Guild Wars 2

Darknicrofia.2604:

Even though guardian is firmly the worst class in pvp right now, the difference between guardian and the “meta” or even the #1 class isn’t as great as it was in season 1 and 2

the metabattle mediguard is more than viable enough to climb leagues with

You can’t really use this as a valid argument.
I have a guildmate who plays DH with traps, I am a DH that plays medihammer without any traps and I ate him many times when dueling.
He is now in diamond (from emerald) after about what? 25-35 matches I guess. If your team is skillful, they will make use of your traps but if you are unlucky, it might end up painfuly.
After I heard how certain peeps get their divs fast with a bunch of matches, getting carried, I can’t seriously take such arguments to define if something is viable or not.
Even on my own example as my build is not meta as heck and one match I wreck people and greatly disrupt teamfights and on a next match I end up as a ragdoll that everyone can play around with. Thus I can’t even define If I am good or bad, mostly I lose in blowouts and win close match ups.

EDIT:
We can clearly see how you get your win streak with mostly blowouts.
Guess that enemy teams were not very capable, thus you could combat them with a competent team on your side.

This is a team game. Won match is team’s effort, lost match is team’s fail.
Yet do not forget about certain exceptions as mental potatoes that make you lose, or top tier players who siginificantly help you in your match.

>imba git gud or get rekt

Please don’t make a thrown spear, please don’t make a thrown spear…
Polearm for close ranged combat, power/condi damage with gap closers and control.

Oh boi, I was so occupied with other things that I forgot about this thread.
It’s nice to see that people still contribute to it in some way.
I had a lot of thought recently while playing some other classes to feel them what they do.
I wonder why scrapper’s abilities have damage and utility at once? Their electro whirl does twice as much as mighty blow + it has reflection.
This is just one example, of how weird that is. Guess that making symbol 3rd AA be as fast as other hammers so we could keep 100% protection uptime, as Guardians this is what we are meant to do, not elementalists or others. Protection and blocks are our job and we should do it to its full extent, much better than any other profession in this game.
Either make AA chain faster or protection boon last longer. Either way even that way we could not keep the prot all the time if we were to use other abilities like mighty blow, zealot’s embrace etc. I feel that 2,3,4,5 hammer skills should get an additional utility effect just like scrapper has.

Some must lose so that others could win.

I fought a premade once where there were two thieves with such build. My teammates are really good pvp’ers and we couldn’t even cap these points. If something went wrong ele or dudu came to heal thieves up and disrupt. Once we managed to defeat one thief, the second one came and went apekitten crazy with dodges to prevent us from capping.

Though it is nice to see that there are still guardians who struggle in pvp, I think we should sit down for a bit and wait.
Calling out for help and buffs for our class doesn’t seem to work as long as Devs don’t realise how much they have been harming this profession so far.
Maybe if our population falls down drastically, they might do something but somehow I honestly feel that if something like that happened, they could just be like “meh, almost nobody plays it, why bother?”

Tis a jolly display of abilities.
Don’t show off too much though or else we will get more nerfs Just kidding, it’s nice to see that some guardians are still doing their job well but let’s be honest here.
You had a good backup in your team that helped you out just right, also it seemed to me like enemies had a problem to focus you down.

In the end of the day, every rule has an exception. There is always someone who can make something work in a briliant way. Job well done mate…
…if only I had such smooth frame rate :F

I am a devoted righteousfag that always enjoys playing paladin type of classes.
My resolve was broken as I’ve seen that I do not bring much to my team by playing my own build (which was pretty neat few months back).
I feel like I am forced to play something better in order to gain in pvp and not being an unnecessary weight for my premades.
I always loved and will love those kind of professions, but how should we succeed?
What should be done and what is wrong with Guardian that we are being outplayed so hard?

Those who struggled playing as a warrior pre-patch and who were doing a quite good job with it, now they are superior.
I do not say this in the meaning of good or bad, it’s just an observation.
I vowed to myself that I won’t change to anything and I’ll still keep playing my guardian but I am not efficient enough in solo que and premades with my guild so I am forced to play something else which I greatly do not enjoy, yet I want to get something from this pvp season.
People might say that traps are still viable and wreck people but it’s still on low tier. There are some in higher tiers but it demands focusing on DH (by his/her team) to not let him die in a few hits. It just takes a great effort to play it efficiently if comparing other classes now.

EDIT:
Is there any hope for Guardian? I really like this profession but it makes me sad watching as it falls into the pit of uselessness. What should get changed in order to raise this class to something better?

VoidNard.7206:

Not in legion, that goes away. When it comes to overall balance, WoW is much greater and is getting better over the years. To me, It feels like gw2 is getting worse. I still don’t understand why the bring in a summer patch in 2015 to allow for more build diversity, but it HoTs, they completely destroy that possibility with elite specs.

I must agree that GW2 balance is getting worse but to say that WoW’s balance is better? I had my fair share of few years playing pvp in WoW… have your ever played that game to the fullest extent of pvp aspect? Perhaps you were one of those flavor of the month pvp’ers that thought everything works as intended

Balance in that game is what made me left it, even when I come back every now and then to compare how pvp looks here and in WoW, it still has double the ammount of cancer than in GW2, though if Anet keeps up the good work (sarcasm) I’ll have to get back to WoW to play pvp.

But for now, WoW balance being “much greater”? Bruh…

When I saw that patch note, I honestly didn’t know how to react. Are those who are responsible for balancing this game in terms of pvp patched this for giggles?
Are we on the bottom now? Warriors seem to raise above with their adrenal health that keeps them alive, thief is not too shabby as well if played well (and if the team knows how to play with them.)
Hug me, I am scared of our grim future.

Isn’t “sustained” about sustaining something in a stable manner? Well this is how I see the definition of sustained (healing/damage) as something that is the opposite of burst.
Does Guardian have a stable source of healing like for example scrapper? Aside from virtue passive and regen from mace or shouts, we mostly roll with burst healing.

After those nerfs if you fight versus dragonhunter you either git gut or die a scrub.
They are easy to beat if you think about it.

Salamander.2504:

I voted bad: Poor balance, no build diversity, no core specs in the ESL’s, low viewership.

I want GW2 esports to be the real deal, but it never will be as long as there continues to be no dedicated PvP balance team.

:(

Pretty much this.
Meta shifts are underwhelming as it changes yes, but still keeps 6 same classes in meta, while remaining 3 (Thief, Warrior, Guardian) struggle to keep it together.
Lack of build diversity, though I believe that it’s just people who mindlessly roll meta instead of making something to fit their own playstyle and still be viable.
For exmaple myself, I made a build on my Guardian main that is about being quite tanky, dish out damage and give some team support (blocks and stab) while throwing CC here and there. If I have a good backup, with well placed shield of courage I can save a team fight, but it requires much more skill to time it right if comparing other meta builds that work that way.
So as for build diversity I’ll keep it 50/50, people are free to mess around with traits but only if they stop following meta builds.

I realised that many build really require skill to play.
Yet if one will understand the build to at least decent level, it is so strong in its very concept/traits/utilites, that it seems overpowered.
Reaper for example, it needs time and skill but once mastered, it is just simply too much to handle, thus people call for nerfs.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

I would’ve cracked up rather than getting angry at this team

Though judging by the time, team and personal scores, I’d say you guys backcap them like fighting guerrilla warfare in Vietnam lol.

Same thought
It was like guerrilla warfare because I had almost the same experience as enemy team had 3 thieves and a thumping good ones.
Though I was greatly annoyed by how they jumped around, disengaging on demand and those 2v1 insta kills were tiresome. Yet it still takes a great ammount of coordination and as much as I hate to admit, that was pretty dang good.

sephiroth.4217:

Of course this is your personal opinion, but I don’t think you’re using Arcane properly…

As for Guardian… What?

Actually the whole post… What?

I have 5 Elementalists and 4 Guardians because they ARE the most versatile classes and I can use almost all the utilities depending on the build I’m aiming for in the game mode I’m playing (WvW/PvP)

I’d be more concerned for Warrior and Thief… But that’s my personal opinion because I don’t play those classes much and I feel forced into certain builds/traits and weapons just to be able to do anything. (more experienced players with these classes would be able to tell me otherwise)

I play only Guardian and I tested many builds in every aspect, as well as studied other professions to compare certain things.
You must have enormous luck to find yourself in encounters that make you think that almost every Guardian utility is working just fine.
I know that in WvW Guard is doing pretty well, but I’d be eager to see how you run raid with different utilities other than meta, or how well Spirit Weapons/
Shouts/Consecrations/Signets might work out in a pvp match in your hands.
No sarcasm, I am actually wondering. I find most of the Guardian’s playerbase to be dissatisfied with the current state of this profession.
Though people say that for every rule there is an exception

StickerHappy.8052:

Rodzynald.5897:

<Looks at how many eles there are compared to guardians in every game mode.>

Ye… right. Comparing the most flexible class to the one that has the weakest traits and utilities in the game, it feels like an insult.
Even if Ele has one viable build, they are at least meta + they are not an optional choice in raids as Guards are.

You are forgetting this might be the first time guard is out of the meta, Guardian has been in the meta numerous times.

They might have been meta, but for example, looking from PvP point of view, it is now quite irrelevant if they were, as now they are a rare (VIABLE) sight during pvp season.
Meta or not, just look at numbers of how many players roll with it currently. I rather see more elementalists, that were and still are in the meta.

Xaylin.1860:

• Beacon of Knowledge poops on Staff Mastery. I don’t see this combination of features on a trait happening.

How so? It could stack.

FrownyClown.8402:

kitten daze on the elite is too strong. Have it pulse a 1/2s daze to enemies within range for 5 seconds. Lower it to a 240 radius.

It is strong for a reason. It might be a great interruption elite, but it has a price in form of global cooldown on other chapters (perhaps could drop CD on other utilities) and words.

I see that certain things were made over the threshold, yet I’ve had in mind the current state of guardian and how most of his utilities and traits are poorly made (and probably will never be fixed.)
In place of updating weak traitlines, we could have a spec that could give an opportunity to boost all of guardian’s aspects, yet do not allows to master them all at once. We sure don’t want another Cele ele.

Ye… right. Comparing the most flexible class to the one that has the weakest traits and utilities in the game, it feels like an insult.
Even if Ele has one viable build, they are at least meta + they are not an optional choice in raids as Guards are.

Helmet looks wonderful, that breastplate and tabard has me like “daaaayum, lookin’ fine”
Even boots are kinda nice… yet those shoulders and gauntlets are a massive turn-off for me.
I’d definitely buy this outfit if we could do some fashion wars and change certain parts to our liking.
They did it with phalanx, why not with other pieces? At least let change shoulders, helmet and gauntlets.

I wanted to share my idea with you guys. Feel free to discuss and point out how OP certain stuff was made

https://pl.scribd.com/doc/310779927/Arbiter-Guardian-Elite-Specialization

I came up with a wild idea for a Guardian. Please enjoy

https://pl.scribd.com/doc/310779927/Arbiter-Guardian-Elite-Specialization

Looks like this thread sinks in too easily. I guess that people are not very interested in polearms.
But this ain’t true! We need’em and we want’em for more diversity in combat.

I think that pulling out underwater spears would be just fine. Perhaps throw one legendary and it should be good.
It seems kind of convenient, spears are already in the game, just change’em to polearm once out of water.
I guess that might be a great addition to combat content with new xpack or living story season.

Yup, personally I see this weapon as a guardian and warrior choice for sure. Ranger could have it as well to be like a primal hunter. I kind of see mesmer or elementalist working it just like in this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Umweou6DNQ

Revenants already have their fun with staves, but I guess they could have it though.

Tringsh.2380:

I agree, I’m so fed up of staffs coming out that look totally ridiculous on my Dare Devil. There’s like 4 or 5 acceptable skins.

Yup, but I am really concerned and even afraid that Anet will try to solve polearm problem with adding staves that look like pole weapons which already happened with few like Lightward battlestaff, Reclaimed staff and Guild pillar. I really hope they won’t do that.
Now as I watched more cutscenes, there are lots of literal spears and pole weapons that are used in combat on land… why is that players can’t have it?

In Data files these already exist, as for looks you could just take underwater spears, pull them out and let them dry on the sun so we can pick’em up and fight.
The thing is to make animations and skills (some traits too).
You call balance issues? Well… how about adding elite specializations, these require balance too but on larger scale while pole weapons would add much to the combat system with only 5 skills to balance through certain professions.

EDIT:
Even then, this weapon might have an extra utility, to let us trade its last 2 skills to equip an offhand in their place (shield for example.)

Pole weapons thread.

Sooo… I’ve been browsing here and there through gw2 lore, watched some cutscenes and pictures, even a bunch of old threads.
Let’s get straight to the point:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Polearm

Any hope of having those in the future? Perhaps along with Living Story season 3?
I really wonder why we get spears underwater but not on dry land.
Pole weapons are not something extraordinary and it amuses me how we have torches, foci, warhorns and scepters that are not kittenual sight in most of MMORPG’s.

When I decided to buy GW2, first things that caught my interest were guardian tomes and spears along with some other stuff.
Oh imagine my dissapointement when I found out that spears are underwater weapon and tomes were made into weak elites (but that is another story.)

There is even an unknown character holding a polearm as it watches how Pact’s fleet gets destroyed in LS2 final cutscene (that one really teased me.)
Check out pic attached. Those these look like weapons that should be used underwater? For me they scream “Use me in dry land combat!”
Do you wish for this weapon type to make an appearance? What professions and what roles should they have?

We have an issue of describing balance among all classes at once.
Ithilwen might tell the truth and I am willing to accept it. Looks like I’ve joined in just in time when mesmers are getting stronger.
From what I’ve heard, guardian was quite viable for quite some time in the past, now it has fallen low almost like warrior.
How long will it take for meta to shift in guardian’s favor, if ever? Is there a chance that we will get balanced updates and not shifting flavor of the season type of “balance”?

It looks like Anet favors certain professions over others.

Ragnarox.9601:

My new Dragonhunter

Now that you mention it.
Some say that guardian shouldn’t have a larger health pool because blocks and heals.

But mesmers have evades for days which are better than blocks becuase when you evade, for example, you can’t get condibombed. They have escapes on demand + heals with shatters and low cooldown utility heal.
All that and a higher health pool? Why?

Guess torment might be a good condi to add besides burning and… oh who am I kidding.
I don’t play for too long but wasn’t guardian like… in the same spot for those 3 years?
Wew… I wonder (really wonder) why guardian stays so low for so long with its overall lack of good utility (not counting single exceptions) and even then they still manage to get a firm kick in the groin because trueshot was spammable and traps did too much damage.
Anet made us spammable and predictable like a dog that sees a treat and because of that we are joining warriors on the lowest bench of PvE/PvP gameplay.

I do not find necro appealing to me as I am a righteousfag that plays only paladin type classes.
Yet I must agree, marks should remain unblockable… yet they shouldn’t trigger instantly as they are cast. About one, up to one and a half second of red circle arming time should do the trick, because for now if necro goes full condi in a team fight, it might end very unfortunate.

“Learn2dodge scrub” – Go ahead, dodge something you can’t see in a grand clusterkitten of various skills flying around + if necro stands on some safe spot behind you and drops dem marks (not to mention frame rate issues and sudden lag spikes).

True Shot nerf was necessary tho. It was a cheap shot for amazing burst.
But in this case it should have more utility or give it a mobility buff so we could cast it while moving (at least at whirling wrath speed.)
Perhaps boost sustained damage if we can’t properly burst.
Let’s just lay down Guardian for a bit and see what Anet will do in the next quarterly update.

Necros had their fun time with condi. Time for something new and more creative perhaps.

I am also really displeased… they managed to buff core engineer stuff (which were already good.) and they do not touch Guardian’s traits that were called for to be buffed for 4 years?
Huh… I don’t even know what to say anymore.

>tfw reading Guardian’s “balance” notes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXzEcwYs8Eo

I am deeply dissapointed. Everyone knew that DH is easy to counter, if you died 1v1 then it was just like with every other profession.
Traps were cheesy okay, but they forced you to stay sharp, otherwise you could get rekt.

After all this we get some flimsy CD reduction that costs us a huge loss in our primary source of damage?
I ain’t gonna roll Flavor of The Season professions, I’d rather leave this game and wait until Guardians are what they are supposed to be, not too shabby, yet not overpowered.

I don’t understand it.
Why Anet kicks Guardian so hard in the bottom?
Every other professions performs in every ground that Guardian could, but much better.
What Guard is good for, beside dropping some stabs?

Adrenalin.5719:

Guardian’s class fantasy is being useless and slow, you fool.

Warriors running fast and being mobile, not a big deal.
Revenants? Swiftness for days.

Oh okay then.

I must say that this is a job well done.
Though I am still concerned about core guardian traits and weapons but oh well… it’s still better than nothing.

Well we could say that Guardian is the most balanced of all even traps. We got a huge bunch of weak traits that are found underwhelming so if we ever got them to be as strong as Revenant’s traits then Guard might be top tier (also certain utilities should see some love like Spirit Weapons.)

Now let’s get back to reality, guard is far away from balance considering that I guess everyone except thieves and warriors has too much of everything or much more of certain stuff than those 3 professions I mentioned above.
We would be balanced if other specs got pulled down which won’t happen that easily (if ever).

Silverthorn.8576:

So with HoT Necromancer becomes more and more dependent on his life force level to the point where a necromancer with full life force is really hard to kill and can do a lot of dmg and a necromancer with no life force is free meat.

Actually Reaper is force to play condi because Deathly Chill is the only good grand master trait in reaper line and with last patch scepter becomes with staff a mandatory weapon. Moreover you have to go for teamfight even if you always will be the first focus, because they are way more powerfull class than Reaper in 1v1 and being catch alone generally means you are dead.

I feel it m8.
It might get even more annoying when certain classes are pidgeon holed into 1 or 2 builds per profession to be viable but those builds can turn out to be so wreckingly overwhelming that majority of community calls for nerfs.

Regon Phoenix.8215:

NECROMANCER
11) Greatsword should be reapers main tool and strongest weapon, but it isn’t. Greatsword is the worst weapon for reaper, even axe is better.
12) No defensive tools, no mobility abilities. The one thing necromancer can do is dealing damage. That is pretty boring, even if damage is quite good at the moment (reaper only, though, because core necromancer is weaker than anyone).
13) Minions are weak and useless. The only use for minions necromancer have while leveling up. In pvp, however, minions are dead weight and usually are used only for Death Nova trait.
14) Same as warrior, necromancer have only 1 (well, maybe 2) viable builds.

GUARDIAN
15) 3-4 traps dragon hunter have too much burst (can don’t nearly anyone over 1 sec).
16) Burn guardian is too dependent on certain traits and is useless without them.

Bruh… you bring up necro’s aspect that are not used and want them buffed.
You bring up guardian’s most viable stuff out of all that is not viable in them, and want them nerfed or changed + traps are child’s play to counter by most professions.

I’d like to see Necro along with reaper get put back in line as they are fairly strong OR balance some other things in order to match their level of strength and utility they bring to battle.
>imb4 condi and fear get past block
>imb4 condi bombs -> contemplation of purity/mass cleanse -> condi corrupt/another condi bomb.
>imb4 fear spam. + don’t give me crap about popping stab, look it up (boon corrupt.)
>imb4 condis get past invulnerability and have no other means of counter than condi cleanse (which is exclusive to certain builds) or resistance (and not everyone has that).

I play this game and pvp for about 5-6 months and 2 of those were strictly only pvp day after day.
I play just and only as a guardian (Im a righteousfag) as I do not enjoy other classes, simple as that. Yet I have much to learn still about other professions in order to get better.

I hit ruby rank and couldn’t get past tier 1, though when I was on a good way out, real life stuff happened and I do not find enough time to play. So I did my rank in two weeks, but for one week I couldn’t get out of ruby T1, came to conclusion I belong here and gotta git gud or run some meta cheese but I am mentally handicapped as I only enjoy playing professions that make me struggle + on non meta build.

Every rule has its exception.
As for those who “slide” through divisions and smoothly hit legendary as some people claim, these men and women are such exceptions.
This is why I do not see some legendary players to be truly legendary, for this reason and a few more, legendary prestige feels underwhelming.

It is said, you either git gud or die trying. Well… I ain’t gonna roll flavor of the season profession to gain my goal, I’ll stand true to my way (righteousfag 2x) and hit that legendary div once guardian will be more capable. For now I’ll stay here on my sweet ruby spot.

Was there ever a golden age for guardians ?

Supreme.3164:

This is wrong…Tempest must heavily invest in Healing Power to have decent healing and we’re talking about 1000+ healing power where the Dragon Hunter can have 0 healing power and still have heal burst skills with a 2k+ base, they’re free to use any build from burst to support, where ele can only stay full heal or die otherwise

If you want added vitality on guardian , you MUST lose those ridiculous heal base stats on meditation ( 2k+ heal burst on 16 CD+ at 0 Healing power ) and start to actually invest in healing power.

The only reason why you’re allowed those high value it’s because of your low HP, lose that and you lose also your rights to keep those values

And elementalist is not fine at all, everything is either toughness/healing or you die to a sneeze, there is no middle ground and that’s bullkitten

As for elementalist this might be true, let’s looks at meta druid
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Druid_-_Bunker_Druid

Woah lad… I don’t see that druid has a problem with having it all at once. (Feels like Cele ele v2 + pets.)
I’ve never touched a ranger in my life nor druid. Yesterday I tried it with some random ranger I made, grabbed this build and went PvP. People fought very well and it was a tight match so there is no talk here about weak opponents.
I randomly pushed buttons and did the thing when stuff went grim. Most of the time it turned out that unknowingly I turned the tide of several encounters and teamfights.

There are not many guardians for a reason in both PvP and PvE. Guess that just updating traits should do the trick.
Oh wait… they already did that and called it a Revenant :I

EDIT:
Just one little thing to compare between shouts: “Receive the light” and “We heal as
one”.

1st one has a long cooldown even with trait and heals kinda good with healing power, in a cone and that’s all.
2nd is a 20 (16 with trait) second cooldown with a tough heal for you and your pet which is further empowered with healing power but also grants swiftness and regeneration.
You can say that 2nd skill doesn’t heal allies just like guardian’s, but this spot is filled with druid’s staff.
Somewhat it seems fair but then, why is 1st shout considered trash when looking at the big picture?

Last but not least, someone said that Litanny of Wrath heals too much… what a shame that I can’t slap people through the internet :C

Chronomancers had godmode, Revs were godly too (and it still keeps like that a lil’ bit), reapers, druids, eles, scrappers…
Let guardians become flavor of the season every now and then as well

Imagine how guardians would get awesome if we had traits just as strong as revenant’s ?