Guild Wars 2

Just did AC Story for the second time, and did a run through of the scepter path of EXP mode. I felt like perhaps I was a little underwhelming in terms of support. I don’t know I just didn’t feel like I was making a difference. During the story run I was running 0/5/10/10/0 with Resolute Healer and Strength in Numbers with a mace/focus. I felt I did alright, though I did die a lot more than the first time I did story mode. But to be fair my group was having many difficulties. We had a ranger, 2 necro’s a warrior and me, so perhaps group composition contributed to that, but we got through it alright. I felt I did have a lot more survivability then my first run where I died almost instantly when getting in close. This time I was able to keep my self going long enough to actually catch on to some of the enemies attack animations, allowing me to dodge more effectively.

The third time I went through AC, on exp mode, I tried out Staff and Scepter/Focus. I can’t remember the group comp but I believe we had 2 other guardians plus myself, so three guardians total. I believe there was also a necro and a warrior. Not much to comment on this time, it was relatively straightforward and easy beside some minor hiccups where my own inexperience was to blame, but overall pretty smooth. Though boring as hell. I guess maybe scepter isn’t for me? I don’t feel like I was doing much of anything with it, support or dps wise. I liked the staffs auto attack to mow down large amounts of mobs at one time, and Empower and LoW was fun, but overall a little underwhelming.

I’ll be trying it a couple more times, maybe try running Mace/Focus and Staff, but I was wondering if anyone had any comments on why I would feel so underwhelmed. I think it’s a combination of my low level and inexperience, but perhaps there’s more I could capitalize on adjust right now to slightly improve my performance.

I can’t give specific advice towards dungeons (since I don’t enjoy running them), but I can comment on feeling “underwhelming”.
One of the flaws this game has is that there’s no easy way to tell how you’re doing or how good your performance is. Sure, people are going to say: “If you’re not dying, and the mobs are, you’re doing good,” and there’s truth in that, but it won’t help you improve.
This flaw becomes most apparent when you’re focusing on support. When dealing damage, you at least have the numbers on the screen to give you some indication, but support it too broad for just numbers. So maybe you were doing amazing support, even though you felt you didn’t. There’s no easy way to tell.

Yeah I feel myself want to looking up one of those recount apps people used to use in WoW to track their DPS, but I doubt there are any, and even if there were I’m not worried about my DPS. I’ve noticed a few instances where I clearly did help rally the team a bit with Hold The Line, but otherwise it’s difficult to discern exactly how I’m contributing. I try and focus on getting out Symbol of Prot everytime it’s up, and when I notice someone getting zerged or getting low on health I usually run over to them and throw up a shield and start fighting with them, that way once my mace-chain finishes it’ll give ‘em some support. As soon as someone’s down I jump on them, even if it means I’ll probably go down too. Still really feels like my contributions go unnoticed or unneeded. Oh well.

One of the biggest problems I had was when I got into a group that had 4 guardians and a mesmer. I really didn’t know if I even needed to bother using my mace/focus or staff, and when I switched out for a GS and different utilities not much changed. Once we ran into trouble patches I switched back to my mace/focus and we got through it, though it didn’t seem to be easier. I felt we survived a bit longer, but that could’ve just been us all working together. Which I suppose is what makes this game great. No one person can really make or break the team, we all have to be on our game in order to succeed.

Perhaps in later levels I’ll be more useful, for now I find dungeons enjoyable enough. I might try all the AC paths with my guild then go back to hearts until I unlock the next dungeon, and repeat the trend.

@OP
Well keep in mind you’re not max level. You don’t have enough trait points to create some pretty good builds yet. I had the same misgivings when I first started. Trust me it get a lot better and a lot more fun.

I know what you mean about not knowing how much of an impact you had the party. The job of the Guardian can be a thankless one in this game. Since in most mmos it’s about the party heals. That’s something everyone can see. Its instant feedback on your contribution to the group. Yeah the regen boon does show the green numbers for each tic. But it’s not the same as watching a hp bar suddenly spike back up.

I watch my party’s portraits and when I see them getting swamped with conditions I try to remove as many as I can. Not much you can do though when someone isn’t bright enough to dodge roll out of a red circle. Keep in mind most players are so focused on their own attack chains they don’t notice conditions being removed or the boons being given. Let give you an example. I was running HotW P2 fighting Andal and his 2 champ quaggans. I go in first in true Guardian style to get their attention then the party jumped into the fight. Make no mistake, I had some moments where I was fighting for my avatar’s life but I held my own. Towards the end of the fight someone actually took the time (during the fight mind you) to type “wow this fight is cake.” That’s when I knew I was doing my job. He had no idea just how much damage they were dealing because it was all directed at me and not the party. Since Andal and his pets where using me as chew toy, my party could stand back out of his aoe range and focus all their energy into dealing damage.