Guild Wars 2

Even though most people concentrate on applying damage, I like the “save allies” or “deal damage” option it has. To be honest, it should have its own burn effects as well since F1 is mainly single target, random proc damage.
Maybe an additional “burn once per third hit” effect.

Other than that, I like Torch #5.

The thing is, sustains come from mobility as well. Since we lacked mobility, our sustains is worse than everyone else. Add poor “spear head” control options and we easily fall behind against these mobile self-sustaining classes.

We don’t need mobility because that’s not the Guardian’s style. That said.
HoT gave us a ‘bit’ more mobility through virtues, an actual range weapon with control options and an immobilize F1 effect that may or may not be useful depending on its mechanic. We’ll have to see how effective these additions truly are. I would have settled for a 3/4s teleport instead :p

Not everyone likes Meditations nor do they want medi to be the only viable spec option. I see people wanting a bit more higher burst and traps offer just that. Traps is also a new playground for people who are looking for a different playstyle.

Speaking of diversity, I do wish Sigils would get a functionality upgrade. It’s be nice if we could actually use sigils to target and buff people instead of ourselves but I guess that’s the role for Druid and Revenents.

GS with Hammer is great in team fights. Far more superior than Sc/Focus in that regard. Personally, I find it more fun to use.

People use Sc/Focus for when they need to play defensively while also offering some form of range dps. Its Immobilize skill is great for setting up the focus target burst too. Focus offers additional sustains (even if it’s a little) from condi cleanses and #5 blocks. The #5 can even offer a very nice aoe burst effect if used correctly.

I like sword because it offers more direct dps; as well as, offering better cleaving abilities from its auto attack than the Scepter. Flashing blade is great for attaching yourself to targets, or simply for mobility purposes.

A few guards like using Staff in the offhand to offer additional support and control… that’s mainly their own personal play-style, though.

TBH, all are viable in their respective rolls with some weapons simply being more popular than others. Hope that helps

Edit: Just noticed OP said PvE… Sorry! I hope the weapon descriptions still help for PvE as well.

Raw Damage
Virtues/Valor/DH – Meditations Hammer/Bow
Valor/Virtues/Honor – Zerk & Soldier runes. (switch CoP out for “Retreat”)

Condi Damage
DH/Radiance/Virtues – Bow/Sc – If Permeating Wrath changes to “on target”.
Radiance/Virtues/Valor – Sce/Foc + sw/tor. Just Smite and sword#3 will offer 7+ burn stacks.

Royale.5863:

I hope that’s not the case because the same new players will also have to deal with their own armor/trinket/weapon choices in PVE and WVW anyway.

Bad players can get away with what ever customizations they want in PvE and WvW. Not so much in PvP. Also, by the time players reach lvl 80 they have some grasp of the runes/gems/armor sets that work or don’t work. PvP isn’t as forgiving.

Anet has simplified it so new pvp players don’t have to worry about what works and what doesn’t. In fact, Anet has specialized these meta builds so that new players are more likely to go Meta by default instead of using a random trait build. The change is better, imo.

1……..627……….Tibs.2783……..Tibs Ironblood……..W762……..L357……..68.10%
2……..564……….darres.8203………..Xdarresx…………..W720……..L583……..55.26%
Idk about yall but that looks kitten impressive compared to the past leaderboards. There’s no way I could play that many games with a near 60 or 70% win rate.
I’ll call this progress.

What I wholeheartedly believe is that every player should receive a monthly cap and when reached, that player’s “Season” would be completed. Must like a Golf player finishing a game early. He has his score card ready but he still has to wait for everyone else to finish. This way, everyone is on the same page.

Please tell me that you’ll try that out as a last resort?
I’m glad ya’ll are continually trying to improve the system but I feel the “grindiness” is inevitable; players who play 9 games a day will always be ahead compared to casual 3 games-per-day players

Like the title says.

Premades will win by either skrits and 5man pushing/support at start.
or
Win by timer and snowball the other team

In the end, what I see is a zerg fiesta where people are ignoring objectives by bottlenecking mid, their own gate and/or camping the enemy’s base all together.

This is mainly due to the fact that no one is bound to the game’s objectives. It would be very sad if this showed in every Stronghold Tournament where two teams are just battling it out at middle all day till the timer runs out.

Premade vs Solo is always going to yield a terrible experience, sure. What i’m afraid of is that in the end, it’s going to be a zerg vs zerg mid battle all day with the occasional channeling and krit summons.

I’ve been getting 1-3m queues.
Should I make a “Everyone likes Stronghold” thread?

Bitoku Kishi.8346:

Even with the added timer now, it’s pretty much a guaranteed win as long as your team does two things and only two things:
1. make skritt
2. rush their base/lord.
The only way to counter this tactic is for the other team to do the same thing but even faster. Defense is completely pointless. 90% of the stuff in the map is pointless distraction, including the hero spawns. All that matters is dumping all your initial supply into skritt door bombers at the start, and then following them to victory.

One of the main reasons defense is pointless is because it takes almost as much effort to get to your own lord as it does theirs. A possible solution I can think of that might help is to make it a lot easier to get between your own base and your own lord. If the developers don’t want to redesign the whole geography of the map, then maybe an allied-only teleporter that can take you back and forth between a spot near your initial spawn area (maybe where the supply doors are) and your lord’s room would work out well.

You haven’t seen a syncronized team on the defense.

Push is countered
Zerk/Dps class will lose to a cele/sustain classes. No npcs will get through because all of them are dead with AoE.

To top it off you’ll never get a soul channel. They’re so bunky that you’ll need to 1v2 or 1v3 + hard focus to down 1 player (with perma stability) in 10s

Played a game against Radioactive team.

They were all Sustain Bunker classes and went 100% defensive.
They grabbed every Heroes channel because there’s no counter for it.

In short… no one knew what to do. Lost 80-600

Archers needs to ignore players until all the Guards are down.

Larynx.2453:

Of course this turns into a “WARRIOR OP” rant.

Warriors aren’t OP. We’re simply discussion the lack of counterplay the Channeling has when a perma stability warrior is on it.

Thieves > Rangers > Mesmers > everyone else.
Probably in that order. 1v1 is not balanced at all. The only thing that balances this game is Conquest, imo.

So, what counters what in Conquest?
This gets more complex with different builds @ node holding/assaulting roles. For the sake of this argument, we assume everyone is using Meta.

2v2 / 3v3
Shoutbow + Ele usually reign supreme. You can basically mix and match these two classes with anyone and they’ll be great 2v2 contenders. Everyone else are mediocre and “balanced” in comparison.

Solo Queue/Hot Joins is completely opposite and lopsided from the above info. That’s another TL:DR post.

What if we had a “grindy” addition (no more grindy than it already is) where we had to make sigils/runes/gear pieces and gain level-ups ourselves?

I don’t think it’s completely out of the question considering Stronghold already has that NPC grind factor. I do, however, see a huge snowball effect happening. There would have to be certain elements that added strategy so a person wouldn’t die all too easily when going for an objective. Then again, maybe level ups shouldn’t exist but instead have item upgrade possibilities.

The reason I ask is because there’s a sense of achievement to it. People like the extra immersion or “sense of accomplishment” when killing a player and reaching an item. It’s why Moba style games are popular. It’s not just because of all the strategy and careful footwork in play (it does take more strategy) but it has a sense of achievement within the gametype itself such as upgrades.
Getting a player kill is the highest achievement possible but I didn’t feel that so much in Stronghold beta.

There’s a few ways it can be implement but it’s a matter of whether or not it’ll improve what we’ve already seen in Stronghold beta. Also, is ArenaNet willing to part with Conquest all together if Stronghold in general becomes super popular?

What are yall’s thoughts?

Brix.8461:

This is tonight! 20 teams signed-up, remember it’s the first 16 teams to check-in who gets a spot!

What are the odds 4 teams don’t check in o_o

I imagine there will be more teams signing up too :P

Harrier.9380:

Saiyan.1704:

• Automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
  Yes – That is if we can buy gems (tickets) for in game tournaments rather than having a third party set Tournaments up. ESL is a big esports site but they’re only really needed for sponsorship and advertisement purposes. I rather receive cash prizes rather than lame gem rewards. Remember, they don’t want to give away Gems because the Store is how they make most of their monies.

There used to be Paid Tournaments that required tickets and gave gems as reward. Probably my favourite period of gw2 pvp. Those didn’t really work out though, as only a few teams ever made it past the first round. Everyone else was forced to farm Free Tourneys for tickets.
Having tons of gems was cool, facing same guys all day – a bit boring.

Oh, I had no idea. Could you buy tickets in game or was this strictly outside the game?

bhagwad.4281:

I’d like some really long term meaningful PvP only rewards. Long term as in it will take around a year (or more) to obtain. The reward could be anything unique – a mini, a precursor, a title, some skin.

As long as it’s tough to achieve, and takes a long time to get, I’ll be happy. The current reward tracks are too easy – anyone can do them. I’d like something to demonstrate real dedication to the game.

So much this.

PvP needs a PvE equivalent Legendary grind system. I’m been PvPing for about 1608 hours and have 3k AP. You can imagine how much I (don’t) PvE.

Nova Stiker.8396:

There is a lot of things wrong with Guild Wars 2 PvP and it’s very apparent ArenaNet struggles to pin point the issue.

You and I perceive that thread very differently. They have statistics that literally shows them what we do and don’t like. They also realizes that pvp needs more resources than the current priorities they currently have allocated.

Celestials vs Conditions vs everything else is just a balance issue, that’s… imo.. going to be fixed in Stronghold. That’s not to say balancing isn’t needed, though.

Bad players justifying Ranger’s “op” abilities in Hotjoin matches.
High tier “good” players justifying Ranger’s abilities in TPvP.
Speculating Ranger’s abilities in Stronghold.

Ranger’s are getting a Staffy team-support abilities (from guardian) and to be honest, they needed it. Yes, Ranger’s are considered low-tier classes in PvP.
Getting hit with Rapid Fire 20 times because you can’t dodge, does not help your case any.

Stronghold: Rangers have higher bursts than condi Engi’s do. Ranger’s have a condi build that = condi engi’s. Saying Ranger’s wont be viable in Stronghold is about as false as saying Thieves will be OP in Stronghold. On the contrary, Thieves will probably be the weakest class in Stronghold unless their specialization buffs them up.

MadVisions.4529:

video show nothing new. thx for post though!

what you need:
- free entrace to HotM && pvp (lock trading post & inventory entierly)
- MMR based ladderboards with ingame list and visible MMR.
- automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
- separate PvP and PvE abilityes (like C&D) and traits to make balance easyer.
- PvP balancing/development team who works faster than 6 monts/patch
- pure Solo and pure 5 man que (you can allways find +3 in town if you are with a mate. it even worked in gw1 where you had 8 man teams.)
- forget mobas. GW2 isnt a moba or anything like it. its original its unique. so forget Stronghold. try to focus on less complex objectives like you did in gw1(gj there).
- add free camera to spectator mode so events cant actually streemaed correctly. those viev points are just horrible.
- implement spectator mode. (the option to spectate someone on theyr own vievpoint in like a ranked/unranked game)
- replace/add revard tracks with ones last ~5… 10x the time to complete can differ.<— add meaningful revards (idc can be bunch of laurels/random exotic iteam from a list/skinns like glorious/etc.. you got the idea) this shoud lure more casual ppl into pvp

just some ideas that came @first out of my mind. so as you guessed a lot of things are needed..

• Free entrance to HotM && pvp (lock trading post & inventory entirely)
  No – Some players enter HotM just for the trading post and bank convenience.
  We want the Mists to be better not worse!

• MMR based ladderboards with ingame list and visible MMR.
  No – Not unless they fix all the Bad that MMR leaderboard had.
  I rather they finish what they started with the current leaderboard until they say it was a failure. I’m optimistic in that their revision could cater to both high MMR players and “grindy” players.
  Yes to some type of Leaderboard plus or minus system you can see in game.

• Automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
  Yes – That is if we can buy gems (tickets) for in game tournaments rather than having a third party set Tournaments up. ESL is a big esports site but they’re only really needed for sponsorship and advertisement purposes. I rather receive cash prizes rather than lame gem rewards. Remember, they don’t want to give away Gems because the Store is how they make most of their monies.

• Separate PvP and PvE abilityes (like C&D) and traits to make balance easier.
  Yes/No – Don’t change the actual skills or abilities, only their numbers. Example: Torment in PvE is a lot Stronger on NPC’s than Players in PvP. I bet Burn and Poison stacking in PvP/WvW will be vastly different than PvE Boss fights. They should not be based on the same mechanics at all.

• PvP balancing/development team who works faster than 6 monts/patch
  Yes – 6months/1yr pvp balance or changes is not enough. But to be honest, I rather more resources go towards Rewards and Leaderboards. Things could be changed for sure… but nothing is completely gamebreaking imo.

• Forget mobas. GW2 isnt a moba or anything like it. its original its unique. so forget Stronghold. try to focus on less complex objectives like you did in gw1(gj there).
  Yes – Mobas (or any other game) can be a huge learning curve to figure out what works and what doesn’t. But on many levels, an MMO is vastly different than a Moba. Thankfully ArenaNet realizes that.
  No – I personally like Stronghold and I think it’ll outlast Conquest but we’ll see.

• Feplace/add reward tracks with ones last ~5… 10x the time to complete can differ.<— add meaningful revards (idc can be bunch of laurels/random exotic iteam from a list/skinns like glorious/etc.. you got the idea) this shoud lure more casual ppl into pvp
  Yes – Reward tracks should be more rewarding and take 5x the effort. It was way too easy obtaining all the Glorious armor pieces. Much so that I feel i’m no different than a noobie player. But no doubt, thse reward tracks is great for casuals.

• Yes – Perhaps there should be another PvP oriented objectives we have to achieve (obtaining X amount of kills, stomps, etc) in order to receive X item. Similar to 6 months of farming for a Legendary in PvE. PvP players want that same luxury!! Let us farm Objectives/goals to receive X PvP item!

I like your ideas MadVision, especially in regards to the reward system.

Sebrent.3625:

Guardians countering Thieves is far less of a problem than the many classes/builds that Thieves counter.

Why? Because a Thief is far more mobile than a Guardian so can escape that counter. Those that a Thief counters are not as mobile as the Thief so don’t have the same luxury.

Translation:

“Guardian’s have a tougher time fighting a thief than other classes.
Because Guardian’s are not as mobile as a thief compared to other classes.
The classes that lose to a thief are not as mobile as the Thief.”

Not true at all.
Guardian’s typically have an easier time fighting Thieves than other classes.
Also
I’ve seen a completely immobile class beat a higher mobile class.
No matter the mobility, it all comes down to execution… what you do in a certain situation.

Because I feel the need to write an essay.

WvW
They’re good at peeling away in heat of battle, 1 good rez/rally skill, great 1v1 surprise ganking skills and focus targeting skills. That’s pretty much all they’re good for. To be honest, they perform a whole lot better in Conquest than WvW Zerg fests because it takes a skillful thief to focus target properly in large groups without getting downed in the process.

Conquest
Besides the fact they’re the best class for countering Mesmers and Rangers, backcapping and quickly adding a +1 in fights is the reason why they’re meta. The last two items alone has such a large influence in Conquest that most teams demand at least 1 thief in their compositions.

Duels
They’re arguably one of the best 1v1 classes around. This is due in part that they can easily outplay other classes by peeling away at any moment. They can also enter stealth for long periods of time to the point where they regen most of their health while also gain the majority of their cooldowns.
The only other classes that could take this 1v1 realm are Rangers and certain Mesmers. Granted, thieves have to try harder to beat these two classes but they can indeed do so. Arguably, more efficiently than others.

TL:DR
In a matchup, you really can’t say,
“If both people are equal of skill, than class X is victorious”
because there is no method to determine skill. The meta (and now, game modes) varies so much that it’s nearly impossible to say. In 1v1, (my specialty) I will say that it’s a 4:6 or 6:4 win/lose ratio when it comes to Guardian vs Thief. The balance really is there… though, you can’t say the same for other class matchups.

jihm.2315:

i think a skilled theif has the upper hand vs medi guards at least in a 1 vs 1 fight

Thieves have the upper hand in most 1v1 fights. They’re practically 1v1 kings but a poor class in zergs. That is, in comparison to guard, ele, & war.
It’s why a lot of people think thieves are terrible in everything except backcapping and causing a +1.

We’re going to receive a shield that blocks melee and projectiles. But there has been nerfing threads about the Engineers Gear shield.. so will Guardians receive the same nerf threads with Shield of Courage?

Many think DH lacks support roles but I find F3 to be very supportive. Especially if Renewed Focus is equipped. That leaves not just two aoe Aegis procs but two melee & projectile blocks for your allies.

What makes it balance is that unlike the Gear shield, SoC is 5s directional AoE Ally block rather than an AoE Selfish block. Also it has a higher CD but if Renewed Focus is equipped, then it can be used twice in a row with a 3s invulnerability in between. I can’t imagine how much team wide damage F3 could negate in a 50v50 Zerg battle.

I think Shield of Courage is just right where it is but i’m curious what everyone else thinks.

Ezrael.6859:

Saiyan.1704:

Bow has excellent Zerging abilities like perma Cripple on three targets, #5’s AoE pindown and finally a high damaging piercing shot that also reflects projectiles.

Bow appeared to hit 2 not 3 targets with the auto-attack.

Number 3 doesn’t reflect projectiles it destroys them.

Ugh I really need to pay more attention i’m losing it! :p
Thanks for the correction.

Ragnarox.9601:

Thieves win vs every class easy if you know to play it. (~70% winrate )
Guardians often die if they miss they burst or waste all of their CD’s.

Pretty much this.

Thieves are one of the best, if not the best duelists in the game. Fortunately for us, there are more bad thieves than good.

This has been discussed numerous times but i’ll give you a brief summary.

^ A start to the Esports road.

The only reason this game isn’t “esports” is because they didn’t intended for it to be. Period. I’m tired of people saying “Anet made fail esports game”.
No, they didn’t. They Never stated such things.

pandagirlfans

No game should aim for esports at start.

It should first be playable and fun, from there it will start to grow its player base. Then you lay down the foundation like ladders and matchmaking to form a community for players that are competitive. Then you can throw money at it and go for esports.

Drennon.7190:

Aktium.9506:

GrandHaven.1052:

You didn’t clear 14000 worth of burning damage(yes THOUSAND). LOL. That just invalidates your post.

Some VERY easily avoided skills that you should not have been hit by.
Prybar.
Rush.
8 hits of hundred blades, WTF. LOL
Not to mention most of these show you were heavily outnumbered most likely.

Choose your battles, that will help you manage your HP pool.

I’m not sure you’re qualified to lecture a guy who plays for oRNG.

It doesn’t take a super 1337 pro to realize that the 900dmg sigil proc isn’t what is killing him in these situations. Look at some of the attacks he took to the face. With out without the procs, he would have been dead.

Exactly.
Granted, he’s likely to get hit with a single Pry Bar, Hundred Blades or any other high damaging skill because no one’s Superman. He can’t dodge every skill in a zerg scenario lasting 30-40 seconds. But the fact remains; he still got hit with these skills.

The point is, those skills are dodgeable/cleansible while a 900 damage sigil isn’t. To be honest, these sigils should be removed from the damage screen as they’re not going to be reworked anytime soon. ArenaNet is understaffed and a rework would take too much development time. They’re not going to remove sigils completely as it’s a huge diversity option people like to have and ArenaNet likes diversity (i do too).

Yes, I agree that every aspect of this game should be “skill based” but lets face it, there’s going to be random procs in some form or fashion .
If they remove sigils, they’ll likely have to increase Berzerker damage by 300 dps to balance things. The damage would have to come from some where. Again, too much work.

Many people need to learn to accept that Air/Fire sigils is an expectancy when someone autos. It’s no more random than an auto attack from across the screen. If it hits you, it’s going to hurt. Because Zerkers.

No doubt Sigils is what’s beating you.

It’s not the 3k Pry Bar that hit you once.
or the 2x Mighty Blow you failed to dodge… twice.
or that one 4k Rush you took to the face.

It’s those 5 or 7 procs of 900 damage that you took in 30 seconds, right?
Darn the luck!

Aeolus.3615:

i got a question….
by the topic “DH trait line – lacking support for melee” isnt this the same to say zeal does not help LB weapon or valor goes the same way???

Guard cliche > :] specialization is the lonbow and the traps for controling points with almost 60sec interval why should it had bonus to melee and range weapons, if guards got it in other traits?

Exactly. I’m not understanding this thread either.

The Scepter+Focus combo will still be a more viable 1v1 option than Bow.
The Bow is a more viable 3v3+ Zerging weapon that the Scepter.

Bow has excellent Zerging abilities like perma Cripple on three targets, #5’s AoE pindown and finally a high damaging piercing shot that also reflects projectiles.

Scepter is fine in melee range but not so much over 400 radius. It’s single targeting abilities such as #2 & #3, along with cleanses, and blocks on Focus #4 & #5 makes sce/f combo a sure winner for 1v1/2v2 small skirmish fights.

It’s ultimately going to depend on build specializations and play styles but I see a lot of WvW Guardians choosing the Bow for obvious reasons. I’ll probably be one of the DH Guardians who chooses Scepter/Focus over the Bow because I’m going Condition spec.

Sce/F clearly has higher F1 procs than the Bow That said, the bow is still better in Zergs scenarios. I’m torn between the two!

Black Box.9312:

Sigh… People assuming they know what I think and mean, when really they don’t at all. :(

So misunderstood. Don’t let heavy criticism discourage your posts! Keep at em! Show em’ how it is!
RAWR! :P

Bash.7291:

As i said, and have been trying for forever, a torment trait in radiance would have been the true fix we need.

I kinda disagree on Torment as it doesn’t exactly match a Guardian’s style. Cripple is more suiting for us and i’m glad they went that route. It doesn’t just help our poor mobility but also gives us another item that we lacked, condi coverages. Same goes for Bleeds in the DH line but I do kinda wish that trait replaced Radiant Retaliation in Radiance. My goodness… why did they keep RR!? It needs to be more useful.

I absolutely wish they decide to make Permeating Wrath effect On Target. That would make for a nice glassy DH Bow/Scepter build. Bow auto will cause a 520 aoe burn proc. With air/fire sigs a single 1 hit can potentially cause 2-3 stacks of burns ^.^
Wouldn’t be very good in 1v1 fights but… that’s why sce/f will be on the offhand!

Arken.3725:

I am with the crowd that’s curious as to why we got traps when we have symbols/consecrations. It is what it is.

Each specialization take something from another profession.

• Mesmers learned Wells from Necros.
• Necros learned Shouts from Warriors.
• Druids will learn symbols/concecrations from Guardians. Speculation.

It’s quite ingenius, really. Cuddos to the Devs. Evolution in the Lore is happening “right before our eyes”! :p

Since we’re learning from Rangers, we were going to either learn Survival or Trap utilities. Because both classes already share Spirits, Signets, and Shouts.

I don’t know about you but Traps are 10x more interesting than Survival utilities lol.

Black Box.9312:

No, wards and Sanctuary are not reliable knockbacks. They are completely contingent upon the enemy running into them. You don’t need cripple when they’re trapped inside the ring. You need cripple when they teleport out of it and are opening the gap between you. This is the reason why I didn’t even consider them in the first place, because they are not controlled by you, but rather by the enemy deciding to run into it without first popping stability. And it’s just plain dumb to assert that using a knockback with a melee weapon is an effective way to keep the enemy in range of your attacks, because it has literally the opposite effect.

Say what?
Pretty sure the WTS Champion Tage, as well as most hamguards, will disagree with you on that one.

Ring of Warding is pretty much the only reason Hamguards work. The warding has a massive AOE control effect towards the entire team. It Does knockback and it Does act as a support for melee classes due to its heavy control usage.

The same applies for LB #1 Cripple autos and the knockback trait effect. This isn’t intended to be more effective than hammer #5. Only supplementive.

Towards OP & Title of thread
On that note, DH is Not lacking support for melee classes.

Future Rebuttal Question: Then the bow is needed to support melee builds

We also have
-F2 4k damage leap trait.
-Traps causes bleeds
-Big Game Hunter’s 15% damage modifier.
The damage modifier alone should cover melee classes. Do you want every aspect of the DH tree to cover Melee builds? We should be lucky that DH touches some aspect of bunker/support/dps/condi in one tree.

The Specialization tree is not suppose to replace any of the other trees at all!

Traditional Medi meta is there.
The Hammer meta is there.
Bunk Guards are there.
Hybrid Guardians are arguably better now than ever

Not having a 20% weapon switch reduction cd is the least of my worries right now. Lets face it, that trait isn’t exactly game breaking. The Specializations are prioritizing the builds the majority already use. People can’t use absurd non-meta “random allocated trait” builds like 5/2/5/1/1 or similiar. I’m not saying these are bad builds… …i’m just saying you don’t have to think as much anymore… yea that’s what i’m saying.

AGGabriel.9230:

The thief was an example (i hope just an example)
But the current 2 professions i see over advantage on the DH, compare the new access of each profession how will it counter
Example of some chronomancer traits (i find my head tilted to one side and think,
How the hell will i cope with this ?)
-Flow of Time – Gain alacrity when you shatter. (1s) (That is 4/5 !!! and mesmers usually use them all)
-Illusionary Reversion – Gain a clone after you activate a shatter skill (so pop 3 clones shatter in you alacrity comes with it, pop 1 back as a back up and send it there and so on.. , soo.. run from them yea right with what ? stop them with what Puncture Shot? that will cripple (2s) if there are more but not slow them towards you)
-Lost Time – Every 3rd critical hit will slow your target. (2s of Slow) (soo… perma slow on me already having a godly slow cooldown on the guardian skills)
Should i continue about the reaper ?

It would make for an interesting discussion :)
Added spoilers for ease of read.

Condi vs Mesmers/Thieves
Because I need to mention something about condi guardians, all the time :)

Our 1300 damage ticks during weapon switch+judge’s intervention will be nerfed to 1k damage ticks. Edited: Excuse me, 900’ish damage. Poison’s dmg is nerfed too.

The good: our F1 burns will no longer stack in duration, so Mesmers and Thieves can immediately feel every single burn proc burst.

The bad: Instead of applying 7s worth of 800 burn ticks right before they stealth, we’ll likely only deal 500 burns at any one time…What made hybrid guardians so great was the fact that we didn’t need to glue ourselves to any one target because mobility sucked. Now we NEED to glue ourselves to a target to stack shorter F1 procs. This is both rewarding and dangerously risky for a multitude of reasons.

It’s more of a 50/50 matchup.
What’s funny (or sad) is that there’s not many Necros to duel. I usually only face them in structured pvp.

Power Necros
Don’t usually have issues. When they try bursting, they get blocked and blinded hard.
In the heat of battle however, they usually get off that 7k Lich damage before I realize “oh kitten it’s a Lich”. If my utilities are exhausted during this encounter then i’m pretty much dead.

I call it a 50/50 matchup because i’ve fought some really good Necros where it took a couple of rez’s to beat him. But eventually I did. There’s obviously more bad players than good so you’re going to get a lot of different views.

Black Box.9312:

Basically, people finally realized that warrior makes for a better guardian than guardian does.

And medi guardian makes for a better warrior than a warrior does.

Black Box.9312:

Totbot.4583:

You can make a melee DH build that doesn’t use a single trap or a bow and all you really lose out on is a single minor trait. That’s not that big of a deal. You also don’t need to take any of the cripple stuff.

First tier lets you add damage and immob to your virtue leap. That seems fine for melee since its melee that’s going to want to leap to an enemy and keep it in place. 2nd tier you can take Bulwark. A bigger and longer shield is pretty good for melee since it’ll allow you to negate range attacks on you and your team until you can get into melee range. Big Game Hunter is obviously amazing.

All 3 new virtues also work great for melee. Leaps are great for melee. Being able to block attacks is great for melee. The justice tether requires you to stay somewhat close to the enemy, so yet again just fine for melee.

If you’re not seeing any potential for melee with Dragonhunter you just aren’t looking hard enough. Or you’re really caught up on a single minor trait. But guess what? Not all minor traits are always going to be super useful or powerful for every build. Reaper has a minor trait that chills on fear. That’s really only going to be useful if you build around having a lot of fear sources. If you don’t, you’re only going to have one skill that fears so the minor trait is underwhelming.

A dragonhunter that doesn’t use the bow is only hindering himself by not taking a traitline better suited to his build, IMO. It has no synergy with the base class.

Completely not true.

Bad speculation is bad.

SlayerSixx.5763:

How on earth do you lose to mesmers, rangers, and thieves? Also, hammer guards give you trouble? Their slow, extremely telegraphed attacks give you problems? What on earth are you running with?

21614 is refering to traditional medi.
I hardly lose to hamguards with absolute resolution but if they elite my krait and actually manage AR + contemplation then I could be toast.

You never fought a good mesmer, thief, ranger 1v1. I can message you the names of people who you’ll likely never beat consistently if you’d like. The majority are in Fear.

I thought I could down any cele ele until I actually found a couple who I couldn’t beat. The same probably applies to you and these classes.

back on topic:
Burn guards will be more aggressive in their bursts but even more suceptable to getting countered.

misterdevious.6482:

Radiant Retaliation still broken in beta too.

#Facepalm
/Facepalm
cout << “facepalm”;

SlayerSixx.5763:

Funny thing is, I’ve seen you duel some people before. You downed anyone who wasn’t a cele Ele without so much as breaking a sweat. In fact, I remember you facing a theif and downing him after landing a total of THREE autos. Such skill.

Then i’ll tell you the duels you don’t see that consistently wins.
Rangers
Spirits, power, condi is 50/50
Engi
Cele rifle nades, condi is 50/50
War
Cleansing Ire + Berserker/Enduring Pain build.
Mesmer
PU/Shatter/Mantra builds
Necro
MM build, 50/50 some power build
Cele
d/f or very good cele d/d. Any diamond skin eles.
Guard
21614 meta. Yea, the good guards can beat me consistently.
Thief
meh.. 50/50 Good thieves should always win cause, they’re thieves.

That was from the top of my head. Now add a shoutbow as a +1 and it’s gg for me… :/

SlayerSixx.5763:

Guardians are not hybrid because they’re bad at applying conditions. That’s dumb.

A large part of the community corrected me in that Condition Guardians were not “condi”. It mainly had to do with exactly what you just said. So if we’re not Condi then what are we? Hybrid.
Meh, Potato tomatoe. The term just stuck.

SlayerSixx.5763:

The reason why zerker is more prominent is because it has more reward for the better you get.

That’s highly opinionated and arguable. Hybrid Guardian builds have to focus target more carefully compared to Zerkers for obvious reasons. Not to mention we literally have to keep an eye on each classes utility cleanses like an Ele’s water splash in Water attunement, Engi’s Healing turret or even the Warriors adrenaline usage. If you’d like to continue to compare the two builds, I can go into further detail regarding the Hybrid Guard rotations and strategies to compare skill curves.
I rather we start another thread for that. :p

SlayerSixx.5763:

Again, unless you’re S/D thief, most people can cleanse 3-5 condis per 30-40 seconds, so saying that the amount of cleanse vs the amount of conditions that can be applied is balanced, you’re crazy. To make matters worse, the only real way to counter condis is through cleanse and you’re stuck facing 99% of condi builds that can apply them on their auto (most of which happen to be ranged).

It’s not balanced, that’s the point. There’s a reason why Condi (in general) isn’t meta. AoE condi dps gets washed away by high amounts of syncronized team cleanses. Even dueling, every class has a build that can completely counter a Hybrid Guardian. Quite consistently actually. In fact, 5 of these builds are meta. I’ve been dueling long enough to know that if a class doesn’t beat me on their meta build, they have no idea how to fight a hybrid guardian.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Nike.2631:

Having only one way to build is the complete opposite of skill for a game designer though.

There’s plenty of ways they could diversify play styles without making them incredibly passive. Giving AI builds the ability to ACTUALLY micro manage their summons, different DPS mechanics like them building on their shatters (they did a nice job with chrono IMO), make support less boon sharing and more control based (kinda what they did with DH, although traps are a little iffy). There are PLENTY of ways. With HoT coming out, they’ve done a lot of good kitten with the elites and trait reworks, but they need to streamline their game so that they don’t run into issues later on.

I completely agree that there should be less passive play in the game but you would have to completely change the core mechanics of every class. It’s just not going to happen.

All Cele builds play 2x more passively than Condi classes. They have high amounts of regen, peels, damage negation utilities, CC, raw damage and conditions for irony. If any one of these aspects were removed they wouldn’t be meta. Yet pure condition specs are called “passive builds”.
That label isn’t exactly politically correct.

Guardians are Hybrids for a reason. We only have 1 condition that’s easily cleansed off. Half the time we have to engage and land 5 attacks to proc said condition. If we’re not dealing damage then we’re going to block and blind you till we eventually can. That right there is why Guardian, by nature, is a passive aggressive class.

Yet, HoT is making guardians more aggressive. At least in the condi/hybrid aspect of it. Compared to Zerk meta, condi guards will have the higher risks for sure. Not that we don’t already.
I don’t play condi because it’s easy. In fact, i’m often challenged more due to the amount of counters the build has in high level play.

Supreme.3164:

…Haaa..the old law of MMOs

Dear Devs do pls nerf rock, paper is fine and needs no change, it’s balanced

Regards

Scissor

To be quite fair, Cele is half of all three with no specific weaknesses.

I didn’t vote because it was kind of a trick question.

Separating solo and team pvp:
I didn’t vote for this because I rather spend my vote on a better leaderboard in general.
Also, soloQ leaderboard was worthless on all accounts.

The MMR based leaderboard:
Didn’t vote for this because old leaderboard had some serious faults. There’s going to have to be some huge changes for me to want it back. I rather they continue to revise the current leaderboard’s algorithm than have that leaderboard. I do want it back if they fix its faults because in all honesty, it can prove to be a really competitive and balanced leaderboard.

Volrath.1473:

Alexander.9810:

Nothing’s going to change – they’re understaffed, they’re trying to make one size fits all solutions as usual, and with Blade and Soul coming out I doubt GW2 is getting any extra investment from NCSoft to do ambitious projects like ladders or revamps of the competitive matchmaking system.

Yall need to stop ragging on Arenanet so much and blow up NCSoft’s corporate “Contact Us” emails to show them that people care enough about GW2 and that they’re willing to go to the source, not just yell and scream at the messenger and the understaffed worker bees.

there is no date for Blade & Soul yet but yeah! i’m going to play it for sure and it is actually e-sports atm not just a try-hard wannabe like some “other” game…

Doesn’t every game want to be a “try-hard wannabe” or aka successful? But w/e that game’s story intro sounds ridiculous lol.. wasn’t impressed with some of the pvp mechanics either so i’m not sure how you got the impression of “e-sports”.
Not being bias, i’m just saying.

b.o.t: @Voltrath I completely agree. They’ve been understaffed since launch. It’s why pvp gets no updates, bugs are still here since launch and has been addressed numerous times. Yet the PvP infrastructure has gotten worse instead of improved. If I had stock invested in the GW2’s pvp scene, I would pull out on the 10th month after HoT launches and cut my losses. The pvp scene is going to get boring and dull, same as it is now. Especially if leaderboards continue to be as they are.
Tournaments (if ArenaNet continues to fund them) is the only means of competitive play.

Relentliss.2170:

Sadrien.3470:

Relentless , you hate everything about the game and complain about everything universally so why should we be surprised your going to continue to add negative feedback and offer no real intellectual responses? If you would theory craft and stop complaining you could find something you enjoy.

And trap ranger works in anything below tourney lvl game play

Sorry for speaking honestly. I see no sense in saying X Y or Z is good if it is not.

On the other hand, I have seen how fanboi feedback, where people with concerns were shouted down by people like you, during various stages of beta and testing has lead to a lot of disasterous game decisions which has caused this game to fall from being a highly anticipated challenger to WOW to a ghost town.

You don’t go from having a full friends list with lots of people on line to one that is always empty without the developers royally screwing up.

I kinda hoped this expansion might make the game better but really it looks like more of the same silly fluff they’ve done for the last 3 or so years.

There’s nothing wrong about expressing your opinions on the Guardian’s specialization, in fact, I admire that. But lets not get those views confused with some of ArenaNet’s poor decisions in structured PvP. The PvP infrastructure in general has gotten worse but these specializations is not one of the reasons why.

In fact, the specializations, along with a new map, is the only thing ArenaNet has implemented in PvP (since launch) that didn’t have a negative effect. It seems like every addition has been countered productive, in one way or another.

These are the reasons why PvP Infrastructure is terrible. It doesn’t take a college degree to realize these faults
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Arenanet-s-Goals-for-PvP/first#post5097790

Rainbow Eyelids.8461:

any channeled ability shouldn’t be able to target after going into stealth. wut?

And stealthys shouldn’t stomp people nor rez their allies. Technically we know where you are so why should we continue to let that happen too?

This looks like a losing argument for you sir

sublime goes doggy.4826:

I still sit quiet for Sigils (we dont know what changes may come)

It is true for resolve, but you will miss the acces to protection cause of the passive traits line..(Im more of a TeamFighter, so this suits me better)

• Could always replace resolve with slow, but the thing is we have no clue how ’’Slow’’ will be effective…

And Im not sure if you should rely on hammer for the Symbol Proc..

• The channeling is long and can be easy interupted (even tho you can dodge between channeling). Maybe with ‘’Sigil of Rage’’ on hammer you will be able to proc it more often…
  But in my opinion it is still very situationnal.

I feel the same way about testing….

Edit: Yes (Writ of Persistence), should be move zeal Master. I dont know why Anet did not change it already..

The fact that it has Symbols Heal means it can stay comfortably in the Valor trait tree. We have two symbols known for dps and two symbols known for heals/support. You can choose to specialize in either.

Just because the symbols last longer and are bigger, doesn’t mean it’s a DPS trait. I don’t think WoP should be anywhere near the Zeal trait line. Actually, I think it would fit Virtues better than Zeal. But that’s because I’ve always thought if Symbols as utility rather than Dps. Considering hardly anyone stand in them and their combos are better utilized.