Guild Wars 2

2014-06-04_____________________________________________

• Fixed: Other players can now hear Guardian Shouts

Fixed a bug that prevented players from hearing other guardians’ shouts.

I missed this one the first time I read the patch notes because it wasn’t in the profession section.

This is probably the most significant update the guardian has ever received since beta.

If it was shield of wrath your friend saw, then there is an exploitable bug that has been around since launch that lets you do 20k+ damage with it, even against reasonable armoured classes ( although it’s not spammable, which is probably why anet never bothered to fix it ).

I think it’s worth further tests – there doesn’t seem to be a definitive system in place when it comes to how condition cleanses or boon stripping works – some are random, some are in order of application.
I would be surprised if there is a set priority – mainly because I think it implies more thought and effort for skill effects than we’ve been demonstrated in the past.
From my own experience in trying to determine actual skill effects vs advertised skill effects for the bug list I know it’s pretty hard to get first time and requires many test cases and frame-by-frame analysis.

The synergy between shattered aegis, pure of heart and communal defense could be a really nice thing, and it was one setup I was keen to try when I have a chance to play again.

However I am sure i’ve read that while the damage effects are sourced from every player who received aegis from you – it is you and just you that receives all the retaliation that is reflected back, which usually means insta-death for the caster in any kind of semi-organised wvw.

I am hoping that this is not the case – but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is.

I’ve been playing with a more glassy version with Runes of Balthazar and a few extra pieces of Carrion gear for small scale wvw.

Burn ticks around 900-1k and with Supreme Justice is quite easy to keep application up provided you maintain good melee pressure ( I dislike using scepter, despite it’s potential for VoJ procs ). I’ll probably scale it back abit once I’ve had some fun and favour more sustain.

I don’t think I’d ever want to attempt a pure condi-build, but so far it looks like a really nice supplimentary damage source. It’s a shame the traits are so awkwardly placed.

2014-04-27_____________________________________________

• Added: Retreat cannot be cast in the air ( thanks Minae Iss.7054 )

Minae Iss.7054:

“Retreat!” cannot be used while in air , all other shouts can.

Ah good call. I’ve not actually noticed that before, but I rarely use shouts outside of SYG these days.

Blasino.3128:

I’m surprised how little people mention Siege Razor. I guess people don’t WWW or fight him. I mean the guy uses binding blades on people who are walls and pulls them down. Why can’t our binding blades do that!?!

Well they can, provided the enemy is standing on the lip of the wall and you’re standing an asura length or two back from the foot of the wall, so the blades don’t get obstructed. Provided the blades land you can pull them off even if they move back ( as long as they’re still in range ). I’ve killed many an unsuspecting foe that way ;-)

If you stand a ways back from the fort and target someone who’s foolishly close to the edge you can also BB+JI to them to catch them off-guard, although judging the distance might take practise.

I wish one of our new grandmaster traits gave us the siegerazer version though – I’ve had a blade pull send me flying 100 meters straight up into their air and landing back down on the wall in a bloody pulp

next patch: “Updated guardians to match the skill facts”

Sounds like a worthy FAQ#43 addition

Added: Q43 – What exactly is an ally?

I have a few condition armor sets in my bank where they have been collecting dust. I’ll see if I can have a little fun in WvW with them

congrats on the sticky ;-)

Someone mentioned on this forum that the 6th bonus only applies to allies and not the caster ( like Sigil of Benevolence ).

I’ll add it to my list of things to test though

I did the same a couple of weeks ago… hopefully it will reach critical mass with enough reports…

2014-04-23_____________________________________________

• Removed: Runes of Grove, Earth, Strength, Lyssa now function as advertised
• Removed: Zealot’s Defense graphical glitch
• Updated: Symbol of Swiftness ( removed out of date reference )
• Updated: Zealot’s Flame – burning application

Crapgame.6519:

Is that the one that has the 6th option that turns you into a mist form at or around 10% health? I’m just wondering if going 6 deep would be worth it since “I” seem to drop really fast at 10%. I guess I mean it doesn’t seem like it would help much if this is the rune I am thinking of. I guess I should check.

I think this was bumped to a 20% health threshold in the patch ( which should be a tad more reliable ), but I’ve not tested it to be sure.

Nicely done. Thank god for our multipliers.

First thing I did after the patch was to stick night and force on my GS

OmNomNom.2830:

Tarsius.3170:

incidentally 4 monk + 2 of water, sanctuary or traveller gives a lofty 25% boon duration.

So 30 (traits) + 25 (runes) + 20 (food) = +75%

How did you get 25% from the runes? 4 monks only give 15% and then 2 water adds up to 20%.

I’m also pretty affected by this change, but I’m working on the following build: http://intothemists.com/guides/3503-post_150414_ah_wip. I came from a 0/5/30/30/5 build, but had to switch it up to get more boon duration. Current build gives 40% where my old build gave 45%. Any improvements on this build are welcome!

I have no idea. Either I was tired and kittened it up or there was a typo in the patch notes I was referencing. Apologies for the misinformation

Although I haven’t had time to play yet, I’ve seen reports that spirit weapons are now scaling with power ( with 8k hits in pvp from the hammer command skill ).

Can anyone confirm?

I think the generosity/purity change (fix) is the only thing that as peaked my interest in the whole update, especially since they’ve knocked 33% off the chill duration for my usual hydromancy setup

incidentally 4 monk + 2 of water, sanctuary or traveller gives a lofty 25% boon duration. mediocre 20% boon duration

So 30 (traits) + 20 (runes) + 20 (food) = +70%

editted: because I can’t read patch notes properly

Due to a recording error, one of the racial voices ( female sylvari I think ) never had a correct recording of “Hold the Line” so anet decided to remove it entirely.
Instead it has a low probability of saying something random ( or based on the environment you are in ). It is possible that “Hold the Line” can be one of those quotes if you play a human character.

I have heard some great quotes from it that I’ve not heard anywhere else on my male asura guardian, like: “I only know of one other person as clever as me, and I only ever see him when I look in the mirror”

The frequency of quotes might also be dependant on your race.

edit: here is a dev comment on the matter I remember reading a while ago:

It’s good because of its low placement in a useful trait line, allowing easy swapping around with consecration traits as the situation requires.

Those who swear by it in PvE will undoutably also know exactly what percentage of time your are required to keep aegis up to make it worthwhile slotting.

I personally use it as an on-demand kicker for burst builds, but it requires you to time aegis around your combo cooldowns which obviously makes the block less useful as an active defense

http://www.twitch.tv/soacgaming/c/4009796

Lol at the ending, hope you didn’t get too much of a twisted ear Arken

Yup, there are multiple issues

Great to see the podcast back in business again. I look forward to it.

But we do have Indomitable Courage for Stability, Protection and Retal from Virtue of Courage – perhaps think about “fixing” virtue cooldowns and durations instead?

little ceasar.9254:

Dynnen.6405:

Back in the golden days of this game me, Crank King, Gae Ko, Templanos (Oozo) would ‘deep strike’ into enemy lines. It was a kittening rush appearing in the middle of a group 2-3 times your size then having 2-3 more guardians appear near you dropping rings as well. We followed that up with others AOE and big water fields making a water park for the guardians to hammer around in.

This was about a year ago, lol. I still don’t see hammer trains do this, they just walk in with hammer warriors and guardians in tow. It would be twice as effective if they had deep strike guardians going in first with blinds on VoJ it would be crazy effective.

I’ve seen this done a lot. Problem is any good guild group will have coordinated stability making the technique irrelevant. It is hilarious on pug zergs though.

It still is useful to have at least one Guard doing this, but now days it’s to ensure enemy stability gets “burnt” early

uhoh space engineers – nice knowing you

xFireize.6318:

Does that ever happen? Even tho PoV and Soldier runes are triggered after “SY!”, I would think they are still instant. Are you saying it’s possible for my allies get a condition in the moment between “SY!” and PoV + Soldier runes?

This is all bad news to me, but I appreciate the clarifications.

It’s my turn for confusion – I was thinking of re-application between shouts and not just on a single cast of SY! – so no, you are right that won’t ever happen

xFireize.6318:

Tarsius.3170:

xFireize.6318:

Thanks, Tarsius.

Q21 If I have Pure of Voice traited with Runes of the Soldier and use “Save Yourselves!” in what order do these remove and convert conditions.

1. “Save Yourselves!” will always trigger first, stripping conditions from Allies in range and stacking them on yourself. Allies will not get the benefit of boon conversion from Pure of Voice.
2. The 6th Soldier Rune will then remove a condition (see note) from yourself and Allies.
3. Finally Pure of Voice which will remove another condition from yourself and allies and grant a corresponding boon to the players that were cured..

Can I ask why you wrote “and allies” (bold-ed)? Wiki mentions that PoV triggers first. If you’re correct, then this disappoints me even more.

The conditions removal/conversion applies to all allies affected by the shout. In anet terminology “Allies” means up to 5 people including yourself who are in range of the skill, in the following priority: Party Member, Party Member Pet, Other Allies, Other Allies’ Pets and NPCs

I understand that. But in “Save Yourself!” case, these affected allies will not get any further benefits from PoV + Soldier runes. Am I missing something?

I was trying to highlight the order things occur rather than whether on not players receive any actual benefits ( I guess it could be clearer ) – bear in mind that in a dynamic battlefield people can move in and out of your shout range priority from one skill to the next, as well as have conditions re-applied – in which case you would still see some positive effects from PoV and Soldier runes.

To answer you earlier comment about the wiki saying PoV triggered first – originally the FAQ made the same statement, but someone here spotted that was incorrect which I confirmed through testing in the mists. ( it may have been a stealth change from a patch )

xFireize.6318:

Thanks, Tarsius.

Q21 If I have Pure of Voice traited with Runes of the Soldier and use “Save Yourselves!” in what order do these remove and convert conditions.

1. “Save Yourselves!” will always trigger first, stripping conditions from Allies in range and stacking them on yourself. Allies will not get the benefit of boon conversion from Pure of Voice.
2. The 6th Soldier Rune will then remove a condition (see note) from yourself and Allies.
3. Finally Pure of Voice which will remove another condition from yourself and allies and grant a corresponding boon to the players that were cured..

Can I ask why you wrote “and allies” (bold-ed)? Wiki mentions that PoV triggers first. If you’re correct, then this disappoints me even more.

I refer to the fact that the condition removal/conversion applies to all allies affected by the shout. In anet terminology “Allies” means up to 5 people including yourself who are in range of the skill, in the following priority: Party Member, Party Member Pet, Other Allies, Other Allies’ Pets and NPCs – and where this is no clear priority it’s measure by distance from the centre of the skill area of effect.

FAQ Question 21 should answer that.

As others have said, healing power is a poorly balanced stat, and the only place where it’s really viable is in WvW.

Check the healing link in my sig for a spreadsheet for different guardian skills/traits healing effects against healing power and group composition. ( You’ll have to save to your desktop/your own account it if you want to change any of the input settings )

Serval.6458:

Signet of resolve doesn’t have a passive heal, it removes a condition every 10 seconds.

Pretty sure he meant Virtue of Resolve

I usually roam with the shield in WvW ( I’m bored of the focus and find it too predictable ).

I think it’s a tactical weapon ( on-demand 0-cast interrupt, healing, protection and protectile absorption ), but does suffer from high CD compared to alternatives.

Having to cancel the root on #5 is a major gripe and I’d love to see a 3-person daze on #4’s cone which I think would fit the animation quite well.

Stomps without stability:

vs Guardian
Generally 1 blind or aegis is enough (poor guardians), but watch they don’t remove it with “Wrath” before using their 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 Smoke Bomb with put them into stealth. ( ie you’ll need 3 stomps to kill them )

vs Mesmer
Either begin stomping, cancel and restart to fake out their use of Deception or teleport to their new location with JI ( the real mesmer will have the downed symbol above their head ). Reserve aegis or blind incase they use Phantasm Rogue which can do alot of damage to you.

vs Warrior
You need both blind and aegis since they can interrupt you twice with Throw Rock and Hammer Toss ( so pop one before each attack, not together ). Watch out for Vengeance ( just kite it ).

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.

If all else fails you can combine Judge’s Intervetion with Merciful Intervention to blink away to a friendly and back to your target ( but most likely you’ll have CD on them )

Lastly, if you see them target nearby mobs or downed players use your blind to try and stop them from rallying.

Direct damage ( ie non-condition damage ) is calculated by multiplying weapon strength, power and a skill specific coefficient and then dividing the result by your armour ( defense + toughness ).

Trait/Food/Passive multipliers are then piled on top.

While it’s true you’ll never reach 100% damage mitigation because of the way it’s calculated, there isn’t a hard cap on it – the REAL reason people talk about diminishing returns is quite simply because of the amount of stats you have to sacrifice in order to achieve very high toughness. There is no point in being able to survive in-fight if you also fail to defeat your enemy because you are severely lacking in dps ( unless you are bunkering points in sPvP, but generally you don’t soley rely on toughness to bunker effectively ), or your vitality is so low that condition damage eats you alive. ( which isn’t affected by toughness or protection )

At the end of the day it’s about striking the most effective balance for any given game mode – 2100 toughness would be acceptable in some builds for WvW, but be frowned upon in PvE ( where max dps is king ) and too wasteful in sPvP.

I would say try playing with 1800 and see how you go, you may not notice much difference to your defense and have better damage options as a result.

Most of a guardian’s “tankiness” comes from active damage mitigations like blocks, blinds, sustained healing and easy access to boons like protection and regen.

GS pull at 2.40 was epic

Arken.3725:

I’m assuming you’re talking about BS? That would be the case if it actually revealed the target. I just don’t think that one block does anything significant.

True – but that’s an issue with stealth rather than the guardian. ( and a 1/2 sec duration aegis might help make it a more effective burst counter )

I remember seeing suggestions that passive burn on voj could be traited to become 1 sec of chill instead.

Even if you’d balance that out by increasing the hits-to-proc count it could solve some of the profession’s soft-cc woes and increase our “conditions portfolio”.

I think we might miss VoC’s passive anti-gank mechanic, given our low healthpool – it probably does more that we realise. As others have mentioned the issue is mainly with Aegis itself – priority blocking, or perhaps let its block effect for 1/2 sec to make it more useful in larger skirmishes.

Agree with the VoR tick increase.

iirc Healer’s Retribution used to have synergy with Healing Breeze, where you’d get 3 secs of retal with every heal tick ( about 20 secs in all with related traits ) – which actually was one of the few ( the only? ) good reasons to use Healing Breeze.

Unfortunately it got fixed.

sorry, I meant to type “hired them”, not fired them

I really hope they’ve found whoever is responsible and fired them.

Evalia.7103:

That warrior evi’s could have been level 1, you get it, right?
Shield of Wrath hits for 756(2.5)
Eviscerate:
Level 1 damage: 672 (2.0)
Level 2 damage: 840 (2.5)
Level 3 damage: 1,008 (3.0)
It’s the damage coefficient in the (), if you don’t know what it means, well what can I say to you…
As to the damage thing, activating Tome of Judgment adds 300% to your power before traits and 100% to your precision, not to mention you can even manage to activate the spell that gives you 5 stacks of might. With berserker gear that equals to a 100% crit mega-dunk. Exactly what happened in your screenshot.
Now, the fact that shield will dissipate if you attack an enemy guardian 3 times in the next 4 seconds, the fact that the guardian himself can only run normally while using the tome, the fact that it’s perhaps the most telegraphed ability in the entire game… It’s a pretty balanced trick.
inb4 videos of guardians soloing the supply camps in 4 seconds using this.

Back when I first discovered this ( about a year ago ) I used: precast SoW, wait 2 secs, start casting Tome of Wrath and JI to target, instantly hit F1 for vulnerability stacks and might.

I did report it to Anet and stopped using it though because I don’t think anyone should be able to 1-shot any class in WvW. We’ll probably get a glut of instagib guardians now… and we’ll have our dps, vigor and mobility nerfed

Max SoW I’ve done in WvW is about 21k against a non-upscaled warrior ( in sPvP it’s hard to push it about 13k ).
Those are exceptional circumstances.
If you’re fully stacked with bloodlust and have a lot of vulnerability on the target then doing over 10k with the shield isn’t that uncommon. As others have mentioned. it has a huge telegraph…

Added: Q42 – Can SY! with Renewed Focus prevent you from receiving Ally conditions.

Arken.3725:

As someone who mains Guardian pretty much exclusively, i’m ok with this. I’d love to see our profession mechanic change a bit to be a little more fun.

Right exactly.. if all professions had to weigh damage, mobility or survivability like the guard does then nearly everyone would be happy.

In case others are interested like I was in a rough tally of the votes from Professions Collaborative Development Voting thread, I thought I’d do some command-line-foo to calculate the scores.

Professions voted top by each user are given 3 points, 2nd get 2 and 3rd get 1 point.

Note, I couldn’t be bothered to de-dupe people that voted more than once, so please don’t take this as a 100% accurate score:

Voted Professions that require balance

Profession	Score	Score Percent	Number of Votes
—-——————-	—-—————-	—-——————-	—-——————-
Ranger	2584	37.23%	1069
Elementalist	1461	21.05%	709
Necromancer	906	13.06%	492
Engineer	789	11.37%	471
Mesmer	542	7.81%	281
Thief	365	5.26%	212
Warrior	238	3.43%	136
Guardian	54	0.78%	31
–
Total	6939	100%	3401

Poor Guardians – your greatest strength (balance) is also you greatest weakness.