Guild Wars 2

In PvP all weapons have the same stats. The only difference is the skin. You pick weapons because you think they look good.

@Setun: That’s just not accurate. During a mobile fight, more attacks will miss than hit.
And no other weapon asks me to change my playstyle. Other weapons I can pick in function of my playstyle, which is how I feel it should be.

Heinel.6548:

Arken.3725:

I find my favorite to be the staff overall.

Troll…

:-) I like the Staff like I like Brütal Legend or the Harry Potter books. I like it more for what it could be than for what it actually is.

I wasn’t specifically advocating Guardians getting a cripple there, just pointing out that mobility (as defined by Setun) of a Guardian wasn’t as good as was believed. I’m not even sure if Guardians need a cripple. They could use it, but the issues we have because of not having access to cripple can probably be solved in a different way.

@Obtena: That does make sense. I don’t think it’s as much an issue as you say, because support is just less enjoyable and less measurable in this game. The Mace isn’t going to save anyone who’s playing badly. I also think there need to be weapons that focus on support, for the people who enjoy that. The Mace is such a weapon. It just happens to do most of it’s supporting with healing.

As someone who plays mostly sPvP, the ability to cross 1800 units (it’s not meters is it?) doesn’t weigh up to the need for a target. There’s not a lot of Bunnies in Khylo.

Setun.4368:

Just because you’re bad with a scepter doesn’t mean it’s broken. You’re just bad with it. Scepter is an awesome ranged weapon.

No, no it’s not. I’ve played with the Scepter. I’ve given it a fair chance. It’s okay as a 300 ranged weapon. Passable at 600 range, because we don’t have another option. Anything further away from that, and it’s downright useless. The only redeeming factor is Chains of Light.
I’m glad that you enjoy the Scepter. I really am. But it’s not a good weapon. Especially not as our only ranged option.

And if I’m bad with the Scepter, tell me how to use it and I’ll give it another chance. I’m open to the possibility that it’s all just me.

Setun.4368:

Tell me again how we lack mobility please.

We lack mobility because we specifically need to take skills in order to become as mobile as other professions. We have to put quite some effort into just getting close to our enemies and then when we get close, unless we specifically build for it, we can’t keep them close. I know we have the tools, but if I take a Shout-build, I’m screwed. Either I give up two utilities (a gapcloser and an immobilize) or my weapon choice is completely dictated by mobility.
Then, all our mobility skills are mobility skills are dictated by a target (let’s not talk about Merciful Intervention), which doesn’t lend itself to positioning or retreating.
Because have you tried retreating as a Guardian? If the enemy has any sort of root, you need to use at least two utilities to make a decent retreat with a chance of survival. This is a kind of mobility the Guardian simply doesn’t have access to.
Finally, as people often point out, Guardians are melee fighters first. Now we can argue if this should be the case or not, but currently they are. This means that the damage that we do and the usefulness of our skills is directly related to how well we can keep an enemy close to us. And this is, honestly, not very good.
And most Guardians build to outlast an opponent (since our options for burst are limited), which makes one immobilize not enough.

I’m not saying that we don’t have options. I’m saying that the options we have are limited, and that they don’t play well with the reality of the Guardian.

@Yaki: I know several people who would main-tank our raids, but would never queue as tank, unless half the group was in their guild. And on my Druid (this brings back memories), I had a tank spec and gear, but I preferred doing DPS with it (which is rare for me, so I cherished my kitty DPS). And then there’s the tanks and healers that only did/do runs with guilds, bringing the number of queuing tanks and healers down even further.

darkace.8925:

One peak at the “Post Your Stats” thread on this sub-forum will tell us everything other than Greatsword is underused. But that’s not necessarily ArenaNet’s fault. Like insects to a bug zapper, the vast majority of players gravitate towards whatever weapon/build gives them the highest damage. The higher their damage output, the happier they are. Weapons that function as DoT, CC, healing, or support will ALWAYS be “under-used”, but that’s on the community.

Even asking this forum would have significant problems. If you’re at the forums, you’re already taking the game more seriously than the more casual (not pejorative) player. Then there’s the fact that we’ve had complaints about every weapon, including the Greatsword.

We also have to define underused. I’m sure no-one is asking for a perfect balance between the weapons.

Also, if, for example, support weapons are underused, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad. It could be that the people who come to the forums prefer dealing damage (as you said), or it could be that support isn’t as interesting in this game, or that it’s under-appreciated by the community, etc.

The problem is that we don’t have the metrics to see which weapons are “under-used” and I don’t think Arenanet will release that data. Would be cool if they did, though.

Yeah, Necromancers only have slightly more ways to get out of a bad situations than we have. And most Mesmers I encountered, don’t really need to bother, since if they play well, I won’t be doing much damage to them anyway.

That’s working as intended :-) It also won’t really go away. Even when I’m doing downleveled content, 4 mobs or more do take my attention.

JJBigs.8456:

You’re meant to melee stuff, not to cripple it and kite.

When Guardians are asking for cripples, it’s most often because they want to melee, but have difficulties doing so because *they*’re being kited. Most people who chose the Guardian realized they weren’t going to be a ranged powerhouse (although I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking we’re supposed to have at least somewhat effective ranged options).
A cripple would enhance our ability to “melee stuff” more than it would enhance our ability to kite.

I never had the need for better armor at lower levels. I just picked up whatever I found and sometimes bought something with Karma. I also found that before level 10 things were harder, and they eased out on later levels (becoming a bit more difficult around level 60 or so). Instead of picking up new armor, try to actively avoid damage with dodges and make sure to heal on time. Also make sure you’ve take utilities that help you live longer if you find yourself going down too fast. If all that doesn’t help, consider taking a weapon that actively reduces the damage you take, be it with blocks, blinds or something else.

Not really, because the immobilizes aren’t as frequent as cripples generally are.

I’d love to see more condition damage, but I don’t see making Retaliation stronger is the best option. Retaliation is problematic as it is.

Problem is that any interesting conditions wouldn’t really fit the magical nature of the Guardian’s damage.

@Danicco: Thanks for the exhaustive feedback. I have indeed made a similar thread about a month ago, but the premise was different. In this case I’m more interested to see what other people think, and see if I can incorporate that into a potential overhaul of the traits.

As for Zeal, I don’t think it’s really, really bad (that’s mostly just rhetoric). It just has a lot of things that bug me, and is not very good, compared to our other options.

As for why I think all Spirit Weapon traits should be in one line is because it’s like that for every other type of skill and because it makes building around those skills harder.

I think we do agree, but with the caveat that I don’t think any other weapon or trait should be must-have.

With my build I can’t spare any runes (I use a Pure of Voice-build, most of the time, which kinda necessitates Runes of the Soldier), but I’ll look into the Swiftness runes mre often while testing other builds.

Part 2

Valor is the best trait-line, right?
Yes and no. It’s good because it offers Tougness, Altruistic Healing or Monk’s Focus, with a few okay traits, but it also has unnecessary bloat, like Strength of the Fallen, Mace of Justice or Focused Mind. And Glacial Heart is a wonky trait that has too many ifs. It’s mainly the fact that it offers the much-need survivability that Guardians crave that makes it such a popular line.

Altruistic Healing is best trait, right?
Depends on how you see “best trait”. It’s certainly a very effective one, but in my opinion, not a very interesting one. It doesn’t change how you look at your skills, it doesn’t alter your playstyle, it slightly nudges you towards using boons, but as a Guardian, you’d have to put in some effort not to use boons.

Is Valor best suited for a Meditation focus?
Like the Signet-question, I’m not sure. Although I feel a bit stronger here. There’s really nothing that binds Meditations to Valor and the associated traits could be easily put into any other line and it would still feel right.

I thought Zeal focused on Symbols, but now Honor does as well?
Indeed, and it does it much better. Mainly by having better traits that fit Symbols better and not having those traits mandatory for advancing down the line.

Why is there so little healing in our line related to healing?
There’s some healing, with the Grandmaster trait being the major one, but it’s circumstantial. It doesn’t matter that much, since most skills scale pretty terribly with healing power anyway, but that’s another problem altogether. Healing power is mostly useful for keeping yourself alive with your main heal, which is useful in a line that increases your total health.

Should Empowering Might be a Master Honor trait?
The answer might be no, but it risks becoming too powerful when crit-based builds have to sacrifice less to take it. On the other hand, it’s rather out of place in Honor.

• Is Honor the best place for Two-Handed Mastery?*
  Probably not, but it’s also not the worst place. Most two-handed weapons offer enough support to make putting the trait in a support-line worth it.

I’m going to quit here. I like some traits from the Virtues-line, but I honestly haven’t played around with it enough to form an opinion on it. Sorry. I’ll just leave some questions.

Are the Grandmaster traits in Virtues-line worth the investment?

Does the focus of each trait on an individual virtue hinders the value of each trait?

Is there too much Retaliation in the Virtues-line?

Can Virtues be more than just a trait-line to support other trait-lines?

I was planning on posting a redesign of the Guardian traits in order to start some discussion on how our traits could be changed and improved.
This was proving to be a little harder than I anticipated (planning fallacy), but I still wanted some discussion on it. What follows are a couple of ideas about our traits. Feel free to discuss them, or post your own ideas on Guardian traits.

So, what the introduction out of the way, let’s get down to business.

What’s wrong with Zeal?
I apologize for starting with such a big question, but I needed to get it out of the way if I wanted to get anywhere.
There are several (major) problems:

• The minor traits are pretty lackluster. They focus on Symbols, but this poses two problems: Symbols are rarely that important in a damage-focused build (since they’re pretty inconsistent in dealing damage) and the rest of the line does nothing for Symbols, apart from somewhat encouraging a Greatsword.
• The line focuses on Spirit Weapons, but does not offer all the traits that Spirit Weapons need, unlike all other lines, who do offer all available traits for their respective skills.
• Condition duration is rather meaningless for Guardians, as burning stacks in duration.
• The Master-level traits offer (mostly) small and situational bonuses.
• One of the Grandmaster traits is completely useless due to lack of scaling.
• It encourages you to use weapons that don’t play well with line. Greatsword does work fine, but using a Scepter makes your minor traits useless, nor does a Focus play particularly well with Zeal.

Should Zeal encourage you to use certain weapons?
Zeal currently offers 4 traits encouraging the use of certain weapons, and I don’t think this is necessarily bad. I just think it goes about it the wrong way. As mentioned, encouraging the Scepter does nothing for Zeal, so it might be interesting to encourage (for example) the Hammer and the Greatsword.

Is there anything severely lacking in Zeal?
Apart from an interesting Grandmaster trait, most of Zeal’s problem stem from things that are out of place, not things that are really lacking. It would be nice, however, to have some form of escape mechanism, which less defense oriented builds need.

Is Radiance the right place for one-handed weapons?
On the surface, it looks like it. One-handed weapons hit faster, and are thus more likely to trigger Virtue of Justice, adding to the burning aspect of the line. If you look at the first two minor traits, however, you’ll notice that this build encourages an active use of Virtue of Justice, making the point about faster-hitting weapons moot. On the other hand, I like that encouraging one-handers frees you up to use the Torch, which fits perfectly here and faster hitting weapons also means more crits.

But Right-Hand Strength is a great trait, should it be removed than?
It is, on a power-level. It’s however not very interesting, which I feel is a necessity for Grandmaster traits. It would be better if Radiance offered some kind of on-crit effect, which would make this trait more than just increased damage.

What about Perfect Inscriptions?
This also fails the “interesting”-test. It’s weird that the most powerful trait for signets is also the most boring one.

Are Signets the right skills for Radiance?
This is one I’m not sure I’ve got an answer for, but I don’t see why Signets would have to be tied to Radiance.

I use Renewed Focus, but that doesn’t always work, so I often resort to using “Stand your Ground!” and Renewed Focus together, which is a bit too much resources for just running away. I’ve been testing a burst-build yesterday, so I was suddenly confronted with this problem :-)

@Rfreak: I think an important difference between some professions and the Guardian is that running away is never an option for us. That’s why we need to invest more in trying to survive straight-up damage.

So the discussion in this area boils down to how viable the Scepter really is?
Because it’s not like anyone’s asking for ranged capabilities similar to the Ranger. And I must admit that I haven’t played other professions extensively, but to me it seems that melee Ranger, melee Elementalist (although this is more close-range, than melee, right?), etc. are pretty viable (if not competitive).

Also, if we’re shifting the discussion to the viability of the Scepter (or Staff, but whatever), I retract my Engineer/Mace example. Not having access to a single melee-skill (150 range or lower) hardly hinders your ability for any type of content.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

Rfreak.6591:

Before starting let me say this, guardians lack in ranged options,

Guardians have plenty of ranged options: in fact 8 of the 9 weapons Guardians can use have ranged attack skills. That makes them very flexible, having both ranged and melee attacks in most of their weapons.

And yet it’s nearly impossible to be at more than 300 range and viable. Most of our ranged attacks are only useful when close to the target.

I agree with Arken here. Retaliation is a lazy boon that takes even less skill to use than Protection. I think it was badly designed to begin with. I’d rather see it have a shorter duration and reflect more damage (preferably actually returning incoming damage), so it’s something you keep for big incoming attacks you can’t dodge or block. This makes it a lot more skill-based.

As for the builds: Yes, there are other options. I personally really like 30 points in Honor for Voice of the Pure or Radiance, for crit-based builds, but the fact remains that using anything other than 30 Valor lowers your survivability noticeably. It is the superior option, even if other things kinda work.

This is true. It ignores the Z-axis completely. The second skill used to have this as well. It’s because it’s a wave and not a cone.

@Codo: I see this all the time, but when someone gives us a tool, that tool should be a viable options. If Arenanet doesn’t want Guardians doing a lot of damage, or doing anything at range, don’t give us access to things like Zeal or the Scepter, instead of pretending we can do it, but then giving us subpar tools.

It would be like giving the Engineer a Mace, but having all the attacks on it suck, because Engineers aren’t supposed to be good at melee fighting. Just remove the kitten Mace, then.

Interesting. I only recently began playing something other than a Guardian (a Necromancer, actually), so I don’t know what traits they have. Thanks for the info.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Relentliss.2170:

I think it is UP in some situations and OP in others.

Because of this I consider guardian being balanced! No profession/build should be universal. That is why we have diversity

That’s not really what balance means. Especially not in a game where each profession should be able to fulfill each role. They shouldn’t fulfill them in the same way, and there can be discussion over what makes up a role, but a profession should be able to do (if it traits right) everything.

I’ll have to rethink that, then.(I’d also need to read up on other profession’s traits before I actually start writing).
My reasoning was that Guardians only have access to burning, which doesn’t really make increased duration all that useful, unless you get effects that make something happen while a burn is active on a target (which I was going to shift into Radiance).
Zeal would become the Line that you went into because you wanted straight up sustained damage, while Radiance would rely more on crits with the randomness somewhat lessened by long-duration burns.

Aha, thanks. Should have checked the wiki myself. But it helps my point of it being unreliable. Especially since Whirl finishers (for Guardians) can be pretty kitten useful.

Two things:

(1) Please don’t use the Question-format for threads that do not have a clearly definable answer. It messes up the debate because comments can shift around. If you have a question that does have a clear definable answer, then please do use it.

(2) An actual answer: The Guardian is not underpowered, not overpowered and not balanced. “But Ynna, those are the only options right?”, you ask. No, voice in my head, they’re not. The Guardian is strong at a couple of things and maybe even too strong. It’s also disproportionately weak in other areas. There are skills and traits that don’t work well, but there are also those who are a lot stronger than the others.

Guardians are in a good spot. We have one or two builds that we can use well and it allows to participate in every type of content, but outside of those builds, we sometimes have to struggle to play how we want. We’re not faceroll-easy, but we’re also not unplayable.

Brutaly.6257:

Ynna.8769:

You know what I figured about Altruistic Healing: If it was an Elite Signet, I would like it a lot more (it would also be blatantly overpowered). I just don’t think it’s a really inspired Grandmaster Trait.

That is just an excellent idea! This would also make Perfect Inscriptions much more worth and also make Signet builds in general more valid.

Passive from Signet would be Altruistic Healing and active it could be swiftness and/or fury.

That would definitely make Radiance much more worth it.

(1)Why would it be over powered by the way?

(2)Any ideas on how to make Zeal more worth the investment?

(1) Because it makes it accessible to every Guardian, regardless of trait-investment. Altruistic Healing is kinda balanced around the fact that you give up quite a lot to get that much survivability.

Just to give an example: Say I make a Signet-build with Symbol of Altruism. I go heavy into Radiance, because I want to do damage and it improves my Signets. I then take 10 points in Zeal to do even more damage, and I take 10 points in Valor for extra crit-chance. This leaves me room to take either Inspired Virtues or – probably better- Empowering Might. If I then take one or two weapons that give some boons, I get nice crit damage and a constant stream of healing trickling in.) And you can’t balance it with a cooldown, because it’s the passive effect that’s pretty strong.

The only way to get it balanced is to give it pretty low base-healing and have it scale decently with Healing Power, but that limits the uses of the Signet in different builds and makes it pretty weak for Signet builds.

This is how I’d make the Signet, by the way:
Signet of Altruism
120 second cooldown
Signet Passive: Applying a boon to allies heals you (say, 25 or 50 base-healing)
Signet Active: Grant Quickness to nearby allies and heal them for each boon they have (double the healing of the passive)

(2) I have some ideas, but it’s pretty much reworking the entire line, together with changing the other lines a bit.(like swapping the Expertise in Zeal for the Malice in Radiance). Zeal lacks focus and doesn’t live up to its name. In my opinion (and this is really just my opinion), each trait-line should represent an archetype of the profession, and Zeal should be about being a zealot. This means damage and burning. If I can find the time this weekend, I plan on making a thread about how I see each trait-line and how I would change them.

Deathmond.7328:

At PvE and WvWvW workes fine.

Not what I meant and I’ll edit my post so that it becomes more clear. What I meant was that it’s only a Whirl finisher when you block or when you don’t block (like I said, I can’t remember which one it is).

Interesting post.

What I take away from it is that it became even harder to get the proper trait support for Spirit Weapons, since now you also have to put some effort into keeping them alive.

I also can’t help but think that the aggro thing was unintended.

I think it always worked like that, but it’s only a Whirl finisher in one of the modes, blocking or just resolving, (I can’t remember which it is) and that makes it pretty unreliable.

You know what I figured about Altruistic Healing: If it was an Elite Signet, I would like it a lot more (it would also be blatantly overpowered). I just don’t think it’s a really inspired Grandmaster Trait.

You know why people are complaining? Mostly because that’s what people do, but also because there are problems.
Our ranged skills (or lack thereof) are a problem, because it’s not just about not being able to do damage to enemies, it’s about being forced into unpleasant situations (like massive AoE-fests, or right in front of a hard-hitting Champion). It’s high risk without a very high reward.
And there are other (viable) builds. I don’t use Altruistic Healing, because I disagree with the philosophy behind that trait, and I do pretty okay, both in sPvP as the little PvE content I do.

I really like this profession, but it’s not perfect and it’s not what it could be. I criticize because I love.

The Mace is actually pretty good. It doesn’t hit as hard as the Sword, but that’s the trade-off for all the utility and healing.
It’s also a bit unfair to compare the Mace to the Staff. Two-handed weapons just offer more than a single one-handed weapon without an off-hand.

@Deathmond: There are at least 5 people here that think the Sword works okay for every one that thinks it doesn’t. I don’t think the problem is as big as you think it is.

If you’re already using Shouts, why not take Pure of Voice?

If you’re hellbent on Symbols:

• Longer Symbols mean you can give more boons, if your allies notice and stand in the circles (less of an issue with the Staff)
• Larger Symbols mean you will hit more allies and enemies with them, regardless of what anyone else is doing
• Healing Symbols provide a bit of extra healing, but it really depends on your group if you’d get a lot of support out of it.

I think Guardians are theoretically capable of a whole lot more than what is currently done, but for practical reasons, we are mostly Support/Defensive.

As Silver said, our traits also play a big role. Valor is just too good compared to other trait-lines, to the point of becoming ubiquitous.

Also, the way the Guardian currently works, bunkering down is safest way. Let’s go over the things you mentioned:

• Power: Building for power means you have to go into Zeal, which I think we can all agree isn’t very good. The traits in it are lack-luster, and it supports a very narrow playstyle.
• Toughness: Altruistic Healing is in Valor, our Toughness-line. The reason it plays like a Support-line is because Altruistic Healing (the main source of survivability in these builds) demands it.
• Conditions: Radiance is a pretty good line, but condition Guardians run into the problem that we only have on reliable condition (Burning) and because it stacks in duration, it isn’t really worth investing in too much. Conditions, for the Guardian, are more about supplementary damage, instead of capable of supporting their own build.

Lastly, I think a sizable part of the Guardian population was drawn to the profession because they were told that if you wanted to support (in a manner akin to the more traditional model), your best bet was the Guardian.

Whatever you like, basically. There’s little about the weapons that pushes you in one direction, or prevents you from taking another.

Guardians don’t really burst that well, especially not when compared to Warriors.

OK I’m trying to understand that picture. Does that mean we can? Or does it mean we can’t cause Obama has done nothing but lie?

Let’s not go there.

Meow.5794:

I’m very disappointed that they still haven’t done anything, I"m about to quit the game because of this, I refuse to use Greatsword and I play mostly Guardian :/

You’re going to quit the Guardian because the Sword isn’t exactly how you want the Sword to be?
And there are certainly builds out there that do not use the Greatsword. I hardly ever use it, and I do just fine. And the Greatsword even got weakened into a rather boring weapon (especially when compared to what it was).

Wouldn’t you say that part of the “sacrifice” you make by using a two-handed weapon is that you lose out on the flexibility of choosing your off-hand?
And would this be a problem of the two-handers being too useful, or the one-handers not useful enough?

ComeAndSee.1356:

The problem is they make the Two-handed Weapons for most classes too good or basically mandatory to use.

Would you mind elaborating on this?

Are you talking about WvWvW or Structured PvP?

Because in World vs World vs World, your level and your gear does make a difference, even when you get upscaled.
In sPvP there’s no reason to feel weak as a Guardian, if you have a decent build and play properly.
It is true that Guardians tend to have lower health. In order to balance our healing and defensive ability, we are given very low base health. This isn’t really a problem, most of the time.
And the best ways to improve are: playing a lot, looking for ways to improve, understanding every profession and watching other people play.