Guild Wars 2

In sPvP I’m pigeon holed into holding a point while the rest of the team runs about.
In WvWvW I’m supply running support, I don’t get kills easily but I do get enough for the monthly after a lot of time spent there repairing. If I catch someone I kill them but otherwise I’m not great in ranged deparment.

Even with shield 90+ toughness and specced for vitality I feel underwhelming against conditions. If I take condition removing utilities I’m left without boons to give allies, if I spec deep into virtues and I clear 3 off me with my virtue but I lose a good amount of points for things like “healing when applying boons to others” and other nifty things.

If I spec dps I have way small a health pool to manage even with mitigation and heals.
If I spec the other way I have small dps.

I’ve ran Greatsword, Hammer, Mace/Shield boon spam, Sword/Focus, Scepter Focus, and everything in between, I’ve respecced probably 20 times (20×3 silver ouchie) and still don’t feel like my other classes in damage (I have 9 character slots and 8 used for each profession).

The healing for myself is there, the healing for my party is not as strong but its there especially on symbols but if people are ranged, they aren’t going to get in my symbols.

Its late I’ve been up a long time, rough day and such, but I was feeling Guardian frustration and needed to rant. Sorry.

Anyone else feel it?
Anyone got advice and builds for me to try?

What gear are you using because that can also affect the spec that you run as well. Also what ruins are you putting in the gear as well?

I’ve been running into exactly the same problem as you have. Since I’m 80 I’ve been doing wvwvw alot and noticed that other classes, that get ganked on by about 5-10 people have a better chance to get out alive than I do, due to our heavy weakness to conditions. Also against thieves’ and warriors’ ridiculous single target damage I have nothing to throw in. Even with protection and retaliation up (which are pretty much the bread n butter of guardian’s defensive mechanics) they cut right through it, like it isn’t even there. Aegis is out of question here, 1 hit blocked of the 100 blades thingy from the warrior won’t save me. But yeah so I thought, guardians obviously are not the DPS class, and I didn’t even want it to be that. I picked guardian for the sake of the name itself, a bulwark, a class that might be able to save others by buffing/ taking hits for them. So yeah I’ve been running around with a staff/focus+shield combo for a long time in wvwvw now. I’ve grown to like it and even tho your teammates might not actively notice what great advantage you’re giving them, but squishier classes like ele will later thank me for the 5 seconds of 33% less damage or the group of enemies that was about to finish them that I pushed away with shield of absorption.

Also for offensive builds that still provide a good amount of sustainability and healing, you might wanna read the “Hammer Time!” thread. A on the third page, if I remember correctly, posted his crit hammer build. This one with knight gear and the needed vitality on your trinkets should work pretty well, theoretically. Right now I am upgrading my armorsmith to be able to craft the Knight’s Draconic Armor Set. This will give me a huge prec/power/toughness boost and I’ll compensate vitality losses with my accessory.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#Mccz0oMzmvLaomvLao0GxG0oMosqMR

As you can see, I’m using GS instead of hammer. I tried hammer, but realised I have better survivability with GS, don’t ask me why. The whirling wrath should work just as fine for the crit atomic bomb as hammer’s mighty blow. Empowering might will do the job for you, and with a crit chance higher than 40% it should give you a nice heal boost in a crowd. Purging Flames helps a bit with the condition removal, but it’s still bugged as it only removes one condition upon activation. Its burning gives you a nice dot if you’re up against 2 or more opponents on your own. Also Virtue of Justice resets if you kill the enemy – nice. Blinds apply vulnerability, more damage – nice. You can almost make them perma vulnerable with both GS and 1-h-Sword, also its single target range damage comes in handy.

I’m still trying this out and working on setting up my gear for it (only 34% crit chance so far), but it doesn’t work any less bad in wvwvw as my old 0/0/30/30/10 build so I’m good. You might give it a try!

It sounds like maybe you might want to take a step back and ask yourself, just what sort of playstyle are you searching for?

Also, don’t feel that you NEED altruistic healing to be a tanky Guardian, that is but one of the ways.

It seems like you want to be more offensively oriented than you can be right now, perhaps this fixation does not work entirely too well with the Guardian. Not saying it can’t be done but the Guardian does fall more along the lines of “slow and steady wins the race” than it does RAM THIS kitten UNTIL IT DIES.

You can’t have all those things at once. (Healing/Ranged healing/Strong melee and ranged DPS/Many conditions removals/Large health pool/etc)
The best advice is to choose 1 role and spec yourself entirely into it. Let your teammates help you cover your weaknesses.

When defending you just want to hold out as long as you can to give your team time; You aren’t always expected to succeed and stay alive. 1 other person should help you out for those 1v2+ situations.

Xethos.3179:

You can’t have all those things at once. (Healing/Ranged healing/Strong melee and ranged DPS/Many conditions removals/Large health pool/etc)

But it would be nice to be able to flip between them like an engineer (for example) can.

Well, I do not mind my not being able to kill anything quickly. However, with a support spec I find it incredibly difficult to get any trophies to buy better armor or weapons in WvW. Buffing and healing allies is just not rewarded. Even if you activate virtue of justice, the damage that others do with the buff they receive does not count for you but for them.

So all in all I find supportive guardian in WvW very lackluster at the moment. Good for your team: yes. Rewarding for you: no!

“But it would be nice to be able to flip between them like an engineer (for example) can.”

Then they would have to take away our weapon swap aka we can only carry one set.

This kills the game balance..

And to the rest of you complaining that you have to be a certain role..You realize you can change your builds very wildly right? I went from a 2k toughness build in spvp.. to a greatsword glass canon(I could have made it even more if I wanted) build in 5 mins of customization with 45% crit and over 3k damage.

And today if I wanted I could completely spec in healing and vit ..I really don’t think people understand how deep it can get.

Remus.1270:

.You realize you can change your builds very wildly right?

If they intended us to keep changing our builds very wildly, they would have put free trainers at the entrance to WvWvW and Dungeons etc.

Moreover, some people actually like their role, be it glass cannon or support build or something in between.

My point is simply that whatever you chose, you should get rewarded equally for your contribution to the group effort. This is just not the case atm.

If Anet only wants glass cannons in WvW who are competing for most damage and thus trophies then Guild Wars 2 will become a very one-dimensional game. And right now – correct me if I am wrong – drops solely depend on how much damage you do to a target…

If they intended us to keep changing our builds very wildly, they would have put free trainers at the entrance to WvWvW and Dungeons etc.

They do intend that we change our builds. I won’t say “wildly,” because I have no idea what constitutes “wildly,” but remember that the traits you have unlocked can be changed instantly and at no cost while you’re out of combat. That was obviously intentional, and you should be making good use of the feature. I don’t know how well this works in sPVP, but in PVE and possibly WvWvW, switching Traits on the fly is not a bad idea.

Also remember that full re-specs are very very cheap. They cost a flat price of (I think) 3.5 silver at 80, so the cost is really just a minor moneysink. You’re supposed to change builds often, or at least not be punished for experimenting and moving things around. They don’t need to add a free trainer outside of dungeons. Just stop by at Lion’s Arch or something before going.

In sPVP, changing your build is completely free.

Well I’m a Guardian lvl 80 with 2 exotic pieces of armour and working towards my exotic weapon (hammer)

I run a Staff\Hammer or Staff\Sword-Torch as for utilities I keep changing them between fights to whatever my team needs. I’m at 10/30/30 in power precision and toughness, the vitality and power I get comes from my armour and weapons. Generally I support my team by teleporting and using #3 hammer to catch fleeing targets, I use all the staff abilities when we’re pushing a gate since it heals, removes conditions grants might and a wall to keep enemies inside their keep or interrupting on the walls and well as granting swiftness.

When I’m in the mood for dps I take sword-torch teleport to nearest zerg cluster set everyone on fire then use the ultimate to become invunerable and by then they are so wtf?! that my team has gotten to them and killed them all.

Guardians aren’t really built for any kind of solo play unless you do some hardcore specialization. You want a party to play with, I am running support and loving it…0/0/30/30/10, cleric armor, invader hammer, scepter+shield, Hold The Line, Stand Your Ground, Retreat.

I can tank, I can do some fair damage, but not enough to 1v1 thieves/warriors, I focus on keeping my teammates alive with bubbles/utilities while at the same time staying on the frontlines tanking and doing dmg

I run very close to what Splintrr is running with a few changes:

1) I run Knight’s (tough, pow, prec) armor and the trait for 5% of tough goes to prec.

2) I run Sword+Shield and Scepter+Focus because I can snare with Scepter then spike with Sword to get kills and badges.

3) I run Wall of Reflection, Hold the Line, and Stand Your Ground because while I love the shouts (traited for condition removal and 20% recharge decrease), I honestly feel no Guardian should be without Wall of Reflection in WvW. It is too good at protection siege, gates, teammates, etc.

Seems like most posters here are just inexperienced with the profession. Guardian is naturally supportive, so it’s very easy to go so deep into that role that your offense is then lacking. It’s the opposite of warrior where offense is abundant and obvious, and you have to work for support. In addition, the default supportive nature of guardians makes players reluctant to give it up when going for damage, even though when you compare it to other damage builds, they don’t really have any support and limited survivability.

From my experience, one of the main hurdles to overcome when going with an offensive guardian build is the notion that you need your defensive utility and stats to survive. You can do perfectly fine against most small groups with limited amounts. However, you need to be very familiar with when – and when not to dodge. Similarly, you need to be better aware of Aegis, including activating Virtue of Courage, and blind. Also, consider using Shelter for your heal. Against a focused assault and burst damage, the 2 seconds of block prevents far more damage than any of the other options could heal back.

For WvW, we do lack ranged options, which hampers us a bit. So for sieges, it’s generally better for us to man the siege equipment or run supply. Scepter is your best choice for that because the ground-target AoE has a short cooldown.

For being offensive, you need to set up traits and gear appropriately, but realize that you’ll never be a glass cannon like most thieves or 100blades warriors (which are easy to render useless). Generally you want to get 30-40 points in Honor and Valor to boost your toughness and vitality, then Zeal for two-handed weapons or Radiance for one-handed. Radiance doesn’t have many good options to better two-handed weapons and it’s just as easy to get precision on gear. For gear, you want a mix of offense and defense. For defense, I like the “soldier” items (Power/Toughness/Vitality) because it allows easy substitution of and balance with “berserker” items for pure offense or “explorer” items for magic find. I don’t like combining “knight” and “valkyrie” much because you end up heavy on toughness and crit damage but light on precision. Note: “soldier” can’t be crafted, but is fairly common on vendors, specifically the WvW vendors.

Guards are still very good in world vs world if built right. I spec for damage and survival and do just fine. They shine in small fights and in 1 vs 1. The range might not be the best but Its still useful.
In tpvp there must haves! and in spvp they can hold their own against everyone to the point where people always target you last.
In pve they can solo almost every mob besides encounters you find in dungeons.

I have not yet tried any sPvP but I have dabbled in WvW as a guardian. I think the main issue with WvW is that it really does not reward what a guardian is optimized in doing.

I typically run with a greatsword and staff. I use an bit of a strange build (10/15/5/30/10) for the virtue buffs, shorter consecrations, refreshing virtue of justice on kills and a situationally spammable blind. I’ve gone 30 in to honor for larger, healing symbols, 2-handed weapon cooldown reduction and the extra health.

I have a mix of knight’s and carrion exotics (I like to diversify a little bit rather than pour into one source of damage, even though precision/power/crit damage have superior scaling).

Lack of range is difficult to deal with, but I’m relatively difficult to kill with my gear set, and I can apply a huge number of boons/healing at range with enough fire power to kill anyone that tries to jump into melee via greatsword.

The issues I’m having are that guardians seem to excel at supporting teammates, holding choke points, delaying stragglers so the zerg can pick them off and generally just being a relatively threatening obnoxious nuisance to the enemy. But with no long range burst, it’s difficult to actually get rewarded since you need to tag and kill people to gather tokens. Karma and experience aren’t a problem, but landing killing blows is quite difficult and in some cases counter to productive guardian play in WvW. I have considered going full dps, but with no effective ranged weapon I think it’d just be an invitation to get slaughtered in the field. At least with my current gear, I can survive focus fire from 3-4 opponents for a reasonable time.

I think guardian in WvW is a little less straight forward than other classes, and unfortunately is not compensated equivalently for supportive play.

i assume you guys arent running staff/scepter/torch/virtue/consecration builds? there are some amazing wvw builds out there that not only support your team, but can turn the battle around. the only build that doesnt really have a place in WvW is meditations. shouts, spirit weapons, signets, and consecrations are all boss.

imao i’m a casual player and i have almost 700 tokens. melee guardian btw

u just need to know how to dance when to get in when to back out. no need for crappy range

I don’t know why people are saying guardians are weak on condition removal. We have Smite Condition on a 20 (or 16) second cooldown, Contemplation of Purity to remove all conditions, we can have two passive condition removals every 10 seconds (signet and Purity trait), we can use Purging Flames and Save Yourselves and the focus and the torch to remove conditions from allies, the Spirit Bow removes conditions, the greatsword symbol + whirl combo removes conditions, all our light fields can be used in combination to remove conditions, we can trait to make our shouts remove conditions, or you can use Runes of the Soldier to make shouts remove conditions (including on allies if your shouts affect them).

What more do you need?

Downstairs Eddie.8125:

I don’t know why people are saying guardians are weak on condition removal. We have Smite Condition on a 20 (or 16) second cooldown, Contemplation of Purity to remove all conditions, we can have two passive condition removals every 10 seconds (signet and Purity trait), we can use Purging Flames and Save Yourselves and the focus and the torch to remove conditions from allies, the Spirit Bow removes conditions, the greatsword symbol + whirl combo removes conditions, all our light fields can be used in combination to remove conditions, we can trait to make our shouts remove conditions, or you can use Runes of the Soldier to make shouts remove conditions (including on allies if your shouts affect them).

What more do you need?

We’re good at removing conditions on others (cleansing bolts only works on allies), but we’re mediocre at removing conditions on ourselves, and if we do trait to become good at it, we become bad at everything else.

Damage is fine. Survival is fine. Only problem I see is ranged capability.

I run Hammer/Staff 0/20/10/30/10 with damage oriented gear.

We’re good at removing conditions on others (cleansing bolts only works on allies), but we’re mediocre at removing conditions on ourselves, and if we do trait to become good at it, we become bad at everything else.

That’s just balance and compromise. If you have a problem with conditions, you trait for condition removal and make compromises elsewhere. Managing conditions is part of playing smart.

Downstairs Eddie.8125:

I don’t know why people are saying guardians are weak on condition removal. We have Smite Condition on a 20 (or 16) second cooldown, Contemplation of Purity to remove all conditions, we can have two passive condition removals every 10 seconds (signet and Purity trait), we can use Purging Flames and Save Yourselves and the focus and the torch to remove conditions from allies, the Spirit Bow removes conditions, the greatsword symbol + whirl combo removes conditions, all our light fields can be used in combination to remove conditions, we can trait to make our shouts remove conditions, or you can use Runes of the Soldier to make shouts remove conditions (including on allies if your shouts affect them).

What more do you need?

A lot of the conditional removal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The bow misses a lot. Contemplation of Purity is often a waste with such a long cooldown in order to remove a couple conditions. The biggest problem I have with conditions as a guardian is that I want something that can remove two conditions (since most condition builds apply more than one). If I have immobilize and a couple stacks of bleed, I want to remove immobilize. But it’s not always the case that you can do that. I think the lack of abilities to free us from movement impairment conditions is the overriding concern. The damaging ones we can deal with in ways besides removing them.

Condition related problems would be a non-issue if Purging Flames was not bugged.

Notes
Any hostile or neutral entities entering the field (or already present at activation time) are tagged with a single 5 second burn that does not refresh. Any time spent in the circle ensures full damage. The same applies for the condition removal, which removes all conditions.
Since damage source is a condition and not an environmental effect, Master of Consecrations does not change damage output.

It currently does NOT do that.