Permeating Wrath seems to not fit Virtues

[leasm.1279]

Hey guys,

 

I'm new to Guardian. But just taking a look at the trait lines it's already clear what seems to be some design mistakes.

 

**Permeating Wrath** is all about NOT pressing F1. And this is exactly inside a line that is all about pressing F1. I mean, if I decide to go with Permeating Wrath, then all my minor traits from Virtues become useless.

 

They should either **(1)** move Permeating Wrath to another line, or **(2)** make Virtues' minors more generic to also work when you don't use your virtues.

 

I noticed in Radiance we also have some traits that apply bonuses when activating virtues (such as Justice is Blind and Wrath of Justice). They could move these traits to Virtues (this way making Virtues totally focused on virtues activatinon), and then move Permeating Wrath to Radiance.

[Miyafuji.1340]

Well you see, this is a bit more complicated. Virtues are even less popular now after the nerfs, and if permeating wrath was in like radiance, none would pick virtues anymore, which I would personally welcome, it would make my builds stronger, since virtues line is the black sheep that you need just for that one skill. But I agree with the fact that its a bit bad concept when it comes to making you not use a skill ever cause the passive is way better than active.

 

Now, you also have loremaster in FB line which removes the penalty of using F1, aka you keep the passive anyway, well, I would move that away from FB to virtues to make them a bit more useful.

[leasm.1279]

> @Miyafuji.1340 said:

> Well you see, this is a bit more complicated. Virtues are even less popular now after the nerfs, and if permeating wrath was in like radiance, none would pick virtues anymore, which I would personally welcome, it would make my builds stronger, since virtues line is the black sheep that you need just for that one skill. But I agree with the fact that its a bit bad concept when it comes to making you not use a skill ever cause the passive is way better than active.

 

I understand that maybe they have indeed added Permeating Wrath to Virtues just to make this line more appealing. But IMO this even worst design, since they made a very powerful grandmaster and added it to the worst traitline just to make it less worse.

 

Firebrand indee "fix" the issue if you get Loremaster, but this is even worse... LOL. You basically need another grandmaster, in another specific elite spec, just to fix a grandmaster that is in the wrong traitline. That's too weird.

[Azoqu.8917]

The sad part is, sometime Permeating Wrath could be the only trait in the entire line and I'd still take it. At other times it is useless and there is no reason to ever touch it. The problems arise from the fact that PW is a super swingy trait depending on how many enemies you fight. You can get anywhere from 0.33 to 1.67 stacks of burning per target per attack. So if you attack 1 target 15 times you get 5 stacks, or 5 targets 15 times to get 25 stacks (per person!). The other problem is that PW and the resolve trait both have conflicting benefits to the rest of the line. They both buff the passives while the entire line buffs the actives. One of the virtue minors should be changed to allow the passives to stay even while on cooldown (get rid of the retaliation minor).

[leasm.1279]

> @Azoqu.8917 said:

> ... One of the virtue minors should be changed to allow the passives to stay even while on cooldown (get rid of the retaliation minor).

 

Agree. The fact that Loremaster is in another tree is the main problem. Adding Loremaster's effect to Virtues itself would probably solve the issue with the entire line.

 

 

[Ghotistyx.6942]

* Permeating Wrath was in the game from before Beta

* Virtues is not a line about pressing F1

* Virtue minors still affect F2 and F3, and has synergy with Radiance

* None of these things are "wrong"

[Arricson Krei.9560]

> @Ghotistyx.6942 said:

> * Virtues is not a line about pressing F1

Yes, it's not entirely about pressing F1, but about pressing F1, F2, and F3. When the minor traits give benefits upon activation of virtues and a GM trait discouraged players from activating F1, then the synergy that is supposed to be there just isn't. That's the problem. OP wants Permeating Wrath to be moved to another line not about activating F1, or have Permeating Wrath be replaced by a GM trait that encourages players to activate F1.

 

> * Virtue minors still affect F2 and F3, and has synergy with Radiance

What kind of reasoning is: With Permeating Wrath, Virtues has synergy with 66% of the profession mechanic, so it's fine because you can take a whole other trait line for the remaining 33%.

 

To OP,

Justice is Blind and Renewed Justice would be good to merge with each other for GM. But I'd like (1) Justice is Blind to apply light aura to all allies affected by activating F1 and (2) give F1 an ammo count, maximum of 2, that recharges slowly overtime and is recharged by one count on kill. Not sure how it'd work with FB. Question is, where does Permeating Wrath go and what does it replace?

[Darknicrofia.2604]

There's also an entire pvp build that's close to meta dedicated to the fact that virtue activation grants retaliation, its not all about justice is blind as far as interaction w/ radiance.

[Saiyan.1704]

I never had an issue with the whole, "man, i can't activate my F1". Except for maybe DH burn guard back when they used to be a thing. The only build that NEEDS F1 activated asap is Radiance power/hybrid burts builds. If thats what this thread is about, I feel us Guards have gotten spoiled a bit from all the new toys they've given us.

 

I would say that we cant have the cake an eat it too but... we've been nibbling at it. Permeating Wrath's target AoE addition, Shield's QoL buffs, we've actually gotten a Lot of changes that we've asked for in the past. I'm curious on the sudden need to activate F1.

[Ghotistyx.6942]

Virtues of Resolve and Courage also have traits within Virtues that discourage activating those virtues. Virtue of Courage has its recharge trait in Valor just like Justice has its in Radiance. Purity of Body is in Honor. Good design dictates that you have to use multiple trait lines to get everything you'd want. That's what makes builds effective. You're taking advantage of synergies within the profession to represent your desired result. So no, Virtues is not about pressing your function keys. If you want to activate Virtue of Justice, take the traits that support activating Virtue of Justice.

[starlinvf.1358]

First...... Permeating Wrath is part of a different strategy, as Guards lack AOE and cleave on certain weapons, and this helps synergize it for Burn builds. Each Virtue has a paired Trait line, with Virtues trait line made to enhance builds which want to use them. The thing here is that Core Guardian doesn't make good use of Active Virtues due to their massive cool downs; which leads to them being reserved for specific traits. Stunbreak on courage being the most common use, and condi clear on resolve to stack with older shout builds. Core Guardians is also very power heavy (burn builds are good for tagging, but mediocre for damage).

 

The problem isn't the traits benefiting from stronger virtue passives, so much as Core Guardian Active Virtues have very little pay off compared to its much stronger, and faster cycling Utility skills. Both Dragonhunter and Firebrand make Virtues more satisfying to use, as their effects now have big impacts to offset the loss of the passive bonus.

Core Guard Justice = Up to 5 stacks of Burning (if it affects enough allies) for 4 sec. Made more sense when burning stacked duration, and paired with Burning Wraith for the 7% damage bonus. Even before the burn stack change, you left passive running because both Sword and GreatSword (both power DPS) triggered the 5 hit passive frequently enough to have decent uptime on the damage bonus. The intent was Justice's Active to be proced on mob fights, so Renewed justice could cycle it between kills.... but it never caught on, because early guardian builds were gaining more DPS from Symbols, and never had a reason to work the active into combat rotations. The other 2 virtues were rarely used outside of PvP/WvW, because the cool downs were too long, you needed to trait for condi clear or stun break (both of which are offered in utilities that trait even stronger), and you gain much more self sustain and damage running combinations in Zeal, Valor and Honor (pre Specialization).

 

They're not really design mistakes when you look at the trait combinations available to Core Guardian (both before and after specializations); but more that focusing on Guardian Utility skills were more straight forward, and Burn builds were always lacking, up until Firebrand quadrupled your ability to stack burning. Open world heavily skews toward burst DPS..... so its not surprising skills which are difficult to cycle are not popular to use.