Guild Wars 2

I’m one of “those” people who are altaholics.

Been playing since Beta and currently run 7 characters. With each one of these different professions, I have a different skillset to pick up and I enjoy that – it’s the way I get my enjoyment out of the game.

One thing this sort of playstyle provides, is a good understanding on how each profession differs in PvP.
I admit happily that I find some professions more challenging than others to play and Guardian is definately NOT one of them.

This is never about how high your HP is, it’s always about learning how to play your character well

Though I doubt ANet originally intended it that way, I just consider the Guardian a Battle Priest/Cleric ala old-school D&D (minus the blunt weapons restrictions), than a true Paladin. I also play it in that way (not that you must play my way, of course.) Since in the lore the Guardian is explained as a mix of Paragon and Monk traditions, the “low” HP is easily explainable that way; additionally, old-school clerics usually had either the second or third highest HP, but never were as high as Fighter/Warrior classes (remember D10 vs D8)-their defensive abilities, however, could even surpass those of a warrior class via buffs plus heavy armor. Mace/Shield Guardian=quasi old-school Cleric.

This is not that other MMO game, but GW2. No offense intended, but they are not Paladins (they are hard to kill now, imagine them with HP… there’s a reason to ANet’s madness in this particular case.)

Guardians seem to have a bit of a mix of abilities that are not necessarily compatible.

If I am supposed to be support, the buffs I am providing are the weakest I have seen in any game and only minorly affect the outcome.

If I am supposed to heal, well I only seem to have a handful of ablitilies to help others with that. And my best abilities are all on long CD. Not to mention how Healing Power seems to affect some healing skills but not others. Oddly, one of our main heals comes off dodging, which is lame.

If I am supposed to damage, I can do ok sustained damage but hardly enough to seriously hurt anyone specced to be tanky. The current crop of tanky Elementalists, for example, you can barely scratch.

If I am supposed to tank, I don’t seem to have the health pool to withstand any burst and again my tanky spells have been given long CD’s.

If I am supposed to hang back, why do I have no passive speed buff to help me do this. I seem to have charging abilities.

Overall, Guardian seems a mish mash of abilities and numbers that do not always seem to work that well together. The high armor, low health pool being one of those ill fitting combos. Guardian lacks an identity, unless that identity is being mediocre.

You’re supposed to go out there and have fun…an alien notion to many MMO players, but that’s something that Anet is trying to change. Who cares what you’re doing, so long as you’re having fun doing it?

Grab some gear, go out there and have fun, that’s what playing games is supposed to be around.

Oh, and the Guardian has a very solid identity and that identity is: Awesome. If you don’t understand that than the class probably isn’t for you.

Relentliss.2170:

Guardians seem to have a bit of a mix of abilities that are not necessarily compatible.

If I am supposed to be support, the buffs I am providing are the weakest I have seen in any game and only minorly affect the outcome.

If I am supposed to heal, well I only seem to have a handful of ablitilies to help others with that. And my best abilities are all on long CD. Not to mention how Healing Power seems to affect some healing skills but not others. Oddly, one of our main heals comes off dodging, which is lame.

If I am supposed to damage, I can do ok sustained damage but hardly enough to seriously hurt anyone specced to be tanky. The current crop of tanky Elementalists, for example, you can barely scratch.

If I am supposed to tank, I don’t seem to have the health pool to withstand any burst and again my tanky spells have been given long CD’s.

If I am supposed to hang back, why do I have no passive speed buff to help me do this. I seem to have charging abilities.

Overall, Guardian seems a mish mash of abilities and numbers that do not always seem to work that well together. The high armor, low health pool being one of those ill fitting combos. Guardian lacks an identity, unless that identity is being mediocre.

Post your build and explain what you want to do, and maybe we can help. However, I can say that you seem to be a little stuck on what you’re “supposed” to do. Do whatever you want and adjust accordingly.
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For people who are having trouble handling burst damage: Don’t underestimate Shelter. It should be used to avoid burst damage as much as for healing. Often times taking no damage at all, is better than trying to recover afterwards. I love seeing Warriors and Thieves waste all their burst on it, while I get might and healing.

I have pretty much 0 level 80 elite gear at the moment for a few reasons. But in pvp i have absolutely no problems with warriors. I was using the build i am now with the shaman amulet only having 11k health and they couldnt burst me down, i then switched to beserker amulet with forge runes and its pretty tanky and puts out good damage. If you can avoid a warriors Hundred Blades the engagement is usually yours.

For exotic gear at 80 for my personal preference I would go for power precition toughness gear with the forge runes and try to pick up toughness and vitality for your main choices in your amulet rings and accessories.

Im using the Ayra greatsword build and you guys can look it up on youtube.

@kasai

I currently run crithammer. But sometimes a 15/25/30/0/0 build. I end up top kills in about half my spvp matches. I feel very mediocre at everything. I don’t really feel tanky or high dps on either build.

I don’t really feel there is a high damage spec for us atm. Some of the tanky specs you just can not get to die. Those guys I just ignore now.

If you give the Guardians more HP, ALL other classes (and with ALL i mean even the Almighty Warriors) will scream Nerf so high they will hear it on the moon.

Seriously… in WvW 1vs1 no class has ever downed me. And i am a mediocre/average player in PVP. Only 15k healthpool, but No Way they’re passing my Defence/Protection/Aegis/Blind wall of Boons.

You have to play well to be a successful Guardian. It is not a use-all-my-cd-and-you-are-dead class. You have to know how to defend, how to use your abilities and trait to stack boons and then HIT HARD.

In Guardians’ case, the best Offence is a good Defense! (Retaliation FTW).

Guardians have tons of blocks and heals even when not speced into that, if we had as much health and warriors or engineers we would be even more unkillable

This is from my SPvP Stats as i dont WvW much. BUT i currently have 2596 Attack, 38% Crit Chance, 30% Crit Damage, 2667 Armor, 23535 HP, and 300 Healing power. Over all theres very few things i fear in SPvP. Even Warriors with there massive hp as few ever actually can burst me enough to do much. As for my PvE/WvW stats im still working on them but as they set i have 2713 Attack, 26% Crit Chance, 30% Crit Damage, 3033 Armor, 18785 HP, and 584 Healing Power. Again though very little scares me including when i solo champion’s. Granted i cant solo every champ but theres a good few out there i can.

Relentliss.2170:

@kasai

I currently run crithammer. But sometimes a 15/25/30/0/0 build. I end up top kills in about half my spvp matches. I feel very mediocre at everything. I don’t really feel tanky or high dps on either build.

I don’t really feel there is a high damage spec for us atm. Some of the tanky specs you just can not get to die. Those guys I just ignore now.

Eh in general the only ones i tend to avoid is other guardian’s and beleave it or not ele’s…

Relentliss.2170:

@kasai

I currently run crithammer. But sometimes a 15/25/30/0/0 build. I end up top kills in about half my spvp matches. I feel very mediocre at everything. I don’t really feel tanky or high dps on either build.

I don’t really feel there is a high damage spec for us atm. Some of the tanky specs you just can not get to die. Those guys I just ignore now.

If you’re ending up as top kills then you’re doing something right, so there’s not much to say about that.

I would say that our highest burst dps comes from full zeal spirit weapons & greatsword. Use the spirit hammer to knock them down, and Whirling Wrath to take them out. However, guardians have to sacrifice our survivability and ability to run away to have burst dps. I think many players can agree that the guardian is a more balanced, all around fighter. You call it being mediocre at everything, I call it being balanced.

I know I rarely question the build of a thief, because it usually revolves around one thing: kill the enemy as fast a possible, otherwise run. Every once in awhile I’ll see a thief who’s using all ranged weapons and tries to stay in stealth the whole time, needling away at someone from afar. That’s not the case for a guardian where we can use loads of different strategies to achieve different things.

As for the “tanky specs you just can not get to die.” I’m sure you know this already, but we can definitely do that too. It’s simple, stand in a healing symbol, keep protection and regeneration up as much as possible, block, blind, block, blind, and dodge heal. I use Monk’s Focus, because I don’t like relying on other players with Altruistic Healing. Especially in sPvP where it’s often times better to go alone to capture something.