Kanto.2485

Honestly i see no point for 15vs15 in pvp, that's definetly wvw scale. Hopefully it'll have wvw balance.

There are fewer people playing raids and as a result last raid wing came out over two years ago XD Anyway yeah, this is pretty agreeable. Nothing new though, which is the problem.

Trapper runes should be removed because they are annoying, but the build right now is barely viable only because of those. Guards in general still have huge issues with condi pressure, no reveals (except two bad ones on dh only) and no answer to unblockables. If you wanna see a non cheesy dps guard build at serious levels those have to be addressed.

I mean in EU we often have the first 10 players with 0 losses and >30 wins, they simply don't queue at the same times so they don't play against each other but against high gold/low plat unorganized players who obviously don't stand a chance. The game simply doesn't have enough population for pvp matchmaking to work, which is a result of the treatment pvp had from the dev team.

Imagine not being able to kill a class whose mobility on the stronger meta build is the two base dodges lol. in 3v3 at high levels you don't even play support guard (or any guard really) because any class with unblockables can just chase it until it's dead. Then again, if you refuse to slot unblockables or use them as rev, or if you facetank hammer 2, gs2 or lb2...you deserve to lose to guards really. Support fb has been op for a couple patches on release like pretty much every PoF espec, then it's been destroyed, symbolbrand recieved the same treatment of being removed from the game in a few patches once it became popular. At the current state even core support after the several nerfs it received isn't so strong anymore, it's only used because every other support except scourge is incredibly bad, like really, tempests did not deserve this either XD So yeah Willbender is so balanced i played one game in pvp with it and logged off, since you know, it was so balanced i needed something op to go back to, like power core guard.

PvE dmg is worse than dragonhunter and core guardian with the rotation being pretty much the same. In WvW it melts and skills are bad in general for the gamemode, so it's to be expected here. Problem is it's bad in PvP as well which i suppose is where it was supposed to be good, the dmg is bad and it is squishy, the mobility is on high cds for the distance traveled and mostly on target making it hard to roam as well, virtues passive effects requiring to hit 5 times is bad for the gamemode considering the class has to keep kiting and can't stay on targets hitting them. The biggest problem though is that all shadowsteps have an animation AFTER the shadowstep, which means that if targets just walk away they don't get hit, like for greatsword 3. Also you are forced to take the meditations for cleansing and virtue reset so you can fit in at most two physical skills other than the heal skill, which also either does not work or is really bad.

PvE damage is trash, WvW is trash, Was hoping for it to be decent in pvp, but as i though, it's complete trash lol, dmg is bad and it's paper, healskill either doesn't work or is even worse than the others. Also mobility is high cd, short distance and mostly target bound, making it impossible to roam as well... So yeah, called it XD

If someone wanted to make a support willbender he would not chose any of those traits and leave the slot empty XD And if someone wanted to support on guard he would not chose willbender, like really, dh doesn't have party support nerfs but you don't play support dh lol.

Sorry bro, the class has no access to reveal whatsoever so...

I think it's terrible in general for anything that isn't pvp, and even there i'm worried about condition pressure since it literally only has resistance to deal with it, and we saw what that did to mallyx rev with recent changes... Like, 240 concentration for reduced support that the build doesn't have anyway, -240 toughness on a class with 11k base hp, 240 healing power for reduced healing to allies that you do not have just doesn't make any sense. The only trait that looks god is the virtues cdr one. Edit:the virtue cdr thing is together with the resistance trait, so that's also a no XD

You may have not noticed that there is not a single condition cleanse in anything about this spec, which already forces you to take the 40 sec cd meditation which is the only good cleanse the class has

Hol'up I just realized none of the movement skills on willbender had evade frames right? that's kind of...a problem Edit: 1/2 second on f2 and 1/2 second on the stunbreak

Well 2.5k heal on two charges isn't even bad if you consider the guard hp pool and how much the other heal skills suck., also the physical stunbreak seems very good on that cd. But yeah you are forced to get contemplation of purity, which is a 40 sec cd stunbreak+cleanse.

This is worse than i thought. Don't get me wrong, animation are flashy and the concept is fine, but think how this will actualize in the game: In PvE you are afk until you can press f1 and burst with gs and the new whirly thing, so same exact thing as dh with the whirl instead of the trap, in wvw blobs it's going to be useless since it's all meelee with very short range. It's only going to be good in pvp where you'll play as something in between a rev and a thief, so it's gonna be obnoxious as hell to play against with all that mobility, but hey i guess for once we get to be the real aids in that gamemode, so karma for all the people who kept complaining about the punching bag guards have been until now there. Also there's not a single condition cleanse in the entire set, so you are forced into the resitance trait, and for damaging conditions...i guess you have the 40 cd meditation, or you can stand inside purging flames XD

Well, blue revenant confirmed.

Exactly my point, unless anet manages to amaze us i doubt we'll get a different playstile. Core guard and dh would be good meelee bruiser classes in pvp if the gamemode had an actual balance team, the options in terms of utilities would be there, unfortunately 90% of guardian utilities in pvp are completely useless. Now we get an offhand sword, so condi is out of the question probably (condi spec was supposed to be firebrand, and it is in PvE, while in pvp and wvw it got nerfed to the point of being unplayable), and so is the "control fighter" option (which fb could be too if it wasn't for the nerfs). Likely we'll be getting a couple power skills on offhand sword which we may or may not be able to use since power guards really need offhand focus or shield due to low hp pool and high cds on defensive skills/no evades. Now whatever new utilities/traits we get will -->hopefully<--- solve this problem by adding evade frames/mobility to allow for kiting or something of the sort, and then guard might even be available as a duelist, but then why don't i swap character to my revenant? what will be unique about playing a guardian? A warhorn wouldn't necessarily relegate guard to support, you can only choose one one elite spec and fb is already so powerful in that role i doubt a warhorn would replace it. On the other hand having an offhand weapon with boon application (like fury which power guards have trouble getting in pvp) and maybe conditions too (i could see fear, weakness, vulnerability and such coming from an intimidating warhorn skill) could add to versatility, and contribute in different ways to different playstyles, making something unique. Now once we get an offhand sword so we can chase down people with shadowsteps and burst them with power skills, what's new about the playstyle? What will be new in PvE? we'll play greatsword/sword-sword instead of greatsword/sword-focus (if focus won't still be better) with slightly different traits (because radiance and zeal will 90% remain) and maybe 1-2 new power utilities to replace traps, maybe a stance so we can press it off cd and be afk instead of lining it up with a burst. On top of that, getting another sword just doesn't fit well with the class's flavor.

The image's background color in the forum post about the beta was blue, so sadly i belive that'll be the guardian. Already looks like yet another boring power dps spec that will just overlap with dh, and the 3rd missed chance to get a warhorn on a class that was originally designed as a support. I hope that with this power guard will become decent in pvp at least.

Actual bots don't get banned either, so belive me, you're safe.

Title says it. Counter has been stuck on --:-- for 10 mins now and no progress is awarded. (Fissure of Woe)

I did say scourge was an exception in the post. Core/reaper shroud mechanics, while very strong, are much easier to deal with though. You can wait them out and burst when shroud is on cd and that'll usually get you the kill if the necro got careless and didn't save defensive CDs. With barrier it's not the case because two barrier sources are instant via f3 and f5, and necro also has fear, condi pressure and depending on the situation wurm/spectral armor/trail of anguish to deal with meelee bursts. Most classes can't meelee a scourge at all, hence why its rez skill is so strong despite not being instant, you can put a shade on the downed and spam while transfusing and ressing. it's hard to cleave while you are being feared and corrupted to death, as the scourge gains your own stab that you gave yourself to stomp/cleave. Keep feed from corruption in mind as well when you say scourge has poor access to boons. The worst you can get is Marauder/Demolisher as a subistitute for Berserker. 500 vitality/toughness don't make the difference between something being killable or not. Mind that dealing less damage also means your opponent won't have to care about defending himself. Defensive stats are not the only mean of taking less damage. If your opponent has to defend himself he will be doing less damage, which is another issure with builds like scourge/weaver. On paper their defensive stats may not seem god tier, but if they deal damage and force you to heal/kite then killing them gets complicated. Also an avatar scourge can easily 1v1 certain dps classes in the long run, provided a scenario in which you must fight over a point and can't kite/lose time, especially bursty classes with longer-than-average cds.

Do you really think scourge is strong because of avatar amulet? lol If you remove every amulet in the game scourge will become even stronger, simply because the problem is clearly with its base values (5k barrier+2k heal on healing skill with 0 healing power) and traits (feed from corruption) and not the scalings. Removing amulet makes no sense in general when you can just reduce scalings, targeting problematic skills without reducing options. In case you haven't noticed, the stats that benefit the most from amulets are dmg stats, since healing power scalings are ridicolously now nowadays anyway. If you want less sustain complain about evade frames, blocks, mobility and stealth, as aside from necro being able to shroud/barrier everything it's those that actually make fights longer (try and kill an herald, a mirage or a druid with berserker amulet first and then avatar, then tell me how much of a difference there is with 500 more healing power).

The aegis trait has been nerfed so much that even with it healing isn't even comparable to other heal skills (with 500 healing power it's [250+600]x3=2550 heal), to the point you'd rather play receive the light, heal yourself and allies more and even get 2 AoE cleanses if you manage to finish the cast. The current meta is very spammy in terms of number of hits so you'll rarely block significant amounts of dmg with your aegis. So long as the mantra doesn't heal like 1k (with healing power) or the aegis heal trait gets buffed, it won't make sense to play it. Regarding mantra of truth and flame, i agree that as they are instcasts they shouldn't deal much dmg, but what they deal right now is ridicously low, they could at least add some actual utility to them (not 1s condis). The elite mantra has 1s stab on a 45 sec recharge time XD But i agree that the most urgent change is for f2 and f3 skills to be made useful again. It would also be nice for the fb traitline to do something else other than giving quickness, the mantra recharge trait is trash in pvp because mantras are trash, the boon on tome skills and extra tome skills ones are trash because tome skills are trash, the axe trait you take only if you are playing a hard cc spam build with the hammer trait, same goes for stoic demeanor, and the quickfire trait has been bad since it was released since the other one ends up giving you more burning via the broken f1 passive burn thing that you lose without it. Even the mandatory traits you get literally just give you quickness and a buff to stats while you have quickness, making it even worse to chose something other than quickness. The quickness on tome thing and quickfire need to be changed into literally anything else. Also it's absurd that the only decent way for the class to get cleanses is by picking 4 shouts with the trait and trooper rune, the cleanse mantra need to cleanse 2 condis again to allow for other utilities to be picked. People are fast to cry about fb in this thread, but with supports being nerfed to the ground and no good AoE cleanses available suddenly there's a scourge problem, how surprising huh?

Gw2 players have strong issues when their class cannot dps the kitten out of things, which is why dragonhunter and firebrand came out. Anyway yes, guardian utilities and hammer could really use some work. Consecrations are all terrible outside of PvE because of high cds or too small AoEs, spirit weapons are slow and clunky and hammer and shield are completely useless, bow is only used in pve when bosses don't require cc/stab, and even shouts are rather bad, the only good one being stand your ground (retreat is only used because it has two charges and in pvp it's good because you play trooper runes and the shout trait, therefore you take it for cleanses. Hold the Line only gives you two boons you already get from other skills, and save yourselves got killed by the resistance change). The dps builds are strong as they are easy btw, but rarely the best option (outside of condi fb for fractals) unless you take one for stability. Also if you take a look at mantras with the pvp balance split you'll have a good laugh ;D they are borken in pve though.

In PvE it's good on Quick Heal FB in encounters where you need cc and you don't need much healing (think of raid bosses like samarog). You can play it on power and you'll get over 20k dmg by pressing 111 2 111 2 and nothing else, kind of a meme but if you're just messing around i suppose it does that. In WvW zerg you only switch to it to press 2 and blast fields. In PvP/WvW roaming it's a decent weapon both for power or cc spam builds, though it really needs some fixing like longbow did (i would happily take 6k crits on hammer 2 instead of 10k if the skill had a shorter and less explicit cast time, skill 3 has pathing issues like any skill in this game that works in a line so they could make it a cone instead or smth, skill 4 is fun but it need to either deal damage, get buffed to 3 targets or also get shorter cast time, and skill 5 should not prevent you from walking while you cast it in my opinion).

I highly suggest core guard, with Radiance/Zeal/Virtues. Despite the nerf it probably still has the best ranged spike in the game, has more party support than dh and has no cast time on virtues (though dh f2 and f3 are better). For the gear, it depends on how confident you are with it, i play it full zerk with just a couple valkyire pieces (assuming fury, resolution and burning on foes you get 55% extra crit chance, so you need 45% and you can invest the rest in vitality/toughness).