Guild Wars 2

Howdy everybody.

Before you reply, please note this is highly WvW specific, due to it’s in no way applicable to sPvP.

To start off, I have a 80 Thief and 80 Necromancer as well, and I just finished my Guardian leveling session, geared him out and stuffed him into WvW.

I tried out all the weapons, but felt like I couldn’t actually do any reliable damage. No matter which build I tried, I felt just like a mule for Wall of Reflection. Scepter never hits anything that moves (Smite is fine though), Greatsword/Mace/Sword are borderline useless for damage application purposes in mobile fights (which most in WvW are) because either you lack a gap closer, or an immobilize/cripple or the range (Greatswords Whirl just misses once stuff starts moving).

So that only left me with Staff as my main weapon, with terrible range, the orb skill basically like the scepter auto attack always misses mobile targets too, empower putting you into one place for a long time, leaving you with a somewhat situational line of warding (the inability to move while casting makes this dangerous to use in many situations), a so-so swiftness buff and a short range AoE attack that cannot even hit on walls.

But ok, so I learned to stick with that attack, but the hits just feel lackluster.

In PvE it’s all great, since mobs will just stand in front of me and take my beating. But in WvW if the bulk of my damage misses just because the player is moving, it’s not fun.

Note: I tried traiting in most variations, and I use full Beserker gear (survivability is not an issue, because my Thief play has more than trained me to know when to engage, and how to dodge).

So fine, damage is something Guardians seem like incapable of dishing out in WvW. That is completely fine by me, but the only real utilities we have to offer are shouts and consecrations. And they feel somewhat situational, and they all incur far too much standing around.

I mean the way it feels, all that I can be useful for is throwing down wall of reflection every now and then. Maybe a shout build could do more for the team, but I’d like a bit more Hybrid.

I currently use a 0/20/10/20/20 build, designed to balance consecrations, improve my tank a bit, while trying to increase my damage potential as much as possible.

Consecrations aside, it really feels to me like Warriors are just like a better version of Guardians in WvW (2 complete invulnerabilities, cap closers, cripples, damage, burst, shouts) with just less healing.

So, is this just what the Guardian is? Or have I not fully understood how to utilize Guardians properly? What possible focuses or roles could I have as a Guardian, and what weapon sets/skill/traits would synergize with such roles?

Or do I just want to re-roll Mesmer?

In before the anti-Guardians say they’re too strong.

My 80 Thief, and my 80 Warrior has never lost a fight to a Guardian. When running around on my Guardian, I feel like a sitting duck in WvWvW, but the Guardian is very strong in sPvP.

Guardians can be strong…
Lately, I’ve been playing melee, in the middle of the enemies in some of the bigger field skirmishes…
Guardians are pretty ok if they are in the melee, while the rest of the allies are back there going pew pew…. The strength goes up if there are other allies in the melee as you are.

Give one of the 30 Valor builds, Altruistic Healing… a try. Though, you’d have to know when to get into a melee as well as know how to get out of it to do any good…

Also yea, I used to sit back and pew pew with the Staff too…

I have to say that guardian on WvW are not weak, i lost only when they attack me in 3 or more persons, against 2 enemy i win 75% of the times, or i simply dont get the kill because they run away and i cant catch them.
But yes, guardian on WvW is a bit out of place… WvW is a very mobile type of gameplay, and guards are the less mobile class in this game

Being as a lv80 ranger before I rerolled guardian, I have to say , guardian is much much much more powerful in wvw at least than ranger. My ranger is in full exotic gears and my guardian is not even only lv80 yet (lv70+) and with crappy gears, but the fact is my guardian kills more and survive much more. Guardian has some amazing gap closer skills such as GS3, GS5, Sword 2, JI, and specter 3 is even better. I have never let anyone flee away except thief and sometimes mesmer (not all the time) while my guardian chase them.

I’ve been playing a guardian since day 1 on my server and it is hard to feel powerful, I agree. I’ve tried many, many things too, and was starting to just get annoyed with how useless I felt. But within the last few weeks I’ve really had a great time going more melee with a hammer/gs. I am surprising myself at how much more mobile the hammer is than what I originally thought. Switching between that as gs you always have a gap closer on hand, along with hammer 3 and 5 which locks players down. It does not take me very long to down anyone with this load out, most hits aside from the first 2 swipes in gs/hammer 1 are 800-1100 damage.

Right now I run Cleric’s armor with Dolyak runes, half berserker jewelry for hard hitting and half toughness/vit specced jewelry (forget what it is called). I like to engage huuuuuge groups and can at least down ~3 in a go, but more importantly tenderize the front line for the stronger to sweep up. I use Save Yourselves + Contemplation of Purity after a few seconds (so the condition damage/boon strippers are tapped out before I engage these skills) to be in boon city for a few more hits before falling back to recuperate with Renewed Focus. We are very symbiotic with small parties because we can switch to support on a dime and let others take over after meleeing some foos, just don’t expect to go it alone and get anything done. And as far as I’ve played, not like you mentioned this but oh well, you’ll have to accept always being the Gandalf of your group. Just think “fly you fools!” as your group gets away and you face the music because let’s be real, we couldn’t outrun a rock.

TL;DR: we are meat tenderizers and Gandalf.

As an aside, I do have the most fun running with a mesmer or shout warrior, as that has been quite the trio of survivability in my experience. Sorry if this wasn’t helpful, just came at the right time as I was switching some stuff up after facing your same problem.

My biggest problem with wvw is that people tend to run away when I begin to get the better of them. Chasing them down with a guardian is difficult. I read through the posts here and it’s given me some ideas. I wish guardians had more options to cripple enemies, but their conditions seem to focus on burning which is nice but you can run away while you’re on fire. Even when I teleport to them they keep on running like scared little babies back to the motherzerg it’s pitiful.

Is there a sigil that inflicts cripple on crits like how earth inflicts bleeding?

It always comes down to what guardians can do at range. Guardians are limited at range combat, so our main goal should be to either avoid it, or find a way to get into melee range. This often times puts us at the front of the pack, supporting our teammates by taking hits for them.

With that said, the only offensive ranged build that I’ve enjoyed in WvW was with spirit weapons. If spirit weapons could be cast through walls like Mesmer clones, then we’d be awesome at castle siege. xD

I find that the Guardian is great for castle defense, capturing supply camps, and open area skirmishes. This is when a guardian can dive into a group of enemies and create chaos in melee range.

However, I agree that a Guardian can easily be out of place against a bunch of aoe attackers that our barriers can’t do anything against, and our attacks either won’t reach or hit.

In those large scale ranged battles of attrition I swap my traits and gear for retaliation up time and reviving (Rune of Mercy) and become the medic. Wall of Reflection and retaliation is my bread and butter in those fights, and nothing says “shoot at me!” like reviving people.

MastaNeenja.1537:

Is there a sigil that inflicts cripple on crits like how earth inflicts bleeding?

You’re looking for Sigil of Ice and Sigil of Hydromancy. I love them, and chill is better than cripple.

Use Sigil of Ice on the main hand, and Sigil of Hydromancy on the off -hand if you are using one.

I’ll look into that, i see what you mean bout chill being better since it also slows down skill recharge, thanks.

First off, thanks for all your responses. You guys are amazing at staying constructively, and giving me a few views here.

SHAKA ZULU.3128”

I’ve been playing a guardian since day 1 on my server and it is hard to feel powerful, I agree. I’ve tried many, many things too, and was starting to just get annoyed with how useless I felt. But within the last few weeks I’ve really had a great time going more melee with a hammer/gs. I am surprising myself at how much more mobile the hammer is than what I originally thought. Switching between that as gs you always have a gap closer on hand, along with hammer 3 and 5 which locks players down. It does not take me very long to down anyone with this load out, most hits aside from the first 2 swipes in gs/hammer 1 are 800-1100 damage.
Right now I run Cleric’s armor with Dolyak runes, half berserker jewelry for hard hitting and half toughness/vit specced jewelry (forget what it is called). I like to engage huuuuuge groups and can at least down ~3 in a go, but more importantly tenderize the front line for the stronger to sweep up. I use Save Yourselves + Contemplation of Purity after a few seconds (so the condition damage/boon strippers are tapped out before I engage these skills) to be in boon city for a few more hits before falling back to recuperate with Renewed Focus. We are very symbiotic with small parties because we can switch to support on a dime and let others take over after meleeing some foos, just don’t expect to go it alone and get anything done. And as far as I’ve played, not like you mentioned this but oh well, you’ll have to accept always being the Gandalf of your group. Just think “fly you fools!” as your group gets away and you face the music because let’s be real, we couldn’t outrun a rock.
TL;DR: we are meat tenderizers and Gandalf.
As an aside, I do have the most fun running with a mesmer or shout warrior, as that has been quite the trio of survivability in my experience. Sorry if this wasn’t helpful, just came at the right time as I was switching some stuff up after facing your same problem

This I must say has been the most helpful posting here.

I guess all your responses explain my feeling here. Going on a ranged/aoe trip with Staff/Scepter+Focus was not as useful as I thought it was. I must have been really spoiled with easy gap closer and killing power, with very decent AoE ranged attacks. So the key really lies in the pure Melee form.

So I shall look into getting used more to Hammer/GS and see how I can integrate them into my build, and only throw on a Staff if I’m defending behind a gate.

Staff paired with Hammer or GS is fine as well, with its Swiftness buff on short CD if you traited for 2 Cooldown. Place the wall right in front of a fleeing enemy and watch him fall on his kitten Use Empower to heal up as AH allows you to. kittenblock kiting hunters with Wall of reflection as you close in…

But you sacrifice burst damage and viable weapon switching when compared to the GS and Hammer combo.

I just want to echo trying Crithammer/Altruistic Healing Build. I have 0/5/30/30/5 build, knights armor protection/buff shouts. I’ve noticed that since switching to the Crit/AH build I am much more survivable, even have had a few laughs as small groups of half dozen or so people dance around me, frustratingly trying to bring me down.

If I am part of a zerg I usually frontline tank, and dodge backwards into the zerg as needed to heal up, while using the bind on scepter and hammer 4 to lock down enemies that try to follow me so the DPSers can take them down.

i find my burst to be pretty respectable too with 20/25/25/0/0 build and full zerker everything, i guess we can still build ourselves to be an aoe judge bombing guardian if we want to. 10% to people on fire, 5% greatsword damage and 10% more to people with conditions(fire) = 25% damage increase to people burning. Juke cast purging flames before you cast jude’s intervention for burn and you would find that even 80s go down fairly fast provided they dont spec real tanky

i power up with staff 4 before i charge in and save yourselves before i charge in,

8 seconds of burst mode with 88% crit rate and 3800 attack, 82% crit damage=
very bursty aoe Judge bomb

still yeah i agree that we kinda become reflection wall mules in zerg vs zerg battles,
could really use a better range weapon

Running a 0/0/30/30/10 build, GS+Staff with Judges Intervention on a reduced cd, I find I almost always have a gapcloser ready. GS 3 + JI is a HUGE INSTANT gap closer into any group. GS5 groups them up (bearing mind they literally can’t see you coming) and then the rest of my group does their dirty dps work. If you want to do raw dps, you can go glasscannon Guard with a scepter/gs. Guardian is an amazign wvw class.

If you have problem on chasing ppl, here is my experience. It works in most of time in wvw.
1st u wanna make sure your foe is not too far away, ideal distance is withing 1800 range. Then pop up either retreat or save urself to get run speed buff (but if u r following zerg, you probably already have that) , start with GS, use JI + GS3 to catch him, then GS5 + pull him back; he will be knocked down then will take most of ur GS2 damage at following; then switch to specter 3 root him plus smite, he will keep running for sure but at that time he has 1/2 HP at most, then u have torch 4 + 5 . Torch 5 is very good at chasing ppl at mid range coz its auto-lock, and due to its high frequency of atking (and with decent damage as well), if you have sigil of ice on it, it will proc in most of time, now 90% class w/o teleport skills should be down.

MastaNeenja.1537:

My biggest problem with wvw is that people tend to run away when I begin to get the better of them. Chasing them down with a guardian is difficult. I read through the posts here and it’s given me some ideas. I wish guardians had more options to cripple enemies, but their conditions seem to focus on burning which is nice but you can run away while you’re on fire. Even when I teleport to them they keep on running like scared little babies back to the motherzerg it’s pitiful.

Is there a sigil that inflicts cripple on crits like how earth inflicts bleeding?

Wall of reflection is kitten I suppose, AoE condition removal sucks as well. Wall of reflection is almost op its 10sec duration on a quite wide, with traits you can make is targetable and in choke point its obviously useful

- Use Stand your ground for stability and retaliation to the team, then use staff Empower to heal you get near full health, can tank a Thief burst decently whilst in this state especially with people around you with Altruistic Healing if your lucky get a nice boon also from the shout trait Pure of voice.

Other two shouts I guess you can tell already what the points are massive heal and Retaliation as removing Aegis grants retaliation trait.

Selfless Daring heals people is really good also hence the energy sigils.

I left a sigil and 10 trait points for you to tailor to yourself as I tend to change undecided either in Radiance for Justice Blinds and Retaliation on heal traits or Virtues line Inspired Virtue and Retaliation Subconsciously. Even 5 points in both for extra blind and some buffs when activation virtues.

Good luck Guardian are decent but Thiefs are op but you have a good chance at beating them.

Mesmar I struggle usually need bring out the greatsword to chain all clones and user and hope the spin hits enough take them done slowly out heal them.

Use Rune of Air when they hit u lightening strike hits them back hard and the 10% crit damage is good as I use a 2nd spare weapon to build precision then swap it out also food that adds precision you crit very often still with high crit damage% normal hits pretty hard also even tho hard to land Zealot’s defense this skill seriously needs some love in range or speed of initial turn animation or let us move for the love of God!

Oh and you get swiftness on heal handy whilst blocking and trying moving away.

BTW team mates will appreciate your Shouts and Pure of voice removing conditions.

Overall pretty decent in sPVP(nerfed skills, no food and no time to charge weapon) WvW works well.

I have other builds similar but leave it to the creative people to express themselves and experiment.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQNAsdWlUgiC33xKEfoEC2DCEj6orHUkCxQA;T0AgzCmoixEjIGbMuYkxs+Y8x5jdGvPA

norc.5073:

and a short range AoE attack that cannot even hit on walls.

If you want a quick tip on using the staff for siege defense, the Staffs AoE hits through the gate. I’ve actually killed careless people melee-ing the gate or using a ram, and at a 40%+ crit rate, the damage is steady and not too bad at all!

guardians are a great support class for wvw, and can respec / regear depending on your crew. For small scale, I run greatsword and hammer, and for guildstuff I run staff / mace & shield. At tower / keep defenses with siege, I run hammer / staff for the #5 blocks.

Here is a few videos I made showing some different playstyles.

You can find more at our youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/hbeucom

guardians are a great support class for wvw, and can respec / regear depending on your crew. For small scale, I run greatsword and hammer, and for guildstuff I run staff / mace & shield. At tower / keep defenses with siege, I run hammer / staff for the #5 blocks.

Here is a few videos I made showing some different playstyles.

You can find more at our youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/hbeucom

To OP:

A lot of people go through the phase where they feel melee is not useful in WvWvW. And since Guardians really have no ranged option, that makes the whole class seem useless.

But they always find a way to make things work out in the end.

For starters, i might try an offensive build revolving around meditations using GS or sword/whatever. This will address the mobility issue you are having somewhat.

OP:

Your build is pretty BAD and greatsword, scepter/shield is a very good combination even for WvW. You better reroll a mesmer… or melee ranger!