Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one who, when using this weapon combo (most competitive builds include it, hence my use), feels it to be incredibly unwieldy and sluggish to use in pvp play? Everything has this awful wind-up/aftercast timing and delay that really makes it off-putting to use, and hard to aim/do any damage with it.

I usually use GS for WvW, so switching to Sw/F in PvP was hard.

Everything about the GS works well, maybe except for GS5 which sometimes doesn’t hit correctly due to terrain.

I think the main problems with Sw/F are the last chain of the auto attack and Focus 4.
The other two auto attacks are quick, but the last one requires a windup time and just doesn’t make sense. Projectiles?

Focus 4 has a longer delay time than most Guardian skills, so that may be an issue, but I particularly have issues with it not hitting sometimes. Very clunky

I run medi DH with GS & Sw/F. I agree with 100% that Sw/F is extremely awkward to use. I used Sword cuz of the #2 for teleport, the rest are just filler for me. Focus is for the #5 with GS and judge’s intervention burst and #4 is just filler….

you need focus as a switch weapon just for skill 5 and unfortunately sword is the best main hand weapon we have atm, even though it is severely outdated.

I wouldn’t say sword is the best main hand weapon we have at all. It’s pretty crap other than #2. And yes, Sw/F is clunkly.

On the other hand, everything about Mace is win, you just have to build more around it’s abilities because it actually HAS Guardian-esque elements attached to it’s skills like symbol, blocking, etc…

for the role that guardians need to play in this meta (decent/mediocre roamer mix between rev and thief) sword is absolutely the best weapon

I find sword pretty clunky too, I like using it for #2 but even that skill seems to have a delay before it activates which opens you up for unnecessary dmg. Sword one seems slow compared to other class sword skills and its weak, dont get me started on the last chain of the AA its super clunky and can get reflected back at you. I kind of like sword 3 but i hate the root and i dislike it’s speed, seems really slow. As for focus i use to use it but in PvP I just go for shield instead, its good for projectile absorption, healing, knock backs as well as aegis and protection.

I’ve been using Shield for quite a while now. Though it may not have the 1v1 performance as Focus’s 3xblocks and cleanses, i’ve made a node neutral and made great clutch down plays with Sw#2 + shield#5.

The thing is, i’ll almost always lose a 1v1 vs engi/rev/druid and I don’t need the extra cleanses from focus, so i’m not really missing it atm.

Darknicrofia.2604:

for the role that guardians need to play in this meta (decent/mediocre roamer mix between rev and thief) sword is absolutely the best weapon

Oh yes, I forgot … something is only relevant from the eyes of people who are at the top of the ladder. ><

Saiyan.1704:

I’ve been using Shield for quite a while now. Though it may not have the 1v1 performance as Focus’s 3xblocks and cleanses, i’ve made a node neutral and made great clutch down plays with Sw#2 + shield#5..

The other weapons faults aside the shield is quite nice.

The 5 also serves as a decent projectile block for you and nearby allies.

If only the main hand weapons got some love the way the shield did when it was tweaked by Anet then maybe core guardian would be just a bit better.

I’ve been using shield in PvP since the game came out, despite it being absolutely horrible back then. I like it just because of the #5 skill, blocks projectiles and such for your team mates, knock back and a small clutch heal.

not at all meta but a fun combo anyways:
scepter23-trap-shield5-pull-hammer42
people in game are like wtf hammer noob
but they ded
so they mad

Stand The Wall.6987:

not at all meta but a fun combo anyways:
scepter23-trap-shield5-pull-hammer42
people in game are like wtf hammer noob
but they ded
so they mad

so many things have to go right for this entire combo to hit where as the damage from a shield 5 into LB2 + JI and ToF combo does more damage and is 3x easier to set up.

shield 5 into lb2? how does that work.
you dont have to use the entire combo on one person either.
also its not a serious thing i try to do, just kinda fun.

shield 5, swap to lb, wait 3 seconds, channel skill 2 into JI and ToF, then F1 then and drag them back into ToF

pretty much a 100-0 burst if it all hits on a non tempest protection booned target.

Really doesn’t matter:

I just saw the first week of season 2 Pro League (NA); as I did guess the amount of Guardians/DH was 0/40. Didn’t have time to see the EU matches, but I guess the same.

Anyone calling Guard/DH as part of the meta in the high end PvP is just naive; even with the “class stacking forbidden” rule they aren’t good enough to take a single slot in any roster.

Use sword focus or any other combo you want instead: as long as you run the class the damage to your is already done :P

Yeah, Buran, DH won’t be used by any Pro League teams because it isn’t at Ele, Rev, Druid, Necro, or Mesmer level

^ The thing is, I remember some people calling me biased when the changes for Guardians at the Jan 26th patch were made public and I call them absolutely insufficient to make our class viable in competitive gameplay. Some were even defending the inoperant role of Anet with our class (that was well before the shocking news of Colin leaving the company).

So, is not a surprise that some of our skills still feel convoluted and clunky: take in consideration that half of our skills, weapons and traits have no use and old bugs and gliches still remain unfixed since the very release (of the vanilla game, not from HoT).

lolwhat? no one in their right mind called the changes “sufficient”

in fact most of the threads were calling for Karl’s head at the laziness of the “buffs” aka the “just add 1” buff patch

youre talking about focus
im talking about shield
gg

OP here, I feel like the biggest issue in terms of class imbalance is our relative lack of utility and ‘feel’ as a class. Tons of the other competitive classes have near-instant or instant cast abilities, which are often not easily noticed or telegraphed. EVERY single ability that comes out of us is massively telegraphed and incredibly obvious to an experienced player to combat and avoid. We NEED to have our speeds and animations tightened up/changed to let us properly outplay the top-tier classes through skill. It’s far too easy to gauge and easily outmaneuver a Guardian nowadays, because our animations and tells are so blatant.

our biggest issue is the AoE reflect/negation fields being spammed out by tempests and scrappers in the form of magnetic aura, swirling winds and bulwark gyro.

we actually fare pretty well both 1v1 and team fight wise with every other class. But since tempests are tier 0 meta by default and scrappers aren’t that far behind them, we’re relegated to picking side fights or hoping to avoid 3 of the “meta” builds altogether (tempest, scrapper, power rev)