Weaponmaster Training Beta Feedback: Guardian

[GuriGashi.5617]

Have tried Longbow Willbender, Axe Dragonhunter, Sword + Sword Dragonhunter and Core Guard with multiple options in PvP and the only spec that benefited from the choice in weapons was Core Guard, which just shows - together with the fact that Support Core Guard is the best performing Guardian spec - how badly designed and/or overnerfed Guardian Elite Specs really are.

 

Longbow Willbender:

Was extremely underwhelming, because we can’t get the necessary hits in for trigger-based Willbender virtues or Lethal Tempo in PvP. Willbender Physical Skills are melee-based and already do nothing for melee versions of Willbender - on ranged versions they feel even worse. I would suggest to give Physical Skills an actual purpose by reworking them to skills with benefitial effects, so Willbenders don’t have to rely soley on triggers to have impact. Increasing Heavens Palm cooldown, making it refresh Crashing Courage and turning Whirling Light into the Flip-Over Skill of Heel Crack would open up so many more options for Willbender.

 

Axe Dragonhunter:

Dragonhunter doesn’t have any working condition build to support a condition-based weapon like Axe - reason for that is that neither Dragonhunter traits nor traps offer any form of burn. Reworking Piercing Light to give like 3 Stacks of Burn instead of Slow when Traps are triggered would be a reasonable change since the cooldown reduction got removed. If it was just 1 stack of Burn, Axe as a weapon would stay useless on Dragonhunter 
 

Sword + Sword Dragonhunter:

Could have technically worked, but there is no chance for a spec with 11k base HP to be going melee in PvP. The different HP tiers were meant to make up for the Stealth, Block and Heal access some classes have. In modern GW2 where every class has access to them the concept different HP tiers feels like it just adds an artificial handicap to low-HP classes.

 

Firebrand (any):

Every DPS Firebrand version is genuinely weak in PvP and doesn‘t benefit from power weapons like offhand Sword or Longbow. I would give some suggestions, but Power Firebrand will never be a thing when even Support Firebrand struggles. 
 

Might be wrong, but next Expansion will most likely offer no new viable builds or weapon choices for Guardian in PvP, which feels extremely bad.

[Buran.3796]

   Axe is a very neat addition to core Guardian, for both PvE and the condi build at PvP. But is not enough to make them meta in end game content. Core dps Guard in PvP is stronger than Firebrand because the third trailine improves the sustain, but without the tomes core Guard can't be as versatile or bursty as FB. FB has plenty of tools and can be very bursty but the native trailine and nerfed options of healing make them unable to endure pressure.

   Off hand sword is mostly a mobility tool which doesn't bring anything  to the table; outside power PvP/WvW roaming  Willbender.

   Longbow is a power weapon which benefits from stealth and the F1 cc from DH (plus shield) to land devastating burst at skirnmishes in competitive game modes. I don't think that would be as useful for core as axe. The slow cadence of fire won't benefit the hybrid Firebrands nor the fast paced Willbenders. The weapon stll has potential in large scale WvW for Fireband since  a volley of Hunter's Ward from every FB in a zerg can wreak havoc in the battlefield.

   Overall the "openess" of the spec weapons to all Guardian varaints falls in the mid to weak portion of the spectrum: as was known, the weapons which would have more impact would be the ones which doesn't rely too much in the original soec traitline or specific mechanics to be useful. In that sense, lonmgbow is not that good if you don't have Spear of Justice, Winds of Resolve or Shield of Courage, or if you lack traps and play mostly mele. Off hand axe is weak even for WB. Axe is very good, specially for core newcomers,and maybe would benefit WB roamers providing more cc to land their burst, but won't change the PvE meta, because axe FB is still better than other Guardian with axe.

    The change is good (I don't critize it) but some classes will benefit a lot from it and others not. For Guardians isn't as bad as for Warriors, but is not great.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Some of the combinations I tried were pretty fun. Anything with longbow, not so much.

Axe: This worked really well on willbender as second weapon. It doesn't have the attack speed to proc willbender flames, but it's a great weapon swap to while justice is on CD for some extra burns before swapping back. It was okay on DH, but nothing to write home about.

OH Sword: This worked pretty well on firebrand as a gap closer against high mobility enemies. Rushing in with sword #5 and then jumping to axe/torch was fun. The OH sword was also good for chasing, which FB would otherwise struggle with, since it has poor mobility. Not terrible on DH, but GS still works noticeably better for the most part, which makes it just feel meh.

Longbow: I couldn't get this to work well with either FB or willbender. FB needs to be close, negating the LB's range advantage, and the LB was too slow and clunky for willbender to make use of it. This weapon seriously needs some love. It's not that great on DH either unless you pair it with a melee weapon and shoot arrows point blank, which is just a silly way to use a bow.

[Exedore.6320]

All from a PvP perspective:

Longbow: Overshadows staff and scepter as ranged weapons. Longbow has better CC and better damage. It also adds ranged CC to guardian builds which didn't normally have it, which is particularly annoying when fighting burst builds which didn't normally have CC.

Axe: Seems like a good alternative to other weapons for condition builds. Didn't seem overly strong or weak.

[Gehenna.3625]

Making the longbow available to all guardians doesn't take away the issues of the longbow that are already there. So the use of longbow would still be highly situational, except maybe in OW PvE.

Making the axe availabe to all guardians is pretty good for condi builds. Not sure about the off-hand sword. I don't play Willbender because I don't like the playstyle but it seems that the only advantages of the off-hand sword are an extra gap closer of mid range (with a 20 second CD) and lower CDs than the other off-hand skills. The off-hand sword doesn't have damaging conditions so for me it feels like a decent option for power builds, but I think I still prefer the other ones because those skills are more useful to me.

However, I do feel that the greatest wins are for core builds in OW PvE. A core power guardian with a longbow as second weapon will probably be more useful than a staff for dps builds. And the axe for condi builds is also a welcome addition for core guardians. So if your intent was to boost core builds, especially in the OW then I feel like this will be successful. 

[Riv.7456]

Longbow does not mesh well with either Willbender or Firebrand, as the two are simply designed around being melee and moderate/significant focus on conditions. Perhaps, for experimentation ideas, more range and strike dmg could be built into the tomes for Firebrand, a renovation of spirit weapons to make their range/aoe/dmg more comparable to traps, add more fire to the longbow, etc. 

Axe is a solid weapon as long as you are looking at melee condi builds, thus not bad with Willbender and fairly useless with Dragonhunter. 

Off hand sword is simply a niche weapon that I would mainly take for a mobility boost when needed, regardless of the build. 

Edited July 9, 2023 by Riv.7456
clarification

[cat.8975]

WvW: Longbow + Sw/Sw was a great combo on both WB and DH. While LB struggles to proc the virtue effects on WB, this becomes irrelevant when you realize just how terrifying it is for a LB guard to have high mobility. It felt like I was playing Rifle Deadeye at times, loaded up with stun breaks, teleports, dashes, etc.

PvP: Didn't play, but LB and OH sword will probably find some uses on the other specs.

PvE: Off-hand sword needs to do more damage. Buff it to the level focus is currently at, and then nerf the damage on focus 4 (give it something like vuln or lifesteal to compensate). Axe is incredibly underwhelming on non-FB specs, due to how much of its damage is tied to Unrelenting Criticism. The 150 CC pull is sometimes handy but gs5 usually does that job just fine on its own. Longbow is also a little lackluster, as its PvE identity is "does ranged power damage" without much else. It might be cool if it applied more burning on the symbol, and maybe even a burn on True Shot. (I always found it weird how LB has burning on the symbol but is absolutely terrible as a condi weapon.)

[Ezrael.6859]

The Axe is underwhelming outside of Firebrand as you have to take Unrelenting Criticism when taking an Axe already on Firebrand to make it a decent choice.

Outside of FB it lacks a significant amount of bleeds without the trait (stacks around 8-12 consistently when traited and only 3-6 when untraited).

The Daze on Axe 2 is also necessary as it's a Symbol with a very long animation time for an Axe in melee compared to other similar weapons as Axes tend to be fast weapons, the cc pay-off is integral.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Ezrael.6859

[Saiyan.1704]

The only use of Axe was pulling people into DH traps which is just slightly more efficient than GS#5.... but without FB's quickness and specific axe traits like others have said, axe is just a meme and a bad one at that.

I reeaallyyy hope Pistol/Pistol can trigger virtues better than sword/sword...

[Gaiawolf.8261]

4 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

The only use of Axe was pulling people into DH traps which is just slightly more efficient than GS#5.... but without FB's quickness and specific axe traits like others have said, axe is just a meme and a bad one at that.

I reeaallyyy hope Pistol/Pistol can trigger virtues better than sword/sword...

I really hope the next step after opening up the elite spec weapons is to open up the weapon specific traits. It would be really nice if I could use Unrelenting Criticism with my scepter. 

[Saiyan.1704]

3 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

I really hope the next step after opening up the elite spec weapons is to open up the weapon specific traits. It would be really nice if I could use Unrelenting Criticism with my scepter. 

As awesome as that would be, it would be impossible to balance. Can you imagine Untelenting Criticism on Greatsword#2!? Immediate stun on Whirling Wrath lol.

 

Honestly I rather have the ability to mix & match Elite spec's Elites with one another such as using Dragon's Maw for Willbender :3 Or something similiar that's utility related. Perhaps only 1 trap/physical/mantra skill? That would open up a huge can of worms regarding build diversity.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

As awesome as that would be, it would be impossible to balance. Can you imagine Untelenting Criticism on Greatsword#2!? Immediate stun on Whirling Wrath lol.

Huh? Unrelenting Criticism only adds a daze to the first hit of the symbol, which is #4 on GS. It would do nothing for GS#2, since Whirling Wrath isn't a symbol. The bleed could get the same treatment; only procs on the first hit of a skill to balance weapons with multi-hit skills.  Edit: Or just adds the bleeds to the auto-attack skills. That would work too.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Gaiawolf.8261

[Saiyan.1704]

On 7/14/2023 at 11:15 PM, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Huh? Unrelenting Criticism only adds a daze to the first hit of the symbol, which is #4 on GS. It would do nothing for GS#2, since Whirling Wrath isn't a symbol. The bleed could get the same treatment; only procs on the first hit of a skill to balance weapons with multi-hit skills.  Edit: Or just adds the bleeds to the auto-attack skills. That would work too.

You right. Was immediately thinking of Daze on hit but forgot it was specifically for the symbol only.

[xellink.7568]

Longbow is really good on PVE Core Power Guardian. It benches at 20k with very little key presses, no weapon swap and it can go much higher when paired with another weapon. GS/hammer for example.

On actual fights, Core > DH/WB using hammer or GS or Bow and there are some data but very few on wingman, eg. Wingman Aug 23 Patch data. It is definitely viable and the best part isn't the benchmark, its true strength is that virtue of resolve doesn't have a cast time, giving stab and a group breakstun without interrupting your attack chain, thus providing a lot more DPS consistency.

Not my data but just a couple to single out. 
Gw2 Wingman (nevermindcreations.de)
Gw2 Wingman (nevermindcreations.de)

I get similar numbers when I conduct raid training, I am usually top 2-3 DPS in pugs as well on core, its just so easy to hit high numbers. Bear in mind the unbalanced builds for Aug numbers, a lot of builds were nerfed in Sept. While these were targeted, core guard wasn't touched at all so it probably went up in ranks (probably remained viable since release of raids). Bow just added a whole new dimension to that. Nevertheless, very few people will actively pick core guard to raids and most new players approach the game by asking 'which espec should I choose?'

Edited October 7, 2023 by xellink.7568