaline bar
• You’re never interrupted while using surge
• You never have any period of time where surge is off cooldown but not used (forget to heal yourself)
• You can always absorb the full amount of healing each and every use

Assuming you had to start the fight with a healing surge, that’s 19640 hp within a 30 second time frame. That amounts to 654 hp/sec. Healing Signet’s base is 392/sec. We’re talking no extra healing here just to make things “on-paper” simple.

After the second surge, 60s has passed for a total of 491 hp/sec. The third, 436 hp/sec over 90s. You can see the pattern here. Eventually the signet overcomes the initial burst heal. At 2.5 minutes in, the two are equal (its actually a lot sooner than that due to cast time required for surge, but I’m leaving it simplified).

Keep in mind that this is the biggest advantage over the signet you could possibly have and you’d need to have the first 5 bullet points above remain true for each use of the surge. This is with a full adrenaline bar every time you go to heal at the 30s mark, not being interrupted, not forgetting to activate it, not being in the middle of something which is keeping you from activating your heal, and being able to absorb the full amount healed. How often is that going to happen?

The signet is just OP. JP finally opened his eyes to the war’s problems…lets hope the QQ from FotM, numbskull war players doesn’t make him close them again.

Rednik.3809:

Condispam engi and necro will be next in list. It feels like all condi builds need to be toned down a lot, too much damage for stacking a single stat.

Mesmer clones need to NOT apply full condis…once they do that, mesmers will be pretty balanced.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Warriors are pretty strong right now, but will be seeing changes in an upcoming patch.

We like how they can be tanky, and we like how they can do DPS if they want. We also like the CC they can bring. We just don’t like them doing it all with 1 build.

In other words, confirmed war is OP.

You guys take so long to realize stuff. All you had to do was play the 10/30/30 Hammer Longbow build. Just play it. It’s not hard.

I was going to make a big multi-quote post, but I think the majority of players here handled it.

• Ignore does work
• Reporting to Anet will get people banned

Relentliss.2170:

Because both classes are heavy armored front line melers using similar weapons, its easier to compare a Guardian to a Warrior than a Guardian to any other class. Add in the fact most of us have tried playing both, its the fairest comparison. I am not sure how to compare Guardian to Ele becuase I have no idea how an Ele ‘feels’ to play.

To that I would say you’re comparing classes in the subjective sense. In other words, you make comparisons based upon your own personal experience. That’s important to some extent too, but I’m referring to objective comparisons.

As you have asked, how would you compare the guard vs. ele? (This will be a little long-winded so bear with me). For starters, ele has 4 different sets of weapon skills while the guard has 2 different sets of weapons, each with 1 skill set. The ele can freely swap between all 4 in combat but each individual set has its own 15s cooldown, the guard can only swap back and forth and only every 10s. The ele’s weapon skill sets are all based off of 1 weapon choice within 4 major areas of gameplay: damage, movement, cc, healing. The guard chooses two specific weapon sets from a host of weapons; of which purpose is not so ‘black and white’. This objective comparison would show anyone with a brain that the ele has way more versatility with weapon skills than the guard. This goes for almost every class too, with exception of an engi with kits.

The point of a comparison like that would be to come to a definitive conclusion on the differences in combat effectiveness of each class.

It also answers a specific question: Should the Elementalist get two weapon sets? Answer: Absolutely not. That’s the exact situation the engi is in as well with kits and tool belt skills.

1. For the health of the game, wars need a regen nerf. My main is war. Its insane how much sustain that class has. This convo has gone on long enough and JP finally opened his mind to a change. No word on what it is, but at least he’s using his head now.

2. I don’t even play guard and I could tell you just by watching tPvP play and making general game knowledge comparisons, guard is 100% support right now. You don’t have any reason to think you can do much on your own. Maybe against a thief who is willing to die…

3. Comparisons are made to classes, races, mobs, and overall feel of the game. Yes there is a class comparison going on between the war and guard, but there should also be comparisons to all other classes. Its what is known as ‘balance’.

4. Condi-heavy meta still hasn’t been addressed. This is what provoked the rabid name-calling against Anet employees by name and ultimately led to hiding behind a new rule: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but name-calling is an automatic ban.”

/derail
On the OP’s topic:
Resolve needs to at least be re-buffed to its pre-nerf beta base regen; which I believe was 142hp/sec.

I think Aegis needs to be re-worked as a boon. One indiscriminate block is just too small of a bonus for the obstacles they put in the way to get to it. I know its not a guard-specific boon, but its probably good to talk about it in the guard forum first.

I would make it something like this:
Aegis:

• Gain 10% damage reduction; does not stack with Protection boon
• Block the next attack over 10% HP
• Upon successful block, Aegis is removed

Unscathed Contender might work a little better. Courage would have a reason to be on a 40s base re-application.

Still, other changes remain on my mind:

• Change the name of “Retreat!” to “Charge!” (I don’t know that Guardians should be shouting “Retreat!” when their other shouts are “Hold the Line!”, “Stand Your Ground!” and “Save Yourselves!”)
• Reduced cooldown on Virtue of Resolve to 40s
• Reduced cooldown on Virtue of Courage to 60s
• Virtue of Resolve passive base reverted to 142hp/sec
• Inspired Virtue trait applies Protection after Aegis is removed
• Elite Focus also decreases elite skill cooldowns by 20%
• Renewed Focus is reverted to a Meditation (obviously MM and EF wouldn’t stack)
• Renewed Focus’ damage immunity applies separately (Meditations are instant)
• Renewed Focus breaks stun

The idea here is that the guard has low movement. With the exception of LoF on the GS, the guard has to either move toward a target or not at all on very long cooldowns. Most of which rely on a specific build. He should be a tough fight that’s avoidable by anyone who would lose to him…which should be the case with all mobility.

Mobility should be balanced as such: Lose or Leave; your choice. You have every option to leave and/or chase as a high-mobility build. Those builds should not be extremely difficult to defeat for any class on any build…even other mobility builds.

Aeolus.3615:

I am still waiting to see a developer playing well with a guardian, funny how many they appear with guardians on videos yet i think they dont know how easy to kill that class is.
Would be funny if they play more WvW with those classes, not just watching in the back of the zerg and say “this looks a balanced class” lets buff all others, becouse it is what its look like.
if some dev read this, dont use your anet tag while facing hostiles.

You kidding? They couldn’t even play well with a warrior after the OP patch….

Draeka.5941:

Writ of Exaltation: Now combines with Writ of Persistence, remains a T1 trait.

This absolutely MUST happen.

If nothing else happens to the Guardian, but they do this, they at least show that there’s some cognizant activity in their skulls.

Tarsius.3170:

Darn, wish I had checked this thread recently. The healing spreadsheet linked in my sig could have saved you guys some time

When I saw the Hammer’s Symbol of Protection healing listed with 3 traits you can’t get all at the same time, I stopped paying attention to your healing spreadsheet. Either its outdated or just wrong.

Too many skill-less backstab thieves here.

Roll troll and win or gtfo. Go play another class since you don’t know how to make the winning thief build.

Radjan Majere.4208:

OK, so I’m willing to admit I don’t know warrior that well, so this is tough for me. But you’re making two points other than the subjective boring comment and the “I don’t feel the love compared to warrior” comment, which I’ll ignore for now:

Seems to be a problem here. You’re going to make a large post about two classes and their differences but you don’t even know one of them.

This isn’t meant to pick on you Radjan, it seems to be the case with the forums in general. We’re hearing a lot from people who don’t know the WHOLE game, just the one class they play.

Radjan Majere.4208:

1. Their shouts heal for a lot.
2. Offensive support best in game.

There is a LOT more they bring than that. Just to name a few extra things, their banners are unique buffs, they can trait perma-regen, they’ve got a 5-target rez elite (which is absolutely key in the Tequatl fight as well as Zerg v Zerg), AoE stuns, knockbacks, and cripples on ONE weapon (Hammer). I could go on if I wanted to log on and rattle stuff off…but I’m running out of space here.

Radjan Majere.4208:

That’s 9,000 hp every 25s, or 360/sec. Someone up there said something about a trait proc for 3000. I’m assuming he means Shrug it off? Let’s say that’s it, and that you can fit it in a typical shout-heal build, and that it goes off in the same timeframe. That’s 12,000 /25s or 480/s.

In order to get shouts that high you’d need to have 1700 healing power. That would make your regen boon 350/sec. Banners provide perma-regen. With a tactics banner, you can make that boon last for about 5 seconds. Which means you can stack it for nearly a minute when the banner’s down.

Which is exactly why you run banner regen, take one banner, and use 2 other utils. In a perfect world, where you’re able to use your shouts exactly when cooldown is off and you’re surrounded by friendlies, the shout healer is better than perma-regen. But that only happens on paper. For one, you want to save SIO for condi cleansing or stun-breaking, which immediately kills your hp/sec calculations. You’re better off with running 2 extra utils and a banner build.

The problem here is banners providing regen and not healing. Its so OP it isn’t even funny.

Radjan Majere.4208:

Just Abs Resolution/ Battle presence is 4500-5000 over 25s.

With the same amount of healing power it would take to get 3k shout heals, your Resolve would be giving people 206/sec. And you’d be a squishy little bean.

Radjan Majere.4208:

If I stay on staff, I can drop empower twice in that timeframe for over 2500 a pop. (While supplying my own pretty useful offensive support people NOTICE) Regen for 8s off HTL! is another 2000 pts (admittedly on 28s not 25s). That’s already pretty close before you count 2,000+ from active VoR and the 6+sec regen from that for 1,500+ (which to be fair are on longer timers, unless you count that you can reset them with renewed focus) Or the staff 2 heal. Or try to calculate the mitigation from the prot that came with HTL! and VoC, or the aegis from the latter. Or the AoE blind you can get from traited F1 (which again, adds offensive support too and can be spammable once people start dying).

And now you start relying on skills that have a much longer cooldown than the healing benefit provided. Herein lies the problem. The banner war with his perma-regen of 350/sec falls behind when you spam your skills, but his sustained regen beats you hands down. He still has 2 utils left and a 5-target rez elite that you couldn’t even come close to as a guard.

Radjan Majere.4208:

All that while leaving one utility spot open for Wall of Reflect, Hallowed Ground, Signets, SY! or more healing utils, even though the warrior #s used all 3 slots for shouts in the example. I didn’t get into the Healing Breeze either since I don’t run it (haven’t seriously tried post-patch). They might heal/mitigate more than you think a DPS class should – but it seems unquestionable that we outheal/mitigate warriors.

You won’t out-heal wars in the long run, and with a healing-built guard you certainly won’t out-mitigate them. With this healing build, if he takes healing signet and adrenal health, he’s sitting on a 350 regen, a 205 adrenal regen, and a 475 signet regen. He’s got over 1k hp/sec. All passive. You can’t even hope to come close to that as a guard.

As you’ve said before, you don’t know the warrior that well. I’m telling you, go PLAY one. I’ve got a war and a guard. The only thing my guard does that my war doesn’t is put up a wall of reflection. Yippity do…

Kreslin.6832:

username.4932:

Guardians aren’t bad, warrior is just a better choice and more versatile.

I wonder, in which cases warrior is better choice?

Bunker
Warrior > Guardian (Healling sig, perma-regen, high HP, 100% condi immune)
Damage
Warrior > Guardian (Hundred blades, eviscerate, killshot, perma-fury)
CC
Warrior > Guardian (3 hammer stuns, 2 mace stuns, 1 shield stun, cc utils)
Condi
Warrior > Guardian (bleed, cripple, blind, burn, torment, weakness, immo)
Healing/Support
Warrior > Guardian (perma-regen, banner buffs, shouts heal, AoE group rez)

But don’t worry guys, you can still burst Courage and give everyone ONE block on a 90 second cooldown! That counts for something right? … Wait, blind condi does the same thing? … Crap, I guess you’re SOL.

Malediktus.9250:

- Remove Aegis and Retilation visual effects, because they ruin just about any shield skin.

Or just re-skin aegis so that it doesn’t look like one of the most non-shield shields in the game. It should just outline the shield you’re wearing and if you’re not wearing one it looks like a standard kite shield.

Ret doesn’t need to be just on your arm. Put it everywhere.

Gene Rojo.4207:

Zealot’s Embrace could go either way really. I only think it should be changed to a Chill to give a “theme” feel of the Glacial Heart trait and the hammer in general. Getting chilled for 4s against a guard is more deadly than being immo for 2s.

Oh yes! +1 to that fellow guardian! If that’s the case. then i will really vote for it to be a Chill. About the Banish. I love it because i used it against 3v1. I got 2 of them off the cliff and the feeling was GREATTTT. Falling off on a high cliff is so… "downnn downn dowwnnn downnn. But it’s not like that always But it’s epic anyway)

Well you’d still be able to Banish them off a cliff, I’d just like to see it apply a short immo at the end so its useful against one person. If there’s no cliff, you’re giving them a better chance to damage you at a distance or run away.

First thing’s first, love the reference to the gadget-selling company.

Anyway, Sharper Images makes clones bleed on crit. Why is it giving that benefit to clones? As a matter of fact, why do clones apply normal conditions on auto-attack in the first place? You saw fit to reduce the outgoing damage of clones to almost nil, yet they apply full-blown conditions from their attacks. If you’re looking to change the condi meta, this is where you should start.

FYI this is why Greatsword is so overwhelmingly used in PvP. Clones just stack bleed on you @1200 range while the mesmer runs around like a chicken with its head cut off.

Flame on mesmer-only players, but this has got to change.

Gene Rojo.4207:

Hammer:

• Symbol of Protection – Moved to Hammer Skill 2.
• Mighty Blow – Moved to Hammer Chain 3.
• Zealot’s Embrace – Immobilized changed to Chill
• Banish – Target will be immobilized for 2s after full knockback effect
• Ring of Warding – Can now be cast while moving

Dude. The Zealot’s Embrace is PERFECT. I would rather prefer increasing the duration of the Immobilized than having it turned into Chill.

I hate the Launch effect making it easy to counter just by doing the Breaks Stun skills T___T I LOVE banish. I feel our BANISH has been nerfed T___T

Please change the whole ZEAL line. Please ANET. Rework the whole thing.

The reason I would re-work it this way is because the Hammer has a terrible effect of being a melee weapon that pushes the target away from you. That’s the exact opposite of what you want with melee. The guard’s mobility is low enough that you’d be giving anyone an advantage by using Banish and knocking them away. Give it a short immobilize at the end so that you can catch up to them, and make it so that if you break the launch you’re immediately immobilized.

Zealot’s Embrace could go either way really. I only think it should be changed to a Chill to give a “theme” feel of the Glacial Heart trait and the hammer in general. Getting chilled for 4s against a guard is more deadly than being immo for 2s.

Guardians need a lot of trait attention. They haven’t received any real once-overs like other classes have. Especially not when compared to the engineer, who seems like a constant work-in-progress for Anet. I think this is the 4th patch with Engineer notes twice the size of most other classes.

I think the problem with a lot of guard traits is that some still need to be combined and most of the grandmaster traits (excluding Valor) are rather weak. Here’s a few things I would have changed just to start:

Traits:

• Valorous Defense – Gain protection at 50% HP
• Meditation Mastery – Meditations recharge 20% faster; Meditations grant Fury 4s
• Focused Mind – Meditations reduce condition duration by 33% (5s)
• Elusive Power – Changed to Elusive Regeneration
• Elusive Regeneration – New Grandmaster Minor; Gain Regeneration 3s after spending 50% endurance (15s cooldown)
• Writ of Exaltation – Symbols are larger and last longer
• Writ of Persistence – Changed to Persistent Healing
• Pure of Voice – Moved to Master Major
• Persistent Healing – New Grandmaster Major; Virtue of Resolve always retains its passive regeneration

Sword:

• Sword Wave – Widen the AoE cone to standard cleave. Now provides swiftness (1s) for guardian and up to 5 allies in cone.
• Flashing Blade – Reduced cooldown to 8 seconds.
• Zealot’s Defense – Now blocks all attacks instead of just projectiles.

Shield:

• Shield of Judgment – Provides regen as well as protection. Cooldown reduced to 25s
• Shield of Absorption – Projectiles fired within the dome are destroyed. Cooldown reduced to 35s
• Shield of Absorption: Detonate – Base heal increased by 700 points

Hammer:

• Symbol of Protection – Moved to Hammer Skill 2.
• Mighty Blow – Moved to Hammer Chain 3.
• Zealot’s Embrace – Immobilized changed to Chill
• Banish – Target will be immobilized for 2s after full knockback effect
• Ring of Warding – Can now be cast while moving

When it makes it in, the scythe will be a war, nec, mes weapon… that’s my prediction.

Interceptor.2653:

Redscope.6215:

If you really think the necro is terrible in PvE you’re not playing a support/heal necro. I’ve got a “Healmancer” right now and he friggin rocks. Yeah condis are a bit lacking in PvE and necros are a condi-heavy utility class. That’s the main problem with this game though, the condis from weapons vs. the condis from utilities. It effects necro the most, but other classes as well.

Necromancer’s class-defining ability — condition manipulation — is lackluster in PvE. Everything else they do is either irrelevant (tanking) or done better by another class.

Someone is not out of their tree for looking at this landscape and coming to the conclusion that Necros got shafted. Because they did. Get shafted.

Firstly, condi manip doesn’t define the necro. Death Shroud is his mechanic and condi application is his strong point. Secondly, read my post and you’ll find the actual PvE problem with the class. Necros are far and away the best condi application class in utilities. The issue is that the majority of condis come from weapon skills. Many of his strongest utils are condi-heavy but are easily overshadowed by the constant application of almost any known condition via auto-attacks of every other class in the game.

That happens to be the current problem with the condi meta in PvP as well.

As far as “everything else they do” … all classes can tank, DPS, or support. Some better than others in areas, but your best PvE builds are supportive self-sufficient builds for all classes. The only people looking for a “tank” or a “DPS” class in their group are the bads who can’t stop playing WoW.

Honestly someone stop me from feeding the necro troll in the guard forum. I need to schedule a meeting with TFA (Troll Feeders Anonymous).

JonathanSharp.7094:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Jonathan, don’t you think Warriors are just a little over the top at the moment? Such as the amount of sustain available even when playing glassy? The mobility/escapes from the gap closers in sword/GS where most classes require targeting for those skills to work? How short the cooldown is on some of the cc? Zerker stance stopping all condi’s instead of negative duration (isn’t this a bug, if so why isn’t it fixed?)

I know you guys like to look at the metrics and let things settle… but seriously, it’s been months… Surely you guys are aware of how much this has also affected wvw with increased stats…

Thanks for the thoughts!

Yes, Warrior is pretty beefy right now, and can dish out strong aoe CC with some specs. We’ll have to watch to see if any counters crop up to deal with it in the next few weeks. I do think the build is strong, and we’re watching it very closely.

If you’ll recall, Berserk’s stance was brought in at a 6s duration (and very few people ran it), and then went to an 8s duration. This was enough to get people to start trying to make a build around it, and this lead to the current sustain/cc Warrior that’s so powerful right now.

That duration may need to come down, now that their traits align and give them VERY strong sustain due to multiple sources or regen. It’s working as it’s intended right now, but the duration is longer than it was previously.

TL:DR – We’re watching Warriors very closely right now and waiting to see how the meta adjusts.

It’s not Berserker’s stance man. Its the Healing Signet + Banners Perma-Regen + Adrenal Health as a MINOR trait.

He’s got too much regen. Period. Berserker’s stance is a 8-second condi removal. It’s not what gives the Warrior too much sustain. Not by a long shot.

Interceptor.2653:

Redscope.6215:

Possibly learn the game better? The problem is they’re without cooldown on interrupt, not that they’re on interrupt.

Maybe you’ll start running perplexity now that you know this quick little fact.

The problem is that the person I responded to implied something that wasn’t true. There is no ICD on the interrupt portion, but there IS one on the on-hit (fourth level) portion. Are you still with me? The difference here is probably ease of application, and on-crit would be even worse in this regard. Interrupt requires an agreement between you and your target, or you don’t get the effect.

I’ve been running Perplexity on my Thief for about two months now, thanks. That’s why I replied in the first place, lest the ignorance about the runes spread here, due to bad English.

Regardless of the functionality, implied and misread are two different things. You’ve obviously misread. Granted his wording could have been read either way, its still on you to refrain from assuming he means it to be read improperly.

If you knew about perplexity, you knew about the issues with its confuse application. If you read into his post, knowing what the actual issues are with perplexity, you wouldn’t have come to the conclusion you did.

Interceptor.2653:

Mightymealworm.8409:

Look buddy, no one is trying to imply perplexity runes have anything to do with on crit applications. I was simply pointing out that the application of confusion they award without cooldown was not altered. I was not even seriously asking for chill on crit without cooldown. Get a hold of yourself man!

I know what your point was. You failed at expressing it clearly. That’s why I responded with a clarification, just in case someone reading along misunderstood what Perplexity actually does.

Seeing as how we both read the same post, I understood what he meant, and you didn’t, I’d have to say that the fault does not rest solely with him. See above.

TheGuy.3568:

Oxxy.7068:

Is it only me or most of the guardian community seems to prefer WvW instead of sPvP?
Not a trick question, just a random thought.

Well that is most of The Community not just guards. Reasons are numerous and well noted. Suffice to say there won’t be much of a shift there unless big shinies are given to Spvp.

Not to derail here, but only the people who already like sPvP want shinies.

In order to make people want sPvP that don’t already, you have to let them play their builds. The build limitation is what is killing sPvP atm. sPvP = Play this, not that. WvW = Play how you want.

Stx.4857:

Redscope.6215:

Stx.4857:

Irsei.6802:

CptAurellian.9537:

Funny. Looks a bit like some kind of mirror image to this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-play-anything-besides-guardian/first

LOL sorry but read it and they are just being stupid. Passive healing… warrior wins… shout heals now heal for a great amount for a aoe. Great buffs with banners. Higher health pool to take advantage of the best passive healing in game! Best burst dps in game. Condition spec is super dangerous.

Guardians have protetion.. which is only up a very small % of the time.. I will take a passive 400hps heal with no healing over our protection.

If more was comming to guardians they would have talked about it in the pod cast but they were so illiterate about guardians one of the skills they buffed they couldn’t even find it….

It is obvious the devs dont care and are just plain ignoring guardian problems.. just wish I would have known that guardians would be the forgotten class (ever game ends up with 1 class that is obvious the black sheep no dev cares about) so I could have put all my time into making gear and farming gear for my Warrior. But hey after having to play 2 x as hard to keep a guardian competitive I feel like I am on easy mode when I play my warrior who is less equip t.

I can sympathize with your feelings that warriors outclass you(warriors seem to be A-Nets golden child), but you have to stop with the QQ about guardians being useless. They are still a required class in every aspect of the game.

They’re not required, they’re playable. There’s a big difference. You don’t require a guardian to complete dungeons. No one class is required in PvE. Some classes are sought after in WvW for one or two skills that can tip a battle in your favor. Veil anyone? That doesn’t mean it’s required. It also doesn’t mean that people want to play a ‘bot’ class that’s only good for one or two specific things.

Guardians are being shafted atm. They suffered from new player syndrome. They are the easiest class to bunker and dominate on against new players and therefore got little-to-no attention with trait/skill revamps. Play against someone who knows their options and has a solid build and you’re done. The only thing you can hope for is to either be a PvE-hero or play sPvP and cover points until your allies arrive.

I don’t believe you. It is widely known that Guardians bring excellent support and utility for PvE, while also providing above average dps. Every spvp tournament I have ever seen featured 1-2 guardians per team. There are tons of them in wvw not only for spreading boons and healing.

I am not saying you are the best class in the game or anything, but to say guardians suck is complete hilarity. Try playing a Necro or ranger in pve, now that is what i would call being shafted.

If you really think the necro is terrible in PvE you’re not playing a support/heal necro. I’ve got a “Healmancer” right now and he friggin rocks. Yeah condis are a bit lacking in PvE and necros are a condi-heavy utility class. That’s the main problem with this game though, the condis from weapons vs. the condis from utilities. It effects necro the most, but other classes as well.

My main is a warrior, not a guardian but that shouldn’t even matter. The fact that you use the phrase “you are the best class” when referring to guardians is the issue here. If you take class choice personally you’re blinded to the real pros and cons of the class. I don’t identify with class. I am ME, not a warrior. There are just classes that I like to play more than others.

Interceptor.2653:

Mightymealworm.8409:

Glacial heart no longer displays cooldown in tooltips. If it were every crit with no cooldown (like perplexity runes that didn’t get fixed BTW) I would love it lol.

Perplexity runes are on-interrupt, not on-crit. Let’s not make up things, here.

Possibly learn the game better? The problem is they’re without cooldown on interrupt, not that they’re on interrupt.

Maybe you’ll start running perplexity now that you know this quick little fact.

Dagraan.2854:

teg.1340:

Nikkinella.8254:

Actually RTL doesn’t do the knockdown, that would be updraft. And its definitely not accurate. Easily dodged by anyone with half a brain who sees the big glowing orb headed towards them and sometimes misses things right in front of you. It also will get snagged on the ground if the ground is slightly elevated for some reason. Its pretty buggy right now. And the fact you get locked out of your skills while doing it kinda sucks if someone immobilizes you. You’re a big floating “kill me” sign.

Trust me, you don’t want it changed to be like RTL. I’d just prefer rush to be a bit more accurate than it is now.

After playing both warrior and ele in wvw since headstart, I have to say that I definitely would trade Rush for RTL on my warrior! RTL is much faster movement, much better auto-aiming when target changes direction and it actually hits much more reliable than Rush because there’s no huge cast delay between the end of animation and the hit.

In the current state Rush is completely useless to actually hit a moving target. The only purpose is closing gaps. Double cooldown would ruin Rush because you never hit anything with it even if you use it offensively.

you haven’t played an ele recently if you prefer a skill with a 40 second CD always stuck at 1200 range lack of perma swiftness, having to use an elite just to get what warriors already have.
not to mention rubber banding, biggest telegraphed attack in all of GW2, minimal damage, will not cure immobilized, and will always miss something bigger than a norn or charr.

so please tell me why you prefer RTL?

You obviously haven’t played in sPvP or WvW using Rush…or if you have, you’re fighting complete scrubs.

Just change direction before the warrior reaches you. Rush misses. You save a dodge.

You’re complaining about RtL because of lag? Yeah, lag happens to fk with everything, its not a skill fact.

FYI thief-onlies, stealth isn’t the thief’s class mechanic. It’s a game mechanic.

Initiative is the thief’s class mechanic.

L2P <—Just thought this was appropriate for the thief forum. I dunno why but its thrown around everywhere so I figured, why not.

Stx.4857:

Irsei.6802:

CptAurellian.9537:

Funny. Looks a bit like some kind of mirror image to this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-play-anything-besides-guardian/first

LOL sorry but read it and they are just being stupid. Passive healing… warrior wins… shout heals now heal for a great amount for a aoe. Great buffs with banners. Higher health pool to take advantage of the best passive healing in game! Best burst dps in game. Condition spec is super dangerous.

Guardians have protetion.. which is only up a very small % of the time.. I will take a passive 400hps heal with no healing over our protection.

If more was comming to guardians they would have talked about it in the pod cast but they were so illiterate about guardians one of the skills they buffed they couldn’t even find it….

It is obvious the devs dont care and are just plain ignoring guardian problems.. just wish I would have known that guardians would be the forgotten class (ever game ends up with 1 class that is obvious the black sheep no dev cares about) so I could have put all my time into making gear and farming gear for my Warrior. But hey after having to play 2 x as hard to keep a guardian competitive I feel like I am on easy mode when I play my warrior who is less equip t.

I can sympathize with your feelings that warriors outclass you(warriors seem to be A-Nets golden child), but you have to stop with the QQ about guardians being useless. They are still a required class in every aspect of the game.

They’re not required, they’re playable. There’s a big difference. You don’t require a guardian to complete dungeons. No one class is required in PvE. Some classes are sought after in WvW for one or two skills that can tip a battle in your favor. Veil anyone? That doesn’t mean it’s required. It also doesn’t mean that people want to play a ‘bot’ class that’s only good for one or two specific things.

Guardians are being shafted atm. They suffered from new player syndrome. They are the easiest class to bunker and dominate on against new players and therefore got little-to-no attention with trait/skill revamps. Play against someone who knows their options and has a solid build and you’re done. The only thing you can hope for is to either be a PvE-hero or play sPvP and cover points until your allies arrive.

Tarinis.6054:

High survivability, excellent damage, wanted in groups all the time. Really no cons

Wanted in groups all the time? Sounds like a solo PvE player’s complaints… LFG tool works good for that. Moving on…

How about we don’t nerf/buff anything until the skill is fixed?

How about we fix the skill so that you don’t just dodge it by changing direction?

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

instead of thinking “OMG i can’t beat this” , relax.

guess what the ultimate counter to stealth is?

block. every profession has it. even better ones are block +counterattack.

also anticipation is a big factor. I’m sorry guys but you can’t just blow all your skills at once on a thief like you can with other professions.

Stupidest argument in the world. What if the thief anticipates your anticipated moves and counters them? Should you anticipate that the thief will anticipate you anticipating? You can’t predict, its called luck. Nobody should be so heavily reliant on luck to counter a class.

Also, you don’t come out of stealth when you’re blocked. Try learning how the game works first before complaining about people complaining.

Stealth has no counter-play. “Sick ’em” will be the first of many anti-stealth skills for players. I’ve already told people that’s what they were going with when they put it on the arrow carts. The arrow cart was a test platform to see if it heavily disabled the thief from playing. It didn’t. Anti-stealth counter-play is coming…and its about friggin time.

I’m sorry but regardless of what you say about the armor sets themselves, they’re done well enough to make sense. All, that is, except for the helmets.

Why in the world do you guys insist on making helmets that look like big steaming piles of pixel kitten on your head? … Honestly is it really THAT hard to come up with a good looking helmet?

Scratch that…why the fk can’t you come up with a helmet that MATCHES the rest of the set? … NONE OF THEM MATCH THE SET! …. man…its like you’re asking for players to rage at your face through Ascended items.

Here I did some digging for you. This is the thread that was locked:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Leaked-Incoming-Thief-Patch-Notes

Edit:

Just so as to not get this thread locked as well…those notes could be WAY off base. They obviously are not complete and its best you wait until at least the 11th to get a little more info of what’s coming on the 15th

TriggerSad.2597:

Enigma.7384:

More than anything I want the shield to become viable. The classic look of a sword and shield as well as the shield being the “symbol” of the Guardian just make me drawn to that class. I really hope it gets some adjustments.

The actual weapon isn’t our symbol, it’s Aegis which happens to look like a shield.

The effect of Aegis is a shield because of what a shield does. It protects you. Thus, the symbol of the guard class is actually a shield. Aegis or not.

Demonts.4593:

Where are the leaked patch notes?

You can check pastebin but all the threads were immediately locked once people started posting them in all class subforums.

That was a while ago….

Excalibur.9748:

Monoman.2068:

It sounds somewhat broken in a group setting though since it can be spammed. I have a lot of trouble seeing how this is even a thing.

cripple can already be spammed, noone said that’s OP

Actually you should pay attention to the changing meta. Cripple applications are problematic coming from ranged sources. Ranged conditions are getting nerfed.

Most recent one explained by the devs is Unsteady Ground. All the eles seem to think its an awesome change, its a massive CC nerf.

Galtrix.7369:

I use the shield, and it’s fine for now. Later on, I’d like to see some of your changes implemented though. I only use the mace/shield combo because my guardian is built to heal/protect/regenerate health and endurance.

You’re using the shield to heal, protect, and regen? You’d be better off with a Focus.

runeblade.7514:

Redscope.6215:

Dirame.8521:

jportell.2197:

Daecollo.9578:

Kilandros.2098:

Don’t get me wrong, Guardian has access to a lot of heals—if you build and trait for them, that is. But when I go from playing my Warrior with Healing Signet to playing my Guardian I’m still amazed at how superior Warrior regeneration is with so little effort. For example, Healing Signet + Adrenal Health (minor trait) grants a warrior approximately 500 health per second in full Berserker gear and full Berserker trait. Pair that with Warrior’s health pool and I rarely ever pay any attention to my Warrior’s health in PvE gameplay. That’s pretty insane.

Currently Virtue of Resolve heals for ~100 with a full Berserker build. Now I’m not suggesting it be anywhere near Healing Signet, but surely increasing it to 150-200 wouldn’t be game breaking considering Guardian was given the lowest HP pool in exchange for “more healing”

So ya want it to be 250, then be able to 1250 hp/s (to 5 group.)

On a non-#6?

Sure, as long as you buff every single passive heal in the game to compensate.

Virtue of resolve coupled with AH coupled with Writ of the merciful and selfless daring… Guard HPS is fine. Warrior HPS is ridiculous because they aren’t sacrificing much to get a ton of healing… guardians sacrifice all damage to get their amazing heals.

Warriors sacrifice a burst heal for a 4k heal over 10 seconds.

Most heal skills cooldown once every 20-30 seconds. That means the warrior is getting a no-skill-required, non-interruptible heal as good as 8-12k every time any other class would be able to use their skill-based heal.

You don’t see a problem with that? You’ve gotta be kidding….

Stop mistaking heal with regen because Healing signet is NOT a healing skill.

Healing signet is a regen skill.

Warriors can only depend on Healing signet for regen only.

Guardians can depend on regeneration and a burst heal.

First of all, Healing Signet is a healing skill. Its in slot 6, it heals when you use it. Don’t be dense.

Secondly, if you’re depending on Resolve’s burst heal without taking Renewed Focus as an elite and only using it when RF is up, you’re a complete moron. Even with the highest healing stat allowed in the game, Resolve’s active, over the duration of its cooldown, is less hp/sec.

You do know that activating a Virtue removes the passive buff, right? Please tell me you’re playing the game and not just blowing smoke. I mean, judging by what you’ve written so far, you seem to be a laughably mad warrior-only baddie who just came to the guard forums to troll.

Dirame.8521:

Redscope.6215:

Dirame.8521:

jportell.2197:

Daecollo.9578:

Kilandros.2098:

Don’t get me wrong, Guardian has access to a lot of heals—if you build and trait for them, that is. But when I go from playing my Warrior with Healing Signet to playing my Guardian I’m still amazed at how superior Warrior regeneration is with so little effort. For example, Healing Signet + Adrenal Health (minor trait) grants a warrior approximately 500 health per second in full Berserker gear and full Berserker trait. Pair that with Warrior’s health pool and I rarely ever pay any attention to my Warrior’s health in PvE gameplay. That’s pretty insane.

Currently Virtue of Resolve heals for ~100 with a full Berserker build. Now I’m not suggesting it be anywhere near Healing Signet, but surely increasing it to 150-200 wouldn’t be game breaking considering Guardian was given the lowest HP pool in exchange for “more healing”

So ya want it to be 250, then be able to 1250 hp/s (to 5 group.)

On a non-#6?

Sure, as long as you buff every single passive heal in the game to compensate.

Virtue of resolve coupled with AH coupled with Writ of the merciful and selfless daring… Guard HPS is fine. Warrior HPS is ridiculous because they aren’t sacrificing much to get a ton of healing… guardians sacrifice all damage to get their amazing heals.

Warriors sacrifice a burst heal for a 4k heal over 10 seconds.

Most heal skills cooldown once every 20-30 seconds. That means the warrior is getting a no-skill-required, non-interruptible heal as good as 8-12k every time any other class would be able to use their skill-based heal.

You don’t see a problem with that? You’ve gotta be kidding….

Oh don’t get me wrong, I see a problem with it, I’m just pointing out that they do sacrifice something. They could always grab Healing Surge and acquire a similar level of healing.

No they couldn’t.

Healing Surge grants 10.2k on a 30 second cooldown. That’s 340/sec at the very best of times. If you’ve got less than full Adrenaline, its just downhill from there. Healing Signet is 407/sec with equal healing power. You’re looking at a skill with no interrupt on an auto-cast that is better than the biggest active heal in the game right now. You’re not giving up anything in the way of hp/sec.

And as far as taking an active skill, you’ve got to activate it. Which means you have to not be in the middle of something and not get interrupted in order to stay on-par with that 30 second timer measurement. How often do you use your heal skill as soon as its up? … You normally don’t have the luxury.

I would like to see something like this:

Shield of Judgement:

• Cooldown reduced to 25 seconds
• Grants Regen as well as Protection
• Applies 2 stacks of Torment on enemy targets

Shield of Absorption:

• Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds
• Knockback changed to Blowout
• Dome now destroys projectiles
• Detonation now destroys the Dome and applies Blind to nearby foes as well as heals allies

Stice.5204:

Agreed with Aegis being very lackluster. Sure, sometimes you can see a big telegraphed attack coming and time the Virtue of Courage activation to negate it, but that’s not very common in sPvP/WvW, where most high damage is delivered as a rapid volley of many smaller hits and dodge rolling is far more reliable as a defense. (Blind has the same problem as a condition. It’s very difficult to blind your enemy’s one big attack instead of just getting one of the ten smaller attacks he’s about to throw out in rapid succession)

Not to mention the fact that Aegis does nothing to protect you from conditions that already exist on your person. Its strictly a direct-damage negate.

Stice.5204:

The cooldowns on all 3 virtue activations could be lowered to 20 seconds and none of them would be overpowered on their own, although it might cause a balance problem once you factored in the Virtues trait line. Still, you shouldn’t need trait support to make your class mechanic worthwhile. Buff the base virtues and then nerf the traits a bit if necessary.

Well if you reduced Justice by 20 seconds you may run into problems. I think Aegis just needs to be made as powerful as Courage tries to portray it. It should be an intensity-stacking boon.

NEW THREAD! Petition for Aegis intensity stacking with a cap of 5!

Stice.5204:

Also, you are completely right that having an attack blocked from stealth should reveal the attacker. Anet has said they want stealth to have more counterplay and that should definitely be a part of it. If a backstab fails, the thief should not get to simply try again until it connects.

This is also why Elementalists will get a 40s cooldown on their RtL skill if you block it. You don’t enter combat.