Guild Wars 2

I often see the term “selfish guardian” come up nearly every time I see someone inquiring about the use of AH in a pve build. From my perspective the term seems like a oxymoron due to the innate supportive nature of the guardian class. It would be really difficult to create a guardian build that does nothing for the group.

I wondered how many of skills that most guardian may use are actually supportive? I did not include underwater weapons or traits, just the baseline guardian. Also, I consider any form of boon granting to allies and blind to be supportive. Out of 60 skills, 32 of them are supportive. Here is what I came up with:

Virtues

• 1. Virtue of Resolve
• 2. Virtue of Courage

Greatsword

• 3. Leap of Faith
• 4. Symbol of Wrath

Hammer

• 5. Symbol of Protection

Staff

• 6. Orb of Light
• 7. Symbol of Swiftness
• 8. Empower

Mace

• 9. Faithful Strike
• 10. Symbol of Faith
• 11. Protectors strike

Sword

• 12. Flashing Blade

Focus

• 13. Ray of Judgement

Shield

• 14. Shield of Judgement
• 15. Shield of Absorption

Torch

• 16. Cleansing Flame

Healing

• 17. Healing Breeze

Utility

• 18. Hallowed Ground
• 19. Purging Flames
• 20. Sanctuary
• 21. Wall of Reflection
• 22. Merciful Intervention
• 23. Hold the Line!
• 24. Retreat!
• 25. Save Yourselves!
• 26. Stand Your Ground!
• 27. Signet of Judgement
• 28. Signet of Mercy
• 29. Bow of Truth
• 30. Shield of the Avenger
• 31. Tome of Courage
• 32. Tome of Wrath

Over 50% of guardian’s skills are supportive. Despite claims of a “selfish guardian”, its impossible to make one. Especially due to Virtues being baseline. The closest one can get to being truly selfish is by running Scepter with no offhand, full zeal, Valor and refusing to activate Virtues while allies are around. From what I observe guardian has the most baseline supportive skills in the game, that is quite a impressive feat.

So to you guys out there that use the term “selfish guardian”, you might want to think twice!

Whoa, slow down there buddy. You think you can just come to the forums and discuss balance from anything but a 1v1 point of view? Who do you think you are? Get with the program and roll a warrior because they are objectively better than a guardian at literally everything in this game, or stop posting.

Capisce?

Signed, literally every (soon-to-be-ex) guardian who ever played this game ever.

Just because Guardians come with numerous support skills, doesn’t mean you can’t play them in a selfish way. First of all, listing all the skills that benefit your party in any way is pointless since most of them are crap. Yes, the Bow of Truth might help your party but it’s still a wasted slot. Altruistic Healing requires 30 points in Valor which automatically means that you’re sacrificing a lot of DPS. Right now, DPS is the most important support any class has to offer. The only reason why people use AH in PvE is because they can’t dodge/mitigate damage and for all it’s worth I cant blame them since it is, after all, just a game. But under the very theoretical assumption that everyone is trying to be the best Guardian possible, choosing AH would make you a selfish Guardian. It heals you, while the party suffers from the DPS loss.
Now maybe AH was just a random example so here is a more general answer: Most selfmade builds revolve around higher toughness/vitality and maybe ranged weapons (staff/scepter) because the player isn’t able to survive in full berserker gear. So at the end of the day, his or her choice of gear/skills/build is first and foremost a measure to stay alive. It will always go hand in hand with less contribution to the overall effort.

You could argue that dead people don’t do kitten but to that I’d always answer that learning to stay alive with berserker/scholar gear really isn’t difficult so you might start by trying to learn it instead of switching to gear that’s supposed to mask your own shortcomings.

For pve you want to bring the ideal minimal support a class has and dump the rest into dps. For Guardian that would be master of consecrations and renewed justice (and writ of persistence if you have hammer). After that you would dump the rest into dps. Dumping points into valor leads to less dps than going for damage multipliers. Dumping points into valor past 10 does nothing for the group and gives less damage mitigation than just simply running a hammer build and giving everyone protection. So yes, it is selfish and a waste when there are much better options to be a lot more useful to your group.

Aza.2105:

The closest one can get to being truly selfish is by running Scepter with no offhand, full zeal and refusing to activate Virtues while allies are around.

This previous titled “Ultimate” build sounds familiar

It’s not about a guard being selfish overall, it’s about the person behind the guard making selfish choices. AH is a selfish choice as pretty much the entire tree doesn’t help the group outside of strength in numbers. What AH does is give the guardian extra self healing so he can make mistakes on his active defense and counter that with the extra healing.

People say Signet Warriors are selfish.. why is that? They are bringing damage and that’s what they’re wanted for right? so why are they selfish? Well, it’s because the alternative of banners would bring more damage to the group making the group as a whole better instead of just the individual. Same thing here. It’s an opportunity cost. You choose AH so you can play more relaxed and selfishly.

Everyone should be working to learn how to use their active defense so they don’t have to rely on AH. If someone is new, that’s understandable, but simply AH is unnecessary at higher levels with a LOT of options that would help the group in much better ways.

You don’t have to go all the way to DPS even, My group loves a support guard as it allows the entire group to play in a less stressful and a more stable environment. We don’t wipe at all with a support guard, heck people rarely die. But when we’re all zerk, sometimes stuff happens and it snowballs quickly into a wipe. AH plays no role in support though other than keeping the guard alive, and it’s VERY doable in many different ways that don’t involve spending that many trait points for personal only things.

Play how you want.

Aza.2105:

I often see the term “selfish guardian” come up nearly every time I see someone inquiring about the use of AH in a pve build. From my perspective the term seems like a oxymoron due to the innate supportive nature of the guardian class. It would be really difficult to create a guardian build that does nothing for the group.

I wondered how many of skills that most guardian may use are actually supportive? I did not include underwater weapons or traits, just the baseline guardian. Also, I consider any form of boon granting to allies and blind to be supportive. Out of 60 skills, 32 of them are supportive. Here is what I came up with:

Virtues

• 1. Virtue of Resolve
• 2. Virtue of Courage

Greatsword

• 3. Leap of Faith
• 4. Symbol of Wrath

Hammer

• 5. Symbol of Protection

Staff

• 6. Orb of Light
• 7. Symbol of Swiftness
• 8. Empower

Mace

• 9. Faithful Strike
• 10. Symbol of Faith
• 11. Protectors strike

Sword

• 12. Flashing Blade

Focus

• 13. Ray of Judgement

Shield

• 14. Shield of Judgement
• 15. Shield of Absorption

Torch

• 16. Cleansing Flame

Healing

• 17. Healing Breeze

Utility

• 18. Hallowed Ground
• 19. Purging Flames
• 20. Sanctuary
• 21. Wall of Reflection
• 22. Merciful Intervention
• 23. Hold the Line!
• 24. Retreat!
• 25. Save Yourselves!
• 26. Stand Your Ground!
• 27. Signet of Judgement
• 28. Signet of Mercy
• 29. Bow of Truth
• 30. Shield of the Avenger
• 31. Tome of Courage
• 32. Tome of Wrath

Over 50% of guardian’s skills are supportive. Despite claims of a “selfish guardian”, its impossible to make one. Especially due to Virtues being baseline. The closest one can get to being truly selfish is by running Scepter with no offhand, full zeal, Valor and refusing to activate Virtues while allies are around. From what I observe guardian has the most baseline supportive skills in the game, that is quite a impressive feat.

So to you guys out there that use the term “selfish guardian”, you might want to think twice!

And now remove 90% of the skills here that provide AOE conditions or something.
Or Save Yourselves. It’s probably not selfish, right?
Then remove the rest if you are playing a Spirit Weapon build, which makes AOE actually just for yourself(although the build is pretty bad at the moment sadly).
Yes, Guardian’s can be selfish alright.

It’s rather interesting because Virtues were supposed to be a selfish mechanic when in solo-play and yet the actives are much more potent regardless of play.

Arken.3725:

It’s rather interesting because Virtues were supposed to be a selfish mechanic when in solo-play and yet the actives are much more potent regardless of play.

Sadly the passive virtues are only good after traiting into the virtue tree. I have to admit that supreme justice and permeating wrath are amazing traits. Unfortunately guardian’s condition builds are less than optimal. How is that for a contradiction?

Evalia.7103:

And now remove 90% of the skills here that provide AOE conditions or something.
Or Save Yourselves. It’s probably not selfish, right?
Then remove the rest if you are playing a Spirit Weapon build, which makes AOE actually just for yourself(although the build is pretty bad at the moment sadly).
Yes, Guardian’s can be selfish alright.

Sorry man, I’m not understanding what you are trying to illustrate here. Can you be a bit more specific?

Aza.2105:

Arken.3725:

It’s rather interesting because Virtues were supposed to be a selfish mechanic when in solo-play and yet the actives are much more potent regardless of play.

Sadly the passive virtues are only good after traiting into the virtue tree. I have to admit that supreme justice and permeating wrath are amazing traits. Unfortunately guardian’s condition builds are less than optimal. How is that for a contradiction?

Supreme Justice is fairly decent but as you say, condi-guard is incredibly lackluster. I find Permeating Wrath to be a bit backwards, shouldn’t the AoE of fire be around your target and not you?

Arken.3725:

Aza.2105:

Arken.3725:

It’s rather interesting because Virtues were supposed to be a selfish mechanic when in solo-play and yet the actives are much more potent regardless of play.

Sadly the passive virtues are only good after traiting into the virtue tree. I have to admit that supreme justice and permeating wrath are amazing traits. Unfortunately guardian’s condition builds are less than optimal. How is that for a contradiction?

Supreme Justice is fairly decent but as you say, condi-guard is incredibly lackluster. I find Permeating Wrath to be a bit backwards, shouldn’t the AoE of fire be around your target and not you?

I always felt the skill description of permeating wrath was a bit misleading. I do agree that the aoe should be centered around the target instead of the guardian. That would open up the ability to use the trait with scepter.

With respect to supreme justice and permeating wrath, I feel they are powerful. Its just with guardian its hard to see how strong they are. Imagine if a class like engineer or necro had VOJ+ supreme justice and permeating wrath. There would be tons of complaints asking for it to be nerfed.

It’s true but as you know, without a decent variation of conditions, it’s easily cleansed.