Guild Wars 2

I use shield #5 to stop projectiles all the time, it’s probably the main reason I use it, I probably use the pop heal on it the next most. I only really use it as an interrupt/knockback in pvp and I prefer not to knock enemies around in pve with it unless I really need to.
I think it’s an amazing skill that does so much and has so much versatility. I wouldn’t mind a couple of quality of life changes like that blast finisher idea, shorter cooldown and/or shorter channel (I think the channeled block, while awesome, might make it a little overpowered) but I would most definately not want it swapped for focus #5.

As we discussed earlier, I think it’s really shield #4 that needs more attention.

I kinda like this idea. I think it would be fair to include the ability for members to opt out of contributing to the tax but if it only affects things like event rewards, hell yeah I’d let 5% go to support the guild.

I use those skins for almost every sword, greatsword and staff my characters own.

I used to be annoyed that we never got water fields so we couldn’t heal people with combos but I’ve come to really like light fields, especially when I know my allies are going to be shooting condition removal through it. I’ve probably had multiple conditions removed just by putting that good ol’ shield bubble up.
Plus I guess it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, thematically, for Guardians to have access to water based combo skills.
Summary: I actually like light fields

+1 entirely for the use of the word, “discofear”.

I would love the detonate to be a blast finisher, the only problem I can see is that, unless coded to do otherwise, it would almost always blast the light field created by the bubble unless you blasted it on a field that was already present before casting the bubble…. am I making sense? I need more coffee…

Personally, no I don’t. Aegis really is one of those, ironically, hit and miss boons. Sometimes it can stop a massive hit and other times it’ll stop a single, tiny amount of damage. The fact that it only lasts for one attack and doesn’t stack blocks is really why I don’t see a problem with it being added to the shield.
It would make for some interesting aegis trait fueled “aegis bombs” if you brought the right traits, the proposed shield change, retreat and popped courage all in a timely manner if a group of five allies.
With the upcoming possible change to Shattered Aegis, assuming there’s no internal cooldown and it works on all aegises (aegii?) you apply, you could get some nice aoe damage going using good aegis application. Which is using the Guardian’s strength, defense, in an offensive and smart way, all the while working off various trait synergies. I would love to see it happen!

What if shield #4 also applied aegis?! :O That’d be pretty neat. It’s a simple addition of block to the shield which a lot of people have requested whilst retaining the philanthropic nature of the Guardian and promotes a fairly decent spread of trait synergy (On block traits, all aegis traits and AH). I wouldn’t mind a few seconds shaved off the cooldown either but if they added aegis to it the current cooldown might be warranted. I dunno, up to them.

I really like shield #5 where it is. It’s such a useful skill, the only real drawback is the cooldown.

I kinda like that other professions’ shield abilities are about protecting themselves while the Guardian’s shield can also protect others.
While it does make sense that a shield blocks and we’re missing out on a little trait synergy by our shield not blocking, Guardian shield is still quite capable of stopping a lot of damage, I don’t want focus #5 swapped with shield #5.

Haha, just thinking about the amount of terribly colour-matched disco characters that could be created hurts my eyes.

I hate to be a bubble bursting realist, I really do, while I think this would be an interesting addition to the game, I think many people think it’s a lot easier to implement than it actually is, especially if each pattern could have two colours to it. Some items would require, I’m assuming, the equivalent of 8 dye channels on top of the extra texture channel. So, 9 channels if the one texture were applied to all the colour channels.

However, if we’re talking an independent texture per colour channel, the maximum amount of “channels” an item could require is:
4 (for each coloured area)
+ 4 (for each texture)
+ 4 (for each texture’s alternate colour)
= 12 channels maximum per item as opposed to the current 4 maximum. It would also increase the amount of data transferred per character and make loading player models even longer.

You might be able to be sneaky and cut the channels down to 8 by applying the alternate texture colour to the texture itself but I could be way off the mark with this whole thing here as I don’t know what kind of UV/texture set up they have going but that stream Kristen Perry did helped me understand it at least a little bit.

I neither think it’s a bad idea nor do I think it’s outside of ArenaNet’s ability but it’s a monstrous amount of work, to say the least. One down side would be a marked increase in terrible looking characters.. hah

On the money again, Malafide!

We have all now established that nerfing zerker’s survivability isn’t the answer as it’s already pretty low, all things considered. The question is, what can be done to make having support in your group the more preferred option?

Like I mentioned earlier, I think more sustained damage from foes is a pretty good solution. Be it slightly harder hitting foes and/or foes hitting more often. An increase in the effectiveness of toughness is probably a good idea in this scenario, too.

I’d love to hear some other ideas or people’s thoughts on my ideas in the original post.

I quite like this idea, there isn’t much that can be done to improve casting speed for things inside your casting radius outside of having it place on your target by default but your idea would certainly be a great quality of life improvement.

The dungeon adapts to whatever gear and builds are in it? That’s an interesting idea. Hopefully the same idea could be applied to events.

@Digiowl – in response to what you said about what’s fueling the whole thing. That’s what my first suggestion was all about. A one shot attack from a boss or something will flatten everyone in the party, regardless of builds and gear, however, a large percentage of non-boss mobs attack like once in like, three seconds or so. My suggestion is essentially an increase in sustained damage from foes to make sustained support more worthwhile to everyone and at the same time, increasing the effect of toughness would enable people to balance out their survivability against the increased sustained damage.
In response to what you said about zerker’s throwing out support boons, with the exception of heals, that’s entirely true. That’s what makes this a difficult thing to suggest ideas for but that’s why I thought that perhaps defensive boons such as protection and/or aegis could scale a little with healing power. All of a sudden, healing power becomes far more useful (I quite like it but I admit it’s a pretty hated stat). Of course the scaling wouldn’t be over the top but maybe along the lines of a high healing power character’s protection stops 40% of damage instead of 33% and their aegis scales up to have one additional block on it or something. Nothing super overpowered but still quite noticeable. In a group situation, the boons could stack the same way conditions stack, the boon applied by the highest healing power ticks first.

I know we all pretty much agree here. I’m not trying to start arguments with anyone, just in case it sounds that way.

Heta.8629:

I can face tank pretty much anything in full soldiers and don’t have issues in dungeons as long as there is no gear check.

What you’re really saying, however, is that you do have issues if there is a gear check. Meaning a lot of people don’t want defensive/supportive builds in their runs, which is their choice, really but it’s undeniable that they’re currently still less desirable to have than straight DPS which is the whole point of this thread, to suggest ways to give players real reasons to want to bring someone along that is geared for defense/support.

I think you’re right on the money there, Malafide. Hence my first and third ideas in the list up there (well, all of them, really).

Sickle.6502:

Until either a add-on of some kind is made, or GW implement a way to see damage and healing output, then we wont really be appreciated. The guys in my guild, male and female I should clarify… (not fair to use the term guys as in gender, anyway) all know exactly how important my Healer type Guardian is, and when you get that backing from your guild, you and they will feel much better about having you with them in large fights, and dungeon runs.

Good luck friend.

That’s for sure, the irony is that such a tool would introduce so much more elitism than there currently is that I don’t think it would really fix the problem entirely either.
I think this is going to be a problem inside and outside of the game until support/defensive roles are optional but preferred for a smooth run.

Thanks for taking the time to read/reply

That’s usually what I run, too because I enjoy that kind of play style. However, I am entirely aware that a lot of people see anyone in cleric’s or soldier’s gear as “bad at the game” or “using the gear as a crutch/training wheel to berserker” which entirely isn’t true, I simply like having fat heals, they like having fat damage. The problem is that people are more focused on efficiency and speed which usually means full on damage to get the job done fast and any other builds are essentially laughed at. Hence why I’d like to make support/defensive builds more immediately/evidently desirable to have on board.
I know when I’m in hairy fights and my heals have often saved many people from getting downed etc I’m the only that tends to know just how much I kept someone else afloat, other people would probably see me not doing as much damage as them and consider me a leech since my contribution is not immediately obvious.
I dunno where I’m going with this but you get what I mean.

I’ve been dying to have more heroic/sterotypical looking heavy armour for a long time. The Phalanx armour is pretty close to what I like, although I don’t quite like anything on it outside of the shoulders, chest and helmet but then I saw it on my wife’s character and it looks totally different!
I’m just sick of armour of all types that’s covered in spikes, fire and skulls. That sort of armour looks totally lame if you ask me.

I don’t think simple stat bonuses based on a role we choose should be how it’s solved, however, since that’s essentially bringing back the whole trinity system which they don’t want to do.
I especially like my first two and the last ideas in the points I mentioned.

I don’t want to nerf zerker per se, I just want there to be desirable reasons to take up the other playstyles that exist and I think that my suggestions here at least push the support/defensive builds a little more towards being desirable to have with the intention of not knocking all out dps build’s desirability out of the picture.

Just as an example assuming that a few of ideas of mine are in place:
Enemies are now hitting faster and hitting low toughness characters harder, a team of dps players start having trouble staying up in a particular encounter, all of a sudden it would be preferable to have a high healing power player there to administer a buffed up protection boon and heals to them to allow them to take far less damage and stay alive which equals more damage and faster encounters.

I know this isn’t straying entirely too far from the whole trinity idea but the purpose of these ideas is simply to make other playstyles outside of dps more desirable to have around. I would love to hear any other ideas, too. I’m aware that my ideas aren’t perfect.

I still think the problem with Guardian’s mobility isn’t getting away from or getting to foes, it’s keeping foes within a range that makes whatever weapon you’re using effective. You know, like how pretty much every other profession’s weapons work.
You can’t really get away from someone you can’t snare and by the same token, you can’t really do a whole lot of melee damage to someone you can’t snare either.

I don’t want to turn this into another “Guardians need snares!” thread but I do think that a lot of these mobility issues are tied to the fact we can’t limit other class’ mobility nearly as much as they can limit ours.

I think that when a game offers different styles of play we should be able to play in any of those styles and still be effective.

As it stands, for most PvE content, if you aren’t running full berzerker’s, there’s a pretty large contingent of people that get angry, make assumptions about your level of skill and throw insults at you. At least from a dungeoning perspective.

I don’t have a problem with someone wanting to go full berzerker’s, it’s a valid choice. The problem that I do have with it is that it’s supposed to be a high risk, high reward playstyle but I feel that the reward is too high and/or that the risk is too low. Not to mention people are essentially enforcing this playstyle on others and in some cases, nurturing a toxic, anti-social environment for players.

I don’t deny that full damage builds are effective and could be seen as the most efficient if everybody does the right thing, what I’m saying, however, is that other playstyles should be equally effective and desirable in some way.

I’m not entirely sure how to make other roles more effective, it’s difficult when any build can throw out defensive boons but here’s some ideas that I’ve had that might help others think of ways to even out the roles a bit.

- Make enemies in PvE hit harder whilst making toughness more effective.
- Possibly make enemies in PvE attack more often and/or give them a larger repertoire of abilities.
– This is a risky one, what if defensive boons such as protection and aegis(?) scaled somehow with healing power?
- Another risky one, what if attack/condition damage were shaved down just a little but the Might boon were made more effective? Perhaps not… people are already dissing non-fire fields enough as it is.
- Maybe a trait for support builds that deals a fraction of any over-heals as AoE damage?

Look, before anyone gets up in arms about this, I’m not saying these need to happen, I’m just trying to get ideas flowing to even out the roles a bit in PvE, in favour of making support/defense builds a little more desirable to have in your party.

Does anyone else have any other ideas towards making support/defensive builds more desirable in PvE?

We do have a lot of movement options but to get the most out of your movement options as a Guardian means you’ll probably be taking at least one weapon that you may not like to take that may not even work with your build and then use 1-3 utility slots (Retreat, SY, JI) as opposed to using one utility for a +25% movement speed bonus and using whatever the hell build/weapons you want.

Don’t even get me started about actually keeping a foe in melee range if/once you actually get to them….

I like this idea. Guild Wars 1 behaved in a similar yet slightly different manner to this.

Aeolus.3615:

Who the hell keeps shooting against wall of reflection? are people that bad?

I have had many people almost entirely kill themselves on my Wall of Reflection. Some people only bring ranged weapons so if they are smart enough to move around the wall, you can just jump to the other side of it.
It’s fantastic area denial, they’re either shooting themselves in the face or not attacking a whole lot for 12 seconds. I love it.

I had this problem, too, I realised it’s only a problem on the heaviest human male body type, all the others work fine with it. It appears to be something wrong with the way shoulder items scale on such big shoulders. I remember posting something about it AGES ago but I think it got largely ignored.
I ended up using a total makeover kit and changed body types since I felt the heaviest one was a little too bald and a little too fat but it “fixed” the problem with those heavy shoulders. Granted, it wasn’t really a fix, it just avoided the player model that caused the problem.

^ Wow, imagine a ground targeted Healing Breeze. That certainly would be interesting.

Posted this earlier in the Guardian forums and then saw this thread, why not?

I like the symbol idea. I also like the aura type idea. If it were a symbol that moved with you, it would have some good trait synergy.

This is me most of the time.
I don’t use sword usually on a Guardian but man, swords are cool!

This happens all the time, people feel entitled to a legendary/world completion without doing what’s required to get it.

Are you forced to get world completion? No.
Are you forced to get a legendary? No.
Are both of these required to exclusively PvE? Not at all.
Do you want them? Probably, else you wouldn’t be here complaining about it. If you want something then go do the things required to get it. If you don’t want to do those things then you forfeit the right to get it. It’s pretty simple. These things are supposed to be hard to get!

I don’t like WvW (read: ZvZ) a whole lot but I do like the idea of having a legendary, so I went out and got world exploration. I was lucky enough to receive way more than enough badges of honour to cut that step out completely due to achievement chests but I was about to start farming badges, too. I didn’t want to do those steps at all, in fact, I don’t even like the Ascalon areas and didn’t want to do those either, however, at no point was I actually forced to partake in any of these because it is my choice to embark on getting a legendary.

Another problem with the Guardian is actually a problem with the whole game, Guardians are kinda pigeon-holed into tanky support roles (Yes, I know you don’t have to but you would have to make an effort to make a build that doesn’t help anyone). The whole theme of the Guardian is protecting allies. I love playing melee tanky support roles that protect allies in games! I would play every game that way if it were possible. The big problem, however, is that Guild Wars 2 offers this playstyle in a game where it is not rewarded nearly as much as simply doing as much damage as possible!

I would actually like to see a big increase in sustained damage from foes in pve to the point where being survivable and supportive actually is a viable alternative to go zerker or go home. Perhaps there are other/better solutions for this but alas, I only have one brain.

One of the big problems with Guardian is that they usually have to give up too much to gain X*. Generally, Warriors don’t have to give up a whole lot to gain X.
Warriors generally have shorter skill cooldowns, pretty good trait synergy, loads more hard and soft CC, more than one damaging condition, much easier mobility and the maximum health and armour to boot.

*X being a variable of whatever, damage, survivability, control, support, etc.

Akamon, if I could fist-bump you with the explode at the end with sound effects, I would.

Every time I encounter a stunlock warrior in spvp, I slot in Hallowed Ground if I have not done so previously and proceed to laugh manically.
I love that skill.

Funny that we previously had two relatively good sources of condition removal that were both actually bugs…. It was tough enough with the bugs going…

@Exedore, I understand what you mean but it added another level of micromanagement that shouldn’t be necessary, especially when other professions don’t have to worry so much about walking in and out of their own fields. Unless you’re taking wide turns in and out of the field, you’d be strafing on the spot anyway to maximise its potential condition removal which is essentially the same as standing in the middle of it, enemy AoE-wise. If you weren’t strafing on the spot, you’d be lucky to get three conditions removed from it anyway.
I still prefer my suggestion for it but each to their own.

VIVorcha.7853:

You have amazing trait lines

Zeal.

I wasn’t sure about Null Field but it did cross my mind.

I’m glad the enter/exit of Purging Flames got removed because I see that as a bug, it should, however, remove a condition every second for each ally in it. You know, how other professions work. I’m looking at you, Healing Spring, Well of Power and Healing Rain.

I’m going to be a little radical and suggest this:
Virtue of Resolve – passive effect – In addition to its passive regen, every time you heal an ally you deal X% (smallish amount, 30% or less maybe?) of the amount healed as damage to up to three (five?) foes in a small area around that ally.

Now before you say, “Silver! You cray-zay!”, hear me out. Yes this could be tricky to balance but I think it would bring a few things to the profession whilst still sticking to the Guardian’s theme.

- First of all, it is a very defensive way of dealing damage as CMF wanted ideas for.
- This is strictly that, an idea. Please don’t get too bent out of shape about it. I’m just throwing ideas around to try and improve my favourite profession.
- The effect would only be active when Resolve is off cooldown. Maybe?
- It makes healing power more useful (although I still kinda like it).
- It makes Virtue of Resolve a lot more interesting. Although I fear too many people choose not to activate it enough as it is anyway… If this is a huge problem, shift it to the Courage passive instead, I dunno… maybe make it a buff in addition to activating Resolve instead?
- I think it still fits with the meaning of Resolve, just barely.
- It might be a good idea to make the damage caused not trigger Justice …or not? Maybe that would be cool.
- Perhaps not with Altruistic Healing either? I dunno, maybe that would be good too.
- All of a sudden, staff and mace do more damage! :O
- All of a sudden, support Guardian does more damage without adding conditions that don’t quite fit, thematically.
- It wouldn’t be unstoppable, ranged attacks would still be a good counter against it, it’s not like we have many ways of maintaining melee range as it is…
- It would make positioning interesting in regard to when to pop lots of heals.
- Since it would scale with healing power, more offensive builds wouldn’t be over the top with it since a lot of their heals are quite small anyway.
- I probably had more points but now I’ve forgotten them!

Anyway, I dunno, I’m just throwing ideas around that are outside buffing retaliation, although I also quite like that retaliation scales with toughness idea!
I’m not going to defend this idea to the grave, maybe this idea will start the gears turning in other people’s head and we get even better ideas.
Peace.

Thanks GreyFox, you conveyed the problem I have with it far more eloquently than I could.

What happens if someone finds those events fun? I quite like the Arah and CoE chains.
Unrewarding? Erm, you get exp, silver and karma for completing them. If you simply got some porous bone it would still count as a reward.
So really, what you’re saying is, “There’s no reason to force players into repeating <subjective>, <subjective> and <subjective> content to unlock <subjective> dungeons!”

There are certain logistical problems with suddenly changing your race, mainly the personal story would have to either be replayed or have your choices simply copied over on a 1, 2, 3 kinda basis (you chose option 1 for Human so we’ll make you have option 1 again in the Sylvari line, for example), the thing with that is that the amount of choices may not even line up. Sure, default answers could just be put in but then that kinda ruins the whole, “personal” side of the personal story. You didn’t choose them any more.
Another problem that this would open up, while not a game breaker, you could level one character to 80 and then change its race a few times and all of a sudden you have all of the story achievements.
For those that would say, “I don’t care about the story, I don’t do it!”, that doesn’t actually matter at all, the problem would still exist and would still need fixing.

Other problems would be how to handle cultural armour. Do you simply get a refund? What if you transmuted it? (as if you didn’t) Have it changed into the equivalent new cultural armour? Remodel the entire cultural armour system to allow every race to use every combo? I dunno, I’m just saying that it would be a whole lot more work behind the scenes than simply saying, “Ok, now you’re a Charr!”

Just roll a new character, I say.

This is an idea that would certainly help in the scenarios where there’s nothing but skill effects on the screen completely overshadowing the actual indicators of enemy skills. Even after the effect LOD patch, this can still be a problem.
I’m totally for this idea.

^ I’m all for that, too.

Well, yeah, that’s pretty good.
I was merely pointing out that on the surface, it may appear bland but its trait synergies are pretty good, too.
So if traits are included, I would say +12% damage, +15% crit chance, 120 heal per second and 3 conditions removed is also pretty good in comparison to the Thief skills.

Granted that would probably be a pretty messed up build. My main point is that I think Healing Surge is pretty good how it is. I’m not against making it better, though.

I have no problem with people working together in a fashion such as this. The problem I do have is when people get all bent out of shape when someone comes along with a small party who may not have known about some champ train and kill a boss for fun or to see if they could do it only to face the wrath of a bunch of farmers having a big dummy spit.
The reactions to this are sometimes WAY over the top, disrespectful, immature and completely unnecessary.

I think you may be ignoring the benefit of it giving you full adrenaline. Having it heal you more per adrenaline level makes it more of a strategy heal. You can use it for the big heal and lose out on the extra adrenaline or you can choose to use your burst first (preferably with Cleansing Ire) wait a few seconds, use the heal and then use the burst again. Two groups of three conditions removed. Less healing done there but more conditions removed if traited correctly.
It also has pretty good synergy with all the traits that rely on different adrenaline stages. I can think of like three across different lines. I know it’s pretty easy to get adrenaline but when you need it full in a pinch, you’ve got it with Healing Surge.
I think it’s pretty flexible and caters directly to one of the Warrior’s core mechanics.

I believe Healing Surge is pretty good where it is. Mending could stand to be improved a little, perhaps not as a heal over time skill although that does give it a similar effect to the GW1 mending skill.