Guild Wars 2

I used to play a thief back when it was focused on damage and the good old mug+cnd combo but they nerfed their damage pretty hard so it didn’t have a high damage combo (granted, that only instagibbed squishes). So they get nerfed pretty hard (and multiple times) because of this. Now thieves hit like a wet noodle, more or less.

However, I keep encountering guardians, some more intense than others that take down 20k hp~ in more or less 1 second. I don’t get time to react to it. Some deal less damage than others, but their damage seems over the top in the sense that you NEED invulnerability to stand against them.
I do know they suck in teams and that they sacrifice all (or most) of it to have that damage but people complained a bunch of instagibbing thieves and they got nerfed into oblivion. This guardian build, though, seems to have much more damage.
In some cases they take down all my health mid-attack so their potential is obviously even higher.

I’m not whining though, since pvp is a team game and they don’t do well in teams, however, it did pick up my interest to see how absurd it was in terms of spike damage because I thought pvp had all the damage lower than usual.
I am also seeking help to counter these type of guardians, on a 1v1 setting. It’s not hard to evade the combo IF you see it coming, but even when evading it’s a guaranteed half health lost, and even when playing smart with blinds and evades they still have many panic buttons as well as fast attacks that can ignore blind and thus making the other half of health an easy task.

My Thief burst is still relatively the same if I drop 4 points out of Critical Strikes and put it into Deadly Arts with Revealed Training.
Less critical hits & damage, but more raw power.

yea guards can have higher burst than thief’s but they can not burst as often as thiefs can. Also they are more vulnerable than thief’s are after there burst.

Yeah if I don’t get caught off-GUARD (hahaha see it’s a pun I’m hilarious) by a dps Guardian, they just sort of fall over or run away immediately once they’ve used up their main attacks - Thieves can burst, hide/evade, continue to apply pressure, then burst again.

The damage comes from two big skills:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_of_Wrath

and

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protector%27s_Strike

The guardian will cast the first skill, wait until it’s about to break up, then use Judge’s Intervention (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Judge%27s_Intervention) to teleport to you, blow the shield up in your face and cast the second skill. As soon as you hit him with anything, you’ll recieve the damage from Protector’s Strike aswell.

Shield of Wrath might offer a telegraph on what’s going to happen, and you can deal with it according to your class. Once the guardian is near you, try not to hit him until Protector’s Strike wears off.

redslion.9675:

The damage comes from two big skills:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_of_Wrath

and

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protector%27s_Strike

The guardian will cast the first skill, wait until it’s about to break up, then use Judge’s Intervention (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Judge%27s_Intervention) to teleport to you, blow the shield up in your face and cast the second skill. As soon as you hit him with anything, you’ll recieve the damage from Protector’s Strike aswell.

Shield of Wrath might offer a telegraph on what’s going to happen, and you can deal with it according to your class. Once the guardian is near you, try not to hit him until Protector’s Strike wears off.

That’s what I thought at first. Keep him at range, kite him over but then He’d hit me for 7k with an orb of light. Pretty much what a backstab hits on a full-full glass cannon (in pvp). Also their auto attacks hit like a truck. I got rolled over several times, and tried to learn from each encounter, and I did (granted, that I wasn’t caught by surprise) making the fight last longer. However, with their invulnerability and block uptime it seemed like a dead cause in a 1v1. In a thief, they just seem way too much of a risk, even when playing a relatively tanky build with many, many dodges and blinds.
Another of the many counters to thief in pvp it seems!

What is this build, anyways? I can’t say that I’ve ever encountered a, what I’d consider, an overly dangerous guardian. x.X

My bet is it procced something, I’d never use a staff in a dps build. Too static.

However yeah, AA med guard (GS and Sword) is IMHO more dangerous, but take into account he has just vigor and some hps to help him, few blocks, no evades.

It’s extremely good against other bursty guys, though.

GS/scepter.

Fully glass guards are countered by spirit rangers.

My guardian build is also countered by more balanced guards with high retal up time.

The pressure is much higher than thieves on a glass guard, and much like the thief shortbow it’s the ability to range with the scepter that makes the difference between a good deeps guard and a bad one.

You might want to get some actual figures rather than “20k damage in 1 second” which is obviously a bit exagerrated.

Guardians are relatively clunky, they are slow and easy to kite. Also, their GS #2 can easily be kited because of it’s low radius.

Runes of Grenth are excellent for kiting melee class at the moment.

ronpierce.2760:

What is this build, anyways? I can’t say that I’ve ever encountered a, what I’d consider, an overly dangerous guardian. x.X

I wouldn’t know. Some guardians are usually managable. You know, high damage, but you see it coming. 20k damage in 1 second is kind of over the top (with latency excluded) so even when dodging it, it’s still a free kill. That’s the “worst” one I saw. The others had pressure here and there but at least the fight seemed fair. But this one guy just had me staring at the screen when nearly instadowned, alone. His seals crit for 2k dmg a pop, or more and just that was a pain in the butt.

Guard has always had very high burst potential. However it’s extremely predictable and easy to read. That’s why most people don’t have an issue with it.