Actually I have to disagree a little bit there on the heals and boons a little and here’s why.
Guardians boon upkeep is very small, most of the time we can only have 1 type of boon for 5 seconds in a long cd. Again, I see others not having some of the same issues with upkeep. Heals goes hand-in-hand with the lack of mobility recently stated. Guardians either stay in symbols/immobile(empower) or they die. It really goes against the philosophy of the games combat mechanics.
Just so we are straight, I’m going to start omitting Eles from my comparisons to Guards. We all know Eles can do just about everything and more, and I’m tired of saying, “except Ele” in all my posts.
With that said, no other class has access to number of boons guards have access to. Save Yourself gives you every single boon except aegis for at least 10 seconds. With the popular Healway build (which I consider the cookie cutter)you have access to:
—perma-retaliation.
—perma-vigor (more heals on dodge).
—access to might stacks on crits and blocks (usually perma 5+ stacks of might if not more).
—the various other sources of boons you can have from other utilities / abilities (protection, swiftness, some fury, regen, stability).
No other class has access to a reliable source of Aegis – Mesmer is the only other class with access to it, and for them its 100% luck based. EDIT – I think Engis too.
I would venture to say that a Healway specced guard can provide more boon support for himself and allies than just about every other class that is specced for support.
Those other classes focus on a small set of boons, and yes, they can probably keep those few boons they have access to up for longer than a guard can. But a Guard can continually pump out smaller duration boons and a wider variety of them.
Symbols and Empower are not the main source of healing for the cookie cutter pvp AH build. They get the majority of their heals from critting which provides Vigor and Might, and from the other sources of boons they have access to. Popping all 3 virtues at the same time easily gives 50% of your total health back, and using Renewed Focus makes it so you can do that again after 4 secs. Plus the various other heals they have access to (heals on dodge, etc.)
Right but you’re looking at half the selection. Thief stealth heals are insane while having the ultimate survivability. D/D eles are…well we all know. It’s true AH can do well by yourself but not to the extent other the other classes. I even looked over some of the healing skills and found the Guardians to be lack behind most other professions.
I just don’t know that I can agree to that 100%
I will agree Eles are an all around powerful class that really don’t have a weakness, other than just zerging them – and sometimes that doesnt even work.
Perma-stealth Thieves are really only a challenge if they are really skilled or if they decide they’re done fighting and just stealth away never to be seen again.
Most other classes I really didn’t struggle with solo with an AH build, and in groups AH provides so much survivability it’s insane.
I’ve actually stopped using AH though in WvW. I’m more of a glass cannon build and use Omnom Pies to compensate for my lack of survivability and that works very well, I’d even say a little better than AH. Without the Omnom Pies though I’d be screwed
I understand your argument but I believe the problem is mobility mixed in with survivability. Guardians are required to utilize symbols for much of their AH use. This in turn makes stationary to our disadvantage. I just don’t see this issue with other professions.
I can’t argue that Guards don’t lack mobility. Easily the least mobile class in the game. But I also think we make up for that in heals/boons/heavy armor.
I kinda like the holy fire aspect to Guards. Maybe something like a huge self-centered AoE fire proc that pulses huge waves of blue flame out from the guardian doing nice damage to all enemies around and healing or removing conditions on allies. Something like 10-15 waves over 10-15 secs.
If you aren’t running the 30 into valor then you are pretty much fail unless you are playing team support with honor and virtues which is fine. I have yet to see a build that can dish or DPS + survive without 30 into valor.
If you’re talking large zerg v zerg fights then yes I agree.
But you can run some solo/small group builds that don’t use the valor tree. Check out Amin’s thread as an example
Right but you’re looking at half the selection. Thief stealth heals are insane while having the ultimate survivability. D/D eles are…well we all know. It’s true AH can do well by yourself but not to the extent other the other classes. I even looked over some of the healing skills and found the Guardians to be lack behind most other professions.
I just don’t know that I can agree to that 100%
I will agree Eles are an all around powerful class that really don’t have a weakness, other than just zerging them – and sometimes that doesnt even work.
Perma-stealth Thieves are really only a challenge if they are really skilled or if they decide they’re done fighting and just stealth away never to be seen again.
Most other classes I really didn’t struggle with solo with an AH build, and in groups AH provides so much survivability it’s insane.
I’ve actually stopped using AH though in WvW. I’m more of a glass cannon build and use Omnom Pies to compensate for my lack of survivability and that works very well, I’d even say a little better than AH. Without the Omnom Pies though I’d be screwed
The issue I have Vitu is we have solid survivability through AH but elementalists and others do it better without sacrificing much. We require people, others do not.
I would say Ele, Mesmer, and Thief in almost any small fight scenario are the only ones, maybe Warrior.
The rest do have to sacrifice a lot to achieve high survivability.
And I wouldn’t say AH requires others, but it does shine in groups
I don’t think Guards are in too bad of a place right now, but I also don’t know that you have any idea what you’re talking about.
As far as the overall balance of the class, we have one trait line that is uber powerful for solo/roaming builds. By not traiting for AH or MF you sacrifice so much survivability that what little damage you can get from skipping them is almost not worth it. I personally stopped using both, but I have noticed that if I try to build for damage without things like Omnom Ghosts/Pies to compensate, I really don’t stand a chance in solo/roaming pvp.
In large group pvp AH is almost required for any damage focused build, otherwise you just don’t have the survivability.
Also, comparing spirit weapons to other class pets is really kinda stupid.
—-Mesmers have so many ways to summon illusions and on much, much shorter CDs.
—-Necro pets are weak because their AI is not very intelligent, not because they die too quick or don’t do enough damage.
—-Engineers turrets are weak just because they don’t do enough single target damage, have very little AoE, and are stationary.
I’ve never been a fan of spirit weapons, but only because I thought they were weak. The fact that they got nerfed just totally surprised me. Either Anet just had a huge lapse in judgement, or they have something planned that we are not yet aware of.
And wards……don’t even get me started on wards. They work perfectly fine unless:
—-Your target uses stability
—-Your target uses a blink or teleport
—-Your target uses a leap
—-Your target dodges through the ward
—-Your target just simply gets knocked out/passed the ward by the ward itself
—-You miss your target because you have to stand in one spot while casting the ward
—-You get interrupted while standing in one spot trying to cast the ward
—-You get killed while standing in one spot trying to cast the ward
And if by some miraculous miracle of the Ward gods you do happen to use your ward to it’s fullest potential you only have to wait for its long CD to end before you can test your luck again.
As far as the consecrations go, Wall of Reflection is beast, the rest are meh. The fire fields are good for stacking might, but really that’s about it, and Sanctuary is incredibly unreliable (see Wards above).
Our ranged options are absolutely terrible. Scepter is a joke (and not even a funny one) and Staff – though it is a beast support weapon – has mediocre range and almost no reliable damage.
TL;DR —- Guardians are more than fine if you don’t mind going with a cookie cutter AH/MF build or you are part of a good cooperative group that can compensate for your lack of survivability or your complete focus on survivability. We have so many abilities and traits that, if working as they should would be incredible, but at the moment are just too weak or broken, limiting the variety of viable builds.
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crossed swordes are only shown if 5 or more ppl from the same server are infight, including NPCs but not pets
Really? I didn’t know that. I wonder why my fights are interrupted so often. I guess its just bad luck.
Oh well, thanks for clarifying that.
I prefer to roam in WvW. My computer can’t really handle the huge zerg fights so I mostly run either solo or in a group no larger than 4-5 people capping supply camps and fighting invaders.
One thing that ruins my style of play is that I’ll get into a really good close fight 1v1, 1v2, 2v2, etc., and we will be going at for a good half a minute or so and then another group from one side or the other will run in and ruin the fun because they notice on their map the crossed swords. I don’t blame them for investigating, but it does suck to have a good fight ruined by reinforcements.
My idea: Is it possible to exempt the cross swords on the map in the case of smaller fights; fights involving no more than 4 people, or something similar?
The Guardian’s weakness is the low health pool and having no real ranged damage.
I don’t see why the Guardian’s also has to have no cripples as a melee centric profession in a game where the combat is constantly moving and every other profession has access to plenty of cripples and a comparable amount of other control skills. The lack of ranged damage is a bit of salt in the wound but I would prefer cripples over ranged.
Like I said earlier, being good at support is no trade-off for not being able to snare a foe! Especially so for builds who aren’t aiming for support at all. How is this even reasonable? Why does Guardian have to give up snares because they can support well?
Do Elementalists lose snares if they go support?
Do Warriors lose snares if they go support?
Do Engineers lose snares if they go support?
Do Rangers lose snares if they go support?
You better believe they don’t!Why then does Guardian not get any to begin with and the only counter argument is, “They’re good at support”? They’re also supposed to be good at melee!
Firstly, of the 4 classes you mentioned, only one comes close to guards in terms of a viable support build. The other 3 have virtually no viable support build, or compared to Guardians their support is severely lacking.
Secondly, If you have to go heavy support to get a Cripple as a Guardian, then I guess I have no issue with that. Its the damage focus builds like the one I am currently using that would be just too powerful with a snare.
The combination of health regen, boons, condition removal, situational skills, damage, and even what little mobility that a guardian already has access to would make a frequent cripple too strong.
I’ll just leave it at that. We clearly don’t agree on this subject, nor will we likely ever. That’s ok, we are all entitled to our opinions. In any case I’ll be happy whether a change like this is implemented or not.
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Just because that…..maybe we could support better than a warrior doesnt mean that we should be funneled into support builds which many people seem to be suggesting.
And im pretty sure i compared with the ele btw……….
To me us being maybe better at support than a warrior does not disqualify us
from asking for improvements in areas such as better ranged weapon
or as suggested by this post, better control and stuff.Its like being able to support has become a bit of a bane of our class.
Whenever we ask to get some buffs.
People just go
But your a support class, go support.
It’s not maybe.
And you don’t have to run with a support build. I run a solo DPS build and am currently working on a full zerker set. I don’t use Altruistic Healing or Monks Focus – though they are probably the 2 most powerful traits in the entire game – and I think I do pretty well. I still have sufficient survivability, damage, and even mobility to take on almost any 1v1 and can even come out on top in some 1vX fights.
I can even fight zerg vs zerg running into a huge group of enemies laying down some Greatsword AoE (~5K+ on everyone around me) and still be able to pop some invulns and heals in time to escape back to the friendly zerg.
The thing is, people want this class to be unkillable and still be able to kill everything. I do hate perma-stealth Theives. I hate that I can outplay them so hard and nearly flawless victory them only to have them stealth and run away. Same for Eles. But I’ve come to accept that that’s part of the class.
I can tank a surprising amount of damage with a berserker build and I can do quit a lot of damage. I can even provide modest amounts of group support, and not even realize I’m doing it.
The class has to have a weakness and that comes in mobility.
The healing between Warrior and Guardian is not debatable!
Guardian
-Virtue of Resolve
-Orb of Light
-Empower
-Healing Breeze
-Faithful Strike
-Shield of Absorption
-Battle Presence —- Just got a huge buff with the latest update, and really wasnt that bad before
-Pure of Heart
-Selfless Daring
-Command Spirit Bow
-Merciful Intervention (though I will submit this one is a bit sketchy)
-Tome of Kitten Courage!!!!!!!
or
-Renewed Focus —- Grants 2 Virtue of Resolve, and 2 Pure of Heart within 4 seconds!!!!
And almost permanent Regen uptime through utilities/runes, not to mention the multiple boons (almost permanent 12 stacks of might!) also associated with many of these abilities. One build can have access to every single one of those abilities and traits at the same time and with enough Healing Power every single one of those heals will hit for no less than 2k with the exception of maybe 2-3 of them, and they heal for about 1k.
Warrior
Vigorous Shouts…….so up to 3 abilities that apply healing on medium CDs with various bonuses associated with them…..
How the Kitten can you even think these 2 classes are similar in healing? How?
No class can achieve this much sustained healing, and only Elementalists can compare in boon outputs. That is just the truth.
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See I dont believe this is correct, the comparison is needed because we are both VERY melee heavy classes, with guardians have almost zero ranged options. I honestly look at it as though theif should be the ultimate melee mobilty, warrior a mix of mobility and snaring, and guardians as the “i might not be mobile but you arent going anywhere either.” but the issue is that our counterpart in warriors have good mobility and lockdown while we have neither. And this leaves us at a huge disadvantage despite warriors having more damage and close to the same survivabilty. (stupid giant health difference)
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. I know we lack mobility, and I know we often have trouble chasing down enemies, but with everything else we have I just think being able to pin a target down for extended periods of time is just too much.
There are also other things to consider
Like the fact that Warriors have to remain stationary to deal out much of their damage. This is something Guards for the most part don’t have to worry about.
Guards have must better longevity in fights simply because we can heal much more than Warriors. In the long run a huge health pool doesn’t mean much if you can’t replenish it
And the fact that Guards can provide so much more utility for their team (heals, boons, missile reflection, etc.)
Also i disagree as far as support guards vs warriors go. Guardians are the hands down defensive support specialists while warriors are more offensive. I would kill to get afury buff other than save yourselves personally.
I just don’t see how anyone can think a Warrior can provide better or even close to equal support as a Guardian.
Guardians have access to so many more boons and can keep them up with much more frequency than Warriors (stability, protection, retaliation, aegis), not to mention the ones we share, we have unique situational abilities like Wall of Reflection/Spirit Shield, incredible condition removal, Fire combo fields and a spammable blast finisher, and far superior heals – both in quantity and quality, and I’ll argue that with you all day long. Almost every single ability (Weapon and Utility) that a Guardian can use also affects their allies around them in some way or another.
Warriors have Shouts and Banners (the viability of which is up for debate). The only boon they have access to that Guards do not is Fury, and if that makes them so much more offensive, then I submit in defeat.
I main a Guardian and I run primarily support when I’m in a party and I’m sorry, but I just can’t see any other class – with the exception of Elementalist – providing anywhere near as much support – be it offensive or defensive – as Guards. We have such a large diversity of abilities for almost any scenario you can think of, Warriors can’t even come close to competing.
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Maybe a little off topic, but I’m just curious if anyone has noticed an improvement in the effectiveness of wards since the major update today. I haven’t had much time to play and I haven’t tested it on my Guard, but I noticed today that an enemy Line of Warding was keeping me on the ground much more than it used to.
I’m sure it can still be avoided with Stability, but I wasn’t bouncing through the ward or really able to dodge through it.
Anyone else notice anything, or just me?
Of course we can use 4 weapons and 9 utilities in the same time.
IM not asking for sure for 2 or 3 cripple skills for every weapon, But rebalance our weapons skill to avoid the costant kiting\fleeing enemy.Contrary to the warrior philosophy, a guardian dont need Ranged and mobility and snare, but range OR mobility OR snare.
The point is, just by looking at the abilities of the class you can easily see that it was designed with an emphasis on a defensive play-style through boons/heals/and control abilities. Not saying that a Guard is forced to play this role, but you have to actually try very hard to run a build that doesn’t provide at least mediocre group support.
Whereas a Warrior was designed to be a brute. They charge into a fight with the highest priority being to kill as many people as they can. Very straight forward play-style.
I would rather see a buff to our ranged weapons, primarily Scepter.
Warrior can be as supportive as the guardian if he use Shouts or banners, and warhorn.
Just like a guardian is supportive if he use Shouts, consecrations or a staff. we have simbols, but only few poeple go to the simbol to take a buff)
Look at every ability a guardian has access to:
Shouts, symbols, consecrations, meditations, virtues, spirit weapons, signets, even the weapon skills.
How many of those only affect the Guardian? Even untraited, how many only affect the guardian? The answer: Not many.
Now look at Warriors. Besides their shouts, and their banner everything else is focused solely on doing damage or immobilizing their target in one way or another.
A support Guardian, as far as healing and booning is concerned, is far far superior to a support Warrior.
Guardian are more Group oriented due to the traitline, but this is not a justification for the lack of mobility\control\range.
The comparation with warriors is actually quite good. We have to do melee damage to kill an enemy, just like the others, but actually we are not in a good spot to fulfill this damage role. (WvW talking)
What do Guards and Warriors have in common?
-Heavy Armor
-Melee Weapons
Besides that they are completely different classes with completely different styles of play.
Would you say an Engineer needs more access to stealth because a Thief has access to stealth? They both wear medium armor and use ranged attacks
Would you say a Necromancer needs access to confusion because a Mesmer has access to confusion? They both wear light armor and use ranged attacks.
Guards and Warriors – though they have very few similarities – are very different classes, and comparing them to one another as if they are not is an unwise method to resolve balance issues.
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I don’t know. You can’t really judge a class based solely off it’s weapon abilities. Traits are important, as are utility skills when it comes to balancing a class and without taking all into consideration you run the risk of making a class too powerful, or too weak.
The way I see it, Warrior is a straight-forward, selfish class. Yes, it has some decent weapon skills, but almost everything about the class is focused on staying on their target and doing as much damage as possible, with very little utility. So it makes sense to me that Warrior’s would have so much mobility and control (cripple).
Guardians on the other hand are much more focused on defensive abilities and group support. Don’t get me wrong, Guardians can do some very nice damage, and don’t have to be a healbotting boon machine, but that’s kind of what the class was designed to do, at least to some degree. Also, fixing wards so they aren’t such a joke would add so much to the class as far as control is concerned.
I personally think Guardians are in a good spot balance-wise, and comparing Guards to Warriors is not a good way to determine balance as they are two completely different classes.
Edit: And just so we are clear, I almost always roam solo in WvW without AH or MF.
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In my opinion, no armor (of any archetype) looks good on Asura. It’s too condensed and lacks the detail that the larger races would have in the same armor
The exception would be the Asura culture armor, and an Asura in culture armor looks cooler than any other race in any armor – especially the light and heavy sets.
Sorry for no pics, but if you do a little research you can see what their culture armor looks like.
When used in conjunction with Judge’s Intervention this ability is boss. With the right gear and accessories the damage is incredible
It does have its weaknesses though. If a target is not right next to you and moving the projectiles do rarely hit. And it seems the projectiles spread out slightly in a cone, so if you are attacking a stationary target at Z’sD maximum range they sometimes still miss.
I’ve just recently switched to using sword in WvW and I have to say I’m loving it. I use it as an opener against someone who doesn’t see me for an awesome sneak attack, or I wait until they’ve used a dodge or two to help guarantee as many hits land as possible.
A little tip:
-Go into your settings and turn off melee assist
-When you use WW try to stand inside your target.
I know it sounds weird, but the projectiles radiate out from you in all directions. So if you are trying to stand inside the red circle under your targets feet more of them will hit that target and you will notice a huge increase in damage.
Where did everyone from BG go?
……I feel so alone
D’:
How ’bout calling it Charge?
No doubt in my mind, you want to take JI. Retreat is very nice for getting around the map, but once you get into combat I think JI is much more useful
….though now that I think about there have been a few fights I remember getting kited to death…..
Mesmers are one of the hardest classes for me to fight right now. I am improving though and have noticed that going with more of a damage build is much more effective than trying to build tanky. Mesmers are too mobile and you need to be able to do some damage once you’ve caught them, otherwise you’ll never even get close to winning.
Right now I’d say I win about half my fights with mesmers, but a good one is nearly impossible to beat.
Combined the two will refund 3 initiative in a 3 second stealth, or about 1/4, adding the natural regeneration (~2 init) that is less then half, not 3/4. Looks like a lie on your part.
Ah, you are correct on that issue. I wasn’t paying attention, but when I entered stealth I usually had 2-3 Initiative already, so by the time I reappeared i had about 7-8 Initiative. Almost 75% of my total Initiative, still enough to get 2-3 Heartseekers in before I go stealth again
None-the-less, Initiative recharges much faster than you were willing to admit, and it actually doesn’t cost Initiative to use and maintain stealth in any scenario as you claimed it did, with the exception of the offhand dagger ability.
The “Perma-Stealth” Thief exists and is overpowered, no matter how many false claims you are willing to make.
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Alright Frans, I’ll bite again, but this is the last.
This whole time I’ve been having this discussion with you I’ve been speaking solely from experience fighting Thieves. I have never actually played a Thief higher than lvl 5 or in any sPvP. So, I decided I would actually go ahead and roll one for sPvP just to see whether or not I’ve just been hallucinating about my WvW encounters with Thieves.
The result: Everything you’ve mentioned regarding stealth up until now I can completely disregard.
It takes about 20 seconds to recover full initiative, they can not hurt you while they are in stealth – or they will be revealed – and, check this, going (and staying) into stealth uses initiative and, unless heavliy traited for it, it uses more initiative then they regain in the time they are stealthed.
1.) Thieves can have access to no less than 4 stealths that can all be used at the same time. Three give stealth for 3s each, and one gives stealth for up to 9 secs, coming out to 18 secs of total stealth.
2.) These stealths require 0 initiative except for the the number 5 offhand dagger ability which does cost an expensive 6 initiative.
3.) Spending no more than 20 trait points in the Shadow Arts tree is capable of granting:
——— Increased Initiative regeneration while stealthed (Patience)
——— An instant 2 Initiative when using an ability that grants stealth (Infusion of Shadow). This trait is especially powerful with Shadow Refuge because it grants 2 Initiative every time (3 times total) that Shadow Refuge procs it’s AoE stealth. So you gain at least 9 Initiative in 3 seconds.
——— An increase in stealth duration by 1 second (Meld with Shadows). This trait is also very powerful when used in conjunction with Shadow Refuge, as it grants an extra 1s to stealth for every AoE stealth proc (3 procs total). That means Shadow refuge goes from a 9 second stealth to a 12 second stealth. This brings the total amount of stealth time across all stealth abilities up to 24 total seconds of stealth.
That leaves another 50 points to spend wherever you desire. I personally went 10 more points in the Shadow Arts tree for the health regen while stealthed (Shadow’s Rejuvenation).
It is entirely possible for a Thief to spend the majority of a fight stealthed while still being able to recharge their initiative at a quick enough rate to deal insane burst between each stealth.
From my experience in sPvP, each of the smaller duration stealths granted enough time to regen ~75% (~9) of my initiative, while Shadow Refuge easily granted enough time to regenerate 100% (12) of my initiative while stealthed in no more than 4 seconds.
It is clear to me now that you are oblivious to some powerful mechanics of your class, or you are just simply in denial and stating false facts to fool those with no experience playing the class.
I would like to thank you, however, for giving me a reason to try out the Thief. Now when someone asks me why the class is OP, I can give a solid answer other than, “I struggle against them in PvP.”
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When a Thief can remain invisible for roughly 80-90% of a fight, it’s pretty much as close to perma-stealth as one can get.
80-90% in stealth, so 10-20% out of stealth. Let’s see, hitting forces them out of stealth for 3 seconds, so to get to your 80-90% in stealth they’d have to be stealthed for 15-30 seconds. Even if this is possible, they wouldn’t be doing anything useful, except waiting for your cooldowns to cool down.
… The point is it greatly reduces the chance of an opponent being able to retaliate and successfully defend themselves more so than any other mechanic in this game and it has virtually no counter other than just building as tank as you can to survive as long as you can, which is hardly a viable way to build your character for WvW.
You are telling me you have difficulty defending against a thief who hits you with 15-30 second intervals?
Retaliation is not an objective, btw. And if you choose to build with survivability as lowest priority you can expect to get downed, often, burst thieves confront you with the consequences of that choice.
…I could also argue that by allowing an enemy to escape I am essentially allowing them to reinforce or harass a position they would otherwise not be able to if they were dead. So, there is also a practical reason to want a fix to stealth other than just personal reasons.
What position can they reinforce by running away? What objective have they met? Do they even return? Death is a very temporary condition.
By staying stealthed for the majority of a fight a Thief is able to recharge their initiative while preventing any reliable damage being applied to them. I don’t see what you don’t understand about that. Their Initiative recharges much faster then most CDs and, in order to survive the initial burst of a Thief I have to blow many of my CDs, leaving me completely open for the next round of damage coming just a few seconds later.
And I’m not saying you shouldn’t build with some survivability. I’m saying to counter a Thief’s burst you practically have to build for maximum survival, which for every class requires the sacrifice of huge amounts of damage. Off course Thieves are an exception because of the way stealth works in this game.
When you kill someone they have to return a WP after a short waiting period of laying on the ground. This increases the time they would have to take to get to most other points on the map. I mean, it only makes sense that in WvW, if you see an enemy you want to kill them. I’ve seen entire zergs chase down one person just because he/she was spotted, and I’m almost positive that, if you do WvW, when an enemy tries to run you try to chase them down and kill them.
It’s pretty apparent to me that we are not going to agree on this subject. I assume you play a Thief, so I can understand why you wouldn’t want a fix to stealth. I, and many others, find the class to be the strongest PvP class with a low level of skill required to master. I feel a fix to stealth will bring the class more in line with the others without taking them too far in the wrong direction, if done properly of course.
It seems we will have to agree to disagree.
I’m speaking from experience dude. I’ve fought thieves that have incredible burst with the ability to stealth in between attacks to let Initiative recharge.
dude?
That is not what is generally referred to as perma-stealth, confusing use of the term. Anyway, while their initiative regenerates, your cooldowns cool down.
… They attack, stealth, attack, stealth, attack, stealth, and either finish the fight, or run depending on how well they r doing.
If they run, you win. Killing and punishing are not Wvw objectives. It’s not open-world PvP where the only goal is to duel and/or PK random pc’s.
Thieves that play patiently with their stealth are the hardest for me to fight …
Some players are just plain good.
So yes, you are right, they can’t stay perma-stealthed in the sense that they can stay stealthed while attacking, but for all intents and purposes they are stealthed whenever I have the opportunity to attack…..thus, I don’t ever have the opportunity to attack.
Isn’t this more a matter of still learning how to deal with them? Sounds like you’re actively finding out how to do so and you will likely succeed, even if they bring style that is hard to counter for you. We all have our weaknesses.
When a Thief can remain invisible for roughly 80-90% of a fight, it’s pretty much as close to perma-stealth as one can get. Though, in an attempt to concede to your point I’ll start calling it “Near-Perma stealth.” The point is it greatly reduces the chance of an opponent being able to retaliate and successfully defend themselves more so than any other mechanic in this game and it has virtually no counter other than just building as tank as you can to survive as long as you can, which is hardly a viable way to build your character for WvW.
Also, the majority of my Virtues and Utilities are on no less than a 30 second CD, and I must burn most of my CDs to avoid the initial burst of a Near-Perma stealth Thief. In that amount of time a Thief’s Initiative can recharge 2? 3 times? Hardly a valid argument to make that while a Thief is recharging his Initiative my CDs are recharging as well.
Finally, though I will admit I hate when Thieves (or really any class) are able to escape mostly because I just like to spike an enemy, to return them to a WP, and show my skills are greater than theirs, I could also argue that by allowing an enemy to escape I am essentially allowing them to reinforce or harass a position they would otherwise not be able to if they were dead. So, there is also a practical reason to want a fix to stealth other than just personal reasons.
In order for me to “Face-tank” I have to sacrifice huge amounts of damage. I can’t run a Zerker build and even hope to run into a competent group of people with the hopes of surviving longer than 6-10 seconds.
Neither can a thief, the key expression being competent group of people, which is not a group of people, not even a group of competent people.
Thieves on the other hand don’t really have to sacrifice much damage
A burst thief will go down in seconds, but they may down a player just as fast, and while a P/D may be an incredibly tough kitten, it takes them forever and day to down anyone. The damage numbers you complain about don’t show up in my combat logs, in part because of foods and in part because I do add in survivabilty, if I don’t the margin of error becomes very narrow.
Go perma-stealth with a Zerker build and in the worst of situations you can probably at least run away to fight another fight.
You can not switch from burst to perma stealth in combat, the latter requiring a lot of initiative and a build focussed on increased initiative regeneration and a suitable place to execute, neither of which coincide with a zerker style mug burst.
It’s perma-stealth in the sense that over the duration of a single fight a Thief can remain stealthed for the majority of said fight. They can stay stealthed long enough to kill their opponent and then have stealth back up and ready for their next fight when they need it.
Does not exist, you have all the qq on the board mixed together in one mythical demon-thief. A thief can not stay in stealth and kill their opponent at the same time. Killing means doing damage and doing damage from stealth means they can’t go into stealth for the next 3 seconds.
I’m speaking from experience dude. I’ve fought thieves that have incredible burst with the ability to stealth in between attacks to let Initiative recharge. It wasn’t like they just instantly killed me (though that has happened on more than one occasion, partly due to my inability to react in time to avoid damage). They attack, stealth, attack, stealth, attack, stealth, and either finish the fight, or run depending on how well they r doing.
Thieves that play patiently with their stealth are the hardest for me to fight and the majority of the time end with me dead on the ground, or standing alone wondering where the kitten the thief ran off too. They can do incredible damage with incredible survivability due to the fact that they are the only ones that get do do any reliable damage as their opponent has no idea where they are.
This play style also means that I have to play reactively to prevent or recover from their damage when they attack. If the three seconds that a thief is unstealthed is spent with them attacking, then those three seconds are spent by me blocking or dodging…..otherwise I die. So yes, you are right, they can’t stay perma-stealthed in the sense that they can stay stealthed while attacking, but for all intents and purposes they are stealthed whenever I have the opportunity to attack…..thus, I don’t ever have the opportunity to attack.
Edit: I’d also like to add that as a Guardian I feel I have the best tools of any other class to fight against a Thief. I can only imagine how bad it is for classes that can’t avoid or mitigate the insane burst from stealth, especially if I have such a hard time with it.
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Lol to all the players crying about thiefs they are so easy to deal with. Perma stealth? never have I seen that when fighting a thief(over 400hrs in wvw). I know talk is cheap will be posting vids shortly of pwning thiefs in 1v1 fights. Also if anyone else has got such vids post them so we can show the nubs its a learn to play issue
It’s perma-stealth in the sense that over the duration of a single fight a Thief can remain stealthed for the majority of said fight. They can stay stealthed long enough to kill their opponent and then have stealth back up and ready for their next fight when they need it.
As far as “pwning thieves,” sure I’ve done that before. A Thief that is not skilled or one that doesn’t utilize their many stealth abilities I usually don’t have any issues with, but a skilled thief I almost never kill. I may be able to force them to run, but I rarely kill them.
It has more to do with the fact that I don’t have the luxury of being able to escape if I choose to. I don’t have a mechanism that allows me to run away safely.
And thieves, like many squishies, don’t have the luxury of being able to face-tank when a situation calls for it. Thieves can attempt tp prevent repair bills by getting away, guardians by being though. Each class is different.
In order for me to “Face-tank” I have to sacrifice huge amounts of damage. I can’t run a Zerker build and even hope to run into a competent group of people with the hopes of surviving longer than 6-10 seconds. And if I go with a “Face-tanking” build I will accomplish absolutely nothing other than stalling the enemy from capping a point with little to no hope of downing anyone in any situation in WvW. In an even group fight people can just ignore me until I’m the last one there to kill because I will be doing absolutely nothing to help my team in a group fight.
Thieves on the other hand don’t really have to sacrifice much damage (if any at all) to achieve a build that grants them incredible survivability. Go perma-stealth with a Zerker build and in the worst of situations you can probably at least run away to fight another fight.
A well played thief is nearly impossible to kill on my Guardian. Their ability to stealth multiple times for extended periods of time means either I can’t do damage to kill them and they end up bursting me down, or I end up getting lucky with AoEs and they just run away in stealth never to be seen again.
Just one scenario from today: I found a thief 1v1 and initiated the fight. He opened with stealth and as soon as he started doing damage I used Shelter just do soak up as much of his HS spam as I could. He then stealthed again and I started AoEing where I thought he was. Must have worked because I saw him for a split second and then he stealthed again and ran off.
I had taken little damage and had done some nice damage to him (though I couldn’t tell how much because I couldn’t ever see his health bar).
I decided to attempt a pursuit because I saw him running way off in the distance. He must have switched a utility or something because when I caught up to him again (he was actually waiting otherwise i never would have gotten close to catching him) he stealthed, then opened with a stun and proceeded to burst me down before I even realized what had happened.
Long story short, I think stealth is just way too overpowered in this game when used by a decent player and can be such a powerful survivability tool that a player can invest entirely in damage and still be very hard to kill.
Edit: Though there are some thieves that I can just ROFLstomp they tend to lack skill or don’t use stealth effectively. In roughly half of my encounters with Thieves where I end up winning, the Thief just stealths and runs away.
So what seems to be the problem ? You win 50 % of fights vs thiefs by making them run away. That means you left alive, and both saved your repair bills. Oh i know, You mad couse even if u won and made him run away, he dont need to repair his armor. Now I get it. Lol.
lolwut?
It has more to do with the fact that I don’t have the luxury of being able to escape if I choose to. I don’t have a mechanism that allows me to run away safely.
Also, it is much less rewarding to almost kill an enemy only to have them escape, especially if it happens frequently.
Thiefs are meant to be able to escape. And if u rly qq about it , well try catching ele. You might as well try to catch good warrior, but it aint gonna happen. Even ranger with gs has means to escape. What do you want to do with it then ? maybe start comparing it to other games and how their rogue class escape mechanics work ? OK lets try all forum thief haters beloved wow rogue. Vanish that leads to perma stealth and you will never ever see him again if he wont chose to open on you again.
Elementalists are difficult to catch as well, but at least you can see which way they ran off to making it a little easier to chase them down. Also because I can see them I still have a chance to use abilities like Judge’s Intervention and Ring of Warding to halt their escape. Can’t do that with a thief.
As far as the other classes you mentioned, compared to Thief, their ability to escape is miniscule.
A fix, I don’t know. I’d personally just have them remove stealth altogether, but I know that’s a little drastic. Perhaps they could put a cooldown period of like 5 seconds or something like that after they pop out of stealth preventing them from returning to stealth again.
I don’t know, I’m not a game developer, I just know I hate stealth.
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A well played thief is nearly impossible to kill on my Guardian. Their ability to stealth multiple times for extended periods of time means either I can’t do damage to kill them and they end up bursting me down, or I end up getting lucky with AoEs and they just run away in stealth never to be seen again.
Just one scenario from today: I found a thief 1v1 and initiated the fight. He opened with stealth and as soon as he started doing damage I used Shelter just do soak up as much of his HS spam as I could. He then stealthed again and I started AoEing where I thought he was. Must have worked because I saw him for a split second and then he stealthed again and ran off.
I had taken little damage and had done some nice damage to him (though I couldn’t tell how much because I couldn’t ever see his health bar).
I decided to attempt a pursuit because I saw him running way off in the distance. He must have switched a utility or something because when I caught up to him again (he was actually waiting otherwise i never would have gotten close to catching him) he stealthed, then opened with a stun and proceeded to burst me down before I even realized what had happened.
Long story short, I think stealth is just way too overpowered in this game when used by a decent player and can be such a powerful survivability tool that a player can invest entirely in damage and still be very hard to kill.
Edit: Though there are some thieves that I can just ROFLstomp they tend to lack skill or don’t use stealth effectively. In roughly half of my encounters with Thieves where I end up winning, the Thief just stealths and runs away.
So what seems to be the problem ? You win 50 % of fights vs thiefs by making them run away. That means you left alive, and both saved your repair bills. Oh i know, You mad couse even if u won and made him run away, he dont need to repair his armor. Now I get it. Lol.
lolwut?
It has more to do with the fact that I don’t have the luxury of being able to escape if I choose to. I don’t have a mechanism that allows me to run away safely.
Also, it is much less rewarding to almost kill an enemy only to have them escape, especially if it happens frequently.
A well played thief is nearly impossible to kill on my Guardian. Their ability to stealth multiple times for extended periods of time means either I can’t do damage to kill them and they end up bursting me down, or I end up getting lucky with AoEs and they just run away in stealth never to be seen again.
Just one scenario from today: I found a thief 1v1 and initiated the fight. He opened with stealth and as soon as he started doing damage I used Shelter just do soak up as much of his HS spam as I could. He then stealthed again and I started AoEing where I thought he was. Must have worked because I saw him for a split second and then he stealthed again and ran off.
I had taken little damage and had done some nice damage to him (though I couldn’t tell how much because I couldn’t ever see his health bar).
I decided to attempt a pursuit because I saw him running way off in the distance. He must have switched a utility or something because when I caught up to him again (he was actually waiting otherwise i never would have gotten close to catching him) he stealthed, then opened with a stun and proceeded to burst me down before I even realized what had happened.
Long story short, I think stealth is just way too overpowered in this game when used by a decent player and can be such a powerful survivability tool that a player can invest entirely in damage and still be very hard to kill.
Edit: Though there are some thieves that I can just ROFLstomp they tend to lack skill or don’t use stealth effectively. In roughly half of my encounters with Thieves where I end up winning, the Thief just stealths and runs away.
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I assume by “fighter” you mean “warrior.”
If that’s the case my vote is easily Guardian.
Just because Warriors are too boring for me
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…..Inspired Virtues sound good, but need to calculate than what’s better – 50 precision and cond dmg or that trait + recharge and duration.
I’d drop the last 5 points in Zeal.
The heal on Greatsword attacks is very underwhelming – around 25-30 health per hit. The only ability that really makes it worthwhile (though that’s an overstatement) is Whirling Wrath and only if you are hitting many many targets at once.
The added boons on virtues easily compensates for that in my opinion.
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I am inspired!
/15chars
It’s because people are hooked on 30 valor and AH, in which healing power really is nearly useless and a big waste. You have to build around support instead of lolfacetank while AH keeps me alive standard guardian thinking.
I think it also has to with the idea that since there is no “Holy Trinity” the only effective way to build you character is to incorporate damage, which is false.
Though there are some very efficient and viable damage builds there are also other builds that can be just as viable, especially in dungeons.
I wouldn’t spend more than 25 points in Zeal. The Grandmaster traits are very lackluster. I would instead put those last 5 points in Virtues. Inspired Virtue is very powerful.
Other than that you might be able to make your build work. Though, if you are going for a balanced build I have to suggest you take Altruistic Healing or Monk’s Focus in the Valor tree.
My current WvW/SoloPvE build is 25-10-30-0-5 and I’m in the process of getting a full Berserker armor set and Trinkets. It does very nice damage so far and the survivability is actually higher than you might expect.
Also, I would suggest you ignore anyone who says guards can’t do damage. Guards don’t have the burst potential that other classes have (as in we can’t down anyone in 4-5 seconds), but for those classes, once they use their burst they’re done for a long while. With Guards we can do very nice sustained damage and don’t really have a downtime on our DPS like other high-burst classes do. If you can learn to survive an enemies burst, which is actually rather easy in most cases, then for the remainder of the fight you will be pretty much in control.
Just my 2copper on the subject
Another thread where ppl say a healing Guard is useless……
lol.
If you go something like 0-0-10-30-30 with a full clerics set, boon duration runes, and healing power trinkets (actually what i use in dungeons) you can dish out constant boons with incredible heal support.
I use staff mainly, with mace/shield. Take healing breeze for your #6 heal, and then depending on the dungeon/boss you will want to alternate between a few utility skills
-Wall of Reflection/Spirit Shield
-Stand Your Ground
-Hold the Line
-maybe Retreat if you take Pure of Heart in the Honor tree. I’ve been using it more regularly as you can provide several Aegis to your party with a 2k heal when they block an attack.
-any of the Consecration Utilities depending on the encounter. Sanctuary is nice but often unreliable, but the 2 fire combo fields can provide nice offensive boon support with blast finishers, especially if you swap out the mace/shield for a hammer.
I prefer to use Tome of Courage for my elite, but Renewed Focus can be used very effectively as well. RF can allow for an emergency 8k heal with 2 Aegis if you can time your CDs properly – not to mention the BOONS!!!!!
The main thing when using a healing build is to use your heals and boons proactively. If you are constantly healing – which this build can do – you eliminate the need for emergency healing as you party members will drop to low health less often.
Don’t let the plethora of nay-Sayers dissuade you from running a healing focused build. They simply haven’t tried one and are dead-set on running their cookie-cutter builds.
With that said though, outside of dungeons you may want to consider a different build.
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I really enjoy my Guardian in WvW. I don’t participate much in the huge zerg fights mostly because my computer can’t handle it, but I do roam almost constantly. When I get in a 1v1 fight I usually do very well. I struggle against perma-stealth Thieves and just about any Mesmer.
Warriors though…I really don’t have any problems with warriors. It is very easy to avoid their damage. They can’t move at all during their main damage ability and I always save a stun-break for when I see it coming. After that its pretty much just spin-to-win and smashing them with my hammer.
But I also don’t run the cookie-cutter bunker build that’s been mentioned several times in this thread.
Long story short, Warriors for me are one of the easier classes to fight.
Edit: Only issue I have with my guard is the lack of effectiveness of wards. Ring of Warding….please fix it
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The staff has always suffered from wanting to do a bunch of things that aren’t really cohesive. As a result, it ends up in a a few niche rolls that play to part of its strengths and ignore the rest. If you’re not building around the staff, it’s pretty awful as a combat weapon. Some people just don’t like the staff playstyle.
I don’t really know what you mean by you first sentence, therefore, I must disagree.
And everything else you said…..could be said for almost all other weapons in game
Just because the only condition we have is burning doesn’t mean condition damage is worthless. If played right you can have nearly constant burning on you target.
And burning is the highest damage condition in the game
Just saying….
Staff is pretty much fine. Fix Wards so people can’t cross them so easily and I’ll be perfectly happy with it.
ah. much thanks for the replies. that’s just what i needed
:D
So I really don’t have the slightest clue about which food to use on my Guardian in Wv3.
Any suggestions?
At least you don’t have the Asura elites
If aegis stacks it might mean unscathed contender needs to change. Overall I think the design intention behind Aegis is to be some sort of on/off switch mechanic, with effects that can proc on activation, active, trigger, or down.
If you think it currently isn’t an interesting thing to do, consider spec’ing for traits that give those procs, and proactively use aegis, instead of just another block button.
Oh I definitely trait for the added boons on Aegis, but that’s the only reason I ever actively use it (for the most part). I hardly ever activate VoC because I want the block. I just feel like the block mechanic associated with Aegis is almost always useless and the only time it is really beneficial is when you get lucky and time to avoid a big a hit or a CC or something like that. In dungeons Aegis often doesn’t even negate the damage of an attack or its added affects, like CCs. There is just no deliberate use for the block associated with Aegis 90% of the time.
I also don’t like that I sometimes waste the block on an Aegis because I, or an ally already has an Aegis when I apply the new one.
All-in-all I don’t think it’s a needed changed as Guardian is fine without it (for the most part). I just still feel Aegis is underwhelming and bleh.
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Personally, I think stacks of Aegis would be too powerful. You can already re-apply it 4-5 times along with a blocking heal.
I am by no means an expert at guardian but Aegis seems pretty good as it is to me :-)
The only reason I mention it is that sometimes I notice that I’ll waste an Aegis on myself to apply one to an ally, or vice versa, my ally will still have an Aegis, but I won’t so when I cast it on myself it wastes it on my ally.