Guild Wars 2

Visiting an npc is not part of my playstyle, I’m sorry, it’s just too grindy. HOW DARE THEY FORCE ME TO DO THIS!!!!
storms off

Well I think things could still be improved on those weapons. Heck, I don’t even know why Flashing Blade isn’t a leap finisher, I would take the piddly damage on it for a Leap Finisher!
Zealot’s Defense has plenty of room to be made more reliable, I mean it’s a technically a ranged skill that will pretty much miss if you use it at range…

I would still argue that out of all the weapons available to Guardians, sword and scepter (probably torch too) have the least amount of trait synergy and viability across builds. I think this is partly to do with how they were designed and partly due to Guardian’s reliance on symbols in some builds.

One of the reasons I think we get funneled into more tanky/support roles is because when compared to other profession’s weapons, we don’t really have the same level of control, particularly in regard to snares and ranged damage. So if we can’t kill someone fast enough or can’t hold them in melee range long enough, we do the next best thing; make sure they can’t dent our health or potentially our allys’ health because at least we can do that incredibly well.

I think another reason we don’t see a huge amount of build diversity (particularly Zeal builds) is that pretty much everyone can’t go without 30 Valour. It’s a great line of course but our survivability definitely takes a hit if we don’t take it. That and Zeal kind of stinks a little.

The Virtues line definitely has some great traits but, once again, it’s really hard to go too far down that line justifiably.

Torch #4 will only hit three targets whereas Whirling Wrath hits up to five. Cleansing Flame is a little more comparable at least but I find the activation time a little prohibitive.

I get the dailies accidentally by playing normally…. shrug

hithlain.4385:

I don’t know how you can be ranged in GW2, especially when solo in PvE… Sure, to engage a fight, this is fine, but once the monster is coming I’m unable to keep range, except a very small one. And for this, scepter or staff is fine, I just run around the enemy, firing…
But for this kind of use I usually prefer the staff, as it can hit several enemies at once…
The scepter 2nd attack is useless while pulling as the mob does not stay in, so you need a still enemy, and this can be achieved only when you’re close to the target, target smashing at you…

My Thief, Warrior and Ranger can all kill enemies solo in PvE before they even get to me.
What you said, however, is a perfect example of Guardian “Ranged combat”!

If it’s any consolation Amos, that’s the story I originally thought of too! Haha.

Well, yes they are, sure pistols are loud when you shoot them but you can hide them rather easily. Granted, your character doesn’t actually need to hide them or anything but it stays with the Thief’s subtlety theme.

You have to remember, the Thief is more of a medium to close range fighter, hence all the stealth to make up for the lack of toughness. Rifle would, no doubt, be a long range weapon who’s only workable playstyle on a Thief would be that of a sneaky sniper. The problem with that is, Thieves would get hit so hard with the nerf bat after all the free, long range stealth kills they get. They’re already tricky enough, really.

To be fair, there’s nothing overly subtle about hulking great semi-automatic rifles.
From a gameplay side of things, long range stealth kills… yeah… I think people have enough trouble with Thieves as it is…

I think what some people are failing to realise is that Guild Wars 2 is not a job! Despite how much people choose to grind. Yes, I said choose.
First of all, Skelk don’t drop totems (I know, I know) Secondly, I don’t think the OP was really referring to random drops, it seems more likely they were referring to dynamic events.
If I were to liken it to real life, if I were to go hunting and kill a wolf or something (I don’t actually hunt) and then found a $500 engagement ring in its belly, it would be unreasonable to expect every other wolf I kill to have swallowed expensive jewellery.

The reason people can do events with less people is because they scale in difficulty to the amount of players. Not because your little elite team of players are the most hardcore lawn mowing kids on the block and therefor require more pay.

The reward for doing events solo is that they’re easier.
A lawn doesn’t accumulate more grass to mow the more people mowing it.

You’re looking at it from a real world perspective, the real world is unfair. Guild Wars 2 is not the real world and is being 100% fair in giving all participants in an event a relatively equal reward based on participation.

To ask for the sum of the rewards of all the players that it would normally take to finish said event is simply greedy and just doesn’t make sense anyway considering that the events scale in difficulty.

bigtime.7410:

Why do guys who dont need people cant make more than people who need help?

If you ask me, this is the real motivation behind the thread. You want more for not needing help. I suggest looking at it from the perspective of your example, if a bunch of kids shared a $20 job and EACH got $20, then the person offering the job must have been a pretty generous person! Right? Everyone gets equal pay, nothing got divided up.

If you do a $20 job on your own, you still get paid $20.

Yaki.9563:

Scepter is only underpowered because you expect it to be as good as a melee weapon, at range.

Mmm no, scepter is only underpowered because it couldn’t hit a sloth. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

It would be nice if scepter were at least brought up to the level of functionality other profession’s scepters are. Even Necromancer’s scepter is far more functional.

Well, to be fair, I wasn’t really the one asking that question, I was quoting Xerenity at that point but to continue where you’re going, I’ve actually started running full Cleric’s again and I’m quite enjoying it. I have a smidge of damage sprinkled into my tank/support build by means of Defender’s Flame, Might of the Protector and Protector’s Strike in conjunction with using Shelter with Runes of Altruism but mostly it’s full support x/x/30/30/10 with mostly consecration utilities and whatever elite I feel like using at the time. I’m having loads of fun with it, especially now that Battle Presence is fixed .

Revolution.6301:

imo you so far has the best look. Other then the helm but everything else seems like it could be one set.

Cmon someone topple this person with another great look set!

Thanks, I’m glad you like it!
Before I could afford the Protector’s gear, I was using Draconic Gauntlets and Pit Fighter Boots. Before I realised how much I like the Visionary’s Helm, I was going to use the Avenger’s Headguard (Human tier 2).
I would take the Nobleman’s Leggings if they weren’t so beaten up…
It would look something like this: (I prefer my new one)

Here’s mine:

Armour
Visionary’s Helm
Dark Shoulders
Dark Chestpiece
Protector’s Gauntlets
Dark Leggings
Protector’s Footgear

Weapons
Seraph Mace
Krytan Shield

Dark pieces being the karma vendor armour from Orr.

Guardian is great at team support, yes, that’s one of the reasons it’s my favourite profession. I don’t see why that means they don’t get cripples in weapon abilities though (every other profession gets them). Considering the trade-off for lots of healing and support is really the low health pool anyway (and the mediocre, at best, ranged damage).

Rampage.7145:

A warrior shout build can hardly be compared with a meditation build.

That’s correct because a Warrior shout build would heal up to five allies around the Warrior for a decent amount. Sorry, couldn’t help myself heheh.

I think what it boils down to is a matter of trade-offs.

- Guardians have better support and survivability offset by lower maximum health and generally less damage than Warriors. Seems balanced to me.
- Warriors have less support and survivability offset by higher maximum health and generally higher damage than Guardians. Seems balanced to me.

Guardian can still do damage. Not as easily as Warrior.
Warrior can still provide team support. Not as easily as Guardian.
(Keep in mind that support doesn’t end simply at the amount of green numbers a profession can put out)

I feel the health/damage/support of both professions quite balanced if you ask me, given the trade-offs. So now, if that isn’t the issue in my opinion, what is? If you ask me, it’s how the weapons work and what I consider fun.
Do you know what I find really fun with weapons across any profession? I’ll make a tiny list.

- Being able to keep your target relatively within the intended range of the weapon through skillful application of its skills and positioning.
- When you can use combo finishers with what you or others are doing in different situations to great effect.
- Having various trait synergy options available so the same weapon can behave differently in different builds.
- Being able to use pretty much whatever weapon combination you want to use, within reason.

Out of those four points, I think the Warrior scores much higher than the Guardian. I could go on in more detail in regard to that but I think it would warrant a whole other thread…

Being able to take a lot of damage is quite different to being able to keep foes in range long enough to do any real damage to them. Warriors are easily capable of keeping close range to a foe but if someone is determined to get away from a Guardian, they will.
The extra kick in the teeth with regard to that is that Guardians can’t do anything at long range either while Warriors can quite easily.

So really, what are Guardians? Party buffing punching bags. I still really like Guardians but I don’t see why they have to be so poor at keeping foes in melee just because they have good support options, both Warrior and Guardian were designed to be more effective in melee range and only one can maintain it.

I find the problem is not so much with the health as it is with the melee effectiveness, as both are designed to be most efficient in melee range. Regardless of durability, Warrior is far better equipped for keeping targets in (or out) of melee range. They also get better ranged damage as Guardian’s ranged is laughable but that’s another thread.
If anyone is interested in my thoughts on the matter, I made a thread discussing it here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Comparison-of-soldier-s-melee-effectiveness/first

Smite is still pretty broken if you ask me. As an AoE skill it still only hits one target at a time and since it’s many small hits it actually get’s less effective the more things that are in it. Assuming it even hits them.

Bakitten291:

The issue is that for an almost strictly melee class, guardians just don’t have the skills to keep up and keep damage on people. This is also an issue with us having zero ranged options as well.

I’m not entirely sure why people just ignore this point and say, “We have lots of boons! We have lots of heals! Lalalalala!”.

When a Guardian’s build isn’t built specifically for burst damage, no knockdown, pull, ward or immobilise is going to keep the targets in melee range for long enough and even then….

I love that Warriors and Guardians have completely different play styles. However, I find that Warriors not only have far superior ranged effectiveness, they also have better means of keeping targets in (and out) of melee range. Guardians, who have a far more stationary fighting style, have a more difficult time making their sustained damage effective as they have essentially zero snares unless they gimp their build a bit. I would accept the lack of ranged options if the melee options allowed us to hold targets in melee better.

I don’t want to derail this into a snare discussion, I made a thread on it, you’ve probably read it already but here it is if anyone is interested in discussing it further.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Comparison-of-soldier-s-melee-effectiveness/first

I usually run some kind of frontline tanky support build and I must say, I was sad that Battle Presence was broken for so long. Now I am quite the happy knight in shining armour!
Although I wish Pure of Voice was fixed, there are times when I use it. Surely it can’t be that hard a fix? That and having a grandmaster trait that doesn’t work (let alone having two as it was previously) is quite disheartening.

They have more than two people on profession balance and skill design. The belief that there was only two of them was a myth that the community invented.

I don’t disagree with the heals in the combat log, that’d be nice, however, making heals crit would pretty much siphon all healing builds into the healing/precision/vitality gear as they would vastly outshine any others, rendering any other healing gear only useful as an off set until they got the precision ones.
It would also create insane spike heals which they deliberately avoided as part of their design. It would also mean Guardian’s, Elementalist’s and even Warrior’s healing abilities to be hit so hard with the nerf bat that any non-crit heals would be useless. A lot of people argue that the heals are already too low.

I just think the disadvantages greatly outweigh the advantages.

Vengeance, press 6, problem solved.

Dodging?! A chore?! I just don’t get this…. Does NOBODY dodge anymore? Do people hate being immune to damage? Am I in Bizzarro World?! It’s like 10 or 15 dodges! You could get that done in a single fight if you so desired.

In fact, the only daily I didn’t get done today simply through normal play was visiting the laurel vendor which, realistically, I would have also done anyway.

I should start a thread about how visiting an npc is not part of my playstyle.

If that were the case, Warriors would all spec Sweet Revenge, knock everyone back, buy themselves enough time to use Vengeance and kick someone’s kitten insta-rally. Hello unstoppable Warriors.

I say, if you can’t get the dodge daily through normal combat, you’re doing it wrong. I’m actually quite confused why this is even a discussion.

I would have asked, “Is your dodge bar full?”

I think we know what the answer is.

Holy crap, people are threatening to quit over doing something they should be doing anyway?! Things that are entirely optional… I don’t even…

I’d hate to see them when something actually important doesn’t go their way…

Yukatana.8901:

Tell them to press 6.

This is the best response so far.

Vengeance available straight away would be way too powerful if you consider the trait Sweet Revenge. Heck, it’s still pretty powerful as it is.

Well, game design-wise, it should really state, “You gain fury when you receive the burning condition”, Zealot’s Flame doesn’t actually give you the burning condition.

Sairys.2364:

Because I don’t really ever need to.

I’d say this whole situation proves that you do need to.

They did give plenty of notice.

I’ve been using Sigil of Speed on my shield in pve, when doing things like chain events and large pulls, I’ll have swiftness listed for 1 minute constantly. Pretty good considering I can use it with any build really, unless it requires two specific sigils.

I think the single target nature of the sword is its biggest weakness. Like I mentioned earlier, making Sword Wave hit foes in the normal melee arc (it’s currently a projectile skill that can be reflected!) and making Zealot’s Defense hit foes in a line would largely address this if you ask me.
I’m not against single target weapons but I think the scepter would be a better candidate. Obviously, scepter would need some decent tweaking to get it to that point.

I know people are using sword to great effect and all that but I think the only builds where sword is really viable are those with decent critical chance and on crit effects. The only real trait synergy it has is with Blind Exposure, which is also generally only picked up by damage/crit based buids anyway. You could argue for Supreme Justice and Permeating Justice but I think going 20-30 points into virtues is sacrificing far more damage and/or utility than it gains you.

Say, for instance, if Zealot’s Defense’s projectile absorbs suddenly became blocks instead, all of a sudden we’ve opened up some good trait synergy for the Valour line! You know, that line that everyone originally thought was weak but is now the line we can’t live without?

I normally run some kind of supporty tank build using mace + shield (I WOULD use sword but it’s 100% awful for my build) so my mace sigils are usually something like Life, Restoration or Water if I know I’m getting fury, I’m using Altruism runes so I’m currently running Sigil of Water. I decided to run Sigil of Speed on the shield because Guardian has such low mobility, especially with that setup and I’m loving it! I did the entire southern invasion of Orr in Straights of Devastation with 1m swiftness on the whole time.

But back on topic! I agree that perhaps 5% is a little too low and the trait itself is a little dry compared to Mesmer and Warrior equivalents.

Alent.4780:

I think what a lot of “you get healing so be happy” people here don’t realize is that there is more than one way to support a group. Direct healing isn’t the pinnacle of support nor should it be, and it definitely should require a class to be bad in every other area. No one wants homogeneity but some sort of parity would be nice considering nearly every other class’s ability spread.

I completely agree. This is what I was saying earlier. Yeah, the professions I listed probably can’t get as much healing done as the Guardian. So what?! They still get access to various effective ways of supporting their allies and get all the snares they’re used to. That is the point of this thread (specifically in regard to Warrior), not, “Everybody can heal just as well as Guardians! Haha!”

I’ve said it about twice or thrice in here now, why does having good support mean no snares?! You have to build and gear to make the heals useful anyway and we have a trade-off in place already for the high heals and that’s the lowest kitten health in the game and the laughable ranged damage. What is the complete lack of snares a trade-off for?

Yeah, it’s a slow weapon but Faithful Strike and Protector’s Strike can actually hit pretty hard.

They should change it to something like, “Mace damage is increased 5% Faithful Strike now hits up to three foes.”

That’d be pretty solid, of course, the AoE heal would only proc once.

The Guardian’s weakness is the low health pool and having no real ranged damage.

I don’t see why the Guardian’s also has to have no cripples as a melee centric profession in a game where the combat is constantly moving and every other profession has access to plenty of cripples and a comparable amount of other control skills. The lack of ranged damage is a bit of salt in the wound but I would prefer cripples over ranged.

Like I said earlier, being good at support is no trade-off for not being able to snare a foe! Especially so for builds who aren’t aiming for support at all. How is this even reasonable? Why does Guardian have to give up snares because they can support well?
Do Elementalists lose snares if they go support?
Do Warriors lose snares if they go support?
Do Engineers lose snares if they go support?
Do Rangers lose snares if they go support?
You better believe they don’t!

Why then does Guardian not get any to begin with and the only counter argument is, “They’re good at support”? They’re also supposed to be good at melee!

Vitu.3580:

Like the fact that Warriors have to remain stationary to deal out much of their damage. This is something Guards for the most part don’t have to worry about.

Wait, what!? I assume you’re referring to Hundred Blades? Not every Warrior uses that and even then, it’s hardly most of their damage if they aren’t a gimmick build. Warriors can do great damage with any weapon loadout.
If you’re referring to Flurry, well the associated immobilise target on that skill fixes that problem and if not, they’ve got that handy cripple on sword too. If you’re referring to the rifle and harpoon gun burst skills, well, they’re huge hitting ranged burst skills, which is not really the point of the thread but I know I’d kill for a good ranged weapon on Guardian.

The only other Warrior skill I saw that makes them stationary is Staggering Blow, which is hardly most of their damage either. The point is though, even if they did use mostly the five skills that immobilise them whilst channeling, Warriors still get the cripples, immobilises and knockdowns on the weapons themselves to be able to use those five skills effectively.

For the sake of argument, Guardians also have to remain stationary to take advantage of much of their boons and heals. I would say a banners support Warrior with Battle Standard, For Great Justice and any other banner could keep a timely stability, semi-permanent swiftness, permanent regen, 3-6 stacks of might, whatever boons and auras they want from the multiple blast finishers banners provide and good fury uptime on the whole party. All without losing a single weapon snare. In fact, the banners provide another gap closer.

Regardless, it doesn’t matter who can throw out more damage, conditions, boons or healing as the trade-offs for those are already in place and I think they’re relatively balanced. As follows:

Guardian – Somewhat more boons and healing (debatable) offset by lowest possible health pool. Not as much damage output.
Warrior – Doesn’t heal as much (again, debatable) offset by highest possible health pool and higher damage output.

So the real difference is, once again, who needs to maintain melee range to be most effective? Both Guardian and Warrior really (annoyingly enough, the Warrior actually doesn’t even have to).
Who is actually able to do so effectively with zero traits and utilities? Warrior only.

Disclaimer: I say without traits and utilities because I don’t think a profession designed to shine in melee should have to specifically build their character just so their targets can stay in range easier and forgo greater utilities just to do so. It should be how the profession naturally plays, you know, kinda like how Warrior weapons work.

I wanted to be weaker when down leveled. Everything was way too easy.

I think it’s amusing that people think that if we got the kind of cripples that Warrior gets, we’d be overpowered.
Go here:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cripple

Look at the distribution of cripple amongst the professions. You’ll find that every other profession, with the exception of Engineer (which I’m sure is another thread altogether as well, they still get cripples though) is able to easily administer cripple, regardless of traits, to about the same effect as Warriors are able to!
This is not even counting stuns and knockdowns.
Heck, you have to scroll down half the page before you even see the Guardian icon! You’ll notice, the only skills that inflict cripple are an underwater downed skill and an elite tome skill. Hardly practical.

So every other profession has about three (average across professions, only one on Engineer) weapon skills across all their available weapons on short cooldowns, while having higher mobility, being able to build to be hard to kill and this seems to be considered fine, yet the thought of Guardian getting a cripple makes us overpowered? What the heck?!

Being good at support is no trade-off for not being able to snare a foe, as someone stated earlier, Warrior shout healing builds heal everyone (up to five others) at a faster rate than Guardians and don’t require their allies to remain in a small area of effect. Elementalists can bring insane support and they still have access to cripples (and chills). Elementalists can be insanely hard to kill and they still have access to cripples (and chills), see where this is going?

I’m not going to compare the other professions any further, the purpose of this thread is to compare Guardian and Warrior as they are the most similar in playstyle (yes, I know they still play differently). ArenaNet devs even stated that both Warrior and Guardian need to be in melee range to deal their damage the most effectively, however, only Warrior can maintain it without gimping their build.

I’ve made various threads and posts about this and I agree with Danicco.
A quick summary of my ideas for it are thus:

- Make Sword Wave hit in the normal melee arc. It’s currently quite narrow.
- Make Flashing Blade do more damage.
- Make Flashing Blade a leap finisher.
- Make Zealot’s Defense hit foes in a line.

All of a sudden, sword isn’t so bad!

Two things though:
- I wouldn’t be opposed to remaking Sword Wave altogether and making it a single hit, normal melee arc skill that reliably gave a condition though (like cripple! :O ).
- It says that Zealot’s Defense blocks projectiles on the tooltip but it actually absorbs them, either make it clear that they’re absorbs or make them actual blocks to give us more trait synergy, something the sword lacks a good deal of. Ironically, we would then have three weapons that block that aren’t shields….