Guild Wars 2

@Ganzo – Yeah, I left traits out because I don’t think people should have to spend 20-30 traits simply to get a snare (even if it’s just a suggestion at this point haha!). I also left utilities out because I wanted to keep the comparisons rather broad and available to essentially every build. A “play how you want” kind of approach I guess as I’m aware that a Guardian could run greatsword + hammer with Bane Signet, Signet of Wrath and Judge’s Intervention and then say I’m wrong, however, they’ve pretty much made an entire build around control when Warrior gets the snares with shorter cooldowns regardless, as you know.

I left Thief out as I was more comparing the two soldier professions as they are the most similar in playstyle but I’m certainly not discounting your input at all! I find the Thief’s weapons all to be quite functional and fun! I wish Guardian’s weapons worked so well together.

@Ezael – You’re forgetting spear #5, I’ve included underwater weapons in the list. The Warrior one is on the spear as well. See above for why I excluded utilities but even with them I find Warrior comes out on top. Not everyone can afford to run Signet of Wrath or Hammer of Wisdom. Hammer of Wisdom can be pretty good but as I mentioned earlier, I left out the push skills as they generally remove the foe from melee range. I’m of course referring to its chain skill and not its activation skill when I say push. Due to your input I will edit the original post to include gap closers and clarification on utilities. Thanks.

I made this a new thread as I didn’t want to derail the Writ of Impediment one too far.
I’m going to concisely as possible re-iterate a comparison of the two soldier classes, both designed to be most effective in melee, as stated by ArenaNet.

Zero trait investment and no utilities (for the sake of build independent mechanics) yields the following:

Warrior
- Six weapon skill cripples
- Four weapon skill stuns, including bursts.
- Two weapon skill knockdowns.
- Two weapon skill immobilses.
- One weapon skill pull.
- Seven gap closer weapon skills including short range skills like Shield Bash, excluding pulls and “Charge!”.
- Generally very mobile combat style.
- High health pool, can take a lot of damage.
- Can use pretty much any weapon they want per build (common sense assumed).
- Good ranged damage.
- Good at bursty damage.
- Hard to escape from.
- Can buff and heal allies quite well if built to do so.
- Can be very hard to kill if built to do so.

Guardian
- Zero weapon skill cripples.
- Zero weapon skill stuns.
- Two weapon skill knockdowns (The wards, they’re a whole other thread).
- Two weapon skill immobilises.
- Two weapon skill pulls.
- Three gap closer weapon skills including short range skills like Mighty Blow, excluding pulls and Symbol of Swiftness.
- Generally very stationary combat style.
- Low health pool, can negate a lot of damage.
- Somewhat pigeonholed into using different weapons per build.
- What ranged damage?
- Good at sustained damage.
- Easy to escape from.
- Can buff and heal allies quite well if built to do so.
- Can be very hard to kill if built to do so.

(Underwater weapons are included, I’ve excluded push and launch skills. While they are nice control skills, they remove the foe from melee range.)

I’m all for doing the same thing in different ways but surely anyone can see the disparity between the two in regard to effectiveness in melee?

I don’t have a problem with sustained damage, in fact, it’s normally what I prefer but being unable to maintain melee range to administer said sustained damage renders it useless.

This is not about who can kill who fastest or whatever, read the thread again if you think I’m having trouble fighting Warriors. It’s about the melee effectiveness of each profession separately.

TL;DR: Give us cripples please.

Edit: Clarified a few things.

Rambodacious.7495:

I too want to post hollow, unhelpful, back-side kissing words that do nothing but try to invalidate constructive criticism from paying customers!

I’ve written essay lengths of constructive feedback in the Guardian forums, yet I also feel the people behind ArenaNet need encouragement with their jobs. Why would I try to invalidate myself?

You say we’re trying to invalidate constructive criticism? Firstly, you’re trying to invalidate people attempting to encourage the people in charge of fixing the game, secondly, there is a vast difference between constructive criticism and crying. I never mentioned that posting constructive feedback was wrong, you’re inventing strawmen.
Paying customers are also entitled to convey their appreciation of the product rather than complain about everything wrong. There is already SO MUCH negative feedback, constructive and otherwise around here already, why ridicule any efforts to at least make their days better and to feel their work isn’t wasted?

If you worked 1000+ hours on something and all you did was read page after page of people saying how broken it is, regardless of if it actually was broken or not, would it not make you want to just give up? It would probably have that affect on me, that’s for sure.

They randomly gave me a Christmas card two years ago. No other company in any field has gone to the effort to give me a homemade Christmas card with staff signatures.
I still have it in my desk here.

Thank you again ArenaNet

I’m glad this thread got brought back! ArenaNet need positive feedback to help them fix all the negative stuff!
Well… they probably don’t need it but I’m sure it helps.

I’ve always said, “Does yelling at someone making you a burger get you the burger faster? Probably but it’ll also increase your chances of finding a loogie in it.”

ArenaNet are doing such a stellar job that we’re getting spoiled!
- Since beta I’ve attempted to dodge in many different games that didn’t allow it…
- I’m not a graphics elitist, I still play many old games from the 80’s and 90’s but now I can’t look at some games either because I compare them to GW2! (Depends on the game for some reason, other games I’m fine. Weird)
- In other games now, when I swing a melee weapon, I feel ripped off when it only hits one foe.

There are many other great things that Guild Wars 2 does that we now take for granted. Just a look back at older MMO’s will reveal just how different it was back then. Every MMO’s has its teething pains and their associated dummy spits but I think this game is one of the best I’ve ever played. Big thanks ArenaNet! You da best!

I’m currently using Defender’s Flame, Shelter, Might of the Protector and Runes of Altruism to great effect! Good fun there, pull about 7-9 mobs in Orr and watch the many (low) numbers!

I don’t really think snares as big a deal, balance wise, as we’re all making it out to be. I mean look at every other profession, arguably, able to dole out the same or more damage (in some cases much more) than Guardians and they have all manner of different cripples sprinkled throughout their weapon skills. One would assume that the reason we don’t have cripples on our weapons is because of our high survivability but really, isn’t the low health pool supposed the trade-off for that? How many things have to be counted as trade-offs because we have high survivability? Lower than most damage (generally, I know there are exceptions), lowest health pool, less mobility than most professions and no real cripples.
Realistically, the other professions can build to be quite survivable too without losing their snares, it’s just nobody does since they deal damage so much better than we do so it’s never as large an issue. I guess it’s because Guardians usually get pigeonholed somewhat into bunker style builds which amplifies the lack of snares issue.
I may have had a hard time explaining that, my apologies.

Indeed, they need not be mutually exclusive! I just try not to ask for too much Although Leg Specialist for Warrior is a good case in point.

Not trying to shut down your ideas or anything but while it’s a nice idea to have a unique snare for Guardian, I believe the whole boons and conditions system was made with the intention of consolidating skill effects, which keeps things nice and simple (look at the mess of different skills that is WoW, or at least, was WoW. I haven’t looked at it in ages). Having two separate conditions that only reduced movement speed, albeit different amounts, would be a little redundant. They’d most likely balance the skills towards the -50% movement speed of cripples in the event that we actually do get cripples.

My hopes are high! They probably shouldn’t be…

Sounds interesting! Don’t forget Runes of the Guardian!

I think I’d still prefer the simpler solution of putting snares on weapon skills, as Ganzo mentioned, it would mean the snares would be available to every build with the same effectiveness.

Ganzo.5079:

i dont know, if smite become a simbol, and the orb fixed, for scepter is ok without a crippling.

That’s true, if Orb of Wrath were a reliable ranged skill and Smite a symbol, the immobilise on Chains of Light would be enough.

@Alarox – We sure do want the same thing, buddy! I think your little list there is quite concise.

Just to throw some more of my thoughts into the discussion, if they miraculously decide to give us a snare on weapon skills, I don’t think chill would be appropriate really. As it has the additional effect of slowing down skill recharge (wait, does that mean Thief’s weapon skills are immune to that?) I imagine for balance purposes, the duration would be shorter.
I don’t know about you but I would rather just a simple cripple with a balanced duration over a short duration chill as, while making it more difficult for our foe is good and all, I’m not really in it for the additional effects of chill, even though chill slows them even more. I just want to be able to keep them in melee longer than we can now.

Since I’m more on the side of items 3 and 5 (sic) on Alarox’s list and since we’re going into a little more detail, here are the weapons I think would be viable candidates for snares and perhaps which type:

Sword – Cripple, definitely.
Scepter – Perhaps a cripple somewhere, maybe after the immobilise as an additional effect? Even better, fix Orb of Wrath and Smite and put a cripple on there somewhere.
Greatsword – Cripple, before you say “But the pull!”, Warrior greatsword.
Staff – The wards are ok when they work, useless when they don’t. I think reliable wards would be better than a cripple on this one, although a cripple on Symbol of Swiftness would not only make the skill more useful but would stay in line with the symbol’s theme and allow for strategic cripple and/or heal (if traited) placements to assist allies.
Hammer – As above with wards, I don’t think it needs a cripple really, the immobilise is ok enough, although the misses with it can be frustrating…
Mace – I like mace in terms of functionality but its control effectiveness is somewhere between zip and zilch. Maybe a stun or even a knockdown? Works with the other maces, otherwise, mace is a good candidate for any symbol based snare traits at the very least. I remember in beta, Protector’s Strike used to be an AoE knockback, not quite consistent with mace’s playstyle but some kind of knockdown or stun on a skill would fill the gap nicely.

I’ve used it along with Altruistic Healing, Writ of Exaltation and Writ of the Merciful to be a placed, AoE heal that also heals you when in large groups. Without Writ of Exaltation though, as you said, you can at time walk through it between ticks unfortunately. I would use it for any of the supportive symbol traits, not by itself and probably not with Zeal either as staff is really more of a support weapon.

Using it without any traits is a bit average unfortunately.

So Warriors, Rangers, Thieves, Elementalists, Mesmers and Necromancers being able to throw cripple around from weapon skills like it’s candy while still having access to around the same amount of knockdowns/immobilises and easier swiftness is balanced but giving it to Guardians makes them OP? I thought you said cripples are dead weights… by that logic, giving us cripples would be a nerf! :O

The thread is about Guardian snares, I’m talking about an alternative solution but it’s still a Guardian snare discussion. I’ll stay right here and continue to discuss the value of Guardian snare options thank you very much.

Also, I think you’re just making stuff up to try and stop me supporting cripple options. You said, " the only change sought is more option on par with existing viable builds" whereas the OP said, “It’s simply another option that adds a number of new and viable builds where there weren’t any before.”

Which is really what I’m suggesting as well.

Counter arguments are not equivalent to trolling. I’m not sure why everyone seems to think otherwise…

I’m still against the idea of having a specific build simply to slow people down, especially when most other professions have cripples all over their weapon skills and can use them regardless. If Warrior’s aren’t using cripples on you, then I say they’re the ones doing it wrong.
As it stands, it seems only a hammer build with Judge’s Intervention with one or two optional signets, Signet of Wrath being pretty lame, just to keep people within melee range right? What if my build doesn’t accommodate hammer? We’re gimped then aren’t we? Greatsword? The pull is nice but they’ll just walk away from it. Yes, there are ways available for us to keep people close but for anyone who isn’t running Knight’s or Berserker’s good luck killing them under 2-4 seconds before their durations run out. On top of that, if they have any swiftness, we’re stuffed. If they really want to get away, they can.

I would hardly agree that cripple skills on weapons are dead weights. What’s the first thing most people do when they’re chilled or crippled? They dodge to get away faster if they can. You’ve just made them blow a dodge or two and then you can simply walk up to them and continue to do melee damage to them. I don’t get it, what is the benefit of using only an immobilise and/or knockdown when you could use both in conjunction with a free cripple for even more face to face number exchange?

How many do I see using cripple? Short answer: all of them. Long answer: aaaaaaaall of them, simply because they all have it available on all but three weapons, two of which have immobilise and the other has a stun, a block and a daze. I fail to see how a condition like cripple is useless to a Warrior.
I can understand why they wouldn’t need it for a burst damage Warrior and I assure you, if you were running a tough, more support oriented Warrior relying on sustained damage, you better believe those cripples would be invaluable but the point is, the option of cripple is still available to them whether they want to use it or not. Guardians don’t quite have the luxury of easy snares, which, really, is the reason this thread exists in the first place. I’m just throwing suggestions around like everyone else here in an effort to make Guardian the best it can be.

Nobody was really saying we needed 100% chill uptime. If you’re referring to what I recently said, I was more referring to cripple anyway and even then I don’t think we should have 100% cripple uptime either (I think chill on a Guardian is a little out of place to be honest). Cripple with similar cooldowns and duration as the Warrior would be nice because, as ArenaNet has stated, Guardians are supposed to be more effective in melee range and yet we have no reliable way of keeping people there without using up 1-2 utility slots (other professions can choose not to do this) or weapons that we may not necessarily want to use and even then due to the lack of cripple, as soon as they run out, if you don’t do enough damage to kill them in the short amount of time you had them, foes can simply run away or roll through those long cooldown wards that are now wasted…

I would say that the tradeoff for being a survival based build is already present, you don’t do much burst damage, you generally do sustained damage. We can’t really perform sustained damage unless we keep them with us. Once again, I’m not asking for perma-cripple where once we’ve got them, we win. I’m asking for some good duration, good cooldown cripples that when used in a timely manner could very well win you the day if you play well. You know, like most other cripples.

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

Why do you want deal damage as guardian? Guard is so perfect for protect team or consume damage.. Why do you pick GUARDian, if you want be a damage dealer?

You’re ignoring the question.

“So my question here is- what do you guys think about giving up the damage output to be the guy/girl that does not wipe with the rest of the group?”

Their choice of profession and playstyle is not really the topic of the thread. Wait… did you read the whole post?

I used to be jealous of the huge numbers and speed that glass cannons could put out but then I saw how easily they went down. I’ve always been a tough support style and I’ve been so used to being so that I get confused when I see some people get downed on fights that I generally shrug off. So I think some effort into survivability is always a good choice. So what if the things don’t die in a few seconds?, I say. You still do damage, even in full Cleric’s, it’s just not the max, assuming you’re not up against some dps gate type encounter, there’s really no reason to not play tough if that’s how you want to play.

Edit: I’m talking from a more PvE point of view but being tough in PvP has plenty of merits too.

The only problem I really have with this suggestion is that it would make Guardians have to spend 20-30 trait points to get access to something every other profession has with zero trait investment. I agree that Zeal is in need of some fixing up just as I believe Guardian’s need a snare of some sort but why not fix them both independently of each other? We already have enough “must have” traits to build for and I feel we’d have to spread points even thinner.

I’m not against this idea, don’t get me wrong and I like that people are trying to improve Guardian but I think a better solution would be to just give us weapon skill cripples and fix Zeal up on its own, since this is all suggestions anyway at this point.

Feel free to disagree! Just giving my thoughts in on the matter!

I already do whinge about that!

fishergrip.4082:

Never dying to thieves.

This one make me chuckle. Also, quite true.
Killing thieves however….

I love the dual nature of a lot of our skills. In previous MMO’s, you generally either damage enemies OR support allies. In Guild Wars 2, we can do both without thinking!

I think people are confusing Shield of Absorption with Sanctuary here.

If they increased the default radius of symbols to the Writ of Exaltation size I wouldn’t see any reason to not make Smite a symbol. Also, it’d be nice if Smite hit more than one thing at a time, which, presumably, making it a symbol would fix.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

A few things,

If you want to say a guardian is bad, I do not think the guardian forums is the best place to complain.
, try using the Suggestions Forum

If you want advice on how you can be better, try considering some advice constantly given by well-known guardians and experienced guardians in many different areas.

If the advice you are receiving is something you’ve done before and it doesn’t work for you. Roll another class instead of complaining how much you dislike the guardian or think is underpowered in the Guardian Forums, try Suggestions if you really want something changed.

But bottom-line, if you are not willing to change and adapt to be a better guardian with the mechanics that exist today while future balancing issues are pending, then don’t play a guardian, and don’t complain here. Submit a ticket. It’s very annoying to read posters pretty much want us all to agree and see their point on how guardians are bad. That’s very unproductive.

So essentially you’re saying, “Certain Guardian mechanics bug you? Don’t play Guardian!”, to which I say, “People discussing how Guardian could be improved bug you? Don’t read about it then!” Stop being so unproductive!
There are people, like myself, that want to see the Guardian profession become everything it could be! I love the idea of that profession much more than the others, there are just things here and there that I think require tweaking to bring them up to the level of fun and functionality that the other professions are at. I’m not just going to go, “Oh well, there are certain things I don’t like about my favourite profession, time to pick a new one!”. Have you never thought about your favourite profession and said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if….” or, “I would love it if we could….”? That’s what we’re really doing here, we’re not going, “OMGz! Warriors are OP!”.

You mentioned “change and adapt” to existing mechanics. Changing and adapting is fine and I think a system where you can do that is good design but when something with one profession is partially broken especially when compared to other professions who are relatively fine, saying nothing about it and moving on isn’t going to fix anything. To which I would expect a response like, “Submit a ticket then!”, I’ve always thought tickets were for support and forums were for discussion. So I go to the forums. Am I wrong?
Realistically, as threads go, this one isn’t really a complaining thread anyway, those don’t last very long around here. People are talking about problems constructively and offering possible ideas that could fix them up and aside from that weird part where people were arguing about builds vs builds or the people who were replying to the then ambiguous thread title, the overall temperature of the discussion has been pretty relaxed really.

I don’t think it really matters if this thread were on the suggestions forums or the Guardian forums, they would have moved it by now it if bugged them and really, it is a 100% Guardian specific set of issues, what better place to go to than the sub-forum designed for talking specifically about Guardian? If this thread belongs in the Suggestions forum, so be it, let them move it but dude, you aren’t a moderator.

Yeah, Permeating Wrath is a pretty insane trait, it’s difficult to go 30 Virtues though.
I did notice that it actually makes ranged weapons not as effective at delivering long range burns, that’s the trade-off I guess. Bit of a drag there but hey, it’s not like our ranged weapons are ranged weapons.

If anything, I’d like the stat down-scaling to be even tougher. It’s way too easy in the early zones. It seems to balance out a bit in the mid level zones but I think it could still stand to be a little tougher.

I think sword only really shines for people who run crit builds and shield only really shines for people focused on team support, I quite like shield although I would like it to perform a little better somehow, not much room to work with though.

This isn’t a massive problem design wise if you ask me, as obviously, weapons would be good in some areas that others aren’t, although it does highlight what I said a while ago about how Guardians play when compared to Warriors. We get siphoned into using particular weapons for particular builds, with not a whole lot of options.
If a Warrior wants to do damage, they could use whatever weapon they want really, if a Warrior wants to focus on support, again, they can use whatever weapon they want really. Granted, they may not be as effective as Guardian at support, they certainly are quite competent at it, all the while, not having the interesting and effective weapon sets they possess compromised.
If I wanted to run a support build with Guardian that used a sword, I would most likely still have to spec some into crit just to take Empowering Might and even then, all I would be doing is tossing out might a bit just to proc Altruistic Healing, which would only be healing me anyway and it doesn’t offer anything like a symbol, which a large portion of our support comes from (unfortunately). I don’t want to spec crit, I quite like the Cleric’s gear. So essentially, unless I want to completely jip myself, I can’t really use a sword at all.

I think torch could be better really, it’s probably the least bad out of the weapons I’d consider bad. I mean, it has this massive blue flame that doesn’t even inflict burning?! Even the Elementalist’s flamethrower type move inflicts burning. I know ours removes conditions but I would imagine, in most cases, it would be used for the damage and any conditions removed would be a bonus. Some people claim it’s not worth using anyway as the auto attack does more damage, I would argue that it’s a far better AoE than sword’s auto attack any day.

But once again, what if I, for some weird reason, really wanted to use a sword+torch but wanted to focus more on team support like heals? I’d have to do it with no symbols and probably focus on shouts and take the broken Battle Presence. I’d most likely just get laughed at.
The irony is, in this case, a sword+shield (or any weapons) Warrior with shouts or banners support build would do a much better job. It goes the other way too, a Guardian damage build focusing on the mace or staff would seem strange too.

I know that’s a silly example but it does highlight a problem. I’m currently a little stuck where I’m at with Guardian, I’d love use sword and shield but I also love to run tough support builds and the sword really just doesn’t work at all with it, especially when I’m pulling huge groups of foes. I guess what I’m saying is, a few more options for each weapon type would be nice, perhaps in the form of traits, I dunno, I’d have to think about it.

You’re welcome, my numbers are not to be taken as an overall dps assessment of each weapon though, as all manner of things affect the melee portion of the damage, I was mostly focusing on getting the condition damage portion of the chains a little more transparent using no modifiers. Even then it only counts for Guardian if Justice is off cooldown.
Man, just saying condition damage from a Guardian perspective makes me feel jipped…

I still think that even if Warrior sword did less damage, I’d still like it more as it’s hella more fun to use and I find it way more useful anyway. I know what you mean about feeling the usefulness of a weapon. Sword feels so weak in PvE especially. It’s a real drag as it’s my favourite weapon to use in games.

I think if they want a strong single target weapon for Guardian, they should fix up scepter to facilitate that, I think it would be a great candidate with some good tweaks. As it stands, sword is really only acceptable damage against one target. Even then you’re pretty much just spamming 1. Boring. Especially when you could have finished multiple foes off in the same amount of time and had more fun doing it with other weapons. (Yes, I know the term ‘fun’ is subjective but you know what I mean)

Thief shortbow, now that’s a fun weapon!

(Had to make a second post as it said my reply was too long )

Anyway, sorry for another wall, I really don’t mind discussing this with everyone, it’s not like I’m mad at anyone for disagreeing with me by the way, just thought I’d make that clear. So don’t read this post in an angry voice!
The reason I keep talking about sword is that it just doesn’t seem as functional as other weapons we have, along with scepter (I think scepter is a little worse off to be honest). At the end of the day though, it’s not all about the amount of damage the weapon puts out but how well it plays if you ask me. Which, is what this whole thread is about, Guardians feel really clunky to play in regards to weapon skills and traits when compared to Warrior and other professions. Finishing combos is fun! We don’t get to do it enough!

I’ll explain why I keep ‘dissing’ the sword. It’s a bit of a wall so those who aren’t interested, skip this one.

The attack speeds of the sword chain for both Guardian and Warrior are identical.
Does one second of burn every 1.5 seconds really add up to about six stacks of bleeds up constantly? Maybe, I haven’t done the math, I’ll get to it later. However, it doesn’t add up the moment you are attacking more than one foe as the burn is only applied to one of them at a time.
Final Thrust hits up to three enemies easily in the normal melee attack arc. Sword Wave is, not only a cone shaped, invisible (and reflectable apparently) projectile attack but does not hit foes in the normal melee arc and even hitting three targets with it all can require awkward amounts of effort.

I did some rudimentary numbers using level 80 with zero condition damage using the formulae provided on the wiki. I’m not great at working out dps stuff by the way.

One second of burning would be 328. Let’s say it’s a best case scenario where you hit three targets with all three chain attacks. This actually adds up to 15 hits, so three one seconds burns on who knows what targets is 984 burn damage in total every chain, which is 1.5 seconds.

Hitting three targets with the Warrior sword chain will easily keep about six stacks of bleeds on all three targets.
Six stacks of bleeding is 225 per second. Across all three targets you’d be doing 765 damage per second in total. Remember though, we’re going per chain, which is every 1.5 seconds so we would actually add multiply 765 by 1.5 to bring it to the same pseudo-ratio, that brings it to 1147.5 bleed damage per chain, best case scenario of course, like the other example.

Another thing to remember, we’re relying on Virtue of Justice to not be on cooldown as a best case scenario here, so if we’re relying on profession mechanics we can also factor in the Warrior sword’s burst skill which will stack up to 12 bleeds on a target. Anyway, aside from having an immobilise, 12 stacks of bleeds for 2 seconds adds up to about 1020 damage on top of the melee damage from Flurry. Considering you can use it every 10 seconds assuming you have the adrenaline (albeit with 8 stacks instead of 12), I think that would actually make up for the fact that Hamstring doesn’t hit as hard as Zealot’s Defense.

Yeah, Zealot’s Defense does great damage but not every situation is ideal, a little bit of enemy movement or deciding not to blow a long cooldown utility (assuming you bring it) can result in it not even doing any damage at all! I love the concept of the skill though and the projectile absorption is great when used effectively. However, the best time to use it to block projectiles is not often the best time to use it for its damage, the cooldown is short enough though but essentially, if you’re playing for the absorbs, you can pretty much bet that you’re not going to get all the damage from it anyway. Funnily enough, a cripple on the Guardian sword would fix up a lot of the Zealot’s Defense misses.

So I would say that, in regard to damage, Warrior sword beats Guardian sword, albeit by only a small margin, I’m not a complete math freak though and I may be a little off. However, two of the three skills on Guardian sword can be unreliable anyway. Good luck getting Sword Wave to hit three targets three times reliably, Virtue of Justice is often on cooldown, erasing all those potential burns and we all know how Zealot’s Defense works (read: misses), whereas the Warrior’s sword skills have reliable damage in the normal melee arc, made only more reliable by the cripple they have and made more fun and flexible by the addition of a short cooldown combo finisher.

I love the teleport on Flashing Blade, don’t get me wrong. The blind is useful too, but this skill really needs this to be at least a leap finisher and it would be nice if it didn’t need a target but whatever. That would make sword FAR more interesting, flexible, fun and would at least make up for some of the piddly damage Flashing Blade does depending on the combo field. Really, it should just do more damage anyway. That’s really the only problem I have with it. It feels incomplete as it stands now.

Did someone just say Guardians have better mobility?
Did someone just say immobile banners?

No comparison my elbow. Shout heal builds heal EVERYONE around them. Banners can be traited to have a larger radius and then throw out regeneration to EVERYONE around them constantly. However, this is not a build versus build thread!

Regardless of how many boons each profession can throw out, regardless of who is better in PvE or WvW/PvP the fact remains that Warrior weapons and traits are not as broken as Guardian weapons and traits (I’ll say mostly Zeal here).

Small example of what the original topic of the post is about:

Q: Does Guardian have any combo options when using sword?
A: No.

Q: Does Warrior have any combo options when using a sword?
A: Yes. In fact, most professions that use a sword do.

Q: Can Guardians keep foes close to them so they can actually use their melee against them more effectively?
A: No.

Q: Can Warrior?
A:Yes.

Look, I can go on but I have to leave for work. Please read what the actual point of the thread is about before creating strawman arguments.
It’s not about who is the better healer, it’s about the functionality of the weapons and traits and how well the work together. Warrior just seems to have it better (along with the other professions, really) I really don’t know how to explain it any better.

I’m beginning to think people aren’t reading the original post and are simply replying to the semi-misleading title. Nobody said they were having trouble fighting Warriors!

Let’s read that again.
Nobody said they were having trouble fighting Warriors!

The OP was making a point that the Warrior weapons, skills and traits all seem to function a whole lot smoother than the Guardian’s and are, generally, much more fun to play. This is regardless of who would win in a duel.

Let’s look at some examples that apply to more than just Warrior:
Q: How many professions that use main hand sword have a leap finisher on it?
A: All but Thief and Guardian. Thief still manages to get a shadowstep, immobilise and condition removal instead of a leap. We get the handy blind but damage that is so low that it may as well heal enemies.

Q: How many professions that use main hand sword get a cripple on it?
A: All but Guardian.

Q: How many professions can liberally apply bleeds?
A: All but Guardian.

Q: How many professions are given only one condition that deals damage?
A: One. GUESS WHO IT IS!!!

(I used sword as an example as I believe it to be horribly broken compared to other professions but scepter, torch and possibly staff are also kinda static)

It doesn’t make sense that a profession designed to do well in melee can’t keep foes from simply walking away from them! The wards are ok in PvE but timely stability renders them little more than a light field with a long cooldown (this is ignoring the fact people just roll through them).

Q: What does stability do to a good cripple or immobilise?
A: Jack.

Understand, I’m not annoyed at the fact we can’t do everything, I like profession diversity, I’m annoyed at the fact we can’t even do basic things that every other profession is able to perform.

This has nothing to do with Warriors beating Guardians in fights or vice versa, I’m talking about the effectiveness of their skills and traits. There are enough strawmen floating around here already.

What was that? Oh that’s right, this has nothing to do with Warriors beating Guardians in fights or vice versa!

It might be a good idea to change the title of this thread so it stops confusing people.

May I remind people this is not a “Who will win in a fight? Guardian or Warrior?” thread. This is a “Guardian effectiveness compared to Warrior effectiveness” thread.
While your epic tales of beating countless Warriors sure is impressive, it’s not the point of this thread.

I remember making a Warrior build that spat out AoE regen that ticked up instead of down. Haha!

Exarthious.5792:

My bunker Warrior is far, far more durable than my bunker Guardian. The thing I love most about my bunker Warrior is triggering my three second shield block, running into a zerg, watching the Might stack to 20ish, and absolutely demolishing my target of choice.

Even better, my shout heals, heal my entire GROUP, not just myself, unlike the Guardian, who heals himself.

To add icing to the cake, the Guardian has downtime on his boons, while I also provide a permanent Swiftness, Regen, Fury, and 3 stacks of Might to my group, unless we’ve been in a prolonged fight.

After playing an 80 Thief, 80 Guardian, 80 Ranger, and 80 Warrior all in exotic gear, no other class in the game has felt as complete as the Warrior has for me.

I’ve been in fights running with a Guardian buddy, and they’ve killed him for example today a 3v2, they had (Elementalist, Thief, and Mesmer), and I held them the entire time it took my buddy to run across the borderlands to get back to us, so we could finish them off.

The BIG difference is the Guardian has much better condition removal, and I’ve found myself running Sigil of Purity a lot on my Warrior.

Thank you for bringing all this forward, it made me think of something that further stresses the level of fun between Warrior and Guardian play.
A support Warrior need only bring their traits, shouts and/or banners to be an effective support role. They aren’t really limited in their choice of weaponry as they’d all still play quite effectively, won’t diminish the support they can put out and be just as fun to use in terms of functionality, combo finishers, conditions and control etc.
Support oriented Guardians, I find, while being able to choose whatever utilities they want generally, are somewhat pigeonholed into using particular weapons, usually anything with a symbol. Symbols aren’t really that amazing and you usually have to take Writ of Exaltation to make them have any great effect.
Symbols also tend to enforce less movement as you have to stay in them to get their goods which can be a little counter productive in a game that has a pretty big emphasis on fluid, moving combat.
The main problem I have with this, as stated before, the Guardian weapons just aren’t really that fun. A lot of the weapon configurations just don’t seem to play as well with each other as Warrior (and other professions). Say if I wanted to play a support Guardian but really wanted to use a sword, it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to use sword instead of a mace, for example. Shout/banner support Warrior who wants to use a sword? No problem. I understand there would still be weapons that are better suited to support but if you ask me, it wouldn’t make as huge a difference as it does for Guardian. The fact remains that Warrior weapons are far more fun and functional.

So Warrior has effective support at the cost of using banners or shouts in the utilities (which isn’t really all that bad as a lot of people bring them anyway) while having free choice of weaponry, Guardians generally get siphoned into using weapons with symbols with the benefit of using whatever utility they want.

Allow me be totally clear, I have absolutely no problem with different professions doing the same things differently, in fact I endorse and advocate this kind of design. I do however think the problem lies with the fact that some Guardian weapons just aren’t fun to play or don’t quite work too well.
I also think the default size of symbols should be the size they are with Writ of Exaltation, that would also facilitate Smite being made into a symbol as I suspect one of the reasons it isn’t one is that its size is larger than that of the default symbol size, aside from its strange damage mechanic.

I want to but it doesn’t seem likely does it?….

I’ve said it in other threads so I’ll try and be brief about what I think about these.

Scepter
Scepter doesn’t entirely need a full remake but two out of three skills on it need fixing. Smite is less useful the more targets that are in it, assuming they even stay still in there and even then it can miss if they stand still…. Plus, it even LOOKS like a symbol, yet it isn’t. Wah…
- Smite as a symbol would introduce some good trait synergy and combo options.
- Orb of Wrath, well, we all know what’s wrong with that one.

Sword
I find sword to really be not so great at all. So far, aside from opening up the option of an offhander, greatsword seems to surpass sword at pretty much everything.
I think a lot of the problem with sword for me is that it’s a melee weapon that really only does good damage to a single target. People complain that greatsword gets boring because all you do is spam 1 when everything else is on cooldown. Sword is the same, if not, has more 1 spamming and most people praise it! :S At least greatsword’s 1 skill gives might.

- If Flashing Blade were a leap finisher and actually did damage it would be far more fun.
- If Zealot’s Defense hit foes in a line I think that would fix the lack of multi-target damage up a lot for me. Really, the projectiles quite look like they’d hit foes in a line anyway! Plus, it wouldn’t matter as much if you missed with one of them because you’d most likely hit something else.
- If the projectiles that Zealot’s Defense blocked counted as real blocks it would also introduce a nice level of trait synergy.
- I don’t really have a problem with it locking you in place but a lot of people do, it would be a nice option to be able to use it on the move
-Finally, aside from the 1 chain being a little boring, it says that Sword Wave hits up to three foes, yet it can be pretty fiddly to line that one up, I think it’s because it’s a cone attack with the point of the cone starting from directly in front of you, if it were treated as more of an arc based attack (albeit with its slightly larger range) like most other melee skills it would be far more effective. I wouldn’t mind some kind of secondary effect in the chain there somewhere as well. Yeah, yeah, I know it hits five times in one chain, I can count too.

Well that’s what I think about those two weapons. I can talk for far longer on them but most people just get defensive and starting ignoring what I have to say about it. If you’re interested though, I made a thread some time back which basically discusses my problems with sword that I’ve listed here and we could have a big ol’ chat about it there
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Weapons-Suggestions-Thread/first#post678895

It got buried pretty quick though, I didn’t mention scepter in there because I thought other people would but yeah, it went past the first page so nobody saw it. Nothing has changed since I wrote it though, so I feel it’s still relevant.
So much for being brief huh? I don’t want to derail the thread into a weapon skill discussion but I guess it’s still on topic.

They also mentioned that they’ll be looking at fixing up the weaker weapons and traits across the board. I’m really hoping Guardian gets buffed up in that department.

I don’t run a full on damage oriented build and I don’t believe I should have to. I don’t argue that Guardians are hella tough to kill. Being hard to kill doesn’t necessarily mean we’re godlike because I also find that for the builds that are hard to kill, it’s also quite hard to kill anyone, especially other tough builds. The reason for this, as I’ve mentioned before, is that while we certainly do have good sustained damage, having all the other professions run circles around us makes that sustained damage relatively useless.

Fictional case in point:
“Come back here so I can pummel you with my mace! If it’s not too much trouble, please stand still while I’m doing it so my symbol actually does something as I have no means of keeping you there…. Yeah you better run. I’ll just… stand here I guess.”
(Yes, of course if it were me at this point I’d be switching weapons but you see what I’m getting at)

I think we simply need to fix a few weapons or traits and Guardians will be golden. If we just had a couple of cripples on weapon skills (and perhaps a pinch more swiftness/movement speed) we’d be so much more effective in melee like we’re supposed to be. While we’re at it, some combo finishers would be nice! (Imagine Smite Condition as a blast finisher! :O)

Some good candidates for weapon reworks would be sword and scepter if you ask me. I find sword and scepter to be the worst weapons we have, I don’t really care if you use them and have a great time, I find them hardly as effective as they could be and incredibly boring to use (compared to say, Warrior weapons). Yes, they work, but they could work so much better and be more fun. As it stands, I won’t use either unless the situation absolutely calls for it.
I have put up a thread or two about them a while ago though so I won’t derail this one too much, they’re probably a couple of pages back now though.
I think torch could stand to be reassessed as well but I admit I haven’t put a whole lot of thought into that one.

If you look at Warrior weapons, the only main hand weapons (two handers included) that don’t have a cripple on them are longbow, harpoon gun and mace. Longbow and harpoon gun still have immobilise and mace is littered with stuns.
I’m not asking for carbon copies of Warrior skills but surely you can see that there’s a distinct lack of snares for Guardian when you compare the two soldier professions, both designed to be more effective in melee range, only one can maintain it.

The problem is, however, other professions can also be really difficult to kill, just as we are, and yet still have easy access to things like cripple, swiftness and in some cases, chill, which are all great at keeping somebody in (or out of) melee range and Guardians, as the devs have said, are supposed to be more effective in melee range than long range, yet we get really no good options for maintaining melee range, in fact we get less than any other profession. Other professions just run around us. That was the purpose of me listing the amounts of cripple/immobilise skills. I could have listed any profession other than Warrior there and they would still have better options.

I understand each profession has their strong points, I wouldn’t like the game if they didn’t, however, Guardian just falls a little short in terms of being an effective melee fighter in regard to the way the weapons and traits work (yes I am aware there are quite good ones, I’m not discounting that). I won’t even get started on ranged.

I know I only pulled one thing out of what you said, I’m not having a dig at you or anything but it sounded like you were saying, “We just snare enemies differently by using immobilises” when the fact is, Warriors still get more immobilises and cripples than Guardians and also use them.

Edit: I’d also like to say this again to everyone, the point of this thread is not to compare builds against each other and say who would win in a fight, it’s about how effective the professions as a whole feel to the player as far as I’m aware. Regardless of who is right or wrong, people are totally within their rights to explain what they think. Calling anyone stupid or just getting mad at people isn’t going to fix anything however.

I don’t think the original issue is which profession can beat another, the real issue was that to the OP, Warrior’s just had it a lot easier as a melee (and ranged) profession and seems more useful and suited to it.
As I said, I tend to agree, I’m not saying Guardian is crap, I love Guardian but just the way the skills and traits are for both, Warrior just comes out on top in terms of being fun and certainly in regard to damage.
Guardian support is quite good though, no arguments there. I find a good percentage of Guardian’s weapons really not up to par when compared to the effectiveness of Warrior weapons (not to mention, plenty of other professions).

Reven.6750:

Where a warrior has a cripple, a guardian has the ability to root the target in place.

I disagree with this entirely. Warriors also have the ability to hold targets in place.
Warrior – Six cripple weapon skills.
Guardian – Two cripple skills, one on an elite tome and the other a downed underwater skill

Warrior – Four immobilise skills across weapons and utilities in addition to the Leg Specialist trait if they take it, which would bring it up to five.
Guardian – Three immobilise skills. One of which is a slow moving projectile dealy and another a condition damage signet….

So really, we aren’t anywhere near equal footing in regard to snares. This is also ignoring the fact that Warriors also have much easier access to swiftness and have a couple more gap closers.

Yes we have wards, which I quite like, however, they aren’t reliable and I would trade them in a heartbeat for reliable snares. They only last around 6 seconds, have a large cooldown and stability renders them useless. Cripples on Warrior weapons have a good uptime with reasonably short cooldowns and when they’re on cooldown, they can also throw out some immobilises. Stability isn’t going to do anything against those.

I also play a Warrior and I can’t think of a Warrior weapon that feels as broken as say Guardian’s torch, scepter or sword (to a lesser extent, staff). In fact, I’d say all the Warrior weapons work really well and are quite fun to play.

Yes, Guardians can withstand a lot of damage, yes, we can throw out a lot of boons but we can’t catch anyone easily, let alone kill them easily. We’re like party buffing punching bags.
Considering Guardian is designed to be more effective in melee range, you’d think we would have more options for maintaining that range.

Lute please!!!!!!

I think I’m with the OP on this one, I love Guardian to death but I’m starting to feel a little lacking compared to the ol’ Warrior, especially considering a bunch of our weapons seem really lackluster. If you ask me, torch, sword, scepter and maybe shield are crying out for a rework. That leaves greatsword, mace, hammer, staff and focus as the only weapons really worth using if you ask me (excluding underwater, they’re generally ok though). Someone mentioned earlier that Warriors have bad trait synergy or something, are you serious?! From a Guardian perspective, looking at other profession’s traits makes me jealous of how well they work together! Compare Zeal to Strength… it makes me cry a little inside…

I would say, however, that the biggest problem for me is that a lot of Guardian skills just aren’t as fun for me. I think it’s a lack of combo finisher options, if I don’t want to use greatsword, hammer or focus, there’s NO other land based finishers. The other kind of sad thing is, why would you not want to use greatsword, hammer or focus? They’re most of the best working weapons.
I think also, as a class that’s designed to be better at melee than ranged, we should have much better options for maintaining melee range than we currently do. Specifically cripple. Look at Warrior, another class that is designed around melee damage (however their ranged damage is also LEAGUES ahead of Guardian as well but that’s another thread) and they have a cripple and/or immobilise on almost every weapon. Before you say, “Yeah but we have X amount of control skills!”, so do Warriors!

I really want to use sword on my Guardian… I just can’t, it just doesn’t work. Looking at Warrior’s sword makes me jealous… bleeds everywhere, gap closer that’s a leap finisher, good damage, cripple, immobilise…. and that’s without an offhand. I know they’re supposed to play differently and all that but throw us a bone here!

Ah well, I’m holding on to hope that the next few patches will include some good fixes for Guardian.

Pressing F to do things is technically interactivity. Otherwise the hearts would fill up when you stand near them

Sorry to call out a technicality heheh, I’m just having fun, I do agree with you for the most part.

Runiir.6425:

warrior 5 for instance should be a bullying skill that knocks the enemy over, THAT is what shields were used for on the field, pushing and knocking over enemies.

The primary use of shields was/is preventing damage to one’s person. Good shield technique actually requires very little movement from the shield arm and in fact, using the shield as a weapon (like bashing etc) or even extending it out to block an attack actually leaves you really wide open for attack. If you’re going for realism that is.

Edit: That said, I’d say all the shield skills in the game are quite good at preventing damage. Although, as primarily a Guardian player, I would kill for a skill like Shield Stance that wasn’t a heal.

I don’t like the idea of turning every one hander into a two hander.
If this system were in place, it would, logically, make sense for people to be running around with only an offhand equipped yet have a full skill bar. Which would also technically enable completely unarmed builds. While you haven’t entirely suggested that, I’m pretty sure that’s where it would end up.
While the idea is interesting enough, I just don’t think it makes a whole lot of sense for somebody with say, only a shield equipped to be on equal footing as somebody with a sword and shield. You may say, “Silly Silver, their skills wouldn’t be as good!”, to which I would say, “You mean like, perhaps not having as many available, like it is now?”
Also stats-wise, it would be a mess. It would essentially be people deliberately making themselves worse off.

I think a more elegant yet somewhat unrelated option that would be nicer would simply be a selection of skills per weapon. So for instance, each weapon has two possible skills per slot but only available to that slot as to (most likely) encourage weapon balance.
Eg: Having two auto attack skills available for slot 1 but can only choose them AS slot 1. Then having two (or more, whatever) available for only slot 2 etc. That way, people couldn’t just choose all the spike damage skills per weapon.

I digress, I think the current system of having less stats and less skills for only using one weapon when you could easily be using two is a reasonable penalty.

Distaste.4801:

Every class has the conditions of necros, actually most classes have way better conditions than necros.

I’m going to take a wild guess and say you’ve not played Guardian much then?…

Also, awesome video Harbinger, is that you playing? That build looks a lot like my kind of style, solid damage, good support and tankier than a truck!

smekras.8203:

should be a simple matter of priorities actually… looting first, then npc talk, etc

It actually works like this already, the problem is, most people have auto loot on and just spam F during fights, which picks up all the loot and then talks to the npc. I don’t really have a problem with it but remapping options would be nice.
A smoother solution, if you ask me, is just to make it so npc’s don’t bring up a dialogue when in combat.