Guild Wars 2

I was originally going to write this as a response to the “Forced to use greatsword” thread but I thought it was a bit too much of a derailed answer. So here’s my own thread on it. I’ve made sword threads before but most, if not, all of them have gone somewhat unnoticed/ignored. If you don’t want this one to exist, go necro the other one but I assure you, it’s probably about 50 pages back by now. I categorised this with spoiler links to give the illusion that this isn’t a massive wall of text

This is all very unfortunate because I really want to use sword (preferably with a shield) but I find other weapons are far more flexible and effective.

I’d like to take a moment to discuss and compare two similar skills with the intent of questioning Shield of Absorption and the balance of the skills.

Similar
- They both have a neat magical bubble that stop projectiles.
- They’re both a light combo field.

Different
- Refraction lasts three seconds longer than Shield of Absorption. That’s one second off lasting twice as long as Shield of Absorption.
- Refraction holds you in place for half a second less than Shield of Absorption. Not really a big deal but hey.
- Refraction has half the cooldown of Shield of Absorption.
- Refraction gives out a five second Retaliation to allies.
- Shield of Absorption has the handy five target knockback.
- Shield of Absorption can be popped for a good heal.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining or anything and I really like the shield but I’d like to know why, for skills that behave so similarly, the underwater one can be used twice as often and last almost twice as long.

Does the knockback and optional heal on Shield of Absorption justify the longer cooldown? I guess so but it doesn’t really justify the shorter bubble duration if you ask me. If the heal on it adds to the cooldown, why does Empower have the same cooldown as Refraction when it generally heals for more?

Interesting, isn’t it? What are your thoughts?
I’d certainly like to see the duration of Shield of Absorption brought up to the same duration as Refraction at the very least if the cooldown isn’t going to be altered. I wouldn’t be against a shorter cooldown either. I can live with it the way it is but I just observed the differences between the two skills recently and thought the disparity was a little odd.

I’d like to point a few things out, just as an aside, as people are often confused about retaliation.

- It does not reduce any damage.
- It does not reflect any damage, it inflicts a set amount.
- The damage inflicted is based on your power, not your foe’s power.

I remember when I first read this skill, I quite liked the idea! I still quite like the idea although as people don’t like that the shield can’t actually block anything, one suggestion I have for the skill would be to turn it into a counter-attack style block that when you block an attack or activate the skill again, you perform Shield of Judgement the way it works now.

I met a Kodan the other day, his name is, “Long Story”.

I like how a lot of Guardian’s abilities help allies as a secondary effect.

Someone just messaged me in game and mentioned that using a masterwork quality item would do it. I tried it and it worked! I never used masterwork previously when it used to work. Curiouser and curiouser…

Edit: One thing that I did notice, even though the transmute worked, the item remained soulbound and did not become account bound at any point.

They’ve obviously done something to it though, here’s some pictures of me trying to transmute my original, untouched Fanatic’s Mantle onto the cheapest shoulders I could find on the Trading Post. You’ll notice that the transmute button is greyed out, however, if I were to transmute it the other way, that is, put the Fanatic’s Mantle’s stats on the cheap shoulders, the transmute button is able to be pressed.

Danicco.3568:

Heals the target by 10.

That one got me, good sir! Reminds me of Flashing Blade.

Pixels.6532:

I’m coming from a Necro main.

I’m not disagreeing with you or dissing your ideas by the way. I, too, believe that scepter is in dire need of a change. I’ll take anything that works.
The only reason I said Elementalist scepter skills and not Mesmer or Necromancer is that the Mesmer and Necromancer scepter skills actually work so well with themselves alone! I didn’t want people saying, “Hey now! We can’t have Guardian weapon skills working well together, especially the one handed weapons! That would make them OP!”

I am, of course, being facetious but I hope what I’m trying to say is implied, that I’d love Guardian’s one handed weapons to actually work well together/with themselves similar to how most other profession’s weapon skills work but quite often, suggestions that would bring Guardian skills to the level of functionality that other professions enjoy is somehow seen as overpowered?! I’ll never understand that…

In any case, what I’d to see scepter as is something like this:
- Make Orb of Wrath a cool, bigger ball of light that moves as fast as an arrow does or a little slower than that. Making it have some kind of interesting #1 chain (similar to how Necromancer’s and Mesmer’s works) would definitely add some interest to the weapon.
- Make Smite an actual symbol, I don’t care what it does, I just want it as a symbol. That would give scepter some actual trait synergy outside of Binding Jeopardy. A might symbol seems appropriate enough.
- I’m also not opposed to an entire rework of the scepter as long as it’s balanced and effective at what it’s supposed to do whilst still actually being fun to use.

Various options for trait synergy with weapons is something I really like and I think it is essential for having a profession play in a fun way as it adds various ways of using the same weapons, unfortunately, quite a few Guardian weapons have little to no trait synergy outside of buffing Virtue of Justice as much as possible. Ironically, that would be buffing Virtue of Justice’s trait synergy, not the weapon’s…

I would take any Elementalist scepter skills from any one attunement over Guardian scepter as it stands now. Even with the 900 range. At least I know I’d be able to hit my target…
This is also probably the first time I’ve seen someone say that Guardian scepter #1 doesn’t need changing!

I agree that scepter #3 is the only scepter skill we have that is actually decent.

Well, creating an item that is soulbound, transmuting so it’s suddenly account bound instead of soulbound, even though it says that transmuting will make it soulbound and then giving it to another character and then transmuting it again, making it soulbound does seem a little bit like bending the rules a little if you ask me! Granted, I still did it because I realised I wanted the dam helmet as well.

its impossible to have both the visionary helm and shoulders for instance

Technically not, using that method I mentioned above. Here’s a picture of my Warrior.

Edit: I wanted to name him, “Effective Guardian” but I thought it was a little too subtle

I originally picked the Fanatic’s Shoulder’s cause I think they look awesome, I then realised the Visionary’s Helm is completely unique and actually looks really good too, so I made a new Guardian, got a transmutation stone and transmuted the Visionary’s Helm onto like a level 10 or so common helmet. That made the item account bound. I then banked it, went on my Guardian main and transmuted it again onto the helmet I wanted it on.
I think that recently they have made it so you can’t do that anymore but I could be wrong. If you ask me, I guess it is technically an exploit.

Keep in mind that Shield of Absorption’s knockback and most likely Protector’s Strike’s attack are subject to the five target maximum limit as well.

Oh of course! My mistake, for some reason I was treating it as 33.33333%
It’s been a long day…

I thought it would be 8 seconds. As far as I’m aware, +boon duration stacks additively. Right? If that were the case, you’d get two extra ticks of regeneration.

I think the healing power coefficients are pretty good to be honest. Imagine how fast the nerf hammer would come flying if AH healed for 150 or so per boon? Imagine how unkillable a mace Guardian would be with 30 Honour if those heals scaled higher.
I usually run full Cleric’s exotics and I barely need to use my #6 at all.
I think people just want more heals for little to no investment in healing gear.

Although I think a trait somewhere like 5%-10% of healing power becomes power would make healing gear a little more useful though. I would say stick it in the Honour line but there’s so many good ones in there already…

I’m not opposed to another combo field at all because I love the combo system but I think the cloud type idea just works a little better with how to skill is designed, it keeps the heal skill somewhat unique compared to other profession’s heal skills and works well with the mobile combat in the game.

While a water field would be interesting on a Guardian, I feel it’s hard to work in thematically.
Here’s a possible addition for the cloud idea I mentioned earlier.
What if that swirly breeze that lingers after the cast were ….. a whirl finisher! :O

Well, the cloud idea thingy is essentially a circle around the Guardian. If I caught your meaning correctly.
Here’s another possible option! What if Healing Breeze also granted a brief….. swiftness! SHOCK! INTRIGUE! Because, you know, running with a tail wind makes it easier to run faster. Eh? Eh? It kinda works. Ah I’m just being optimistic now.
I can’t really think of anything better than that cloud idea.

I think most of us can agree that Healing Breeze, whilst being a great idea conceptually, doesn’t quite function amazingly in practice. I’m sure there are builds that use it fine and all that, I’m not saying it’s broken as such but it could stand to be re-worked a little!

Rather than me just post an idea for it and have everyone critique it, why don’t we all just post ideas for any improvements that could be made to the skill?

I will attempt to get the ball rolling though.
One idea I had that could increase the effectiveness of the skill would be to make it behave in a slightly similar manner, functionally, to the Necromancer skill Locust Swarm. Give the skill a shorter cast time, perhaps one second, which upon casting, heals the Guardian for whatever amount then a blue, breezy kind of effect surrounds the Guardian for say five seconds that heals allies (most likely excluding the casting Guardian) every second for a certain amount every second in a 400-600 or so radius.

Seems simple enough, easier to use, no need to aim, sticks to the theme of the skill, doesn’t halt attacking any more than other heals, keeps to the group support idea of the skill and seems practical enough for me.

An alternative could be that it simply drop a decent size light (or possibly lightning! …yeah, probably not) field that ticks heals. The combo options would be nice and if the radius were big enough, say the size of a Necromancer well or Ranger’s Healing Spring, it wouldn’t limit mobility an overly huge amount any more-so than the other skills mentioned do. The only drawback being that it would essentially be the same as those other skills, specifically, the Necromancer one. I still prefer my first idea, I’m just throwing stuff out there!

Feel free to join in with ideas!

Yeah I agree. Conceptually, before any of the betas, it was going to be the heal I used but as you said, due to how the game plays, it just wasn’t practical and Shelter is just awesome.

Shelter used to heal for about as much as the signet does now in beta if my memory serves me but it locked you in place whilst channeling. I think I like the new version better as it no longer has a 45 second cooldown either. More blocks is always acceptable!
These days, I only take signet if I’m running the swamp fractal…. and I don’t run fractals much.
Anyway, I think Shelter is one of the best heal skills in the entire game, it certainly sticks with the theme of the Guardian, is balanced enough really and has some really good trait synergy.

I think a better question is, at the risk of derailing the thread, Is Healing Breeze even worth taking? I love the idea of the skill, the group support nature of skill and how it’s a nod to a pretty fat regeneration skill from GW1 but it seems to be reasonably hard to aim effectively and takes quite a long time to channel which takes away from any precious damage you could be doing and is also quite vulnerable to interrupts. Does it go on full cooldown when interrupted? I’ll have to go test that one out…

The reason Shelter (and Renewed Focus) goes on full cooldown is that it could be exploited by channeling it, interrupting it by using another skill, channel again, self-interrupt again, repeat for unlimited blocks. I suppose a simple fix would be that you can’t interrupt or cancel it yourself, I dunno, it would still cause free blocks if you were interrupted by another player.
I still think it’s by far the best heal we have but not because of the amount of health returned. I use it with Defender’s Flame and Might of the Protector to great effect. Contrary to what was mentioned earlier, it DOES block AoE skills, I often stand in as many overlapping red circles as possible when using this heal and it results in huge amounts of burning and like around 10+ stacks of might (depending on the fight) which then increases the burn damage.
I look for Hundred Blade Warriors when using this heal. I even use it when I don’t need to heal because I usually run mace anyway.

What Warriors do get is close to double base health though. The reason Guardians get more boons and more health restoring abilities is because they need to increase their effective health to make up for the lack of maximum health as a heavily melee oriented profession.
Once again, if the extra boons and healing are the trade-off for the much lower health, what’s the lack of cripple a trade-off for? Indeed, what’s the lack of viable ranged damage the trade-off for? Warriors and Guardians do the majority of their damage in melee and of the two, only Warriors get cripples on almost every weapon. Boons or not, if you can’t damage something, you won’t defeat it.

Regardless, I’m still not entirely sure why getting protection, regeneration, blind etc disallows the use of snares. Especially when the Guardian is so much more reliant on melee damage than ranged. Better take snares off Elementalists, Engineers, Rangers and Necromancers then! How did that get past beta?! :O

As a small detour from the topic of the thread to address what was mentioned earlier, Warrior’s still have options for reducing damage and restoring health. Guardian’s don’t have options for cripple at all.

Warrior
- Plenty of weapon skill blocks/counterattacks.
- Let’s not forget that Warriors get much more leap finishers and blast finishers, which, when used correctly, can give decent amounts of retaliation (and a variety of other cool stuff), so the boon isn’t completely ruled out although I won’t argue it’s harder to obtain.
- Saying Warrior’s don’t get regeneration is silly, even it is via traits, they still can get it and if they do, it can be nearly permanent! (I’ve made a build where the regeneration ticked up.)
- Longbow has a blind.
- They can also blind via the many projectile finishers they have available. Which is another luxury Guardians have lived without for no real discernible reason until the revamped underwater skills.
- Healing Signet’s passive easily heals for more then Virtue of Resolve’s passive.
- Adrenal Health is always an option which can add up to another 120 health per second on top of that if health regeneration is an issue.
- As mentioned before, there’s Endure/Defy Pain.
- Shield Stance.
- Turtle’s Defense isn’t entirely bad.

Don’t want to use those? You don’t have to! At least you have the option to take them though! To be honest, the base armour and health make Warriors reasonably durable anyway. The combo methods of doing things surely aren’t as direct as the Guardian’s but I find the flexibility of combo finishers very fun. I’m sure there’s more ways as well but I’m not a definitive expert on Warrior builds.

People are giving plenty of reasons. Other people are just saying things like, “They can stop damage!” or, “Guardians are the best healers!” or, “My Guardian with a very specific build completely different to yours doesn’t seem to have a problem!” and completely ignoring the reasons said by others and not addressing the issue at all.

The reason is we need cripples as that Guardians do mostly sustained damage and a large percentage of that sustained damage is administered in melee range. If we can’t keep (I said, “keep” not simply, “get to”) targets in melee range for a reasonable amount of time, the sustained damage becomes no damage. The unreliable ranged damage and symbols’ natural encouragement to remain stationary in a very movement heavy combat system really only amplifies the problem.

Edit: I was originally directing that at Moddo but I realised I read his post as “nobody has given a valid reason as to why Guardians need cripple” my apologies there. However, I think the “everyone else can” argument is still valid as a lot of people say, “Guardians don’t get cripple because they have a different play style!”, well, all the other professions also have different play styles yet they can administer cripple liberally and not have to depend as much on certain builds to do it. Why not Guardians? What is it that they do that requires a lack of cripple? They are, in fact, more reliant on a target being in melee range than any other profession and are the least able to keep them there.

I used to play Dark Ages, in that game, roleplaying was essentially enforced unless you did the whole (()) thing. I’m not a roleplayer at all, did I roleplay in Dark Ages? I guess I did but it was more being myself just not mentioning anything outside of the game.

Funny story, my wife guested onto TC to see what all the fuss was about. The first thing anyone ever said to her was something like, “Excelsior m’lady, would you care to be a part of this -something or other- experiment?”, she promptly screamed, ran away from the guy and logged off. It was pretty funny to watch. Aah.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. I find role playing odd, I think ERP is completely unnecessary, I guess I’ve borderline roleplayed in other games in the past and it was fun enough. Will I ever go hating on people because I think roleplaying is weird? Heck no. Let them have their fun and they’ll let you have yours. When either party gets in each other’s faces about it, that’s when there’s problems.

The one thing that RP and non-RP things have in common however, is people. People is a whole other thread.

I usually play supporty tank and I’m not really satisfied . There’s no real reason I play this way other than it’s just the way I prefer to play Paladin/Guardian type characters. I’ve tried many other builds but I always revert back to this style.

For me to kill something, I need to stick to it for a little longer than most and because my weapons and utilities are geared more towards group support with a dash of damage on top, when I’m caught out or should I try to be somewhat effective on my own I’m pretty much just a punching bag that people can run circles around.
Even with cripples sprinkled here and there in my weapons, I would probably still be as such and I don’t think I would be able to hold a determined player for too long in melee which is fine with me as that’s how it generally works with the other professions but I would like the option of snaring someone, should I need to, through skillful use and judicial timing and possibly come out on top. You know, like how every other profession can, despite whether they’re building for tank/support or not.

Now before someone says, “You can’t have everything!” I agree! I don’t want everything, I’ve already given up a pretty large portion of damage and I’m fine with the smaller than usual damage I do as I chose that, all I want is a means to more easily be able to administer what sustained damage I do.
If you’re someone thinking, “Ah there’s your problem, you built for tank/support”, that’s the point. Other professions can build for tank/support and still get easy access to cripples and snares etc. “But Guardians can heal a lot!”, so can Elementalists, maybe we should take cripples and even chills away from them too!

I’ve always liked shield, it does strike me as a little odd that there’s no block there outside of the whole magic bubble which I completely love.
I’ve also always thought that a reasonable compromise would be to make Shield of Judgement either like a 1 second channeled block or a single block counter attack style skill that at the end of the channel or when you choose to activate it, performs it’s already established ability of damaging foes and granting protection to allies.

(You also forgot to say make Flashing Blade a leap finisher! )

Setun.4368:

Some more things.

However, if you’re snared, crossing 1200 every 45 seconds and 600 every 10 seconds isn’t going to stick you to your target for long at all and still requires the use of a specific weapon and ties up a utility slot, if you’re also running with Retreat then you’ve only got one utility left that’s flexible and I’m going to assume SYG, SY or CoP is going there. Making build diversity relatively low if you want to stay close to a target.
That critter technique, while useful, still also requires more effort than other profession’s equivalent and is far more reliant on having a target nearby.

This is an example of what I mentioned earlier, having the option to tailor your build specifically around mobility is good and should be available to every profession, which it is currently. The problem lies in that if Guardians don’t wish to do so, they most certainly lack a lot of snares in comparison to what other professions get with little or no thought at all.

Setun.4368:

Some stuff.

What you’re forgetting is, a lot of builds don’t actually use 1h sword and a lot of builds don’t use JI. Guardians actually get a comparable amount of immobilises as the other professions, who also get cripples to supplement the immobilise.

So what you essentially said is, we can only maintain melee range if we pigeonhole ourselves into using 1h sword+X/Hammer, bring JI and trait for a random, long cooldown chill that relies on crits. Right? Even then, if your foe cripples you, you’re pretty much stuffed if you can’t burst them down and they’ll still be able to get away relatively unhindered if you don’t.

What would another melee fighter have to do to achieve a similar level of snares and mobility? I said similar, not precisely equivalent.
Warrior – Equip any melee weapon configuration that isn’t mace+sword/axe/shield (even then they’ll at least have a stun).
Thief – Anything with offhand dagger although mainhand sword would probably have more options than dagger or pistol mainhand.
Ranger – Equip any melee weapon that isn’t an axe (technically axe isn’t much of a melee weapon on Ranger anyway).

This is without investing any traits or utilities and ignoring that all three of those professions also get reliable ranged cripples on their ranged weapons, excluding Warrior longbow and harpoon gun (which still get immobilise) if you count underwater and let’s not forget they can actually do damage with their ranged weapons on top of that.

Look, I’m completely for different play styles! I love that each profession plays differently! However, surely anyone can see there’s a distinct discrepancy between the level of melee control the Guardian has compared to the other professions that can melee. Especially when the intention for Guardian, as mentioned by ArenaNet devs, is to “…share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.”

Before someone says, “Homogenisation this and homogenisation that!”, the fact that there is only one cripple and one chill effect in the game that multiple professions can apply in different ways proves that this is already a deliberate homogenisation move to make the game mechanics simpler.

Edit: Put the quote in.

I really like them, it essentially turns my heal skill into For Great Justice. Good for comebacks since I use Shelter and Might of the Protector so I end up getting a pretty good stack of might from it and then proceed to kick tail.
It’s a nice damage supplement to my otherwise quite tanky support build without sacrificing the other support oriented rune bonuses.

Edit: They also work a treat with Altruistic Healing as allies get the boons too. Which works quite well with Shelter as it’s a little extra heals on top of the smallest heal we have (Still arguably the best heal if you ask me )

The thing about all this is that all the other professions also have gap closers, immobilises, knockbacks, knockdowns, some of them also have pulls, most, if not, all of them have many different leaps and they all still have access to cripple.

As I said earlier, how much do we have to give up because we can heal well?
- Low maximum health.
- Laughable ranged damage.
- Lower than others in terms of mobility.

I would take all of the above there without complaint if we could at least get some weapon skill cripples. If I want to use up all my utilities to control a target, that’s a reasonable alternative as other professions do it too. The problem is though, if I don’t want to use them up on control skills, my options are severely limited.

My point is, having the option to build for good control is nice and I think it’s good to have that option but I shouldn’t have to build specifically for it as a melee profession. Especially when the others don’t have to and still get access to good snares.

@Heinel – The fact is, regardless of how any other class plays, be it Warrior or otherwise, they can bring whatever they want really and still get access to cripples without thinking. Even if they aren’t going to use them, they still get them. I compared a single weapon for each class that can use it for the purposes of showing just what one weapon brings to the table in regard to sticking to a target, the problem is also apparent across other weapons. All the other professions there have different play styles, yes, however, all their sword skills behave somewhat similarly. They all get a good gap closer, they all have some kind of big damage move and they all get cripple, except Guardian. Of course builds come into it, I’m not an idiot but I’m using that example to highlight the problem.

I wouldn’t go as far to say that a Warrior that uses cripple fails. My wife plays Warrior pretty hardcore and I’ve seen the crap she can pull off with it. She doesn’t need to bring Throw Bolas or Bull’s Charge to be effective in melee. If that were the case, remove all cripples from Warrior skills and see what happens.

This is amazing! Just what I was looking for.

Using the sword as an example, since the OP mentioned them, let’s look at the professions who can use swords and see who can maintain melee range with them.

Just a reminder, we’re just looking at swords right now. Swords.

Warrior – Good duration cripple, Immobilise on the burst and has a nice spammable leap finisher skill.

Thief – Cripple in the attack chain, immobilise on the teleport skill.

Mesmer – Can summon an illusion that leaps to the target, cripples them and can then choose to swap places with the illusion.

Ranger – Cripple in the attack chain and then a mini-leap skill as the third attack. A leap skill in and out of melee range.

Guardian – One teleport on a good cooldown.

They all have gap closers. Only one of them is missing a cripple…

Before someone says, “Sword Wave has the longest range out of any melee attack!”, it’s not a melee attack, it’s a short range projectile, it’s more comparable to Elementalist’s Dragon’s Claw (Dagger #1 in fire) than anything else. If you manage to hit anything with it at its maximum range, you will only hit them once anyway, being able to hit a target three times is Sword Wave’s only real draw, when it hits once, it’s useless. You would not use this skill for its range.
Before someone else says, “Zealot’s Defense is a ranged skill!”, have you used it at range? Using it at range only further increases the distance from you and your target as they can move and you cannot.
Those two skills do absolutely zero towards keeping a target within melee range.

So what’s my point? Every profession that can use swords can leap/teleport around whilst generously applying various cripples and sometimes even immobilises with the exception Guardian; one of the two professions designed to be more effective in melee range. This is using only the sword remember.

This is something that many of you know I’ve been harping on about for a while now.

OP mentioned:

…virtually any other class who can equip a sword get at least cripple with its skills…

They do! It may not always be on swords but every other profession has a decent selection of cripple on their weapon skills alone! I’m counting Engineer kits too.

If you compare the cripples, immobilises and gap closers between Guardians and pretty much any other profession, you will find that the Guardian comes out on the bottom. A possible exception would be immobilises, however, the amount of immobilises Guardian has access to is comparable to every other profession’s but the other professions also get everything else.

Add a cripple to it and it would be difficult to kite them at all.

You mean like how it’s difficult to kite every other profession?

I don’t see why the old argument of, “They can heal!” is supposed to be the trade-off for this, the low health pool is the trade-off for good heals If it isn’t, then what is the low health the trade off for? How many things are we supposed to give up because we can heal well?
Keep in mind, Guardian’s playstyle is generally somewhat immobile anyway which as the OP mentioned, amplifies the problem.

As a Guardian main, if you don’t want those low damage cripples, I will take them in a heartbeat.

I think it should be a whirl finisher regardless, you still spin around and it only shoots out one whirl finisher bolt anyway…

I originally avoided this thread for reasons I’m unsure of but upon reading it, I found it to be quite concise and dead on with regard to the state of the Guardian. I agree with pretty much everything Brutaly mentioned and while my solutions would probably differ, I agree on the same problems. For example, I would probably go with boosting Virtue of Resolve’s effectiveness instead of adding another self-healing virtue. The AH issue would remain, unless Brutaly’s version of it were added to Virtue of Resolve or something, I dunno, it’s doesn’t really matter as long as we get fixed!

As a lot of you already probably know (I remember your names ), my gripes with Guardian are with how the weapons, specifically one handers, work, how they generally have very low trait synergy, don’t really play off of each other in the same way that other profession’s weapons do, the fact that making a build outside of 30 Valour is essentially suicide and my biggest gripe: the fact that Guardians are generally supposed to maintain melee range but simply can’t do it without gimping their build. In fact, I find even the idea of having to trait just to get a snare when every other profession has them for free is a little draining.
I won’t go into detail, however, as I’ve pretty much covered everything in my previous threads, suffice to say, I really like this thread and hopefully the ideas and propositions put forward get a good looking at by the ArenaNet team! Thanks Brutaly!

I am also one of those Guardians who originally wanted to run around with sword and shield (heck, I even originally wanted scepter as my weapon swap!) and due to the way they work and the way I like to play, they just aren’t compatible.
I do like shield but I won’t dispute that it doesn’t entirely “play well” with the other main hand weapons if you get what I mean.

Good luck having that signature for long as bringing unnecessary/unwanted attention to another player.

If you don’t like what you have to do to get the monthlies, don’t do them. If you don’t think the ends justifies the means, don’t do them. Simple as that.

You will get less laurels, yes but that’s what you get for not taking a small detour away from how you usually play. Before you say, “But I should be able to play how I want!”, you already are able to play how you want, you just won’t get the monthlies like that. If all I did was, I dunno, farm some kind of lodestone over and over, it would be stupid of me to complain that I didn’t get the monthly because it didn’t cater to my playstyle. There is no way to cater to every single person’s playstyle.

Additionally, not having the best stat items does not mean you’re being forced to get it, regardless of how anyone feels.

Here’s an example of the situation:
If I say to a child, “If you clean your room, I’ll give you this lollypop!” what happens?

Well children are completely insane so it could be any number of things but here’s a couple:

- They could get really excited go and clean up their room as fast as they can so they can get the lollypop because that’s what they were really interested in.

- They could moan and complain but still go and clean up the room because even though they hate cleaning the room, at least they’ll get a lollypop out of it.

- They could pout and say they don’t want to clean up the room, completely focused on being angry that they forget about the lollypop because they hate cleaning rooms.

- They could kick, scream and demand the lollypop over and over because that’s the only thing they’re interested in but will not clean the room because they hate cleaning rooms.

- They could do something totally unexpected like, spontaneously vomit, trip over whilst somehow having a fork in their hand even though, to your memory, they never had an opportunity to obtain said fork, grab the tablecloth on the way down, pulling everything off the table, have the fork narrowly miss stabbing them in the face/eye only to have their fork-wielding hand land right next to a power outlet. You know what I’m talking about.

Now, assuming I don’t simply fold to the kid’s demands and ignoring the fact that it’s a real life example with possible variables and not a game, who gets the lollypop? The ones who figured the ends justified the means. They were not forced to clean the room, they were simply given incentive to do something they wouldn’t normally do.

I neither have an ascended amulet, nor do I feel like I’ve run out of entertainment by not having one. I do not feel I must have one or else and I do not feel forced into completing achievements I don’t want to do to obtain one. Will I get one? Probably but I don’t feel like I need it yesterday and won’t spit the dummy if I don’t get it as fast as I want. Do I still find Guild Wars 2 fun? Yes I do.

The alternative to grinding out an ascended amulet is not having one. Both are acceptable choices and the game can still be played either way. Yes, it can.
Amulets are not mandatory. Great to have, I’m sure. Would you die a lot in high level fractals without one? I imagine it would be tougher, yes. Would you have less stats then some people without one? Well, yeah. This, by no means, makes them mandatory and, by extension (and also by nature), makes monthlies not mandatory either.

If the way someone plays somehow doesn’t naturally incorporate most of the daily achievement tasks and they’re too stubborn to take a little detour to finish off the tasks, then I say it’s fair that they don’t get the laurels.

Narkosys.5173:

Of course it is mandatory it is the only way to get your ascend amulet.

Well firstly, it isn’t and secondly, getting an ascended amulet isn’t mandatory either.
No, it’s not.

People keep saying, “forced”, I don’t think it means what they think it means.

You may like the thread I made a little while ago Lavra. It’s about the very issue you’re talking about
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Comparison-of-soldier-s-melee-effectiveness/first

Careful Chickenshoes, I hear they’re forcing us to dodge now!

Being rewarded for doing nothing was never part of the original idea for the game.

I found not only this post but the original post to be well written, concise and 100% in line with what I believe about the issue (add, “hilarious” to the original post ).

I quite like this line:

The laurels are rewards and not awards.

Someone mentioned they would prefer the dailies as a list of things of which you could complete say, five of and get the daily. ArenaNet has mentioned this is a planned feature. In the meantime, we can settle for what’s in place now. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, after the latest daily change, I’m accidentally getting the dailies now without altering how I play at all…

I’m addressing everybody that has a problem with this, not necessarily the thread author.

The concept is very simple. The dailies and monthlies are essentially saying, “If you do X, you’ll get Y as a reward”. If you’re not prepared to do X then you forfeit the eligibility for Y. Nobody is forced to complete it.

“But I need Y to do something!” – Forum poster.
Wrong, you want Y.
Sure, you may not particularly like doing X but you probably do like Y so simply partake in the activities that will get it for you. It may not be what you usually do but the only way to cater to everybody’s playstyle is simply to change the dailies and monthlies into time logged in, which is assuredly, a mistake.

Bottom line, you’re not forced to do any of the monthlies. Rest assured, your characters will not be deleted if you fail to meet the requirements, you may not get Y but if you refused to do what was necessary to get Y, it will not be handed to you for logging on.