Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone, being someone who normally plays a class that can take a beating (tanks) in MMO’s, and with Guild wars 2 straying away from the holy trinity of MMO’s, i’m having a bit of trouble finding a class i’d like to focus most of my time on.

I’m leaning towards Guardian, as from what i’ve seen and heard, they seem like a very “tanky” type class if you spec the traits for it, but i’d just like to get a bit of verification before i invest some time in a class i’ve got the wrong idea for.

Any advice/information would be greatly appreciated. :-)

Structural Engineering…

But seriously, Guardian and Warrior MUST be the sturdiest classes because they wear heavy armor?

I play a Guardian, and most of the builds I use have lots of skills that either heal or mitigate damage.

I believe the warrior is more offence while the Guardian is more defence oreinted… but this is just my basic understanding

Warrior has better skills to become a “tank” like class in my opinion. It’s because guardian has more supportive buff which apply to people around you, whether warrior mostly has signet and other self supportive skill that can help you do anything on your own. So warrior if you like solo or guardian if you like to play with people. That’s my opinion though. I’m a level 56 guardian and I like to help people around me.

^ It comes down to play style TBH what one is the sturdiest really. If you count pets/minions then ranger is also a sturdy class in PvE at lest.

Warrior (when properly built) is very resilient to all forms of CC and can become nearly invulnerable for a set period of time (trait with automatic "endure pain" <25%hp, endure pain and balanced stance skills, shield stance on shield offhand - roughly 13 seconds of invulnerability in a row). Overall, Warrior is better-suited to survive sudden bursts of damage and CC/stun locks.

Guardian deals much better with continuous pressure, through application of blind to it’s attackers, passive and active regen skills, block/pushback/projectile defence skills and similar. Overall, though, Guardian shines at protecting others - his potential to shrug off consecutive bursts or CC/stun bombs aimed at him is much lower.

Both "Soldier" professions (Warrior and Guardian) are vulnerable to prolonged condition spam, even if they’re specifically built around removing conditions.

Necromancer is pretty squishy unless built with high toughness in mind, his high HP pool combined with condition manipulation and various CC skills allows him to outlast his enemies, however, in a prolonged fight, and generally turns all forms of conditions thrown at him a futile effort, if he times his skills right. He is vulnerable to continuous physical damage pressure and stun/CC locks, however.

Elementalist, when heavily invested in the Earth attunement and Arcane talents, is pretty durable against all forms of direct damage, while dishing it out with continuous bleeding stacks. Usually Earth attunement is paired up with some investment in the Fire spells, to maximise the potential of condition damage and spread more AoE spells. His bane regardless of build is condition damage and stun/CC locks.

I could write more, but as you’ll find out every profession has something up it’s sleeve - Thief for instance, on a dagger/dagger set can constantly vanish in stealth or enter the "evade" animation through death blossom, becoming invulnerable to all kinds of damage, making an otherwise squishy profession surprisingly dense and durable, ofter outlasting it’s opponents.

I have played Guardian as my main to 80, and I can say they have the ability to be very tanky if built for it, but as stated above, they really shine defending others. They have many ways to rebound from taking damage, tossing out heals and boons and removing conditions.

My warrior alt, however, has many more skills and abilities to mitigate damage dealt directly to them. I feel like I have less mobility than my guardian, but I can definitely take more of a beating. I also agree that the guardian would better be able to stand up to a prolonged assault than the warrior, but the warrior should be able to burn the target down faster than a guardian I would think. I have not played the warrior nearly as much as my guardian however, so take this for what it is…mostly speculation, lol.

EDIT I feel like its easier to down a Guardian than a Warrior, but the Guardian has better abilities to get themselves back up over and over (the warrior has that one instant-rez thing, but if you’re downed again after that you’re out for the count, so it has at best situational usefulness).

All the classes can be made equally difficult to put down in their own unique ways. At the same time, players may be more used to certain standard methods of dealing with incoming damage, and thus don’t recognize other methods as readily. Guardians, for example, seem to be able to stand there and take it on the chin fairly easily (which is something we associate with being sturdy, or tanking). However, it might surprise many players to know that Guardians are one of the classes in the game with the lowest health pool.

Ralcore.9354:

I feel like I have less mobility than my guardian, but I can definitely take more of a beating.

I actually hear the bit about Guardians having more mobility than Warriors all the time, and despite having played both classes I can’t figure out what people are talking about. I feel more rooted when playing a Guardian than I do with my Warrior (who tends to be all over the place).