UncleSwag.7930

Fair enough. I feel like that particular encounter is a best case scenario due to adds and the ability to time the break bars and encounters being as short as they are. I would be interested to see it in the final fight of shattered obsv as well. I would only say that the net dps gain is due to the outsourced alacrity. If you lose that, it's bad. Most people don't want a build that's dependent on others that much.

That's why I say this is only viable as a power spec. Burn guardian is dependent on high attacks per second due to the nature of Justice's passive. What they've done is make all of the other virtues function the same way (give boons and activate when you strike a lot), but since there are a limited number of skills that allow you to get a lot of procs off like that, you would lose a substantial amount of dps when wasting high hit/second abilities (like whirling wrath and symbols) on your own sustain. This in addition to the fact that it requires activation that's gated by an animation that has inherently low hit per second just makes the rotations worse. Power builds are different since they can do the DPS without the justice passive being active, so it's a non-issue. However that's all this spec can do viably in it's current state. So what we've ended with is a selfish boon build for a power dps guardian... I think that's simply bad design, but again, that's just my opinion. I would kick anyone running this in a raid unless they outputted some nutty dps in its current state (which again, would only be if they were running power).

I've never heard of a build that doesn't function standalone... but even if you were to make a burn build that was only viable in party content with an alacrity source, you're still not going to be able to use your other virtues at all unless you're willing to have a dps drop like no other. None of this changes the fact that only one virtue can be active at a time and the huge consequences that has on all the traits regarding their passive effects. I can see this not being a gripe for someone who just likes open world casual content, but I don't think that's a valid target audience for an entire spec.

In order to have high uptime of justice, it's required that you activate virtue of resolve. Only one virtue's passive can be activated at once in this specialization. Meaning no burns will be proc'd during your accumulation of alacrity, but you will lose hit/second skills and dps while trying to do so. It's not like you can't play burn guard, it just ends up sucking really bad (just like most builds that aren't power dps based in this spec).

I've been a guardian main for over 7 years now, so I'm always hyped to get a new elite spec, but this one was really a let down, to put it nicely... I know it's in beta so I want to hold judgment, but I didn't think the other guardian specializations were this terrible in the previous betas. It seems to lack the fundamental consideration of core guardian traits and specializations entirely. I'll try to keep my review from being too bias since I know I really wanted synergy for burn guardian, but I know that's not always going to be a focus from the crew working on these... ~~ Virtues... I have a bigger problem with how it's proc'd. The fact that the passives require activation ruins many mechanics in multiple specializations and makes them... well... not passives... The fact that they're gated behind animations exacerbates this issue by making it harder to maintain uptime of the passive in combat. I would ignore that fact as I can see why activating virtues for mobility is fun, but the fact that only a single passive can be proc'd at once is a big problem. It means you fundamentally cannot make a viable burn guardian build out of this elite spec due to how dependent on consistent passive procs it is (however, in concept, it would great for this spec since it's also focused on procing the passive burns from Virtue of Justice through hits per second.). The only reason I bring up burn guardian is due to how many traits bolster Virtue of Justice and cater towards burn based dps builds, but this change ruins those. ~~ Traits... Another thing I don't like is the negative effects of the first major traits in Willbender. While I don't mind the concept of a give-take trait, what they give is so underwhelming that it leaves the player with little reason to take them at all. -Boon Pact gives +16% boon duration at the expense of outgoing boons reduced by 50%, but it's too steep for anyone outside of pvp to ever want to take. It's the "i'm not a team player trait" that really doesn't serve as much of a boon for the player considering the consequence. It kinda spits in the face of the concept of a Guardian, but I'll assume that It's meant to be a selfish specialization since the rest of it also reads that way (this also means that anyone running this cannot run a support build; we're down two playstyle options now with this spec!). -Power for Power reads more like how I would expect both of the others, I can't complain about it. When you build for dps, you're always doing it at the consequence of sustain, so this just exaggerates that with a nice power buff (I like it). -Conceited Curate is also kinda bad. Most people who build their guardian for healing will not want it for greedy reasons and if they do, they won't want a selfish elite dps specialization. This must be another PvP trait? -The passive movement speed from Righteous Sprint is a welcome sight to guardian since they've never had a trait or signet that offered this. The fact that it's a minor that forces it on you while offer so little else is a bit disappointing, though. I would rather see it offer something like "removes movement impairing conditions when activating a virtue" to promote mobility instead of the additional swiftness that's really a mild concern when you have that extra 25% move speed from the trait already... The second row of major traits offer, what seemed to me at least, a more sensible selection than the first majors did. However... -Restorative Virtues seems like something that's a need for this specialization considering the passives durations are nerfed into the ground. This is the only trait that makes any of the passive altering traits remotely redeemable. -Holy Reckoning was very weak in practice (especially considering this is a selfish specialization). The healing is minimal considering the uptime on these virtues and the fact that we lost our permanent passive Virtue of Resolve. -Vanguard Tactics reads as is... It's really underwhelming in PVE like most of this specialization but it offers some fun consideration of shadow stepping, even if there are very few shadow steps worth taking in a single build of guardian even in pvp. -Lethal Tempo. I like it. I like that lethal tempo procs when the passives proc, this would've been fun synergy with a burn guardian using Permeating Wrath and Zealous Scepter (even if it does give bonus damage exclusively to power as most dps builds are somewhat hybridized with some physical damage). My problem with it is the fact that it's so easy to stack that it's completely ignorable for the most part. It also does the same thing as Inspiring Virtue (10% damage increase after activating a virtue, 6s). Seems kind of unfortunate to have a dps selling point of an elite specialization doing the same thing as another trait already. Onto the grandmaster traits... -Phoenix Protocol was really fun to play with. It was fun to go to the pvp lobby and hit all the golems and watch me get a lot of alacrity even with such low duration. The fact that it's selfish and only gives it to the guardian is really unfortunate. Especially considering that most dps builds would rather proc burns when wasting their burst skills to really make use of those hit-per-second scenarios in pve, I suppose this is also meant for pvp? However jumping into a group of enemies to try to get alacrity sounds very self destructive and not a good idea... I don't see anyone taking this trait ever to be honest. Selfish alacrity is a weird concept... -Tyrant's Momentum almost redeemed this spec for burn guardian, but not quite. It still leaves an empty section in a rotation that leaves too much down time considering the low damage output when trying to burst enemies down while you have Justice's buff. This was the only clear choice for these in my opinion, even for power dps due to the obvious buff to Lethal Tempo. -Deathless Courage (I read this and cried because I knew it would be so fun to do with a lot of enemies in a dungeon on a burn guardian, but it can't be used while Justice is active...) is only useful when you know something will die, be it you or an enemy to allow you to proc boons. This looks like it was meant as measure to blast people in downstate in pvp, because it wouldn't see much use anywhere else. I would've liked to see this buff applied to allies, but I understand that could break WvW. ~~ Sword Skills... The skills on sword are just terrible. I see no reason to take sword offhand unless you're going full dps glass cannon and just want an offhand that isn't torch... neither skills seem to really give any character to the offhand. I couldn't be more disappointed unless they literally did only damage. ~~ Utility Skills... The utility skills are SOOOO boring. I really felt like the decision of whether or not to run these was made up for me. They look like they would have good synergy with the high hit-per-second nature of the current state of the Virtue passives, but in light of the functionality and inherently selfish nature of the virtues, that's really easy to overlook. Also, I like CC, but this is a LOT of CC (haha). I feel like something more original could have been done and it was a lost opportunity. I did enjoy Reversal of Fortune, though. It reminds me of A.E.D. on engineer, but with charges. I could see potentially using this in hard-hitting boss fights in a lot of places in the game. ~~ My Recommendation(s)... To be honest, I don't like making recommendations on specific changes because I feel like there are a million ways to go about making a fun specialization that just works, so I'll spare details. Although, I do feel the need to say that the passive effects being removed from the virtues needs has to be changed. It ruins too many traits and over complicates a lot of details regarding how the player should expect the abilities to function. I would recommend splitting the current virtue buffs that are acting as the passives from the old passives. Give the guardian the old passives as they used to function and make the specialization's virtue actives just a buff that does the same thing. A perk to the specialization could even be "maintain your virtue passives even after activating the virtue." ~~ Tidbits I would kind of like to know who designed this spec. It doesn't at all feel like the rest of guardian, nor the other specializations. The amount of care and attention to detail is so far beyond par that I really felt like typing this much. I wouldn't type something like this for any of the other classes. This one just felt so bad in it's current state. I really hope some big changes are done to it before End of Dragons' release because it's seriously put to shame on multiple fronts when compared to previous releases. In it's current state, I would recommend core guardian way before this to just about anyone wanting any type of build. I would hate to see this specialization being regarded as someone you'd want to kick from a group. I would rather see the team put more care and attention to detail into the specs even if it means delaying a release. I love the previous specs in their own way so much, I'd like to love this one just as much. I can't wait to see how it gets finalized! Take your time!! ~ Hopefully my wording gets my point across and isn't too vague, I feel like I could've written a book. Thanks for reading! :)