Guild Wars 2

I haven’t done much WvW and the only thing stopping me from taking my Guard to 80 is I would like a class I can play offensively in WvW as that is what I will focus on at 80 and I don’t really wish to be stuck in the back lines.

I really like the way a Guard plays for the most part, but I have two issues being the Staff and the Sceptre both of which I have been told are necessaties in a WvW build.

I really like the 2handed weapons and the Sword+Torch, so are there any Guardians out there who have success playing a build focused on these weapons in WvW?

Edit: Thought I should add, when I say offensively, I do not mean glass cannon, that is definately not my play style.

I know there are people who have successfully used the Greatsword in WvWvW, but that playstyle seems a bit too risky to my liking.
But you can play melee in WvWvW. It’s harder and it takes a different mindset. If you can get a couple (5 or more) friends together, you can do some guerrilla-tactics on the enemy’s supply lines, which melee does really well. In zergs, you need to be careful and pick your moments. Try to flank and kill the weaker enemies and prepare to run away when needed.

I’ve played with the Greatsword in WvW sinse lvl 2 and, if you want to play a build that give a good ammount of DMG you should go for the GS is a rellay good choice:
-great power
-dmg to multiple adversary
- some good combo
But out ther is full of guardian with GS so i asked myself why don’t use something different??
Right now i’m “experimenting” using sword + torch and i’m sotisfied so far.
they are both good set up with totaly different gameplay (with the GS much more simple than the sword+torch)

The issue is when you say you don’t want to go glass cannon yet you still want to be offensive.

Honestly, it’s like saying you want to be a race car driver but don’t want to drive a very fast and dangerous vehicle.

With Guardian, if you want to play offensively and win, your damage needs to be at a certain tier; however, getting to that tier means pretty much sacrificing everything else. While you will be hard to kill because of your stats, you will find it very hard to get kills of your own. If your objective is to grief your opponent and not make much progress yourself, then I would say go for it. If you want badges, you’re gonna have to learn you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

scepter and staff is not NECESSARY in WvW. but it helps in the situations where it calles for it. for e.g. when defending a keep, you can dmg your invaders while on top of the wall or behind the gate using either or. though i’ve seen many choose to pop out of the gate, cause a little chaos and then roll back in. depends on how much risk you wanna take.

i personally run with hammer and scepter/focus or shield as my second set. i continually switch around sets too. the hammer is my only constant. sometimes i’ll run with staff as my back up, or scepter + or even GS. depends on the situation, depnds on your objective (taking a supply camp vs defending, etc), depends on how many people are in your group, or how many invaders are you going to be up against

akamon.2769:

scepter and staff is not NECESSARY in WvW. but it helps in the situations where it calles for it. for e.g. when defending a keep, you can dmg your invaders while on top of the wall or behind the gate using either or. though i’ve seen many choose to pop out of the gate, cause a little chaos and then roll back in. depends on how much risk you wanna take.

i personally run with hammer and scepter/focus or shield as my second set. i continually switch around sets too. the hammer is my only constant. sometimes i’ll run with staff as my back up, or scepter + or even GS. depends on the situation, depnds on your objective (taking a supply camp vs defending, etc), depends on how many people are in your group, or how many invaders are you going to be up against

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who plans like that.

Thank’s for the info guys, appreciate it.

@Brigandier that’s just the thing, with my Ele I can specc for survival and defense and still have enough damage to kill my opponents, same as my Thief and as I had a cloth wearer and a leather wearer I wanted to make a plate character, how ever the Warrior really doesn’t do much for me so I’m left with the Guardian.

@akamon Thanks that’s some nice info and general advice, I am perfectly willing to switch between those weapons I just didn’t want to get pigeon holed into using the staff/scepter all the time, but that seems like a fine compromise I may take a Guardian to 80 yet.

@ PsionicDingo – dude / dudette, now you know you’re not alone. i consider myself very green in WvW. i’ve been lucky enough to run with some decent commanders or people in general ankittenrying to learn and experiment as i go and i’ve found this to be most effective at this point in time. i’ve tried running around DPS-ing (when was lvl 21, first timer and that did not end well lol)

@ MiniAchilles – hope that helps with the limited info and or experience i have! just get out there and see what others are doing and if they are effective or not. when i run my Guardian, i have every single weapon available to me, well, available haha. only thing is u can’t switch wep sets in combat but you shouldn’t feel only limited to the two. we’re given a handful of weps to wield for a reason

and oh, don’t forget siege weapons!! as Guards you have more protection and stability / healing as well so why not man some kick butt weapons? so get on your way and pick up some blue prints ; ))

I had the same question, but when i spend more time in the WvW field with my guard. i found that guardians can be 1 of the most powerfull and fun prof. in wvw, it gives some many good things to the battlefield like wall of reflection, pulling player with the GS, pusshing enemies with bubbles, sending foes to the air with de hammer, etc. I run a offensive meditation build(2 meditations and wall of prot.) and im having a tons of fun. My strategy is using a range set (scepter+shied or staff) and a melee set (GS or hammer), stay back with the range set using wall of prot. then when I see a weak target use judge’s intervention->binding blade(pull)->ww and leap if its not dead then swap to the scepter shield use virtudes and get to the safe range position.

I’m having so much fun in WvW with my guardian that i’m using it as my main. Its a very balance and tactical prof., so with a good use of the skill is very powerfull.

PD: Sorry for my english, but i wanted to post because there are to many “guardian its just a support class in WVW” posts.

On WvWvW you have to be a glass cannon guardian because you dont get any compensation on being a support, you have to deal damage and kill people if you want rewards. I play GS/Staff – GS for close encounters/high damage, staff for buff/range/running. Scepter is good for lock opponents but thats it, damage is not that good, the orbs are really slow, Staff cone range is way better on a big crowd and if you need more aoe dmg just use Tome of Wrath which is awesome on WvWvW.

MiniAchilles.4617:

@Brigandier that’s just the thing, with my Ele I can specc for survival and defense and still have enough damage to kill my opponents, same as my Thief and as I had a cloth wearer and a leather wearer I wanted to make a plate character, how ever the Warrior really doesn’t do much for me so I’m left with the Guardian.

I don’t doubt it, especially considering those classes are more on the offensive side of things. Guardian strikes me as filling the “cleric” spot in the general MMO roster, but since they gave everyone their own healing abilities, they just overwhelmed the job with support abilities. I play glass cannon personally, and while I get a lot of kills, it almost feels like I am forcing the job to do something it wasn’t quite intended to do.

The fix would be to just add some measure of gaining badges at a decent rate as a support player. If that was available I wouldn’t mind supporting the kitten out of some allies.

You cant compare the damage output of a thief with any other class, nobody will never do thief’s damage, so this argument is kind of invalid. I play damage/support with GS/Staff on a virtue/crit build. It’s pretty hard to kill me even when ganked, 1v1 they are pretty much dead, I can survive a thief’s stealth attack and make they run in stealth again before the die, lol is fun to watch…cowards….lol

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.3.12.3.0.18.5.20.0.4.54.64.74.72.77.3.2.22.0.0.0.167.175.176.181.188.192.197.0.0.0.0.0.0.30.30.10.0

I think you might enjoy this.

Armor is Power/Vit/Tough (Aurora karma for 4 pieces, invaders for 2) with melandru runes. Jewelry is Knights orichalcum. Sword/Focus are berserker’s for added burst (burst is shield of wrath => wait 3 seconds => begin zealot’s defense or whirling wrath => judge’s intervention)

You have high survivability thanks to stacking toughness and being able to teleport into a fight; one of the highest mobilities over land (some swiftness, leap, 2 teleports to target); and hit hard enough to matter thanks to crit damage and crit chance on traits. You will still need to carry a scepter for sieges, however.

This is my offensive spec that I run in WvW, and it does extremely well:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/71012-beat-mode-pvewvw-ultra-guardian-build-high-damage-good-survivability/

In the post above I break down how I max out my damage and survivability. This build works great for PvE and Dungeons as well, so I don’t have to respec every time I wanna do WvW. Plus, it adds some good group utility and support as well.

Guardians can’t play as offensively as you want if you’re comparing it to an Elementalist.

No Melee can.
Expect the same of when you’re playing Ranged and you see that lone melee charging the enemy lines trying to get a kill (or down). If you have a half decent bacteria controlling your team mates, chances are they’ll focus on this guy to be nearly insta-killed depending on the amount of players.
If you’re the one being attacked by a melee, what’s your reaction? To run closer to your team mates. That’s what will happen to pretty much anyone you attack during WvW. And if you go past the enemy lines, you’re pretty much dead.

When I play my Elementalist or any other sort of profession, I focus on these guys and I blow everything to make them pay for daring to cross the enemy lines.

As a Guardian, you can have a few more seconds before facing sure death if you use Shelter, Stand your Ground, Merciful Intervention (pray there isn’t an ally further than you in the enemy lines) and any other skill that grants Protection and Stability.
But all it takes is a Mesmer or Necromancer (with a brain, and that’s rare) to strip you of any chances you had of getting away. So I don’t think the risk is worth the reward.

So you’ll be playing as a Melee (I also hate the Scepter, the Staff is fine for locking people and buffing/healing allies), and your job will be… to fight off suicidal, lead charging melees (or rangeds if they’re really brave – or dumb).
Also, a bad thing is that if you’re in the middle of a mixed fight (meaning there’s no more “enemy lines”), if your group is losing you’ll be last one to know it, since you’ll be looking forward (where the enemies are) and not backwards (where your allies are running to).
You’ll just die and think “Oh, we lost ground”.

However, in an organized group or with a really prepared tactic, you can have your fights with a relative amount of security (though not as much as any ranged).
I find it fun, despite it’s drawbacks, because it’s how melees fare in those fights. It’s not something that has or can be fixed, it’s just how things are, if you accept your role of being purely melee and understanding what you’ll be doing, you’ll have fun.

If you play the Guardian thinking “Man I wish I could AoE these guys from afar” then no, you won’t have fun.

Some of the fun parts, though, is when you’re fighting for a location, melees engage in the sides (some more brave in the center) and you’re there, engaging other melees while dodging AoEs.
But this only works for fight groups of 10, maybe 15. Larger groups and it’s really dangerous to get down in less than a second.

Anyway, I’d suggest for you to give it a try, since leveling isn’t hard at all and Guardian is really awesome for PvE, and see how it goes. The nice thing about Guardians in my opinion is that the support you bring is unparalleled, having the best ranged defense in the game does help wonders in a heavy ranged fight, and you can still provide this while being a melee powerhouse.

Guardian is basically the only class that knows what it’s doing in a huge melee skirmish like a keep invasion or defense. If you want to tag, you can’t do better than putting out a few spirit weapons and spamming staff 1. Every other skill and trait the guardian has is best used in all out wars where it’s impossible to single someone out, which is why all guardian buffs and conditions are AoE. As long as you don’t go running off by yourself and tag using one of these methods, you’ll do fine offensively.