Guild Wars 2

Title says it all, now before you flame I realize both are very capable at being front line heavies and commanding. I’m looking for people opinions on which they believe to be a better choice and why ?

I’m thinking Guardian might be better if your leading more then just a guild grp because of the boons you are capable of spreading. Warriors are just beasts when full defensive and would be great but their stability in particular is on a much longer CD then Guardian.

what do you guys think ?

I chose my guardian because I specced my warrior for high damage. Defense and support good to have as a commander. You should really go with whichever you enjoy playing more though.

I personally run Guardian, with Staff and Greatsword, though I also sometimes switch the GS for Sword/Shield. Works quite well, and with a good build, has Tankiness (armor), Damage (skills/aoe), and Support (shouts, symbols, books).

I enjoy playing both, but leaning towards guardian, just to much support/utility to give up.

Either works but guardian is more group friendly and far tankier in a group setting.

Most people say guardian but in my experience warriors are better. I find they last a lot longer. This all depends on build but I find a tank warrior will out last a tank guardian in a zerg.

Valik Shin.9027:

This all depends on build but I find a tank warrior will out last a tank guardian in a zerg.

Your guardians are doing something wrong. A PVT or Cleric built shout warrior is about the tankiest thing in the warrior line and it is substantially less tanky than a healing guardian build. Guardians should be the last to fall… if that isn’t happening they should rebuild.

In certain situations guardians can fall faster than warriors, such as fighting inside a treb poison field. Keep in mind that guardians have lower base health so conditions will drop them faster than a warrior.

Ranger, definitely.

as a commander you need to survive. as a warrior you have 3 stability 3600 armor and a ton of health. as a commander you always have guardian in your party who share the boons with you.

Straegen.2938:

Valik Shin.9027:

This all depends on build but I find a tank warrior will out last a tank guardian in a zerg.

Your guardians are doing something wrong. A PVT or Cleric built shout warrior is about the tankiest thing in the warrior line and it is substantially less tanky than a healing guardian build. Guardians should be the last to fall… if that isn’t happening they should rebuild.

Boon duration heal shout is tankiyest warrior build. Many times I’ve been last man standing in a zerg wipe.

McWolfy.5924:

as a commander you need to survive. as a warrior you have 3 stability 3600 armor and a ton of health. as a commander you always have guardian in your party who share the boons with you.

This doesn’t leave much room for shout condition removals via Soldier Rune’s. Are the soldier runes not the way to go with a Command Warr ? Maybe Melandru ?

I don’t like solider runes personally unless its for a group comp.

condis in a good group just come and go. personaly i think shout warriors not the best for wvw. you need stability, stun break and armor.

Neither, play ranger. Why?
Because when you cry out for a waterfield, you can put it down yourself instead of some troll putting down a lightfield.

rangers have only 1 field and others still can put down troll fields. rangers have less source of stability, less armor, cc, damage and respect

Thanks folks, very helpful, as for ranger I prefer to roam small man or solo on it.

Warrior has more mobility. Avoiding damage is the best form of survivability. It has a huge amount of cleanse capacity. Lots more diversity in terms of builds and how you shift.

I command on a Necro and find it alot of fun. Plague form is crazy OP when going zerg V Zerg, it allows me to stroll through an enemies zerg while slowing and poisoning them It is also crazy tanky…….. The only time i have had trouble commanding on necro is when i am being single targeted by numerous enemies….. but even then i just pop DS and our group runs them over.

Helzy.4036:

Title says it all, now before you flame I realize both are very capable at being front line heavies and commanding. I’m looking for people opinions on which they believe to be a better choice and why ?

I’m thinking Guardian might be better if your leading more then just a guild grp because of the boons you are capable of spreading. Warriors are just beasts when full defensive and would be great but their stability in particular is on a much longer CD then Guardian.

what do you guys think ?

I started WvW on my warrior, but I got the tag for my guard. My reasons are still very valid to this day as follows:

1. Guard has overall more survivability and #1 priority of a commander is not to go down. There are situations and combinations where warriors will do better, but overall guard trumps warriors with the right set-up and traits.

2. Guard has more team support. In large scale engagements (40+) it doesnt matter that much but when you run a 15 or 20 man, you need to do your share for your group. Warriors seem to be more “selfish” in this area. Warriors provide less group cleansing, less group heals, far less group stability. Guards can even provide a group stunbreaker with stability and aegis, prot, regen, retal, twice in a row when traited. Warriors can not come even close to that.

3. Warriors have too much mobility. This makes it often difficult to keep a tight group at critical times and leads to wipes. Mobility is great for small stuff and runing away, but you need to move at the pace your group can move at.

4. Warriors have better CC then guards, and Banner rezz on a long CD. These are the only upsides I see of a warrior commander over guard. However, even the banner rezz is lackluster since runing correct build guards makes it so that you have less situations to need the banner rezz in the 1st place.

Those are my reasons why I chose guard over warrior, other peoples experiences may vary.

then again, warrior isnt the only to instant rezz. Rangers got Spirit of Nature, Eles got Glyph of Renewal, Guards got a signet, necros got a signet.

Guardians work great if you can party up with people that listen. Sharing all the boons is really helpful for big fights. When I rally mid-fight to buff up and get back into the action, Empower from staff 4, and “Hold The Line!” really help. Its just a lot of support that I don’t get with my Warrior. On the flip side, when it comes to roaming, I’ll take my Warrior any day.

Well, you’re in luck. I have two characters I command on and one is Warrior and the other is Guardian.

Warrior is overwhelmingly the best commanding profession in the game. Guardian would likely be number 2. In fact, the only reason I sometimes command on my Guardian is because it has a different name and I can just do whatever I want. As a commander, you need high survivability and fast movement speed. Warrior has far better movement speed than Guardian with GS + S/WH. Movement speed is important because sometimes you will need to rush to save a structure and hold the circle. It’s also better to be able to get to the tower or keep a little early to be able to check for siege and gate/wall hp and to have time to place siege for when your team arrives. The only problem with Warrior is that in Zerg vs Zerg, you get poop loot and don’t really do much to benefit your team. Guardian with staff skill 1 is going to give you about as good loot as anything. If you are commanding a zerg of 40+, then it’s way more important to just survive than to actually have useful damage or support. If your group is smaller, then your contribution in damage and team support is more important, which is one way that Guardian is better than Warrior. Alternatively, if you are absorbing a lot of damage on Warrior in zerg vs zerg, that is just as helpful too but you would have to do so without dying. Warrior also has far better self survival than Guardian which is probably against common belief. This is because of movement speed, higher health pool, higher armor rating, dual endure pain, insane condi removal, and shield blocking etc. My warrior also has something like 700hp gain per second from healing signet and that one trait which is extremely important because as a commander you sit on siege a lot and don’t want to be dying on siege. You have to remember that most of Guardian’s defense is team support which is great in small groups but in large groups as a commander, it’s not your job to give your team support heals. This is because that as a commander, it’s extremely important that you don’t die. Surviving can allow you to pull out of a losing zerg v zerg fight and regrouping without having to waypoint. It also allows you to direct your team in the zerg v zerg fight longer and have more opportunities to place siege.

So it does depend on the size of the group you intend to command but I’d strongly suggest Warrior. And for Warrior as you asked above, you use Melandru’s runes.

For Warrior I run something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIMQNAR8ejkOtwxQOPMxBE0DN8K2CTheI9QMQj0A-jEyAorITMCE5AO7VEN2yYR0Y1LY6SioaPeR0qjBgJ-w

I now use that Quick Breathing Warhorn trait and sometimes swap out my shield for warhorn depending on the situation.

Radian.2478:

Well, you’re in luck. I have two characters I command on and one is Warrior and the other is Guardian.

Warrior is overwhelmingly the best commanding profession in the game. Guardian would likely be number 2. In fact, the only reason I sometimes command on my Guardian is because it has a different name and I can just do whatever I want. As a commander, you need high survivability and fast movement speed. Warrior has far better movement speed than Guardian with GS + S/WH. Movement speed is important because sometimes you will need to rush to save a structure and hold the circle. It’s also better to be able to get to the tower or keep a little early to be able to check for siege and gate/wall hp and to have time to place siege for when your team arrives. The only problem with Warrior is that in Zerg vs Zerg, you get poop loot and don’t really do much to benefit your team. Guardian with staff skill 1 is going to give you about as good loot as anything. If you are commanding a zerg of 40+, then it’s way more important to just survive than to actually have useful damage or support. If your group is smaller, then your contribution in damage and team support is more important, which is one way that Guardian is better than Warrior. Alternatively, if you are absorbing a lot of damage on Warrior in zerg vs zerg, that is just as helpful too but you would have to do so without dying. Warrior also has far better self survival than Guardian which is probably against common belief. This is because of movement speed, higher health pool, higher armor rating, dual endure pain, insane condi removal, and shield blocking etc. My warrior also has something like 700hp gain per second from healing signet and that one trait which is extremely important because as a commander you sit on siege a lot and don’t want to be dying on siege. You have to remember that most of Guardian’s defense is team support which is great in small groups but in large groups as a commander, it’s not your job to give your team support heals. This is because that as a commander, it’s extremely important that you don’t die. Surviving can allow you to pull out of a losing zerg v zerg fight and regrouping without having to waypoint. It also allows you to direct your team in the zerg v zerg fight longer and have more opportunities to place siege.

So it does depend on the size of the group you intend to command but I’d strongly suggest Warrior. And for Warrior as you asked above, you use Melandru’s runes.

For Warrior I run something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIMQNAR8ejkOtwxQOPMxBE0DN8K2CTheI9QMQj0A-jEyAorITMCE5AO7VEN2yYR0Y1LY6SioaPeR0qjBgJ-w

I now use that Quick Breathing Warhorn trait and sometimes swap out my shield for warhorn depending on the situation.

Thanks for the explanations, I had already chose to go with Warr before reading your post. I do have another question for you, you use GS vs. Hammer, is this a personal preference or do you find GS better ? I have always gone with Sword/WH and Hammer, I found the GS a bit dull tbh, great for movement but the hammer AoE’s seems better placed for large scale fights where AoE kills.

Hammer is much better in zerg vs zerg. Greatsword is kinda meh in combat because the 100 blades which is op in pve just isn’t the same against players. The adrenaline skill of hammer is much better too. Therefore, hammer is much more useful to your team in both large and small scale combat.

However, I never use hammer when commanding and don’t recommend it. Greatsword is much better for commanding. This goes with my above post about needing survivability and movement speed in large groups rather than trying to run a build that will do more damage to the enemy team. If you are decided and set on using hammer, just throw a greatsword in your inventory for the movement skills and then swap to the hammer right before combat. In fact, this is what I would do if I wasn’t commanding. But when I command, I’ll always keep the greatsword in, even when in combat. This is because if the zerg vs zerg battle is a losing effort, then you need the greatsword movement skills to get away. If most of your team is dead after the zerg vs zerg, you might just waypoint anyway but if a good number are able to escape…then that is a situation where you need the greatsword to get away with your team. It’s also easier to survive longer in a zerg vs zerg if you have the greatsword skills 3 and 5 to run yourself out of AoE.

Now, if you are commanding an extremely small group such that your contribution has a large impact on whether or not your group wins the battle, bring out the hammer. Any big group where your damage/support doesn’t really influence the outcome at all, you need the greatsword for survival because a dead commander is a useless commander.

Prysin.8542:

then again, warrior isnt the only to instant rezz. Rangers got Spirit of Nature, Eles got Glyph of Renewal, Guards got a signet, necros got a signet.

None of those can be picked up after cast and used to provide group stability and blast finishers for fields, none of them passively stack might and fury on the group for a long time after cast, and all of them take skill slots better occupied by more useful skills. On the other hand, war banner is a great skill in many ways beyond the simple aoe rez effect and the other options are lackluster for group play. War banner is by far the best aoe rez in game.

@OP: Guardian. Warriors tankyness is more selfish and depends more on mobility. Outrunning your zerg isn’t useful. Having your own stability when the rest of your group gets CC’d isn’t useful. Warrior commanders can be great (as can any class built and played well) but guardians seem to have better overall group performance across a variety of situations.

Actually selfishness is good for commanding large groups, bad for small groups. When you are the most important person and in a group of 60, it’s necessary to be selfish. Getting ahead of the zerg is mandatory for situations when you are trying to save something. Then, in general when taking stuff, just move normally with the zerg to minimize the tail and then use your speed ups when you are 90% of the way there so that you can quickly scan the tower/keep to determine your siege placement by the time your team has arrived. Or if you know that the enemy server is outnumbered and not going to save what you’re hitting, you can afford to get ahead of the zerg since your tail isn’t as big of a concern if there’s little resistance anyway.

Well thanks all, lots of good feedback. I decided to go the Warrior route but I do have both classes so I can always buy another tag if I decide to change it up. Still on the fence about the GS, I can see why you would use a GS for movement so I will probably buy one to swap out but for regular game play it’s just not doing it for me. I ended up going with this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBiYDZk0JGu4xFOggeohchAqKgHpHixAyGA-jEyAocBZiRgoPw58ioxWGLiGreBTXSEV7xLiWtMAMjB-w build, very similar to Radian.2478 but threw in some sentinel’s and changed up the traits a bit because I won’t be using shouts. Gear will eventually be replaced with Ascended but for now Exotic’s will do.

Looks pretty good. I love the fall trait but if you are going to not use it, be very careful and alert with decision making around cliffs so you don’t lose name recognition quick lol

McWolfy.5924:

rangers have only 1 field and others still can put down troll fields. rangers have less source of stability, less armor, cc, damage and respect

Rangers can put down fire (torch or trap), water, and ice (with a trap).

A respect field would be useful though. And troll field to summon some adds.

As of now, I command on my warrior and I find it does a good well at blasting fields (X/Warhorn) and taking care of your own hammer stuns exactly where you want them. I also feel incredibly tanky without reliance on kills to heal. Though, I am getting a pin for my guardian as well, as they scale much better with numbers than warriors do, and the amount of boons and utility you can give to a large portion of your zerg is too much to pass up.

90% of good guild commanders are guardians. Too much essential group utility. Also, commander usually run with GS+staff instead of hammer+staff, for pulls.