Guild Wars 2

A few have been asking what my hammer build is and I love to share builds so, here it is.

Hambow Medi Burst 2.0 (assuming Tage’s was 1.0)

Difficulty in SoloQ: Intermediate
Difficulty in TeamQ: Expert

Reason: It takes a whole lot more coordination to pull off combo bursts & cleanses on the whim when facing a coordinated team or in high mmr Ranked queue matches. For a player who’s not the best Guardian or is just learning Guard, he’ll have to be an intermediate player to use the build effectively in casual play. (if your mmr is not the best)

During a focus target scenario, you’re forced to use Purification & Virtues a 1/2 second sooner. The need to do so is more prominent in this build because hammer (and bow) is a very slow weapon. No longer can you simply weapon switch+Focus#5 to pull of a sustained heal. That and you need to know how/when to use your skill sets on the whim, given an opportunity.

UTILITIES

ToF:
A no brainer pick but combo usages is not as obvious.

Combos:
F1 spear lands first, + ToF (melee range) + Ham#4 + Pull F1 + Knockback trait with LB#3.
Mix combos depending on scenario or cds available.

Smite Condition
Used for Burst and/or Condi Cleanses. You typically want to use this right before a well timed True Shot + switching to hammer/Hydromancy. The dmg on this combo alone can deal between 4k to 9k to a Golem. People are not used to being in melee range with Bow but again, you have to be very malleable to use this build to it’s full potential. A full combo hit can lower a full healthed Rev to 40% or less.

CoP
The stunbreak & oh crap Condi burst savior. If you know a match is full Power but you prefer a bit more damages then take Fragment of Faith and/or swap Absolute Resolution to Glacial Heart for that extra 1.2k Ham burst.

Why no Judge’s Intervention
It simply isn’t durable in team fights as CoP or SC is. I feel it’s a Duelist utility that’s only great in 1v1 but not so well in skirmish scenarios. CoP & SC are better candidates for what this build is trying to accomplish unless you simply like JI play style!

Build overall Pros
You’ll do exceptionally well in team fight scenarios where you’re coordinating bursts and cc. You’ll have little issues with classes in team fights that you normally can’t beat 1v1. You’ll make a great +1 addition, Virtues makes for good team pickups & your additional CC items makes for great control in cleave scenarios. Your biggest advantage is burst potential as players wont see it coming until you weapon switch.

Build overall Cons
Not the greatest side-point Duelist build compared to Sw/Focus+LB Medi variants. You’re exceptionally weak against kiting foes. In fact, you’ll have to rely on Bow to do any type of ranged bursts if your team is trailing some one off point. If you’re not on a TS3 team, then you can’t coordinate whether or not you’re getting focused bursted yourself. This will make it more difficult to use Purification & Virtues ahead of time, compared to other medi build variants.

Current Class Counters 1v1: Rangers, Mesmers, sometimes Engi or Rev depending on whether you miss a burst or condi cleanse… or if you True Shot reflect yourself.
Current Class Counters TPvP: Rev+Thief focus cc+bursting you, Heavy Condi burst from War without a cleanse. Same goes for Nec. And/Or your bursts is completely negated by invulnerable and left with 0 utility sustain items.

Celine.6857:

Also, with Evans example of how matchmaking will be this season, the team on the right has a bigger advantage still of winning since their numbers are higher that the left side; this is fair? Or am I completely misunderstanding?

“Season 2 matchmaking was changed from Season 1 Ranked and Unranked matchmaking to help ensure league positions correlated more with skill instead of simply being based on the hours played. These changes saw a multitude of improvements for Season 2, but unfortunately they also spread out win rates further than we would have liked, as matches became a bit too uneven. We’ve created a new matchmaker for Season 3 that will strike a balance between the two previous seasons, accomplishing the same goals of accuracy from Season 2 but doing so with the evenness of matches that players experienced in Season 1.”

Answer
Working as intended (in theory anyways). It’s suppose to be challenging as players needs to try hard for the certain matches now. Only difference, it’s not as difficult as season 2 where matches really were lopsided. If it was any easier, like a pure 50/50 matchmaking system, then the best grinders would hit Legendary first.

S2, we saw a lot more players in “mmr hell” while others reached Legendary, albiet, they still had that 3-4 game lose streak on occassion. Now players are segregated at the very start of the season (this is good) and the players in mmr hell who were stuck in Ruby will be playing against other in Amber etc. Players in Legendary will go against each other in Sapphire.

There’s obviously some outliers but it sounds like a better algorithm… in theory.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Well, idk if it was a typo but in your season 3 example. One side is grossly favored over the other by 7 point. How is that fair?

“Season 2 matchmaking was changed from Season 1 Ranked and Unranked matchmaking to help ensure league positions correlated more with skill instead of simply being based on the hours played. These changes saw a multitude of improvements for Season 2, but unfortunately they also spread out win rates further than we would have liked, as matches became a bit too uneven. We’ve created a new matchmaker for Season 3 that will strike a balance between the two previous seasons, accomplishing the same goals of accuracy from Season 2 but doing so with the evenness of matches that players experienced in Season 1.”

So in theory, bad players will play worse in uneven matches (but not as kitteneen in S2) while good players will play just good enough to overcome the odds.

Still hilarious how they censored kitten. I immediately knew who you were refering to XD

The skill was mechanically overpowered because classes dudn’t have the skillsets to couter-react to it. What the heck do you do with a skill that glue itself to you, evades attacks, and deals 6k dmges? Not everyone is a thief who can interrupt abilities easily.

Thanks to the mechanically OP ability, Revs got nerfed so it’s considered “fine”… when the balance issue was and still is, the ability itself.

MiGFiD.1760:

Is there a way that Anet could separate these things? Like putting premade teams in a separate queue so we don’t waste my time on that kind of bullkitten?

We had this. It was a different tab entirely for Premades and that 1 or 2 solo players who absolutely didn’t mind the challenge at times. But this lead to incredibly high queue times for 5 man teams… to the point where they often waited 10m++ until they found a game.

So far, the current solution caters casuals and 5man teams both. Unless you have a better suggestion? :)

Anet is forced to work with the original Vanilla trait line strategy where things weren’t thought up as Symbol specializations, Block specializations, Medi specializations, etc. etc. It was a bit more diverse because they wanted it to be, until pro-game’s meta builds said otherwise.

It needs to be prioritized yet again (since they released that patch before HoT, last year I think.) but that would take a complete rework of every class. How powerful would every Symbol & Damage modifier in 1 trait line, followed by every Burn & Crit in another trait line (Supreme Justice & Permeating Wrath in Radiance) etc. etc.

It will likely never happen.

Guardian sustain is fine, much like Warrior’s sustain was fine until Anet buffed their damages to be on par with the power creep.

Certain QoL items needs to happen for DH to react to certain encounters. A solid example is our F2 & F3 is easily interruptible.. and we’re entirely dependent on these skills to survive. Unlike using our F1 to pull a Rev’s Block or Sword#3, interrupting Guardian’s Virtues is 100% by chance. Not only does skill factor goes out the window but Guardian is already easily out playable… we’re not nearly OP enough to have so many weaknesses.

EducatedCollins.6271:

Just like WvW here, could we also get polls for PvP?

It would be nice to see what changes the PvP community would like to prioritize and what Professions and mechanics the community thinks needs revisiting.

What type of poll questions would you all like to see put up?

Questions about profession skills/traits?
Questions about PvP rank/MMR?
Questions about PvP combat/Maps?
Questions about runes/almulets?

Would like to know your thoughts.

To clarify, the poll isn’t meant to be our wish list or some public debate. Anet has their own specific agenda set forth and will post their list of items that may or may not be relevant to what we’re even asking for.

So we can ask questions or raise concerns, but that’s all it’ll be. It’s up to the PvP Team to influence the Balance Team on what ever the pvp community wants as a whole… I’d be surprised if they place a poll here like they did in WvW because this particular community are so indecisive and more toxic (like most pvp communities) than the WvW forums.

Cynz.9437:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Even the sunshine pumping casters summarized it:

Guardians have NO mobility

They have more moblity than necros actually so your statement is a lie.

Sorry bub but your statement is off base.
Necros have 3 different ways to increase their speed to 25%… 1 of which is viable in PvP. Guards do not.

Cynz.9437:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Guardians have NO pressure

That is total lie. Guard got one of the best on point pressure thanks to stackable short CD traps. Also GL rezzing/stomping someone in mid of traps.

Misrepresented. Full trap guardian is Niche at best because they’re easily out playable/counterable. When some one is rezing a downed player…? Traps are used for stun cc’s, not bursts. Using ALL trap utilities means you have 0 options left when they fail

Cynz.9437:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Guardians have NO sustain

You still have more sustain than say sf ele or thief actually lol. Besides if you play dps DH you shouldn’t have sustain on first place.

We need sustains to survive a +1. 17k health will do but a 10k health dh (zerker amulet) simply can’t work in higher tier pvp. Not sure what you’re refering to but a Thief can disengage just fine and an Ele can sustain in a 1v1/1v2 a LOT longer than DH can. Both classes lasts longer in a team fight than DH… again, i’m curious what source you’re basing these statements from.

Cynz.9437:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Guardians have the lowest HP pool

Again a lie, they have as much HP as eles and thieves.

And that’s fine but we don’t sustain as well as they can on point. I can give you reasons as to why our F2 & Purification are utterly fail in an “oh kitten” team fight moment. Hint: We’ll get blown up before the heal goes off = there goes our survivability. Oh, and F2 & F3 gets randomly interrupted.. again, adding to how badly we sustain.

Cynz.9437:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Guardians is the ONLY class in game without a passive movement speed increase.

Define passive movement increase, you mean signets? Too bad lot of those signets are not used in pvp so i don’t see your point. Guards were never meant to be mobile due to their strength in combat and bunkering.

Partially agree. We don’t need a speed increase in SPvP but WvW players are slow as kitten… they need a QoL change that’s for sure.

Cynz.9437:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Thanks Karl, at least WvW zerglings aren’t dying to longbow 5 anymore though #InAGoodPlace

DH has way too many cheesy spells and while i agree DH is not in best place atm their viability shouldn’t rely on cheesy gimmicky blatant broken spells. Make suggestion for redesign.

It’s not necessarily a redesign that we need. We need,

• F2 heals on activation
• F3 grants Stability on activation
• LB#5 Barriers, when activated, needs to hit other enemies and not just effect the target inside the barrier.
• LB#3 needs a 20% buff because we’ll hardly ever hit anyone with the 33% buffed damages of LB#5 in SPvP.. so the buff to LB#5 is more like a 10% changed – statistically speaking.

More importantly, Seperate WvW & PvP balances. There are not the same gamemodes…

Cynz.9437:

Kicast.1459:

lol..guardian is worst than ever..

only other weak professions (warrior and thieves) have been pushed above to crazzy (for warrior)levels on last patch …so gardian is now officially and by far the worst profession with huge nerf.

oh please~ don’t be so dramatic… it is not THAT bad lol

finding pro league/esl team as guard would be an issue atm but i think guard will be fine as far as yoloq

You’re wrong to an extent. You can finish your first 2 or 3 entry Divisions with ANY build… getting to Legendary will be more problematic. For Guards, we’ll have issues with Rev, Druid, Ele, Engi comps. These four except for Revs (if we can burst them efficiently at first engagement) will obliterate us unless we can get a +1.

We perform worse in team fights too because Anet nerfed DH based on WvW performances… so now, it’s debatable whether or not to take DH for their team fighting abilities.

Guardians for once are not in a good spot so let’s not sugar coat it.

If Anet read this thread and said,
“Oh they want shout cd’s lowered. Ok!”

…oh so help me God…

It did absolutely nothing for us in the competitive scene.

“Trap Guardian is underpowered, but I don’t like traps so lets nerf them so they’re even more useless.”

… don’t make me thrash you.

TheBravery.9615:

• 3 game modes, all of which are heavily dependent on the balance team’s outputs and all have different agendas. Despite this, AN continues to disregard player assertions that there needs to be different balance teams for each game mode.

• Continuing the cycle of high frequency – low quality balance patches in hopes of addressing current issues, these patches are hit or miss. Some work out well, but many are just flat number fixing (e.g. cooldown reductions) while ignoring severe mechanical issues. “Balance” is nonexistent. Arenanet’s ideal “balance” is to “shake up the meta”. These “fixes” mostly miss the target and usually ends up being overpowered or under-powered to the point they’re overshadowed by stronger options. No middle ground exists.

• Balance patches only address a limited scope at a time, changing ~15 items per profession per quarterly patch when there are over 1,000 skills, traits, and stats to balance. To make things worse, AN continues to add new “content” in the form of new sigils, amulets, and runes to further complicate the balancing process.

• AN continues to make past mistakes by failing to address the foundations for game balance. To attempt to balance amulets before profession traits and skills will require them to double their work, as amulets/sigils/runes are influenced by the profession. Not the other way around.

• Balance is not just balance. It comes along with quality of design and diversity of design. Professions, traits, and skills have overlapping diversity issues.

But hey, they’re trying. SQ 2016 patch was huge, and it shows that a lot of work was made. Whether all the work was appropriate, I don’t know about that.

Whole heartedly agree.

StickerHappy.8052:

Until you remove the MANDATORY TRAITLINES

nothing will change.

Inspiration, Soul Reaping, Discipline, Etc

There’s no middle ground that’s for sure. I’d hate to wait another 1.5 years for GW2 to get to where it needs to be. Don’t mean to sound salty, but that is how long prehot took.

Having a balance between Core and Elite specs does not necessarily mean you have to lower the value of Elite specs to be on the same level as Core… there’s so many issues with this strategy, not only does it blows out any incentive for players to buy HoT, but it would be a balancing nightmare. First, let’s have a GW2 history lesson.

Core builds were obviously more simplier but beyond that, we had specialized builds. After Anet’s patch launched (forgot when it was released), it defined a meta build that each class currently used at the time. This eventually led to a more diversed game shortly before HoT release.

Almost every single condi build were 1v1 duelist specs. Bunkers builds were slowly replaced by bruiser classes like Ele, Engi, & War. (In an attempt to balance these 3 classes Anet steered away from vanilla) Condi builds were only viable as side point defenders/assaulters because mid fight zergs pushed out heavy AoE cleanses.

How to really balance GW2 Elite specs
The builds that needs buffing are Bunker & Condi builds. These builds should remain specialized in Core. While Condi and Bunker builds can be made with Elite specs as a third tree, it wouldnt be nearly as efficient. It would either be too little condi, or too much bunker for the class to be efficient.

Easier said than done so, lets talk about working Guardian first.

Our Elite tree should function the same, as should other classes. Power builds should be evident in the Elite trees while Bunker and Condi should be prioritized in their class specific Core builds.

Feedback welcomed.

Jourdelune.7456:

DDOS attacked is common when you face top players team.

Not all players do it, but many with old leaderboard top 300 were doing this.

It is easy to take IP from TS servers and everybody and there mother used pvp ts in the pass or in the present.

I will not say that Named competing with you will bring you Lag. But, I have a short list of players who do this to me each time.

I don’t lag with my fiber network. I don’t lag into Gw2. But when I faced those “blocked” guyz, I will lag to nothingness.

Basically, they know they will get a hard game and want to win, they control their botnet access and send the ddos to the IP they copy and pasted from TS.

The BIGGEST JOKE EVER, is this 4 years later that this reality is showing to the crowds where it’s common knowledge happening into rank queue at top tier playing.

To protect your IP, don’t TS, don’t used forums that show your IP. Or private forum operated by spvp esports players.

There’s ways to spoof your IP by using a VPN or numerous other strategies. Now adays you can simply do it through a 3rd party webside. With a fiber network, your 1ms latency will increase to 60ms (if that) so it definitely wont effect gameplay.

There are precautions a player can take. In LoL it’s the player’s responsibility not Riots. GW2 proleague players simply dont take precautions when players in LoL, CS:GO, SCII etc do this on the norm. There’s a reason DDOS isn’t as big of a deal in other pro games..

I bet Argi hasn’t even changed is IP address. He definitely doesn’t spoof his ip when entering TS3 servers. Heck, they have bots that randomly grabs IP of entered players but these are usually done in massive public servers.

What absulutely needs to happen.

• Wings of Resolve: Better synergy with Absolute Resolution, removing conditions before the leap.
• Virtue of Corage: Better synergy with Indomitable Courage, giving instant stability.

If DH is selfish, why are we prioritizing AoE heals in a group as if we’re meant to leap there to support? We absolutely need these two changes for an active counter against other class’s playstyles.

Shadow Bane.9362:

RIP Burn Guard too? It was a fun distraction. In the right comps it could even work. More of a toy build but now less fun options for guardians again. I have a swell of pity for everyone who mains guard right now not because of this but in general they’re in such a kitten situation in almost all game modes.

This literally doesn’t effect burn guardians one bit. We died the moment HoT released, as did most core builds.

Trigonhoras.7042:

Even if the fact that the season’s outcome might be predictable, but does it excuse Argi and the way he acted during the interview? Do you think it took anything away from ArenaNet or was it strictly all on Argi for the way he conducted the interview?

Argi clearly felt the proleagues were already set and didn’t worry about it, nor did he and his team worry about the match they were in. To him, the match and the rest of the proleague (or lack thereof, according to Argi) didn’t matter.

It’s only awkward if you make it awkward. I felt the commentators weren’t prepared and didn’t handle it accordingly. They should have acknowledge his point of view and simply gone with it. Perhaps even prying for other relevant league questions that pertained to Argi’s point of view.

Argi’s interview was fine, it was the commentators who didn’t handle it well.

Don’t get me wrong, if removing Merc amulet makes the game more “balanced” then i’m all for it. What I dislike is, where’s our build diversity? Once Anet find out which amulets are healthy enough to stay, will unused traits on each class be looked into?

There’s a lot of unanswered questions as to the direction of the PvP Team Devs & Balance Team both. If one team figures out what make players happy and the other team figures out how to accomplish it, then when can we expect there to be a final resolution?

Best MMORPG “Esports” game in the Western genre… not saying much because there really isn’t any esports mmorpgs.

I say it’s unfair to compare GW2 to pure pvp games that was designed entirely around competition so, I gave it a good rating.

Topher.5631:

Dragonhunter:

-Reduce the amount of time spear of justice is tethered to an enemy, but increase the burn damage

-Reduce the amount of time shield of courage is active

-Longbow is fine

-Reduce damage on Test of Faith

You did absolutely nothing for Guardian other than nerfed them… we’re already borderline useless in progames. Can’t take this thread seriously now…

Zelulose.8695:

Build diversity is why I wanted the removal of spectate. Having strong builds circulate happened faster with spectate than without it. Spectate delayed the meta and made many different builds seem viable. It also gave guilds secrets to share so they could have an edge verses other guilds. This is why many players left when spectate was added. The mystery behind the game was revealed. Its like someone gave them the spoiler to a movie and now they can’t watch it.

One of the bigger conspiracies, next to mmr hell and lizard men living among us…

If a player knows anything about his class, finding an efficient build in GW2 is very easy to do. Tage brought about Hammer meta on Guardian but players weren’t exactly efficient in it in soloQ. It didn’t make the average player any better and it didn’t “reveal secrets” that good players didn’t already know… besides, GW2 is already so complex that players need guidelines to follow.

The highest diversity the game ever seen was the patch before HoT.

style.6173:

insanemaniac.2456:

as an engi main, nothing current is as easy as turret engi was. by a long shot. mesmers do not simply click all the utilities and shatters and then autoattack from range. there is a certain ordering and timing required that turret engi simply did not have.

additionally, the leaderboards from that period of time reflected skill in no way.

Trap guardian says hi

People have an easier time beating trap guardian though… it’s actually some what laughable. Turret Engi technically had the same effectiveness in Tournaments, players simply out rotated them.

Full trap Guardian on the other hand.. pretty sure Karl stood around with a bucket to collect tears. Incomparable.

It’ll be some fun coding for the devs to do. Incorporating passive healing and both the fluctuation of condi damages with Might stacks may be a challenge, but it has been done in other Moba games quite efficiency.

This QoL change is welcomed.

MadVisions.4529:

Saiyan.1704:

blah, blah

u just dodged the whole purpose of this post

Pretty sure I answered the quote I posted.

MadVisions.4529:

mysterion.1276:

ANet doesn’t even want to split pvp/pve/wvw balance…

and what purpose does that serve? what is the cost? why is it important?

What purpose does that serve?
Guardians got nerfed in Conquest SPvP thanks to Anet catering to WvW Zergs.

What is the cost?
Guardians are now less viable than ever in SPvP… some even switched to Warrior because Guardian’s compensation for the 20% True Shot nerf was poorly executed.

• LB#5 never lands to gain any type of dmg buff & enemy players not caught can walk right through the cage.

Why is it important
Clearly, specific WvW changes has a direct negative effect to SPvP because the two are not seperated in terms of balance changes. They are not the same game modes and must be treated as such.

“Warriors can beat Mesmers now? Quick, lets nerf Guardian!”. -Anet logic

Semantics… Anet can’t learn anything from streetfighter anymore than they could from Pokémon or Need For Speed. It’s easy to talk about simplifying a game or buffing X class…

I completely disagree with removing more in-game content like Runes, Amulets, Sigs, etc. Everything can be balanced if tried… removing items is a laziman’s work.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Elegie.3620:

Are you guys for real? The weaponless druid was just kiting a warrior, who did not even care about it, as he was just keeping control of the node for the whole game. In the end, the warrior’s team won by a huge margin…

In addition, the streamer was completely shameless: complaining about his team mates being kittens and going AFK (guess why they did that and what they thought of him), saying the opposing team had bad rotations (but why try-hard when the opposing team cannot obviously make more than 65 points)…

It’s okay to try and stream such content, after all it can be entertaining, despite the obvious lack of respect towards fellow team mates. However, seeking some sense about it is foolish. The druid class may have too much sustain, or not – but such a video is nowhere near enough to make a valid proof.

This, pretty much.

@ op: nice try

Thanks for saving me the effort, guess there’s no need to watch the video :p

War, Mes, Nec are the only viable condi builds. Rev is the second most viable but often situational and not as efficient. Then you have everyone else.

Classes who have 0 issues with condi 1v1,
Druid – unless they’re heavily cc’d in the process (like war), but druid should win 100-0.
Engi – The fight will either last way too long to even care, or engi will win.
Ele – Basically same as engi.

Everyone else will likely lose to War (50% chance but depends on the war) or Mes but Necro has the shorter end of the stick when it comes to 1v1 effectiveness.

ellesee.8297:

One of the good things about GW2 is that you don’t have to waste time “growing your character”. You can just PvP from the getgo and be on the same level as everyone else.

I really tried to like LoL and other moba games… but I simply hate the genre (hated battling pve elements for the sake of pvping later).

displacedTitan.6897:

Other than WoW and Runescape (WHY?) no other MMO has any viewers either, especially a year+ after launch. They cost money to play, are a niche genre and are just boring to watch someone stream.

I love GW2 and I have never watched a stream of this game. I use twitch nearly everyday and watch all kinds of games on it so I, in theory, would be one of the viewers here. In reality, why watch an MMO?

If you base your love of a game on twitch viewership you are playing the absolutely wrong genre. You need a cheap/free, slow, easy to watch, pvp game ala DOTA2, LoL, CSGO, Hearthstone, etc. Also note that all the top streamed games have ONE game mode and its usually PvP.

/thread

not unless it always removes might or prot… but considering it’s technically a random removal due to the numerous boons that are constantly getting applied, it’s not nearly something to consider. imo.

I disprove of more cc in the game.. but I suppose a “next attack will interrupt” sigil that activates on weapon switch with a 30s icd should be ‘ok’.

echo.2053:

Chaith.8256:

ArenaNet is very adamant that skill splits are too much work to be possible.

lol they were able to do that in the previous game where there was numerous builds per a character but they can’t do it here where there are 2-3 builds MAX per a profession?

how many new games do you know that actually kept, to a T, the same builds/weapons/items/mechanics from it’s predecessor? You can rule out almost every MMO game.

Anet has a very different mindset “and newer faces” presently, than it did in GW1

Ryou.2398:

Obtena.7952:

Nothing wrong with retaliation but even if you want to make a retal damage build, you’re going to want a reliable, on demand way to get Retal (Virtues) and you’re still going to take Radiance for Retribution and use Active VoJ.

Damage and burning on Guardian go together like Peaches and Cream. Perhaps if you play around with that editor, you can show us what kind of build you are thinking of.

I see what your saying but like I said I didnt mean no burning at all so I dont see what the issue is, I also said a non burning build I dont see how it can be any more clearer.

The issue is you’re not being very clear in what you’re wanting, from the builds he’s offering you.

While burning is something that will happen, it’s in no way your primary damages. Burning (the small bit of it) is definitely something you’d want to have because it will give you damage modifiers.. that increases raw power dps.

So again, what is it about the build you don’t like and what is it you’re trying to achieve?

Burn Guardian
There are several items wrong with the DH tree that us burn Guardians are saying, “what?”.

• Defender’s Dogma only works when you’re hitting the target multiple times to apply burning right after you block. So using F3, pray people hit you numerous times, then pray you can land Whirling Wrath to return the same number of hits. Worse yet – blocking an attack to refresh F1 will override an already existing F1 proc… so it’s over lapping each other multiple times . Too many perfect scenarios are needed for this poor minor trait to be at all effective.

Defender’s Dogma can be changed 100 ways for burn guardians to utilize better… i’ll let Anet use their imagination because it’s darn easy to make work if they wanted to, without breaking the class.

As for current dps Guard.. there’s so many blocks in the game that you’re needing to use, at the very least, Test of Faith trap. F1 pull & LB knockbacks works too well at times when you absolutely need to interupt+dps. Especially a JI + ToF on a Druid who uses his teleport rez, it’s quickly interuptable.

Power builds are better performing than burn guard but once we miss our very few burst skills, we don’t have the mobility on the field to last until cds are up. We have to make very very few mistakes to be any way viable compared to most classes who have room for mistakes and then some.

Burtnik.5218:

Archon.6480:

No, the nerf to Moa is just about right. The 10s Moa was fine pre-HoT, but the elite specs can do too much damage to a fluffy little bird in 10s. If the mesmer times CS right, he can still dish out 12s of fluffy birdness, which is more than enough to mash someone into the ground.

20s of Moa with CS is silly. Mercenary Mesmer is still really strong so this is a nice shave.

You didnt read what i said at all, right? #gw2forum

I did, so i’ll answer on his behalf.

We all can agree that Core classes needs a buff and/or Elite specs needs a shave for the sake of build diversity, but the nerf to Moa was in the right direction.

Moa 10s cd was quite strong with CS. Players would either get blown up before moa ended or they were a few seconds shy of using a skill. The reason why CS wasn’t nerfed was because they didn’t want other Mesmer CS combos nerfed in the process… Anet weighed their options.

Yes, everything that’s Core needs a buff but this was strictly about CS + moa combo effect and their nerf had to not effect other items. If Anet truly wanted to buff core builds, they would have. And if they ever do, the moa nerfs are here to stay. The same goes for all core nerfs they’ve already done.

Silhouette.5631:

Right now permeating wrath has 2 issues

1. It’s almost useless in 1v1 fights
2. It’s IDIOTICALLY powerful in group fights
…. -snip

Want a more focused Condi burst? Roll a Warrior. Want some where in between but more viable in higher tier? Roll a Mesmer.

Guardian has always been strong in AoE damage dealing… you’re wanting a change to something that has always been true. Worse yet, to a skill that’s already very balanced.

Just roll a warrior dude, their single target burn stacks doesn’t need a group and it’s exactly what you’re asking for.
PS
If you’re wanting a more 1v1 oriented burn build, go Guardian runes, radiance & drop perneating wrath unless you can make it work without stability.

Sardath.8524:

At best, Anet should poll us about what weapons/traits/utilities should they work on next.

That’s exactly what their WvW poll was about, asking the community which items on their “roll out” list should be prioritized. Either ways, their item list will be rolled out in the upcoming patchs so it’s a matter of which ones we want first. The pollings have nothing to do with intricate PvP changes, though, suggestions are still welcomed i’m sure…

Anyways, I highly prefer this polling idea for several reasons,

• There’s likely a plethora of items on Anet’s “to do list”.
• It shows us what these items are, knowing we’ll get to them eventually.
• The community gets to choose which items are prioritized.
• It’s another form of interaction between the community and the Devs. More interacton the better!

Rezzet.3614:

just be glad you guys got a 20% nerf when it could ve easily taken a 60% nerf and/or have its CD raised to 10s

Perfectly fine with that. Just give Deflecting Shot a 37% damage buff in compensation.

A team can do a 1 2 1 split at the start of the match. If opposite team does the same, you now have two 1v1 fights going on. If it’s a close game, these fights may determine a node win and/or a +1 on either point.

1v1 is more of a factor than people think but it’s effectiveness is usually seen in Tournaments rather than soloQ.

3v3 TDM with Rounds and a time limit of 5m per round.
If time limit ends on a round with no stomps, team who had the lowest health threshold between the two teams will determine the winner. BO3

Darknicrofia.2604:

The thing that needs un-nerfing is the Hunter’s Ward skill function change.

True Shot’s nerf, although severe, is only secondary.

Darknicrofia.2604:

StickerHappy.8052:

Can we make ranger traps on par with DH traps now?

and while we’re at it, can we make guardian healing on par with druid?

StickerHappy.8052:

This is not even a comparison.

Druid is an elite spec that SOLELY REVOLVES ON HEALING

heck, even the class mechanic is 4/5 healing, Staff is 4/5 healing lol, no comparison

Darknicrofia made a good point. Last I checked, “Hunter” is part of the elite spec name that Guardians now are.

Why the heck would we want Druid’s core trap utilities on par with Dragonhunter’s elite spec traps? Back to point, you might as well make our core bunk supports as relevant as Druid’s Elite spec bunk supports… just not going to happen.

emkelly.2371:

Dragon Hunter
Great sustain: there is lots of active and passive sustain on the guardian and dragon hunter is no different. Don’t use OP professions as your judge as to what has more sustain. Tempest, Reaper, and Chrono especially. They are very overpowered right now.

Attacking side points
That’s because you are going about it wrong. You can’t land on a point, drop all your traps, then expect everyone to just die.

Defensing Side points
You do know that your traps last for 5 minutes right? that’s more than enough time for you to have full traps by the time your opponents show up. by they time they do show up you have already tailored the battle field to your advantage. Unless you have all your traps in one spot ( which you should not) it is likelly that they will:

• Pop PoB.
• Try to get out of PoB
• Run into another trap
• Try to get out of it pop stab, or any nuber of other moves
• Run into another trap
• another, and another, as you just create a zone of death and sadness and hit them with TS, Pulls, Knock backs, etc.
• Sure you may not be a bunker. you can’t likely fight more than two people effectively, but you are not meant to. you are a damage dealer, All those other classes that can be everything all at once are over powered. everyone knows that.

..Lets not assume that I unleash all of my traps at once like i’m an inexperienced player who’s “doing it all wrong”.

..Lets not assume I can “tailor the battlefield” by having enough time to pre-set traps. Lets not assume these traps can’t be blinded, evaded, or out right avoided altogether with ease… not counting our easy-to-avoid skill sets to make our trap combos like ToF + F1 pull worth while.

And lets not excuse my point about not having enough sustains compared to other classes simply because those classes are “op”.. … as if that’s suppose to mean they’re suddenly excused and my point is invalid.

To your conclusion,
The profession is the problem. Anet altered the LB#5 wayway wrong for starters but I guess WvW and PvP needs the same changes… /sarcasm
By the way I never once mentioned in my original post to Buff Guardians. You should probably stop assuming things.

Prelude
This is the first time that i’m immensely unhappy with the state of Guardian. During the celestial amulet era, Guardian was still ok in soloQ. We were still ok in certain 1v1 scenarios. We had a bunker build. We had a niche 1v1 burn build. We had a more competitive power variant. Though improvements were needed, It was “OK”.

The Burn era hit and I was ecstatic. We had changes to a build that a lot of players loved, albeit, niche at times but it worked. Burn Guard was meta for a short while following HoT…

HoT
I shouldn’t have to say how little build diverse HoT made the game… that in itself is a topic for another thread. My main concern, presently, is how ineffective Guardian has gotten. More importantly.. how another game mode influenced our class changes.

A large portion of the changes occurring for the guardian are aimed toward reducing the dragonhunter’s group controlling and killing capacity in WvW…

How can Anet balanced a class around a Game Mode that had nothing to do with a Structured PvP?

There’s a reason why it’s called Structured. It is arranged differently, and should act differently, than any other game mode. There should not be any conflict of interests between PvE, WvW and Structured PvP.

Here is what DH can’t do in Conquest, compared to other classes
DH can’t assault or defend side points efficiently like other classes…
DH can’t roam efficiently like other classes…
DH can’t support better than Ele or even Engi’s Gyros…
DH can’t self sustain better than other classes…

And I’m not just talking about Guardian. Thanks to Reapers no longer being the Achilles heel to the classes we absolutely can’t handle, our overall effectiveness in TPvP has reduced substantially.

Current meta is looking at Mes, Rev, Engi, Ele & Druid with Thief & DH being an arguable 5th maybe. Guard can do “ok” in team fights but… how the heck can we deal damages when our LB#5 Fails to hit a group, or our LB#3 15% dmg increase doesn’t do enough in a sustain fight to be worth a talk, & we can’t sustain as well as the mentioned team composition above? Hard to rotate a class to home or far to contest the point when you know that class has a 0 chance of winning it and the class can’t sustain well enough by his lonesome self on point.

TL;DR
The patch’s 20% True Shot nerf & LB#5 “block negates the skill completely” addition… is more effective than the Dev’s planned. The changes were influenced by WvW rather than Structured PvP. We have no build diversity and Guardian is starting to play very sour overall.

With that being said, we want to keep the dragonhunter competitive and still dealing high damage, but we want the damage dealt a little less instantly than before.

You’re making a class who was not mechanically made to sustain very well, have less burst damages. If my well timed True Shot lands but doesn’t damage enough, our Traps can’t burst well enough (previous nerf), we can’t land LB#5 efficiently enough, and we can’t sustain as well as other classes in a team fight to do it all over again… How exactly are you keeping Guardian “competitive” in PvP? It all sounds very counter intuitive.

Prelude
This is the first time that i’m immensely unhappy with the state of Guardian. During the celestial amulet era, Guardian was still ok in soloQ. We were still ok in certain 1v1 scenarios. We had a bunker build. We had a niche 1v1 burn build. We had a more competitive power variant. Though improvements were needed, It was “OK”.

The Burn era hit and I was ecstatic. We had changes to a build that a lot of players loved, albeit, niche at times but it worked. Burn Guard was meta for a short while following HoT…

HoT
I shouldn’t have to say how little build diverse HoT made the game… that in itself is a topic for another thread. My main concern, presently, is how ineffective Guardian has gotten. More importantly.. how another game mode influenced our class changes.

A large portion of the changes occurring for the guardian are aimed toward reducing the dragonhunter’s group controlling and killing capacity in WvW…

How can Anet balanced a class around a Game Mode that had nothing to do with a Structured PvP?

There’s a reason why it’s called Structured. It is arranged differently, and should act differently, than any other game mode. There should not be any conflict of interests between PvE, WvW and Structured PvP.

Here is what DH can’t do in Conquest, compared to other classes
DH can’t assault or defend side points efficiently like other classes…
DH can’t roam efficiently like other classes…
DH can’t support better than Ele or even Engi’s Gyros…
DH can’t self sustain better than other classes…

And I’m not just talking about Guardian. Thanks to Reapers no longer being the Achilles heel to the classes we absolutely can’t handle, our overall effectiveness in TPvP has reduced substantially.

Current meta is looking at Mes, Rev, Engi, Ele & Druid with Thief & DH being an arguable 5th maybe. Guard can do “ok” in team fights but… how the heck can we deal damages when our LB#5 Fails to hit a group, or our LB#3 15% dmg increase doesn’t do enough in a sustain fight to be wild, & we can’t sustain as well as the mentioned team composition above? Hard to rotate a class to home or far to contest the point when you know that class has a 0 chance of winning it.

TL;DR
The patch’s 20% True Shot nerf & LB#5 “block negates the skill completely” addition… is more ineffective than the Dev’s planned. The changes were influenced by WvW rather than Structured PvP. We have no build diversity and Guardian is starting to play very sour overall.

With that being said, we want to keep the dragonhunter competitive and still dealing high damage, but we want the damage dealt a little less instantly than before.

You’re making a class who was not mechanically made to sustain very well, have less burst damages. If my well timed True Shot lands but doesn’t damage enough, our Traps can’t burst well enough (previous nerf), we can’t land LB#5 efficiently enough, and we can’t sustain as well as other classes in a team fight… How exactly are you keeping Guardian “competitive” in PvP? It all sounds very counter intuitive.

The two are hardly comparable…

Cynz.9437:

Saiyan.1704:

Firebird.8324:

Cynz.9437:

Evan Lesh.3295:

More… Llamas?

But seriously what would you like to see on that vendor?

Account bound HoT mats (e.g. auric dust), t6 mats, ascended weps/armor, skins, bags?

NO, no pve garbage, JUST exclusive pvp skins OR black lion tickets OR money.

Agree completely. Coming from a rank 80 Legendary player with 3k+ Rank & Unranked games under my belt, I would prefer more PvP centric rewords.

What I would like,

• Unlocking long term armor & weapon skins that could be earned through PvP, but can’t be obtainable in PvE.
• Adding additional titles for players who reach 3.5k, 4k, 4.5k games.
• A “prestigue” mode to reset our Ranks back to 1, with a new emblem associated with each prestigue.
  (Again, us pvp players like to show ourselves off!)

Wish list
I would love to mix and match my Outfit Armor skins.. that would be just awesome. Be cool if we reach a certain requirement in PvP; where we’re alowed to match a single outfit with another one, assuming we already own the outfit in the store. So there’s a long term goal to unlock outfit swaps in pvp, as well as a bigger incentive to buy outfits in the store.

Oh since we are throwing titles lel. Coming from veteran player with 5k+ games, legend season 1&2, top 100 on old non-farm LBs, winner of pugquest: i would REALLY love to gain some pve stuff from pvp so i do NOT have to grind pve non-stop just for skin but rather by doing what i like – pvp. With STYLE!

twirls fingers

Ok point taken :<
I still want my wish list though!