Guild Wars 2

I wanted to readdress this post describing Guardian strengths and weaknesses and then try to categorize our abilities in accordance to the vision described to us.

JonathanSharp (Game Designer)

Class balance philosophies

• Guardian
  • The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health. They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield. We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.

So lets break up the class balance philosophies into categories of: Health Pool, Area Control, Boon Power, Condition Removal, and lastly, Melee Utility.

Health Pool

• Regeneration
• Aegis
• Protection
• Virtue of Resolve
• Dodge/Vigor
• Various self heal traits (AH, MF, etc.)

Area Control

• Wards
• Consecrations
• Symbols
• Knock Backs
• Stability

Boon Power

• Fury (only two sources, but one is too situational for most use)
• Might (Shout, crits, and blocks)
• Retaliation

Condition Removal

• Shouts (Pure of Voice)
• Meditations (Contemplation of Purity and Smite Condition)
• Absolute Resolution
• Passive (Signet of Resolve, Purity, and Perfect Inscriptions)

Melee Utility

• Knock Downs
• Teleports
• Pulls
• Immobilize
• Swiftness

I started off by naming specific abilities, but the list was getting kind of long so tried to generalize them…

At first glance it shows we have a lot of health pool augmentation resources, but I would contend that they are readily negated by the use of poisons, which then we have a lot of condition removal capability as well.

Conditions may be too easy to apply/reapply, but that is another discussion to be had else where.

Area control I think we do fairly well with after listing them out. I don’t know about that whole bit about “punishing” the enemy for ground though.

Support of melee range damage looks good, but I find others can too easily get away from us still, so either I need to L2P, or we need better melee utility skills.

Previous discussions when the quoted statement about Guardians first came out brought up the opinion that boons did not make us feel powerful enough versus any other profession, and I hope our outcry was heard. Time will only tell.

What do you as the Guardian community think of our capability to fill the roles listed by our developers? How can we better utilize our skills to meet said roles?

I like how boons are handles currently. They don’t make you godmode and you aren’t usesless with out them. I remember playing a Dervish in Gw1 and having my enchantments stripped and felling really gimped. Guardian doesn’t feel like that. When my Boons get ripped (which is very rare) I think man that’s annoying and keep smashing face.

I would like for us to have more fury boons and less might. (like Righteous fury!)

Also we may be too good at removing conditions right now. With multiple passive, 2 meditations, all shouts (either pure voice or Soldiers runes) ect Conditions rarely last long.

Symbols as a form of control I think could be expanded on. They don’t punish people for standing in them as much as they help us FOR standing in them and that seems less controlling then the other way around.

I really like how many different ways there are to play the guardian and it’s IMHO the best most well rounded class.

I really feel that symbols are not as effective as they could be. If a necromancer or a mesmer put stuff on the ground, everyone knows you NEED to get out of it. If a guardian puts a symbol on the ground its just kinda lol.

Our best symbol synergy comes with hammer and altruistic healing + writ of the merciful, as it is a constant application of symbols that only last for a short while, but that’s all you need as it will reapply soon.

We are very good at condition removal, but the rest of the professions are very good at applying conditions. So while you can remove conditions or convert them reliably, it is hard to justify it when they are right back on after our skills are used. I still run condition removal because I want to slow down enemy damage some how and we can do it better than most I think.

As you said, boons don’t make you godmode, and you don’t feel useless without them. So that reads to me that they don’t have a significant impact. You even stated you just think it is annoying and you keep smashing face.

Biggest problem with that is that these boons are what define a lot of our class mechanics and if they don’t matter then our class mechanics fail at the core.

While I agree that as far as battlefield control the necro’s wells seem more powerful, I don’t have a problem with the current function of symbols. Not every class should have the same ability and effect on the battle field so the ying to their yang is nice, I am not sure you can say that the symbols control enemy movement. On the other hand Hammer and staff have movement impairing effects that are unique so maybe thats what they intended to be more defining in that area.

Our Condition removal is superb. Compared to most other classes 1 Active maybe 1 passive, our abilities ooze condition removal. Its still important not to waste condition removal but Condition thieves, necros, Warriors all can’t handle out condition removal suite.

I think they hit the mark with boon utility. If our boons were our only route to victory we would be easy to hate out with boon removal and build options would be more limited. I wouldn’t say our boons dont matter. Stand your ground gives you 2 boons but I couldn’t imagine playing with out it in WvW. Save yourself makes you very dangerous Might + Fury + protection = A tough wrecking ball.

Our Elites feel awkward though. The tome’s are situationly awesome or terrible. Renewed focus is a very Guardian like ability and is solid. Elites just kind of feel like

A). Can I use Tome X in this situation?
Yes. Use Tome X
No. See B

B). Use renewed focus

Compared to the other classes which have build aroundable iconic Elites ours are finicky and slow.

I placed symbols in area control for the sake that they are very stationary and contribute to stationary fighting. I would like them to be more on par either offensively or defensibly with other area peaceable effects as I think the are negligible at the moment.

I have been doing too much spvp lately to see how easy it is for rangers, and necromancers to put a full stack of almost every condition possible on me, I wipe them and everything is right back on me.

If there was more than one enemy then it is hopeless to remove conditions. A speed bump in condition damage at least. In PvE on the other hand, condition removal is amazing and a huge utility to my group.

There is/was a sort of arms race between condition application and condition removal I feel. Now it seems they have negated each other out in terms of smart application and removal and you just do what you can.

The boons we can reliably keep going to maintain our combat effectiveness are vigor, protection, regeneration, and retaliation. Depending on the weapon/utilities you are using you can have some or all of those.

We also have a good amount of sources of stability and I believe the fastest recharging ones as well.

I would be interested to see stronger boons with possibly shorter durations? Something to really give an obvious show that you have boons active.

Elites I agree with you there. They can be amazing but for the most part they are not activated regularly as they tend to be on other professions. I think it is in the nature of how they were designed they completely change what you are doing and rely on that certain situation to arise.

Other elites integrate into already existing combat mechanics of the profession so they can be used as big cooldowns on a regular basis.

I don’t really think that by area control they mean Symbols (set aside the huge buff u get, they are like aoe damage in that respect), but rather the abilities u get from weapons like the gs (area pull -like kholer’s and u know most people hate him :-))) + whirlwind), the hammer (circle + blow), the staff (warding line or something), the shield’s push back, etc.
Additionally, consecration skills (burning + buffs like stability), and wall of reflection + spirit shield give u some short of control (huge most times) in the area of effect.
Those are skills that -given our limited mobility- can punish enemies for being in the wrong place (ie close to us or close to front line in an zerg) especially if u combine them with other abilities.
Some quardian specs really shine when amongst allies, and the synergies developed can be such (a vicious circle, u buff allies and u get buffed, give protection and walls and shields, u all go on pushing stronger) that can really turn u in an area controller in terms of the influence u have on things going on in that area (boons, protection, a plate armor, area control skills… good melee damage, great survivability).

They have done a very good job with the Guardian. The class feels balanced and rounded and working as they outlined.

CMF.5461:

I really feel that symbols are not as effective as they could be. If a necromancer or a mesmer put stuff on the ground, everyone knows you NEED to get out of it. If a guardian puts a symbol on the ground its just kinda lol.

Our best symbol synergy comes with hammer and altruistic healing + writ of the merciful, as it is a constant application of symbols that only last for a short while, but that’s all you need as it will reapply soon.

We are very good at condition removal, but the rest of the professions are very good at applying conditions. So while you can remove conditions or convert them reliably, it is hard to justify it when they are right back on after our skills are used. I still run condition removal because I want to slow down enemy damage some how and we can do it better than most I think.

As you said, boons don’t make you godmode, and you don’t feel useless without them. So that reads to me that they don’t have a significant impact. You even stated you just think it is annoying and you keep smashing face.

Biggest problem with that is that these boons are what define a lot of our class mechanics and if they don’t matter then our class mechanics fail at the core.

i agree with you, our class is strong, but it seem just a patchwork of skill and traits. We dont have a real theme, and the famous description dont fit at all our mechanics.

• we are awesome on the condition removal work, but when a class can just spam conditions with every attack, i just feel the condition removal work, useless (ok its not, without it, i will be dead in an istant).

• We can rely on boons, but we arent special with them, our class is designed to run around the retaliation boon, that is the worst boon on this game. (its really strong, but is a tasteless mechaninc)
  We have a good protection uptime if we run with the hammer, and a decent regen uptime. Our might generation is good, but we cant hold a lot of stacks just like the other classes. i really prefer a less retaliation (id really want to see this boon, deleted from the game) uptime, and more uptime for the other boons, to diversify the playstyle.

• We need to be on melee range to deal damage, so we are supposed to control our enemy to force them on melee range (this is the real mean of “field control” and “punish enemy” ). Our simbols need something else to be effective, but not only them, we need more wards(only 2 tied to the weapon choice, i cant consider this a class mechaninc) and even consecrations need a more punitive aspect.
  We\they cant really base the mean of “ground control”, with the bunker role on Spvp. Other classes can hold a point, but they arent supposed to have a ground control theme.

I still say we should be able to consume our boons for damage spikes.

I think the part I most disagree with in the description is how they compare use with Warriors. ANet stats that Warriors and Guardians are stronger in melee range which is true but the disparity between a Warrior and Guardian from range is huge. I have died countless times to a Warrior who only used his Rifle and utility skills to maintain his range advantage.

Guardians lack a means to stay on an enemy, and if they wish to stay on the enemy they have to build in a specific way, which means that in order to be most effective a player cannot deviate from a certain playstyle. We do not have a reliable way to apply Chilled, no way to apply Cripple or Stun. Swiftness has a long cooldown, and we have no passive movement speed increases. Our Wards are slow to activate and easily interrupted.

I do agree that our health pool should be smaller due to our Boons. We can apply Protection very easily which increases our health pool by 33%. Add in our naturally high Toughness and we take a lot less damage. I disagree that we feel more powerful from our Boons. We can barely stack 6-7 Might reliably and can only get Fury from Save Yourself or with a trait that requires us to be Burned. Most classes can keep 5+ Might up and apply Fury via many different methods with shorter cooldowns.

I personally feel that Guardians have a lot of room for improvement. I do not think we are balanced by any means. We are not the worst class in the game but we could use certain areas worked on.

Health Pool:

We compensate by stacking Toughness to make better use of our multiple forms of healing, and by using Blinds/Blocks to avoid burst. They could have just said that, because that’s the exact reality of it. We don’t use Boons to make up for the low health pool, we rely on Toughness and multiple forms of healing. The only time we rely on boons to make up for the low health pool are:

1.) Altrustic Healing build (and that’s about applying boons, not the effect of boons).
2.) Regeneration focused build (that’s 1 boon).
3.) Protection focused build (that’s 1 boon)

Then there’s the Bunker builds which do all of the above. So basically, unless you’re dedicated survival it’s not about boons to keep you alive, at least to the extent that the above implies.

Area Control:

Outside of a few skills, we lack area control. Sure we have area control if you use the Hammer and Staff for 1 skill each and take long cooldown Consecrations with 10-20 mandatory points in Virtues while sacrificing any other form of utility from your utility slots.

Boon power:

I don’t really feel any more or less powerful without my boons. Sure, a bunker Guardian does, but that’s hardly the entire Profession, and all ArenaNet has done is nerf bunker Guardian boons (Protection and Retaliation). In my build I’ll have constant Vigor with random low-duration Retaliation and Protection, with some might stacks here and there.

Condition Removal:

I don’t see us having that much, really. Once again, it’s all about the Valor line. If you take Purity and Smite Condition/Contemplation of Purity then you’ll have a bunch of condition removal. Going for Inscribed Removal lacks synergy with many builds and requires the use Signets to be very useful (meaning you sacrifice a lot of other utility that’s almost mandatory like Meditations or Shouts). Going 20 into Virtues for the “remove 3 conditions” will only be sought after by full on bunker/support builds because of 0/0/30/20/20.

Melee Utility:

I agree we are almost entirely dependent on melee combat. However, we lack the tools to stay there. If you look at a Warrior or Thief… or a D/D Ele or a melee Engineer they all have no trouble getting into and staying in melee range. Warriors have long-duration cripple on almost every weapon and have gap closers on most weapons (and more access to swiftness). Thieves are self explanitory. Elementalists easily have perma swiftness or the +25% boost, along with plenty of gap closers and chill/cripple. Even Engineers have chills/cripples/perma-swiftness/gap-closers, and can keep switching back and forth between kits to spam them. There’s nothing wrong with all these other classes having the ability to get in and stay in melee range, but the Guardian is the most melee-dependent Profession and yet they’re outclassed in melee staying power.

Overall, their descriptions are very dependent on the Guardian in questions taking specific traits and weapons. Guardians aren’t the worst Profession, but they need work in a few specific areas to give them more viablity out of a niche role. With the Tank/Support aspect it’s all fine, but there’s a reason you see 0/0/30/20/20 more than anything else (or at least a mandatory 30 Valor).

Alarox.4590:

Health Pool:

We compensate by stacking Toughness to make better use of our multiple forms of healing, and by using Blinds/Blocks to avoid burst. They could have just said that, because that’s the exact reality of it. We don’t use Boons to make up for the low health pool, we rely on Toughness and multiple forms of healing. The only time we rely on boons to make up for the low health pool are:

1.) Altrustic Healing build (and that’s about applying boons, not the effect of boons).
2.) Regeneration focused build (that’s 1 boon).

Area Control:

Outside of a few skills, we lack area control. Sure we have area control if you use the Hammer and Staff for 1 skill each and take long cooldown Consecrations with 10-20 mandatory points in Virtues while sacrificing any other form of utility from your utility slots.

Boon power:

I don’t really feel any more or less powerful without my boons. Sure, a bunker Guardian does, but that’s hardly the entire Profession, and all ArenaNet has done is nerf bunker Guardian boons (Protection and Retaliation). In my build I’ll have constant Vigor with random low-duration Retaliation and Protection, with some might stacks here and there.

Condition Removal:

I don’t see us having that much, really. Once again, it’s all about the Valor line. If you take Purity and Smite Condition/Contemplation of Purity then you’ll have a bunch of condition removal. Going for Inscribed Removal lacks synergy with many builds and requires the use Signets to be very useful (meaning you sacrifice a lot of other utility that’s almost mandatory like Meditations or Shouts). Going 20 into Virtues for the “remove 3 conditions” will only be sought after by full on bunker/support builds because of 0/0/30/20/20.

Melee Utility:

I agree we are almost entirely dependent on melee combat. However, we lack the tools to stay there. If you look at a Warrior or Thief… or a D/D Ele or a melee Engineer they all have no trouble getting into and staying in melee range. Warriors have long-duration cripple on almost every weapon and have gap closers on most weapons (and more access to swiftness). Thieves are self explanity. Elementalists easily have perma swiftness or the +25% boost, along with plenty of gap closers and chill/cripple. Even Engineers have chills/cripples/perma-swiftness/gap-closers, and can keep switching back and forth between kits to spam them. There’s nothing wrong with all these other classes having the ability to get in and stay in melee range, but the Guardian is the most melee-dependent Profession and yet they’re outclassed in melee staying power.

Exactly!
FOr what i can see (and i said this many times), our class is pratically “balanced” around the Spvp bunker role (role that anyway can be performed by other classes, and better then us), because with that role we arent supposed to catch the enemy, because its the enemy that need to take our point, But with this poor logic, we are forgetting a more active role for guardians, and the whole WvW play.

This is exactly why I wanted to have this discussion. Can we break the mold or are we so ingrained with our class mechanics that we are stuck with bunker and AH/meditation builds?

Can someone find a better way to maximize our strengths? How can you utilize and extrapolate the information given to us by the developers idea of class balance and make us stronger with what we have? Or have we reached our pinnacle for the time being.

CMF.5461:

This is exactly why I wanted to have this discussion. Can we break the mold or are we so ingrained with our class mechanics that we are stuck with bunker and AH/meditation builds?

Can someone find a better way to maximize our strengths? How can you utilize and extrapolate the information given to us by the developers idea of class balance and make us stronger with what we have? Or have we reached our pinnacle for the time being.

All I do is theorycraft about how NOT to use 30 Valor. I must have retraited 200+ times at this point. Refusing to go 30 Valor opens up a lot of possibilities build-wise though. The only problem is of how useful Monk’s Focus, Altrustic Healing, and 30% Crit Damage/+300 Toughness is, and how problematic most other traitlines are.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Poor-Guardian-Traits/first#post1144976

@Judge Banks
Eatting boons, like a necromancer eats conditions could be an applicable solution. We have such a wide verity of ways to stack boons, but I think they were attempting to give us something to that effect in the trait, Power of the Virtuous. Which is seemingly lackluster.

I think it provides 9% extra damage with a full set of boons, but if you are down that tree you already lost out on damaging stats from power/crit/crit damage. I don’t know if 9% makes up for what you lost.

This is all assuming the wiki is accurate.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_of_the_Virtuous

@Alarox
I too find myself theorycrafting more than playing. More often than not I’m on a spread sheet/build website or in the mists trying different setups to feel out a new play style.

We do not “need” AH and MF, but they are really effective and hard to pass up, like you said.

Side thought, toughness versus protection.

Figuring out damage mitigation is slightly different in this game in that toughness does not reduce damage by a fixed amount, more so than it reduces damage versus the attacker attack value. This does not reduce condition damage however.

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Protection reduces damage by 33%. Does this include condition damage as well?

Can we correlate the loss or gain of toughness to find a sweet spot that protection can accommodate for, thus giving up some of our toughness for other stats? Or are they apples and oranges.

If you have protection on 100% of the time you in essence change your health pool to be 33% larger in effective health. So an average build of we will say 15,500 health now really equates to 20,615 health.

Introduce our multiple regenerative capabilities for more effective health and our health pool (on paper) doesn’t look so bad.

Down side to that is the only way to maintain protection like that is we would have to be a hammer build, which is what I want to move us away from and grow a little more if we can.

When looking at the Guardians mechanics you also have to remember that it is pretty much required that we have people around us and/or we stand still(symbols) to gain any real advantage. In contrast, look at the Elementalist who has free roam on whatever they do and is not limited by space with higher boon upkeep.

Area control- you have one very obvious kb(hammer) and a more instant one(shield). Both, in my opinion, on relatively long cooldowns for their use. (25 and 40 respectively) I don’t really consider symbols to be area control because they don’t really provide much of a threat to allow for said control.

Health pool- Aegis to me seems like a poor excuse for a form of mitigation, one hit and you’re done for 40 seconds(unless you renew focus), I would like to see more of a set amount blocked based on some stat, maybe toughness? Protection goes in more along the lines of having to stand still for any benefit(symbol of protection) which I find to be the opposite of what GW2’s combat really is. This is the same when utilizing the staffs empower ability.

Boon power- The Guardians boon upkpeep is terrible.(unless you’re standing still for protection) All utilities that provide boons are only at a base of 5 seconds on at least a 30sec cd. Granted they award it to everyone else near you which balances itself out. It would be nice if there was a way to be more of a selfish Guardian but I guess that might go against the teachings.

Condition removal- this goes without saying that when specced for it, Guardians have insane removal. Don’t get me wrong though, I find conditions easily reapplied even after cleansed.

Melee utility- Guardians are EXCELLENT at getting to their target but POOR at keeping them close. Sure, you can port to them but good luck staying near to do any real damage for more than a second.

I feel as if the Guardian should have more boon access/upkeep for themselves to be more along the lines of what Mr. Johnathon Sharp describes the Guardian profession. I also think that the Retaliation boon should be removed completely.

Just to touch on our Symbols on the Ground…

I use the hammer. It’s by far the best weapon we have.

1) Larger Symbols, Symbols Heal (or Empowering Might / depends on my mood and who i’m w/).
2) Symbols do more Dmg.

I’ve seen my Hammer Symbol crit up to 2.2k, give me protection & heal me.

To say our symbols lack luster is to say ’i’m not specing into symbols and thus don’t really see thier use’.

Guardian’s can be incredibly powerful in the support role in WvW if they choose to build for it, but 95% of the Guardian’s I see out there are 2-handed builds.

• Wall of Reflection is by far the one of the most powerful abilities in WvW and it has a really short cooldown.

• Wall of Lining and Sanctuary can block off choke points. Organized guardians can block off choke points near indefinitely. Strategically placed walls can help slow down enemy movements.

• Our healing abilities (symbols, writ, empower, and battle presence) helps keep people alive. However, most people aren’t smart enough to stand in them.

• We can apply AOE stabilities with short cooldowns.

• Tomes are super powerful in massed up players.

• Bunker built (AH+lots of healing) is basically unkilable in WvW. You’re the ultimate front-line tank.

Frontline support Guardian’s are one of the most powerful classes ingame in WvW.

ComeAndSee.1356:

Guardian’s can be incredibly powerful in the support role in WvW if they choose to build for it, but 95% of the Guardian’s I see out there are 2-handed builds.

• Wall of Reflection is by far the one of the most powerful abilities in WvW and it has a really short cooldown.

• Wall of Lining and Sanctuary can block off choke points. Organized guardians can block off choke points near indefinitely. Strategically placed walls can help slow down enemy movements.

• Our healing abilities (symbols, writ, empower, and battle presence) helps keep people alive. However, most people aren’t smart enough to stand in them.

• We can apply AOE stabilities with short cooldowns.

• Tomes are super powerful in massed up players.

• Bunker built (AH+lots of healing) is basically unkilable in WvW. You’re the ultimate front-line tank.

Frontline support Guardian’s are one of the most powerful classes ingame in WvW.

you totally miss the point in this thread.

Noone is saying that guardian is a weak class.

1) But that the actual mechaninc dont fit the description provided by devs And the class changes done until now too.

2) and we have not so many builds to use (you just proved this with your post)

Amins.3710:

Just to touch on our Symbols on the Ground…

I use the hammer. It’s by far the best weapon we have.

1) Larger Symbols, Symbols Heal (or Empowering Might / depends on my mood and who i’m w/).
2) Symbols do more Dmg.

I’ve seen my Hammer Symbol crit up to 2.2k, give me protection & heal me.

To say our symbols lack luster is to say ’i’m not specing into symbols and thus don’t really see thier use’.

I completely agree that the hammer is the best Guardians have for PvE since all of the targets stand still. More mobility and thinking outside the box would be nice.

I have an 80 thief and 80 guardian. My thief is squishier than my Guardian and her main survivability comes from short cooldown abilities to survive. My Guardian doesn’t have the same mobility, but can take WAY more of a pounding and still limp away and come back for more seconds later.

My thief has basically crap for self-healing. I have to play a lot smarter. My guardian has 10 times more self healing + passive survivability and I can play a lot more aggressive. I can actually rush right in front of 20 enemy players, put my wall of reflection down right in their faces, and watch them kill themselves.

Guardian’s are a lot more self sufficient and can have almost infinite battle endurance under the right conditions.

Our classes main weakness is we’re basically sitting ducks when our stuff is on cooldowns. If I blow my big heal and virtues to survive in an emergency I’m basically defenseless until they come back up. My thief always has something up in comparison, but no passive self-healing.

Arken.3725:

Amins.3710:

Just to touch on our Symbols on the Ground…

I use the hammer. It’s by far the best weapon we have.

1) Larger Symbols, Symbols Heal (or Empowering Might / depends on my mood and who i’m w/).
2) Symbols do more Dmg.

I’ve seen my Hammer Symbol crit up to 2.2k, give me protection & heal me.

To say our symbols lack luster is to say ’i’m not specing into symbols and thus don’t really see thier use’.

I completely agree that the hammer is the best Guardians have for PvE since all of the targets stand still. More mobility and thinking outside the box would be nice.

Soory, I don’t pve. I was speaking about wvw.

A lot of you have pointed out you would not categorize symbols as area control. The logic behind that was of how it was crucial for positioning in order to utilize symbols to the fullest extent.

I could have categorized them as boons support, via regeneration, protection, retaliation, swiftness. I still think that they are a positional directed tactic that should help us gain/hold ground in combat. At the moment they don’t have a lot of umph behind them.

That is not to say symbols are worthless as is seen with the AH hammer build. Just not as dynamic as I would have expected them to be as one of our more unique abilities.

Also I do not think Guardian’s are under powered and a bad profession. They are my favorite profession, which is why I put so much effort into understanding them. I think they are in a very good spot right now, but need some lose ends tidied up. Also I would like us to grow a bit as I do feel pigeon holed into being a AH/MF defensive support build.

Being tanky goes against the idea of the rest of the game and being a healer goes against those ideas as well. So it is like the rest of the game is trying to encroach on what the guardian does and we keep getting bumped or adjusted to fit our surroundings.

Power through defense, is what I chose the guardian for. Right now we have defense and longevity, but not a lot of power.

As far as hammer in PvE or PvP, it works great in PvE but it also works well in PvP. This is due to the fact it is the fastest refreshing and shortest lasting symbol we have. By lasting a short time it allows us to stay mobile in combat without losing out on the full effect of the symbol, versus say mace symbols.