Guild Wars 2

Yeah, I know, Guardians got buffed. For PvP at least. In PvE they are still pretty terrible. And here’s why:

Damage wise guardians are.. average I suppose, but unlike warriors guardians can’t keep up 25 might stacks on their own. Warriors can deal much more damage as well, not to mention their fury. What can guardians stack easily? Protection, retaliation and stability. Protection is great, but it’s only ever needed in raids and even then you barely ever see guardians.

Retaliation is garbage. It won’t kill enemies, it won’t increase your DPS and if you are doing high level fractals with boon thieves it can even kill you. And if you already forgot, I’m talking about PvE here, not PvP. This boon is useless and I’d love to give it up without getting anything in return. Or maybe, turn this in a boon that can’t be stolen. At least then I can actually make use of my 10% bonus damage when enemies stand in my symbols when using a GS.

Stability is not that bad, it’s just that apart from uncategorized you barely ever need it. And since you have your reflect wall and most of the time a mesmer with feedback, it’s not needed at all. Also, I rather have a dome of reflection, instead of a wall. But that’s probably just me.

I know Guardians are not supposed to deal massive damage and that they are supposed to guard or protect your party, but in reality, that doesn’t work out at all. Damage is everything, and apart from Raids, going defensive is bad. Look at druids, they might be defensive but provide so many buffs which make up for them being defensive. Every class can dodge and every class has defensive options, some of which are far better then a guards.

And mobility speaks for itself. no 25% movespeed trait or sigil to get around. Yes I could run around spamming retreat and using my staff, but then I leave a symbol behind which often puts me in combat because some enemy decided it looks shiny.

Guardians can do many things, but are average in almost all of them. Meanwhile other classes can do what gaurdians can, but better and then have some extra’s as well. Even though you barely see scrappers/engies in PvE, I feel they contribute so much more than guardians.

I really want to keep playing my guard, but I just feel like I’m holding back my party by being one. It actually suprises me that some more hardcore players or “elitists” aren’t kicking me yet, because when I get kicked because I play a guard, I fully understand them. Guardians could really use a major PvE overhaul, even after a buff which PvE wise didn’t change that much.

It’s like you didn’t even understand the changes. Guardians are upper echelon damage dealers and currently have 3 builds all right near each other in dps. The reason you aren’t getting kicked yet is because people with a brain know that guardians are actually desirable in all forms of pve. And the presence or absence of kicking is a poor metric to measure by, because only the most inept at team building kick.

What are you talking about…? Guardian is good in PvE

i agree with the others, guardian is pretty good. we even have some nice build diversity now.

Keksmuffin.1450:

i agree with the others, guardian is pretty good. we even have some nice build diversity now.

Only thing I really have a complaint about is wanting that fix to Boon Thieves.

Anyways, thought it was worth mentioning that between scepter and empowering might trait you can keep 10 stacks of might going, double that if you max boon duration, and yes that’s party wide if they stay in melee. And for yourself you’ll be capped out likely with Zealous Scepter trait (I still feel this trait needs reworking though, too niche compared to Fiery Wrath). And rotate with scepter/sword and you can provide a very solid amount of fury and might. Not too shabby while also rotating Aegis, reflects and all our defensive stuff in general.

as long as you dont use gs or blast light fields, which you shouldnt do in high lvl fractals anyways boon thieves is not really that big of a deal tbh. other classes like revs and wars get kittened over harder since they actually rely on specific boons to justify their spot in the party.

BlooDyliCious.5824:

Retaliation is garbage. It won’t kill enemies, it won’t increase your DPS and if you are doing high level fractals with boon thieves it can even kill you. And if you already forgot, I’m talking about PvE here, not PvP. This boon is useless and I’d love to give it up without getting anything in return. Or maybe, turn this in a boon that can’t be stolen. At least then I can actually make use of my 10% bonus damage when enemies stand in my symbols when using a GS.

Retaliation is garbage everywhere. It really only discourages thieves from autoattacking you in sPvP.

Keksmuffin.1450:

as long as you dont use gs or blast light fields, which you shouldnt do in high lvl fractals anyways boon thieves is not really that big of a deal tbh. other classes like revs and wars get kittened over harder since they actually rely on specific boons to justify their spot in the party.

Oh I know guardians can be used in fractals, just like you said retal can be avoided and then toss on the mesmers/necros which are quite abundant in FoTM, well it’s really not a huge concern. But, it’s still stupid and should be addressed, and apparently they are working on it, but sad to see that over the 8 months or so I was gone that everyone had to deal with this and it’s still there.

(I’ve been enjoying taking my guardian into the new fractal changes, it’s sad that people think guards are a non option, because with the amount of aegis we have can save a lot of lives).

Thought the OP was from pre-patch. Are the buffs/changes better for PvP than PvE or more impactful there? I can agree to that to an extent, is there one role Guardian is OP at over another class, no, but that does not mean Guardian’s are shafted or “terrible” in PvE they definitely got buffed there too. You don’t need to be the best DPS, best buffer. Seriously you can do a lot more now unlike mentioned Druid which is a buff bot. Seriously try to not go staff as Druid or have frost spirit off utility and see if that doesn’t get you kicked…

I think the OP hits on needed issues for Guardian that still are there, movement speed, reworking of signets, etc. Retaliation as a whole. And I am coming from an albeit limited fractal experience since changes, but I tried Guardian pre-patch, I used my 80 lvl boost and regretted it and had been kicked then – despite the idea of Guardian being my fav playstyle/support/lore/etc.

Also PvP is dominating that theorycrafting, but now I feel like I can heavily contribute in raids or fractals; and feel like Guardian is heading to the right spot not there yet but definitely far from terrible in PvE or reduced to one boring role, and there’s a reason scrappers have been scrapped from most PvE, despite still being good imo, in no way do they offers “so much more” as you say. But anyways, I get the sentiment of the OP but definitely not quite in touch with current meta.

Your point

1) Cant keep up 25 might.
True but Warrior doesnt support with Deflect, projectile absorb, FYI Guard do have something similiar with Phalanx Strength, i think its called Empowering MIght. You might say Revenant could too, but that would sacrifice much dps with the Ventari. If all heavy classes being able to stack 25 might, it will be boring and not fun anymore, dont you think? Seems to me you just want everything in a package which is kinda…..you know impossible.

2) Retaliation is garbage in PvE- Agree with you on this. However, bear in mind that Reta is good for the long forgotten Healway guard, wishful thinking but hope they bring it back xD.

3) Stability – Yes it only works on certain situation, but then again, you can also stealth skip on that fractal, isnt thats much better? Does that make other class “not good” enough then? You dont even need these Deflect wall & Feedback. Yes it is just personal preference, good for you! But you cant always find Mesmer, Thief or Engineer all the time. Adapt to what you have in your party, not about what you cant do, its about utilizing available skill as maximum as possible.

4) Every class can dodge and every class has defensive options, some of which are far better then a guard. – This statement is just too vague. AI path prob, but Shield of Avenger still is the best projectile absorb in certain situation.

6) Mobility – arena wants guard to be a slowpoke =/ sigh.

As I’ve always said, there is no terrible class, only terrible players. Adapting is the key.

First I would like to see that my Guardian gets all skills back that he/she had in vanilla GW2.