Guild Wars 2

I just finished fotm 12 and I am realizing that a melee guardian has no place in fractals unless you have perfect internet with 0 latency and are incredibly ultra awesome skilled at dodging and gaining instant full endurance. Lately I’ve had to replace whatever weapon I wasn’t using as my primary one as a scepter just because enemies will 1 hit me constantly and dodging agony attacks is even harder up close.

This wouldn’t be the worst thing ever except the scepter is broken, easily dodged by enemies (even AI) and terrible overall.

What builds are letting people run up to enemies and smash their faces in without instantly dying? When I brought this up to someone in my party they shrugged it off and said that it wasn’t hard. They were a warrior and most likely had twice my health and not any less toughness. They were running full berserkers gear and doing just fine up close.

Healway lets you melee as long as you have the sense to dodge. Zerker builds let you do that too though. I usually run melee glass cannon setups in fractals these days.

Don’t just randomly dodge. Dodge only when you see the big attack animations starting. This means you’ll have to know them first. Use WoR against ranged attacks. Block when you’re out of endurance. Guardian actually do have it easier than most other people.

How do people see these attacks from human sized enemies in a sea of particle effects?

given i’m only half of what you are in Fractals… don’t compare your Guardian to Warriors. both classes, though melee, are inantely different in terms of their core mechanics and how they can be best played.

as the two above me mentioned, learn to dodge, at the right moments. in Fractals, i know most bosses with big attacks or agony attacks have tells. so learn them and then you’ll learn when to dodge. ; ))

apart from dodging, we also have a variety of blinds, blocks, invuln stats that you can utilize to your advantage. many traits allow for dmg to your foes while blocking too.

another build in addition to the Healway Guardian is your standard Altruistic Healing (AH) build which also allows for decent survivability once you know how it works. if you’re really in need of more endurance – get sigils of energy (which the Healway most effectively uses), or food that gives faster endurance regen, or even vigorous precision trait, where you get vigor when you crit (5 pts in Honor line).

melee Guardian has no place in fractals? Guardian is absolutely AMAZING in fractals!

Massive Survivability, Superb support (some of the best boons in game), The best and longest lasting reflections in game (spirit shield/wall) and belive me when you learn to use them they make more diffrence in fractals then any other ability!

Hell we even have the ability to give our group quickness for 3 seconds 2 times within 15 seconds, not to even mention the FURY!!!

2! Area of Denial abilities, if used right these make or break an encounter.

And the list goes on.. the guardian has some AMAZING versatility, and POWER in fractals..

The best fractal team I ever had was 5 guardians, we went trough the dredges in the bomb section like butter, not even trying to rush to the door.

and shaman boss could forget about even touching us.

and while this was not 30+, it was still 20+

as for melee guardian? I have yet to meet a situation where I could not melee just fine, if I just played right.

Infact I frown on guardians that join my group equipped with scepter/shield and staff.. Its a crutch, and in the long run IT SHOWS!

Both Healway and AH have no trouble in melee, though for dungeons there could be even better builds.

I realise I went a bit of track in the start of my reply, but the fact is ANY kind of guardian is amazing! (except scepter users because they suck )

Edit: While Warriors have more health then us, that is just more health they need to fill up, if anything it dosnt work in theyr benefit. Effective health will crush actual health any day of the week.

The only mobs that should be destroying you in melee are the ridicilous ones in cliffside, but they are not ment to be tanked by players.. personally I think it is a god awful idea to give these npcs that much dps, but thats how it is.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

How do people see these attacks from human sized enemies in a sea of particle effects?

given this can’t be easy, even with tiny mobs, their hard hitting / devastating attacks (Scavengers in AC for e.g.) have a tell / wind-up. more practice and if you focus a bit more, you’ll be able to notice them better. and ideally, you’re built tough enough to be able to take some hits from “regular” mobs.

though more importantly, i want to highlight the fact that even though some Guards or other classes are able to face-tank in this game, i don’t feel it’s “meant to be played” this way. they added in the dode mechanics and other mitigation skills, which i feel promotes dynamic playing. sure, one could argue you lose DPS when you’re re-positioning yourself, but better than being downed. in less forgiving content, high level fractals i’m assuming, WvW, etc.. rely more on positioning, not getting tunnel vision and really learning to play according to your surroundings. stay near allies who you know have buffs available to give. utilise combos. don’t stand in the middle of a mob, especially if you’re attracting all their aggro, etc etc

DaedalusDragon.3754:

How do people see these attacks from human sized enemies in a sea of particle effects?

Turn off post processing effects.

Kilrain Daggerspine.6843:

melee Guardian has no place in fractals? Guardian is absolutely AMAZING in fractals!

Massive Survivability, Superb support (some of the best boons in game), The best and longest lasting reflections in game (spirit shield/wall) and belive me when you learn to use them they make more diffrence in fractals then any other ability!

Hell we even have the ability to give our group quickness for 3 seconds 2 times within 15 seconds, not to even mention the FURY!!!

2! Area of Denial abilities, if used right these make or break an encounter.

And the list goes on.. the guardian has some AMAZING versatility, and POWER in fractals..

The best fractal team I ever had was 5 guardians, we went trough the dredges in the bomb section like butter, not even trying to rush to the door.

and shaman boss could forget about even touching us.

and while this was not 30+, it was still 20+

as for melee guardian? I have yet to meet a situation where I could not melee just fine, if I just played right.

Infact I frown on guardians that join my group equipped with scepter/shield and staff.. Its a crutch, and in the long run IT SHOWS!

Both Healway and AH have no trouble in melee, though for dungeons there could be even better builds.

I realise I went a bit of track in the start of my reply, but the fact is ANY kind of guardian is amazing! (except scepter users because they suck )

Edit: While Warriors have more health then us, that is just more health they need to fill up, if anything it dosnt work in theyr benefit. Effective health will crush actual health any day of the week.

The only mobs that should be destroying you in melee are the ridicilous ones in cliffside, but they are not ment to be tanked by players.. personally I think it is a god awful idea to give these npcs that much dps, but thats how it is.

Maybe I understand the guardian MUCH less than I thought I did. Where are you getting quickness so readily? Are you talking about Tome of Wrath? Because I will take 3 seconds of invulnerability and replenishing my virtues on half the cooldown without any roots any day over that.

And about this “effective health” stuff. You are woefully misinformed. More health is more health. Having less health doesn’t do anything for you. Sure, having less health means you gain more percent of your health back per heal, but that is a bad thing and doesn’t mean you have more survivability. 100% of 12,000 (made up number) is still less than 50% 24,001, and I’d kinda like to have the extra health for when I mess up, because I’m not perfect and I mess up quite often.

I mean, yes, a warrior may never get his health fully healed in a fight but isn’t that a good thing? Overhealing is a major problem for melee, toughness, healing guardians because heals become less effective when they are doing nothing. Also, a warrior can take a big hit and then be at the starting health of a guardian which gives him a lot more leeway compared to taking 2 hits and dying as a guardian by some boss who has immensely powerful attacks.

I appreciate the advice everybody and I’m sorry about that but I had to say it. One last thing, does any other guardian notice the bosses chase you the most? Maybe it is my imagination but the mossman, ascalonian fractal boss, and many others just follow me even though I’m doing minimal damage and my healing isn’t all that great (usually because at the time my AH build isn’t as effective because we are all spread out). Sometimes I feel like Anet made enemies treat the guardian like a tank from class MMOs and then didn’t make the guardian a tank at all. Or I’m making it all up in my head.

one thing to take into account regarding health, though more for a PvP perspective, is many classes have skills that gain from your health being below a certain threshold (usually 50%). and certain runes, e.g. scholar 6 pc bonus that gives you an additional 10% dmg if you’re above 90% health. so it does depend on the situation. though that’s besides the point.

again, re: warriors, we Guardians have so many more blocks that when used at the right time, can easily prevent a potential wipe for your party : ))

no need to say sorry. many of us just LOVE the Guardian class. and hopefully through our replies, you are learning and are able to take away from it. regarding your last question, no one knows truly or exactly how the aggro tables work in this game, but i know toughness and i’ve also read once that high healing power can attract mobs / bosses. so i’ve been in many situation where a boss will walk past all players just to get to me. at the same time, i’ve seen bosses ignore me entirely, and target the glassy thief in our group.

I actually prefer it when the boss goes after me, so then the other squishies won’t die. X)

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Maybe I understand the guardian MUCH less than I thought I did. Where are you getting quickness so readily? Are you talking about Tome of Wrath? Because I will take 3 seconds of invulnerability and replenishing my virtues on half the cooldown without any roots any day over that.

And about this “effective health” stuff. You are woefully misinformed. More health is more health. Having less health doesn’t do anything for you. Sure, having less health means you gain more percent of your health back per heal, but that is a bad thing and doesn’t mean you have more survivability. 100% of 12,000 (made up number) is still less than 50% 24,001, and I’d kinda like to have the extra health for when I mess up, because I’m not perfect and I mess up quite often.

I mean, yes, a warrior may never get his health fully healed in a fight but isn’t that a good thing? Overhealing is a major problem for melee, toughness, healing guardians because heals become less effective when they are doing nothing. Also, a warrior can take a big hit and then be at the starting health of a guardian which gives him a lot more leeway compared to taking 2 hits and dying as a guardian by some boss who has immensely powerful attacks.

I appreciate the advice everybody and I’m sorry about that but I had to say it. One last thing, does any other guardian notice the bosses chase you the most? Maybe it is my imagination but the mossman, ascalonian fractal boss, and many others just follow me even though I’m doing minimal damage and my healing isn’t all that great (usually because at the time my AH build isn’t as effective because we are all spread out). Sometimes I feel like Anet made enemies treat the guardian like a tank from class MMOs and then didn’t make the guardian a tank at all. Or I’m making it all up in my head.

I used to use renewed focus to, I only regret not opening my eyes sooner to what a giant crutch it was, having as high vigor uprate as we do, those 3 seconds in invul just feels like a penalty rather then a boon.

Hell, Tome of Wrath used correctly can pretty much obliterate the annoying monk swarms at colossus wrists, if used correctly.

As for renewing virtues, your virtues should be up plenty without it, and that 3 seconds you are in a invul, is 3 seconds your team has to fend for themselves.

For fractals you should in my opinion be using a tome, changing them based on situation.

A Guardians effective health isnt higher because he has less health, its higher because he is able to replenish the health he has fast enough that it is full again or close to full again by the time the next strike hits.

And no overhealing is not a issue, since most of our heals come from regen which almost always either comes with a symbol or other boons, it means you will be using it anyways, especially useful is it that our regen stacks duration.

The only time having more health really mathers is when you get hit by Mossman or Rabovich, but even 30k warrior gets oneshooted by those guys so 15k-30k no diffrence.
and you really shouldnt get hit by them. (though I will admit mossman is batkitten insane after last patch)

It dosnt mather if you have 50k hp if you are not able to replenish it.

As for agroo it seems to be a combination of Regen and proximity that drives the mobs nuts.

On a diffrent note, My old main was a warrior, I pretty much quit playing him because he ACTUALLY felt squishy, and felt i was spending more time in ranged then in melee as a warrior.

Ill admit I was skeptical to the lower health of the guardian at first, but that extra health of the warrior means absolutely nothing.

The mossman was stupid hard at lvl 20. He would 1shot me before I even knew he was up and he was following me like I was important or something. That fight had me spamming dodges I was so afraid.

Anyways, thanks for the advice guys and gals and keep it coming. I could use some more help with coming up with a build that doesn’t require me to buy a completely new armor set.

that being said, what gear and build / traits are you using right now?

As it stands mossman is prob my single least favorite boss, alot of his attacks just feel directly cheap..

Every time I hear someone say “hey, lets reset until we get Jungle or Sea” Im like “have these guys lost theyr bloody minds? dredge or volcano plz!”

In regards to gear you are prob gonna want to have more then one armorset eventually anyways..

And would indeed be useful to know your current gear/traits

I still don’t get it why people use ‘The healway guadrian’ or other ‘AH builds’ I mean they are good, you can survive and stuff. But i think its way better to have a high crit chance, so you can give your allies might.

I don’t see the point of a guardian without crit chance and kitten dps, all you can do is tank and survive.

I’m running p/v/t gear with 5x ranger 1x rata sum, 39% crit chance i think (pretty low, still need to get ascended stuff), really enjoy it. I can tank pretty good and with some VGJ from warriors I get alot of crits to.

just out of curiosity at what fractal lvl are you tanking pretty good?

Also I would say if Empowering Might is your reason for getting crit rate, that would be a mistake.

I run a hammer build. Right now I’m using Hammer/(anything else) in an AH build. I have full knight’s armor, 5 ranger runes and 1 emerald (?) orb, Valkyrie hammer with bloodlust, Ruby berserker earrings, solaria ascended ring, red ring of death, and the replicator amulet with emerald jewel and my magi’s spineguard of the valkyrie. Now looking at it it is really mixed but the stats are all there.

I run 0/15/30/20/5. I don’t even know anymore. I want to be survivable but I would rather not see all of my attack fly out the window for a small bit of survivability.

I’ve been surviving decently well in fractals 10-19 ever since I had 0 AR using this setup:

• 0/0/30/30/10 AH/EM build, using GS as main weapon for damage and frequent crit hits
• Knight/Berserker Mix Equipment
• Soldier runes for shout condi removal
• Sigil of energy on various weapons for extra dodges

This produces these relevant stats:

• ~2.9k attack
• 40% crit chance / ~60% crit dmg
• ~3k armor (lets me take aggro more frequently from party members)
• 15,805 HP

Your ability to dodge/negate high damage attacks is more relevant than survivability stats. This also includes using the proper counters to certain fights (i.e. using Shield of the Avenger vs. Tom). As the others have said, in time, you will learn which attacks are lethal and when to dodge/negate them. If needed, you could use consumables like omnomberry pies to heal you on crits. I’m still too cheap to buy them, but I still survive well.

I melee all my fights (rarely downed if not always up) except for the dredge fractal bosses, where dropping the lava buckets until they are low on HP is more effective. It’s funny how many PuG groups freak out when I melee the shaman fractal boss’s final form, saying stuff like “FIGHT AT RANGE!”, when I usually never get downed during the fight (at the very least I kill rally off the elementals). It’s a matter of not being “tunnel visioned” into wanting to attack all the time, but rather, attacking at opportune moments.

I would suggest using GS over Hammer if you’re meleeing boss fights. You’ll get more frequent crits for AH, since GS is better at triggering multi hits on a single target. You have to move around a lot, anyways, and hammer seems better suited for stationary boss fights. Also, the combo condi removal on GS is quite useful.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

I run a hammer build. Right now I’m using Hammer/(anything else) in an AH build. I have full knight’s armor, 5 ranger runes and 1 emerald (?) orb, Valkyrie hammer with bloodlust, Ruby berserker earrings, solaria ascended ring, red ring of death, and the replicator amulet with emerald jewel and my magi’s spineguard of the valkyrie. Now looking at it it is really mixed but the stats are all there.

I run 0/15/30/20/5. I don’t even know anymore. I want to be survivable but I would rather not see all of my attack fly out the window for a small bit of survivability.

Your stats are fine, hell you’re more survivable than I am by a longshot. If you sacrifice damage for more tankiness you will not notice ANY difference in fotm. I would advise against 15radiance, though. It’s absolutely useless. The only trash that should give you overwhelming trouble is dredge and they’re…immune to blind.

They are?! I suppose it makes sense as they are pretty much mole people… I really hate how often you come across enemies that are immune to control effects. The hammer’s Ring of Warding is so useless most of the time because anything and everything waltzes right on in.

I like the GS but I’ve used it for so long and I would love it if more of our weapons were valid in group situations.

tbh, i think RoW is slightly bugged. though still useful and works wonders when it does what it’s supposed to. ; ))

that being said, i loved having 15 in radiance while leveling and once i got to “harder” content. i.e. things not dying as fast, which i assume could be the case in higher level fractals, it’s not utilized AS much. but that’s my personal take.

you can do a variety of alterations of your existing AH build. currently i run 0/0/30/30/10 for my AH build and it is prett tanky. and my crit chance remains high at above 40%, 3k armor and close to 3k attack. mor ethan decent health too. and if you feel you’re not hitting hard enough, switch up the foods you use, or utilize might and fury at the right times. vice versa, if you don’t feel survivable enough, invest in food / consumables that help with that.

@Thz: indeed Dredges are immune to blind, but the vulnerability will still stack if you traited for it. Probably a bug, but as long as it is working, suits me