Guild Wars 2

So I’ve got this level 73 Guardian that’s just sort of been sitting there doing nothing for a week or two. I’m all spec’d out with 30 valor and 30 honor because I didn’t know what I was doing and just had this ‘going to be tough’ mentality. I ran around whacking things with my mace/shield.

Problem here is that while I am tough and hardly ever die outside a dungeon my Warrior is almost as unkillable and smashes things with her hammer twice as fast. Even faster if its a group of things. I find that I am rather hung up on the 1h/shield routine perhaps more than I should be but I’m thinking that I need to change my spec to do some actual damage.

Any advice would be appreciated. I’m not hung up on the mace per se, swords are fine.

vs Veterans / champs (or any high hp mob) : GS / Scepter + focus / torch
vs groups of mobs: GS / Hammer OR Staff – open with hammer blast and switch OR spam #1 with Staff while GS skills are on CD.

Another tip: 15 in Radiance allows you to spam blind, abuse that and you can practically run around after dishing out all of your AoE’s with your GS, and spam F1 while swinging around inside the group. (you’ll be practically untouchable, mobs will keep dying one after another).

irinawds.9627:

I find that I am rather hung up on the 1h/shield routine perhaps more than I should be but I’m thinking that I need to change my spec to do some actual damage.

Any advice would be appreciated. I’m not hung up on the mace per se, swords are fine.

As much as I appreciate advice could you pretty please check the parts in bold there?

Mace is fine. Shield is actually… not the best defensive option for Dungeons, to put it mildly. Shield is great when dealing with groups of chaff but sub-par against single tough opponents outside of the group buff. Dungeon bosses will just walk through the pushback from Shield of Absorption and it will only absorb very few attacks. So you’re left with the Protection from Shield of Judgement.

Focus’ Ray of Judgement is a tad weaker than Shield of Judgement but has the Blind that will actually work, and Shield of Wrath is awesome.

I can only heartily recommend you swap between the two as needed. You’ll be even tougher for it.

As for your damage output, well, blame Mace. It’s, along with Hammer, the defensive weapon. That said, I don’t find Sword to be all that much better.

If you do want to do damage as a Guardian, invest in Radiance. Max it. The investment plus the top tier Trait Right-Hand Strength will summarily up your Crit Chance by some 30%. Invest in Toughness for Crit Damage and Retributive Armor. That’s IMO the best way to do it.

Mace and Hammer are defensive weapons, that being said the Hammer is very capable of pumping some hard numbers. Mighty Blow hits roughly half as much as a Whirling Wrath that connects all bolts but on a much shorter CD. You can generally pull out two Mighty Blows per Whirling Wrath CD, the fact that it’s a blast finisher is just adding further points on top.

Mace just isn’t an offensive weapon, it’s a defensive one, it’s sluggish and its numbers aren’t that high, it’s not a killing machine but one to help you turtle. For one-handers, sword is probably your best bet. Its auto-attack is actually really good steady damage, the third hit on the chain hits for a small burst if you slash all three waves into your foe. Zealot’s Defense + Shield of Wrath is a burst combo you can use with Sword/Focus while remaining safe against numerous attacks.

Greatsword is your go-to weapon for AoE situations, its swing speed is fast and well, nothing wrong with spin2win.

Shield is a situational weapon that I believe people give a bit too little credit for. It may not KB bosses all the time, but an interrupt is an interrupt which has uses outside of boss fights too. The knockback is great for giving allies space on regular pulls while how you utilize the projectile absorb is entirely up to you. It’s not THE BEST but I use one way more than I do focus in dungeons.