Guild Wars 2

After getting my Ranger and Engineer to 80, I’ve been considering a new alt. I have thought about leveling my Mesmer but don’t want to, I tried Rifle Warrior, it bored me.

Thief, well they’re a dime a dozen. I love the look of torch skills on the guardian and hence I made one, Lightbearer Jymm. I have tried the scepter and sword with the torch and don’t know which I like better, also I do not know whether to go full Meditation on the side for self healing or to go Consecration for all the fields and projectile blocking.

Hence I’m here for opinions, which you like better. Which you feel works better with the torch. Perhaps a more experienced perspective will help me decide.

If you’re doing this for general open world PvE:

• Scepter is better for 1 on 1 combat. The smite skill on scepter is a distributive AoE, meaning it’s equivalent to attacking multiple mobs in a group one at a time instead of hitting them all at the same time. I feel the scepter conflicts with the torch because one weapon is meant for range, while the other is meant for melee.
• For general use, I would go with the sword because it cleaves and has an AoE blind. You can also use flashing blade to travel around the map faster (click a far target and hit flashing blade without hitting the target). This may also be a better weapon with the torch, too, because the torch skills are pretty much melee range.
• I’d probably use meditations for general use, since consecration skills have more specific uses and have really long cooldowns. You can swap out to consecrations if you know you’ll need anti-projectiles or any of the other specific areas that they cover. The consecrations typically don’t need to be traited to be useful in open world PvE.

I plan to do open world, some minor dungeon for gear or I might just do them on my alts hoarding tokens for the future. I fractal a lot however and enjoy WvW.

Also what secondary weapon do you reckon goes best with this? Scepter+Focus or Staff? I always like a ranged option too.

Scepter + focus is a good ranged option, especially if you’re fighting against a target where you may need some breathing room (immobilize, blind/regen, shield of wrath). In open world PvE, I think staff is best as a farming weapon for mob tagging or for running around the map with the swiftness symbol. It’s not really much of a ranged weapon, and if I wanted to AoE that close, I’d use greatsword or hammer instead.

Thanks for the help, I’ll carry the staff for running in Open World and Dungeon Exp.

Although I’ve gotten some flack from ‘hardcore’ support guardian players, the torch was a wonderful levelling offhand for pretty much any main hand weapon. I found that the cone burning was fantastic in a tanky solo build. Any regular world mob can be beaten with pretty much any build, but I could round up multiple mobs and just burn em down (keeping stability handy for the peskier ones).

The use of torch isn’t really enhanced by a specific line of abilities. In otherwords, it’s just as good with meditations as it is with consecrations as one example. Though I think the concept of torch is really neat because I do love burning, I dislike torch because it competes with VoJ. One thing it can do is give you an element of condition removal in groups if you don’t take removal skills in your hotbar. I don’t consider these things strong reason enough to use a torch.

If I was to find a more consistent use for the torch, I would go with the sword over the sceptre for a few reasons.

1. Spectre misses. That’s a pretty demoralizing aspect of this weapon.
2. Torch is better in close melee range. Sword will get you there with the teleport
3. Sword + torch will give you a lot of burn uptime coupled with passive VoJ.

As pointed out earlier I find torch troublesome in some aspects. It interferes with Virtue of Justice, so the burning applied with the fast attacking weapons such as sword become less important.

Also torch has a shorter range than scepter, so those that might want to do ranged fighting find themselves not using the torch to it’s fullest potential (I would argue though, that while the scepter has a 1200 range, its “effective range” is much closer due to its speed of travel and lack of homing in on target.). One thing that isn’t mentioned is that torch 5 goes well with scepter 2 for a bit of burst damage. Only 1h/off hand that can provide that synergy of attack for guardians.

I sometimes wonder if torch was meant to balance out the mace guardian’s damage levels. Torch applies burning to enemy targets in melee range of the guardian with skill 4. Mace guardians have slower attacks, even if they hit harder. Torch 5 cures conditions on friendlies (and not self), touting group play. Torch also hits through high toughness/armor targets since it is condition damage.

The above shows that torch should work well against PvE targets and “tanking”. But conditions can be debatable in PvE since you have problems with condition stacking in groups.

I have not tested it, but does torch aoe burn have a target limit of 5? I would assume so. Mace is about clustering many targets close together in melee range, and torch goes well with that.

I guess I’d prefer going sword/torch with sceptre/focus on the side. Open with Sceptre 2 and then lunge in with sword 2 and start attacking. I do not enjoy condition builds in PvP since it doesn’t suit my play style.

I was thinking of going 0/30/30/0/0 for maximizing my crit chance and crit damage from traits while boosting torch damage and cooldown along with crit chance for one handed weapons. Using Knight’s Armor, Cavalier trinkets and Berserker Weapons. Not sure what to do with the last 5 however. I enjoy classes with high dodging capability, perhaps 5 in Honor and 5 in Virtue, or 5 in Honor and 5 in Zeal?

I leveled almost exclusively with sword/torch, or scepter/torch as a weapon set, and I usually had the most success with sword/torch. I traited towards VoJ use (or advantages, more precisely) so this could affect much of what you’d want to do.

However, I could easily grab a group of mobs, and run the rotation of Flashing Blade, Zealot’s Flame, Zealot’s Defense, Zealot’s Fire (tossing Zealot’s Flame), and then pop VoJ, and do clean up. It obviously works best with 15 in Radiance (refreshing VoJ on kill) and 5 in Virtues helps.

I feel like torch would fit best with mace, as has already been stated. Especially if you can manage something with a lot of aoe burning.

I just finished leveling with sword/torch, and it’s excellent for single target dps. Scepter/focus makes a good swap if you want to add ranged ability to your skillbar. However, both of these setups lack in aoe damage. I’d recommend keeping a greatsword in your bag just to handle hordes of mobs. In fact, with VoJ traits (blind on use, vulnerability on blind, etc), sword/x and greatsword (3) gives you a lot of aoe burning and aoe attacks. Great for leveling in the open world.

After running Ranger GS, all other GS feels disappointing. So I’d rather not run it.

However I’ll try Mace+Torch a try, I dislike how slow the mace is though.

I was thinking 0/30/30/5/5. Lots of crits, side healing with lotsa teleporty moves with the meditations. Stun Break/Condition Purge/Heal.

ever since they fixed the cone radius, it hits MUCH better