Guild Wars 2

Hello. I play guardian on SoS. My quistion is, this being the forums and such people tend to overact when stuff isn’t all that bad. I recently felt like doing WvW again (Mosly roaming) But alot of people are saying that guardians have been nerfed to the ground, some saying that there’s absoulty no reason what so ever to play a guardian over a warrior.

Lets face it warriors are boring and dont require much skill so I’ll pass. Now it comes down to where I was going with this.

Is it true? Are guardians just plain bad now? Or are people overreacting.

no, as much as you might see me post about areas that I think we need improvement, I still believe that guardians are still in a good place.

Other professions may have been over buffed and are slowly being brought back down, but guardians are still effective and do the same things they always have.

That in itself is my problem, we have not changed and remained stagnant, but that means we can still do the things we have done from the start.

It is not the end of the world yet :p

CMF.5461:

no, as much as you might see me post about areas that I think we need improvement, I still believe that guardians are still in a good place.

Other professions may have been over buffed and are slowly being brought back down, but guardians are still effective and do the same things they always have.

That in itself is my problem, we have not changed and remained stagnant, but that means we can still do the things we have done from the start.

It is not the end of the world yet :p

I’m honestly waiting untill we hit where ele’s are right now. Then I can see the complaints. But I can still defeat some meta warriors (Spvp before 15th patch)

@Fox, “Is it true? Are guardians just plain bad now? Or are people overreacting.”

This isnt the opinion of the Community, but my own (Ive played guardian for over 1.2k hours and have a total of over 3500hrs in GW2, and I do try my best to find the best builds out there, I put 100’s of hours into build testing and research so dont go call me a noob please, I know how the community is when it comes to “not doing the meta all the time”).

The more Im playing warrior (I have 2-3 different builds I play, Zerk, Zerk/support, and just the meta Spvp build) the less and less Im playing my guard, I too have 3 builds for my guard (Zerk, Zerk/support and Spvp).

I find the warrior does the same things but better to a point, yes the warrior doesnt have as much support, but with a good team for pve you dont need a lot of party supports.

When I play my guard I feel like Im being left behind and Its taking all my skill to stay in the race, where warrior just feels like Im in front the whole time.

I feel like the Guard is just being over shadowed by other classes, its not that the Guard is bad, its just we dont have a special place for us.

This is just how I feel

We lost a nice amount of condition cleansing which is important in wvw and some dungeons

Guardians aren’t bad, warrior is just a better choice and more versatile.

I have a full equipped guardian and warrior. My main used to be the guardian.

That thing “warrior is easy and boring” is a lie. Play a warrior is than easy as play a guardian. Hard to play is the engi or the ele. And the warrior, due his mobility, is really fun to play. And i have a very mobility guardian, fun to play too.

This is in wvw. For pve… dont matter your class or your gear, pve is freaking easy in this game.

username.4932:

Guardians aren’t bad, warrior is just a better choice and more versatile.

I wonder, in which cases warrior is better choice?

One of the big problems with Guardian is that they usually have to give up too much to gain X*. Generally, Warriors don’t have to give up a whole lot to gain X.
Warriors generally have shorter skill cooldowns, pretty good trait synergy, loads more hard and soft CC, more than one damaging condition, much easier mobility and the maximum health and armour to boot.

*X being a variable of whatever, damage, survivability, control, support, etc.

Kreslin.6832:

username.4932:

Guardians aren’t bad, warrior is just a better choice and more versatile.

I wonder, in which cases warrior is better choice?

Simple, all

My friend built a healing shout, stun support build and its insanely strong. Shouts are all on sub-30 second CDs that heal for just over 3000 hp, a trait proc also heals for 3000. So thats 1200 healing on allies + boon application, etc (Hes played warrior since launch so I don’t troll him too much). Guards are being out done on nearly all fronts, even with AOE stability (Mantra support mesmer offers more CC, healing, stability than a guard does now) So I’m personally shelving mine for now. I love my guard and have played him since launch, but whenever there are classes that are built much better, have more utility, and interesting class mechanics…and I will come back after they bring Guards up to par. But for that to happen they have to admit the class is far behind, and tbh I think Guards are worse off than Eles. Eles can still go hard into condi and maintain good support or survivability with staff or DD.

Ohh and the ‘buff’ they gave Purging Flames was a huge nerf…ugh

Guardian is the most balanced profession by far. However the problem is there are much better alternatives now.

Kreslin.6832:

username.4932:

Guardians aren’t bad, warrior is just a better choice and more versatile.

I wonder, in which cases warrior is better choice?

Bunker
Warrior > Guardian (Healling sig, perma-regen, high HP, 100% condi immune)
Damage
Warrior > Guardian (Hundred blades, eviscerate, killshot, perma-fury)
CC
Warrior > Guardian (3 hammer stuns, 2 mace stuns, 1 shield stun, cc utils)
Condi
Warrior > Guardian (bleed, cripple, blind, burn, torment, weakness, immo)
Healing/Support
Warrior > Guardian (perma-regen, banner buffs, shouts heal, AoE group rez)

But don’t worry guys, you can still burst Courage and give everyone ONE block on a 90 second cooldown! That counts for something right? … Wait, blind condi does the same thing? … Crap, I guess you’re SOL.

lol redscope is correct, us guardians are worse guardians than warriors these days.

Fox.2785:

Is it true? Are guardians just plain bad now? Or are people overreacting.

People are overreacting. The reason Guardian didn’t get lots of buffs this patch is because we are in a pretty good place overall, especially compared to other classes. The only thing our class dramatically lacks in right now is PvP roaming Guardian —which is exactly what they buffed (although it still needs work).

btw, buffing support for other classes indirectly buffs Guardian because it allows us to focus more on DPS in groups.

Finnway.2183:

Fox.2785:

Is it true? Are guardians just plain bad now? Or are people overreacting.

People are overreacting. The reason Guardian didn’t get lots of buffs this patch is because we are in a pretty good place overall, especially compared to other classes.

Glass full, half empty.

Just because the Guardian is in a “good place” (your words, not mine) doesn’t mean you get to neglect it and focus on the rest of the classes. Otherwise it becomes stale and under powered when compared to the rest. I forget here who above said it but they are pretty much spot on. PvE it doesn’t matter. It is easy and more on the end user to avoid the red circles on the ground or know when to dodge. Right? However, there are 2 other game types here that people play. In some cases more never touching PvE at all!

Don’t forget WvW and sPvP. Now how is the Guardian doing?

Lets make simple: Warrior > Guardian in everything.

Also the PoV “fix” hits us very hard.

The Guandian were “never” nerfed, but all other professions were buffed and we get behind. With all other professions buffed, but guardian, we get a passive nerf (on every patch).

Redscope.6215:

Kreslin.6832:

username.4932:

Guardians aren’t bad, warrior is just a better choice and more versatile.

I wonder, in which cases warrior is better choice?

Bunker
Warrior > Guardian (Healling sig, perma-regen, high HP, 100% condi immune)
Damage
Warrior > Guardian (Hundred blades, eviscerate, killshot, perma-fury)
CC
Warrior > Guardian (3 hammer stuns, 2 mace stuns, 1 shield stun, cc utils)
Condi
Warrior > Guardian (bleed, cripple, blind, burn, torment, weakness, immo)
Healing/Support
Warrior > Guardian (perma-regen, banner buffs, shouts heal, AoE group rez)

But don’t worry guys, you can still burst Courage and give everyone ONE block on a 90 second cooldown! That counts for something right? … Wait, blind condi does the same thing? … Crap, I guess you’re SOL.

In the brackets you brought only warrior’s capabilities. It’s only a half of a picture. Where the guardian’s, so we can compare?

Kreslin.6832:

Redscope.6215:

Kreslin.6832:

username.4932:

Guardians aren’t bad, warrior is just a better choice and more versatile.

I wonder, in which cases warrior is better choice?

Bunker
Warrior > Guardian (Healling sig, perma-regen, high HP, 100% condi immune)
Damage
Warrior > Guardian (Hundred blades, eviscerate, killshot, perma-fury)
CC
Warrior > Guardian (3 hammer stuns, 2 mace stuns, 1 shield stun, cc utils)
Condi
Warrior > Guardian (bleed, cripple, blind, burn, torment, weakness, immo)
Healing/Support
Warrior > Guardian (perma-regen, banner buffs, shouts heal, AoE group rez)

But don’t worry guys, you can still burst Courage and give everyone ONE block on a 90 second cooldown! That counts for something right? … Wait, blind condi does the same thing? … Crap, I guess you’re SOL.

In the brackets you brought only warrior’s capabilities. It’s only a half of a picture. Where the guardian’s, so we can compare?

So, as I’m reading this I’m moving a bunch of my stuff over to my warrior, but here are some things guardians do provide:

Wall of Reflection, when traited, has a pretty good use to reset ratio (almost 1:3, 12 seconds up time on 32 CD). It blocks a huge number of ranged projectiles and stays on my hot bar for almost every single encounter in a Fractal.

Shield of the Avenger is very good as well, offering a similar 1:4 ratio (20 seconds of use on a 60 second CD, which starts after it has expired). It feels clunky sometimes and, in my experience, will block most projectiles (some slip through between the spirit weapon’s casting sequence).

Stand Your Ground is good, though it is situational. Save Yourself and Hold the Line are useful only for those running 0/0/30/30/10.

Too many Guardian abilities offer boons that just are not very useful. Protection and regeneration are nice, but they do not make a significant impact on fights.

Most of our usefulness comes through group damage mitigation and avoidance. I run 0/30/0/10/30, using sword/focus and hammer. Which provides the following:

Mitigation:
VoC every 70 seconds.
Retreat every 48 seconds.
Shield of Wrath every 45 seconds (individual only?).

Avoidance:
Sword 2 every 10 seconds.
Focus 4 blind every 25 seconds.
VoJ blind every 23 seconds (or on reset).

Hammer is used primarily for trash in fractals. Which this is where we can see the usefulness of Protection.

Not to mention I’m starting to really like Purging Flames for condition removal, simply for the 28 second cooldown. Pre PoV, it wasn’t attractive because two conditions could be removed through Hold the Line (same cooldown when traited). But, since it removes three conditions (to HTL’s one, when traited) and does damage, it makes so much more sense to forego anything other than 10 points in Honor (Vigor and Superior Aria).

yosslives.1345:

Most of our usefulness comes through group damage mitigation and avoidance. I run 0/30/0/10/30, using sword/focus and hammer. Which provides the following:

Mitigation:
VoC every 70 seconds.
Retreat every 48 seconds.
Shield of Wrath every 45 seconds (individual only?).

Avoidance:
Sword 2 every 10 seconds.
Focus 4 blind every 25 seconds.
VoJ blind every 23 seconds (or on reset).

Hammer is used primarily for trash in fractals. Which this is where we can see the usefulness of Protection.

Not to mention I’m starting to really like Purging Flames for condition removal, simply for the 28 second cooldown. Pre PoV, it wasn’t attractive because two conditions could be removed through Hold the Line (same cooldown when traited). But, since it removes three conditions (to HTL’s one, when traited) and does damage, it makes so much more sense to forego anything other than 10 points in Honor (Vigor and Superior Aria).

Aegis is nearly useless because theres no minimum damage threshold to remove it. It can be a 200 hit or 5k hit. Retreat is not mitigation and is basically useless. PF is bugged as hell for multiple reasons. Sometimes in wvw it doesn’t remove any condis, plus it only removes it if you are in the circle at the start of the ability. If you cast PF, run out of the circle, get condis, run back in…you don’t lose the condis. Once they fix it, and make the ability perform intelligently instead of how it is now it might be a good spell. Like 1 condi per pulse and it pulses every second and applies burning every second. OR, pulses every 2 seconds and removes 3 condis per pulse thus making the CD reduction and duration increase NOT useless.

A few things.

Besides walls/blocks and some boons (namely protection) a guardian is not bringing anything particularly special to a fight. This isn’t an issue though because that is the truth for most classes anyways.

There is a misconception that guardians actually need to bring group condition management. It’s so far from the truth it is actually a bit annoying. Not even mentioning our normal light fields. Engineer mesmer and individual class skills and builds are enough to condi clear. Needing group condi clear outside FOTM is more the sign of a kittenty group than anythgn else. BTW Mantra of Resovle’s Power Cleanse is probably the best burst condi management in the game right now without traiting it or anything.

Comparing ourselves to warrior is a crap shoot. They beat us in the places that really count but we are not useless compared to them. If PvE were just he umber then yes just about every party for every run would be 4 warriors and maybe a mesmer running optimized builds. The problem is that the gain from each perfect player isn’t so insanely large that it must be this way.

PvE has not been balanced in who knows how long. The chances of them actually boosting every class to warrior’s level in PvE is just too unlikely.

Our situation is precarious. Anet has started shuffling their feet when it comes to balance updates afraid that the ripple from boosting one trait a little might cause a class to go OP. So likely well be stuck in the situation we are in now for the foreseeable future.

Keep posting and be constructive in those post and you may see change. The issue is with the number of kittens who want to be OP tossing out crazy ideas and the number of people fine being OP on other classes who will under mine your argument.

I played lyssa warrior for 5 months as my main. I quit when the class went OP same way i quit when I realized my first toon “thief” was OP and DD ele after that. I strive to play the most balanced class out there if I can. I would hope that other players feel the same. i want to win PvE, WvW, or Spvp based on the fact that i am a solid player and not some OP class imbalance. If we really want this class or any class to be balanced we have to look at the big picture and be concise and direct in our criticism.

Spiel over.

TheGuy.3568:

Besides walls/blocks and some boons (namely protection)

Walls, Blocks, and Stability is our main assets. How can you say besides that lol. If a guardian isn’t bringing those, then what the heck are they bringing? Might as well go warrior and bring more Vulnerability, and offensive buffs like 8 second fury.

I say again, if you aren’t bringing the 3 I mentioned above, a warrior offensive buffs and burst damage are superior. You bring a guard for Aegis blocking, Blocks(and blinds), and Stability when needed. This DOES not mean you should trait your guard to be a Trash support class. You can trait damage heavy while bringing these basic things with just 10 points in honor and 10 points in virtues. Then you can go hogwild with the other crap.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

TheGuy.3568:

Besides walls/blocks and some boons (namely protection)

Walls, Blocks, and Stability is our main assets. How can you say besides that lol. If a guardian isn’t bringing those, then what the heck are they bringing? Might as well go warrior and bring more Vulnerability, and offensive buffs like 8 second fury.

I say again, if you aren’t bringing the 3 I mentioned above, a warrior offensive buffs and burst damage are superior. You bring a guard for Aegis blocking, Blocks(and blinds), and Stability when needed. This DOES not mean you should trait your guard to be a Trash support class. You can trait damage heavy while bringing these basic things with just 10 points in honor and 10 points in virtues. Then you can go hogwild with the other crap.

So based on what you just said I either bring those 3 items or play another class? Did I understand that correctly?

Wow, talking about being pigeon holed

I think that the main problem with Guardian now is its cast and cooldowns that are too high. Every skill, weapon, utility, also virtues should be lowered to a balanced value. Also our greatest difference among other classes was our condition removal, now we are at same spot or even worse than other classes.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

TheGuy.3568:

Besides walls/blocks and some boons (namely protection)

Walls, Blocks, and Stability is our main assets. How can you say besides that lol. If a guardian isn’t bringing those, then what the heck are they bringing? Might as well go warrior and bring more Vulnerability, and offensive buffs like 8 second fury.

I say again, if you aren’t bringing the 3 I mentioned above, a warrior offensive buffs and burst damage are superior. You bring a guard for Aegis blocking, Blocks(and blinds), and Stability when needed. This DOES not mean you should trait your guard to be a Trash support class. You can trait damage heavy while bringing these basic things with just 10 points in honor and 10 points in virtues. Then you can go hogwild with the other crap.

Look if you are going to quote me read me SMDH. One sentence in paragraph thus you sum up what someone has to say (Sigh).

On another note as I have said before you do not have to trait for things the CD reductions are not worth the DPS loss by going into virtues. You kitten your DPS by doing it for a reduced CD that wont make up for the loss. Another issue yet again. Used to be 20 now it 10 should be 0 until the line is brought up.

“This DOES not mean you should trait your guard to be a Trash support class. "

When you spec into virtues…that’s exactly what you do.

All this warrior comparisons come down to following what’s the new flavour of the month. Guardian has been a consistent level of ‘good’ since the game started. Warrior has been on a coaster ride of sorts. People going to be really sad when they get over that first drop. It happens all the time, I don’t expect it to be different in GW2.

Dynnen.6405:

Aegis is nearly useless because theres no minimum damage threshold to remove it. It can be a 200 hit or 5k hit. Retreat is not mitigation and is basically useless.

I agree there should be a mitigation threshold.

Retreat provides Aegis.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

TheGuy.3568:

Besides walls/blocks and some boons (namely protection)

Walls, Blocks, and Stability is our main assets. How can you say besides that lol. If a guardian isn’t bringing those, then what the heck are they bringing? Might as well go warrior and bring more Vulnerability, and offensive buffs like 8 second fury.

I say again, if you aren’t bringing the 3 I mentioned above, a warrior offensive buffs and burst damage are superior. You bring a guard for Aegis blocking, Blocks(and blinds), and Stability when needed. This DOES not mean you should trait your guard to be a Trash support class. You can trait damage heavy while bringing these basic things with just 10 points in honor and 10 points in virtues. Then you can go hogwild with the other crap.

Guardian boons do not last very long. So unless you have a lot of Guardians, your much better off with all Warriors. Fact your better off going 100% Warrior. They can strip off conditions better… the nerf to POV was devastating. They can get 16 sec of stability. They are tankier. They do more damage. They have banner Rez. They have Hard CC.

2 patches have turned Guardians into worthless alsorans by direct comparison.

1 Aegis on a 48 second cd? Come on =P

Dynnen.6405:

1 Aegis on a 48 second cd? Come on =P

Aegis through Virtue and Retreat gives you two quick blocks. Really only need to use blocks for any given bosses’ 1 hard hit. Blocking through a time warp lets your party not worry about dodging, and just do max dps in that window. So blocking is very powerful, when used correctly.

Also the guards blinds should not be taken lightly, it can burst down many silver mobs without taking any damage due to blocks and blinds.

I don’t get people who don’t want to play to guard’s strengths. If we don’t. then we end up as a second rate warrior. I prefer to not do that. Also stop saying a 10/30/0/10/20 build is crap dps. Running Zerker Gear with Scholar Runes keeps the output nice and high. Also the 20 in virtues gives higher passive HP regen, which synergizes with scholar runes by keeping that hp above 90% with more ease.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Dynnen.6405:

1 Aegis on a 48 second cd? Come on =P

Aegis through Virtue and Retreat gives you two quick blocks. Really only need to use blocks for any given bosses’ 1 hard hit. Blocking through a time warp lets your party not worry about dodging, and just do max dps in that window. So blocking is very powerful, when used correctly.

Also the guards blinds should not be taken lightly, it can burst down many silver mobs without taking any damage due to blocks and blinds.

I don’t get people who don’t want to play to guard’s strengths. If we don’t. then we end up as a second rate warrior. I prefer to not do that. Also stop saying a 10/30/0/10/20 build is crap dps. Running Zerker Gear with Scholar Runes keeps the output nice and high. Also the 20 in virtues gives higher passive HP regen, which synergizes with scholar runes by keeping that hp above 90% with more ease.

There is more to the game then just PvE, agreed? sPvP and WvW are two other formats. It isn’t about playing to one strengths (which is a valid argument btw). It is about having options. Otherwise I think we would all have to ask a simple question.

Why are there 5 lines of traits?

while it does sort of end up that way, I would like to hope that it isn’t just “these two are pvp trait lines, the other two are pve trait lines, and then the 5th trait line is flavor”.

You would hope that all traits are different and applicable in all areas.

Like, I’m gonna build hammer, let me pick these traits that emphasize that play style.

Ok now I’m gonna go mace, wow I can synergize with maces self healing and high damage.

Right now it does not really revolutionize the synergy with weapons as much as it did with gw1 style builds…but its a different game. I duno…

Btw, whenever I talk about guard mechanics it refers to wvw. PvE in this game is very easy, and I don’t like point defense that spvp offers. Trust me when I say that small man vs a much larger group ‘two quick blocks’ doesn’t make a break a fight.

Oh. WvW and PvP is completely different. I was speaking of PVE in reference to whats his name up there. WvW I run a burst build for solo roaming. 10/30/30/0/0. I hate zerging, but I know thats a different build too. Guess I should have clarified. And people always say “PVE is easy”, but then they can’t melee Lupi or Do high level fractals. Whats up with that?

Finnway.2183:

The reason Guardian didn’t get lots of buffs this patch is because we are in a pretty good place overall, especially compared to other classes.

I disagree.

Guardian is in a good place, as stand-alone class balance.
Sure it has some areas that needs attention/rebalancing – see Zeal – but overall it has been a decent profession everywhere since headstart.

The issue is, Guardian now is pretty much the same of the headstart due to this – because he was already in a good place at 360°.
So, while the other classes “evolved”, rising and falling, balancing buffing and nerfing, now Guardian is still balanced as profession, but is starting to see a gap compared to other ones.

Glaring example is ofc the Warrior.
He started as hard hitter and low survivability guy.
Then got some well deserved love.
Now is hard hitter, tanky, CC, and support guy all at once.

Guardian was the point holder.
Now is the point holder.

See the difference? It’s not only matter of playing for 15 months the same build, is a problem of “growing up” as class.

Now, the options are two:
-either other classes gets shaved/nerfed. See: condimeta, warriors, etc.
-either guardians gets buffed a lil bit – manly in dmg output.
-a mix of the 2.

The first one is taking in account that, imo Guardian are the balanced profession in Gw2.
If something is weaker, needs buffs.
If it’s stronger, needs shaving.
I’m not saying this cause i’m playing guard most of the time: i genuinely think that of the 8 Gw2 professions, Guardian is still the most well-balanced (in a vacuum-like setup) across the whole game.

The second option is the start of the powercreep.

Third, self explanatory.

PvE comments, I understand now. I guess we are all on the same page and it is typically implied My mistake – lol.

And yes, PvE is somewhat easy in this game but there are people who still don’t run them enough to remember the fights or still struggle with avoiding dog poo on the ground I put myself in that category – lol.

Disclaimer: WvW only

I know that it was a bug, but the fix to PoV is kind of the nail in the coffin….We were great at condi removal in a condi-meta. Now we’re OK at condi removal in a condi-meta. I think I’ll give my warrior a few more levels.

Some times I think people want the Guardian to be some thing it wasn’t originally designed to be – that people think the Guardian suits their style of play but it obviously doesn’t (which is obvious when you read certain posts) and they want it to – and some times people value the Guardian not from what it can do or offer, but what other classes do (Guardians can’t drop bandages, make clones, or stealth) and class envy develops (which is like cancer if you don’t know of it).

Another problem with the Guardian is actually a problem with the whole game, Guardians are kinda pigeon-holed into tanky support roles (Yes, I know you don’t have to but you would have to make an effort to make a build that doesn’t help anyone). The whole theme of the Guardian is protecting allies. I love playing melee tanky support roles that protect allies in games! I would play every game that way if it were possible. The big problem, however, is that Guild Wars 2 offers this playstyle in a game where it is not rewarded nearly as much as simply doing as much damage as possible!

I would actually like to see a big increase in sustained damage from foes in pve to the point where being survivable and supportive actually is a viable alternative to go zerker or go home. Perhaps there are other/better solutions for this but alas, I only have one brain.

Crapgame.6519:

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

TheGuy.3568:

Besides walls/blocks and some boons (namely protection)

Walls, Blocks, and Stability is our main assets. How can you say besides that lol. If a guardian isn’t bringing those, then what the heck are they bringing? Might as well go warrior and bring more Vulnerability, and offensive buffs like 8 second fury.

I say again, if you aren’t bringing the 3 I mentioned above, a warrior offensive buffs and burst damage are superior. You bring a guard for Aegis blocking, Blocks(and blinds), and Stability when needed. This DOES not mean you should trait your guard to be a Trash support class. You can trait damage heavy while bringing these basic things with just 10 points in honor and 10 points in virtues. Then you can go hogwild with the other crap.

So based on what you just said I either bring those 3 items or play another class? Did I understand that correctly?

Wow, talking about being pigeon holed

There is the current issue with guardians right there. Totally pigeon holed.

And unlikely to get a serious buff because of our success in spvp as a bunker.

yosslives.1345:

Kreslin.6832:

Redscope.6215:

Kreslin.6832:

username.4932:

Guardians aren’t bad, warrior is just a better choice and more versatile.

I wonder, in which cases warrior is better choice?

Bunker
Warrior > Guardian (Healling sig, perma-regen, high HP, 100% condi immune)
Damage
Warrior > Guardian (Hundred blades, eviscerate, killshot, perma-fury)
CC
Warrior > Guardian (3 hammer stuns, 2 mace stuns, 1 shield stun, cc utils)
Condi
Warrior > Guardian (bleed, cripple, blind, burn, torment, weakness, immo)
Healing/Support
Warrior > Guardian (perma-regen, banner buffs, shouts heal, AoE group rez)

But don’t worry guys, you can still burst Courage and give everyone ONE block on a 90 second cooldown! That counts for something right? … Wait, blind condi does the same thing? … Crap, I guess you’re SOL.

In the brackets you brought only warrior’s capabilities. It’s only a half of a picture. Where the guardian’s, so we can compare?

So, as I’m reading this I’m moving a bunch of my stuff over to my warrior, but here are some things guardians do provide:

Wall of Reflection, when traited, has a pretty good use to reset ratio (almost 1:3, 12 seconds up time on 32 CD). It blocks a huge number of ranged projectiles and stays on my hot bar for almost every single encounter in a Fractal.

Shield of the Avenger is very good as well, offering a similar 1:4 ratio (20 seconds of use on a 60 second CD, which starts after it has expired). It feels clunky sometimes and, in my experience, will block most projectiles (some slip through between the spirit weapon’s casting sequence).

Stand Your Ground is good, though it is situational. Save Yourself and Hold the Line are useful only for those running 0/0/30/30/10.

Too many Guardian abilities offer boons that just are not very useful. Protection and regeneration are nice, but they do not make a significant impact on fights.

You’re right about WoR. That’s about the only thing guards have.

“Well, we have Wall of Reflection! We need that for Fractals and some dungeon paths! See, were just as viable as warriors! Right guys? Right?”

Think globally and not just one aspect of the game.

PvE dungeons at the moment do not worry about protection and regeneration.

PvP/WvW do rely on accurate use of those boons to mitigate damage

Have to think on both sides, and figure out how to meet in the middle (because wvw shares pve skills/gear)

Fox.2785:

Hello. I play guardian on SoS. My quistion is, this being the forums and such people tend to overact when stuff isn’t all that bad. I recently felt like doing WvW again (Mosly roaming) But alot of people are saying that guardians have been nerfed to the ground, some saying that there’s absoulty no reason what so ever to play a guardian over a warrior.

Lets face it warriors are boring and dont require much skill so I’ll pass. Now it comes down to where I was going with this.

Is it true? Are guardians just plain bad now? Or are people overreacting.

If you noticed, the majority of the people responding above completely ignored what you asked. They are going on about general problems with guardians that have existed long before the most recent patch. They are basically just whiners and complainers.

Guardians were nerfed, but not enough to make them not worth playing. The only thing major you lost was one condition removal per shout with the patch. The nerf hurts primarily group contribution, but the profession is still more than viable.

The direct nerf that guardians received really didn’t hurt all that bad. What hurt is the crazy warrior buff, which indirectly makes guardians less desirable to some people.

timidobserver.7925:

Fox.2785:

Hello. I play guardian on SoS. My quistion is, this being the forums and such people tend to overact when stuff isn’t all that bad. I recently felt like doing WvW again (Mosly roaming) But alot of people are saying that guardians have been nerfed to the ground, some saying that there’s absoulty no reason what so ever to play a guardian over a warrior.

Lets face it warriors are boring and dont require much skill so I’ll pass. Now it comes down to where I was going with this.

Is it true? Are guardians just plain bad now? Or are people overreacting.

If you noticed, the majority of the people responding above completely ignored what you asked. They are going on about general problems with guardians that have existed long before the most recent patch. They are basically just whiners and complainers.

Guardians were nerfed, but not enough to make them not worth playing. The only thing major you lost was one condition removal per shout with the patch. The nerf hurts primarily group contribution, but the profession is still more than viable.

The direct nerf that guardians received really didn’t hurt all that bad. What hurt is the crazy warrior buff, which indirectly makes guardians less desirable to some people.

Yes in the same way… you and all your co workers all do the same job and are all just as good at it… The guardian now makes 30k a year doing it while Warriors got a pay raise to 100k a year and now all the guardians are… wait I do the same job and I am just as good as a warrior why do they make 3x as much as me…

That is not a good feeling in real life and in a game you play to enjoy your off time it just sucks.

OP: No, people are overreacting, at least for WvW medium to large group support. (I can’t speak for PvP) Mostly because either their specific skill/build got adjusted down or they are trying to be a “warrior plus” and are realizing that warriors make better warriors. The problem is, we only really have one role where we’re the best choice, and it isn’t a high-demand role by definition.

List the top 5 things you want to do with your guardian or describe your playstyle. If “DPS” is on that list as anything other than the afterthought/leftover, then you should probably be playing another class.

Guardians get balanced based on their support role. I agree, it’s not right and anet needs to add some love to the areas that go totally unused on this class. I’d like to see Zeal (for example) with better options that make a DPS guardian viable as long as it mostly nerfs support build options closer to the level of a warrior. But until then this is what we are, and what we’ve been since launch.

Redscope earlier compared us in various roles. I’ll concede that for most of those roles, the guardian is inferior to the warrior. But he’s wrong here:

Healing/Support
Warrior > Guardian (perma-regen, banner buffs, shouts heal, AoE group rez)

Yes, warriors can shout heal. That’s nice for them and their allies and maybe it’s worth the tradeoffs (I don’t know warrior at a level that I feel comfortable claiming to know that.) But banner buffs don’t move in a real fight. Warbanners are useful, but not having downed allies is better. That perma-regen can’t be broadcast. I know warriors can offer support beyond the shorthand list above, but they can’t match a guardian’s ability to provide healing, support, and damage mitigation.

Take a guardian with Battle Presence/Absolute Resolution, running staff/hammer like yours truly:

Can radiate ~ 175-200 pt/sec heals passively with no cooldown, can dodge heal for 1000+ with near-permavigor (given decent crit% and fast staff auto to re-apply), burst heal+group cond remove+group regen with VoR, heal using staff 2, heal with staff 4 while buffing true DPSers with 12 buffed duration might stacks, provide group aegis+prot with VoC (admittedly on a long CD). Throw in a short-CD blast finisher of hammer when the need is enough to come off staff, and the obvious meta utility skills for more group prot/regen/retal/stab on 24s/28s CDs. Toss in an under-appreciated traited F1 AoE blind+vulner+might+long dur burn that you can almost spam if the group around you is actually killing. And yes, everything above can be found in one build. If we’re counting Warbanner, then you can add the big heals from the tome or the virtue recharges and all they bring with renewed focus into the comparison.

There is simply no way a warrior can match that for group support. HOWEVER: You can’t do any real DPS with the build that does that. People won’t recognize the value you bring more often than not because they’ll just think they’re more awesome. You won’t win many 1v1 fights (how OP would it be if you could?) and even 3v3 you’re wasting a lot of potential utility (esp since people tend to wander out of range). Worse, this doesn’t scale. That is, 5 warriors would pwn 5 guardians with my support build, and 4 warriors and 1 support guardian beat 5 warriors. Swapping in even a second support guardian into that mix weakens the group in part because the passive heals don’t stack, there’s a cap on might stacks, and the reality is you can’t afford to give up that much group DPS. That’s unfortunate. We’ll never be “the FOTM meta” that everyone runs, because someone has to put up the dmg numbers and it isn’t going to be us – we need an otherwise effective group to support.

Until we get some better offensive options, let the number-chasers and the kitteners play warriors. We need more of them than guardians anyway. But if you’re here to be a true support tank, and be unheralded by most while you help your team bust a zerg… enjoy the class as it is and tune the naysayers out.

@Radjan I think if we beat Warrior at support its only by a small margin. Their shouts heal for quite a bit and their offensive support is best in the game.

Most people are raging about the meta. Conditions are OP yet our ‘fix’ weakened our role in group.

The problem is the class has become boring as kitten, through dev inactivity, while the warrior continues to be worked on and developed. Meanwhile they are best or 2nd best at everything in the game.

OK, so I’m willing to admit I don’t know warrior that well, so this is tough for me. But you’re making two points other than the subjective boring comment and the “I don’t feel the love compared to warrior” comment, which I’ll ignore for now:

1. Their shouts heal for a lot.
2. Offensive support best in game.

1. may be true, but not for more than we can heal/mitigate. Running the numbers on all the healing/dmg mitigation output is a bit complex, but I see someone above say warriors can shout heal at 3,000 per. Let’s say they have 3 shouts (meaning no banners, or other utilities) every 25s? If it’s more, do let me know.

That’s 9,000 hp every 25s, or 360/sec. Someone up there said something about a trait proc for 3000. I’m assuming he means Shrug it off? Let’s say that’s it, and that you can fit it in a typical shout-heal build, and that it goes off in the same timeframe. That’s 12,000 /25s or 480/s.

Now the warrior does have a few ways to add boons to allies like conversion off warhorn maybe, but I think that pretty well covers their healing. Again – I freely admit I don’t know the nuances of the class so maybe I’m missing obvious skills that fit into a shout-heal build, but I’m guessing that’s close.

Just Abs Resolution/ Battle presence is 4500-5000 over 25s. If I stay on staff, I can drop empower twice in that timeframe for over 2500 a pop. (While supplying my own pretty useful offensive support people NOTICE) Regen for 8s off HTL! is another 2000 pts (admittedly on 28s not 25s). That’s already pretty close before you count 2,000+ from active VoR and the 6+sec regen from that for 1,500+ (which to be fair are on longer timers, unless you count that you can reset them with renewed focus) Or the staff 2 heal. Or try to calculate the mitigation from the prot that came with HTL! and VoC, or the aegis from the latter. Or the AoE blind you can get from traited F1 (which again, adds offensive support too and can be spammable once people start dying).

All that while leaving one utility spot open for Wall of Reflect, Hallowed Ground, Signets, SY! or more healing utils, even though the warrior #s used all 3 slots for shouts in the example. I didn’t get into the Healing Breeze either since I don’t run it (haven’t seriously tried post-patch). They might heal/mitigate more than you think a DPS class should – but it seems unquestionable that we outheal/mitigate warriors.

I’m not sure about what you mean with the offensive support argument. Certainly they have more offense (though I assume specing for shout-heals softens that). I don’t see so many actual offensive support skills available in the shout-heal builds I’ve seen, though again I have to admit I don’t look at warrior builds that much. Fury we can’t do, but we stack way more might for allies than they do. What else does a Warrior bring to make allies offensively stronger that fits in a shout-heal build, that makes this argument hold up?

I agree PoV users got hurt with this patch, and it hurts to watch warriors keep getting better/more options, but I stand by the assessment that a support guardian isn’t sub-par at that one role to a warrior. We still have lots of condition remove options if that’s the concern – we can wear soldier’s runes, and use PoV, and light combos, and utilities, and traited VoR actives… not like we’re lacking there, even though we got one trait softened in that regard.

Please remember that I’m responding in WvW context and that of the OP and subsequent comments about support role versus warriors. I’m not arguing there aren’t issues here on the overall comparison between the two.

Energy sigil and dodge roll heals have saved my kitten much more than my shout heals have.

Radjan Majere.4208:

OK, so I’m willing to admit I don’t know warrior that well, so this is tough for me. But you’re making two points other than the subjective boring comment and the “I don’t feel the love compared to warrior” comment, which I’ll ignore for now:

Seems to be a problem here. You’re going to make a large post about two classes and their differences but you don’t even know one of them.

This isn’t meant to pick on you Radjan, it seems to be the case with the forums in general. We’re hearing a lot from people who don’t know the WHOLE game, just the one class they play.

Radjan Majere.4208:

1. Their shouts heal for a lot.
2. Offensive support best in game.

There is a LOT more they bring than that. Just to name a few extra things, their banners are unique buffs, they can trait perma-regen, they’ve got a 5-target rez elite (which is absolutely key in the Tequatl fight as well as Zerg v Zerg), AoE stuns, knockbacks, and cripples on ONE weapon (Hammer). I could go on if I wanted to log on and rattle stuff off…but I’m running out of space here.

Radjan Majere.4208:

That’s 9,000 hp every 25s, or 360/sec. Someone up there said something about a trait proc for 3000. I’m assuming he means Shrug it off? Let’s say that’s it, and that you can fit it in a typical shout-heal build, and that it goes off in the same timeframe. That’s 12,000 /25s or 480/s.

In order to get shouts that high you’d need to have 1700 healing power. That would make your regen boon 350/sec. Banners provide perma-regen. With a tactics banner, you can make that boon last for about 5 seconds. Which means you can stack it for nearly a minute when the banner’s down.

Which is exactly why you run banner regen, take one banner, and use 2 other utils. In a perfect world, where you’re able to use your shouts exactly when cooldown is off and you’re surrounded by friendlies, the shout healer is better than perma-regen. But that only happens on paper. For one, you want to save SIO for condi cleansing or stun-breaking, which immediately kills your hp/sec calculations. You’re better off with running 2 extra utils and a banner build.

The problem here is banners providing regen and not healing. Its so OP it isn’t even funny.

Radjan Majere.4208:

Just Abs Resolution/ Battle presence is 4500-5000 over 25s.

With the same amount of healing power it would take to get 3k shout heals, your Resolve would be giving people 206/sec. And you’d be a squishy little bean.

Radjan Majere.4208:

If I stay on staff, I can drop empower twice in that timeframe for over 2500 a pop. (While supplying my own pretty useful offensive support people NOTICE) Regen for 8s off HTL! is another 2000 pts (admittedly on 28s not 25s). That’s already pretty close before you count 2,000+ from active VoR and the 6+sec regen from that for 1,500+ (which to be fair are on longer timers, unless you count that you can reset them with renewed focus) Or the staff 2 heal. Or try to calculate the mitigation from the prot that came with HTL! and VoC, or the aegis from the latter. Or the AoE blind you can get from traited F1 (which again, adds offensive support too and can be spammable once people start dying).

And now you start relying on skills that have a much longer cooldown than the healing benefit provided. Herein lies the problem. The banner war with his perma-regen of 350/sec falls behind when you spam your skills, but his sustained regen beats you hands down. He still has 2 utils left and a 5-target rez elite that you couldn’t even come close to as a guard.

Radjan Majere.4208:

All that while leaving one utility spot open for Wall of Reflect, Hallowed Ground, Signets, SY! or more healing utils, even though the warrior #s used all 3 slots for shouts in the example. I didn’t get into the Healing Breeze either since I don’t run it (haven’t seriously tried post-patch). They might heal/mitigate more than you think a DPS class should – but it seems unquestionable that we outheal/mitigate warriors.

You won’t out-heal wars in the long run, and with a healing-built guard you certainly won’t out-mitigate them. With this healing build, if he takes healing signet and adrenal health, he’s sitting on a 350 regen, a 205 adrenal regen, and a 475 signet regen. He’s got over 1k hp/sec. All passive. You can’t even hope to come close to that as a guard.

As you’ve said before, you don’t know the warrior that well. I’m telling you, go PLAY one. I’ve got a war and a guard. The only thing my guard does that my war doesn’t is put up a wall of reflection. Yippity do…