Guild Wars 2

I’ve been running mace+focus and hammer for a long time (15+ levels) and was thinking of swapping hammer out for sword and board. Can anyone provide info on how well this would work out, or if I should bother? Honestly, sword gameplay is a bit alien to me on the guardian, I’ve been playing defensively for a long time and I know sword is more damage geared, though I’d appreciate the mobility of the teleport to free up a utility slot from Judge’s Intervention, as mace and hammer aren’t particularly mobile.

Any thoughts?

If you enjoy Hammer why not switch to Greatsword? It gets a leap, symbol, cripple/pull and excellent Whirl combo.

Mace I felt gave extra survivability while leveling but Sword allowed for faster kills which was better. Kill slower and live longer… or kill faster and not need to live longer. Faster kills means more XP.

Tobeyeus.9376:

If you enjoy Hammer why not switch to Greatsword? It gets a leap, symbol, cripple/pull and excellent Whirl combo.

Mace I felt gave extra survivability while leveling but Sword allowed for faster kills which was better. Kill slower and live longer… or kill faster and not need to live longer. Faster kills means more XP.

I do switch hammer for GS sometimes, and it’s nice, but again, I like to play defensively, I just enjoy a tanky style of play.

My favorite trick with GS is to pull mobs to me with 5, whirl, then switch to mace and immediately hit 3 to block and AoE counter.

That said, I’m just not feeling GS right now. Between the skill slot changes and just general mehness of the spin and mow style (to me, opinion, of course), I’m just looking to try something different, and I haven’t done sword and board much. I like to change around my weapons and slots every now and again to be sure I’m fresh on my skills and hopefully learn some new tricks now and again.

I run mace + torch and it makes for really good survival while killing things quickly. After hurling zealot’s flame and following up with cleansing flame most mobs are between near death and half health. I use anything I feel like as my swap combo, but mostly great sword.

To answer your questions, yes having a sword + shield is going to “work.” You’ll be able to solo just fine with any weapon except the staff. But for killing things efficiently, skip the shield and the focus. Truthfully, shouldn’t need them to stay alive. And take a good look at the torch. I think it’s by far the best guardian weapon right now.

You should try Sword/Focus. You sound a bit like me. You enjoy the defensive tanky style of play but after a whole mess of levels playing that way, maybe a little more offense couldn’t hurt. Sword and focus lets you have an offensive style of gaming, quick moving with Sword’s #2 teleport and a little bursting with sword #3.

All in all, sword is a good choice for the feeling you have right now. Want some more offense, but would like to stay defensive over-all.

Sword
— #1 hits kind of hard, with the third attack doing triple damage.
-- #2 can teleport (600 range on it) and blinds your target.
— #3 feels bursty and can also block incoming ranged attacks

Coupled with the focus means you get 2 blinds, 2 dodges, health regen, ranged block, and a 3 hit absorb block. very defensive and offensive at the same time.

The focus isn’t what people seem to think it is though. I’m not sure why melee players seem to have a obsession with it. It’s really not for you.

If you’re looking for survival you need to put your sword down and pick up a mace. The mace is what we have that offers constant survival.

The shield isn’t for that; it’s for tanky TEAM support. And the focus certainly isn’t for that. It carries a ranged attack for scepter users and a panic button for when a caster is over whelmed.

For survival to a melee player, those three blocked attacks in that tiny window every 45 seconds aren’t going to come close to the constant constant healing and regular blocks a mace is going to offer you.

If you pair your defense main hand mace with the torch—our offense oriented off hand—you’ll get the quick kills you want and keep your health high.

I run sword/shield for DPS and mace/shield for tanking. My two shields have different stats and sigils, and so I call them my DPS shield and my tanking shield because they are optimized for those roles.

I really enjoy sword (1h sword) with shield for DPS. It’s fast and does good damage, I have a jump skill (teleport), I have my shield for the bash skill and my defensive/healing bubble. Sword does a slight bleed from sigils (I can often keep 2 bleeds stacked on a mob) and it has a couple of AoE components as well.

I don’t use any other weapons at all.

I recommend Sword and Focus as well if you like being more defensive. Ironically, I’ve found Shield to be less effective than Focus in most defensive scenarios.

Think evasion tanking (blinds) and it’s a very mobile build which I like over mace.

I run sword and shield all the time—PvE, WvW, PvP. I enjoy it, and it fits my playstyle.

I don’t run focus because protection and avoidance are more improtant than blind to me—I have plenty of avoid-1-hit skills, what I need are skills to avoid many hits in rapid succession or hits from champions. Since you can’t avoid everything, the protection from the shield is nice, as is the knockback/projectile absorption.

Fildydarie.1496:

I run sword and shield all the time—PvE, WvW, PvP. I enjoy it, and it fits my playstyle.

I don’t run focus because protection and avoidance are more improtant than blind to me—I have plenty of avoid-1-hit skills, what I need are skills to avoid many hits in rapid succession or hits from champions. Since you can’t avoid everything, the protection from the shield is nice, as is the knockback/projectile absorption.

Except for Shield #5 (and it’s ridiculously long CD) what protection does Shield offer other than some token armor?

Shield #4 gives the protection boon to you and allies in the area of effect.