Guild Wars 2

I’ve a fair amount of experience in wvw. I would like to discuss a couple items from a Guardian point of view.

Even if you spec/gear for max mitigation, hps and defense, the glass cannons can chop you up MUCH better than my character can mitigate. What this leads to is everyone having to change to a glass cannon themselves to survive. I expected my guardian to be like an EQ Paladin but that is not the case, healing is weak and mitigation doesn’t seem to matter squat as you get chopped up fast no matter how much you have.

Another thing that irks me about my guardian in wvw is range combat. Quite often you have to be at range and the scepter and staff are sad, attacks slow and easily dodged and often obstructed when shooting up or down from a keep.

I love the concept of a guardian, but the implementation needs some tweeks.

SB of AR

I really do dislike the staff’s as well. They do have uses however! Staves being able to hit through doors, being able to block chokepoints, and the speed boost are all really good. Offensively I find it complete garbage however. But I guess it wasn’t necessarily meant to be that, however I’ve seen some builds that work pretty well and can put out some decent numbers.

But in regards to shields and whatnot, I blatantly refuse to use them. PvE I suppose it works okay, but in wvw I’ve not seen many uses for it. If i can die with my greatsword, Id have more than likely died with my shield in the same circumstances. That’s not to say they don’t have uses.. they do.. I just suppose it depends on playstyle – which mine relies on being more mobile – which the shield just does not allow.

This is all my opinion of course. Keep/tower defense a defensive build works wonders if your allies aren’t moving around a lot and such.

You get very little in regards to vitality, and toughness, when you consider what you can get from crit hits. They made high damage in the form of “Precision” the most important stat.

That is the biggest reason glass canon is sooooo much better is the benefits you get from damage, most importantly precision. Not to mention, if someone is hit for 16k damage, they don’t whine as much as if they’re fighting someone who heals for 3k damage, and I’m not kidding you. It cracks me up.

To give you just an example of how beneficial Precision is, even for more durability, consider this;

Defense from crit hits.
— Gain 1 second Vigor off critical hit “Guardian/Mesmer” *Note: Dodges negate all damage.
— 33% chance to gain vigor on critical hits. “Elementalist” *Note: Dodges negate all damage.
— 50% chance to cause blindness on critical hit. “Engineer”.
— Siphon Health whenever you crtical hit. “Necromancer”.

Sigils that everyone can use.
— 30% chance to life steal on critical hit.
— 30% chance to heal yourself and allies. *Note: Yes Sigil of Water works off crits, not any hit.

Food that everyon can use.
—60% chance to life steal on crtical hits.

Not to mention all the added damage you can get with crits like.
— 33% chance on crit to cause bleeding.
— 33% chance to cause vulnerability on critical hits.

Because of this there are glass canon builds out there that get MUCH better survivability than the Guardian, and still maintain a GREATER amount of damage. It’s sick.

i think anet’s intention was for avoidance and CC breaks through the right bar skill slots to be your primary survival, and vit/tough builds to help support in group combat.

Well, shouldn’t offense > defense? If we could defense spec to trivialize damage everyone would just turtle up.

That being said, I’m not sure where you’re coming from. Guardians give Thieves the a pretty hard time, we’re impossible to 1-shot (assuming decent amounts of Tough / Vit) and they’ll run out of initiative before we run out of HP. We don’t have to heal to full or avoid all damage, just enough to survive their initial burst, then its game over for them. And speaking of avoiding damage, between stability and dodge roll we have a decent chance of evading their big hits. Other classes might have more of a legit gripe, but I’m not familiar with their mechanics so I can’t comment.

Sender.7958:

Well, shouldn’t offense > defense? If we could defense spec to trivialize damage everyone would just turtle up.

This has not been true in any game, nor is it true for this game, because you can “focus” damage from multiple people onto one.

In games where you could heal unreal amounts, focusing was how you could overcome this. In a game like this, where one person can overcome the defense of another, by such a large margin, it is trivial to go defense, the issue causes for too many wasted stats, and builds.

We want more options, not fewer.

No one should EVER complain about killing anyone in this game.

i literally do everything you found to be worthless and find guardian to be one of the most effective wvw classes. perhaps you should stop trying to think outside the box and just think inside it, because i can assure you life inside the box is pretty overpowered.

I feel ya. However I think we probably should have all known that this was how it was going to play out since ANet were very forward in saying that they prefer offense>defense for GW2.

Most glass cannons I’ve fought (I’m a Cleric’s-based Guardian) can tell you that they wish they weren’t glass cannons when fighting me. You just have to know how to stop their burst. I wouldn’t ever think of playing a glass cannon Guardian after playing a more defensive build.

Well, not seriously. I do carry a glass cannon set because glass cannon Tome of Wrath is lolzy during sieges.

As far as ranged options for keep offense/defense goes, sure, I agree. For defense I usually slap on WoR and bomb rams with the GS. For offense, I’ll really just slam on the gate and drag people down with Binding Blades.

Edit: For reference, my main set is full Cleric’s with full Sapphire jewelry. I use the Power/Tough/Vit guild backpack because there are no Healing back items. :/ I use GS+Scepter/Focus primarily.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Edit: For reference, my main set is full Cleric’s with full Sapphire jewelry. I use the Power/Tough/Vit guild backpack because there are no Healing back items. :/ I use GS+Scepter/Focus primarily.

How about Magi’s Spineguard? Healing / Prec / Vit iirc, with heal as the main stat.

Stacking precision leaves very little room for consistent damage, especially without any crit damage % to back it up. I build myself pretty defensively, but I do intent to kill my targets. Vitality stacking is great, but…I just love toughness. I go mob diving for fun, and I do it with a health pool of 13.9k (14.6k with my food buff—I use the one that regens 88 health/sec and gives +70 vitality).

I just find the combination of healing power and toughness to be flat-out incredible. The only things that might give you trouble in the survival department in the 1v1-3 area would be glass cannon thieves and mesmers. And in that case, it’s really just a matter of mitigating the burst as best you can. I use Shelter…laugh it up.

The toughness stacking mitigates an excellent amount of damage from things like autoattacks, mesmer clones, and…well, anything that doesn’t do large burst damage. The healing power is an incredible counter to conditions with Rejuv and Regen and scales on a 1:1 ratio with Selfless Daring in WvW, which is amazing. It’s only 0.5:1 in sPvP, but that’s still pretty solid. I actually run the meta bunker build there, but I hate it.

You also have to look at HP as a type of soft Vitality. It won’t save you from death if you get caught in a bad stun and 6+ people all use their big hitters on you at once and you have no blocks, but that doesn’t happen often. Over the course of a reasonably long fight, healing power stacking accounts for a very, very high amount of healing done between all of our healing abilities, especially if you trait sort of defensively.

I´m aiming for balanced stats .. over 1,8k PPT & 1,2k+ in Vitality .. and I can tell ya .. if I engage a roaming Guardian Glass Cannon – fight for 5min .. a “tanky” Guardian .. 10 min .. and in all cases – always a close call.

Each class has multiple ways how to be played .. multiple “builds” & tactics in itself. The biggest edge that you can get is to find “the right” amount for stats & balance them – afterwards find your “own soul” in the nearly infinity options of your class – what you prefer most & what feels right .. to get an easier “hang of it” – you can beat & overcome in 1v1 anyone – especially a glass cannon ..
.. concerning group vs group – it all depends on party members – if you support each other & help, with party heals. ress, combos between different professions & hold different formation in different situations – you always have an easy win.
So called “zergs” – are in most cases brainless following of blue dot .. small scale warfare on the other hand, is a larger group of players, following a Commander & his orders by the word – achieving proficiency, coordination & impressive achievements – so in general understanding, it all falls upon leadership & the ability to trust/follow the leader.

And lastly to the topic of range. Especially at sieges. One rule remains always the same & always true .. siege – means a fortification & siege weapons. No auto-attack. No standing at walls, or below them with “auto-attack” ( which in this case is useful like /wave ) .. supplies at both sides .. and siege weapons .. all the time. When you are at a siege weapon – you always prove the point, that gear, lvl & stats – don´t matter .. even a 5 lvl player can 2-3 shoot a 80 lvl full exo .. seen it, done it – works like a charm.

Glass cannons are easy. Even more as you are a guardian.
Just fought a glass cannon thief and a veteran (i know bad spot to fight).
Won the fight easy with my hp the hole fight above 50%.

Wall of reflection is fun when a thief puts unload on you. Same as retaliation. Just pure fun when you see a enemy hitting it self. And as a bunker build guardian your hp will be back up in a couple of seconds.

Other then that when you are defending a tower/keep and you see that the enemy is building a treb/cat or whatever our tactic here is to rush in all at once. With the guardians on the front to distract and take the first hits while the glass canon build come in later to put everyone down.

If you use your heavy tanking players right you can win most fight. We even won vs a zerg of 30 while we were only with 10 players and 5 of them heavy tanking build.

p.s.
Did you see that video of that warrior one shotting people with his uber glass canon build?
Well i encounterd one. And there isn’t anything funnier then when he is about to shoot to put wall of reflection up and see him shoot his self + 5 other to dead with one shot.

I had a thief do approximately 20k to me from stealth with a steal→cloak and dagger→backstab (crit) combo. I have seen the glory of the glass cannon burst class, and I think I may roll one to try out. >_>

LegoTechnic.5910:

I had a thief do approximately 20k to me from stealth with a steal->cloak and dagger->backstab (crit) combo. I have seen the glory of the glass cannon burst class, and I think I may roll one to try out. >_>

Toughness?

jkctmc.8754:

You get very little in regards to vitality, and toughness, when you consider what you can get from crit hits. They made high damage in the form of “Precision” the most important stat.

That is the biggest reason glass canon is sooooo much better is the benefits you get from damage, most importantly precision. Not to mention, if someone is hit for 16k damage, they don’t whine as much as if they’re fighting someone who heals for 3k damage, and I’m not kidding you. It cracks me up.

Agree.
I play a thief and wanted to play a defensive build (Vitality+Toughness), but after testing a glass cannon build (Precision+Crit.Damage), the gains (specifically damage migitation) of the defensive build seemed too small comparing to the high burst of the gc build – since you can kill an enemy in 2 seconds. (steal + cloak and dagger + backstab + heartseeker)