Guild Wars 2

With HOT and specs and the lack of changes and the dilution of the role of the guardian will we lose our place in terms of viability? ( i have mained a guard for 3500 hours and i feel soon we will become less useful team and damage wise).
ps ignoring dragonhunter because it is not worth my time anymore.

Guardian’s role isn’t being diluted. If anything it will be more important because of how well it complements Revenant.

Misguided.5139:

Guardian’s role isn’t being diluted. If anything it will be more important because of how well it complements Revenant.

Your name is quite ironic…if you think guardians will compliment Revenants then you are truly misguided. Why bring a guard when you can bring a thief, 2 x eles, and a mesmer along with the Revenant.

However, in all honesty I hope I am wrong and you are right.

^^ Don’t worry, you are wrong. Nothing has made Guardian class irrelevant. If HoT is the challenging content Anet says it will be, people won’t shy away from it.

Did rev get on demand Aegis in different forms? If not I think we’re good

For PVE and WvW I doubt we’ll ever be considered a bad option, not optimal in PVE maybe but we’re already sitting there, but surely nice to have.

For tPVP /shrug, as far as I understood we already weren’t an optimal selection.

Either way we’re a solid profession with many strengths, it won’t ever be an issue IMO.

Obtena.7952:

^^ Don’t worry, you are wrong. Nothing has made Guardian class irrelevant. If HoT is the challenging content Anet says it will be, people won’t shy away from it.

My previous post was directed towards spvp. If you are referring to Raids in pve, then I agree with you.

Even in PVP … meta will change ALOT but fundamental roles will still be there. Guardians still have roles there to play. Regardless of game element, Guardians have much to offer. Our skills cover lots of ground.

As annoyed as I am about certain aspects of DH (and guard in general) i’m trying to remain optimistic. I’m looking forward to the additional Cripple on F1 effect and the revised Hunter’s Fortification where blocks now removes a condition. Looking forward to the BWE where we can test these features.

If these traits are what I hope for then the DH will play rather nicely. I just wish DH wasn’t released this past Beta weekend so I wasn’t reminded by how poorly (particularly the Bow’s weaknesses) the DH was.

Saiyan.1704:

As annoyed as I am about certain aspects of DH (and guard in general) i’m trying to remain optimistic. I’m looking forward to the additional Cripple on F1 effect and the revised Hunter’s Fortification where blocks now removes a condition. Looking forward to the BWE where we can test these features.

If these traits are what I hope for then the DH will play rather nicely. I just wish DH wasn’t released this past Beta weekend so I wasn’t reminded by how poorly (particularly the Bow’s weaknesses) the DH was.

We both know in its current reiteration radiance/valor/virtues >> anything with a DH simply due to the cast times on virtues and on demand snare with F1.

OR you can go condi/hybrid and still be better off.

DH right now is garbage and its plagued by design flaws. They can change the DH virtues all they want but as long as there is a cast time on F2 and F3, DH will remain inferior.

Longbow has to way to evade/mitigate damage, or snare, CC (well it does, and its garbage)

Traps are ….lol

UNLESS we get core DH changes, i won’t even bother speccing into it.

Jerus.4350:

Did rev get on demand Aegis in different forms? If not I think we’re good

revenant can definitely bee seen as a competitor for boon distribution, healing, condi cleanse and what not but guard axcels at aegis and stability.

yes rev can push out stability but in hard content max stability uptime will be desirable imo. guards can actively prevent 3 hits on every teammate, add in communal defense, you get a fourth. we can do pretty much everythin a revenenant can do but with longer CD which imo is the key factor here. I think however that everyone needs to consider that also rev has to make a choice you cannot have everything at once in a fight.

Again we are talking here about minmax situations which are generally posionous for any community. I think we will be looking at more verstile ways to beat content and that is a good thing.

Jerus.4350:

Did rev get on demand Aegis in different forms? If not I think we’re good

For PVE and WvW I doubt we’ll ever be considered a bad option, not optimal in PVE maybe but we’re already sitting there, but surely nice to have.

For tPVP /shrug, as far as I understood we already weren’t an optimal selection.

Either way we’re a solid profession with many strengths, it won’t ever be an issue IMO.

Aegis is overrated. 1 block on 50+ sec cd is bad.

Guards are slowly replaced by Revenants which are straight upgrade to us.

From a PvE perspective chronomancer is just so strong I sincerely doubt there will be a spot for the guardian… Sure right now that’s already the case for record runs, but when HoT comes out I see ppl change it even in daily runs since the guardian won’t bring anything the chrono doesn’t bring aside from 2 blocks.

Not to mention anet is all about unblockable attacks in their newer content, so I doubt to see it much in raids.

Ragnarox.9601:

Jerus.4350:

Did rev get on demand Aegis in different forms? If not I think we’re good

For PVE and WvW I doubt we’ll ever be considered a bad option, not optimal in PVE maybe but we’re already sitting there, but surely nice to have.

For tPVP /shrug, as far as I understood we already weren’t an optimal selection.

Either way we’re a solid profession with many strengths, it won’t ever be an issue IMO.

Aegis is overrated. 1 block on 50+ sec cd is bad.

Guards are slowly replaced by Revenants which are straight upgrade to us.

that is true because renewd focus, retreat, courgous return, communal defense, fragements of faith and pure of voice which converts burn to aegis were magically removed from the game to support this argument.

Sauncho.8076:

Misguided.5139:

Guardian’s role isn’t being diluted. If anything it will be more important because of how well it complements Revenant.

Your name is quite ironic…if you think guardians will compliment Revenants then you are truly misguided. Why bring a guard when you can bring a thief, 2 x eles, and a mesmer along with the Revenant.

However, in all honesty I hope I am wrong and you are right.

Can revenants reflect? Can revenants provide quickness ? Can revenans blind spam? Can revenants aegis/block spam? We have our answer guadian has the third most complete support kit in the game after ele and engi and wont be easily replaced. DH is a completely different story.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Sauncho.8076:

Misguided.5139:

Guardian’s role isn’t being diluted. If anything it will be more important because of how well it complements Revenant.

Your name is quite ironic…if you think guardians will compliment Revenants then you are truly misguided. Why bring a guard when you can bring a thief, 2 x eles, and a mesmer along with the Revenant.

However, in all honesty I hope I am wrong and you are right.

Can revenants reflect? Can revenants provide quickness ? Can revenans blind spam? Can revenants aegis/block spam? We have our answer guadian has the third most complete support kit in the game after ele and engi and wont be easily replaced. DH is a completely different story.

Reflect – no, block yes: Hammer 4 = 6s every 12s. Ventari tablet = upto 20s. In reality that’s 100% block uptime, more than any other class.

Quickness – yes, and more than Guardian. Shiro 9 is upto 18s (granted that’s starting at 100% energy and only AA, but they still can provide more than 5s every 30s).

Blind – Yes, more than Guardians if the spam Ventari tablet and trait Blinding truths. Basically 5s blind every 2s.

Aegis – No, this is where Guardian’s still are the best. They are also better at providing stability as some have pointed out and Guardian’s are better condi cleansers.

That said, Rev’s also do the following:

• Perma Fury
• Perma Regen
• Perma Swiftness
• +150 Ferocity (Assassin’s Presence)
• Perma Protection (though this is at a huge cost to energy regen)
• Taunt (don;t know how useful this is)
• 25 stacks of Vuln by themsleves
• 50% boon duration (this is probably more important than anything else)

Will Guardian’s be viable post HoT? I think so. Will it be meta in raids? I’m not so sure. I just think Herald added a lot more to Rev’s than DH did for Guardians. I use to main Guardian but DH put me off and beta hasn;t changed my mind. Right now, unless boon sharing goes to 10 or something similar, Nike from DnT posted something about future meta having to exclude classes. I do fear that Guardian’s could be pushed out of that role in favor of Rev’s. We’ll see I guess.

Guardian is already losing viability in PvP, so it’d be no surprise to me if we’re pushed out of the meta entirely by HoT release. In PvE it should be fine, unless Anet continues with its trend of making enemy projectiles unblockable instead of just changing the way reflects work.

Ok so
- Reflect you need Hammer and Legendary Centaur Stance
- Perma Quickness need Legendary Assassin Stance
- Blind need Legendary Centaur Stance and Salvation Specialization
- Perma Fury need Legendary Dragon Stance
- Perma Regen need Legendary Dragon Stance
- +150 Ferocity need Devastation Specialization
- Perma Protection need Legendary Dragon Stance
- Vulnerability need at least Sword MH
- The boon duration need a off Hand Shield and Herald Specialisation

After that you need to take into account the energy cost. The guardian can put a Wall of Reflection, give fury and quickness, blind, and give protection (with a Hammer). All at the same time. Can a Revenant do that? And if so for how much time?

- Protection cost 5 Energy per second
- Quickness cost 10 Energy per second
- Fury cost 2 Energy per second
- Projectile Protection will cost 8 Energy to keep 20second
- Blind cost 10 Energy to blind every 3sec

If you start at 50 Energy you can keep that up for 2,5 sec.
If you start at 100 Energy you can keep that up for 6.8 sec.

The guardian on the other hand can keep up everything for 10second except the Quickness which is 5second.

NEW META. The Herald with Legendary Assassin Stance, Legendary Centaur Stance and Legendary Dragon Stance with a Hammer and Sword/Shield and Herald/Devastation/Salvation Specializations.

Oh wait, this doesn’t work.

The revenant CAN’T replace a guardian. It can complement it on certain aspect. Revenant is more about long term specific buff. It can keep up protection for a long time, or projectile protection or fury/quickness and he can switch from one to the other with ease. But the Guardian can put everything into play at once for a burst. Something that the Revenant can’t do. The guardian is also more adaptable since he can take specific utility to serve the situation, while the Revenant need to change the whole Stance.

Go check Rev traits. Rev can be build to be better Guardian then any real Guardian, with the right gear set Rev will be more useful.
Basically, Anet sacrifice Guardian to find spot for the Revenant, alot of the skills and traits they give to the Rev should be given to the Guardian long time ago.
DH its a joke, joke which was requested by many PvE players on this forum, and now even they dont laugh to this joke.

Be careful what you wish.

Avit.3165:

Go check Rev traits. Rev can be build to be better Guardian then any real Guardian, with the right gear set Rev will be more useful.
Basically, Anet sacrifice Guardian to find spot for the Revenant, alot of the skills and traits they give to the Rev should be given to the Guardian long time ago.
DH its a joke, joke which was requested by many PvE players on this forum, and now even they dont laugh to this joke.

Be careful what you wish.

I think it will be that way. yes rev can not do all things at once but for most pve encounters you can simply switch your stances and b extremely versetile for any encounter while your teammates can focus on dps or close the gaps you will not fill for the next battle.

Thaddeus.4891:

Ok so
- Reflect you need Hammer and Legendary Centaur Stance
- Perma Quickness need Legendary Assassin Stance
- Blind need Legendary Centaur Stance and Salvation Specialization
- Perma Fury need Legendary Dragon Stance
- Perma Regen need Legendary Dragon Stance
- +150 Ferocity need Devastation Specialization
- Perma Protection need Legendary Dragon Stance
- Vulnerability need at least Sword MH
- The boon duration need a off Hand Shield and Herald Specialisation

After that you need to take into account the energy cost. The guardian can put a Wall of Reflection, give fury and quickness, blind, and give protection (with a Hammer). All at the same time. Can a Revenant do that? And if so for how much time?

- Protection cost 5 Energy per second
- Quickness cost 10 Energy per second
- Fury cost 2 Energy per second
- Projectile Protection will cost 8 Energy to keep 20second
- Blind cost 10 Energy to blind every 3sec

If you start at 50 Energy you can keep that up for 2,5 sec.
If you start at 100 Energy you can keep that up for 6.8 sec.

The guardian on the other hand can keep up everything for 10second except the Quickness which is 5second.

NEW META. The Herald with Legendary Assassin Stance, Legendary Centaur Stance and Legendary Dragon Stance with a Hammer and Sword/Shield and Herald/Devastation/Salvation Specializations.

Oh wait, this doesn’t work.

The revenant CAN’T replace a guardian. It can complement it on certain aspect. Revenant is more about long term specific buff. It can keep up protection for a long time, or projectile protection or fury/quickness and he can switch from one to the other with ease. But the Guardian can put everything into play at once for a burst. Something that the Revenant can’t do. The guardian is also more adaptable since he can take specific utility to serve the situation, while the Revenant need to change the whole Stance.

There are a lot of misconception about your post. Rev’s can easy stack up many boons e.g. swiftness, regen and fury to 40s+, there’s no need to permanently run the facet as a passive. Just look at the invocation trait set, it’s stacked with fury traits too. Rev’s can get protection from a couple other sources (e.g on heal proc so that 10 energy is pulsing blind + protec and the 2k heal) . Also, if you really need high blind uptime, bring a thief to your raid.

The default PvE meta would likely be Glint/ Shiro and they’d swap shiro for ventari when projectile block is needed. They can keep the block up for 20s for only 60 energy on a 5 second cd. Like I said, if needed that 5s could be filled with the hammer. Guardian’s can’t keep 100% projectile block up.

If you played rev (not sure you have), every time you switch to a legend you get 50 energy. Hence the default would likely be: build boons in Glint, use active of facets when needs be, then switch to Shiro for 8s of quickness every 10s. Switch back to Glint and either reactivate any necessary facets/ passive f2 or use weapon skills. Rince and repeat. That’s a lot more quickness uptime than Guardians can bring.

I don;t want to make this into a hate post about Guardians and nor am I saying they’re not viable. But from what I’ve seen so far Rev’s + Chrono are a much better fit than Rev + Guardian or Guardian + Chrono in a meta set up. Chrono’s bring alacrity and slow – 2 things which both Rev’s and Guard’s are bad at.

Also Rev brings the added ferocity, boon duration and Taunt that a guardian can’t bring. Phalanx warrior will be needed because you need 2 rev’s to match 1 war, eles are sitting pretty with their dps, so that doesn;t leave much room for a meta. Remember, not everyone will run meta, but unless DH gets some major buffs, I can see the Rev taking it’s place.

It’s really not about any skills or tricks that Guardians have that Rev’s don’t and vice versa. It really just comes down to having people that want to continually be successful with playing Guardian, no matter what the content is they do it with.

You think Guardian stinks because Rev is better? Fine, go play Rev. Who cares? It doesn’t matter; Skills that Rev’s have or don’t does not affect the skills that Guardian has or doesn’t. I’m still going to take my builds and still do the content that I like doing with those builds. The whole discussion is irrelevant unless your some minmaxing ‘play the best’ kind of gamer and that’s not very relevant in this game.

Asmodal.6489:

Ragnarox.9601:

Jerus.4350:

Did rev get on demand Aegis in different forms? If not I think we’re good

For PVE and WvW I doubt we’ll ever be considered a bad option, not optimal in PVE maybe but we’re already sitting there, but surely nice to have.

For tPVP /shrug, as far as I understood we already weren’t an optimal selection.

Either way we’re a solid profession with many strengths, it won’t ever be an issue IMO.

Aegis is overrated. 1 block on 50+ sec cd is bad.

Guards are slowly replaced by Revenants which are straight upgrade to us.

that is true because renewd focus, retreat, courgous return, communal defense, fragements of faith and pure of voice which converts burn to aegis were magically removed from the game to support this argument.

Renewed focus is not aegis nor block.

Ragnarox.9601:

Asmodal.6489:

Ragnarox.9601:

Jerus.4350:

Did rev get on demand Aegis in different forms? If not I think we’re good

For PVE and WvW I doubt we’ll ever be considered a bad option, not optimal in PVE maybe but we’re already sitting there, but surely nice to have.

For tPVP /shrug, as far as I understood we already weren’t an optimal selection.

Either way we’re a solid profession with many strengths, it won’t ever be an issue IMO.

Aegis is overrated. 1 block on 50+ sec cd is bad.

Guards are slowly replaced by Revenants which are straight upgrade to us.

that is true because renewd focus, retreat, courgous return, communal defense, fragements of faith and pure of voice which converts burn to aegis were magically removed from the game to support this argument.

Renewed focus is not aegis nor block.

It regen your F3 block. And that’s not the point. Aegis is way more than 1 every 50sec.

Thaddeus.4891:

Ragnarox.9601:

Asmodal.6489:

Ragnarox.9601:

Jerus.4350:

Did rev get on demand Aegis in different forms? If not I think we’re good

For PVE and WvW I doubt we’ll ever be considered a bad option, not optimal in PVE maybe but we’re already sitting there, but surely nice to have.

For tPVP /shrug, as far as I understood we already weren’t an optimal selection.

Either way we’re a solid profession with many strengths, it won’t ever be an issue IMO.

Aegis is overrated. 1 block on 50+ sec cd is bad.

Guards are slowly replaced by Revenants which are straight upgrade to us.

that is true because renewd focus, retreat, courgous return, communal defense, fragements of faith and pure of voice which converts burn to aegis were magically removed from the game to support this argument.

Renewed focus is not aegis nor block.

It regen your F3 block. And that’s not the point. Aegis is way more than 1 every 50sec.

And it’s more than just A block, it’s the group block functionality that makes it so nice for guardian. One well played guardian can save a group that doesn’t know what they’re doing. That’s power right there. But, then personally it’s an integral part of our block rotation which allows us to facetank things keeping them in one spot and letting everyone focus on damage. Really Aegis is amazing, nothing to complain about with it.

Rev does seem great, somewhere between guard/war/thief, plenty of evades, offensive buffs, speed, teleports, and reflect/projectile defense. But will it replace guard? naw, it can fill some of the same niches but not really any more than a Mesmer does, and we already know that there’s a reason guards are loved in fractals, Aegis being a big reason. Condi clears and reflects again, mesmer already overlaps with us on that side, why is it an issue if Rev does now as well? Seems like we have more options but we’re still defensive kings being guards.

All this for PVE at least.

Terra.8571:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Sauncho.8076:

Misguided.5139:

Guardian’s role isn’t being diluted. If anything it will be more important because of how well it complements Revenant.

Your name is quite ironic…if you think guardians will compliment Revenants then you are truly misguided. Why bring a guard when you can bring a thief, 2 x eles, and a mesmer along with the Revenant.

However, in all honesty I hope I am wrong and you are right.

Can revenants reflect? Can revenants provide quickness ? Can revenans blind spam? Can revenants aegis/block spam? We have our answer guadian has the third most complete support kit in the game after ele and engi and wont be easily replaced. DH is a completely different story.

Reflect – no, block yes: Hammer 4 = 6s every 12s. Ventari tablet = upto 20s. In reality that’s 100% block uptime, more than any other class.

Quickness – yes, and more than Guardian. Shiro 9 is upto 18s (granted that’s starting at 100% energy and only AA, but they still can provide more than 5s every 30s).

Blind – Yes, more than Guardians if the spam Ventari tablet and trait Blinding truths. Basically 5s blind every 2s.

Aegis – No, this is where Guardian’s still are the best. They are also better at providing stability as some have pointed out and Guardian’s are better condi cleansers.

That said, Rev’s also do the following:

• Perma Fury
• Perma Regen
• Perma Swiftness
• +150 Ferocity (Assassin’s Presence)
• Perma Protection (though this is at a huge cost to energy regen)
• Taunt (don;t know how useful this is)
• 25 stacks of Vuln by themsleves
• 50% boon duration (this is probably more important than anything else)

Will Guardian’s be viable post HoT? I think so. Will it be meta in raids? I’m not so sure. I just think Herald added a lot more to Rev’s than DH did for Guardians. I use to main Guardian but DH put me off and beta hasn;t changed my mind. Right now, unless boon sharing goes to 10 or something similar, Nike from DnT posted something about future meta having to exclude classes. I do fear that Guardian’s could be pushed out of that role in favor of Rev’s. We’ll see I guess.

Note that I didnt mention projectile destruction/absorption (not block) because its a dps loss when you can reflect, they are only superior against quirky projectiles that can be destroyed but not reflected or when you need 100% projectile defense uptime.

Providing quickness is not the same as having quickness. And half of the things you mentioned cant be maintained due to energy costs 2 legend limitation and trait line limitations.
As things are the PVE rev build will be shiro/glint Devastation/invocation/Herald leaving no room for blind and ventari’s projectile absorption. Perma boons are only permanent as long as you only auto attack in glint since swapping legends ends facets and using other skills use up energy.

It’s hard to say at this point. There are a few unknowns still:

1. Yet to be revealed elite specs. Will they fill similar roles?
2. Changes to PvE AI and fractals. They’ve been working on improving the AI in the background and are trying to make fractals more challenging. Which tools are preferable will have a big impact.
3. Will guardian’s competition get nerfed? Revenant was a bit over-buffed in BWE2 and may be scaled back a bit.
4. Will guardian receive changes with HoT?

From a PvE perspective, it’s too hard to say. I’m sure guardian will remain viable, but it may no longer be in as high of a demand.

WvW still heavily favors guardian because of stability.

PvP is where I see guardian being left behind. Bunker guard barely hangs in, burn guard is a gimmick, and pretty much any other build is sub-par. The specialization changes didn’t make a lot of needed fixes for guardian.