Guild Wars 2

i want to have an answer for this screenshot attached !

im gonna assume one of the following:

A-They already have a thief and would prefer class diversity to cover eachother better
B- They lack a heavy armor class and would like someone who can eat a bulk of dmg and since 50% of warriors are glass they ask for a Guard who is rarely glass.
C- They believe guardians are a huge key to success past FotM 20+
D- They are ignorant

i fail to see the problem

SwickHobo.5096:

i fail to see the problem

It means you’ve never tried to find a team for fractals 20/25+ as a thief.

I’d say: Thieves are good, if you can play them correctly, but most players just do not know how to play thief in PvE. Also: If you see players saying that, just do not join them. Impatient + unfriendly leader = No thanks!

thief need to be pvt/fury build with d/p setup. having p/p or sb on swap according to situations. Focus on producing blinds to protect its teammates, and pay attention to finishing off low health mobs to reduce the dps pressure on rest of his teammates.

This will also require the other players to know how to fight with a thief, take advantage of thief’s combo fields, and help the thief to survive, so he could help them.

Guardian is not only simpler to play, it also reduces workload of the other players in group. People start to forget how crucial blocking and tanking was in 70 and 80 charr, grawl and cliff. This topic isn’t just about your 20, 30, 40 chest runs… We had already been there, and seen how much the higher levels demanded guardians. Anet’s decision of nerfing shield pet only increased the demand for guardians. We used to do fine with 3 guardians (70-80 chest runs under 1 hr), now you will probably need 4 to bypass asura el oh el.

It is what it is. Every class can perform the basic functions of a thief with the help of spykits. It takes a good thief to do as much as a bad guardian. The more guardians you have, easier this dungeon becomes.

Many groups want two guardians because the reflect fields make some bosses much easier. That said, the same many groups are pretty bad in general, and playing guardian myself I am very unlikely to join someone like the last underlined entry.

Also try to understand the fundamental mentality difference between the majority of Thief/Warrior and Guardian players. Up until the fotm game has been very forgiving for the first two. So they never learned anything beyond loldps-ing. Guardians generally accept their role as a support class much earlier, which makes general population of guardians to be much better suited for high-end content.

Brassnautilus.2941:

thief need to be pvt/fury build with d/p setup. having p/p or sb on swap according to situations. Focus on producing blinds to protect its teammates, and pay attention to finishing off low health mobs to reduce the dps pressure on rest of his teammates.

This will also require the other players to know how to fight with a thief, take advantage of thief’s combo fields, and help the thief to survive, so he could help them.

Guardian is not only simpler to play, it also reduces workload of the other players in group. People start to forget how crucial blocking and tanking was in 70 and 80 charr, grawl and cliff. This topic isn’t just about your 20, 30, 40 chest runs… We had already been there, and seen how much the higher levels demanded guardians. Anet’s decision of nerfing shield pet only increased the demand for guardians. We used to do fine with 3 guardians (70-80 chest runs under 1 hr), now you will probably need 4 to bypass asura el oh el.

It is what it is. Every class can perform the basic functions of a thief with the help of spykits. It takes a good thief to do as much as a bad guardian. The more guardians you have, easier this dungeon becomes.

Dude… “Guardian is not only simpler to play”… no it isn’t. I haven’t played the thief past lvl 7 but from what I do know from playing and watching some friends main a thief tells me that the thief isn’t an overly complicated class. The guardian is most certainly not a simple class.

The way I see it, and I see this for many dungeons not just fotm. A lot of thieves go glass cannon builds for high dps while they still don’t know how to dodge / predict the enemies.

That being said same thing could go for any class, but thieves generally have a lot lower stock survivability stats ( yes I said stats not skills/utilities) which makes them die uber fast with not a lot of forgiveness for errors.

Thieves are very valuable if the thief knows his class and how to help. Sadly many don’t.

DanH.5879:

i want to have an answer for this screenshot attached !

Totaly agree with you ! All dungeons so hard w/o a guardian , even a bad one or 2 guardians even better ! So if devs read the lfg website and make ideea of how they made this game work they have only 2 things to do :

1. Nerf down guardian at a line of use in dungeons as all classes got ( compare to guardian high need in hard dungeons rest classes got medium use )
2. Pump up all classes use to the level of guardian in dungeons !

Tyvm bb !

dani.1956:

DanH.5879:

i want to have an answer for this screenshot attached !

Totaly agree with you ! All dungeons so hard w/o a guardian , even a bad one or 2 guardians even better ! So if devs read the lfg website and make ideea of how they made this game work they have only 2 things to do :

1. Nerf down guardian at a line of use in dungeons as all classes got ( compare to guardian high need in hard dungeons rest classes got medium use )
2. Pump up all classes use to the level of guardian in dungeons !

Tyvm bb !

Other than rangers all classes are pretty good at end game. You just have to learn to play them.

My guess, they don’t want anymore kitten thieves in their group? I know that I’ll ask for heavy armor players on my gw2lfg posts if we have 3 light/medium armor players already. IMO I’d prefer to have two guards in all my higher level fotm groups simply for their utility. Make the number 3 spot a shout/banner warrior and then the final two can be any old dps and the instance should be a cake walk.

I play a thief and I know that if there is more than one in a fotm 20+ group then chances are one will be kicked in favor of a guardian. That’s just how it is, but a lot of thieves play stupid in fotm imo. Bringing full glass canon with no support or survivability and never switching off of d/d (unless it’s for p/p).

When I run fotm I bring all my weapon sets with me and run a mixed gear build (still backstab) with around 1500 toughness. I constantly swap my abilities and weapons depending on the encounter. For instance, I always bring smoke screen for volcano fractal as well as my shortbow. I just about never get hit by the grawl’s agony fire arrow shot (dodge it, it’s simple). Stealth for planting bombs and using dredge rifle on the door in the dredge fractal. Pistols for safe ranged dps at dredge final boss as well as quick ranged stuns if need be to stop his heal. Then in general I know that I can move faster then most classes so I’ll be sure to keep shadowstep on my bar to get to people for a quick rez or to get myself out of a dangerous situation. It’s all about how you play and sadly because most thieves run around in a loldps spec it makes players judge all thieves based on the bads. That’s just how it is, you either get better and show them or roll warrior lol.

I find myself out surviving most guardians as a thief in fotm, but that’s only because I’ve done it so much and play very defensively vs “lol I can haz dps”. I also lol all day long at the thieves who join our groups and brag about 10k backstab crits (gotta compare kitten size to the other thief in the group) but then die if the mob farts in their general direction. A dead thief does no dps fyi.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Brassnautilus.2941:

thief need to be pvt/fury build with d/p setup. having p/p or sb on swap according to situations. Focus on producing blinds to protect its teammates, and pay attention to finishing off low health mobs to reduce the dps pressure on rest of his teammates.

This will also require the other players to know how to fight with a thief, take advantage of thief’s combo fields, and help the thief to survive, so he could help them.

Guardian is not only simpler to play, it also reduces workload of the other players in group. People start to forget how crucial blocking and tanking was in 70 and 80 charr, grawl and cliff. This topic isn’t just about your 20, 30, 40 chest runs… We had already been there, and seen how much the higher levels demanded guardians. Anet’s decision of nerfing shield pet only increased the demand for guardians. We used to do fine with 3 guardians (70-80 chest runs under 1 hr), now you will probably need 4 to bypass asura el oh el.

It is what it is. Every class can perform the basic functions of a thief with the help of spykits. It takes a good thief to do as much as a bad guardian. The more guardians you have, easier this dungeon becomes.

Dude… “Guardian is not only simpler to play”… no it isn’t. I haven’t played the thief past lvl 7 but from what I do know from playing and watching some friends main a thief tells me that the thief isn’t an overly complicated class. The guardian is most certainly not a simple class.

I have both a guardian and a thief at 80. Guardians have a way bigger window at making mistakes. It is true that most thieves build GC in pve. A guardian does bring some of the best utilities to a group.

Take WoR vs. Smoke Screen for example. WoR reflects dmg back, SS just blocks it. With WoR stuff dies faster. And whenever i use WoR, everyone bunches behind it, while using SS, ppl ignore it (even after explaining them what it does). But sadly, a huge amount of thieves don’t bring it, some of the few who do bring it, use it to protect themselves rather than the group.

Blinds vs. Aegis. Against trash, blinds are great, against bosses Aegis wins hands down. WHile trash fights are kinda significant, it’s the boss fights that are “The Big Deal”. Aegis also stands out, while blinds are more obscured.

Thieves (like everyone else, but this is strictly thief vs. guard) survive by dodging. When a thief dodges the big attack from the boss, he saves only himself. Guardian uses Aegis and save anyone who does not dodge on time.

Thieves can use stealth to break aggro for low HP teammates. Devourer Venom or S/D or Weakness or whatever other stuff to help the team. The guardian does it better and on a plus side, is also easier to play.

A bad guardian with Hold the Line, Retreat and Save Yourselves spam is still more valuable than a bad thief. So yeah, on the basis the previous sentence alone, a guardian is easier and simpler to play than a thief.

EDIT: I wouldn’t join any of those groups either, their attitudes are a huge turn off.

do you know how small the blind fields are, no ? vennom aura is so small in radius that makes you cry… at least i saw the poison field is a bit bigger on the short bow !

that’s why i am complaining, the thief is not really accepted into a high fotm party, while
every party and their mother needs at least a guard…

no one seems to care. i wrote a small poem:
holy trinity, my kitten
the guardian, is all 3 of them in 1 class…

Trollhammer.7439:

dani.1956:

DanH.5879:

i want to have an answer for this screenshot attached !

Totaly agree with you ! All dungeons so hard w/o a guardian , even a bad one or 2 guardians even better ! So if devs read the lfg website and make ideea of how they made this game work they have only 2 things to do :

1. Nerf down guardian at a line of use in dungeons as all classes got ( compare to guardian high need in hard dungeons rest classes got medium use )
2. Pump up all classes use to the level of guardian in dungeons !

Tyvm bb !

Other than rangers all classes are pretty good at end game. You just have to learn to play them.

Whats wrong with ranger ? One of the Opést classes in-game ! Pet range = 3000-5000 ? Arrow range 1400-1600 ? More damage than most of classes , cant see whats wrong with it !?

Is this even right ? Only 1 class can solo this boss ? 1 class = guardian , 100% no other class can !

Guardian is the only class that is a must in all dungeons ! Why Devs ?

dani.1956:

Whats wrong with ranger ? One of the Opést classes in-game ! Pet range = 3000-5000 ? Arrow range 1400-1600 ? More damage than most of classes , cant see whats wrong with it !?

Ranger is pretty bad bro. No spike damage worth mentioning, mediocre DPS, poor survivablity, poor support, being forced to babysit pet for very marginal return, reliance on conditions what need to be built up, poor AoE abilities. Ranger is probably the least useful class for an end-game party. I mean no offence, but even asking this kinda discredits everything you have to say after that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEC2CmIcBD8

Is this even right ? Only 1 class can solo this boss ? 1 class = guardian , 100% no other class can !
Guardian is the only class that is a must in all dungeons ! Why Devs ?

I just googled “solo lupicus” and pretty much every video that came up was for warrior doing it. Kinda supports my point above that you are talking out of your kitten

Brassnautilus.2941:

thief need to be pvt/fury build with d/p setup. having p/p or sb on swap according to situations. Focus on producing blinds to protect its teammates, and pay attention to finishing off low health mobs to reduce the dps pressure on rest of his teammates.

PVT? I disagree. DPS is one of the best things a thief can offer, aside from SR, blind, smoke screen, etc. My thief is at FOTM 30+ (I’ve ran a few 40s as well) and I’m running a semi-glass cannon build, using berserker jewelries and valkyrie set and I seldom go down unless there are latency issues. Wearing PVT armor will not save you from getting 1-shots in high-level FOTM, you need to make use of your skills and utilities, such as SB#3, withdraw, roll for initiative, etc, and learn to react at a given time in any given situation.

Brassnautilus.2941:

Guardian is not only simpler to play, it also reduces workload of the other players in group. People start to forget how crucial blocking and tanking was in 70 and 80 charr, grawl and cliff. This topic isn’t just about your 20, 30, 40 chest runs… We had already been there, and seen how much the higher levels demanded guardians. Anet’s decision of nerfing shield pet only increased the demand for guardians. We used to do fine with 3 guardians (70-80 chest runs under 1 hr), now you will probably need 4 to bypass asura el oh el.

A guardian is not as simple as it may look like. You need to constantly change weapons, utilities, traits on every stage of FOTM. You also need to be able to keep the team members alive, while keeping yourself alive. You need to dodge and evade attacks, while keeping the aggro with you. You don’t just stand in front of the mobs, and you just don’t use your skills, you need to consider the range, the position of the team members, the right timing, among others.

Everything you listed are things that everyone has to do, regardless of class. Just saying.

Guard should not be necessary. Yesterday, cleared FotM22 with 3 Engi’s, one Mes and one Necro. It was a breeze. It’s how you play the class, not how you outfit the class.

Scoundrel.2139:

Guard should not be necessary. Yesterday, cleared FotM22 with 3 Engi’s, one Mes and one Necro. It was a breeze. It’s how you play the class, not how you outfit the class.

Nobody said a guardian is necessary. They just make things easier (one example would be the Grawl Shaman last boss), especially in FOTM 40+.

They are all looking for low level fractals, likely lacking the experience to know any better.

SwickHobo.5096:

im gonna assume one of the following:

A-They already have a thief and would prefer class diversity to cover eachother better
B- They lack a heavy armor class and would like someone who can eat a bulk of dmg and since 50% of warriors are glass they ask for a Guard who is rarely glass.
C- They believe guardians are a huge key to success past FotM 20+
D- They are ignorant

i fail to see the problem

You missed E) Thieves are t3* at dungeons, also at least 90% of thieves are absolutely terrible and even if they are good, contribute little to a group (high level fractals are group activities).

The problem is that in order to balance invisibility in PVP, you have to greatly reduce thieves hp to prevent PvP becoming TvT. But most damage in PvE is not % based, reducing the margin of error for thieves. And also they provide little support to the team without bringing in significantly higher dps to make up for it.

*t1 – warriors, guardians, mesmers
t2 – everyone else but thieves
t3 – thieves

Heck I even rerolled warrior because I tend to pve much more than pvp. It is so much easier to play.

Note that in PvP, thieves are very strong and powerful. They can destroy pugs, and be very annoying when solo attacking encampments.

Bringing full glass canon with no support or survivability and never switching off of d/d (unless it’s for p/p).

Have a read of thief ‘support’ skills, oh right there is like none, never mind.

i’ll trade the 3 thiefs in my party for 1 guardian tyvm.

It’s not even close for Fractals.

My legendary is relegated to farming ore/wood, while my guardian can actually contribute to a group.

Thief really needs a group buff of some kind without having to rely on finishers. Perhaps a mini time-warp of some sort.

I have a Guardian and Thief.

• Guardian’s are too powerful in FOTM right now. Wall of Reflection, Shield of Avenger, shouts, and other stuff makes the encounters much easier especially if you got multiple ones chaining them.

• Thief really just has Shadow Refuge and no other utility besides straight damage (which they’re very good at). FOTM you don’t need to use Shadow Refuge, but in Arah’s it makes so much easier.

I’ve got my thief up to fractal 20 but it seems like a lot more work than it is for my ranger. The ranger can go through the fractals on close to auto-pilot while the thief needs to constantly change weapons (from the bags), swap skills, swap traits to match the new skills/weapons, and so on. This makes me feel that others thieves are under performing when not using these skills, such as smoke screen, but also makes me feel that there’s not enough core strength to the class without these changes. Dodge and stealth isn’t an appropriate defense to the incoming barrage of damage in fractals.

Shadow Refugee works only when your team has some common sense team work knowledge. And since common sense is not so common, in 90% PuGs when I use Shadow Refugee to safely res someone, said person just keeps attacking while downed, revealing himself to the enemy.

Compare it to a mindless easy 3 x aegis in 5s.

Xorcerox.4807:

I’d say: Thieves are good, if you can play them correctly, but most players just do not know how to play thief in PvE. Also: If you see players saying that, just do not join them. Impatient + unfriendly leader = No thanks!

I think in general that a guardian would be the better choice to add to the group but I’m running fractals in the high teens now and I still have yet to group with a decent guardian.

The answer to the OPs question is actually very simple. High level fotm players know that thieves are actually very good, however, gw2lfg is a tool for pick-up groups and guardians are much more pug friendly.

It’s that simple.

ok mr wise guy, how about the 1 meter tall smoke screen wall, where the curbed nature of projectiles (the tree in swamp, harpy happines knockback ball) makes the “jump” over my wall, efectively nulifing it.
the wall of reflection is wider, lasts much longer, and the reflect makes the boss suicide basically
not to mention the full guardian heal on ally party members (read 100% hp to all) on a short CD, aegis spam, a lot of the protection boon etc….
there are so many + on the guardians that makes them invaluable for every party
how about the rest of us for a change ??!!!

Not sure what’s the point of this thread. When I was choosing my character, I had a mindset “I want to benefit to my team the most, and be as supportive as one can be”. From all the professions to choose, Guardian seemed to be the obvious choice to fill the role well – and guess what, Guardian works as intended. I would never think that a Thief could benefit the team as well as Guardian, Thieves seemed to me to be obvious choice for egoistic gameplay like PvP or WvW. And I guess that’s the way they fill their role best.

Thief is pretty much single target DPS class, which has many uses in many situations, if played properly. You want now Thief to be able to mathc Guardian at support AND also kitten in DPS? Something is wrong here.

i want to be able to do the “support” part as promised at the beginning !
all classes should be able to be support, as all can go glass cannons !
we want our fair share, but NO one is listening
and the thief vs guard is just an example.

this is a quote from the pdf i payed (package base+10e pdf guide lol) but seems i was lied to:
“Was that guardian there for DPS or damage mitigation? Yes, of course, the answer is that he was there for both.
Almost all characters will contain elements of healing, mitigation, and DPS. Each player should shift the balance of
these three elements to match the needs of the group.”

DanH.5879:

i want to be able to do the “support” part as promised at the beginning !
all classes should be able to be support, as all can go glass cannons !
we want our fair share, but NO one is listening
and the thief vs guard is just an example.

I wanna be able to crit for 15k with my guardian. kitten you ANet, when are you going to fix this!!!

Lol if i could crit for 15k with my guardian, the game would be like sooo unbalanced, i can hit in the range of 3-5k which is fine, i have to boon my party, reflect projectiles, im practically unkillable (still i have the lowest health pool), since everything i do seems to regen me…. if i could crit for the same dmg as a warrior, no one would play any other class than a scholar-zerker ruby clad guardian…

i do think thieves should be able to use other weapons, so the class dynamizes a little, cua u do have to know ur class well to play a good thief.

i am sick really that all i see "we need guardian/warrior "
wtf !!! is really frustrating for me at least to try hard to find a party that accepts me.(my class)
why is this fair to be rejected from the start ? tell me !

shadowdust.2018:

Brassnautilus.2941:

Guardian is not only simpler to play, it also reduces workload of the other players in group. People start to forget how crucial blocking and tanking was in 70 and 80 charr, grawl and cliff. This topic isn’t just about your 20, 30, 40 chest runs… We had already been there, and seen how much the higher levels demanded guardians. Anet’s decision of nerfing shield pet only increased the demand for guardians. We used to do fine with 3 guardians (70-80 chest runs under 1 hr), now you will probably need 4 to bypass asura el oh el.

A guardian is not as simple as it may look like. You need to constantly change weapons, utilities, traits on every stage of FOTM. You also need to be able to keep the team members alive, while keeping yourself alive. You need to dodge and evade attacks, while keeping the aggro with you. You don’t just stand in front of the mobs, and you just don’t use your skills, you need to consider the range, the position of the team members, the right timing, among others.

high armor
quick large heal, that also removes condi on passive
reflections
blocks
absorbtion
protection
aegis
blind
invulnerable
and then you have regen

none of these required traits, and only get stronger with traits. How much simpler do you need it to be ? I mean, any other class has half of that to their disposal?

i switch 2 trait slots, ever
20 honor, between removal, stability and pet duration (before the nerf)
10 honor, couple choices
and honestly, the difference between the choices aren’t all that great, just that if you weren’t using shouts, then having shout recharged would look kinda dumb, right?

Back to topic.

What we would all agree upon is this:

the way people did fractals before the patch, without the necessary ar for the levels, was not how the dungeons meant to be played. Bypassing maw with search and rescue meant we were subject to much heavier agony hits than design intended.
The only solution was to avoid getting hit —- Which a guardian is extraordinarily good at, due to all its damage mitigation abilities listed above. Well traited guardian are even stronger in doing that, so in the end we had a whole lot of guardians, good and bad ones, all gotten to 80+ without much issues.

What some didn’t understand is this:

Agony didn’t go up, mob hits did, and at one point, mobs one shot all classes except a guardian. Even a dps guardian has better chance of surviving a lvl84 warrior charge than a tank war, and you need tanks or you get wiped.
This kind of situation is what a thief is worst at. Thieves don’t do well to sustained dps pressure, which is how higher fractals were designed. Stealth gets you out of sticky situations, but what do you have to bring onto the table if you needed stealth to stay alive?
The uselessness of thieves became more apparent when 3 out of 5 of the slots were taken by heavy armor in order to obtain the basis of a smooth run. Especially the vast majority of thieves, who can’t do melee dps under pressure, and don’t have unlimited initiative to spam cluster bomb all day (which even if they do, is like an ele that drops lava font all day and do nothing else…)

Then again, dungeon rewards are account bound. Why must one bring a thief to where it does not belong?

The class discrimination in higher level fractals is definitely frustrating, and I can only imagine it will get worse as the devs patch in more Ascended items so people can move past 40, unless they modify the fractals somehow.

At the same time, a good thief or engineer or any of the ‘less desired’ classes CAN be a boon to the group. And yet…

I do find that groups primarily composed of warriors and guardians tend to go much smoother than groups of varied light classes. It’s nice to have maybe one wildcard light class in the midst of the heavies.

I imagine it’s a very frustrating stigma and situation for classes that aren’t Guardians or Warriors (or Mesmers, which can also be a nice addition), as those classes have to work a lot harder to avoid criticism from the other players.

The answer to that dilemma? Outside of a sea change in player attitude, or sweeping changes to Fractals or Classes, I’m really not sure.

I play with all kinds of professions and from my experience the more mixed up team eg 1 engineer 1 ele 1 warrior etc seem to work out the best. you don’t wanna use multiple of the same one because of different support skills this seem to work out best. theif can support the team with smoke screen and stealth sometimes you just wanna break aggro or res safely with stealth.

TheAngryLuddite.1834:

The class discrimination in higher level fractals is definitely frustrating, and I can only imagine it will get worse as the devs patch in more Ascended items so people can move past 40, unless they modify the fractals somehow.

At the same time, a good thief or engineer or any of the ‘less desired’ classes CAN be a boon to the group. And yet…

I do find that groups primarily composed of warriors and guardians tend to go much smoother than groups of varied light classes. It’s nice to have maybe one wildcard light class in the midst of the heavies.

I imagine it’s a very frustrating stigma and situation for classes that aren’t Guardians or Warriors (or Mesmers, which can also be a nice addition), as those classes have to work a lot harder to avoid criticism from the other players.

The answer to that dilemma? Outside of a sea change in player attitude, or sweeping changes to Fractals or Classes, I’m really not sure.

The problem really stems from a lack of understanding of what these other classes bring to the table that the others don’t.

this is as worse as racism imo, your class simply does not belong to the group because you were “born” wrong

@Brassnautilus.2941
I am intrigued. Please share a guardian build that can survive multiple Ascalon warrior charge…. or flame burst. Or can tank hordes of dredge… or krait. Or one that can take legendary Archdiviner in melee for more then 5 seconds. I.e. a build that can just stand there and tank lvl40+ mobs as you seem to be implying.
I am pretty sure no such build exists, but feel free to prove me wrong. The reason guardians CAN do that is by practicing well timed dodge, as well as spamming movement CC and blind.
So your point is nil. Having more support tools, doesn’t mean the class is easier to play. Quite the opposite actually. Compare that to any RDPS class that just have to stand back and do 1,2,3,4,5 every couple of seconds.

Trollhammer.7439:

DanH.5879:

i want to be able to do the “support” part as promised at the beginning !
all classes should be able to be support, as all can go glass cannons !
we want our fair share, but NO one is listening
and the thief vs guard is just an example.

I wanna be able to crit for 15k with my guardian. kitten you ANet, when are you going to fix this!!!

You can. You’ll be practically useless to the party, and you’ll be even more squishy than a glass thief, but you can.

Sarcasmic.6741:

Trollhammer.7439:

DanH.5879:

i want to be able to do the “support” part as promised at the beginning !
all classes should be able to be support, as all can go glass cannons !
we want our fair share, but NO one is listening
and the thief vs guard is just an example.

I wanna be able to crit for 15k with my guardian. kitten you ANet, when are you going to fix this!!!

You can. You’ll be practically useless to the party, and you’ll be even more squishy than a glass thief, but you can.

a guardian can dance around in high fracts while as he spams all reflection , buff and utility skills on cd, and he will still get an invitation to a party.! their advantage are too huge! not to mention the full party heal elite that could help getting through high lvl maws! guardians wins hands down against thief!

ComeAndSee.1356:

I have a Guardian and Thief.

• Guardian’s are too powerful in FOTM right now. Wall of Reflection, Shield of Avenger, shouts, and other stuff makes the encounters much easier especially if you got multiple ones chaining them.

• Thief really just has Shadow Refuge and no other utility besides straight damage (which they’re very good at). FOTM you don’t need to use Shadow Refuge, but in Arah’s it makes so much easier.

No, they just need to undo the nerf they did to stealth with “Aggro Target Does Damage”. Before this, thieves were sought.

Please consider first when calling to either “nerf guardians” or “buff all other classes” for support roles, that the issue here is really down to the mechanics of FOTM more than anything else.

Prior to fractals I would see a huge variety of class compositions in dungeons, and rarely any call for specific classes only (except for speed-farming). I rarely saw Shield of the Avenger in play, and WoR was largely a WvW skill, or only switched in on certain boss encounters.

Fractals on the other-hand seems to take every opportunity to hurl reflectable or blockable projectiles at you, so it’s no wonder that groups are crying out for guards at higher levels.

Ideally Anet should rework several zones which play to the strengths of other classes. ( And disable consumable items? )

Sarcasmic.6741:

Trollhammer.7439:

DanH.5879:

i want to be able to do the “support” part as promised at the beginning !
all classes should be able to be support, as all can go glass cannons !
we want our fair share, but NO one is listening
and the thief vs guard is just an example.

I wanna be able to crit for 15k with my guardian. kitten you ANet, when are you going to fix this!!!

You can. You’ll be practically useless to the party, and you’ll be even more squishy than a glass thief, but you can.

Share the build. I’d like to see that.

I play as a guard and run in the 30s and 40s. Guardians are very good in fractals, which I think is justified given that they are not that great in regular dungeons because they are DPS races and defense counts for very little.

I’ve found many fractals at the higher levels are easier with a thief in the group, and some of the best fractal players I’ve seen play thieves. I agree that glass backstab thieves have no place in fractals, but frankly any build of any class that is not team oriented is not useful in a fractal. Off the top of my head:

- While not as much coverage as mesmer or guardian, thieves can block projectiles with smoke screen. Very useful when shields are on cooldown fighting bloomhunger or the asura golems,or getting through harpies.

- Bomb event in dredge fractal – way way better if you can have a thief stealth solo the bombs. On 30s or 40s, this usually saves a death or two.

- Shadow refuge is a lifesaver, useful in all dangerous situations.

- Shortbow blast spam heals off of engi/ranger/tree item water fields, particularly useful in cliffside, but really anywhere you take a lot of damage.

There are more but those all strike me immediately. All of these require a thief that is thinking about more than spamming backstab, but as I said any class that is thinking about only damage is not going to be useful in a fractal above level 10 or so. Thieves have plenty of team friendly tools if they use them.

ComeAndSee.1356:

I have a Guardian and Thief.

• Guardian’s are too powerful in FOTM right now. Wall of Reflection, Shield of Avenger, shouts, and other stuff makes the encounters much easier especially if you got multiple ones chaining them.

• Thief really just has Shadow Refuge and no other utility besides straight damage (which they’re very good at). FOTM you don’t need to use Shadow Refuge, but in Arah’s it makes so much easier.

I have a thief and guardian too and I somewhat disagree, guardians arent too powerful, it’s just that most mobs shoot projectiles. So yes WoR is very useful but thief also has it’s own WoR spell and shield of the avenger; as awesome it can be isn’t reliable anymore because it can be killed. What makes a guardian good in fractals is that the guardian has good survivability in this world of glass cannons. Trust me you can make an amazing dungeon thief, I have before and it had better survivability than any class besides a guardian but did much more dps, you just won’t be top dog in WvW.

I have a guardian and a thief. My guardian is at FOTM 40+, and my thief is at 30+.
There are times I say to myself: “I wish I’m using my thief right now”, and vice versa.

Trollhammer.7439:

Sarcasmic.6741:

Trollhammer.7439:

I wanna be able to crit for 15k with my guardian. kitten you ANet, when are you going to fix this!!!

You can. You’ll be practically useless to the party, and you’ll be even more squishy than a glass thief, but you can.

Share the build. I’d like to see that.

http://i374.photobucket.com/albums/oo183/sinku87/Guardian/gw073_zps75b610fc.jpg

Courtesy of my guild leader. You’d need to get the build from him, my guardian is still in leveling.

Stinson.5972:

I play as a guard and run in the 30s and 40s. Guardians are very good in fractals, which I think is justified given that they are not that great in regular dungeons because they are DPS races and defense counts for very little.

I’ve found many fractals at the higher levels are easier with a thief in the group, and some of the best fractal players I’ve seen play thieves. I agree that glass backstab thieves have no place in fractals, but frankly any build of any class that is not team oriented is not useful in a fractal. Off the top of my head:

- While not as much coverage as mesmer or guardian, thieves can block projectiles with smoke screen. Very useful when shields are on cooldown fighting bloomhunger or the asura golems,or getting through harpies.

- Bomb event in dredge fractal – way way better if you can have a thief stealth solo the bombs. On 30s or 40s, this usually saves a death or two.

- Shadow refuge is a lifesaver, useful in all dangerous situations.

- Shortbow blast spam heals off of engi/ranger/tree item water fields, particularly useful in cliffside, but really anywhere you take a lot of damage.

There are more but those all strike me immediately. All of these require a thief that is thinking about more than spamming backstab, but as I said any class that is thinking about only damage is not going to be useful in a fractal above level 10 or so. Thieves have plenty of team friendly tools if they use them.

It’s called Ash Legion Spy Kit. Use them.

People ask for guardians because of mass group boons, just like the ele, and on top of that you can run berserker gear on a guardian and still be tankier than most light armor classes in PVT gear. Add to that reflection and group stability, and an aoe full group heal — you see where this is going. No class besides the Guardian brings to the group this level of performance enhancement and damage mitigation.

Good thieves are fun to have, but it’s nothing you can’t substitute for a warrior that will do more damage at less risk.

I, too am tired of the kitten fractal 3-40+ groups asking for guardians 24/7, but it is what it is. PvE is a Warrior/Guardian world because one does so much more damage than the other classes, and the latter is the best tank/group support in the game.