Guild Wars 2

I still haven’t decided what class I want to make ascended armor for for fractals, and the friend I play with is going to use guardian. I had also been considering using guardian, but I don’t know whether that’s smart to do. Is running 2 guards frowned upon? Does it lessen our chances of success?

Success in fractals (and even raids) is always more a matter of knowing the mechanics (of the encounter, of your team composition, and of your own profession) than of anything else. Organizers care about profession and build for two reasons: to decrease the chance of failure when something goes wrong and to speed things up when everything goes well.

In guild parties (5 known players from a list of 5 or 10 or 100), any three players who know the mechanics can carry two others through T4 fractals (except Nightmare challenge); even just two can manage it, as long as the others don’t make too many critical mistakes.

In pick up groups, it’s not as clear cut: you don’t know the quirks, weaknesses, or strengths of the others.

In short, it’s more important to bring a class you can play well than worrying about which class it is.

Two competent guards will massively increase your chances of success, as they have good dps while providing excellent defensive utility. The latter might not be needed by optimal groups, but those are rare. If you’re pugging, you can expect about a third of the people to be incredibly bad, half to be mediocre and the rest to be more or less competent.

Okay, so as long as neither of us are bad, it’s actually good for us to be be guardians? Is that correct?

It’s ok. There are classes that will be a bit more efficient if you have a good group, but you aren’t actually doing something wrong with a guardian.

I don’t see anything wrong with 2 dh’s. They are a good class for fractals

Guards in fractals are really good and there’s really no downside to having 2 guards. Just like having 2 temp or any other dps class for that matter.

The critical part of t4 fractals is that the support and utility are covered.That means the druid and chrono have to perform otherwise the dps classes wont be able to perform comfortably.

Guardian has a lot of utility. I would recommend learning to use those, especially there are two guardians.

Most pug guardians I see just camp their DPS setup, and offers no utility to the group. Because they often camp melee, they would die more than my ele.

Guardians can:

• block/reflect projectiles
• tank mobs with mace/spirit weapons
• group mobs with GS/trap
• knockback with hammer
• protection and aegis for the group
• might with staff

voidvector.2780:

Guardian has a lot of utility. I would recommend learning to use those, especially there are two guardians.

Most pug guardians I see just camp their DPS setup, and offers no utility to the group. Because they often camp melee, they would die more than my ele.

Guardians can:

• block/reflect projectiles
• tank mobs with mace/spirit weapons
• group mobs with GS/trap
• knockback with hammer
• protection and aegis for the group
• might with staff

I agree with everything except for bringing staff. (Unless you press ‘4’ before combat & then replace it with, oh, any other weapon set.)

voidvector.2780:

Most pug guardians I see just camp their DPS setup, and offers no utility to the group. Because they often camp melee, they would die more than my ele.

Guardians can:

• block/reflect projectiles
• tank mobs with mace/spirit weapons
• group mobs with GS/trap
• knockback with hammer
• protection and aegis for the group
• might with staff

This is usually the chronos job ! and might with staff??? If you got a prestacking ele in your party he will hate you if you do that

Fines Juliverine.5846:

This is usually the chronos job !

And in pugs, it seems that about 90% of the chronos have no idea that there might be tasks beyond quickness and alacrity. If they manage to do that at least, ofc.

u can go with 5 mesmers even and have succes thats how easy t4’s are

The following is something I would build for after a zerker set since zerker is better for raids:
Zeal 331, Radiance 221, Valor 321
Scepter/torch + shield
Sinister everything (helm and pants viper) + balth runes
Receive the light, spirit sword, spirit hammer, purging flames, feel my wrath

You provide insane condi cleanse (VoR, purging flames, torch #5), can give aegis, quickness, heal others with RtL, and always have 25 might so you easily top DPS and the AoE damage is insane and easily beats everyone. The build doesn’t need any outside assistance unlike meta builds that are built around having a warrior for might.

zealex.9410:

u can go with 5 mesmers even and have succes thats how easy t4’s are

I know. Yet runs are much more pleasant when people know the potential of their class at least a little bit.

CptAurellian.9537:

zealex.9410:

u can go with 5 mesmers even and have succes thats how easy t4’s are

I know. Yet runs are much more pleasant when people know the potential of their class at least a little bit.

yeah it not that hard to reach that “little bit”

It isn’t, but for some obscure reasons most pugs don’t even reach that little bit. It’s not funny when you see all those guards or mesmers who don’t bring reflection in projectile-heavy fractals, and so on. But that fits neatly with all those groups in which I do as much damage as the next two or three players combined – without even trying hard.