Guild Wars 2

My 53 Human Gaurdian is my main chararacter. He has been a lot of fun to play, for the most part but there is a big problem. He is useless in keep and tower defenses. I am uable to put any damage on the enemy while defending a tower or keep and there is no credit given for support. My gaurdian has essentially no ranged abilities. The staff should provide better ranged capabilities but it doesnt.

I have a Charr warrior and I was shocked to find that he can use a bow and a full bar of skills to go with it that are on a par with my Ranger. I am considering shelving my gaurdian for a warrior. Lets face it guys, that bow the warriors are given is uber for ranged. There is no point in wishing that gaurdians had effective ranged abilities, we must deal with what is.

If this one aspect of the game is comparatively that important for you, then yes, rolling a Warrior would probably be something you would enjoy.

The question then becomes, does ArenaNet plan to do anything about this big hole in the gaurdians abilities?

Am I one of the few people who aren’t bothered by the fact that we dont have much ranged capability? IMO, guardians are far from useless in keep and tower defenses. They’re the perfect class for manning siege weapons(great for getting bags of loot). Every class has its purpose. From what you’re saying, the guardian just might not be your cup of tea.

Its encouraged to play different classes to find which play style works best for you. But just because they don’t have a good enough ranged weapon doesn’t mean you should give up on it. They are fantastic in pretty much everything else.

Samaul.6073:

My 53 Human Gaurdian is my main chararacter. He has been a lot of fun to play, for the most part but there is a big problem. He is useless in keep and tower defenses. I am uable to put any damage on the enemy while defending a tower or keep and there is no credit given for support. My gaurdian has essentially no ranged abilities. The staff should provide better ranged capabilities but it doesnt.

I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but you can mitigate Arenanet’s failure by taking “Consecrations are ground-targetable” trait (although the range of 900 needs to be increased, Arenanet. Stop giving us kittened shiz!), tome of wrath and torch and blast the door with those 3 if someone is attacking. Also, you can use wall of reflection to get arrows to hit them back.

The class is perfectly viable in WvW. Rather, the guardian’s problem is that it requires MUCH higher base hit points.

I’m a tad frustrated with WvW at the moment as well, but I suspect Anet will not be improving the ranged options for guardian. It seems like one of the critical trade-offs built into the class in exchange for other abilities. I know this can be debated, but I suspect this is the philosophy behind the decision. Guardians seem to be very strong in small scale skirmishes and defending checkpoints which is reflected in sPvP.

That being said, I personally believe the real issues with guardians in WvW lies in how people are rewarded. A lot of WvW combat takes place zerg vs zerg, and the first melee in the mix simply gets obliterated no matter how defensive or well equipped you are, thus many large scale encounters turn into range vs range battles. You’re not going to drop down off the wall to melee the attacking force because in most cases you’ll be instantly reduced to a bloody smear. This makes it nearly impossible for a guardian to score killing blows which is the primary way people are rewarded with tokens. This really needs to change if guardians are going to remain the way they are.

I personally feel that the entire WvW token system should be removed and replaced with a currency similar to karma, with which you would obtain small amounts when an ally that you’ve recently healed and/or buffed kills an enemy. You would have to get more of this currency for killing (it’s easier to spread boons around than it is to kill another player), but at the very least you could get some credit for hanging back and supporting allies in situations that are limiting given the guardians poor ranged options.

This system would also greatly benefit everyone other that guardians, encouraging armies to spread healing and boons liberally to maximize rewards.

Svarty.8019:

The class is perfectly viable in WvW. Rather, the guardian’s problem is that it requires MUCH higher base hit points.

I don’t believe this is the issue. To me, everything is fine as is. If they gave guardians more base HP, guardians would definitely be op. I’m already near un-killable in small scale skirmishes.

Voltric.6920

The class is perfectly viable in WvW. Rather, the guardian’s problem is that it requires MUCH higher base hit points.
I don’t believe this is the issue. To me, everything is fine as is. If they gave guardians more base HP, guardians would definitely be op. I’m already near un-killable in small scale skirmishes.

Tell me your secret. I got jumped by a single thief for 16k damage in 5 seconds (Trick Shot + Cluster Bomb = Dead Guardian. I had literally no time to cast any of that stupid active defense. 100HP heal when I use a mace doesn’t really do much against that kind of DPS). How can it be so different for you? I need more base hit points, why don’t you?

I’m sitting at 3.1k attack, 48% crit, ~3k armor, and ~16k health on my guardian atm. I’m not sure if there’s that big of a difference in stats between me and you, but weapons definitely come into play. I usually run either a greatsword or hammer as one set, and a sword/focus as my other set. My traits ultimately allow for 4 blinds (1 from greatsword#4, 1 from sword#2, 1 from focus#4, and one from Virtue of Justice). Combine that with 4 active blocks with the focus, and you have potentially effectively evaded 8 hits. For me, the key to playing against a thief is getting right up in his/her face as quickly as you can via flashing blade and/or Judge’s intervention. When I play extremely aggressively with thieves, they tend to not want to stick around.

I just noticed that a Thief killed you with his bow. How does that even happen? o_O

Also, are you a geared lvl 80 guardian? I noticed quite a difference between 80 and pre-80 guardians.

Voltric.6920

o_O
Also, are you a geared lvl 80 guardian?

Are you? What gear did you get? I don’t want to get the wrong stuff. I need to know how to be like you, an invincible guy. What are the secrets?

I’m wearing 2 pieces of exotic pow/tough/vit gear from Orr, 4 Knight’s pieces, all socketed with Superior Rune of the Soldier. For trinkets, I went with Full Knight’s. Weapons, I have a Berserker’s greatsword, Knight’s sword/focus, Knight’s Hammer.

Disclaimer: good gear will not make you invincible. Knowing when to be in the fray, when to leave, and when to dodge/mitigate will.

Guardian is great for keep defense. Use the staff and spam AoE on the gate. Plus Tome of Wrath spam on the gate.

first of all …. u should be lv 80 with some exotic gears if u really expect to pwn…

Voltric.6920:

They’re the perfect class for manning siege weapons(great for getting bags of loot).

While I’m willing to accept that you find the Guardian perfectly viable in WvWvW, I dislike this bit. A profession shouldn’t need siege weapons in order to do good at WvWvW.

And I’m glad your build works out for you (this is me being honest), but outside of that particular playstyle (which I assume is rather hard to pull of in the really big fights), there’s not much a Guardian can do and get rewarded.

Ynna.8769:

Voltric.6920:

They’re the perfect class for manning siege weapons(great for getting bags of loot).

While I’m willing to accept that you find the Guardian perfectly viable in WvWvW, I dislike this bit. A profession shouldn’t need siege weapons in order to do good at WvWvW.

I was just about to comment with something similar to that.

I am definitely rolling a warrior myself to replace my mostly-exoticed out guardian. Guardians are simply not fun in WvW, so if you plan on doing so play a warrior IMO. They still get great team support through team buffs, sport heavy armor, however have tons more health and range weapon options.

warriors aren’t that good in wvw. Your main damage comes from melee weapons, and we all know how well it goes in wvw.

Your only range weapons are long bows and rifle. Long bow without trait, has a pretty short range that requires to use your skills pretty close to your enemies. The long bow skills mostly require some loading time to use, which make it really slow. It’s useful in some battle, but most of the time you will find yourself doing very little damage compare to other range classes.

Rifles are better, but it can only deal single target damage and its damage is not really that good either.

Overall, don’t expect to suddenly wtfpwn people in wvw as a warrior. You will find yourself doing more support roles like using banners and shouts than using your awesome skills to kill your target.

In fact, with the same play style, guardian will actually allows you to live longer due to his surviablity and ultlity.

that guys who said guardian is good for manning seige weapons has a point. That’s the only thing soldier classes are good for in WvW if you want a lot of lootbags. He just didn’t tell you warrior would be doing the same thing in WvW.

Guardians are called the chosen ones, we are fine, quit kittening.

Guardian is viable on WvW , and that comes from a person that would rather die than support in WvW.

You may not have many ways to fight , but it is possible.

Hidon.4680

That being said, I personally believe the real issues with guardians in WvW lies in how people are rewarded.

Yup. A Guardian actually playing to his strengths rather than doing some pitiful damage with scepter or staff is a great asset in WvW. He’s just not gonna get any marks…

If you are a Guardian at a keep/tower defense you should either repair the door with supplies or stand 600 range from the door and shoot through it with your Staff #1. Yes shooting through the door is possible and quite effective against enemy melee and rams.

I play an offensive guardian in WvW with a GS/staff and I have minimal issues. Yes, if you’re with a zerg and put yourself in the middle of things, you’ll probably die rapidly; and yes, our options as far as ranged abilities for tower defense are pretty minimal (scepter is the first and last word, and not a very good one).

That said, siege is pretty easy to get if you’re willing to do the borderlands jumping puzzles, which takes care of defending effectively. I find that getting kills from the walls with a scepter to be a total pain, especially since you have to be on the edge for dropping smite. With the arrow cart, set it up a bit farther back, pew pew, gather bags.

For the issue of getting killed in melee, I generally avoid running with groups any larger than 20. 10-15 is a nice range where you can flank and do some damage at melee range without being shredded by focus fire and AOE abilities don’t cause too much trouble (assuming you aren’t fighting at a choke). If fighting a group of 10 or less, it should be fairly easy to stay alive even in melee range full time. Judge’s Intervention + Smite Condition + GS spin in the middle of 3-5 enemy ranged chars usually results in them running away from you more than attacking. Bonus points for using for using GS leap for initial close to get them to use their knockbacks/stuns/rolls/slows since Intervention breaks stuns and Smite will do more damage from the conditions

I’ve played Guardian since the very first closed Betaweekend and the class isnt as viable as it used to be… Guardian became Anets punchingbag everytime they wanted to nerf something, and the class went from being pretty powerful to completely useless. I still try to make it work, but lets face it, every profession in the game outshines the Guardian atm (even rangers, yuck)

Zingery, you’re talking strictly WvWvW, right?
And even then, calling them completely useless is overly pessimistic, to say the least.

Ynna.8769:

Zingery, you’re talking strictly WvWvW, right?
And even then, calling them completely useless is overly pessimistic, to say the least.

He must be…I hope.

My guardian just hit 80 yesterday after fully rerolling from an 80 elementalist and while ele aoe is superb for wvwvw, anything else…it falls over dead at so much as a slight breeze.

I went into wvwvw on my guardian the other day pre-80 and undergeared, not even having my weapons set up properly (guild was threatening to boot anyone who didn’t come “help” immediately) and was amazed at how I could take at least 2-3 times more aoe damage from opponents and barely even be dented where my ele would have been dead under that sort of fire 10x over.

Grace, I think you should find yourself a better guild if they ‘boot’ people for not helping.

Zingery.2073:

I’ve played Guardian since the very first closed Betaweekend and the class isnt as viable as it used to be… Guardian became Anets punchingbag everytime they wanted to nerf something, and the class went from being pretty powerful to completely useless. I still try to make it work, but lets face it, every profession in the game outshines the Guardian atm (even rangers, yuck)

I’m gonna assume you are talking strictly WvW, otherwise you are talking out of your kitten

Mostly WvW indeed.. (what else is there to do when everything else is bugged)
I understand the guardians potential in dungeons and spvp, but Anet managed to screw up dungeons and spvp just isnt fun in the long run.
The only thing Guardian has going for it is some mitigationskills and a few support skills. (Anet nerfed guardians healing, so thats out of the question)
Atleast during the early BWE guardians could outheal any profession and tank pretty much anything thrown at it, now that was a fun time.. Now we are just a more “supporty” version of a warrior without any longrangeoptions.