Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow guards!

I would like to start a discussion regarding the viability of the Hammer/Greatsword guardian vis a vi the longbow/greatsword or longbow/(insert anything) once we start playing with our dragonhunters.

This is purely theory crafting to get the discussion going. Focus is mostly endgame content, pve/wvw/pvp.

To start off, please consider this build.

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgIBrAN4BuQ~

It’s aimed at maximum protection while dealing damage. Hammer is chosen with greatsword to increase symbol uptime.

Let the talks begin!

First thing … you’re proposing the same build for wvw/PVE and PVP? NO build you’re going to propose will work well for all three of those simultaneously.

No certainly not. I’m proposing this one for WvW (solo roam). PVE, perhaps this will work a bit too. PVP though, questionable.

Well For PvE I wouldn’t even bother with sword or greatsword after the trait changes.

Going into zeal will give you an extra 20% damage to anyone standing in your symbol which is pretty much permanent with a hammer or mace & never/rarely with a sword or greatsword. (this means mace & hammer will pull ahead of greatsword and sword by a good 15-30% in terms of damage.)

As for WvW, I would suggest having either the scepter- focus/shield or longbow as the range will help allot.

As for your build specifically.

1: I would swap strength of the fallen for smiter’s boon. Its an extra 1900 & AOE fury when you heal.

2: I would drop symbolic avenger for shattered AEGIS in WvW. They said when it crit it could hit as high as 1500. Considering communal defenses has no target limit this could be epic in a coordinated WvW group.
Besides how often will a player in WvW just stand in your symbol.

Lastly yes with this build zerker will remain your best bet. However if you were to use radiance instead of dragon hunter you could go with carrion.
The amount of aoe burning you could stack would be rather nice and with a good 25-30% crit coming from radiance you wouldn’t need it as much allowing you to go into other stats.

If you’re going to use Dragonhunter, then for WvW solo you’re better off exchanging one of the two weapons for a longbow. GS/hammer is just too easy to kite, especially when you have no swiftness, and with no access to stability, stuns make that even easier.

Communal Defenses doesn’t give yourself Aegis, only allies (based on live – I doubt they changed it). Not very useful if you’re going solo.

Your condi clear isn’t dependable other than Contemplation of Purity (I’m assuming you’re using Purge Condition and Judge’s Intervention as the others), which also hampers your ability to stay on a target.

I’ve taken into consideration the minor buffs and nerfs. So GS 3 leap and Hammer 2 leap will be more viable as they can no longer be limited by movement speed or cripples. Also judge’s intervention can be used to close as well as the new virtue leap. This gives you 4 closing options, 2 mid range, 2 long range. That’s why I was thinking of GS/Hammer.

Also, since they will be removing stats from traits, going into radiance for crits will no longer be viable, so I think we’ll be even more dependent on zerkers.

I’m iffy about the longbow’s usability in 1v1 or 1v2 fights wvw solo.

I’m going to be running this http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgIB7AJkBZQ~
Don’t like DH

Why is GS not viable?
I think in Pvp is the GS the better option to go with Symbols.
why?
Because u cant use the symbols at the right time with Hammer and thats destroys the Rota with the mace.

ThePaladin.2140:

I’ve taken into consideration the minor buffs and nerfs. So GS 3 leap and Hammer 2 leap will be more viable as they can no longer be limited by movement speed or cripples. Also judge’s intervention can be used to close as well as the new virtue leap. This gives you 4 closing options, 2 mid range, 2 long range. That’s why I was thinking of GS/Hammer.

Don’t count hammer 2 for a gap closer; the short leap is only to make it land more reliably against someone you already have in melee or close to melee.

For the rest, any competant enemy will have swiftness, disengages, defensive CC, or any combination of that and will be capable of dodging. You don’t have swiftness and are very susceptible to CC without stability and relying on long cooldown stun breaks. Even if you close the gap, you’ll quickly fall behind again.

I’m iffy about the longbow’s usability in 1v1 or 1v2 fights wvw solo.

A ranged damage weapon addresses the kiting issue, and if you use hammer, also provides sustained damage which hammer can’t. If you’re still unsure on longbow, use scepter/focus.

Legiion.7385:

Why is GS not viable?

A lot of players prefer hammer to GS for offensive guardian play:

• GS attacks are too easy to avoid. You can move out of whirling wrath and dodge binding blades reliably. The symbol gets off two or three ticks at best.
• Hammer has multiple control options, which are beneficial in group play. Even though all are just as easy to avoid as greatsword attacks, you don’t have enough energy to dodge everything. You can also continue a CC chain that an ally started.
• Whirling Wrath is punished heavily by retaliation, whereas Mighty Blow is not.

GS does have it’s benefits:

• Sustained damage is much higher than hammer
• Good mobility / gap closer
• More frequent attacks means more attacks land. With hammer enemies can avoid or counter Mighty Blow and then kite the rest even at short range.

The deciding factor is how they fit into a build. Most competitive medi guards use hammer for burst and CC, especially when paired with Judge’s Intervention. When the swap cooldown is over, they go back to scepter/focus for sustained damage at range, which is safer than melee. That setup plays to the strengths of hammer while avoiding some of its weaknesses.

Thats not a reason why it’s not viable.
U told me why Most of guards just play Hammer.
The Biggest Problem is u cant use the symbols from both weapons at the same time so quik as with the GS.
And i think if ur play with mace is a Hammer just to slow and u have no gapcloser.

So it seems like we are pigeon holed into using the longbow to sustain damage and to avoid being kited as well as to provide better fight control. I’m very partial towards the greatsword for many reasons, 1st is synergy, popping your leap on the symbol gives retaliation, popping your whirl gives you light aura minimizing damage. And with the new trait, all of them are on 20% less cooldown time. What to pair with the GS however is still debatable.

So let’s take that into consideration.

Hammer Pros – creates symbols more often, has better CC utility
Cons – Slow, predictable attacks, No range (If paired with hammer)

Longbow pros – excellent at range, good utility
Cons – Slow, predictable attacks

Scepter/Focus Pros – good sustain, good utility, defensive and offensive
Cons – long channel/activation on many skill, NO SYMBOLS!

Mace/Focus Pros – Good damage, symbols and blocks galore
Cons – SUCKS BIGTIME at range, Slow, no closer

Sword/Focus Pros – Excellent damage, good utility, mini closer
Cons – NO SYMBOLS! Range is limited by closer

Scepter/torch Pros- Excellent at range, good sustain/burst
Cons – No symbols

Mace/Torch Pros- Good damage, Symbols galore, mediocre at range but dependent on torch
Cons – Trait interaction is mediocre at best, with torch on cooldown you’re really bad at range, no closer

Sword/Torch Pros – Exceptional damage, mini closer,
Cons – range is dependent on closer (limited), NO SYMBOLS

Staff Pros – Good sustain, decent utility, excellent in zergs
Cons – Laughable damage, almost useless in small group fights.

anything/Shield Pros – Are you kidding me?
Cons – No you’re not kidding, dang that’s bad.

Add a pro for Scepter. It now generates might.

Mallis.4295:

Add a pro for Scepter. It now generates might.

Excellent! Keep in mind though that we’ll get another closer in the form of wings of resolve. So if we go judge’s intervention we already have 2 closers or 1 closer more than we have if we use the appropriate weapons and skills.

Sorry i dont know why all guardians playing Hammer.
The range is just Bad, the CC is nice but i think the 5 from GS is better to pull ur enemys in ur symbols and if ur standing in ur 2 Symbols u have a heal 550 per sek at the moment.
This is just a livesaver if u Dropbox ur Symbols at the right time. Try this with Hammer, it dont work.

Mallis.4295:

Add a pro for Scepter. It now generates might.

It may generate might but it is in the same tier as a +7% damage modifier.

@ the OP.

With the new quickness we will get via shout the greatsword could be viable in PvP.

However I wouldn’t bother in PvE after the changes because of the new trait “Symbolic Avenger” that adds +20% damage to any enemy standing in your symbols.

This essentially means mace & hammer will be doing a good 15% more damage then the greatsword & 20% more damage then the sword & scepter in pve where mobs will stupidly stand in symbols.

So say goodbye to greatsword & sword use in pve. The only real way I could see that changing is if the grand master trait did.

Sounds balanced to me. GS does less damage, but generally doesn’t overwrite fire fields, while mace/hammer does more damage, at the cost of overwriting fire fields.

A good way to balance the builds, I feel. Big improvement over the current situation, where GS does more damage AND is less awkward due to the fire field issue.

For PvE, I can still see something like Gs + M/F being used to clear out trash mobs or for quick fights. You could start out with Faith symbol before the fight starts, switch to GS, use its skills, and drop wrath symbol before switching back to M/F. By then Faith symbol will be off cooldown.

In longer fights though Hammer will probably be the better way to go as timing symbol cooldowns will be trickier.

Please tell me why Hammer does 15% more dmg in Pve ??
If u had a good Rota with GS and M ur enemys Stands 2 sek not in ur symbols.
Hmm 2 sek with Hammer is 1 Hit maybe 2 with the Hit from the Symbol.
And Btw GS have a higher dps.
AND und dont overdrive the firefields.

@savacli
I agree

Legiion.7385:

Please tell me why Hammer does 15% more dmg in Pve ??
If u had a good Rota with GS and M ur enemys Stands 2 sek not in ur symbols.
Hmm 2 sek with Hammer is 1 Hit maybe 2 with the Hit from the Symbol.
And Btw GS have a higher dps.
AND und dont overdrive the firefields.

@savacli
I agree

The trait symbolic avenger means you do +20% damage to anything standing in your symbols.

Even without traits the hammer can keep its symbol up as much as 90% of the time, over 100% with traits.

the other symbol traits also add extra damage, burning and vulnerability on symbol damage

This means hammer will get a good +20% damage from that traits.

The greatsword on the other hand is lucky to keep up symbols even 1/3 of the time.

IE hammer is going to do about 15% more damage then the greatsword & 20% more then sword/scepter.

All this requires things to stand in symbols however which is unlikely to happen much in PvP/WvW since enemies can think there.

For short/burst fights you can do something ZRVi and drop Wrath symbol to get that extra 10% damage from Retribution, extra crit chance, and burn bursting from Justice renewal/spamming. Even without the Writ trait you got 8 seconds of symbols between GS and Mace. In cases like these Hammer would fall a little short since it take a few seconds for Hammer AA to catch up to the damage push out by a burst rotation.

On bosses though Hammer/x (more likely Mace) would be preferred to ensure 100% symbol uptime since even traited GS + Mace have gaps in their symbols, and your specs would be something more like ZHVi.

Though that’s for PvE. In WvW, I anticipate some variation of HVaVi similar to what we have now for frontliners. I leave the Medi Guard theory-ing to someone who’s more familiar with the tactics.

I dont know about hammer on WvW solo roaming. It seems like it will be useless unless your opponent is a melee class. At least when you close with a greatsword you can be sure to deal a lot of burst damage. Hammer utility in questionable at best, even with the new chill.

It seems like if you want to wvw solo roaming you’re stuck with greatsword/focus medi and won’t be able to take advantage of that sexy symbol trait.

Longbow skills take too long to channel for solo roaming. A good enough thief can burst your 11k hp butt, while channeling longbow 2. Guardian is the only heavy class/tank capable build who has to worry about vitality to keep up.

Theorycrafting is dark and full of errors… But the NERF burns them all away. Give us your light lord of NERF!