Guild Wars 2

So with all of the unblockable added recently, ex dd and necro, I find the guard to be easily killable. Most of the time in PvP shelter will be shut down by any competent player leaving you with no block and no heal. Guards sit on a low hp tier, meaning that the unblockable addition hits their active defenses harder than classes such as a warrior which rely on their their high hp pool.

There are also many traits that trigger on block, which are nullified when hit by an unblockable and do not trigger from RF as it procs invulnerability.

Just throwing this out there as I’ve noticed the PvP as a guardian is a lot harder now. I dislike DH so I remain playing core guardian be that what it may. I do occasionally take the line for the virtues but not much more. So for core guardian is there any hope in this current meta?

becoming a healbot using meditations keeps you alive well enough if you ask me.

Still is somewhat viable but there’s a lot of heavy nukes flying around making the heals less effective

its anets plan to weaken us.

This is a good question.
As i also like a Guardian class and ’’defensive’’ playstyle if i would choose to play.
Those unblockable attacks are familiar already from a other games but also in a differend gaming aspects like raiding/dungeons.
I think you are right that there is not much ’’hope’’ for a guardians wich counts on it defensive talents wich requires to block to gain benefits.

A lot of players realized immediately post HoT that Shelter would often get interrupted thanks to all the unblockable CC HoT brought forth.
(all the CCs should be cut in half imo. Including Guard traps.).

Power DH is the only way to play in the competitive scene now. Runner up is burn guard but it lacks considerably.

Yeah I ran a burn guard through season 1. While it is fun to play the post season patch has destroyed it, especially since you can guarantee a necro in every match to swap you the burn now.

I doubt guards triggered the unblockable addition, I think maybe bunker eles and chronomancers were the trigger. The guard was just hit blindside by a nerf targeted elsewhere. I don’t PvP more than once or twice a week, mainly wvw. In wvw it isn’t as obvious since you have a lot of room to play but every once in a while you will see your hp start dropping like a rock.

The problem here is that the block mechanic is the -counter- to high damage skills. Unblockable is a -counter- to a mechanism already created to be a -counter-. And that doesn’t make much sense to me.

Yep, we haven’t really gained much defense or ways of sustaining in solo play or profession v profession as our survivability escalation was with Shield of Courage and the 5s frontal blocks.

But there has been a huge power creep in unblockable.

Nec/Reaper unblockable marks and a shout that makes all their attacks unblockable for 6s.

Warrior signet for 6s of unblockable attacks.

Thief had a huge dagger damage increase and then unblockable added to their CC elite.

There are various unblockable skills among Mesmer, Thief, Engineer, Elementalist + Thief / Ranger Traps, Nec Corrupt and Epidemic.
Revenant can go unblockable with skills and auto-traits.

Add all this to the surge in Reflection that’s been added to the game or now traited / equipped by players and the DH Longbow with it’s projectile skills, slow obviously telegraphed damage has become an early noob cannon that’s now a joke that everyone has easily adapted to dodge rolling out of traps and evading the obvious squatted True Shot and its 1 second cast time.

Plus Sword also fairs poorly against reflection, with the 2 largest damaging skills (auto 3 and Zealot’s Defense) both being reflected back at the Guardian but with no projectile benefits, only the negatives.

So our survivability comes from blocks and our damage from telegraphed projectiles in a game where unblockable and reflect have seen a power creep.

dh got karlified…rip

guard can’t guard, working as intended

As it stands guard can hold up. In the future it won’t as more damage is worked into the game it will be easy for any class to shoot down a guard in 2-3 hits.

I wouldn’t call out Karl for this one though, it’s the balance team in general adding proliferous amounts of unblockable. I’ve started playing my guard closer to a DD evade since I know popping shelter or aegis will get me killed.

Sup guys. I suggested a build on another post that involved Earth Runes and Focus Mastery while using the old Meditrapper build. I was a bit toxic and so was the post but the unblockable/reflect is why i made the build. does not solve the problem but it works well for me. I have had multiple comments on how tanky the build is while still being Marauders. Huge protection uptime and the reflect on earth runes has saved my kitten a couple of times.

I saw the build. It’s fun but impractical unless you’re bunkering.

Gs is becoming easy to counter, not many will let themselves eat a ww anymore.
Updating hammer could solve a lot of problems as it would allow for does control even though we can’t block effectively.

Shelter really is no option anymore however heal trap is far superior anyways imo.
Fat heal, interrupt, blind, regeneration plus you can pre-place it getting a 6k+ hp advantage when defending points.

I chose the same path as Dman. If the enemy loads up on unblockable I overload on blocks. I will only be removed from point via heavy and well timed focus from 2+ with my current pvp build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAW5en8cCtChVdCmCBEEhFGi6qYbgAArCmgRQu4X+oH-TJBEQBxb/hAWG4BPBAAcRAAA

Due to menders amulet I am very well capable of winning 1on1 against non bunkers.
Test of faith is also no joke in this – or any – build since it can also pre-placed and layed down for 15secs of protection. add in shield #4 twice and you are close to another test of faith trap for long protection uptime. add in a condition free 10% reduction to damage and you can withstand a lot of hurt. FMW is basically a absolute resoultion that will heal you for a bit as well.

its not superb but hard to crack.

Asmodal.6489:

Shelter really is no option anymore however heal trap is far superior anyways imo.
Fat heal, interrupt, blind, regeneration plus you can pre-place it getting a 6k+ hp advantage when defending points.

I chose the same path as Dman. If the enemy loads up on unblockable I overload on blocks. I will only be removed from point via heavy and well timed focus from 2+ with my current pvp build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAW5en8cCtChVdCmCBEEhFGi6qYbgAArCmgRQu4X+oH-TJBEQBxb/hAWG4BPBAAcRAAA

Due to menders amulet I am very well capable of winning 1on1 against non bunkers.
Test of faith is also no joke in this – or any – build since it can also pre-placed and layed down for 15secs of protection. add in shield #4 twice and you are close to another test of faith trap for long protection uptime. add in a condition free 10% reduction to damage and you can withstand a lot of hurt. FMW is basically a absolute resoultion that will heal you for a bit as well.

its not superb but hard to crack.

10 points for creativity, i like it.

i don’t get why most guards use shelter anyway, i used to play a full medi build before HoT, with the medi heal, healing for up to 15k, low cd and gives fury, yes it is an offensive heal and you need to be able to use it but the only benefit of shelter is the block, wow..
second now with HoT the heal trap is superior to shelter as well, 10k heal, blind, aoe regen, lower CD as shelter
the only reason most guards use shelter is as an oh kitten skill to get another block, honestly i think shelter is overrated and not as good as it used to be..

DHawk.2687:

i don’t get why most guards use shelter anyway, i used to play a full medi build before HoT, with the medi heal, healing for up to 15k, low cd and gives fury, yes it is an offensive heal and you need to be able to use it but the only benefit of shelter is the block, wow..
second now with HoT the heal trap is superior to shelter as well, 10k heal, blind, aoe regen, lower CD as shelter
the only reason most guards use shelter is as an oh kitten skill to get another block, honestly i think shelter is overrated and not as good as it used to be..

might of the protector in valor pool gives might per block and shelter can block more than once…(one random reason)

This issue does not only exist in PvP. Anet liked to add things that are unblockable.
Meanwhile they once said, that blocks and aegis are the compensation for the low hp pool.
So where is this compensation, when everything is unblockable?

Just Anet things.

And yeah, I’m not complaining, just pointing out the fact.

Nethod.7068:

DHawk.2687:

i don’t get why most guards use shelter anyway, i used to play a full medi build before HoT, with the medi heal, healing for up to 15k, low cd and gives fury, yes it is an offensive heal and you need to be able to use it but the only benefit of shelter is the block, wow..
second now with HoT the heal trap is superior to shelter as well, 10k heal, blind, aoe regen, lower CD as shelter
the only reason most guards use shelter is as an oh kitten skill to get another block, honestly i think shelter is overrated and not as good as it used to be..

might of the protector in valor pool gives might per block and shelter can block more than once…(one random reason)

yeah but it has an icd now, so you only get 1, max 2 blocks out of it, not good enough for the high cd with low heal imho

With all the unblockable stuff flying around, i feel that purification and renewed focus are required utilities now a days.

Moving shelter into meditations would solve some of the problems. Because let’s face it it’s extremely odd to have a skill with no type when it is blatantly a meditation. This would self proc the 2k heal and another 2k heals from trained smite condo, ending somewhere around 8k total.

Gwaihir.1745:

Moving shelter into meditations would solve some of the problems. Because let’s face it it’s extremely odd to have a skill with no type when it is blatantly a meditation. This would self proc the 2k heal and another 2k heals from trained smite condo, ending somewhere around 8k total.

not gonna happen tho, since there already is a meditation heal, i think we don’t have a shout heal yet tho, which woulnd’t make much sense all together tho haha ^^

We do have a shout heal. It’s a conal aoe one too. It’s pretty kittenty.