Guild Wars 2

Stuff that grants Swiftness: Symbol of Swifness (Staff), “Retreat!” and “Save Yourselves!”

It’s okay that Arenanet wants to take Retaliation in a different direction. But having a trait not work on one particular skill is just stupid. Traits are unclear as it is, and this is not helping matters.

Very funny. I’ve never focused on Retaliation at all, and was still successful. It’s a bit lame they have only now discovered that they don’t like the “Retaliation builds” of Guardians. This was a rather obvious build, so one of their testers should have come up with it.

If the real issue is letting Arenanet know, just bump the same thread over and over again. I don’t see the point in creating new threads for it, since there’s never any new information in them, or new opinions.

We don’t even know if they think it’s an issue. Most signs point to: “Yes, Arenanet thinks it’s an issue,” but there’s no real way of knowing.

And, on a larger scale, it’s not a very easy thing to fix. They tried increasing the range and that didn’t work at all.

Things that need to be done:

1. Deciding what skills could be changed (For the record, my opinion on it is: #1 and #2 on Scepter and tweak some abilities of the Staff)
2. Coming up with new skills and implementing them (not that hard, give me 5 minutes and I’ll come up with 10 (viable) concepts and with the way skills work in the game, implementing new ones isn’t that hard. Animations are probably the bulk of the work.
3. Testing them out, together with every other skill we have and coming up with pretty much every strategy it could be used in (This might take a while)

I’m not saying it isn’t a problem, just that it isn’t as easy as lowering a duration on a skill.

SiNoS.2147:

For pvp I aim for 20k+ as Ynna said to survive the heavy hits.

Just for the record, I’ve (successfully) tested builds with less health, but my favorite playstyle doesn’t lend itself to lower healthpools.

Every 10 days, the same thread pops up.
But yeah, the Guardian has issues in WvWvW, almost all of them based on our ranged weaponry (or lack thereof) and the way supporting works in the game.

In sPvP I generally have around 20k, but that’s just for surviving against two “100 blades”-Warriors in 8v8.

I dunno, I find Guardian rather forgiving. You’ve got passive defenses that make you die less easily and a couple of straight-forward, easy to use weapons and abilities. Virtue of Resolve helps a lot in covering mistakes.

@Danico: What build were you using? With Greatsword and Hammer you have at least 4 options to keep the enemy in range.
And dying in 2 seconds happens when you are faced with an overwhelming force (at least 3 players), or don’t know how to dodge 100 Blades-like things. I don’t actually die any faster on a Guardian than on a Warrior.

In what situations are you having problems? Because, so far, I haven’t encountered an “infinite amount of Crowd Control”.

Take every trait that has “Spirit Weapons” in it somewhere. That’s about it.
This would be the skeleton build, which gives you 10 more trait-points to spend.

I said that the Shield should not represent personal protection. The Shield, as a piece of equipment, symbolizes the core beliefs of a Guardian and one of those belief is that the life of your allies comes before that of your own.

Svarty.8019:

I’m amazed to read such positive comments about Guardians. Mindboggling!

That’s because no-one else is living in your dream-world, where Guardians suck at everything.

Guardians are really good at what they do well, and can still perform adequately at the areas they’re weaker in. As long as it’s not at range.

Long story short, Guardians are good. Good Guardians can be amazing.

I’m with Exedore on this. For a Guardian, the Shield should represent protection. Not personal protection, because that’s not what the Guardian stands for. The Guardian protects his allies.

I haven’t tested it myself, but on paper it looks horrible. IF you’re using a Hammer and IF it’s not on cooldown and IF you happen to crit, it might Chill a target.

Aren’t you counted as an ally for Sigil of Water, because it works that way for everything else.

I must say that I used the have the same issue as meloncash, but it started working for some reason.

It’s a clear example of badly worded traits. Traits (like skills) should clearly state how they work.

I once swapped some of my major traits around in my defensive Shout build, so it became a more damage oriented meditation build with a Greatsword and a Hammer and it worked quite well. Hammer provides good damage and control, and so does the Greatsword. The build was a good middle-ground between offense and defense.

@Svarty: Conditions are difficult to deal with as Guardians (because most of our passive defenses stem from Toughness), so naturally Necromancers and Mesmers will be difficult. In my build, every utility removes two conditions, and I still find it hard to fight those professions. Thieves can also do quite some condition damage, but they’re rather squishier.
Also, what build are you using?

I generally play a Guardian, so I’m not sure how qualified I am to respond to this.
On the few occasions I play Elementalist, I do tend to die quite fast, but I probably should tweak my build somewhat (Using Water and Air traits, with a dash of Arcane).
I’ve also tested Thief a bit, so I could show it to my friends, and I found that if I played like my Guardian, I’d die a lot, but if I used more “hit and run” tactics, I’d get quite some kills and stay alive. It was a quite fun playstyle.

I like the NPC’s on Forrest, but the sharks on Capricorn are a “win-more” mechanic. I like that they added danger to the water and an added benefit for having the central point, but the sharks are too much. If the sharks would stop attacking you while you’re on the point, that would be an improvement.

Just gonna post my Scepter suggestions again:
#1: Make the projectiles fly faster, but give the skill a short cast-time. Also, make them projectile finishers (or alternatively, make it a 3-part chain with only the last part a projectile finisher).
#2: Make it a Symbol.

About the rest:
Sword: I never had much problems with the #3 skill, but I can understand your point. I very much like modal skills, that have various purposes, but this skill isn’t really pushing my buttons. I don’t know why, really. I don’t mind that powerful skills root you into place, but this seems to lack a bit of power. Would it be too powerful if it reflected projectiles? (Probably, yes.)
Shield: I don’t really agree. It’s more a conceptual complaint, rather than a power one. The skill is more than powerful enough as it is.
Hammer: The cast time being interruptable is probably a way of balancing the Symbol (which is the best Symbol).

If I may add something: The Staff is a good weapon in what it does, but it lacks coherence. The skills don’t work together or have similar themes, which makes it stand out. The Staff’s “thing” is support, but it doesn’t go further than that. It’s hard to put into words, but in my opinion, the Staff could use some tweaking, so that the abilities “fit” each other better.

@Bobnintendo: It does work. I’ve used the Shield quite a lot, and I haven’t seen it fail. Note that you don’t see the healing numbers if no-one in range actually needs the healing.

I can’t check right now, but according to the wiki, it’s slightly more than one second of rejuvenation (which is the healing Virtue of Resolve provides).
Also note, in your comparison between the two, that Battle Presence has a continuous presence, even when your own Virtue of Resolve is on cooldown.

@valdamus: Are you really suggesting Arenanet decides their balance changes based on forum complaints?

Ranged abilities is a common complaint about Guardians, but this thread is more than that. You don’t want mere viability at range, you want a very specific playstyle, that is at range. I don’t think you’ll find that much support for it.

Guardians can support and can nuke already, so I don’t see the need to add a specific ranged playstyle for it as well.

Lastly, what do people have against playing professions that a lot of other people play as well.

Yeah, we’re pretty well-off in the downed state department. It’s not completely useless, but it’s not too powerful either.

Danicco.3568:

It seemed to be Ynna was more like trying to point the flaws in out Trait Lines… of which I don’t agree with any.

That’s cool. I’d like all our traits to be useful and if I’m mistaken about any of these, I see that as a good thing.

Zeal might have issues with Symbols AND other weapons that doesn’t have Symbol skills, but remember that you don’t necessarily need to pick all your weapons to be the most effective. They’re presented as choices, and if you check other professions’ Traits, you’ll notice the same.

It’s okay to “force” choices. That isn’t bad design. The problem is that nothing about the like (apart from the minor traits) encourages you from using the weapons with Symbols, apart from the Greatsword. If you use the Scepter (which is encouraged by the damage increase) your minor traits lose half of their usefulness.

There’s nothing oddly placed in the Honor line. That line is about healing and support. You crit? You support others.

If you’re planning on playing support, you’re crit won’t be high enough to really benefit from “on crit” traits.

I don’t know if you’re trying to say Pure of Heart heals for too much or too low

I was just saying how much it healed, because the trait itself didn’t and neither did the wiki.

The answer can be found in this thread.

Bottom line: Regeneration heals a set amount each tick and ticks every second (I think). Adding more seconds adds more ticks and thus more healing.

Removing dedicated healing is a way of removing the trinity. Targeted healing is a big part of dedicated healing. If you put targeted healing in, people are more encouraged to try and be “pure” healers.
I’m not saying I agree with it, but I’m guessing that was the line of thinking.

I’ve got the feeling your talking about sPvP, where I got literally not problem at all with dealing with ranged, even with very defensive builds.

ens.9854:

Permeating wrath doesn’t “burn the ground” it just applies the burn to everyone around you.

Also Focused Mind is the proper trait to take for many builds, if they don’t use shields primarily. Being instant is more than just having 0 cast time, it means you can use them literally any time; even while flying through the air and stunned and dazed or in the middle of attacking. You will notice it saving your skin more often than you imagine (well, if your meditations heal).

Elite focus is always worth considering. Tome of Wrath is one of the most powerful WvW elite skills of any class; and this not only gives it 50% longer duration, but allows you use skill 4 twice before it ends.

No time right now to continue. Also, how did you choose which traits to comment on? You neglect a lot of KEY guardian traits.

Permeating Wrath shows, once again, the importance of clear wording.
I don’t think Focused Mind is actually bad, but I don’t think it’s powerful enough to be a master-trait or even exist. If you made all the Meditations instant we wouldn’t get all that stronger.
Elite Focus also isn’t a bad trait, but it’s again badly located. There’s nothing really about the Virtue-line that makes you think: “This is the line that should make our elites better.” It would be better, in my opinion if it was more accessible to more builds.

I only picked traits that I had more to say about than: “Yeah, pretty good trait, works well in certain builds and fits the trait-line well.” I didn’t feel like going over every trait. Good traits don’t need much discussion (outside of build discussions), it’s the weaker or weirder traits that deserve mentioning.
How I picked the traits to discuss:

• Traits I personally find bad.
• Traits that seem out of place (too deep in a line, in the wrong line…)
• Traits that could be better

Arenanet doesn’t want to implement “target ally” skills, since it’s to close to targeted healing. It was somewhere in the article about healing and death, I think.

@ens: I just gave my opinions. I didn’t intend to create “flame bait”. I encourage you to disagree with me.

I actually tested Permeating Wrath briefly, and I didn’t really see it do what it described. I’ll test it out further.

continued
Valor
This line deals has the weird spot of being both about surviving and dealing critical damage. It also works well with Meditations.
Adept

• Valorous Defense: Works very well with the defensive theme, but has nothing to do with the critical damage.
• Defender’s Flame: Works well together with Radiance, which is a line that generally works well with Valor, but as the only really offensive major trait at adept, I would have expected it to be about critical damage.
• Strength of the Fallen: Again, I don’t feel it’s a good idea to pick traits with the assumption you’re going to be downed, especially not if you’re going in a defensive line.
• Strength in Numbers: The static Toughness is pretty good early one, but loses relative power later. It would be nice if it scaled with your level our your own Toughness.
• Retributive Armor: Just wanted to point out that this one of the more elegant traits of the Guardian.

Master

• Courageous Return: This seems a little weak. This again comes down to expecting to be downed.
• Mace of Justice: You already know what I think about this. 5% on a single weapon, not something I agree with. This would be a lot more interesting if it increased the critical chance of the Mace.
• Glacial Heart: While the chill effect is really nice, it’s just too many hoops to jump through: Every 45 seconds you have a 50% chance that maybe your Hammer gives a chill effect. Also keep in mind that you need to invest in additional crit for it to be really worth it.
• Focused Mind: The only Meditation with a noteworthy cast-time is Merciful Intervention. The cast-time on Smite Conditions is rather negligible.

Honor
This line deals with surviving, healing, supporting and has themes for reviving and Shouts.
Adept

• Vigorous Precision: This is not a bad trait, but it is oddly placed. Everyone who’s going to play support will have this trait, but they won’t have much precision.
• Wrathful Spirit: This trait was recently weakened so that it only gives 3 seconds, instead of 10. This shows mainly how important it is to make your traits as clear as possible. Three seconds of Retaliation every 40 seconds at best is ultimately not worth it.
• Pure of Heart: This heals for around 650 with no other healing increases. Just so you know.
• Empowering Might: Just like Vigorous Precision, this isn’t a bad trait, just one that is oddly located. This could have easily been an adept trait, so it’s easier to pick up for the builds that can use it (although this may be the reason it was placed at master-level).

Virtues
This line is about your Virtues and Consecrations.
Adept

• Inspired Virtue: This trait may be too good, because I can never think of a reason to not take it.

Master

• Elite Focus: I dislike this trait because Elites are something everyone uses, regardless of build, so putting it here, removes the option of improving them for a lot of builds (especially since our elites can’t be improved with other traits). Also, it increases the cast time of Renewed Focus, which I’m not sure is a good thing.

Grandmaster

• Permeating Wrath: I tested it out, and it didn’t seem to actually burn the area around me. Even if it did, it would be a rather bad trait, unless it gave a fire field.

Zeal
This line is all about damage, Symbols and Spirit Weapons
Adept

• Zealot’s Speed: This is a weird trait. Most professions get similar traits that activate at 25% health, but those help them surviving. This trait does nothing for our survival and if it did, it would still be located in a weird place. The name of the trait also suggest that it originally gave Symbol of Swiftness, which would have been more useful.
• Protector’s Impact: I don’t generally like the falling damage traits, but I’ve heard of people picking them up for exploring and jumping puzzles. Situational, but not bad. If I’d take this trait, I’d do it more for the reduced falling damage than for the Symbol.
• Revenge of the Fallen: I can’t really see the use of this trait. It works in very narrow situations (namely you are downed right after you downed the enemy). There’s no real reason to pick it up, unless you plan on being downed a lot.
• Shattered Aegis: It fits the damage theme of the line, and provides synergies with other lines and different playstyles. This seems to be in the line more for the benefit of other lines, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Master

• Symbolic Exposure: Works well with the Symbol theme of the line, but major traits like these force you into Symbols, even though the rest of the line really doesn’t. If you didn’t look at the minor traits, you could easily think that a build with the Sword and the Scepter would be a good idea with Zeal, but the minor traits really wreck that flexibility, which is weird, because nothing else about the line really cares for Symbols, nor do Spirit Weapons have any synergy with them.
• Greatsword Power: I haven’t done any math on it, but 5% seems rather weak for a trait that only encourages one weapon. On the other hand, the Symbol on the Greatsword would work well with the minor traits.
• Focused Mastery: The Focus is one of our more offensive off-hands, but this is still a weird place for a trait like this, especially considering it doesn’t work with anything else in the line.
• Scepter Damage: And this is completely ridiculous. The Scepter works with exactly one trait in the line (Binding Jeopardy) and you would kitten yourself by taking a weapon with no Symbols if you’re this deep into the line. And again 5% damage seems weak for a single weapon.

Grandmaster

• Symbolic Power: See my comments on Symbolic Exposure.
• Zealous Blade: This would seem like a pretty good trait, because it fill a hole (survivability) in a very offensive line and encourages one of our more damaging weapons. The healing is however really low, not enough to be really worth it. It also encourages only one weapon, which isn’t something I like.

Radiance
This traits is about burning, signets and encourages the use of one-handed weapons.
Adept
*Shimmering Defense: This works pretty well with the burning theme, but at 25% health, I’m not sure if more damage is something I’d really want. The 60 second cooldown seems excessive.

• Inner Fire: Seems to be too situational to be really worth it. The wording is also a bit confusing with Zealot’s Flame on the Torch.

Master

• A Fire Inside: this trait should really be an adapt trait, so that a Spirit Weapon build isn’t forced this deep into Radiance to pick it up.
• Powerful Blades: Again, 5% damage doesn’t seem that much (does anyone have some math on it?) and works with only a specific weapon.

You can’t really go wrong in traiting, unless you try. Radiance is a good place to start, because you can reset the cooldown of Virtue of Justice with it.

Relentliss.2170:

Both the staff and scepter are not fun to use. Nor are they very effective. They have lots of skills that are very lackluster.

I think a case can be made on the fun-factor, but not about the effectiveness of the skills. If you look at the individual skills on the Staff, they’re all pretty good, actually. They just don’t contribute to an overall theme, like other weapons have.
The Scepter’s attacks aren’t that bad. If you tweaked the first attack a bit, it would be an okay weapon, but because it’s our only ranged option, it’s more noticeable when it isn’t good.

Aggro supposedly works mostly on proximity and damage, but different mobs can have different algorithms, going by distance, current health or a range of other factors.

On a different note, this would have been a great thread for using the “question format”.

Eveningstar.6940:

I’m a fan of your idea.

I’ve been an advocate for Guardian Longbow for a long time now—but let’s admit it. That’s like being an advocate for the first manned mission to Mars. It’s not at all likely to happen but I’m obligated by principle and passion to advocate it all the same.

Still, I like your idea of making Scepter a projectile finisher + 3-attack chain, with a longer cast time to offset the increased projectile speed.

The other problem with Scepter is near-zero Trait support. This is more significant than it seems, because we’re often forced to use Scepter—and only Scepter—if we’re doing any sort of ranged tactics, but nearly none of our traits improve our Scepter performance.

Making Smite a symbol of some sort would neatly solve that issue, and give Scepter great synergy with the Zeal, Radiance and Honor lines.

Thanks man.
I feel the same about Mars and Guardian Rifles (I still claim that Rifles would have a stronger visual impact).
And honesty demands that I note that the chain-attack wasn’t my idea, but it fitted with the things I did come up with, so I included it.

And I hope to have time tomorrow to write an in-depth look at our traits.

I’m going to suggest my Scepter changes again:

1. Becomes a projectile finisher (or maybe a chain that ends in a projectile finisher), with a slower cast time, but a higher traveling speed
2. Becomes a Symbol of some kind

The traits as a whole could stand to be looked at again.

Arken.3725:

Just be aware that every update will have a nerf to this profession. Soon we’ll all be Warriors instead.

There’s no reason for this pessimism. Our issues can’t be fixed with simple number changes, they’re more structural than that.

Keep in mind that the fixes we’ve seen are all relatively easy to implement (from what I understand from coding). Making it undodgeable, fixing the orbs, improving the Scepter… are probably a lot more work.

Look, I feel you. Ever since I started playing multiplayer games, I found that a supportive role suits me better, both online and offline. When I go airsofting, I find it sad that there’s no real support role for me I did a student job that consisted of making sure other people could do their job, and I liked it a lot.
But support is still in the game, and the Line of Warding change isn’t that big of a deal. You can’t really do dedicated support, but that was never advertised.

And I don’t have any issues with your language. English isn’t my first language either. It’s more the definitive tone of your statements that irk me.

Sorry, double post.
I’ll elaborate further by saying that if we’re not intended for ranged combat, they should rework the Scepter for melee combat.

@Paladin, @Voltric: I’m not asking for ranged capabilities on par with Rangers. (I don’t argue for this issue for personal reasons, because I find myself, against expectations, enjoying melee a lot.)Only for viable ranged capabilities.
Each profession can do support (looking at the skills and traits), just not in the way that Guardians do it. Guardians are the only profession without viable long-range.
To elaborate on Thieves: Thieves can’t provide support in the same way that Guardians can (boons and heals), but they can share their poisons (increasing damage) and give AoE-stealth (and maybe more). If a profession has no way of actually supporting the team, that would be an equally big issue and I’d be arguing in favor of giving them viable support.

Voltric, didn’t I already pointed out (to you) that that’s not a good argument? Each profession should be viable in every “role”. Range is such a role.

I don’t see the cause-effect your title seems to imply.
Anyway, reducing duration on skills is likely to be easier than changing the Scepter’s abilities. Because they can’t just be easily buffed.
We don’t even know whether Arenanet considers our situation as problematic and if we do, we don’t have any idea how high it is on the priority list.

@BitTeeHunter: I mostly do PvP as well, and I don’t think that Scepter changes (not a Scepter buff) would break PvP.
Of course, a lot of suggestion you’ll see in this thread would improve on intended weaknesses, but you shouldn’t disregard all of them.
I also don’t think we need actual nerfing. We’re good at what we do well, but not in an overpowered way. We mostly bunker well, but are not uncounterable (unlike what popular opinion likes to believe).
Although, given the info that was recently posted on Reddit, we might lose some of our defensive capabilities.