I'll guard you. Let them come through ME first! - Guardian discussion thread.

[DrakeWurrum]

Congratulations, you've successfully refuted nothing.

Here, how about this. Next BWE, when you try to kill a Thief and he uses Smoke Bomb - do a point-blank AOE for a few seconds, without moving any further from where you were standing (assuming you were in melee range). In fact, exactly 3 seconds. Just long enough for his stealth to end. I'll bet you my beta access that you will hit every 9 out of 10 Thieves trying to smoke bomb away from you.

That's how ridiculously short the range is, and why I find it ridiculous that so many people think it's OP.

I say 9 out of 10 because from my experience USING the skill, a majority of the time, I'd take one glance around and go "Shit, I just teleported to the other side of him. How useless, I'm fucked."

[Larynx]

Here, how about this. Next BWE, when you try to kill a Thief and he uses Smoke Bomb - do a point-blank AOE for a few seconds, without moving any further from where you were standing (assuming you were in melee range). In fact, exactly 3 seconds. Just long enough for his stealth to end. I'll bet you my beta access that you will hit every 9 out of 10 Thieves trying to smoke bomb away from you.

That's how ridiculously short the range is, and why I find it ridiculous that so many people think it's OP.

Melee range is 130. The range of the shadowstep is 480, and it disregards obstructions such as walls or empty gaps that normal shadowsteps are affected by.

You have a window of opportunity of about 3 seconds to actually finish them. Which, in practice, is too much. This leads to endlessly avoiding your Finisher, and you have to resort to slowly picking away at their health.

[DrakeWurrum]

Oh, and in addition: heaven forbid that one profession requires a different strategy for finishing off than another, and heaven forbid that one profession be better or worse than another at surviving the Downed state. I would kill to be able to immobilize, or stun, or knockback, or blind, or even just the ability to heal from the Downed state with a skill other than #4.

No. All I get is ranged poison, teleport-stealth, multi-target ranged attack (I still don't get why that skill has a 20-second CD, tbh - it doesn't feel powerful at all, for completely lacking a Daze or something useful). Like, that ranged-teleport is ALL there is to my Downed state. It's the only good thing about it. That I can teleport around and HOPEFULLY get away, or at least keep you occupied. I have absolutely no other use to my team in the downed state.

So what you're proposing to do for the sake of balance, is remove the one useful role of a downed Thief.

I mean, hell, did you ever notice this? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Teleport_%28mesmer%29
Larger range. Directed. Longer cooldown. Only disadvantage is no stealth.

[Exedore]

Back on topic...

Tome of Courage. Is it too good? It seems that every guardian is choosing it for their elite, and rightly so. For about 5 seconds worth of time, during which you have stability, you full heal yourself and 4 others. After that, you cast the #3 and maybe #4 or #2 after and then drop out of it. The other two profession elites seem to be lacking in comparison, and while the Tome of Courage #5 is around, I don't think they could ever compete. Further, is Tome of Courage too good in general?

[DrakeWurrum]

Back on topic...

Tome of Courage. Is it too good? It seems that every guardian is choosing it for their elite, and rightly so. For about 5 seconds worth of time, during which you have stability, you full heal yourself and 4 others. After that, you cast the #3 and maybe #4 or #2 after and then drop out of it. The other two profession elites seem to be lacking in comparison, and while the Tome of Courage #5 is around, I don't think they could ever compete. Further, is Tome of Courage too good in general?

I dunno. When you cast it... you can't move. So...

How long is it's duration, 5 seconds? That's really not very long at all, compared to say... Rampage. Or Tornado. Ya know?

At the very least, you can try applying Poisons to his team.

[Larynx]

Oh, and in addition: heaven forbid that one profession requires a different strategy for finishing off than another, and heaven forbid that one profession be better or worse than another at surviving the Downed state. I would kill to be able to immobilize, or stun, or knockback, or blind, or even just the ability to heal from the Downed state with a skill other than #4.

No. All I get is ranged poison, teleport-stealth, multi-target ranged attack. Like, that ranged-teleport is ALL there is to my Downed state. It's the only good thing about it. That I can teleport around and HOPEFULLY get away, or at least keep you occupied. I have absolutely no other use to my team in the downed state.

So what you're proposing to do for the sake of balance, is remove the one useful role of a downed Thief.

Would you like to know why those for the most part are fine? Here, let me show you.

Warrior:
Hammer Toss: 10 second cooldown, 2s knockdown
Vengeance: 30 second cooldown, death at end

Engineer:
Grappling Line: 10 second cooldown, interrupt, pulls them to you

Elementalist:
Grasping Earth: 10 second cooldown, 3s immobilize
Vapor Form: 20 second cooldown

Mesmer:
Teleport: 20 second cooldown, 600 range

Necromancer:
Fear: 20 second cooldown, 2s fear

Guardian: 20 second cooldown, knockback

Ranger: 20 second cooldown, similar to player healing

Thief: 10 second cooldown, 3s stealth, range 480 teleport through obstructions


You can see how overpowered the thief skill is when compared to other downed ability. Most notably, the fact that each ability either has a long cooldown to prevent it from being chained together endlessly, or the actual effect is very minor. You cry foul at vengeance? It has a 30 second cooldown. They die at the end of it. You cry foul at Lick Wounds? Interrupt the pet. Grasping Earth? 7 seconds of downtime between casts.

The difference between the thief and the rest of them is that the thief has both a small cooldown, and a great effect. Give it a longer cooldown, or reduce the effect, and it will be fine. You should not be able to chain together Vapor Form endlessly. Give that a 10 second cooldown and I will bitch and moan all day. But right now it's countered by its long cooldown. The mesmer version? It has twice the cooldown as the thief version, 120 additional range, and does not stealth you.

40% of my 50+ hours of PvP matches I was a warrior. 20% I was a thief. Want to know how many times I was able to use vengeance? About 3. Want to know how many times I was able to completely avoid death with Smoke Bomb? About 60% of the time.

No, professions should not be the exact same. They should require different strategies to defeat. But that does not mean that you can forsake balance for diversity.

---------- Post added 2012-06-28 at 01:35 AM ----------

To clarify, something as simple as giving it a 12 or 13 second cooldown and making it actually adhere to normal shadowstep mechanics would be fine. I'm not saying to nerf it into oblivion. It is possible to nerf something and still have it be useful.

[Zilong]

Im going to back up Laryinx here.

The CD is way too short.
In addition I would like to say, the mesmer teleport is directed but I dont think thats too advantageous (not sure if this is a real word) unless you have the settings to do the "AoE" pressing the button already placing the cursor in the screen at the right spot. Cause if you dont untill you find a good spot to run, you are dead. And even if you do, I know where you are, just basically delaying your death.

NOT to mention as the mesmer does that 70% of the time makes me happy. People think they are getting away using it, when sometimes they should have stayed around their allies for some possible interruption, thus making them isolated for a good old fashioned peaceful kill .

Now. As for thief, I cannot stress how annoying it was, I literally gave up a bunch of times, or called my friend on skype to keep his eyes open to get him XD.
So much I thought it was A BUG!

Which annoyingly so reminds me of Guardians . Ill quote Larynx here

No, professions should not be the exact same. They should require different strategies to defeat. But that does not mean that you can forsake balance for diversity.

I agree for the thief dirty tatics as well for all my points made before for the "Balancing the Guardian Within the Own Class" xD

[Loaf Lord]

Back on topic...

Tome of Courage. Is it too good? It seems that every guardian is choosing it for their elite, and rightly so. For about 5 seconds worth of time, during which you have stability, you full heal yourself and 4 others. After that, you cast the #3 and maybe #4 or #2 after and then drop out of it. The other two profession elites seem to be lacking in comparison, and while the Tome of Courage #5 is around, I don't think they could ever compete. Further, is Tome of Courage too good in general?

Definitely good. Most use it as a get out of jail card if used properly. Too good? Eh... The only "OP" spell in it is incredibly slow.

[Exedore]

I dunno. When you cast it... you can't move. So...

How long is it's duration, 5 seconds? That's really not very long at all, compared to say... Rampage. Or Tornado. Ya know?

You have stability for the duration you're rooted, so not moving isn't a huge problem. The only way to stop the guardian is to kill them. But also note that the guardian's HP more than doubles during the spell. Tome of Courage itself lasts for 20 seconds. The point was that often, you cast the #5 spell, which has about a 3-5 second cast (never timed it), then another ability that grants boons and then you cancel it. That gets you a full heal on yourself and allies and then you go back to normal combat.

[WALSRU]

Tome of Courage, don't leave home without it! I wonder how much longer it lasts when traited for longer elite skills.

Can't wait to try Spirit Weapons. Especially as a little Asura. After watching the spirit hammer in action, that thing can keep you chain knocked down for a long time. Would be really fun for a change to play a defensive mage style. Torn on Scepter/Focus vs Staff for damage vs support.

I think I've really got it down to that Spirit Weapons Guardian Mage build and a more tuned version of my original in your face guardian build, which are the primary two I want to focus on testing next bwe.

"Get Him Off Me" Guardian. I want to be supportive but until people get more familiar with the game I better not rely on others too much. With this build I can get that visceral feeling of smacking people in the face combined with being very hard to budge off of a point. Not to mention every 180 seconds you get the best support spell in the game. I'm torn on the 20 points into radiance/virtues as I think it could just as easily go into something else. I got the idea from a video where a guardian fought a Mesmer and for every illusion he knocked down he could reapply Virtue of Justice over and over again. Any advice appreciated.

I really appreciate the help so far and I'll definitely look up the site's guild 7/20.

---------- Post added 2012-06-28 at 08:43 PM ----------





This is the sword/shield + hammer vid I was referring to earlier. And one more with similar meditation traits. I'm taking quite a few ideas from this guy, not sure if everyone's seen it.

P.S. glad I can finally post links, that was rough :P

[4KhazModan]

http://www.gw2tools.com/skills#g;ppa...baa;Zaaa;YZXcb

Possible build. Offensive focus with some utility, similar to a ret paladin I guess. Also, I really like the idea of the spirit weapons, so I chose 2 of em to use along side my other abilities.

I will probably play a human under the blessing of Balthazaar and "absolute justice". You are either my friend or my enemy kind of deal.

[Zilong]

@ walsru (cause you posted it)
@ Exedore, DrakeWurrum, Ynna.

The second video pretty much makes me feel "good" about all I said in this thread before. Burst, with sustained capability, VERY good survivability, (some mobility) AND support.

I rest my case.

[Exedore]

@ Exedore, DrakeWurrum, Ynna.

The second video pretty much makes me feel "good" about all I said in this thread before. Burst, with sustained capability, VERY good survivability, (some mobility) AND support.

I rest my case.

What burst did he do? In fact, what significant damage did he do? All the huge damage was from the Mesmer ally stacking up a ton of conditions. Yes, he does really well at defending a point until allies show up. But that role is for what his build is designed. He's definitely not going to be taking a point from an enemy with that build. Also, note how much of a game changer Tome of Courage is. Not to mention, [Win] wasn't doing very well as a team.

[Zilong]

What burst did he do? In fact, what significant damage did he do? All the huge damage was from the Mesmer ally stacking up a ton of conditions. Yes, he does really well at defending a point until allies show up. But that role is for what his build is designed. He's definitely not going to be taking a point from an enemy with that build. Also, note how much of a game changer Tome of Courage is. Not to mention, [Win] wasn't doing very well as a team.

Lol, I'm sorry my bad. It wasnt the second video. It was the first. I didnt even watch the second haha (now I did, and its cool too, very cool)

but my point still stands, and as a follow up:

Maybe not THE burst (altho I think he does an VERY OKAY damage for all the rest of what he can actually do.) Ill be honest and I posted that mid video as I was impressed, but after watching him being chased by 4 (and the cute ranger pet ) blue members and survived and then KILLED one, and helped killed another. I don't really see why no one (as in probably the only 3 posters quoted XD) doesn't slightly agree with me! xD

My wife who liked the necro and mesmer during bwe1 and bwe2 and is a very stubborn girl and WILL NEVER try other class if its happy with the current tried the guardian for the Stress Test.
Before the Stress Test she said "Who cares if no one agrees with you?" (Forever alone) and she even after reading my posts said that Altho what I say could make sense, she didnt believe me XD. On the Stress test she had enough of mesmer and necro (which I think for her are fairly cool but more complicated) she tried the Guardian XD. Im happy to tell that she found her class for Gw2 xD. Being that as not really a pvper, she enjoyed , survived, killed and supported XD not even knowing much about traits or gear (and I was too busy playing on my own to explain lol)

Now she agrees with me, but I dont think she want anything changed hahahha, biased people .

[Deleted]

There were already competitive matches going on in Beta? Sheesh.

[DrakeWurrum]

Before the Stress Test she said "Who cares if no one agrees with you?"

She has a point you know. If you're right, the Guardian will get nerfed. If you're wrong, you're wrong, and you'll constantly overestimate Guardians until you learn otherwise.

That being said: in both videos, when intense damage was done to the enemy, the Guardian was not alone. When he was alone, or with only one other person, often the enemy took damage slowly.

The whole POINT of a build where you're hard to kill is to out-last the opponent. If you've ever played LoL, you'll often find characters like Nasus, Amumu, Rammus, Cho'gath, etc... destroying a carry from the enemy team in 1v1, not because he literally does more damage, but because the carry can't deal enough damage to kill the tank before he dies. That's a very important distinction to make.
When players learn how to work as a team and protect the glass cannons on their teams (note: It'll be harder to pick them out in GW2 than in LoL, since the profession/weapons you pick does not decide your role, the way picking champion in LoL does), and when players learn to focus glass cannons first, you'll see this become less and less of an issue.

[zeelic]

I have a question that I can not find a anwser to lol. I am wanting to play a defense heavy guardian and trying to find some input on three stats that work together helping prevent raw damage. My guardian on the stress test had 3272 armor, 2000 thoughness, 1032 defense, but I could not find any info on the hero pan that showed % reduction or any other info on what they did. So my question is does anyone have a better understanding of how these stats reduce damage or any links to were I can read on the subject?

[DrakeWurrum]

I have a question that I can not find a anwser to lol. I am wanting to play a defense heavy guardian and trying to find some input on three stats that work together helping prevent raw damage. My guardian on the stress test had 3272 armor, 2000 thoughness, 1032 defense, but I could not find any info on the hero pan that showed % reduction or any other info on what they did. So my question is does anyone have a better understanding of how these stats reduce damage or any links to were I can read on the subject?

According to the wiki: The Attack (player statistic) is pitted against the defense's Armor (player statistic) to determine which percentage of the damage potential will reduce the target's health.

But I think it's more detailed than that. Hard to really get reliable info when we only have access to public betas and stress tests.

We DO know that Toughness has nothing to do with condition damage, however.

[Exedore]

Lol, I'm sorry my bad. It wasnt the second video. It was the first. I didnt even watch the second haha (now I did, and its cool too, very cool)

but my point still stands, and as a follow up:

Maybe not THE burst (altho I think he does an VERY OKAY damage for all the rest of what he can actually do.) Ill be honest and I posted that mid video as I was impressed, but after watching him being chased by 4 (and the cute ranger pet ) blue members and survived and then KILLED one, and helped killed another. I don't really see why no one (as in probably the only 3 posters quoted XD) doesn't slightly agree with me! xD

A good player against uncoordinated mediocre players always makes a class look very powerful. Also, the Radiance line with used with a sword is very powerful compared to any other guardian build. It gives +5% damage and +15% crit. That will probably be adjusted in BWE3, since ArenaNet said that only engineer traits are near final.

It's a good build though. A little of everything, but not extremely good at one thing in particular.

[zeelic]

Thank you Drake.