Guild Wars 2

For those of you who run some type of build utilizing shouts, I was wondering what you thought would be some major determiners between carrying one shout over the other. Save Yourselves! and Stand Your Ground! are invaluable to me, so I want to keep those two…

“Hold The Line!” wins hands down, short cooldown, more useful boons in combat than “Retreat!”.

stemare.2578:

“Hold The Line!” wins hands down, short cooldown, more useful boons in combat than “Retreat!”.

Logan Thackeray begs to differ!

Yep! “Hold the line” is better, but you could change to “Retreat!” when there’s a long rush run, like in a dungeon, because swiftness stacks on duration and that shout gives a very long AoE swiftness.

I don’t know why you guys think Hold the Line is better. Mobility is key to this game, and with good mobility comes good positioning. Retreat offers a group wide aegis that can be useful for blocking boss attacks and stomping in pvp. What does hold the line offer? A couple seconds of protection and a measly 1k heal? I’d like to think that it’s better to avoid damage than to tank it and heal up. Although it’s on a lower CD, it feels underwhelming.

i used to use HTL. now i strictly use Retreat.

i almost never take HTL anymore, unless if i have an empty spot on my bar and/or if my party needs it.

swiftness is just great in any game mode. and for a long duration too.
aegis can completely negate any one big attack for you AND your allies around you.

though regen and protection are great boons as well. mainly protection.. if you’re running hammer, you don’t really need that. and the regen. meh.

even in WvW if i’m running shouts for whatever reason, i’ll run retreat.

I wish they would change Retreat! to 10 seconds swiftness/10 seconds aegis and reduce the cool down to 30 seconds. They could honestly do that with a lot of other skills we have too.
Wall of Reflection at 5 seconds with a 20 second cool down,
Sanctuary 3 seconds with a 60 second cool down,
Hallowed ground 5 seconds with a 40 second cool down,
I would love it, more active play and less time sitting around waiting for my cool downs to come off.

I usually leave my third utility slot open to adjust to random encounters. So when I need to rush I use Retreat. When I face a projectile boss I use Wall of Reflection. Purging Flames for condition removal. You get the idea…

Retreat is effectively a burst damage ability due to Unscathed Contender. It’s very counterintuitive, to say the least, but that’s what it is. So you can basically say that Hold the Line is a defensive ability and Retreat is for attack. Which.. yeah. Lol.

Hold the Line is pretty lackluster to be honest, unless you’ve got a good deal of boon duration.

Both have their niches. I often use Retreat! for mobility, but if I know I’m going to be in combat quite often, I’ll use HTL! mostly.

But I’m also a boon duration/virtues jockie.

Running a hammer build, I’m getting perma-protection. Retreat is great for mobility and aegis.

This is strictly PVE speaking

When I run a shout build I use HTL SYG and Retreat

But it largely depends on the situation, you should be flipping your utilities around, because sometimes Wall of Reflection for example is just too valuable to not have.

I almost always have retreat in my skill bar because a party wide block can mean the difference between a win and a loss. Being able to do this 3 times within a short amount of time is just awesome. Virtue of Courage > Rewed Focus > Virtue of Courage then Retreat! That’s a lot of party wide damage mitigation.

Despite it’s name I think Save Yourselves is probably the most selfish shout you can use. I rarely run with it. I think it’s more valuable in solo play than group play. I am aware it has some good condition removal potential but, generally speaking your party doesn’t get hit with multiple conditions in PVE that are going to make it quite as useful.

There’s no question that SYG is probably the best shout we have party wide stability at just the right moment means that a lot of annoying things like Kholer and Alphard’s scorpion wire are useless, you can use Retreat! too if SYG is on cool down. On top of that it’s a stun breaker, this has so many useful applications in PVE and WvW, probably spvp too.

So that leaves Hold the Line, I like this shout, its my default shout i use when i want to remove conditions but it’s always the first shout I trade out when I need something like Wall of Reflection instead. It does it’s job, but it is rather pointless if you have a hammer, even with the regen. On top of that you don’t need protection so much if you can dodge or utilize your blinds and blocks well.

retreat, aegis > protection for stopping burst attacks/preventing heavy damage, protection for longer fights and against heavy damage prior to battle you can also use virtue of courage for protection instead of using hold the line

Retreat is very useful in WvW, even in combat.

Being able to chase down fleeing foes, or escaping an incoming zerg, is the key.

Retreat for running around, HtL for combat. It has a shorter CD, and boons that are much more useful in combat. Also Aegis doesn’t stack, so you have to time it when you use it. If you don’t it’s just a swiftness buff, which is lame. Also I’m using Traveler runes so it’s very underwhelming for me.

Painbow.6059:

retreat, aegis > protection for stopping burst attacks/preventing heavy damage, protection for longer fights and against heavy damage prior to battle you can also use virtue of courage for protection instead of using hold the line

I kinda feel like Retreat doesn’t do anything. Block 1 auto attack every million seconds? Slot a utility skill to have swiftness some of the time? Are you sure you only need 2 utilities in combat?

Unlike protection, I don’t think a single application of aegis has ever saved anyone’s life.

HtL is usually a placeholder shout for me anyways, but I do run it when I don’t have a need for extra stability/condi cleanse/reflect/etc. I only run Retreat during specific boss fights(like Mai Trin, Molten duo, Dredge, etc.) for the AoE avoidance(decreases the need to waste dodges).

For me, HTL tends to win, primarily because of the significantly longer cooldown of Retreat. I’d give Retreat more consideration if their cooldowns were closer.

HTL is almost certainly better. First of all, it has a CD almost half that of Retreat’s, which is… Fantastic. The protection and regeneration are almost certainly going to soak up more damage than the block from “Retreat!” will, and because of how ridiculously UP swiftness is in combat, it’s safe to assume that HTL is going to be, naturally, the better utility.

in PVE Retreat is better than HTL by far. aegis is much better than regen (regen is crap) and short duration protection.

From PvE point of view:

Hold The Line: use when lots of damage coming in but no risk of one-shot-down attacks, e.g. dredge fractal mobs.
Retreat: use when need to run or when need to prevent death from one-shot-down attacks, e.g. Mossman.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

in PVE Retreat is better than HTL by far. aegis is much better than regen (regen is crap) and short duration protection.

Eh, I think this is cirsumstantial to the build you run. You may be better off having HTL since it gives you 2 buffs, and if you’re using Virtues 25, it’s more damage. Retreat might be better if you have difficultly keeping Aegis up and if you use Unscathed Contender for 20% damage mod.

I prefer Retreat over HTL. I always have it in my utility bar. In my opinion it typically will soak up more damage party-wide in dungeons or fractals than a few seconds of protection.