Guild Wars 2

I’ve always mained a Ranger and never really played Guardian past level 5. I’m saving to buy another character slot though because I’m crafting sunrise and I’d like a human guardian to use it.

I use a Condi Bunker/regen build (one of the two current viable builds for Rangers) and I seem to be able to kill Guardians a lot more easily (with less effort) or more quickly than I kill other professions.

I always previously used a zerker Ranger (but finally had to concede that Rangers just suck at physical damage….well, any damage as a matter of fact but at least condi is quicker… and I would basically NEVER kill guardians 1v1 with that build) so I switched it up to my current build and Guardians seem to melt under conditions, especially since they can’t damage me enough to make me retreat. I always considered you guys to be a cleansing profession, what’s the state of your condition removal right now?

What are the meta builds for pvp/wvw? Is there anything you guys particularly want from Anet in the balance patch?

Honestly, everybody thinks that guards are balanced compared to other profession, but hell no, think about it:
10,800 base health, while warrior got 19k if im right (maybe 20k not sure).
lower mobility than warrior (lowest mobility in the game except mesmer but mesmer is ranged anyway..).
warriors got more condi/cc removal.
people say guards got nice survivability.. yeah only if you put all your traits into vit and tough.
If youre playing guardian, get used to the fact that you will never ever chase down any other class, if mesmer runs away, you might be able to, but you will run kind of same speed, and untill you get him with greatsword 3, you will find yourself at huge enemy zerk already.
Wish i could change class right now and keep gear beacause guards lack almost everything, yeah we got some support, but it doesnt cover the downsides.

the funny part, its the only class i enjoy playing.
try it out maybe you still like it.

Abysmal actually ’cause “Guardians are in a good place.”

Guardian condition removal depends on the build and requires a decent trait/utility (even rune) investment, but it’s usually quite good, at least for the most popular builds. Most of the removal is also AoE (with decent radius), so it can’t be at the level of something like Cleansing Ire for 1on1 scenarios.
Even with that, guardian is still on the low tier HP pool, so condition damage hurts, and is mainly a melee class, which often eases the condition application (engineer bombs and nades, mesmer on clone death procs, …).
It’s a quite resilient class against condi bursts, but has a quite bad time against bunkerish builds and constant reapplications.

I think the class is fine balance wise. If I could ask for anything, it would probably be about something outside of an specific rune set in order to get a speed buff for WvW solo roaming (every swiftness source is currently on supportive, and quite lackluster for solo roaming, utilities and weapons).

Guardians are dammn strong if run in a pack.

less powerfull alone, but way more powerfull on group while most classes are the oposite.

ProRulez.5207:

Honestly, everybody thinks that guards are balanced compared to other profession, but hell no, think about it:
10,800 base health, while warrior got 19k if im right (maybe 20k not sure).
lower mobility than warrior (lowest mobility in the game except mesmer but mesmer is ranged anyway..).
warriors got more condi/cc removal.
people say guards got nice survivability.. yeah only if you put all your traits into vit and tough.
If youre playing guardian, get used to the fact that you will never ever chase down any other class, if mesmer runs away, you might be able to, but you will run kind of same speed, and untill you get him with greatsword 3, you will find yourself at huge enemy zerk already.
Wish i could change class right now and keep gear beacause guards lack almost everything, yeah we got some support, but it doesnt cover the downsides.

the funny part, its the only class i enjoy playing.
try it out maybe you still like it.

Necros have the worst mobility. Just saying.

Necro can use Signet of Locusts to increase its speed by 25% and if traited it can, whit a condi build scepter+dagger, add 10% speed by passive traits.

The Guardian is a good class to remove conditions in AoE whit shouts, removing 2 conditions (whit GM trait in Honor and rune of soldier) every 24/28/48 seconds and at the same time give some good boons. If traited, the Guardian can also remove 3 conditions whit Virtue of Resolve. (20 in Virtues trait).
Or if you find a Meditation Guardian, he can clean 1 condition every 16 sec and convert al it’s conditions in boons every 48 sec. But it’s not enough to kill a condition damage dealer that know how to play.
Then, a Warrior can remove 3 condi every 6-9 sec (whit F1 skill), remove 1 condition by shake it off (also passive, if traited), and be immune to conditions for 8 sec whit berserker Stance.

Guardian can clean conditions better to others than to itself (example: light field + whirliwing finisher of GS, giving a lot of cleansing bolts to allies. But useless for the guardian to clean it’s conditions).

If you want to kill a Guardian, try to use poison. All the Guardian’s viable builds need to include some healing ability. if you use poison you reduce the healing ability of your enemy (it’s only defence) by 33%.

Corpse Flakes.5369:

ProRulez.5207:

Honestly, everybody thinks that guards are balanced compared to other profession, but hell no, think about it:
10,800 base health, while warrior got 19k if im right (maybe 20k not sure).
lower mobility than warrior (lowest mobility in the game except mesmer but mesmer is ranged anyway..).
warriors got more condi/cc removal.
people say guards got nice survivability.. yeah only if you put all your traits into vit and tough.
If youre playing guardian, get used to the fact that you will never ever chase down any other class, if mesmer runs away, you might be able to, but you will run kind of same speed, and untill you get him with greatsword 3, you will find yourself at huge enemy zerk already.
Wish i could change class right now and keep gear beacause guards lack almost everything, yeah we got some support, but it doesnt cover the downsides.

the funny part, its the only class i enjoy playing.
try it out maybe you still like it.

Necros have the worst mobility. Just saying.

Um, Necros have a couple tools at their fingertips to have arguably better mobility than a Guardian.

EDIT: Bah! Silv ninja’d me. What he said.

Silv.9207:

If you want to kill a Guardian, try to use poison. All the Guardian’s viable builds need to include some healing ability. if you use poison you reduce the healing ability of your enemy (it’s only defence) by 33%.

Yeah this is true. Poison is the only condition that I pay close attention to. I only rely on Signet of Resolve to heal up, and I have to make sure it’s worth it when I use it.

WvW:

Guardians aren’t really top notch 1v1, nor should they be. That being said they make up for this amply through their incredible team support. While you can probably down a Guardian with your condition build eventually, due to their low mobility and mediocre damage, as soon as that Guardian gets a teammate who can build a highly offensive build around the Guardians supportive capabilities, you are looking at a completely different situation.

From a WvW perspective Guardians are definitely top tier right now, and have been since release.. With the new patch we are also looking at some very interesting new rune sets and sigil combinations. Unfortunately we do get some lackluster traits, especially now that they are nerfing VP making PoV pretty much a must have. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to try and build a competitive team without a boonbot Guardian in it.

Necro mobility out of combat is better than guardians because of the 25% mobility signet and also barring that, perma-swiftness.

However, in combat, they have only 1 gap closer and that one utterly sucks. It is very easy to escape from a necro. A necro can’t break combat either and one that plans on fighting you is prepared to die.

Guardians are highly in demand in wvw zergs, that’s for sure though.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Abysmal actually ’cause “Guardians are in a good place.”

To further to this, the state of guardians have really hit rock bottom with this patch.

Funny, I was really hoping to see some neat stuff with this patch for runes, sigils and traits, but alas, it twas false hope. At least Anet has been consistent with this the last few patches.

….and yep, I’m replying to myself. So what?

Personally, I’m switching to warrior for things like WvW or Fractals. This is the state of the guardian.

Things like Ferocity and Vigorous Precision changes were already known, but I expected the nerfhammer to somehow hit other builds too. The patch notes look, however, like an improvement for many condi specs.

The rune/sigil changes (still shocked at the Hydromancy nerf), the new traits … it’s like ANet wanted us to play some kind of retaliation + passive/instant condi proc aberration.
I would love to see what’s going on inside balance team’s heads, because none of this make any sense.

I “mained” a guardian (I played it the most of my 6 characters), but after the patch, I think I am going to use my alts more often (80 War, 80 Mes, 60s Engi, 40s Thief, 30s Ele).

Sad part is I got the Guardian to 99% map completion (****ing WvW keeps choosing our world as red – GIVE US BLUE OR GREEN). Oh well, off to explore as a warrior. It will definitely be easier with the War’s mobility (GS + Sword/Horn) rather than Retreat + GS 3 as my only options.

Fine if you want to play a bunker/support in spvp. You can do much better otherwise.