Guild Wars 2

You know how they say you can’t see the wood for the trees anymore.
Well, this is kind of similar – I’m pretty much confused, so bear with me.

Additionally, if you feel this thread to be redundant, feel free to move/delete or ignore – though, I’d rather not, for obvious reasons.

To the point.

I like melee.
I like shields.
I like plate.

Every MMO I’ve played, be it Vindictus, Rohan Online, Last Chaos, Tera etc. .. I’ve played the guardian, paladin, knight, Lancer – if it has a shield and wears plate, probably just it.

Now, with GW2, I just can’t get the hang of it though. Shields block, or do they? Not in the conventional way, it seems.

I have a knack to go for the weaker classes/weapons – somehow. Not intentionally! It just always turns out like that. Although I can live with that!..somewhat.

So the actual request:

Guardian (?) – Warrior (?)

MUST wear a shield – by all means, no arguing here.
Matched with.. mace, sword, axe.. you name it.

second weapon set may differ from wielding a shield but should NOT become the main weapon set if you know what I mean.
Preferably NO Greatswords.

Really, no greatswords. Ugh – they’re so mainstreamed and cookiecutter-butterlike, I really don’t like them.
Whatever else, feel free to fill in though. I kind of like the warhorn – but not sure if that’s viable anyways.

I’m only going off from looks here, not utilities.

I’m not much of a teamplayer – just because I log in very randomly at very odd hours and, restricted to the minimum of play time i often get, I don’t usually have the patience to wait and wait for a party of sorts.
I just kind of do my own thing, gather, craft, grind – if I ever figure out how to, that is.

Not much a fan of PvP, but if you can suggest a build that works with the above and in PvP – feel free to add.

TL;DR
- guardian/warrior
- main shield / No greatswords
- mainly pvE
- light pvP
- solo

Doesn’t have to be the fastest killing speed ever, just a solid build to survive with.

Please, enlighten me!

Additional info on Armor/Weapon stats, besides Traits and skills are more than welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers
EP

I can’t help you choose Warrior over Guardian because i have no experience with Warrior but:

I solo, mainly PVE on Guardian. Shield is absolute? That’s a drop in effectiveness … There is very little use for sheild in PVE, especially solo. lf you insist then I would recommend:

Full zerker
3/6/4/0/1 – Trait Zeal II, Radiance 6,10,11 and Valour 6,7
Set one: Mace+Sheild

Pretty simple gameplay: #2, F1, then autoattack. Don’t use #3 (it’s too much idle time).

Second weapon set: If you aren’t stuck on Sheild here, then Sword+Focus to take advantage of all the points in Radiance for superior offense.

We’ll, your find gw2 to function a lot different to other games, guardians have more blocks then warriors, but the shiled is very lack luster and anet needs to put some time into it, but from reading your post it seems your not intrested in that stuff and want to play how you play, that’s cool, so to put it simple go warrior, feel free to /w me in game if you need anything :P

Thanks for the input, much appreciated.

Wished shields would have a more prominent use indeed.

Edit: how exactly do the two classes defer? Guardian seems nowhere close to be the “paladin” class nor the full tankiness one would expect of a “guardian”. What makes them so different than warriors, safe for the magic? Or is it really just that, the magic?

I’m pretty much ignorant if it comes down to GW2 – honestly, i have a really hard time wrapping my head around the skill/boon/stacking mechanics – I grew older playing with the more conventional way of skills and classes.

I think you’d be better off going Warrior than Guard as far as shields are concerned. Shield is more effective on Warrior, but even then not amazing. A lot of DPS warriors go sword/shield + GS. In any case if you don’t like GS you’d be fine grabbing an off-hand Warhorn and an axe. I liked the look of axe-shield on my warrior, but functionality for me comes above cosmetics, WvW player and dat. Movement is decent on the sword, you’ll gain an anti burst with shield, and, actually, use the shield as a shield. More than can be said for Guardian. Warrior you could also go Rifle or Longbow, double axe, double sword, double mace or any combination of the lot.

It really is a shame that shields are all but useless for Guard, and imo not good enough in-game in general. Doubly sad seeing as the Flameseeker Prophecies looks awesome.

Thanks.

I happen to have a lvl 45 guardian but no warrior – OF COURSE. Just my luck.

Don’t ask me how I got that lvl 45 guardian, I played GW2 when it came out and then put it aside as I thought PvE wasn’t all that rewarding. At all. Plus, I wasn’t one for the WvWvW stuff.

In all honesty, I have no idea what I’m doing but that’s fine. The good is, I can use my guardian gear on the warrior.
The bad is, I have to go over the character-making process again – which is going to take hours, aside of afterwards pondering if I shouldn’t have gone for that other race/gender after all..

D’oh.

Shield on warrior in PvE is generally outclassed as well since sword has a 2 sec block on a 15 sec cooldown vs the shield’s 3 sec block on a 30+ sec cooldown.

In PvP there are guardian builds that utilize shield though. Look up the meditation builds in Silven’s sPvP build list.

you can try something like this: 2/6/0/2/4

this is NOT a meta build , but it is a decent build for PVE and some WWW. have no idea about sPVP as i don’t play it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vUAQRAsd7elsApZo97wVI8DRhkpQkQQrHA0B5PVFiHsCYEA-z0xAYrBRn8KiGbltIas6FMVZS1lCyejioVTGA9JA-w

I set exotics and not ascended because i have no idea about your financial status
berserker armor and weapons is easily obtained from farming COF1+2 for badges and WWW badges.
soldier accessories purchased with karma from arah temple or www badges.
the goal is to reach 15K hp with soldier pieces while having the majority of the parts berserker.

I didn’t put any sigils, again because i have no idea which sigils you can afford for yourself.
the “trooper” runes, because i believe there is no such thing as “too much condition removal”
and they are more accessible than melandru runes.

purging flames have double purpose, condition removal, and extra damage both with burn condition and damage multiplyer from traits.
stand your ground is your main source of stability.
save yourselves is your pressure buff, you use it when you have to pressure the opponent fast.

the builder is pre-patch, so your crit damage will be ~15% less.

right hand strength for maximal single handed weapon damage.
with fury you will be very close to 100% crit chance.
fiery wrath and radiant power are damage multipliers.
powerful blades= self explanatory.
blind exposure is to have a long lasting condition on the enemy to have at least one damage multiplier active.
absolute resolution is your “main” heal source. and “oh scheit” button

now, you will probably say to your self, “cool , all i have to do is switch the focus with the shield, then i will have my paladin…” just dont, don’t do this.

there is a good synergy in sword/focus +scepter/shield that does not exist the other way.
sword/focus-> close range duo
you have two blinds on the weapon set (2 and 4) that will protect you and which also used as gap closer and regen.
one projectile absorption (3)
and an offensive block which explodes in melee range for a big damage.

scepter/shield
long range duo.
scepter 3 used to maximize your damage of scepter2 and to create a gap when enemies are chasing you while you still auto-attacking them.

shield 4 is easier to position with scepter than with sword (either for damage or for the prot boon on allies, if you try it with sword you will lose dps ).
also the knock-back of shield 5 is counter productive with sword (as you force your target out of your attack range) but fit scepter very well.
it also have a projectile absorption dome which fit the ranged theme and extra heal on detonating the dome.