Buran.3796

Guardian has a 3 secs invulnerabily elite with a 90" base cooldown in WvW, and a base 10 secs "Save Yourselves" with protection, regeneration and resistance wich has a 50" cooldown. After that is done, and the damage mitigation only works if isn't hit by a boon strip or boon corrupt effect. The guardians you saw surviving 10" inside a enemy zerg also are probably geared to sustain and support (minstrel or nomad stats) which means their damage output is low. Their function is to help their team to stay alive, giving boons and cleansings and things like aegis. Their mobility outside teams is also crap so they are essentially sitting ducks while moving alone in WvW. You can get similar results in terms of sustain with Revenant runing the same stats and Glint + Jalis with staff and either mace + shield or hammer. Your damage will also be poor except maybe if you're running a condi build with dire or trailblazer stats + tormenting runes. Jali's elite only lasts 5" but has a 50% damage reduction (which is stronger than protection, specially if traited with Versed in Stone) each 40". For PvP/roaming Rev has more build variety and better quality of life because you're not chained tyo use Traveler/Fireworks/Lynx runes for mobility or stats with vitality because your base 11k HP sucks. For PvE Guardian has bigger damage if you want 0 sustain and low mobility; as a Rev you get 80%-90% of that damage while having better mobility and much better sustain. Ther's no better class at PvE than Revenant, and by a large margin.

I would say that aside from PvP and WvW, which are still played but have been in a huge lack of support and attention from ANet in the last (at least) five years, the PvE is in a fantastic state, specially compared to the other "big cows" in the western MMO landscape: People used to moan that GW2 lacked "end game", "raids", "trinity system" and "things to grind once your reached level 80". Now take a look at what we have: * People is moving now towards having a full legendary wardrobe due the quality of life it provides; the gear progression is still horizontal, but the grinding required to go full legenday in GW2 is very, very large, and each legendary you unlock means that that piece will never be outdated in the future, no matter which new stat combinations will arrive. * The amount of content a new player which arrives will have at his reach is huge: Personal Story, old dungeons, scalable fractals, raids, strike missions, Living World seasons, Hearth of Thorns, Path of Fire... * Hundreds of Mastery Points to unlock which provide valuable skills and the best mount system (7+ and counting!) in any MMO! GW2 just trashes giants as WoW despite the difference in experience, founds and personal resources Blizard has. People used to celebrate that WoW and other monthly suscription based MMOs "granted a constant pace of content and support", but the reality have evolved and this last two years this is no loger the case: WoW now releases expansions full of time gated achievements and grindings, whit a lot of annoying low quality of life obstacles and revamps of systems which previously worked well. The goal seems to approach to the "asian style" MMOs in terms of monetization, moving just in the opposite direction as GW2 is evolving. So now is WoW (and other western MMOs with monthly subscriptions) the one which has bad support, predatory monetization schemes aiming to exploit younger players, lack of balance and annoying gameplay designs aiming to put the quality of life mechanics behind paywalls. I predict that despite the poor ANet communication skills and low advertisement, and despite their neglect to PvP and WvW game modes, the game will be flooded with players from other western MMOs with the incoming EoD expansion and Steam release, and a lot of them will find that Guild Wars 2 not only has currently more and better content than the competition but is also way better in terms of making the things more comfy to players and rewarding their time with the game.

FB? Has no sustain on top of lacking damage. DH was glassy but had good burst and between the runes and the F skills had some survability.

I hope they won't give us stealth. There's already three classes which have native access to stealth (four with the DH) and with the trapper runes, Scrapper and Deadeye the whole access to that tool (stealth is both utility, the best defensive effect in the game and the best "Batman prep time" for burst combos) started to get the things a bit out of control. Players already moan about Phase Traversal hitting through walls, imagine the drama (and the problems with balancing) if we start to land things as Surge of the Mist, Jade Winds or Deathstrike out of nowhere... I like the mix between plate armor and mobility, but not with stealth. I'll also scream if they give a hammer to the Thief.

Did use this for the whole HoT maps and PoF Hero Points: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAwyZldQMsGqj5QcsHyj9RksAigl+U16H-zRQUR0xkgBA-e ...Except for 3 Hero Points in which switched to condis: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmABkexzldQIsGSi5QRsHCi9RgsASgjsSfqC-zRRYcJbywKBvHA-e Sigils of force and precission (which came with the 80 booster) and with condi did take advantage of torment + malice and a unused ascended trailblazer armor with tormenting runes. As I said, 90% of the time was core power with no runes (currently using cheap Melandru ones on him). Today I completed Bjora Marches and Drizzlewood Coast in exotics with no problems. My only two deaths in 18 hours were due environment hazards (moving sands) not paying attention while riding on my pets. Core Rev used to be very lacking compared to Herald, but I found that currently is very solid and fun to use, and to some extent Jalis is a great replacement for Glint because a lot of foes in the expansion and Living World maps have tons of cc and defiant bars, and Inspiring Reinforcement gives plenty of stab and between Forced Engagement and Surge of the Mist they end on their knees in no time.

Sustain will be worse for Mallyx users, but is not like resistance was already strong after being capped at PvP to 1.5 seconds lasting x each 30-40 energy spent in a skill. Condi amage will be a bit worse in PvP but hiher in PvE (why?). On the other hand the changes open the door to stronger builds using retribution and mixing Jalis, including core Rev. By the way this weekend I replaced a unused character making a third Rev and for unlocking the Herald and Renegade specs I did chose to play the whole HoT and PoF maps using a core Rev (90% of the time with a power build, 10% a condi build) just with exotics and no runes and crushed trough the content (full specs unlocked in 8 hours with no deaths). Felt solid, way better than in the past (probably the changes will made the core Rev a better PvP build than the Renegade, imo).

The Retaliation - Resolution change doesn't seems to be very ituitive. The largest access to retaliation came from Retribution and Jalis, but if you have Jalis you already get access to a lot of condition cleanses. Also, you can get resolution after evades, so now Unrelenting Assault will grant condition damage reduction after dealing heavy power damage while evading. In short: looks to me that power Rev brings the builds which benefits the most from the changes, which is weird because to me already was stronger than the condition variants.

The most popular games in Twich have a thing in common: they all have high support, which means that the developers release a large amount of patches along the year, at a very fast pace. And is not a surprise, because most of the ones which fill the top 30 are competitive games, which require balancing and frequent changes to keep the things interesting. Yeah, exactly as GW2 (specially WvW/PvP). S/ By the way, you can't "improve the engine". Sure you can enhance the art (and they recent maps are beautiful, for sure) add some effects and polish the finish, but GW2 engine is a Direct X 9? with no multicore support and that will last forever, because changing that would require re-making the game from 0. Is the same as Bethesda which keeps running the same outdated Embryo Engine since forever just changing a bit the aesthetics because thet's the engine in which they made Oblivion and changing it would force them to re-learn how to program all their complex side-quest from 0. That's why most of RPG/MMO developers stay with the same engines for decades.

Nothing wrong with torment; I mean: Necros already have a large focus on poison, chill and bleeding, Guardians burn people to ashes, Mesmers stack confussion like crazy... Rev started as a torment/burns with a bit of chill and minimal poison, but since HoT our chill access have been nerfed and the Renegade short bow have been based on bleeds for the regular attacks with burst of torment and burns. If the go condi (or hybrrid) I would like to see consistence across the specs instead of changing it with every expansion.

I was thinking mostly about PvP, because yes, Herald and even Renegade always had good tankiness/sustain in PvE. But In PvP, prior to the overall damage nerf to all classes in the February 2020 patch, neither Herald or Revenant were particulary tanky: only high level "viable" PvP build was power Herald for over three years in a row, which was mostly a +1/roamer, not a brusier (its sustain was based on mobility, was clearly weak against conditions, and some other classes had way more effective bruisers, as the bunker Scrapper or some Guardian & Druid variants). So I'll conceed that under the current "no damage allowed" meta both Herald and Renegade are good bruisers, but under the landscape that prevailed most of the GW2 lifespan, neither Herald nor Renegade were bruisers/tanks. And in PvP both shield and short bow (which has no mobility or blocks/evades) were largely unused most of the time. Shiro/Glint was a dps build until the stack of nerfs in Shiro and swords turned it into a clown.

Firebrand is probably my first answer. When PoF was released the aesthetic design was superb, but I hated the way in which mantras operate (demanding long pre cast every time you enter in a new map, getting ruined while entering in water, etc). Also the tome system felt overcomplicated. So I stayed away from the class for a while, and when playing it, I keep using DH. Now I've become used to the Firebrand, and despite the nerfs (is really terrible for PvP/WvW roaming) the burn variants are amazingly fun to play in PvE, specially keeping the use of mantras in the minimum. The second one is the Renegade. Worst spec deign ever (has the breakstun on the healing skill at the release, lol!). Didn't like the thematic, hated the summon skills, hated the short bow with clunky skills without defensive tools or moving abilities. But the short bow got some strong buffs, and currently you can run either power or condi Renegade versions en every game mode without even touching Kalla (ex.: Shiro/Jalis, Mallyx/Shiro... ) and is already my class choice for playing with bows (still main a Herald, but at least their added viability and variety fo a spec which was released dead to me).

Both short bow and trident currently work well with either berserker, viper or grieving stats. They are truly "hybrid" weapons, and that benefits their use in multiple game modes. Personally I'm more interested in the functionality than in the nature of the damage of the spec weapon/s. I would like to see a propper tank/bruiser, but since power Revs are in the low ends of the dps charts at the moment ANet probably will make a power-dps spec, but hopefully "hybrid" aswell. Personally I would like to see either a greatsword, a mainhand axe or scepter or an offhand focus or mace, but I'm biased here because I already have the legendary versions of those (or I'm in the path of crafting the others) so that would mean less work that having to craft other weapons that almost no other class uses (as pistols, long bows, torches, warhorns or rifles).

Aside from maybe making the spear or trident a ground weapon (small chance) no way they will introduce new weapons, because that would force them to add a new skin to each weapon collection in the game with the new featured weapon, and that will be INCREDIBLY time/cost innefective. Notice also that since the introduction of the Daredevil and Rev some staff (which used to be mainly "spell caster weapons) now have mele-oriented skins (including some that could only be called spears). So, the weapon type remains but some skin diversity has been reached (some hammers resemble battle axes, etc.).

Just buff damage across all classes. Makes no sense that long casting easy to tell skills do 0 damage because they have some cc attached. Makes me cry every time I land Backbreaker or Drop the Hammer on a foe to get 10 damage... So much useless weapons and skills due they do 0 damage while blocks, evades, blinds and so on remain the same...

Support Guardian only were "a thing" in comformed teams, so the support nerfs will only certify that Guardian was dead in that role for most of the PvP players.Burn DH was the only popular/effective guardian build and I didn't liked it due how easy to counter was, so I barely play this class the last 4 months (in PvP). I don't count to see a viable Guardian until at least the EoD release, but doesn't bothers me due I main Rev at PvP since HoT.

Guard is cuerrently garbage at PvP. Everything from Firebrand is useless because they have no damage and no sustain on top of being a class with low HP and lackluster mobility; power varaints have been a joke since the Righteous Instincts nerf which turned Valk amulet into crap. The support builds only worked in conformed teams with VoIP but were easily slaughtered at ranked matches with pugs, and the new nerfs made support core Guardian arguably weaker even in coordinated teams. So burn DH (a PvE build) was essentially the only thing they had (and the main reason I barely touched the class in PvP in the last 4 moths). And that was a cheap build really easy to counter (loved fighting them with my Revs). So now we have three classes (Warriors, Thieves and Guardians) with no place in the meta. On the other hand I support the changes in the Revenant: mostly because doesn't harm condi or power Heralds a bit, and power shortbow Renegade remains quite healthy for conquest (now prefereably using better weapons than the crappy staff which I've ditched for months in Herald builds):

I don't thing the patch nerfs are that meaningful: Charged Mist: main source of bow Renegade damage were auto attacks, and this doesn't change it. For me has more effect in PvE since the trait is now useless in PvP and must chose between manually disable it in PvP or change a PvE template to remain the same and for quality of life will do the later which will be worse for PvE but whaterver, I won't buy another slot just for a trait. Anyway I had fun with this build at Conquest season 24 but for 2 vs 2 and 3 vs 3 is subpar and I'm not running it in Season 25.Phase Traversal: a false nerf due you normally weren't able to use it twice in a row; spending 70 energy in 5 seconds usually means that you no longer have resource to do anything but aa... I guess will make happy non-rev players which known nothing about how the energy and resources work in the class, so is mostly a political gesture...Infuse Ligth: doesn't compute due good players and bots usually avoided healing you (and still will) and bad players will still full heal you.Ventari stuff: ...Lol, who plays that? Outside conformed teams in tournaments no one runs Ventari Revenants and even there they aren't very popular.Surge of the Mist: when I play Herald at PvP I don't use staff (neither with power or condi builds); I guess is time to replace the staff in power Renegade (short bow Shiro) with a double sword or sword/axe combo. In my opinion the strongest Rev builds for PvP are now either the condi Hearld or some power Herald and power Renegade builds which retain ability to land some damage and still have high sustain. So the variety of the "optimal" has been reduced but at least we weren't butchered as the Guardians. They have literally nothing...

5'45" Roul's time (I wrongly wrote the same time twice). So is 70 seconds less for Hizen.

Lord Hizen just released this week a video showcasing his prefered build for open world Renegade and pretty much seals the deal: it crushes the Legendary Facet in 4'35" (Roul's Firebrand does it in 4'35", and albeit can be argued that in Roul's video uses the tanky version of the FB, Hizen's one is in full trailblazer so is easy to see how without even pushing viper or grieving condi Renegade has an edge in damage while having more tanky stats and higher sustain):

I've mained the two. My opinion after long years playing both: Guardian advantages: Have been meta in most parts of the game along most of the time.Lots of versatility in terms of weapons and skill selection.Variety in builds. Excells at support in WvW.At the moment, very high dps in both power and condi configurations.Guardian disadvantages:Low base HP forces you to invest atribute points in health if you want to play PvP/WvW.Slow speed moving forces you to either wear runes for mobility for quality of life (hurting your potential damage) or viceversa.Firebrand has serious healing/sustain problems at PvP/WvW after stacked nerfs.Revenant advantages:High variety in terms of damage/tankiness/support based on the legend selectioon and build choices.High mobility if needed, unique resource management which makes engaging the gameplay.Extreme tankiness while dealing good damage at PvE, variety of builds at PvP/WvW.Revenant disadvantages:Low amount of weapons available; stifness in the skill system due they are attached to each legend.Lots of bugs involving the templates due the way the legends work.Weakness to conditions; usually lacks access to stability (a Rev tailored to fix these issues usually loses mobility and damage in a sort of trade off).

Are you sure about that? Because when ANet relased the WvW mount no one needed for PvE, the servers had full cap maps for weeks, and the PvP forum is by far the second largest segment of this forum in terms of topics and coments (and lately have been full of players asking about how to get Trascendence). I'm not saying that every player in the game "must" craft a legendary armor, but if they plan to devote some serious time in the game, is by far the best investment they could do: ascended trinkets are ultra easy to obtain from Bittersweet/Bjora farming, but replacing runes and stats in your armor every time ANet shakes the meta deleting/nerfing old combos (celestial, nomad...) or implementing new ones more efficient (viper, diviner...) is a pain. A legendary armor in your main makes your character immune to changes in the meta, essentially, whereas not having one means vertical grinding every time a major expansion or stat-driven new content is released

Renegade can work with short bow at every part of the game using either condition or direct damage, in a variety of builds going from Kalla to Mallyx, Jalis and Shiro, without much troubles.

I have no clue if they will make the feature of shared legendary wardrobe a free to access to everyone or will hide it behind a paywall. From my perspective, making it free would benefit both the players and the company, because getting legendaries is achievable but takes time, and having that goal enhances player retention. And not only for newcomers: I have the legendary heavy armor + The Ascension + 7 weapons, but if they are shared directly from the menu, it will motivate me to craft new ones, so I would play more. But if has a similar system as with the templates, and you need to pay each access separately, I just will craft a second legendary heavy armor for one of my Guardians (the current one I have is wear by my main, a Revenant) and will stop making new ones. I spent gems/real money in template slots for my two most used characters, but have 0 interest into paying to expand the capabilities of the rest. Really, I don't care about which implementation ANet will chose for the feature: I think that free access will be better for the game, even for the poorest of the players. I just will adjust the way in which I play the game to the given circumstances, because at the end of the day the time I spent in GW2 depends of what I find appealing and enjoyable, not about hwat they decide to focus on. At the end of the day we, the players, have the choice to stay or leave.

I do like 3 vs 3 over 2 vs 2. Is not as interesting as Conquest, but from those two deathmatch modes I think that the 3 vs 3 is more balanced: in 2 vs 2 if a side choses to run two tanks getting a kill is almost impossible, whereas in 3 vs 3 a 3 man focus will end in someone dead, no matter if the attackers or the defenders, which ultimately leads to a side wiped out before the time cap ends. Full time cap matches with no deaths in 2 vs 2 are the absolutely worst.

The legendary armor should be the first legendary to craft for every player which wants to stay in the game for a while. Is arguably at least x10 times more useful than legenday weapons because those can largely change from class, build and use, whereas having an armor with swappable stats, runes and infusions is huge. Is also farily cheap to obtain (mine from PvP cost me ~1800 gold coins, albeit the tokkens take me year and half) or you can pay more but get the pieces faster in WvW or PvE. I'm already saving tokens for the second (done) and third (will finish this autumn) legendary armors, waiting to see the exact implementation before chosing between having one of each (heavy, mid & light) or going with 3 heavies if the implementation ends being horrible (because I play heavies 99% of the time). The template system already is garbage compared to the one present in Daiblo III (and I'm talking about functionality, not even taking the cost in consideration) and is fully broken with some classes (keeps destroying my predefined loadouts in my Revenants almost every time I enter in PvP). In this game even the most casual "I only enter to do the daily" player is able to craft one legendary each two years, so I would asume that this will have a huge relevance. And for sure the announcement freezed any effort from me into crafting new ascended armors...