Guild Wars 2

So I bought this game months ago but haven’t really had time to play it.

I finally got the chance to really give this game a shot. As a long time MMO player and someone who prefers tanking I went with a Guardian build (I know there is no true tanking) for their survivability. Needless to say as a progress with my toon I find myself not really enamored with the play style. I feel like he is a “Jack of all trades and a master of none”. Not to mention it seems like all the weapons are just boring.

So just for the hell of it I rolled my second character last night, an Engineer (I know even more of a jack of all trades). I found myself having fun with the play style. I am still to low of a level to really have fleshed out the development fully but as I dig deeper on the boards and else where I hear Engi isn’t the best in WvW or PvP.

So basically long story short is there any suggestions for someone who is typically a tank and wants to WvW/PvP

Your options are warrior or guardian or elementalist for tanking.

Every class is going to say that jack of all trades line. You already know that there’s no true tanking, but every class can do it. You just need to adjust your mindset of a tank as a damage sponge to damage prevention and survivability. Learn to dodge, throw on protection buffs, get some vitality or toughness gear, and use slowing abilities to kite.

I appreciate the advice. I pretty much have decided to go play Warrior and Engineer along side one another.

Any other tips would be great as well.

You can “tank” with nearly any class if you trait and gear for it. Traditional tanking doesn’t apply to this game though, no class can sit down in a spot and soak damage while their team does all the dps, not for long periods of time anyway. But what you’re looking for is what they call “bunker builds” and those work not only by using the traditional tanking methods of toughness, high health, ect. but you also need to use effective CC and disable the enemie’s way to deal damage to you. This includes any knockdowns, dazes, immobilizes, blinds, stuns, cripples, pretty much anything that inhibits their ability to perform their role at peak efficiency. In pvp and WvW do not underestimate the power of weakness. While most people will be critting a high amount of time so weakness doesn’t affect them (it doesn’t affect crits, only regular hits) it’s a double edged sword. Weakness reduces their endurance regeneration which means less dodges they can do. You just cut their survivability in half (if you remember to cover it with other conditions or something so that they don’t just cleanse it right off as everyone does, because condition cleanse is currently a major problem in the game). The other guys above me already covered the other points about bunkering, but ultimately it boils down to how you play and what works for you. Also note that you’re not stuck being only guardian or warrior to be a bunker, in fact warriors make horrible bunkers. But you’ll have to figure out how to make whatever class you choose work for you. Visit the respective class forums of your choice for further tips

That was incredibly helpful! Thank you.

Warriors can’t really tank in sPvP. You would be better off with engineer. I’d look into bomb focused builds or elixer gun.

The keyword for these builds is ‘bunker’ if you didn’t know.