…make me cry a little inside.

http://i.imgur.com/SjX7u2A.png

Ah you’ve discovered something that annoys the hell out of a lot of Veteren guards.

Also I’ll add: Sword Wave Issues

Namely the fact that the third chain is a narrow cone piercing projectile based attack for no good reason ( ie not a melee skill! ), and suffers from terrain obstruction problems and can be reflected back into your face ( which is nearly a one-shot death on a medi build ).

Sadly we’ve been asking for it to be changed/fixed since day 1.

RapidSausage.4620:

are you sure about that???, shattered aegis is an AOE, so 5 people with aegis from communal defenses multiplied by the 5 target limit of shattered aegis is 25 instances of damage.

Yes, but pure of heart isn’t – and you see waves of green numbers when it procs during events for instance.

The example you mentioned in the wiki discussion also has a screenshot 25+ shattered aegis strikes against a single mob ( Legendary Karka Queen ) – multiple AoE strikes don’t apply to a single target in most cases ( I’m looking at you binding blade! ) – I’ll attach the image here for clarity.

That being said – the last time I tested it was shortly after it was added, so it might have had stealth changes…

Yes, it doesn’t appear to have a hard AoE limit ( or at least, not one that is easily measurable ).

I’ve seen it proc 20+ instances of shattered aegis damage and pure of heart healing.

Its main issue is that the excessive (20 sec) cooldown makes it hard to justify the trait investment

Vikkela.7261:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits

Some of them were really nice, but many very bad too

Valor OP ;-)

DavyMcB.1603:

Can someone tell me how/when exactly to use this skill? lol

Unfortunately you will find that people don’t use it – mainly because Shelter is one of the best heals in the game and you’d need a very good reason to take it over anything else.

Damage mitigation generally trumps healing in GW2.

I personally don’t think Litany is too bad – If you run an all-out damage meditation build.

Pros:
- Short recharge ( Just 17 seconds between states where it is not active – when traited with Meditation Mastery
- It’s a meditation, so you can get benefits from Fury and Healing with Focused Mind and Monk’s Focus respectively.
- It allows you to continue apply dps pressure whilst taking damage.

Cons:
- Active state is short, and can easily be wasted entirely if you are CC’d and you miss your targets.
- It gives little benefit if you are trying to escape
- You need very good dps for it to be effective.
- You need multiple targets and cleave for best effect.
- It’s not instant cast which means you can’t chain it into your damage rotations like other medi’s
- Not worth taking on non-medi builds

To use this effectively, think of it as another trickle source of healing to bolster a medi guardian’s already formidable sources of healing.

You can pre-cast to land your initial burst and be able to stay on-target(s) for longer. Then use your other medi’s to keep your health topped up before it comes off CD again.

Despite the fact it is very punishing to fail to inflict your damage, at least with Monk’s focus you’ll always get the benefit of a small 2k heal. If you do land your burst then you’ll have the benefit of Fury, and you have 6 seconds where you can effectively facetank a small group of opponents whilst doing massive damage.

It works best with cleaving weapons like the GS and to a lesser degree the hammer ( which can be a little slow to take full advantage ).

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

There were a decent number of changes in the closed beta about 3 years ago before it went to open beta.

I didn’t play Guardian much back then, but I do remember Sanctuary being an Elite and Renewed Focus being a utility.

Reworded Radiant Retaliation bug description ( thanks misterdevious.6482 ) and Hammer Symbol of Protection ( thanks nightblood.7910 )

I think I’ve run into this Guardian in WvW before – way way OP, had loads of health and kept using some “un-guardian” skills.

If his nick was something like Commander Seigerazer, I’d report him for exploiting at once.

Some overdue updates for 2015

2015-03-27_____________________________________________

• Added: Radiant Retaliation not functioning as advertised
• Updated: Shield of Absorption bugged duration

Unlikely.

By it’s nature it separates you from your party members, and that just gets everyone killed.

It can be used effectively in GvG however

I’ve updated my healing spreadsheet with the new stability changes

( And fixed some missing cooldown changes from previous patches )

link in the sig

Saiyan.1704:

I also want to add, if you trait Master of Concecrations Hollowed Ground will yield 4680 healing if it affects 5 people in its full duration. I wish Concecrations got a radius buff

Is it not still 4485 same as before the patch? ( 69 * 5 ) * ( 13 ticks )

CMF.5461:

Do the 5 stacks of stability count as multiple boon applications? Altruistic healing with 5 allies and 5 applications of stability with maybe 70 healing per boon.

25 * 70 = 1750 healing per syg shout. Nice little burst heal for AH guards in wvw at least.

Don’t forget retaliation is granted too:

30 * 70 = 2100

Can someone test if teleporting up onto wvw supply depot archways still works or through the clock tower floor?

And does JI or Flashing Blade still avoid fall damage?

Guardian

• Flashing Blade: This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target cannot be found.
• Judge’s Intervention: This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target cannot be found, except when acting as a stun break.
• Merciful Intervention: This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target point cannot be found.
• “Stand Your Ground!”: This skill now grants 5 stacks of stability to nearby allies.
• Indomitable Courage: This trait now grants 3 stacks of stability to nearby allies. Duration has been increased from 3 to 4 seconds.
• Tome of Courage: This skill now grants 3 seconds of protection every 3 seconds. Protection and stability are no longer removed when the player stops using Tome of Courage.
• Tome of Wrath: This skill now grants 3 seconds of retaliation every 3 seconds. Retaliation and stability are no longer removed when the player stops using Tome of Wrath.
• Elite Focus: This trait now grants 1 stack of stability every 3 seconds to Tome of Wrath and Tome of Courage.
• Hallowed Ground: Increased the duration of stability that this skill grants from 1 second to 2 seconds.

This will be a crying shame.

Having teleports that actually teleport was one of the few things that made the class still fun to play when the odds continue to stack against it.

I’m not even talking about using it as an escape mechanism, but simply as one of the few tools for mobility we had when moving from A->B and getting TO the action, let alone away from it. A mediguard chaining all his teleports and leaps could just about keep up with other classes.

Regardless of how it was originally intended, teleporting across elevations has become a class mechanic.

I’ve been playing a medi-burst guard for years, even before they were cool – but I’ll have a really hard time finding any enjoyment in it if these patch notes play anything like they sound. ( if you’ll excuse my mixed metaphors )

Also… 1 stack of stability every 3 secs for Tomes… that’ll work really well in WvW…

It’s already confirmed that longbow skill #5 will be for flossing enemies from between your teeth

Perhaps sacrifice a few stats from the utility consumable for Swift Moa Feathers and then take the runes of your choice?

Ezrael.6859:

Virtue Recharge rate bonus from traits isn’t calculating correctly.

At 20% reduction the figures are 25, 50 and 75 for the cooldowns.

They should be 24, 48 and 72.

That’s because points in virtues increases you Virtue Recharge Rate and isn’t actually a percentage reduction of cooldown time!

see here: Guardian FAQ #31

kitten.1685:

Tom Gore.4035:

Throw Rock doesn’t interrupt. I wish it did so I could actually get to use Vengeance every now and then.

yeah not sure where he got that idea

Fixed. Yup sorry – it was just part of a long guide, and I was somewhat braindead by the time I was finished – it was a pre-beta thing where it had a chance to daze ;-)

Here’s a copy and paste from a guide I wrote for my guild along time ago. Hopefully it has some useful tips…

Stomps without stability:

Finishing off opponents can be key to winning a battle in WvW or sPvP, especially since a single dead team mate can trigger a Rally for any number of downed opponents – so finishing them off as quickly as possible is very important.

Normally ready access to 0-cast time stability allows the guardian to be a master at securing stops. Unfortunately, in the middle of a hectic battle, the chances are these sources will be on cooldown ( or better saved for helping your team in actual combat ).

Fortunately we have some alternative tools that can help us secure stomps, such as Aegis ( Retreat, Virtue of Courage ) and Blind ( Virtue of Justice when traited ). The minor radiance traits of Justice is Blind and Renewed Justice are amongst the most potent traits in the Guardian skill tree, allowing for very effective blind uptime through the course of a fight ( provided your team isn’t getting completely steam-rolled )

Here are some tips against each class:

vs Guardian
Generally 1 blind or aegis is enough (poor guardians), but watch they don’t remove it with “Wrath” before using their Wave of Light knockback.

vs Thief
When they use Shadow Escape either reposition and re-stomp or use Judge’s Intervention while stomping to blink to their new location. If you don’t have JI then its usually quicker to DPS them down because after a few seconds they can use Smoke Bomb to put them into stealth. ( ie you’ll need 3 stomp attempts to kill them )

vs Mesmer
Either begin stomping, cancel and restart to fake out their use of Deception ( they swap places with a clone ) or teleport to their new location with JI ( the real mesmer will have the downed symbol above their head, you will need to be quick with target re-selection to be able to teleport in time ). Reserve aegis or blind incase they use Phantasm Rogue which can do alot of damage to you.

vs Warrior
You need save a blind or aegis to counter the interrupt from Hammer Toss. Watch out for Vengeance ( it’s usually better to just kite until it runs out ).

vs Engineer
1 blind/aegis should suffice although stomping them quickly is advisable.

vs Ranger
1 blind/aegis although some pets can be annoying so you might need to guard against them

vs Necro
1 blind against Fear

vs Elementalist
Try to immobalize before they go into Vapor Form or start your stomp just before and teleport with JI at the last moment.

Hammer users can take advantage of the banishing telestomp. If a downed enemy is being rezzed by multiple enemies, or you are in danger of being overun by foes rushing to their rescue, you can use Banish to punt the downed away from you ( this has the advantage that some of your foes may ignore you and move towards the downed to secure the rez ). If you hit “f” to start your stomp mid-way through the banish animation the stomp start even though they are flying away from you – in the final moments you can then use JI to relocate to their position to secure the kill.

Under heavy fire, and if all else fails you can combine Judge’s Intervetion with Merciful Intervention to blink away to a friendly ( hopefully out of AoE range ) at the start of the stomp animation and back to your target at the end ( but most likely you’ll have CD on them )

x-bow can be thematic, if it uses magic attacks.

Alternatively, main-focus can be a bit like the cross from dante’s inferno ( but with guardian ankh projectiles )

Black Box.9312:

The idea is good; the execution is not. They need to at least eliminate the 2 second channel in order for it to be effective.

And shield 4 should just be rebuilt from the ground up. I’m still left wondering how that skill made it past the beta.

Probably because it was much much better in early versions.

iirc Shield of Judgement had a 15 sec cooldown at one point AND could be traited as an interrupt/knockback. ( later changed to 20 sec, then 30 … )

Shield of Absorption was once 20, then 35? and finally 40…

Quite a few of the Guard’s build issues are the result of pre-launch aggressive nerfs to OP skills and traits which then seemingly get forgotten about after beta when they could have done with further retuning.

Nice changes.

I like the challenge of roaming with non-standard skills and utilities ( like litany and the shield ) – so I will enjoy this balance patch, even if it doesn’t actually fix any of the issues of the shield.

If anyone is interested in some numbers, a standard FM, MF meditation build doing 5k of damage per second will have their healing increased from 9600 to 11100 with these changes. ( over 6 seconds )

Fix all our broken skill facts, once and for all

Spartacus.3192:

messiah.1908:

also cleave count

And whirling wrath can heal as much as 25*14=350hp if all hits connect?

It’s more than that – WW has the potential of ( ( 7 * 5 ) + 7 ) * ( 25 * ( 0.02 + HP ) ) = 1050 healing without HP. ( That’s 7 * strikes with AoE on 5 targets + 7 single strike projectiles )

If you do all guardian skills on rotation, with AA in between and assume they all hit maximum targets, then it’s 14650 healing per minute ( 244/sec avg ).

with 1000 HP then it’s 26370 (440/sec)

Realistically you aren’t going to see anything like those numbers outside of PVE, especially as you can’t control when and how you do damage most of the time – but you can think of Zealous Blade as another added passive increase to the guardian health pool, like Virtue of Resolve.

It’s main problem is you don’t feel like you are getting much benefit from it

If you are interested in playing with the numbers, it’s listed in my Healing spready linked in my sig.

Most of the ones I can think of have already been covered.

Hammer users can use MI/JI to teleport combo blast effects ( eg healing, might etc ) to a target 1200-1500 range from the edge of a combo field.

( Mighty blow triggers the combo at the start of the animation, but doesn’t apply the boons until the end, so you can chain a teleport in between ).

The teleport to elevated position trick also works in WvW if you stand under the arches next to Vale and Water camps – you can teleport directly up onto the top of the span if enemies are standing on top.

Not to mention that it’s also a projectile attack ( no doubt why it also misses alot of the time – you can’t hit siege with it either) for no good reason, so it can be reflected back into your face… odd for a short range melee weapon.

Yup – this has always behaved more like a projectile finisher than a whirl.

Projectiles have a 20% chance of triggering off a multi-strike skill, and 20% of 7 whirling wrath projectiles is 1.4 bolts…

Just another issue that has existed forever and will probably never be fixed..

One of the issues is that the healing is extremely difficult to perceive when you playing.

If you unload all of your GS skills ( it works on utilities too ) on cooldown then you’re looking at about an extra 15k per minute/240 per second of healing assuming you have a power build with 0 healing power and land all your hits – this isn’t all that insignificant.

Whirling Wrath = 1k of healing.

What I would do, as others have suggested, is make it scale off Power up to about 60 per strike but also make the damage of Binding Blade based off Power instead of Condition Damage – because then you’d get a 3k heal by letting your blades tick out against 5 foes rather than using your Pull blindly – which will encourage some more thoughtful play. ( and Whirling Wrath would be a 2.5k heal )

Which leads to an interesting question. Is it possible to build to counter the Engi specifically or are we simply outclassed every way we approach it.

Obviously this depends on the build we are facing, as they have several very viable configurations and we have far less effective options.

This seems to be a Z-clipping issue with RoW.

If I cast on a complete flat surface I get no combo proc’s from blast finishers. However on uneven terrain I always get procs. ( tested in the mists )

Definitely a bug

Fwiw i reported this as an exploitable bug several times over the past 2 years and it has only just been fixed.

Basically a dps guard with shield of wrath could one shot any class by activating the shield, casting tome of wrath and JIing to target landing 25k+ of aoe damage ( in wvw, about 16k in pvp) when it burst.

Glad it was fixed. Shame it was only fixed incidentally because of abuses of Ele elite.

ArchonWing.9480:

Tarsius.3170:

Arc: Also the Monks Focus bug is still there so you still get an extra heal even if you don’t TP to an ally – contrary to the skillbar preview. ( so you get 1x 2k heal from MF and 1x 2k heal from MI regardless of target )

Harbinger – nice! what’s the coefficient?

Shame about the fix to the shield bubble…

Is that really a bug though? Some skills will proc effects even if they whiff. For example, the thief’s thrill of the crime which grants swiftness/fury/might on steal will still grant the thief boons even if it fails.

I think it makes sense that it should heal even if it fails— assuming the skill was activated and goes on cooldown. You should be able to invoke it for a proc heal even if the skill itself fails— ranger shouts are often used for that purpose; the shouts themselves are pretty terrible.

right, i perhaps got the impression from the skillbar that we’d get punished for missing. I have not done much testing, but so far i’ve not seen a triple heal from MF and MI, so that bug has probably been fixed.

ArchonWing.9480:

Does focused mind’s fury happen when renewed focus is cast? The thing here is that the fury would be pretty wasted during the channel.

Both the heal from MF and the Fury from FM occur at the end of the channel.

Other things I’ve noticed:

Shield of Absorbtion: Popping the shield no longer roots you

Tome of Wrath: no longer boosts your base power to insane levels ( so no more one-shotting folks in WvW for 25k using Shield of Wrath ) – I guess they fixed this along with the Ele tornado. It still gives you about +50% precision though

You still get the MI heal on a mis-teleport even without Monk’s Focus slotted

MI lets you teleport upstairs – something JI always had trouble with (haven’t tried an arch jump yet)

You can now avoid fall damage with MI, like other teleports

Arc: Also the Monks Focus bug is still there so you still get an extra heal even if you don’t TP to an ally – contrary to the skillbar preview. ( so you get 1x 2k heal from MF and 1x 2k heal from MI regardless of target )

Harbinger – nice! what’s the coefficient?

Shame about the fix to the shield bubble…

Guardian

Elite Focus

• This trait now grants stability to tome elite skills. Each tome will gain stability at the time it receives its associated boon (retaliation or protection).

Glacial Heart

• The cooldown of this trait has been reduced to 15 seconds. Chill duration has been reduced from 4 to 3 seconds.

Eternal Spirit

• This trait has been renamed to Expeditious Spirit and now reduces recharge of spirit command skills.

Hammer of Wisdom

• This spirit weapon is no longer destroyed when the Command skill is used.
• The Command skill now initiates a Blast combo finisher on the spirit weapon.

Sword of Justice

• This spirit weapon is no longer destroyed when the Command skill is used.
• The Command skill now applies 5 stacks of vulnerability to the enemies it strikes.
• Removed the pulsing camera shake that this skill caused.

Shield of the Avenger

• This spirit weapon is no longer destroyed when the Command skill is used.
• In addition to striking and bouncing to enemies, this ability will now bounce to allies when the Command skill is used, granting them aegis.

Bow of Truth

• Added Healing, Radius, Duration, Number of Targets, and Number of Hits skill facts. This spirit weapon is no longer destroyed when the Command skill is used.
• When the Command skill is used, this ability can now be cast at a range of 1200.

Merciful Intervention

• This ability is now a ground-targeted skill and will shadowstep the guardian to an ally in the targeted area, healing allies around the guardian.

Renewed Focus

• This ability is now a Meditation and will function with Meditation Mastery, Focused Mind, and Monk’s Focus.

Conflagrate (Tome of Wrath)

• Damage of this ability has been increased by 10%.

Judgment (Tome of Wrath)

• Reduced casting time by 1.5 seconds.

Purifying Ribbon (Tome of Courage)

• Increased the number of conditions removed from allies from 1 to 2 per bounce.

Shield of Absorption

• Fixed a bug that caused this skill’s projectile absorption to persist after the skill was cancelled or interrupted.

Spirit Weapons

• Fixed an issue that caused spirit weapons to receive an incredibly long recharge if they were active when transitioning into water.

Resolute Healer

• Fixed a bug that caused this trait to block unblockable missiles.

Symbol of Protection

• Updated the damage skill facts to display Hammer Damage and Symbol Damage separately. Added a Number of Targets: 5 skill fact.

Light of Judgement

• Added a Number of Bounces: 4 skill fact.

Weight of Justice

• Added a Damage and Pulses: 2 skill fact.

Pillar of Light

• Updated the damage skill fact for this skill to scale correctly.

Purging Flames

• Added a Number of Targets: 5 skill fact.

Symbol of Protection

• Updated Number of Target skill facts to correctly indicate the maximum number of targets.

Wrathful Spirits

• Updated spirit weapon skill facts to indicate the damage increased when this trait is equipped.

Scepter Power

• Fixed a bug in which this trait failed to update associated skill facts.

Revenge of the Fallen

• Fixed a bug in which this trait failed to update associated skill facts.

FYI here is how Merciful Intervention currently works

As others have noted the heal from Merciful looks like a fairly subtle star-filter glow around the player that triggers directly after cast. ( and has an effective radius of about 240 ).

I’m fairly certain from looking at the video that with new version of the skill you will no longer get any of the MI procs when you teleport with no target. But you will still get healing from Monk’s Focus.

=Tarsi=

I would probably switch it in temporarily to catch up with team mates, or to do some adhoc terrain breaking teleports. It certainly won’t occupy by toolbar 99% of the time.

I’ve always like Judge’s Intervention because its sheer usefulness in so many situations:

1. Mobility – Guards have access to so little, so every small bit of mobility is like gold dust.
2. Escape – Guards have even less methods of escape, and this is one of them provided you have a handy bunny rabbit to port to.
3. Combos – As it’s instant cast it can be chained together with many other skills to help deliver CC and burst to your targets. Without any access to soft-cc conditions you have to rely on this to inflict any kind of meaningful damage to more mobile professions. Works well with the hammer, gs, mace and sword.
4. Sneak up on unsuspecting enemies ( especially when they think they are safe on structures above you )
5. For when you are stuck in terrain, and you want out.
6. Survive infinite fall damage.
7. It does reasonable damage and inflicts burning ( so it’ll tear down Aegis before you begin your burst rotation )

I’m definitely looking forward to testing these changes – medi guard is looking very strong ( renewed focus! ) and stability on tomes is very welcome.

Sauncho.8076:

ventusthunder.5067:

XxSmokedatganjaxX.2948:

What? I thought MI still needs an ally in order to work though?

You get the heal with or without the ally. You only get the shadowstep if there is an ally in the targeted area.

Are you sure about it being able to heal without an ally, I don’t think it works like that now

MI’s healing effect won’t proc, but it will still trigger Monk’s Focus and other generic meditation effects ( you can see Focused Mind granting Fury for the non-ally targetted MI demonstration in the video for instance ).

SilkySmooth.1574:

so.. merficul intervention is useless now. 120 radius is small as … to land in an emergency situation on moving allys

It was always 120 radius for the heal, (and 180 is the radius of the targeting circle for anyone wondering ). At least now we can actually choose where it delivers us, which is pretty useful. I wonder if ambients will count?

thanks folks – rewatched it now and i think I got most of the key points down

Direct from the Twitch Feed

Traits

• Elite Focus – Now also grants stability when using Tomes ( tooltip shows 13 secs, boon application interval 10 seconds )
• Glacial Heart – ICD reduced to 15 secs, chill reduced to 3 secs (from 4 ), unblockable.

Spirit Weapons – Command Abilities

• Eternal Spirit is renamed to Expeditious Spirit and now reduces cooldowns on Spirit Weapons command abilities ( tooltip: by 20% )
  – Hammer 12 secs
  – Sword 8 secs
  – Bow 16 secs
  – Shield 12 secs
• Spirit Weapons will no longer die when command regardless of traits.
• Hammer of Wisdom’s command ability is now a Blast Finisher
• Sword of Justice’s command ability now applies 5 stacks of vuln to anyone who is struck
• Shield of the Avenger’s command ability now bounces to allies and applies aegis
• Bow of Truth’s command ability is now ground targeted, 1200 range.

Other skills

• Merciful Intervention 180 radius ground targeted teleport to an ally. Will fail to teleport if Ally is not within target area. ( Tooltip indicates heal area is still only 120 radius )
• Renewed Focus is now a meditation and will trigger all meditation related traits (!!!)

Tome of Wrath

• Conflagrate damage increased by 10%
• Judgement cast time reduced by 1.5 seconds

Tome of Courage

• Purifying Ribbon – Now cleanses 2 conditions ( up from 1 ) on each bounce on an Ally

Aeolus.3615:

not instant cast like all meditations.
i would run a quad meditation build if was instant.

with cast time like this i would make it a 16-20 seconds recharge when traited.

Well technically you have only 18 seconds of downtime when traited ( since the effect lasts 6 seconds ).

The extra sustain to a medi build can be quite nice…

Personally I will use it on “all or nothing” burst builds because you can pre-cast it ( avoiding the whole cast time issue ) and use it to deliver your whole attack chain without coming up for air, even against multiple enemies.

The other 98% percent of the time you’ll want shelter or the signet ( in that order )

Lucky some folks have done a lot of the hard work for you:

Profession DPS Esimates by DEKεyz

Guardian DPS for PvE by Obal

Group Composition DPS Calculator by DnT

well the wall is long lasting and covers a large area, so it isn’t really comparable in PvE.

But the warrior one is probably better in solo situations though since you can’t react to it

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

“Unscathed Contender” While under the effects of protection you deal +8% more damage.

A full dps guard has relatively little access to protection though, and you probably wouldn’t want to squander it as a pre-cast for burst.