Guild Wars 2

Hi guardian players!

First: Please understand: I don’t want to hurt any of you! If you have fun with it I understand! I accept if the guardian is not my kind of cake. (But if you have a spare minute, please explain me HOW to enjoy the guardian gameplay. What you find is the most entertaining part of it? Why is this profession your favourite over an ele or an engi.)

I just rolled a gua a few days ago to have some fun after I maxed out my ele and my ranger. (I also have a 50ish thief) I usually play WvW and open world PvE.

It’s all right since I level with my fianceé’s mesmer together so we can take on mobs and content higher level than us. But for some reason I thought that the guardian playstyle is much more… active? fun? entertaining?

Is there any “active play” build what does not rely exclusively on the weapon skills. I feel that even a ranger uses more button presses a minute. For instance a trapper ranger throws the traps around, positioning them, micromanaging the pets. An ele is attunement-dancing while adapting to the situations around.

So fellow guardians please tell me what you find entertaining and “skillful” and active game as a Gua, one of the most powerful WvW/PvE professions in this game.

Note: again: I don’t want to say that you are skill-less or you play an easy class, or you are crap or something like this! I just wanna know HOW to enjoy this prof… Teach me please!

Thank you in advance!

The personal survivability of guard isn’t a problem. I personally enjoy the team aspect of it, and how a quick decision can totally save inexperienced group. Guardian relies heavily on active defense as well, at least for the meta builds; you’ll use blinds and blocks and won’t ever get hit. I find that fun. The button mashing is lower than other classes in pve, but the timing is far less forgiving. Start to use aegis and blinds, and set goals like never getting hit by a hoard of mobs and such. Being squishier than other classes at level 80, guardians are an active defensive class.

tl;dr: use aegis, blinds, condition removal, and carry people who never did the content simply with your own defenses, and the class is much funnier.

@oxtred:

I cannot really use aegis… it’s on a long CD but I think I know what you say about the blind…

So if I want a timing-intensive game I should trait for blind on burn for instance. I can imagine a burn(blind)-dodge-block-burn(blind)-Aegis-repeat rotation… And watch out for the telegraphed attacks…

What about WvW? Zerg… I know is a faceroll with basically every prof, ele including.
About havocking and roaming?

I mostly play PvP and WvW, so this reply is from those perspectives:

I’ve always enjoyed being a support class: I played Holy Priest in WoW, a Cleric in D&D, a Medic in Team Fortress 2… so a Guardian was a natural pick for me.

I never really enjoyed dealing damage and I like reactive playstyles. A Shout-based bunker build fills this niche for me. I need to hold off on certain skills, save them for the most opportune time. I’m maybe not constantly pushing buttons, but my mind is always planning ahead, trying to predict what I should do next.

In WvW I enjoy that I am supporting my team, making them live longer, stacking Might to increase their damage, using Swiftness to help all our mobility…

I also get a lot of satisfaction from trapping people with Line and Ring of Warding and kicking them away with Banish.

Really, no, guard can’t match the activity of some other professions. It’s a much more timing based profession than activity heavy profession.

For example in open world PVE on my Ele I’d run around and do the Scepter Focus might rotation and doing that pretty much blew everything up. I’d simply slip in Obsidian Flesh into it during the earth attuenment phase that’d keep me safe and I’d just burst the hell out of big groups of mobs and wipe them out quickly.

Compare that to my tactic on Guard. I’d jump into the group with GS leap blinding Them all, start whirling, then after they all got an attack attempt in (blinded so not landing) I’d VoJ(traited) for another blind. then finish the whirl, throw the field down, swap to sword/focus drop focus5, then maybe do an AA round and then sword2 to blind again, if VoJ back up from a kill blind with that again, focus4 for more blinds if needed, swap back to GS and leap to blind again if needed etc. Just a steady rotation of blinds/blocks maybe throw in shelter/courage/retreat/focus renewal in there for more drawn out encounters.

So where I was in a very quick and active rotation on Ele throwing in an immunity if I felt at risk, I was in a slower more controlled rotation on my guard. Both were effective, guard more controlled aiming to never be touched by anything blocking/dodging/blinding and laughing as things try and get the drop on me, ele more like coming in and dropping a bomb then coming out swinging my LH and hitting like a mac truck.

I’ve played a guardian since right after launch and I have always had a blast. I have also found it very hard to play any alts because the guardian is so much fun. I initially ran an AH knights crithammer build when I was learning to play and it was awesome. You basically feel immortal in that build while doing respectable damage.

Then I switched to a full DPS zerker build for PVE and a meditation build for PVP. Meditation build wrecks people if you time it right, not only can you do alot of damage but surviviability is excellent with the meditation skills/traits. The grandmaster medi trait heals you for ~2k when you activate a meditation and 2 of the meditations are condition cleansing. Pretty awesome when you get loaded down with conditions and are barely alive then you convert conditions into boons and can heal back to full health nearly instantly and give them a good stomping.

For PVE i’m mixing up my zerk gear just to experiment but like people said before, its all about the active defenses and boons to survive since we have a low health pool. Mixing aegis/dodge/blinds can really make you survive but you should pick the necessary traits to enhance those abilities.

The support aspect of the guardian is great and can be very satisfying when you use a clutch Aegis or stability to block or mitigate a powerful attack. Or on the flip side keeping protection and regan up to help people maintain scholars rune bonus.

Also I just really like the guardian weapon animations and heavy armor is boss.

Aggrostemma.1703:

@oxtred:

I cannot really use aegis… it’s on a long CD but I think I know what you say about the blind…

So if I want a timing-intensive game I should trait for blind on burn for instance. I can imagine a burn(blind)-dodge-block-burn(blind)-Aegis-repeat rotation… And watch out for the telegraphed attacks…

What about WvW? Zerg… I know is a faceroll with basically every prof, ele including.
About havocking and roaming?

Aegis are on a long cd, and that’s where the difficulty is, timing. I’m having fun joining some nearly optimized zergs with my guardian, but I guess it’s a matter of personal preference; in roaming meditations are fun, it’s a bursty spec with lots of instant cast skills and teleports/blinds, it probably suits you.

guardians pretty middle of the road for learning curve, they only thing they need right now is soft CC because they are so ridiculously easy to kite.

What I do now is running around Tyria tanking dynamic events 2-3 level higher then me.
Using triple shouts and sword+focus and mace+shield. Power/vitality and toughness/vitality gear. My missis follows me with her triple sword mesmer. And she beats the brown thing out hard of everything I tank. At level 35 we were able to do a centaur event (don’t know the name) including several 38 veterans each wave. Knockback, knockdown, aoe from trebs,ranged centaurs you name it! And reviving a level40 ranger a few dozen times :P

It was a hell of fun. I think I get the feeling

But please keep posting! Everybody likes different things and I would like other opinions too!

IF you really want to enjoy your guardian, stay away from vitality and toughness. But yeah, you get the feeling.

oxtred.7658:

IF you really want to enjoy your guardian, stay away from vitality and toughness. But yeah, you get the feeling.

thief guardian w/o stealth

@Aeolus:

Sorry I don’t get it !

Zerk guard plays very similarly to thief but with blocks and some passive healing, vs thieves evades and stealth. (so basically both are super squishy while actively defending themselves with blinds, and for guard blocks, and thief dodges).

I still love going full DPS, GS and then either sword or mace/focus , jumping in doing blind rotations, dancing around whirling my way to quickish kills. Had a lot of fun taking on the beefier event mobs while doing this kind of stuff. I have a bit more to do on my ranger’s personal story then I’ll probably be starting another guardian

Jerus:

Is this the famous Meditation build? Is it able to roam (not solo, small group)?
Can you make such a build without sacrificing much DPS/burst and still be tanky?

But honestly I still need some practising to stay alive in zerket gear especially if multiple attackers are on me… And these are only mobs, not players….

And I don’t really get why toughness isn’t good for a prof able to heal like a 00266 ele…

But I see the light at the end of the tunnel… Whatever it means

Aggrostemma.1703:

Jerus:

Is this the famous Meditation build? Is it able to roam (not solo, small group)?
Can you make such a build without sacrificing much DPS/burst and still be tanky?

But honestly I still need some practising to stay alive in zerket gear especially if multiple attackers are on me… And these are only mobs, not players….

And I don’t really get why toughness isn’t good for a prof able to heal like a 00266 ele…

But I see the light at the end of the tunnel… Whatever it means

03000 and you have your base for the build I’m talking about. You need that VoJ blind spam, it’s just too good! Everytime you kill an enemy that gives xp your VoJ refreshes from 3 in radiance and it is an AE blind with the 1 point in radiance. It’s a great combo.

From there, yeah you could go meditation for PVP that’s what I run, or small group WvW stuff. Remember you have 3 blocks on focus5, couple seconds of blocks on shelter (watch out for interrupts), then Focused renewal which is now a meditation and lower reuse with the medi build.

For PVE in general I usually stick with 45005, though I may swap in a staff here and there to stack swiftness if I feel the need/want. Can jus swap on for GS, lay the symbol, swap back then leap out on the last tick and start running with a bit of swiftness stacked. There are other trait setups but they’re all situational and something you just learn to play with, 45005 is the base, you have master of consecrations for faster walls/condi removal (Purging) and absolute resolution for condi removal, as with low HP condi removal can be huge. Then the rest is damage so you can kil things before you run out of active defense tools.

But yeah, you won’t take many hits if you play it right, which is why you can get away with low toughness and what not. If things are blinded or you have blocks going then what’s the point? That’s why I think it’s fun, if you screw up yeah you’re hit HARD, if you play really on point you come out unscathed and laugh at the whole situation.

Guards do not and will not have high apm like a thief, ele or ranger. Coming from a pvp roaming’s perspective, half the battle for the Guardian is timing your blocks, blinds, dodge, etc. Medi builds take the most skill over bunk/team support, condition builds, simply because the need to time your skills properly. If you’re glassy, you’re main concentration is not dying in zerg battles and opening for that burst, which can be a small window at times.

-Teleport with Justice Intervention right when your 3 second #5 Focus skill pops. Or save it for blocks?
-Using Smite Condition immediately when you get that first condition. Or use it right away for the heals?
-Having to know the burst of most classes; while most thiefs or mesmers can just stealth. Everything is a little more time sensitive to you.

Guardian Zerkers in WvW: 2/5/6/0/1 GS + S/F is what I run.

1) Damage Negation is where your survivability really comes from and takes knowing what other classes burst skills are.

You negate damage via 4x blinds.

You negate damage via 3x blocks.

You negate damage via dodge.

Knowing when to do what against what opponents is what keeps you alive. Blow them too fast and you’re going to eat a ranger pew pew, necro chain fear after you’ve been loaded up or a warrior / ele burst while stunned.

2) Spike Healing & Condi cleanse.

This comes from Meditations, Food & Sigils. I typically run w/ Poultry Leak & Sigils of Blood.

3) Burst Rotations.

Probably the hardest to time as you really need to take the risk vs reward, as mentioned above: Do I use them for burst or do I use them to escape. We have the most balanced risk vs reward in the game, imho.

It’s possible to make the claim we have the best AoE Burst in game. But if you do it, we’ve spent ~EVERYTHING~ to do it and you better have killed them because the cooldowns are long as fk. lol

4) Mobility.

Don’t be fooled, we have really good mobility if you choose the right weapons w/ Meditations. The best thing about Sword blink & JI is that they’re instant and the ability to chain all 3 together is phenomenal, regardless of what others say.

Travellers Runes.

Basic premise of GC Guard.