Guild Wars 2

Been playing a variation of a medi build, with symbols mace/GS. Can usually force turret engis off a point just due to symbols that also heal me.

Obviously we lose out on our escapes/utilities if we outright burst, but we have enough left over to survive.

Are you ever astounded by how much burst we put out and make pressure even in a 1v2?

Turrets got a major nerf so any sort of AoE cleave can get rid of them now.

The only reason med burst is high is because the class lacks access to spammable chills/cripple/slow that every other melee has.

It also lacks the escapes other classes have & in many cases is weak to high CC builds.

This means that while you can teleport to your target on occasion any intelligent player will kite you.

This in turn means med guard is good vs enemies that are stupid and try to go toe to toe with you but against players that kite well your more or less screwed.

Never had a problem with turrets with symbols, though i want the thread to be more based on our burst potential haha.

Panites.6798:

Never had a problem with turrets with symbols, though i want the thread to be more based on our burst potential haha.

ZoroDaOtter.3859:

Turrets got a major nerf so any sort of AoE cleave can get rid of them now.

Except for flying turrets. Those can’t be damaged by ground targeted AoEs (symbols, Smite etc) nor melee attacks. All you can do is autoattacking with scepter.

Other than Glacial Heart, which is pretty much guaranteed due to Sigil of Intelligence, not really. GS doesn’t burst super hard since you have time to avoid the spin. The ridiculous amount of sustain on medi guard with a zerker amulet is the heart of the problem.

Exedore.6320:

Other than Glacial Heart, which is pretty much guaranteed due to Sigil of Intelligence, not really. GS doesn’t burst super hard since you have time to avoid the spin. The ridiculous amount of sustain on medi guard with a zerker amulet is the heart of the problem.

Try kiting.

I beat allot of med guards because I know their weakness. They lack spammable chill/cripple/slow.

So aside from a teleport once & a while they have no way to get on target or stay there.

So when you see them swap to ranged and kite.

i hate burst in this game such a boring way to play

King Noob IV.3560:

i hate burst in this game such a boring way to play

idk about you but I find it fun…it’s alot more fun then condi overload imo.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Exedore.6320:

Other than Glacial Heart, which is pretty much guaranteed due to Sigil of Intelligence, not really. GS doesn’t burst super hard since you have time to avoid the spin. The ridiculous amount of sustain on medi guard with a zerker amulet is the heart of the problem.

Try kiting.

I beat allot of med guards because I know their weakness. They lack spammable chill/cripple/slow.

So aside from a teleport once & a while they have no way to get on target or stay there.

So when you see them swap to ranged and kite.

They lack CC or Mobility. Which give the same result. Medi guardian are great against low mobility enemies or fighting on a point when the enemies can’t get kite you. They have the same role as a Thief, they are killer. But they also complete each other. The Thief have the mobility to chase down low hp enemies, while the medi guardian have the sustain to fight on point.

For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.

SlayerSixx.5763:

For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.

Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.

The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.

Panites.6798:

Been playing a variation of a medi build, with symbols mace/GS. Can usually force turret engis off a point just due to symbols that also heal me.

Besides Thumper turret and Supply Crate drop, turrets should not be on the point anyways (the key is Deployable Turrets). But many Engins go the easy way, and don’t care/don’t take this trait. You are just encountering the lazy players which you will always have the upper hand on anyways.

I used to think Medizerks had a disgusting amount of burst too… and then I switched over to S/F Ele. Not nearly as much sustained damage as a medizerk, but tons more untelegraphed burst damage.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

SlayerSixx.5763:

For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.

Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.

The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.

Show me a single class that isn’t necro (because necro is easy to drop for a medi guard) that can spam cripple/chill or daze/stuns that you can’t just up and block/blind/dodge/invuln through. 90% of my time spent pvping was on my guard, and I’ve never had issues keeping up with people (especially with traveler runes).

As for the medi guard’s condi removals, how many do you honestly need :P? Most condi builds only have like 1-2 condi bombs to drop and the first one you could usually just tank through with your defenses. You don’t need to worry about stab when you could just up and avoid everything worth avoiding.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

SlayerSixx.5763:

For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.

Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.

The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.

Show me a single class that isn’t necro (because necro is easy to drop for a medi guard) that can spam cripple/chill or daze/stuns that you can’t just up and block/blind/dodge/invuln through. 90% of my time spent pvping was on my guard, and I’ve never had issues keeping up with people (especially with traveler runes).

As for the medi guard’s condi removals, how many do you honestly need :P? Most condi builds only have like 1-2 condi bombs to drop and the first one you could usually just tank through with your defenses. You don’t need to worry about stab when you could just up and avoid everything worth avoiding.

Its not so much that they can spam them, but engineers, elementalists & rangers generally have just the right combination of CC, burst & conditions that they can counter med guards if played right.

If you need proof try watching the higher end match ups on you tube.

After playing a guardian since launch & watching many of the high end match ups I think I’m not alone when I say I would gladly trade a little bit of my burst for ready access to cripple/slows.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

SlayerSixx.5763:

For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.

Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.

The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.

Show me a single class that isn’t necro (because necro is easy to drop for a medi guard) that can spam cripple/chill or daze/stuns that you can’t just up and block/blind/dodge/invuln through. 90% of my time spent pvping was on my guard, and I’ve never had issues keeping up with people (especially with traveler runes).

As for the medi guard’s condi removals, how many do you honestly need :P? Most condi builds only have like 1-2 condi bombs to drop and the first one you could usually just tank through with your defenses. You don’t need to worry about stab when you could just up and avoid everything worth avoiding.

Ever been in a 1v1 with a good power necro that isn’t just playing because lol Lich Form? A good power necro that knows how to properly manage their death shroud is a tough matchup for a medi guard. Other notable mentions are engineers, d/d eles, and even a well-played mesmer.

As for the kiting issue, medi guards don’t have as much trouble against kiting in conquest because you’re fighting over a specific point. Take the fight to something like WvW where there’s no area contention and you’ll quickly see that any decent player that wants to play keep-away can do so rather easily.

I disagree, it’s very difficult to stick to ones target, even in Conquest. Any smart player fighting over a point will forgo the point in favor of winning the fight and then retaking it.

I don’t expect the Guardian to have BOTH mobility and soft cc but at least give us one.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

SlayerSixx.5763:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

SlayerSixx.5763:

For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.

Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.

The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.

Show me a single class that isn’t necro (because necro is easy to drop for a medi guard) that can spam cripple/chill or daze/stuns that you can’t just up and block/blind/dodge/invuln through. 90% of my time spent pvping was on my guard, and I’ve never had issues keeping up with people (especially with traveler runes).

As for the medi guard’s condi removals, how many do you honestly need :P? Most condi builds only have like 1-2 condi bombs to drop and the first one you could usually just tank through with your defenses. You don’t need to worry about stab when you could just up and avoid everything worth avoiding.

Its not so much that they can spam them, but engineers, elementalists & rangers generally have just the right combination of CC, burst & conditions that they can counter med guards if played right.

If you need proof try watching the higher end match ups on you tube.

After playing a guardian since launch & watching many of the high end match ups I think I’m not alone when I say I would gladly trade a little bit of my burst for ready access to cripple/slows.

I’ll agree with engineers being able to CC for days, but you should be able to block a majority of his really telegraphed attacks (except for the rifle knock back and crate, but one CCs the engi too and the other is an elite). I’m currently trying to think of ways a ranger would kite you where you wouldn’t be able to keep up at all, but I’m drawing blanks. Mind you, I’m thinking of the current power lb/gs ranger with the typical traits, so other combinations could certainly be more effective in terms of kiting. As for ele, D/D is practically melee range. Them running from you means less pressure and more time for you to recover. How could that honestly be a bad thing?

Thanks everyone for the comments and your opinions!

I think there are two common recurrences in both this thread many others similar to it.
Guards can be kited and trying fighting a good opponent.

The thing i see is this game is about ‘Guild Wars’ where a war is usually fought over an objective, in WvW roaming i just don’t see the point of fighting some who runs away. If someone engages on you and then has to retreat, i see that as a win as you have forced them away which could be seen as protecting an area.

This is why conquest makes sense to me as a game mode focused around objective ownership. We all know medi vs engi or ele can go on for ages but i don’t think guard was really created to chase down fleeing players or to move around (Sure warriors have insane movement for a heavy class but that’s their style). If we can force someone off a point be it outlasting them enough to get them bored or to burst them down extremely quickly, then that’s a win in my book.

Now when someone says ‘fight a good mesmer’ etc i start to lose interest. You are firstly saying that the player is not a good player but then you are also making guardians look like the lowest of the low compared to every other class. If someones argument is that you should verse a good player, you are simply stating that guardian loses in every situation where there is an equal level of skill and knowledge
Sure we don’t have invisibility, huge mobility or good access to CC, but we have alot of other tools to get around these.

If guardian is played with a level head and you don’t smash all of your virtues and utilities at once, you can usually last a really long time just with weapon rotations and a heal skill. I think this is a core part of the guardian that people who jump into a game commonly forget, and the need to constantly apply pressure after your burst if they are not finished off.

But most of the time we can just jump into a 1v1 (like a thief) burst the opponent down and rotate to the next fight, which to me seems quite the opposite of a guardian. I come from a healer/tank back ground in other games but i really like where guardian is at right now.
Huge burst potential or crazy support.

Maybe too much burst haha.

The reason why it’s annoying when people run away from you is because they can then go out of combat, full heal, and return to you and start another fight while all of your cooldowns are still up. It happens with warriors and thieves all the time and it’s incredibly obnoxious.

we CAN burst. Knowing when to and when not to is basicly what makes a good medi guard. I don’t wana hear any talk about nerfs tho because we don’t even really get might stacks. So no its not to strong. And if we can force a turret engi off a point GOOD. make them pay for placing all their eggs in one basket.

No worries about turret engineers anymore. They’re sort of totally dead now.

I would imagine medi guards had worse time with CC based engineers, bouncing cripple with Elixir Gun, Rifle net shot and the rifle knock back, big ol bomb, glue bomb. Or there’s always the wrench tool kit with it’s pulls etc. I play engi, and the first times I started encountering the medi guards they were a significant issue for me. I sort of dreaded them. There are still some builds out there that we basically stale mate and waste like 5 min chasing each other about with neither doing much. I should probably play my guard in PVP to figure out what the weaknesses of the class are. I mean man, getting slowly chipped away to death by a freakin staff auto-attack from some super bunker guardian is just sad

Black Box.9312:

SlayerSixx.5763:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

SlayerSixx.5763:

For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.

Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.

The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.

Show me a single class that isn’t necro (because necro is easy to drop for a medi guard) that can spam cripple/chill or daze/stuns that you can’t just up and block/blind/dodge/invuln through. 90% of my time spent pvping was on my guard, and I’ve never had issues keeping up with people (especially with traveler runes).

As for the medi guard’s condi removals, how many do you honestly need :P? Most condi builds only have like 1-2 condi bombs to drop and the first one you could usually just tank through with your defenses. You don’t need to worry about stab when you could just up and avoid everything worth avoiding.

Ever been in a 1v1 with a good power necro that isn’t just playing because lol Lich Form? A good power necro that knows how to properly manage their death shroud is a tough matchup for a medi guard. Other notable mentions are engineers, d/d eles, and even a well-played mesmer.

As for the kiting issue, medi guards don’t have as much trouble against kiting in conquest because you’re fighting over a specific point. Take the fight to something like WvW where there’s no area contention and you’ll quickly see that any decent player that wants to play keep-away can do so rather easily.

I say false. Power Necro’s worst possible matchup is Medi Guard. Condition has it a little bit easier in here.

But in PvP, Medi Guardian is direct, ridiculous counter. Blocks, condition removals, Warding, Scepter, Blinds, not many conditions to heal on, full resets and combination of Dagger being extremaly dangerous for Necro (all retaliance and sheer melee burst fart of medi guard) and Necro himself being the slowest profession in game.

I’ve duelled over 600 medi guards on PvP custom arenas and more in tpvp as Power Necro over 1,5 years and I can safely say that Medi Guard has incredible advantage unless skill really varies on both sides.

I believe that weakness of Medi Guards are celestials and possibly condi engis or mesmers.

medi guard is honestly one of the best zerker in spvp, stop complaining really.

go play a zerker warrior/necro then come back asking and try asking for medi buffs with a strait face. medi guard is the current counter to every single other zerker out there 1v1. not to mention a medi guard with cooldowns ready can straight 1v1 a lich and humiliate it with blinds and blocks galore.

when i saw how much love they are getting with the new trait shuffle (the 3 medi traits rolled in 1? scepter now applies protection? you now get an additional smite condition for free on heal?) i literally couldn’t stop laughing.

imho the only actual -counter- to medi guards are full condi engis, some other classes give it a headache (cele DD, shoutbows, smart condi rangers for example) but they are more of a tossup.

i mean, i had thieves die of retaliation while i was doing absolutely nothing on point.

Black Box.9312:

The reason why it’s annoying when people run away from you is because they can then go out of combat, full heal, and return to you and start another fight while all of your cooldowns are still up. It happens with warriors and thieves all the time and it’s incredibly obnoxious.

oh hey cool, medi guards don’t even need to go out of combat to do that, impressive huh?

adozu.6398:

oh hey cool, medi guards don’t even need to go out of combat to do that, impressive huh?

Except not really? Not sure where you’re getting that from. The best a medi guard can do is use meditations to heal, which comes at the cost of not having those meditations if you need to use them for their individual primary purposes.

Also a good player can bait a medi guard’s high cooldown skills, which adds counterplay. There’s no counterplay to running away and coming back with a reset health bar.

I main a medi guard and as much as I hate having people belittle my build, its the truth. I don’t know any other spec that can face tank a lich. Sure, our actual heal skill doesn’t heal as much as almost every other heal skill in the game, but meditation heals and the block shelter provides makes life so much easier. I’ve never had people go out of combat to heal and then come back and drop me because that means I leave combat as well. If you don’t fire off all of your damage mitigation skills, you really shouldn’t be bested in a 1v1 by anyone, except for those extremely slippery s/d thrives and immortal cele eles. I’m sure we can all agree that we’re strong, but OP? Come now. The damage mitigation is simply guards thing, like death shroud and shatters are to necros and mesmers.

Funny how Medi Guard was suboptimal from launch, criticized for intolerably long burst CDs, and while there was one change (Renewed Focus), circumstances made it into a scary counter-meta hero.
It’s just that the match-up versus the Medi Guard became easier for it to fight, is all. A friend has played Medi Guard from launch (2 months into the game he invented 21614); he notices that with Cele running rampant, Medi Guard has just enough control, defenses, and burst damage to overcome Cele builds’ sustain. The emphasis on more 1-on-1 showdowns also helps its survivability, because Guards can’t really run. They have to win it.
To add, Medi Guard is a fairly acquired taste, and you don’t really see many people run around with a Zerker Guard (for mental health reasons) – that is why you think they have too much burst when you get hit with basically all of the Medi Guard’s skills and lose a big chunk of health. You’ll think different when you fight them more.

Ralkuth.1456:

Funny how Medi Guard was suboptimal from launch, criticized for intolerably long burst CDs, and while there was one change (Renewed Focus), circumstances made it into a scary counter-meta hero.
It’s just that the match-up versus the Medi Guard became easier for it to fight, is all. A friend has played Medi Guard from launch (2 months into the game he invented 21614); he notices that with Cele running rampant, Medi Guard has just enough control, defenses, and burst damage to overcome Cele builds’ sustain. The emphasis on more 1-on-1 showdowns also helps its survivability, because Guards can’t really run. They have to win it.
To add, Medi Guard is a fairly acquired taste, and you don’t really see many people run around with a Zerker Guard (for mental health reasons) – that is why you think they have too much burst when you get hit with basically all of the Medi Guard’s skills and lose a big chunk of health. You’ll think different when you fight them more.

My personal experience has been that most Guardians I see in spvp are running some variant of the Medi Burst build, rarely do I see bunkers.

Ralkuth.1456:

Funny how Medi Guard was suboptimal from launch, criticized for intolerably long burst CDs, and while there was one change (Renewed Focus), circumstances made it into a scary counter-meta hero.
It’s just that the match-up versus the Medi Guard became easier for it to fight, is all. A friend has played Medi Guard from launch (2 months into the game he invented 21614); he notices that with Cele running rampant, Medi Guard has just enough control, defenses, and burst damage to overcome Cele builds’ sustain. The emphasis on more 1-on-1 showdowns also helps its survivability, because Guards can’t really run. They have to win it.
To add, Medi Guard is a fairly acquired taste, and you don’t really see many people run around with a Zerker Guard (for mental health reasons) – that is why you think they have too much burst when you get hit with basically all of the Medi Guard’s skills and lose a big chunk of health. You’ll think different when you fight them more.

Here some reason why Medi Guardian more popular over time :
- Glacial Heart got additional damage in the end of 2013 and in 2014 the cooldown was reduce to 15sec. I don’t remember the old cooldown, but it was horribly long.
- Renewed focus became a meditation in 2014
- The power ranger became so popular in the end of 2014, early 2015. You could see them everywhere. And the Medi Guardian is one of the best counter to a power ranger. Nothing changed since september 2014, but this popularized the Medi Guardian build.
- At the same time, bunker guardian was less and less valuable. Brawler were already taking his job with more versatility to do something else in a game than just stay alive and support your ally. With Bunker build less and less popular, of course people gonne go toward a new build.

So really, meditation guardian before september 2014 were ok, but not dominant enough to be as popular as it is now.

Didn’t they also buff the healing from the meditation trait in a patch post launch? Like when they did with shout heals?

Ralkuth.1456:

Funny how Medi Guard was suboptimal from launch, criticized for intolerably long burst CDs, and while there was one change (Renewed Focus), circumstances made it into a scary counter-meta hero.
It’s just that the match-up versus the Medi Guard became easier for it to fight, is all. A friend has played Medi Guard from launch (2 months into the game he invented 21614); he notices that with Cele running rampant, Medi Guard has just enough control, defenses, and burst damage to overcome Cele builds’ sustain. The emphasis on more 1-on-1 showdowns also helps its survivability, because Guards can’t really run. They have to win it.
To add, Medi Guard is a fairly acquired taste, and you don’t really see many people run around with a Zerker Guard (for mental health reasons) – that is why you think they have too much burst when you get hit with basically all of the Medi Guard’s skills and lose a big chunk of health. You’ll think different when you fight them more.

Med guard is one of the most common if not the most common build by far in PvP. Not sure what you’re talking about. All the weapon type variants, Hammer/Scepter, Gs what have you run meditations nowadays.

Bunker guards are the acquired taste. I have seen maybe one in the past month. and I pvp almost every day.

PistolWhip.2697:

Med guard is one of the most common if not the most common build by far in PvP. Not sure what you’re talking about. All the weapon type variants, Hammer/Scepter, Gs what have you run meditations nowadays.

Bunker guards are the acquired taste. I have seen maybe one in the past month. and I pvp almost every day.

Ah, I’m just reminiscing about the roots of Medi Guard.
Medi Guard -is- the most common build now. But it -wasn’t- 2 years ago. Back then, Virtue Bunker was the thing. Medi Guard is something you run for fun.

My point was that even though it was basically “as it were” from launch till now, the shifting of meta builds around it gave it a chance to shine. I’m (and some Guard-maniac friends are) happy about it. Always thought “Mystic Knight” classes were cool.

Good to know you PvP often. Got less and less time to play and I’m out of touch.

Ralkuth.1456:

Ah, I’m just reminiscing about the roots of Medi Guard.
Medi Guard -is- the most common build now. But it -wasn’t- 2 years ago. Back then, Virtue Bunker was the thing. Medi Guard is something you run for fun.

Medi guard was always around, but typically used with greatsword and more damage traits. It was never used at a high level because it was too easy to kill and the burst was too easy to avoid. Medi guard only became extremely popular in the past few months because of some buffs and the build being used by the WTS winners.

Hammer medi is the only “new” thing, taking the best of the old medi guard and virtue bunker builds while maintaining burst damage with procs.