Guild Wars 2

Ok, Renewed Focus is acceptable, can save your life sometimes but it’s still boring. My main is a norn guardian, all elite skills are useless.

Do you guys really use the tomes in dungeons or even use them sometimes?

I use the tome of courage in www when i’m in a small group.

I use it on the new dungeon to group face tank the boss in the circles to get her shield removed.

All I want for Christmas is GW1 ray of judgement

You haven’t seen Warrior’s Elites.

I think Tomes can be useful, but they’re not “combat” Elites, they’re for those guys who chill a the back, throwing stuff into the fray.

I sure agree we need a new melee/combat oriented Elite.

I actually kind of like Tome of Wrath now that they’ve increased the Quickness to 5 seconds and made the cone attack affect the Guardian too. Hitting 4 then 3 and canceling out of the tome can be powerful in a pinch.

YuiRS.8129:

You haven’t seen Warrior’s Elites.

I think Tomes can be useful, but they’re not “combat” Elites, they’re for those guys who chill a the back, throwing stuff into the fray.

I sure agree we need a new melee/combat oriented Elite.

???
warriors have the 2nd best elites in the game, besides mesmers

Darek.1836:

YuiRS.8129:

You haven’t seen Warrior’s Elites.

I think Tomes can be useful, but they’re not “combat” Elites, they’re for those guys who chill a the back, throwing stuff into the fray.

I sure agree we need a new melee/combat oriented Elite.

???
warriors have the 2nd best elites in the game, besides mesmers

What? Rampage is never used, SoR is a mild buff and Standard is a PvE only battle rez with a huge cooldown.

and tome of wrath spell 1 in wvw can be very nice at clearing walls of stormed structure

aophts.9862:

Ok, Renewed Focus is acceptable, can save your life sometimes but it’s still boring. My main is a norn guardian, all elite skills are useless.

Do you guys really use the tomes in dungeons or even use them sometimes?

hello aophts.9862,
ill suggest you to look here for some tip:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-WvW-PvE-new-AH-Guardian-build/first#

with rune of lyssa you renewed focus is:
-you lose all condition
-you gain all boons for 5 sec
-and ofc you are invulnerable for 3 sec
… still boring?

other 2 elites are helpfull in dungeon (tome of courage), for massive healing, and in wvw (tome of wrath), try to stay near a door while under attack and use skill 5# the result will be: massive retailation damage and massive 5# skill damage with the entire enemy team knocked down ^^ you can also spam the 1# skill to deal some nice aoe burning damage…

Renewed Focus = tremendously useful.

I really like the Norn wolf elite (in PvE). Its ability to steal health can fully restore your HP from multiple targets. It gives fury and regen to allies which plays nice with AH.

I don’t like the tomes either tbh. Sure they have their uses, but I don’t use them. Renewed Focus is nice but also pretty boring, but I use it.

What i’d really like is something that isn’t all about personal survival, or buffing my group. I’d like a “pull an ally to you” ability. A way of getting a guildie to you if he’s over extended, or a way of pulling a Mesmer to you to get a portal at your location quickly, etc etc.

I’d like something with some strategic value and emergent use, which is ultimately what most other classes have (Battle res’s, invis, time warps, etc).

Parthis.2091:

I’d like a “pull an ally to you” ability. A way of getting a guild to you if he’s over extended

That’s what I’ve always wanted Merciful Intervention to be. ( or at least a “pull downed ally to your location” )

YuiRS.8129:

Darek.1836:

YuiRS.8129:

You haven’t seen Warrior’s Elites.

I think Tomes can be useful, but they’re not “combat” Elites, they’re for those guys who chill a the back, throwing stuff into the fray.

I sure agree we need a new melee/combat oriented Elite.

???
warriors have the 2nd best elites in the game, besides mesmers

What? Rampage is never used, SoR is a mild buff and Standard is a PvE only battle rez with a huge cooldown.

Standard is most certainly not PvE-only. Rushing to save a camp/tower/keep/castle in WvW and the camp/tower/keep/castle commander NPC is dead? Drop standard and they’re alive, the circle stops ticking, and the enemy zerg has to kill the NPC again while you’re pushing in to wipe them. In a ZvZ fight and a group of players gets downed for whatever reason? Drop standard and they’re alive again. Then the enemy is out of cooldowns and ripe for wiping. Why anyone would say it’s a PvE-only skill is beyond me.

I’d love a skill like the banner on my Guardian. The only Elite that I find remotely useful is Renewed Focus. And even then, it’s mediocre at best(imo). The big reason i’ll never use the tomes is because like most other elites, these require use by the player. Other elites(standard, supply, time warp ect.) require no action on the player besides the initiation. This is the main reason why those will be superior to the tomes.

Since the recent patch, I started to use mistfire wolf instead of renewed focus. I don’t like to use tomes becouse I always dies (in PvP and WvW) or is useless (in PvE), but in dungeons is somewhat good for support.

I use Tome of Wrath in WvWvW. Using it against wall defenders and attackers has been great for me.

I like some use of the different Elite of the Guardian, but the other classes have more good elite skills.
-Warrior have the Standard, that save allies from the death in pve, wvw and spvp. In spvp, a war whit that warbanner can chance the situation of a fight and buff our allies whit Fury, Might and Stability!
- Elamentalist can summon big and bad elemens, that can heal, stun, inflict high damage or be hard to kill, and can be a tornado. Use the tornado elite in wvsw in the enemy zerg, or in spvp to keep a spot.
-Ranger can use Entangle to inflict very high damage if use a CD build 8until a 20k in 8 sec) and hold a large number of enemy at once. can use the spirit to heal and rise ally (good in pve, but not used), then can increase it’s power and the power of it’s pet for 20 sec whit every hit. (and 20 sec of stability is a very good buff)
-Necro can summon a hard to kill minion that inflict damage and knock down, transform into a mist or into a big and bad ligh. (not the best elite of the game, but good)
-Thief can transform you into a stone, spin around and reflect projectiles, or summon two bad and powerful thiefs to help!
-Engi can summon at once all the turrets, stun you and inflict area damage. I hate that elite, sometimes it’s very very powerfull, in pve and expecially in spvp.
-Mesmer can create a warp zone where all the players obtain quickness and last for 10 sec!!! And, if you’re not impressed, they can transforma you into a moa. I hate them when in spvp transforma me into a powerless moa.

Then the Guardian. He can summon a tome that heal the ally or a tome that damage the enemy whit a pretty aoe skill. Yes, two good elite, but frequently useless. And then you can be invulnerable for 3 sec and reobtain your virtue. 3 sec… and you’re not immortal, just invulnerable. Conditions give you damage while you’re Immune to attacks. And if you’ve not a Virtue based build it’s not a good elite. But it’s the only one that you can use in spvp, for example, because all the other elite’s useless. Time of casting or duration, or because you can’t use your basic and utility skills while you use it and your fight strategy go down.

And you can see: Warrior have Endure pain that is like Focused. Mesmer have the skill on the sword that make you miss all the attack while they’re casting it. Engi can evade all the attacks for 3 sec (eventually increased by trait) and lose all the conditions at 25% f hp (trait) and obtain the effect of the elixir at the same time (another trait), for a 6 sec of No Damage at 25% of hp. Elementalist can use mist form to be invulnerable. Ranger can be Immune to Damage for 6 sec and then transfer all the damage to it’s pet, for a 12 sec of immunity from direct damage.
AND all these classes can do action, or eventually fight (war and ranger) while Immune to your damage!

Guardian can be immune for 3 sec (4.5 whit a useless trait) but CAN’T MOVE OR DO ACTION while use this skill.

Ok. Good.

Now… I need a elite to fight in spvp. ANet, please, give me one.

(p.s. sorry for my bad english)

Guardian elites are far from useless. Engineer on the other hand…

ToW with traited extended elites can get Zeal off twice, meaning two bouts of quickness for everybody. The light hammer skill 5 does interrupt and damage, and everything else is just gravy. If you apply vuln with blind you get more with skill 2 here. It is a very useful elite.

The healing book I never use. It’s totally useless to me.

RF is one of the most useful elites in the game.

Tarsius.3170:

Parthis.2091:

I’d like a “pull an ally to you” ability. A way of getting a guild to you if he’s over extended

That’s what I’ve always wanted Merciful Intervention to be. ( or at least a “pull downed ally to your location” )

I would kill to have merciful intervention have that effect. Not only for utility purposes, but for trolling my friends purposes as well lol (pull ally before he downs an enemy for lolz)

Silv.9207:

Guardian can be immune for 3 sec (4.5 whit a useless trait) but CAN’T MOVE OR DO ACTION while use this skill.

Not this again.

You can move during Renewed Focus. If you don’t you get an animation specific to it, but you can break the animation and move. Just don’t dodge.

Setun.4368:

Tarsius.3170:

Parthis.2091:

I’d like a “pull an ally to you” ability. A way of getting a guild to you if he’s over extended

That’s what I’ve always wanted Merciful Intervention to be. ( or at least a “pull downed ally to your location” )

I would kill to have merciful intervention have that effect. Not only for utility purposes, but for trolling my friends purposes as well lol (pull ally before he downs an enemy for lolz)

Troll-resistant version would be it only pulls them if they are downed.

Celestina.2894:

All I want for Christmas is GW1 ray of judgement

This. It was so much fun. I’d trade all of our current elites for this in a heartbeat.

Asura attack golem (7-series) for most dungeons, sometimes renewed focus, Tome of Courage for Maw @ 48..

tome of courage saves lives i never leave town
without it

The Guardian is fairly boring when it comes to elites, imo. The tomes can be useful, but because they remove your utility skills you are kittened if anyone so much as looks at you menacingly (especially with Tome of Wrath). Because of this I almost always run Renewed Focus, which is useful, but is not as noticeable on the battlefield as other elites such as Entangle, Plague, Dagger Storm, Battle Standard etc. (this is from the perspective of a WvW player, btw)

Since 2 of our 3 elites have auxiliary skillbars that are only really useful for supporting a group of allies we have only one option when we play without at least several other people. That needs to change.

Gilburt.9146:

The Guardian is fairly boring when it comes to elites, imo. The tomes can be useful, but because they remove your utility skills you are kittened if anyone so much as looks at you menacingly (especially with Tome of Wrath). Because of this I almost always run Renewed Focus, which is useful, but is not as noticeable on the battlefield as other elites such as Entangle, Plague, Dagger Storm, Battle Standard etc. (this is from the perspective of a WvW player, btw)

Since 2 of our 3 elites have auxiliary skillbars that are only really useful for supporting a group of allies we have only one option when we play without at least several other people. That needs to change.

Random question … if you’re taking a camp and you use Renewed Focus, do you stop capturing the camp? Like, you know how if you go into stealth, you can’t capture points? Is it the same with invulnerability?

Nike.2631:

Renewed Focus = tremendously useful.

^ Pretty much

/15 chars

The tomes are good but situational, Renewed Focus goes from “meh” to “WTF OP” the more you invest into Virtues. They’re really far from useless, and no elite tops the feeling of saving your allies butts with a well timed AoE full-heal with the tome of healing 5th skill.

How about an elite Spirit Weapon that CANNOT be killed (thank you!) and gives you awesome attack abilities ? Why should guardians be without an elite minion (everyone else seems to have one). The tomes are basically transforms.

Wow. Guardian elites are useless? I think you need to look closer at them or re-examine the class.

The tomes are incredibly powerful if used properly. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve saved my group or those around me with a well timed Light of Deliverance cast. Or dazing nearby foes with Pacifism. Or using Purifying Ribbon or Protective Spirit to remove conditions or apply protection/regeneration in a cone. That doesn’t even include the Heal Area skill that can be spammed incredibly quickly. Not only does it provide those very powerful abilities that are found nowhere else in the game, but it also grants you protection (-33% incoming damage) and increases your toughness/vitality by 50%. And that’s just looking at Tome of Courage.

Tome of Wrath is also very powerful and is definitely the “missing” offensive elite. Give it a try.

Renewed Focus is extremely good if you invest in virtues as Wolfheart mentioned.

I’m really baffled by many of the comments in this thread about the uselessness of guardian elites. I’m not going to say “learn to play” but I am going to suggest taking a closer look at the kinds of roles guardians can fulfill and then re-examine their elites. The elites definitely fit the class and have tons of uses.

Arken.3725:

I’d love a skill like the banner on my Guardian. The only Elite that I find remotely useful is Renewed Focus. And even then, it’s mediocre at best(imo). The big reason i’ll never use the tomes is because like most other elites, these require use by the player. Other elites(standard, supply, time warp ect.) require no action on the player besides the initiation. This is the main reason why those will be superior to the tomes.

This is one of the most ridiculous reasons not to use a skill I’ve ever read. You can’t click to use support or offensive skills? So if you pick up an elementalist’s Fiery Greatsword, you’ll just spam the first skill because you have to manually use the other skills?

You have to manually use all of your skills in this game except your auto-attack. The whole point of playing a game is to have the player interact with the game world.

But it’s rather true. The effectiveness of say Supply outweighs any other elite the Engineer uses, same with the Elementalists….elemental. I completely agree with you that you should have to interact with the game world utilizing your skills, all i’m saying is that when a skill is just as powerful if not more while having you do absolutely nothing but initiating the skill, there’s an issue.

One of the biggest issues for me(I play spvp mostly) is the fact that you need to use SYG in combination with the tomes or you’ll never get the #5 off either tome.

The problem is not all elites have the same function. They can’t really be directly compared to each other. Many are situational. They’re “elite” because they provide some powerful functionality that other skills don’t provide. Or they’re more powerful versions of existing skills.

Having to manually use skills after using a tome makes the skill more powerful in some ways since the player gets to choose when to use the abilities. It gives the player choices. In the hands of someone skilled and experienced, that’s a very good thing. It’s up to the player to make the elite powerful by how they use it.

Something like Renewed Focus seems rather mundane at first glance but it greatly depends on the traits you’ve chosen. If you choose the right traits, it’s extremely good.

Wolfheart.1938:

The tomes are good but situational, Renewed Focus goes from “meh” to “WTF OP” the more you invest into Virtues. They’re really far from useful, and no elite tops saving your allies butts with a well timed AoE full-heal with the tome of healing 5th skill.

+1

Guardian elites are not useless – BUT, they’re extremely situational.

People talking about tomes as if they’re the best thing that ever happened… The amount of time they last vs the cooldown simply makes them not worth it for me. Even if you’re running small group wvw, there are more useful things you can do to help your team.

Maiden England.3491:

People talking about tomes as if they’re the best thing that ever happened… The amount of time they last vs the cooldown simply makes them not worth it for me. Even if you’re running small group wvw, there are more useful things you can do to help your team.

I’m pretty sure no one is saying that tomes are the “best thing that ever happened.” We are, however, saying that they aren’t “useless” and can be very powerful if used in the right situations.

Zedd.8239:

Maiden England.3491:

People talking about tomes as if they’re the best thing that ever happened… The amount of time they last vs the cooldown simply makes them not worth it for me. Even if you’re running small group wvw, there are more useful things you can do to help your team.

I’m pretty sure no one is saying that tomes are the “best thing that ever happened.” We are, however, saying that they aren’t “useless” and can be very powerful if used in the right situations.

Yes but the right situation is so seldom that it’s not worth a slot. Renewed focus can be used at any time as is also an extra skill for survivability.

I play Tspvp, and I use Renewed Focus, but not why it’s a good Elite, only why it’s the Only elite that I can play in Spvp. I can’t play tomes because I need my utility to heal, to clean conditions and my weapon skills to gain mobility and good CC skills (like 5 of GS) or defensive/offensive skills (like 5 of the focus).
Yes, I’ve find some situations to use a tome, but that’s not in spvp.
Other classes has elite that’s good for pve, dungeon, wvsw or spvp. Mesmer has Time Warp (or wrap if you’re hungry) for pve, dungeon and spvp, and Moa form for pvp.
Thief has thief guild for pve, wvsw or dungeon, and Dagger Storm and Basilisk Venom for pvp.

There’s more example of good elite for different kind of situation in only one class.
Tome’s not a versatile elite, it’s only a situationary elite, and Renewed Focus isn’t good for spvp.

If we’re only talking about sPvP, I can understand the complaints. There aren’t really that many elite options there and I think that’s a problem. Not truly viable options anyway.

Both tones are incredibly useful in WvW, use the dps one, spam one on their zerg from the back lines and you be getting kills like no tomorrow while assisting your team with some heavy aoe damage that is spamable, is like having a warrior’s long bow 3 that doesn’t have a cool down, sure it deals a bit less damage but again is spamable. The support one allows you to keep your group alive while doing siege, along other buffs.

RF is incredibly useful in one v one fights along with runes of Lyssa I think it was you can turn it into a massive steroid.

Now warriors on the other hand…

Banner: HUGE Cool down, what good is a free res if you can barely use it, also the buff it grants can be obtained in so many other ways that is not exactly useful in any way.

SoR: Some basic buffs for an elite…wow…thief can steal em necros can turn em into conditions, yala, yala, yala.

And got forgives that juggernaut crap…seriously that was ANet’s troll signature skill when they designed the warrior.

Silv.9207:

(snip) and Renewed Focus isn’t good for spvp.

Sorry but I disagree. Renewed Focus is awesome for the classic 0/0/10/30/30 bunker Guardian that’s what 90% of us run in tournaments. Just by simply smahing f1-f2-f3 before and after RF you get 4k + istant direct heals, 6s+ protection AoE, decent burning damage, 6 conditions removed AoE, regeneration, retaliation and 6s stability AoE + 2 AoE stunbreakers. And that’s by facerolling the keyboard, a skilled player could use the virtues during crucial moments.

Of course as many have said the less you have invested in Virtues the weaker it is, but that’s a build diversity issue not a usefulnes one.

Ummmm tome of wrath is horrible in wvw…. The daze takes forever and a year to cast, smiters boon does not affect the guardian, quickness and fury are ok, but 3s of quickness is honestly very weak after the nerf, and the #1 skill scales horribly with power. Maybe in a condition heavy build it might be ok, but even running full dps it was very very weak. All you are really left with is a decent weakness/cripple bouncing skill, and buffing your allies, while not contributing much to actual damage yourself.

If it’s any consolation, in the last patch, they made Smiter’s Boon and Protective Spirit affect the casting Guardian.

I quite like both tomes. I’m currently using Tome of Wrath.
It may not be immediately obvious to some people but Tome of Wrath triples your base power and doubles your base precision and vitality. Tome of Courage also boosts base stats but I can’t quite remember which offhand, probably healing power and vitality. I know these aren’t game changers for some people but it is nice to know.

Edit: Just to clarify, I tested it out.
Tome of Courage: 916 extra toughness and vitality.
Tome of Wrath: 1832 extra power, 916 extra precision and vitality.

Yeah I think it’s about a 40% hike in stats, but I’m not sure of the exact formula

Why we havent a usefull underwater elite?

Norn guard here, and the only racial elite I have bothered to unlock is the leopard for the stealth.

Since guards don’t have any stealth skills, this is the only one that seemed useful and have used it on occasion.

I’m pretty sure the exact formula is what I mentioned earlier. Much the same as Necromancer’s Lich form. It’s a doubling or tripling of the base stats. It’s just not really mentioned anywhere!

Bash.7291:

Ummmm tome of wrath is horrible in wvw…. The daze takes forever and a year to cast, smiters boon does not affect the guardian, quickness and fury are ok, but 3s of quickness is honestly very weak after the nerf, and the #1 skill scales horribly with power. Maybe in a condition heavy build it might be ok, but even running full dps it was very very weak. All you are really left with is a decent weakness/cripple bouncing skill, and buffing your allies, while not contributing much to actual damage yourself.

Smiter’s boon now affects you, the quickness has been increased to 5s and the daze “only” takes 2s to cast (3s AoE daze should require a decent cast time). Also the first skill is ranged and aoe, two things that every guardian in WvW would love to have.

With tome of wrath you can get 10 seconds of party quickness (5 of which you can use yourself once out of tome mode) if you aren’t interrupted and mash 4 while channeling and mashing it again when it’s about to come off cooldown. It’s on a shorter cooldown than the mesmer’s team quickness, but your single target damage is probably reduced compared to a standard weapon, but you can also give your team fury and might to make up for it. Being interrupted can ruin your chances of getting the second quickness off though, so gotta be careful with that.