Guild Wars 2

So, I just got my copy of GW2 yesterday and started playing. I’ve messed around on a Mesmer, Ranger, Engineer and now just starting a Guardian.

I have haven’t that class that I just really love, Problems have been…

Mesmer: Clone/Phantasms too easily shut down
Ranger: One trick ponies, I.E. Shortbow or bust
Engineer: Same as Ranger, grenades or bust

Now I know I didn’t level cap on any of these guys this was just my short experience mixed with a fair amount of forum reading.

I really want to get into the sPvP which I hear Guardians have a strong hold in, not “OP” but strong. My concern is leveling (mostly solo) how well does that go for you higher level guys? was it teidious/unrewarding.

Any feedback would be awesome!

I found my Guardian was huge fun to lvl from 1-30, then it slowed down a bit, was still fun, just not as much fun from 30-60, all this lvling was done with a Greatsword, you gotta “spin to win”,

60+ got very tedious tbh, and in the end at about lvl 67/68 I hit WvW instead, I did 68-80 in WvW and had quite alot of fun tbh.

I am gonna stick my neck out and say that Guardians start out being a huge amount of fun, but then as you lvl and get higher and higher the fun factor seems to drift away, they don’t seem to scale well in my opinion.

My guardian only got stronger and stronger, but I also drifted more towards defense and support. I definitely prefer that to the offensive guardians I see everywhere. Yea they can do the job (though I still believe sword/torch is superior to the greatswords I see everywhere), but I think the class really shines at defense.

There is nothing quite like being in melee with a champion mob and seeing everyone around you on the ground while you’re still standing, and quickly recovering all your health back.

I had a different experience, then again I played my Guardian a bit different from the masses. Like everyone else, I played around with a GS build but I did not like it. It is a great way to die unless you run in a group/zerg. It just isn’t very survivable even given our classes survival options. It helps once you get the Trait at higher levels that heals you when attacking with a GS but I can’t imagine going that long without it.

In this game, range is king. I am not saying you need to live ranged 24/7 but you definitely want to have a ranged option. I played with all the weapon options and finally decided on the following. Keep in mind now, I ran solo almost exclusively except for events which everyone gravitates toward. For solo, I like;

Sceptre/Torch
Mace/Focus

The sceptre gives you the ability to open up kiting and then, when you have the mobs health down to a manageable level, let it in and nuke it down with your torch. It is almost mandatory for large-scale events as it gets too hard to see making it hard to stay in range with a melee weapon.

The mace/focus is our most defensive set. So when you bite off more than you can chew, you have a fallback set that keeps you on your feet long after anything else can.

Using these sets, I solo’d to 80 with great ease and had a lot of fun doing so. Now, I also played our classes strengths to the hilt and stacked Toughness, Vitality, and Power. In other words, I am almost impossible to kill if I play smart and I do a very nice, steady flow of DPS. I lack the burst of the GS but I am almost never at risk. I am usually the guy that ends the fight and then revives the GS Guardians

Now, in WvWvW it is another thing entirely. I absolutely love the GS there. I actually use the GS and 1H Sword as both weapons give me gap closers which prevents runners.

Bottom line, I have found the Guardian to be a very well designed class and it is pretty solid across the board. You need to think your weapon sets and traits out as there are some less efficient ways to do things but all in all, I would say that Guardian is one of the more balanced classes in the game right now. I really want to play a Necro but that class is obviously broken so I’ll continue to have a blast with my Guardian until AN figures the Necro out.

early levels i did sword/shield to allow me to solo content you normaly wouldnt be able to. Guardians are the pve kings by far when it comes to getting in way over their head and come out still standing. Guardians are unlike any other class as you actualy want to build defense instead of offence. Early levels sword/w/e works great, late game unfortunately GS is really the best option of DE due to being the only weapon with enough burst to get you drops in zergs. In dungeons staff is amazeing, im currently running Armor/power/healboost and i love my guardian! i am jealous of the burst on other classes but for going 30/10/0/20/10 ive got alot of power/support and defence.

Two big pro tips:
Firstly get the “take half fall damage” trait, it’s a life saver.
Second, if you’re going to use melee then learn to circle strafe monsters; this reduces the damage you take immensely as monsters tend to commit to an attack and will wiff if you’re constantly moving, even on their “small” attacks.

Leveling does get less fun later on, in part I think because you get your most effective / useful stuff early on, and the rest are niche stuff that are impractical solo or only work with niche traits, or are just inferior to various skills you already have and some are just plain bad, like the Res signet.

I leveled with Greatsword and Staff when solo, and Scepter & focus / Staff when running with the Events zerg, and mace & shield / scepter & focus with cleansing shouts for Dungeons.
I think a Condition damage build could actually be extremely effective due to
1) the sword’s final chain does three hits at once which counts towards Virtue procs
2) Burning scales the best of any damaging condition
3) You have a lot of sources of damage from traits, skills, and torch skills; most of which have short cooldowns with traits.

sword torch purging flames> eveything