Guild Wars 2

So i had a conversation with my guildie the other day and he said that a guardian with a sword and focus is stronger that a guardian with a greatsword. i was wondering if anyone could clarify this for me and if so, what is your build. thanks

Look up the skills of both.

GS gives might at the end of it’s auto (Wrathful Strike)
Sword does 5 strikes at the end of it’s auto which is great for crits (Sword Wave counts as three) (Can give might too because of Empowering Might if the crit rate is decent)
Both have gap closers. (Leap of Faith and Flashing Blade)
GS has a PbAoE rapid strike (Whirling Wrath)
Sword has a single target projectile rapid attack that blocks projectiles (Zealot’s Defense)
GS has a PbAoE symbol that does damage and gives retaliation (Symbol of Wrath)
Focus has a bouncing projectile that damages and blinds foes, gives regeneration to allies and cleanses one condition per head (Ray of Judgement)
GS has a pull (Binding Blade)
Focus can block three attacks and, if not all three blocks are used up, do PbAoE burst damage

Basically, GS lacks defense.

Sword/Focus is still offensive but offers enough utility to be useful.

GS is for PvE and excels there.
Sword/Focus excels better in most other areas.

in pve u use gs for blind, whirling wrath and the symbol, then you switch to 1hsword focus because 1hsword has the stronger autoattack and deals more dps.

exactly, just carry both weapons sets… even better if you carry every weapon available for your class, personally, I often swap weapon sets once or twice in dungeon runs depending on the situation so I can bring the best of my class to the group

In essence, it’s what Trigger said. If you want a slightly longer version, look at http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83822-guardian-greatsword-dps-build-guide/

Depends what your looking for. There is no rotation for Max DPS in guardian. For pve dungeon its sword/focus 4eva neva stop. GS is a utility weapon or a burst at open of fighs, nothing more than that.

MunkeeBreath.9165:

So i had a conversation with my guildie the other day and he said that a guardian with a sword and focus is stronger that a guardian with a greatsword. i was wondering if anyone could clarify this for me and if so, what is your build. thanks

“Stronger” is a loaded word.

Depends on what he’s talking about.

GS does more dps in pve while s/f has more utility in pvp.

DPS check between guardian’s 3 major weapons

Hammer is actually the strongest, followed up close by sword and greatsword is falling behind.

However, greatsword has great pulls and burst damage thanks to it’s symbol and whirling wrath. It’s sustained DPS is the lowest out of all weapons, however.

Now that’s something, i didn’t expect hammer to be actually that good at DPSing but… i’ve got only one problem with it:
Combo fields. It has so much potential to ruin might stacks on the fly, blinds and heals that i’m not sure if i’d use it as my main DPS weapon (blinds may be neglectible to some extent since you’re spamming protection, but sometimes -33% damage ins’t enough). There’s also the fact that your target has to stand still, but aside from some fractals that’s not a problem in general.

Oxxy.7068:

Now that’s something, i didn’t expect hammer to be actually that good at DPSing but… i’ve got only one problem with it:
Combo fields. It has so much potential to ruin might stacks on the fly, blinds and heals that i’m not sure if i’d use it as my main DPS weapon (blinds may be neglectible to some extent since you’re spamming protection, but sometimes -33% damage ins’t enough). There’s also the fact that your target has to stand still, but aside from some fractals that’s not a problem in general.

Coordinated party groups will usually pre-stack might before fights, and if a fire field does show up, you can quickly swap to your GS, pop rotations on it and make sure your fields wont interfere with the fire fields. As for the moving issue, most mobs don’t move at all after you’ve pulled them, and the symbol has a huge range which makes its cleave far better than the sword one has, ontop of that, the hammer symbol is a constant source of 5 vulnerability if you go into 15 zeal, following that up with GS 4 > 3 > and VoJ makes it top out at 16-17 vuln from a guardian alone, which is pretty impressive.

I must say that having 2 or more hammer guardians running this build will result in diminishing returns, one hammer guard is able to keep up perma prot by himself. It would be better for the second guard to run 0/30/0/30/10 and sword/focus.

I’m more concerned about long fights, let’s say, grawl shaman (tho you can probably just stack might between phases), CoE Golem(even with boon removal it tends to use 3 LHs on my ele (2 casts)), maybe the third alpha assuming you don’t have two eles, CoF p3 Burntclaw etc, these are some fights that screwing fire fields really hurts your party overall damage. As for vulnerability stacks, it only beats sword on static stacks, in burst stacks it’s pretty much even if you run s/f + blinding exposure. Hammer seems really awesome at clearing trash and a kitten solid weapon with the right group setup, tho. I’m actually impressed.

Oxxy.7068:

I’m more concerned about long fights, let’s say, grawl shaman (tho you can probably just stack might between phases), CoE Golem(even with boon removal it tends to use 3 LHs on my ele (2 casts)), maybe the third alpha assuming you don’t have two eles, CoF p3 Burntclaw etc, these are some fights that screwing fire fields really hurts your party overall damage. As for vulnerability stacks it only beats sword on static stacks, in burst stacks it’s pretty much even if you run s/f + blinding exposure. Hammer seems really awesome at clearing trash and a kitten solid weapon with the right group setup, tho. I’m actually impressed.

For might stacking i generally switch to greatsword when purging flames has 15 seconds left on the cooldown. I then follow up with my GS burst and do as much damage as i can in those 15 seconds, after that i call out my purging flames, swap out to hammer and blast in it. If there’s a warrior banner nearby i usually nab it, use the fury skill if it’s a discipline one and then use banner 5 for another 3 might stacks before DPSing the boss again.

Might stacking is still possible and really viable with this build, especially if you manage to position yourself so that only the edge of your symbol hits the mob. After that you’ll roll through the mob pack and drop Purging flames on the other side and let people stand in it while being in melee range, blasting for more might stacks.

I’d say to play this spec to it’s fullest potential, positioning and mob control is one of the most important things to do.

I’m really tempted into crafting an ascended hammer instead of my ele 2nd dagger right now, i’ll probably do some testing first and prepare myself for some pointless and boring open world content. I mean, it seems to be better than s/f if you want to run with 25 in virtues instead of 30 in honor.

edit: what in the hell is wrong with the profanity filter today?

new edit: just realized – what about double sigils? With S/F you’re able to stack undead slaying and force, force and night, etc, and they play a big role into dungeon dps, i request further testing. >:

Oxxy.7068:

I’m really tempted into crafting an ascended hammer instead of my ele 2nd dagger right now, i’ll probably do some testing first and prepare myself for some pointless and boring open world content. I mean, it seems to be better than s/f if you want to run with 25 in virtues instead of 30 in honor.

edit: what in the hell is wrong with the profanity filter today?

20 Honor for the longer symbol trait is mandatory in this build though. I’m probably going to drop pure of voice myself once the purging flames buff gets implemented and run 15/25/0/20/10 instead, it’ll increase the DPS of my build by around 10% because i wouldn’t have to waste as much dodges for elusive power to take effect. If you are planning on trying this spec, i’d advise you to take the following build which i made for it

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASRlYg6C33xMEfIFRWBRafAg1HiH2DM6xOC-jgxAYfAyPAFBK5VEN2ibR0YVuER1SBExyI-e

Edit: That is definetly something to consider, the DPS of both specs would probably even out by then, although 15/25 instead of 15/15 would probably still outDPS sword.
If only two handed weapons had two sigils ;_;

Yep, I totally forgot about symbol duration, 15/25/0/20/10 seems a better choice here. I’m sad about not being able to use 25 in virtues but it still seems solid to me.

Oxxy.7068:

Yep, I totally forgot about symbol duration, 15/25/0/20/10 seems a better choice here. I’m sad about not being able to use 25 in virtues but it still seems solid to me.

Yeah, although i’d still run 15/15 for now, because PoV has amazing condition cleansing which puts the emphasis on the group carrying part of this build.

Once Purging flames gets it’s buff PoV will be thrown out of the window and i’ll be running 2 consec/1 shout all day

of course hammer is faster in that test because compared to gs/sword focus you have vulnerability stacks on the golem all the time.

in a group, in fights where your target has vulnerability anyway i believe sword deals more dps because hammer autoattacks are super slow.

and you should use other traits for sword.

It does. I said this in the other thread. That test isnt accurate and results are skewed because of traits.

Just use both. Guards do have 2 weapon set slots.

Problem solved.