Guild Wars 2

About a month ago I started to level a guard, currently level 58, and am loving it!

I opted for a Hammer/staff “tanky” build that can melee with just about anything and be alright so long as I avoid the really heavy hits. It did come to my attention that since I don’t have access to altruistic healing yet, the only time I’m using my staff is to run faster through the maps. Otherwise I’m not really using it for much, besides the occasional empower when I’m in a group setting.

I think what would be more true to my playstyle is another weaponset that can allow me to stay in the fight, take some more hits without having to run the scramble drill to get some health back and then re-engage. So I was thinking about the shield.

I tried the sword/shield combo, and I’m happy with what the sword can do but the shield skills are just… there… I have no idea how to use them or when to use them. Any useful tips guys?

Largest benefits of the shield are as follows:

• On demand protection, shield 4. Use when large hits are incoming that you know you can not avoid.
• Push back, shield 5. Highly used in PvP when you need to control a point or if you need to protect an ally from a stomp or enemy revive. In PvE this is useful to buy yourself a little time and to block projectiles in general.
• Burst heal, shield 5 trigger. After using shield 5 you can also “explode” the shield to cause a bit of healing to self and allies. After detonating the shield it ceases to block projectiles I believe, so trigger it at the end of a cast if you want to maximize projectile blocks.

After that some other synergies are that shield provides extra toughness just by wearing it, traits can increase toughness by 90 when wielding the shield and reduce shield cool downs. Additionally shield 4 provides a not completely bad bit of ae direct damage hit in a frontal cone.

If you really want to get nick picky, its a front cone protection buff so you can use that to assist allies and trigger some more altruistic healing boons.

All in all though, it really is a situational thing, but your options are focus or torch. Most tend to pick focus because it provides more blocks for “oh no” moments". Also burst damage.

A little off topic from my original question about shield, but now that you mention it CMF how would I use the torch for the purposes I described above (mainly, to mitigate damage so I can stay in fights longer)?

Also, this is a general question to everyone, which is better the shield or focus for the above mentioned purpose?

Torch is more to dps builds so you can keep that burn going and increase your dmg.
Shield is a nice defensive weapon but it really shines more on ranged combat when you can avoid a hard hitting missile attack (for your whole group) and combined with some missile reflection/protection utilities gives you a HUGE time of missile defense.
Focus is more for melee defense. The block and the blind are great on melee fights. The fact that the blind/regen bean can apply multiple stacks of blind/regen (with good positioning) makes it a good combo with some traits. And the blast finisher on the block is also a great perk when used on top of fields.

I’m an idiot I meant to say how to use the focus not torch, but sure since we are in the topic why not!

Shield 4 – Use when available to apply protection to yourself and allies.
Shield 5 – Not so useful in PvE, put very useful in WvW to interrupt people and provide a little bit of healing and projectile blocking.

The shield is lackluster in pve. You’d be better served using the focus imo. It provides blind, regen, condition removal, blocking a blast finisher and a high damage attack if the shield isn’t broken.

Torch can provide a nice damage boost, but it won’t help your tankyness at all.

As ILobo said, torch is primarly a “dps” weapon, but its 5 skill is actually a reduction in dps if you use it.

It does how ever cleanse conditions on allies so it is useful in a support aspect…it doesn’t however cleanse conditions on yourself

Torch 4 is considered dps for 2 reasons. It provides a burn effect to targets that is readily available which in turn will assist by causing burning condition that is benefited by our traits (increase damage by 10% to burning targets and increase damage by 10% to targets with conditions).

Also torch 4 provides a good ranged burst option when you trigger the secondary effect. Hits pretty hard on crits.

Just to round it out, the focus is primarily seen as a solo off hand as it has the least amount of group utility.

Focus 4 provides regen and cleanses conditions. It also blinds enemy targets and does minor damage. Bounces between enemies and allies so it is hard to control who it goes to. If anything it is great at condition removal if you get up close to the target….but it casts slow so you can get a target not visible error and put it on a short cool down.

Focus 5 provides 3 blocks, and can be used while stunned or knocked down. Additionally it is a “burst” finisher so you can trigger might on fire fields or retaliation on light fields, both of which we can trigger ourselves.

If you don’t get hit 3 times the focus will explode doing high damage to targets around you, this too can crit pretty high if speced for it.

So:

• Torch – Offensive with bonuses to damage and group cleanse utility. No self defense
• Focus – Balance of offense and defense. Solo oriented, burst damage potential, self condition cleansing and self only blocks
• Shield – Defensive and group oriented, provides burst heal and area control

Ok, that’s exactly the information I needed to hear, thank you all!

So in conclusion:
- When doing solo PvE I’m going sword/focus offhand with Hammer mainhand. I can probably work out a rotation where I use sword 2/3 skills to open, switch to hammer to do some smashing of enemies’ faces, switch back to S/F when I need to mitigate some damage… sounds choppy as I’m talking about it but maybe I can figure out a happy rotation when I get home tonight.
- Shield it up in dungeons and WvW/really irritating ranged mobs. I hear having inc toughness makes me more of an aggro magnet, which is fine that’s what my toon is designed to do, it’ll be an off label form of “group support.”

As far as comboing weapon skills together, you need to think about synergy and cool down times.

If you are using hammer, the biggest benifit of hammer is the auto attack chain. Quickly refreshing symbols that provide protection and damage. Each action you take other than the auto attack chain delays that chain and provides openings to more damage and reducing your damage output.

In a pvp sense the hammer is great for area control because of the knock back, immobilize, and the ward. Those are all situational cool downs though and are not used unless needed.

Switching to sword from hammer changes your combat completely. Now you are not getting any protection boons, but you did gain blindness every 10 seconds. Sword 3 provides less “dps” but maybe more burst if they all land. It also can provide projectile blocking if timed correctly, so sword 3 sometimes ends up being a situational cool down.

There are a lot of guides to different builds which try to mix weapon synergies as much as possible with traits that enhance them. It all depends on how you want to play.

It sounds like you want to be fairly tanky but still provide some damage, a hard thing to do as a guardian and many are still looking to find that balance.

fishergrip.4082:

The shield is lackluster in pve. You’d be better served using the focus imo. It provides blind, regen, condition removal, blocking a blast finisher and a high damage attack if the shield isn’t broken.

This absolutely drives me nuts. It’s as if they assigned the wrong item to the spell sets.

So what I was thinking was, I’m in hammer mode 90% of the time doing some face tanking and taking down mobs at an avg dps rate, nothing to write home about but not negligable.

Of course face tanking comes with a timer, as in there comes a point where I took too much damage and to do some scramble survival drills, and nothing I have with the hammer really helps with that. My offhand is staff, which would allow for some mob control with 5 skill and some healing with empower with AH, and gain some swiftness. Ehhh in terms of helping me in this survival scramble.

So I was looking for an offhand thats more suited to help in this case. The focus sounds really good with applying blinds and tanking 3 hits for me for free. In that time I can get my 6 skill off, or buy some time, etc. The challenge here is finding a way to do this seamlessly and effectively, which is a pain in the kitten #8230;

I am actually leveling a second guardian (why??? I don’t know, I have 1 of each class but I like guardian so much I made a second to see how I could do now that I “know it all”).

Like you said trying to find a way to mix and mesh these things together is clunky at times. Sword is good at buying you time due to the blind aspect being AE causing all mobs around you to miss, so sword focus would be good to buy time with multiple blinds and blocks.

What I ended up doing was having hammer/staff, mostly for travel speed reasons. But I do swap to staff to charge up an empower+ symbol then switch back to hammer with 12 stacks of might. Works well at lower levels, but I know it tapers off later on to not be so amazing. Like you said the ward on staff has been nice too as a way to buy time.

Mace/Shield and Hammer has some interesting synergies since both are quickly refreshing symbols so you can maintain symbol damage even if you switch weapons, difference between regeneration or protection. Shield is nice because you can keep protection on a bit longer while in mace mode, and mace gives you some HP recovery. I think if you want to do a lot of swapping, this is your best bet. Maybe even mace/focus.

In WvW a lot of people have found Hammer/Greatsword to work well together with circle of warding and whirling wrath. Helps keeps targets inside and knocked down so you can do damage, then switch back to hammer for a mighty blow while they are still in the ward. Seen some groups get devastated with that combo.

One thing I did notice while soloing PvE is the lack of ranged and some encounters working better with ranged (soloing melee champions). So I swap out to scepter and Smite Kite things when I need to.

So if you want to weapon swap, think about what you are swapping to. Are you swapping because of a deficiency in the weapon you are using for that scenario, or are you swapping to combo skills together to do more damage/utility?

edit
Also remembered I wanted to mention that torch only burns 3 targets at a time for both torch 4 and 5. So if you were thinking it is amazing for AE, it still has limitations. Still, I am testing it out with mace and it works well enough to augment the defensive nature of mace with some passive condition damage.

Excellent points CMF.

Mace is another option I haven’t really considered, truth be told it’s probably a combination of how slow it is and how ugly it looks, I haven’t given how effective it is a fair shot.

The only time I want to swap out of hammer time is when I can no longer stay in the fight and live, i.e. took too much damage need to get some heals off, or I’m being ranged by some annoying dredge or other mobs, etc. Staff offers some ranged utility but doesn’t really address the “ kitten I gotta stabilize or else I’m dead!” issue.

I won’t lie GS is fantastic, but EVERYONE, their mothers, their neighbor’s cats and the stray rabbit uses the GS. EVERYONEEEEEEEEE… I’m allergic to mainstream, but honestly I haven’t given the Hammer/GS combo a shot.

Maybe I’m slow but I still dont see a synergy, GS you want to be mobile, hit them but not have them hit you (blinds and blocks and such) while you DPS them. Hammer, I picture a fat sleep deprived diabetic eating a donut with one hand and driving a 18 wheel truck with the other. Limited mobility, clumsy, swerving all over the place, WILL get hit and that’s not good for you, but the thing hitting it will hurt more.

Said another way, I think they serve the same purpose, which is AoE DPS, the GS you’re saying “I got style and I can dance!” The hammer, “I’m lazy, why don’t YOU come here so I can smash your face in?” With the GS you mitigate damage with mobility and blinds, hammer with symbols, protection and retalliation. Not seeing how I can use the two together

They go together in aspects of both provide burst damage via mighty blow/whirling wrath/symbol of wrath.

Also as you mentioned they are both AE damage, so in WvW fights a lot of people are trying to maximize offensive pressure on a large scale, thus GS and Hammer with as many burst cool downs as possible.

As far as fluidity in cool downs and style, they contrast somewhat, but it has proven to work well enough.

Like you said, you are looking for something to recover from face tanking, and I think mace will provide you with that recovery. Regen + block on it will buy you some time, stack that with focus for more blocks and you will survive a few more hits. It will not be a full recovery, but it buys you time to get more energy for dodges back and maybe your heal off cool down.

Later on AH as most will attest can provide all the passive healing you need for the most part. Best used in groups of course but solo works well enough too.

I get what you are saying on the mainstream thing though. Which is why I do so much testing and research cause I want to find something new and different, but I have recently gone full circle and picked up AH crit heals again and I immediately see the improvements :p . Did the healaway/boonaway thing for a bit and it works really well too, but doesn’t scale up when in groups. Meditation healing is nice and all but some long gaps between your burst heal and limits utilities somewhat.

1. is great for the protection/buff when you know something big is coming
2. is great knockback/interrupt. I throw in sigil of hydromancy as a failsafe for anything that gets through. When you use it not as something to damage but as a situational skill for:

1)Knocking back enemies when you need some breathing room
2)Interrupting major casts that could damage yourself and/or group
3)Separating targets that could gain buffs within a range (i.e. the twins in AC story that gain a buff being within a proximity of eachother, etc)
4)It also acts as a shield to projectiles. If you have a major projectile coming your way that could be the difference between staying up or downing on hit, pop it for your O4 $4!7 move.

Silver.4798:

The only time I want to swap out of hammer time is when I can no longer stay in the fight and live, i.e. took too much damage need to get some heals off, or I’m being ranged by some annoying dredge or other mobs, etc. Staff offers some ranged utility but doesn’t really address the kitten I gotta stabilize or else I’m dead!" issue.

I’d suggest Mace/Focus for this.

Mace provides:

A Heal in the #1 chain
Regeneration granting Symbol on the #2 (If traiting for Symbols, this and Hammer symbols are used very often and will get decent benefit from the traits
A block on the #3 that can provide Protection if you aren’t hit

While Focus provides:

Regeneration, Blind and Condition removal on the #4
Block for 3 attacks on the #5 (Which can be used while CC’d or when using other abilities)

This allows for a fair amount of healing whilst avoiding some damage. Mace also feels similar to Hammer when using it due to similar auto-attack speeds so that’d be a bonus aswell.

Ugh gw2 is bad for my studying, screw the library I’m going to go home and try mace/focus right now!!!

The focus is a ridiculously good offhand weapon. ESP #5. That bubble shield in TA’s F/F path that insta kills people? You can now waltz through it! In a pinch? Again, #5 blocks!

I only use the shield exclusively for:
TA vines – protects everyone meleeing. Absorbs all the aoes like a boss when WoR is on cd.
SE P1 – those 3 golems before final boss have projectiles, the most painful being massive fire damage and the poison one. Insanely good for group protection, and your team mates will love you for it.

We have the same name! Awkward.