Guild Wars 2

They had to do something like this, otherwise people in WvW would just get like four Guardians to hold a keep against an entire zerg by cycling wards, Wall of Reflection and Sanctuary between them.
Some skill tips aren’t 100% accurate. It also doesn’t mention in Ring of Warding’s description that it’s a light combo field.
This kind of thing isn’t really worth jumping up and down about since if stability did nothing against wards, the wards would be nerfed heavily in some other way.

I’ve played Warrior and Guardian quite a lot and to be honest, I didn’t even notice the range difference. The only real difference it would make is on the first two swings with the sword. You know, those two swings that don’t really do anything but are more reliable than the third swing? The extra range on Sword Wave it pretty average as well, since if you even used it at max range, you’d only hit your target once anyway, doing roughly a third of its potential damage. Additionally, getting Sword Wave to hit more than one enemy is a lot more labour than it’s worth, I’d take Final Thrust over Sword Wave any day, even with less Justice procs.

Your second option isn’t directed at the devs so….. really you’re just demanding they change one thing that is working as intended.

BobbyT is right, they’re technically knockdown skills not impassable walls. I think people can still roll through them without stability but that may have been fixed.

From what I’ve gathered, this is because the cooldown is tied to a single skill on the player, not a copy of the skill on the individual weapon. I’m pretty sure all weapon skills do this. This is for reasons that Christos said, imagine a Guardian double banishing you.

If you ask me, Sword Wave (attack chain #3) is broken. Yes, it CAN hit a total of about nine times (three targets three times) but it pretty much never will, the way the AI spread out to attack you in PvE means it will most likely only ever hit one target three times unless there’s a target there agroed to someone else or there’s a huge mess of enemies present, in which case, why on earth would you be using a sword? Personally, I’d trade it for Final Thrust any day. The range on it is not a selling point. If you use it at range, you hit with about 1 of the three projectiles, doing a third of the listed damage anyway.
I’d prefer it if it hit foes in the normal melee arc 2-3 times (and then possibly cripple), that would preserve its effectiveness against single targets but also boost its performance against multiple targets, in which sword is really lacking and remove its bewildering idiosyncrasy of being a reflectable melee attack.
I think it would be better if ZD’s projectiles hit foes in a line too, that would also boost sword’s multiple foe effectiveness and would sometimes make missing a foe who is slowly walking to the side less painful…

….Flashing Blade as a leap finisher!

For those of you who know who I am (not to be confused with the other Silver floating around here, I haven’t been around too much recently), you would know that I certainly have my qualms with Guardian 1h sword and have made various threads about improving it (that hasn’t changed ).

Recently I’ve been forcing myself to use 1h sword so that I can find ways to use it to its strengths, if any (I still hate Sword Wave). It’s nothing huge and is probably common knowledge but last night I found something that the sword almost seems tailor made for. Farming Young Karkas.

Zealot’s Defense lasts just long enough to block all their nasty “I’ma take half your health away” projectiles and, from practice, it seems that it has the exact same cooldown as said big projectile move. Coupled with sensible timing, Wall of Reflection, Purity, a Shield and Pure of Voice + a shout or two, the Young Karkas are essentially punching bags. I could pull three of them (with care) in magic find gear.
Flashing Blade when timed well will also nullify that little weakness spin they do but as I’m using Pure of Voice, I prefer to let them hit me with that so I can use Hold the Line or Stand Your Ground and turn it into three stacks of might.

I also pair it up with a staff for those interested. Empower + Wall of Reflection = two thirds dead Karka with zero effort.

Anyway, I’m still not entirely converted to sword but I just thought someone might like to know that it certainly makes Young Karkas quite trivial.

I’m glad scepter is finally getting a good looking at by the devs
I must say though, as a bit of an aside, scepter and sword kind of have a similar gameplay problem in that, at least from my experience, they don’t synergise a whole lot with other weapons and traits, which makes them boring to play, if you ask me. Traiting Virtue of Justice as much as possible will make sword and scepter proc it more but it will proc more no matter what weapon you’re using so really, the only trait synergy they get outside of the tiny 5% damage only traits is Blind Exposure and Binding Jeopardy.
Any weapon with a symbol gets loads more trait synergy without even trying.

Anyway, thanks again Jon

Unfortunately, it’s the most aesthetically appealing to me…
I don’t go for full on damage builds and it seems the sword is really only effective if you trait into Radiance.

There have been times where popping Resolve has bought just enough seconds for others to get their heals off, especially in combination with popping Shield of Absorption. Virtue of Resolve with Absolute Resolution is a bit of a monster, really. Although I’m not currently using it.
Sometimes I’ll even pop the virtue to get the corresponding boon from the Inspired Virtues trait and if you’re really going for boon stacks, Virtue of Retribution (15 Virtues) works a treat with the Renewed Focus elite skill. Inspired Virtues (5 Virtues) is just too good to pass up if you ask me.

As for best times to use these skills, I use Justice whenever there’s at least 2 or more people around and the enemy isn’t going to die in a couple of seconds (I don’t have Renewed Justice), I’ll try to use Resolve when I know there’s a few people around that need just a bit more health and for a few more seconds of regeneration. I’ll pop Courage when I know we need to block a big hit and/or when we need a bit more of the protection boon. Works well with Shield of Judgement.

I know the cooldowns are quite long but I haven’t really found that to be too prohibitive, really. I’d say, I’d rather have popped the virtue and helped everyone out in an average to ok way than not pop the virtue because I was waiting for “just the right moment”. It seems a bit odd to have a profession mechanic that doesn’t see much use outside the passives. Many other professions rely heavily on theirs.

I hope that gives some insight into how I like to use the Virtues and I hope there won’t be too much confusion with our names

We have the same name! Awkward.

I get 1 min+ swiftness in pve when using a Superior Sigil of Swiftness on, say, my shield.
It’s a good supplement to Guardian’s otherwise less mobile nature. Yes, we have two teleports and a leap but I’m not using any of them as it gimps the supportive nature of my build.

1) Wall of Reflection!!!! Why hasn’t anyone else said this one yet?! :O
2) Shelter
3) Shield of Absorption

1) It’s our best ranged damage skill! Punishes enemy stupidity and it’s the longest lasting light field.
2) A decent enough heal but the channeled block is just so good. Great trait synergy with Might of the Protector and Defender’s Flame. Invinci-heal.
3) A lot of people don’t like it but this skill really is amazing, it lasts a fair amount longer than the visual effect does, great AoE knockback and a decent enough emergency heal. I even use it to absorb projectiles! :O

To my understanding, the reason they’re on full cooldowns is to avoid exploiting those skills. If you could self-interrupt Healing Breeze, you could easily get a tonne of ally healing off without the skill ever going on full cooldown. Same goes for Shelter, you could get close to a 50% uptime of constant blocking going on if that skill didn’t go on full cooldown when interrupted.
Ether Renewal is the same, you could remove countless conditions with that skill alone if you interrupted it, as it stands, it’s still pretty good in regard to conditions removed per cooldown.

Yeah it’s a bit of an inconvenience but I’d say that, especially in Shelter’s case, I’d rather have it this way than to nerf the skills to the point where a short interruption cooldown is ok.

I quite like mace the way it is too, I mostly use it as it unfortunately suits my playstyle a whole lot more than sword does . I do think Protector’s Strike could stand to have some very minor tweaks just to tighten it up. Granted, Protector’s Strike already does so much for one skill.

It might be an idea to tweak how the protection boon it gives is applied. Something like a chain skill to activate the on block effect on demand, similar to how the Warrior and Mesmer counter-attack skills work might be a good usability addition. I dunno, maybe they didn’t put that in for some kind of balance reason.

I’ve tried using it against big AoE hits and I think it’s saved all three(?) of us but there could be other things altering that outcome as I wasn’t specifically testing for it. I always thought a protector should at least protect their allies. Surely it should block once for everything in the tiny shield area.
I still think it should also be a whirl finisher regardless of whether it blocks or not because c’mon, you spin around regardless. It’s only long enough to send out one bolt anyway and that bolt usually just flies UP or something lame….

Edit: Oh! Idea, imagine the crazy trait synergies you could get if, instead of simply blocking, it applied aegis once per ally up to five allies! You still get protecty blocks from it whilst channeling, a dash of synergy with Altruistic Healing, a nice party support block application AND you get all the nifty synergy with all the aegis traits. It’s balanced enough if you ask me as allies would have to be in that tiny radius to get the aegis anyway. Ah well, just a thought.

That being said, I’d rather they increase trait synergy with other weapons too, mace already has it pretty good.

I’m not sure lowering mace’s damage further is an entirely good idea. I was under the impression that it did already block for allies, just not a channeled block which is what I think you’re suggesting.
I’m all for improving the Guardian profession and I think Protector’s Strike needs a little bit of tweaking (whirl finisher whether you block or not) but I still think shields are designed for blocking, maces are designed for crushing haha! Yeah, yeah, I know, magic and stuff.

Otherwise, a good suggestion

There’s nothing that really indicates any reason why Flashing Blade shouldn’t at least be a leap finisher.

Food fix*

Those changes are pretty much entirely what I wrote in my sword thread that I linked. I didn’t suggest the extra symbol, it would be really nice for sword to have some extra trait synergy and AoE, which is what the symbol would provide (sword in support builds?! whaaaat?! ). I’m just not sure if it would be done I really would like a symbol squeezed unto the sword somewhere though.
I did mention that it would be nice if Zealot’s Defense’s projectiles hit foes in a line rather than just a single foe. I didn’t suggest the additional normal melee cone attack damage but I guess it would kinda make sense. Either suggestion would drastically increase the sword’s AoE capabilities, of which it has almost none, currently.

My suggestion for Sword Wave is that it hits three times in a normal melee arc up to three targets, none of this cone projectile nonsense. If they want to sneak a 1 second cripple on each of those three hits, all the better!

I think my last suggestion on the thread I linked a few posts up fixes up Sword Wave a fair bit. Keeps the sword’s single target viability and its ability to proc Virtue of Justice more often than other weapons but also addresses Sword Wave’s inaccuracy/narrow arc for lack of better words (not to mention it’s ability to be reflected! ).
I like Danicco’s idea, it would make Zealot’s Defense behave in way more similar to Whirling Wrath then anything else, if I caught your meaning that is, make it hit foes in front with melee attacks (kinda like Warrior’s Flurry) but also shoot out the projectiles for bonus damage, like how Whirling Wrath works. It would probably mean the projectiles do far less damage though than they do now though, removing a lot of the ranged capacity of the skill but I mean, it’s not like you can hit reliably with it at range the way it is now….
I’d still prefer the suggestions I listed in that thread I linked earlier though.

I wouldn’t say it’s the lowest damage, I would say that it delivers its damage a little unreliably though. I do agree that it’s lacking.

I made a thread on this a little while ago. Feel free to share ideas and (dare I say) opinions there if you want to consolidate all the sword stuff there!
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Sword-problems-and-possible-solutions/first

I find combo finishers fun. I like using Guardian one handers. Guardian gets hardly any combo finishers on their one handers.
Really liking the new staff changes too!

I use full Cleric’s gear and I love it!
Insane support and tanking is my thing though.

That’s hilarious, yet… so disheartening…

As I mentioned in another thread, I think the problem is that people are expecting it alone to be able to keep them alive when its real intention is to be used in addition to the various other ways Guardians have to heal themselves.

I remember in the early days people used to complain about how unfocused Valour was. ArenaNet hardly changed anything and now it’s in almost every build.

For PvE, I just slot a sigil of speed on my shield. Perma-swiftness. Usually hangs at 1+ minute duration.

Edit: I mentioned the Orb of Light blast finisher as Guardian staff’s cousin, the trident, has a very similar skill that detonates as a blast finisher. The extra cooldown on detonating Orb of Light would pretty much balance it out if you ask me. Normal orb every three seconds or a nice ranged blast finisher every twelve seconds if you decide to use it.

Just as an aside, I think staff #1 is vastly under appreciated. How many other profession’s/weapon’s #1 attacks can hit five enemies every half second at 600 range with a wide arc? Throw the symbol on top and a spammy death/life ball that pierces enemies all with 12 stacks of might and you’ve got yourself a pretty good AoE support weapon.
My only gripe would be that detonating Orb of Light isn’t a blast finisher.

Are you confusing confusion with actual confusion?

Pretend you’re Nero and swing at the air. At the air I say!

The thing about Zeal is though, while you’re right about those traits Setun, I’d say most of the good traits are within I-VI, not giving us much reason to go beyond 15-20ish points into it. Heck, you can get away with just 10.

I think 25 actually isn’t too bad a number considering the Guardian’s various other heals that will be coming in on top of this. A Whirling Wrath that hits five targets will easily net you over 1000 hp healed. Single target, yeah not so much but who really uses greatsword for single target damage?

In any case, it would be a pretty slippery slope, balance-wise, if you have a good think about it. I mean, it’s no Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing because, realistically, if it were, people would take both and become invincible and it would ensure that almost no other weapons get used.

Well, Symbol of Protection doesn’t really need to be any spammier either
Quickness doesn’t affect cooldowns and it’s insane to have! Even though 10% faster does not equal 100% faster, I would say we should leave the attack speed increases at quickness. I mean greatsword already has one of the fastest attack chains available to Guardian already.
I certainly agree that Zeal needs some help somewhere though.

I’m not sure if attack speed is the answer either I’m afraid. Even at 10%, the min-maxers everywhere would not be able to put that trait down! Although it certainly is a trait suggestion that would technically be viable across a large number of builds.
I think it might be just a bit too good. I’d say a complete reassessment of how the Zeal line works is more in order. I mean, the minor traits are all about symbols and the major traits have nothing to do with symbols at all! (Protector’s Impact doesn’t count! )

Another possible solution could be similar to what other professions get, move X% faster when Y condition is met.

I think the problem doesn’t lie with Zealous Blade being bad but with players expecting it to keep them alive whilst forgetting the many other heals we get on top of it. That and Zeal is just a pretty average trait line.

I was under the impression that confusion triggers upon skill use, not every hit. Surely confusion would only hit a Warrior once when they use Hundred Blades right? Did they change that?

In which case, that would actually be one of the better ways to deal with it as it hits quite a lot and only costs one hit of confusion.

I’m certainly trying to work staff into my build again.

Think of the one handers! Oh won’t somebody please think of the one handers!

Get out of here with your logic and/or evidence!

I think it probably behaves in a way similar to Contemplation of Purity. Nowhere on Pure of Voice or Contemplation of Purity does it say the boon inherits the duration of the condition. I think each have a set duration they add. A bit of a drag really but I imagine people would use it to stack ridiculous amounts of boons in some situations otherwise.

Edit: Wait, wait, I read your post again, my apologies. I didn’t realise you were referring to the regeneration granted by Pure of Voice converting a condition stacking with the regeneration granted by Hold the Line! That is, indeed, odd. I’ll have to have a look at it.

While it’s simply a matter of semantics, I’m calling the food thing a fix, rather than a nerf.

I could be completely dense right now as it’s late but I don’t quite understand how what you mentioned completely addresses what you quoted me on. :S

Every profession has ranged options regardless of whether they’re on land or underwater and always have. It doesn’t matter where you are, people are going to be firing stuff at you.
If you’re saying that it’s harder to hit foes in melee underwater so people use more ranged therefore we need more measures against ranged, I would argue that every single spear skill set for each profession that can use them either has one or more very effective gap closer skills, which I think addresses the problem somewhat nicely. The other thing with that is, why then don’t other professions get extra measures against projectiles? They certainly get options for it on the land based weapons.

I understand that a longer duration bubble would allow people more time to see it and hop inside it (assuming they even do) and I understand that it may take a little longer to do so underwater, however the exact same problem still occurs on land, distance is distance and due to Shield of Absorption’s short duration, generally nobody’s going to see the bubble and make a bee-line for it because they know that by the time they get to it, it’ll be gone unless they’re already close by. What that means is we have to use Shield of Absorption more situationally (is that a word?), saving it for just the right moment, especially when all our allies are already where it will appear. What this can often lead to though (not every time of course), is not using it at all because the situation may not have called for it enough.

I would also argue that retaliation isn’t weak underwater at all, there are plenty of attacks that you’ll encounter that hit rapidly, Zealot’s Flurry, Mariner’s Frenzy, Tsunami Slash, Repeating Shot, Man O’s War, Feeding Frenzy and Boil to name the ones I can think of. A lot of these aren’t projectiles and will be able to get to you inside of Refraction’s bubble. I know that if I had retaliation on and a Warrior or Guardian came up to me and hit #2 on his spear and I couldn’t avoid it, I’d be a happy diver knowing that they just did over 2000 damage to themselves.

So, while I mean absolutely no disrespect at all, of course, I still don’t quite agree with all that justifying Refraction’s extra length and shorter cooldown when compared to Shield of Absorption.

That is indeed true, however, we can already do all that to a large extent, it would only be another three seconds on top really. I don’t know about you but I certainly wouldn’t be running Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger and Sanctuary in all my utilities. That isn’t to say people wouldn’t do it but I see it as a fairly large build gimping just for projectile denial. AoE effects wouldn’t be affected by them anyway, which is a large portion of the zerg damage if you’re trying to control a choke point of some kind. That AoE damage would eat up Shield of the Avenger in no time anyway.
We already do have a long duration bubble as a weapon skill! It’s Refraction.
What makes Shield of Absorption situational? Well the knockback and heal definitely do but I think it’s largely because of the long cooldown, you don’t want to just blow it on any old attack because you won’t be able to use it again for a good while. Once again, if it either had the same cooldown as Refraction or even a 30 second cooldown people would be more willing to use the blasted thing and complain less about the shield. The combo opportunities it offers are slim because the light field it creates only has a 10% up-time (and that’s only if you use it on cooldown). Even keeping the cooldown as it is but increasing the bubble duration to that of Refraction would greatly increase team play, which is what the shield appears to be all about.
Granted, it’s not like we don’t have light fields to spare but it’s undeniable that our one handers are certainly lacking in the combo department compared to the two handers.

Ynna.8769:

A knockback is more useful than Retaliation?

I won’t entirely deny that, although it is subjective, despite how people feel about retaliation, a well timed retaliation can be quite beneficial just as a well timed knockback is, however, look at Staggering Blow for Warrior. It, arguably, has the same knockback as Shield of Absorption and it has half the cooldown. They’re entirely different skills so comparing them is a little futile, however, I will anyway! One is a combo field, the other a finisher so that doesn’t explain the disparity in cooldowns as that’s about even, Shield of Absorption can heal damage (optionally) whereas Staggering Blow deals damage, that’s relatively even although the numbers aren’t the same, dealt damage is subject to crits though. The only thing that would justify Shield of Absorption having a longer cooldown (if comparing those two skills, which you wouldn’t, really ) is that it can stop projectiles for four seconds. Would those four seconds justify a further twenty seconds added to the cooldown? If the answer is yes, why then would Refraction stopping projectiles for almost twice as long not have a longer cooldown?

I’m just discussing for discussion’s sake here, I’m not demanding we get Shield of Absorption buffed (although it would be nice and we’d, perhaps, see less hate towards shield) but as I mentioned earlier, the skills Refraction and Shield of Absorption are remarkably similar, yet have a vastly different cooldown and I don’t really think that Refraction being underwater is really a good enough reason.

I’ve stated what I’m after, to try and figure out why two skills that behave so similarly have vastly different cooldowns.
Why do you claim Refraction be ridiculous on land?
Why would the skill being underwater have any bearing on the cooldown?
Why does using Shield of Absorption in different situations warrant not needing a longer duration?

Both skills have the same basic functionality, the projectile absorbing bubble. They both have an additional effect that happens every time you use the skill, Refraction gives out retaliation and Shield of Absorption has the knockback.
The only thing that would warrant the longer cooldown is the optional heal but by using the heal, you’re technically giving up the bubble anyway unless you have ridiculously good timing.
Does that little heal justify another 20 seconds on the cooldown whether you use it or not? If so, why?

I’m not disputing the usefulness of either skill. I quite like both of them.

I’m not entirely sure if you read any of this.

Just thought I’d add that the recent patch’s change to Empower only adds further questions to my point about the heal effect on Shield of Absorption adding to its cooldown. Empower now has less of a drawback, heals for more than Shield of Absorption generally and has the same cooldown as Refraction.
So I guess the question is, why does Shield of Absorption have double the cooldown of Refraction? If the only cause for the 40 second cooldown is the knockback, take a look at Warrior’s Staggering Blow. That skill also has the same cooldown as Refraction and knocks back five foes like Shield of Absorption does.

I was waiting for the food nerf to be honest. I think it’s better this way, regardless of how many builds relied on it.

Edit: Mainly because it highlights problems with some weapons/builds rather than using the insane healing as a crutch to offset said problems.

tom.7468:

Good suggestions only 1 thing i would like to add make zealot’s defense a mobile skill right now you’re rooted to ground.

Ah yes, I forgot to mention that. I suppose if they’re finally willing to make Line of Warding able to be cast while moving, surely there’s a bit of wiggle room on Zealot’s Defense!
I suppose the only defense for keeping Zealot’s Defense stationary is that it definitely gives you a reason to use Flashing Blade often. Whether or not that’s justified is uncertain…

Getting Sword Wave to hit golems and getting Sword Wave to hit AI enemies/players are two entirely different things unfortunately.
I find that unless you’re in an event with lots of enemies grouped up on top of each other, lining Sword Wave up is often a lot more effort than it’s worth. If you, say, fight three melee AI opponents, they will often spread out around you and move when you do to roughly the same locations relative to you, making Sword Wave quite difficult to hit more than one with. It’s not impossible but normal melee skills like the first two attacks in the chain or any of the greatsword’s auto attack chain will hit them with no effort whatsoever.

From what I’ve read, Elusive Power is 10%, nothing to be sneezed at, for sure.
I’ll certainly give it a look.