Guild Wars 2

DKNS.2135:

This match-up has been like Karmic Justice to SoR. Even if somehow BG doesn’t win the league, we will still remember it for bringing so many SoR players to tears in the match-ups that entailed.

Don’t know about tears. Boredom really. The match up is so unfun I was able to get in a game of golf and catch up on some TV.

It was always fun to fight against BG in the past they had good coverage and good guilds. They seemd like arrogant jerks but your foe always seems that way. Now they have the largest pop 24/7 and pay the other server to double team you. Typical American sort of mentality where buying a victory and chest thumping seems to be the go, rather than hard work and good play.

Enjoy your pvdoor and shameful victory. I enjoyed my round of golf.

Guardian – bring up to Ranger’s health – this would open up a lot of builds

Combat lacks any sort of tactical depth or creativity.

The reward system is weak.

The classes are imbalanced and some just don’t make sense.

Performance of the game is poor.

These would be the major ones.

I use some form of teleport to attack a foe. He dodge rolls once and is the out of range and can stay there because we are too slow. If we blink again he just dodges again. How are you supposed to mele with long CD and no mobility?

Oren.1736:

John, the main problem guardians have at the moment is not lack of damage, it is the inability to build a proper offensive guardian that is not 100% all in burst that can also null conditions.

I agree with your whole post. Our problems don’ t show up on spreadsheets, but when you actually try to play a guardian.

Firstly, the SoS adjustment is just going to make people mad and its not really fair. It is going to be a huge issue for Guardian’s quality of life.

Zealot’s blade. What guardian speccing for damage is going to have healing power? Make it a lifesteal so it goes higher with power.

Kindled Zeal – garbage agrbage garbage – Symbols give a Chill effect – this would be our 2nd dot and a nice and necessary form of soft CC

Boon Duration? Neither DPS or AH builds have much boon duration. Why? Because our health is so kittening low. Only one build really uses boon duration. I hardly think its going to be an issue. I would love to spec boon duration but you die before the boons run out in WvW. No one is using it in pve and you don’t have access to some of the runes in Spvp to get lots. Clearly, you are not thinking the SoS nerf through clearly enough.

Jon you can thank me later

Warrior

Best all round. Has most builds. Looks the coolest. Forgiving with high ping.

The balance 3 to 37 is not too bad imho.

Is it too much to ask to log in and see a REAL improvement to something on Guardian?

It would simply make me feel good to log in and see a single improvement that wasn’t coupled with some sort of sideways nerf.

Like hey here is your new GM trait for Zeal
That maybe applies chill
Gives you health
Gives you lifesteal
Something cool and useful

Or maybe
Reduce a CD on a weapon or consecration

Or reduce the cast time of our signets

Or here is your speed signet

Or new rune set specifically for guardian

Or maybe virtues line also reduces all cd 5/10/15% for the points put in it

I dunno. I would just like to see a boost to something that isn’t coupled with a nerf. Is that to much to ask?

0/30/30/5/5 running beserker and 1h weapons. Can do well vs most other builds. Can beat bad players easily and hold your own vs decent players/builds.

Rayya.2591:

runes of traveler will only boost your move speed out of combat
somebody made an test, i don’t have the link for it
On pve you might get in combat very often, and for out of combat sitations sword blind / ji /retreat / sy/ and staff speed could be an alternative
On wvwvw zerg, the speed bost is completly pointless
on wvwvw roaming i find staf very usefull to escape from 3 -4 enemy’s – gs leap / line of warding behind, speed boost.
even with runes of travelers you will not be able to hunt down Warriors or thieves if they try to run away.
I use traveler on my thief, but for my guardians i prefer 3 travelers /3 divinity or 2 travelers /2 monk / 2water

I seem to escape far more often somehow, or at least make it to help. Mostly it gives me the ability to choose my fights better and not have to rely on a staff. I much prefer sc/focus for roaming.

Oghier.7419:

Is the six-piece bonus for Runes of Speed fixed?

Yes.

You can test in the Mists if you don’t believe me.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

AgentChaos.4932:

good change to symbol of swiftness but can we have pure of voice removes 2 condi back?

I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that one.

Yeah thanks for nothing then.

The Guardian changes have done nothing to make those series of worthless traits any less worthlese. You need to really address the fundamental problems with those Guardian traits instead. Its clear to me no one on your team plays guardian seriously.

The Symbol of swiftness rework is garbage too for anything but WvW.

Runes of Speed are cheaper… for those that are unaware.

I see no major drawback to using them. That being said for Zerg v Zerg I still keep my Soldier set. As Swiftness is easily acessible. But for roaming they are great.

Sauncho.8076:

I asked Jon the following question regarding the symbol of swiftness changes, and this is what he said (I’d give a link if I knew how. It’s on the SPVP forum):

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sauncho.8076:

John,

Could you please explain the symbol of swiftness change, I am not fully understanding it. Is it a nerf, and if so, why. Guardians need buff in the mobility department, not nerfs.

Also, can we please buff spirit weapons some how. Thanks for your time.

Respectfully,
Sauncho

It’s actually an improvement in a lot of cases. But, having said that, we don’t want the Guardian to be TOO mobile. Guardians are a very strong presence on any battlefield, so we want to make sure we don’t give them too much mobility + defense.

An improvement, I see. Perfect, thanks for the response…

I don’t really think he understands how simply annoying and unfun it is to be so slow in pvp.

Nor do I think he has tested personally to fully realise its a nerf not a buff.

Symbol of swiftness. Would just love it to give 10 sec of swiftness and stack 2-3xwith other guardians.

Kindled Zeal – totally useless – how about symbols apply a 2sec chill, 10 sec cd

HS reduce it by 80 – increase its use by 1000
Move Unsuspecting Foe to Master
adrenaline abilities – lose adrenaline if they hit nothing
Cleansing ire – no condition loss if ability hits nothing and adrenaline is lost

Something like this would make a huge difference and not gut the class.

I am glad to see they are looking at improving our hybrid builds.

Zeal needs a trait that converts power to vitality.

silentnight warrior.2714:

Relentliss.2170:

Lol everyone is a talented Warrior. Just roll forehead across keyboard.

Everyone is a talented (put class here) that loses against no talented warrior.

Thing is after only a few matches I was heaps better on my warrior than on any of my other classes. There was no opportunity cost. Unlike other classes, I could do damage and be very tanky at the same time. I could swap in cc weapons and do all 3. It didn’t seem to matter what order you used your skills at all. There was really no thinking or opportunity cost at all. Missing a skill or using it at the wrong time didn’t matter. I would call that a faceroll.

JonathanSharp.7094:

DiogoSilva.7089:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Yes, we’re also looking at the other classes in relation to the current iteration of the Warrior and how they vie for spaces in the meta.

If we bring down Warrior slightly, we’ll also need to adjust other things to make sure they’re also not too strong.

Also, we want to shave most things down, instead of just running around with a “buff” stick. That’s how you get a lot of power creep, and it’s something a lot of you, very astutely, have pointed out – we need to avoid that.

Keep your eyes peeled for another post later today where we expound on a lot of this type of stuff.

I agree with this. I think buffs should only come to skills that are clumsy or inefficient. Even though the elementalist is currently the worst class for pvp, I would actually wish for its instant-burst damage to be toned down (which, in my opinion, should be done by adding a " damagedelay" to arcane skills, so that they wouldn’t be nerfed outside of pvp or even outside of this build). It would be interesting to see all classes have their strongest options “shaved” in the next balance patch.

BTW, when can we except the next wave of changes? In 2 weeks?

December. I’ll give out more details later.

December. Really unacceptable.

Having it on a ranged class is useless.

That and healway are about the most viable builds we got.

Lol everyone is a talented Warrior. Just roll forehead across keyboard.

I usually run around 3.3k. 3.2 seems to be a sweet spot. I also equip signet of judgement in a zerg which is like having another 300.

You need to keep Aegis and protection up vs a thief. And cycle your blinds and retaliation too. They are one class that we do counter rather nicely.

I really want to see them do some Hotjoin on a Guardian. Pve I could do with no traits its so easy.

Radjan Majere.4208:

Relentliss.2170:

Some of the numbers people are throwing around assume a 100% uptime of protection and regen for the guardian. Which is not the case at all. Our buffs last on average 5 sec. To get these to last 100% of the time requires us to give up some seriously important stats either in tankiness or damage.

I agree with pretty much everything else you said, but since I’m the one throwing around most of the guardian numbers I’ll say my numbers for healing potential over 25s vs shouts or over a minute in the other scenario were taken with actual uptime öover those intervals. I’m factoring in the multiple sources of some of those, and boon duration, but not assuming sustained permanent uptime to reach the numbers I wrote.

You might have been addressing someone else’s argument – but I wanted to be clear.

Wasn’t referring to your specific numbers but some of the general per second calcs here and in the spvp forum that seem to have a 100% uptime of regen.

There are a couple facts that remain apparent.

A warrior has high starting health. A guardian’s is ridiculously low. Yet their self healing is somewhat on par.

A warrior can spec healing and still retain some damage and innate tankiness. A guardian will have to sacrifice one of these in his gearing.

A warrior can spec healing/support with 30 points. A guardian must spend at least 50.

Some of the numbers people are throwing around assume a 100% uptime of protection and regen for the guardian. Which is not the case at all. Our buffs last on average 5 sec. To get these to last 100% of the time requires us to give up some seriously important stats either in tankiness or damage.

This is where the fundamental problem atm lies. The warrior does not have to invest as much in gear or traits to be as effective. There is an underlying unfairness that we have put up with for 12 months.

I am just going to be as cordial as possible.

Putting PVE events in WvW is insulting.

They exacerbate the current queue problems. People are now queuing so they can do these events in WvW, making things worse. It is a real slap in the face to those of us trying to deal with queues atm and being as patient as possible.

They get in the way. If you are trying to move your team unseen, having to fight loopydodles and make swords is not the way. Having these things slow you is uber annoying.

Please Anet. Remove this trashy and cheap content from WvW. It is just making things worse.

I suggest a 0/15/30/20/5 build. Basically pvt armor with speed or travellers runes. One set of knights and one set of beserker trinkets. This isn’t the optimal build for either, but its pretty good at both.

Run AH, shouts and hammer when with the zerg. Knights

Run Monks Focus, Meds and 1h weapons when roaming. Beserker or Celestial

Havoc squad… depends on the make up of the group. The AH build might be more the go. I usualy like to run GS with the Havoc Squad.

I am not a big fan of hammer for roaming. It is handy to use either 3 or 5 and JI to a foe. But most of your attacks are slow and easily avoided. In zergs it rocks for blasting combo fields.

Guardians need to be flexible to be effective. While the hammer is an awesome zerg or pve weapon, it is not as effective as other weapons in havoc or roaming… particularly roaming.

Well on my spvp warrior I can survive for quite a while without using any defensive skills at all. I don’t even use shouts and I can basically ignore conditions for quite a while. I feel very tanky.

My guardian is a panic fest where health is always falling too fast and you have to constantly use defensive abilities just to keep alive. The difference is quite dramatic really.

You enter combat with the warrior and bam your health drops 10-15%. It dips a further 10. Then it kinda starts going back up.

Guardian. Soon as the Aegises are gone wham 25% of your health gone. Pop shelter. Wham gone again, probably find yourself at 50%. Now its just a panicy cycle of blinds and avoidance, with a bit of damage mixed in, hoping to make it till your heal is back up. Overall it just feels weak and ineffective. In fact your better off running beserker so at least you stand a chance of winning the dps race.

So in 2h you couldn’t kill them. Sounds to me like they were farming you.

Redscope.6215:

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.

It doesn’t matter whether I go by feel or numbers provided in this thread. Both things indicate that the Warrior gets better numbers from less investment. Add in the fact it has more health and things start to get ridiculous.

If both classes had Ranger health they might be pretty balanced.

I’d aim for something tankier in WvW.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJArdlYgaDHHSNEfIFRuArHA8g+DXw1DIGxGC-jkCBoLBksAg+AM5ZIrZPRsMsIasqaER16FY2bER1ecYSBIoyI-w

I love running into the squishies on other severs. Lotsa bags.

Anet wants you to craft so that you have to buy gems. Ascended gear is a real cash bonanza for them. Its the sort of thing I expect in a F2play game.

Look at the accessories. 50 ectos to buy one. Its pretty obvious what is going on.

Super Riceman.8702:

Having to update for 5 minutes is not a good reason to make balance patches months apart. Small and metered changes should occur over a few weeks, not large changes every 3 months. If its an issue with tournaments, just see if they can be rescheduled. Do not wait months to fix the sigil of paralyzation. It may be bad for the players but it will be better for the game as a whole.

Agree

Would love to see 1 change once a month for each class. This would allow for slow steady development and for the meta to keep up with the changes.

I think a lot of blokes like the 30 points for the 30 crit damage. Can someone explain why that is bad.

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.

coglin.1867:

Relentliss.2170:

There is a whole thread stickied at the top on AH -altruistic healing – and Hammer. gear, traits, etc… everything explaimed thouroughly.

Yes, I am aware of that, thank you. I wanted to have a more personal discussion to ask questions to other posters about specific gear, traits, and weapons and how they may benefit how I want to play, so I made a thread on it, but thank you.

The thread already exists.

Every mele weapon should have a combo

I will preface this by saying I find the Virtues useful. I use the block, blind, heal all the time. But they are a weak and rather stifling class mechanic.

However for such small benefit the CD of VoC and VoR are very long. Justice is much loved and one of the primary reasons is its short CD.

The simplest improvement would be to make the base numbers of VoR triated with AR the stock value. AR could improve the skill in some other way… maybe its current remove 3 conditions and apply a passive -25% condition duration. And shorten the CD of VoC to 30 sec. These two improvements would make the virtues in their current state more useful.

Long term they need to be overhauled. I would love to see them be like Chosen Auras. Others need to be within 500 to recieve the Aura.When I run Justice it burns and gives me a damage boost, when I run Resolve stronger passive healing and condition protection, when I run Courage damage protection and tenacity. But you could only run one at a time. There could be interesting effects for overlapping, timing their switching, them like Aegis or Blinding foes or a Medium sized heal. This would make changing them and using them far more fun.

aspirine.6852:

Maps are too small for non blobs :/

This^^^

You can cover all your objectives in a bg way too easy with a single blob.

If you can form 2 blobs, and your oponents can only make 1, you can take 2-3 bg quite easily in very little time. Now if you had to run far distances or cover 2 points at a time, this would not be the best way to operate.

Why is it so hard to simply allow you to buy the piece with WvW currency?

They’ve been out a year now. Where is the hurt?

Most thoughtful and insightful post in a long time. Amazing job by the OP.

Best Suggestion – dump the 8v8 and 10v10 hotjoins. New players get in, get zerged and its soley responsible for turning people off spvp. It will never attract a following or playerbase in its current state.

There is a whole thread stickied at the top on AH -altruistic healing – and Hammer. gear, traits, etc… everything explaimed thouroughly.

Araris.7839:

The problem isn’t the skills themselves, or even the number available. It’s the ridiculous recasts on many of them, which in some cases like the guardian shelter, makes them completely unusable.

Guardian seems to be the worst for this. Often I have everything on cd and feel just useless.

The weapon skills seem pretty typical, but the class skills often are boring.

Stability, regen, protection, fury… yawn.

I miss the days of spellbooks and finding a seemingly useless spell and working out a way to use one to overcome a boss or area.

Have it cost 5 skill points and be done in LA

Its odd to win so many big fights and see ppt go backwards.

VofC (aegis) is on a longer cd than any of the Pain skills… just sayin.

Sadly the ‘exaggeration’ in the OP’s post is barely exaggerated at all…