Guild Wars 2

ArchonWing.9480:

I didn’t know warriors could reflect projectiles. That would require a serious nerf.

Missile Deflection ( granted, it’s probably not worth traiting for in most cases )

ArchonWing.9480:

What it needs to do is NOT waste aegis when it blocks a hit, because that is just stupid.

Amen

oxtred.7658:

Isn’t this lag?

Fashion Mage.3712:

Well they deserved attention, as well as all the other unused utilities that the devs are finally tinkering with.

I suspect that the term “under used utilities” is entirely limited to the aforementioned spirit weapon options and nothing else. Otherwise they would have mentioned signets.

I am interested what they’ll be doing to the elites though… Provided we don’t just get Tome of Ikea for summoning a dazzling array of spirit bookshelves and sofa beds

Yup, I hope the omission of any mention of weapon QoL fixes or trait rebalancing (unlike other professions) is simply in the interest of keeping the announcement short and sweet.

Also, you can change all you want on spirit weapon actives but it will be for nothing if the simple issue of cooldowns and trait placement isn’t addressed.

I am still quietly optimistic – they didn’t say we are in a good place, and at the absolute worst I’ll have something new to put in the bugs list

As i have often mentioned before, I would love it if they just made them summoned weapons which replace the guards weapon skills.

No dodgy and skillless AI, just some well needed depth to guardian game play and the potential for some interesting new builds

I invite you to take a look at the healing link in my signature if you want a general overview of guardian healing.

For the most part Guardian passive healing like regen and rejuvenation is lacklustre compared to other professions, although they tend to make up for it by having access to a lot of other sources of incremental healing ( many of which apply to allies ).

Sadly, building for healing tends to be frowned upon in PvE and has limited utility in WvW

I guess it depends on what you are hoping to achieve and where you are hoping to achieve it

The unintended procs aren’t always completely wasted. Quicknesss will net you a few extra stacks of Might from GS auto-attacking for a few seconds.

This still doesn’t come close to the sustained dps bonus of Fire/Air – on the other hand we’re talking about increasing burst reliability/damage here which is a somewhat different beast than a flat dps increase. I guess it depends which is most useful and that probably depends on your map/team/build/playstyle

Ynna.8769:

Not this discussion again. (I swear to god, this forum just repeats its discussions every two weeks. Has done since beta.)

I guess the community developers are partly to blame for that one, having never bothered to implement/fix the most basic of forum features: The Search.

Thank god most external search engines let you specify a search path …

Ynna.8769:

I like the Shield. It does what it does okay, but the cooldowns are way too long.

Unlike most Guardians, I think the skills on the Shield are a decent thematic fit.

Agreed, and SoW is more thematic with the focus as an offensive offhand ( since it’s one of our deadliest burst skills ).

I’m a rare dps guard that likes to roam with a shield because I appreciate the on-demand interrupt and protection on a glassy build more than the well telegraphed burst of the focus.

Shaving 25%-30% off the current cooldowns would be about right

FAQ #Q21

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Christos knows his stuff. Don’t be critical of him.

Christos can’t be critical, he doesn’t have enough points in radiance!

Give em a break. They are going to have a really tough time filling a 5 minute pre-recorded segment where they can’t spend 4.5 minutes searching for the correct utility or traits to equip in the demonstration.

Summary: Zealous Blade does not proc healing effects with the GS#5 skill Binding Blade.

Class: Guardian
Test Location: The Heart of the Mists
Test Race: Asura

Selected traits: Zealous Blade ( 4 in Zeal )
Equipped Weapon: Greatsword

Description: As detailed in the Guardian Bugs List the Greatsword skill #5 ( Binding Blade ) does not proc any healing. This applies to both the initial heavy hitting blade strikes and subsequent tick damage.

This is a shame because it would encourage more thoughtful play from Binding Blade rather than just the usual cast and pull.

Also the projectiles from Whirling Wrath do not trigger healing ( although the direct 5 target AoE attack does ).

All other greatsword skills work as expected, with healing from Auto Attack chain 3 target cleaves, Leap of Faith 5 target AoE ( include projectiles ) and the pulse damage from Symbol of Wrath.

Cheers,

=Tarsius=

2014-07-24_____________________________________________

• Added: Zealous Blade not healing with Binding Blade.
• Fixed: Virtue of Courage correctly represents Indomitable Courage trait in tooltip
• Fixed: Signet of Resolve correctly represents Perfrect Inscriptions in tooltip
• Updated: Permeating Wrath with tooltip fixes
• Updated: Supreme Justice with tooltip fixes

spoj.9672:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Cufufalating.8479:

Guardians did the short end of the stick on this… But TBH kind of like reason why they did it. Classes should get conditions which match their profession, and nothing really matches Guardians all that well, condition wise. They are the buffing class, not the debuffing class.

… but sadly Guardians don’t really match any conditions other than burning. They probably should be given a decent bleeding trait though, since bleeding is not really a class thing its a bread-and-butter condition which everyone should have.

I was a bit confused on this one as well. Why don’t Guardians get bleeding? We use swords. Do we just use the flats of the blades or the hilts and pommels when we use them? Because when I watch my animations, I am clearly swinging my blade at things yet they never bleed…

Strange…

Thanks.

The guardians holy fire cauterises every wound. Obviously.

I thought it was because when you are on fire and rolling around on the floor in agony you get automatically healed for being selfless and daring.

It doesn’t matter which weapon you slot the sigil on, main-hand or off-hand you will still get a bloodlust stack regardless of which weapon ( or utility ) does the killing. ( provided it is equipped )

Since the last patch there are all sorts of annoying issues with them though which means you will keep losing the stacks unless you are very careful: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Bloodlust

Ropechef.6192:

sorry to derail…

Chef Mogwai

:)

awesome – stay out of the water!

Except that Guardians are more like Mogwai – they have been cute from birth and everyone wants one in their family, but Anet are afraid to feed them any milk and cookies since beta incase they turn into Gremlins and eat everyone.

Yes, condi duration and damage gear + food and traits ( like Amplified Wrath and Kindled Zeal ) all affect the burn damage from mortar incendiary shots.

Have confirmed this issue in my tests

Note: the -33% condi duration appears to work as expected, but it definitely only cleanses 1 condition

2014-07-13_____________________________________________

• Added: Purging Flames only cleanses 1 condition when Consecrated Ground is traited ( thanks Fashion Mage.3712 )

On my medi build I’ll stick with UC 98% of the time, but occasionally the situation calls for a utility swap for a consecration or two, in which case I’ll change to Master of Consecrations or Consecrated Ground depending on the skills involved.

Pregnantman.8259:

My bad then, thank you for pointing outThough it seems really silly for one source of damage to be blocked by 2 sources of block. I’m hoping its not intended to be this way. Anyway, I’ll edit my response accordingly.

Probably not intentional, but very unlikely to ever get fixed ( since it has always worked this way ) – maybe when they run out of skill facts to update…who knows.

More often than not, aegis will be ripped away the moment you JI to target, so I tend to re-apply with courage mid-way through my burst rotation if it’s needed.

Oh nooo, how will I be able to bump thieves out of shadow refuge? Smaller cooldowns would be nice.

Yup, unfortunately things have changed recently when the game was released to the Asian market.

This guide, although it still contains a lot of useful info, hasn’t seen an update in nearly 2 years.

There are 2 ways of unlocking traits. The first is by completing various objectives tied to in-game achievements and map completion. This is to encourage new players to explore all the game content and gain access to traits and skills as they progress through the game.

The second method allows you to spend gold and skill points to obtain trait manuals ( from Profession Trainers ). This allows veteren players who already have gold and amassed skill points to level their alts without needing to re-play the whole game. ( although it can be very frustrating if you like to level lots of characters )

Bookmark the wiki, because it can probably answer a lot of your questions and give you useful info about how to complete each zone while you are levelling:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait_guide

That is all well and good, but if all 9 nazgul had turned up, Gandalf would have been wrecked by the AoE cap

Ralkuth.1456:

Hope people can contribute to the discussion of the skill.

I think the issue is that most replies have been focused on just a single game mode or play style rather than the full picture.

The issue I had with the OP’s assertion was it was basically making a blanket statement across all game modes ( PvP, PvE, WvW ) all of which are very different and have multiple builds and roles ( with some modes having more, other modes having less )

I don’t think anyone has actually said that shelter isn’t the best guardian heal. Most guards will agree it’s incredibly strong. The main point is that it’s not the best heal in 100% of cases, and there are several posts which lay out exactly what those cases are.

The more acerbic posts tend to defend views about just a single game mode. For instance “Shelter is the only viable heal for tPvP” which is undoubtedly 98% true. But that’s just one element of Guild Wars 2

The Guardian trait Searing Flames removes a boon once every 10 seconds on burn and apparently prioritises Might – this is definitely a more interesting mechanic than random removal.

Guardian weapon ranges are hard to judge because they use magical energy in their attacks.
For instance the third strike of the sword auto actually has a range of 300 and is a projectile attack ( it can actually be reflected back in our faces )

I does seem a little odd that the two hander autos are so short by comparison, but I suspect it’s to balance out the AoE cleave of larger weapons vs the single target damage of 1 handers.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Purging Flames when traited with Consecrated Ground is glitched and it only removes one condition instead of three.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Purging-Flames-with-Consecrated-Ground

Thanks, will add it once I’ve had a chance to test the other effects.

Dahkeus.8243:

Good catch. Fortunately I never run that trait unless I’m using a bunker build in sPvP and in that case I only use it for Sanctuary. It’s bugged for that skill too, but I like that bug (it increases the duration of Sanc). =P

It used to decrease the cast time too, but they fixed it.

happy days

Ah nice find.

When you activate Consecrated Ground it actually swaps consecration skills to ground targetted alternatives, so as you are probably correct that it’s legacy code.

I am therefore curious if:
a) -33% condition duration is broken too
b) it exhibits its “old” behaviour of allowing multiple condition cleanses by running in and out of the circle repeatedly.

ArchonWing.9480:

How can a class without water fields be a “healing” class?

What do guardians even have for group heals? Battle Presence is the big one I can think of, and the occasional regen, dodge heal, and mace heal, but it’s pretty niche if you ask me.

Tome of courage just comes across as the main one, but that’s a long cooldown elite.

Don’t forget Healing Breeze is 45k per minute ( 32.6k per cast ) of group healing since the patch, assuming 0 healing power – equivalent to about 7 water field blasts.

Staff Empower is 25k per minute ( ignoring AH ).
Orb of Light second sequence is 20k/m approx ( and so is the first step if you can pull off enough hits )
And of course battle presence requires absolutely no micro-management and heals for a nice 31k/m ( with Absolute Resolution )

Aza.2105:

Then I believe they changed it heal allies for a lot….but the tooltip never reflected this. So no one who didn’t see Tarsius healing chart probably didn’t know how much it healed for.

Heh, I hadn’t even updated it for the Apr15th patch until you reminded me. thanks!

The numbers should be correct now: Group healing per minute: 52k with 1k healing power or 45k with 0 HP – nothing to be laughed at really.

Also, one thing I never added was Shelter + Might of the Protector + AH which can increase Shelter’s healing potential quite substantially if you time it right.

If it’s PvE you are interested in, I recommend you have a read of Obal’s sticky thread on this forum.

The meta for the past year has all been about maximising DPS, this generally means you will have to sacrifice the sustained healing from Valor.

On the other hand, there’s no reason not to run what build you prefer ( just be aware that you might get rejection from certain dungeon groups )

Those platforms have always been a bit glitchy, do you noticed it anywhere else? – could be a terrain bug

Crapgame.6519:

Reborn.2934:

banishing uplevel characters in eotm proves nothing …..

Or proves that you don’t know how to have fun? /boggle

Thanks for sharing the video. Sometimes a Guardian just wants to have some fun Someone should make a clip reel of some of these. Not sure who it was a few months back be they had probably one of the, if not, best pulls in EoTM. Out near the oil and air strike NPC they did a GS 5 and moved behind the pillar, jump to the ledge, and pulled them to their death. Still don’t know how they managed that feat but it was one of the best so far.

Anyway – thanks. Always brings a giggle to me when I see a good banish or shield 5 push

Check the second link my friend ;-)

There’s also this dude

( I love the mid-air banish at 2:15 )

You can hit “f” to start you stomp while the animation for banish is mid-way through

( then you use JI to relocate before the stomp completes )

Once again, great ;-)

I didn’t know you could hammer punt and still be able to hit F to start the tele-stomp, I must remember that for next time.

While I agree that Shelter is often the best choice, it is definitely not the best choice for all game modes and builds.

You should always evaluate the usefulness of utilities situationally, and heal skills are no different.

As others have pointed out, the signet is good for roaming dps builds which have very little inate access to condi-clear, but have good resources of aegis and blind.

Litany can be useful as a precast for medi burst aoe builds, allowing you to stay on your targets for 6 seconds and offload your whole damage chain without having to back-off or dodge away. ( and you know it’ll be off CD again in the next 18 seconds )

Breeze can be good for healing support builds in small groups ( it used to be better, when you could use it to stack reliation )

I’ve even seen one good use of Anti-toxin in a zerg regen build.

For myself I find Shelter more interesting for its might stacking potential than its 2 second block.

There are many ways to play the game, and consequently there’s not a single meta across all game modes and group compositions.

Unfortunately pets in general are implemented poorly and promote passive play which no-one enjoys fighting either with or against.

While guardian spirits have tons of issues, fixing them will still leave them in the same state as other NPC “helpers”.

I would prefer them to only activate skills on command ( rebalanced for command effect and CD ), or become actual utility summons ( like kits or elemental weapons ) to help promote more active or skillful play.

This will never happen.

I heard a rumour Anet were going to add a new Spirit Weapon and revamp all the traits on the next patch.

There’s even a picture floating around on reddit:

I like roaming with a shield because:

a) bored with focus, the damage it brings is easy to see and dodge
b) on demand instant knockback (fits nicely inside shadow refuge)
c) dps medi-guard has no other sources of protection

reason b mostly.

on the other hand, I get no utility out of the absorption bubble ( cooldown is too high to make a difference ), the heal is mediocre, the protection doesn’t last long enough.

• Knockback from Sanctuary, Line of Warding, Shield of Absorption and Ring of Warding now puts you into combat ( although it still doesn’t agro NPCs )

Looks like staff users lost one of our few escape mechanisms.

Zerker guard can usually be effective against warriors, provided you’re quick with active defenses

Hammer warrior: Make sure you have good access to stability and/or stunbreakers. Hammer skills are very clearly telegraphed and the combos are quite easy to predict once you’ve fought them a few times – so timing dodges can mitigate a ton of damage.

GS/Bow: hundred blades is only a problem if you take it to the face – dodge behind him and unload your damage while he’s standing there like a lemon. Bow can be tricky to counter if he decides to kite you, so either try speed runes or scepter to get in close and maintain some pressure of your own.

Don’t stand in combustive shot’s area of effect.

Blind is your friend.

You haven’t mentioned what weapons you prefer using. Sword 3 can absorb projectiles in a tight spot.

If you can organise with your group well enough then you should be able to stop your full hammer AA rotation when appropriate, ie. just before the ele is about to cast their fire field – but it’s hard to get it to get the timing to work with PUGs

see: Combo field precedence FAQ#29

yup, never seen this before.

I would be more inclined to believe that the Ele used Glyph of Renewel on the fallen guard.

Symbols pulse once a second, and even at normal running speeds it’s possible to run through them between pulses and “miss” the swiftness boon.

Wards behave differently.

But I agree, ideally blinks shouldn’t be affected by them. I can imagine it would open up a whole world of terrain exploits to fix it though.

typical – are you sure it’s not just Hold the Line that’s broken, since that has other issues?