I’m going to be completely upfront here and say that I’m new to the guardian class. I love it. To be more specific, I love virtues support guardian (thanks for the guide Ken). I find so many similarities in the guardian to the monk of gw1 – with a twist to it. However, it might be because I’m just new to the class, I think that one of the main aspects to the class is a bit underwhelming – or rather not as reliable as I think it should be.
In guild wars 1, if you played a monk in pvp, you rarely ever saw a monk spec into straight-up healing magic. Instead you got a protection monk which had primarily protection magic spells on his bar. The fundamental reason for this was because protection spells were:
- Protection spells prevented more damage than healing spells ever could counter-heal.
- Protection spells were proactive instead of healing magic reactive spells (i.e. prediction of where the damage is going to be instead of where it has been means more skill is needed from the player)
Healing magic (usually the only significant healing spell on the bar, word of healing, was used) was really only used to keep people topped off after a spike landed. The whole PR spin comment that they tried to remove the concept of looking at health bars instead of the game for monks, is an absolute lie. Protection monks, the most common type of monks in pvp, did not stare at health bars like this EVER. Instead they relied upon certain tells that the opposing team made on the battlefield – since they needed to be proactive with their spells.
In another hand, gw1’s combat was focused on ether preforming and action, or moving. In other words, you could cast a spell, or you could move. This basic concept formed a lot of how the combat functioned in gw1. The same can be said for gw2, where you now can move and preform actions. Similarly, the way a “monk” functions in gw2 had to change. Instead of straight up casting a protection spell and managing mana pools, we now have peeling mechanics and maintaining efficient cooldown usage in combination with personal skill of dodging, blocks, and etc. to straight-up prevent damage.
In my new experience to the class, the guardian has so much peeling potential to give people the breathing room and damage prevention they need. It’s a proactive way of watching the battlefield and knowing where you need to place that shield bubble to knockback and prevent ranged damage incoming to your squishy teammate. I also feel they should be top-dog at it, but some of their peeling mechanics seem a bit unreliable.
I’ll give a few examples.
Guardian hammer seems to nearly be the absolute perfect weapon for peeling. You have a long casting aoe immob. A long-casting blowback. And an area denial skill. Faced one-on one, it’s very easy to see the hammer immob come your way because of the long cast time. However, if a person is tunnel-visioning a teammate of yours, it’s a lot harder to spot that cast time on the immob skill. The problem I find, and highlights the point of this thread, is that the immob is still pretty unreliable as the travel time of the chains is so slow.
Ring of Warding is plagued by the same unreliable problem as zealot’s embrace. It requires you to stand perfectly still to cast it.
Regardless, this doesn’t even address what you commonly see on virtues guardian build: Mace/shield + staff.
Shield is such an awesome offhand for preventing damage. SUCH a good offhand, I don’t understand why so many guardians complain over it. It has a knockback – perfect for peeling, and prevents a TON of ranged damage. Nades from an engie are futile to the simple cast of shield bubble. However I rarely find a reason why to explode the shield (that might just be because of my inexperience), but that’s besides the point. It’s a great, reliable way to prevent damage.
But then you look at mace and the only skill that can pass off for a peel is mace 3 and its pretty mediocre as it devotes a significant amount of time to just follow one character around for a block.
Staff 5 is a great peeling skill. It takes some skill to place the wall as well. Staff 3 is yet another mediocre peel for a 4 to 6 second swiftness boost.
Anyway, I wanted to ask the general forum on how they feel about the guardian peeling potential. I feel they should be the best at it – bar none. It allows for proactive damage prevention that is dependent upon keeping your eyes on the battlefield and predicting where the damage is going to be. However, it may be my inexperience, but I find that the peeling mechanics of a Guardian could be in a better, more reliable place.
If any notable spvp guardians want to comment and give tips, I would be so thankful for it.