Guild Wars 2

Greetings!

I’m currently troubled as to what class to mainly use in WvW. I run with a small group of 5-6 friends.

Here’s our current lineup:
2 Warriors (one ranged build rifle+sword/sword, one melee GS/sword+shield)
1 Necro (heavy condition damage build)
1 Guardian (anchor AH/shout build)
1 Engineer (zerker grenade/rifle build)

We mostly do small-group roaming, taking supply camps, hitting dolyaks and the occasional taking of a tower (when it’s down time). Sometimes we merge w/ zergs but even so we usually place ourselves in flanks w/in a zerg (i.e. we don’t rush in from center).

Now what I like and dislike about a guardian:
+ Very Tanky, can take on the whole supply camp’s guards without breaking a sweat.
+ Good crowd control with GS5, Hammer5, Hammer3
+ Provides good party support w/ shouts and condition removals
- Slow without a staff
- Melee range isn’t always ideal
- Hits like a wet noodle (low dps)

And a ranger:
+ Ranged and good burst damage. Using longbow can easily crit upto 10k (using a zerker build) then swapping to sword/warhorn for WH4 and Sword2+Healing spring for burst heals.
+ Added party utility of spirits (I run the grandmaster trait so spirits follow) + Spotter (sweet +150 precision to party)
+ Variation of buffs, added dps or disables from pets
- Has trouble taking on supply camps when a tank is not present.
- Easily dies when caught in open field battle and flanked from behind.

I’ve seen better results when running a guardian w/ my group (we can take on other small groups slightly outnumbered) but I think a Ranger provides better party utility from Spotter and Spirits. I’d like to get an opinion from other people. I enjoy playing both classes, but they do have their irritating moment sometimes.

Guardian hits like a wet noodle? You should change up your build.

I’m using a 0/5/30/30/5 build w/ AH. Gears are Knight’s armor w/ Soldier runes. Sometimes I swap to Soldier’s armor w/ boon duration runes. Trinkets are a mix of Berserker and Knight’s.

I do 3-4k per whirling wrath but somehow I’m not satisfied with the dps. I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my survivability since playing a guardian in my group means crowd control. Using GS+Hammer. Am I doing something wrong?

Runes? Sigils?

You can always swap certain items to be more damage based. The items slots that give the most Critical Damage per stat point lost (not including trinkets) are Gloves/Shoes/Shoulders. (Not that this has anything to do with your build)

Let me list that out in detail:

Guardian:
0/5/30/30/5 build w/ AH.
Knight’s Armor w/ Soldier runes or Soldier’s armor w/ boon duration runes (sup water, major sanc, sup monk)
Berserker backpack, amulet, 1 ring.
Knight’s 2earrings, 1 ring
Berserker GS w/ Sigil of Accuracy
Knight’s Hammer w/ Sigil of Energy

Ranger:
20/20/0/30/0 build. Spotter, Spirits Unbound, Vigorous Spirits
Berserker armors, trinkets and weapons.
Sup Rune of Rage 6/6 for armors
Sigil of Bloodlust Longbow
Sigil of Strength Sword, Sigil of Force Warhorn

The problem w/ guardian in dps is that it can’t take down a target fast enough before the said target starts running away. If they run away then the mobility problem seems prevalent.

What do you think?

Guardian shouldn’t be nuking someone down faster than they can run, however if you time your Hammer Circle and CC, you should be able to nuke them down in a decent timeframe.

I guess what I’m saying is that if you want to be a supportive guardian, you shouldn’t be focusing on doing all the damage. The same goes for the other way around (I guess for Ranger, hrmm).

I’m kinda tired so my train of thought is going tangential, but basically: Run Guardian. If you feel like you don’t do enough damage, work on a 3rd armor set (full or near full zerk) and then try going around with that. You may feel super squishy, but you should be fine in 1v1’s.