Guild Wars 2

Hello guys,

i will try to make it short.
i’m a wow player for the past 6 years,

Now i want to ask few simple questions, to make it easy i will sort them by numbers.

1) Is there a PVP gear and pve gear? (like resilence in wow?)
2) If i use a shield, do i get anything else exept the 2 abilities? (in wow, in the moment u use shield, u have X% to block attacks)
3) ^ if not – what else shield gives exept the 2 abilities?
4) If i want to be def’ Guardian, low damage, high surv’. should i go for thoughness or vitality as main stat? Sentinel or Knight gear?

Any tips/good builds for def’ wvw Guardian will be great.

Thanks and great night,
Sagi.

Xta.7458:

Hello guys,

i will try to make it short.
i’m a wow player for the past 6 years,

Now i want to ask few simple questions, to make it easy i will sort them by numbers.

1) Is there a PVP gear and pve gear? (like resilence in wow?)
2) If i use a shield, do i get anything else exept the 2 abilities? (in wow, in the moment u use shield, u have X% to block attacks)
3) ^ if not – what else shield gives exept the 2 abilities?
4) If i want to be def’ Guardian, low damage, high surv’. should i go for thoughness or vitality as main stat? Sentinel or Knight gear?

Any tips/good builds for def’ wvw Guardian will be great.

Thanks and great night,
Sagi.

Hey, I came from multiple years of WoW too so I can answer these!

1) There’s no separate PvP gear, though there is some gear that you can only get through doing some PvP (specifically World versus World. sPvP is the term used for the more traditional battle-ground types that WoW has and it doesn’t reward things that can be used outside of sPvP. Come to think of it, sPvP does have separate gear, but there’s no PvP-only stat, the game provides it for you and the only rewards are different skins, IIRC). However the highest quality gear- Ascended, has a sort of unique gem slot specifically for things called Infusions. Pretty soon World versus World-oriented infusions are being put into the game so while there’s no PvP-specific armor, there will be some small World versus World benefits that you can apply. I don’t know what those bonuses will be, but I don’t think it will be anything like Resilience in WoW- it’ll more likely be bonuses to using Siege equipment and fighting NPC enemy guards.

2) In WoW a shield is considered more of a necessity and a stat-stick that provides dodge and block than an actual off-hand weapon. In this game it is an actual weapon. It still provides stats, but its biggest benefit and functionality come from the two abilities it allows you to use. All off-hand items only come with two abilities due to all main-hand weapons coming with three, and the game only allows 5 active weapon abilities at a time; all 2-handed weapons come with 5. Most professions can swap between 2 sets of weapons in the middle of combat and the ability to swap is on a short cooldown when used in combat like that. Also worth noting is that in most cases it is beneficial to swap between weapon sets like that as most single loadouts will have a decent amount of downtime until you can use more weapon abilities. One additional note (and I’m being excruciatingly thorough cuz I don’t know how familiar you are with GW2 already) is that in addition to those 5 active weapon skills there are 3 Utility skills and one Elite skill that unlock as you level up. Just wanted to include that there aren’t only the 5 weapon skills available at a time.

3) Just the same stats any other piece of equipment gives. Another thing to keep in mind is that there’s no inherent Dodge, Block or Parry stat. There’s a dodge function on a sort of energy bar that has a flat recharge rate unless increased by your traits. Likewise Block is handled by a specific boon called Aegis (which guardians are particularly fluent with) and though some other professions might have a class-specific parry function there isn’t anything to match the WoW stat.

4) General consensus I think is that Knight’s equipment is the way to go. We get much more benefit from Toughness than Vitality. A little vitality is nice, but too much and high-damage encounters eat through the squishy HP like it’s nothing. That said, also remember that in this game tanking isn’t really a thing. You can’t take hits like a Protection Paladin can. Things like dungeons, PvP and Champion or Boss-classified enemies just do too much damage. It’s all about mob and damage control.

Ok,
first of all, thank you Arch for this fine answer!

Well, i’m lvl 68 now, so i know a bit about the game (skills/weapons swap and stuff)
and i know there is no “tanking” in doungens..

but i talk only about wvw, i want to “tank” there.. and when i say “tank” i mean survive longer (in the cost of lower damage ofcurse)

To be honest, i just feel that using shield aint reward enough.. getting 2 abilities with huge CD.. mybe it will be better to just use another “offensive” wepon there?
or just 2handed instead of gimping your self with sword/shield.

well, this is just my thinking..

About thougness (increase armor right?) does it lower magical damage aswell?
(in wow armor does not lower magical damage, only phisical)

Thank you,
Sagi.

There’s no difference between magical and physical damage in GW2; it’s all just “damage”. There is, however, a difference between direct damage (caused primarily by builds including power/precision/critical damage) and conditions (caused primarily by builds including condition damage and condition duration): direct damage is reduced by armor, while condition damage, which always comes in the form of DoTs, ignores armor.

Xta.7458:

Ok,
first of all, thank you Arch for this fine answer!

Well, i’m lvl 68 now, so i know a bit about the game (skills/weapons swap and stuff)
and i know there is no “tanking” in doungens..

but i talk only about wvw, i want to “tank” there.. and when i say “tank” i mean survive longer (in the cost of lower damage ofcurse)

To be honest, i just feel that using shield aint reward enough.. getting 2 abilities with huge CD.. mybe it will be better to just use another “offensive” wepon there?
or just 2handed instead of gimping your self with sword/shield.

well, this is just my thinking..

About thougness (increase armor right?) does it lower magical damage aswell?
(in wow armor does not lower magical damage, only phisical)

Thank you,
Sagi.

what id recommend is once your 80 to keep 1 of every weapon on you as a lot of our weapons (mace, shield/focus, gs/hammer) are very situational, like gs and hammer are by far are highest dps weapons but gs excels on trash mobs because of binding blades while hammer excels on bosses because of the 100% protection uptime

If you want to be ‘Tanky’ in WvW mix some power/vitality/toughness, power/precision/toughness and power/precision/crit dmg gear. Look at a build that gives you Altruistic Healing to start, something like 0/0/30/30/10 or 0/15/30/20/5, get the feel for things and graduate away from Altruistic Healing. Hammer and Staff both take advantage of Altruistic Healing quite well. There is a guide stickied in this forum, read through it cuz there is a lot of great info.

As for weapon DPS, GSword is seen as our DSP weapon but when you really look at it most weapons are pretty close in damage output if spec’d and geared right. Scepter has quite high dps but it doesn’t hit all the time if the target moves or is blocked but another mob, unfortunately its our only long ranged option. Sword has quite good damage output too but its more single target. Mace is strong, slightly lower but offers a good amount healing. Staff is lowest but offers the best support options. But I agree, keep one of each weapon as they all have their strengths.

Get to 80, things change a good deal when you cap.

GL
Blood~

Ah, if your goal is to be kind of tanky in WvW then you’ve got at least a few options. Guardian shield abilities are definitely more of a “right time” use and there are definitely some moments in WvW where the Shield of Absorption is absolutely priceless but it’s definitely a situational thing. Mace/Shield is definitely our tankiest weapon loadout by far. It’s one of the tankiest combinations in the game if not THE tankiest. Though if I were going with shield I’d probably use Sword like I think you said you do too. Sword is just more fun than Mace.

But if it’s a little slow on the cooldowns for you, you might want to try out a more aggressive build. The super-popular Altruistic Healing build that’s stickied is great for toughness and keeping yourself healed up. Like, phenomenal. The combination of high toughness and relatively sustained healing on yourself (though nothing in the game will ever compare to the sustained healing you see in WoW, even in terms of % health) is really one of the best ways to be tanky and keep yourself alive. The stickied topic centers around the Hammer 2-handed weapon, but it can be tweaked and applied to several of our weapon options pretty easily.

Just in general the Honor Trait Superior Aria along with two or three shouts for your utility skills (namely Save Yourselves! and Stand Your Ground! for WvW, though Hold The Line! is pretty good too) will help quite a bit for WvW survivability. It’s part of the stickied Altruistic Healing build anyway, but it’s still a huge survivability and utility boost in WvW even if you’re going to use a different build.

Assuming you plan to go 30 deep into Valor just for all the Toughness (because it’s extremely worth it) then another way to go could be to use Monk’s Focus/Meditation Mastery and load yourself up with Meditations. The healing is more bursty and less sustained so it can be easier to be eaten by all the conditions flying around in WvW but the Contemplation of Purity and Smite Condition meditations will help. With this setup your third utility is probably best filled by Judge’s Intervention or the Save Yourselves! shout (which will synergize fabulously if you immediately follow it up with Smite Condition for some quick damage and Contemplation to turn any remaining conditions into boons).

In a different direction entirely I believe a boon-oriented build can be used to have some extremely great uptime on several boons. I don’t know nearly as much about those so you might want to take a look at the Boonway thread if you’re interested.

Another thing to consider is the ever-infamous Bunker build. I was never interested in it so I know next to nothing about it, but it’s out there and from all accounts it’s really strong.

Aaaaaand as to whether Toughness decreases magical damage as well, it alone does not. Your armor stat does that, which Toughness contributes to along with armor from your equipment. The armor stat provides general damage reduction and it isn’t physical-specific the way it is in WoW due to all Professions using the Power stat for damage. However, Toughness and Armor do not reduce condition damage, which is why just about every WvW build ever runs something to counter conditions.

wow – lots of info. thanks alot guys.

so if i understood right – Altruistic Healing build kinda works like that :
i crit = i give might
i give might = i get lots of small heals.

So this works only if:
1) i crit
2) there are alot of friends around me to get the boon

what is the radius that my teamates need to be to recieved my boon (so i get healed) ?

second thing :
if i run Altruistic Healing build, will be much diffrence between hammer/Gsword or going for sword/shield ?

with shield i might have 2 def’ abilities, but with greatsword i will hit more = crit more = more healing..

Sagi.

Xta.7458:

wow – lots of info. thanks alot guys.

so if i understood right – Altruistic Healing build kinda works like that :
i crit = i give might
i give might = i get lots of small heals.

So this works only if:
1) i crit
2) there are alot of friends around me to get the boon

what is the radius that my teamates need to be to recieved my boon (so i get healed) ?

second thing :
if i run Altruistic Healing build, will be much diffrence between hammer/Gsword or going for sword/shield ?

with shield i might have 2 def’ abilities, but with greatsword i will hit more = crit more = more healing..

Sagi.

Just don’t forget that Empowering Might for those Crits -> Might to allies -> Heals isn’t all there is. It’s important to make use of Superior Aria so that all your shouts have a nice short(er) CD so that you can heal yourself through giving those boons to allies as well. It’s not as pressing in PvE, but in WvW you’ll want to make sure you’re using them.

But yes, you generally need at least a small party of other people around you for Altruistic Healing to be fully effective. Since most of the time people are just zerging together through WvW that shouldn’t be a problem. If you prefer solo roaming you’ll almost certainly get more benefit from the Monk’s Focus setup instead.

I’m not entirely sure of the radius on Empowering Might. Something like 400 or 500, so relatively close-ish to you. It’s meant to power up people on the front line with you after all. The shouts all have their range listed in their tooltips though, so no worries there.

In terms of differences, the Hammer’s third auto-attack strike gives Protection to you and nearby allies in the symbol every time you use it (the Boonway build allows this to have 100% up-time in combat I think) and in general has better sustained damage (thanks mostly to Mighty Blow) as well as more CC (Ring of Warding is awesome but it typically takes a bit of practice to learn where and when best to place it). The Greatsword gives Retaliation to yourself and allies every time you lay Symbol of Wrath down similar to Hammer’s third auto attack but that’s of more use to a bunker build; Whirling Wrath is great, and can produce a lot of crits very quickly if you’ve got the Crit% for it (the AH build is another reason to go with Knight’s Gear, it comes with Toughness AND Precision), but it will only keep the Greatsword’s damage up to par with Hammer’s if you’re hitting multiple enemies every time you use it. Binding Blade’s pull helps with that, but it won’t be up every time.

Sword and Shield is a bit of a different beast. The Shield of Judgement skill will be providing the function that Hammer’s auto attack Protection and Greatsword’s Symbol of Wrath give (boons to allies) but it’s got QUITE a bit more downtime than Hammer’s auto (it’ll be relatively comparable to Symbol of Wrath if you pick up Honorable Shield instead of Retributive Armor- which may be more beneficial if you’re still going to focus on Sword/Shield- since Sword is so much faster than Hammer you won’t need quite as much crit to keep up in that regard), plus you’re going to need to make sure you aim it to hit allies so that they get your boons and you get your heals. The Sword will be your bread and butter for crits with its fast auto attacks and that snazzy Zealot’s Defense skill (I love it so much- it pairs up beautifully with our Wall of Reflection). The combination makes it a bit more difficult to be as aggressive as you could be with the GS or Hammer but in a tight spot, Flashing Blade followed up with Shield of Absorption can be a great way to keep melee off of you, or get you straight into the fray so you can disperse it (potentially creating a large opening for your zerg to cleave through the opposition) and proceed to wreak havoc.

So if you liked Hammer, GS and Sword/Shield all equally, I would say Hammer is slightly more ideal for its greater CC and damage along with that sweet Protection boon on its last auto chain hit. GS is good, and I personally prefer using it but it can’t quite keep up with Hammer in most situations. Sword/Shield is still going to play more defensively due to what Zealot’s Defense and Shield of Absorption bring to the table but that combo of Flashing Blade + Shield of Absorption can create a great opportunity for you to swap to Hammer or GS and get your aggression on.

I am a wall of text irl too.

lol, that’s great mate, i got everything you wrote.

i am 74 now, so soon will have to decide i guess.

i did lots of wvwvw latley and my new mainly concern is my ping/ms .. i wakittenting someone ON him.. and i got “miss” all the time, someone told me because of lag, i get tho’s misses… not sure if its because where i live, or because we fighted 3 servers on the same spot (huge fight)..

anyway, if this my internet just weak for that, i’m afraid i will have to play range class ;[
(my wow ping is about 70-80ms so its not that bad.. its wierd we cant check ping in the game)

I thought you could see your latency, maybe on the Options menu.

Hammer is ideal for Altruistic Healing, just so many boons going out. Staff4 + AH gives a ton of HP back, usually refills your health. I leveled from 60 up in WvW with Hammer/Staff AH and it was a breeze if you get a decent zerg. If you just can’t hit anything with Hammer throw on Staff, each ability is useful in a zerg.

Blood~

Blind makes you ‘Miss’. Most often place I encounter is off-hand pistol thieves have a blind AoE that just keeps dropping blind on you, as do the veteran scouts (so you do get blinded a fair bit hitting camps) but even a sword/greatsword guardian can be puttin blinds on you fairly often. I’m sure other classes blind too I just don’t know anythin about them.

I like the shield with my 60% boon duration for the protection buff. The knockback I mostly save for interrupts/shadow refuge/cliffs when it can be pretty important (at least in theory, half the time I just find I’m mashin buttons and blowin it in the middle of combat when it doesn’t really do anything effective – I’m just bad like that).

Xta.7458:

Hello guys,

i will try to make it short.
i’m a wow player for the past 6 years,

Now i want to ask few simple questions, to make it easy i will sort them by numbers.

1) Is there a PVP gear and pve gear? (like resilence in wow?)
2) If i use a shield, do i get anything else exept the 2 abilities? (in wow, in the moment u use shield, u have X% to block attacks)
3) ^ if not – what else shield gives exept the 2 abilities?
4) If i want to be def’ Guardian, low damage, high surv’. should i go for thoughness or vitality as main stat? Sentinel or Knight gear?

Any tips/good builds for def’ wvw Guardian will be great.

Thanks and great night,
Sagi.

As most of the stuff has been answered so you want to be a straight tank from what i have read
your traits 0/5/30/30/5
Armor full soldier / Runes Soldiers (Power Toughness Vit)
Weapon Mace/Shield Mace/Focus swap Greatsword or Staff
this setup you will be hitting like a wet noodle

If someone hasn’t mentioned it to the OP yet (sorry, some of these postings, while helpful, are just walls of text to me), the Shield does have the benefit of providing extra defense to your stats.

azureai.9764:

If someone hasn’t mentioned it to the OP yet (sorry, some of these postings, while helpful, are just walls of text to me), the Shield does have the benefit of providing extra defense to your stats.

Not to mention it gives your team mates protection and a AoE push with heal burst which is not much but still helps shield #5 has saved alot of my friends from getting stacked

Vet.3726:

Not to mention it gives your team mates protection and a AoE push with heal burst which is not much but still helps shield #5 has saved alot of my friends from getting stacked

Yeah, the interrupt on Shield5 is very helpful against swarms. Shield4 is also a nice protection boost for allies in melee, so long as you bother to step back from combat before you use it in order to catch allies in the shield wave.

Something is wierd here guys…
i have AH, and i just dont feel i get health back.. atall -_-

i was about 5k health, “save yourself” got like 8(?) boons from it – and i’m sure i recvied 0 heal.

i just dont feel it works.. in suggestion?

(ofcurse i give might every time i crit – using knight set)

Xta.7458:

Something is wierd here guys…
i have AH, and i just dont feel i get health back.. atall -_-

i was about 5k health, “save yourself” got like 8(?) boons from it – and i’m sure i recvied 0 heal.

i just dont feel it works.. in suggestion?

(ofcurse i give might every time i crit – using knight set)

I’m going to assume this happened in a WvW group versus group fight.

Save Yourself only gives the boons to you. Altruistic Healing at max level gives healing of about 70-ish per boon applied to you and allies (72 if you go/went 30 into the Honor tree as well), so Save Yourself isn’t going to be your biggest heal since even the Retreat! shout can apply more total boons than that between the several allies getting the benefit of the shout . On top of that it takes conditions from allies in order to give you those boons, so while you get the AH heal and the Regeneration boon, you could have burning or poison or bleeding on you eating through the healing. The real value of Save Yourselves is that it saves your allies from conditions while giving you a ton of boons as compensation to be more effective yourself- it’s a big help to your group as a whole, not really yourself. The real healing from shouts is going to come from Stand Your Ground! and Hold The Line! as they can apply more total boons and have half the CD of Save Yourselves (as well as Hold The Line! giving more Protection and Regeneration up-time).

So I guess the first question is how many allies and enemies are you generally around while you’re shouting/getting crits for empowering might heals? From my own experience just exploring about with one or two other people the crits alone keep me pretty well healed up. Make that 5+ and I’ll never fall below 75% health unless I’m in a dungeon or eating damage from an up-scaled event mob/WvW zerg. Then factor in however many enemies your group/zerg is up against and the damage they’re dealing.

The heals from each boon applied are somewhat small, so you get full benefit from the trait by continuously giving those boons throughout the fight to sustain that healing as constantly as you can (which is why Empowering Might is so important).

So were you at 5k during a lul when you weren’t taking damage and didn’t notice any appreciable healing or were you at 5k while the enemy group was still throwing AoEs and conditions everywhere? If the first, then the conditions you took from your allies probably ate the healing you got from the Save Yourselves boons. If the second, then AH is doing its job and the sustained healing was countering the damage being done to you. It’s sometimes hard to see the healing being done by AH in the middle of a fight because the heals are small and sustained, but if you’re in the middle of the fight and taking hits/conditions and your health isn’t going down (or if it’s going down slowly) it’s safe to say that AH is working. Take the Monk’s Focus setup I mentioned earlier. The heals from that ARE big enough that you’ll notice, but since they aren’t sustained and are dependent on your meditations being off cooldown the healing will typically get eaten through much faster in a WvW fight, especially so against conditions.

All that said though if you don’t feel the build is working for you that’s up to you. Unfortunately my advice for alternatives is pretty limited other than giving you the thread links earlier.

Everything I’ve read about Guardians says that at higher levels, the shield becomes more and more useless and to run with mace/focus or something.

ChuckUFarley.1637:

Everything I’ve read about Guardians says that at higher levels, the shield becomes more and more useless and to run with mace/focus or something.

Shield’s better when you’re with a group who can take advantage of the CC. It’s amazing for stopping stomps, gettin someone off your friend’s back, knockin people off things (siege, cliffs), dealing with shadow refuge, etc. that sort of thing. It’s not as consistently relevant as having 3 blocks (which is super useful) but I think using it at the right time can be pretty game changin in small group fights. I run focus when I’m with like 1-2 people and shield when it’s 3-4+