Guild Wars 2

This comes from that fractal thread, where some discussion of guardians came up.

Put simply, I don’t trust a pug Greatsword Guardian in a level 50, but I do trust a pug Hammer guardian. If it’s GS I know, it’s different of course.

For what harder content we have, am I alone in this or do other people react to normally good build setups in a pug circumstance?

I don’t trust:

• Staff guardian
• Scepter ele
• Double pistol thief
• Hammer/sword/rifle warrior
• Terrormancer necro
• Greatsword mesmer (especially the one that makes bold comments like “this group’s DPS s*cks”)

I give my benefit of doubt to ranger and engi. My bro’s ranger is the best of his kind in fractals and I can play engi decently with both condi and power builds. So I trust people who walk in to fotm 50 to have that kind of confidence and skills to back it up. Once I’m skeptical, I can check their HP and it’s just plain easy to figure out what builds they are using and whether they’re bad or not.

Heh, I don’t think I’ve seen a staff-primary guardian in a fractal ><

Distrusting builds considered bad is fair tho’,

I was thinking of builds that are considered ‘good’ or even ‘meta’ that leave you with the, “Oh kitten no” feeling.

Windsagio.1340:

Heh, I don’t think I’ve seen a staff-primary guardian in a fractal ><

You’re either new, or extremely, extremely lucky.

Stompy.1387:

Windsagio.1340:

Heh, I don’t think I’ve seen a staff-primary guardian in a fractal ><

You’re either new, or extremely, extremely lucky.

Certainly not new, lucky I can cop to though.

Staff camping Guardian and full signet warrior.

I’m adding this to ‘most people run in a very different world than I do’.

Lower levels some of those things you see (although still never staff), I don’t think I’ve seen either in higher.

Maybe this goes with the ‘never had any problems with kicks’ experience too ><

I get sad whenever a Guardian doesn’t use Staff in TA though.

I find your distrust in GS guardians suspicious since it is supposed to be your second set in all fotm builds. Running hammer PS allows your party to melee any part safely, run GS during trash. If your are dps, it is GS and s/f or sometimes scepter focus for a few bosses.

It just goes to show a lot of mistrust and classism comes from lack of experience with the class. The things that arouse my suspicion are more behavioral than weapon related, refusal to stack, needless CCs on clean champs, players not performing core roles for fotm, no aegis, no blinds, no might, no reflects

The GS thing I assume it’s the issue you see with a lot of professions were people see the Meta for max dps and simply replicate that instead of intelligently using their skills.

You could argue that hammer guardians are not needed for most situations.
Plsdonthurtme

Something unusual: I don’t trust pug staff eles. In theory the playstyle is very simple but you’ll find 99% of those pugs to camp water attunement.

And I don’t trust pug thiefs in general, somehow they spam Pistol Whip when they are supposed to use Black Powder… which makes surviving difficult :P Also they somehow never stealth the party and if they do it’s with SR.

Mister Stygian.2135:

I find your distrust in GS guardians suspicious since it is supposed to be your second set in all fotm builds. Running hammer PS allows your party to melee any part safely, run GS during trash. If your are dps, it is GS and s/f or sometimes scepter focus for a few bosses.

It just goes to show a lot of mistrust and classism comes from lack of experience with the class. The things that arouse my suspicion are more behavioral than weapon related, refusal to stack, needless CCs on clean champs, players not performing core roles for fotm, no aegis, no blinds, no might, no reflects

Well it goes without saying that it’s situationally useful. A large number camp GS regardless of the situation though, and that’s the thing that can be a bad sign.

And don’t get me wrong, I’ll run with any kittening build people want at any level, I don’t care. It’s just this ‘wellp, here we go!’ feeling.

No Pulse.2967:

You could argue that hammer guardians are not needed for most situations.
Plsdonthurtme

Honestly I think that’s the problem, people think that’s the case, but it’s a pretty wide gap between the theory and application, y’know?

And again it’s not ‘oh god KICK’ it’s an anxiety vector :p

Windsagio.1340:

No Pulse.2967:

You could argue that hammer guardians are not needed for most situations.
Plsdonthurtme

Honestly I think that’s the problem, people think that’s the case, but it’s a pretty wide gap between the theory and application, y’know?

And again it’s not ‘oh god KICK’ it’s an anxiety vector :p

It’s really not though, hammer is a crutch… a very very very very nice crutch. If you can avoid hits the protection means nothing. Honestly the only time I see hammer as a huge gain is when you utilize ring of warding to it’s full potential. There’s some pretty big pitfalls on hammer, it’s slow rotation time makes any dodge a pretty large DPS loss as well as interrupting protection, as well as meaning a slow ramp up time till you get the protection. Then also the light fields. It’s a great weapon don’t get me wrong but it’s far from necessary.

Yeah when im playing hammer its more for the ring of warding than the prot. Although prot for mossman makes it pretty easy in an organised group. Which can be fun in its own way.

Dolyak Signet Warrior and Movement Speed Signets for other classes

We can now close this thread

Movement Signets are good in Mai Trin Fractals, unless you have perma swiftness.

Anything with a staff.
I don’t trust pugs on anything anymore. Gezus i cant find a group to complete CoF P1. Last attempt included a STAFF mesmer, staff guard, dual pistol thief, staffmancer :/

- Minions Master Necromancer.
- Signet of Judment on a guardian or Dolyak signet on a warrior.
- When I see a Golem from the CoE rune.
- Staff Guardian
- Ranger that camp their Bow.

Thaddeus.4891:

- Ranger that camp their Bow.

Or have a shortbow on swap. When asked to melee, say, AC burrows, they answer “I don’t have any melee weapons.”

Yay. #ThatSinkingFeeling

I’m falling back in love with my guardian, and I’ve always just run gs / sw+f. I should give hammer a try.

Any specific dungeon encounters it really shines at? I’m thinking anything with a fast autoattack that the prot might pay off on, like Arah p4 champ knight, or maybe magecrusher?

dlonie.6547:

Thaddeus.4891:

- Ranger that camp their Bow.

Or have a shortbow on swap. When asked to melee, say, AC burrows, they answer “I don’t have any melee weapons.”

Yay. #ThatSinkingFeeling

I’m falling back in love with my guardian, and I’ve always just run gs / sw+f. I should give hammer a try.

Any specific dungeon encounters it really shines at? I’m thinking anything with a fast autoattack that the prot might pay off on, like Arah p4 champ knight, or maybe magecrusher?

I would use Hammer more often if there wasn’t the field problem. But if you take that out of the equation. I like bring Hammer in TA. Not because of the encounter, but because Hammer is good by itself so I don’t lose too much dps taking Staff for running those blossom. The champ knight in P4 have one big attack that you can dodge without much problem so hammer don’t really help there. Never really had any problem with magecrusher except when I duo him. The Hammer shine at really fast hitting boss when you cannot dodge his attack. There isn’t such boss in any dungeon so there you should only use hammer for pugs that take long to kill or if you are not 5 in a dungeon (longer fight can be deadly, those small hit add up over time).

Fractal 50 is were the hammer shines where you have boss like Mosman, Archdiviner, Mai Trin, etc. Boss that most ppl just range, but with protection and weakness you can melee them. Don’t get me wrong, there is other place where it’s good, but don’t shine. It can be nice at CoE Alpha path 1, but you can melee it without hammer.

Any time you’re using a Phalanx Strength Warrior hammer is just fine. As far as fast attackers to add to the list maybe Slaver in CoF1? Though he generally goes down pretty quickly.

Some buddies and I use to run PS war for might, Staff Ele for Fury, and Hammer guard to make things silly easy, not much of a time loss (still able to do say SE p1 in under 4 mins) but it sure made things nice and easy.

Ya I though about Slaver in CoF1. Hammer could be a safety net. If the team is good he gonna die quicly, if the team is bad, Hammer will be life saving.

CM. To chain blast.

I’m pretty “anything goes” since I’m fairly casual, but I have to admit when I saw the staff/scepter torch guard in lvl 50 fractals 2 days ago I had a lot of doubt there.

I need to get my FotM up….still.

I thought of the risen knight because his AA has been pretty brutal to me solo (even on thief, I never have enough dodges…), but you’re right, in a group, he’s not really a problem. Chaining aegis / heals / blocks + dragonrolls would probably be enough solo on guard.

PS Warr is a good point — Ty runs his with me a lot, so I might start experimenting with hammer during those runs just to get a feel for it. It would be fantastic to get another blast for stealth, though I really like having GS / sw+f on skips…

I feel bad for all the pugs that carried that st/sc+t guard to 50, Lilith xD Did he at least brag about his burning uptime?

dlonie.6547:

I need to get my FotM up….still.

I thought of the risen knight because his AA has been pretty brutal to me solo (even on thief, I never have enough dodges…), but you’re right, in a group, he’s not really a problem. Chaining aegis / heals / blocks + dragonrolls would probably be enough solo on guard.

PS Warr is a good point — Ty runs his with me a lot, so I might start experimenting with hammer during those runs just to get a feel for it. It would be fantastic to get another blast for stealth, though I really like having GS / sw+f on skips…

I feel bad for all the pugs that carried that st/sc+t guard to 50, Lilith xD Did he at least brag about his burning uptime?

I never once saw his f1 on cooldown.

But no he was pretty quiet. Lol

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

No Pulse.2967:

You could argue that hammer guardians are not needed for most situations.
Plsdonthurtme

Honestly I think that’s the problem, people think that’s the case, but it’s a pretty wide gap between the theory and application, y’know?

And again it’s not ‘oh god KICK’ it’s an anxiety vector :p

It’s really not though, hammer is a crutch… a very very very very nice crutch. If you can avoid hits the protection means nothing. Honestly the only time I see hammer as a huge gain is when you utilize ring of warding to it’s full potential. There’s some pretty big pitfalls on hammer, it’s slow rotation time makes any dodge a pretty large DPS loss as well as interrupting protection, as well as meaning a slow ramp up time till you get the protection. Then also the light fields. It’s a great weapon don’t get me wrong but it’s far from necessary.

Well again, we’re talking about a pug environment. When you can’t count on any group buffs (might/fury/vuln on foes) that you don’t bring yourself, that’s when it’s a question. Everything’s a bit slower, everyones a bit worse at running together, a lot of pug people run selfish builds.

Even if hammer is a crutch, in an open pug it’s a crutch that can make a group viable. You can’t count on anyone but yourself.

(also as you mentioned below/above, it makes certain fights much faster and more reliable)

Edit: PS is another good example of definitely preferable for me in a high pug. It’s a reliable might source then, which you simply might not have otherwise.

Well I can’t stand using hammer on guard so I pretty much never use it. That’s coming from the perspective of someone who is really tired of seeing Area Retaliation pop up while on my Ele though. Honestly what I find far more concerning is the large % of guards who have Stand Your Ground permanently affixed to their utility bar.

Also ranger bow gets an unfair amount of hate considering that I see people on every class range Mossman and Archdiviner all the time. And I don’t mean just popping out to range while low on health but actually camping a ranged weapon the entire fight.

- Mace/Shield guardians, on full cleric
- Staff (main)/Gs (99% only for the symbol skill), cleric guardians only spamming “Hold the Line” and “Stand your ground” (when no possible use for stability actually exists) and using “Wall of Reflection” on mobs using no projectiles rather that equipping a different skill
- Rifle warriors on full PvT
- Gs camping mesmers
- D/D eles on x-x-x-6-6 builds who can’t stack more than 6 might (and grant that powerful 6 might (without fury) only pre battle, never during the fights) ..
- Guardians on full cleric saying in Ts "What’s the use of “Retreat”?" Bow of truth OP!
- Cleric Rangers Q.Q
- Staff mesmers
- Shouts heal warriors spamming rifles and saying “We can range almost all of the Harpies (in Uncategorized Fractals) from the ground without jumping on the platforms!” (despite having a guardian, a thief and a d/f ele in team)
- People convinced you must have 3 tanks to run a lvl 50 FotM (considering a 2h run a speedrun)
- Totally tank guardians and warriors ranging everything possible, wasting every effort of stacking might for the team, blaming you for the FotM run to be taking too long, because you zerker, noob, you can’t run FotM 50 full zerk!
- Eles who call themselves “zerker”, running with valkyrie armor+PvT trinkets+cleric weapons <3
- 100% tank warri spamming hammer, convinced to be able to really tank a boss and keep the aggro, even after being 1-shot 900 000 000 000 000 times with every hard hit they won’t bother to dodge, cuz tank warri OP
- Thief snorting annoyed like hell because I used Deep Freeze on a mob (when by miracle no one was adding random Defiance) so that he can’t daze it with the powerful Headshot
And what is really depressing is that these people are my ex guildies and current guildies, I can’t kick them nor I can rage quit, I must just endure………….. ..’
Not sure to be on topic, but I needed to empty my frustrations a tiny bit Q.Q

dlonie.6547:

I need to get my FotM up….still.

I thought of the risen knight because his AA has been pretty brutal to me solo (even on thief, I never have enough dodges…), but you’re right, in a group, he’s not really a problem. Chaining aegis / heals / blocks + dragonrolls would probably be enough solo on guard.

PS Warr is a good point — Ty runs his with me a lot, so I might start experimenting with hammer during those runs just to get a feel for it. It would be fantastic to get another blast for stealth, though I really like having GS / sw+f on skips…

I feel bad for all the pugs that carried that st/sc+t guard to 50, Lilith xD Did he at least brag about his burning uptime?

Hammer on the risen knight might not be bad in pugs, where people are facetanking the autos. In an organized group, he’ll die before you run out of Aegis to give. Solo, you can just max melee circle strafe and take 0 damage (bonus on guardian: 100% UC uptime) – it takes a bit of practice to get down reliably, but it’s really not too bad.

When skipping, just keep your inventory window open and mostly to the right of the screen, and equip hammer just when you need the blasts. Hammer is useless on skips other than the blast, so you definitely don’t want (or need) to keep it equipped for them.

Silvia.9130:

- Mace/Shield guardians, on full cleric
- Staff (main)/Gs (99% only for the symbol skill), cleric guardians only spamming “Hold the Line” and “Stand your ground” (when no possible use for stability actually exists) and using “Wall of Reflection” on mobs using no projectiles rather that equipping a different skill
- Rifle warriors on full PvT
- Gs camping mesmers
- D/D eles on x-x-x-6-6 builds who can’t stack more than 6 might (and grant that powerful 6 might (without fury) only pre battle, never during the fights) ..
- Guardians on full cleric saying in Ts "What’s the use of “Retreat”?" Bow of truth OP!
- Cleric Rangers Q.Q
- Staff mesmers
- Shouts heal warriors spamming rifles and saying “We can range almost all of the Harpies (in Uncategorized Fractals) from the ground without jumping on the platforms!” (despite having a guardian, a thief and a d/f ele in team)
- People convinced you must have 3 tanks to run a lvl 50 FotM (considering a 2h run a speedrun)
- Totally tank guardians and warriors ranging everything possible, wasting every effort of stacking might for the team, blaming you for the FotM run to be taking too long, because you zerker, noob, you can’t run FotM 50 full zerk!
- Eles who call themselves “zerker”, running with valkyrie armor+PvT trinkets+cleric weapons <3
- 100% tank warri spamming hammer, convinced to be able to really tank a boss and keep the aggro, even after being 1-shot 900 000 000 000 000 times with every hard hit they won’t bother to dodge, cuz tank warri OP
- Thief snorting annoyed like hell because I used Deep Freeze on a mob (when by miracle no one was adding random Defiance) so that he can’t daze it with the powerful Headshot
And what is really depressing is that these people are my ex guildies and current guildies, I can’t kick them nor I can rage quit, I must just endure………….. ..’
Not sure to be on topic, but I needed to empty my frustrations a tiny bit Q.Q

Sounds like my old WvW guild, great WvW guys, great guys in general, but I really wish they would have put a little time into setting themselves up for dungeons.

Zui.9245:

Hammer on the risen knight might not be bad in pugs, where people are facetanking the autos. In an organized group, he’ll die before you run out of Aegis to give. Solo, you can just max melee circle strafe and take 0 damage (bonus on guardian: 100% UC uptime) – it takes a bit of practice to get down reliably, but it’s really not too bad.

Awesome, I was actually just wondering if the SureShotSeamus/Frost method works on him, considering I’d never tried. Glad to hear it does, I’ll try that next time.

When skipping, just keep your inventory window open and mostly to the right of the screen, and equip hammer just when you need the blasts. Hammer is useless on skips other than the blast, so you definitely don’t want (or need) to keep it equipped for them.

I really need to get in this habit. My biggest problem is that I keep my weapons in an invis bag at the bottom of my inventory…I hate when random drops fall into an invis bag at the top >.< I use the small inventory window for consumables, since they’re account bound and won’t show up on a vendor screen, but I don’t want to accidentally vendor one of my weapons. Maybe the hero screen shoved to the far right would work for me.