I love all the tears, rangers are SUPPOSED to be the strongest ranged combatants, we rely on our pets, and given the kitten poor AI and lack of useful controls for the pets, we’re significantly missing our peak performance, but oh hey, rangers are finally what EVERY OTHER CLASS WAS, FOR 2 kittenING YEARS, BETTER NERF THEM AGAIN.
Every other class can pew pew pew people in 3 hits ? What game have you been playing ? On a more serious note,there is something terribly wrong with the dmg output from rangers ( Think back to the pet dmg increase patch,that got nerfed really fast )..in this case,they just messed up..yet again.
Really mitigate it down to 4k? From a ranged class. And that’s balance?
This is the most OP, no skilled class I have seen since beastmaster huntards.
Played 3 matches today on mine, really I had little memory of what the skills do, just knew 1 was shoot and 2 was mega shoot and proceeded to get top kills in every match. Died twice. Only used my heal skill about 5 times. It was simply silly. Reminded me of when I’d play WOW and just feign death in the grass while my pet got top damage and kills.
I’m guessing you’ve never been backstabbed for over 7k, or hit by a warrior for over 8k… do you even PvP?
At least with rapid fire you can dodge roll the 2nd half of it to mitigate the damage down to around 4k. It’s not that hard.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
How did you manage to break this? Seriously. I was having trouble stomping on both my toons. You can’t have any mouse button pushed or you can not stomp, but you can rez… really?!!
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Guardian isn’t master of anything, it does everything average.
Guardian isn’t excelling at anything.
Other professions can do what guardian can just as good if not better.
What other class can Blast every 4 sec?
I feel what you are saying. And agree to an extent. But ther are certain areas where guardian is really in demand. In fact they are pretty strong in all parts of the game. Some classes can not participate in some aspects well at all.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
I think shouts, meditations and consecrations are all in a really good place now.
Signets and spirit weapons could use some/more work to make them viable.
Virtues could use a revamping. I find them handy but not really defining like a unique class skill sould be. Would love for them to be more like Chosen auras in WHO. As they curremtly stand they are a handy buff on a long cd.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
If good players are already able to counter it rather easily, where is the issue? I could understand if such a build was effective in tourneys as well, but it is easily crushed at competitive levels.
Asking for the game to be balanced over the needs of low skill level players is rather nonsensical. You could ask for nerfs for everything by following that pretense.
So we need to balace a multimillion dollar game around the 40 or so players who compete in the tournaments rather than the hundreds to play Tpvp or SoloQ? I am not sure I agree entirely with that logic.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Since they are not really seen on a competative level I guess that means they need a boost. I think the change is sweet, but I doubt I will be any more OP than I am now.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
They should remove torment from all classes by the way.
I agree. Skills that keep you from moving or using skills need to be kept to a minimum and monitored carefully. It makes for bad pvp to have them just spammed in on weapon skills. My general rule of thumb, if the skill can not be found in League of Legends then its bad for pvp.
I remember WHO having a similar skill on witch elves and it was OP so it got nerfed into the ground.
I don’t know if torment should or shouldn’t exist – I would lean towards shoiuldn’t -but it lasts really long and hits really hard that being able too apply it so easily is insane.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Similarly, totally imbalanced teams seem to be a big issue. I am tired of seeing one or both teams with 3+ of the one class and the other with 3+ of a different class. I see no reason for this. At the last second before start a match could balance with much more even distribution. Take today I was in a match where we had 4 rangers and the other team had 4 guardians. Couldn’t the masters of programming have made it so at 10 sec to start the teams balanced the repeat classes out to 2 rangers 2 guardians each? Seriously, its not that complex.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Or 1vZerg… I’ve never seen a Guardian do what this guy does. And BTW I do realise this is an old video. One doesn’t need 11k self heals when you regen more damage than a Zerg does to you.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
I have done this with all sorts of gear.
Runes of Strength and Beserker or Celestial Trinket… both worked well.
Runes of Strength and Soldier Trinket… Sigil of Intelligence… works great
Runes of the Pack and Celestial Trinket… pretty darn good
Every single variation worked well.
ATM I am fiddling around with Contemplation of Purity, Stand Your Ground OR Hallowed Ground in the last slot. The only 2 classes that give me issues is a good Engi or DD Ele. Can probably fight about 4/5 people 1v1 and only really lose to someone who has more skill. It definitely is not the build.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Well I won’t disagree that it’s better than receiving nerfs, but the majority of it is pretty insubstantial. The renewed focus change is great, but it’s not what we needed by any means. Spirit weapons, like plenty of people have said already, will still be nearly worthless because of the significant trait investment and the large amount of downtime they have. Stability on tome trait is cool, but tomes will still only really see use in WvW zergs because, like spirit weapons, they have far too much downtime to be useful anywhere else. And glacial heart is alright, but it’s still limited to our slowest weapon we have, which is still too easily avoidable.
Meanwhile shield is still worthless, we’re still far too susceptible to kiting, our signets are still among the worst utility skills in the game,
I won’t argue with those things at all. I really don’t like our shield much. Maybe if the CD was simply 15 and 24 sec then I could see a point to it, but as it stands your waiting a long time for a pretty paltry couple of skills. I don’t see it changing though.
But you have to consider, Anet considers Guardian pretty balanced, they want to give it’s players something and they are very worried that if what they give is too much the class will be OP like Warrior became after its revamp. So they add a little here and a little there. Maybe it’s not everything we want.
Like you I am not in love with their Quarterly update cycle either. It seems a bit long. But I am aware they are simply trying to add a bit here and there.
More work seems to have gone into Guardian this patch than any other. I know my Spvp spec will be much better off.
My issues with being kited at times are more to do with the plethora of CC abilities and invisibility than anything else. One of the reasons I prefer the Conquest Mode over WvW roaming.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Been thinking about this patch for a while and the list of improvements, while a little underwhelming, they are all buffs and should add a little to each person’s play. Traited tomes and Meditations definitely got a nice boost.
Definitely beats nerfs.
I’d really love them to look at 3 things next patch. A signet for speed, virtue cd or maybe a total revamp of virtues to make them more interesting, and spirit weapon longevity. I really think those 3 things could lift this class quite a bit.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
I can run anywhere with just Defender’s Flame slotted and a mace/foc and completely annihilate any mob or group of mobs. It works a bit better with some other trait points spent but its insanely good trait for solo pve.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Lets put it this way, if I had a choice of any of the current Elites and slotting another basic skill like a second Stand Your Ground I would slot the basic skill. Compare this to Signet of Rage or Banner Rez and you get my drift. Elites…lol…pretty sad when you have to slot a trait to make them worthwhile or even work.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
At Shanks’ link I would opt for this build to start. This gives you a lot of options and makes you really tanky. Most people run Stand Your Ground – after that it is up to you: Hold the Line is the next most common ability to slot… then you might fiddle with your last slot quite a kittenanging between Hallowed Ground, Retreat and Signet of Judgement… I switch them around all night depending.
If you want to roam the last build the 2/1/6/1/4 build looks like the go. You can always use the standard X/1/6/1/X as your base and slot for desirable skills. But you will desire Traveller’s or Speed Runes.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Rune of Pack – just straight out good. Nice stat boosts with a nice buff on hit.
Rune of the Citadel – 50%+ upkeep of fury – can then take Defender’s Flame so when you are blocking people they are copping damage as well insead of Focused Mind. This is an oddly good rune. The bomb is kind of lol.
Flame Legion has the 1 sec burn on hit, which is quite nasty.
Strength – If you are trying to stack might you need to use the 5 trait in Valor. You can then use things like Mace block, focus and Shelter to get it up quite high. This is where Strength runes are quite nice. If you look at the Stella videos he opens with mace and then switches to GS.
With everything there is a bit of tradeoff. I have been using strength, but have had success with the others too. Life Leeching is not very effective in this game.
I’ve seen Stella videos. I just don’t like that build all that much compared to this one because of the team support wich is quite lacking with her build. The only thing she has to support her team is the Empowering Might wich gives might on crit with 1 sec CD
To Strength runes I thought of just using Sigil of Strength and Sigil of Battle instaed of Blood and Leeching. I’ll also try that out.
Other runes that are quite nice, not so OP right now but they still work is Pirate. The Parrot even nerfed is still quite strong (I use it on my Engi buil and still work just fine) and it will be a big help in any 1 v 1 and it gives 3 might stack for whole team. I don’t like to rely too much on AI but it’s just one pet not a whole team of them (like I use on my Turret Engi, most OP kitten ever)
I am just telling you which ones I’ve tried, you can use the information to adapt to your playstyle. Meditations are inheirently selfish though but mace/focus is a great team weaponset, so they kind of balance out a bit.
I see things like standing over a teammate with your mace 3 to absorb damage, blocking mele and ranged attacks with Shelter or Focus 5, blinding foes leaps and focus 4, AOE retaliation, AOE heal, various virtue powers as all very team oriented.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Rune of Pack – just straight out good. Nice stat boosts with a nice buff on hit.
Rune of the Citadel – 50%+ upkeep of fury – can then take Defender’s Flame so when you are blocking people they are copping damage as well insead of Focused Mind. This is an oddly good rune. The bomb is kind of lol.
Flame Legion has the 1 sec burn on hit, which is quite nasty.
Strength – If you are trying to stack might you need to use the 5 trait in Valor. You can then use things like Mace block, focus and Shelter to get it up quite high. This is where Strength runes are quite nice. If you look at the Stella videos he opens with mace and then switches to GS.
With everything there is a bit of tradeoff. I have been using strength, but have had success with the others too. Life Leeching is not very effective in this game.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
1) Too many AOE and ground targetted skills. And AOE doing as much or more than single target. It is just totally no skill.
2) AOE carrying an abundance of secondary effects beyond damage.
3) There is a ton of AOE CC. CC needs to be single target and avoidable.
4) Too many pets. They are just all over the place.
5) Too many classes that can pop in and out of invisibility repeatedly. Like Ranger this should be a one trick pony. Turn invisible, make your move, and then live with it. Not rinse and repeat.
6) Too many passives. Passive cleanse this, passive remove that, passive spell here you go.
7) While I am not sure on this, but it seems easily stacked vulnerability really hurts the hybird classes, its like go dps or tank or go home. Your 3000 armor becomes meaningless in no time.
8) Lack of counters for conditions.
Class Imbalance? I don’t really see class imbalance as a problem like the OP. The easy no skill style of play is much at fault. Just spam a bunch of stuff on the ground or near you and dodge around when someone raises their arms in the air or jumps.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Guardians are fine. Some skill types may see little use, but there are certainly very viable skills and builds.
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Guardians are fine when you run the 2 types of abilities that are good Mediations or Shouts… maybe even Consecrations but they are limited by their stationary nature. The other abilities like Spirit Weapons need improving so that they too are viable.
I can not really equip Mediations and Spirit Weapons or Shouts and Signets, etc… so it’s not like improving some underused abilities are going to make us OP as you can only equip and spec for one at a time.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Grab the 1 sec burning trait in Valor and just stand there with Aegis, focus shield, mace block and then a couple dodges and things will just melt. I used sword and torch, wall of reflection and just burnt things down. By time I had finished dodging most things were dead. The 1 point traits are all really good. Get used to using your Virtues in combat, particularly Justice to blind. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQBgCAiIH7CwNe+2qUA-w
Here is a good grinding build. Just grab all the 1 point traits. Then work up to Defender’s Flame and Renewed Justice as soon as you can. RJ being a priority.
SPVP seems to be about being tanky to build up might. Then applying pressure with a Hammer or GS.
WvW – Roaming, good luck. 95% of roamers run Nike (run away) builds and catching them is impossible. You are the meat of any good WvW guild. You can mele, blast and support your team with buffs. Most people run a very balanced set up of health, armor, healing power, precision.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
I saw Warriors are more offensive-focused, and to an extent, that is still true. But Warrior are very capable of staying alive in the front line and and have plenty of options to retreat and switch to ranged combat. After playing a Warrior for a bit (only level 20 and only in WvWvW) I think the biggest difference is that the Warrior has a lot more mobility than the Guardian. Which is fine. Warriors should be different form Guardians and mobility is a decent way to differentiate professions. But Warriors can be effective pretty much all the time, while Guardians need to work hard to make sure their blows land. (Based on my impression playing both professions.)
I don’t really feel like our defensive offerings to the party are really class defining. They are just a whole lot of abilities that other classes can offer to themselves, but I can dish them out on a short duration to a group. If I was the ONLY source of something on the battlefield, like Mesmers and Ele’s are with some of their abilities, I would feel that Guardian was important as a supporter. As it stands, I don’t feel that way. Yeah, I’m supportive, but is my support making a big difference? Would the 5 person party be better with 2 guardians and 3 warriors or just 5 warriors? The 5 warriors can just personally buff themselves with the same things I am bringing them.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
My first impression when playing Warrior was that the Adrenaline abilities were done in a very juvenile way making the class too easy to play. I never understood why I never lost any Adrenaline when I missed. The changes make a lot of sense to me and reflect more what I expected of Adrenaline than what I received. I think it adds more risk to the class.
I think they WILL be a bit of a nerf, but then again Warrior is the easiest to play class and one of the strongest. It probably still will be after the patch.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
I always saw us as a frontliner meler with support, but TBH the duration of our support abilities are rather short, the effects rather weak and they double over what other classes already do.
About the only unique ability we have is Aegis. Everything else can be done by another class and in many cases better.
I think each class needs more unique features to help define them. Guardians are very overshadowed by Warriors, who just seem more effective in the role of frontliner because their different buffs last longer, are on shorter CD and do more things at once. Not to mention their huge health pool gives them much better gear options.
IMHO we are excellent at holding a point in SPVP, and this is the reason we do not get a buff, but in other aspects of the game we are overshadowed by Warrior, which is just better at meleing.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
I don’t care what the reasons are, the current spectator mode is very broken. Just spent 20 min looking for one balanced game and couldn’t find one. Every single game someone was outnumbered and being destroyed by another team. Use your own metrics Anet. I am sure you will see that 90% or more of games are very lopsided and not much fun.
As a customer, and yeah I paid as much for my box as the guys ranked highly, I think I should be able to pop in and grab some quick pvp and have it be a bit fun. I don’t much care if I win… I just want some good games. Currently it sucks.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
At what point are you seeing players join teams from spectator mode? Rewards are based on time played on a team, so are people forgoing partial rewards to be on the winning team?
People are using it to rack up tons of kill points and complete their dailies. I would say 9/10 matches going on at any moment are lopsided and imbalanced due to people manipulating spectator mode. After coming back to the game I was amazed at how awful the matches had become… and they were not that great before. It is definitely not selling people on pvp. If you can work out in the first minute wheich side is stronger then imbalance it, you will end up with full rewards, which is what people are doing.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
I love this build but admittedly it can not keep up with ALL the conditions in the game. A decent necro and any dps player can kill you pretty fast. So this talk of 2v1ing depends a lot on the classes you face.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Ranger’s Health -I have Never felt tanky on a Guardian. Nor do I feel like I have a lot of character building options because of the low health. Our survivability in dps spec is the lowest in the game.
Improve Spirit Weapons – they are just not that useful and just take away from your build to use.
Revamp our signets to have stronger passive and active benefits like a warrior. Add a movement signet.
These 3 thing would make me very happy.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
I’m going to bump this because I feel the same, with the exception of the last statement. I’m not sure it’s objectivity that’s holding the devs back on improving the class but what I do see is alot of ‘trying too hard’ to make poor concepts work. Sometimes they get it right and it becomes interesting, but it’s never as good as what’s already being used and played … Anet isn’t bold/creative enough with their changes IMO.
I have many friends who are/were strong beta testers of new content and had access and the ear of the devs involved with that. My opinion is based on what they have told me of how things get tested. Anet isn’t bold/creative enough because they don’t see or want to see the many flaws with the many systems in their game. Some of the flaws are pretty fundamental in nature but they proceed like things are fine.
Whoever is chairing the Dev team for warriors knows what he is doing. Look at them.
Banners – work fine, do what you’d expect
Sigils – also really strong
Shouts – awesome
Stances – awesome
Compare to Guardian
Shouts – work fine, do what you might expect
Meditations – really strong
Spirit Weapons – weak
Sigils – weak
Virtues – weak
I don’t expect any changes to Virtues alot of other people percieve them as fine. But I can see some serious issues with Spirit Weapons and Sigils.
Spirit Weapons need some serious rejigging. There are too many traits across too many trees. If you equip Spirit Weapons you basically lose alot of survivability, it becomes quite low, because of how you have had to spec to make them even usable.
Our Sigils when used are just plain pathetic. Compare this to Warriors and you see what I mean.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
My problem with guardian is we are playing a game with limited character options, basically 10 skills 15 if you reckon weapon swap.
My Spirt Weapons are not viable for anything. Neither are our sigils.
This means that I don’t really have a lot of options when it comes to character design. I get bored with games that have no significant character design options.
Too many useless traits and too many useless skills.
It isn’t a matter of power. I am plenty powerful when running the right builds. Its a matter of only having about 4 builds worth running.
A lot of people complain a bout roaming. I would say, why bother? The skills Guardian has would be acceptable for roaming in other games. In this one though, some classes have so much mobility and invisibility that they can run around all day. I see no point to chasing after them. Until Anet does something to address the silliness of the many Nike builds (run away specialists) roaming will always be frustrating at best.
The problem is that Anet is not objective. They seem to constantly ignore the many flaws with the characters and the game as a whole.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
With the current buffs to it, I think I would now opt for Celestial for most things. 90% of the builds I have looked at lately, when you swap everything to Celestial they are better. Only drawback is lowish power.
There is your very typical sort of build for WvW and it has excellent stats with just Celestial. Swap weapon, food and build and boom you are all set for pve as well, maybe not perfect to the beserker crowd but pretty decent.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
