How would YOU balance Guardian?

[Sorem.9157]

Hello, i am Sorem, a rather experienced guardian player.

The purpose of this thread is to provide healthy suggestions for Guardian balance, in order to provide ArenaNet with a wider range of ideas, coming from people who have plenty of experience with the profession. I believe this kind of brainstorm is a healthy way for the community to give suggestions to the developers. That could lead to better balance updates in the future or maybe even a hotfix for the current (02/06/18) patch.

While i understand that firebrand's survivability was way over the top, I can't help but to wonder whether today the developers made the right call nerfing Firebrand that specific way and leaving nothing to make up for it in different direction. It does solve a few WvW issues, i believe, but in my honest opinion it butchers any viability for firebrand builds that aren't full bunkers on PvP, hurting build variety. This is just my opinion.

Another thing that i would like to point is the lack of viability of Dragonhunter specialization and core guardian being forced to play gimmick one shot builds. Again, just my opinion, but I would like to keep this threat not focused only on Firebrand.

So i would like to know how would you have done it. How would you have changed the Guardian profession in general in order to achieve proper balance within itself and other professions ?

Please, keep it classy.

[Saiyan.1704]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:"Several firebrand skills were too powerful, which became very clear in PvP and WvW games, so defensive tomes received tweaks in those modes, disregarding whether or not Warrior directly counters all Firebrand power builds like Harrier. We made it extremely difficult for Guardians to find a decent Power build to use in Ranked play but at least Bunker Firebrand builds are more toned down."

So we got our single hit negation + 1k healing spam factor F3#1 skill removed... a potential 5k to 8k heal and 5k to 8k dmg negation... how is that warranted? Where's the nerf from other classes that warrants this strong nerf?

Imbued Haste 250 toughness to 150.. ?(Straight up a WvW ONLY reason but sPvP is effected because of it...)

A lot of these changes were, yet again, made because of WvW. Sure I would have removed the ez spam F3#1 aegis and have given us a self-sustain buff elsewhere. Or heck, give us more damage in Zeal and Radiance to make up the loss of self-sustains from the F3 nerf.

Quite tired of WvW and PvP not receiving separate balances... DH's True Shot and LB#5 due to WvW back in HoT... now nerfing F3 while buffing Power FB's counter core Wars... this really gets old. Guess i'll stick with Bunker Punching Bag builds.

[RabbitUp.8294]

@Sorem.9157 said:So i would like to know how would you have done it. How would you have changed the Guardian profession in general in order to achieve proper balance within itself and other professions ?

Start over. There's no salvaging guardian. And I'm not saying this to be cynical, there really is no connecting thread, no core identiy to the profession. We are 2 expansions in now, and instead of this being lessened, elite specs are actually making it so much worse. Both guardian's but those of other classes as well.

Anet needs to sit down and decide what they want guardian to be. Because when people first picked the class, 2 dps-oriented elite specs in a row, while other classes get to be valuable supports, is not what they expected.

[Sorem.9157]

@RabbitUp.8294 said:

@Sorem.9157 said:So i would like to know how would you have done it.

How would you have changed the Guardian profession in general in order to achieve proper balance within itself and other professions ?

Start over. There's no salvaging guardian. And I'm not saying this to be cynical, there really is no connecting thread, no core identiy to the profession. We are 2 expansions in now, and instead of this being lessened, elite specs are actually making it so much worse. Both guardian's but those of other classes as well.

Anet needs to sit down and decide what they want guardian to be. Because when people first picked the class, 2 dps-oriented elite specs in a row, while other classes get to be valuable supports, is not what they expected.

Let's not worry about other professions. We must first tackle Guardian suggestions then move to others. In my opinion we must first find an identify for each trait line and work from that. I'm all in for build synergy but i don't think that is healthy right now. In my opinion each line should have 3 different identities and work with that. The way it is right now, we constantly have one trait line or type of utility relying on the other and we find ourselves in situations for example that we can't have Firebrand without Honor or Radiance without Firebrand or Virtues. That really hurts the class and if we change that it will be much easier to balance one spec without collateral damage like happened today.

[RabbitUp.8294]

@Sorem.9157 said:

@RabbitUp.8294 said:

@Sorem.9157 said:So i would like to know how would you have done it.

How would you have changed the Guardian profession in general in order to achieve proper balance within itself and other professions ?

Start over. There's no salvaging guardian. And I'm not saying this to be cynical, there really is no connecting thread, no core identiy to the profession. We are 2 expansions in now, and instead of this being lessened, elite specs are actually making it so much worse. Both guardian's but those of other classes as well.

Anet needs to sit down and decide what they want guardian to be. Because when people first picked the class, 2 dps-oriented elite specs in a row, while other classes get to be valuable supports, is not what they expected.

Let's not worry about other professions. We must first tackle Guardian suggestions then move to others. In my opinion we must first find an identify for each trait line and work from that. I'm all in for build synergy but i don't think that is healthy right now. In my opinion each line should have 3 different identities and work with that. The way it is right now, we constantly have one trait line or type of utility relying on the other and we find ourselves in situations for example that we can't have Firebrand without Honor or Radiance without Firebrand or Virtues. That really hurts the class and if we change that it will be much easier to balance one spec without collateral damage like happened today.

(Essay/Rant following)

You can't balance a profession in vacuum. You can't start working on guardian before you know what you want guardian to be, and it's clear that anet doesn't. Finding an identity for each traitline is where the problem begins. Guardian is the only class designed like that, and the result is that valor and honour are absolutely useless in pve. I can't think of a single other class where the problem is so obvious.

Check the other support-oriented professions, there's always some form of damage boost hidden in their support lines. Basically, their lines are designed just like how our Virtues line is designed. Mesmer's Inspiration has Illusionary Inspiration, a source of all boons, and after the patch, might stacking. Ele's Water has Piercing Shards and Aquamancer's Training, Earth has a couple, too. Rev's Salvation has alacrity.

The closest thing to a damage boost is Writ of Persistence, and that's quite the stretch. So, effectively, these lines become pvp/wvw only, and sure they are valuable in these modes, but so are the support lines of other classes.

That means that pvp guardian is practically a completely different class than pve guardian. We are talking about the same class being OP support in pvp, and absolute garbage in pve. And that's not firebrand's problem exclusively, it's how guardian is designed. Anet is insisting on limiting us to "defensive support" and at the same time, mesmer was sharing invulnerabity on top of a plethora of offensive boons and unique utility, and now they are as good as guardian at aegis spam.

There's nothing guardian is permited to have for its own, something that no other class is allowed to reach. Mesmer has things like portal, that are completely unique, to something like chrono providing all boons in the game alone, or something as simple as Focus 4 having 600 range for no reason, which is reason enough to bring a mesmer in certain content. PoF added pulls and none of them were allowed to compete with mesmer. On top of boon steal/removal, party stealth and others. The last ones are not unique, but they are just more stuff in mesmer's extremely self-sufficient kit. Ranger has multiple buffs, same for warrior, necro is master of condis, boon corruption and condi transfer and minion masters. Revenant has no clear identity, because they are allowed to be everything.

Guardian is designed solely through limitations, thing they are not allowed to do. They are not allowed unrestricted mobility, they are restriced to melee/short range, their defense is limited to aegis, so no extra evades and even blocking which is supposed to be thematical to guardian is limited, with the only channeled block replacing our heal, or Shield of Courage, which relies on positioning. As a result, shield is a purely support weapon, instead of a defensive one, ours being the only shield in the game without a channeled block. Guardian is also not allowed to have stuns or dazes for some reason, the only class with that limitation. Now, our only daze is tied to firebrand slotting the axe trait, and before it only existed in the trap traits. You would think that cc would be thematic to a paladin-like class. Heck, thief steals a 3sec daze from us, tied among the longest duration dazes in the game, stolen from the class that has none. Our heals must have long durations, with the shortest one being 25, and only after buffs. All other classes have a 20s or lower heal.

Some of these are minor things, but added together they reveal the pattern of anet's philosophy around guardian. They don't know what guardian is, so they define the class through what it is not. Even when asked about giving barrier to guardian, which any person with 2 brain cells to rub together considered thematic to guardian, anet's response is that they don't want guardian to have barrier, because they are permanently tied to the aegis+minor heals design. At the same time that thief, which is the exact opposite of guardian, is allowed channeled blocking and even aegis on rifle.

It's way too late for any of this to change now, and more importantly there doesn't appear any willingness to do so in the first place. Even the guardian community doesn't seem to care much about the class being completely derailed from what it was originally supposed to be. Heck, we had 2 dps elite specs in a row, we are limited to playing dps in pve as a result, and I can assure you next expac you will hear people saying guardian has too much support and they would like a dps elite spec. That's what they were saying already when firebrand was announced anyway.