Guild Wars 2

I’m a mesmer through and through, but recently I’ve started leveling a guard and I love it. My main goal is playing WvW with it. Are you pleased with Guard’s performance in WvW? I’m a tad spoiled by having a ton of clones and nervous about being one player, one target. Can you survive and hold your own? Are you a benefit to the team? Can you roam? Thanks!

It really depends on what you are doing in WvW. Guardian generally shines in groups where you can apply constant buffs/condition removal to your allies an reap the benefits of AH. You also have tons of useful utility that your team can benefit from. However, solo roaming on a guardian is horrible. With no stealth, clones or high mobility, you really have no way of escaping if more than 2 or 3 people go after you.

To be honest, kitten that condition/buffs kittenty Guardian.

Wanna be a meatshield? go ahead follow those super defensive, no fun builds.

Wanna have some real fun and see big large kittenin numbers on your screen?

Pop out a zerker guard, roll over heads and see people getting nearly 1 shot

Zerker guards are also called free badges in WvW.

You are better as a team player for Guardian.
If you want to roam, it doesn’t fare well.

to each their own. lot of different styles out there.
the Guardian definitely has a place in WvW.

Can you survive and hold your own?
we have a ton of access to blocks, blinds, aegis, and even some invuln. adding on to that, even without speccing a ton into healing power, we’ve two very powerful Grandmaster traits that allow for sustain over time. on the other hand you can trait for healing power and your staying power is massive. though in the end, i feel its your ability to dodge, utilize your blinds, blocks at the right time before stats to survive. may not be the most mobile class, relatively speaking, so do learn your position in the fight, what you can handle and what you can’t.

Are you a benefit to the team?
two ways of going about this. firstly, what people will more commonly point to – a support role. the Guards have easy access to a ton of ways to offer support to a team. through boons, aoe blinds, aoe heals, aoe aegis, stability, various forms of healing, CC, area denial… to name a few.
secondly though, a zerker guard is more than doable, viable in WvW. so the faster you kill, i see that as support to a team as well. to be able to secure stomps via stability, blinds, blocks or even instant teleport stomps for thieves / mesmers, etc. so what i want to say here is, the Guardian, while being able to focus on support, by no means is saying that we can ONLY support. we can definitely do damage if we want to. many builds ou tthere are so-called hybrid as well – support DPS all in one.

Can you roam?
YES, the Guard can roam. though we have a lack of mobility i was able to outrun a mini zerg today on more than one occasion, and i wasn’t even specced for “mobility” or roaming. so escaping is not an issue imho. unless if i made some mistake myself. Guards are capable of one, two-shotting certain builds / classes while still retaining decent sustainability. there are various builds out there that have 100% uptime on swiftness, or you can teleport all over the place with sword, judge’s intervention and throw in some leaps. the meditation build paired with monk’s focus is extremely strong 1v1 just to name one.

it’s late, but i guess what i’m trying to say is.. the Guardian is VERY fun in WvW. i am clearly biased, though. XDD

Entropy.4732:

Are you pleased with Guard’s performance in WvW?

In a scale from 1 to 10, I’d say… 7.5.
For group fighting, the most awesome thing Guardians can bring are Wide Area Projectile Protection and Wardings.

I’ve been in a few groups (guild) where we wiped 50+ (could’ve been 100 or 200, it was just TOO much) with a group of less than 20 in a situation that involved a few ballistas, a corridor, and multiple Wardings.

No other profession allows for such strategical warfare, but this has it’s shortcomings…

Entropy.4732:

I’m a tad spoiled by having a ton of clones and nervous about being one player, one target. Can you survive and hold your own?

Yes, in the middle of a chaotic battle (such kitten Lord’s Room), you can sustain yourself for a really good time and wreak havoc with heavy melee AoE.
For 1v1s, professions such as Thieves and Mesmers will harass you to death, you can’t even touch them if they’re good, and they’re not bound to stay in one place or to engage in combat with you 100% of the time like in sPvP.

Entropy.4732:

Are you a benefit to the team?

Yes, Guardians provide one of the best support in game in my opinion. Various Wardings, Heals, boons and most are AoE makes for an excellent member.

Entropy.4732:

Can you roam?

As good as Thieves and Mesmers? No. We do okay in general though.

As a player who has 2 guardians fully geared and speced, they are very good in both types of play, Grouping/Zerging and roaming. What people seem to capitalize to much on is when roaming is moblity. True you have low moblity compared to other classes, but you still have enough mobility to escape certain situations you can see coming. I roll a zerker guard but i only really die when odds are stacked against me, which would be pretty much the same for any other guard that isn’t using HW Build. Speaking of HW, if you use that build you will be able to take on multiple enemies and a have pretty much a chance to beat the odds depending on how you play.

Also Hi Mike :P

Thanks for the insight, guys! Much appreciated! I’m gonna stick with it.

Short answer, yes. Long answer, give me some ways to stop everyone from escaping me while roaming and I would never ever ever ask for anything else lol.

I personally play small group/roaming on my guardian, but we do have alot of strengths in all areas. Large/small groups we have condition to buff utility in shouts, massive AoE condition removal in our virtue traitline, good healing through dodge rolls, regen, virtue use, And good damage mitigation through AoE blinds and AoE aegis application.

Roaming is my personal favorite and something we are very good at. The only issue we really have is trying to catch certain classes who try to disengage. Thieves are the top of the list, alongside Warrior and Rangers. Mesmers can be up on that list depending on spec/weapons as well (high clone spam+ stealth). My personal suggest is learn to love the hammer, as it gives good options between damage and CC, and will help ALOT if you decide to roam. It took me a long time to use it due to how slow if felt, but the CC is worth it, plus the burst and AoE capabilities.

I mainly roam and I fare well in 1v1s (fight clubs), and it totally depends on the other players’ skill levels if I can handle 1v2 or 1v3. I honestly believe in an equally skilled 1v2 fight the 2 people would always come out on top, no matter the profession

I love roaming on my Guardian in WvW, but I do have some noticeable weaknesses (mobility being #1). I win more 1v1s than I lose.

playing with others , guardian is an easy char , alone it lucks of skills .

even as a bunker guardian i am less bunker than an elemental bunker

I main a guardian and played it almost exclusivly since i started this game. I play WvW 99% of my game time and i just love to be a guardian.
For group play i roll with hammer/staff or GS/staff and it brings some amazing utility for group play.
Two days ago i was at a tower alone and a zerg was about to break the door. My back up was coming but they couldnt arive in time. I held the gate single handed for a couple of minutes with rings of warding/line of warding/sanctuary until my backup could arive and take care of the zerg. Ofcourse a couple of people with stability got inside but they where only a few and took to long to kill the lord.

Also for roaming a guardian is awesome. I run a 0/15/30/20/5 build and GS/Sword,focus for roaming with judge intervention and i got great mobility with all those teleports and can do some decent burst with the 15 points in radiance and my weapon set combo.
If i run into a zerg i can use all my teleports to blink to ambiant creatures and mobs in the distance to get away fast.
Ofcourse when i run into a good mesmer or thief im in trouble but that only happened a couple of times now.

I find myself usually running around spamming the staff #1 skill to get kills. It is annoying to play guardian sometimes as you get kited very easily. Also, when you are taking a keep you have nothing to do except stand and watch as you have very few abilities which allow you to hit up on the walls. I really wanted guardians to be able to use bows but I guess arena net will never give us that.

Guardian is mainly best played as support. Your shouts will remove conditions and it is very useful when you are in a group. Some builds also allow you to be literally unkillable. Many guardians can escape near death situations because they have awesome survival builds. But guardian definitely lacks on range skills.

Guardian is the bees kneez is wvw. No wait, it sucks actually. Anet don’t nerf us plz.

Not at all, or at least mostly not.

Sadly my ranger has better survivability than the guardian does. Much more healing, better options for engaging and disengaging from fights. And is as effective solo or in a group.

The guardian has been a pain in WvW for roaming solo or with another player. Our toughness and armor does little to help us out it seems and the super low health pool is not even close to being balanced by the subpar regen we have. The ranger is doing near 600 passive healing a second. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Faux-s-RRR-Build-Conditions-Variation/first
Also has a new build out. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/BUILD-Boon-Tank-Ranger-BTR-Variations#post2282251

Our mobility is also sub par, our great sword leap gets us a meager 600 range where as the ranger gets 1200.

Or compared to a thief, especially for roaming and solo or small group play.

Sadly while I am going to stick with the guardian it really is not that great of a class or I should say fun class for solo camp flipping and small group play, two to three party members total.

Perhaps it is my build, although running a standard build so not sure.

DeathPanel.8362:

Zerker guards are also called free badges in WvW.

oh finally someone that said something of right! XD
yes a full zerker guardian is “free badges” because you can hit hard… but you will get “one shotted” by almost every class…
so if you want to play inside a zerg i suggest to put on knight equip and AH build and if you want to roaming put on berserker but remember: squish ore be squished…

Anyway i always play knight/berserker AH (see thread in this forum) i rarely someone kill me in zerg and in 1vs1 remember that a guardian can make the difference in wvw because of support, of simbols, of sanctuary, of nice damage and condition control on them and allies. Enjoy

1st profession to max kills in WvW? Sacrx on Guardian, run with the Zerg, use P/V/T.

Wait, someone else who thinks zerk guardian is a free kill in WvW! Finally!

Anyways, in Zergs Guardian is probably one of the most useful classes to have but not because of your amazing burst. Its due to:
1- AoE condition removal. Soldier runes + PoV can do wonders. Alternatively traited Virtue of resolve can clear 3 conditions party wide
2- WoR. Learn it, use it, love it. It can make a HUGE difference in zerg v zerg and even small group combat. It is most likely the most OP skill in WvW
3- Area control due to Staff 5, Hammer 5 and consecrations. You can block doorway access for quite a while if you can coordinate

So as you see, its more of a group utility rather than personal glory class. If you want solo roaming i would say roll a thief or Mesmer because no matter how good you are on your guard, any competent mesmer or thief will wreck you. I have a full ascended geared, thief mes guard and D/D ele and i can tell you that the first 2 classes completely wipe the floor with anything else.