Guild Wars 2

xiv.7136:

Guardian Test

01 Do you think guardian is underpowered and needs more HP;
—— If yes, go to 02
—— If no, go to 03

02 You have no idea how to play a guardian
—— If you are willing to improve, go to 04
—— If you are not willing to improve, go to 05

03 You understand the importance of regen, dodge heals, aegis, protection, condition removal, blind, etc, go to 06

04 Read up on some of the builds and learn to use the myriad of mitigation abilities guardians have, a 13k HP guardian is more survivable than a 25k HP warrior, by a long stretch

05 Fail

06 Well done, now go out there and pwn

I enjoyed this way too much

Shaterz.2703:

Saturn.6591:

Shaterz.2703:

the build youve linked saturn clearly shows you dont play a guardian.. i mean,, only 10 in valor? lawl xD

So what? Altruistic healing? I think you already get enough healing with this build.

ask any guardian ever… you need 30 in valor for every build ever..you might be able to do open world pve with that build. if you are lucky.. but no. you dont have enough healing

Eh, so since half of the posts in this thread got deleted (and the one with my build as well because I quoted posts that were deleted), here again the build: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1p.h2|c.1p.h2.d.1p.h1|1n.7x.1g.7x.1n.7x.1g.7x.1n.7x.1g.7x|1p.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1c.67|u28c.0.a2.u29b.0|2f.2|v.16.19.18.1i|e

So, let’s see. You’ve got your healing skill, access to regeneration and of course you also get some healing from your Virtue of Resolve and GS-attacks. That’s quite a bit of healing imo; especially considering that you also have 33% damage reduction.

But, let’s see. Changing some things…

A bit less HP and a bit less damage for a passive condi-removal (instead of a shout-depending one), 4% more damage reduction and altruistic healing: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1p.h2|c.1p.h2.d.1p.h1|1n.7x.1g.7x.1n.7x.1g.7x.1n.7x.1g.7x|1p.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1c.67|k28.0.u25b.k29.0|2f.2|v.16.19.18.1i|e

MidnightCorutin.7084:

Ranger: Mass crowd control and damage – Rangers are, at the current state, broken. They are able to do mass damage while being able to evade almost every attack with the right weapon setup. Now if they aren’t running their evasion weapons they can just use their immobolises and pets to put a ton of pressure on. Can guardians send a pet that deals a general 1750-2500 attack? Can they send out a animal that can take punishment from mutiple people while they sit back and do mass damage? The answer to these is easy. No

….. LOL are you kidding me? Rangers have almost literally ONE viable spec. which is about to get nerfed because of people like you who say they are broken and pets do too much damage. Did you know that pets always have to literally stop to attack, and if you just keep moving, 75% of their attacks will not land? Also, WTF? why the hell are you even comparing guardian to a ranger? COMPLETELY different classes.

MidnightCorutin.7084:

I’m a healing/tank and I disagree with this. Yes we have multiple skills and virtues. Which also have a massive cooldown in an intense fight. One of our ultimates may renew those virtues they still have a long cooldown. Now look at elementalists. They have 4 different sets of skills which each grant massive bonuses towards them. Pretty much every class has excellent mobility skills. What do we have? A few shouts and 1 swiftness skill. That’ll do good in a fight with people leaping and teleporting to you. Warriors don’t need any skills a guardian has because guardians are for supporting and soaking damage so classes like the warrior can deal as much damage without being shot down.

Guardians are not just for supporting, people need to get this the hell out of their head and actually explore some builds and learn to play things other than AH/EM

MidnightCorutin.7084:

Damage guardian isn’t what a guardian is suppose to be. They’re the defensive heavy role that combines – a cleric and a knight. They do mediocre damage with high survivability.

Once again, step out of the AH/EM box.

Streps.9784:

ok im gonna say it again just because no one seems to notice the fact that
I DON’T WANT TO BE A BEZ GUARD THIS IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT IM TRYING TO FINED A MIDDLE GROUND THAT GUARDS DO NOT SEEM TO HAVE

Try actually looking for builds on the forums, there are a TON of different builds and variants of builds, some are damage, some are tank but alot are hybrids.

As far as giving guardians more HP? No. We have so many ways to just completely ignore damage that we do not need more HP, Aegis completely blocks attacks, Blind makes an enemy completely miss, amazing protection up time that reduces damage by 33%, massive regen up time for added healing, A passive version of regen specific to our class, Easy access to self healing through monk’s focus and AH (both of which do not even require healing power to work extremely well) And also High armor, and a unique signet that reduces damage by 10% (This is the ONLY signet that does this, instead of just increase toughness for a minimal percentage.)

As far as conditions we have pure of voice to make shouts remove conditions, a healing signet that passively removes them, a trait in radiance that doubles the signet effect, a trait in radiance that makes signets remove a condition on use. 2 Meditations that remove conditions, one does mass AoE damage when removing, the other removes ALL conditions and turns them into boons. And also a trait that allows Virtue of Resolve to remove 3 conditions on use. This isn’t even counting the ways through gear like Melandru runes + lemongrass soup, generosity/purity runes, and also runes of lyssa with elite skill use.

The point is, that Guardians have such low HP because we have massive amounts of tools to negate that damage. between straight out reducing it through armor, healing through it with our massive self healing, completely shutting it down with smart aegis/blind use, and easy condition removal, to which conditions are the counter to high toughness low health builds, we have a huge variety of ways to make our low HP work, and adding more to it would literally make us OP.

xiv.7136:

Guardian Test

[…]

That one was really great, thanks a lot!

So I agree with most people here, guardian HP is quite fine once you have learend to play the class.

I really want just to say 2 things.Who sayd that a guardian have a lot of viable build have to try to play as a guardian.In wvw there are 2 viable build for a guardian , a full shout with AH (the one that I use) and the one that use some cleric item for a better support healing with the dodge.All the rest is really useless…why??’cause the low hp pool the guardian have.People that play full bunker use that build mainly (maybe only) in structured ’cause the only thing we can do well is to play as a point holder.
The people that said that warriors are not good on damage mitigation like guardians have to L2P , try to use a full shout warrior build… 10 k hp more that a guardian (20 k vs 30 k) , 1500 heal aoe for every shout (and 1 condition healed) with a lower recharge rate respect to a guardian and more damage respect us.The regen and protection problems? Warrior have them thanks to the guardians that are playng in front line with them so how can be our damage mitigation better now? A lot of people have really to learn to play , guardians give buff to other 4 characters , stop to see things like a 1 vs 1!!!

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

I really want just to say 2 things.Who sayd that a guardian have a lot of viable build have to try to play as a guardian.In wvw there are 2 viable build for a guardian , a full shout with AH (the one that I use) and the one that use some cleric item for a better support healing with the dodge.All the rest is really useless…why??’cause the low hp pool the guardian have.People that play full bunker use that build mainly (maybe only) in structured ’cause the only thing we can do well is to play as a point holder.
The people that said that warriors are not good on damage mitigation like guardians have to L2P , try to use a full shout warrior build… 10 k hp more that a guardian (20 k vs 30 k) , 1500 heal aoe for every shout (and 1 condition healed) with a lower recharge rate respect to a guardian and more damage respect us.The regen and protection problems? Warrior have them thanks to the guardians that are playng in front line with them so how can be our damage mitigation better now? A lot of people have really to learn to play , guardians give buff to other 4 characters , stop to see things like a 1 vs 1!!!

No, there are more than 2 viable builds, but nice try. Once again, there is more than just AH out there. Think outside the box for once.

As far as compared to a warrior… yeah no. Monk’s focus heals for more than a shout warrior, and is also far more useful, and also 1 meditation removes ALL conditions, turns them ALL to boons, and is a stun break on top of it, as well as smite condition which is on a 16 second traited CD, removes a condition, and does mass AoE damage when removing a condition. Traited to heal they heal for just under 2k.

Seriously, people need to hop off the AH train and actually try to do something else.

If you play a meditation build on wvw you are useless for your allies man… And meditation heal only you , warrior’s shout heal 5 character…

There are ALOT more ways to benifit your party than just running shouts… The whole virtue line would like to say hello, along with our radiance line with blinds and aoe vulnerabilty. Besides AH is just as selfish as any other build considering it only heals you. You can still easily run meditation and still support. Once again, hop off the AH train.

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

The people that said that warriors are not good on damage mitigation like guardians have to L2P , try to use a full shout warrior build… 10 k hp more that a guardian (20 k vs 30 k) , 1500 heal aoe for every shout (and 1 condition healed) with a lower recharge rate respect to a guardian and more damage respect us.The regen and protection problems? Warrior have them thanks to the guardians that are playng in front line with them so how can be our damage mitigation better now? A lot of people have really to learn to play , guardians give buff to other 4 characters , stop to see things like a 1 vs 1!!!

Damage problems while being support/tank-guardian?!? They have that thanks to the warriors, thiefs and eles!!! WvW is not 1vs1!!!!

Oh wait. That’s pretty much the entire point of the thread… 1vs1. Because the main complaint here is that guardians apparently have to less HP if they also want to do some damage while supporting. Even though the people that they support already do enough damage (which is the point of your post). So I take it your post was also directed at the OP and his supporter(s).

Bash you really think that with a meditation build you can support the same that a AH build?Meditation’s build are a lot more 1 vs 1 than mass pvp , you don’t give buff to other (like stability and protection for example that for front line soldiers are usefull).If a guardian in my guild play a meditation build for wvw I simply tell to him to change build.More AH guardian you have on front line and more % the team have to survive thanks to their boon , ask warriors If they like ours prot and regen when we give them .(want to talk about all the conditions that you change to boon aoe??) Meditation guardian win a AH guardian in 1 vs 1 , on mass pvp AH Guardian can make the difference , Meditation ones not.The only things a AH guardian need on virtue line is Inspired Virtue , the best 5 point you can spendt.

You do realize you can still run hold the line on a meditation build right? Also, the whole valor traitline is a selfish traitline. If you were honestly looking for group support virtues is a 100% better line between massive retail uptime and spreading, stability on virtue use, condition removal on virtue use, and better consecrations. So please, tell me what group support the valor traitline gives. In comparison.

Also, you have to learn to give and take. Can a meditation build still support? Yes. But maybe not as good as other builds. But it can do things other builds cant as well. You cant expect to have everything in one build.

In short: No. They don’t need more HP. If they got more HP, people like me who go full-healing / tank would be even harder to kill and it’d cause more people to complain about having to kill guardians.

And no, I don’t mean a “Bunker” build where I’m using a greatsword and hammer. I mean a full on Mace/Shield + Staff, with traits to heal and full ascended cleric’s stuff. Most people want bunker guardians to be easier to kill, and giving a full HP buff to guardians would also be giving a full HP buff to “unkillable” guardians.

And then it would give a lot of people a lot more reason to kitten and complain. Guardian’s my main, and I think all the damage mitigation makes up for a smaller HP pool. The only build I struggle to stay alive with is glass cannon, which is kind of insane to do on a guardian anyway.

A real AH guardian don’t use consecrations ‘cause the one that use that is the guardian-cleric (in our parties) , a AH guardian give reta aoe with the shout and simply clicking 1-1-1-2 with the hammer , so we don’t need the extra reta you have ‘cause we always give that.Honor is a selfish traitline?If the possibility to spam shout 20% faster , larger simbols for more protection (and damage) aoe and pure of voice (the trait that give you the possibility to change a condition to 5 person to 5 buff every shout you know that?) plus the extra healing of Selfless daring ( heal aoe simply ’cause you roll) is a selfish traitline you really have to learn something man. You want to do to much thing man , using consecration-using meditation – using a shout so the heal you take for your meditation is not the same of a guardian AH with 3 shout.The error that a lot of guardian do is that you can do ALL with the same build , you have to concentrate on something and doing that the best that you can because you don’t play alone .If you don’t play consecration another one have to respecc for doing that , this is optimization.

^^

I’m pretty sure he meant valor.

Oh, and guardians don’t need more HP.

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

A real AH guardian don’t use consecrations ‘cause the one that use that is the guardian-cleric (in our parties) , a AH guardian give reta aoe with the shout and simply clicking 1-1-1-2 with the hammer , so we don’t need the extra reta you have ‘cause we always give that.Honor is a selfish traitline?If the possibility to spam shout 20% faster , larger simbols for more protection (and damage) aoe and pure of voice (the trait that give you the possibility to change a condition to 5 person to 5 buff every shout you know that?) plus the extra healing of Selfless daring ( heal aoe simply ’cause you roll) is a selfish traitline you really have to learn something man. You want to do to much thing man , using consecration-using meditation – using a shout so the heal you take for your meditation is not the same of a guardian AH with 3 shout.The error that a lot of guardian do is that you can do ALL with the same build , you have to concentrate on something and doing that the best that you can because you don’t play alone .If you don’t play consecration another one have to respecc for doing that , this is optimization.

Mistyped and corrected to valor traitline. Also consecrations are beyond amazing, a pulsing condition removal fire field, a pulsing stability fire field, and a wall that reflects all projectiles isnt group based? But besides the fact, start a new thread if you want to discuss the goup centric behavior of traitlines since it has nothing to do with guardian Hp

Valor trait-line is not so great but if you play Meditations you need it too.It is one of the great limit of the guardians , If you need MF or AH you need 30 point in that and you need that extra 300 toughness If you want good resistance.The point that a lot of guardian talk about maybe is for that too , If you have not a lot of Hp you need MF or AH for more resistance and you lose 30 points here in a lot of build , in this way trait-line like Zeal or Radiance are snobbed.Have you ever thinked that with a little bit more of hp maybe a lot of people will try a lot of different builds?

Except you dont? Look at my most recent build thread, there is more than one way to get the self healing without AH or MF. And people do try non AH/MF builds, its just a point that more people really need to get out there and try something other than those two.

Edit: trying to fix typing errors, hate posting on a phone :/

Of the thousands of times my guardian has been killed in WvW, not once have I thought it was because I needed a higher HP pool. If anything it’s because a) we’re slow, b) my server isn’t very good, c) my build/equipment needs a tweak, and d) I really shouldn’t be running alone, as I suck at dueling; I’m a heal/support, and that’s exactly what I want to be.

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

Valor trait-line is not so great but if you play Meditations you need it too.It is one of the great limit of the guardians , If you need MF or AH you need 30 point in that and you need that extra 300 toughness If you want good resistance.The point that a lot of guardian talk about maybe is for that too , If you have not a lot of Hp you need MF or AH for more resistance and you lose 30 points here in a lot of build , in this way trait-line like Zeal or Radiance are snobbed.Have you ever thinked that with a little bit more of hp maybe a lot of people will try a lot of different builds?

Some more HP won’t help with that problem, unless you buff them to a warrior’s level (which would be completely OP). A few HP are gone quickly, while AH and MF provide sustain, which is much more useful in most cases.

No, the general reason why AH is so widely used is the risk vs. reward factor, imho. These builds provide a sufficient level of damage and extremely good sustain, so it’s natural that most people will take them.

Bash.7291:

Except you dont? Look at my most recent build thread, there is more than one way to get the self healing without AH or MF. And people do try non AH/MF builds, its just a point that more people really need to get out there and try something other than those two.

Edit: trying to fix typing errors, hate posting on a phone :/

I actually just discovered AH yesterday, and demand to know why I was not informed of this awesomeness. There certainly are other builds, but that’s the one that I’ve decided I like the best. I ran it for bounty hunts, Karka Queen, Claw of Jormag, and AC story mode. My favorite was against JoJo’s first phase; I didn’t even grab a bazooka, just stood on the ledge spamming staff heals and popping SYG when he used Fear. I’d love to try it in WvW, but due to the brilliant new matchup system, one server is regularly getting 600 points per round.

tl;dr: you’re right, people should experiment, but I hear a lot of people just dismiss Altruistic Healing out of hand.

CptAurellian a little bit of Hp instead can help for that problem for my point of view.
Bash I have seen your builds but really I don’t like them , You have nothing more respect my AH build , maybe can be good for pve (but I think not better than mine) surely not for mass pvp.

Not liking them does not mean anything about if they work or not. If the AH build works for you thats fine. Im just sick of people acting like it is the only viable build when it is obviously not. Alot of it has to do with people being afraid to try something else. And that has nothing to do with health amounts, but more the fact that other people discredit every other build for no reason other than personal opinion.

Ok…just to start with, this whole wow mentality of a support class you guys keep spouting needs to go in the trash.

GUARDIAN:
“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

That is the description of the guardian profession. I don’t see anything in that statement that limits guardians to being a support class. What I do see that clear indication that guardians have options to protect and defend others…nothing that says that is all they can do.

ENGINEER:
“Masters of mechanical mayhem, engineers love to tinker with explosives, elixirs, and all manner of hazardous gadgets. They can take control of an area by placing turrets, support their allies with alchemic weaponry, or lay waste to foes with a wide array of mines, bombs, and grenades.”

That is the engineer description…does that mean they are a control or support class because its mentioned that they can do those things in their class description?

The way I see it, ANET built this game in such a way as to avoid pigeon holes. No dedicated tanks, no dedicated healers, no dedicated support classes. Every class does all of those things in different ways and to different extents. That’s a primary reason I bought this game.

Back to the original topic, I think the hp level of a guardian is perfectly fair. Guardian survival is not based on heavy armor like some people seem to think. Armor type makes almost no difference in this game. Survival is based off of boons, HP/toughness, evasion, and condition removal. Guardians can have all of the above. Sadly, we have to trait pretty heavily for HP/toughness to be at any reasonable level, but that is necessary to prevent bunker builds from being unstoppable.

Condition removal is easily achieved with traits. There’s absolute resolution in Virtues and purity in valor. There’s signet of resolve, which every guardian probably uses anyway. There’s also inscribed removal in radiance. No shortage on condition removal on a guardian and not limited to one trait line.

My only issue with guardians is the zeal trait line. I don’t play bunker at all. In fact, I will never play a bunker build because I feel it is useless outside of pvp environments. Everything in pve favors high damage builds, in terms of efficiency. Kill it fast and move on to the next objective….versus taking 2-3 times as long and/or waiting on someone else to do it for you while you profit. Have you ever done a dungeon run with 4-5 bunker builds …after doing one with 4-5 dps builds? Huge difference. Zeal is supposed to be our power bonus line, but its loaded with benefits to symbols…that over half of our weapon sets do not have access to. I’d rather they make the symbol stuff baseline and put some non-weapon-specific survival traits there instead…to benefit dps guardians. Dps guardians are glass builds anyway and glass builds need to be highly mobile to survive. That is the opposite of standing still on top of a symbol. I’d imagine that would finally get some of these bunker builds to play something more productive.

swiftpaw.6397:

xiv.7136:

Guardian Test

01 Do you think guardian is underpowered and needs more HP;
—— If yes, go to 02
—— If no, go to 03

02 You have no idea how to play a guardian
—— If you are willing to improve, go to 04
—— If you are not willing to improve, go to 05

03 You understand the importance of regen, dodge heals, aegis, protection, condition removal, blind, etc, go to 06

04 Read up on some of the builds and learn to use the myriad of mitigation abilities guardians have, a 13k HP guardian is more survivable than a 25k HP warrior, by a long stretch

05 Fail

06 Well done, now go out there and pwn

I enjoyed this way too much

^QFT^

MidnightCorutin.7084:

You can’t have permanent protection and retaliatation. You can have it last awhile but not permanent unless you’re built for it. The thing you seem to not understand is different builds use different setups. We’re talking about the general guardian. They have a low hp pool in consideration with what other classes can have.

Also conditions are not affected by retaliation or protection. YOU need TO learn A few ThinGS CAPSNGSIBFIBNGKISBNGBSBSCJBSJVBSJBV

You can also clean conditions if your built for it, and you can have more HP if your built for it. There is no general guardian any more than there is general elementalist with same HP base, just as thief. They all share same HP base, and they all can deal with conditions if they are built to do it amongst other things.

On other hand, i never stated that retaliation and protection are means to deal with conditions. But they are strongpoints of every guardian, while warrior has bit higher base HP but barely any acsess to retaliation and 0 protection skill. And they have much less ways to deal with conditions. And on top of that OP is complaining that guardians have low HP, so conditions eat them…LOL

MidnightCorutin.7084:

Damage guardian isn’t what a guardian is suppose to be. They’re the defensive heavy role that combines – a cleric and a knight. They do mediocre damage with high survivability. The guardians you are all complaining about are beserker kitten builds who do nothing but damage and can be easily dominated. I, as a tank/healer, can easily wipe the floor with such filth due to knowing how to play this game and understanding what to do. Damage guardian is nothing to be afraid of. A damage warrior has more hp/tank and damage. This goes for every beserker class except that of maybe a feather class. Which is a feather. Which has not been implemented yet due to being incredibly op.

Edit: I couldn’t care less if they nerfed the hell out of a beserker guardian. I think that’d be a buff and give a true name to guardians. Guardians – Tank. Warrior – Damage.

Pretty sure you are playing the wrong game. Do I even need to say what game it is that you are talking about?

ODB.6891:

Ok…just to start with, this whole wow mentality of a support class you guys keep spouting needs to go in the trash.

GUARDIAN:
“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

That sounds pretty support-based to me. And no, I don’t appreciate being told that I should change my mentality just because I choose to play a certain way that you don’t. Like your own style? Great. Why don’t you go do that instead of showing that, actually, you are the one who doesn’t understand Anet’s vision? No class has to be x, it’s just that some are much better at it than others. You can play a condi damage guardian, just like you can play a support/tanky thief, it’s just that you could probably get better results the other way around.

Naranek.3467:

ODB.6891:

Ok…just to start with, this whole wow mentality of a support class you guys keep spouting needs to go in the trash.

GUARDIAN:
“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

That sounds pretty support-based to me. And no, I don’t appreciate being told that I should change my mentality just because I choose to play a certain way that you don’t. Like your own style? Great. Why don’t you go do that instead of showing that, actually, you are the one who doesn’t understand Anet’s vision? No class has to be x, it’s just that some are much better at it than others. You can play a condi damage guardian, just like you can play a support/tanky thief, it’s just that you could probably get better results the other way around.

I do exactly that. I do play my own way, which is exactly ANET’s design. The fact that you took that so personally shows exactly that you believe in that “support mentality”. Which means YOU need to review exactly what “mentality” and “support class” mean. This game design allows us to play each class the way we want, but you are correct…that choice may and can lead to sub-optimal results…when compared to another profession’s output in that same play style. You did a nice job of selective quoting by the way…leaving out the description that I also quoted of the engineer profession…they specifically did include the word support in that profession’s description, but that does not make engineers a “support class” either. Neither the wording of each profession’s description nor the individual balance tweaks that both constantly change, are enough to contradict the overall game design…which is player choice. The trinity is absent in this game for a reason…and its a good reason. People may have their feelings hurt by my opinion on bunker builds outside of pvp, but the logic stands and is indisputable. DPS is more effective in any pve environment in this game than building for pure survival. The only things that could make dps less effective are lack of player skill in dodging and completely ignoring all survival traits. All the HP, toughness, armor, and healing you can possibly get are not going to compensate for absence of skill.

If you have actually read the previous posts, you have seen that there are those who are trying to contradict this overall game design and telling players that guardians are only good for supporting. If you are supporting that argument that guardians are only good for support, then you are contradicting yourself in your reply to me. You said " No class has to be x, it’s just that some are much better at it than others." This is also not about “style”. Its about what is efficient. Killing stuff fast is efficient. Staying alive is also efficient, but you don’t have to sacrifice the ability to kill stuff fast to stay alive. In fact, guardians are likely the most survivable class without having to spend any trait points in survival…solely due to class mechanics. That alone frees guards up to gear/trait more for dps.

Yes, I read everything, and no, I’m not contradicting myself at all. You are trying to promote your vision of what the class “should” be, not me, and that everyone else is by extension “wrong”, showing how much you really value player choice. I couldn’t care less what you think is/is not “efficient”, which you try to claim is “logic”; you seem like the kind of person who would kick a ranger from a dungeon group for no other reason than that they’re a ranger.

Yes it is fair… we have so many tools to resist damage… Learn to use what you’ve been given

Naranek.3467:

Yes, I read everything, and no, I’m not contradicting myself at all. You are trying to promote your vision of what the class “should” be, not me, and that everyone else is by extension “wrong”, showing how much you really value player choice. I couldn’t care less what you think is/is not “efficient”, which you try to claim is “logic”; you seem like the kind of person who would kick a ranger from a dungeon group for no other reason than that they’re a ranger.

Its cool that you want to put words in my mouth and to speak as if you know what everyone else thinks. I don’t have any vision of what the class should be. I can see how ANET designed the game…there’s a difference. I speak as to what the class is capable of, which anyone can see. That it is not limited to being a bunker build. I speak as to common sense that killing stuff fast is more efficient than killing stuff slowly. I’m sorry if you don’t agree with that. To acknowledge the words you want to put in my mouth…no I don’t kick anyone from groups…with the exception being offline players or those who stand in a corner waiting for the group to kill stuff for them. You have no idea what kind of person I am…least of all not from a few posts about a video game..but yeah..go ahead and keep making your unfounded assessments. I am not trying to “promote” anything. What I would like to “demote” is the idea that guardians can only be used when traited and geared for pure survival/buffing. You can buff your group on a guardian by default with zero modifications to traits (aegis, protection, stability, regeneration). Yes, you can also add condition removal to that via traits…but I’m pretty sure all of the other classes have condition removal in their traits and abilities as well. I’m also pretty sure I have never said that “everyone” else is wrong in any post I’ve made. I’m also sure that I’ve never said that others were wrong in choosing how to play their character. What I have said is that dps contribution is more important that pure self survival. I have also said that the guardian class is capable of doing more than support. I stand by those statements.

Naranek.3467:

YYou* are trying to promote your vision of what the class “should” be

Uh, you nee to read that post he just made above.

If you have actually read the previous posts, you have seen that there are those who are trying to contradict this overall game design and telling players that guardians are only good for supporting. If you are supporting that argument that guardians are only good for support, then you are contradicting yourself in your reply to me. You said " No class has to be x, it’s just that some are much better at it than others." This is also not about “style”. Its about what is efficient. Killing stuff fast is efficient. Staying alive is also efficient, but you don’t have to sacrifice the ability to kill stuff fast to stay alive. In fact, guardians are likely the most survivable class without having to spend any trait points in survival…solely due to class mechanics. That alone frees guards up to gear/trait more for dps.

Here, I’ll highlight some points:

Its about what is efficient. Killing stuff fast is efficient. Staying alive is also efficient, but you don’t HAVE to sacrifice the ability to kill stuff fast to stay alive.

In fact, guardians are likely the most survivable class without having to spend any trait points in survival…solely due to class mechanics. That alone FREES guards UP to gear/trait more for dps.

I see him telling you what our class CAN do, not imposing his vision of what the class should do like you say

I’ll just leave this here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X_Djefc5zM

The only Vitality I had for a long time was the 300 from traits and 70 from food. Absolutely 0 Vitality gear. We have so much synergy with health regen and so many ways to avoid damage via blocks, blinds, and whatever else…

ODB.6891:

Ok…just to start with, this whole wow mentality of a support class you guys keep spouting needs to go in the trash.

GUARDIAN:
“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

Sounds like a DPS class to me.

• see how ridiculous that comment was Naranek?

Christos you haven’t demostrated nothing , the build you use is the same that I use on Spvp for the point holder , cleric items with a lot of dodge for a 1600-1700 every time with sigil of energy when you swap weapon for the 50% endurance recharge.Nothing new.I prefer to use AH build for wvw and yours for Spvp , MF build and your build are surely better for dueling but peolpe that say that guardian have a lot of viable builds are crazy…I just want to remember how are ours spirit weapons for example…

Teamkiller.4315:

Naranek.3467:

YYou* are trying to promote your vision of what the class “should” be

Uh, you nee to read that post he just made above.

If you have actually read the previous posts, you have seen that there are those who are trying to contradict this overall game design and telling players that guardians are only good for supporting. If you are supporting that argument that guardians are only good for support, then you are contradicting yourself in your reply to me. You said " No class has to be x, it’s just that some are much better at it than others." This is also not about “style”. Its about what is efficient. Killing stuff fast is efficient. Staying alive is also efficient, but you don’t have to sacrifice the ability to kill stuff fast to stay alive. In fact, guardians are likely the most survivable class without having to spend any trait points in survival…solely due to class mechanics. That alone frees guards up to gear/trait more for dps.

Here, I’ll highlight some points:

Its about what is efficient. Killing stuff fast is efficient. Staying alive is also efficient, but you don’t HAVE to sacrifice the ability to kill stuff fast to stay alive.

In fact, guardians are likely the most survivable class without having to spend any trait points in survival…solely due to class mechanics. That alone FREES guards UP to gear/trait more for dps.

I see him telling you what our class CAN do, not imposing his vision of what the class should do like you say

This is the very first thing s/he said:

Ok…just to start with, this whole wow mentality of a support class you guys keep spouting needs to go in the trash.

Later this charming individual goes on incoherent rants about “efficiency”, as if I cared about the numbers some munchkin pulled off a min/max chart somewhere. So yes, it does sound like s/he is only interested in the “right” path. Also, where did I say that you can’t make any build you want? Yet I’m the one supposedly putting words in other people’s mouths.

Necros and bleeds. I asked my guardian about them and she didn’t know what either was in Guild Wars 2.

Amins.3710:

ODB.6891:

Ok…just to start with, this whole wow mentality of a support class you guys keep spouting needs to go in the trash.

GUARDIAN:
“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

Sounds like a DPS class to me.

• see how ridiculous that comment was Naranek?

Not really. I mean, assuming that line about “brilliant tacticians” is more than just flavor text, I would think it’s referring to crowd control, not DPS. And the “devoted fighters” bit I looked at before deciding it was ambivalent; is that devoted to their role as fighters (DPS), or devoted as in loyal to a group/cause (support)? As for virtues, two of the three are defensive, only the least useful being offensive, and all three can be activated to support nearby allies.

And now that I think about it, isn’t this the same source (profession descriptions) that refers to rangers as “masters of ranged combat”? If that’s the case I would invite you to go to the ranger forum and see how well they like longbow’s autoattack.

Threads like these bring out a lot of clueless people for sure …

Only a few viable builds for Guardian? Only AH is good in WvW? Guardian is a support class? Some real stinkers here. If you discard your ‘WoW’ approach to MMO’s, you will see this thinking all just melts away and you are just left with what is real in GW2. Try it.

Oh and no, we don’t nee more HP and the tools we have to make up for the low HP are more than sufficient. If anything, they make you learn to play. See the connection? People think Guardians need more HP are the same people that need to l2p.

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

Christos you haven’t demostrated nothing , the build you use is the same that I use on Spvp for the point holder , cleric items with a lot of dodge for a 1600-1700 every time with sigil of energy when you swap weapon for the 50% endurance recharge.Nothing new.I prefer to use AH build for wvw and yours for Spvp , MF build and your build are surely better for dueling but peolpe that say that guardian have a lot of viable builds are crazy…I just want to remember how are ours spirit weapons for example…

Yeah, giving up on this one. Opinion =! fact. Christos and I run small guild groups in WvW and are fully capable, with smart tactics, at being able to face pretty harsh odds. his build is honestly supreme in group combat compared to AH as he gives out just as many boons, heals for even more, and is almost unkillable. Not only that but his ability to dive into groups to draw attention and live is a huge bonus at it allows the rest of the group to easily come in and pick people off. If you can’t realize that there is more than just the AH build in WvW that is viable then you really lack any creativity outside of a cookie cutter zombie build.

Naranek.3467:

Amins.3710:

ODB.6891:

Ok…just to start with, this whole wow mentality of a support class you guys keep spouting needs to go in the trash.

GUARDIAN:
“Guardians are devoted fighters who protect their allies and smite their enemies by drawing from the power of their virtues. True guardians are brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders who know when to sacrifice their own defenses to empower their allies to achieve victory.”

Sounds like a DPS class to me.

• see how ridiculous that comment was Naranek?

Not really. I mean, assuming that line about “brilliant tacticians” is more than just flavor text, I would think it’s referring to crowd control, not DPS. And the “devoted fighters” bit I looked at before deciding it was ambivalent; is that devoted to their role as fighters (DPS), or devoted as in loyal to a group/cause (support)? As for virtues, two of the three are defensive, only the least useful being offensive, and all three can be activated to support nearby allies.

And now that I think about it, isn’t this the same source (profession descriptions) that refers to rangers as “masters of ranged combat”? If that’s the case I would invite you to go to the ranger forum and see how well they like longbow’s autoattack.

A) Amins, you make me laugh

B)Naranek If you think FIGHTER means group support… just wow. And the best part is that your trying to base your original argument off bolded text in the class description, yet you say we can’t follow that based on the ranger description… It must be great to only follow things when it suits you, and also to take fragments of it completely out of context.

The point is, guardian is NOT just a support class. We have damage, we have support, we have defense. We can balance any of these any which way we want. So stop trying to act like our whole point is to support people when it isn’t

Guardians just need to have their cooldowns reduced especially on the weapon skills and massive buff to their healing, especially to healing allies receive.

Their regen is much lower than a rangers, and our healing does not even come close to compensating for some off the massive crits in WvW.

I think they fact that we even have one build that can deal without any Vitality from gear (at all) is saying something for why it isn’t “unfair.”

whew, that was a long read.

in case this hasn’t been highlighted enough, Guardian’s base HP is moer than fine. you can easily find tons of WvW Guardian videos online.. many of which they jump into fights, or get jumped on, and 10, even 15 seconds in, and they haven’t lost a drip of health. if they did, they healed it back up right away. that, is what our class is capable of, and having a bit more HP may or may not make a difference at all.

there are a lot of builds out there. this is crazy, but, will we ever have a “BEST BUILD”? no, we definitely won’t. i can put together a build on buildcraft or gw2skills to the T, and give it out to 10 different players, i will guarantee you they will ALL perform differently. point being, there is no one build that works best. just cause one of you have a build you immensely enjoy and believe to be the best, does not negate the fact that there are a TON of people out there playing a variety of builds and are, believe it or not, being more successful at it than you are.

i appreciate all the Guardians in here who were helpful and offering each other different perspectives. it’s what builds a community. of course, the Guardian is not perfect. are each and every single face behind the monitors here perfect? no of course not. if there IS a perfect build, why is not everyone running the same darn thing? Clone Wars is that away, in a galaxy far far away… but now i digress.

OP, you’ve created a monster with this thread. maybe a little one, but a monster nonetheless. ; )) glad in the end it seemed you were able to find peace and experiment with what the Guardian has to offer at the moment. you mentioned you were new. well i can sure as hell bet that the more you play, the more you will learn and gain and love this class even more.

and i must add.. it took me 2 full pages of reading before i realized what “bez” meant. XDD well done, brain.

Naranek.3467:

Teamkiller.4315:

Naranek.3467:

YYou* are trying to promote your vision of what the class “should” be

Uh, you nee to read that post he just made above.

If you have actually read the previous posts, you have seen that there are those who are trying to contradict this overall game design and telling players that guardians are only good for supporting. If you are supporting that argument that guardians are only good for support, then you are contradicting yourself in your reply to me. You said " No class has to be x, it’s just that some are much better at it than others." This is also not about “style”. Its about what is efficient. Killing stuff fast is efficient. Staying alive is also efficient, but you don’t have to sacrifice the ability to kill stuff fast to stay alive. In fact, guardians are likely the most survivable class without having to spend any trait points in survival…solely due to class mechanics. That alone frees guards up to gear/trait more for dps.

Here, I’ll highlight some points:

Its about what is efficient. Killing stuff fast is efficient. Staying alive is also efficient, but you don’t HAVE to sacrifice the ability to kill stuff fast to stay alive.

In fact, guardians are likely the most survivable class without having to spend any trait points in survival…solely due to class mechanics. That alone FREES guards UP to gear/trait more for dps.

I see him telling you what our class CAN do, not imposing his vision of what the class should do like you say

This is the very first thing s/he said:

Ok…just to start with, this whole wow mentality of a support class you guys keep spouting needs to go in the trash.

Later this charming individual goes on incoherent rants about “efficiency”, as if I cared about the numbers some munchkin pulled off a min/max chart somewhere. So yes, it does sound like s/he is only interested in the “right” path. Also, where did I say that you can’t make any build you want? Yet I’m the one supposedly putting words in other people’s mouths.

Where do you come up with this stuff?!? “incoherent rants, min/max charts, right path, munchkin”…I mean seriously?!? Are you on the WoW forums copying quotes? This is an entirely different game dude, based off of a different set of rules and strategy. No tank, healer, dps trinity here. There are no dps charts in gw2. You need to chill out dude…its pretty obvious (even to the other posters here), which one of us is ranting and just making up random stuff. Learn to admit when you are wrong graciously.

If you read for comprehension instead of what you want to see, then you will see that I said you were correct about there being different ways to play this profession. So no one said you could not make any build you wanted. That was my entire point…this class is not limited to being support for other classes. That’s what a “support class” is…one that is limited to only being support for other classes. Guardians are not that limited.

I’ll play your game here…apparently you are the type of person who gets mad when someone tries to open your mind to different possibilities?

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

Christos you haven’t demostrated nothing , the build you use is the same that I use on Spvp for the point holder , cleric items with a lot of dodge for a 1600-1700 every time with sigil of energy when you swap weapon for the 50% endurance recharge.Nothing new.I prefer to use AH build for wvw and yours for Spvp , MF build and your build are surely better for dueling but peolpe that say that guardian have a lot of viable builds are crazy…I just want to remember how are ours spirit weapons for example…

…….You do realize that Christos’s build is a lot more supportive then the cookie cutter AH build, not only that far more survivable and self efficient. Also for dueling only? You never stop to think it works well in small skirmishes? It honestly works in zergs as well, no doubt. Spirit weapons are the only thing that aren’t really shining right now for builds at the moment, and Meditations builds are great for DPS and sustain burst healing builds. Seriously though AH builds is not the only viable build a guardian has, that is just so closed minded really!

No Christos’s build is not more supportive then Ah build , the only thing that He do better is the amount of dodge-heal but he suffer a lot more than me condition damage , In a 20-20 or more he dies surely before of me ‘cause you can be focused a lot more than simply from 3-4 characters.People you just don’t have to be suprised of the videos of the other , they never post all the time that they loose…

Guardian is in my eyes one of the top 3 class for WvW together with thieves and mesmers. The ONE thing that’s quite effective against guardians is conditions. And what’s funny is that you still have PLENTY of ways to deal with them. Traits, shouts can convert them if traited, Contemplation of purity, natural regen, heals on dodge.

As a comparison, what do mesmers get to deal with conditions? Null field (lol) and a sucky matra. Most mesmers don’t have ANY condition removal, so please don’t come complaining what you have is not enough.

Every class has a natural counter. If you are arguing that the guardian needs their one strong counter removed (not even that strong compared to a mesmer’s weakness) than I got nothing to say to you. You clearly just want your guardian invulnerable to everything.
FYI, guardian is already the most wanted class in WvW, especially for zerg fighting. Brb, giving unlimited retaliation to an entire zerg with a pack of guardians. My engineer nearly downs himself on a zerg with just 3 grenade throws and the grenades throw so slow that when the first one lands, you already have thrown 3.

Cloud Stryfe.4058:

No Christos’s build is not more supportive then Ah build , the only thing that He do better is the amount of dodge-heal but he suffer a lot more than me condition damage , In a 20-20 or more he dies surely before of me ‘cause you can be focused a lot more than simply from 3-4 characters.People you just don’t have to be suprised of the videos of the other , they never post all the time that they loose…

….. /facepalm Can’t tell of just trolling at this point, or is so obsessed with AH that there is no other build in the game for him.