Arcaedus.7290

> @"PookieDaWombat.6209" said:

> > @"Arcaedus.7290" said:

> > This is something that could be controlled or balanced for in a wvw-only mount. Imagine if the wvw mount had very little health (6-10k), was susceptible to CC and conditions (unlike pve counterparts), had no mobility skills, save for maybe a 600-range leap engage attack (no CC attached, just mediocre damage), and base run speed was equivalent to out of combat + swiftness (which is the current cap of movement speed that a player can achieve in either pvp or wvw). If the mount worked like this, would that really be such a bad thing? If so, why?

> >

> >

>

> Yes, because at that point the point of the mount as a useful thing becomes moot and is simply a vanity item in a game mode that doesn't need it and therefore adds nothing to the game mode other than it being a potential skin revenue stream for Anet. So the other option is it has way too much mobility which breaks engagements, evades to allow it to break through enemy lines that might be trying to slow defenders down at a gate, and can perform big hit opening moves that could throw off the balance of a fight too much. Either way you slice it, this is bad for WvW and was never wanted by a vast majority of long time WvW players. All it does it exacerbate some long time problems and introduces more power creep while trivializing the game mode even more than gliding ever did.

You're forgetting the fact that it has siege capabilities so it does add to the game mode, plus it will really help backliners keep up with a zerg and also help players from spawn traverse where they need to since many times they don't have access to swiftness or mobility skills.

If the mount's engage skill does very minimal damage, it's going to end up being suicide for a mounted zerg to leap into a grounded zerg that knows when to bomb since there is usually a short period of time between dismounting and being able to act once again that they could get slammed by CC, boon rip, etc.

The main concern now is actually that #3 skill on mount which gives an evade for a period of time since this will really change up fights and negate a ranged advantage. Arguably this is good though since it provides a counter to pirateship

> @"Shadow.9641" said:

> > @"Nordic Natedog.4360" said:

>

> > ToF wombo combo is not the only bursts that DH has, it is just the most common to find people playing. To take the DH specialization, you have 1 less core trait line you can take and often that leaves out valor, honor, or even both. Which are the defensive based traits can be had for guardian. DH then can build from the skill set that core has by adding traps into it while adding either stacks of vulnerability to his foe (thanks to **zealots aggression - dulled senses** combination), turn their F2 into an offensive skill (soaring devastation), and/or add **big game hunter** which can absolutely destroy foes after its resent buff.

>

> ZA, DS and BGH are massive Boosts to the DMG-Potential of the DH, the damage you can deal out with sword 3 or scepter 2 is insame - even safer dealed with a dose of scepter 3^^. Imo the DH has a clear advantage over Core sustainwise, while 'just' sacrificing a bit of power.

> Tbh I took ToF completely out, because too many people are aware of ToF and I prefer the sustain by another medi while roaming

>

Sure, but now we move into the territory of off-meta builds. I won't deny these builds can pull off nice number and decent bursts, but if we're talking LB medi-trapper (which imo is the most effective DH roaming build if we're considering most situations), you're not going to be dropping Heavy Light for BGH, you're not going to be taking SD (trust me, you lose quite a bit by not having traps traited) and between trueshot, sword 2 and sword 3 (your biggest sources of damage aside from ToF), you won't be able to deal enough damage to kill a well-built roamer. I would know since I tried hard to make this a thing. It only had mild success against the glassiest of builds (sic em soulbeast, power mirage and thieves) and did considerably worse against all other roamers.

I actually enjoy running a melee-based and trapless DH with GS. It doesn't use any traps and has a burst much stronger than LB DH but at the cost of some sustain since most of the burst is melee-based. It has really great 1v1 matchups and great ability to peel but suffers in group fights due to it having to go into melee-range for bursts

I must say, unless you instantly dismount upon going into combat (while mounted), which I hope is how they do it, I'm extremely worried that mounts will give players an unfair advantage against ranged opponents. You could effectively use your mount to soak up damage from a ranged opponent as you close the gap. This unfair advantage could eventually force situations where the mounted player has the luxury of forcing the ranged player to also engage with mount (thus eliminating the ranged advantage at first) or just run/not fight.

> @"ProverbsofHell.2307" said:

> Hear me out. Mounts will severely disrupt the balance of mobility in WvW. They will completely change the capture/defense game speed. They will cause drastically increased lag and fps issues in a game mode already plagued by them. They were dreaded being implemented by the community and many feel betrayed by the announcement.

**Hypothetically,** what if the mount (in wvw) worked like this:

* 5-7k HP, if depleted while mounted, player is knocked down for 2 seconds.

* Movement speed of the mount is capped at 400 units per second (player movement speed when out of combat + swiftness)

* Has an engage attack that does very minor siege damage and minor power damage (3-4k damage) not influenced by stats, cannot crit, no CC, boons or condis attached, 20s cooldown.

* Cannot dodge while mounted. Can only dismount or use the engaging attack.

* Is affected by CC and conditions unlike mounts in pve (but the pve version of this mount will of course function like other pve mounts).

Hypothetically, if the mount worked like that, I think it would add value to the game mode! It would be a mount that helps slower members of a zerg keep up, and would be something focused on engaging the mechanics of wvw (siege and defences) rather than something used to gain a cheap advantage in combat or to 100% escape larger groups of players without fail.

> @"reddie.5861" said:

> > @"Arcaedus.7290" said:

> > > @"Helicity.3416" said:

> > > This is absolutely not what I wanted, and judging by discord, _nobody_ wanted. Bravo Anet. Bravo.

> >

> > Nobody wanted gliding and yet it 100% improved DBL and is rather unimpactful if not slightly positive in other BLs.

>

> but nobody wanted DBL either.. i still avoid "red" bl like a plague nowadays.. So does every1 else just look up any server K/D ratio ull see red bl always has lowest K/D total no1 wants to be in this kitten map..

>

> DBL is like HoT maps and HoT maps are like these "mmorpgs" where u constantly run into a hill, and only way to get around hill is by following the god kitten madafaking road. i dont wanna follow a road i dont wanna run cus they designed a map with hills/mountains on both sides so im forced to take freaking path they created for me.

> and thats why i prefer Blue and green borderland or even EB im not forced 90% of the time to run a certain way cus there is no other way beside kitten 5 min walk around god kitten hills.

>

> as for mount all wvw players where like oooh we get something nice and then its like u throw kitten in people face.

> anet is like these monkeys in the zoo who poo in their own hands then throw it at the visitors.

> congratz we as WvW community are so happy u have given us DBL's Gliding and now the amazing mounts, and that u have never touched the rest of wvw objectives/layout/new things to cap

>

> ty we love anet, hopefully i can buy some baller shiny skin from blacklion(? or w/e name store) i still have to buy glider aswell since im still using stock glider but im so happy now ima buy a glider right away also just to be with em cool guys with all these fancy useless skins!

Totally disagree with that. It's not that people didn't want DBL. People were excited about it during the previews. What ended up happening is the map ended up being very bad for encouraging fights due to its size, that stupid oasis event in the center, falling damage (which killed more people than people killed people), and how confusing it was to navigate the map. For these reasons, people stopped playing there and very quickly. Anet fixed a lot of these things and unfortunately the damage has been done. People don't play there now, not because it's bad but because of PTSD, and other people who don't have this PTSD don't play there because no one else does.

Mounts on the other hand are not necessarily a bad thing for wvw. What would have been bad is if any of the current 6 mounts in their pve-states were included in wvw. The main reason people don't want mounts in wvw is the mobility (which was the whole reason behind mounts in pve). Too much mobility means that a group of players already mounted could NOT be engaged/taken down by another group of players if the mounted players so felt like escaping.

This is something that could be controlled or balanced for in a wvw-only mount. Imagine if the wvw mount had very little health (6-10k), was susceptible to CC and conditions (unlike pve counterparts), had no mobility skills, save for maybe a 600-range leap engage attack (no CC attached, just mediocre damage), and base run speed was equivalent to out of combat + swiftness (which is the current cap of movement speed that a player can achieve in either pvp or wvw). If the mount worked like this, would that really be such a bad thing? If so, why?

So many things wrong with the OP...

1. Are you assuming that mounts will allow a zergling to plow throw some roamers and make it out alive whereas they otherwise would have died? There could be any number of measurements taken to ensure this isn't possible such as very low mount HP, or mounted players affected by conditions/CCs, etc.

2. Are you also assuming that mounts are going to allow someone to travel much faster than out of combat + swiftness?

3. Roaming is not just picking off slow zerg players running back to the fight from spawn. That's called ganking, and of all the way to play GW2, that's probably the playstyle we should all care about the least.

4. Roamers would have access to mounts as well meaning better ability to escape a chasing zerg.

> @"Helicity.3416" said:

> This is absolutely not what I wanted, and judging by discord, _nobody_ wanted. Bravo Anet. Bravo.

Nobody wanted gliding and yet it 100% improved DBL and is rather unimpactful if not slightly positive in other BLs.

Why is everyone freaking out? We haven't even seen how the mount works yet in the live stream and we're already passing judgement, seriously?

Stop assuming worst-case scenario. There is a good chance mounts will be balanced and will actually **add value to the game mode** without making any of its current issues worse. Anet has demonstrated tone deafness before but they are not unintelligent. They certainly considered these things before thinking of implementing mounts. The fact that this is a wvw-exclusive mount and not one of the pve-mounts is proof of that!

Give it a chance first, at least in the form of seeing how it works in the live stream before passing judgement, sheesh....

Honestly having a wvw-specific mount with wvw balance in mind excites me a lot, HOWEVER, I really hope Anet abides by these following limitations to it either at release or in the near future:

1. **The mount's movement speed must not be any faster than out of combat + swiftness on**. Otherwise, the mounts will enable a large amount of people to ALWAYS be able to chase down a smaller amount of/single person which really hurts roaming/small scale.

2. **Absolutely NO CC should be attached to mounts.** This will greatly exacerbate the issue mentioned in #1 but also greatly imbalance fights where both parties engage with mounts.

3. **Looks like from the sneak peak that the mount has an attack of sorts.** This attack should not do a terribly large amount of damage - 2 to 4k power damage (unaffected by your stats) at MOST and should either have a lengthy cooldown or be the dismounting/engaging attack (which it probably is).

4. **The mount's ability to deal siege damage as is seen in the sneak peak should be completely inferior to all conventional siege.** A single regular catapult for example (which lets say takes two players to build) should be able to break down a tower door quicker than two mounted players can.

5. **There needs to be some counterplay so that a single mounted player cannot run by and escape a larger group of players (who would otherwise successfully have killed that single player).** There are multiple ways to do this, here are the first two I can think of:

* War Claw is affected by CC and conditions unlike its pve counterpart

* War Claw has low hp, and depleting that hp will dismount the player and stun them for a considerable amount of time.

* Being put into combat will instantly dismount you (probably not the best method).

The whole point of limitations like these are to make sure that the mount actually adds value to the game mode without hurting it or exacerbating any existing problems. I believe similar to these will accomplish exactly that.

> @"Nordic Natedog.4360" said:

> In my dealings, I have found core guard having more sustain than DH but DH has the larger burst potential (not just one-hit combos). I personally play burn guard but have over the years made it a hybrid setup. This way I can capitalize on large groupings and actually find fighting 3-4 foes easier than fighting 1. With the added procs from traps and the ability to stack vulnerability quickly, the bursting potential simply can't be matched elsewhere. Spellbreaker is one of the biggest pain in my necks when roaming. I make video montages of game play for my own kicks. Here's a sample. Be forewarned, the play style can be addictive if you are an aggressive player.

@"Nordic Natedog.4360"

Lol love the vid! I would say needs more memes though :P

Also, what? I find what you said about core and DH guard to be the opposite. Meta DH has much smaller burst potential since it comes almost exclusively through the ToF wombo combo which takes time and relies on opponents not counterplaying properly whereas core guard has much less sustain and a slightly larger (but faster/easier to access) burst. Even if we discuss off-meta variants, DH still has better sustain in every build comparison I can think of and even some of its better burst potential is still not instant-cast and relies on tethering opponents with f1.

> @"StrawHat.2639" said:

> I still believe the desert map failed because a lot of the beta testers weren't necessarily wvwers...to this day I still remember some guy named Docgotgame...streamer...giving out spots to his guildies with them all having barely any wvw exp to be in the beta test...and suggest the good and bad of the new map.

> At any rate, when it came live and the gang went in within 1 hr of roaming between all the barricades, size of map for a smaller server/pop and the blob blitz middle event for the ppt servers to cap all tiered up stuff, the shortcomings were plain as sand.

>

> The backlash when all wvwers had a chance to try it seemed to quell all anet's desire to give another one a go.

> They tried to make it more mobility friendly and such but the bad press was done so the speak...

>

> I don't mind dsbl but the major of the gang doesn't, easy to get lost asurians and the size of the map and often times the deadness of players in it.

>

> Anyways;

>

> The thing is the gang is still in wvw on a nightly basis yet that above streamer and guild long dead in wvw….

>

> I doubt we will get a new map unless in the next expansion or as a reskin of eotm or such.

Very true. I remember at release time, the southeast camp in DBL and the shrine directly north of it looked to be about 10-30 seconds apart from each other on the map, yet if you actually started at one and tried to travel to the other, the route was not direct (I believe there were no hay bales/people didn't know about them, nor was that cliff-side staircase present initially) and it ended up taking about 2-3 minutes to get from one to the other, either through navigating the labyrinthine scaffolding on the cliffs, or going first into the central jungle/oasis before heading back east. This was absolute garbage design and an example of what NOT to do with 3D complexity. Ever.

> @"Safandula.8723" said:

> but it would need something additional like: usable only in wvw. otherwise it can affect tp prices pretty badly

Absolutely this. Would be a very balanced suggestion.

> @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> I voted others because personally I think food and utilities should be banned in WvW.

> We got enough power creep without adding more ways to boost stats/abilities.

I think the majority of us who care about balancing the power creep in wvw would absolutely agree with this but assuming this wish doesn't come true, adding level 80 food (that is perhaps wvw exclusive) I think is a better option than not doing so.

> @"VixusIrine.9013" said:

> You could always turn the guardian scepter auto into the air elementalist scepter auto but without the damage windup. With that you can easily do some tweaks on how many instances of damage, how fast it is, etc.

I would absolutely love this, but it would probably be a balance issue since it would remove some counterplay from the skill. I don't think balancing by reducing the dps of the beam (to be lower than old scepter with 100% hit rate of orbs) would be a popular choice either since it would greatly hurt guards in pve.

Edit: although I suppose how this could be implemented is the beam could maintain identical dps to scepter in pve, and just receive a damage nerf in pvp only

I'd prefer that the response to something being underpowered would not be to power-creep it in some way, but that being said shield does feel clunky and doesn't fit very well into most builds. I'd suggest:

Shield 4: first, make it ACTUALLY unblockable. Enemies should not be able to body-block, or stop this skill with projectile reflection. After all, this skill has no offensive component to it, so why should an enemy be able to block it? Second, slightly increase projectile speed and decrease cast time from 0.75s down to 0.25s. This would be a buff but would impact playability/QoL a lot more than pvp balance.

Shield 5: I think this skill is mostly balanced. It's good vs. some opponents, not vs. others, provides good condi clear when traited, and lasts a reasonable amount of time to wait out cooldowns.

* For buffs (if any are needed), I would say have an additional benefit for channeling the entire skill like additional healing, additional energy, additional condis cleansed, or maybe a flipover skill like aoe blind/weakness (to punish opponents who stay nearby or attack you while you block)

* I would say that if this skill does get buffs, it should NOT involve invuln, making the skill mobile or increasing the healing value greatly since these change could have some unintended consequences.

> @"KrHome.1920" said:

> > @"otto.5684" said:

> > And to be clear, I do not think only low HP classes need more HP, all classes do. Remember that damage has gone through 3 major waves of power creep. Adding more HP will hedge a bit the power creep on damage.

> So instead of reducing the damage powercreep you vote for increasing the vitality powercreep...

>

> Adding more powercreep to hold the formerly added powercreep in line is what ANet is doing since 2015. They added absurd amounts of defensive boon application, mobility and evasion/invulnerability mechanics to prevent oneshots instead of reducing the oneshot capabilities.

>

> Do you think it works?

>

> Side Note: A well played minstrel firebrand can even sustain a spite/curses (maximum damage/debuff capability possible!) necro forever and that's an 11k base HP class that can not be killed by a 19k HP class that is meant to counter it. Every YES voter in this thread does not know what he is talking about. The issues of this game have nothing to do with health pools.

Or we could just say that damage and defensive boon application are actually fine, and what the game needs is more defence and boon hate? See the problem with this statement? You're committing the same mistake that you think all of the yes voters are committing: assuming that one part of the game's balance should remain static since that's fine, whereas other parts of balance are what need to be brought in line. I would guess you think this way since health pools are one of the only things that have remained as a "standard" for balancing pvp content and are the only remaining standard since vanilla GW2.

Just because health pools always have been the same does not necessarily mean they should be exempt from balancing.

> @"Yannir.4132" said:

> New revision. Marked as _REVISION C_

> Changes from the previous revision are mainly in the Mesmer and Ranger sections.

>

> > @"Arcaedus.7290" said:

> > I'd like to clarify though: If your goal was to nerf damage wholesale for every single class, I'd totally approve of whirling wrath returning to what it was 2 years ago, and MB getting a hefty nerf to the point of only critting 4-5.5k max. It seems though you're trying to cast a wide net here with changes to every class which is GREAT to see, but it looks like you're trying to do minimal work to balance the outliers in our current meta. At least that's what I assumed when I said I'd be opposed to those two damage nerfs.

>

> Just saw this now.

> Yes, that's exactly what I'm going for. I may have missed some of the offenders initially but I'm hoping to catch most of them by the time I'm done with this.

> I'm going to leave the Core Guard changes as they currently are until someone convinces me otherwise. I think nerfing RI to 33% will either force a glassier amulet or the build becomes much more unreliable. GS will suffer less from this than Hammer though because multihits give more opportunity for crits.

I would like this change. It would force core medi guard into marauder's (maybe Paladin's for less burst) which I'm sure some wouldn't like but honestly I think that would do a good job of balancing the build's current ability to pull off enormous damage as well as have mediocre to decent sustain.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> Comparing current sPvP balance to WvW is a failure to begin with - it heavily revolves around being able to stand on a tiny capping circle. That type of combat does not exist in WvW. We have no way of knowing how WvW would play between classes if you just plain brought over the amulet system and sPvP balance.

>

> That said, the amulet system is IMO way to rigid to consider. Would have been more interesting with weapons + armor + trinket though, in order to combo stats.

I think you have a point here and agree that we shouldn't port over the amulet system, however I don't entirely agree with sPvP balance should be kept so separate from wvw. sPvP and WvW have different metas. A nerf or buff to a skill in pvp does not affect wvw 9 times out of 10, and vice versa. However, there is SOME overlap between the two game modes and that's usually in the form of smaller-scale fights, 1v1s, roaming encounters. These encounters are important and need balancing too.

> @"kasoki.5180" said:

> Scepter is the one of the best guardian weapons, and probably most used after/beside Greatsword. Its also great in PvP if you are playing against people who can see through Judges 's Intervention combo or are taking advantage of your lack of mobility

It has a lot of trouble hitting a moving target. The auto is completely unreliable once your opponent is around 500-600 units away and only mediocre damage even if you're consistently hitting. If you do scepter 2 --> 3, they can easily move out of the symbol before you can land scepter 3, and if you do scepter 3 -->2, the enormous aftercast on scepter 3 + the time it takes to cast the symbol eats up essentially half of the immob time.

> @"Infusion.7149" said:

> Mace has been meta in WvW for a while , with 1000+ healing power it heals for quite a bit with heal modifiers. Heal scaling is 0.5 coefficient already. The heal on mace was made stronger by a large amount and aegis/protection was added, before those changes it wasn't worth taking.

On paper sure, that's why I don't propose upping the healing coefficients or scaling. You have to remember though that in a zerg v zerg situation if you're in range to be hitting someone with mace, you will quite literally die before you even complete the chain. The situations where you successfully push in and aren't met with a bomb, you're better served on another weapon, or in f2 tome if healing is needed.

> @"JDub.1530" said:

> > @"Arcaedus.7290" said:

> > if your guard build is focused on damage in any fashion, you can forget about mace entirely :/

>

> Isn't that the nature of a support weapon? Couldn't the same be said for staff?

>

>

Staff in its current iteration actually has some minor potential for power builds. It's definitely not meta but you could make it work with a dedicated build. And with a harrier's build (which can arguably be classified as support) you can actually deal some decent dps with staff as part of your rotation in pvp or wvw. Mace on the other hand has mace 3 which can very easily be landed but then mace 1 and 2 have zero offensive potential. Mace doesn't need to become an offensive weapon but adding some offence to it like they did with staff 1 and 2 with the rework wouldn't hurt imo.

> @"Yannir.4132" said:

> Here I was thinking I did a minor nerf to it. Did you read the part where I mentioned that these numeric nerfs would not extend to PvE? I really can't think of any other build that ever really used hammer other than PvE ones.

> But I think I'm subbing out all the weapon damage nerfs in favor of adjusting Righteous Instincts which is the real offender.

>

> My personal opinion is that there have been far too many buffs to skills without compensating nerfs. Or the compensation has been taken out of defenses which has put the game into a state where there is far too much damage.

I did read that. Sorry I wasn't clear, but was talking more from a pvp standpoint. WW especially was pretty bad in pvp before they buffed GS nearly two years ago. I remember watching one of mrauls' pvp compilations of him running GS & sc/f DH build back before GS got buffed, and I saw at one point, he was outplaying his opponent, landed whirling wrath on an someone who just blew a dodge, and they were able to simply run out of range (since WW slows your own movement) and only ended up taking 2.8k damage (no protection on). I think I remember him trying to combo GS 5 pull --> whirling wrath at one point and the opponent only ended up taking 4.5k damage before dodging out. Seeing those low numbers made me feel a bit sad...

Core guard in pvp right now uses hammer. People complain about it quite a bit and the scenario of a core guard +1ing or side-swiping someone who is unaware and essentially one-shotting them isn't all that uncommon in pvp which is why I think it should be nerfed to some degree.

Definitely agree with you though - RI is the real offender and I'd much rather smash that trait than any of the weapons (which I think are in a good spot for various other non-radiance builds). Haven't really thought about how it should be nerfed though.

I'd like to clarify though: If your goal was to nerf damage wholesale for every single class, I'd totally approve of whirling wrath returning to what it was 2 years ago, and MB getting a hefty nerf to the point of only critting 4-5.5k max. It seems though you're trying to cast a wide net here with changes to every class which is GREAT to see, but it looks like you're trying to do minimal work to balance the outliers in our current meta. At least that's what I assumed when I said I'd be opposed to those two damage nerfs.

> @"Aplethoraof.2643" said:

> 1) It is a leap because you are looking at the first and last data points. You aren't looking at the middle, which makes it incremental instead of a leap. 1 to 3 is a leap if you pretend 2 doesn't exist. You count 1, 2, 3 not 1, 3.

>

> 2) You need to remember that certain classes (like Necro) were built with their high HP pool in mind. So you'll need to consider all the ways they need to be adjusted in order to compensate. Any ideas on that?

On your point #2: That's the whole purpose of this post. SURE, hp pools were balanced around vanilla GW2. I remember that in the beta they actually tested guardian with medium or high health pool (I forget which) and it ended up being overpowered which is why it got placed into the low health pool. However, ever since the trait revamp of 2015 and HoT, this game has been power-creeped to all hell.

Arguably what needs to happen is that EVERYTHING across the board should be nerfed in terms of both damage and sustain but a massive overhaul like this just doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon. A good bandaid for this issue at the moment would be some small equalizing buffs or changes to the health pools. If you look at the difference when going from low --> mid --> high health pools, you'll notice the gap between low and mid is 4.3k while the gap between mid and high is 3.3k. I'd argue just adding 1k hp to the low health pool would be a good balancing decision for now. It would not overtune any of the low hp pool classes but it would open up more builds to them.

> @"Treetoptrickster.4205" said:

> Just feels like a pretty meh weapon that you'd only take if you really needed range. I feel like since it's the core guardian's only real offensive ranged weapon, with the Staff being more supportive, that the scepter could have a place maybe as a hybrid option. This would give it a niche for core guard as well as more of a presence in condi Firebrand builds. Throw ideas around in the comments if you think that scepter needs a touch up, or reasons to keep it as is if you don't.

> Here's what I'd like to see from it.

>

> **1. Sacred Spark, Sacred Strike, Sacred Flame**

> - Fire a wrathful bolt at your target, dealing damage on impact and again after a short delay. The second strike inflicts 5s of Vulnerability.

> - Fire a vengeful bolt at your target, dealing damage on impact and again aftef a short delay. The second strike inflicts 5s of Vulnerability.

> - Fire a searing bolt at your target, dealing damage and applying 3s of Burning.

>

> **2. Symbol of Punishment**

> Call down a punishing strike upon the target loction, dealing heavy damage and inflicting 2x Burning and Blind for 4s. Sears a mystic symbol into the ground that deals ongoing damage to enemies while granting Might to allies.

>

> **3. Chains of Light**

> Damage a target by shackling them in searing chains, Dazing them for 1/2s and Immobilizing them for 2s.

This sounds like a heavy buff for scepter in pvp situations. I like your angle of turning scepter more into a condi or hybrid weapon although we have to be careful with things like this since true hybrid weapons often end up being ineffectual (like it's still better to invest all in one stat rather than be hybrid) or overpowered (see mirage axe). To address your specific skills though:

1. Like your idea, but burn has largely been kept off weapons because we apply it through our f1 passive. To keep in line with this idea, I think it would be best if our scepter auto just adopted a 3-hit chain like you suggested which would both reward power and condi builds.

2. burning, blind, might and a low cooldown on a very fast ranged symbol? Not to mention, the symbol's size and duration can be increased. Scepter 2 is fine as is.

3. Daze would be a good pve buff for scepter but a bit overtuned for pvp. I rather like scepter 3 and I think all it needs is a shave to the cooldown since a single target, casted immob should be 12-15s cd, not 20s. Maybe adding a bit of burn to scepter 3 would be fine as well.

> @"DanAlcedo.3281" said:

> Mace/shield is used in WvW.

> But not because its strong.

>

> Mace just „works“ as a bit extra healing and you use the mace trait anyway so why not.

>

>

> Just let mace auto heal on every strike and increase the casttime of the symbol.

>

> Should be ok.

I know it is sometimes used and historically it was used quite a bit. I've also seen havoc squads with support guards running mace/sh & hammer, or mace/sh & staff, although in our current meta guards in both zergs and small-scale don't really use mace/sh. From talking with other guardians, the consensus on why they don't use it is that mace 3 is their only reason for using it since the other two skills are garbage in any kind of pvp setting.

Mace 2 only becomes mediocre if you trait into writ of persistence in Honor, and once again, it's an example of a specialized build needing to be taken just to make a weapon any good. Even with writ of persistence though, scepter is arguably the better choice, and if your guard build is focused on damage in any fashion, you can forget about mace entirely :/

I think of all the weapons on guardian currently mace needs the most help:

* It is arguably not meta in all three game modes currently.

* Unused almost entirely in any pve content and in wvw

* Even in pvp where it is used, sword and scepter are often times taken instead.

**Why mace needs some changes or buffs**

Right now, I'm seeing mace as analogous to guardian's staff before the August 2018 rework: Sure it fills a role (provides support, healing, protection... ) but it really only fits well or works with a specific build in one game mode, it doesn't do a particularly good job at its role - mace does not make or break the build. You could replace mace in a Staff & Mace/Shield support build and still see the same if not better results.

Suggested changes:

* Mace 1: Reduce cast time of first two strikes to 1/4 second(down from current 1/2), increase damage of third strike.

* Mace 2: Make it function identically to axe 2 (symbol placed in front of guardian rather than directly on top of), reduce cast time to 1 second down from 1.25s, and increase the regen duration on the symbol to 1.5s up from current 1s.

* Mace 3: This is a decent skill and is the only properly balanced skill of the three. I would add a flip-over skill such that you can end mace 3 early and still receive some minor benefit or do something entirely different than the triggered block-counter attack (such as aoe heal or a projectile blocking wave for half a second).

These are the most boring and conservative changes/buffs I could come up with. The general idea is to open it up a bit more as a weapon that is usable in builds that want to provide support but may not be 100% geared into healing power/boon duration, and also make it a more robust part of a support builds.