Guild Wars 2

Is there a way?

So far I can get 40 sec with Symbol of Swiftness (applied first, otherwise it doesn’t work, not sure why) Save Yourselves and Retreat.

But during WvW every – single – other – class just run by me like nothing. And this causes to get lost, get ganked, and be somewhere too late.

How can I solve this?

Take a healway build with boon duration runes, problem solved.

symbol of swiftness with 50% boon duration grants 12s of swiftness

two handed weapon mastery —> 12s cooldown on symbol of swiftness

however if you are running with a group you should be getting swiftness from their AOEs

Even 2 players running together with aoe swiftness can rotate their buffs for perma swift

GS #3 has a leap that can get a little bit of distance, kind of like how warrior sword #2 gets some distance with that leap. These leaps do quite a bit when you run them fast enough. If you use the 2 handed weapon mastery, you’ll be able to use the GS leap more often, as well as the staff symbol. Kind of a bummer that it takes two, two-handed weapons to get quickly around unlike warrior where I slot my sword and warhorn and I’m set because I can put my main weapon in the other hand, unless you run a great sword/staff guardian build.

If you are with a group, you should be blasting any electric fields so you also get swiftness. I’m not familiar with guard blast finishers yet so I don’t have a suggestion there. I think hammer does.

I think boon duration is what gets people the extended amount of swiftness to have “perm swiftness.” When running my warrior glass in PvE, I don’t have the boon duration so I don’t have the perm swiftness that I do with my WvW build and I end up using balanced stance, elite signet, and sword/warhorn to get around when I’m running glass in PvE. Warrior sword does do quite a bit though. I end up getting ahead of the commander in WvW with sword so I don’t need to use that as often, mostly to catch up.

I haven’t found a build for guard that I like that also includes the boon duration.

Shouts too. 20% reduced cooldown on shouts + Retreat and Save Yourselves. Though if I’m in a good Zerg I can get a lot of swiftness just by blast finishing the static fields.

Yes, I’m fairly new, still getting familiar with some mechanics!
But thanks for the clarification! It’s nice to see I can get more swiftness as long as I’m with the zerg.

Question, is it normal that Symbol of Swift doesn’t work if I already have Swiftness?

Yes. Symbol of Swiftness only adds one second of swiftness if you already have swiftness. Always save it for when your swiftness falls all the way off. Use Greatsword leap or sword 2 on rabbits to catch up when you already have swiftness.

Dristig.9678:

Yes. Symbol of Swiftness only adds one second of swiftness if you already have swiftness. Always save it for when your swiftness falls all the way off. Use Greatsword leap or sword 2 on rabbits to catch up when you already have swiftness.

If symbol of swiftness( and other placed swiftness lines) acted differently our perma swiftness would be alot alot easier. Also i would how many critters i have killed in the name of keeping up with people. oh well those kitten rabbits tried to get me killed in gw1.

Dristig.9678:

Yes. Symbol of Swiftness only adds one second of swiftness if you already have swiftness. Always save it for when your swiftness falls all the way off. Use Greatsword leap or sword 2 on rabbits to catch up when you already have swiftness.

That extra second of swiftness is worth having, provided Symbol of Swiftness will be off CD again by the time you need it.

A good rotation is:

1. Use Symbol of Swiftness first to get the full 8s swiftness
2. Pick up swiftness from Shouts and allies/ally fields
3. Check to see if you have enough swiftness for one complete CD on Symbol of Swiftness?
4. If yes to 3, then use Symbol Of Swiftness for an extra 1s swiftness and go back to 3.
   (FYI, the extra few seconds you get from doing this can make all the difference when trying to keep up with a group.)
5. If no to 3, then wait until swiftness expires and go back to 1.

Support tip: When running with a group and you have lots of swiftness, try dropping Symbol of Swiftness behind you to help out people who’re falling behind.

Guardian’s don’t have permanent swiftness unless you screw over your traits and utility choices for it. Symbol doesn’t give permanent swiftness, more like 95%. And you never build any buffer so you are forced to spam where every fraction of a second you miss gives you that time less swiftness.

Compared to real permanent swiftness, on my warrior where traited warhorn with no special runes combined with the elite signet can give me swiftness of multiple minutes in duration. And it all stacks with swiftness from other classes.

Symbol of Swiftness and two handed weapon mastery you walk 1-2sec between Swift.

That i Think is fine and you can get better skills then Retreat / Save Yourselves

Retreat + Save Yourselves + Staff symbol + GS leap + Judge’s Intervention (target critters in the distance ahead) = perma-swiftness and then some.