RUNICBLACK.7630

In response to the original post of this thread, while I can see some people feeling constrained or limited by the limits placed on the game by catering to the younger age audience. I myself have found in our guild that it really has never been an issue, everyone in our guild is over 26 and most are in the 40's or higher and while we can and often do mix it up in our conversations with various adult themed discussions that doesn't dominate the discussions in any way that someone in their middle teens couldn't be a part of the conversation. Honestly I have had conversations with people that are in the 13 to 16 year age bracket that been refreshingly insightful, mature and more aware of national and global events than I have had with some people that were 3 and even 4 times their age so for Anet to err on the side caution with regard to the tone of the game so allow access to broader audience I for say good for them. Now if you think that the societal restrictions set by local groups and authorities is to restrictive that is a conversation totally beyond the scope of anything to do with the game and should be discussed by you with like minded people in your community, but thank you for starting the conversation.

I'm sure there would be some players that think this is great but there would also be players that would leave the game. Now I'm not coming down on anybody about where their views are on this but for me after working to get a couple Legendary weapons and a complete set of heavy armor and a complete set of the trinkets turning them into a cash shop item completely devalues all of my efforts so I would probably leave the game.

While I whole heartly feel for those individuals that may lose out on the rewards they honestly have earned but unless there is some kind of action on this issue it will continue. Everyone needs to remember that often the prefect can be the enemy of the good. Expecting to find a prefect solution to the problem at hand will only lead to no resolution because there will always be differences of opinion leading a lack of action and benefiting nobody but the individuals causing the problem. While I'm not saying the that an absolute wipe of rewards is the only possible answer we all need to accept that any real solution is not going to be painless for players in the community

This true but it's damage was only(0.075 × Power) + 200 in PvE and 50% lower in PvP and WvW. Where it often had the most impact was in WvW where the party or squad all had Retal and had been targeted by ranged AOE and actually at one point Guardians were bared in higher level fractals because the bosses used to strip and steal boons those causing a party wipes from the boss getting the guardians Retal.

Since I've noticed that there has been a rather decided lack of discussion on the upcoming patch notes on our own Guardian sub forum (whereas there has been alot of talk on the other profession's forums and reddit) I figured I'll post the topic myself and see if anyone wants to chime in. For starters I'll repost the original information to try keep it on track . Game Update Notes: May 11, 2021 05/11/2021—Skills and Balance Release Notes It’s been a long while since our last major balance patch. In this update, we’re preparing for Cantha by cleaning up longstanding frustrations with boons and conditions, as well as by positioning existing builds as new potential sources of alacrity and quickness in group play. Among these changes are new duration caps for each boon and condition, a rework of the retaliation and resistance boons, and a reversal to the bonus-damage state of the torment condition. Torment will now deal bonus damage to targets that are standing still instead of to moving targets. This change will enhance torment’s performance in most boss encounters and create better opportunities for synergy and counterplay in PvP. The retaliation boon has long been a pain point, both in PvE and PvP. It’s not particularly impactful to use, and it’s never fun to play against. We have replaced it with a new boon, resolution, which complements the existing protection boon by reducing incoming damage from conditions (bleeding, poisoned, burning, torment, and confusion) by 33%. Many current traits and skills use retaliation in some way, or to added effect; those traits aren’t going away! Generally, they’ve been updated to use the new resolution boon. As always, the detailed patch notes below will tell you exactly what’s happening for each profession. Similarly, we’re not quite happy with how resistance is a hard shutdown on all conditions, which creates overlapping gameplay with skills that cleanse conditions. We’re updating resistance to only affect nondamaging conditions. In other words, resolution helps reduce damage from bleeding, poisoned, burning, torment, and confusion, while resistance lets you temporarily ignore blinded, chilled, crippled, fear, immobilized, slow, taunt, vulnerability, and weakness. Since we’re reducing the overall effect of resistance, we’re also reevaluating and increasing durations in some skills where it is applied. Boon and Condition Updates Resolution The Retaliation boon has been renamed Resolution. Incoming condition damage is decreased by 33%. Stacks duration. Unless otherwise specified, skills and traits that formerly granted or used retaliation now use resolution. Resistance Nondamaging conditions currently on the player are ineffective. Stacks duration. Torment Deals damage every second. Deals additional damage to foes that are not moving. Stacks intensity. Duration Caps for Boons and Conditions Duration-stacking boons and conditions now behave consistently. They directly stack durations added from all sources, do not have hidden stack limits, and generally have shorter maximum durations. With most nondamaging condition durations stacking to a maximum of 10 seconds, we aim to reduce situations in which players can become stuck in combat because of a long-duration condition, preventing them from using their mount. Boons Alacrity: 30 Fury: 30 Protection: 30 Resolution: 30 Quickness: 30 Resistance: 30 Swiftness: 30 Vigor: 30 Conditions Blinded: 10 Chilled: 10 Crippled: 10 Immobilized: 10 Slow: 10 Weakness: 10 Mantras (Mesmer and Firebrand) We acknowledge that there are significant flaws with the core gameplay innate to mantra skills, and that this problem was exacerbated in Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™ when we switched mesmer mantras to an ammunition system, creating an incentive to not use the final charge. This is a poor user experience and something we have hoped for a long time to be able to come back and address. Needing to prepare for combat by using a sequence of skills with a long casting time is not fun, and in most cases, using the final charge of a mantra in combat felt like a mistake. It not only denied your use of the skill for a long time, but it also required you to prepare your mantras again after the cooldown expired. Instead of being rewarding to use, mantras have been a chore; something you need to remember to do every time you change maps or respawn, or deal with after every /gg in a fractal, strike, or raid. Holding your group up while you again prepare each of your mantras never feels great either! During the development of this balance patch, we tried several alternatives, including automatic preparation while out of combat. Ultimately, we found that the best course of action was to simplify the mantra skills and remove the preparation mechanic altogether, as this ensures that we can have consistent behavior between mesmer and firebrand mantras, as well as consistent core functionality between PvE and PvP game modes. As a result, in this balance update, we have decided to rework both mesmer and firebrand mantras into simple ammunition skills. What this means: No more preparing mantras before use. They are always in the “ready” mode, storing up uses. Firebrand mantras are no longer stronger on final charge. All uses are the same. Mesmer mantras no longer do something on preparing. Some related tuning and trait changes will happen as a result. While this results in a loss of some of the current flavor inherent to the mantra skill type, we have found that the ability to easily read, understand, and use these skills in normal gameplay is a strong improvement to the play experience. General To better indicate which skills will deal defiance damage, icons within skill tooltips that represent applied control effects are now purple. The Exposed effect that is placed on many boss enemies when their defiance bar is broken has been adjusted. It now increases power damage taken by 30% and condition damage taken by 100%. Text on many damage-increasing profession traits, runes, and sigils has been clarified to indicate whether they increase outgoing strike damage, condition damage, or all damage, as appropriate. Items The Superior Sigil of the Stars now also increases concentration and expertise. The Celestial stat combination on gear now also increases concentration and expertise. The per-stat values have not been decreased. Mounts Griffon: Swoop now deals additional damage based on your velocity. Profession Skills Elementalist We feel that the elementalist has been in a very good place since the July 2020 balance update. Both Tempests and Weavers have effective high damage power and condition damage builds available, while the Tempest is also powerful in a support role. We weren’t completely happy that the top-end power and condition damage elementalist builds have had approximately the same sustained damage, so we’re making some minor, targeted reductions to the power builds and increases to condition damage sources to help condition-damage builds really shine on bosses and other hard targets, and to ensure that they aren’t left behind by the effect that the torment condition change has for other professions. Scepter Flamestrike: Total casting time reduced by 25%. Warhorn Wildfire: Burning duration increased from 2.5 seconds to 3 seconds. Lightning Orb: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.45 to 0.36 in PvE. This matches the existing power coefficient in PvP and WvW. Weaver Elements of Rage: Strike damage bonus reduced from 10% to 5%. Increases condition damage by 5%. Engineer While the Scrapper can be played as an effective healer, it hasn’t had access to the offensive boons it needs to be truly valuable as a support role in group PvE content. As a result, we’ve seen the Scrapper get very little play outside of WvW. With this update, we’re reworking the Scrapper trait Kinetic Stabilizers so that Scrappers can apply the quickness boon on up to five targets, opening up a powerful boon support role for the specialization. We’re also taking some potential damage out of the Holosmith’s heat management in Laser’s Edge, and we’re instead adding more power to the core explosives trait Glass Cannon, making that damage accessible to more builds. Utility Goggles: Duration of resistance increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Rifle Overcharged Shot: This skill no longer knocks the engineer back. Explosives Glass Cannon: Increased strike-damage bonus from 7% to 10%. Scrapper Kinetic Stabilizers has been reworked and renamed. It is now Kinetic Accelerators. Kinetic Accelerators: When you grant superspeed to a target, also grant quickness (2 seconds). Applied Force has been reworked to grant stability instead of quickness and to grant extra power from might. Players now gain stability when they gain might above the threshold. Might grants bonus power (10 per stack). Holosmith Laser’s Edge: Reduced the maximum damage increase from 25% to 15% in PvE only. This matches the current value in PvP and WvW. Guardian Guardian has always been a very flexible and powerful profession. While we are happy with the current build diversity available to guardians—and we are working to extend that same diversity to other professions—we’ve observed that all guardian damage builds, both condition and power, utilize the same combination of the Zeal and Radiance specializations, as they have optimal trait choices for each. We are making a few changes to Zeal, virtues, and underperforming consecration utility skills to better differentiate the two specializations and allow virtues to be a viable option for condition-damage builds. Scepter Symbol of Punishment: Increased cooldown from 6 seconds to 10 seconds in PvE and from 8 seconds to 10 seconds in WvW. Chains of Light: This skill now requires a target to activate. Staff Symbol of Swiftness: Decreased cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only. Greatsword Symbol of Wrath: This skill has been renamed Symbol of Resolution. Symbol of Resolution: Reduced cooldown from 20 seconds to 12 seconds. Damage per strike reduced by 10%. Consecrations Wall of Reflection: Reduced base duration from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds. Purging Flames: Reduced radius from 240 to 180. This skill no longer burns foes that cross the outside of the field. Instead, it now applies one stack of burning with a 4-second duration on foes inside the radius when cast and again on each pulse for the duration of the effect. Cooldown reduced from 35 seconds to 25 seconds in PvE only. Sanctuary: Reduced cooldown from 60 seconds to 50 seconds. Shouts “Save Yourselves!”: Increased the duration of resistance from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds. Radiance Healer’s Retribution: This trait has been renamed Healer’s Resolution. Virtues Inspired Virtue: This trait now additionally increases strike damage for each boon on the guardian. This effect was formerly on Power of the Virtuous. Absolute Resolution: This trait has been renamed Absolute Resolve. Power of the Virtuous has been reworked. Guardians now gain condition damage based on vitality (10%). Virtues gain reduced recharge (15%). Zeal Zealot’s Speed: This trait has been renamed Zealot’s Resolution. Lesser Symbol of Wrath: This skill has been renamed Lesser Symbol of Resolution. Symbolic Power: Symbol strikes no longer charge the virtue skill-1 passive effect more quickly. Eternal Armory: Spirit weapons now only apply burning on their first strike per cast. Increased burn duration from 4 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE, from 2.5 seconds to 5 seconds in WvW, and from 2 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP. This is a reduction to total burning from Sword of Justice and an increase in total burning to Hammer of Wisdom and Shield of the Avenger when used with this trait. Firebrand Stoic Demeanor: Fixed a bug that caused a 3-second interval rather than the correct 1-second interval. Mantras: Mantras no longer need to be charged before use. They now hold three charges by default, and the final charge is no longer stronger. They regenerate ammunition normally. Dragonhunter Defender’s Dogma: This trait now uses the correct icon. Reduced internal cooldown to 1 second in PvE only. This matches the current cooldown in PvP and WvW. Pure of Sight: This trait now uses the correct icon. The description has been clarified to communicate that strike damage dealt increases with distance from the struck enemy. Longbow Puncture Shot: Removed the bouncing aspect of this skill. This skill now pierces enemies and inflicts the crippled condition on all enemies if it hits more than one, with a cap of 5 targets. Symbol of Energy: Cooldown reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds. Casting time reduced by 0.3 seconds. Hunter’s Ward: This skill’s cast has been reworked. The dragonhunter will now channel the skill for 1 second and then release the barrage, allowing movement while the attacks occur and traps are formed. Mesmer Chronomancer has been steeply overperforming in a damage role in all content, leading to an environment in which the best way to tackle almost any challenge is to throw more Chronomancers at it. On the other hand, Mirage hasn’t been performing at the level we’d like it to; it’s been relegated to a damage role in only a few specific boss encounters in which confusion is particularly potent. With this update, Mirage will see general improved performance from the change to the torment condition, with the option of using a reworked chaos specialization that will now better synergize for condition damage and support builds. We’re also creating a new possible boon support role for Mirages using the staff by changing Chaos Vortex (the staff’s ambush skill) to grant might and alacrity to up to 10 allied targets. Deception (Downed Skill 2): This skill is now ground targeted while on land and no longer displaces the player when summoning a clone while underwater. Arcane Thievery: This skill now requires a target to activate. Time Warp: Reduced cooldown from 180 seconds to 120 seconds. Reduced duration from 10 seconds to 5 seconds. This skill now applies 1 second of quickness and slow per pulse, for a total of six pulses over a 5-second duration. Mantras: Mantras no longer need to be prepared before use. They regenerate ammunition normally. Sword Illusionary Riposte: This skill no longer displaces the player when summoning a clone. Illusionary Counter: This skill no longer displaces the player when summoning a clone. Staff Winds of Chaos: Increased projectile speed by 25%. Increased casting speed by 0.1 second. Lowered aftercast animation lock by 0.2 seconds. Fixed an inconsistency with projectile behavior after bouncing. This skill now applies torment for 5 seconds to the first target struck and confusion for 5 seconds on subsequent hits to enemies. Allies hit gain might for 5 seconds and fury for 3 seconds. Chaos Armor: Reduced recharge to 25 seconds. This skill no longer applies a random condition to nearby foes when cast. Instead, it now applies blindness and confusion to nearby foes when cast. Chaos Storm: Reduced recharge to 25 seconds in PvE only. Mirage Chaos Vortex (Staff Ambush): The projectile now only strikes enemies. Up to 10 nearby allies gain boons. The boons gained are now might (8 stacks, 15-second duration in PvE; 4 stacks, 6-second duration in PvP and WvW) and alacrity (3-second duration). (Note: Boons are applied near the mesmer only, not near clones.) Chronomancer Danger Time: Removed the critical-damage bonus. Chronophantasma: Resummoned phantasm damage is now 75% in PvE only. Seize the Moment: Quickness duration per clone shattered has been reduced from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvE only. Chaos Illusionary Membrane: This trait has been reworked. While regenerating, condition damage dealt is increased, and condition damage taken is reduced by 10%. Chaotic Persistence: This trait has been reworked. Gain concentration and expertise while regenerating. Chaotic Dampening: This trait has been reworked and renamed Chaotic Potency. Chaotic Potency: Gain condition damage. Gain additional condition damage while wielding a staff. Recharge of staff skills is reduced. Chaotic Transference: This trait has been reworked. Chaos Armor grants 3 seconds of protection. Gain regeneration for 5 seconds with a 15-second cooldown when gaining protection. Inspiration Restorative Mantras: Heal allies around you when activating a mantra. Reduced healing amount by 50%. Necromancer Necromancer is a flexible and durable profession. It’s not currently in need of any major changes, but alongside general improvements to the performance of other condition-damage specializations, we’re improving the necromancer’s access to condition damage in Curses with improved condition application. We’re also making improvements in Soul Reaping with Soul Barbs to increase condition damage, and we’re making small improvements to the usability of several traits in the Blood Magic specialization. Axe Ghastly Claws: This skill now requires a target to activate. Lich Form Deathly Claws: This skill is no longer fires projectiles at enemies located behind the player. Curses Barbed Precision: Increased duration of bleeding inflicted from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only. Insidious Disruption: Increased duration of torment from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. Blood Magic Mark of Evasion: This trait no longer has an internal cooldown. Blood Bond: Reduced internal cooldown from 20 seconds to 16 seconds. Blood Bank: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now grants barrier for health gained while below full health at a 15% rate. Soul Reaping Soul Barbs: This trait now increases all damage dealt, not only strike damage. Reaper Infusing Terror: This skill can now be used in midair so that it better functions with Death’s Charge. Ranger The ranger is a potent damage dealer. We’ve seen that Soulbeast has extreme burst damage potential, and unfortunately in this case, this has helped create some very homogenous group compositions. In this patch, we’re weakening “Sic ‘Em!” when used by a Soulbeast by lowering the damage bonus to 25%, matching the current balancing for this skill in PvP and WvW. We’re also increasing the cooldown of One Wolf Pack. However, while we do want to slightly lower the extreme burst damage moments from Soulbeast, we don’t want to significantly lower its overall damage per second on longer encounters. To this end, we’re also increasing the damage bonus granted by Furious Strength, providing an overall increase to sustained damage per second. “Sic ‘Em!”: When used by a merged soulbeast, the damage bonus granted is now 25%. When used by any other ranger specialization, or an unmerged soulbeast, the damage bonus granted to the pet is 40%. Soulbeast One Wolf Pack: Increased cooldown from 60 seconds to 80 seconds in PvE only. Furious Strength: Increased bonus damage from 7% to 10%. Warhorn Call of the Wild: Reduced animation aftercast time by approximately 0.5 seconds. The pet’s next few attacks are no longer unblockable. This skill now dazes and weakens nearby enemies when cast. Daze duration is 2 seconds in PvE and WvW, and 1 second in PvP. Revenant Renegade condition builds will be positively impacted by the general change to torment in this patch. While they will be finding that they maintain and even improve their already strong performance, we are preemptively making slight decreases to the duration of applied torment from several skills, as condition Renegade builds were already one of the most potent condition damage builds. We’d like to improve other possible variations to the current favorite Invocation build, and as such, we’re allowing specific traits in both Retribution and Devastation to increase all damage dealt instead of strike damage only. Alongside these changes, we’re updating the Retribution specialization to match the removal of the Retaliation boon (and its replacement with Resolution). We’re improving the strike damage of the Renegade’s Kalla’s Fervor effect by changing it from a ferocity bonus to a bonus to all damage dealt. This change will allow Renegade power builds to be more viable for general play in open-world and mission contexts, although it is unlikely to create a Renegade power build for high-end PvE content. Soulcleave’s Summit was a skill we had been watching; its ability to grant uncapped healing per second limited only by how many times someone can hit while under its effect resulted in unintuitive gameplay—when Soulcleave’s Summit was active, players were incentivized to use the skills that could hit the highest number of times. This unpredictable rate of healing is not something that can be balanced. As a result, it created situations where it would allow groups to ignore intended fight mechanics. We’re now limiting Soulcleave’s Summit to trigger once per second per player, similar to Razorclaw’s Rage. We’ll still keep an eye on this skill; now that it’s rate limited, we can safely improve it in future patches if needed. Retribution Spiritual Reckoning: This trait has been renamed Spiritual Resolution. Increased duration of granted boon from 3 seconds to 6 seconds in PvE only. Determined Resolution: Damage reduction is now gained while the revenant has resolution rather than vigor. Retaliatory Evasion: This trait has been renamed Resolute Evasion. Vicious Reprisal: This trait now increases all damage dealt rather than strike damage only. Invocation Ferocious Aggression: This trait now also increases damage dealt from life stealing. Corruption Fiendish Tenacity: Increased resistance duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only. Devastation Destructive Impulses: This trait now increases all damage dealt rather than strike damage only. Renegade Soulcleave’s Summit: Life stealing can now trigger a maximum of once per second for each affected target. Kalla’s Fervor: This effect no longer increases ferocity. It now increases all damage dealt by 2% per stack in PvE. This increases to 3% per stack with Lasting Legacy. Mace Echoing Eruption: Reduced torment duration from 8 seconds to 7 seconds in PvE only. Axe Temporal Rift: Reduced torment duration from 12 seconds to 10 seconds in PvE only. Legendary Demon Stance Embrace the Darkness: Reduced torment duration from 6 seconds to 5.5 seconds in PvE only. Pain Absorption: Increased base resistance duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Thief Thief has had some of the least build diversity in PvE gameplay for a while now, and it’s overdue for some improvement. While we’re happy with the power damage roles currently available for thief players, we’d like to bring back thief condition builds as another option. In this update, we’re improving the conditions applied by daggers and short bows, and we’re adding more condition-related power to the Trickery specialization by giving it a source of expertise and a multiplier to bleed damage. Notably, we’re also reducing the maximum targets of the stolen skill Detonate Plasma, which affects thief boon-build compositions in a few specific raid encounters. Now that we’ve added additional sources of quickness to the Scrapper specialization, we believe it is the appropriate time to also bring the thief boon-build role in these encounters down to match, providing boons including quickness for half of the raid squad. This will allow for less squad role shuffling in these encounters—if a squad still chooses to utilize a thief boon build, they will only replace one quickness provider. Detonate Plasma (Stolen Skill): Reduced maximum targets from 10 to 5. Dagger Wild Strike: This skill now also inflicts 2 stacks of bleeding for 3 seconds in PvE and 1 stack in PvP and WvW. Short Bow Trick Shot: Reduced animation length by 0.2 seconds. This skill no longer deals increased strike damage to poisoned enemies. Instead, it applies 1 stack of bleeding for 4 seconds when striking poisoned enemies. Surprise Shot and Malicious Surprise Shot: These skills now additionally apply 3 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds in PvE and 1 stack in PvP and WvW. Choking Gas: Increased poison duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE and WvW only. This now matches the duration in structured PvP modes. Deadly Arts Improvisation: The cooldown of this trait has been reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds. Trickery Preparedness: This trait now increases expertise by 150. Bewildering Ambush: This has been reworked and renamed Deadly Ambush. Deadly Ambush: Stealing also applies 3 stacks of bleeding for 10 seconds in PvE and 3 stacks for 6 seconds in PvP and WvW. Bleeding inflicted on foes deals 25% more damage. Deadeye Binding Shadow: This skill now reveals the caster if they are using stealth when the skill begins. Reduced the aftercast animation from 0.25 seconds to 0.08 seconds. Warrior Berserker has been in a great place with strong support, power, and condition builds that are successful in all content. However, Spellbreaker lacks the damage it needs to keep up, and the line between banner support and damage-oriented builds is very blurry, showing that possible alternatives to the Discipline specialization were underperforming. With this update, we’re making improvements to Tactics to make it a more viable alternative to Discipline, and we’re improving Spellbreaker’s damage capability. We’re also lowering the base target cap of banners to 5 players, with the choice for support builds to utilize the Doubled Standards trait to raise the target cap to 10. All banners are now gaining light combo fields, giving all warrior specializations some access to condition cleanse combos. Rifle is also receiving an improvement pass, improving its ability to combat multiple targets and giving it more utility as a ranged power weapon in general mission and open-world play. Rifle Fierce Shot: This attack now pierces but no longer grants bonus adrenaline against vulnerable targets. Instead, it grants 1 stack of might for 5 seconds to the warrior when hitting a vulnerable target. Crack Shot: Instead of granting bonus adrenaline when Fierce Shot hits, this trait now causes Fierce Shot to deal 10% bonus damage in addition to its previous effects. Aimed Shot: This skill has been removed. Volley: This skill has moved to slot 2 on the weapon. Explosive Shell: This new skill takes slot 3 on rifle, previously occupied by Volley. This attack shoots a large shell at the target that explodes on contact with an enemy. The explosion creates a cone-shaped blast that fires through the target, striking foes behind them and inflicting the crippled condition and vulnerability. Banners Reduced the number of allied targets affected from 10 to 5. The Discipline trait Doubled Standards now increases the number of allied targets from 5 to 10. Banners no longer cause blast finishers. They now create a light combo field that persists for 5 seconds after the banner is summoned. Strength Peak Performance: Reduced the additional strike damage applied for a period of time after using a physical skill from 15% to 10% in PvE only. Great Fortitude: This trait now increases ferocity by 10% of vitality. Defense Cull the Weak: Increased damage bonus from 7% to 10% in PvE only. Spiked Armor has been renamed Hardened Armor. Tactics Marching Orders: Reduced internal cooldown to gain Soldier’s Focus from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. Leg Specialist: Increased damage bonus from 7% to 10% in PvE only. Roaring Reveille: Increased duration of the resistance boon granted to the warhorn skill Call of Valor from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Warrior’s Cunning: Reduced health threshold for bonus damage from 90% to 80%. Discipline Warrior’s Sprint: Increased damage bonus from 7% to 10% in PvE only. Doubled Standards: Reduced bonus effect from banners from 100% to 50%. This trait now additionally increases the maximum number of allied targets on banners from 5 to 10. Axe Mastery: This trait no longer grants additional ferocity for a second equipped axe. Spellbreaker Sun and Moon Style: Fixed a bug that could cause trait bonuses to be temporarily lost after recovering from the downed state. The main-hand dagger bonus has been reworked to deal an additional 10% strike damage to foes with no boons. Attacker’s Insight: Each stack of the Insight effect now grants an additional 50 power, precision, and ferocity at level 80 in PvE. Each stack now grants an additional 35 power, precision, and ferocity in PvP and WvW. Previously each stack granted 45 power and ferocity. Full Counter: The attack portion of this skill now correctly triggers if the spellbreaker is in midair, allowing the skill to end correctly.

I understand that you disagree, but you have not validated your point of how this (what we have) is better. And nowhere in your argument have you validated your point of view either, you have just expressed your opinion as if it were fact .Just to let you know texting "As a matter of fact " doesn't make your following statement a fact it is still just a turn of phrase if you have no supporting Data to go with it and please refrain from using circular logic to support your statements.

Short answer is No, longer answer is because of the Major Adept trait in Virtues : Master of Consecrations which increases the duration of all Consecration by 2 seconds and reduces the recharge time by 20% so if they were to change Shelter to a Consecration it then give the player a 4 second block which by all appearances is a do not cross red line. Now if they were to change the Master of Consecrations in some way so as to not run afoul of this then sure. (Personal opinion I'd be all for changing MoC so as to make taking Consecrations more useful because as they are presently most have very limited usefulness in my opinion). I hope this helped.

As an alternative, just remove the increased symbol size fully from the trait and replace it with the effect that the guardian receives the full benifit (boons) from any symbols that they place irrelevant as to whether or not they are inside of the symbol, thus removing the limitation of the guard having be forced to be inside of the symbol to gain any benifit from the symbols boons. While this wouldn't have a huge impact on those weapons that drop a symbol at the guardians feet it would be hugely helpful for the ranged symbols.Great examples would be the swiftness from the staff(as it stands to gain the full swiftness by staying in the symbol is utterly counter intuitive)Gaining the might from the scepter without having to be in the symbol.And finally in my personal opinion the best fix for the lackluster damage and usefulness of the DH Longbow would be to change the LB boon from Vigor(which never made sense) to a 1 or 2 second per pulse of Quickness this way you don't need to increase the damage directly but you do increase it indirectly by increasing its rate of fire and of course the Quickness only applies to those inside of the symbol(baring the Guardian with this modification of the trait) and we are only talking about boons so they have their weakness in that they can be corrupted or stripped etc.

How about having Zealot's Fire (the rollover skill from skill 4 Zealot's Flame) have a better chance of actually hitting a target at range. I do agree that reworking or at least improving the Hammer would time better spend by the Dev's, but if your going to bring up the torch Zealot's Fire is a great deal more annoying when it comes to barely hitting a target at any range (and that is one who isn't moving at any range, if they are moving at any range you can pretty much forget about hitting them)

As an alternative how about improving or increasing the duration of reveal on the classes (note that mesmer and the ele doesn't have access to it at all)

Tharan please stop hijacking the thread, from the beginning Otto stated that this was about PvE. If you want to discuss PvP start a thread yourself to bring up your opinion. I'm sure you have some interesting points to bring up and we can all respect your view or not but sidetracking another persons topic entirely in no way gives any validity to your argument.

You kind of need a little more info to get any real help being as nobody has any real idea of your skill ,and just saying Bounties and Champions covers a wide range of difficulties.

I've thinking about this since the last balance patch and I was curious what some of the other players views on this are.In a nut shell we have various skills and traits that allow some classes the ability to target 10 instead of the normal limit of 5 , the most of these are for boons where they are helping squad mates but some abilities allow for the targeting of 10 enemies.As it stands it is very uneven across the classes as who can and can't do this, for honesty on this I generally main a guardian and they recently lower the ability of "Stand Your Ground" back down to 5 from 10 , which while from a players point of view I wasn't thrilled with but honestly from overall game play I could see there point considering Stability's impact in WvW and Raids. What I'm curious about are other players views on this.

Ok I have a question then if they were to swap "Protective Reviver" to the Grand Master tier. If this were to happen hopefully they would improve it's overall effectiveness in some way in consideration that it is now a GM trait and not leave it as it is. What are your personal ideas for a reasonable upgrade to this trait, an easy one would be have it just give the guardian a bonus to healing power either as a straight number or as a percentage off of another stat.

Least we forget a certain Necro's sadly departed sister's spirit merging with a Great sword well before anybody was running around as a Reaper

I suspect that we will be getting her off hand sword, because if you remember alot of the new elites were hinted at and even sometimes shown (at least a beta version) in content before the expac was released(note that this didn't have prefect track record but it wasn't terribly inaccurate).

Actually with the nerfing on the Tomes over the various balance patches and the changes they have done to some the Mantra's (particularly Solace as of March which they did not reduce the Mesmer's healing mantra's healing output at all by comparison) unless your running as totally supportive build FB with Mender's , Sage's or maybe Marshall's Amulet with Rune of Flock and the appropriate trait's, weapons etc your pretty wasting your time even bothering with the Mantra's (I quit using them a while ago and just go with Meditations but to be honest I gave up on FB and went to Core Guardian after the Solace hit anyway ).They should have lowered the healing output on all of the FB skills (both Tomes and Mantras) but given the FB access to Barrier instead but they missed that opportunity , it could have decreased the over powering that some of the existing Guardian traits had when used with the various FB skills that lead to the nerfing that they had to do in later balance patches, they could even have gone so far as to have a Minor trait in the FB line that lowers any of the healing you give but gives out a somewhat better amount of Barrier instead as compensation.

I can get behind the idea of Spear as either a one or two handed weapon along with the off hand sword , torch as a main I'm mixed on.On the shield I'm not being critical but I've seen a couple people bring up the idea of having a shield in your main hand so as to allow dual wielding shields, while I have always personally thought that this was both a really silly idea and utterly ineffective as a method of combat I looked into it and found that they only possible real world example of it ( please note this is only speculation by historians without any real historical documentation of battles where it was used) is in use as a "Roman Testudo" or Roman Tortoise which is used solely to allow troops to have cover to move forward against archers etc and not for actual person to person combat.

Ok in your opinion classes that give buffs should do less damage than those that don't give buffs. Well that's a little short sighted in that you need to consider what is a buff per say , let's look at a Core Warrior , they don't put out a lot of buffs right or do they? The banners that he has available while not being a straight buff in the sense of Might or Fury etc but they do supply a huge benefit or what about Core Thief they don't supply alot of buffs but they do give group Stealth and group teleports which of course allows parties to BYPASS various game mechanics.If you are looking at Snowcrows and raid mechanics as a tool to decide which classes are overpowered by how heavily they are represented in any particular suggested raid team make up there are more than few classes that fall into that description but in most cases if you read further into the details and options you would see that the vast majority of DPS classes can very easily be swapped out with another DPS with very little adjustment so again using Raids to support the need for a nerf falls apart just like the buffing class argument does. While I'm not saying that classes don't need evaluation and balancing but I am saying your main supporting points for nerfing the Guardian are lacking in overall merit to support your opinion.

Just an observation that while the change to Retreat (making it an Ammo based skill) isn't hugely dramatic it could have an interesting effect for the support type FB in that it gives them another on demand access to Aegis(and that without having to resort to a tome and in addition Mantra of Solace) granted Pure of Heart's healing has been reduced in WvW but I think it still could helpful.

YES I KNOW! Isn't crazy that is about as possible as a ranger firing 12 arrows at a target area in 2 3/4 seconds(Barrage much).... I mean really are you having this discussion about something being unrealistic in a online fantasy game....REALLY!

That is kind of flawed because you not taking into consideration the fact that most of our weapon attacks do not apply conditions on their own outside of Vulnerability (and that only if traited) along with the fact that because guards don't have access to nor the ability to easily apply many other conditions it is generally much easier to clear the burning we apply when compared to classes that can easily apply 3 or more conditions types in a sequence of attacks. You should also take a closer look at how many stacks of burning a guard can get from any one attack and it's duration in comparison to other classes. If they were to do what you are suggesting they would have make adjustments in those areas also. I'm not saying the guard doesn't have it's strengths but we aren't anywhere even remotely unmatched or over powered in competitive game play particularly in pvp