Guild Wars 2

Basically, the title poses the question. Is a pure melee Guardian viable? I guess this can be expanded to include all classes, but as this is the Guardian forum, let’s focus on them.

Obviously, you can run the solo content in basically any setup and be successful, but when it comes to dungeons, things get a little hairy. Mobs do enough damage that constantly being in melee range tends to be a route you don’t want to go down.

I currently run a Sword/Shield & Scepter/Focus Guardian build. Now, the idea in my head when I pictured a Guardian was Sword/Shield, and I’d love to be able to supplement that with a Greatsword offset. The inherent problem is that when running dungeons, I am unable to survive while remaining within melee range for the duration of most fights. So, the options are to either get out of melee range to recuperate, and jump in the fray to do burst damage, or to have one of your weapon sets be ranged damage, allowing you to retreat and still do damage.

So the question really is, can you build a pure melee Guardian that will do enough damage to equalize the significant periods of time spent out of melee range while recovering?

I have had great success at going full melee in all dungeon paths, SPvP, PvE, and WvW. But then, what people would consider successful will differ from person to person. Also, and I hate saying this, because it sounds elitist: Your skill at playing will play a large part in how well you perform.

It can be but you should bring a scepter with you just in case. i have gone trough whole twilight arbor story using just melee except for the necro boss i used scepter there because of the massive amount of spiders melee didn’t work and most of the time in dungeons i use melee.

I think more than greatsword, sword/focus or mace/focus gives you incredible stayin power for melee. The same can also be said for hammer being able to give you protection from its chain. Like others stated do keep a scepter just in case but i see no reason why either of those two focus sets plus hammer wouldn’t work.

Some fight will require you to go range so just carry a scepter around in the bag (Giganticus Lupicus for example). I’ll suggest to have all the weapons in your bag.

I bring full set of weapons a Guardian can equip everywhere i go, only takes up like 8 slots? Don’t have to ensure they are all exotics, all my ranged weapons are rare, while the rest are exotics.

Most dungeons are somewhat melee friendly 70% of the time.

Would the ability of the great sword attacks to heal you be enough to off set or help in any of the above situations ? I haven’t made it that far with mine to try but great sword attacks can heal if you ramp up that right trait.

The GS heal only does 25 health per target. I dunno but that doesn’t sound like very much to me.

Yes it is. I’ve been running this build for quite sometime now, and I’m happy to say I’ve yet to lose in a 1v1. Won my fair share of 2v1/3v1 also. Anything pass that is ridiculous I can down one, but the kill is hard. :P

Greatsword/Hammer, and I use all meditations with Signet of Resolve/Renewed Focus.

This build is all about meditations and retaliation. I mainly use the meditions for heals and cure conditions, but they also do dmg. Then retaliation is one of my main soucres of dmg.

30 valor
10 honor
30 vitures

If by “viable” you mean effective or deadly, then I must ask: Since when was ranged Guardian “viable?”

not only it is viable, but if you want to play an offensive guardian, you’re cornered into using melee weapons.

OP: Absolutely. I’ve gotten to where I generally run one of two builds on my Guardian. My DPS build is Greatsword / Scepter / Focus with sprit hammer and spirt sword equipt usually run Signet of Judgement on this build and Renewed Focus for my elite which I pop when I need to reset virtues.

People complain about Scepter. I prefer over staff in my DPS build because of it’s crowd control mechanics. You always need a range weapon to swap to and when your build is DPS focused you’re going to want a Focus or Shield as part of that so the Scepter works for me.

Traits. I have mine setup to max Spirit weapon usefulness. The others I toy around with. Even post nerf I’m still using the Retaliation related traits from time to time

I do go pure Melee and it’s actually quite OP with the right composition.

Yesterday I ran CoE EM path 1-2. I know they are somewhat easy but it was ridiculous. I was using hammer with another guardian and we had healing symbols… We spent every single boss fight stacked on the boss taking no damage rofl. Of course you have to time your dodges for the Subject Alpha perfectly or get 1 shoted, by still it was pretty kitten OP.

Gotta say Heals on meditation heals for 2k and traited they are instand and have very very low cooldown and that saved me against trash a couple of times.