Guild Wars 2

Going up against higher level Veterans and Skill Point Challenges I struggled, badly. I tried GS, Hammer, Sword+X and it was all the same, it was rough and tough and filled with frustration.

Then…I said why not try this Mace and could not believe the healing kept me up and all I needed to do was move out of red circles and huge abilities the mob makes, didn’t even need to dodge that much.

Seems that Mace is a solid weapon for Guardians, is it this way all the way to 80?

there you go! i found while leveling up and even playing now, key is to move out of red circles. lol. i haven’t extensively used the mace, but it does pretty darn good defensively.

i play a support / dmg build with my hammer guardian and do alright MOST of the time. i think while leveling up, you don’t really need to stick to ONE weapon set per se. especially the mace felt to me wasn’t able to kill enemies fast enough. but that’ sjust me. when i needed to be more defensive, then i picked up the mace.

how big was the level discrepency between you and these higher level mobs?

between 2 levels and 3, I also used a Focus off hand. The main feature would be regeneration that I got from Mace+Focus. I literally can ‘tank’ mobs.

Also note that I have next to no +healing and all of my gear is DPS focused.

Oh yeah, people just do no like Mace on this game do they? xD!
I’m glad someone else used Mace and having an easier time. Then again I’m doing a Tank/support type of build.
I’ma full mace user here on PvE. I’m almost level 40 and have been using it the whole time.
I can get 2-3 higher enemy’s too. The 1-2 1st skills on mace are lovely.~

Rise.9702:

Oh yeah, people just do no like Mace on this game do they? xD!
I’m glad someone else used Mace and having an easier time. Then again I’m doing a Tank/support type of build.
I’ma full mace user here on PvE. I’m almost level 40 and have been using it the whole time.
I can get 2-3 higher enemy’s too. The 1-2 1st skills on mace are lovely.~

Mace was always regarded as a good solo PvE weapon, dunno what you’re talking about. It’s crap for everything else though.

I loved the mace/torch combo leveling. Then I hit a point where you can trait into making all the symbols heal and went hammer and havent looked back.

Im using Mace/Torch as my main weapon set.

I run around to get aggro and when they are all close I pop down the symbol with Mace#2, #4 for PBAoE burning with Torch and #2 whenever it is ready to block attacks and more AoE dmg, autoattack for the heal on the last attack in the chain while waiting for cooldowns. Smite Condition for condition removal and more PBAoE. Ive had great success with this build so far, currently lvl 49 and doing great.

I feel like I do well in groups with mace. As for PvP. Don’t mention it for I never PvP.

Mace is really nice for keeping yourself upright. My only issue with it is that it’s not very good in a mobile fight (which a lot of GW2 fights tend to be).

Gotta love those “aha” moments. I just switched my guy to mainly hammer, and he’s an absolute juggernaut now. IMO, protection is one of the best boons we can get.

I regularly use Hammer, GS, Staff, and mace/all off hands. The only thing I do not like much is the 1h sword and scepter.

Mace is a fantastic weapon and I don’t know why more Guardians aren’t giving it a chance. Its defensive potential is quite high, and it deals enough damage to beat down your enemies while keeping you alive.

I ran a sword/mace swap setup while leveling. It was very effective.

Andy, I have to agree with you there—the way the math works out, having protection on constantly gives you more damage reduction than several hundred toughness. That frees up a lot of stats that you can use elsewhere if you can keep protection up all the time (which the hammer is perfectly capable of doing, at least in PvE).

I had the same mace epiphany as you did. Swapped from sword/focus + GS to Mace/focus + GS around level 20 and I haven’t looked back. The survivability with the mace/focus combo is just to good to give up

My first weaponsets change from time to time, i like to experience a bit so i don’t get rusty. I do make sure that my second weaponset is always a mace/focus. It’s blocking skills are amazing and the healing / blind top it off. No champion can take you on with this :p

I leveled mainly with Mace/Focus until I could put together a proper Hammer build with Altruistic Healing and traits for Symbols. Since then that’s been my primary weapon. Secondary is generally Staff nowadays.

got a mace/focus on one set, sword/shield on the other. It might take a little time to kill mobs, but i make up for it by “tanking” 8 at a time. benefits to myself and the group far outweigh the lack of glass cannon dps. I can’t remember for the life of me when the last time i saw 50% health

Mace and focus/shield are my favorite weapons. Always switch to it if I um…well….bite off a bit more than I can chew.

I started out soloing with mace and shield and loved it but after lev 20 or so the fights took longer and longer.
I then saw another guardian with scepter torch solo a champion lev mob after I died trying to mace/shield it with him. I tried the scepter torch combo myself afterwards and have never looked back. I alternate between that and the great sword and can easily solo champion mobs if they don’t do ranged attacks now. Warrior kites better than my elementalist which makes me sad now, lol

Mace torch is a good blend if you’re struggling for heals yet still want to do the DPS. You can forsake a lot of defense if you use the mace (I personally think Mace-Shield is overkill and actually disruptive to the regen cycle) and put points into Zeal to beef up your symbol and Radiance to beef up the “fire marks for death” gig and crits, since the mace allows you to walk in a group with crap stats and survive. It’s a good magic find weapon in higher level areas and is an anti-boss weapon for sure. You might even want to reconsider bringing a greatsword to orr just so you can get more mileage out of your counter uppercut, which hits surprisingly hard.

The mace is a solid weapon paired with a focus, it’s almost always my alternate equip. Its great to fall back on to gain control of a battle when you feel like the fight’s not going so well.

It probably looses its effectiveness against human players to some degree this is because most people don’t stand around in symbols but I think a clever player could make it work in a lot of situations.

Even if they don’t stand in the Symbol, you can for big amounts of regen!

I’ve found the best weapon set for me is the Mace/Focus and GS. Pretty much the only reason why I went with a GS is because of the instant symbol (#4 skill) which allows me to either chain my symbols for max duration or to apply both symbol at once and thus doubling my Vulnerability stacks and damage while getting even more healing. With the right traits I can almost have a permanent symbol around me. I still have to verify if the healing from the Mace symbol and the trait “All symbols heal allies” does stack or not. I can manage against almost any group of mobs or champions which are sometime 3-4 levels higher than me and the longer the fight lasts, the more I gain the upper hand.

I had some success in WvWvW with this, but not as a raider. I mainly act as a bodyguard to anybody that is at the gate using the ram, giving a constant supply of heals, condition removals and damage (although minimal on the gate but every damage counts anyway).

Hm. I’ll give the mace another shot, but I’ve used GS + Sword/Focus for almost all of my leveling, and I haven’t felt like I’ve struggled at any particular point (beyond the earliest levels, of course), even against mobs of 5-6 normals or a couple of veterans above my level. Chaining blinds across both weapon sets, traiting for blinds and renewal upon killing with VoJ, and making sure to continue circling enemies while fighting (and backing out whenever cooldowns need to recharge) instead of just standing in their faces has generally felt both durable and quick. I imagine that mace might make sense for really fast hitting mobs that will overall diminish the utility of blinds, but otherwise I have felt that blinds and rapid killing have kept my health bar nearly always almost full more effectively than the mace. To make sure I use it properly, what kind of fighting tactics do you use with mace/torch or mace/focus (I can’t stand the shield in its present state, but feel free to talk about that combo too) as compared to what I described above?

I enjoy the Mace (the heal in your chain-combo nice), but I love the Hammer more.

And I needed a ranged weapon for my secondary set, so… Perhaps another time.

Mace /Shield or Focus is easily the best for survival, and while leveling there was not a single moment when it was not one of my weapon sets. I might have used GS more in general, but I knew if ever a situation called for the “oh kitten” weapon set, I was still walking away from that fight…

Ok, maybe not every fight ; )

I personally havent used these two weapons but a mace/focus paired with a hammer would be a mean combo if your just wanting to outright mitigate damage. Or a mace/focus paired with a staff for raw healing when using staff skill 4.

In PvE any weapons is good anyway. using GS, no problem killing skill points stuff and veteren and I manage to tank up 4-5 mobs and kills them with the combo 5-4-2