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Guardian Balance Changes Discussion


Derm.4932

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GuardianFor guardians, some power from various trait lines is being shifted around in order to create better tiered trait options. The Retribution trait in the Radiance line had a lot of power and was crowding out other options. We're transferring this power over to the Zeal line, along with a few other trait reworks to make that type of damage bonus more reliable. While most symbols will become more powerful as a result of these changes, we're taking special care with Symbol of Punishment due to its low recharge. For this symbol, we have reduced the damage of the extra strikes rather than the symbol itself, as they cause the skill to have unpredictable damage based on the size of the target. Overall, these two changes net a small enhancement to the skill. Additionally, we are tuning up a few dragonhunter skills and traits to both improve their use cases and clarify their descriptions.

Spear of Light: This skill now scales damage dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.Leap of Faith: This skill now heals you for each foe hit in addition to its previous effects.Deflecting Shot: This skill no longer deals bonus damage if a missile is reflected. Increased base damage by 80%.Symbol of Energy: Increased projectile speed by 25%.Symbolic Avenger: This trait has been reworked. It now increases the guardian's damage by 2% stacking (max 5 stacks) for 15 seconds whenever a symbol hits a foe.Symbolic Power: Increased the symbol damage from 10% to 30%. This trait no longer has a chance to inflict burning. Instead it causes symbols to charge your Justice passive effect twice as fast.Symbol of Punishment: Lowered the damage of extra strikes by 25% in PvE.Symbolic Exposure: This trait now increases damage to vulnerable foes by 5% in addition to its previous effects.Protective Reviver: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to not increase revive speed.Zealous Blade: This trait no longer heals when combined with a light field or grants 10% bonus damage when wielding a greatsword. Instead it grants +120 power plus an additional +120 power while wielding a greatsword in addition to reducing greatsword skill recharge by 20%.Eternal Armory: Increased burning stacks from 1 to 2.Retribution: This trait no longer grants bonus ferocity.Radiant Power: This trait now grants +150 ferocity.Pure of Sight: This trait now scales dynamically based on distance from the target. Scaling has been adjusted from 5% to 15%.Spear of Justice: This skill has been updated so the tether aspect doesn't fail against world bosses as frequently.

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[PvP] IMO Guardian made off decently well in this balance patch. GS core guard got buffed with an extra 150 ferocity on Radiant Power and heal on Leap of Faith(although they didn't mention how much LoF will heal). The change to Deflecting Shot was a great change since it was unreliable/buggy as a projectile block - now LB will do more damage overall which was definitely needed. Symbol of Energy is a good change, but relatively minor. Pure of Sight changes seem like a sidegrade. I wonder if new Zeal/Honor/FB builds will arise due to the big buff on Symbolic Power, although I can't say I'm a fan of that type of symbol spam gameplay.

More importantly Soulbeast unblockables got hit HARD. Unstoppable Union no longer has unblockable and Call of the Wild/Clarion Bond were changed from duration based to number of attacks + duration. This should help DH a lot since Soulbeast was always a brick wall hard counter for it.

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They don't appear to be split changes, not at least from what I can tell from the notes provided.

here is a confusing one to me:

Symbolic Power: I don't understand how Justice passive 'charges' twice as fast ... it's not a time based application, it's based on # of hits. Also, how does Anet cut '5' in half? Will it trigger on 3 hits? What about if you have Permeating Wrath going? Not clear to me.

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Overall, seems like tiny buffs, but nothing significant. Doesn't do much to counteract all that guard has lost in the last few sets of balancing patches and i doubt it will make guard viable in PVP again.

A bit of ferocity over crit chance is a wash. A bunch of symbol traits that will likely still be sub par to the other choices for most environments. Leap heal replacing on-hit heal with GS (i'll miss the on-hit for gorse and fractals, it ended up being a lot of healing). 240 power is probably going to end up being equivalent to 10% damage, but the increase when using other weapons will be nice.

I'll be interested to see if the raid build for guard goes up in dps. I could see dropping RI due to the ease of capping crit and might. Not sure how much you have to trade to get back to 100% crit without RI or Radiant Power.

I'm guessing that each hit will count as two for justice passive charge. When you hit 5, it would wrap to triggering plus 1 to the counter for the next 5.

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@Aigleborgne.2981 said:

@Ragnarox.9601 said:no buffs to spirit weapons and sigils? me disappointed. Again, they have no clue about balancing and real problems of guardians.

Sword of justice were buff through trait, inflicting 2 stacks of burning, so from 4 to 8 stacks.For other spirit weapons, nothing.

Eternal Armory: Increased burning stacks from 1 to 2 should improve all spirit weapons except Bow.

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@TheAgedGnome.7520 said:

@Ragnarox.9601 said:no buffs to spirit weapons and sigils? me disappointed. Again, they have no clue about balancing and real problems of guardians.

Sword of justice were buff through trait, inflicting 2 stacks of burning, so from 4 to 8 stacks.For other spirit weapons, nothing.

Eternal Armory
: Increased burning stacks from 1 to 2
should improve all spirit weapons except Bow.

Sure it will. But I didn't mention it because others just do one hit. While sword gains 4 new stacks, others get one. Plus sword can hit 5 targets, it is just that good, potential of 40 burn stacks with one utility.

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@Obtena.7952 said:They don't appear to be split changes, not at least from what I can tell from the notes provided.

here is a confusing one to me:

Symbolic Power: I don't understand how Justice passive 'charges' twice as fast ... it's not a time based application, it's based on # of hits. Also, how does Anet cut '5' in half? Will it trigger on 3 hits? What about if you have Permeating Wrath going? Not clear to me.

It seems that Symbolic Power will count as 2 hits from symbols, with the counter wrapping around to the next iteration when it goes over. So 3 hits from Symbolic Powered symbols for Justice to proc, with the next proc in 2 symbol hits. If you have Permeating Wrath traited it will be 2 and then 1 hit from a symbol to proc. Coupled with Eternal Armory, Guards just got a big boost to the number of burn stacks they can output. I might have to switch my FotM character from my warrior to my guardian now...

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@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:They don't appear to be split changes, not at least from what I can tell from the notes provided.

here is a confusing one to me:

Symbolic Power: I don't understand how Justice passive 'charges' twice as fast ... it's not a time based application, it's based on # of hits. Also, how does Anet cut '5' in half? Will it trigger on 3 hits? What about if you have Permeating Wrath going? Not clear to me.

They will either round up or down. So, probably 3/2 or 2/1 split with Symbolic Power/Symbolic Power+Permeating Wrath. Guards just got a boost to the number of burn stacks they can output.

That's a big fear actually ... Hammer is ALREADY too heavily loaded on it's auto ... now we can get lots of burning stacks from it too?

Dear Anet ... fix your damn Guardian Hammer symbol.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:They don't appear to be split changes, not at least from what I can tell from the notes provided.

here is a confusing one to me:

Symbolic Power: I don't understand how Justice passive 'charges' twice as fast ... it's not a time based application, it's based on # of hits. Also, how does Anet cut '5' in half? Will it trigger on 3 hits? What about if you have Permeating Wrath going? Not clear to me.

They will either round up or down. So, probably 3/2 or 2/1 split with Symbolic Power/Symbolic Power+Permeating Wrath. Guards just got a boost to the number of burn stacks they can output.

That's a big fear actually ... Hammer is ALREADY too heavily loaded on it's auto ... now we can get lots of burning stacks from it too?

Dear Anet ... fix your kitten Guardian Hammer symbol.

Well, Guard hammer is the best AA in the game :wink: The rest of it sucks though... I'd be interested in seeing how many burn stacks a hammer can generate with these changes relative to sword, GS, and scepter.

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I just scanned quickly, this seems like a nerf in PvP. Some damage shifted to symbols, 5% damage to targets with vulnerablity, this stuff does not work reliably in PvP. they also removed GS healing. That was the only sustain zeal line offered. DH changes, are change for the sake of change. They should have no impact. FB was not touched, LMAO.

Overall, it is a reshuffling of damage between radiance and zeal, with slight nerf to sustainability. Zero impact in PvE and nerf in PvP. This continues Anet trend of clueless changes.

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@otto.5684 said:I just scanned quickly, this seems like a nerf in PvP. Some damage shifted to symbols, 5% damage to targets with vulnerablity, this stuff does not work reliably in PvP. they also removed GS healing. That was the only sustain zeal line offered. DH changes, are change for the sake of change. They should have no impact. FB was not touched, LMAO.

Overall, it is a reshuffling of damage between radiance and zeal, with slight nerf to sustainability. Zero impact in PvE and nerf in PvP. This continues Anet trend of clueless changes.

Nobody uses Zeal in PvP so it's actually a buff. You get a free heal!Remains to be seen whether it's actually a useful amount though.

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@Yannir.4132 said:

@"otto.5684" said:I just scanned quickly, this seems like a nerf in PvP. Some damage shifted to symbols, 5% damage to targets with vulnerablity, this stuff does not work reliably in PvP. they also removed GS healing. That was the only sustain zeal line offered. DH changes, are change for the sake of change. They should have no impact. FB was not touched, LMAO.

Overall, it is a reshuffling of damage between radiance and zeal, with slight nerf to sustainability. Zero impact in PvE and nerf in PvP. This continues Anet trend of clueless changes.

Nobody uses Zeal in PvP so it's actually a buff. You get a free heal!Remains to be seen whether it's actually a useful amount though.

I have been playing Zeal/radiance/valor in sPvP for at least a year now. It is not as common as virtues variant. And I took it to P2 after the nerf of RI. I think it was as viable virtues. Regardless, this is all in the past now..

Anyway, looking at the details in more depth:

  1. Radiance as a line is still locked into the same traits, contrary to what Anet thinks that they created "options." Same for Zeal.
  2. Zeal does more damage. Symbols deal more damage. 5% damage to targets with vulnerability, should be more damage than 100 ferocity lost from retribution.
  3. As far as I can tell, DH meta PvE power should deal slightly more damage.
  4. The power variance between GS and everything else, is reduced a bit. Same goes for using torch in power build.
  5. We could see a PvE variant of condi build using zeal instead of radiance or virtues with FB, relying on internal armory for burning. I still think FB/virtues/radiance will lead, but the margin will be smaller. Core condi will be slightly better, but should remain not competitive.
  6. sPvP wise, thinking about it again, symbolic avenger is probably more reliable now, in terms for damage bonus. The rest is around the same. Loss of heal surely does not help a build that has sustain issues. Overall, core guardian, is slightly better off damage wise with zeal/radiance/honor. In no way though, it would be sPvP meta. Virtues/radiance/valor lost 100 ferocity. So.. Update on this, I just noticed leap of faith heals. Will see how that works out.
  7. As for DH, I think the changes might add WvW viability. sPvP wise, changes are nearly useless. Maybe 60 patches later it will be viable.

Overall, if we take guardian as a whole. FB had zero changes and support will continue to be over performing in PvP. DH will remain no PvP viable. Core also remains not sPvP viable, with virtues being slightly worse-off and zeal slightly better. I personally judge changes on 3 criteria: 1) did it create new builds, 2) did it make nonviable builds/weapons viable, 3) did it tone down an over performing build. The zeal changes could open the door to a PvE condi build variant. Otherwise, the changes have little to no impact. I would give Anet a C.

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Again, their idea of giving us "trait options" has fallen flat on its face. People will still pick the very same traits they did before since only thing Anet did is reshuffle modifiers.I'm not sure how this changes anything for either PvP or PvE when we are talking about selected traits.

It seems that symbols are going to be slightly stronger which is probably going to translate into slight buff for PvE but probably wont be anything significant for PvP.Condi builds will probably see decent increase in damage, while pDps will have some spillover effect from faster burning procs.

Overall, nothing game changing in my opinion

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@Obtena.7952 said:They don't appear to be split changes, not at least from what I can tell from the notes provided.

here is a confusing one to me:

Symbolic Power: I don't understand how Justice passive 'charges' twice as fast ... it's not a time based application, it's based on # of hits. Also, how does Anet cut '5' in half? Will it trigger on 3 hits? What about if you have Permeating Wrath going? Not clear to me.

This not unlike the change that they did to Amplified Wrath where their was a 20% increase to burning duration they alot of people thought was to all burning but was actually only to the burning from the passive from the Justice virtue (very underwhelming particularly when viewed against what was lost) and here this leaves us wondering how can they implement this or is this just a total case of mix up on the notes

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@"kasoki.5180" said:Again, their idea of giving us "trait options" has fallen flat on its face. People will still pick the very same traits they did before since only thing Anet did is reshuffle modifiers.I'm not sure how this changes anything for either PvP or PvE when we are talking about selected traits.

It seems that symbols are going to be slightly stronger which is probably going to translate into slight buff for PvE but probably wont be anything significant for PvP.Condi builds will probably see decent increase in damage, while pDps will have some spillover effect from faster burning procs.

Overall, nothing game changing in my opinion

Ya man. This is the third patch now Anet says they made a change saying it is to open "choices," yet no one will choose the other traits over the currently used ones. This does not even require deep understanding of the class. Just by reading the traits, it is very clear which ones to be used, with which build and why. Forget Anet not understanding why specific traits are mandatory. Do they even read :/

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