Arken.3725

Without strong mechanics (durational blocks, stealth, evasion on skills, amazing mobility, ect) it's difficult to keep this ship floating. Interesting and fun interactive traits would also be nice. Maybe even some updated skills.

It would be awesome if whoever's job is to look at guardian would take a look here. Some transparency would be awesome.

This is an extension to the op and the post above but regarding traits this time. I'll do my best to make it easy to read by separating them by their respective lines.

**Zeal**

Minors: Regarding all of these being symbol-based, a mechanic that requires all benefits requiring both the target and the person casting to stand still in a very small circle. This goes pretty much against what this game is about with all the talk on mobility and position Here goes:

- Zealots speed: Gives no speed and is on a relatively long cd for it's terrible benefit that you have no control over. Symbolic exposure: Pretty solid trait for what it offers if you can keep an enemy in it. Symbolic Power: Same thing as exposure but again, this is reinforcing two things: One, to keep someone standing in a small circle and 2: Forcing investment into honor for Writ of Persistence.

Majors: The overall scheme with the useful selections here are modifiers and maximizing them, the rest are incredibly subpar.

**Adept-tier**

- _Wrathful Spirit_: got a buff to add Fury, this trait is incredibly reliant on FB since it has much more access to aegis than the rest of the builds. _Fiery Wrath_: Even though this helps maximizing modifiers further, it doesn't feel 7% is worth the investment compared to the other two. _Zealous Scepter_: I would say this is the 2nd choice among the three since its duration got heavily nerfed but it relies once again, heavily on FB, Loremaster specifically.

**Master-tier**

- _Furious Focus_: This is the only good choice out of the three even though it got nerfed a bit recently. I'm not going to even go over the other two master-tier traits since they're so terrible it's not even worth mentioning.

**Grandmaster-tier**

- _Symbolic Avenger_: This the only good choice as well, and it's not even that great. A mere 10% for a GM isn't even that strong if you ask me. Also, the other two are just as bad majority of the master-tier traits that they're not even worth considering.

**Radiance**

Minors: It feels as if 2/3's of the minors here feel relatively useless outside of Radiant Power, especially Renewed Justice which is completely useless while in a fight. Justice is blind paired with just a high-cooldown virtue feels lacking

Majors: This line isn't heavily focused on symbols but rather self-empowerment but does a poor job at it when compared to the overall strength of Zeal.

**Adept-tier**

- _Inner Fire_: This has been the same since release and since you have an abundance of Fury access, this feels redundant and useless. _Right-Hand Strength_; This used to be good when it gave an extra 15% crit chance on main-hand weapons but the nerf to give it such low stats doesn't even feel worth the investment. _Healer's Retribution_: This is the only sensible choice since it pairs well with the only good GM trait.

**Master-tier**

- _Retribution_: It's a very boring trait but the best once out of all the master-tier traits. It's not even worth discussing the other two ever since their recent nerfs have felled them into irrelevancy.

**Grandmaster-tier**

- _Righteous Instincts_: The only real choice out of the three, even though it got nerfed heavily. Once again, the other two aren't even worth talking about due to how terrible they are. The nerf to RF pushed Radiance out of the power-scene in favor of Zeal. Hell, even if they buffed it back it wouldn't compete.

**Valor**

Minors: The recent change to Steadfast Courage was excellent but the duration is way too short. Once again, outside of FB, Guardian lacks a lot of access to Aegis. Might of the protector used to be good but since they added an ICD, it's fallen to the wayside as crap. Valorous Defense is just....what? This one is completely useless.

Majors: The overall theme of this line is to provide selfish sustain but it does a very poor job overall.

**Adept-tier**

- _Smiter's Boon_: The only real choice in this line to provide decent self-sustain. It's gotten nerfed so much but it's THAT much better compared to the other two that it's not even a consideration to look at the others.

**Master-tier**

- The only real choices for this one are either the boring Stalwart Defender or Strength in Numbers. Both of which aren't interactive at all and are relatively weak but still far superior to Communal Defenses. Holy geez this tier is terrible.

**Grandmaster-tier**

- Once again, the only real reason you pick this line is for meditation-investment. The other traits aren't even in the same stratosphere in terms of effectiveness.

**Honor**

Minors: This line does a much better job at selfish sustain and team sustain compared to Valor that it's not even funny. Granted selfless Daring got nerfed recently, it still provides OK sustain. I miss what Purity of Body used to be: 10% more dmg when you were less than 100% endurance. This 15% endurance is pretty bad.

Majors: You're investing into symbols here, nothing else comes close to being useful.

**Adept-tier**

- You're only real choice here is Protector's Restoration, even though it got nerfed unnecessarily. The other two are terrible due to the fact that Mace is still bugged and they really destroyed the rez trait here. Not worth it.

**Master-tier**

- Pure of Heart is still the go-to pick here, even with the nerfs as of late. For some reason, the other two got nerfed just as hard if not more even though they were completely useless. This one's obvious for your pick.

**Grandmaster-tier**

- Once again, you're picking WoP. Back when pure support was a thing, I could see Force of Will but that's not longer the case. Not to mention the shout-trait providing nothing of significant value for your team. You're running at max 1 shout in your build.

**Virtues**

Minors: Guardians don't really have access to very long duration boons anymore. FB nerfs saw to that. Power of the virtuous feels in a strange spot as such, same with Virtue of Retribution. Retal as it stands is both a terribly mindless boon and annoying poke-damage. It's a weaker confusion but in far more abundance. I'd see removal of this boon if I could.

Majors: This trait-line no longer sees value in pvp anymore outside of core/dh. It doesn't provide enough of anything in particular to want to invest in.

**Adept-tier**

- All three of these are absolutely terrible but again, if you had to choose one, go with Retaliatory Subconscious. Nuff said here.

**Master-tier**

- Glacial heart was used often back when condi-brand could be a thing, no longer. You're only real choice here is Absolute resolution for sustain. The new inspiring virtue is so underwhelming that it ain't even funny.

**Grandmaster-tier**

- Once again, Permeating Wrath saw use but no longer. Sage-brand is dead along with this traits usefulness. Indomitable Courage is your only choice here.

These are all just my insight on core Guardian. As you can see, at least 70% of these are absolutely useless and even the ones you take are as such. You're just stuck picking something. Let me know what you guys think.

@"otto.5684" Excellent post, let me compound off of you my friend.

With the over-reliance on Aegis, you're stuck always dedicating a single trait-line to Honor. Funny thing about Honor is that it's far superior(even after the nerfs) to self-sustain the Guardian than Valor ever was. In fact, without FB, your access to Aegis is actually quite small(pop F3 and shield 4). It's also problematic that Guardian has notoriously had terrible healing-skills as well. Shelter, Litany, Shout-heal and Signet heals are so terrible by virtue(get it haha). In fact, the cd nerf to Litany made zero sense to me since it was such a terrible skill to begin with. **Let's go over the plethora of outdated(and un fun) skills Guardian has access to. **

**Healing Skills**

Shelter: Long CD, only form of channeled block with a relatively low heal. Why has this never really been utilized? Could be the long cd, mediocre heal, abundance of unblockable interrupts. Irregardless, this has been irrelevant since the dark-ages.

Litany: This healing skill is the polar-opposite of ones such as Infuse-light and Defiant stance. Which do you guys think is harder to achieve, dealing damage to heal yourself of taking damage to heal yourself? rhetorical. Not to mention this now has the same cd and is infinitely harder to achieve the same results.

Receive the light: On paper, this actually doesn't seem so bad. However, the trait that pairs with it has been outdated and I think it turns a lot of people off to investing into it. Biggest issue you'll find is successfully channeling all of the pulses with the sheer amount of CC in the game.

Signet of Resolve: This one's easy. Incredibly long cd, incredibly long cast-time, FAR less than average passive-aspect for a signet with a decent heal. Self-explanatory if you ask me as to why this one is horrible.

Purification: This used to be a solid heal until it got nerfed 3 times. Now it has a semi-longish cast-time with an average heal. It's still far better than the four mentioned above but that doesn't speak volumes here. The only reason why this is decent(ish) and possibly litany is it's often paired with meditation heal trait.

Mantra of Solace: I love this heal because it has the risky aspect of charging it with the benefit of using the ageis and heals skillfully. That's mostly gone though. This heal alone forces a fb to always spec into the honor trait-line but now the benefit doesn't match the risk involved. Even when specced with Healing-power the actual heals given don't feel impactful anymore.

I'll go over my personal opinion on utilities and traits next.

For those curious about our current weaponry and what I think of it, this thread still holds relevance. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/76689/arkens-discussion-on-guardian-weaponry#latest

I mean, i'd be down for that only because a single-block to me is almost completely useless with all the aoe-spam and multi-hitting attacks to use effectively.

This is obviously from an Spvp stand-point so we could just knock that out of the way right now. I wanted to go over Guardian as a whole and how it operates for both damage-output, sustain, mobility, cc access, ect and compare it to the rest of the cast. I've been wanting to do this for a while since I believe most if not all aspects of Guardian play revolves around actually thinking. What do I mean by this? Take a look.

-**Sustain:** When we talk about sustain for Guardian, we're looking at what keeps it alive, right? How does Guardian do this overall? It's heavily reliance on Aegis being the primary offender here. This forces a player into the Honor trait-line, even though it was nerfed, heavily. Never has there been so much emphasis on active play when comparing Aegis to anything else to sustain itself. While I love this, it's been VERY difficult to keep oneself alive with such play. **Strong passives don't seem to exist here, even less-so with the significant nerfs as of late.**

-**Damage-output:** When we look at damage-output, we not only have to look at how much damage is applied but also how it's applied. Guardians have notoriously had it difficult(from launch) at applying damage. Look at the tracking on every ranged weapon it has, look at how difficult it is to keep an enemy inside its main damage-source(symbols). Even if you look past at how difficult it is to apply said damage, the actual potential damage applied is even more pitiful. **One would think that if something is difficult to, the action itself would be significant. Not the case here.**

-**Mobility:** This one is rather simple. Anyone and their mothers could see Guardians mobility is and has been less than average. As a primarily melee-profession, one would think that decent speed would be applied but here, it is not. One aspect you could also take into account is the ability to stick on an opponent which would require solid speed or copious amounts of debilitating conditions which again, guardian does not have.

With all of this being said, It would be nice to get some insight from a developer as to why Guardian is designed this way. I can't understand it with nearly 9k hours played on it. Outside of all of this, I haven't even gone into the traits and skills but that's for another time.

Forgive me @"mrauls.6519" but LB needs more than just looking at deflecting shot. The whole is terrible.

-AA is slow and can be strafe-dodged(to a lesser extent than scepter)

-Trueshot doesn't even hit that hard for one of the most obvious of all skills along with it rooting you. By common-sense logic, this thing should 1-shot anyone it hits due to that fact.

-Deflecting shot.....you already nailed it

-Symbol of who cares....it's a symbol, you all know my feelings on this mechanic

-Ring of anyone-can-dodge....this needs to be reverted back.

Hit the nail on the noggin with this topic if you ask me. Granted, if they went through with the suggested changes on symbols FB would likely not see the light of day, it would have fixed(band aid) the oppressive issue at hand.

To his OWN class mind you @"Gwaihir.1745", not just some random one, the one I've played over 15,000 matches on and play 94% of the time. Stark difference than suggesting it for another.

The thing is Justice, nerfing something into oblivion for the betterment of the game is exactly what I want, even at the sacrifice of my own main. It's called giving a crap and not being selfish. I've stated what I believed should be changed based on the fundamental basics of balance(single-target>AoE, Cast-time>instant, ect). These needed to be heeded.

That's the thing @"Poledra Val.1490" , the other Guardian heals are just soooo bad that even with the nerfs to Repreive, you're still going to take it.

Updated response to the changes made on February 3rd.

- Mantra of Truth: Good changes BUT here's an issue I have overall that I'm going to get flak for. It's still a MANTRA meaning it still has the charge-up time to consider and I feel like the benefit doesn't match the risk of the charge involved.

- Writ of Persistence: I'm unsure about this. If it were up to me, I'd just redo symbols as a whole but who am I kidding?

- Protector's Restoration: I disagree with this one. Even though it's a symbol and compounds the issue's I've stated before, it's a relatively average trait that's now weak(ish).

- Symbol of Vengeance: Feels like a lazy way to balance this. Symbols as a whole suck but do whatcha gotta do.

- Daring Challenge: Uncalled for. Bad enough it does little-to-no damage.

- Restoring Reprieve: I disagree with this change for many reasons. One, it's the only decent heal Guardian has, the rest of them are absolutely horrid. Secondly, this further pushes Guardian's into the Honor trait-line for Pure of Heart due to the necessity of it needing the heal off of Aegis. This change limited diversity even further.

I'll just compound off of what's been said and give my 2cents(regardless of how well It's received). The short version, essentially:

- Symbols in tandem with traits that support them(Writ of Persistence and essentially all of Zeal) allow FB to pressure exceptionally well utilizing massive AoE's instead of single-target to do the heavy-lifting. There's very little trade-off here outside of just walking outside of said AoE's.

- Reason why FB, when supported with such a mechanic is strong vs. say DH and core is because of what it offers innately. Axe is the best weapon Guardian currently has, Tome's offer far more than both base virtue's/DH's physical virtue's ever could. On top of (arguably) far better traits and skills.

- ALL of its sustain and damage revolves around Aegis and Symbols(which is actually great, you want active sustain) but that is confined to a single trait-line(Honor). When, for the most part, all of this is confined to a single trait-line that not only sustains you well but your teammates, it's a cinch as to why anyone would take it. The worst part of it all(when it comes to symbols) is every dang weapon has one so you're essentially forced to spec into it.

When you compound all of these factors you get some seriously nasty play. As I've said before and I'll say it again as a basis for BASIC balance:

- Single-target should(for the most part) be far superior to its AoE counterpart. Instant skills should also be inferior to those that have an obvious cast-time/animation. Melee > Range, ect..... Unfortunately, with FB's symbolness, you have some serious AoE pressure equal to that(even greater in some cases).

Not entirely @"Exedore.6320", my old Arkenbrand build utilized Radiance(pre-nerf) and was incredibly fun/risky and somewhat viable. With the combination of the Zeal-refresh as you've stated and the nerfs to Radiance, my build could no longer exist. This may sound crazy but if they kept Radiance as it was it could compete directly with Zeal and since you can't take both(lose sustain from Honor), you'd have competition but alas.

The second part of your statement(in the first sentence) doesn't support the argument in the first part. Explain why that is so myself and maybe other's can debate that. I'm not denying that this spec is abused(and stacked) within both conquest and 2's but explain WHY you believe it to be so with some compelling reasons.

That's a strange suggestion but as I've stated earlier, I'm fairly certain that's not even the issue anymore. Remember, Resolve went from curing 7 condi's in a short period to just 3, along with significant heal nerfs.

Literally in so many words, @"NotoriousNaru.1705" put it so elegantly what I essentially said. Mantra of truth was a huge offender(still is) and compound it all together.

Edit to the two posts above naru's: It makes sense but again, your main issue is symbols so you need to look at what magnifies that problem which lies in the investment of said symbols. On ammoing virtue's, I don't know how I feel on that one, they're all still terrible signets. Again, without investment into either FB for tomes or the virtue's traitline, they're just garbage. You're just adding more piles to the garbage.

Edit again: For me, it's gotten so bad that I don't even enjoy queueing up anymore.

But one of the prior issues brought up was the affect on core and dh. Remember, those are literally garbage. How does one nerf FB and not tough the other two? Because again, you don't see the other two for obvious reasons.

This cannot be stated enough. Currently, Rangers have the best overall downstate, followed by Warriors and then necromancer's.

Granted, even though Warriors would win every single on in a down state fight, Rangers are just obnoxiously strong even outside down state fights.

Lastly, necromancer's down state does so much damage and leeches health at an astoundingly high rate.

Forgive me but the whole class needs an overhaul. It's slow, has unfun mechanics such as the stationary AoE, relies too heavily on aegis to survive (which in turn relies too much on the honor trait line). It essentially has three terrible signet's as core skills (virtues) that are only noticable if you run either FB or trait into it.

Essentially what has happened is anet has forced guardians to take the only logical choice to stay relevant which is symbol FB. Core and dh are absolute garbage by any standard.

Well I mean, AoE should never be more effective than single-target and yet here we are. Unfortunately, when every weapon has such a mechanic (symbols in this case) you're just forced to invest into it.

Either way, please do something about FB. I'm tired of fighting them myself and I can't even imagine other professions dealing with that crap.

I mean, anyone with a decent head on their shoulders and who isn't selfish would want fair changes. It only makes sense to me, regardless if it messes with my profession.

I'm actually for a temporary ban on FB. Not even joking.

It's not even about nthat @"Eurantien.4632" , it's just something I've noticed over years of playing. If it were me, I'd completely overhaul symbols(this will take forever) even if it ends up being a weaker mechanic overall.

Edit to the post above: I disagree with this, whether you believe it or not, that charge-time is still a significant portion of how it's balanced. At that point, you may as well remove the charge-time entirely and just have a regular ammo-system attached.

If you ask me Eura, it's more so the symbols than the mantra's. Remember, the main offender is Mantra of Truth(even though it got nerfed). The rest of the mantra's aren't as strong. Symbols provide significant pressure in any given area and while most symbols(outside of axe) that don't keep you in them well enough, mantra of truth helps with that.

Funny enough, most fb's still use mostly mantra's with maybe one shout at best. The worst part about it all is that all 3 of those skill-types(with the slight exception to mantra's) is that they're all instant. No counter-play at all. But to answer your question, only one meditation is useful currently and 1 shout(Stand your Ground) MIGHT be useful due to the stability nerfs.