Core Guardian Buff Suggestions

shadowpass.4236 · December 12, 2019

Heya, I was asked by one of you guys if I'd ever thought about Guardian, it's place in the meta, and the strengths and weaknesses of it's various elites. I've already sent this list to a few Guardian mains, including a good friend of mine, Mrauls. With their approval, these are some buff suggestions to Core Guardian I came up with a few months back. Feel free to share your thoughts. :)

Guardian

General

Symbol of Blades and Judge's Intervention no longer require targets. You can now teleport to a target location or to an enemy if you have them selected.

Weapon Skills

Leap of Faith: This skill is now an evade.
Shield of Wrath: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 35 seconds to 25 seconds. This skill now blocks attacks for 2 seconds. If an attack is blocked, the shield explodes and damages nearby foes at the end of the channel. The base damage has been reduced from 800 to 500 and the activation remains a blast finisher.
Ray of Judgement: Reverted the skill back to the 4 bounce, 1200 range blind.

Healing Skills, Utilities, Elites, and Virtues

Judge's Intervention: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 45 seconds to 35 seconds.
Renewed Focus: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 90 seconds to 75 seconds.
Virtue of Justice: Increased this skill's cooldown from 20 seconds to 24 seconds. (Yes, "nerf," but keep reading for the Wrath of Justice change)
Virtue of Resolve: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
Virtue of Courage: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 45 seconds to 38 seconds.
Shelter: This skill is now a Consecration. Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds. Reduced the cast time from 1.25 seconds to 1 second. This skill no longer blocks. Instead, it grants Aegis to yourself and nearby allies on activation. Cancelling this skill places it on full cooldown. Base healing has been increased from 4.5k to 5.5k.

Traits

Absolute Resolution: This trait also grants 5% cooldown reduction to Virtue of Resolve
Indomitable courage: This trait also gives 5% cooldown reduction to Virtue of Courage. Stability duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
Unscathed Contender: This skill now causes you to deal 1% more damage for every 10% of health you have and take 1% less damage for every 10% of health you are missing. (10% damage buff at full health, 10% damage reduction under 10% health)
Wrath of Justice: Removed internal cooldown from this trait. Immobilize duration has been reduced to 1 second from 3 seconds. (Similar to Panic Strike but trades a "weaker" effect for a shorter cooldown)
Focus Mastery: This skill now causes Focus skills to gain 20% reduced recharge, remove 1 condition on activation, and heal for 200 every time they hit a target. The protection has been removed.
Inner Fire: This skill has been renamed to Melee Training/Justice is Swift. It now grants 25% increased movement speed while wielding melee weapons. Movement skills on your melee weapons have 100 longer range.

Lord Trejgon.2809 · December 12, 2019

@shadowpass.4236 said:Heya, I was asked by one of you guys if I'd ever thought about Guardian, it's place in the meta, and the strengths and weaknesses of it's various elites. I've already sent this list to a few Guardian mains, including a good friend of mine, Mrauls. With their approval, these are some buff suggestions to Core Guardian I came up with a few months back. Feel free to share your thoughts. :)
Guardian
General
Symbol of Blades and Judge's Intervention no longer require targets. You can now teleport to a target location or to an enemy if you have them selected.

Yes Please Very Much.

Inner Fire: This skill has been renamed to Melee Training/Justice is Swift. It now grants 25% increased movement speed while wielding melee weapons. Movement skills on your melee weapons have 100 longer range.

personally I like the inner fire the way it is right now - altho I am mostly running builds focused around burning....

Ashimmu.4219 · December 12, 2019

Very good suggestions! Some are surprizingly creative (Unscathed Contender).Leap of Fait - good call (honestly, all this time I thought I was evading when leaping hehe:))Wrath of Justice - makes this fire attunement of Guard finally meaningful!Decreased cooldowns of Virtues makes Guard stronger yet not overpowered.I wouldn't touch Inner Fire, though, since it brings Guard dangerously close to Warrior in terms of mobility.Also cannot agree with targetless teleporting part on JI and SoB.Imagine - you could teleport up and down, with short cooldowns when both skills are picked (keep in mind already boosted defenses.. yikes!).I'd bring more 'defensive' tweaks instead.I wrote down mines in dedicated thread (to save reading space), btw: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/89718/feedback-guardian-random-tweaks-buffs

otto.5684 · December 13, 2019

I do not agree with many of these changes, but surely core Guardian needs major changes if it is ever to be competitive. I highly doubt any good changes to ever happen. The last core rearrangement Anet did killed any viability core had. I dunno if I want Anet to fuck with it anymore. The odds of them breaking things is far higher than fixing anything.

miguelsil.6324 · December 13, 2019

I honestly think that If greatsword had evade on 3 and 5 was instant cast with the pull done automatically like necro grasp would help alot.

Also scepter is ridiculous for a ranged weapon the autos should be as fast as DH LB.

sword 3 could have evade instead of reflect.

torch 5 should remove condis from guardian or be one shot without cast time and transfer 2 condis per target.

Mace 2 instant cast with regen and remove the heal from mace auto 3.

Yannir.4132 · December 13, 2019

@shadowpass.4236 said:
Ray of Judgement: Reverted the skill back to the 4 bounce, 1200 range blind.

This is a nerf, not a buff. The old version of the skill was pathetic.I wouldn't mind getting the Blind back but into the current skill even if that would include nerfing the damage on it.Changing it like this would hit PvE pretty hard as well.

Shelter: This skill is now a Consecration.

FTFY. It really doesn't need anything else. Master of Consecrations would make this a pretty good skill.If there's a heal on Guardian that needs fixing, it's Signet of Resolve. The passive is useless.

Focus Mastery: This skill now causes Focus skills to gain 20% reduced recharge, remove 1 condition on activation, and heal for 200 every time they hit a target. The protection has been removed.

I agree with removing the Protection but not the rest of it. Focus is not exactly a defensive weapon nor should it be. I'd rather the trait gained you 2 seconds of Retaliation when using an off-hand skill and 3 seconds of Fury when using a focus skill.(Edit: This change would also include replacing the Fury on Monk's Focus with a defensive boon)Would also conform it to the current standard for weapon traits.

Inner Fire: This skill has been renamed to Melee Training/Justice is Swift. It now grants 25% increased movement speed while wielding melee weapons. Movement skills on your melee weapons have 100 longer range.

Inner Fire is a very good trait for any kind of solo PvE, and Guardians best source of Fury in that context. It's not a PvP trait so just leave it be.

Sobx.1758 · December 13, 2019

@miguelsil.6324 said:I honestly think that If greatsword had evade on 3

Sure, because aoe leap blinding attack that heals doesn't do enough already :lol:

and 5 was instant cast with the pull done automatically like necro grasp would help alot.

Yeah, because more instant high dmg cc is what this game needs. So much for your claims about wanting balance for every class (instead of clearly asking for nerfs to classes you don't play and buffs for your cheese aoe burst builds). lmao

sword 3 could have evade instead of reflect.

It's guardian. It shouldn't be an evade, reflect fits. If you want to play evasive class, play an evasive class.

Not even commenting about the rest, because that's just hilarious :D

Aeolus.3615 · December 13, 2019

I read stuff in that post that feel more guardian alike, than what Anet made the class to be....

I actually liked some of the traits...

miguelsil.6324 · December 13, 2019

@Sobx.1758 said:
@miguelsil.6324 said:I honestly think that If greatsword had evade on 3

Sure, because aoe leap blinding attack that heals doesn't do enough already :lol:

You might be confusing DH f2 with GS3

ZDragon.3046 · December 13, 2019

Why guardians dont need buffs the core profession is already one of the strongest in the game as it is its nearly perfectly weighted every strength having a equal quickness to how you build it. To buff core aspects of guardians more than this would offset that.

The only change i agree without out of all of this isShelter: This skill is now a Consecration.

That should be a thing because i dont like uncategorized skill types.

Everything else just dont unless you want some considerably harder nerfs making them worse than they are currently 4 months later.

Sobx.1758 · December 13, 2019

@miguelsil.6324 said:
@Sobx.1758 said:
@miguelsil.6324 said:I honestly think that If greatsword had evade on 3

Sure, because aoe leap blinding attack that heals doesn't do enough already :lol:

You might be confusing DH f2 with GS3

You literally don't know the skills of the profession you play and yet somehow you think you're fit to make balance changes for every class in the game including the ones you don't even touch. That actually explains a bit.

miguelsil.6324 · December 13, 2019

@Sobx.1758 said:
@miguelsil.6324 said:
@Sobx.1758 said:
@miguelsil.6324 said:I honestly think that If greatsword had evade on 3

Sure, because aoe leap blinding attack that heals doesn't do enough already :lol:

You might be confusing DH f2 with GS3

You literally don't know the skills of the profession you play and yet somehow you think you're fit to make balance changes for every class in the game including the ones you don't even touch. That actually explains a bit.

As it is a weapon I do not usually play at all since almost 3 years ago due to the powercreep making it a liability in wvw and the change just happened this year in the summer I suggested that change as it would make sense as warriors have it on theirs for no good known reason.

Leaps are actually abilities I would understand to have evade and if necessary cut damage denial somewhere else.The change would make the weapon a good choice for Core guardian against other elites that came after.

Sobx.1758 · December 13, 2019

@miguelsil.6324 said:
@Sobx.1758 said:
@miguelsil.6324 said:
@Sobx.1758 said:
@miguelsil.6324 said:I honestly think that If greatsword had evade on 3

Sure, because aoe leap blinding attack that heals doesn't do enough already :lol:

You might be confusing DH f2 with GS3

You literally don't know the skills of the profession you play and yet somehow you think you're fit to make balance changes for every class in the game including the ones you don't even touch. That actually explains a bit.

As it is a weapon I do not usually play at all since almost 3 years ago due to the powercreep making it a liability in wvw and the change just happened this year in the summer I suggested that change as it would make sense as warriors have it on theirs for no good known reason.

3 years? Interesting, seeing how you've posted multiple guardian videos in the past few months while using greatsword. But lets forget about that, what matters here is that you're trying to make balancing suggestions about the skills you don't actually know. Overloading skills is not a solution, actually it only makes things worse.

The change would make the weapon a good choice for Core guardian against other elites that came after.

It already is a good weapon choice.

Edu.6984 · December 14, 2019

@Yannir.4132 said:
If there's a heal on Guardian that needs fixing, it's Signet of Resolve. The passive is useless.

The passive used to be OK 7 years ago. Now with the power creep it is useless. There are way too many condi sources in the game. Should get the same treatment as sigil of cleansing, go from 1 condi clear to 3.

Fueki.4753 · December 14, 2019

@miguelsil.6324 said:I honestly think that If greatsword had evade on 3 and 5 was instant cast with the pull done automatically like necro grasp would help alot.Only if the debuff and later manual pull still are accessible.

miguelsil.6324 · December 14, 2019

@Fueki.4753 said:
@miguelsil.6324 said:I honestly think that If greatsword had evade on 3 and 5 was instant cast with the pull done automatically like necro grasp would help alot.Only if the debuff and later manual pull still are accessible.

That would be too much. The evade alone would be a great improvement as it is frustrating to use the leap and get shot mid air into a cc casted while leaping.

Fueki.4753 · December 14, 2019

@miguelsil.6324 said:That would be too much. The evade alone would be a great improvement as it is frustrating to use the leap and get shot mid air into a cc casted while leaping.Then don't touch GS 5.

aelska.4609 · January 1, 2020

General
Symbol of Blades and Judge's Intervention no longer require targets. You can now teleport to a target location or to an enemy if you have them selected.

Why not, but it goes against my conception of the guard: "win or die but don't escape"

Weapon Skills
Leap of Faith: This skill is now an evade.

Not a huge fan of additional effects to existing effects, as it promotes spammy gameplay. A defensive and simultaneously offensive skill with low CD, that blinds and heals, not for me. An offensive skill that leaves you vulnerable so you have to time it right ? Yep, better.

Shield of Wrath: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 35 seconds to 25 seconds. This skill now blocks attacks for 2 seconds. If an attack is blocked, the shield explodes and damages nearby foes at the end of the channel. The base damage has been reduced from 800 to 500 and the activation remains a blast finisher.

Same, current situation makes it use either defensively or offensively, but never both at the same time. Your proposition goes against that.

Ray of Judgement: Reverted the skill back to the 4 bounce, 1200 range blind.

Totally agree. The change was pure bs, it's fun to have unlimited range but come on, older skill was way better.

Healing Skills, Utilities, Elites, and Virtues
Judge's Intervention: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 45 seconds to 35 seconds.

It's still relatively high CD, but it would definitely help balancing around the mobility of other classes. But i'd rather give guardians an other "gap closer port", see my proposition of virtues of justice

Renewed Focus: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 90 seconds to 75 seconds.

Why not, it won't be a game changer anyway.

Virtue of Justice: Increased this skill's cooldown from 20 seconds to 24 seconds. (Yes, "nerf," but keep reading for the Wrath of Justice change)
Virtue of Resolve: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
Virtue of Courage: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 45 seconds to 38 seconds.

Virtues are badly designed and a deep rework on them would be beneficial. Imo, virtues should have strong passive effect and midly strong instantaneous active effect on a very high CD (60s ? More ?) so that the player gets rewarded for not spamming them, but also gets rewarded for using them on a good timing. I'd recommend something like

Virtue of justice: Active: an other judge's intervention-like skill when active. I dunno about passive, maybe very short "protection on hit". Passive: should definitely be changed imo, as burning is quite specific. Maybe might ? Burning should come from a related trait.
Virtue of resolve: Something between Contemplation of Purity and "Save Yourselves!". Full cleanse, maybe also from allies. Passive: healing ... why not, but better healing then. Also, small cleanse ?
Virtue of Courage: Active: Break-stun/stability/protection/aegis (one, the other or all, i'm just giving idea) to allies and self. Passive: i find a random pop of aegis to be too "cocky". Protection/speed ?

Shelter: This skill is now a Consecration. Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds. Reduced the cast time from 1.25 seconds to 1 second. This skill no longer blocks. Instead, it grants Aegis to yourself and nearby allies on activation. Cancelling this skill places it on full cooldown. Base healing has been increased from 4.5k to 5.5k.

As I agree the skill needs a rework, I am not sure it would make it stronger or unique. It rathers lookl like a budget version of FB heal.

Traits
Absolute Resolution: This trait also grants 5% cooldown reduction to Virtue of Resolve
Indomitable courage: This trait also gives 5% cooldown reduction to Virtue of Courage. Stability duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.
Unscathed Contender: This skill now causes you to deal 1% more damage for every 10% of health you have and take 1% less damage for every 10% of health you are missing. (10% damage buff at full health, 10% damage reduction under 10% health)
Wrath of Justice: Removed internal cooldown from this trait. Immobilize duration has been reduced to 1 second from 3 seconds. (Similar to Panic Strike but trades a "weaker" effect for a shorter cooldown)

Not gonna review these as, imo, virtues should be changed first. Traits should then be created to orient these virtues on very specialized gameplay.

Focus Mastery: This skill now causes Focus skills to gain 20% reduced recharge, remove 1 condition on activation, and heal for 200 every time they hit a target. The protection has been removed.

Could work.

Inner Fire: This skill has been renamed to Melee Training/Justice is Swift. It now grants 25% increased movement speed while wielding melee weapons. Movement skills on your melee weapons have 100 longer range.

Traitlines should be organized first before making such a change. That would be a huge buff on an actually very popular traitline.

Mini Crinny.6190 · January 1, 2020