draxynnic.3719

I don't recall off the top of my head if it's been fully explained, but life force (and energy gained through Soul Reaping in GW1) does seem to be something fairly incidental to souls themselves. _Something_ is released when a creature dies that necromancers can harvest for magical power, but doing so does not seem to harm the soul, and, furthermore, soulless beings still seem to release this energy.

It is mentioned a few times that there is magic in all living (and undead) things - this is part of what makes the Elder Dragons so dangerous, not just for the death and destruction they perform directly, but because if they manage to consume too much of it, there won't be enough magic to sustain an ecosystem afterwards and the world will simply die. It seems, therefore, that what we call "soul reaping" essentially reflects the necromancer being able to manipulate and harvest the magic of living things directly. Life steal, whether from necromancy or some other source, is probably a matter of draining this magic of life from a target and feeding it directly into the recipient, and at least some necromancer heals are probably essentially performing "soul reaping" in reverse.

There is energy that comes from completely consuming a soul - probably a lot more than is released upon death to be harvested through soul reaping. You could probably compare it to the distinction between the chemical energy released through an exothermic reaction, and total conversion of matter into energy.

In the case of the Eater of Souls - there's precedent in GW1 for souls to remain trapped in an Eater of Souls for centuries, while still being able to pop out more or less intact, but IIRC there is an indication that there _is_ a limit to this: eventually, a soul will be sufficiently digested that it will no longer retain the potential to be a conscious entity. So what probably happens in the PoF instance you reference is that all of the souls that were recently consumed were released - however, those that have been in the process of digestion for long enough are too far gone, and that gives you a nice big hit of life energy that can be used to revitalise your body.

> @"JorneMormel.9850" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

>

> > Not sure how any of that was relevant to my question, or my observations in general?

> >

> > I'm aware that ranger has been balanced so as to have less personal DPS to account for the pet (and merging on Soulbeast is supposed to address this, especially on a Deadly or Ferocious pet).

> >

> > The lore inquiry was because I do a lot of reading and investigation into the lore, and there isn't a lot about soulbeast and what there _is_ says nothing about soulbeast pets being weaker than those of regular rangers. So I was looking to get the poster I was replying to to cite their source.

>

> Point being it's pointless to compare in-game lore to game mechanics, as all lore offers is "flavour", like skill names. Lore-wise the ranger should be the strongest profession in-game because it fights as two seperate entities, balance wise this is unreasonable and mechanically undesirable. (Compare common pets to their ingame equivalents... Like why can't I tame a veteran or champion devourer? Now consider these common enemies took parties of 4-8 people in the original game to take down. Did wild beasts get neutered somewhere in the past couple of centuries of lore, or did people just happen to invent firearms and steroids?)

>

> Your question: "Where does it say in the lore that Soulbeasts have weaker pets?" shows expectation of there being a logical answer to game balance decisions in story background. Take for example the name of the game itself: Guild Wars, it's got nothing to do with the current iteration of the game, there's not even guild versus guild content. The very game itself is named after lore about a war centuries past, completely unrelated to what the game has to offer.

Obviously, gameplay balance is the most important consideration here, but lore _can_ guide decisions. For instance, the decision to reduce soulbeast to one pet _could_ have been motivated by ArenaNet looking for a tradeoff (gameplay balance consideration) and then someone goes "hey, if the soulbeast bond is so special, why can the soulbeast maintain such a bond with two animals at once?" Lore sometimes leads gameplay.

There's probably also an idea somewhere of exactly what different forms of magic are capable of, which is going to influence skill design. Which is my counter to the "ranger + pet should be stronger than any other profession" claim: most professions have more powerful magic than rangers do, and those that don't have near-modern technology or heavy armour and a lot of physical training. The random non-veteran animals we run into in the wild aren't all that imposing, so why would Fido be expected to give a guy with a bow a clear advantage over the guy who can tell the laws of physics to take a day off?

Seriously, though, the question "Where does it say in the lore that Soulbeasts have weaker pets?" only had one intent - that the person who made the claim that it is said in the lore either justify their claim (thereby bringing my attention to something I'd apparently missed) or admit that their claim was in error. Which, from my perspective, is a win-win.

Mind you, if there _is_ something obscure somewhere where it's said that soulbeast pets are weaker than regular ranger pets, then it makes sense to apply such a tradeoff to the soulbeast. Or adjust the writing of said source to reflect the actual tradeoff implemented instead. Gameplay sometimes leads lore too.

> @"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

>

> > Charr have been master engineers from the core game (or thats how its presented) which is likely why the original splash art of the profession was charr from the start. The whole way they presented the profession more or less screamed charr thematically and while the comment of "Charr pioneered the Engineer class" may not be factual in any wiki its certainly screams it based on almost everything in core engineer's kit. and how anet presented it. There is tons of charr engineer splash art for a reason and why they continue to do engi elite splash art as charr as well. Charr are certainly smarter in anets head cannon than i think most people want to give them credit for.

>

> For what it's worth, I wouldn't put too much stock in that splash art. Some of them match up well- charr engineer, norn warrior, sylvari ranger- but others... well, we don't exactly see many norn mesmers. Or asura necros, for that matter.

>

> And it is 100%, confirmed-as-fact, stated by the devs that charr pioneered the playable Engineer class. Nobody's saying otherwise. What drax said above is that other races already had engineers as we use the term in the real world- people who build and work on machines, which in GW1 meant things like trebuchets and pump systems.

This. There are even some primitive cannons around in GW1.

There's no doubt that the charr pioneered the playable engineer profession and have made the largest contribution to it, but they haven't made the _only_ contributions. The original holosmiths were humans figuring out that they could use Zephyrite crystals to power holographic magitech, while holographic magitech in general originated from the asura. The original scrappers were members of a charr caste (often a punishment detail) specialising in scavenging and repurposing scrap, employing their skills to make what they could out of the crashed Pact ships... which, in the words of Trahearne, are a combination of charr, human, and asura technology. I'm pretty sure there was also mention of elixirs coming from the asura in prerelease interviews and the like, but that's going back a way and a lot of them are no longer available.

Ultimately, the statement that the charr generally avoid using magic in their technology (while asura magitech is pretty much entirely fuelled by magic) is not incompatible with the observation that some parts of the engineer's kit is obviously using magic, since not everything in the engineer profession was invented by a charr - and when it comes to PCs, PCs of all races are portrayed as being more open-minded than is typical for their race. The charr (non-Flame) aversion to magic helps make their technology more grounded - it's not as spectacular as asura magitech tends to be, but it's more practical, more mass-producible, and less prone to catastrophic malfunction.

> @"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:

> Ebonhawke has fortifications on an order of magnitude greater than anything I've heard of in history. For example (according to a quick google), the largest of Constantinople's famous walls was 'only' about 16 feet thick and 40 feet high, and it still took months of bombardment paired with traditional siege tactics to get through.

>

> That said? In north-east Ebonhawke, you can find a scar from where a charr siege shot did make it over the wall. Two city blocks, wiped out. There's plenty of reason to believe that Ebonhawke hadn't been high on the Legions' priorities for a long time, but they never truly stopped the killing until within a year of the game's beginning.

>

You've covered a lot of what I would have said, but to expand on this specifically, I'd also note that it's mentioned a few times that the Ebon Vanguard got very good at sneaking out and destroying anything that got a clear shot at the walls before it could do too much damage. I think it gets referenced in Ghosts of Ascalon, and one of the Citadel of Flame paths is essentially an ex-Vanguard saboteur rescuing the engineer whose machines she made a habit of destroying during the war.

Ebonhawke's magical defences might also be being underestimated here. I recall that there used to be discussions about how weak the defences of Divinity's Reach were, and then when somebody does try besieging it there's suddenly a giant magical dome protecting it (started by Queen Jennah, but when you look at the dome from Lake Doric, the colours suggest that it might be a mix of mesmer and guardian magic). Ebonhawke doesn't have DR's magical resources, but the Vanguard probably has some ability to reinforce the physical defences of the citadel with magical ones.

> @"JorneMormel.9850" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> >

> > Where does it say in the lore that Soulbeasts have weaker pets?

> >

> > The choice of tradeoff for druids was probably done because it was possible to have builds which were build for extreme durability while still having a fairly high damage output through the pets (which had their own stats independent of the druid's gear). Reducing the damage output on pets directly addresses this issue. Personally, I think there are probably more elegant ways of doing it, but it was a tradeoff chosen to directly address a problem that was observed at the time.

>

> You really don't want to compare lore, especially when it comes to game balance decisions.

>

> In Guild Wars the ranger's primary attribute, and with that the profession's mechanic was to lower the energy cost of skills. The pet mechanic was unique to rangers, but also optional.

>

> Damage scaling on the ranger in GW2 has always been a little lower to compensate for the mandatory pet. The pet was overperforming on druid, it got nerfed (again.) Quite frankly, the pet's behaviour and performance has always been problematic in terms of game balance, either due to their independent damage scaling or by lack of a dodge mechanic or invulnerability. End of story.

Not sure how any of that was relevant to my question, or my observations in general?

I'm aware that ranger has been balanced so as to have less personal DPS to account for the pet (and merging on Soulbeast is supposed to address this, especially on a Deadly or Ferocious pet).

The lore inquiry was because I do a lot of reading and investigation into the lore, and there isn't a lot about soulbeast and what there _is_ says nothing about soulbeast pets being weaker than those of regular rangers. So I was looking to get the poster I was replying to to cite their source.

> @"Fjaeldmark.9043" said:

> > @"Juillin.5361" said:

> > I would love to see Crecia take over; she's definitely the most qualified currently. I don't see that happening, though. There has always been an irrational bias in favor of Rytlock, both from the developers and a vocal portion of the community. (Just skim a few of the comments here and see how many of them can be summed up as "WOO RYTLOCK RULZ!). I feel that ultimately Rytlock will end up in some position of power even though he is not qualified for it, has never done anything to deserve it, and admittedly doesn't even want it. Why? Cuz shut up, that's why.

> >

> > I don't see him getting killed by Ryland for the same reason.

>

> I think people's love of Rytlock is exactly why he won't be imperator. Since if he becomes imperator then he's going to have to stay behind and run things. From a narrative point of view Crecia works perfectly as imperator. She enters the story, expands on Rytlock's backstory, gets enough development for people to like her and then steps out of the story when Anet wants to move on to something else because she has to stay behind and be imperator.

And we've seen that she has credentials for actually running things and making decent decisions - there are a _lot_ of hints that until now she's succeeded in being a moderating influence on Bangar, that forging the truce with Flame was largely her idea, and so on. Rytlock, on the other hand, may be a Tribune on paper, but he doesn't seem to have actually acted in that capacity since Sohothin got pulled into the Mists in season 2, and generally doesn't seem interested in gaining political power.

Hrrrmn. The assumption I've generally had is that the names came from the Dream. It's not really that sylvari are choosing Celtic names, but that they're born with them.

It's possible that this is as deep as it goes - they need names, and it's just coincidence that the name generator is stuck on Celtic. If it is something deeper, however, it'd probably be a matter of looking at the early druids. The druid names we know now are pretty much all arboreal in nature, but given that druids are also a Celtic concept, it's possible that the original druids had a Celtic-like culture before assuming treeheart forms and names. This might have imprinted on the Dream in the Maguuma, and therefore onto the sylvari.

It's possible that it might also go back further (I still think the Pale Tree's seed was cleansed before Ronan stole it), but I'd prefer to look towards a culture we know existed rather than hypothesising a link to some ancient culture which is purely speculation.

Personally, I've generally considered that a likely reason to go to Cantha would be the "Aurene can't do the job alone" angle. She's replaced Kralkatorrik, and in the process she's possibly absorbed more power than Kralkatorrik ever did (although she's not hoarding it in the same way), but from what we've been shown, the world's balance is still at its most stable with six Elder Dragons (or equivalents) than four. It can just about survive on four, maybe even three, but if it ever drops to two... boom.

Which is why we might, at some stage, see Jormag's offers seriously considered. It's actions are speaking louder than its words, to be sure, but at some stage, the decision might well be made that accepting Jormag's offer is still _less_ risky than killing it when we don't have a suitable scion ready. If a truce with Jormag can be reached - and there's a trend in Guild Wars of making alliances of convenience even if they'll probably bite you later on - then the Pact would probably feel the need to continue to keep an eye on the dragon, but it might be better than the alternative.

This need for more scions, however, provides a reason to go to Cantha. Kuunavang and even Albax could both be considered to be possible candidates who have some degree of affiliation with mortals. Similar to Path of Fire, this could allow for a storyline which is part of the broader Elder Dragon picture, but could have a primary antagonist who is not an Elder Dragon.

> @"The Greyhawk.9107" said:

> > @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > https://windsofchange.vasburg.com/

>

> I think I hate you.

Is this where I mention I consulted on some of that? :p

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

> > @"DarkFlopy.8197" said:

>

> > again im asking, so what is the point of having a 2nd pet if i can't use it unless its outside of combat?!

>

> I myself am unhappy with the lazy sort of change implemented to Soulbeast, but this is a pretty stupid question.

>

> Why does Rev have access to 5 Legends when they can only use 2?

> Why does every Ele and Engi have weapon swap when they can only use 1 set in combat?

> Why do we have over 27 traits to pick at a time but can only use 9 in combat?

>

> Now for actual discussion about pet balancing.

>

> Soulbeast has long been considered "stronger Ranger" because it literally is similar to Ranger but has beast mode, giving them access to potentially 6 extra skills

>

> What makes me scratch my head is that Druids are the one which got the "weaker pets" tradeoff when according to lore, Soulbeasts are the ones who are supposed to have "weaker pets" which results in the training of the Soulbeast discipline to merge with their pets.

>

> In fact, it even reflects in combat well now, because Soulbeasts now have to keep track of their own health and their pet's health, and merge to save them or else their pet is put out of the fight for awhile.

>

> I'm just baffled as to why Druid's tradeoff was simply "weaker pets" while Soulbeast's tradeoff is "less versatility"

>

> If it were up to me, I would give Soulbeasts "weaker pets" and give Druid another sort of tradeoff.

>

>

>

>

Where does it say in the lore that Soulbeasts have weaker pets?

The choice of tradeoff for druids was probably done because it was possible to have builds which were build for extreme durability while still having a fairly high damage output through the pets (which had their own stats independent of the druid's gear). Reducing the damage output on pets directly addresses this issue. Personally, I think there are probably more elegant ways of doing it, but it was a tradeoff chosen to directly address a problem that was observed at the time.

> @"Legiion.7385" said:

> Lol we got nerfed into the ground and u still want some tradeoffs?

> Our heal mantra is now totally useless with 199 heal lol xD

> Even core guardian has now more heal then FB?‍♂️

To be fair, this thread _did_ start before that nerf came in.

But yeah, Mantra of Solace did get pretty much boonsmited, and most FB builds can't abuse Monk's Focus like a core guardian or meditrapper DH can. Granted, one probably could make a FB that uses the same principles, but it'd be a lot more selfish than the firebrands people have been used to seeing. Probably something like [this](https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Burst_Burning) but trading Radiance or Virtues for access to Tome of Justice... and I'm far from convinced that would be a good trade.

I've only seen two firebrands since the patch, one as an opponent in a 2v2, and one as a teammate in Stronghold. Neither impressed me, unless you consider thinking that they keep going down like a sack of potatoes to be being impressed. And I don't blame the players for that, except perhaps for not knowing about the nerf.

> @"Revolution.5409" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > @"Revolution.5409" said:

> > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > > To be honest, I've always felt that soulbeast was already more restrictive when it comes to pet choices than regular ranger. Regular rangers just need to worry about the pet's own skills and characteristics - a soulbeast also needs to worry about how useful the pet skills are to the ranger when melded, and whether the pet is the right archetype to work with their build.

> > > >

> > > > I guess there is the argument that previously you could afford to have one pet that was suboptimal for merging, on the assumption that it was the other pet you'd normally merge with.

> > >

> > > No it's the same thing, Ranger as Slb adapts pets to his Build.

> > > Slb actively uses the skills it gets from merging with the pet, Ranger instead to maximize the damage is based on the skill used by the pet itself.

> >

> > The distinction is that for ranger there's comparatively few items to optimise. The pet has its own attributes, so with core ranger, you can have a condition-oriented pet with a power ranger or vice versa. What you care about is pretty much whether the pet's F2 can be synergised with your own skills, and what balance of damage, survivability, support, and CC it offers.

> >

> > With soulbeast, you have to care about so much more. The pet's family skills need to be something that's useful for your build. It also needs to have an archetype that augments your own build.

> >

> > Consider the drake family, for instance. Family skills are a lifestealing bite, and an area attack that applies weakness and acts as a blast finisher. So the primary means of synergising with your own build is making use of that blast finisher, and maybe it's a consideration for you that the drake is probably better at fighting multiple opponents than single opponents and is fairly middle-of-the-line between offense and survivability. Choice of precisely which drake you choose is pretty much a matter of preference.

> >

> > Now, let's say you were considering a drake pet with a soulbeast. Chomp and Tail Swipe are power-based skills, so right away we can rule out the condition-based Deadly option. If you want to be a healer you'd probably want a different pet, so the Supportive Marsh Drake is out. You could possibly manage to get something to work with the Versatile Reef Drake, if you're bringing a lot of buffs on your own bar and don't mind if your pet isn't adding anything to that... but most likely, you're looking at the Ferocious River Drake, or maybe the Stout Ice Drake.

> >

> > Perform the same analysis across all the families, and you're probably going to end up with quite a few pets that just aren't practical for a soulbeast. Now, there were definitely some pets that were better than others with core ranger and druid as well, but soulbeast creates a bigger divide between good pets and mediocre ones and narrows the range of options - particularly once you've already committed to a particular build on the soulbeast itself.

>

> You can not synergize thinking only of f2, pets also share the traits of Ranger.

> If you use a Condi build and take the Hidden Barbs trait this will also affect the bleeding damage of the pet, this means that if your intent is to maximize the damage of a Build you will never use a power pet on a Build Condi.

Fair, but the same consideration is likely going to be true of soulbeasts who take the trait, except that they're not just looking for a pet with bleed skills, they're looking for a pet with bleed skills AND the Deadly archetype. So... hawk (but only on the F2, so not the best choice), lynx, warthog, bristleback and (when underwater) shark. The regular ranger, by contrast, can still choose other members of the cat or pig families - lynxes might still be optimal compared to other cats if you're just looking to maximise bleeds, but maybe you might want the extra fury from tiger (to give one example) instead.

And you're paying a traitline for that.

With a bit of investment in Virtues, base Courage is an instant that not only gives allies Aegis like the untraited virtue, but also protection and stability - and grants the guardian Retribution on top. And _because_ it's instant activation, this can be done immediately with no tell, covering some other action! What's more, it's not only instant activation and therefore uninterruptible, but is itself a stunbreak, meaning that the enemy can't do squat to stop you from doing this!

Sure, the elite mantra can do some of this, and on a shorter recharge if you don't have to fire the final shot, but also a shorter duration and that's taking up your elite slot.

Meanwhile, Resolve is granting regeneration and three condi cleanses (five to the guardian) in addition to the heal and, oh, there's that Retribution again. Justice off Virtues alone is just a bit of might and, again, self-retaliation... you need Radiance to really pump that up. (And using the Guardian's condition damage instead of the recipient is only an advantage if you've specced conditions yourself).

Of course, I'm aware that Firebrand can still take Virtues... but at that point, they've got two traitlines spoken for, and guardian traitlines are good enough that you miss every one you don't have, at least in competitive modes.

It's also not just the benefits of instantaneous activation itself, but the action economy - or, to put it another way, the opportunity cost of what you'd be doing if you didn't have a tome out.

You're trading an instantaneous effect, which can be quite strong with appropriate traits, to an effect which takes several seconds to unload all its abilities. In that time, you're not getting off your regular weapon attacks or whatever else you'd be doing if you didn't have a tome out (and having Resolve or Courage out means that you're doing basically no damage unless you have a damaging mantra, and those only have a limited number of shots). You can't compare core virtues to tomes directly, because core virtues don't interrupt your rotation at all while tomes almost completely replace it - you have to compare core virtues _plus_ whatever skills the player would be activating in the meantime. Now, efficient play would involve having as many weapon skills on cooldown as reasonably practical before pulling a tome, but that isn't possible, and you're _at least_ losing your autoattacks while you've got a tome out. If you take, say, Tome of Justice and then subtract the value of autoattacking and maybe getting a skill 2 or two off during its duration... yeah, it's probably still having more impact than core VoJ (but note the shorter recharge), but it's hardly blowing it out of the water - guardian has pretty strong autoattacks, since it's one of the professions designed around the rest of the bar being mostly for utility.

When adding up all the things you can do with a tome, you _have_ to take into account that the effective cast time to do that isn't the 1/4 or 1/2 second of the tome itself. If you just faceroll 5-1, that's between 2 3/4 (Courage) and 4 (Resolve) seconds just from the base casting times, without taking aftercast into account (with aftercast, you're probably looking at more than half again added to those figures - that data isn't easily available).

if you were to compare weapon conjures to tempest shouts without considering what you're _not_ doing while using those conjures, I'm pretty sure it would look like weapon conjures blow tempest shouts out of the water too. Conjure Earth Shield, for instance, grants several blocks, 4s Magnetic Aura (which can be shared with allies if you trait Powerful Auras) on a 12s, barrier, a stun, a pull, a bit of protection, and a fair amount of barrier - if you ignore the fact that while you're using it you're not using whatever weaponset you'd otherwise be using, this'd look a lot better than Aftershock. But in practice, Aftershock gets seen fairly regularly (when Tempest is seen at all, anyway), while Conjure Earth Shield comes up every so often as a gimmick or novelty pick.

> @"Revolution.5409" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > To be honest, I've always felt that soulbeast was already more restrictive when it comes to pet choices than regular ranger. Regular rangers just need to worry about the pet's own skills and characteristics - a soulbeast also needs to worry about how useful the pet skills are to the ranger when melded, and whether the pet is the right archetype to work with their build.

> >

> > I guess there is the argument that previously you could afford to have one pet that was suboptimal for merging, on the assumption that it was the other pet you'd normally merge with.

>

> No it's the same thing, Ranger as Slb adapts pets to his Build.

> Slb actively uses the skills it gets from merging with the pet, Ranger instead to maximize the damage is based on the skill used by the pet itself.

The distinction is that for ranger there's comparatively few items to optimise. The pet has its own attributes, so with core ranger, you can have a condition-oriented pet with a power ranger or vice versa. What you care about is pretty much whether the pet's F2 can be synergised with your own skills, and what balance of damage, survivability, support, and CC it offers.

With soulbeast, you have to care about so much more. The pet's family skills need to be something that's useful for your build. It also needs to have an archetype that augments your own build.

Consider the drake family, for instance. Family skills are a lifestealing bite, and an area attack that applies weakness and acts as a blast finisher. So the primary means of synergising with your own build is making use of that blast finisher, and maybe it's a consideration for you that the drake is probably better at fighting multiple opponents than single opponents and is fairly middle-of-the-line between offense and survivability. Choice of precisely which drake you choose is pretty much a matter of preference.

Now, let's say you were considering a drake pet with a soulbeast. Chomp and Tail Swipe are power-based skills, so right away we can rule out the condition-based Deadly option. If you want to be a healer you'd probably want a different pet, so the Supportive Marsh Drake is out. You could possibly manage to get something to work with the Versatile Reef Drake, if you're bringing a lot of buffs on your own bar and don't mind if your pet isn't adding anything to that... but most likely, you're looking at the Ferocious River Drake, or maybe the Stout Ice Drake.

Perform the same analysis across all the families, and you're probably going to end up with quite a few pets that just aren't practical for a soulbeast. Now, there were definitely some pets that were better than others with core ranger and druid as well, but soulbeast creates a bigger divide between good pets and mediocre ones and narrows the range of options - particularly once you've already committed to a particular build on the soulbeast itself.

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > @"KrHome.1920" said:

> > Wiping whole teams.... sure. Of which division are we talking at this point? Clearly not plat and most likely not even gold.

>

> so if ppl do it in lower tiers its ok.

It's a demonstration that the issue is one of people not knowing how to deal with it rather than there being no way of dealing with it.

I'm usually in gold, and while Lich Form certainly has an impact (as it should!) it didn't feel any more impactful than any other high-impact, long-cooldown elite.

I think a large part of the problem is that people who haven't played a fair amount of core Guardian tend to underestimate the effect they can have because they aren't flashy. To paraphrase a tongue-in-cheek comment I made earlier in this thread: "Best of all, your opponent doesn't see the effect of the core virtues directly so they don't go to the forums demanding for them to get nerfed!"

Being a bit more serious, though, I think people are judging core virtues by the standards of tomes and DH virtues, and of course they're going to come up short when judged on the other skill's terms. However, that doesn't mean that they're explicitly worse (or, worse when the opportunity cost for taking FB or DH is taken into account). Consider my earlier comparison of tomes to elementalist conjures. Core virtues, by a similar metric, can be compared to shouts - activating them, especially when supported by traits, instantaneously provides buffs to allies within range, possibly also including condition removal from allies or application to enemies. If you total up all the things a conjured weapon _could_ do, then yeah, the conjured weapon looks better... but which do you actually see tempests using more often? A sufficiently loaded instantaneous or near-instantaneous effect can be more useful than something that replaces your whole bar until you drop it or use it up, regardless of how much more versatility the latter has on paper.

Similar comments could be made with DH virtues, which could be compared to warrior physical skills. Bull's Charge and Rampage get a lot of use among warriors at the moment, but shouts are also pretty popular.

The complicating factor when it comes to tomes is that they have three different functions (broadly speaking, damage, healing, and non-healing support) and they're all on your bar at once. You don't want to make any tome so reliant on investment that without that investment it's a button that you just never want to press, but on the other hand, you don't want to end up making a profession that can do everything either.

Still, I think a litmus test that's being ignored is that core guardian has been a reasonably common sight in sPvP for a while. Perhaps not as much as firebrand has been, but to be perfectly honest? I haven't seen a firebrand I was impressed by in PvP since yesterday's patch. There's more than one way to knock down an overperforming build.

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > @"Strider.7849" said:

> > > > @"FrownyClown.8402" said:

> > > > Dh should lose their passive virtues. Fb should lose access to a 2nd weapon. Tomes count as a swap

> > >

> > > I like this idea, and yeah there needs to be a trade off for guardian, right now there isn't.

> >

> > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Justice

> > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Resolve

> > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Courage

>

> I agree that there is a trade off technically. Question is if this trade off is big enough to warrant the access to tomes.

Which is something I've discussed previously in this thread. I think the core virtues are being seriously underrated by people, and that suggesting that losing weaponswap is a fair trade for tomes is fundamentally misrepresenting how tomes actually operate. (Namely, that they're more like old-style Elementalist weapon conjures than attunements or kits.) Not to mention that attunements and kits also don't require locking you into a traitline.

Like has been said a couple of times, if tomes lasted as long as you wanted to remain in them and had a recharge of <10s after dropping out of them, _then_ they'd be the equivalent of attunements or kits. But they don't. They have a maximum of eight uses (with a trait) and long recharges before they can be used again (apart from using Tome of Justice with Radiance, and that ends up being a pretty specific build) and have a cast time that can be interrupted (albeit a short one, so admittedly it's hard to do deliberately).

However, if this far into the thread someone is going to post something so categorically wrong as the claim that guardian doesn't have a tradeoff, I'm not going to bother rehashing arguments that clearly weren't read the first time around, I'm just going to post the things that guardians trade away when taking an elite specialisation.

> @"Strider.7849" said:

> > @"FrownyClown.8402" said:

> > Dh should lose their passive virtues. Fb should lose access to a 2nd weapon. Tomes count as a swap

>

> I like this idea, and yeah there needs to be a trade off for guardian, right now there isn't.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Justice

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Resolve

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Courage

Looking at it...

I'm kinda hoping that they haven't been letting the tail wag the dog with the Lich Form nerf. It was pretty darn oppressive in 2v2, because 2v2 rounds typically last about a minute anyway, but once we go back to Conquest I'm not convinced 10s is going to be enough for it to have the impact it should. Maybe it could have a shorter recharge to compensate, but still...

Firebrand just took a pretty heavy nerf to its sustain in competitive modes. Let's put the torches and pitchforks away until we see how that shakes out, shall we?

To be honest, I've always felt that soulbeast was already more restrictive when it comes to pet choices than regular ranger. Regular rangers just need to worry about the pet's own skills and characteristics - a soulbeast also needs to worry about how useful the pet skills are to the ranger when melded, and whether the pet is the right archetype to work with their build.

I guess there is the argument that previously you could afford to have one pet that was suboptimal for merging, on the assumption that it was the other pet you'd normally merge with.

> @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:

> > @"Elmo Benchwarmer.3025" said:

> > -500 Power and Condition Damage on Firebrand. They're healers after all :# ;)

>

> Well, Imbued Haste gives +150 Healing Power, +150 Condi Damage, and +150 Vitality if they have quickness on which they have NUMEROUS ways to apply. Seems to me like Imbued Haste itself needs a rework.

>

> Make it work only while a tome is equipped, +150 Healing Power +150 Condi Damage but -150 toughness.

Toughness drop while a tome is equipped would make a lot of sense - somebody using a tome (even in the form of floating magical pages) is probably not going to be able to defend themselves as effectively as someone wielding regular weapons. If that's problematic for raids, it could be a straight "take X% more damage" (are there any raid setups using a firebrand as main tank at the moment?). Making "target the firebrand!" a more viable tactic would certainly be appropriate.

I'd probably roll this into Purity of Word rather than Imbued Haste, though. I'd also say that this is a direct nerf to tomes rather than a tradeoff - which is pretty much what I've been saying all along. Guardian elite specialisations already have a tradeoff - if they're overperforming, this is a separate issue that can be resolved through direct nerfs.

(Honestly, I _like_ this one. It directly addresses the core problem of the Firebrand being able to keep everyone else up while also being tough as nails itself.)

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > > > @"otto.5684" said:

> > > > > This is only true for courage.

> > > >

> > > > It's not even true for courage. Shorter recharge and instant activation are both useful properties for a skill that grants boons that are usually used reactively, and/or to cover another action such as stomping. You can say that the DH virtues are _generally_ better, but again, that's because you're spending much of a traitline on them. If we were to compare a DH with, say, Zeal and Radiance to a core guardian with Zeal, Radiance, and Virtues, I don't think it can be necessarily said that the DH virtues are objectively better. Now, if you have a DH with the Virtues traitline you get pretty good virtues, but at this point you've spent two out of three traitlines into getting better virtues - so you'd _expect_ a strong result.

> > > >

> > > > > @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > > > > > @"Revolution.5409" said:

> > > > > > Tomes are the real problem.

> > > > > > I don't think there is a tradeoff to apply to 15 skills, Firebrand is pure Power Creep and needs a rework.

> > > > >

> > > > > Other classes like Elementalist and Engineer had to pay their "additional skill mechanics" (attunements and kits) by being unable to weapon swap in combat. Honestly, I think the most logical nerf for Firebrand would be to remove their weapon swap in combat as well.

> > > >

> > > > Except that attunements and kits have, if anything, _shorter_ cooldowns than weaponswaps (apart from tempests who just overloaded, and even then it's incredibly unlikely that a tempest will ever not have at least one attunement ready to swap to), so they can serve as a suitable replacement for weaponswaps. Tomes, on the other hand, have long cooldowns that don't start until you expend or use them, so they're not comparable. An elementalist or engineer can also stay in an attunement or kit indefinitely, while a firebrand will eventually run out of pages. So, if tomes worked like elementalist attunements or engineer kits: namely, that they had cooldowns of ten seconds or less, and that you could remain in one for as long as you wanted - then yeah, losing weaponswap might be a fair trade. Pretty sure that's not what people are pulling the torches and pitchforks out to do, though.

> > > >

> > > > As is, though? It'd be like suggesting that engineer lose its kits, but have its toolbelt skills replaced by elementalist weapon conjures. Except that engineer (and elementalist) weapons are designed with being non-weaponswap weapons in mind, and guardian weapons are not (which was, incidentally, the problem with the original revenant design: the only ground revenant weapon that really works as a non-weaponswap weapon is mace, and that's borderline).

> > > >

> > > > Bottom line is, there is a tradeoff. The core virtues are given up on taking an elite specialisation. You might say that what Firebrand gets out of it is worth more than it gives up, and that might be right - but if so, that's a "Firebrand stuff needs to be toned down" issue, not a tradeoff issue. The tradeoff, for all people try to write it off as "not significant enough", is _there._

> > >

> > > While alot of what you say here makes sense, I would like you to consider one more thing: Anet has already shown that they are willing to install more than 1 trade off if the power level calls for it.

> > >

> > > I am talking about the scrapper. Scrapper has already a trade off by giving up his elite tool belt skill to get access to the Function Gyro on F5. When they reworked scrapper, they installed **another** trade off into the scrapper trait line, since chosing it will now reduce your vitality by 180, which means that scrapper will have 1800 less HP than an engineer.

> >

> > Sure, but let's tell the whole story - the vitality reduction came alongside ArenaNet deciding to give Scrapper a playstyle based on constantly renewing barrier as they fight, and the purpose of the health reduction was to keep their durability at a reasonable level even with the barrier. Now, it's not a move I particularly agree with, but the tradeoff for the sake of a tradeoff was the F5 - the vitality reduction came because they decided to give the scrapper something else, and that needed a balancing factor.

> >

> > Even putting that aside, you're still looking at the scrapper having two relatively light tradeoffs, while the "remove weaponswap" proposal would be the heaviest tradeoff in the game, particularly since guardian weapons aren't designed to be non-weaponswap weapons... and that would be on an elite specialisation which _already has a tradeoff_.

> >

> > And that's the bottom line, really - people are behaving like it doesn't have a tradeoff at all, when it _does._ If Firebrand is still too strong in the current meta, the answer is to nerf the relevant skills directly.

>

> You're writing very long, detailed post trying to defend an obviously OP spec in spvp and WvW. Sad. But what's even more sad, is that ranger will probably be nerfed first while braindead fb mains will spam blinds aegis stab condi cleanse and dazes for days while thinking they are amazing players. Very sad indeed.

Nice ad hominem. I'd show you my PvP piechart, but the new forums don't seem to like images hosted on Google Drive.

Suffice it to say that for the past two seasons I've mostly been playing revenant, and I've been keeping an eye open for a ranger or warrior build I enjoy so I can collect the full set of profession champion titles. There is a significant blue portion in there, to be sure, but most of it was pre-HoT - when I talk about what can be done with core virtues, I'm speaking from experience. Firebrand could be boonsmited (oh, the irony) out of competitive modes altogether and it'd be no skin off my nose. Heck, it would be nice to stop seeing "they have a FB and we don't, well, this is probably going to suck" matches.

But I don't want to see firebrand get ruined in _every_ mode through some heavy-handed "tradeoff", where some of the suggestions seem to be motivated by sour grapes, on a profession which has _always_ had a tradeoff to the elite specs. Now, some of the other tradeoffs have definitely been harsher than they need to be (I sense this thread has mostly been inspired by the recent soulbeast tradeoff, but what mesmers received... _ouch_), but they at least started from a point where there genuinely was no tradeoff apart from the opportunity cost of a core traitline. Guardians and necromancers have had a tradeoff from the beginning.

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > > @"otto.5684" said:

> > > This is only true for courage.

> >

> > It's not even true for courage. Shorter recharge and instant activation are both useful properties for a skill that grants boons that are usually used reactively, and/or to cover another action such as stomping. You can say that the DH virtues are _generally_ better, but again, that's because you're spending much of a traitline on them. If we were to compare a DH with, say, Zeal and Radiance to a core guardian with Zeal, Radiance, and Virtues, I don't think it can be necessarily said that the DH virtues are objectively better. Now, if you have a DH with the Virtues traitline you get pretty good virtues, but at this point you've spent two out of three traitlines into getting better virtues - so you'd _expect_ a strong result.

> >

> > > @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > > > @"Revolution.5409" said:

> > > > Tomes are the real problem.

> > > > I don't think there is a tradeoff to apply to 15 skills, Firebrand is pure Power Creep and needs a rework.

> > >

> > > Other classes like Elementalist and Engineer had to pay their "additional skill mechanics" (attunements and kits) by being unable to weapon swap in combat. Honestly, I think the most logical nerf for Firebrand would be to remove their weapon swap in combat as well.

> >

> > Except that attunements and kits have, if anything, _shorter_ cooldowns than weaponswaps (apart from tempests who just overloaded, and even then it's incredibly unlikely that a tempest will ever not have at least one attunement ready to swap to), so they can serve as a suitable replacement for weaponswaps. Tomes, on the other hand, have long cooldowns that don't start until you expend or use them, so they're not comparable. An elementalist or engineer can also stay in an attunement or kit indefinitely, while a firebrand will eventually run out of pages. So, if tomes worked like elementalist attunements or engineer kits: namely, that they had cooldowns of ten seconds or less, and that you could remain in one for as long as you wanted - then yeah, losing weaponswap might be a fair trade. Pretty sure that's not what people are pulling the torches and pitchforks out to do, though.

> >

> > As is, though? It'd be like suggesting that engineer lose its kits, but have its toolbelt skills replaced by elementalist weapon conjures. Except that engineer (and elementalist) weapons are designed with being non-weaponswap weapons in mind, and guardian weapons are not (which was, incidentally, the problem with the original revenant design: the only ground revenant weapon that really works as a non-weaponswap weapon is mace, and that's borderline).

> >

> > Bottom line is, there is a tradeoff. The core virtues are given up on taking an elite specialisation. You might say that what Firebrand gets out of it is worth more than it gives up, and that might be right - but if so, that's a "Firebrand stuff needs to be toned down" issue, not a tradeoff issue. The tradeoff, for all people try to write it off as "not significant enough", is _there._

>

> While alot of what you say here makes sense, I would like you to consider one more thing: Anet has already shown that they are willing to install more than 1 trade off if the power level calls for it.

>

> I am talking about the scrapper. Scrapper has already a trade off by giving up his elite tool belt skill to get access to the Function Gyro on F5. When they reworked scrapper, they installed **another** trade off into the scrapper trait line, since chosing it will now reduce your vitality by 180, which means that scrapper will have 1800 less HP than an engineer.

Sure, but let's tell the whole story - the vitality reduction came alongside ArenaNet deciding to give Scrapper a playstyle based on constantly renewing barrier as they fight, and the purpose of the health reduction was to keep their durability at a reasonable level even with the barrier. Now, it's not a move I particularly agree with, but the tradeoff for the sake of a tradeoff was the F5 - the vitality reduction came because they decided to give the scrapper something else, and that needed a balancing factor.

Even putting that aside, you're still looking at the scrapper having two relatively light tradeoffs, while the "remove weaponswap" proposal would be the heaviest tradeoff in the game, particularly since guardian weapons aren't designed to be non-weaponswap weapons... and that would be on an elite specialisation which _already has a tradeoff_.

And that's the bottom line, really - people are behaving like it doesn't have a tradeoff at all, when it _does._ If Firebrand is still too strong in the current meta, the answer is to nerf the relevant skills directly.

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

> > @"Sobx.1758" said:

>

> > Weird logic seeing how you literally recognized power creep of the especs by -rightfully- calling them "professions+" and yet you still seem to not understand (or pretend to) why some things **have** to be nerfed/taken away to even the playground. They're doing what they should have done long ago.

>

> What I'm saying is tradeoffs like this are ridiculous.

> Scrapper was extremely underused because of simply being Engi + a ranged press F.

>

> Infact in most cases, people just played core Engi instead because of how bad Gyros are.

>

> The whole Tradeoff thing happened like so much later when Holo existed and dominated the competitive scene and Scrapper was given a really nice rework to compete with, but out of the blue, HURRDURR TRADEOFF and forced them to have their Elite toolbelt replaced with an AoE press F with a cooldown.

>

> Obviously this was done yo reflect Holo's forge on Elite toolbelt but how can one compare a single cooldown based AoE press F to an entire weapon set with 5 skills.

>

> It just doesn't make sense.

>

I think part of the theory there was that they were trying to make function gyro something that was actually relevant outside of competitive modes, and to do that they needed to put it somewhere on the skill bar rather than something that can only be activated by interacting with something in the downed state. Doesn't really work, since the effects of the function gyro are really nothing to shout home about in PvE, but I don't think that move was _entirely_ motivated by "but tradeoffs!"

> @"Sobx.1758" said:

> Ye, ye, ye. They are "like blockers" except that this is not a card game, we have loads of cleave/aoe/piercing skills, we can move "around the board" and attack from another side instead of going "through the played minion/blocker cards" and so on.

That... might actually be part of the point. If you attack the clone, that's generally ceding the card advantage to the mesmer, while if you can maintain target focus on the mesmer and can avoid taking too much damage from the clones, they usually either have less survival options or less damage options, since their proverbial deck is mostly built around use of the clones. Playing against them is essentially a constant shell game - pick the right target and you can gain and advantage, pick the wrong target and they gain the advantage over you.

Or you can go heavy AoE and just clear the board...

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > @"Buran.3796" said:

> > > @"Kodama.6453" said:

> >

> > > Also a great choice. Giving mace to one of the light armor professions additionally would be welcomed, I could imagine a Necromancer using that weapon as well. It's just odd that the 3 heavy armor classes are the only ones able to use that weapon.

> >

> > Not that odd taking in consideration that in the real world maces are weapons specifically designed to negate the protection from armors creating trauma through delivering kinetic energy instead of slicing and bleeding enemies. A non armor/light armored fighter has no business wielding a mace vs foes with metal plates.

>

> That is not really relevant for this game, tho.

>

> I mean, yeah, this is how this weapon got used in the real world. But look how greatswords were used in the real world and then how Mesmers are using them...

> This is a fantasy game, they can easily interpret weapons in different ways than they actually have been used in the real world.

Pretty much. Maces have also been used for ceremonial purposes, so I could definitely see them being used as spellcasting focii.

> @"otto.5684" said:

> This is only true for courage.

It's not even true for courage. Shorter recharge and instant activation are both useful properties for a skill that grants boons that are usually used reactively, and/or to cover another action such as stomping. You can say that the DH virtues are _generally_ better, but again, that's because you're spending much of a traitline on them. If we were to compare a DH with, say, Zeal and Radiance to a core guardian with Zeal, Radiance, and Virtues, I don't think it can be necessarily said that the DH virtues are objectively better. Now, if you have a DH with the Virtues traitline you get pretty good virtues, but at this point you've spent two out of three traitlines into getting better virtues - so you'd _expect_ a strong result.

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > @"Revolution.5409" said:

> > Tomes are the real problem.

> > I don't think there is a tradeoff to apply to 15 skills, Firebrand is pure Power Creep and needs a rework.

>

> Other classes like Elementalist and Engineer had to pay their "additional skill mechanics" (attunements and kits) by being unable to weapon swap in combat. Honestly, I think the most logical nerf for Firebrand would be to remove their weapon swap in combat as well.

Except that attunements and kits have, if anything, _shorter_ cooldowns than weaponswaps (apart from tempests who just overloaded, and even then it's incredibly unlikely that a tempest will ever not have at least one attunement ready to swap to), so they can serve as a suitable replacement for weaponswaps. Tomes, on the other hand, have long cooldowns that don't start until you expend or use them, so they're not comparable. An elementalist or engineer can also stay in an attunement or kit indefinitely, while a firebrand will eventually run out of pages. So, if tomes worked like elementalist attunements or engineer kits: namely, that they had cooldowns of ten seconds or less, and that you could remain in one for as long as you wanted - then yeah, losing weaponswap might be a fair trade. Pretty sure that's not what people are pulling the torches and pitchforks out to do, though.

As is, though? It'd be like suggesting that engineer lose its kits, but have its toolbelt skills replaced by elementalist weapon conjures. Except that engineer (and elementalist) weapons are designed with being non-weaponswap weapons in mind, and guardian weapons are not (which was, incidentally, the problem with the original revenant design: the only ground revenant weapon that really works as a non-weaponswap weapon is mace, and that's borderline).

Bottom line is, there is a tradeoff. The core virtues are given up on taking an elite specialisation. You might say that what Firebrand gets out of it is worth more than it gives up, and that might be right - but if so, that's a "Firebrand stuff needs to be toned down" issue, not a tradeoff issue. The tradeoff, for all people try to write it off as "not significant enough", is _there._