Guild Wars 2

Hey All,

So I’ve picked up the Guardian in tPvP and have been playing it nearly nonstop with something like 40 matches played.

Here’s my experience and I want to know if this is a shared experience or if I’m just lacking in skill still and my eyes haven’t been opened yet to the potential of Guardian.

So my experience is this:
I’ve been experimenting with posting at a point (usually mid), roaming constantly to where the most action is to take advantage of AH and party boons / traits, and ideally a mix between the two — posting when there are enemies nearby and roaming when it’s quiet to help my team as much as possible.

Guardian is REALLY nice for healing your teammates, cleansing conditions, providing some boons here and there, and is especially good at securing stomps and resurrecting allies. But really, most of all, what I felt my role was on Guardian was to just stall the enemy team for a few moments. I’m a staller. In many ways it was very depressing, I was only ever able to kill a staff ele in a 1v1.. and many times my team would collapse even in 2v2s and 3v3s — likely due to my utter lack of DPS (even with providing 12 stacks of might as much as possible). So many times in Solo Queue I’m stalling 2 or 3 enemies at mid for as long as humanely possible only to see the other PUGs on my team doing hell knows what but not even attempting to cap other points.

All in all it felt like a desperate, helpless struggle to stay alive for as long as possible with no real control of battle outcomes and the highest dependency on teammates to carry me with my support of them. And what’s even more depressing is most of the time with all my efforts and support I come out at the lowest point count on my team because mostly I’m just healing allies and holding a point or two.

Is this Guardian-playing experience normal? Or am I just completely clueless?

Thanks!

-D

Bunker relies heavily on your teammates to do well, likle you can’t even carry your team with that build. And anyone running a perma poison build (thief/Necro) will shut you down no problem.

Your other option is dps-medi but you won’t survive 1v3, but you can carry (went 20-5)

Mediation DPS Guard. Stay out of Honor & Virtues.

OK So you guys suggest I run DPS Meditation guardian.

My problems with this is… don’t other classes and builds do the medi guard job better?? D/D ele… S/D thief… any kind of warrior?

I guess medi guard does have good access to CC and blinds and blocks…

Imo DPS-Med Guardians are heartier than those glass cannon thieves & eles.

medi guard has no cc

Charak.9761:

medi guard has no cc

You have binding blade, and depending on the build scepter immob, hammer immob/banish/RoW, shield knockback, or staff LoW. Obviously not all in the same build, but medi guard has a fair amount of CC

Scepter is a dueling build medi
hammer/staff/shield are not medi

yes you have binding blade but the knockdown is short duration

Charak.9761:

Scepter is a dueling build medi
hammer/staff/shield are not medi

yes you have binding blade but the knockdown is short duration

If you say hammer isn’t a medi build idk what to say. Ever done a precast SoW and mighty blow→JI combo? Staff and shield may not be common but they can work in some builds

Carpboy.7145:

Charak.9761:

Scepter is a dueling build medi
hammer/staff/shield are not medi

yes you have binding blade but the knockdown is short duration

If you say hammer isn’t a medi build idk what to say. Ever done a precast SoW and mighty blow->JI combo? Staff and shield may not be common but they can work in some builds

Probably not because:
A) SoW is a really inferior utility skill compared to other options
B) Using a 30 second cooldown to immobilize a target that you’re about to teleport to anyways just doesn’t make sense.
C) If you want to immobilize, you could JI→Zealot’s Embrace, then Mighty Blow instead.

Personally, I don’t think hammer really shines that much as a meditation build weapon unless you’re talking about using it in Edge of the Mists or Skyham so that you can JI→ Banish.

Dahkeus.8243:

Carpboy.7145:

Charak.9761:

Scepter is a dueling build medi
hammer/staff/shield are not medi

yes you have binding blade but the knockdown is short duration

If you say hammer isn’t a medi build idk what to say. Ever done a precast SoW and mighty blow->JI combo? Staff and shield may not be common but they can work in some builds

Probably not because:
A) SoW is a really inferior utility skill compared to other options
B) Using a 30 second cooldown to immobilize a target that you’re about to teleport to anyways just doesn’t make sense.
C) If you want to immobilize, you could JI->Zealot’s Embrace, then Mighty Blow instead.

Personally, I don’t think hammer really shines that much as a meditation build weapon unless you’re talking about using it in Edge of the Mists or Skyham so that you can JI-> Banish.

SoW i shield of wrath, focus #5. Of you precast that and wait right before it explodes, then precast mighty blow and use JI, it can oneshot squishy toons. Additionally, you can precast RoW->JI and then if your other weapon is GS really lay on the hurt with Ww and symbol. You can do safe stomps with banishing the downed person, then right before the stomp completes you JI to them. Hamme is an awesome weapon for medi and if you haven tried it before i seriously reccomend it. Here’s what i run

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Roaming-2handed-Meditation-build

Also, sorry for hijacking the thread OP

By “staller” you mean “bunker.” That’s what a bunker build does. Stall for time until their allies come.

There are medi builds that utilizes the hammer fairly well, not to mention doing some bunking as well when they hit and knock people off point which is a Huge plus. I’d take this over “convert conditions to boons” skill unless you’re running a shout build or something..

But to the OP, the build you have is mainly team support, relying heavily on your team like others said. You can have a full medi build for roaming (not zerging too much) or set up a condi build even, depending on your playing style. Word of advice though, if you go medi or any dps build, do some 1v1 duels. The majority of the time you’ll be in a 1v1. You need to be able to hold your own 70% of the time. If not you’ll be changing strategies every single game.

Domzz.1260:

(even with providing 12 stacks of might as much as possible).

Lol staff, there’s your DPS problem :P

Guardian is a turtle.

When you see a Guardian in roaming wvw or spvp you know that 2 things will happen :
– You kill him because he cannot escape
– You dont kill him but you escape

Its probably the only class that everyone else can kite, even on a GS/scepter/signet build that has 2 immobilization, 1 knockdown, 1 leap.

If its a signet build it wont heal and you can still kite.

If its a meditation he can heal but you can kite him to recover your health – or just permastealth if you are thief/mesmer.

Guardian is the worst roaming wvw profession, because its a full support class only good on zergs, that does not do so well alone, unless the other guy does not knows to play.

Guardians have a good chance beating a ranger, because ranger is as bad as guardian except that meditations give the guard a chance to last longer than a ranger, but again the ranger can still reset the fight by kiting and the use of cripple/kb.

The guardian needs to be buffed, to have a little more mobility to escape or chase, and his cooldowns decreased, only then he will be balanced.

OFFTOPIC:
Imho, the buff ranger is receiving is well deserved but its still too little in comparison to OP classes such as thief/war/engi/necro.

PS : I have 8 character slots, I have all professions

So sad that people have such little knowledge of their own class…

@Rasalhaague… just no. Roam against me and you’d be wishing for your partner to save you.

Saiyan.1704:

@Rasalhaague… just no. Roam against me and you’d be wishing for your partner to save you.

I’ve been reading these types of comments for a while now and I always want to just let lose as well. lol Guardian is actually very strong, people just don’t know how to make a proper build.

Update on my guardian experience:

I’ve learned how to offensively bunk, if that makes sense — in solo Q but also sometimes in team just sitting on a point by yourself isn’t always the best option as a bunker guardian — you want to run down to wherever there is the most combat traffic and your specialty is literally flipping fights to your team advantage — I’ve very very rarely showed up in the middle of a fight as a bunker guard and had our team wipe (maybe only vs Anas Tarcis’ team.. ouch).

I just came out of a double bunk team comp and honestly running at perma 25 stacks of might, regen, protection, and nearly full uptime on stability is epic.

I have a newfound appreciation for the guardian class in pvp — but I still am SO far from finding a DPS guardian build that I like.

Even medi builds — they are outshone by warriors HARD. I can fight almost anyone if they are stupid enough to stand there and fight me without ever kiting, but that never ever happens. People run away, heal up, and wreck me because my cooldowns are so long — or even worse, 2 others show up and there is absolutely NO way a guardian can run away, only vs horrible players.

Sure, I can duel people who don’t run 1v1, but in an active tPvP match, DPS guardian is just lame unless fighting as a team fighter. Solo roaming not an effective option IMO — warrior just simply does it way better.

As for PvE — yeah Guardian is necessary like everywhere.. amazing amazing utility — but still I have yet to appreciate a guardian’s DPS in PvE. I’ve heard that they potentially deal more damage than warriors, but this has not even been close to the case in my experience.

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Mace is amazing…

@ Domz I would suggest looking at a condition build.

With the way bunkers are anymore its hard to burst people down with physical damage as a guardian.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJQ7dlsApaodDxZI8DJR8QV9DEAP61kDA-TJRHwAV2fAxRAAZZAAHEAA is a good base spec.
For the other weapon set you can go sword/torch for more damage or greatsword for close range cleave and the pull.
For the last 2 trait points you can get either radiance for shimmering defense or blind exposure, Or you can get 1 honor/1 virtues or 2 virtues for master of consecrations.

DPS Meditation Build:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Empowering-Wrath-8-DPS-Build-Stella-Alamarr/first

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Mace is amazing…

Actually vs other weapons it’s very meh.

This is especially true in PVE & WvW where standing still can cause you to die very fast.
This causes most people to not want to use it because it requires you and your allies to stand in a symbol for a long period to gain the most benefit from it.

Simply cutting the duration of symbol of faith in half but doubling the effect per pulse would get rid of this problem without causing major problems in terms of balance.

The torch & shield also have their fair share of problems.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Mace is amazing…

Actually vs other weapons it’s very meh.

This is especially true in PVE & WvW where standing still can cause you to die very fast.
This causes most people to not want to use it because it requires you and your allies to stand in a symbol for a long period to gain the most benefit from it.

Simply cutting the duration of symbol of faith in half but doubling the effect per pulse would get rid of this problem without causing major problems in terms of balance.

The torch & shield also have their fair share of problems.

Dude, thats your problem. All you think about is bunker/support. Who said anything about using it for healing? Just because it has healing abilites doesnt tie its role to simple support. Mace is amazing as a dps meditation weapon. All 3 of its skills excel at doing above average dps. I posted a link to a thread for a build i created. Since posting it i have had nothing but positive feed back from it. In-game with whispers or letters, on youtube even through email. I make my builds through actual combat usage not crunching numbers. The build is great as it is now but the ascended version which I havent released is a vastly superior in terms of stats. Just because :you dont know what you are doing doesnt make it inferior because its not in any way.

Rasalhague.8270:

Guardian is a turtle.

When you see a Guardian in roaming wvw or spvp you know that 2 things will happen :
– You kill him because he cannot escape
– You dont kill him but you escape

Its probably the only class that everyone else can kite, even on a GS/scepter/signet build that has 2 immobilization, 1 knockdown, 1 leap.

If its a signet build it wont heal and you can still kite.

If its a meditation he can heal but you can kite him to recover your health – or just permastealth if you are thief/mesmer.

Guardian is the worst roaming wvw profession, because its a full support class only good on zergs, that does not do so well alone, unless the other guy does not knows to play.

Guardians have a good chance beating a ranger, because ranger is as bad as guardian except that meditations give the guard a chance to last longer than a ranger, but again the ranger can still reset the fight by kiting and the use of cripple/kb.

The guardian needs to be buffed, to have a little more mobility to escape or chase, and his cooldowns decreased, only then he will be balanced.

OFFTOPIC:
Imho, the buff ranger is receiving is well deserved but its still too little in comparison to OP classes such as thief/war/engi/necro.

PS : I have 8 character slots, I have all professions

“necro is OP”

ahahahaha

sounds like a l2p issue right here

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Mace is amazing…

Actually vs other weapons it’s very meh.

This is especially true in PVE & WvW where standing still can cause you to die very fast.
This causes most people to not want to use it because it requires you and your allies to stand in a symbol for a long period to gain the most benefit from it.

Simply cutting the duration of symbol of faith in half but doubling the effect per pulse would get rid of this problem without causing major problems in terms of balance.

The torch & shield also have their fair share of problems.

Dude, thats your problem. All you think about is bunker/support. Who said anything about using it for healing? Just because it has healing abilites doesnt tie its role to simple support. Mace is amazing as a dps meditation weapon. All 3 of its skills excel at doing above average dps. I posted a link to a thread for a build i created. Since posting it i have had nothing but positive feed back from it. In-game with whispers or letters, on youtube even through email. I make my builds through actual combat usage not crunching numbers. The build is great as it is now but the ascended version which I havent released is a vastly superior in terms of stats. Just because :you dont know what you are doing doesnt make it inferior because its not in any way.

Hey Ty,

Can I get a link to your build?

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Mace is amazing…

Actually vs other weapons it’s very meh.

This is especially true in PVE & WvW where standing still can cause you to die very fast.
This causes most people to not want to use it because it requires you and your allies to stand in a symbol for a long period to gain the most benefit from it.

Simply cutting the duration of symbol of faith in half but doubling the effect per pulse would get rid of this problem without causing major problems in terms of balance.

The torch & shield also have their fair share of problems.

Dude, thats your problem. All you think about is bunker/support. Who said anything about using it for healing? Just because it has healing abilites doesnt tie its role to simple support. Mace is amazing as a dps meditation weapon. All 3 of its skills excel at doing above average dps. I posted a link to a thread for a build i created. Since posting it i have had nothing but positive feed back from it. In-game with whispers or letters, on youtube even through email. I make my builds through actual combat usage not crunching numbers. The build is great as it is now but the ascended version which I havent released is a vastly superior in terms of stats. Just because :you dont know what you are doing doesnt make it inferior because its not in any way.

Actually I do know what I’m doing and have tried your build.

While it is quite nice it falls behind some other builds that use the greatsword or sword in terms of raw DPS.

If anything my suggestion would make your build better. The overall DPS would not be changed but the burst potential would go up.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Tyreal.5230:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Really guardian is great for organized team play if you know what your doing.

Solo play is less so. With how easy it is to kite a guardian you run into problems.

Really though all the guardian needs is for someone at Anet to do 3 things
1: Work on mace/shield/torch to make them more of a viable option
2: Work on a few of the traits (some are just laughable, some are meh and some you never want to use at all)
3: Consider giving the more offensive weapons (Sword/greatsword/scepter) some form of cripple (so that kiting is not as bad)

Mace is amazing…

Actually vs other weapons it’s very meh.

This is especially true in PVE & WvW where standing still can cause you to die very fast.
This causes most people to not want to use it because it requires you and your allies to stand in a symbol for a long period to gain the most benefit from it.

Simply cutting the duration of symbol of faith in half but doubling the effect per pulse would get rid of this problem without causing major problems in terms of balance.

The torch & shield also have their fair share of problems.

Dude, thats your problem. All you think about is bunker/support. Who said anything about using it for healing? Just because it has healing abilites doesnt tie its role to simple support. Mace is amazing as a dps meditation weapon. All 3 of its skills excel at doing above average dps. I posted a link to a thread for a build i created. Since posting it i have had nothing but positive feed back from it. In-game with whispers or letters, on youtube even through email. I make my builds through actual combat usage not crunching numbers. The build is great as it is now but the ascended version which I havent released is a vastly superior in terms of stats. Just because :you dont know what you are doing doesnt make it inferior because its not in any way.

Actually I do know what I’m doing and have tried your build.

While it is quite nice it falls behind some other builds that use the greatsword or sword in terms of raw DPS.

If anything my suggestion would make your build better. The overall DPS would not be changed but the burst potential would go up.

I don’t think you do. Because you took my build probably switched mace for sword. In turn you changed writ or exaltation/persistence for something else because mace is only good for healing support that you have to stand in for a few seconds to get. Then you switched rune or strength for travelers/speed because guardians mobility is so non-existent. Did you change two of the sigils to energy as well? lol What about the 2 points in Zeal? Take one out and put it into honor because you felt it needed protection and might because you couldn’t get enough stacks with sword/focus?

Your full blown zerker going down precision, crit damage and power traitlines may do a bit more dps by base stats than mine, but when mine uses 20+ stacks which it was created to do. I’m not sure about that. Guardian has the potential to have the best dps build in the game. The idea that guardian has to sacrifice any survivability it has to do decent damage is completely false and I intend to prove that with the ascended version which has already been created. I have not shown it yet because I want to create a video showcasing it and for that I need the gear.

Bursting is simply high damage in a small amount of time which this build is VERY good at doing. Provided you are using GS, Mace/Focus. Thank You for the pro advice, will definitely improve the build.

[/quote]snip
[/quote]

Think you misunderstand what I was suggesting and why.

I simply suggested they halve the duration of symbol of faith & symbol of swiftness. Then double the amount of damage & boon duration applied per pulse.

I suggested this because standing in a symbol for the full duration is likely to cause you to take in more damage then the boon is worth.

As for your builds I actually do like them & if they did this change it would make them even better.

@ventusthunder

necro vampire pet build is OP.