About righteous instincts and hammer buffs, bringing back DPS guard

[aelska.4609]

Dear anet,

You are misleaded by what DPS guards need to be decent [PvP].

 

Righteous instincts had a +50% crit chance bonus for 2 years (2017->2019). Guards were considered strong back in the days, but reverting this change to +40% is unlikely to make it strong again.
Because:

• Other classes/builds evolved since
• You reduced Signet of Wrath immobilisation from 3s to 1s in 2020
• You removed sigil of agility in 2019, which was helpful in landing gs or ham #2
• You halved the dps of shield of wrath in 2020
• You annihilated smite condition dps in 2020
• You changed smiters boon in 2019, so that it cleanses condis after healing, which is a strong hit to sustain
• etc.

 

Moreover, we could ask you why dps guards would need a traitline that gives a whole +50% crit chance, +10% damage and crit damage to be viable.

 

Second, about the hammer changes:

• Zealot's Embrace is not weak because of its dps, it is weak because it is unreliable.
• Ring of warding is not weak because of its CD, it is weak because the rooting cast time makes it hard to trap someone in it. Hence the combo with JI.
• Mighty blow is not especially weak, but it is hard to land and is the only skill that can pressure the enemy because of the slow AA => they are ready to deny it (dodge, blocks, etc.).
• + I am surprised to not have seen anything about banish. No one in Anet QG thought a 1s cast time 0 damage skill that pushes the enemy out of range of the melee dps was maybe underperforming ?

 

Before adjusting some CD and damage coefficients, you should maybe watch a dps guard fighting in a real situation.
You will see that most of its attacks are a miss, either because:

• They are buggy (gs #2, gs #3, gs #5, hammer #2, hammer #3, scepter #1, torch #4, sword #3)
  They are rooting (hammer #5, gs #2, sword #3)
• They are too slow to actually hit anything (Hammer #1, hammer #4)
• They drop static symbols that enemy avoids (Hammer #1, gs #4, sword #2, scepter #2, mace #2, staff #3, [longbow #4, axe #2])

 

So please don't make adjustments from golem data, these are pointless.

[otto.5684]

To be fair, core dps is significantly better. It is no where close to competitive, but at least I felt I can pressure enemies somewhat now. As someone who played a significant amount of core dps, what it needs is:

1) Better access to stability.

2) More damage still.

3) A slight improvement to VoC. I think giving it 2 ammo charges would be sufficient. 

 

As for WB, the changes Anet did are mostly irrelevant. All three virtues are a downgrade to core virtues in PvP. The mobility does not work due to lack of reliable disengage. I still do not understand why justice has a longer CD in pvp. The entire elite has no access to any condi cleanse, so playing without Valor is suicide. All utilities, except spin are mediocre to terrible. The heal is meh, RL, could work with lower CD. The burst is absolute garbage. Need I remind you Anet, it competes with RF. The damage multipliers are weaker than any other line. Lethal tempo is absolutely not going to work in PvP. It barely holds in PvE. Off hand sword is a joke. Skill 4 won’t hit jack. And it does not deal much damage anyway. Skill 5 is redundant and has a very long CD.
 

As for hammer, glacial blow is okay, everything else is not. There is not any place where GS is not significantly superior to hammer. It needs complete rework.

 

And while buffing RI in PvP is nice, any power build not using radiance is dead.

[Arklite.4013]

2 hours ago, otto.5684 said:

To be fair, core dps is significantly better. It is no where close to competitive, but at least I felt I can pressure enemies somewhat now. As someone who played a significant amount of core dps, what it needs is:

1) Better access to stability.

2) More damage still.

3) A slight improvement to VoC. I think giving it 2 ammo charges would be sufficient. 

 

As for WB, the changes Anet did are mostly irrelevant. All three virtues are a downgrade to core virtues in PvP. The mobility does not work due to lack of reliable disengage. I still do not understand why justice has a longer CD in pvp. The entire elite has no access to any condi cleanse, so playing without Valor is suicide. All utilities, except spin are mediocre to terrible. The heal is meh, RL, could work with lower CD. The burst is absolute garbage. Need I remind you Anet, it competes with RF. The damage multipliers are weaker than any other line. Lethal tempo is absolutely not going to work in PvP. It barely holds in PvE. Off hand sword is a joke. Skill 4 won’t hit jack. And it does not deal much damage anyway. Skill 5 is redundant and has a very long CD.
 

As for hammer, glacial blow is okay, everything else is not. There is not any place where GS is not significantly superior to hammer. It needs complete rework.

 

And while buffing RI in PvP is nice, any power build not using radiance is dead.

I typically take what you say about Guardian at face value but I think you're underestimating WB in PvP currently. Running Virtues over Valor is decent as you get the condi cleanse on both charges of F2. Between the virtues, GS 3, and off hand sword 5, your disengage isn't thief-level or anything, but it's decent. The physical heal takes some getting used to but gives you a lot of staying power in fights once you get the hang of it, and your ability to stick to targets and deal damage is really good. You have reliable cleave and chase. I haven't had any issues with the sword skills being buggy; if anything you're held back by how bad GS 2 is against moving targets. I don't see it being a meta spec or anything because it requires decent macro knowledge to not put yourself in terrible situations, but it's an above average ranked spec.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Arklite.4013

[Gwaihir.1745]

5 minutes ago, Arklite.4013 said:

I typically take what you say about Guardian at face value but I think you're underestimating WB in PvP currently. Running Virtues over Valor is decent as you get the condi cleanse on both charges of F2. Between the virtues, GS 3, and off hand sword 5, your disengage isn't thief-level or anything, but it's decent. The physical heal takes some getting used to but gives you a lot of staying power in fights once you get the hang of it, and your ability to stick to targets and deal damage is really good. You have reliable cleave and chase. I haven't had any issues with the sword skills being buggy; if anything you're held back by how bad GS 2 is against moving targets. I don't see it being a meta spec or anything because it requires decent macro knowledge to not put yourself in terrible situations, but it's an above average ranked spec.

 

The physical heal is pretty easy to shut down though.

 

Any form of soft or hard cc without stab will deny it.

Aware opponents will just deny it.

Many skills will still either inflict their damage on you anyways or at least the conditions and effects of the incoming attack even if reversal procs. Get hit by torch 4 with reversal youre still going to get burned, the 'negate the attack' part of the heal text is bullskitten.

Unblockable skills will deny the proc of reversal for some reason even though it is not a block.

Test of faith and simmilar skills cannot be crossed with reversal, attempting to do so will inflict damage on you and depending on which bug you get, either proc the 2k heal or outright shut the heal down on full cd with no benefit.

Somehow got aegis on wb on top of your reversal? The aegis triggers first.

 

Can it be used well? Sure. Will it get you killed alot of times when you should win? Yep.

[otto.5684]

1 hour ago, Arklite.4013 said:

I typically take what you say about Guardian at face value but I think you're underestimating WB in PvP currently. Running Virtues over Valor is decent as you get the condi cleanse on both charges of F2. Between the virtues, GS 3, and off hand sword 5, your disengage isn't thief-level or anything, but it's decent. The physical heal takes some getting used to but gives you a lot of staying power in fights once you get the hang of it, and your ability to stick to targets and deal damage is really good. You have reliable cleave and chase. I haven't had any issues with the sword skills being buggy; if anything you're held back by how bad GS 2 is against moving targets. I don't see it being a meta spec or anything because it requires decent macro knowledge to not put yourself in terrible situations, but it's an above average ranked spec.

The issue with running virtues/radiance/WB, is that you lose on significant amount of healing and condi cleanse. The mobility you get in return is not worth the risk. And WB does not offer a damage advantage as well. It is a crappy version of power herald. Why not play that? If I am welling to go forgo sustain for extra damage, going radiance/zeal/valor would work much better. 
 

[oscuro.9720]

2 hours ago, Gwaihir.1745 said:

Unblockable skills will deny the proc of reversal for some reason even though it is not a block.

This is probably conditional on certain skills. I’ve tested Dragon Slash ;and breaching strike) on a Willbender using reversal and it does not cancel reversal. The CC lands, but the healing goes through and the damage is negated. I agree it’s buggy, but it does seem to work most of the time.