Guild Wars 2

My first character was a guardian, and months later he’s still around and he is my true main. I love my guardian, it is probably the most balanced class in the game atm, and right now my only wish is for Anet to fix traits that don’t work (For example, Zealot’s Defense not working with MotP). I’ve played all the other classes and have many lvl 80s so I know how they work, what builds are viable, etc. Whenever I read the patch notes and see these nerfs to classes that didn’t need one (or they never fixed the real problem) I cringe. We’re not perfect I know, but with each patch I feel only motivated to play my guardian more, and occasionally my warrior or mesmer as well if I’m bored or doing PvE content. So what I’ll ask everyone here is if they feel bad for people who don’t play guard/war/mes as a main or extensively.

Behemoth.2193:

nerfs to classes that didn’t need one (or they never fixed the real problem) I cringe.

Like, nerfing around the OP broken parts, yes. I don’t cringe, I just scratch my head. After all, it’s not as bad as SWG (nge) got Maybe fix what is broken and leave what works… alone? I’ve seen it all though.

Can’t say I have a main, or an alt. Each character is tailored for a purpose. But my dungeon running guard is one of two I play often out of five. Guard mostly works, here’s to anet forgetting about them
Let them “fix” ranger so it still has a purpose …keeping devs busy at least.

I chose guardian when the game launched and I have only played him trough the whole year and I couldn’t be happier about my choice. I can do everything I like. (well except cool ranged attacks but we have some of those as well)

The class I’m feeling most sorry about personally is the ranger. I really would like to level one but it just feels futile with their constant nerfing. The recent quickness nerf hit rangers BAD and shattered my wish to make a berserker ranger with short/longbow. Their only viable build is the trap ranger and I do not like that kind of play-style. Guardians on the other hand are a marvelous class and very well balanced. We rarely get nerfed and mostly we get convenient buffs like the line of warding in motion. (awesome buff)

PVP aside since im not sure, I dont see why anyone would run a Guardian over a Warrior in anywhere else that IS NOT Arah (Strictly for the orrian turrets that blind) or FotM. Maybe SE p1 for the golems?

Granted, FoTm is a big part of the game, but I wouldnt call filling a niche role in 1 dungeon, “OP”

That being said I do think Guard is #2 player for pve. My order is
Warrior, Guard, Mes, >>>Doesnt matter. I have 7 level 80’s and my guard deals more DPS than any of them besides warrior. Idk how people call guardians low dps’ers. I guess if i use scepter, but most of the time I dont.

I feel bad for other classes (Engineers thinking they are good) but not because guardians are OP.

After takign my under lvl(15) toons to WvW i belive guardian skills are weird…

When i keep range from the guardian most of times they cant even get closer and hit, unless they have a wand as main. even that is easily avoidable.
sometimes i burst and flee, they must use heal or shout skills for healing, when their skills are recharging, its almost a free kill, if on a necro i wait t for them to get mad and use boons to rip off, nowadays guardians are my first choice if i want a kill.

ps. My main is a guardian to.

My main was a ranger ….
Enough said …

started ele80 it sucked everywhere, then thief80 it was fine in WWW but sucked in PVE. then engy left it at level 45, then warrior…

thought i found the promised land with warrior as he is awesome but boring, then started mesmer, deleted it before reaching 30

began guardian80 instead and it is my active main since then.
for WWW i play the warrior though, as guardian range is puppies.

I think that the problem is raw damage vs conditions (both damage and CC)
raw damage and straightforward damage prevention classes, are OP.
classes that rely on conditions for damage and CC for prevention are lackluster.

fix conditions and the classes can be balanced.

Guardian feels like it has the potential to use anything and be successful at it. Well, except maybe a condition damage build, but you can focus heavily in applying burning. It still feels like other classes are better in some categories. A greatsword Warrior deals considerable more damage. A water Elementalist has better group healing capabilities. And, well, most agile and ranged classes can build a better bunker setup. I think we have a nice balance of everything, and ArenaNET recently commented the same as well. They feel Guardian is well balanced, and Necromancer has the most versatility. It’s probably difficult for a company to consider nerfing any classes to reach a balanced level another class has to offer. Imagine how many players would be upset if suddenly their burst damage was nerfed, or how many players would quit because their bunker suddenly became squishy.

I play a bunker in PvE, and it’s easy to facetank a lot of bosses. Other bunkers would have trouble without dodging. When I hop on WvW, I do absolutely nothing for the team. I’m nothing more than an assisting character that can pop a few good heals every once and a while. I would have to switch my entire build; traits, armor, weapons, etc. I wish the game offered a second build option for WvW or PvE in general that you could switch (while out of combat) to change traits and armor in an instant.

On the contrary! Bunker is extremely useful in WvW. Your aren’t just about healing, you are about giving boons to your party. Put 5 in virtues and equip the two support shouts. Maybe pick up a staff and/or a Mace and Shield. Those boons matter a lot more than you might think.

While you may not be doing damage, you’ll be giving your allies 12 stacks of might on a 2/3ds uptime (if you traited it). Constantly popping f1 which recharges really fast anyways will allow up to 25=30 seconds of burning, which is over 9k damage across 5 allies from a virtue that recharges pretty fast anyways. You could pick up battle presence as well and give a permanent regeneration effect that stacks with everything else in the game (except itself). F3 will give a well needed block and protection, one of the most important boons in wvw. Shield 4 gives more protection, as does the shout hold the line. Mace symbol will provide more healing, protector’s strike a period of invulnerability to your allies OR protection.

If you pick up 5 more opints in virtues for 10, you can trait one of the guardian’s best utilities for wvw. Wall of reflection.

Yes, a lot of people are still bad enough to fire into it :P. But it will protect your zerg from incoming projectiles on a 33% uptime. And unlike other utilities, this has NO TARGET LIMIT!! Isn’t that awesome?

Oh and I haven’t even mentioned the tomes yet :P

So yes, while you may not be doing damage, you can build your guardian to be an absolute game changer.

Hicci.8761:

The class I’m feeling most sorry about personally is the ranger. I really would like to level one but it just feels futile with their constant nerfing. The recent quickness nerf hit rangers BAD and shattered my wish to make a berserker ranger with short/longbow. Their only viable build is the trap ranger and I do not like that kind of play-style.

Yeah, anet didn’t really think it thru for rangers, it’s just a bad-bad class. I usually like/play rangers in most mmo’s (eq1, lotro, eq2 etc.) and TES ranger/archer – assassins are the best to play. But here… meh, worse than meh. I rolled one here, deleted at mid-lvl, never looked back, rolled a warrior in it’s slot. Now if they re-vamped it to a good arcane archer system or build (and no pet nor push backs – use root/pin), this would possibly get me to add a sixth slot. Such as DDO, NWN, PnP games, Arcane archer is a very good class, hard to mess it up. But as far as ranger goes here, I’m apprehensive when one filters into my PuG… and often feel very annoyed at meta events. Delete, roll a guard, be happy

No. I also don’t feel any more powerful than any other class.

Making a thread like this is just asking for yet another guardian nerf. The guardians were heavily nerfed more than other classes in the past. I never even use the great sword anymore sine they nerfed that. There are also plenty of other problems the guardian has with other weapons that never get improved on.

Our ranged skill is bad, and we only have one choice to choose from for it.

Indeed, many classes have been nerfed hard even though they were the weakest profession to begin with. Why some classes like Ranger and Theif get nerfed so much while others seem to not be so nerfed or even buffed is beyond me. They are slowly unbalencing all the classes because of this and some professions are being favored.

Well I don’t feel bad for thieves, I’m still going to play mine. My thief has been the do-all choice, but just maybe more limited now. Do-all as in play in any part of the game, not tank or buff and such, though I don’t run with a glass dps build. Still 10x less annoying than ranger. Just more time on guardian now it’s becoming.

I am not going to feel bad for other classes until we end up with some form of passive 25% boost to movement speed signet to use.