Guild Wars 2

I have had GW2 for a while, but never really had time to play it. Been working on a guardian now that I have some free time and am enjoying it. I try to keep one of each weapon that the Guardian can use on me at all times, but I am having trouble figuring out the roles of the various weapons. I don’t know their purposes/different usages; in other words, when to use what weapon. I usually use hammer for soloing, or sometimes switch to greatsword just to mix it up. I am guessing that staff is for more of a support role? I use it sometimes for escort quests or group quests. Also no clue as to when to use scepter, except maybe to “pull” a mob from a distance? I am still clueless as the difference between using a sword vs using a mace. Or, using a sword/shield vs, sword/focus vs. sword/torch. (or mace and any of those combinations).
I am a complete noob and totally lost, so if any of you guys could enlighten me, I would greatly appreciate it.

Sword: single target DPS
Mace: Healing support/personal defense with burst capability
Scepter: ranged single target DPS with some AOE capability
Greatsword: general AOE DPS with some crowd control/interrupt
Hammer: Defensive AOE DPS with utility, best weapon for combo finishing
Staff: Party boon and healing support
Focus: Defensive utility with burst capability
Shield: AOE defensive party utility with healing
Torch: Burning, some burst capability; but avoid skill 5, due to extremely poor damage

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

You can pretty much take whatever weapon you want to any build. But, I can give you some example what I use what weapons for.

Starting with Main-Hand Weapons.

Sword; it’s a strong damage weapon, with a blind and a reflect ability. I usually use sword for strong damage and AoE damage, since it hits foes around it as well, and to support my allies, by blinding the enemies and reflecting projectiles. The sword is also very good for roaming (as in, running around, since you can target any enemy and teleport forward.)

Mace; this weapon I sometimes use in a dungeon if the enemies take a lot of damage on my allies, I don’t really need to say more. The symbol applies regeneration, your auto-attacks heals yourself and your allies with the third chain, you also get a parry attack.

Scepter; ranged weapon, nothing more, nothing less, good for fights where you can keep your targets away from yourself or allies by using the immobilize skill.

Let’s continue with Off-Hand Weapons.

Shield; my favourite, and this is what I use with the sword, you got skill that does damage and applies protection to yourself and allies, and also a very good knock back skill to interrupt anything.

Focus; a weapon that protects yourself from damage, and also gives you a ability to cure condition, apply blind and heal. The focus is pretty much a weapon that mainly ’’focus’’ on yourself, and not the allies around you. It’s good to have if you need to shield yourself for some seconds from heavy hitting attacks.

Torch; a damage off-hand weapon, it works great in dungeons with the burning, the burning condition is really strong. It’s a good AoE off-hand.

Going for Two-Hand.

Greatsword; everyones favourite it seems. It’s the strongest damage weapon in the game for almost every profession I would say. For Guardians it’s a great support weapon too because of the symbol it places, giving people retaliation, deflecting damage back to the attackers. Overall it’s just a weapon that does great damage, and a little bit of control because of the chains, great for interrupting or pack enemies together to AoE down.

Hammer; a great control two-hander. It controls your enemies with symbols, and wards and heavy AoE blast damage. It works good pretty much everywhere, mostly in modes where you meet other players and battle against them, since many bosses or similar can just run through everything since they got permanent stability. Otherwise a really good AoE weapon with support abilites, since it applies protection.

Staff; a great support weapon, and a great AoE weapon. The staff got some healing abilites which works great anywhere. The might stacking is also really, really good. The AoE auto-attack makes it awesome in zergs in WvW or enemy packs in dungeons.

That’s pretty much it..

don’t bother with mace/torch

GS – Core dps item
Hammer – CC item (with protection proc on 3rd swing) not a single target dps weapon
Staff – Benefits with AH, and stacking might on teammates (double tapping #2 for heals)
sceptor – core single target range
focus – the blast does big damage, or use it to triple block (say soloing a champion, very useful)
shield – Only if you need the absorb shield, like in volcanic fractel

Some great answers above. One I didn’t see mentioned was “when farming”. When you are farming DE’s with bazillions of mobs use a staff. It tags everything in front of you. I have all the professions at 80 and have tried every weapon out there and the guardian’s staff is hands-down the best farming weapon.

Since tagging also has a damage done component, you’ll often fail to do enough damage with a staff to actually get credit for the kill. Highly recommend greatsword over staff for busy events.

Imo, the tagging stuff depends very much on the situation. If the event is so busy that I can’t reach most mobs before they die, the staff gives me at least the tiny chance to tag them from range. In any other case, better take the GS.

Torch is crap, don’t bother with that.