Guild Wars 2

Like the title said this is not a thread about the change to GS. We have had plenty of discussions on that topic already.

What I would like to talk about instead is where we go from here. I for one did not sit around waiting for something to happen. My Guardian is my main, has been since day one of the early access, and will continue to be so from here on out. It is the class I love, and support.

I am going to share with you the adjustments I made in my play style since the GS change. The first thing I did was take stock of my investment. When the change was made I had already committed to Exotic gear with full superior runes. Between making the gear itself, and then getting the runes in place I spent more than a moderate amount of gold. At the time I was running a GS symbol build designed to take advantage of the quick comboing of the GS (as were many others, after all it was the best build available at the time.) I realized that I would need to craft some new weapons, and make some trait adjustments. I reset my traits and picked up an exotic staff, followed by an exotic shield and mace combo. Both of these weapon choices allowed me to keep an active symbol, so that I wouldn’t lose the advantage of the armor I had already invested in for my symbol build. I really liked the glass cannon staff build I had been reading about and wanted to implement that into my regular build, but I didn’t want to lose the survivability of the Mace/shield tanking spec. I decided on a compromise. Let me break down some important aspects of the Guardian, so that you can understand my logic.

1. The importance of 15 Radiance cannot be overstated. Regardless of weapon choice, or build 15 Radiance insures several key things. First it increases burning exponentially. As a Guardian you are naturally going to cause burn. You might as well make it count for all it’s worth. An extra 50% on burn damage is noticeable. Especially when your traits are set up to cause burning when you block, when you attack, when you activate, or lose aegis, every 5th attack passively, and every time you activate your virtue. That is a ton of burning! and secondly it allows your blinds to create vulnerability.

2. Right about now you are asking why Burn is so important. Not using a GS, or one handed sword for DPS means you need to make up for the gap in DPS that staff and mace leave. Mace has an obvious drag in animation time on it’s third attack. This is somewhat made up for by a powerful symbol on your number 2 skill, and the fact that the 3rd regular stike hits harder. It still leaves a gap in DPS that the burning makes up for.

3. Staff in WvW allows you to aoe down several people at once when they are bunched up at a castle. This is most effective with +crit gear, but that leaves a big gap in defense that the rest of the staff skills simply do not make up for on their own. Staff is a fantastic support weapon for groups, but used on it’s own for soloing outside of mere tagging is asking to die. For that reason I chose to use it as a support weapon and not alter my gear with +crit. Guardians have low health to begin with, so having that extra defensive boost means more from a survivability standpoint. Where staff does shine is it’s number 4 might buff. Being able to stack tons of might in a fight, and then swap to mace is devastating. I really see staff as a situation based utility as opposed to a weapon.

4. Mace/Shield was the next logical step for a symbol build after GS. Mace provides a low cool down symbol that has powerful healing and damaging effects. It also allows for passive condition removal in parties. While the Mace animation is slower it still packs a punch. It also provides another burning effect on completion of it’s number 3 skill. I chose shield over focus simply based on testing. I found that the shield provided more of a defensive benefit when paired with a mace in close quarter melee combat. Being able to drop number 5 and throw my enemies out of my bubble buys me time to recover from low health, or conditions. Sometimes that couple of seconds is the difference between getting downed, and winning a fight. The rest of my trait points were devoted to making my symbols count. Bigger symbols that last longer and heal people around me. This impact was immediately felt upon entering Cursed Shores and pulling 5-6 level 80 risen at a time. I was able to drop a ton of burn damage and drop the first 3 enemies in less than a minute with the symbol hitting everything. Not only that I noticed my health barely budged, because I did not compromise on my defensive stats. (Toughness over Vitality is the way I built my armor)

5. Testing in PVP was a bit different. I opened up initially with staff. People see staff they assume glass cannon and run in for the kill. That is when the ruse ends and you switch to mace as they close distance and slam them with your virtue and let the burn down begin. If you can time it right you can pull off staff number 4 as they begin closing, and before they know what hit them they are being nailed with a might buffed mace assault and an out of control burn. While they scramble to recover and cast condition removal you can smack them down. If it then becomes a fight I have learned my survivability kicks in and I can usually outlast anyone I go toe to toe with. The trick is picking your fights carefully. If your opponent is ranged then stick on your staff and throw up wall of reflection. They will be forced to adjust to what you are doing. Most of the time this will goad them into making mistakes. People will catch on after awhile, but they will hesitate to approach you from then on which gives you an advantage.

6. Understand that this build is what works for me. It may go against your play style. I built it with doing PVE, WvW, and sPVP in mind. I wanted a build that could hold up in a dungeon, or defending a castle. I am happy with the results. Remember you do not have to go all in with one skill, or trait style. You can find balance that works and it’s what I have tried to do here. I am happy with the results.

Sounds interesting, do you have an example of your full trait setup?

It’s 15, 15, 10, 30, 0. I use sybols are bigger, last longer, and heal. I also use burning foes take 10% more damage, 100% chance to burn on block, and burning removes boons.