Guild Wars 2

I made a guard recently with the intent of running fractals and dungeons. I’m still learning about this class (I main a thief) so I’m still shaky on the mechanics.

Among the things that attracted me to guards, the main thing that stood out was altruistic healing. I found the idea of giving boons to teammates while getting healed at the same time to be very appealing.

However altruistic healing won’t be available till grandmaster traits are unlocked at level 60. I was wondering if guards have access to a consistant source of healing before then?

This has me a little concerned because I find myself getting into melee contests with mobs often, and generally I am ok but sometimes I get downed. When I get to 20% health or below I’m in the “oh crap!” mode and don’t really know how to mitigate damage/heal at that point (heal on cooldown). Obviously I can get more toughness/vit gear but general playstyle wise is there something I can do in these situations? (I run GS/staff). For example had this been my thief I would shadow refuge, run away and then re-engage at full health, with my heals and stealth skills off of cooldown.

Please educate this guard noob!

Thanks!

If you update your gear every 5~10 levels you should have no problem at all fighting any monster on your level.

Guardians are one of the professions that “have it easy” when it comes to PvE leveling, as long as you get a gear that has at least Toughness or Vitality (and Power) of equivalent level, you should be able to pull 1~3 easily just with Virtue of Resolve.

If you’re still having trouble somehow then it might be fight mechanics (or you’re trying to tank a Veteran/Champion and that’s a no no).

For Traits at earlier levels I found that Zeal and Honor worked the best for me, being able to kill monsters quickly and having some healing from Writ of the Merciful (20 Honor) and Selfless Daring (15 Honor).

Thanks! I was steam rolling my way through up to level 40ish (and yea trust me in comparison to thieves leveling my guard PvE is a cake walk), I was just wondering what sources of heals are available to guards.

Also, I’m asking about crisis management. I’m basically hacking and whacking and dodging when applicable, most mobs are dead at this point. But there are times when I make a mistake and am down to very low health, I don’t know how guards are supposed to respond to this scenario.

At level 40ish, the only health maintaining traits you have available to you are:

• Regeneration
  Healing Power helps make this stronger, found on Mace, Focus, Hold the Line!, Save Yourselves! (Superior Aria provides 20% reduced shout cool down, II in Honor)
• Virtue of Resolve
  This can be augmented with Healing Power and Absolute Resolution (IX in Virtues traits)
• Shield of Absorption (second trigger of “5” on Shield)
  Can have 20% reduced cool down with Honorable Shield (IX in Valor traits)
• Selfless Daring (15 in Honor)
  Dodge rolls heal self and area. Scales well with Healing Power. Can be augmented with more vigor on crits with Vigorous Precision (5 points in Honor)
• Writ of the Merciful (X in Honor traits)
  All symbols heal, scales well with healing power. Fast refreshing symbols such as on Hammer or Mace do well with this, as well as traiting for longer symbol durations with Writ of Persistance (VII in Honor, but can’t get this at same time till lvl 60+)
• Pure of Heart (VI in Honor)
  Aegis heals on removal, scales decently with Healing Power, but long cool down on Aegis refresh. Works well if you use Virtue of Courage and Virtue of Resolve while having traits to increase Virtues as an emergency heal.
• Bow of Truth
  Heals for a fixed amount over 10 seconds for 42 ticks. At level 80 the heal is 92, unsure of lower levels

You can mix and match the above abilities as you feel works for you, but majority would find keep Regeneration up as much as you could while utilizing Dodge roll heals, Symbol heals, or improved Virtue of Resolve heals while wielding a Hammer or using a Mace with shield or focus to provide the most consistent healing potential.

Not as fancy and quick as killing with a greatsword though.

Thank you, that was EXTREMELY helpful!

This is probably obvious to guard vets but I’m just beginning to see the synergy with increased crit% with not only offense but also defense.

Outside of healing though, do guards have the “oh crap!” button when facing impending doom? (i.e., very low health and have a condition or 2 on top of that)? I figure with all this access to blocks and heals the oh crap button is unnecessary, but just wondering if there was one

Our “oh crap” button is typically to either utilize Renewed Focus, which makes you invulnerable to incoming attack or even our block heal, Shelter, to buy more time.

Thing to remember on this is that you will still take current condition damage while using Renewed Focus, so you can still die while invulnerable…. Also Shelter is our smallest heal, but also our fastest.

It is debatable on which heal to use, Shelter provides you with more time to get vigor back to possibly roll and pop another heal, or get other abilities off cool down. It is also available more often.

Signet of Resolve is our biggest heal. This can be traited to be on par with Shelter as far as cool down (40s to 32s).

So the question now comes down to, is it better to stop incoming damage and heal a little more often, or is it better to recover from a lot of damage and continue fighting longer before needing a heal again.

Many times that becomes situational, but timed right Shelter can stop more damage than Signet of Resolve can heal for.

Beyond that, utilize blinds and blocks to buy more time when low and maybe your heal will come off cool down so you can get back in the game. Just remember that blinds do not stack, so timing of blinds helps.

edit:
I think it is also worth mentioning that our elite skill Tome of Courage, is a viable “oh crap” ability as the #5 skill in it will provide a full heal for yourself and allies around you. Thing to remember is that it has a long cast time, 4 1/4 seconds. So if you are going to use it, use it early. Best used if you have a very large health pool, but useful all around when in the right situation.

Also, since this is PvE, utilizing your wards found on Hammer 5 and Staff 5, will buy you some time since NPCs will run straight into them without thinking. Not as effective in PvP, but it still works as a surprise to some.