Guild Wars 2

I’d personally have to vote against making 100B the GS’s burst skill, since it would destroy the current 100B PvP builds (Mace/Shield/GS), and those are actually pretty healthy for the meta. When played well, they can help counter Necros and Engis, amongst other things, but it’s still very possible to bring counterplay against them. It’s honestly the sort of build I’d like to see more of in the game, and making 100B compete with Skull Crack for adrenaline would ruin the combo that defines the build. It’s not a problem build, and Warriors are using it to finally find their footing in PvP, so why ruin it?

I also don’t really see what making 100B the burst skill would accomplish, since as others have said here, all the GS needs is a bit more utility. The problem isn’t that Arcing Slice is the burst skill – it’s that Arcing Slice doesn’t bring anything to the table that the Warrior doesn’t already have good access to. High Fury uptime is something Warriors can achieve through any number of means, which makes AS completely redundant and a waste of adrenaline. Changing Arcing Slice to strip boons, break CC, or have some sort of effect that’s relatively unique and useful for a GS Warrior is all that needs to be done. I’d argue against putting any sort of Immobilize or Stun on it, and the GS doesn’t really need more gap closers, but other than that, they sky is the limit.

Allie Murdock.8152:

leman.7682, thank you for your constructive feedback!
…

Thanks for taking the time to make a detailed response, Allie! I think most of us here understand that trying to balance a game as complicated as GW2 is not a fast or easy process, and that trying to anticipate all of the consequences that will result from changes can sometimes be an impossible task. Nasty posts from frustrated players are inevitable, but if it’s any comfort, this community is still quite friendly compared to those on certain other game forums. Here, at least, developer communication is welcome and largely respected.

I think most of the current player frustration comes from the fact that the metagame has recently moved in a backwards direction, while issues from January (such as AoE) still remain unaddressed. Players will be much happier and hold greater respect for the development team if they see consistent progress in the game, even if that progress comes slowly. Situations like the current one, however, where problems are arising faster than they can be solved, shakes the players’ faith in the devs. It makes them wonder if the people making the changes have a full grasp of the situation. That leads to the sort of negative feedback and criticisms that have been so prevalent on these forums the past few weeks, more so than the rate of changes.

Xeph did a wonderful job of outlining some sources of player frustrations in his recent post in this forum, and perfectly illustrates how the previous balance patch was out of alignment with Arenanet’s balance philosophy. The Necromancer profession was clearly in need of help, but in trying to push them to strong levels of competitive play, the developers bombarded them with a series of powerful buffs. New conditions, new build-defining traits, huge buffs to certain skills, even a new skill for Death Shroud! Those sort of changes don’t resemble the methodical balancing Anet has advocated since launch, and were more indicative of the whack-a-mole balancing that Anet has argued against in the past. To make matters worse, most of the changes failed to address the concerns that the Necromancer community had been most vocal about, emphasizing damage when players felt more limited by the profession’s sustain and capacity for attrition. The changes cast Anet in a bad light with the community, indicating that they were balancing without regard to their design principles and without a firm understanding of the metagame. By your own definition, these rapid, sweeping changes to the profession constitute a bad balance patch, and the recent metagame reflects that.

I personally don’t have an issue with slow changes, so long as they’re done right when they come. I admit, it would be lovely if these changes could be timed with the newly announced bi-weekly content releases, with each release targeting a few aspects of balance (AoE, conditions/cleansing, etc.) or underplayed builds (Condition Mesmer, Offensive Guardian, Power Engineer, etc.), but if this isn’t possible, so be it. It’s mostly just discouraging to see the metagame deteriorating after the developers have had a year to analyze how classes are working and what needs improved, while old balance issues continue to linger for months after they became problems. Posts like the OP’s appear because players are concerned about the direction of the game and want to help steer it back on course. Most of us don’t expect miracles, but right now, we need reasons to believe in the people who are making changes, and to know, definitively, that things are going to stop getting worse and start to finally improve.

Wukunlin.8461:

Soryuju.8164:

The good news is, there’s not usually much reason to dodge when using these skills. It’s more of a problem for Shelter when unblockable interrupts, like Magnet, start flying around. So be careful with Necros, GS Guardians, Engis, and Signet of Might Warriors if you’re running Shelter as a heal.

Edit: Wukunlin beat me to the logic behind it with his/her edit. =P

wait, magnet and binding blades are not blockable? :o

Magnet is indeed unblockable, though it wasn’t originally listed in the tooltip, and I don’t know if they ever updated it. I found out the hard way that it is, though, and the Wiki page on Magnet also has a note about it. Binding Blade is a little more complicated – the initial “throw” isn’t unblockable, but if you get hit by it and try to channel Shelter while you’re affected, a GS Guardian can pull you in spite of your blocks..

Unfortunately, it’s intended behavior. Both Renewed Focus and Shelter go on full recharge without providing their effect if interrupted, even if you interrupt them with your own action (e.g. dodging). You don’t get the effects because they occur at the end of the channel, and you’re interrupting the skill before it completes. The reason they go on full recharge is because these skills provide a channel that makes you invulnerable or otherwise immune to attack, and if you were able to cancel them by dodging, you’d have access to invulnerability every few seconds. Needless to say, that would cause some balance issues. It would be nice if they found a better way to deal with the problem, but this is the way it’s been for as long as I can remember.

The good news is, there’s not usually much reason to dodge when using these skills. It’s more of a problem for Shelter when unblockable interrupts, like Magnet, start flying around. So be careful with Necros, GS Guardians, Engis, and Signet of Might Warriors if you’re running Shelter as a heal.

Edit: Wukunlin beat me to the logic behind it with his/her edit. =P

Solaris.9210:

Also doesn’t the power of 10 radiance only work when there is a burn on you or if you use torch?

I’m not the OP, but I think I can answer this question for you. Inner Fire gives you 3 seconds of Fury every time an enemy inflicts burning on you, but not when you ignite yourself with Zealot’s Flame on the Torch (it’s definitely confusing, and people have been making this mistake since beta). However, there’s no internal cooldown on Inner Fire, and with the buff to Necromancers, there’s more burning in the meta now than ever. Most Necros, Eles, Rangers, Engis, and other Guardians are more than happy to set you on fire relatively often during a fight, and so are Staff Mesmers and Longbow Warriors. Thieves are the only ones who don’t really inflict any burning in their builds.

Inner Fire seems like an iffy choice at first glance because it feels situational, but the truth is that it’s actually a fairly reasonable anti-meta choice at the moment for Guardians who want to do some damage. Fury is something that’s hard to come by for us, especially in S/TPvP, and being able to stack it from frequent burns can really punish our opponents.

Anyways, very nice build and video, OP! Looking forward to trying this out myself.

My hope is that if they do add an ICD to Retaliation, likely one proc per second, they’ll increase the base damage of each proc significantly. They stated that they don’t want Retaliation to be as punishing to multi-hit attacks, but akittens current level of damage per proc, any sort of ICD would make it worthless as a boon. Raising its damage would make Retaliation more desirable against larger, single hits, which could be a sort of “compensation” for nerfing its ability to punish fast hits with the ICD.

I’m still not completely sure how I feel about this change, mostly because counterplay against small, fast hits, especially ranged ones, is limited compared to counterplay against large single hits. Aegis, Blind, well-timed dodges, snares, hard CC, etc. all allow a player to mitigate single-hit spikes relatively easily. Against a class that can hit you with a steady stream of damage, like a Shortbow Ranger or Engineer, your main options are to use Retal, try to outpace their DPS, or interrupt their line of sight with terrain or skills. Hard CC and the like doesn’t always work as well when you use it to interrupt their attacks, because they aren’t invested in damage from any one particular skill that you can disrupt. Losing Retal as a counter could make dealing with these sort of classes much more difficult, and most Guardians struggle with them as it stands.

Monsoon.2589:

To the OP: The proper way to write a Match Title is by Alphabetical order of the servers.

Is this actually a thing? Because at the time I’m posting, there are 25 match topics on the front page, and only 6 adhere to this format, which doesn’t suggest that alphabetical order is the standard style. Besides that, is it really something worth making a fuss about?

Regardless, congrats on your SM defense! Let’s keep the fights coming, guys!

Just want to add my thoughts to this thread – I was working independently on a similar PvP Mesmer build for a friend, and I used some mechanics I haven’t seen anyone talking about here. Specifically, the Duelist’s Discipline trait has an unlisted effect that makes all of the iDuelist’s projectiles become guaranteed Projectile Finishers. This can be combined with Ethereal Fields to rapidly put 8 stacks of Confusion on a target (9 if you follow up with Trick Shot through the field) in addition to the 6-7 stacks of Bleeding from Sharper Images.

I’m not a terribly experienced Mesmer, so this may not be an optimal build, but here’s what I was running to take advantage of this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAraWlwziqHTTrGaNJyJFMn0hqw1RqQpV6BulbXIA-TsAAzCpIKS9l7LTRyvsfN6Y9xcBA

The ideal combo is to drop Chaos Storm, swap to Scepter, and then use the Duelist+Trick Shot on a victim. This results in the aforementioned 9 confusion stacks (8 seconds), 6-7 bleeds (6 seconds), Poison (6 seconds), stun (2 seconds), and random conditions from the Storm. You can then follow up with Confusing Images to raise the Confusion stacks to 14 and attempt Illusionary Counter to add Torment to the mix.

I’ve found that the combo is often countered if you try to start off a fight with it – a well-timed dodge can eliminate most of your confusion stacks and bleeds, and even if your opponent doesn’t avoid it, they’re likely to have their cleansing options ready to mitigate the burst. Instead, I’ve been trying to use clone spam in the early portions of a fight to keep the target inflicted with moderate amounts of bleeding, confusion, torment, and cripple, along with whatever burning I can get from the Staff autoattack, and some Poison whenever I swap to Scepter (something Mesmers are otherwise lacking in their condition builds). Once an opponent has started to burn through some of their dodges and cleanses, I’ll drop the combo, and if I’ve set it up properly, they really can’t do anything but melt.

Traits are fairly self-explanatory. For my utilities, I’m running a pair of glamours: Null Field for the cleansing/extra Ethereal Field, and Portal for mobility and map control (and the occasional emergency escape). I’m currently alternating between Blink and Decoy for a stun break. Blink is nice for the mobility, but Decoy can give me a chance to set up my combo in the middle of a tough fight. If you aren’t interested in having team utility, you could drop Portal and take both to improve the build’s 1v1 game (which seems decent already). This would probably be less viable in a TPvP setting, though.

Anyways, just wanted to post this here for the benefit of those who are working on similar builds. It’s a nice change of pace from Shatters, and it’d be cool to see Condition Mesmers start to stake out more of a place for themselves in the metagame.

I’ll give you some general recommendations, but it would help to know what sort of content you’re looking to do with your Guardian to narrow it down. The more challenging the content, the more desirable defensive sigils become, and vice-versa.

When you’re thinking about sigils for weapons, there are a couple things to keep in mind. One of the most important things is your critical chance, which can potentially eliminate an entire category of sigils if it’s not very high. In the case of a Berserker Guardian, this shouldn’t be an issue, and you can probably take advantage of sigils with effects that trigger on crit. A Fire Sigil, for instance, can increase your DPS significantly if you can proc it regularly (they typically hit for 800-1400 AoE damage per proc, depending on your stats).

The second thing you should keep in mind when choosing sigils for weapons is attack rate. Certain weapons hit more rapidly than others (though the fastest-hitting weapons don’t necessarily have the highest DPS), and the weapons that hit faster will crit more frequently in a certain window of time. This is something to keep in mind for using on-crit sigils, but it can also influence your decision something to take something like a Sigil of Superior Accuracy. Consider a weapon like the Hammer, which does DPS primarily through large, slower hits (compared to weapons like the GS and Scepter, which achieve similar DPS with smaller, faster hits). When using a single-hit skill like the Hammer’s Mighty Blow, it’s all or nothing: for each target, you either crit on that one hit or you don’t, and this can lead to some disparity in your DPS. With a standard AH spec (0/0/30/30/10), this usually means Mighty Blow either does 1.5-2k damage to a standard PvE target (non-crit) or 4-5k (crit). Conversely, with something like the GS, you have many chances to crit every time you use Whirling Wrath, and even with a low-ish crit rate (say 30-35%), your critical strikes will average out over the hits of the attack and deliver relatively consistent (though not necessarily high) DPS. Between the two, then, Accuracy would be a better choice for the Hammer.

Bringing this back once more to the Berserker Guardian, if you have a reasonably high crit chance (think in the 45-50% range, or thereabout), and you’re using weapons like the GS and Scepter, Sigils like Accuracy aren’t going to be as much of a priority for you. If you’re pushing for more offense, you’ll get more DPS out of on-proc sigils like Fire, and even Force would provide more DPS than Accuracy at those levels of crit (your crit has to be fairly low before increasing it will raise your DPS more than power).

If you have an offhand, run a Bloodlust Sigil along with the on-crit sigil of your choice (I’d recommend Fire if you’re not using AH in your build, and Strength if you are). When you hit 25 stacks of Bloodlust, switch your offhand to one with a Force Sigil to maximize your DPS.

If you’re doing more challenging content (dungeons, WvW) and need more defense, my suggestion would be Energy Sigils, since dodge-rolling is the best damage mitigation tool in the game. As a Berserker Guardian, you’ll be particularly dependent on well-timed dodges and good positioning to stay standing, making Energy Sigils invaluable when you’re under heavy fire. As the ever-popular saying goes, dead DPS does no DPS.

Other sigils are more situational. Hydromancy is a possible choice in WvW, particularly on the GS to help land Whirling Wrath. Battle is an okay offensive choice for specs that have low crit chance and good boon duration uptime, but that’s not what you’re looking for. Blood can be used in place of Fire/Strength, but you lose a lot of AoE DPS compared to Fire, and I personally prefer Strength for 5 extra Might stacks along with the passive healing in AH builds. Night can provide a larger damage bonus than Force, but only situationally (though I hear it works in a decent number of dungeons). Speed can be useful for quick map travel in open-world PvE, and I’ve heard that some people like Restoration/Stamina when zerging in WvW, though I’ve never tried either.

So, to sum up, Fire and Strength are two of the best offensive sigils for Guardians, with Strength being better suited to AH builds. Use Superior Accuracy primarily if your crit chance is on the low end, favoring it more on weapons with low attack speeds. Have a Bloodlust/Force sigil on any offhand weapons you’ve got for maximum DPS. Use Energy in place of Fire/Strength if you’re expecting a lot of damage to be coming your way. Other sigils can be viable, but may not be universally useful.

By the way, if SPvP is your thing, most of this advice still applies, but I’ll refer you to Jax’s PvP build thread for the info you need: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Silven-s-PvP-Guardian-Build-Guide/page/3#post2244947

Yeah, Symbol of Swiftness has some unfortunate mechanics that are working as intended. Since it pulses swiftness, if you happen to run over the symbol between pulses, you won’t receive swiftness (hence why the application can feel random). The stacking is also less than desirable, like Charak mentioned, but it’s standard across skills that grant swiftness from a persistent area (e.g. the Mesmer’s Temporal Curtain). Run over the symbol when you already have swiftness and you’ll only get one second, to avoid people abusing these fields for absurd levels of swiftness uptime.

Sucks that it works this way, but those aspects of the skill aren’t bugs.

Burning ticks per second, like every other damaging condition, and the damage per second is based only on your condition damage, not the length of the burn. If you have a burn that lasts for 5 seconds and deals 500 damage per second, and then increase the duration of the burn by 20%, it’s still going to do 500 damage per second. The total damage of the burn will just rise from 2500 to 3000.

Woutan.5934:

No warrior buff mentioned.

Its hard to disagree with op.

Directly from the post: “…warriors will have an option to remove conditions when using burst abilities.”

We’ll see how it’s implemented and what other changes are made, but I’m pretty sure this could qualify as a Warrior buff.

This thread is fairly ridiculous, seeing as there are only a handful of changes mentioned in the post, and they’ve stated that this is going to be the largest balance patch in the history of the game. At least wait until you know what’s actually happening before you call it a fail. It may very well be a fail, but for now, the claims are baseless.

Also, calling Torment on the Mesmer’s Scepter now. Not sure where it will fall for the Thief, but I’m betting on an underused utility or weapon set.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

juno.1840:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

EM is one of the guardian’s better traits if you have nothing else to put in that slot. It is better than Writ of Persistence or Two-Handed Mastery for greatswords (both are worth about 5% extra damage, same as EM, except EM gives that +5% to the entire party). Even for something like hammer (where Writ of Persistence is mandatory), it’s still worthwhile if you have 30 in Honor. A lot of the time there simply isn’t anything else worth taking with your remaining 10 points, i.e. in a 10/30/0/20/0 spread, you may not need Master of Consecrations and you won’t get as much mileage out of 10 more in Valor or Zeal.

For raw damage EM is better than 2H Mastery — but that’s not really a good comparison. 2H Mastery provides many other tangible benefits that outweigh EM imho.

Such as?

Speaking for the GS specifically, increased access to Light fields/Whirl Finishers, better mobility, more frequent AoE Blinds, and higher Retaliation uptime.

Worthy of special mention is more frequent access to Binding Blade, which means more interrupts and more chances to pull foes close together. In a situation where you have allies with you, assuming party members possess reasonable AoE damage, it’s doubtful that adding 5% damage to each party member’s damage is going to reduce the time to kill an enemy group as much as pulling all of the enemies into a point of AoE focus fire would. 2HM allows you to do this more often, and if you’re involved in a drawn-out battle, the reduced CD is very desirable. Granted, I’m describing a fairly specific sort of situation, but I don’t feel that it’s an uncommon one.

Not to say that EM is a bad trait, by any means, but I agree with the statement that there are many tangible reasons to opt for 2HM over it. I think it would largely come down to personal preference.

Geotherma.2395:

Soryuju.8164:

Oddly, my ecto salvage rate has been perfect recently. I don’t think I’ve salvaged a single rare that hasn’t yielded an ecto in the past week, so it’s strange to hear that everyone else is having exactly the opposite results. It’s all anecdotal until we hear from Jon, but until then, I’m just going to assume that I absorbed all the luck in GW2. Apologies for that, everyone.

Most people are referencing either this month, or this very recent patch.

So was I. Since the patch, I’ve had a perfect ecto salvage rate, and for the few days before it as well. During the rest of this month, my salvaging luck has been fairly normal. That’s why it’s odd for me to hear so many people reporting the opposite.

Oddly, my ecto salvage rate has been perfect recently. I don’t think I’ve salvaged a single rare that hasn’t yielded an ecto in the past week, so it’s strange to hear that everyone else is having exactly the opposite results. It’s all anecdotal until we hear from Jon, but until then, I’m just going to assume that I absorbed all the luck in GW2. Apologies for that, everyone.

I strongly disagree with the idea of switching the Shield and Focus #5’s, and have since the idea came up in beta. The reason? You weaken both weapons if you do so, for the sake of aesthetic.

As others have stated here and elsewhere, the focus is a personal defense weapon, and the shield is a group defense weapon. They each excel at their role, though by its nature, the Shield is most useful for PvP and high-end PvE play (e.g. Fractals), where it’s important for you to protect your allies as well as yourself. If you go swapping the #5 skills, you’re putting a group defense tool on the focus and a personal defense tool on the Shield, weakening the performance of both weapons at their roles and leaving each as a mediocre hybrid defense tool. The reason each comes out weaker, besides the role mixing, is because the new skill configurations lack synergy. Shield of Judgment and Shield of Wrath do not have any synergy, besides the fact that they both slow down how much damage you take. Similarly, Ray of Judgment and Shield of Absorption work against each other: RoJ loses much of its effectiveness at long range, and SoA is best used for putting opponents at range or fighting opponents who are already at range. In the current state, each weapon’s skills have a much stronger interaction. RoJ’s blinds can be used to absorb hits that would otherwise break SoW, and SoW is best used while in proximity to a target, where RoJ excels. SoJ and SoA don’t interact directly, but the fact that both skills can be used from the mid or rear lines to protect most or all of a group is huge. Sacrificing all of this because you want the Shield to block more than just projectiles doesn’t make any sense to me.

As for the 1h Sword, I feel like Zealot’s defense needs the most attention. It would be nice if the skill actually had a decent chance to hit at range, since it seems to miss even stationary targets that are more than a couple hundred units away, and I’d love it if the projectiles pierced, which would give the Sword more of an AoE presence and drastically improve the its viability in all game modes. The Sword needs the least help in S/TPvP, but the DPS Guardian’s role is relatively small in the current metagame, with bunkers being far more popular, so I feel like this wouldn’t be unreasonable.

Other changes I’d recommend for the Sword would be putting a cooldown reduction on the Powerful Blades trait and maybe adding a Leap finisher to FB. I vote against more damage for FB because with as much DPS as the Sword’s autoattack does, I feel like adding more team utility to the weapon should take priority. I only hesitate about the leap finisher because it may put the Sword a bit over the top when taken with the improved ZD and reduced cooldowns I also suggested, but time would tell.

Apolo.5942:

Saital.4819:

OP, just stop. Your past 10 posts at least have been nothing but spewing bullkitten about “range dominating melee.” Stop playing clusterkitten hotjoins and you’ll see just how long you last staying at range.

How about they do something to change my and apparently other peoples mind as well?.

As garethh said, there is no option to remove capture points in custom arenas, so I’m not exactly sure why your mind needs changing.

Blocks and Invulnerability aren’t the same thing. Unblockable skills do not bypass invulnerability, so RF and other invulnerability skills aren’t affected by this change.

Also, people are making it sound like all of a Warrior’s attacks are now unblockable. If they slot Signet of Might on their utility bar, they get 3 unblockable attacks every 25 seconds (20 if traited). SoM’s animation, like other Signets, is very plainly visible, so you’re going to have some warning when those three attacks are coming.

Lastly on the Warrior, Destruction of the Empowered (the boon hate trait) is a 30 point Discipline trait, so Warriors who run it are going to be sacrificing elsewhere, and can’t take the newly improved Burst Mastery trait. I expect a lot of Warriors to run boon hate, especially at the beginning of this month, but it’s not like this is getting stacked on top of what Warrior builds are already capable of now, and just because they’re getting a damage bonus doesn’t mean you automatically lose against them.

Are these buffs to other classes going to impact our gameplay? Absolutely. We’re going to need to be a lot more careful in general, and some builds aren’t going to survive, but it’s not the end of the world. Anet’s already said that they’re aware that a lot of the changes are going to affect how the Guardian plays, and that we’re going to get even more buffs if this starts to be a problem.

Worst-case scenario: we have a couple months where we’re nerfed. Guardians are one of the few classes that haven’t had to deal with that yet (we’re spoiled!), so if we have to take our turn now while they’re working on major balance issues, with knowledge that they’re keeping a close eye on the problems, I think we can survive. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Meditation builds make a comeback, as well as an increased emphasis on Blinds for defense.

ensoriki.5789:

Quite a few changes are happening on the 30th including balance.
Should be great except for one thing.

Now now, what have we learned about getting our hopes up?

Though I admit, I’d really like to see this be the patch where things start turning around for PvP. Custom Arenas and Spectator mode are hugely promising, even though we’re only getting beta versions, and what will happen with balance is anyone’s guess. It seems like the patch is going to be a big step in the right direction, but based on the way things have gone with almost every PvP patch since release, I’m reserving judgment until I actually see the changes.

It’s working as intended. The reason that channeled skills like Shelter and Renewed Focus go on full recharge when interrupted is because it’s possible for you to interrupt them yourself via dodging and the like. This could lead to abuse, creating situations where Guardians deliberately and repeatedly interrupt these skills to spam the blocking and invulnerability they provide.

While the solution to put them on full recharge doesn’t seem ideal, I’m not sure there’s a better way around it. It’s honestly not that gamebreaking, since these skills will naturally block most interrupts anyways, and I like the fact that you need some situational awareness when using Shelter against Staff Necros or GS Guardians.

Minion of Vey.4398:

This would be nice until people exploited it.

“Oh, this team is a premade and will beat us” one person leaves

“okay, safe!”

What if you transferred the rating loss of the other four team members all to the player that left? If 2 or more players leave, the total amount would be divided between them. This penalty could be avoided by rejoining the match before it ends, so people don’t get screwed over for random disconnects. Additionally, matches would count as a loss for leavers unless they rejoin, rather than just disappearing from their record. Between the transferred rating drop and the loss counted toward your record, leaving a game without rejoining would be a fantastic way to destroy your ranking. Meanwhile, the people who stuck it out are protected from the rating loss.

The only way I could really see to get around this would be if you had a separate account with copies of your PvP characters on it. You could use it as a “dummy” to absorb rating loss for your team…but this doesn’t seem like it would be a common situation, since you can’t advance your main account if you’re always playing on the dummy. Your average solo queue player isn’t going to buy into that, and in the case of premades, you’d have to get someone to volunteer to be left behind in the ratings, while the other members get the glory.

I believe the devs already stated over in the Necro forums that they’re going to be changing Epidemic back to being unblockable. No word about the cast time, and you’ll still be able to LoS/dodge it, but it’s better than nothing.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/The-Epidemic-Nerf/first

Bottom of the first page.

Oh, and Corrupt Boon is apparently also being made unblockable, so there’s maybe some compensation for Epidemic’s cast time staying the same.

lLobo.7960:

Use the focus to blind him more. He cant use clones while blinded.
.

Just to reinforce this point, blinding a Mesmer is arguably the most effective counter to their illusions in the game. If you blind the Mesmer before they summon one, the summon will fail completely and the skill will go on full cooldown. Negate a phantasm, and you just cut their DPS. Negate a clone, and you’ve increased your ability to put pressure on the Mesmer while reducing their available ammunition for Shatters.

To apply this when fighting a Mesmer, you should try to use your blinds at points in the fight when the Mesmer doesn’t have any illusions active, which are the times they’re most likely to summon them. This could be at the beginning of a fight, or immediately after a Shatter, or right after you’ve killed a couple of their clones. With good timing, you’ll reduce the pressure on yourself and transfer it to the Mesmer, forcing them to use their defensive cooldowns and increasing your own odds of winning the fight.

Just finished a string of TPvP games, and noticed absolutely no difference in how my build plays. I’m a tanky DPS Guardian, and my healing, armor, and burn damage all seemed completely normal.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Dreadlord.5419:

It seems like they’ve fixed the bug where 2x runes of lyssa (total 40% condi duration) gave Incendiary ammo 3 ticks of burning. Instead what you get now is the proper 2 ticks. Is runes of lyssa still worth it for some other reason? What would you replace them with if they serve no other purpose Ostricheggs?

This might be in PvE. A lot of people have told me this and every time I go out and test it. I’ve done it on both players and golems in the mists and it works. If it ever does actually get fixed I’d probably use a 15% burning duration rune set, that was working earlier too. If that doesn’t work then kitten if I know, maybe more might staackin runes

I’ll do it right now

EDIT: Oh kitten, they don’t work

OH kitten NEITHER DOES 15% BURN DURATION

The sky is falling

More Might stacking would definitely be a good option for a replacement, but since the current build runs fine with +40% Might duration, maybe you could switch the setup to +20% Might Duration and +20% boon duration (so something like 2x Fire, 2x Water, and 2x Monk)? That keeps you at +70% total Might duration while giving you +50% boon duration in general, so other important buffs from your Elixirs (e.g. Protection, Swiftness, Vigor, Stability) have better uptime. It wouldn’t be a massive boost, but it would provide a little more margin for error without sacrificing anything the build currently offers.

Since it hasn’t been mentioned, I’ll just add that a 30/20/20 AH build is losing out on a number of potential support traits in the final Honor slot (Pure of Voice being the most notable one), besides the extra HP and healing power. Builds with 30 in Honor and 30 in Virtues get to take PoV and an extra support trait of their choosing from Virtues (likely Indomitable Courage), besides getting reduced Virtue recharge and better boon uptime. These sort of builds are also more likely to spec deeply into healing power than AH, potentially allowing them to drop a 1400 AoE heal every few seconds (assuming Energy Sigils and perma-vigor, which these sort of builds are likely to have). So the 30/20/20 AH build actually loses out on a lot of support compared to something like your standard Healway.

As a side note, Healway users report that it’s basically indestructible in dungeons, including high level FOTM, so the survival argument may come into question as well.

Like others have said, AH is a fantastic balanced build that can excel in just about all types of content, and one I use myself, but it’s not nearly the best build for either DPS or support. It can provide a lot of both, but won’t match Guardian builds dedicated to these roles. There’s nothing wrong with that, and barring nerfs, I expect it to remain the most popular overall Guardian build, but there’s no sense pretending that other Guardian builds can’t be top tier alongside it. That was the mindset back in October, but the game has evolved since then.

foofad.5162:

Shelter used to heal for about two thousand more than it does now, back in beta. Those were the days…

If I’m remembering correctly, it was also on a 45 second cooldown prior to BWE3, when Guardian heals were reworked and its healing was lowered. That was also when Signet of Resolve was on a 30s cooldown and healed for about 2k less. Shelter used to be unpopular because of the very long cooldown, and I imagine it would be less popular in the current meta than it is now, too, since even with extra healing, the longer CD would mean less blocking.

About the way skills like Shelter and RF work, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of them as a Guardian, but I do think it raises the skill cap of the class some. You definitely have to be a lot more careful when playing against things like Staff Necros or GS Guardians, and you lose out big time if you’re someone who spams dodge mindlessly, but it won’t affect gameplay in most other situations.

CMF.5461:

Unfortunately you all don’t see the guardian profession in the same vision as I would like to see it. A zen like, defensive aikido style flow of energy redirection in which you use your opponents strengths against themselves.

I can see the majority does not like retaliation, but I find it laughable that you retort to the “you must be trolling” mindlessness. Or that you believe that classes have been “destroyed”.

Also, cleansing bolts don’t cleanse yourself.

You guys look at one side of the problem and not both. I recommended retal to reduce in damage/duration to rid of us the mindlessness and make it more of an activated calculated ability.

In it’s current state retal would be too strong with conditions applying damage back. Devs have stated they wanted to change retal to be more active and less passive. I think having it as a short term condition reflection could be its niche, if there would be large windows of opportunity to not have retal be mindless and auto kill people.

I am trying to look at both sides, and some only look at one side.
I voiced my unpopular opinion already so I guess I am done as this isn’t going anywhere and you can’t make people think the same as you.

Even if Retaliation were capped at a 3 second maximum duration to make it take more skill to use, I would strongly disagree with making it proc on condition ticks. Let’s take my previous example again, the 10 stack of Bleeding, and let’s say that the bleeding is ticking for 150 per stack (very generous) while your Retaliation ticks for 300 on each bleed (very conservative). Here’s why Retaliation is still going to be absurdly overpowered:

Condition builds have to work to build up stacks, and they want to maintain their stacks on you at all times. The fastest condition burst is always going to be slower (even if only by a few seconds) and allow for more reaction time than the fastest direct damage bursts, just because of how the game’s mechanics work (you need time to stack the conditions in rapid succession and then more time to let them tick, while direct damage can occur at a much higher rate and often only requires a CC for setup). Even if you slash Retaliation’s duration, it’ll be very possible to react within the condition burst’s window and return absurd amounts of damage to the opponent.

Returning to the 10 stack of Bleed, let’s say my opponent is maintaining that on me. At 150 damage per stack, I’m taking 1500 damage per second. Now, I press my single-button Retaliation skill, and in the 3 seconds it lasts, I return 9k damage to him. It’s not some obscene feat of reflex to do this to a condition user, because they’re trying to keep their stacks up continually. If you’ve got 10 stacks of bleed on you and a reasonable amount of remaining HP, you’ve got a lot of time to press that single button, and you get to spike your opponent for 2-3 times the damage they had to work to stack on you. Since most condition builds try to maintain stacks, it’s unlikely that significant numbers of stacks will expire before Retaliation does, so they will take the full damage from it, and they can’t dodge or block that damage. That means that by trying to work up a respectable bleed stack on you, they were really just sealing their own fate. Then if you press another single button of your choice, you can cleanse the condition stacks they were working hard to maintain, so in our example, you basically traded 4.5k HP and a couple cooldowns for a 9k, unavoidable spike on your opponent and a complete neutralization of their damage source. They get to start building their damage up from scratch, and if you happen to have another Retaliation cooldown, they’re S.O.L. None of this takes any appreciable amount of skill from the player using Retaliation.

I’d like to see Retaliation become a more skill-based boon, but it will never be remotely balanced if it affects condition damage. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit with your vision of the Guardian, but your suggestions just don’t fix the core issues here, and condition builds don’t really need a second counter in addition to all the cleansing already in the game.

Bakitten291:

CMF.5461:

just tried burning, no damage. Multiple hit attacks like 100 blades will do retaliation damage, but conditions will not return damage. The attack which does the initial application will return damage and that is it.

Again, I think this is an oversight and should be adjusted somehow. But how do we get dev attention and agreement on this. =(

Ok, wait, do you realize how OP that would be? There would literally be no counter to retaliation in the game at all. Shortbow rangers would literally die within seconds, any condition spec that relies on bleed would do the same. If retaliation could only be kept up for like 5 seconds max then ok sounds fine, but considering we can keep it up 100% of the time, that would be even more OP than it already is.

I have to agree. Retaliation is a mechanic that doesn’t demand any real skill from the player using it, and a lot of people disagree with its implementation for that reason alone, but making it work against all forms of damage would put it completely over the top. Consider that Retaliation usually ticks for 300+ damage in a build with decent power, while your average Bleed stack does less than half of that on a fully specced condition build. If a condition class is stacking bleeds on you, why should you be able to return over twice their damage for a period of time just by pressing a single button? You don’t have to do anything else after that – you could literally just stand there while an opponent puts a 10 stack of bleed on you, let Retal tick for 3k damage per second on them, and just watch them kill themselves for you. There’d be no point to playing a condition build in a PvP or WvW setting with that kind of counter so readily available. With the condition cap in PvE, it’s likely that condition damage would become completely obsolete for any form of higher level play.

George Steel.1804:

Show me how we can cripple an enemy, and I’ll send you in-game gold.

I’m not sure this really counts either, but:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Affliction

Do I get gold now?

On a more serious note, I’m going to have to agree with most other people here – the Warrior and the Guardian are completely different, and the Guardian only completely outshines the Warrior in a TPvP setting (even then, it’s because the Warrior’s potential roles can be filled better by a variety of classes, not just by the Guardian). PvE goes to the Warrior hands down, and WvW is a toss-up depending on what type of play you’re talking about. Warrior is still a very competitive choice for many roles in WvW.

In general, Warriors have better burst, mobility, ranged combat potential, and CC than Guardians do. That’s not a comprehensive list, but it’s most of the big ones. It’s worth mentioning that some Guardian weapons, like the Hammer, can compete with the Warrior’s CC, but Guardians do not have it spread across their weapons and utilities with the consistency Warriors do. There are also a number of roles that the two fulfill that are simply difficult to compare (e.g. Warrior Banners and Guardian-style support).

Long story short, Guardians absolutely cannot do everything that Warriors can, nor can Warriors do everything Guardians can. The two serve very different roles in most game modes, and for good reason.

April Fool’s? I haven’t played today, but I can’t imagine this is real, considering AH heals for about 70 per tick, and the Sigil of Strength, EM’s sigil counterpart, has a 2s ICD. 10s ICD for both of them? I don’t think so.

I’ve also tested it in the past, it is indeed working. Crits increase noticeably when you’re using it, so even if you choose to not set up a formal test like those described above, it’s not hard to tell – just either push your crit rate up to max, like Red Falcon described above, or keep it as low as possible, and you should see a very plain difference with the trait on and off.

I oppose the idea of switching the Shield and Focus 5 skills. Even if people feel like it would make more sense thematically, Focus 5 has much more synergy with Ray of Judgment than it does with Shield of Judgment. In 1v1 situations, it’s easy to set up Shield of Wrath using RoJ, since the double blind buys you a couple seconds while closing the gap, and RoJ can get rid of movement-impairing conditions that the opponent could use against you to stay out of SoW’s reach. SoJ offers none of this synergy. Although the Shield’s current skills don’t have a direct interaction like those of the Focus, both function effectively as group support tools, and have synergy in that sense. You can reduce incoming damage on allies, stop projectiles coming at them, interrupt stomps in PvP/WvW, clear room for a res, and so on with the Shield.

If you swap the skills, you lose this and weaken each weapon overall. Instead of having a strong tool for personal defense and a strong tool for group defense, you have tools that can each function in either scenario, but at a mediocre level, and you completely eliminate the Focus’s awesome internal synergy. I don’t feel like it’s remotely worth trading those things for aesthetics.

That said, I’m not so strongly opposed to switching Protector’s Strike and SoJ, but I don’t regularly use the Mace, so I don’t think my opinion is valid on that subject. I know PS can crit hard, though, so damage would probably need to come down if such a switch were made. Either way, I don’t expect it to happen, and I’m fine with that – I enjoy using the Shield as is.

I would think that the Hidden Killer fix was prioritized in this patch because of the removal of culling in WvW. The devs have mentioned lots of changes they have planned for Thieves that would essentially amount to a class rework (boon hate, more mobility, less stealth, less burst, etc.), but we didn’t really see them implemented this patch because they were afraid of overnerfing Thieves with the removal of culling. They probably want to get an accurate picture of how the Thief functions now that culling is gone, and they won’t get that picture if a popular stealth trait is broken. Since they haven’t mentioned plans for Engi changes on the same scale as Thief changes, they’re probably less concerned about fixing things like Scope right now. It’s become abundantly clear over the past several months that the QA/class balance team is stretched woefully thin, so they probably have to make choices like that about which bugs they fix. I don’t like it, but that’s how it is right now.

mrauls.6519:

I was running might sigils and battle sigils for about a week and I can tell you it isn’t worth it

I have to ask, were you running them together in your build? All Sigils share cooldowns, and since the Sigil of Strength has such a short ICD (2 seconds) odds are good that if you were using both, Strength was consistently stopping Battle from taking effect.

About OP’s case of 5 Might stacks at once, I’d have to agree that you were seeing something else, especially since so many effects in this game grant 3 stacks of Might. If you happened to crit with MB in a Fire field, for instance, that would immediately put you up to 5 stacks if Strength procs (Strength+EM+3 from the Blast finisher in the field).

As for which to use, I don’t have hard numbers on them. Both will give you a nice damage boost, but which you choose comes down to what your build needs more, and it may not be a strict matter of math. Strength, despite the cooldown, still gives a very nice bonus damage/healing combo in an AH build If your crit rate is on the low end, though (30-35%, say) and you have good crit damage, the extra damage and chance to proc on-crit effects (e.g. Omnomberry Pie, for more damage/healing/crits) with Accuracy may be more worthwhile.

Jax.5261:

I honestly have no problems with the Guardian in tPvP, aside from a few bugs of course. I can also give a standpoint of the scepter from a purely spvp perspective:

• Scepter 3 is one of the best skills a Guardian has, the ability to root an enemy for one of your allies to burst down is so incredibly strong. Hundred Blades with the enemy snared (at the same time), mesmer shatter with the enemy unable to dodge. It is so amazingly strong, although a buff to this skill will promote a lot more teamwork play, unfortunately people would just spam it too much and it would encourage bad players to use it even worse.
• Scepter 2 is a very decent skill does put that extra bit of damage on and it’s the nutorious aegis remover! Nothing removes more aegis than smite! Making it a symbol would make symbol builds viable on a bunker/support build, which would be insanely OP unfortunately! Although if these builds were toned down slightly (in the amount healed) then it would be a very fun build to play.
• Scepter 1, so hated by the community, due to being able to dodge by vibrating on the spot. The shortbow on ranger is also vulnerable to this type of dodging (don’t tell anybody it’s a seekrit!). It’s currently way too powerful to make all the projectiles hit and I like it the way it is, in PvE it doesn’t matter the enemies stand still. I don’t want the scepter to be a DPS weapon because it’s going to make support Bunkers overpowered and they’re going to take away defensive skills instead (which will make Guards UP).

So to sum up; if you really want the scepter buffed it will have to only be a PvE change because it’s already extremely strong in PvP and if they do chose to buff it in both we’re going to get nerfs to both PvP and PvE in other defensive areas.

I mostly agree with this, and I thoroughly enjoy using the Scepter in PvP as is, though I admit that I’d like to see the autoattack reworked. I do agree that it would be overpowered if they just increased the projectile speed, since the weapon fires quickly and the orbs do a lot of damage, and part of what keeps the scepter balanced now is its low accuracy. However, I feel like this is just poor design, even if the weapon is balanced. Ideally, I’d like to see the Scepter receive a projectile speed boost that will allow it to hit targets at 1200 range with reasonable consistency. In exchange, however, I would like to see the rate of fire reduced, and if I’m really pushing, I’d like to see the magic tennis balls changed into blue fireballs. This, if tuned appropriately, could make the Scepter autoattack more usable at long range while keeping the DPS reasonable.

As for Smite, I agree that it shouldn’t be a symbol, since it would probably be overpowered with all of the potential trait synergies that could open up. I wouldn’t mind them adding a Light or Fire field onto Smite, though, in exchange for them increasing its cooldown to 8-10 seconds. This would improve the Scepter’s team play and make the weapon a bit less linear (since right now, the bulk of what it offers is damage and its fantastic #3), and I don’t think it would make it especially overpowered.

Fjandi.2516:

So…i always play with 2 friends of mine in wvw. We usually roam as a 3-man team. Our setup is guardian/thief/bunker ele (or shatter mesmer). As a guardian i play a balanced shout based build to support my team and help with dps as well. Our thief is basically the main dps, is really useful to take down hard targets. He usually plays a backstab build d/d (or d/p) with shortbow as secondary weapon. As utility b powder, the refuge and ofc shadow step. Venom as elite (or d storm). I’m not totally sure about his traits. 30 in shadow arts for sure (and i suppose 30 in the crit tree as well). As gear a mix of valk and bers. It works very well but ofc he’s a really good player with lots of experience in spvp and 1v1. In a full party i’d probably use at least 2 thieves.

Thanks for the feedback! I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of our potential Thieves would be interested in a Backstab/DPS role, so I definitely appreciate the information about the utilities, gear, and general trait spreads. A couple follow-up questions, for anyone who can answer:

-In a WvW setting, what might be the differences between a D/D and D/P Backstab build?

-Would D/P be preferable for team play, with its single-target Daze and its Blind/Smoke field?

-With D/P, how do you manage initiative with BP+HS costing 9? There’s the 15 point Trickery trait for a larger pool, but you’d have to sacrifice something else to take that. What’s the trick here?

-For gear, about how much HP does the average Thief have (i.e. how much Valk gear to mix with the Berserker’s)? Is there any toughness investment in a normal build besides what comes from Shadow Arts?

Suralin.3947:

Look into the Venom-Sharing Build (30/x/30/x/x where x is the remaining 10 traits) for group play. It relegates the thief to a consistent DPS/Support Role due to the fact that their Venom Skills are shared across their allies (Immobilize, Weakness, Vulnerability, Stone, Chill). This isn’t a very tanky build, though, and the main weapon to use would be Shortbow (due to the Venom’s Extra Strike trait). You will also get stuck with the base Initiative Pool, which demands a bit more awareness on managing your initiative.

You would have to play with gear stats to find something balanced between DPS and Survivability. I go Carrion Armor w/ Rabid Accessories.

If your friends want to play the medic/stealthy/condition build, going (x/x/30/20/20) is also viable. This build is what most P/D thieves tend to use, normally making sure they have Caltrops and Shadow Refuge or Blinding Powder.

Finally, there’s the High Burst class, which I do not have any experience with, but it’s generally (30/30/10/x/x) and includes the Venom ultimate and Shadowstep.

One of my friends is used to support classes from other games, so a Venom Share build might definitely appeal to him, and I’ll be sure to suggest it. A few more follow-up questions here:

-I can definitely understand the desire to balance DPS and survivability, but why do you use condition damage gear? The Shortbow has some Bleeding on it, but it can deal lots of direct damage too, and most of the Venoms rely on control conditions, rather than damaging ones. Wouldn’t a mix of Berserker/Knight/Valk be more effective for keeping pressure high on groups of enemies?

-What secondary weapon set would a WvW venom share most likely use?

-Which/how many venoms should a Venom Share build take? I assume you would want at least Basilisk Venom and one of the others, but you probably also want room in your utilities for stealth skills and stun breakers, right? If you’re only taking 1-2 Venoms besides Basilisk, which ones get priority?

Much thanks! Any input anyone has about other builds or potential group tactics is very much appreciated.

Hey all, so a number of my friends recently bought GW2 with the intention of getting into WvW, and among them, several decided to play Thieves. As the one who’s been playing the longest, I’d like to be able to help them with their builds and tactics, but I have relatively little experience with the Thief class, and most of the WvW resources I’ve found so far for Thieves are either for solo roaming or several months old. I thought I’d turn to the Thief community here to see if I can get some more relevant information.

My group is mostly likely going to be concerned with taking supply camps, killing Dolyaks, and killing small enemy groups. If we can get the numbers for it, we’d also like to be able to disrupt/kill disorganized enemy zergs. Our group composition is probably going to vary depending on the availability of members and which ones decide to actually commit to WvW, so I’m afraid the information I can give about that is limited (I can probably confirm an aggressive Guardian, a Warrior, and a Mesmer, but the rest is up in the air). The group will probably be 5-10 people, and we could have anywhere from 1-3 Thieves in the group.

I would think that the Shortbow would be useful for most of what I listed above, and that Shadow Refuge would be a good utility for moving the group around in stealth, but besides that, I’m a little lost. What secondary weapon set and utilities would be most effective? What might trait distributions look like? What role are they best going to fill in group engagements?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Rump Buffalo.2594:

i love how everyone is raging about this without having any idea how it will be implemented… as a trait or signet there is no problem with it

also no one stated damage or anything so….can we all calm down until they actually give specifics or we see who gets it and how in 10 days?

Unfortunately, this is the GW2 community, and while it has many positive contributors, there’s an unspoken rule that incoming changes, regardless of the information available, must be greeted with hysteria and outrage. As we can clearly see by the evidence presented in this thread, the fact that Warriors and Thieves are getting a damage boost against Guardians (if they take a certain trait, most likely) is going to ruin Guardian viability in all game modes. They will be unusable in SPvP, TPvP, casual dueling, WvW solo roaming, WvW small group combat, WvW zerging, WvW keep defense, and (apparently), PvE dungeons, because of that extra 10% damage or so. Never mind the incoming nerf to the Thief’s Mug trait or the death of permastealth, or the fact that Warriors are currently considered the weakest PvP class in the game. Full boon duration bunker is also apparently the only Guardian build that exists, and other Guardian builds will be rendered useless by mere association with it, even if they only end up taking 3% extra damage from these classes.

As I stated before in this thread, I’m not completely sure this is the best approach to dealing with the issue, and I think just increasing the amount of boon removal available would be a better fix, but it’s times like these that make me wonder if the Guardian community’s gotten spoiled from the buffs and fixes in recent patches. Guardian and Mesmer are currently the only classes desirable in all major game modes, and giving two other classes the ability to do some extra damage against us if they specifically build for it isn’t going to change that in the slightest.

Anyways, I don’t really expect this post to do anything to stop the stream of angry responses, so carry on.

Amins.3710:

^^ The same can be said for a Well Played Thief.

A guardian won’t kill them either.

It’s a Stalemate… and that’s ~Fine~, where one class is too much Bunker and the other is too much escape.

The main difference, at least in a SPvP setting, is that the Guardian is doing his job by surviving, while the Thief isn’t doing his job, since he’s not killing. The only situation where this wouldn’t really apply would be a 1v1 in WvW, where the goal of both players is to kill the other, but why you’d be solo-roaming with a bunker, I don’t really know.

If it helps, though, Thieves are supposed to be getting reworked in the upcoming patch. Here’s the transcript regarding them from the SotG, courtesy of the GW2 Subreddit/GW2 Guru:

Thief
Reveal automatically activates on stealth ending, not just on attack; Might apply to Mesmer Stealth.
High damage to compensate lack of boon removal. Might get more boon removal in cost of tuned down damage.
Mug is too powerful; But Mug doesn’t synergize well with the whole ‘stealth game’.
Looking to increase mobility for sets other than the shortbow. Elementalists competes too well with Thief’s mobility where thief should be top mobility profession.

So more mobility, less damage, adding boon removal/boon hate, no more permastealth. It will hopefully bring them into line and make whatever anti-boon tricks they get more tolerable. We just have to hope that this all makes it in for this next patch, and isn’t spread out over a couple months.

A damage bonus based on boons is a unique idea, but honestly, I’d rather them just increase the amount of boon-ripping skills available in order to balance things. For one thing, Protection will mitigate the effectiveness from this sort of bonus (since I can’t really see a damage bonus for this going higher than 10-15%), and also, a personal damage bonus won’t help the team nearly as much as just removing the boons could. Adding damage seems like an indirect fix to the problem.

I can’t say I’m too broken up about what this change means for the Guardian, honestly, because boon mechanics have been responsible for some of the greatest imbalances in the game thus far, and it would be nice to diversify the Guardian bunker meta that’s been in place since launch. Besides, it sounds like they’re mostly considering Warriors and Thieves for this role, classes that currently have no chance against well-played Guardians. I don’t mind changes that will at least give them a fair shot, and which may make it harder for bunkers to indefinitely hold points against 1-2 people.

Robtastic.2647:

But i guess deciding which one is best for soloing at low levels is a bad idea as things are unbalanced at low levels maybe? :P

Pretty much this. Guardians are certainly fine for normal leveling, but your longevity will increase dramatically once you put 30 in Valor for either Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing. Guardians will have it rough against some champions before then, since we don’t have many kiting options, and because Blinds, one of our big ways of mitigating damage, are only 10% effective on champions. Our low base HP and damage compared to a Warrior are going to work against you at those levels, but once you get things like AH healing and Selfless Daring working at full power, you’ll be fine when it comes to soloing them.

I’d agree about skipping on gold as a reward, simply to avoid inflating the game’s economy further, but I’d definitely enjoy seeing EXP, Guild Influence, and maybe even Karma as possible PvP rewards. Right now, if you want to play both game modes, you have to accept that any time you spend in PvP is time lost on character progression, and that’s definitely a discouraging factor when there’s so much grind required for things like Ascended gear or Legendaries. It’ll be extremely difficult to fully integrate the PvE and PvP crowds if there aren’t any shared incentives between the game modes, and this doesn’t seem like a terribly difficult thing to work in.

yLoon.5289:

Meh, this is getting boring. I don’t get your argument at all. May i also whine about staff eh?
Yeah, staff is barring certain DPS guardian build! Omg, change them, change staff! Change it into Polearm perhaps! Super range attack ultimate! L O L

Ranger arch enemy? L O L, they are my fresh meat even if im bunker. Pop out wall when he thinks his finishing me. A tip for you, change ur utilities when u saw 4 ranger in their team. Again i emphasize, this is just a “learn to play” issue. You do not expect a set of weapon and skill to win all of the classes, being able to adapt is the key in GW2, not whining about change this change that, or not why the NPC always shout"Last minute to nail down your strategy"?

Im getting extremely tired seeing post like this. Just misleading the new players. Sigh….

Tell me, which class enable you to teleport with 10 secs cool down?

Your comments about the staff are completely irrelevant to my post, and make me think that you really didn’t read it. I really have no comment here, because I have no idea what you’re trying to say.

About the Ranger, yes, I might switch utilities if I see 4 Rangers in a team, but that’s an example blown hilariously out of proportion (unless you’re talking hotjoin games, but that’s a different beast entirely). Most teams run 1 Ranger, with some comps bringing 2, and most of the time, that’s not going to be enough to justify using a utility slot on WoR in PvP. Guardians are very dependent upon their utilities, and taking that slot to deal with a class I shouldn’t be trying to fight in the first place is going to be detrimental to my team. As you yourself say, you can’t “expect a set of weapon and skill to win all of the classes,” and if you’re talking about the standard Meditation Sword build or Bunker build, they’re going to lose in a 1v1 against an equally-skilled Ranger. The Ranger is known as an “anti-bunker” class, so if you’re able to beat them without breaking a sweat, you’re playing bad Rangers (i.e. the ones who would fall for something like Wall of Reflection).

The point of my original argument, which you seem to have completely missed, is that DPS Guardians are a solid dueling spec balanced out by their poor out-of-combat mobility, but that they aren’t currently popular choices when compared to 1v1 classes like the Ele or Ranger, since these classes can duel well, have better mobility, and also contribute more to team fights. Making ZD more accurate and giving it piercing projectiles gives PvE players what they want while also giving TPvP teams some extra reasons to invest in a DPS Guard in their compositions (more AoE = better team fighting). Is the sword going to be hopelessly broken if these changes don’t happen? Hardly. But implementing these changes would help make the DPS Guardian more more thakittenth-man choice on team comps, and would diversify the bunker meta tournament Guardians have been stuck in since release.

Lastly, I already acknowledged that Flashing Blade is an excellent skill, but no, I don’t think a 10-second, 600 range, targeted teleport is especially overpowered. What other class can bring that, you ask?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Arrow

900 Range. AoE Blind. Doesn’t require a target. No cooldown.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat

Can be traited down to a 6.4-second cooldown. Can close gaps if you about-face before casting. Instant cast. Doesn’t require a target. Creates a clone if you have a target. Leap Finisher.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Leap

When traited, 9.6-second targeted teleport. Cripple and Immobilize built in. Instant cast Swap that currently acts as a stun breaker. 600 Range. Leap Finisher.

So to answer your question, Thief and Mesmer allow you to teleport with a cooldown lower than 10 seconds, and two of the three skills I mentioned work for mobility out of combat.

yLoon.5289:

Teleport with 10 secs cool down is OP in pvp

This isn’t really true. The only kind of Guardian that runs with a Sword in TPvP is the DPS Guardian, barring certain bunker specs on Khylo, and while the DPS Guard is a very strong dueling build, it has definite weaknesses, and it’s usually passed over in favor of bunker Guardians and different tanky DPS classes (such as its arch-nemesis, the Ranger).

Flashing Blade is certainly an excellent skill, particularly when combined with the various other blocks and blinds a Sword/Focus Guardian can bring to the table, but if you’re suggesting the teleport makes it OP, I’m not quite sure why. Most times you’ll be fighting in close quarters anyways, since the DPS Guard is most effective on points, and the teleport won’t be doing that much once you close the initial distance. It can help with kiting a little bit, but without a snare, it’s a temporary solution at best, and classes with any sort of mobility will have no trouble opening the gap up again (10 seconds is a really long time when you’re fighting something like a Trap Ranger). The Blind is certainly good for making critical skills miss, but that’s not an ability unique to Guardians, and not something I’d describe as “OP.”

As I said in my initial post, I think the Sword is a very good PvP weapon and doesn’t need much added to it, but the DPS Guard faces stiff competition for a spot on a team, since its primary utility comes from its 1v1 capabilities. It can’t take the place of its bunker cousin, since while it is tanky, it won’t be able to anchor a point indefinitely against multiple players. It doesn’t jump into team fights as easily as something like an Ele, Shatter Mesmer, or Trap Ranger does, and each of these can 1v1 just as effectively as the DPS Guard. Referring again to my initial post, I think ZD is the main thing in need of attention, but shaving 2 seconds off of FB’s cooldown or adding a Leap finisher to it isn’t going to suddenly make DPS Guardians broken.

A Blast finisher on FB would definitely be cool, and it would have the benefit of giving the Sword some supportive elements that it’s currently missing. I’m always going to lean conservative when it comes to Sword buffs, though, and the variety of powerful effects Blast finishers provide make me a little skeptical about whether the change would be healthy for balance. I’d personally put it on my wish list, along with more damage for FB and a 20% projectile finisher on ZD, but it’s not something I’d ever expect to see implemented.

Even though FB was nerfed in beta, I wouldn’t use that as grounds to claim that it will never be re-buffed. For example, Ranger Spirits also got nerfed (badly) in beta, and Anet has acknowledged that they need to be fixed. Just because a nerf was warranted doesn’t mean the size of the nerf was.

About the 1h Sword, I feel like it only really needs a couple, very small buffs to help increase its PvE appeal, since it’s already a solid option in PvP. I would say:

Flashing Blade: Leap Finisher
Zealot’s Defense: Better accuracy at range, piercing projectiles, 20% projectile finisher (maybe)
Powerful Blades: 20% CD reduction on Sword/Spear in addition to the 5% damage

I disagree with the idea of letting Guardians use FB without a target. Low mobility is one of a Sword Guardian’s inherent weaknesses, and one of the main things keeping the spec in a good state of balance. A DPS Guardian is a terrifying offensive and defensive juggernaut, capable of easily 1v1’ing most classes. By restricting its mobility outside of combat, however, you balance that kind of power. The offensive Guardian could turn into the next Ele if you give it superior offense and defense with good mobility, and that’s not something I’d like to see happen. For similar reasons, I oppose the idea of adding anything more than a short, occasional cripple onto its skills – being able to kite an offensive Guardian is one of the best defenses against it, and if you lose that ability, the Sword’s high sustained damage will shred you in no time.

I don’t really mind FB not being a damage skill, if only because the Sword already brings a lot of single-target damage to the table, but a Leap finisher would be nice to improve a Sword Guardian’s interactions with its team (as would adding a 20% projectile finisher to ZD). If they were to add damage to FB, I don’t think it should be any greater than that of a basic sword autoattack.

I think the most important changes are improving ZD’s ranged accuracy and allowing its projectiles to pierce. If we were to compare ZD to Hundred Blades and Blurred Frenzy, two other rooting “burst” skills, ZD’s primary advantage is its ranged component, but as we all know, trying to actually hit something at range with ZD is an exercise in futility. ZD’s damage is similar to Blurred Frenzy’s, but rather than perfect invulnerability, it only absorbs projectiles. It falls far short of 100B in the damage department, it’s the only one of the three that’s incapable of hitting multiple targets, and it also has the highest cooldown amongst them (and, furthermore, is the only one that can’t be traited with CD reduction). ZD could have been a skill that fit into a “happy medium” between the 100B and BF, but right now, the skill’s functionality is too limited for that to happen.

Giving ZD piercing projectiles will be a positive step for the sword in PvE by providing AoE damage, and it’ll bring ZD into line with other existing skills. Improving its accuracy at range is simply necessary – it’s absurd that I can’t consistently hit a stationary target with the skill at 400-600 range, let alone one that’s moving. Finally, adding a 20% CD reduction to Powerful Blades brings it into line with many other weapon traits while making the sword a more dynamic weapon, since there will be more chances to use skills other than the autoattack.

I love the 1h Sword, and I’ve been running it in PvP since BWE1. I can’t bring myself to advocate significant buffs for it because, in spite of its flaws, I still see myself and others having a lot of success with it, and I can only imagine how overpowered it would be if its natural weaknesses were addressed. Fix ZD, give FB a tiny buff – nothing else should be changed.

What’s your response to condition builds? The Signet of Resolve, Purity trait and the Sigil of Purity won’t be nearly enough to handle any spec dedicated to conditions, and your Spirit Shield will only block the ones attached to projectiles. I feel like any decent Necro/Engi/Ranger/Condition Thief is going to give this spec a lot of trouble, since they’ll be able to overwhelm you with their sheer variety of conditions and/or rate of reapplication. The low armor has me a bit leery about this build as a “tank” as well, but I’ll take your word for it about being hard to kill.

Although I’m not completely sure how I would make a Spirit Weapon build at this point, I do see a couple potential improvements you could make to your current formula. The first is your runes – Eagle runes are okay for DPS, but Ogre runes would synergize much, much better with your build. You trade precision and crit damage for 165 power, +3% crit damage, and +4% base damage, so you’re still going to hit hard. The important thing, though, is that Ogre Runes give you a Rock Dog. Since your build excludes the Sword of Justice, you’re missing a lot of the damage Spirit Weapon builds normally bring to the table, and the Rock Dog can take the Sword’s place as a source of pressure. Additionally, the Rock Dog can receive boons from your Virtues, your Shout, and your Symbol, meaning more healing for you from AH and more damage from the Might, Retaliation, and Burning (courtesy of Justice’s active effect) that you spread around. Eagle, conversely, offers you nothing but damage, and I can’t help but feel that it’s an inferior choice.

I would also drop 5 points from Zeal and put them in Virtues to grab Absolute Resolution. You’ve only got one symbol in your build, so Symbolic Power is iffy at best, and I really, really think you need a better response to condition damage. AR can provide it to some extent. The bonus to the passive will supplement AH and make you tankier, letting you deal with things like burning and small bleed stacks more easily, and the cleanse can keep you standing when the stacks get out of hand. You also get some bonus boon duration and reduced Virtue recharge for going deeper into Virtues, which is icing on the cake.

One last suggestion – Renewed Focus is way too good to ignore if you go to 20 in Virtues, and it’ll save your skin far more often than ToC. You don’t have any Stability to get the full heal off when in the Tome, and you can bet that competent opponents aren’t going to let it happen without Stability. RF will give you (and your teammates/weapons/Rock Dog) more boons (protection especially), more burning, more healing, and more cleansing, and you get a 3 second invulnerability every 90 seconds. I consider RF a staple even with only 5 in Virtues, but with 20, you’ll be able to keep them popping frequently throughout a fight.

Overall, I’m really not sure what to think about this build, but keep playing tournies and see if it continues to hold up. If it works for you, it works – if you stick to 1v1’s, it very well might, since Spirit Weapons have always been one of the better 1v1 builds in the game. I’m concerned that it will have difficulty surviving outside of 1v1 situations against good opponents, though, since you don’t have much of a response to AoE damage or CC, and even with Absolute Resolution, your condition defense is still subpar.

My two cents. Take it as you will.

foofad.5162:

Spirit Weapons are still terrible even after the patch. It doesn’t do anything to address their uselessness in dungeons.

For what it’s worth, I’m finding the Hammer to be a decent option again in S/TPvP, particularly now that it can be affected by my Virtues, and I hear that the Shield is still a good choice for high level Fractals. Overall, though, I agree that Spirit Weapons still need more love to make up for what they lost with the nerf. They are likely the worst pets in the game at the moment (I would rank them below Ranger spirits), since they can not only be killed normally, but are also on a timer and can also be destroyed by activating their abilities. Necro minions still get a lot of complaints for their poor AI and lack of out-of-combat health regen, but Spirit Weapons suffer from those same issues in addition to the aforementioned ones. Their fragility isn’t helped by the fact that their cooldown timers don’t start until after they die.

As for what to do, there are a lot of different approaches. One nice change would be to start their cooldown timers from the time they’re summoned, giving them better uptime to compensate for their reduced durability. I also wouldn’t mind it if they just reverted them to their former state, since as far as I know, Spirit Weapons weren’t overpowered in any game mode, with the possible exception of the Shield in Fractals. On the contrary, they were a fairly unpopular choice in regular PvE, most dungeons, PvP, and WvW (which is why the nerf was so baffling). If that isn’t on the table, though, I might suggest letting the weapons inherently use their commands without being destroyed, and changing Eternal Spirit into a trait that makes the weapons invulnerable, or at least one that doubles (triples?) their current health. And then maybe clean up Spirit Weapon traits by merging a couple of the others – 50% duration, burning on hit, 10% more damage, and 20% CD reduction are the types of traits begging to be fused. As it stands, if you want to make a Spirit Weapon build, you’re probably giving up a lot to do it – at least 2 of your utility slots (a massive sacrifice for a Guardian) and a minimum of 30 traits points (likely more if you want A Fire Inside).

Overall, the prominent issues with Spirit Weapons are how much you have to invest to make them effective and the difficulty in keeping them around once you pull them out. They have some cool and useful abilities, particularly the Shield and Hammer, but it’s hard to get the most out of these when the rest of the design feels broken.

Defektive has a thread about using the Longbow/GS in TPvP, so I’d suggest checking it out. Longbow, contrary to long-standing opinion, is apparently a very viable choice for Warriors in high-level PvP.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Defektive-s-tPvP-Longbow-GS-Build/first#post1533126