Recent Balance Patch - Guardian - Virtues CD

[otto.5684]

I dunno why everyone is getting derailed into “virtues should not get a major buff.” No one said that or expects that.

What should happen is a reduction of VoJ and VoR should go back to being 14 sec instead of 17 and 21 sec instead of 25 sec, as they were before the 10/17 patch. In addition a reduction of VoC from 38.5 sec traited to 30 secs should put the skill in line with its effectiveness. These are around 15-20% reduction on core guardian CDs. Making VoJ effectiveness in PvE match PvP will be nice as well.

We all agree hat both DH virtues and FB tomes are substantially stronger than core guardian virtues, yet 15-20% CD reduction is an over powering buff?!

[Frostwolve.2916]

FB tomes are really nice addition to an otherwise bland Class to me. I didn’t even play my guard the whole HOT expansion or much before the expansion. Incoming mass exodus of the FB class if they mess with virtues to much.

[draxynnic.3719]

@otto.5684 said:I dunno why everyone is getting derailed into “virtues should not get a major buff.” No one said that or expects that.

What should happen is a reduction of VoJ and VoR should go back to being 14 sec instead of 17 and 21 sec instead of 25 sec, as they were before the 10/17 patch. In addition a reduction of VoC from 38.5 sec traited to 30 secs should put the skill in line with its effectiveness. These are around 15-20% reduction on core guardian CDs. Making VoJ effectiveness in PvE match PvP will be nice as well.

We all agree hat both DH virtues and FB tomes are substantially stronger than core guardian virtues, yet 15-20% CD reduction is an over powering buff?!

Because I'm pretty certain that at least one person in this thread wants more than just a recharge buff.

Reverting VoJ and VoR to their pre-patch recharges probably wouldn't be a big deal.

VoC... is a bit more complicated, partly because of the interaction with the passive, which has a 40s recharge. It is therefore already possible to time VoC use so that it will recharge before the passive refreshes anyway and therefore you lost nothing.

That said, I don't think it would break much to reduce the passive recharge as well. Ideally, I think it would be best for the passive recharge to always be shorter than the active - I'd probably go no lower than 30s for the passive refresh, and the traited active recharge would still be something above that (40s untraited and 34s traited, perhaps).

On the other hand, ArenaNet might have good reasons for thinking the trait recharge times are good where they are now (which could include trying to avoid a situation where it is always better to just fire off the actives on recharge). I don't feel strongly enough either way to push either for or against a reduction. A more substantial buff, however, will probably come with a price - if not immediately, than in the long run.

[Mikau.6920]

They need to reduce VoC/SoC/ToC passive to 30 seconds down from 40. And to 20 sec if traited. I don't know how a 30, even a 20 sec random block is too powerful.

[draxynnic.3719]

It's one of those 'power varies by circumstance' things.

Certain high-power opening moves can be negated entirely by the passive. The shorter the refresh, the less opportunity other professions have to use them against a guardian.

Certain PvE opponents employ high-power but infrequent attacks. For a veteran ettin that appears to attack once every 4s or so (I'm guesstimating here) then you could be passively blocking 20% of their damage with a 20s refresh, and possibly also triggering a bunch of traits that trigger off blocks or off aegis specifically, without the player doing anything at all. Combine with a few other basic abilities, and it might become trivial to just block or dodge everything in some encounters.

In other circumstances - when beset by large numbers of smaller hits, say, as usually happens in PvP - it might be doing very little, particularly without traits.

Mostly, when I said "no lower than 30s", that was a gut feel.

[otto.5684]

@Mikau.6920 said:They need to reduce VoC/SoC/ToC passive to 30 seconds down from 40. And to 20 sec if traited. I don't know how a 30, even a 20 sec random block is too powerful.

The active part that is what is debatable. The passive is just meh, a random whatever block. I do not think anyone consider it or it’s effect in any game mode. If it was reduced from 40 to 20 I probably would not notice.

[RabbitUp.8294]

@Zenith.7301 said:

@RabbitUp.8294 said:Base guardian virtues are a joke. Easily the worst profession mechanic in the game.

VoJ is at least decent in pvp, but VoR and VoC? 45s cd for a stack of aegis? Laughable. Mesmers get full invulnerability for that cooldown.

At the cost of DPS, in case you didn't notice illusions are a competing resource shared in cost for all their shatters.

It takes some nerve for the class who has the two apex DPS condi and power builds in PvE, is the backbone of melee frontlines and choice of commander class in WvW, and top dog bunker in sPvP crying about mesmer of all classes.

Getting 2 DPS specs in a row is part of the problem, not a plus for the class. And "bunker" FB is just a tanky support, same as Tempest, and absolutely pales in comparison to the unkillable monstrocity that bunker chrono was.

Yes, mesmer can't do the deeps (even though mirage is a thing, and perfectly viable), boo hoo, meanwhile chrono is the most unbelievably broken support class in pve.

[RabbitUp.8294]

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@Brutaly.6257 said:The problem with our virtues isnt that they are bad, the issue is that you need to trait for them to be good.

And, to be honest, I don't think that's a bad thing.

It means that you don't

have

to invest in your profession mechanic to be good. You can choose to focus elsewhere, rather than having your playstyle be defined by the mechanic.

If you look at the other professions, generally speaking the more impactful the profession mechanic is baseline, the more sacrifices they've made to get it. Guardian virtues require traits to have more than a token impact, but that leaves it up to the player to decide how important they will be.

Except that this isn't true at all.

Guardian IS defined by their Virtues; we are not allowed condi weapons because of our F1, all of our heals have bigger cooldowns than normal because of our F2, and we are forced into the aegis spamming gimmick in lieu of real active defences like evades and channeled blocks because of our F3.

We are paying for having these things, and we don't need them to be as useless as they are.

[draxynnic.3719]

I've never felt that guardians lack blocks, even not including aegis or elite specs. Protector's Strike. Zealot's Defence blocks projectiles, as does Shield of Absorption. Renewed Focus gives a few seconds of invulnerable. Shield of Wrath. Shelter, which also happens to cover your heal. Okay, we don't have the ability warriors have to chain ten seconds or so of invulnerability, but the grass is always greener - warriors have their own problems (okay, maybe not spellbreaker, but ArenaNet is aware of that...), and guardians do have other forms of damage mitigation such as multiple sources of Protection..

Neither have I felt guardians, even core guardians, to lack self-healing. Yes, VoR is part of that, and the slot-6 skills were noticeably less efficient on release (not so sure now with various CD reductions), but the guardian also has various other forms of healing outside their slot-6 skills (Monk's Focus, anyone?). Similar to elementalists, guardians don't rely entirely on one slot for their healing. Unless they're built that way. So there's that customisability.

Granted, VoJ does seem to mean that we have less condition damage from other sources... which is to be expected. Professions are balanced as a package, after all - and, furthermore, I have a suspicion that not relying heavily on conditions was part of ArenaNet's original idea of the guardian's archetype, just like other professions like necromancer typically rely more on conditions. It's to be expected that some sacrifices will be made on that - but guardians, having one of the least impactful profession mechanics, have also made few sacrifices in order to get that mechanic. From there, you can spend traits (including getting elite specialisations) to make that profession mechanic stronger, but of course, that's sacrificing the traits you could have had.

If you want them to be "less useless" (haha, I don't consider them useless at all), then there IS going to be a price to be paid. If not now, then in later balance passes.

[Mikau.6920]

@otto.5684 said:

@Mikau.6920 said:They need to reduce VoC/SoC/ToC passive to 30 seconds down from 40. And to 20 sec if traited. I don't know how a 30, even a 20 sec random block is too powerful.

The active part that is what is debatable. The passive is just meh, a random whatever block. I do not think anyone consider it or it’s effect in any game mode. If it was reduced from 40 to 20 I probably would not notice.

My suggestion is to reduce VoC cooldown so it makes sense. I agree that the active VoC is really weak and should have some type of buff, but doesn't make sense to reduce its cooldown to 30~35 seconds if the passive stays at 40 seconds.

I'm not sure what could be done to VoC be more useful. Maybe change the Aegis to 0.5~1 seconds invulnerability instead of aegis? Or even a pulsing aegis (2~3 pulses, 1 sec of each other) might work.

[otto.5684]

@Mikau.6920 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@Mikau.6920 said:They need to reduce VoC/SoC/ToC passive to 30 seconds down from 40. And to 20 sec if traited. I don't know how a 30, even a 20 sec random block is too powerful.

The active part that is what is debatable. The passive is just meh, a random whatever block. I do not think anyone consider it or it’s effect in any game mode. If it was reduced from 40 to 20 I probably would not notice.

My suggestion is to reduce VoC cooldown so it makes sense. I agree that the active VoC is really weak and should have some type of buff, but doesn't make sense to reduce its cooldown to 30~35 seconds if the passive stays at 40 seconds.

I'm not sure what could be done to VoC be more useful. Maybe change the Aegis to 0.5~1 seconds invulnerability instead of aegis? Or even a pulsing aegis (2~3 pulses, 1 sec of each other) might work.

VoC is used for the active anyway. If the passive is bugged tomorrow and does not work at all, I probably would not notice. The passive is not much of a factor, if at all.

I think if the active base CD is reduced from 45 sec to 35 that would be sufficient.

[RabbitUp.8294]

@draxynnic.3719 said:I've never felt that guardians lack blocks, even not including aegis or elite specs. Protector's Strike. Zealot's Defence blocks projectiles, as does Shield of Absorption. Renewed Focus gives a few seconds of invulnerable. Shield of Wrath. Shelter, which also happens to cover your heal. Okay, we don't have the ability warriors have to chain ten seconds or so of invulnerability, but the grass is always greener - warriors have their own problems (okay, maybe not spellbreaker, but ArenaNet is aware of that...), and guardians do have other forms of damage mitigation such as multiple sources of Protection..

One-time blocks might as well be the same thing as aegis. I'm talking about channeled blocks, evades. Active defences with a duration, "I can't die" buttons. This type of active defence is different in that it works against multiple hits and opponents, it doesn't matter if you are 1v1 or walking through a zerg, all damage is mitigated.

Base guardian only has 2, and both carry a price. Shelter replaces your heal skill, and Renewed Focus takes an Elite spot. At the same time, RF is a channeled invulnverability, while some other classes have "I can't die" buttons that still allow them to act. Projectile defect/reflect is a completley different category, which I won't touch, and it's not like guardian has exclusivity to it either.

It's not only warriors. Engi has channeled block on shield and tool kit, and Scrapper introduces evades and blocks on hammer. Mesmer have blur on sword, invulnerability on F4 and the signet trait, and chrono has channeled block on shield. Thief has multiple evades and blocks and both thief and mesmer have a spec based on dodging. Ranger has evades. Revenant has block on sword, multiple evades, and Herald has an "I can't die" heal skill and block on shield.

For a profession that's supposed to be tanky, it's absolutely shameful how paper-thin our defences are. Bunker FB has to rely on a combination of aegis, 1-time blocks, dodges and heals from multiple sources to stay alive, and that means our mitigation has to exceed the incoming damage, so facing multiple opponents becomes hard to impossible. Meanwhile, bunker chrono would just laugh their way through a match, because all of their damage mitigation scaled against multiple enemies.

And that's without touching the matter of HP. There's absolutely nothing that warrior gets less of to justify having double the health.

Neither have I felt guardians, even core guardians, to lack self-healing. Yes, VoR is part of that, and the slot-6 skills were noticeably less efficient on release (not so sure now with various CD reductions), but the guardian also has various other forms of healing outside their slot-6 skills (Monk's Focus, anyone?). Similar to elementalists, guardians don't rely entirely on one slot for their healing. Unless they're built that way. So there's that customisability.

It's not about what you feel, the numbers are obvious. Unlike every other profession, all our heal skills used to have 30s or higher cooldown. Yes, some cooldowns were reduced, but even then, the only skill with less than 30s cooldown is Litany of Wrath, and only because it has negligible base healing.

Guardian is not the only class with other sources of healing, but Ele, using your own example, doesn't have the same increased cooldown on their heal skill like Guardian. Same for Warrior. So, yes, this is absolutely Guardians paying for having F2.

Granted, VoJ does seem to mean that we have less condition damage from other sources... which is to be expected. Professions are balanced as a package, after all - and, furthermore, I have a suspicion that not relying heavily on conditions was part of ArenaNet's original idea of the guardian's archetype, just like other professions like necromancer typically rely more on conditions.

You actually think the profession that can't help but inflict burning constantly and had a strong zealot-on-fire theme wasn't supposed to do condi damage?

And yes, professions being balanced as a package is the exact opposite of your "virtues are free, we don't pay anything for them". The truth is that we paid so much for having VoJ that we were the last profession left with no condi build. So, tell me, do you think every other profession was meant to have a condi theme, excpet Guardian?

It's to be expected that some sacrifices will be made on that - but guardians, having one of the least impactful profession mechanics, have also made few sacrifices in order to get that mechanic. From there, you can spend traits (including getting elite specialisations) to make that profession mechanic stronger, but of course, that's sacrificing the traits you could have had.

Making your profession mechanic stronger through traits is not exclusive to Guardian, so that's a moot point. You can't help but repeat the same thing over and over again. "But we have traits!" Yes, I know, so does every other profession, but their profession mechanic is not as garbage as ours.

[draxynnic.3719]

@otto.5684 said:

@Mikau.6920 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@Mikau.6920 said:They need to reduce VoC/SoC/ToC passive to 30 seconds down from 40. And to 20 sec if traited. I don't know how a 30, even a 20 sec random block is too powerful.

The active part that is what is debatable. The passive is just meh, a random whatever block. I do not think anyone consider it or it’s effect in any game mode. If it was reduced from 40 to 20 I probably would not notice.

My suggestion is to reduce VoC cooldown so it makes sense. I agree that the active VoC is really weak and should have some type of buff, but doesn't make sense to reduce its cooldown to 30~35 seconds if the passive stays at 40 seconds.

I'm not sure what could be done to VoC be more useful. Maybe change the Aegis to 0.5~1 seconds invulnerability instead of aegis? Or even a pulsing aegis (2~3 pulses, 1 sec of each other) might work.

VoC is used for the active anyway. If the passive is bugged tomorrow and does not work at all, I probably would not notice. The passive is not much of a factor, if at all.

I think if the active base CD is reduced from 45 sec to 35 that would be sufficient.

You'd notice getting caught in combat when running past mobs more often - that Aegis does a good job of blocking those random hits in my experience (even works while mounted!). Granted, it's fairly uncommon that it blocks enough hits in actual combat to be noteworthy, but like I mentioned above, it can be good at blocking gank attempts that rely on high-power initial hits. It's part of the reason why guardians are often viewed as a counter to thieves.

@RabbitUp.8294 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:I've never felt that guardians lack blocks, even not including aegis or elite specs. Protector's Strike. Zealot's Defence blocks projectiles, as does Shield of Absorption. Renewed Focus gives a few seconds of invulnerable. Shield of Wrath. Shelter, which also happens to cover your heal. Okay, we don't have the ability warriors have to chain ten seconds or so of invulnerability, but the grass is always greener - warriors have their own problems (okay, maybe not spellbreaker, but ArenaNet is aware of that...), and guardians

do

have other forms of damage mitigation such as multiple sources of Protection..

One-time blocks might as well be the same thing as aegis. I'm talking about channeled blocks, evades. Active defences with a duration, "I can't die" buttons. This type of active defence is different in that it works against multiple hits and opponents, it doesn't matter if you are 1v1 or walking through a zerg, all damage is mitigated.

Base guardian only has 2, and both carry a price. Shelter replaces your heal skill, and Renewed Focus takes an Elite spot. At the same time, RF is a channeled invulnverability, while some other classes have "I can't die" buttons that still allow them to act. Projectile defect/reflect is a completley different category, which I won't touch, and it's not like guardian has exclusivity to it either.

It's not only warriors. Engi has channeled block on shield and tool kit, and Scrapper introduces evades and blocks on hammer. Mesmer have blur on sword, invulnerability on F4 and the signet trait, and chrono has channeled block on shield. Thief has multiple evades and blocks and both thief and mesmer have a spec based on dodging. Ranger has evades. Revenant has block on sword, multiple evades, and Herald has an "I can't die" heal skill and block on shield.

For a profession that's supposed to be tanky, it's absolutely shameful how paper-thin our defences are. Bunker FB has to rely on a combination of aegis, 1-time blocks, dodges and heals from multiple sources to stay alive, and that means our mitigation has to exceed the incoming damage, so facing multiple opponents becomes hard to impossible. Meanwhile, bunker chrono would just laugh their way through a match, because all of their damage mitigation scaled against multiple enemies.

And that's without touching the matter of HP. There's absolutely nothing that warrior gets less of to justify having double the health.

First, I'm not even going to consider elite specs. If you're comparing to those, than guardian gets the SoC-RF-SoC chain...

Second, I don't think Shelter replaces your heal skill is actually a "price", per se. It makes it a lot harder to get your heal interrupted, which can make a big difference in PvP, particularly against the players with the observation and reflexes to attempt to interrupt. Generally, when you're trying to heal is often the time you most want a block. As for Renewed Focus being an elite: So? Most professions don't have an elite that's so useful and typically end up choosing the best of a bad lot. The elite skill slot is often less valuable than regular utility slots, not more.

Engi's block on shield is only channeled against ranged attacks - it discharges on a melee attack. So that just leaves Gear Shield, if the engineer takes that. Mind you, engineers tend to have clunky healing - they can get a lot out of Healing Turret when it works, but I've played engineer in sPvP and that's not always as easy to pull off as it looks. Engineers are also relatively lacking in other defenses, such as defensive boons. I'm also surprised you didn't mention Elixir S, although the passive activation of that is often a double-edged sword.

Mesmers using F4 sacrifice all of their illusions, as mentioned previously. Blurred Frenzy can be an effective evade if you time it right, but it does root you. In my experience playing mesmer and guardian in sPvP, mesmer (save for chronos using the old Well of Precognition) always felt squishier than guardians, even including the shield block. The chrono shield block is also a favourite target for players with access to unblockable interrupts.

Thieves are squishy as heck once you land a hit, and can't dodge everything (sure, sometimes it feels like staff daredevils can, but again, DHs get additional blocks too). Ranger has evades, but core ranger certainly cannot out-active-defence core guardian. As for revenant... I could possibly write up a whole post on the weaknesses of revenants.

Warriors do give up something: defensive boons (except Resistance). Warrior sustain is based pretty much entirely on blocks, stances, their heal skill, and their high base health. Because of this, they tend to be vulnerable to being worn down by attrition. Spellbreaker I can't comment on, since I haven't played SB in sPvP so I don't have a good feel for its weaknesses.

Neither have I felt guardians, even core guardians, to lack self-healing. Yes, VoR is part of that, and the slot-6 skills were noticeably less efficient on release (not so sure now with various CD reductions), but the guardian also has various other forms of healing outside their slot-6 skills (Monk's Focus, anyone?). Similar to elementalists, guardians don't rely entirely on one slot for their healing. Unless they're built that way. So there's that customisability.

It's not about what you feel, the numbers are obvious. Unlike every other profession, all our heal skills used to have 30s or higher cooldown. Yes, some cooldowns were reduced, but even then, the only skill with less than 30s cooldown is Litany of Wrath, and only because it has negligible base healing.

Guardian is not the only class with other sources of healing, but Ele, using your own example, doesn't have the same increased cooldown on their heal skill like Guardian. Same for Warrior. So, yes, this is absolutely Guardians paying for having F2.

Guardian heals have longer cooldowns, but the heals are usually more impactful when they happen. Part of this, of course, is that guardian has more damage mitigation in between the heals, so it's harder to get spiked down again. Not to mention other healing - take Monk's Focus and every meditation, including Smite Conditions on a 16s recharge and the Smiter's Boon that triggers every time you heal (unless you're using the FB healing mantra) is another 2k heal.

"Feel" is actually important, because its virtually impossible to get a true understanding of how all the skills work together by looking at the numbers and trying to add them up. I can say that the idea of guardians having weak healing because of F2 flies in the face of all of my experience.

Granted, VoJ does seem to mean that we have less condition damage from other sources... which is to be expected. Professions are balanced as a package, after all - and, furthermore, I have a suspicion that not relying heavily on conditions was part of ArenaNet's original idea of the guardian's archetype, just like other professions like necromancer typically rely more on conditions.

You actually think the profession that can't help but inflict burning constantly and had a strong zealot-on-fire theme wasn't supposed to do condi damage?

And yes, professions being balanced as a package is the exact opposite of your "virtues are free, we don't pay anything for them". The truth is that we paid so much for having VoJ that we were the last profession left with no condi build. So, tell me, do you think every other profession was meant to have a condi theme, excpet Guardian?

I'm not saying they're completely free. I'm saying they're cheaper. Most of the other professions you're citing also have relative minor F1-F4 skills (or, in the case of mesmer, have to make a significant sacrifice to use them).

As for professions having a condi theme: Warriors really didn't, until Berserker, unless they took sword (and even then...). Revenants only have condis taking specific weapons, and until Renegade, had no ranged condi weapon (hammer being slow means it isn't even good at triggering on-crit procs). Thieves, rangers, engineers, and elementalists are in between. Necromancers and mesmers focus on conditions, although they do have power builds if they so choose (whether those power builds are actually good in the current meta is another question).

It's to be expected that

some

sacrifices will be made on that - but guardians, having one of the least impactful profession mechanics, have also made few sacrifices in order to get that mechanic. From there, you can spend traits (including getting elite specialisations) to make that profession mechanic stronger, but of course, that's sacrificing the traits you could have had.

Making your profession mechanic stronger through traits is not exclusive to Guardian, so that's a moot point. You can't help but repeat the same thing over and over again. "But we have traits!" Yes, I know, so does every other profession, but their profession mechanic is not as garbage as ours.

Sure, other professions have traits that can boost their profession mechanic as well. However, guardians can choose how much they invest. It can go from a relatively low investment (core virtues, fewer virtue-related traits) to a pretty big one (firebrand with core traits selected to support tomes). Necromancers start from a pretty big investment and go from there.

I think you're also suffering from severe grass-is-greener mentality when looking at other professions.

Guardians get a 2s burn every five hits, and can choose to give that up for a 4s burn for up to five allies (for an effective 20s in total) on a base 20s recharge. They get constant healing that they can sacrifice for an immediate heal (including for allies) and a self-cleanse, on a base 30s recharge. VoC gives a block on roughly a 40s recharge. And that's without traits.

Base warrior... gets to spend most of a fight building up for one strong attack. If that attack gets blocked, interrupted, or dodged away from (and some of them have significant tells), they cry. At least guardians are guaranteed to see the benefits of their virtues.

Mesmer, particularly base mesmer, has to spent time generating illusions to sacrifice before they can shatter effectively - illusions that can (and often do) get killed by enemy players, including purely as a side effect of large amounts of AoE flying around. And even then, offensive shatters have a clear tell (the illusions start moving towards the target) which can be used to block or dodge the shatter. Outside of PvP spikes, mesmers often just don't use their F1-F4 skills at all, because sacrificing their phantasms is a DPS loss.

I don't think either can be described as objectively better to guardian virtues, even without considering traits (and granted, warrior and mesmer can also use traits to boost these mechanics). It's probably not coincidence that the professions you're pointing to the most and saying "But they get good stuff out of their profession mechanics too!" are also the professions that have weaker mechanics.

Meanwhile, to go to the opposite extreme, necromancer has one that is strong on paper... but whenever their mechanic is not useful for the situation at hand, they're basically boned because that mechanic is such a significant part of their profession. Other professions fall somewhere in the middle - more impactful mechanics, but more sacrifices made for them.

[RabbitUp.8294]

@draxynnic.3719 said:Second, I don't think Shelter replaces your heal skill is actually a "price", per se. It makes it a lot harder to get your heal interrupted, which can make a big difference in PvP, particularly against the players with the observation and reflexes to attempt to interrupt. Generally, when you're trying to heal is often the time you most want a block.

Not all heals are the same. Shelter doesn't let you get your "heal" uninterrupted, it's a weak heal specifically because of that. Other 30s heal skills on average provide 50% more healing than Shelter.

Engi's block on shield is only channeled against ranged attacks - it discharges on a melee attack. So that just leaves Gear Shield, if the engineer takes that. Mind you, engineers tend to have clunky healing - they can get a lot out of Healing Turret when it works, but I've played engineer in sPvP and that's not always as easy to pull off as it looks. Engineers are also relatively lacking in other defenses, such as defensive boons. I'm also surprised you didn't mention Elixir S, although the passive activation of that is often a double-edged sword.

It stuns on melee attack, but doesn't discharge. The stun isn't a one-time deal, it's like a Shocking Aura, on top of a 2s block. Engineers don't have clunky healing, they choose to use Healing Turret, because it does enough to justify its clunkiness. They still have other non-clunky options, and AED is seeing plenty of use after the buff. And that's for base engi only, because Scrappers got a lot of use out of Medic Gyro.

Mesmers using F4 sacrifice all of their illusions, as mentioned previously. Blurred Frenzy can be an effective evade if you time it right, but it does root you. In my experience playing mesmer and guardian in sPvP, mesmer (save for chronos using the old Well of Precognition) always felt squishier than guardians, even including the shield block. The chrono shield block is also a favourite target for players with access to unblockable interrupts.

Chrono shield is not any more susceptible to unblockable interrupts than any other form of blocking, so that's a moot point.

And in pvp, mesmer get a whole another layer of defence through stealth, and confusing players with illusions, on top of their strong active defences, but the potency of those mechanics is hard to judge, so I didn't mention them.

Thieves are squishy as heck once you land a hit, and can't dodge everything (sure, sometimes it feels like staff daredevils can, but again, DHs get additional blocks too). Ranger has evades, but core ranger certainly cannot out-active-defence core guardian. As for revenant... I could possibly write up a whole post on the weaknesses of revenants.

Thieves being squishy is a joke at this point. Is there something stoping you from building your thief tanky? This is the highlight of the average pvpers short-sightedness. Thieves are not squishy at all, they are the only class that can realistically play a Berzerker build in pvp and get away with it. That allows them to build for damage and stay alive through their active defences, stealth and mobility.

DD has solo'd a raid boss with a dps build for crying out loud. Let me see you try that with a guardian, dps or bunker. And trailblazer perma-evade unkillable DD was a very real thing in wvw.

Warriors do give up something: defensive boons (except Resistance). Warrior sustain is based pretty much entirely on blocks, stances, their heal skill, and their high base health. Because of this, they tend to be vulnerable to being worn down by attrition. Spellbreaker I can't comment on, since I haven't played SB in sPvP so I don't have a good feel for its weaknesses.

Warrior doesn't have to build for high HP. No matter the build, warrior has 19k. A class like guardian starts with 11k, and only has the option of protection uptime. So, guardian would have to gear and trait for more effective HP just to compete with a warrior out of the box.

And protection is only 33% power damage reduction. That means that a Guardian with perma protection has only about 17k effective health, and only against power damage. Warrior gets more effective health baseline against any type of damage, before comparing any other forms of defensive utility.

Guardian heals have longer cooldowns, but the heals are usually more impactful when they happen. Part of this, of course, is that guardian has more damage mitigation in between the heals, so it's harder to get spiked down again. Not to mention other healing - take Monk's Focus and every meditation, including Smite Conditions on a 16s recharge and the Smiter's Boon that triggers every time you heal (unless you're using the FB healing mantra) is another 2k heal.

In what way are they more impactful? We are the only profession with no heal skills that cleanse conditions when activated, which I forgot to mention.

Outside of Shelter, all our heal skills provide nothing but raw healing. So, where's the impact? Other classes have skills that provide damage immunity, important boons, cleanse conditions, do damage, recharge important cooldowns and profession resources, etc.

"Part of this, of course, is that guardian has more damage mitigation in between the heals". Except that the whole point is guardian has less mitigation than other classes.

As for professions having a condi theme: Warriors really didn't, until Berserker, unless they took sword (and even then...). Revenants only have condis taking specific weapons, and until Renegade, had no ranged condi weapon (hammer being slow means it isn't even good at triggering on-crit procs). Thieves, rangers, engineers, and elementalists are in between. Necromancers and mesmers focus on conditions, although they do have power builds if they so choose (whether those power builds are actually good in the current meta is another question).

Yes, they have differences. You know what all of them had in common, though? Viable condition specs. Guardian was the sole exception before PoF. So, it doesn't matter how each profession went about things, they made it work. Guardian putting all their condi budget on VoJ, on the other hand, didn't work.

Mesmer, particularly base mesmer, has to spent time generating illusions to sacrifice before they can shatter effectively - illusions that can (and often do) get killed by enemy players, including purely as a side effect of large amounts of AoE flying around. And even then, offensive shatters have a clear tell (the illusions start moving towards the target) which can be used to block or dodge the shatter. Outside of PvP spikes, mesmers often just don't use their F1-F4 skills at all, because sacrificing their phantasms is a DPS loss.

I don't think either can be described as objectively better to guardian virtues, even without considering traits (and granted, warrior and mesmer can also use traits to boost these mechanics). It's probably not coincidence that the professions you're pointing to the most and saying "But they get good stuff out of their profession mechanics too!" are also the professions that have weaker mechanics.

And you are looking at it strictly from a pvp perspective. Warrior's mechanic is hard to judge, because it changes depending on their weapon choices, so best you can do is judge each burst individually.

But pve mesmer has none of the headaches. Illusions are practically immortal, like all pets. Gathering them is not any more difficult than other resource-based mechanics, and enemies won't dodge out of the way. At the same time, even in competitive modes, their F1 and F2 have been build-defining, their F3 is solid CC, their F4 is extremely good in pvp and broken when traited in pve, and chrono introduced the best profession mechanic in the game.

[draxynnic.3719]

@RabbitUp.8294 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:Second, I don't think Shelter replaces your heal skill is actually a "price", per se. It makes it a lot harder to get your heal interrupted, which can make a big difference in PvP, particularly against the players with the observation and reflexes to attempt to interrupt. Generally, when you're trying to heal is often the time you most want a block.

Not all heals are the same. Shelter doesn't let you get your "heal" uninterrupted, it's a weak heal specifically because of that. Other 30s heal skills on average provide 50% more healing than Shelter.

And in my experience, 2s block when under fire, and almost never having your heal uninterrupted, is worth that.

It's also worth noting that when guardian has a lot of damage mitigation, that heal goes a longer way. Seriously, getting a heal off on a guardian usually feels like you've reset the fight. Doing so on mesmer, necromancer, warrior, engineer with anything other than the optimal result with Healing Turret? Not so much.

Engi's block on shield is only channeled against ranged attacks - it discharges on a melee attack. So that just leaves Gear Shield, if the engineer takes that. Mind you, engineers tend to have clunky healing - they can get a lot out of Healing Turret when it works, but I've played engineer in sPvP and that's not always as easy to pull off as it looks. Engineers are also relatively lacking in other defenses, such as defensive boons. I'm also surprised you didn't mention Elixir S, although the passive activation of that is often a double-edged sword.

It stuns on melee attack, but doesn't discharge. The stun isn't a one-time deal, it's like a Shocking Aura, on top of a 2s block. Engineers don't have clunky healing, they choose to use Healing Turret, because it does enough to justify its clunkiness. They still have other non-clunky options, and AED is seeing plenty of use after the buff. And that's for base engi only, because Scrappers got a lot of use out of Medic Gyro.

Hrrrmn. Looks like they've buffed it according to the tooltips - it used to end when it blocked in melee. Fair enough, engineer shield is still considered a little underpowered.

Medic Gyro was okay until it got nerfed, but it was mostly used because it was vaguely competitive with HT without being as fiddly to use. AED I haven't used recently, so I can't comment in depth, but on a shallow approach, it's still a weak heal if you don't get the conditional (which requires waiting until the last moment...) on a profession that relies more on a deeper health pool than damage mitigation compared to guardian.

Mesmers using F4 sacrifice all of their illusions, as mentioned previously. Blurred Frenzy can be an effective evade if you time it right, but it does root you. In my experience playing mesmer and guardian in sPvP, mesmer (save for chronos using the old Well of Precognition) always felt squishier than guardians, even including the shield block. The chrono shield block is also a favourite target for players with access to unblockable interrupts.

Chrono shield is not any more susceptible to unblockable interrupts than any other form of blocking, so that's a moot point.

Technically, no. In practice, that bubble is a big "Hit me with an unblockable interrupt!" sign. Most blocks are more subtle and more likely to be missed (or at least, not interrupted until they've had some chance to provide a benefit).

And in pvp, mesmer get a whole another layer of defence through stealth, and confusing players with illusions, on top of their strong active defences, but the potency of those mechanics is hard to judge, so I didn't mention them.

Generally, the potency depends on how much AoE is getting thrown around and how well the enemy can keep track of the mesmer. Historically, very few people get fooled by clones. Too early to judge how much Mirage has really changed this.

Thieves are squishy as heck once you land a hit, and can't dodge everything (sure, sometimes it feels like staff daredevils

can

, but again, DHs get additional blocks too). Ranger has evades, but core ranger certainly cannot out-active-defence core guardian. As for revenant... I could possibly write up a whole post on the weaknesses of revenants.

Thieves being squishy is a joke at this point. Is there something stoping you from building your thief tanky? This is the highlight of the average pvpers short-sightedness. Thieves are not squishy at all, they are the only class that can realistically play a Berzerker build in pvp and get away with it. That allows them to build for damage and stay alive through their active defences, stealth and mobility.

If you build tanky on a thief, you'll be less effective than warriors, scrappers, chronomancers, and, oh, guardians, who are actually good at being bruisers.

DD has solo'd a raid boss with a dps build for crying out loud. Let me see you try that with a guardian, dps or bunker. And trailblazer perma-evade unkillable DD was a very real thing in wvw.

I've seen the "perma-evade" DD in sPvP. They can be a PITA, but they weren't as unkillable as people say. As for soloing a raid boss... I haven't seen the video, but I'm betting it relied on mobility and AI exploitation. Most bosses are based on mechanics, so if you know the mechanics well enough to dodge them all (and they are, in fact, avoidable), then thief would be good at that simply because it is so good at dodging. Doesn't mean that thieves don't lack sustain elsewhere.

Warriors do give up something: defensive boons (except Resistance). Warrior sustain is based pretty much entirely on blocks, stances, their heal skill, and their high base health. Because of this, they tend to be vulnerable to being worn down by attrition. Spellbreaker I can't comment on, since I haven't played SB in sPvP so I don't have a good feel for its weaknesses.

Warrior doesn't have to build for high HP. No matter the build, warrior has 19k. A class like guardian starts with 11k, and only has the

option

of protection uptime. So, guardian would have to gear and trait for more effective HP just to compete with a warrior out of the box.

And protection is only 33% power damage reduction. That means that a Guardian with perma protection has only about 17k effective health, and only against power damage. Warrior gets more effective health baseline against any type of damage, before comparing any other forms of defensive utility.

And warriors in PvP usually invest everything they can into protecting that health pool. Shield offhand, resistance stance, double invulnerability stance - I haven't played SB yet, but half the reason it's strong is because it gives them more sustain, but they still have to invest in that. So sure, a guardian that chooses to invest nothing into defence will be fragile. A warrior who invests nothing in defence won't see much benefit from that extra 8K health, unless they're in a situation where personal defences don't matter.

Guardian heals have longer cooldowns, but the heals are usually more impactful when they happen. Part of this, of course, is that guardian has more damage mitigation in between the heals, so it's harder to get spiked down again. Not to mention other healing - take Monk's Focus and every meditation, including Smite Conditions on a 16s recharge and the Smiter's Boon that triggers every time you heal (unless you're using the FB healing mantra) is another 2k heal.

In what way are they more impactful? We are the only profession with no heal skills that cleanse conditions when activated, which I forgot to mention.

Nope, we just get a trait that cleanses two conditions, deals about a thousand damage to nearby enemies, and if we have another trait in the same specialisation, also heals for an additional 2K, on every heal. Except the mantra heals because the trait does have an ICD. How absolutely terrible.

Outside of Shelter, all our heal skills provide nothing but raw healing. So, where's the impact? Other classes have skills that provide damage immunity, important boons, cleanse conditions, do damage, recharge important cooldowns and profession resources, etc.

As noted above: In my experience, a guardian getting a heal off usually feels like they've reset the fight.

"Part of this, of course, is that guardian has more damage mitigation in between the heals". Except that the whole point is guardian has less mitigation than other classes.

Dude. I've played most professions in sPvP, pre and post HoT, with guardian being the most played. I'm not playing it in PvP so much now, but that's more because I'm trying (and aiming for achievements with) other specialisations.

Core guardian, pre-HoT, was pretty tough. I wouldn't say I had enough experience with all the professions back then to really rank them, but when I played other characters, I really missed that ability to just press F3 and instantly get stunbreak, protection and stability... and, oh, a block. Or to support a team while under fire myself by rippling through the virtues, hitting RF, and then repeating. Sure, I was using traits to do that, but the only time it didn't work well was when there was a necromancer ready to corrupt it, and everyone has counters.

I've played a wider range of professions in sPvP post-HoT, and the only ones that really felt that they matched meditation DH at being an effective bruiser was the mace/shield berserker (which actually spent more on defence) and cleric tempest. Scrapper was close, but not there: possibly a player skill gap rather than a difference between professions. Didn't play ranger enough to get a feel (don't enjoy the druid playstyle), so I can't comment there - well-played druids did feel pretty tanky to fight against, I'll admit. (I also didn't play the bunker chrono before the nerfs to Well of Precognition. The condi chronomancer is reasonably bruiser-y, but not at meditation DH level.)

As for professions having a condi theme: Warriors really didn't, until Berserker, unless they took sword (and even then...). Revenants only have condis taking specific weapons, and until Renegade, had no ranged condi weapon (hammer being slow means it isn't even good at triggering on-crit procs). Thieves, rangers, engineers, and elementalists are in between. Necromancers and mesmers focus on conditions, although they do have power builds if they so choose (whether those power builds are actually good in the current meta is another question).

Yes, they have differences. You know what all of them had in common, though? Viable condition specs. Guardian was the sole exception before PoF. So, it doesn't matter how each profession went about things, they made it work. Guardian putting all their condi budget on VoJ, on the other hand, didn't work.

You know that burn guardian was a thing pre-HoT, right?

Part of the problem was that for a long time, power damage just outshone condi damage in general. That's changed now, but on release, guardian's relative lack of condition damage options wasn't a problem. Even in raids, dragonhunters were one of the higher DPS options until the seafood salad nerf... and at that point, Firebrand was already on the horizon.

And core burn guardian is still a thing. It's just focused more on burst than sustained damage.

Mesmer, particularly base mesmer, has to spent time generating illusions to sacrifice before they can shatter effectively - illusions that can (and often do) get killed by enemy players, including purely as a side effect of large amounts of AoE flying around. And even then, offensive shatters have a clear tell (the illusions start moving towards the target) which can be used to block or dodge the shatter. Outside of PvP spikes, mesmers often just don't use their F1-F4 skills at all, because sacrificing their phantasms is a DPS loss.

I don't think either can be described as objectively better to guardian virtues, even without considering traits (and granted, warrior and mesmer can also use traits to boost these mechanics). It's probably not coincidence that the professions you're pointing to the most and saying "But they get good stuff out of their profession mechanics too!" are also the professions that have weaker mechanics.

And you are looking at it strictly from a pvp perspective. Warrior's mechanic is hard to judge, because it changes depending on their weapon choices, so best you can do is judge each burst individually.

I'm looking at things from a mixed perspective, albeit drawing examples more from PvP experience since that is where you're actually pitting the professions against one another.

But do you know what my experience was with core warrior and the adrenaline mechanic? Half the time, the enemies I was fighting would be dead before it fully charged, or close enough to that the mechanic made no difference to the fight at all... and then drained away before the next. Virtues, on the other hand, played a role, even if only passively, in every single battle I took part in.

Granted, in more difficult fights, of course adrenaline would have more time to charge. Nevertheless, my experience has been that pretty much any content I've played with both, it was easier with my guardian (and I almost always play through content with my guardian before my warrior). Part of that is probably difference in my own skill at playing the two professions, but nevertheless, I don't think any skill gap I have is large enough to offset the gap in power between the professions that you seem to be claiming.

Now, warriors do have a guaranteed spot in the meta raid group nowadays. This is because they have a unique group buff (banners) and because they have one of the most efficient engines for party Might generation in the game.

But pve mesmer has none of the headaches. Illusions are practically immortal, like all pets. Gathering them is not any more difficult than other resource-based mechanics, and enemies won't dodge out of the way. At the same time, even in competitive modes, their F1 and F2 have been build-defining, their F3 is solid CC, their F4 is extremely good in pvp and broken when traited in pve, and chrono introduced the best profession mechanic in the game.

Hahahah.

First rule of most PvE mesmers is "never shatter unless you're really, absolutely sure you want to". PvE mesmer gets a substantial amount of their DPS (and party support in the case of chronotank) out of their illusions. Chronomancers get some grace out of Chronophantasma, but generally speaking, with core mesmer (and it's only fair to compare core guardian to core mesmer) in PvE you only shatter if:

1) The illusions are going to die anyway.2) Someone's going to die/get downed if you don't.3) You really need to break a breakbar.4) You can replace your phantasms basically immediately (rare when you're talking about DPS phantasms specifically).

In open world, I've gone long periods playing mesmer without hitting a function key at all.

In competitive modes, shattering is, of course, more important. Burst then becomes more important, and you can't expect a phantasm to stay on a target indefinitely. Whether in PvP or PvE, however, mesmer DPS is balanced according to most of it coming from the illusions - using shatters is simply a case of going for burst damage or sustained damage.

Regarding shared Distortion: That's only as impactful as it is because of specific mechanics that deal damage that goes through dodges and evades, but not the invulnerability provided by Distortion. For similar attacks that don't ignore blocks, VoC (or other Aegis sources) can do the same thing as a 1s distort - in fact, in some ways it can be better since aegis doesn't need to be perfectly timed. You're presenting one specific interaction as an example of mesmer being so much better, when in reality it's just not that good in most circumstances.

[otto.5684]

I am not sure what are you guys getting into, but Guardian overall sustainability is a bit off topic. The point of this thread is to close the gap between core guardian virtues and DH & FB. And honestly, I find the comparison between guardian and mesmer is as irrelevant as it gets. They fill completely different roles in both PvP and PvE.

[RabbitUp.8294]

@otto.5684 said:I am not sure what are you guys getting into, but Guardian overall sustainability is a bit off topic. The point of this thread is to close the gap between core guardian virtues and DH & FB. And honestly, I find the comparison between guardian and mesmer is as irrelevant as it gets. They fill completely different roles in both PvP and PvE.

Completely different roles? In pve, Firebrand was supposedly an alternative to chrono, but it's trash. That chrono doesn't leave any room for competition doesn't mean that FB isn't competing for the support role.

The roles mesmer is filling are the exact same roles guardian should thematically be good at. Tanking, bunkering, supporting. The fact that chrono does all of them better at the same time is why the comparison couldn't be more relevant.

[otto.5684]

Bumping this-up. Hopefully a dev sees it before Nov 7 balance patch.

Probably too late though :'(