Guild Wars 2

This is all relevant to WvW and none of it is or will ever be tested by me in PvE. Also, this is from a solo roaming perspective.

I was messing around last night and decided to pull out my scepter and torch and see if I can make anything happen. I know this is a completely offensive weapon choice but I wanted to see, since I play a mainly defensive build, if I could put down more damage in a small amount of time with this choice. I found that I was actually able to synergize very well with my greatsword. I’ll just put below what my skill sequences tended to look like.

1. I open with sc/t and get my autoattack going while closing in.
2. I get on top of my enemy if possible and activate torch4 and immediately activate it again to shoot the flame. If you have trouble closing use scepter 3 to close distance.
3. I was typically fighting melee classes so then I would drop scepter 2 on top of myself and activate torch 5. Torch 5 isnt very strong, but it normally forces your enemy into a dodge roll. By this time they have eaten about 5-6 shots from scepter 2 and multiple autoattacks which hit pretty hard. Not to mention torch 4 and 5.
4. At this time I switch to greatsword. Now, you have a few options here. I personally drop symbol of wrath to protect my immediate area and gain retaliation. I then use leap of faith to close onto my enemy and proc more retaliation for leaping through symbol of wrath. I then use greatsword 5 to get ready for a pull. Normally at this time I am pressing them hard and they are hurting fairly bad so the will try to kite me. I follow for the next few seconds and try to land autoattacks. I will then activate greatsword 5 and pull them in. I see a ton of guardians use gs 5 and then immediately activate it. This leaves your opponent options such as dodge or a teleport. Every class out there knows what the little white sword is flying at them and they know it means bad things for them. For that reason alone I let it sit on my enemy almost for its full duration before I pull them, which allows them to waste more endurance/evasions. Finally, I pull them in and hit with greatsword 2. By this time alot of people are low on health and will try to kite you or you are fighting a bunker. If you are being kited, swap back to torch and use your immobilize or keep pressing with damage. When fighting a bunker class I tend to stay in greatsword and land autoattacks and use greatsword 3 and 5 to close ground. The autoattacks hurt like hell so make them count!

REMEMBER: You have no purely defensive weapon skills with this build. This if solely for fun/experimenting and to get people thinking. I normally run GS-M/Sh.

A little about my build. I run cleric gear, berserker weapons, and a mix of knights/cleric jewelry. I run citadel runes on my armor because without them my crit chance is only around 25-30 percent depending on food. The fury you gain is invaluable. With this gear selection I only have around 2800-2900 attack, again depending on food. I don’t want to go into my traits really as it is my own unique build, but I will tell you that I very very rarely lose 1v1 and every one of those I have lost I beat that same player multiple times thereafter and my loss was due to not clearing heavy conditions or making big mistakes. For more survivability I normally run greatsword and mace/shield.

This post is mainly intended to get people to think outside of the box with the guardian because there are waaaaay too many people running cookie cutter builds out there! Let me know if you have any bizarre weapon combos or stat combos that work well for you. Also, if you are interested in my build please pm me and I will be happy to share it with you. I’m not posting it here because I would hate to run into my enemies in WvW using it :p.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and if enough people are interested I will create a short video showcasing the combat sequence with the GS-Sc/T and it’s capabilities/limitations.

great post!
[NOQQ] – you run with Oozo and Co? big follower of his vids. heh.

funnily, recently i’ve been testing a new build. i am also a mix of mainly cleric’s some berserker and small amount of magi’s and knight’s. decent healing so high sustainability. Citadel runes would be interesting as i could definitely benefit from Fury as well althuogh my runes are tied to boon duration which i plan to keep. although, it’s not necessary so i’m willing to experiment. will have to look into this!

i’ve run scepter torch in PvP before, as well as WvW. usually with a RHS build though and it is extremely fun! couple with JI, insta immob, and then do your rotations. you can get the jump on many people this way.

also, agree with GS 5. let it tick! pull when your enemies least expect it. let them waste their dodges by pre-empting the immediate pull after being hit by the little white sword. now quick question, since i was just thinkign the other day but haven’t been able to test it yet.. is it possible to cue the GS 5 pull and then hit Esc to cancel it? just to get people to waste dodges. just a thought.

and might i suggest running mace/focus at times? depending on the encounters of course. shield is definitely invaluable but if you want to retain some survivability but also do decent AoE dmg, the mace focus combo is great as well. using the shields (focus 5, mace 3) for double AoE bursts is super fun to play.

Kcrook.3945:

This is all relevant to WvW and none of it is or will ever be tested by me in PvE. Also, this is from a solo roaming perspective.

I was messing around last night and decided to pull out my scepter and torch and see if I can make anything happen. I know this is a completely offensive weapon choice but I wanted to see, since I play a mainly defensive build, if I could put down more damage in a small amount of time with this choice. I found that I was actually able to synergize very well with my greatsword. I’ll just put below what my skill sequences tended to look like.

1. I open with sc/t and get my autoattack going while closing in.
2. I get on top of my enemy if possible and activate torch4 and immediately activate it again to shoot the flame. If you have trouble closing use scepter 3 to close distance.
3. I was typically fighting melee classes so then I would drop scepter 2 on top of myself and activate torch 5. Torch 5 isnt very strong, but it normally forces your enemy into a dodge roll. By this time they have eaten about 5-6 shots from scepter 2 and multiple autoattacks which hit pretty hard. Not to mention torch 4 and 5.
4. At this time I switch to greatsword. Now, you have a few options here. I personally drop symbol of wrath to protect my immediate area and gain retaliation. I then use leap of faith to close onto my enemy and proc more retaliation for leaping through symbol of wrath. I then use greatsword 5 to get ready for a pull. Normally at this time I am pressing them hard and they are hurting fairly bad so the will try to kite me. I follow for the next few seconds and try to land autoattacks. I will then activate greatsword 5 and pull them in. I see a ton of guardians use gs 5 and then immediately activate it. This leaves your opponent options such as dodge or a teleport. Every class out there knows what the little white sword is flying at them and they know it means bad things for them. For that reason alone I let it sit on my enemy almost for its full duration before I pull them, which allows them to waste more endurance/evasions. Finally, I pull them in and hit with greatsword 2. By this time alot of people are low on health and will try to kite you or you are fighting a bunker. If you are being kited, swap back to torch and use your immobilize or keep pressing with damage. When fighting a bunker class I tend to stay in greatsword and land autoattacks and use greatsword 3 and 5 to close ground. The autoattacks hurt like hell so make them count!

REMEMBER: You have no purely defensive weapon skills with this build. This if solely for fun/experimenting and to get people thinking. I normally run GS-M/Sh.

A little about my build. I run cleric gear, berserker weapons, and a mix of knights/cleric jewelry. I run citadel runes on my armor because without them my crit chance is only around 25-30 percent depending on food. The fury you gain is invaluable. With this gear selection I only have around 2800-2900 attack, again depending on food. I don’t want to go into my traits really as it is my own unique build, but I will tell you that I very very rarely lose 1v1 and every one of those I have lost I beat that same player multiple times thereafter and my loss was due to not clearing heavy conditions or making big mistakes. For more survivability I normally run greatsword and mace/shield.

This post is mainly intended to get people to think outside of the box with the guardian because there are waaaaay too many people running cookie cutter builds out there! Let me know if you have any bizarre weapon combos or stat combos that work well for you. Also, if you are interested in my build please pm me and I will be happy to share it with you. I’m not posting it here because I would hate to run into my enemies in WvW using it :p.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and if enough people are interested I will create a short video showcasing the combat sequence with the GS-Sc/T and it’s capabilities/limitations.

It’s useful in pve if you spec high crit chance, empowering might, and slot sup sigil of strength in scepter and sup sigil of bloodlust on torch.

Both scepter and and torch have attacks that hit multiple times frequently so you can proc empowering might and strength sigil consistently with that setup while building bloodlust stacks.

I don’t see the torch being all too useful in wvw though. The range is low and most people won’t stay in range of your torch attacks long enough to take advantage of it.

i’ve run torch a lot recently in WvW and it is extremely fun. torch 4 is great burst. torch 5 is nice for chasing fleeing enemies on low health. most of the time they will get downed. works amazing on thieves as well. you get them low. they stealth. channel flames spin around. after a few seconds, look around and you’ll see them downed.

only thing is watch out for retal obviously on such a high hit count move. and it’s DPS is not that high for the duration.

do note, i don’t play scepter or torch as ranged. because to be honest, we don’t have great ranged options. scepter helps but it’s strength still lies in close-mid range. torch as well. they are very beastly up in someone’s face.

SMITE ( number 2 scepter skill with 1200 range ) is the only skill that have guardians to kill cannons, oils and arrow carts in blind or ranged places on walls .

so very useful in www