Let's talk balance..

[ThunderX.6591]

I sayd it in another topic, and i repeat it here; TOP support healer class is TEMPEST, not FB, and people get FB in party cause healer quickness offer a decent compromise between healing and quickness, so an extra FULL dps can be used instead of a mix bag for quickness (that at the end, is probably another FB (dps setting) but with worse dps than any other dps class avaiable cause the use of concentration in the stats).

Nerf the "support FB healer quickness" and the class literally die, cause at the end of all, is a sub par healer (scourge can do the same thx to barrier for extra survival in the party), with only boons to help the class be used in the party (scrapper is on the list too, we need to remember the class, even after some nerf to traits that worse the survival of the class).

Remember, a lot of the time, the party don't call the best class for the role, call a class who can get 2 roles as 1, so an extra dps spot can be used (cause dps is the most important role in the game, why?? simple, boss can oneshot you (no healer can save you) and you need to do boss mechanics for set the next phase (or all die) so, faster the global dps, less time wasted on the encounter).

To summarize, FB is a delicate class with a kind of unique role (Tempest give alacrity, that is why, if could give quickness, FB would literally became a second choice for the party), and the status of all DPS guardians build is terrible now, i mean, as dps, even warrior is in a better spot then dps guardian.

[Yasai.3549]

Guardian is pretty strong but the "last 10 years" statement is straight up false. 
 

[otto.5684]

8 hours ago, Logos.3042 said:

I'm not a guardian main, but I do have a core aoe burn guardian that I like to play.

I'm going to say that I think guardian's core design was really well put together from the beginning.  Traits and skills are cohesive and work together well.  Firebrand really pushed it over the top for support.

***

But as was stated above, I really think the issue is that other classes have really been neglected, and I'd like to see them brought up... I'm saying this as a warrior main.  I dont disparage Guardian, but if ANET isnt going to invest the time to fix warrior, then maybe the only way for warrior to compete is to ruin Guardian and really bring it down so other classes can compete... what a terrible solution... Yes, FB needs a hit or 2, but can they do it without nerfing the whole class?  IDK...

There are multiple classes now that can do that. Harbinger, Tempest, Rengade and FB. To a lesser extent, Catalyst, Herald, Warrior and Ranger. If we nerf FB support hard, people will run Harbinger. 
 

What Anet instead needs to do is figure out where builds that are providing 100% uptime on quickness or alacrity should sit on the dps scale.  only then they should make adjustments. Otherwise will end up in the same place, with build A or B, instead of where we currently are.

Edited July 16, 2022 by otto.5684

[otto.5684]

8 hours ago, Logos.3042 said:

I'm not a guardian main, but I do have a core aoe burn guardian that I like to play.

I'm going to say that I think guardian's core design was really well put together from the beginning.  Traits and skills are cohesive and work together well.  Firebrand really pushed it over the top for support.

***

But as was stated above, I really think the issue is that other classes have really been neglected, and I'd like to see them brought up... I'm saying this as a warrior main.  I dont disparage Guardian, but if ANET isnt going to invest the time to fix warrior, then maybe the only way for warrior to compete is to ruin Guardian and really bring it down so other classes can compete... what a terrible solution... Yes, FB needs a hit or 2, but can they do it without nerfing the whole class?  IDK...

Double post 😕

Edited July 16, 2022 by otto.5684

[Logos.3042]

1 hour ago, otto.5684 said:

There are multiple classes now that can do that. Harbinger, Tempest, Rengade and FB. To a lesser extent, Catalyst, Herald, Warrior and Ranger. If we nerf FB support hard, people will run Harbinger. 
 

What Anet instead needs to do is figure out where builds that are providing 100% uptime on quickness or alacrity should sit on the dps scale.  only then they should make adjustments. Otherwise will end up in the same place, with build A or B, instead of where we currently are.

I dont disagree!  I really think bringing other classes to where guardian is as far as traits and skills is what needs to happen first.  

 

Then there needs to be a really big boon overhaul... it is really way too much right now, same with condis.  It's overwhelming how many boons and condis can be sneezed out in a 3 second window.  And the swing that they bring are just massive... quickness, alacrity, full might... what is this, a doubling of your dps if you have all 3 of these full uptime?  It's insane...

[ThunderX.6591]

You need to remember one thing about condi build damage............ condition, they hit 1 time every second, no matter what you do, the damage is 1 time each second only, instead, power damage is dependant on quickness a lot, we need to remember that (you nerf quickness FB, you penalize all power build, so, before asking about nerf of something, think about the large scale conseguences that can cause.

We lost 4k dps flat because of the change in banners, spirits and spotter like skills, and that happened cause people asked to change them for some times......

Things can change a lot when devs mod a class, on the nerf side as on the upgrade one. (the problem is....... we don't know how the changes come out until the change are online......... good or bad they are)

Oh right, we lost 4k damage, BUT monsters and the rest of the game didn't change at all with the 28/06 patch in term of difficulty (instead, the monsters who can use fury get a bonus now from 20% to 25% like us), so, atm, i can simple say that the game became harder for all of us.

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by ThunderX.6591

[Gehenna.3625]

9 hours ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

You need to remember one thing about condi build damage............ condition, they hit 1 time every second, no matter what you do, the damage is 1 time each second only, instead, power damage is dependant on quickness a lot, we need to remember that (you nerf quickness FB, you penalize all power build, so, before asking about nerf of something, think about the large scale conseguences that can cause.

If FB was the only elite spec that could give quickness you might have a point...but it's not.

9 hours ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

We lost 4k dps flat because of the change in banners, spirits and spotter like skills, and that happened cause people asked to change them for some times......

Not sure if people asked for this change, but I suspect that overall DPS had to be nerfed because of key boons being provided by classes that can provide multiple boons. So there are more people in a raid group that can focus on DPS only.

9 hours ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

Things can change a lot when devs mod a class, on the nerf side as on the upgrade one. (the problem is....... we don't know how the changes come out until the change are online......... good or bad they are)

True that.

9 hours ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

Oh right, we lost 4k damage, BUT monsters and the rest of the game didn't change at all with the 28/06 patch in term of difficulty (instead, the monsters who can use fury get a bonus now from 20% to 25% like us), so, atm, i can simple say that the game became harder for all of us.

Have you noticed this difference then? Which content? I'm really curious actually.

[ThunderX.6591]

Monsters and contents didn't get modified, nothing which point to some reduction in hp, def, or anything else done to them, so, they stay the same, and with 4k dps loss, all get a bit harder now (more time needed to kill and that give less gap time for complete timed gated events, more time for the monsters to do extra things cause the less damage they take and so on).

About the fury thing, is really simple; monsters have the same boons we have when they cast them, so, if one of our boon change, the same happen to the monsters boons (happened to retaliation when was changed to resolution), simple as that (i don't think they have separated boons between players and monsters).

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

On 7/16/2022 at 12:39 AM, The Game Slayer.7632 said:

right, sorry, third best but still meta during the first couple years and then climbing to first after war and ele got nerfs.

dang, thats crazy. imagine a class being meta for 10 years straight and people still having trouble seeing that. I mean it's only the delusional mains themselves really. It's not contentious to state that guard is the best class in gw2. I'm posting in the guard forums so I expect to see a bunch of guard mains QQ'ing. it's pretty funny really

You are just digging your credibility lower in here.

The only place in "meta" guardian had in vanilal day was in wvw as glorified stability and swiftness machine. That was it. PvE? Warriors, Eles, Necroses, ocasional ranger, hardly place for a guardian, and even if it made into the comp it was for that might from the staff, and even then this was easy to replace with virtually anything.

And funny how you completely ignored the fact you were literally responding to a RANGER MAIN but still felt need to repeat the "it's only delusional mains themselves", as if it was some "I win" card.

as for stating guardian to be "best class in GW2" - best in what, and best when, are big important factors there.

Were they best for whole of game history? - no they were bad in most of things for big chunk of it, then got okaish, and only after PoF they got actually good.

Are they best DPS rn? rofl no.

Are they best healers? as far as I keep track of it - no, not really.

Are they best at role compression? arguably yes, firebrand can do multiple roles in a group, and be good enought at it to allow for more dedicated dps slots in the composition.

Are they best in role versatility? probably, on paper you could do a guardian build for every role, even if guardians as alac providers are kinda bad (but technically speaking possible)

[cat.8975]

5 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

PvE? Warriors, Eles, Necroses, ocasional ranger, hardly place for a guardian, and even if it made into the comp it was for that might from the staff, and even then this was easy to replace with virtually anything.

If you brought them for PvE, it was for the aegis, stability, blinds, reflects, or protection. Very nice to have one for Arah, and a few other dungeon paths where they were a solid addition to the party. Ranger/Necro were almost never seen back then, due to their lack of utility/damage at the time. Thief/Mes were definitely more common, just for their stealth/blink/portal/blind/reflect/etc. utils.

https://www.youtube.com/user/obal100 <- If you're interested in old PvE Guardian stuff

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

7 minutes ago, cat.8975 said:

If you brought them for PvE, it was for the aegis, stability, blinds, reflects, or protection. Very nice to have one for Arah, and a few other dungeon paths where they were a solid addition to the party. Ranger/Necro were almost never seen back then, due to their lack of utility/damage at the time. Thief/Mes were definitely more common, just for their stealth/blink/portal/blind/reflect/etc. utils.

https://www.youtube.com/user/obal100 <- If you're interested in old PvE Guardian stuff

Fair point for Arah, because that was so specific place I forgot it was a thing.

Ranger I have seen in at least one cof p2 record speedrun in the composition, don't recall guardian there (could be in some others)

Generally as far as vanilla dungeons are concerned stability was rarely actually needed, reflects were the case of couple specific encounters in a number of paths where it could cheese the boss. Aegis and Blinds, both are defensive utilities, and those were generally underappreciated in the meta back then.

Mesmers felt approx as situational to me back then as guardians - they could allow party to skip some otherwise mildly annoying bits of some paths, but that's about it. Thieves I remember mostly by rezzing them over and over and over on my ranger in pug dungeon runs.....

[cat.8975]

Thieves were used for stealth skips, blind spam, and CC spam to remove stacks of the old Defiance buff (e.g. for the abom in Arah). Mesmers were definitely very situational and rarely seen in pugs, but portal proved to be huge for some speedrun methods.

[otto.5684]

On 7/16/2022 at 5:35 PM, Logos.3042 said:

I dont disagree!  I really think bringing other classes to where guardian is as far as traits and skills is what needs to happen first.  

 

Then there needs to be a really big boon overhaul... it is really way too much right now, same with condis.  It's overwhelming how many boons and condis can be sneezed out in a 3 second window.  And the swing that they bring are just massive... quickness, alacrity, full might... what is this, a doubling of your dps if you have all 3 of these full uptime?  It's insane...

I dunno if I would want to bring guardian trait design to other classes. Out of the main 3 classes I play, guardian, rev and mesmer, guardian has the worst major traits. Nearly always dominated by one trait, many times in all game modes.

[Logos.3042]

12 minutes ago, otto.5684 said:

I dunno if I would want to bring guardian trait design to other classes. Out of the main 3 classes I play, guardian, rev and mesmer, guardian has the worst major traits. Nearly always dominated by one trait, many times in all game modes.

Hmm, I have not seen that.  Many compete for the builds that I do.  Anyway, Guardian is the most cohesive profession when you consider skills and traits.  I dont think there is a better working profession atm.  

[cat.8975]

There are definitely some stinkers in the Guardian traits, but that's not too different from what other classes have as well. Where Guardian really shines is in its selection of utility skills. Other classes would kill to have half-or-more of their utils being viable and/or BiS in a single gamemode.

For PvE, I've managed to find different places for each of these utils where they were the best tool for the job:

• Hallowed Ground
• Purging Flames
• Sanctuary
• Wall of Reflection
• Judge' Intervention
• Merciful Intervention
• "Hold the Line!"
• "Advance!"
• "Stand Your Ground!"
• Bane Signet
• Signet of Mercy
• Signet of Wrath
• Bow of Truth
• Hammer of Wisdom
• Sword of Justice
• Shield of the Avenger

And that's just the core class utils. For the three elite specs, I've found use cases for all of these:

• Light's Judgment
• Test of Faith
• Procession of Blades
• Mantra of Flame
• Mantra of Lore
• Mantra of Potence
• Flash Combo
• Whirling Light
• Roiling Light

And then you have our selection of core elites, with all three of them being great:

• "Feel My Wrath!"
• Renewed Focus
• Signet of Courage

Edited July 18, 2022 by cat.8975

[otto.5684]

11 hours ago, cat.8975 said:

There are definitely some stinkers in the Guardian traits, but that's not too different from what other classes have as well. Where Guardian really shines is in its selection of utility skills. Other classes would kill to have half-or-more of their utils being viable and/or BiS in a single gamemode.

For PvE, I've managed to find different places for each of these utils where they were the best tool for the job:

• Hallowed Ground
• Purging Flames
• Sanctuary
• Wall of Reflection
• Judge' Intervention
• Merciful Intervention
• "Hold the Line!"
• "Advance!"
• "Stand Your Ground!"
• Bane Signet
• Signet of Mercy
• Signet of Wrath
• Bow of Truth
• Hammer of Wisdom
• Sword of Justice
• Shield of the Avenger

And that's just the core class utils. For the three elite specs, I've found use cases for all of these:

• Light's Judgment
• Test of Faith
• Procession of Blades
• Mantra of Flame
• Mantra of Lore
• Mantra of Potence
• Flash Combo
• Whirling Light
• Roiling Light

And then you have our selection of core elites, with all three of them being great:

• "Feel My Wrath!"
• Renewed Focus
• Signet of Courage

I know this is not the point of this thread, and it could due to your lack of experience with the class. From w veteran, Short list in pve:

 

hallowed ground, just use stand your ground. You do not need both.

Sanctuary, absolutely not. Use wall of reflection. It’s uptime is abysmal and you do not need both.

Judges intervention, never use this in pve. Terrible damage and you do not need the leap to begin with.

Advance, I have not used this since mounts where introduced in 2017.

Bow of truth, no. Weak heal and long CD.

hammer of wisdom, it does seem like a good CC option, but it is not.

shield of the avenger? Trash.

Traps, do not use anything in PvE beside PT and elite. everything else is significantly outmatched in damage, utility or sustain, by something else.

Mantras, solid across the board.

Do not run any WB utility except WL. There are better options.

Elite signet is also meh. The passive is weak and the active has limited uses. You would never run this outside of FB to begin with. Just use either elite mantra or FmW.

 

To be fair, this is not a guardian exclusive issue. You are limited to less than 10 useable utilities. Mostly, whatever provides highest damage or boons. Guardian is neither good or bad here. 

 

 

[cat.8975]

42 minutes ago, otto.5684 said:

I know this is not the point of this thread, and it could due to your lack of experience with the class. From w veteran, Short list in pve:

 

hallowed ground, just use stand your ground. You do not need both.

Sanctuary, absolutely not. Use wall of reflection. It’s uptime is abysmal and you do not need both.

Judges intervention, never use this in pve. Terrible damage and you do not need the leap to begin with.

Advance, I have not used this since mounts where introduced in 2017.

Bow of truth, no. Weak heal and long CD.

hammer of wisdom, it does seem like a good CC option, but it is not.

shield of the avenger? Trash.

Traps, do not use anything in PvE beside PT and elite. everything else is significantly outmatched in damage, utility or sustain, by something else.

Mantras, solid across the board.

Do not run any WB utility except WL. There are better options.

Elite signet is also meh. The passive is weak and the active has limited uses. You would never run this outside of FB to begin with. Just use either elite mantra or FmW.

 

To be fair, this is not a guardian exclusive issue. You are limited to less than 10 useable utilities. Mostly, whatever provides highest damage or boons. Guardian is neither good or bad here. 

 

 

• Hallowed Ground: I've found a handful of niche cases where the 12s base duration (traited) has helped to block back-to-back CC attacks in a way that SYG doesn't, or has a harder time doing so. While the cast time is not ideal, the skill does have its uses.
• Sanctuary: This is one of the strongest CC skills we have in our toolkit, and is frequently seen in 100 CM clears, along with plenty of raid and strike encounters.
• Judge's Intervention: Having a targeted blink is crucial for some skips (e.g., blinking to the boss on Cliffside, or skipping the first bit of Molten Duo)
• "Advance!": A low-cooldown, party-wide aegis is invaluable in some cases.
• Bow of Truth: Without healing power, this skill is solid. With healing power, this skill is absurd.
• Hammer of Wisdom: Great for Artsariiv, MAMA, and Samarog. Also a solid choice for keeping trash locked down (think of the krait immediately after MAMA). Anywhere that you need CC more frequently than the cooldown of Sanctuary or Bane Signet, this is a good choice.
• Shield of the Avenger: Admittedly very niche, but the low cooldown + ammo allows you to spam projectile hate in short encounters (Molten Furnace endboss)
• Light's Judgment: A great way to instantly rampup vuln, and quite strong in a condi DH build for cleaving trash.
• Test of Faith: Good for crippling/killing any trash that's chasing you, allowing you to break out of combat sooner.
• Flash Combo: Arguably a better version of JI. Great if you need to blink out to deal w/ a mechanic and then quickly return.
• Roiling Light: There is no better stunbreak on this class. This skill is hilariously overloaded in PvE and I'm surprised people haven't realized it yet (okay, not that surprised). Stun break, evade, mobility, blind, daze, leap finisher, on a 15s cd? Other classes would kill to have this skill LOL
• Signet of Courage: Solid on FB whenever you don't need more stab or quickness, and a relatively "free" source of panic stability on the other specs. You don't need to fully channel the skill to take advantage of the stability.

Regarding my "lack of experience" with the class, I've logged 7.2k hours on Guardian since 2013. I've seen just about every PvE meta and I remember the pathetic state some of these utils used to be in. 

[Devas.8104]

As a Guardian main, I have reacted with a confused emote to every single one of your posts, and will keep doing so at the sight of your username.

It is obvious us Guardians have been neglected from the start. The June 28th rework was a massive nerf, as evidenced by various polls, and the developers openly favor mechanists and more importantly harbingers.

 

They even nerfed Trapper runes... my full power zerker DH is now utterly unplayable. I will vote with my money until Anet bring other classes down, more inline with my poor full power willbender (other classes have too much HP/survivability).

[cat.8975]

20 minutes ago, Devas.8104 said:

It is obvious us Guardians have been neglected from the start.

While Guardian wasn't S-tier at the launch of the game, and had a pretty bad time during the 2015-2017 window (after the conversion of traits to specializations and before the buffs to zeal/radiance/symbols), it has been a solid pick in most PvE metas since then.

Yes, pdh and pwb are bad right now, but so are most power builds (the loss of banners/spirits hit them harder than their condi counterparts, and I'm sure that'll be addressed at some point in the future). You could argue that Guard lost a little more than the other classes because it didn't get another 5% crit added to its traits, but that's still only 105 stats, or approximately ~800-900 dps.

You can still play the power builds where it makes sense to (dungeons, raid bosses w/ lower toughness, open world, etc.). For other instanced content, just run cwb/cfb in the meantime while we wait for future tweaks. On a side note, gs cwb kinda scratches the power itch despite being a condi build, and I highly recommend it if you haven't tried it yet.

[Duglaive.5236]

1 hour ago, Devas.8104 said:

As a Guardian main, I have reacted with a confused emote to every single one of your posts, and will keep doing so at the sight of your username.

It is obvious us Guardians have been neglected from the start. The June 28th rework was a massive nerf, as evidenced by various polls, and the developers openly favor mechanists and more importantly harbingers.

 

They even nerfed Trapper runes... my full power zerker DH is now utterly unplayable. I will vote with my money until Anet bring other classes down, more inline with my poor full power willbender (other classes have too much HP/survivability).

And as long as you can type out a sentence like the bolded & italicized one with a straight face, I'll give you a laughing face emote. Every class sees its issues, including Guardian, but neglected? If that were the case, running a 'zerker DH with Trapper runes never would have even existed, much less where Firebrand still stands as high as it does.

And if it feels I'm being a bit harsh, I would invite you to take your statements/complaints over to the Warrior sub-forum. I'm sure you'd get a great outpouring of "sympathy" there 

[Bunny.9834]

On 7/4/2022 at 2:04 AM, The Game Slayer.7632 said:

Guardian has been the best class in the game in every game mode for the last 10 years. Change my mind.

Facts. 

💀

[Devas.8104]

On 7/4/2022 at 11:04 AM, The Game Slayer.7632 said:

Guardian has been the best class in the game in every game mode for the last 10 years. Change my mind.

 

I can't change your mind: it's not the class, it's the players.

Us guardian players are just the best, which also factors into our class choice. The class is pretty straightforward - like what that dev said, he likes straightforward classes. It also has a very high skill ceiling, which makes the difference between a good guard (can 1v1 anything) and a great guard/DH/willbenda (can down an entire team of 3 on their own).

 

100% perfect balance, well-done ANet, thanks.

[The Game Slayer.7632]

3 minutes ago, Devas.8104 said:

 

I can't change your mind: it's not the class, it's the players.

Us guardian players are just the best, which also factors into our class choice. The class is pretty straightforward - like what that dev said, he likes straightforward classes. It also has a very high skill ceiling, which makes the difference between a good guard (can 1v1 anything) and a great guard/DH/willbenda (can down an entire team of 3 on their own).

 

100% perfect balance, well-done ANet, thanks.

this some high level sarcasm

[ThunderX.6591]

To give some last minutes info, Willbender nerf in pvp just arrived......

 

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

On 7/18/2022 at 11:32 PM, Duglaive.5236 said:

Every class sees its issues, including Guardian, but neglected?

yeah neglected is a very poor choice of word, guardians did have alot of AN attention when balancing (as shown by a litany of nerfs in nearly every balance pass)