Thinking about rolling Guardian.
Like most classes, stacking Power (Zeal) early on will see you burn through most content. It’s worth noting though that the Zeal line is the weakest of the three main stat lines later game. You’re inherently a very tanky class, so you can be more agressive with your gear and stats, though equally you can do good damage whilst speccing for survivabilty – being able to pull more more often will mean roughly the same amount of kills per minute.
Weapons: don’t pick guadian if you like hovering at range. We thrive on the fight, and while we still need to dodge and move in fights, we’re at our best when toe-to-toe. In order of offensive capabilty to defensive, I would list the mainhand weapons in this order: Greatsword, Hammer, Sword, Mace, Scepter, Staff. I run with Hammer/GS myself with two handed mastery.
I can’t really suggest much for farming, other than stacking MF%.
if you want a good farming build, focus on shouts and knight/valk armor pieces. Have your main weapon of choice (which should be greatsword) a beserker.
Get Zeal when you’re leveling to 80, but once you reach it drop it entirely – the line is horrendous and gives you nothing good.
Kita – Guardian
Server: Darkhaven. The Besthaven.
Server: Darkhaven. The Besthaven.
I’d wait for the next patch, if we get another nerf the class won’t be worth playing, if it doesn’t get nerfed any further there are specs that are quite fun.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Anet lied (where’s the Manifesto now?)
Anet lied (where’s the Manifesto now?)
There is currently no “easy mode” for guardian. Mesmers can portal around in WvW and divert aggro in PvE, Rangers farm PvE with pet builds, Engineers can kite with turret farms, thieves spike, Elementalists can just AoE at range forever, necros are tanks, and of course Warriors do everything well without trying. The most powerful guardian skills are reserved for team builds and are nerfed accordingly to prevent the class from becoming too powerful. Therefore, you won’t really be good at anything without teammates, and your performance will be somewhat out of your control due to the fact that you’re interacting more with your team and fixing their mistakes than capitalizing on the mistakes of your enemy.
You can spike, you can solo, you can tank, you can DPS, you can condition, and you can crowd control, but you can do none of that as well as the other specialized classes because your main asset is support.
If you have friends or competent people to run with, guardian can be great fun and somewhat stress free. If you do not, you will have to put in your A game 100% of the time because there is no fallback if you’re the best person on your team. You’re powerless without them, no matter how bad they are. There is no fallback you can do if everyone is having a bad day – either go on an alt or log off.
As far as playing skills go, while everyone else has to use their reflexes to dodge attacks, guardians have to use their reflexes to activate blocking skills. If you like parrying then tary it out.
(edited by kaffaljidhma.1496)
I thought this might be a good idea to post this instead of making a thread so here goes. If you’re looking to play a Guardian there are a few things you should realize. I’ll go over the pros and cons of this wonderful profession and you can make your decision or ask questions if necessary.
Pros-
-Very high effective health
-Decent sustainable damage
-Incredible gap closers(see teleports)
-Support through shouts/virtues is in high demand
-Excellent if not one of the best point holders in the game next to Elementalists(spvp)
Cons-
-Lack of any real ranged weapons
-Our “hard hitting” skills have the most noticeable telegraphs in the game which will result in easy dodging for your opponent
-One of our main abilities focuses on static movement by both you and your opponent(symbols)
-No real way to apply condition damage in intensity(burning is really just an additive but nothing really significant)
-No cripples(to me this is a huge con)
-No stuns that affect skill timing(push backs do not affect the cd on skills)
Let me explain some of these. The Guardian might have the lowest tier of health but its effective health is MUCH higher due to protection and regeneration. If used correctly, you can pretty much count yourselves on the top tier. The Guardians damage isn’t the highest but certainly isn’t nearly the bottom. With burning to assist you, pressure can be sustained on your target for quite a while. Guardians have two gap closers through teleports which are awesome when getting to your target, the problem is once you get there, there’s no stopping your opponent from just running away since this class has no way to apply cripple. This goes hand in hand with symbols, you’ll be very lucky to keep your target inside one of these for more than a second.
Guardian support is almost unmatched when traited and can be an unbelievable asset to your team with an abundance of protection, retaliation, regeneration and might boons. This also is what helps us keep points in spvp matches while waiting for reinforcements.
If you plan on running any GS/Hammer builds, be cognisant of the slow activating and telegraphed skills. Every skill besides the AA and Whirling wrath ability in the GS set easily noticeable and can be dodged without any difficulty if you’re facing a competent opponent. Same goes with the Hammer except ALL of the skills on this weapon are incredible slow and can be dodged with ease.
The class has no real ranged weapon, we’ve all beat this into the ground so badly it’s not even worth mentioning. And finally, the class has no stuns to reset put skills on a cd.(unless you count the ToC elite) In fact, the Guardian has no actual stuns what-so-ever. We have a plethora of Knock backs and one daze, but no stuns.
I hope this helps you decide whether the class is right for you or not. =)
You say we have no cripples or stuns; this is true but only because of our other abilities. Hammer offers plenty of control. A line immobilise, a blowout for interrupting long cast times or positioning (very good for bosses) and an area lockdown skill entirely unique to our class. Then we have stuff like sanctuary, sheild of absorbtion, binding blade and all our teleports which give us superior area control compared to other proffesions.
Hammers offer control if you can actually get them to hit. Like I said above, they’re easily dodgeable. That line of immobilize doesn’t even need to be dodged to be avoided, all you have to do is strafe left or right. Same goes with binding blade, they’re slow little blades that glide to your target and if that wasn’t enough, a spin beforehand gives you the hint that it’s coming.
Dab I hope you do decide to play a Guardian, I love this profession and will never shelve it. =)
I’d wait for the next patch, if we get another nerf the class won’t be worth playing, if it doesn’t get nerfed any further there are specs that are quite fun.
lol…
This forum really needs a facepalm emoticon.
I’d wait for the next patch, if we get another nerf the class won’t be worth playing, if it doesn’t get nerfed any further there are specs that are quite fun.
lol…
This forum really needs a facepalm emoticon.
All the class professions do. The whining that goes on is really just sad. I feel like making up an image macro that has “this is what you think you’re doing” followed by one of those Ace Attorney: Objection images, followed by “this is what you’re actually doing” with a picture of some baby bawling their eyes out. Seems to adequately represent most of the posts on the class profession boards.
Heroes of the Horn [HotH] – Yak’s Bend
I’d wait for the next patch, if we get another nerf the class won’t be worth playing, if it doesn’t get nerfed any further there are specs that are quite fun.
lol…
This forum really needs a facepalm emoticon.
All the class professions do. The whining that goes on is really just sad. I feel like making up an image macro that has “this is what you think you’re doing” followed by one of those Ace Attorney: Objection images, followed by “this is what you’re actually doing” with a picture of some baby bawling their eyes out. Seems to adequately represent most of the posts on the class profession boards.
This i would totally borrow from you.
As for this thread. Guardians do one thing very very well. They survive. From all the classes i have played we are pribally one of the best hybrid playstyle classes out there. By hybrid i mean a mix of offense, defense, and support. The one big draw back is ranged options. But if you love melee and want to be able to be some of the biggest players in a group guardian will suit you well. Just know guardian is not an I Win button. It does take some getting use to and testing to find what works for you. But over all we have some really helpful people in our community and if you tell us what you need or want to do normally we can help you get to that point.
If this sounds like you then welcome to the Guardian Community. If not then best of luck with what you do enjoy.
I find the Guardian to be a very skilled profession to play. Look at most of our skills, they require near perfect placement or you’ll miss. Other classes don’t have the obvious telegraphs like this one.
Went with a tanky crithammer build, never looked back. I love this class!
Tanky crithammer build and loving every minute of it. 0/0/30/30/10, full Knight’s gear and accessories, Berserker’s hammer and staff. In solo PvE I can just auto-attack almost anything (though it’s still better to counter their abilities). In dungeons it’s an extremly active build, great support and very tanky.
I must be the stubborn, tunnel vision Guardian with the Zeal line, GS/hammer and symbols. Love the class, love the mobility and love in your face battles. 3,100 kills of casual WvW playing seems to me a guardian is alright.
To level a guardian, stack power up to lvl 50ish, then add a bit of vit/toughness just so you don’t have to worry much about missing dodges.
Learn how to dodge and see bosses’ large hits.
Guardians are great for straight forward in your face toe to toe combat. No sneaky bs, no portals, no pansy range pew pew. You Judge’s Intervention to your enemy and let them have it. Simple and straight forward.