Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone, as a warrior not willing to play hambow, I decided to shake things up and tried to play meditation guardian.

I realized I like it. A lot. It has surprisingly good survivability and feels a lot more dynamic and active.

My question is: do you think this kind of guardian is viable, or it’s only bunker or GTFO?

If it’s viable, what do you usually do with it? You focus on helping your bunker at mid, do you go and hunt down squishies, do you try to burst down the enemy bunker? Are you suited to attack far/hold home or go treb in some situations? Which enemies should I avoid/go for?

Are there some tricks to know (like Binding Blade and Judgement Intervention for a sudden pull)?

I know something, but I don’t know whether it’s right or whether there is more to it.

Last question: Would this build work in your opinion?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAsdRlsApcoVDxbI8DRR8gY7nWVFAnr/FMHA-TJxHwADOFAa2fAwTAQZZAA

It’s intended to get as much damage as possible, both AoE and single target. I think GS is the best when it comes for AoE, thanks to its pull, symbol and Whirling Wrath, other than the fact I need its leap for not having runes of speed.

I put rune of Strength and sigil of battle without testing them, I used to use Hoelbrak runes and Sigil of fire, and this last setup seemed to work decently, so I think adding more might and bonus damage might help aswell or more.

Really really bursty, to the point of being able to insta gib with JI/smite cond and scepter aoe (if using it).
I would use scepter and torch instead of gs because 1) you are squishy and want range occasionally as well as immobilize and 2) Guardians have no mobility, most ive seen use run speed runes, but hard to give up runes of strength, so a ranged weapon helps (and the orb can crit for 1-2k or so). 3)Scepter allows for torch which is maybe the hardest hitting weapon. It allows for extra burn plus cond removal on allies + the thrown flame hits for 4k or so (if i remember correctly) Its really strong
The build looks good, i like the extra damage on burn instead of extra crit % on sword.
In organized play the role of bursty builds is to get a quick decap or help kill a bunker. The problem with guardians in that capacity is the run speed issue as well as no escape capacity if losing a fight, although gs would help a bit with this (still better off with torch /scepter imo)

The build is fairly typical of a meditation style. In Tpvp/soloQ this build is usually called “Off-guard.” It can assist at mid in taking down individual targets, and when needed return to either home, or push far for 1 vs 1 situations. The only weakness to it is that it has limited condition removal and any necro that has greater marks will negate all the blocks this build has, as well as any blinds. To be entirely fair, this build is best suited for hotjoin fun. In hotjoin matches when I see this build as a great sword warrior/terrormancer/bunker guardian/shatter mesmer they do put up a strong beginning fight, but having played a guardian I know which skills are slow and lethargic, all its animations and times when blocks will expire. After that, it is only a matter of time before I can spike them down. Usually when I see them use renewed focus, it means the end is near for them due to there average health pool/toughness. However, it is indeed a fun build to play for warriors who want to change things up a bit. I would also recommend not using it in dungeons/fractals. Every
time I have seen it appear in fractals over lvl 25, it just becomes a revive dump before team mates begin to question whether it should get booted.

It’s very much viable if you get good enough at it. It completely shuts down thieves and mesmers, and is infinitely more rewarding to play and improve on than warrior, which is in a ridiculous place now. Don’t listen to these forum heroes.

What I would recommend is running some more condi removal until you get more confident with damage mitigation, combat zones and landing your burst. This will take at least a month.

Until then 2/1/6/1/4 trait set up with scepter GS is much safer, still providing reasonable dps with aoe retaliation and two extra condi cleanses from virtues.

I’ve been running dps guard for about four months now and havn’t looked back! Gd luck.

Go to one of the dueling server’s and watch other Med guards if you can catch them. On EU you can watch Bullet who is probably the top med guard.

I see, thank you all!^^

So however as a med guard my role is to kill other far point assaulter and assault far myself with allies, and in a teamfight to deal AoE damage and hunt down Mesmers, thieves and warriors, right?

However, one of the problems with warrior is that to fight boredom I always feel I have to kitten myself, and that feels silly.XD

I play Medi and with the right traits you can also bring survivability and some support to the team. Try 1/0/6/6/1 with mace/focus and greatsword, for example. Or 0/0/6/4/4 with GS/Hammer.

Message me in game if you want to test out other builds!

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

The build is fairly typical of a meditation style. In Tpvp/soloQ this build is usually called “Off-guard.” It can assist at mid in taking down individual targets, and when needed return to either home, or push far for 1 vs 1 situations. The only weakness to it is that it has limited condition removal and any necro that has greater marks will negate all the blocks this build has, as well as any blinds. To be entirely fair, this build is best suited for hotjoin fun. In hotjoin matches when I see this build as a great sword warrior/terrormancer/bunker guardian/shatter mesmer they do put up a strong beginning fight, but having played a guardian I know which skills are slow and lethargic, all its animations and times when blocks will expire. After that, it is only a matter of time before I can spike them down. Usually when I see them use renewed focus, it means the end is near for them due to there average health pool/toughness. However, it is indeed a fun build to play for warriors who want to change things up a bit. I would also recommend not using it in dungeons/fractals. Every
time I have seen it appear in fractals over lvl 25, it just becomes a revive dump before team mates begin to question whether it should get booted.

Its true, meditation guards lack longevity. The longer the fight drags out the worst they get. I think the core issue is aside from smite condition, the other meditations cds are too long to provide good sustain.

Objectively though, all builds should have a weakness. This is just the weakness of a med guard.

Medi guard has a low barrier to entry, but also a low skill cap. Anyone who is familiar with how a medi guard works can avoid most of the burst with a single dodge or avoidance cooldown and then kiting the guardian. So it works well in hot join and maybe solo queue, but in tournaments, many players just avoid the damage spike. Because that spike is a fairly long cooldown and medi guard has little else going for it, it then becomes useless.

Exedore.6320:

Medi guard has a low barrier to entry, but also a low skill cap. Anyone who is familiar with how a medi guard works can avoid most of the burst with a single dodge or avoidance cooldown and then kiting the guardian. So it works well in hot join and maybe solo queue, but in tournaments, many players just avoid the damage spike. Because that spike is a fairly long cooldown and medi guard has little else going for it, it then becomes useless.

I’m sorry but having rinsed the best players EU on their respective classes (excluding spirit rangers, sigh) the idea that it’s easy to avoid guard burst is a misconception.

You’ve probably just been facing guards with low damage output.

Exedore.6320:

Medi guard has a low barrier to entry, but also a low skill cap. Anyone who is familiar with how a medi guard works can avoid most of the burst with a single dodge or avoidance cooldown and then kiting the guardian. So it works well in hot join and maybe solo queue, but in tournaments, many players just avoid the damage spike. Because that spike is a fairly long cooldown and medi guard has little else going for it, it then becomes useless.

Sword autoattack is IMHO pretty effective at applying pressure, same as GS. And less reliant on spike. I use sword #3 more as a ress stopper.

And Whirling Wrath is effective on enemies forces on a point/on treb. And if you put the pull at the right time, it won’t be a miss.