Gaiawolf.8261

This is incorrect. I die a lot of times when playing willbender. With the new Relic of Speed and OH sword open to all specs now, I actually switched to roaming with FB, and I die less now. It's fun.

The torch is still a good pick for condi and hybrid damage builds, especially when running Radiance. It would be nice if I could pair it with the MH pistol for a short/mid-range situations beyond 240 inches. The focus is rather popular for single target builds and roaming in WVW, especially with celestial builds. Shield of Wrath can be very effective, and Ray of Judgment would be sweet if it got Ignition procs at range. The OH sword is popular for both OW and WVW for its mix of damage, mobility, and CC. It doesn't have the problem the other OH weapons do though, since it will always get the procs from all attacks inside the symbol. All good here, I think. Bottom line, making the symbol proc for all attacks instead of just projectiles increases build diversity for very little cost and just slightly rebalancing the symbol. It also means you don't have a useless skill if you pick the other OH ranged weapons per your preference. Your last sentence says it all, just apply it to other weapons. If the symbol got reworked/balanced to give burns on all skills, pistol might still be best, BUT you can take torch/focus just fine. 😉

What if you use any other OH besides pistols? Where will the projectiles come from? Symbol at your feet is not "fine" then. Also, offensive skills are not generally balanced by tradeoffs. (Although I would support that design if the devs got on board with it.) They are balanced by golem numbers, so with the current design, a guard standing in melee and getting all procs and strike damage will determine final balance when devs do their updates. If the strike damage doesn't take a nerf (as I suggested above), the projectile buff will and kill the ranged functionality. That is the concern here.

My experience seems to match many others, but I'll try to elaborate my feel for each skill. Overall, the concept, animation, and sound for each skill are very cool, and the weapons are a ton of fun to play with some hiccups I'd like to see addressed before they go live. A decent basic autoattack. The bleed is nice. The strike damage may be a bit low. It's serviceable with #3, but there are better skills to pop while the symbol is active. This is a really cool skill. It looks and feels great. Honestly, I think it fits better for scepter autoattack, but I'll take it on a pistol. However, it also fits an OH skill better, and I think it should go to #4. This will help keep the synergies with #3 and the other OH weapons more level too. Such a cool concept that has some real mechanical issues. A pulsing damage symbol that can only be cast on self just does NOT work for a ranged weapon. And the only skill that can synergize well with it now is on another weapon (OH pistol #4). I can see two fixes for this thing: The simple fix is to make the symbol ground targeted or centered on your target. That way it can AOE at range, and attacks fired into it get the procs. This of course will have all the disadvantages of AOE DOT skills, especially in competitive modes, but it's better than what we have now. The more interesting, cooler fix is to rework it. Reduce the pulse damage significantly, make it so all attacks get the "projectile" procs when standing in it, and add a boon for allies standing in it. That way it can synergize in melee or at range equally for any OH weapon you use with it, except maybe shield. Another really cool skill. It's fun and fast, and I appreciate the ammo! The only real problem is that its power budget seems to be dependent on using it with MH pistol #3. What happens if I take another MH? This skill would feel underwhelming with a sword or scepter. For this reason, and because #2 Peacekeeper already acts like other multi-hit OH weapon attacks, #2 and #4 should be switched. Another fun, cool skill with some major mechanical issues. It's clunky as kitten. It would feel much smoother if we channel it and release the projectile by holding and releasing the 5 button. I can see why manually detonating the projectile can be advantageous sometimes, but it just adds to the clunk. It should detonate on hit, with maybe the option to manually detonate early. So overall, very fun, but both weapons have some feel bad mechanics that would just suck and gnaw on me if they make it to release. TL;DR: #3 should center on your target at range, or get reworked to grant a boon instead of any real damage and so all attack skills can benefit from standing in it, regardless of target location. #5 is too clunky. Hold and released to channel and fire. Auto-detonate at target, please. #3 and #4 synergize too well to consider different weapon matches. #2 and #4 should be switched so Hail of Justice can stay with the symbol when using different OH weapons. #2 works like other OH weapon attacks anyway, so balancing between weapon choices would be easier. EDIT: I forgot to add the knockback on #5 is fun to see but really annoying for practical use. We want enemies at range clumped. We don't want to spread them out. A knockdown would be more beneficial. Although it would be fun to blast them apart and then drag them back in with Heated Rebuke, but that's an edge case.

The last thing guardian needs is another ranged weapon that is better in melee range. Symbol of Ignition needs a rework, so we can actually play at range with a ranged weapon set.

Yeah, as has been already stated, they serve completely different purposes. The longbow is mostly for damage and CC, with very little support. The staff is a meta support/healing weapon in both PVE and WVW, but rather poor for dealing damage, and its only CC skill is clunky. It can tag in OW though.

I have one for FB that works pretty well. It has fair speed and good counterplay for roaming, and a decent mix of CC and support for zergs with the tomes' versatile kits. You won't output the massive stability and support that a true mistrel FB can bring, but you can skirt the edges of zergs with better cc, damage, and mobility while still sharing boons and projectile hate. Here are the basics. I can expand on usage later if you want it. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAMtzlJwuYeMQmJWuPqvXA-DSRYVhXMqhDJTpQvig0VAK+qAIA-e If you have the opportunity to quickly switch your OH sword for a shield, and/or slotting Stoic Demeanor, when fighting in a larger group, you'll get more use out of those, but they aren't worth it for roaming.

Well, they are feliforms and not caniforms, so they are closer to cats than dogs. Just not in the same family. Only same superfamily.

That's entirely possible, maybe even probable. I'm not making judgments until Tuesday. Edit: I will say I'm tired of ranged weapons that are better in melee range for this profession.

Can't speak to this since I don't play sPVP. All these weapons are used to good effect in either PVE, WVW, or both. Some are meta.

Shield, focus, staff, and axe. Mace is good at what it does but could be a bit more versatile, so people would use it on more content. I don't use greatsword, so I can't speak for it, but I have friends who like it. OH sword is a decent play for WVW. Also, you like swords for rev? Oof

There are some revanent builds that check most of your boxes but not at the same time. If you don't mind switching specs based on your mood, I'd suggest that. Guardian also checks most boxes, except they are notoriously slow, except for willbenders who are probably 2nd fastest in the game. If you don't mind fast, hectic mobility and play with the baked in support of a core guard, that could be a good fit. Firebrand can speed up combat skills with quickness, but is otherwise rather slow, unless you plug in a speed relic. Almost anything can be fast with that.

I think both scepter and longbow are definitely neglected, and probably MH sword #3 and OH sword too. They need help. Axe, focus, and shield are in a good place for 1h weapons. Mace and staff have their places but could be more versatile. Fixes to Radiant Fire and shortening the animation or pulsing cleansing and burning for Cleansing Flame could make torch good. MH sword #3 is a disaster, to emphasize again.

Fair, but outside a few outliers, content is not usually generated for competitive modes, and this coming from a WVW player. 🙄

This whole thread has turned into an awful lot of speculation for a skill we haven't seen yet, especially for making "objective" claims. I suppose it's entirely possible that the strike damage and 1s of burning from the symbol only happen on a pulse with an icd. So only 1s proc per source per second. While an attack firing through the symbol, where "through" means it has to leave the symbol, has no icd. So firing through/out of the symbol can potentially yield several stacks of burning per second from a single source. Would that be objectively better? Kitten no, I'm not going to make that claim until I see it in action. I'll find out on Tuesday. So will the rest of you. On a further note, I actually like that execution even though I completely pulled it out of my kitten as an off/possible chance from the rather sparse description we were given. It would mean different uses for the symbol without one always being superior to the other, depending on other symbol procs from weapon and trait choices. Edit: I know I said through/out of the symbol, but I really meant from you. Crossing the symbol's edge could mean through, whether that's entering or leaving. So even when fighting in melee for the pulse procs, allies could benefit from firing into the symbol with no icd. This is more speculation, of course, since I'm not even sure if the symbol registers attacks from allies.

It's funny how we have entire threads like this one about how mobility is out of control and players can be way too slippery, but then other players claiming that CC is too strong and can't be escaped. Sounds like good counter play to me! 😄

It's not random at all. It makes sense in several cases. For necromancers and guardians, maybe rangers to a lesser extent, they mostly have target-bound shadowsteps, because they use lifeforce/spirit magic and need some kind of spiritual anchor to direct their teleport. Thieves use shadow magic, and mesmers literally manipulate space and time. It would be silly to bind them to targets. "Space" is the target for mesmers. Revenants have both, cuz Mists. It would be cool if necromancers had a skill that shadowstepped them to a corpse or minion though.

Sorry to hear that. Self imposed gear handicaps are pretty much the standard for when a game becomes too easy for a player, especially if it doesn't have difficulty sliders like most MMO games. But even for harder games. There are people who run around naked in Dark Souls games just for the challenge. I've seen people on Discord that offer gold and other rewards for completing events while undergeared in GW2.

Well, I hope some of those ideas are helpful for you to find more challenge. Good luck! There are probably others on Youtube.

Not aggressive. Someone told me about it. It's a real thing. Challenge mode is getting a character solo to 80 without any deaths. For me personally, some stuff is easy for casuals. Some is not, so I have my pick. Competitive modes are only as hard or easy as the skill of other players and how many you engage at once.

Depends. Easy is relative. GW2 Hardmode is all whites. Also no respawn. If you die, delete the character. Edit: Downstate is okay.

How much armor are you wearing? It's all whites, right?

Yeah, since NCSoft owns Anet, they certainly wouldn't want GW2 to continue their success for more than a decade. I just hate it when businesses I own make it to a dozen years. 🙃

The threat is real! Remember when New World crushed GW2? 😆

This is a cool idea. I would support a scale of debuffs to increase the difficulty in game content in exchange for better drops, xp, and maybe other rewards.