Guild Wars 2

so im using a gs for my main sweapon of choice in fractals and use a scepter and focus for secondary…which is better and why scepter or shield?

Avoid the shield. Its not much use at all in pve. I tend to run with both GS /sword Focus or hammer with scepter focus on my alternate. Depending on my group and encounter.

I would suggest reading this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first

P.S. You don’t have to run zerker with it if you don’t want. But pay attention to the build/skill suggestions for each encounter.

Every weapon is good in different situations. Shield I can only really think of one use, and that’s in the Molten Facility you can use it to counter the fireballs so your team can just stand there. Outside of that one specific case focus is pretty much hands down better.

Mace is nice for more heavy hitting bosses like Archdiviner/Mossman, you can just go up and tank while your rotate blocks, tough but awesome when you pull it off.

Sword/GS is of course best damage, but they also have their utility with the blinds, gs pull, projectile destruction, etc.

Hammer is nice for protection.

Staff has a few uses with mainly the line of warding then swap to a damage weapon.

Basically saying, no reason to stick to certain weapons if another does the job better

The following is a personal opinion of a person who mainly PuGs fractals.

Main weapon choice is hammer/scepter+focus.
Hammer does reasonable damage and gives AE protection. Blast finisher is a bonus. Good CC for the occasion you need it. Focus gives blind + block which can be absolutely amazing (ran out of aegis, back out, switch to scepter, range for 10s, use 5, switch to hammer, hop in melee, should have at least some aegis back up by then too, so can stay in melee).

If you land in a good group, use UC which will result in doing competitive damage even with hammer, or swap to S/GS for max damage.

As mentioned other weapons do have their uses, and should be carried for specific situations.

In reality the biggest importance of guard is defensive utility (aegis, blinds, reflects) which you can provide with any weapon combination.

Jerus.4350:

Every weapon is good in different situations. Shield I can only really think of one use, and that’s in the Molten Facility you can use it to counter the fireballs so your team can just stand there. Outside of that one specific case focus is pretty much hands down better.

So this is a pretty cool trick: If you get hit with the fireball in the air with a invuln/ block skill, there won’t be any ground aoe.

EcoRI.9273:

Jerus.4350:

Every weapon is good in different situations. Shield I can only really think of one use, and that’s in the Molten Facility you can use it to counter the fireballs so your team can just stand there. Outside of that one specific case focus is pretty much hands down better.

So this is a pretty cool trick: If you get hit with the fireball in the air with a invuln/ block skill, there won’t be any ground aoe.

Reflects, Invulns, Blocks, Projectile Nullification all work on it. Just have to block it in the air.

Aye, there are other options, and focus is probably still better, but that is literally the only place I’ve went “hey I can actually get something out of my shield here” Well and EoTM trolling

For fractals, the hammer perma protections build is best in my mine.

Here’s my personal preference/decisions:

GS or Sw/F:
Default go-to when I want DPS or need a bit of extra mobility

Hammer
Need the protection uptime or CC

Staff
Swiftness while on the run. Pulling chanters during double seals and occasional awkward empower if my fire field just ran off with the hammer.

Scepter and Torch
Purely range fight such as bosses in the Dredge fractal. Torch substituted with Focus in Grawl Final fight.

Mace
Extra blocks are needed such as Mossman, Snowblind end boss, and Mai trin. Paired with Focus and Shelter makes for a very good defensive set up.

Shield
Molten Fractal when extra fireball mitigation is needed

*Note: Traiting, traiting, traiting. Know which builds enhance your weapon selection.

Start with hammer but eventually you are going to want GS. Others trying to blast fire fields for might or ele for fury will get frustrated with constant light fields on thier Fire fields. There’s also fights where you need GS I’ve hammer for sure. Harpy fractal boss to gather the golems, cliff side when you stack at mid for GS 5, cliff side boss for every 25% health face phase…. Might be some others I’m forgetting. Also taking staff and using AH can be good as well since staff 4 (I think) which stacks might heals you a good chunk. If you don’t really need ranged for a fight is put staff on just for that, even if it’s to stack night before a pull.

But currently yea, scepter focus is your best ranged. Don’t take staff into fire shaman, people will instantly know you’re not so great.

-GS = best for groups of mobs
-Sword = best for single boss with small hitbox
-Scepter = best for single boss with large hitbox

-Hammer for blasting in fire fields/smoke fields with #2 when ooc
-Staff for giving swiftness with #3 when ooc
-Torch only if you’re soloing and using scepter really, it gives better DPS than focus but you cannot maintain UC very easily a lot of the time and shield of wrath can sometimes make the difference of keeping/losing it.

-Mace and shield basically never if you want to be optimal.

EDIT: Basically, default to GS + sword/focus and on the occasion you get a boss with a large hitbox, swap the sword to scepter. Don’t use hammer or staff in combat, hammer is really annoying because it makes it hard as hell for the eles to keep blasting fury/might due to the light field on its autochain and also if you use hammer its third hit is so slow… it doesn’t have horrible DPS if you can continue autoattacking without ever getting interrupted, but if you have to stop before your third hit connects it’s absolutely terrible.

didnt dekeyz showed math that mace was just as good as sword?

EcoRI.9273:

didnt dekeyz showed math that mace was just as good as sword?

No it showed it was almost as good, but people use it as justification to use mace.

Element Two.7316:

EcoRI.9273:

didnt dekeyz showed math that mace was just as good as sword?

No it showed it was almost as good, but people use it as justification to use mace.

Its actually higher dps in short fights when you can start with a mace symbol and then swap to gs.

^^ Exactly, I really love it on say cliffside, on trash parts start mace, drop symbol, swap gs, whirl/symbol/leap/(binding).

Then it’s great for tanking bosses, which is pretty helpful. I really don’t see how it can be considered bad, situational of course, but bad, I don’t agree.

Element Two.7316:

EcoRI.9273:

didnt dekeyz showed math that mace was just as good as sword?

No it showed it was almost as good, but people use it as justification to use mace.

It’s pretty kitten good justification if you ask me. GS + Mace/Focus is around 1% less dps than GS + Sw/Focus in a 30sec fight. It’s better in a shorter fight. Sword give you a blind. Mace give you healing and a block, but can screw up might blasting.

They are both top weapons.

I stand corrected then.

Mace is better is some situations, although some people use the small DPS difference as justification to run mace in long, easy fights because they enjoy the safety net of the block and healing.

“Some situations” basically means most dungeon fights, since at least in the easy dungeons fights are pretty short. Also sword is bad on bosses that are reflecting.

Purple Miku.7032:

EDIT: Basically, default to GS + sword/focus and on the occasion you get a boss with a large hitbox, swap the sword to scepter. Don’t use hammer or staff in combat, hammer is really annoying because it makes it hard as hell for the eles to keep blasting fury/might due to the light field on its autochain and also if you use hammer its third hit is so slow… it doesn’t have horrible DPS if you can continue autoattacking without ever getting interrupted, but if you have to stop before your third hit connects it’s absolutely terrible.

IF you have an elementalist, and IF the said elementalist is actually blasting fire fields in combat, I agree. Most PuGs, even at higher levels, do not. At the earlier levels, probability of finding a field blasting elementalist is somewhere near the probability of finding a meleeing mesmer or ranger.

For an optimized group hammer is subpar due to field overwrite. For a PuG, hammer is (usually) the preferred weapon. If you aren’t planning on running a preset group I would recommend carrying both and expecting to use hammer a lot more than GS/S (or GS/M. Not horribly relevant in this discussion)

Thaddeus.4891:

Element Two.7316:

EcoRI.9273:

didnt dekeyz showed math that mace was just as good as sword?

No it showed it was almost as good, but people use it as justification to use mace.

It’s pretty kitten good justification if you ask me. GS + Mace/Focus is around 1% less dps than GS + Sw/Focus in a 30sec fight. It’s better in a shorter fight. Sword give you a blind. Mace give you healing and a block, but can screw up might blasting.

They are both top weapons.

“1% less dps” Best case? Worst case? Average case? Thats important info, theres a consistency gap between mace and sword.

Mace is slower and the symbol is a large part of it’s potential. So basically when it comes to the application of each sword will likely be easier to maximize. Both very doable though, mace is basically symbol -auto symbol – swap for it’s rotation, nothing too hard.

Honestly speaking I think it’s pretty close to 50/50 on whether sword or mace is better. Things like AC i prefer mace for the higher burst, if it’s gonna die before I can finish a GS rotation, might as well just start out with the mace symbol. And then some places with some passive/condi damage mace is nice to keep the scholar bonus. And then some bosses the extra block. Everything in between is sword, and things where I want to rotate blinds will get sword.

Purple Miku.7032:

-Torch only if you’re soloing and using scepter really, it gives better DPS than focus but you cannot maintain UC very easily a lot of the time and shield of wrath can sometimes make the difference of keeping/losing it.

Wrong. Aegis always takes priority before other active weapon blocks. So taking focus to keep UC up is flaw. You take scepter – focus/torch for bosses such as Molten and camp torch as much as possible and only go on focus if you need the extra block.
Both solo/group.

Purple Miku.7032:

-Mace and shield basically never if you want to be optimal.

Shield yes, very niche, but Mace/GS is way better than sword/GS for trash. Mace 3rd hit it’s a true cleave (5 targets) while sword max cleave is 3, and besides that, sword auto chain is buggy as hell (that bug when it get’s stuck on the 3rd hit trying to complete the chain), making sword optimal, as you stated only for bosses/champs where you can’t use scepter or need the extra blind/teleport/personal projectile absorb.

Edit: Nvm I’m drunk!

Sword chain makes me weep when fighting against Priest of Grenth or the Archers in the Shield Bubbles in TA :’(

I think mace is great for fractals. The very small difference between it and sword is made up for.

I prefer to just not take a guardian. Problem solved. :>

Element Two.7316:

I stand corrected then.

Mace is better is some situations, although some people use the small DPS difference as justification to run mace in long, easy fights because they enjoy the safety net of the block and healing.

Saying that they use it as a justification mean that they do something wrong. So I suppose that you never run an imperfect composition, you always use the best/most expensive food, always switch between slaying potion even during the same dungeon when there is different type of enemies? Because all of that improve your damage by more than a Sword over a mace.

People running a staff need a lot of justification for their choice, it’s such a bad PvE weapon. But with such a small difference in dps??

Clearing this out:

Mace is better for cleaving because of the reliability of the 5 target damage in Symbol of Faith. The third auto-attack hit, Faithful Strike, HEALS 5 people and hits ONE enemy.

In short fights in which you just drop all your Mace/Focus skills for damage and swap to Greatsword, it’s pretty nice.

In 30s rotations GS M/F rotation is 97% DPS of a GS S/F, so it’s also comparable for long fights. The light fields wreck the might stacking, but even then you can just pre-stack and/or have a Phalanx Warrior. Also, the 97% doesn’t even count the very nice block damage from Protector’s Strike, as long as you try to trigger the counter right away.

Something they really should consider changing is Sword Wave (Sword third auto), the range is a bit better than the usual cleave, but not being able to do a full auto-attack chain on targets that reflect because the third hit is a projectile on a MELEE weapon, while the damage on the auto is very backloaded, it’s just wrong.

I think the only way to land it in that situation is having a Wall of Reflection while the enemy is reflecting (double reflection mechanics).

Well hammer is nice because you can use the holy trinity of afk-ing.
Hammer guard, phalanx war, staff ele.
Rotations are:
For guard: 1111111.
War: 235111111.
Ele: 251111111.
Second ele: see above.
Thief: 51111..eventually 222.
Easy rotations, dps isn’t absolute top but it’s high enough on the effort/reward scale.