Guild Wars 2

Rfreak.6591:

Before starting let me say this, guardians lack in ranged options,

Guardians have plenty of ranged options: in fact 8 of the 9 weapons Guardians can use have ranged attack skills. That makes them very flexible, having both ranged and melee attacks in most of their weapons.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

Rfreak.6591:

Before starting let me say this, guardians lack in ranged options,

Guardians have plenty of ranged options: in fact 8 of the 9 weapons Guardians can use have ranged attack skills. That makes them very flexible, having both ranged and melee attacks in most of their weapons.

And yet it’s nearly impossible to be at more than 300 range and viable. Most of our ranged attacks are only useful when close to the target.

Look, there are plenty of problems with every profession. I just feel the Guardian is lacking in most categories. Guardian’s are forced to run that one spec because it’s the only viable one keeping us from taking a dirt nap. When I first saw the new Grandmaster Zeal trait Zealous Blade, I was excited. Then I realized it never scaled with Healing Power and left me vulnerable. Other issues have arisen such as the harsh nerfing of core skills without replacements or reasoning.

Ragnarox.9601:

when mesmers, thieves, warriors, eles cant kill guardian in first 5 sec they yell HE’S OP HE’S OP NERF NERF NERF!!!

guardian in good hands can be tough to beat. but with only 2 builds AH,Monk.

This is something you see posted in all the different forums, that X profession only has 1/2 viable builds.

@JaNordy.6149

About fighting confusion mesmers, just fighting mesmers is hard for a non-greatsword guardian for the simple lack of AoEs, if only they had a reliable speed boost and perhaps a single extra second on their immobilize skills they’d be able to actually fight all those freaking illusions (keep in mind those illusions got retaliation too so everything backfires)

Anyway the purpose of this topic was to bring up the bright side of the guardian, not the dark one, which isn’t all that big outside of pvp, I was simply shocked by the amount of complaints in the guardian’s section of this forum, as I can’t find a reason behind those, and about bug-fixes, especially compared to the engineer section.

I noticed few people take into account the “control” part in skills, that is immobilizes, blowouts, knockbacks, condition removal(always supported by light fields) and ability to prevent damage, even reflect it, and general control over the field thanks to that, those are guardian’s forte, what it excels at, quite like the engineer actually, except for the reflection of course.

I wasn’t trying to compare the guardian to anything, I was simply saying that the guardian has a lot to give, a lot of ways to be played and there’s no real reason to complain, even in pvp, after all it’s a game about teamwork, even casual, else why a mmorpg?

I just can’t agree with your argument, Rfreak. There are multiple builds yes but only two that provide the best results. Immobilization via hammer is unreliable at best, scepter giving the only real results. Only one blowback which is easily avoidable.(mesmers GS is FAR superior) One knockback via shield on a long cd and another on the SW hammer which just got nerfed.

@Arken.3725

I know this may sound weird but… have you tried “sanctaury”? when fully traited it lasts 11-12s, heals, reflect projectiles and blocks the path, while blowing out on cast, it HAS a long CD, actually I’d rather have the healing removed for a shorter CD myself, but when traited such an effect isn’t bad at 90s CD, it can literally wreck an enemy team in pvp while stopping projectile-based tactics, coupled with wall of reflection on downtime’s a beast.

Bane Signet causes a knockdown of 2s and Signet of wrath a 3s immobilize, working just like a couple warrior skills (well bull charge… “charges” too so…)

I gotta agree that hammer skills are way too slow for a melee weapon though

But I can’t understand why people underestimate wards and consecration skills this much I mean, Stability is a SHORT lasting buff available only to guardians and warriors in a reliable fashion, for all other classes is just for stomping, and if you’re gonna say “but they can dodge the ward” well they’ll waste all their endurance doing so and might risk being trapped in the ward, teleport? those have long CD or am I wrong?

From your post I understand you are speaking from a pvp point of view, yet I see nowhere a “control” part in it, I mean do you seriously expect pvp to be made of green numbers and nothing else? How do other classes survive without passives and healings? dodge and control perhaps?

People should really try engineer/ranger before complaining about invincible summons being removed or imba healings expected to make up for the uber-low vitality (instead of making up with the equips, as it’d be obvious).

@Rfreak: I think an important difference between some professions and the Guardian is that running away is never an option for us. That’s why we need to invest more in trying to survive straight-up damage.

@Ynna.8769

Kinda true, I usually use wards and sanctuary to run away but I need a tight spot to place it so others can’t pass.

I use Renewed Focus, but that doesn’t always work, so I often resort to using “Stand your Ground!” and Renewed Focus together, which is a bit too much resources for just running away. I’ve been testing a burst-build yesterday, so I was suddenly confronted with this problem :-)

Well to usually make up for the guardian’s turtle speed I use +20% swifteness runes, I know I know, it just doesn’t sound right but it’s the only way imo, consider there aren’t rune-dependant guardian builds so… (though I kinda regret not being able to equip the rune of the forge set) this gives a HUGE amount of swiftness (with a downtime of 10s) using Retreat! and as I usually trait in honor (for the retaliation on Aegis removal) I can get Superior Aria (well I get a bit of virtues too depending on what I’m doing so more buff duration, though 15 points into it are almost mandatory imo).

With my build I can’t spare any runes (I use a Pure of Voice-build, most of the time, which kinda necessitates Runes of the Soldier), but I’ll look into the Swiftness runes mre often while testing other builds.

Alarox.4590:

My biggest issue is the lack of mobility/snares which are needed for any offensive build that doesn’t rely on AH/EM (which just means you’ll die slowly while you chase enemies). 3 gap closers in the entire profession is not adequate. Having 1 reliable form of cripple/chill is not adequate. Having no passive movement speed increases and barely any forms of swiftness is not adequate.

I’ve resigned the fact that ArenaNet either doesn’t see this as a problem or doesn’t have it as a priority that will be addressed anytime soon.

I agree with you. To add insult to injury, with the class lacking mobility and snares, we have scepter as the only viable range weapon. If that’s the intend from ANet, at least make scepter’s orbs travel fast to target to compensate.

@ Rfreak.6591

Sanctuary only lasts 8 seconds, not 12 when traited and doesn’t reflect dmg. The bubble is also too small because I can hit targets within the bubble without being knocked back. I never really utilize any signet due to the lack of usefulness when compared to shouts. Warriors gain stability for 10 seconds if utilized, this isn’t short by any means. Nearly all classes have some form of stability(barring thiefs and necromancers).

I just find consecrations to be a terrible idea, it promotes static game play, has no real use when compared to other large radius AoE. If you look at the spreadsheet of current healing abilities you would notice Rangers have the best and Guardians/Necros have the worst in my opinion. Not to mention the myriad of dodging capabilities the ranger has.

When a profession is required to stand in one place to stay alive, there’s a problem.

Consecrations are incredible for organized group play.

Period.

If you’re a PUG, then you’re not going to see how valuable they are and should stick to the cookie cutter buids. They’ll server your “Solo -roaming” playstyle better.

And lets’ be blunt here: Guardians are PERFECTLY fine when running w/ a group/zerg. You do not have to spec a certain way, you can be whatever you want…. more or less.

Prove me wrong.

Having said that, if you’re running in a “5-man” or less, you are going to be reliant on other classes for speed because you will have to have certain utilities for upkeep/cond removal and support.

I’m one of those oddballs that doesn’t run an AH build. In fact, my trait setup is 0/15/0/30/25. I deal plenty of damage, have several boons with 100% uptime (including swiftness), and a minimum of 33% uptime on the rest. I’ve escaped groups of 15 before, starting from being CC’d in the middle of the group, and lived to tell the tale (though that poor guy I had just stomped when the group showed up couldn’t say the same).

Guardians have incredible mobility, and a lot of the complaints about their lack of mobility stem from people using the AH build. It’s a great, strong build, but it’s not the only one, and it has weaknesses that other builds can mitigate.

I’ve posted more complete details on the build I run here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Boonway-alternative-Guardian-build/. I don’t sPvP; I don’t know what works really well there. However, I know for certain that this build is strong and flexible, both in PvE and WvW. I would recommend that those of you with complaints about Guardian mobility give it a try.

How exactly are Consecrations excellent for organized group play? Sanctuary doesn’t last long enough, bubble is too small and leaves you vulnerable to AoE, Purging Flames does terrible damage while only removing one condition per tick(conditions easily reapllied), Wall of Reflection is only good in PvE where the AI doesn’t know any better but against any decent player, it’s a joke. Hallowed ground granting stability the size of a node which, once again, promotes static gameplay and leaves you vulnerable to other AoE of similar size.

Got to agree here, if you play wvw in a organized team then the leader will more or less order you to bring:
1. hallowed ground (which the teamleader dictates the placing of)
2. Wall of reflection (which is coordinated with the other WoR by the teamleader)
3. Stand you ground (to be used at your discretion)

These three babies make the 15 first seconds of battle to be on your terms and 9 time out of 10 determines the out come of the clash.

If a you pug around and play in small groups then other stuff comes into play.

But organized then consecrations are beyond good even though purging flames is bugged.

I know you just didn’t say “Stability is the best boon in the game”, then go on to say in a previous comment that “Hallowed ground granting stability the size of a node which, once again, promotes static gameplay”… then go on to say you “mostly sPvP”………

Purging Flames tick what, 4 times per area for 5 people… seems nice. Not ‘astonishing’ but nice. Also, it’s a Fire Combo field…

And you sPvP? Let’s not even consider WvW bomb’s in chokepoints..

Sanctuary w/ a Healing Guardian + Stability + Tome = awesome.

Not sure what game you’re playing, but wheither it’s tPvP or WvW, consecrations are great for Point Holding.

They give just enough time for your teamates to come and wipe what you’ve been bunkering on or enjoy mobility and damage negation to push through / bomb / or escape from a flank.

As for loving to see my guildies put skills to “unbelievable” use any day, there’s plent of video’s and more along the way.

I have to say that I’ve never really found much use for any of the consecrations besides Wall of Reflection and sometimes Sanctuary.

To me, Sanctuary just seems too inconsistent. Sometimes its blocks projectiles, sometimes it doesn’t. Anyone with stability can completely negate it, and it’s a little too small – i.e. people standing outside the bubble are swinging through the bubble and hitting me. I did trap a guy against a wall with it once though…..that was awesome.

Amins.3710:

Sanctuary w/ a Healing Guardian + Stability + Tome = awesome.

I’m not sure if I’m misunderstanding you or not, but if you have to use stability with Sanctuary, why should you use sanctuary?

The fire fields are useful for might stacking I guess, but other classes can place fire fields without the need to waste a utility slot for them.

The condition removal on Purging Flames is very lackluster imo, and why not just use Stand Your Ground for the AoE Stability? I guess Hallowed Ground could potentially affect more ppl, but on an 80 second CD?

I’ve seen almost all of your WvW videos Amins, and you have taught me a lot and I in no way doubt your skill and knowledge as a player, but I just don’t see the usefulness of the fire fields, especially compared to some of our other utilities unless there’s just something that I’m not seeing.

Using three utilities to pull of the tomes is a joke. If you can’t see that then you’re blind.

All I’m saying is that I find Consecrations to provide a small benefit with too long of a cool down and promotes static gameplay. Simple as that.

@ Vitu

Blocking projectiles was never the issue I think but rather the AoE placed beneath you making it utterly useless.

Arken.3725:

STG is, by far, the best utility Guardians have. I find Wall of reflection to be of no use against anyone with half a brain.

Wall of reflection is hilarious versus people who fire at it! And wall of reflection is great versus people that stop shooting when its up.

Stand your ground is just there for you to get in there. When you are in place then you pull Hallowed ground to support the push thru. Coordinated teams dont stand at range and spam, they push thru.

Of the three above stand your ground is the least powerful since it only support 5 people, WoR negates for the whole team and HG gives stability to the whole team. Try to stack WoR and HG, its kind of amazing if you do that with three guardians.

I agree, WoF is funny and if you’re not paying attention, it’ll destroy you(enemy ranged).

First, Arken, I do appologize for being an kitten : long day in the office yesterday.

Secondly, there seems to be a disconnect. From my perspective, you’re assuming 1 guardian is doing all of the things above.

For organized group play, people focus on certain abilities. For example, we run 2-3 guardians.

One is bunker/healer (sanct/wall & HTL) and the other two run stablity, condition removal, and focus on dps/point control.

Yes, consecrations have an important place in organized group play. Additionally, if you’re going to run w/ the, you ~need~ to spec your 1st slot in virtues for them.

Did you know that w/ boon duration Hollowed Ground lasts for 16s and is on a 64s cooldown & is a Fire Combo Field?

Sanctuary not only reflects all ranged DD, but does a nice 3.5k heal in 8s. Couple this w/ Mace Symbol + Battle Presence and you’ve basically put out over 10k+ in healing in 8s while minimizing ranged DD.

On an opening bomb/collision, putting 16s of stability and everyone opening w/ a blast (Guard, thief’s / ele’s ((or engi’s if you’re runnign them)), you can get 20+ stacks of might right at the outset of a fight in a matter of seconds.

This allows your Ele to hold off on thier fire combo field for 8-10s while they aoe Knockdown / churn earth, then re-applying the fire field for another round of stacking.

If you’re not in organized group play, they are lackluster. No doubt. I’m not disagreeing here.

Take now other peoples perspective and Guardians are a bit OP from the light of Group Play.

Yes, we are not the best “roamers”, but then again, we’re not the only one’s in this boat. We’re also not that bad either.

Overall, Guardians are not weak. We are one of the most balanced classes out there and our issues are minimal.

And as for the whole Range issue. yes, it sucks, but we’re also the Counter to Range. No other class can spec for the amount of Counter Range play that we have: Bubbles/Walls & Wardings.

Consecrations are for organized group play: people on Vent/TS.

for 99% of the situation.
just run an AH shout build and learn to dodge and youll be fine.
maybe some other “builds” can do better in very specific situations, but gearing up a toon to max stat/runes/sigil in gw2 is so expensive and time conssuming that you’d better off using a good all rounder (except for pvp).

Fair enough Amins, I see your point and I respect that. I’ve played mostly(if not all) Spvp so from my perspective where most consecrations aren’t even considered in a Guardian build.

The guardians need more than one ranged weapon. The staff has way too short of a range to be considered ranged in my opinion. Personally I’m sick of using the same scepter all the time, its getting boring. Then you have them nerfing what few good things the Guardian did have. It takes fun out of the game.

This whole posts makes my head hurt do you guys even look at you tube lol? Guardians don’t struggle at anything. It’s just not as easy mode as it once was. Thus the giant QQ train. I’d be incline to agree something is wrong if I didn’t have oh 100 videos showing nothing is wrong……..It’s the player not the profession to be honest. You have more than enough examples on this very forum of why and how we are fine.

All I see in this thread at the moment is. People basically saying they leveled to 80 and never learned the profession. So now they want it to be easier because I never learned the proper way to use it. The only thing guardian sucks at is ranged. But even with skill you can overcome that so cut the QQ out. Because you will get something else nerfed complaining about crap we don’t need fixed.

Silentstorm.7531:

This whole posts makes my head hurt do you guys even look at you tube lol? Guardians don’t struggle at anything. It’s just not as easy mode as it once was. Thus the giant QQ train. I’d be incline to agree something is wrong if I didn’t have oh 100 videos showing nothing is wrong……..It’s the player not the profession to be honest. You have more than enough examples on this very forum of why and how we are fine.

All I see in this thread at the moment is. People basically saying they leveled to 80 and never learned the profession. So now they want it to be easier because I never learned the proper way to use it. The only thing guardian sucks at is ranged. But even with skill you can overcome that so cut the QQ out. Because you will get something else nerfed complaining about crap we don’t need fixed.

Whoa…chill out for a second. I think you’re mistaking “QQ” for “a discussion about the viability of certain aspects of the Guardian class.”

I personally think Guards are fine for the most part. There are very powerful builds with the Guard – some more than others, and some only more powerful in certain situations. However, just because we want to use these forums to discuss certain traits or abilities, or possibly learn from those who have more experience than we do, doesn’t mean we are crying or stating that the class is in a dire need of attention.

The reason why people complain so much about anything is because its cheap, easy, and most of the time requires absolutely no social responsibility. Basically, its just to hear themselves talk. Mark Twain said, “People who feel the need to complain, have the widest category of issues to choose from”.

It seems the volume of things pointing towards devs, “Fix me fix me!” Huh? I noticed not many folks are really interested in fixing it themselves. Overcome, or move on… either way, the person that chooses to do so has at least made some effort.

Silentstorm.7531:

This whole posts makes my head hurt do you guys even look at you tube lol? Guardians don’t struggle at anything. It’s just not as easy mode as it once was. Thus the giant QQ train. I’d be incline to agree something is wrong if I didn’t have oh 100 videos showing nothing is wrong……..It’s the player not the profession to be honest. You have more than enough examples on this very forum of why and how we are fine.

All I see in this thread at the moment is. People basically saying they leveled to 80 and never learned the profession. So now they want it to be easier because I never learned the proper way to use it. The only thing guardian sucks at is ranged. But even with skill you can overcome that so cut the QQ out. Because you will get something else nerfed complaining about crap we don’t need fixed.

Videos prove nothing. You can make the same videos with just about any profession as long as it’s vs. people that happen to perform worse than you.

I find it ironic of you to make such a post. You click skills in your videos yet you talk about skill here. I’ve nothing else to add here.

Ramethzero.3785:

The reason why people complain so much about anything is because its cheap, easy, and most of the time requires absolutely no social responsibility. Basically, its just to hear themselves talk. Mark Twain said, “People who feel the need to complain, have the widest category of issues to choose from”.

It seems the volume of things pointing towards devs, “Fix me fix me!” Huh? I noticed not many folks are really interested in fixing it themselves. Overcome, or move on… either way, the person that chooses to do so has at least made some effort.

Not everyone complains the same way. In fact, saying people complain (not saying you did that) when they provide constructive criticism is plain dumb. Some people provided arguments and constructive criticism as to why certain things don’t work or don’t work well enough and could/should perform better.

Every class/profession forum has people complaining about another class/profession. Just ignore them and move on. Typically the threads and complaints come down to them not knowing how to counter a class and instead of learning how to bring the class down they complain for nerfs. I doubt very seriously that ANET takes these threads as reality, because if they were to cave into demands every class would only be able to use a sword, they would have to remove all class traits and utility slots, and every class would only be able to auto attack while being rooted in front of each other.

Harbinger.9645:

Every class/profession forum has people complaining about another class/profession. Just ignore them and move on. Typically the threads and complaints come down to them not knowing how to counter a class and instead of learning how to bring the class down they complain for nerfs. I doubt very seriously that ANET takes these threads as reality, because if they were to cave into demands every class would only be able to use a sword, they would have to remove all class traits and utility slots, and every class would only be able to auto attack while being rooted in front of each other.

In the future, read the thread before trying to make a sweeping generalization. No post in this thread has anything to do with the above.

Alarox.4590:

In the future, read the thread before trying to make a sweeping generalization. No post in this thread has anything to do with the above.

My bad, so used to these types of post being complaint (nerf this) posts. Thanks for the tip about the future, I will honestly check myself before I wreck myself from this point forward. If I’m reading too much into the possible tone of your response please forgive me, but maybe be a bit nicer in the future. We all post dumb stuff by accident.

Thanks again. Carry on with the thread, again my apologies.

Complainers will complain… about everything. From my experience in WvW and sPvP, guardians are one of the most annoying to face. A good player playing any proffession is annoying to face…
So Guardians are quite fine Maybe not perfect, but who is (except me <3).
If you aren’t good with a Guardian, change your playstyle, build or what not, or if you don’t like them, simply change professions. Complaining is annoying Especially when it’s without grounds. And I know most complaints (I said MOST, not ALL, for those who look and analyze all little words and twist them) are without grounds cuz half of the things people complained about in the past are proved wrong at one point or another and will be proved wrong in the future (as soon a good player can pull it off). And that is a fact. Anyway…