9 replies to this topic

[SpelignErrir]

There's really not much to say. The only class which has a viable set of torch skills is Ranger.

Mesmer Torch: Prestige is situational, can't do anything while in the stealth, Focus gives better aoe AND control, iMage doesn't apply enough condition fast enough to be able to do much damage

Guardian Torch: Number 5 does less damage than an auto attack chain of a sword, does about the same as a mace auto attack chain without the heal, outclassed by focus for condition removal, number 4 is kind of useful I guess for newbie leveling. Not linked to plausibility of the weapon, but all the animations are blue...there are only two torches in the game that don't contrast in an ugly way with the guardian torches, the Warden Torches (t3 sylvari cult weapons, 63k karma) or AC torches (Available wayyyyyy after the usefulness of torch expires)

[GuanglaiKangyi]

SpelignErrir, on 07 December 2012 - 06:26 AM, said:

There's really not much to say. The only class which has a viable set of torch skills is Ranger.

Mesmer Torch: Prestige is situational, can't do anything while in the stealth, Focus gives better aoe AND control, iMage doesn't apply enough condition fast enough to be able to do much damage

Guardian Torch: Number 5 does less damage than an auto attack chain of a sword, does about the same as a mace auto attack chain without the heal, outclassed by focus for condition removal, number 4 is kind of useful I guess for newbie leveling. Not linked to plausibility of the weapon, but all the animations are blue...there are only two torches in the game that don't contrast in an ugly way with the guardian torches, the Warden Torches (t3 sylvari cult weapons, 63k karma) or AC torches (Available wayyyyyy after the usefulness of torch expires)

It's decent for keeping up a constant burn for purposes of ensuring Fiery Wrath is always up, although not really necessary.  It's not as bad as you're making it out to be though.

[Coren]

While mesmer torch is by far not as useful as pistol or focus, I liked using it to great effect along with a glamour build which stacks confusion. Either use scepter and torch or sword and torch. When you come out of stealth in a null field for example, you get chaos armor after the finish.

I admit I use that more in sPvP than PvE, but still works to a certain degree.

[matsif]

guardian torch isn't as bad as you're making it out to be, but overall the only class I enjoyed using a torch on is ranger.  If anet gets around to fixing the sword auto-attack, I'm going to go back to keeping a sword/torch combo on my ranger as I really enjoyed its play in lower levels.

Mesmer torch in PvE is crap entirely though.  Absolutely no reason to use it over pistol or focus.

[Coren]

matsif, on 07 December 2012 - 12:05 PM, said:

guardian torch isn't as bad as you're making it out to be, but overall the only class I enjoyed using a torch on is ranger.  If anet gets around to fixing the sword auto-attack, I'm going to go back to keeping a sword/torch combo on my ranger as I really enjoyed its play in lower levels.

Mesmer torch in PvE is crap entirely though.  Absolutely no reason to use it over pistol or focus.

Not entirely crap. Bad compared to pistol and focus sure, but I get limited use out of a confusion and melee build sword/torch and scepter/sword.

[Sword Hammer Axe]

Ranger it's good for. Guardian it's good for. Can't say much about Mesmer because I haven't played that a lot yet, but from what I've seen it's good for that profession too

Ranger can do great damage in close combat while they can apply a healthy burn to the victim. Not much else there.

Guardian can apply a constant burn just by being near someone, which is great with certain traits, and the healing from the breath is actually quite nice for support (not to mention it looks awesome)

Mesmer... dunno

[SpelignErrir]

Gerroh, on 07 December 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

I like guardian torch and whoever doesn't can piss off. It's plenty useful if you're not stupid.

Care to elaborate or are you just going to make bold declarative statements?

[Gerroh]

SpelignErrir, on 07 December 2012 - 11:36 PM, said:

Care to elaborate or are you just going to make bold declarative statements?

As mentioned before, there's the +dmg vs burning foes thing.
I also like that skill #4 can either be a pbaoe burning or a long-range-ball-o'-fire.
I used guardian torch for quite awhile and did great with it. Shield is boring, imo, and I never really liked guardian focus. Plus the skill #5's rapid fire thing is great for charging up vigor via "Vigorous Precision" and it'll trigger justice burning at least twice.
It doesn't have anything hugely awesome, it's just that it's a bunch of small things that I like and I don't like the alternatives.

If that doesn't satisfy you, I can go right back to making bold, declarative statements, I really do love them.

[SpelignErrir]

Gerroh, on 08 December 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

As mentioned before, there's the +dmg vs burning foes thing.
I also like that skill #4 can either be a pbaoe burning or a long-range-ball-o'-fire.
I used guardian torch for quite awhile and did great with it. Shield is boring, imo, and I never really liked guardian focus. Plus the skill #5's rapid fire thing is great for charging up vigor via "Vigorous Precision" and it'll trigger justice burning at least twice.
It doesn't have anything hugely awesome, it's just that it's a bunch of small things that I like and I don't like the alternatives.

If that doesn't satisfy you, I can go right back to making bold, declarative statements, I really do love them.

The burn damage + reasonable upkeep of burn on target with the 10% damage vs burning foes makes it reasonably decent for leveling, I won't deny using torch to level my Guardian in the mid 40s. 2 procs of VoJ is still only 2 seconds of burn, though, and you don't really need to dodge roll when you're leveling which I am convinced is all Guardian's torch may be useful for. The vigor can not compare to the focus's blocks or condition removal/regen or the shield's aoe protection, heal and projectile absorption in high level content.

If gw2 had a greater leveling curve, then torches might be a better weapon...but once you get to doing dungeons and wvw, torch becomes useless. For this reason, high level torches are pretty much worthless.

And that makes me sad. The concept of torches as a weapon is really awesome in my opinion.

[GnomGnomGnom]

The torch is good on the guardian for specific builds. Torch 5 does 10 separate attacks in a time frame of 4.5 seconds. This is a guaranteed 2 hits of Justice. As well, if you trait into Empowering Might and have decent crit, it is a guaranteed 5 stacks of might for the whole group. It also cured conditions on your group members. The focus 4 is a bouncing attack. It is useless for condition removal especially when fighting large clumps of enemies. What else? It also hits many targets which has phenomenal potential with scepter 2. Oh yeah. Its all just going to go crazy with sigils.

I'm also going to say the scepter/torch does more damage than the scepter/focus even outside of aoe situations simply due to the long cooldown of the focus 4/5. Best ranged damage combination? Yes. In spvp the focus shines for obvious reasons such as mobility and blocking, whose importance are greatly reduced by predictability and other factors in pve.

It is also nill to compare ranged damage to melee damage, which is greater...

All I see for the people saying crap about the guardian torch because they want the weapon to be something that it is not. To play certain roles that they want it to play and not a role it was built for. Would you ever consider playing a condition damage guardian? What would you think if someone told you guardians are crap because they do crap condition damage? Apply that to this situation.

Edited by GnomGnomGnom, 08 December 2012 - 12:43 AM.