Guild Wars 2

Note** This post is NOT a complaint about Guardians. I am looking for constructive comments about the use of this class in mass.

My guild has recently encountered a new Guild in WvW who seems to have a large number of these bunker guardians. When overwhelmed, they die like the rest. But in equal number, their group is very difficult to kill. Generally speaking, I would say 40% of their group makeup is bunker guardians.

With this kind of ratio, every time one of their guys goes down, they can be easily picked up and saved. Their overall health and toughness makes them ideal for holding the line (go figure). They generally stand up front and just absorb a lot of the enemy zerg’s damage with high damage mitigation.

When they’re ready to push, they charge the line boldly forcing the zerg to hit them first. The DPS classes, on instinct (upon seeing their friends attacking the line), sweep in behind them while the guardians are taking damage.

We experimented a little, and tried pitting 3 elementalists against a single bunker guardian. And although they managed to kill him, it took them a very long time. (admittedly, he did almost nothing to hurt the elementalists). But in a larger group, with some other DPS support classes, I can see how having a strong core of these guardians would be difficult to deal with.

The questions:

1) What are this forum’s thoughts on a heavy emphasis on bunker guardians as a part of a group makeup?

2) Do you think their DPS is too low to be useful?

3) Do you think it would be too complicated to work?

4) If you had 15 players in your WvW group, how many of them would you like to be Bunker Guardians?

5) Do you think another Guardian build would work better?

Thanks.

Edit:

Taking suggestions from this forum post, we’ve put theory into practice and started working with guardians:

1

I’m a guardian in a hardcore WvW guild. How good guardians are for you really depends on your strategy. If you want to burst the enemy down quickly you dont need support guardians. If you want more longer term play then having support guardians is A MUST for the healing they can do. On a side node, I guess with bunker guardian, you mean support guardian with healing and stuff. Otherwise defenensive guardian is completely useless.

2

Certainly not, though you dont want too many guardians. We run max 25% guardians, but it can be less aswell. The 40% could work if you have very good focussed damage. Which means you bomb all on the same spot. Then you will still have enough damage to kill anything AND you will have a lot of survivablilty.

3

I don’t see what is complicated, just stay together (which I forget, but is sooo important if you want to fully use the healing).

4

3/4

5

Again, really depends on your strategy (see 1)

I hope this info will be usefull for you. btw, 3 eles should blow up any guardian. Except if they use 3sec invulnability elite, but then they are big noobs, as you want your tomes in WvW ALWAYS. This also gives insane healing!!

The strategy is sound. Support guardians work to their full potential in a slow advance. Their mitigation and support is enough to hold back most zergs. All it takes is a few dps types to charge and kill. The guardians to march over downed and corpses to prevent res. Slowly the zerg will die.

This requires very good coordination but it is what guardians are for. If you want to pierce a zerg then change guards for warriors.

I wouldve loved to see it in action as i have always dreamed to be in such a battle. Salute to my fellow guardians!

I would want 100% guardians in an army. All using various builds of course

Bunker guardian is no different than any other class that goes bunker. Some do it even better, providing better support such as Warriors, Eles and Engineers,

1. Groups should always have a few bunker build professions, it doesn’t matter which usually.

2. Yes, Bunker Guardians can survive, but they lose a ton of damage, making them practically useless other than meat shields and support with boons/staff.

3. No. Get mumble or a teamspeak and coordinate.

4. 3-5 would be bunker guardians

5. For team support? No bunker guardian is best, for smaller group roaming (5 players) it would be better to be a mix of dps and damage.

Easiest way to conter this group is a mesmer portal behind those guard and if you are against a portal you might try to flanc the group. Facing them from the front is useless. Guards are a really good ‘first line’ if they have a lot of AoE behind them.

@ Archer, guardian is good for small groups, but even better for large scale WvW. Guardians have most AoE healing of all classes. Also warrior is no bunker in small scale. It can be a support with healing shouts (and cleansing if using soldier runes)

@ Starfall, the best guilds do not have a backline, and if you try to flank them, they will simple turn and run over you. Though what you say is true, when they have a backline, simply portal on it and try to kill them quickly. One thing to note is that Portal is nerfed to 20 people limit. So if you have more than that or having pugs running with you, you should watch out

TBH I think your plague necro swarm is much more effective as cover than a bunch of bunker guardians. Especially since you already have the coordinated churning spike down already. It fits the overall aggressive style of your zerg.

Having a solid back line definitely helps, but there are many ways this can be achieved, such as condition fields (poison cloud, caltrops, frozen ground, etc), or pulse blind AoEs (sandstorm, well of darkness, etc). CC is generally more effective than healing support in GW2. And in any case if you go up against a bunker line, you could just send your necros after them while your eles RTL to their backline. GW2 isn’t totally build wars.

Zumos.2056:

@ Archer, guardian is good for small groups, but even better for large scale WvW. Guardians have most AoE healing of all classes.

Interesting read in the thread.

One thing i find to be a bit off is this, guardian dont have the best aoe heals in the game. I think this is a general misconception, not saying they dont have great aoe heals but there are other proffessions, ele being one of them, that can do more heal over time and by a huge margin.

And in wvw when bashing the front door i would say a support ranger is even better support for the guys standing closest to the door. At least the few times i played my ranger as suppport i thought the amount of green numbers on the screen was pure magic and my guardian wasnt even close to that.

I play guardian as main but i can do more heals with my ele any day of the week and almost without healpower in gear and accessories.

The only time i guardian can compete is when he uses mighty blow as a waterfield combofinisher but there are other proffessions that can use blastfisshers more often if needed.

Just my imo.

Zumos.2056:

1

I hope this info will be usefull for you. btw, 3 eles should blow up any guardian. Except if they use 3sec invulnability elite, but then they are big noobs, as you want your tomes in WvW ALWAYS. This also gives insane healing!!

Depends on your spec, runes, and size of your group =P

1) What are this forum’s thoughts on a heavy emphasis on bunker guardians as a part of a group makeup?

R1) IMO, Bunker has high defense/regen/anti condition and reduce the frontline being damaged.
—//--

2) Do you think their DPS is too low to be useful?

R2)@ mid range while group advances behind guardian shielding allies and crowd control.

—//—
3 Do you think it would be too complicated to work?

R3) No, every guardian do a litle of that.

—//—
4) If you had 15 players in your WvW group, how many of them would you like to be Bunker Guardians?

R4) Arroud 2 or 3.

5) Do you think another Guardian build would work better?

No, bunkers are made to protect

Just my 0,2€.

Zumos.2056:

@ Starfall, the best guilds do not have a backline, and if you try to flank them, they will simple turn and run over you. Though what you say is true, when they have a backline, simply portal on it and try to kill them quickly. One thing to note is that Portal is nerfed to 20 people limit. So if you have more than that or having pugs running with you, you should watch out

I answered what OP postet.. he was talking about a guard-frontline and DD’s behind.. therefore the portal (!20 people limit!). I think portal will even work if there is no backline.. just because you didn’t have to walk through the AoE and the enemy has to react to you being within them.

There are sure a lot of tactic a good guildgroup could use, but OP’s situation seems like he was inside a random zerg.. therefore it need ‘easy tactics’.

Thanks everyone for your amazing replies. I have read through them all and considered them carefully. I am still looking for more input if there are others out there who would like to share.

Heinel.6548:

TBH I think your plague necro swarm is much more effective as cover than a bunch of bunker guardians. Especially since you already have the coordinated churning spike down already. It fits the overall aggressive style of your zerg. .

I appreciate the personalized response. Either you’ve read through my forum posts in the past, or you’re playing with/against me on FA—so your input is valued.

Yes, my guild is (currently) predominantly focused with Elementalists. We do “Churn stacking” which is (for simplicity’s sake) a burst of DPS in a small area every 30 seconds.

Our problem is in our ability to hold ground. We can’t do it. We strike HARD for 10 seconds and put a few down. If we don’t kill a lot of them, they quickly recover their dead and we continue to fall back.

These bunker guardians we’re encountering—being very hard to put down—are quite a problem for us. Based on all your feedback, we’re thinking that bunker guardians of our own might be the missing link. Give us the staying power we sorely lack to take the ground we break during our 10 second damage spike.

More information on “Churn Stacking” can be found here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-Stacking-Churning-Earth-Video/first

Brutaly.6257:

Zumos.2056:

@ Archer, guardian is good for small groups, but even better for large scale WvW. Guardians have most AoE healing of all classes.

Interesting read in the thread.

One thing i find to be a bit off is this, guardian dont have the best aoe heals in the game. I think this is a general misconception, not saying they dont have great aoe heals but there are other proffessions, ele being one of them, that can do more heal over time and by a huge margin.

And in wvw when bashing the front door i would say a support ranger is even better support for the guys standing closest to the door. At least the few times i played my ranger as suppport i thought the amount of green numbers on the screen was pure magic and my guardian wasnt even close to that.

I play guardian as main but i can do more heals with my ele any day of the week and almost without healpower in gear and accessories.

The only time i guardian can compete is when he uses mighty blow as a waterfield combofinisher but there are other proffessions that can use blastfisshers more often if needed.

Just my imo.

That actually depends on how much you’re willing to spec into healing. While an ele or the rest of the water field classes can put out respectable healing regardless of spec, a guardian in WvW can go further by stacking full healing power and endurance for the dodge roll heal. Your dmg is negligible, but coupled with the healing tome and some bunker utilities and you have what would be the closest to a dedicated healer in GW2, and it’s pretty darn close.

Now do I think this is worthwhile? Probably not. I’m a firm believer of prevention of dmg, which can come from aegis/protection spam, but also the idea that glass cannons who cannot defend themselves and need external healing have no place in zerg v zerg.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

I appreciate the personalized response. Either you’ve read through my forum posts in the past, or you’re playing with/against me on FA—so your input is valued.

It’s the latter. I recognized your guild tag. I just might be that annoying Guardian you were talking about. X)

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Our problem is in our ability to hold ground. We can’t do it. We strike HARD for 10 seconds and put a few down. If we don’t kill a lot of them, they quickly recover their dead and we continue to fall back.

This is exactly wherefor you need guardians: to be able to sustain. And also necro’s with aoe blind/chill is very good. But if you have no healing, you will die anywayz.

@Brutaly.6257, guardians heal a lot more than eles in large scale WvW with some smart strategy. And without that strategy, the healing tome still healz more than an ele. The way to heal that is even more effective is to blast into waterfields. And yes Eles are the most reliable of making waterfields with staff.

This brings me to another way to create more sustain. If you have problems after the first 10 seconds. Then do a regroup and heal with waterfields + blast after 10 seconds.

@Heinel.6548, both preventing damage as healing is very important in WvW. If you have no healing you will die at some point. If you dont prevent enough damage, you wont have enough healing. That’s how it works.

Zumos.2056:

@Heinel.6548, both preventing damage as healing is very important in WvW. If you have no healing you will die at some point. If you dont prevent enough damage, you wont have enough healing. That’s how it works.

I’m not sure I understand you but it appears you think you are disagreeing with me but you actually isn’t.

Everyone can heal themselves, that’s the baseline, the #6 heal skill is the only one that gives generally acceptable returns on HP investment. The general consensus is that going beyond it incur steep opportunity cost that isn’t worth it. The Guardian dodge roll heal outside of sPvP is a notable exception to this rule, but it still does cripple the offensive capabilities of the guardian if you are to take full advantage of it. Mitigation, on the other hand, doesn’t incur much of a cost at all. Any non-glass cannon guardians already have it built in. You aren’t sacrificing (much) damage, which also helps stop you from getting hurt, and if each unit in your zerg is at least somewhat independent, then you do not need to worry about “the healers died, we’re screwed” without recourse.

Heinel.6548:

Brutaly.6257:

Zumos.2056:

@ Archer, guardian is good for small groups, but even better for large scale WvW. Guardians have most AoE healing of all classes.

Interesting read in the thread.

One thing i find to be a bit off is this, guardian dont have the best aoe heals in the game. I think this is a general misconception, not saying they dont have great aoe heals but there are other proffessions, ele being one of them, that can do more heal over time and by a huge margin.

And in wvw when bashing the front door i would say a support ranger is even better support for the guys standing closest to the door. At least the few times i played my ranger as suppport i thought the amount of green numbers on the screen was pure magic and my guardian wasnt even close to that.

I play guardian as main but i can do more heals with my ele any day of the week and almost without healpower in gear and accessories.

The only time i guardian can compete is when he uses mighty blow as a waterfield combofinisher but there are other proffessions that can use blastfisshers more often if needed.

Just my imo.

That actually depends on how much you’re willing to spec into healing. While an ele or the rest of the water field classes can put out respectable healing regardless of spec, a guardian in WvW can go further by stacking full healing power and endurance for the dodge roll heal. Your dmg is negligible, but coupled with the healing tome and some bunker utilities and you have what would be the closest to a dedicated healer in GW2, and it’s pretty darn close.

Now do I think this is worthwhile? Probably not. I’m a firm believer of prevention of dmg, which can come from aegis/protection spam, but also the idea that glass cannons who cannot defend themselves and need external healing have no place in zerg v zerg.

I have all geartypes on my guardian and even multiple setups of some of them, due runes being more expensive then armor, and frankly if i stack healing power on my ele, which i have three different sets on, i will heal for more due to the fact that in wvw you aint static and i can heal from distance with the ele and that the healing skills.

Sure you can utilize the dodgeheal, the only issue is that you just demand the ability to stack vigor and for that you need SyG AND high critrating, at least 40% for it to be reliable over a longer fight and then we are talking about a 0/0/30/30/10 build and stacking of pre/vit/heal gear and then it no longer a bunker, in fact it has very poor survivability compared to soldiers/clerics armor.

And my ele has evasive arcana which heal the team for over 1300 without a single point in healing and it scales pretty nicely as well and i also have 100% uptime on vigor. Add regen and about 1400 heals when going over to air, and ofc three healing skills on the staff with range and huge aoe.

While doing absurd damage in fire/lightning.

Imo the absolute best “healer”/“supporter” in the game.

What guardians do best is to be in the front bashing in heads, controlling the enemy, negating incoming damage via shouts and consecrations. Stability being our best resource to the team.

But thats me.

Brutaly.6257:

Heinel.6548:

Brutaly.6257:

Zumos.2056:

@ Archer, guardian is good for small groups, but even better for large scale WvW. Guardians have most AoE healing of all classes.

Interesting read in the thread.

One thing i find to be a bit off is this, guardian dont have the best aoe heals in the game. I think this is a general misconception, not saying they dont have great aoe heals but there are other proffessions, ele being one of them, that can do more heal over time and by a huge margin.

And in wvw when bashing the front door i would say a support ranger is even better support for the guys standing closest to the door. At least the few times i played my ranger as suppport i thought the amount of green numbers on the screen was pure magic and my guardian wasnt even close to that.

I play guardian as main but i can do more heals with my ele any day of the week and almost without healpower in gear and accessories.

The only time i guardian can compete is when he uses mighty blow as a waterfield combofinisher but there are other proffessions that can use blastfisshers more often if needed.

Just my imo.

That actually depends on how much you’re willing to spec into healing. While an ele or the rest of the water field classes can put out respectable healing regardless of spec, a guardian in WvW can go further by stacking full healing power and endurance for the dodge roll heal. Your dmg is negligible, but coupled with the healing tome and some bunker utilities and you have what would be the closest to a dedicated healer in GW2, and it’s pretty darn close.

Now do I think this is worthwhile? Probably not. I’m a firm believer of prevention of dmg, which can come from aegis/protection spam, but also the idea that glass cannons who cannot defend themselves and need external healing have no place in zerg v zerg.

I have all geartypes on my guardian and even multiple setups of some of them, due runes being more expensive then armor, and frankly if i stack healing power on my ele, which i have three different sets on, i will heal for more due to the fact that in wvw you aint static and i can heal from distance with the ele and that the healing skills.

Sure you can utilize the dodgeheal, the only issue is that you just demand the ability to stack vigor and for that you need SyG AND high critrating, at least 40% for it to be reliable over a longer fight and then we are talking about a 0/0/30/30/10 build and stacking of pre/vit/heal gear and then it no longer a bunker, in fact it has very poor survivability compared to soldiers/clerics armor.

And my ele has evasive arcana which heal the team for over 1300 without a single point in healing and it scales pretty nicely as well and i also have 100% uptime on vigor. Add regen and about 1400 heals when going over to air, and ofc three healing skills on the staff with range and huge aoe.

While doing absurd damage in fire/lightning.

Imo the absolute best “healer”/“supporter” in the game.

What guardians do best is to be in the front bashing in heads, controlling the enemy, negating incoming damage via shouts and consecrations. Stability being our best resource to the team.

But thats me.

Definitely just you. You have not seen a skilled selfless daring guardian in WvW.

Heinel.6548:

Definitely just you. You have not seen a skilled selfless daring guardian in WvW.

ok, since i have about 500 hours of guardian gameplay in wvw/tpvp i can tell you that i know most of the known tricks in the book and im perfectly aware of what a guardian can do and im actually kind of skilled in this profession.

I just want to point out, before this becomes a kitten contest, that waterblast alone, skill one on the staff, has about 300 aoe heals per second in blast radius, with 1200 range, by just spamming it, add in dodge heals on that, attunement switch, 6 waterfields per minute, 100% uptime on regeneration two more heals on the staff and a bunch of other stuff as well. Being able to hit like a wet noodle and having 350 hps from dodges isnt more powerful.

Brutaly.6257:

Heinel.6548:

Definitely just you. You have not seen a skilled selfless daring guardian in WvW.

ok, since i have about 500 hours of guardian gameplay in wvw/tpvp i can tell you that i know most of the known tricks in the book and im perfectly aware of what a guardian can do and im actually kind of skilled in this profession.

I just want to point out, before this becomes a kitten contest, that waterblast alone, skill one on the staff, has about 300 aoe heals per second in blast radius, with 1200 range, by just spamming it, add in dodge heals on that, attunement switch, 6 waterfields per minute, 100% uptime on regeneration two more heals on the staff and a bunch of other stuff as well. Being able to hit like a wet noodle and having 350 hps from dodges isnt more powerful.

I actually expected some sort of theory crafting that would disregard an actual battle scenario, what I did not expect is someone actually using water blast, of all things, to try to hold their position.

Excuse me, but in zerg vs zerg, water blast heals for 0 HPS.

Heinel.6548:

Brutaly.6257:

Heinel.6548:

Definitely just you. You have not seen a skilled selfless daring guardian in WvW.

ok, since i have about 500 hours of guardian gameplay in wvw/tpvp i can tell you that i know most of the known tricks in the book and im perfectly aware of what a guardian can do and im actually kind of skilled in this profession.

I just want to point out, before this becomes a kitten contest, that waterblast alone, skill one on the staff, has about 300 aoe heals per second in blast radius, with 1200 range, by just spamming it, add in dodge heals on that, attunement switch, 6 waterfields per minute, 100% uptime on regeneration two more heals on the staff and a bunch of other stuff as well. Being able to hit like a wet noodle and having 350 hps from dodges isnt more powerful.

Excuse me, but in zerg vs zerg, water blast heals for 0 HPS.

As long as its pure ranged yes. But in T1 on the eu ladder there are very few pure ranged open world encounters and when it comes to melee range for your stormtroopers water blast actually works.

And if you go with staff what other option do you have if your team needs support besides utility and skill 2-4?

If you find it to be some sort of theorycraft then perhaps you lack something in the ele area, for me its a reality in supporting our frontlines and when i play my ele i run with melee mates so i just target their target and then its a work of wonder.

Btw the discussion wasnt about the usability of skills, its was about aoe heals and eles are insane when it comes to pumping out aoe heals.

Btw if its ranged healing we are talking about then guardians suck since you need a massiv amounts of crits to stack vigor so you can trigger vigorous precision to be able to dodge every 5 seconds and staff isnt really suited for that due to range difference compared to the “real” ranged in your team.

Guardian heals are also selfcentered and eles can place their at range, which also increases practical hps.

Thanks guys for your responses. Just wanted to let you know that I’m still reading your replies.

We’ve taken your suggestions and put them into action. We’re still working on perfecting it though.

The group composition we’re working with right now is basically: 25% elementalists, 25% guardians, and 2-3 mesmers for mass invis to cover the churns.

The main thing with the guardians is the ranged reflect wall, and the mobility wall blockers. The ranged wall use is pretty self evident in the video. The one not featured here is the mobility blocker. We found it works really good for the mobility blockers to go up BEHIND the enemy right before we hit them with the spike DPS. So when they get hit, they immediately run, only to bounce right back into us.

The main problem with the mobility blockers is their extremely short duration. The timing needs to be really solid… which means that we can’t cycle them properly (IE putting one up immediately after the first, then second, etc). Basically, all guardians drop their mobility blockers when the spike hits (which naturally staggers them by 2-3 seconds) which blocks the enemy retreat for (probably) a total of 5 seconds. That’s all we really need.

If you want a longer block, traited sanctuary can be used the same way as line of warding. And you should have seen the other uses of that skill from [ND].

Heinel.6548:

If you want a longer block, traited sanctuary can be used the same way as line of warding. And you should have seen the other uses of that skill from [ND].

I was under the impression sanctuary was only a self-target AoE block. Would this not require the guardians to walk BEHIND the enemy to put up the wall? (Pardon my guardian nubness. That IS why i’m here after all)

Do you have any videos? Or can elaborate further? I’d love to hear how it’s done.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

We found it works really good for the mobility blockers to go up BEHIND the enemy right before we hit them with the spike DPS. So when they get hit, they immediately run, only to bounce right back into us.

Actually, there’s one good instance of this happening at 1:55. A wall went up behind them and caught 4 on the bridge.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

I was under the impression sanctuary was only a self-target AoE block.

Traited sanctuary is ground targeted.

Are people just now catching onto this?

When GW2’s came out my friend had me join Condemned which created the Titan Alliance. They were ultra-hardcore and required all our Guardian’s to go full support (bunker) build. We all had the same abilities; wall of reflection, sanctuary, and the 3rd one was based on group composition.

So typically we have four-eight “bunker” Guardian’s in Teamspeak during our nightly WvWing and it was extremely effective. 3-4 of us could literally block off choke points with walls and sanctuaries and hold off entire zergs because back then wall of lining lasted 8 seconds. One time we held off 40+ players next to their spawn with 10 people with siege and 4 support guardians for over 40 minutes. Also, near constant up time on Wall of Reflection meant that our group took very little damage.

When we would do big pushes into keeps or Garrison through choke points we would all blow our tomes of Courage with AOE stabilities and just mass spam everyone with heals and it worked every time.

Also, we use to group up into “the ball” and have all the Guardian’s start dropping symbols and heals and it made our entire raid invincible. This was when AOE heals didn’t have a cap and it was ridiculous.

Condemned is long gone and I’ve asked several “top” PvP guilds why they don’t use Guardian’s like Condemned did and they told me they didn’t want to force people into specs. It makes sense.

Most guilds have shifted more to portal bombing or portalling golems across the map instead of using individual classes to their full potential.

So now you see everyone talking about their big 2 hander, but the full potential of Guardian’s in WvW lies in support builds.

3 elementalists had a hard time killing 1 guardian? is that a joke?