Guild Wars 2

Hey all , so I want to create a plate class but I’m not sure which one to choose.
As I never played either of them I must admit that they both looks the same to me, tanky with a lot of regen and medium to low damage.

I plan to WvW with that char and I don’t want to die instantly when I’ll step in a big fight , according to the class name guardian seems to be the tankiest but I keep reading guardian is more of a support, so do warriors also survive well in big fights ?

All in all , could anyone tell me what’s the main difference between war and guard ?

Thanks

Your info is wrong about warriors and guardians both doing medium to low damage, they can both do good damage, as can most classes if played correctly. Both can survive well in big fights, though guardians slightly better, IMO. Sounds like the only thing keeping you from guardian is the idea that they’re too supporty to offer nice damage. That’s not true, so I’d say you want guardian, based on what you’ve said you’re looking for.

Damage wise:
Guardian > Warrior

Hp wise:
Warrior > Guardian

Easiness:
Warrior = Guardian

Thing about this game is that gear have a big impact on DPS, but minimal impact on support.

Lilius.9850:

Damage wise:
Guardian > Warrior

Am I missing something?
Because every CoF speed run I’ve ever been on was 4 Warrs and 1 Mes.

No Guardian in site.

Warrior’s are very good at dealing damage, but many times they need a good guardian to keep them alive.

Warriors are rough damage dealers.
Guardians are more tank-like (remind, this game does not have tanks!) and are better at buffing allies (remind, this game does not have healers!). But they still do very good damage and ar ein my opinion more versatile then warriors and definitly more fun to play (warriors = press 1 ==>yawn ==> win)

Guardian is a supportive class, warrior is op. High HP, High Damage, Very Strong Traits, Beefy, you name it, they are OP class. If you don’t like support playstyle, or just prefer dps, then Warrior>Guardian.

in for blood.5670:

Am I missing something?
Because every CoF speed run I’ve ever been on was 4 Warrs and 1 Mes.

No Guardian in site.

Guardian has better sustained DPS than warrior. COF groups like(d) warrior because for a while it was might shouts + banners + time warp + hundred blades = boss dead in 10 seconds. The OP asked about WvW, where hundred blades is mostly useless because your opponents may be using their brains.

As for the people saying warrior is the OP class, warrior is probably the class with the best damage at least skill investment in pve content because they have nice burst damage skills and a high health pool. You can check out the professions forums if you think I’m not on the money, the numbers have been crunched many, many times and warriors do not have the best DPS.

Guardian is good for WvW.

Warrior for everything else.

in for blood.5670:

Lilius.9850:

Damage wise:
Guardian > Warrior

Am I missing something?
Because every CoF speed run I’ve ever been on was 4 Warrs and 1 Mes.

No Guardian in site.

Look it up, warriors have medium damage.

Guards ,necro, eles, and thieves out damage warriors.

mercury ranique.2170:

Warrior’s are very good at dealing damage, but many times they need a good guardian to keep them alive.

Warriors are rough damage dealers.
Guardians are more tank-like (remind, this game does not have tanks!) and are better at buffing allies (remind, this game does not have healers!). But they still do very good damage and ar ein my opinion more versatile then warriors and definitly more fun to play (warriors = press 1 ==>yawn ==> win)

Really? Because 2 is our best damage dealer while wielding a GS.
Warrs also have great mobility with a GS.

Plus, Asuras looks awesome with them hunched over their shoulder, nearly tipping them over.

Lilius.9850:

in for blood.5670:

Lilius.9850:

Damage wise:
Guardian > Warrior

Am I missing something?
Because every CoF speed run I’ve ever been on was 4 Warrs and 1 Mes.

No Guardian in site.

Look it up, warriors have medium damage.

Guards ,necro, eles, and thieves out damage warriors.

Are we talking multi or single target?

Guardians can do some heavy damage but they have to sacrifice survivability due to naturally low HP. War doesn’t really need to sacrifice anything to be super durable and do insane damage and are made to be extremely easy to play. Wars are Anet’s little sugarbabies and you’ll be set for life as a Warrior. I personally find Guardian more fun though because there’s a lot of completely different ways you can play it, and you have access to a lot of weapons that remain useful with nearly any build. It’s probably the most complete-designed class in the game.

I suggest you wait until the next balance patch because warriors are going to get hit pretty hard with the nerf bat.

hellsmachine.4085:

I suggest you wait until the next balance patch because warriors are going to get hit pretty hard with the nerf bat.

Judging from what I’ve heard Warriors are going to get a slap on the wrist with a nerf bat – a bunch of fairly small, fairly deserved tweaks. I read it as going to be more of a case of some of the under-performers getting some genuine positive tweaks and maybe coming a little closer to par…

…And Guardian Spirit weapon builds dancing the streets accompanied by a cloud of their newly indestructible blue buddies . That is going to rock so hard.

Nike.2631:

hellsmachine.4085:

I suggest you wait until the next balance patch because warriors are going to get hit pretty hard with the nerf bat.

Judging from what I’ve heard Warriors are going to get a slap on the wrist with a nerf bat – a bunch of fairly small, fairly deserved tweaks. I read it as going to be more of a case of some of the under-performers getting some genuine positive tweaks and maybe coming a little closer to par…

…And Guardian Spirit weapon builds dancing the streets accompanied by a cloud of their newly indestructible blue buddies . That is going to rock so hard.

Where is this spirit weapon info? :o

Mostly rumor and hearsay, but it tastes like the ArenaNet design style to me, so I’m hopeful. Try here.

Anet is calling the leaked patch notes faked, so as usual, don’t believe anything til patch day happens.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/RE-Leaked-patch-notes/

Nike.2631:

Mostly rumor and hearsay, but it tastes like the ArenaNet design style to me, so I’m hopeful. Try here.

Oh, the fake patch notes. ;/ The spirit weapon thing woulda been fun. Maybe they’ll consider some of those made up ones as good ideas they should use.

I have both. Actually remade my maxed asura guardian into a char guardian and I’m enjoying the leveling process all over again. War runs faster with melee with the right traits pre-80, but guardian is stuck with retreat and staff 3 (probably slowest in game next to Mes). I’m going to get traveller or speed runes at end game for him to compensate. Nothing worse than lagging behind the action.

Try both classes in the PvP lobby or level both to 10-20. Look at which races suit you best and have the animations/voices/etc you want. It mattered a lot for me, but YMMV. Seriously, hearing the asuran male voice after a while just soured the experience and always feeling offbalance running with 2H weps made it less enjoyable. Charr, OTOH, and Norn both suit me very well. I still made them the smallest I could to make them seem less “lumbering slow”.

I dunno…. I can one-shot players with my warrior….

never played guardian but my understanding is warrior is designed with offense in mind while guardian is defense

The main difference is that warrior is better.

robertul.3679:

The main difference is that warrior is better.

gahahahaaa

The truth is that the lines are blurred between classes.

Warriors can be pretty kitten strong in defense too if they wish to go with a tanky build, and as many have pointed out, guardians can be good damage dealers if that’s what the player wants.

Guardian has some nasty solo roaming potential in WvW. They are also extremely durable in zergs with Hammer + Mace/(Shield or Focus), and do a lot to improve the zerg’s survivability. In sPvP, you will find that your options for decapping are limited, but you can bunker very well. Roaming is a little harder in sPvP than WvW.

The super generalized characterization of Guardians being more defensive and Warriors are more offensive is basically true, but with all generalizations comes with some important caveats. There are two really important differences between Guardians and Warriors though, and those are how they achieve mobility and how they crowd control.

With the exception of your one leap on Greatsword, a lot of Guardian mobility comes from targetted teleports and not dashes and leaps. You still get Swiftness, but it comes on a long cooldown Shout, and Staff – which is a fine zerging weapon but terrible at most other tasks. Warriors on the other hand have two dashes on Greatsword, a tremendous short cooldown leap on Sword, permanent swiftness from Warhorn, and another dash or two on utilities that are also good for other things besides the dash. Why is that important? Teleports require a target. That’s fine if you’re attempting to catch or attack someone, but if you’re trying to run away then it can get very dicey very quickly. So in terms of mobility, Guardians can get in but they can’t get out easily; Warriors can move in and out of combat with comparative ease.

Then there’s crowd control. Warriors have far more “hard” CC than Guardians do, by a long shot. They have a ten second (or shorter) AOE stun on Hammer. They have a long duration stun on Mace, and a good line-style AOE knockdown on offhand Mace. They have a big AoE launch on a utility. A single warrior can lock down a group of enemies very effectively. A pair can completely ruin your day. Guardians have a decent AOE pull on Greatswords, Line of Warding on Staff (which is iffy at best) and Ring of Warding on Hammer, as well as one pretty great but long cooldown launch on Hammer. We also have an AOE knockback on Shield but Shield is underused because of its huge cooldowns for what you get. We also have a hugely long cooldown area denial spell called Sanctuary that is too small to be useful in WvW but rocks for holding points in sPvP. So basically, Guardian hard CC sucks pretty… hard.

Things get even worse with soft CC though. Guardians have three immobilizes across all our weapons and utilities. One is a signet no one uses because it’s awful. We have no cripples. We have a long cooldown weapon-specific trait for Chill. And that’s it. We do have access to a number of blinds to compensate, but blinds don’t actually help you hold people down. Warriors win in that department almost regardless of which weapon you look at.

So those are the two major ways that Warriors “win” when compared to Guardians. For absolutely everything else, it’s either comparable, a straight tie, or close enough that no one really cares. Damage is very similar. Healing is very similar although Warriors have far better passive healing than Guardians do, which is a source of some complaint. Survivability is similar, though Warriors have two on-demand invulns that allow you to still continue fighting unlike Guardians who just have an invuln on an Elite that requires you to channel it.

So meh. Which one is objectively better? I have two level 80 Guardians and two level 80 Warriors, and I can’t tell you. The other day I tried out a triple Meditations solo roaming build for the first time in a while and I completely melted the first warrior I saw. Then I got on my Warrior and completely dominated a group of ten with our group of four, thanks to our greater access to hard CC. I died plenty on both shortly after. You win some you lose some.

foofad.5162:

Guardian – snip – some.

This post is well-written, cogent, accurate and even-handed. Well done! It almost made me forget I was on the internet.

IndigoSundown.5419:

foofad.5162:

Guardian – snip – some.

This post is well-written, cogent, accurate and even-handed. Well done! It almost made me forget I was on the internet.

I try. =]

Lilius.9850:

Damage wise:
Guardian > Warrior

Hp wise:
Warrior > Guardian

Easiness:
Warrior = Guardian

Very accurate here. I’ll add to it a little and say that self buffed only Warrior > Guardian in terms of damage, but in a Dungeon group crawling with Might stacks then Guardian trumps.

Easiness is correct on a personal level, but a Guardian tends to have more responsibilities to worry about to help the group out, i.e. timed Aegis, timed blinds. That makes Guardian just a little harder than Warrior.

Thanks foofad , like Indigo said , its very well written and even a non english speaker like me understood it all

I must say I’m more interested in guardian, tried a meditation build too in spvp and I love the skillset (finally feels like playing a class where every skills need to be used), but it’s true that mobility is so bad that it often becomes a problem (some people simply escape you and you have no option but to watch them run) , not even talking about when I needed to escape myself , all the people running after me catched me in no time.

After all you described it’s like warrior is more viable in many situations , more cc, more mobility and no tradeoff because dmg and survivability are the same while it’s tempting I think I’ll stick to guard , as people keep talking about an incoming warrior nerf I guess it’s a safer bet atm, I’ll probably try one in Spvp to understand their mechanic thought

Thanks again for all the replys

Mydnyght.5026:

Hey all , so I want to create a plate class but I’m not sure which one to choose.
As I never played either of them I must admit that they both looks the same to me, tanky with a lot of regen and medium to low damage.

I plan to WvW with that char and I don’t want to die instantly when I’ll step in a big fight , according to the class name guardian seems to be the tankiest but I keep reading guardian is more of a support, so do warriors also survive well in big fights ?

All in all , could anyone tell me what’s the main difference between war and guard ?

Thanks

They both have a lot of similar overall elements. They can both perform the same rolls, but a little differently. Guardians have a lot more boons, Aegis, blind, and supplemental healing. A significant part of their DPS comes from retaliation and burning, so their damage is sort of split. They have some excellent utilities such as Wall of Reflection, Sanctuary, the hammer Ring of Warding, etc.

Warriors on the other hand have mostly pure unsplit damage. They don’t have much retaliation (none that I know of besides a grandmaster trait) and they mostly only get might and fury for boons, which isn’t a bad thing for dps. Warriors can have a ton of passive healing through banners, shouts, and the signet. They can also use very powerful stances to nullify damage for short periods. They also get the epic elite battle standard to res allies.

Also of note is that warriors have a lot more mobility in and out of combat. Guardians are much slower unless they bring a staff and/or runes.

I would say warriors are more bursty and DPS oriented, whereas guardians are more sustained and balanced, but both can dps and stay alive effectively if used right.

they have same armor
warrior have double hit points at base,
almost double burst damage (hundred blades, killshot, eviscerate), same sustain.
better active condition cleansing (cleansing ire)
and better passive healing (adrenal health).
more CC, (hammer/mace etc)
better personal mobility (mobile strikes, warrior sprint, sword 2 GS3 and GS5).
better range (bow and rifle).

warriors are more selfish boonwise.
warriors have only traited selfish reflects and blocks and they are coming instead of DPS thats why nobody use them.
guardians have more blocks and party wide reflects which dont reduce their dps.
guardians have access to party cleanses.

warriors have elite banner.

TLDR:
guardian + warrior are the best roaming duo because they complete each others weaknesses.

while both have heavy armor, warrior has the highest hp,while the guardian has the lowest hp(like an elementalist but with heavy armor)

While i think all classes can get them self full zerker gear and build toward offense ,or go full bunker i wont talk much about those differences between the 2 classes.

The main differences i will mention would be the skills and some gameplay between the 2 classes

Warriors have a ton of weapons to pick,and even more weapon combinations to choose from. They are usually going for pure dps since their high base health and heavy armor allows them to focus more on power and precision rather than toughness and vitality.

While they dont have a lot of skills that interact with other players, banners can increase everyones stats, and,if traited correctly , you can become a very good condition removal /healer using nothing but shouts and a warhorn in your offhand
(6 party wide condition removals and around 4500 party wide health every 20-25 seconds)
Now pick any healing skill (6) from any class that has a low CD of 20-25 seconds and check how much they heal the players. Basically , as a shout warrior you are giving everyone (including your self) a free healing skill,as well as tons of condition removal.

As for Guardians, they can become the best healing/support class in the game.
While they have the lowest health,their healing and regeneration skills can bring the guardian from near death up to full health in mere seconds.

They have a lot of utilities that are extremely helpful in a lot of situations (giving everyone instant stability, placing a wall of reflection to reflect back ALL projectiles back to the enemy, taking ALL conditions from all party members, and then turning them all into boons for your self)

If builded correctly , a guardian can have 70-100 % boon duration, and can provide the whole team with tons of regen,protection,swiftness,might as well as constantly healing the whole group.

To sum it all up:

Warriors are focused on offense,and they support the team by making them stronger in strenght.

Guardians are focused on defense,and they support the team by dishing out tons of healing,boons and use their utilities to protect their team from damage and conditions

PS: Personally ,i think guardians are more fun