Recent guardian changes made him too powerful (at least in sPvP)

I'm talking about:

1. Staff rework
2. "Sword of Justice" skill

Staff now is too powerful. Previously it was support weapon, but now it's common to see Staff + Sword/Focus dps builds. This is common weapon set for trapper Dragonhunter now. Staff offers sustain and CC ("Line of Warding" is very powerful skill) with reasonable ranged damage while traps provides heavy burst. Pushing Dragonhunter from point is very hard task, while in teamfight he's not bad too.Focus 4 change was huge buff for guardian in sPvP. But it was bearable. Now Staff + Sw/F builds (trapper DH, dps Firebrands) are too powerful.So my complain here is not Staff rework itself, but Staff + Sw/F combo. It provides too much damage and sustain.

Another skill which is overtuned currently is "Sword of Justice". Here I have 3 concrete recalls:

• Show red circle on the ground where Sword of Justice spinning!!! This pale blue thing is barely visible even in clear area. In teamfight it's absolutely invisible.
• Reduce charge count to 2. It's damage, 180 radius and 20 sec cooldown is good enough. Especially after adding cripple to it in last patch.
• Reduce cast range to 500 and add some animation. Currently this thing just appears on you without any warning. Also I think it should be melee range skill (more or less), 900 range is too huge for this type of skill.

I fail to see a world where Line of Warding (staff 5) is too powerful. Massive cast time, massive cooldown, linear shape (easy to notice and avoid). The line being good in certain spots is not something exclusive to it. Staff's finally a decent ranged weapon for guardian instead of two-skill-wonder.

Focus 4 is the same, you can easily dodge it because of the animation and cast time. If you get hit by something so telegraphed you deserve to get punished.

Outside of Harrier builds, I haven't seen any DPS Firebrand, but I'm assuming they're just as glassy. How does staff provide any healing if you opt for DPS setup, anyways?

I have seen absolutely no one use Sword of Justice in pvp.

I quit for a month and spirit weapons are a thing?

wat

EDIT: Trapper DH? is it 2014?

Would you mind sharing the exact build via the editor please?

I used sword of justice for a bit myself but it was only effective with a burn build, I would like to see this power variant that uses staff and has good sustain, CC and DPS if possible.

It's not viable, it's not even decent. Dps Firebrand is an attrition build with less sustain and damage than soulbeast.Dying to staff DH does not even warrant a response.

Ray of judgement (focus 4) isn't really better than the old skill which had blinds and Condi removal.Dps guardians never lacked damage, all the skill does it bait dodges and proc full counters.

If a guardian has traps and sword of judgement, he has to meditations. This means he had no sustain and no fury.

It always made me angry how many times guard had completly reworked skills and some core proffesions which are in desperate need of rework are never touched

@Virelion.4128 said:It always made me angry how many times guard had completly reworked skills and some core proffesions which are in desperate need of rework are never touched

That's mostly confirmation bias on your side. The ones I can recall are reworks of ranger's shouts and spirits, mesmer's mantras and phantasms, necromancer's corruptions, as well as some lesser changes to elementalist's arcana and glyphs, engineer's gadgets and elixirs, warrior's shouts and physical, as well as various individual weapon skills across all professions.

lol Staff on a dps guard......im lilterally dying here from laughter not from guardian staff btw.

@Airdive.2613 said:

@Virelion.4128 said:It always made me angry how many times guard had completly reworked skills and some core proffesions which are in desperate need of rework are never touched

Outside of mesmer constant reworks I don't really see class which had comparable amount of changes introduced in core.How many weapons was funcionally changed in guard already.SwordShieldScepterStaffFocus

At the same time classes like necro are getting only coefs changed or slight cd reduction.

@"Vaeo.4097" said:("Line of Warding" is very powerful skill)

LOL

@"Virelion.4128" said:

Outside of mesmer constant reworks I don't really see class which had comparable amount of changes introduced in core.How many weapons was funcionally changed in guard already.SwordShieldScepterStaffFocus

At the same time classes like necro are getting only coefs changed or slight cd reduction.

• Sword 100% deserved the change. The auto attack being projectile was horrible design to begin with, and adding a symbol to #2 was logical since guardians didn't have access to symbol on every weapon.
• Shield 100% deserved the change. Shield was a very poor weapon before the rework.
• Same argument as sword for scepter. The "rework(s)" haven't really affected scepter all that much though. It pretty much feels and functions the same as vanilla GW2.
• I'll give you staff and focus, these were indeed unexpected reworks/changes. Do take note though, this is a grand total of three skills that have been reworked when the resources could have arguably been devoted to other classes more in need.

Three skills. Sure, that's more than some classes have gotten but not nearly as many as some certain other classes have received. Don't think there's much grounds for complaint here.

@Virelion.4128 said:It always made me angry how many times guard had completly reworked skills and some core proffesions which are in desperate need of rework are never touched

Guard has been untouched until 2018. WOW thanks for giving us 2 weapon skill changes knee the game is dead.

@"sephiroth.4217" said:Would you mind sharing the exact build via the editor please?

I used sword of justice for a bit myself but it was only effective with a burn build, I would like to see this power variant that uses staff and has good sustain, CC and DPS if possible.

Well, after your question I tried couple of games with standard Dragon Hunter build but with bow changed staff.

Now I see that staff doesn't add sustain. Instead it hits pretty hard in teamfights because auto chain 2 and 3 is AoE. Same for staff skill N2 and N3. Staff 5 (despite all "lol" i see here) is also very good if dropped properly in midst of teamfight. I've used something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAsdWn8cCVDhdDBWdCkdilGiSe4L+nPL+uv87aY3yAA-jZxHQBA4QAMyyAI8EAEwnAw52fAA

So the idea is to stay in backline and spam damage. At the right moment teleport in teamfight with sword 2 and use your traps (including healing skill) providing spike damage. Or use focus 4 to kill heavily damaged enemy. Although I'm not sure about Rune of Dragonhunter and Avatar amulet. Possibly Rune of Traveler with Marauder amulet would be better.

Also I think (but not sure) some guys prefer Radiance over Virtues for even more spike damage (but it requires testing).

This post got me by surprise in many different levels.

I am pretty much waiting to arrive at home to test said build and wonder why someone call staff broken.

I mean.... when I opened this post I was 100% sure it was someone complaining about the burst in the GS/meditation build.I am totally baffled.

@Vaeo.4097 said:So the idea is to stay in backline and spam damage. At the right moment teleport in teamfight with sword 2 and use your traps (including healing skill) providing spike damage.

Incoming Staff DH meta. Staff/Sw/Focus

If there ever was a reason to ask ANET to buff Longbow....when a DH has to use Staff for long range DPS. lololol

(sarcasm btw)

@Vaeo.4097 said:

@"sephiroth.4217" said:Would you mind sharing the exact build via the editor please?

I used sword of justice for a bit myself but it was only effective with a burn build, I would like to see this power variant that uses staff and has good sustain, CC and DPS if possible.

I think you're mistaken if you're under the impression that the staff changes give guard too much damage. Staff is still very poor as an offensive weapon.

Staff 1 is okay against a stationary target. 1 out of 3 of the auto attacks has trouble hitting a moving target. Even then its dps is just average at best.Staff 2 is weaker than trueshot (and on a longer cooldown), and trueshot already is only capable of 3.5-4.2k crits against many opponents.Staff 5 is a poor skill. There is so much counterplay around it that it's not even funny. It'a also just bad in a vacuum if you compare it to similar CCs on other classes.

What this looks like to me is you getting brutalized by a guardian, then going to the most recent patch notes, seeing the staff/spirit weapon changes, and just grasping at straws here to put together an argument.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Vaeo.4097 said:

@"sephiroth.4217" said:Would you mind sharing the exact build via the editor please?

I used sword of justice for a bit myself but it was only effective with a burn build, I would like to see this power variant that uses staff and has good sustain, CC and DPS if possible.

I don't see Sword Of Justice in the build so I tweaked the build a bit to make room for it, then I ran staff only all game. I played 1 game and recorded it so give me a few hours to post the game.

Are we seriously debating Sword of Justice being OP here?

@"Rufo.3716" said:Are we seriously debating Sword of Justice being OP here?

To be fair, the only time I've faced it "some time" (a season or two) ago, it seemed to do respectable damage. Not broken, obviously, but rather intimidating. It's not a bad skill if you want to have more area pressure.

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Vaeo.4097 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:Would you mind sharing the exact build via the editor please?

I used sword of justice for a bit myself but it was only effective with a burn build, I would like to see this power variant that uses staff and has good sustain, CC and DPS if possible.

Here's the game, Staff only with Sword Of Justice

@sephiroth.4217 said:

Thanks for the music, using it when I'm working xd.

Staff DH with elite trap and spirit weapons is overpowered??? Is this an actual joke?

Haha! Git good ;)