Guild Wars 2

You know ever since i started playing this game (11 months ago) everyone has always said
“Well we have to make sure we don’t give guards too much [damage/mobility/pressue] because of their natural defensive nature”

Which you know make sense for balance. But as i look out into all of the classes they have been, and are still getting buffs to having more build diversity.

Warrior (in theory) do the most damage and arguably have some of the highest constant mobility in the game, and yet traited up they can still have almost (if not more) defensive capability.

So why isn’kitten
“Well we have to be sure not to give warriors too much [Defensive/Support/Healing] because of their natural offensive capibilities”

And that is really just one example

Look at super tank minion necros, a good one? Almost unkillable 1v1. Tank/evade spirit rangers? Same thing? Engis have amazing tank builds? Eles can either go full burst or full tank (and their getting their hybrid builds buffed in the next big patch).
Thieves (understandable) don’t have full tank builds (not viable ones anyway) but can still mitigate damage very well though dodges adding more build diversity. And even poor mesmers can wreck with staff/ (GS or Sword Torch) tank or hybrid builds.

So why is it that all these classes can have really strong defensive builds while holding on to their classes naturally damaging nature but we can’t have prominent burst builds (ours is okay at best).

I love my guard but if there was a crown for pigeoned holed (and even those spots are being out shined) i would don it on my poor main.

ummmm, other then highly highly skilled mesmers/thiefs that can out kite me to an almost laughable level i steam roll everything i run into.

Most fights where i hit and equally skilled player we get sick of combat after 10-15min on one of us bolts in the other direction.

whats you talent spec, whats you itemization?, weapons sets etc. I hate seeing this posts because all i can think is your doing it wrong, and im sure your knowledgeable skilled player.

Cause we are not Warriors, Mesmer Necro or a Elementalist. We are Guardian and even the designated dev members who was doing a stream to show off some of our new buffs in the last balance patch could not be bothered to learn the class.

And that leaves us at three conclusions, either all the Developers that actually play Guardians was sick that day, Are afraid of standing in the spotlight or the last and most depressing one, There are no developers that actually play as Guardian in GW2.

Valinor.9647:

ummmm, other then highly highly skilled mesmers/thiefs that can out kite me to an almost laughable level i steam roll everything i run into.

Most fights where i hit and equally skilled player we get sick of combat after 10-15min on one of us bolts in the other direction.

whats you talent spec, whats you itemization?, weapons sets etc. I hate seeing this posts because all i can think is your doing it wrong, and im sure your knowledgeable skilled player.

it depends on what i’m playing

PvP – i switch between GS – Sc/Focus (Shouts) or Sc/Shield – Hammer (Bunker)

PvE – Hammer – Staff (Shout support) – or 1 handed masteries

WvW – Staff – Hammer (shouts, when i’m commanding) or Sw/Torch – GS (meditations – when i’m roaming)

And its never me getting destroyed that isn’t the problem. Guards excel at out lasting in fights, its kinda what we’re made of.

But when we go offensive, giving up the ability of shout survival, most of our honor, and valor tree, as well as gear and traits that favor doing damage that is where all of our “natural” survival is and the issue is the trade off for offensive doesn’t match up. Which is why they are constantly “buffing” guard offensive but its yet to really catch up.

Perikittenor.1892:

Cause we are not Warriors, Mesmer Necro or a Elementalist. We are Guardian and even the designated dev members who was doing a stream to show off some of our new buffs in the last balance patch could not be bothered to learn the class.

And that leaves us at three conclusions, either all the Developers that actually play Guardians was sick that day, Are afraid of standing in the spotlight or the last and most depressing one, There are no developers that actually play as Guardian in GW2.

I hate to say that i agree but evidence is showing as such.
I mean i know that the Anet team doesn’t intrinsically hate any class (i mean who wouldn’t want their game to do well) but the issue is guards haven’t really seen the spot light….well ever

At the game start (at least when i started playing) guards were in a great place. Like literally one of the most well rounded classes who’s defensive and support capabilities couldn’t be matched. Which is find 90% of the time that is all i want to do as a guard is play defense and support my team.

But as other classes are starting to see the dark corners of their weaknesses get some attention i really think that guards (after god knows how long) should start seeing a bit more light.

Looking at warrior and watching most of their clunkieness start to be cleaned up it makes me insanely jealous looking at our own weapon skills.

I mean look at our weapons.

Staff – Not a single ability works well with the other. But (one of our only) accesses to swiftness, a line of warding, and AoE might as well as the best tagging tool we got gives it use. But looking at thiings like ever ability Eles have on their staffs or even necros our staff looks like abilities from 5 different weapons but on one.

Hammer – great overall, sadly one of our best DPS tools, 1 is great, 2 is meh being able to actually move distances with it would be amazing (or making it placeable), 3 – is cool if not easily telegraphed and even easier to dodge), 4 – is also nice though the long CD as well as how easy it is to miss makes it not as desirable (not to mention launches can be Broken now), and 5 decent, but 1 stability, or teleport (mostly classes run with 2 of either at the least) and its 100% useless not to mention you have to stand still to cast it

Mace – Sigh mace, 1 – decent if speced right. Though i think Weakness/protection uptime is more usefull than healing if you aren’t specced for it, 2 – symbols themselves promote a still type of gameplay when Gw2 is a very mobile game(aka only usefull in pve), 3 – one of the most useless moves in the game in my eyes, a single time block that does less then decent dmg, and you have to maintain a casttime on it yuck

Sword – our hardest hitting auto (though it does feel really clunky (i would trade though single projectiles for bleed and cripple on auto anyday of the week), 2 single time tele as well as a blind (almost okay very easy to see coming after this attack), 3 – hard hitting (but the tracking is okay on most days as well as very easy to dodge sadly this is pretty much our classes burst)

Focus – pretty much one of our best balanced weapons, utility/damage on 4 (i mean AoE blind/regen) and 3 blocks/ damage on 5, now that is what i would called balanced for trade offs

Shield – very meh – 4 – gives protection (for a very short time) as well as does low Dmg, which for a 25 sec (i think) CD is very subpar. and 5 – a AoE knockback, which is good, useless with stability or stunbreaks, and the heals is also very subpar (like a dodge roll) which for a 30 sec (i also think) CD is also very subpar, and you have to stand still as you cast it, and the amount of projectiles blocked if very negligible

Torch – also meh – 4 – does above average dmg clunky to say to least and not a high trade off if you have the skill of timing on the throw. 5. decent burst, also easy to dodge

And Scepter – one of our best one hands – 1 is nice, i mean easy to dodge but deals decent dmg its a good tradeoff, 2 – hits like a truck if you can actually land it. also a good trade off, and 3 is one of our only immobs so also good if you can land it not to mention to vlun it places.

And i left GS out because it is one of our only Fun/good weapons though its easy to see coming and counter its not bad

Shield skills.
4:Shield of Judgment Cast ½, Cooldown 30. Create a shielding wave in front of you that damages foes and gives protection to yourself and up to five allies.

Shield 4 is not terrible it has a low base 302 damage, but i acctualy scales 1.0 with Attack making it rather strong offensive, howver not strong considering cooldoown but a nice burst. Main problem is that with 30 second cooldown for a 5 second protection(Assume no boon duration), it is really lacklusting.

5: Shield of Absorption Cast1½(Weirdly), cooldown 40 . Create a dome around you that pushes foes back and absorbs projectiles.

Shield 5 is not terrible but it is missing alot of key elements. Knockback is as ussualy 5 targets and 320 range and that is fine. However It has alot of disadvantages. For instance you have to channel the skill to keep it active, while channeling the skill you also have to stand still.<—————- Really? And it does not block normal attacks. Don’t get me wrong, the dome should only block projectiles. But why are we not blocking all attacks on us while we channel it.

Detonate:
1,300 base healing and scale 0.2 with healing power, base is rather good as a bonus effect but the scaling is terrible.

This weapon is lacking alot of effect, shield 4 should either add a secondary boon to allies or follow up with its acctualy name and apply a condition to enemies.

Shield 5 is really akward since you have to stand still and i would be tottaly fine with that, if you also Block melee attacks directed on you while doing so.

You can be offensive, duh.

That said, Guardian is largely defensive support in WvW, unless solo or small group roaming and Warrior is offensive support, unless solo or small group roaming.

Just have to pay the price, but you can. Just don’t expect to live very long unless you are a top 10% player with skill. That is my impression having played a DPS role out in WvW. You can and will kill stuff very quickly. However, if you are not smart or skilled, you will be eating dirt more often than not.

From a PvE perspective Guard can dish out damage on par with most other classes. I would say for most of our builds we’re on the lower half of the scale but usually within 5% of other average Zerker dps builds. Guard has the second highest build that I’ve personally tested, although it’s situational with Unscathed Contender.

Hammer is on the lower end of our DPS scale but it gives great AoE, Protection and that wonderful Blast finisher.

Mace will actually do quite good DPS if you use Protectors Strike as a DPS ability. Its not uncommon to see 5K to 7K aoe hits in PvE with PS, this adds DPS if you time it right and proc it quickly.

Sword is good, Mace can out DPS it with PS and Symbol ticks. Sword3 is only a very slight DPS gain over auto attack.

GSword feels like its built well but not our highest DPS.

Torch, If you need burning T4 is definitely a DPS increase, if not it’s only an increase if it crits. T5 is a dps loss in most cases.

These statements come from my personal DPS testing. Don’t take my word for it though, test and make your own conclusions.

Blood~

My meditation ‘suicide bomber’ build is pure offence. I have no escapes, so I just apply constant pressure and bursts. Sword/torch and scepter/focus 10/30/30/0/0 triple meds. I only catch a break when my enemies flee or die. I love it. Of course, it works best in PvP hot join or ruins in wvw where mobility it limited.

This game copies a lot of its class design from Mobas. I can’t think of one low health Moba tank. This is the main reason the class lingers in mediocrity.

No matter what you build, you can only beat a certain set of classes and some losses to other certain class. there’s no perfect 1v1.

My burst build lets me kill everything but engies and warriors
My bunker builds makes me lose against mesmars and eles

Warriors have high damage, high mobility and high survivability at the same time.
Guardians have high survivability and if they want to deal more damage, they have to drop their survivability.

I don’t get it. It seems the devs don’t care about this class.

They do care, but the amount of care to Guardians are currently that of a mother to a Child. Where the Warrior would represent that mothers first child. And Guardian would represent that woman thirteen child.

The first child will get spoiled and all the love in the world to grow up with fond memory of its childhood.

The thirteen child will learn success the hard way and will eventually become a very successfully businessman, or a murdered who strangled and maimed animals before going on to humans. Rather thin line but 0.5% of us are up to greatness, and the other will still reach the news one way or the other.

You can’t have high DMG cause guard’s baseline is a good sustain, so slapping on top of it decent DMG or cc is dangerous from a balance standpoint. Just like warrior’s can’t have good sustain or big cc cause their baseline DMG is very high ….. oh, wait.

Lol, the problem is how people think guards are MEANT to be defensive.

AndrewSX.3794:

You can’t have high DMG cause guard’s baseline is a good sustain, so slapping on top of it decent DMG or cc is dangerous from a balance standpoint. Just like warrior’s can’t have good sustain or big cc cause their baseline DMG is very high ….. oh, wait.

To be fair, Anet are attempting to decouple Warrior CC from their Damage skills in the december patch… still no sign on any changes to the sustain though…

As a guardian it’s hard to look over at the Warriors and see how completely OP they are but Guardians are in a relatively good place right now. We’re balanced. If you want to see crazy numbers then you’re gonna have to sacrifice some survivability. D/D ele’s used to be great offensively and defensively until they got the nerf bat and look where that class as a whole is right now. Anet said in the 12/10 patch they wanna add some offense to the guardian but otherwise we are already pretty well balanced.

People tend to forget what the class itself is all about, and just see numbers, percentages, ect.

As a Warrior yeah I have good sustain/dmg/survivability ect. But we do get most of our mobility through our weapons, such as the GS and Sword skills, We have a lot of hp because unlike Guardians we can not cleanse or give ourselves buffs like protection on demand, ect. and I have seen some freakishly fast moving Guardians so don’t give me the whole, “We’re slow blah blah” crap because that is bull-kitten… Use a staff, us retreat shout, ect.

What are we talking about here? PvE has no problem with offensive builds and build diversity lacks because pve is not balanced, and defensive builds are just better for large group wvw which is a failing of wvw because of the way rallying and aoe and siege works. I guess that leaves that messthat is pvp, so I’d imagine it’s more of a failing of the game mode more than anything else.

Should just give it time, necros were pretty terrible before June and are still subpar in pve but a few tweaks made it into the QQ-generators that they are now. I rolled a guardian to pass the time, and voila, necros were useful again. So if you’re sour, just reroll. They seem to only care about numbers if enough people stop playing a certain class, at least that’s evidence of something.

Otherwise, tough it out and think of what the class and in more coherent terms than “omg we’re not warriors”. You just have to realize change needs to be done one step at a time, and you can’t just suddenly revamp a class. The necro was basically resurrected by moving a few traits to earlier in the tree and a new one in particular. Now, you could argue that all these steps taken are wrong, in which they are, but if you want to provide constructive feedback, you have to stop the chest beating.

Guardians need more mobility; the devs are just plain wrong in their false dichotomy and also they need more stability. What kind of “defensive support” lacks so much in that? Yes, you can point at SYG but that’s practically mandatory against other players and what else ? Hallowed Ground (lol cooldown) and a Indomitable Courage that requires heavy investment in virtues and conflicts with Absolute Resolution. Yea…. honestly I don’t find these are impressive. Shouldn’t we be the ones that can become practically immune to CC? Just saying.

And fix the zeal tree! And those subpar minors in valor.

Odokuro.5049:

People tend to forget what the class itself is all about, and just see numbers, percentages, ect.

As a Warrior yeah I have good sustain/dmg/survivability ect. But we do get most of our mobility through our weapons, such as the GS and Sword skills, We have a lot of hp because unlike Guardians we can not cleanse or give ourselves buffs like protection on demand, ect. and I have seen some freakishly fast moving Guardians so don’t give me the whole, “We’re slow blah blah” crap because that is bull-kitten… Use a staff, us retreat shout, ect.

Thanks for applying our only two swiftness ability in the game, it is good they are easily accessed and have a good combination on short cool down, especially since one of them is so op it will be nerfed for roaming.

And i’ve never seen a freakishly fast Guardian, i have no idea what you are talking about. And i doubt anyone else can comply with what you said, sure we can be annoying as fudge by teleporting. But they requires a target be that friend or foe.

And yes, you can cleanse yourself. Infact not only can you cleanse yourself bether than Guardians, you can almost out shine us in AoE cleansing aswell now.

And finally you are correct about protection, you don’t have that one i will admit to that. But what if i told you, Not every Guardian want to play shout. Silly i know.

The main source of a Warrior’s damage is actually their ability to self-perpetuate “Might” and “Fury” through short cool-down abilities. Remove those from the warrior or give the guardian the same level of offensive buffs through team support and the Guardian quickly runs away from the Warrior as far as sustained damage goes.

Odokuro.5049:

People tend to forget what the class itself is all about, and just see numbers, percentages, ect.

As a Warrior yeah I have good sustain/dmg/survivability ect. But we do get most of our mobility through our weapons, such as the GS and Sword skills, We have a lot of hp because unlike Guardians we can not cleanse or give ourselves buffs like protection on demand, ect. and I have seen some freakishly fast moving Guardians so don’t give me the whole, “We’re slow blah blah” crap because that is bull-kitten… Use a staff, us retreat shout, ect.

Are you seriously comparing the crappy 8 second buff speed from the staff (oh wait, they’re nerfing it to 4 now) with all the warrior mobility skills?

And why do you even high HP to begin with? Because you can’t cleanse?
Please. Guardians cleanse through a trait which forces them to use their shout utilities. What if I don’t want to use my utility? Well, too bad, gotta cleanse.

Warriors have high dps and high survivability at the same time. Why do you have both ends of the spectrum? Sure, guardians can dps but we have to give up our survivability. DPS builds have less vitality, less toughness and have to sacrifice the ability to cleanse through shouts.

Devs say the guardian is supposed to be defensive so they can’t give him too much offense. Well, warriors are supposed to be offensive, why do you get to get good defense too?

Again and again, all we see is the devs loooooove the warrior and could care less about the guardian. Even in their videos, they look so bored when talking about the guardian.

Acctualy, Warriors have bether self cleanse than Guardians at this very moment. And they have reached our area cleansing aswell or almost we have a choice now.

Guardians either go Boonduration to have boon’s that acctualy do something.

Or we go Soldier to cleanse more.

If we go Boonduration, warriors can cleanse more than we can in a AoE situation.
If we go Soldier rune for more cleansing, our boon last less than the time it takes for your shout sound to finish.

I’m by no means sticking up for Warrior here.. but comparing the two isn’t the correct way to proceed. They are supposed to be different classes for a reason.

Sure Warriors can have good Damage and Survivability, but their utility skills are dull and they lack group support. Going full DPS gets extremely boring after a while, at least with Guardian you have the choice to switch between the two (or even hybrid).

Wall of Reflection is probably my favourite ability ingame. It’s value in WvW is absolutely priceless.

Warriors lack group support? Since when?

Zach.3264:

I’m by no means sticking up for Warrior here.. but comparing the two isn’t the correct way to proceed. They are supposed to be different classes for a reason.

Sure Warriors can have good Damage and Survivability, but their utility skills are dull and they lack group support. Going full DPS gets extremely boring after a while, at least with Guardian you have the choice to switch between the two (or even hybrid).

Wall of Reflection is probably my favourite ability ingame. It’s value in WvW is absolutely priceless.

I guess Warriors don’t see shout healing and condition cleansing as group support, or banner for passive stats and perma regeneration as group support tools.

Don’t forget Warhorn to perma swiftness and condi cleanse that turn condition into boons, or hammer for hard cc to the group. But i guess those things are not group support.

And don’t throw the dull card out there. You want to know what is dull?

Warrior – Major

Vigorous Shouts
Shouts heal.

Healing: 1,480 (0.9)

Group healing
Average cooldown on shout = 26.6666667 If the three fastest one are equiped.

Guardian – Grandmaster

Monk focus
Using a meditation skill heals you.

Healing: 1,960 (0.4)

Only self.
Average cooldown on meditation: = 38.3333333 If the three fastest one are equiped.
——————————————-

I think the numbers speak for themself, add that Warriors shout also can be boosted by using the soldier runes to cleanse more condi for the group and i start to wonder what the hell the dev is acctualy thinking about Guardians vs Warriors Team support.

I"m pretty offensive, especially when I’m irritable.

But yeah, I agree that it is a double standard.

We can’t be offensive because we are “so great at defense”, yet everyone else is “not viable” and tired of being glass cannon so they up the defense while maintaining that same degree of damage.

We have seen they are not looking to reduce survival on anyone but trying to tone down the damage at least.

So maybe they are trying to tune people down to guardian? It is a slow road, but that is where we are headed so far.

I would like to see guardian get to meet everyone else in the middle and gain some more offense viability though.

its because guardian has 12k HP . Its hard to build a heavy dps while u dont die fast …

We don’t have 12k hp, we start with 10.8k Hp. Or at least i am pretty sure the low tier (Thief, Elementalist and Guardian) Do

Guards are top tier at the moment, and even specced for DPS, they can provide exceptional offensive and defensive support to their teams. Most high tier teams in ANY game mode have guardians for good reason.

But no one can compete with the current Warrior profession, so that isn’t really an argument worth having until they get nerfed back into balance.

Sigh so many people missing the point.
Warrior was just an example.
I’m not saying Guards Should be greater than warrior (which in some cases they should be but that is no the point)
I’m not saying guards should even be even with warriors.

I’ve been trying to say MOST almost All classes can either go offensive or defensive. Most classes have a decent bunker build (outside of rouge – who has to use stealth) and Most classes have 1+ very viable DPS build (besides guards, who’s burst build (1 handed sword meditation mastery) is suppar at best).

And the reason given to us is that Guards are innately defensive. So they can’t have a strong offensive. But this same rule of thumb doesn’t apply to all the other classes.

I would just like to make the point that to do decent dmg Guards give up all their “innate” defense. And still aren’t a stable DPS build. (I know most top tourney teams take a guard, but how many of those guards can ever go dps)

GW2 is a game made to be about open play and diverse builds, while guards literally have 1 Good build. and 2 semi viable ones.

Kentrey.3251:

And the reason given to us is that Guards are innately defensive. So they can’t have a strong offensive. But this same rule of thumb doesn’t apply to all the other classes.

I would just like to make the point that to do decent dmg Guards give up all their “innate” defense. And still aren’t a stable DPS build. (I know most top tourney teams take a guard, but how many of those guards can ever go dps)

Unless you were talking specifically about sPvP, I have to disagree very strongly with what you have said here.

1. If you JUST want strong offense, you can have it. Guardian pushes some of the top damage of all the professions and doesn’t need fancy tricks to do it either. Take the right traits, pick the right weapon … you’re there.
2. Guardians give up NO innate defense to do this. In fact, Guardian maintains their NUMEROUS innate defenses even in the case where they do a full offensive build. I would even go so far as to say that depending on your choice of weapon and traits for an offensive build, your defensive skills are further enhanced.

Unless you have a very specific example or speaking specifically about sPvP, I’m afraid you don’t appear to know what you speak of.