Zealot's Defense could use a small buff to be more viable in PVP/WvW

[SpaceMarine.1836]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone would agree with me that Zealot's Defense (Guardian Sword 3 skill) could use a small buff to be more viable in PVP. Right now, the attack holds you in place, and has very apparent visual effect, and very long duration, so that pretty much everyone dodges it. It's became relegated to more or less a downed cleave skill.

Here's my proposal for a few small buffs which could make it more viable. I mean just one of these possibilities, NOT all 3 at once. Either:

• Increase the range from 600 to 900: (Could give you couple extra hits before enemy leaves the range).
• Allow moving at reduced speed while using the skill (Similar to Whirling Wrath - Greatsword 3): (Not being immobilized while casting skill is always useful).
• Replace missile block with missile reflect: (The skill would gain useful utility even if you casted it at someone who's outside the 600 range).

I am curious what others think about this.

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Sahne.6950]

2 hours ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone would agree with me that Zealot's Defense (Guardian Sword 3 skill) could use a small buff to be more viable in PVP. Right now, the attack holds you in place, and has very apparent visual effect, and very long duration, so that pretty much everyone dodges it. It's became relegated to more or less a downed cleave skill.

Here's my proposal for a few small buffs which could make it more viable. I mean just one of these possibilities, NOT all 3 at once. Either:

• Increase the range from 600 to 900: (Could give you couple extra hits before enemy leaves the range).
• Allow moving at reduced speed while using the skill (Similar to Whirling Wrath - Greatsword 3): (Not being immobilized while casting skill is always useful).
• Replace missile block with missile reflect: (The skill would gain useful utility even if you casted it at someone who's outside the 600 range).

I am curious what others think about this.

 

skill is already powerfull enough.

Think about it more like a defensetool.

[oscuro.9720]

Here’s a list of damage-based channel skills compared by coefficient/second (competitive mode numbers): 

Hundred Blades: 1.029

Whirling Axe: 1.599

Volley: 1.00

Whirling Wrath: 3.733

Zealot's Defense: 3.520

Rapid Fire: 1.1

Whirling Defense: 1.625

Unload: 1.440

Pistol Whip: 3.200

Electro Whirl: 1.360

Shock Shield: .286

Blurred Frenzy: 1.024

Ghastly Claw: 1.522

Life Siphon: 1.286

Life Transfer: .771

Meteor Shower: 2.144

Plasma Beam: 1.760
 

Zealots defense and whirling wrath are actually quite strong compared to other classes’ channel skills. With the added missile block and range, the self root is actually rather justifiable IMO. If anything, speeding up projectile speed so that it actually hits things at a reasonable range, or adding tracking to the projectiles (like specter scepter 3) so that it can consistently land all of the projectiles would be a more reasonable alteration to the skill. 

[SpaceMarine.1836]

1 hour ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Here’s a list of damage-based channel skills compared by coefficient/second (competitive mode numbers): 

Hundred Blades: 1.029

Whirling Axe: 1.599

Volley: 1.00

Whirling Wrath: 3.733

Zealot's Defense: 3.520

Rapid Fire: 1.1

Whirling Defense: 1.625

Unload: 1.440

Pistol Whip: 3.200

Electro Whirl: 1.360

Shock Shield: .286

Blurred Frenzy: 1.024

Ghastly Claw: 1.522

Life Siphon: 1.286

Life Transfer: .771

Meteor Shower: 2.144

Plasma Beam: 1.760
 

Zealots defense and whirling wrath are actually quite strong compared to other classes’ channel skills. With the added missile block and range, the self root is actually rather justifiable IMO. If anything, speeding up projectile speed so that it actually hits things at a reasonable range, or adding tracking to the projectiles (like specter scepter 3) so that it can consistently land all of the projectiles would be a more reasonable alteration to the skill. 

The issue is that most of these skills don't actually immobilize you while casting them.

[cat.8975]

3 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Here’s a list of damage-based channel skills compared by coefficient/second (competitive mode numbers): 

Hundred Blades: 1.029

Whirling Axe: 1.599

Volley: 1.00

Whirling Wrath: 3.733

Zealot's Defense: 3.520

Rapid Fire: 1.1

Whirling Defense: 1.625

Unload: 1.440

Pistol Whip: 3.200

Electro Whirl: 1.360

Shock Shield: .286

Blurred Frenzy: 1.024

Ghastly Claw: 1.522

Life Siphon: 1.286

Life Transfer: .771

Meteor Shower: 2.144

Plasma Beam: 1.760
 

Zealots defense and whirling wrath are actually quite strong compared to other classes’ channel skills. With the added missile block and range, the self root is actually rather justifiable IMO. If anything, speeding up projectile speed so that it actually hits things at a reasonable range, or adding tracking to the projectiles (like specter scepter 3) so that it can consistently land all of the projectiles would be a more reasonable alteration to the skill. 

Don't use tooltip cast times, they're incredibly inaccurate. With quickness, Zealot's Defense has a cast time of ~1.4055s. While I don't know the exact number without quickness, we can roughly approximate it as ~2.1s. That would give it a coefficient/second value of 0.838, nowhere near the "3.520" in your post.

I'd recommend gathering some accurate cast times and rerunning all of those numbers, assuming you care to.

[oscuro.9720]

33 minutes ago, cat.8975 said:

Don't use tooltip cast times, they're incredibly inaccurate. With quickness, Zealot's Defense has a cast time of ~1.4055s. While I don't know the exact number without quickness, we can roughly approximate it as ~2.1s. That would give it a coefficient/second value of 0.838, nowhere near the "3.520" in your post.

I'd recommend gathering some accurate cast times and rerunning all of those numbers, assuming you care to.

Yes, absolutely. That’s a fair point. Unfortunately,  the wiki does not have those cast times available as they do with the auto attacks, or I would absolutely use those. Most of these channel skills suffer from a similar conundrum though, and from the few I’ve looked at, you are getting less than a 1/4s variation of pre cast and after cast. While that’s significant, it can atleast be assumed these numbers are accurate within a margin of error. GRANTED, o have only compared like 3 of them, so it may have larger variation than I am accounting for. 
 

I do point out frequently when using these numbers that skills like pistol whip, whirling wrath, and zealots defense should not be viewed as overly-strong because of the unique circumstances surrounding them (sub 1s cast time, etc.), and that the numbers are distorted for those particular skills. My point wasn’t to give a perfect illustration, but rather to show that zealots defense isn’t particularly weak, and with the added trade offs, is a reasonably balanced skill. Rather, addressing some of the oddities of the skill (doesn’t hit horizontally moving targets well) would probably be the best way to increase the skill’s power level without overly focusing on numbers or the balance of tradeoffs. 
 

Thank you for bringing that up though, as I should’ve absolutely included a disclaimer that the numbers are not to be used as a perfectly objective measure of a skill, partially for the reason you mentioned, but also because many skills have additional, hard to quantify utilities embedded in them, creating subjective trade offs. 

[SpaceMarine.1836]

My overall point is that the skill is:

- Very telegraphed

- Has very apparent strong visual effect

- Locks the caster in place

- Has short range that's quite easy to get out of

Technical details aside, anyone who spent some significant time playing guardian with sword will probably agree it's very rare to land this skill successfully in PVP/WvW scenario, downed bodies aside.

So I proposed 2 individual tweaks, both of which would not make the skill stronger DPS wise, but would make it easier to land. Not significantly easier, just slightly. Then I proposed one more, which would not make it easier to land, but would give the skill some slight additional utility even if it was not landed correctly.

Any single of these 3 would be IMO fine. I am sure there are way more skills that could use some tweaks. Core Warrior rifle burst skill for example, but I haven't played other classes long enough to truly judge that.

Edited August 6, 2022 by SpaceMarine.1836

[otto.5684]

It is out of place with WB. For every thing else, it is fine as is. I do not think it needs buffs or nerfs in spvp.

[aelska.4609]

It needs total rework, it is so unreliable that any buff will just cheese it.