Guild Wars 2

Before you deem my request as foolsih let me add that I play on the Rp server and I really really really struggle to see my heavy armour character using a scepter or staff in a battle.

Given the above I have to say that I’m finding it hard to discover a decent build & weapon combo that is suitable in WvW and hence, here I am asking for some hints (one of them may even be…go and play a warrior lol).

I’m thinking sword + shield & GS (I’d be happy to keep a staff or scepter in the bag for ‘situational’ needs).

Any suggestions in regards to traits, weapons, utilities & play style? Or should I simply give up lol

many thanks

What has worked out for me so far is 0/5/30/30/5 with mace/shield as the primary and all the other weapons in my bag as secondary (though usually have a hammer equipped)

Altruistic Healing is a must. The rest are cooldown reductions and symbols. Wearing tanky exotics.

Utilities are shout based with “retreat” is somtimes swapped with “stand your ground” and SY as the main shout utility. the last utility is wall of reflection (for those pesky ranged people). As an elite I go for hounds of balthazaar as they provide more healing when they are inside my large symbols

This has worked wonders so far. Easily able to cap supply camps by myself by just standing there and beating the crap out of everything.

Guardians aren’t about kill kill kill. It is about dominating an area. killing is second nature.

If you can’t see yourself using scepter or staff I suggest you become a siege master of epic proportions.

You can play WvW sorta fine without Staff/Scepter, I also dislike playing ranged on my Guardian, though my main weapons are Greatsword/Staff, I use Greatsword most of the time and only pull the Staff for healing/Empower.

Sword & Shield / Greatsword is one of the best combos in my opinion for 1v1, if you already have an easy time beating others in 1v1 (I do with my Guardian), you’ll think you’re insanely OP with this combo.
Between two gap closers, two blinds, two knockdowns, pull, two heavy damaging skills and two of the best auto attacks in the game, you’re like a war machine in the battlefield.

However, you will find yourself out of stuff to do when attacking gates or defending most of the time compared to a Scepter/Staff weapon set.

- Stuff you can do, when defending:
Jump down the wall, drop a Wall of Reflection near the gate (this will make your life longer lasting), Symbol of Wrath, Whirling Wrath, and you probably clear the Rams.
Binding Blade before or after if you want some more damage, pull people as they try to flee to get some down’s, Shelter/Renewed Focus/Dodge your way back to the gate.
With some time, you’ll be experienced enough to know when the mob is too much to handle and how far you can go before going back.
Contemplation of Purity helps so you don’t cripple your way back during Shelter/Renewed Focus.

Basically, you’ll try to fish some kills when they’re focusing on the gate, and if they focus on you, with a Wall of Reflection up most of stuff that would kill you instantly won’t happen, so you can focus on down’ing melees and rangeds close to the gate, and the gate gets to live a bit longer.
Focus on Ram guys, they’re the ones who damage the gates the most.

Suicide runs to Catapults, or if you’re really tough and they don’t have a massive mob, you can try to run back. You charge in (Judge’s Intervention is great to reach Catapults with full health), drop a Symbol, Spin, and rush back. If you think you won’t make it, use your stuff to survive and damage it even more.
A few guys doing this can take down most siege equipments easy, making the enemy spend even more supplies and time to take down the location.

- Stuff to do, when attacking:
Attack gates with melee, preferably with the Sword. Sword’s auto attack has a longer range than most melee weapons (150), so you can even get hits on people trying to repair the gate at the furthest point on the other side.
If they don’t get to repair, the faster the gate will drop.
Some people aren’t so smart and try to repair really close to the gate that even your greatsword swings will hit them, so try it too.

Drop Symbol of Wrath on top of your pack of melees near the Gate. Most Elementalists, who drop a rain of AoE, have really low Health, and if you have a decent power your Retaliation will deal about 300~350 damage, multiplied by the amount of targets…
Personally I build into high power with Symbol enhancements (30 Zeal, 30 Honor, Symbols Heal, Larger Area, sometimes Longer Lasting instead of 2 Handed CDs), and every melee gets a nice 130~140 heal x5 near the gate plus dealing 300~350 to every hit they take.

I play an Elementalist mostly for WvW, and there’s been more than once that I down’ed myself for dropping an AoE near the gate. Though I didn’t die, it took some time for me to get back up and heal, it was precious time of a heavy AoE defender lost.
Obviously, only the AoE heal from Symbols won’t be enough to withstand a bunch of AoE damage, but your team must be a little smart to drop a few AoE healings in the gate…
In all the times I’ve played Ele defending a location, I’ve been frustrated about… 5 times, dealing my full AoE damage (which isn’t low, I can guarantee you) and not killing or down’ing a single enemy, while getting down’ed myself. That’s so frustrating.

Other than this, you’re the perfect profession to man the Rams, heavy damage reduction and regeneration… you can stay in the Arrow Rain from Carts for a long time (just build your Guardian properly), most of the time I am, only one Arrow Cart can’t kill me or would take forever to, while other not so tough professions (clothies usually) have to back up after a few hits.

Also, keep your Binding Blade and Shield of Absorption knockbacks to get jumpers down. People like you, who’re jumping down the wall to cause some havoc in your group, you can’t let these do as they wish, especially warriors when they keep stomping the gates. Binding Blades and pull them sorta far from the gate, and while they’re knocked down, dodge past them to skip your pull animation while swapping sets and Shield of Absorption their kitten into the crowd (the point if to push them back even further).
It’s one more guy who’ll have to run his back from his spawn Waypoint.

It’s not much, really, you’ll be missing some stuff if you don’t use a ranged weapon, but it is still fun though.

I like to skirmish. Block bridges, charge the flanks, destroy siege, that sort of thing. I use gs/hammer.

JI, Wall and SY are on my bar. Basically, I prefer to Leap at the foe and hit JI at the same time, then WW cutting off his way back to the zerg.

I run AH and use the virtues to heal myself and Renewed Focus to escape if the foes turn on me. Wall buys alot of time too.

If the foes start running I pull ou the hammer and start beatin on them to keep the pressure up. Even beating on fallen foes to keep the protection buff on your team.

I use 0/0/30/30/10.

It seems to be a nice combo of offense and defense.

I find that the staff is great for cc and zoning in WvW. When your group needs that extra help pushing into the enemy in open field battles, pop your 4 weapon ability to give might to yourself and allies, pop save yourself for the buffs, then charge in with the staff swinging. Even with a defensive spec you are putting up good numbers against multiple enemies, which will scare off most of the pesky range characters. Also be sure to throw down your 3 ability into the area you are running towards , and block their escape with 5. I use judges intervention to further chase or get myself to safety, as you will be in the center of the enemy group at this point.

I run sword/shield as my other weapon set. I have more durability and an extra escape/pursue ability. Make sure you have an extra ability to break stun, I use the meditation that turns conditions to boons, and my meditations heal.

Also using 4 as your group come out of a portal bomb is legit. Your orb has a faster travel time now as if the last patch so you can use that more often.

If you have super guardian balls rock a GS or hammer instead if sword/shield.

As far as scepter, the best thing that has is the CC IMO. It can be used effectively, but I think it’s the weakest of the guardian tools.

Hope this helped.

thanks for the really interesting points. One question I have in mind is: will we get enough badges with a defensive build?

“Defensive build” is relative.

To get badges, enemies must die. If you’re playing either defensively or offensively and your enemies dies, you’ll get badges.

The only way you don’t get badges is if you play cowardly, ie, run as fast as you can from anyone and never hit anything that moves.

Though, as said, playing offensively means more dead enemies, but you’ll probably be granting your enemies badges as well. Playing defensively may keep you alive longer so you can get more badges as your team get the kills.

Remember that to Guardians, the Staff is a melee weapon. As with any melee weapons, it can hit through objects as long as the object is small enough. Most melee weapons have a range of 130 or 160. The staff has a range of 600. A ram has a range of 360. This means no matter how far away it is from a gate, your staff will be able to attack it and its user, while hiding safely inside your walls.

My WvW build is centered around defense, boons, staff, GS and Judge’s Intervention.

Rhaegar.5120:

thanks for the really interesting points. One question I have in mind is: will we get enough badges with a defensive build?

It depends on what you mean by “defensive”. If all you’re doing is throwing up bubbles, walls and drawing lines all day, then no your contribution won’t count in terms of kills.

Many Guardians – including myself – despair for our ranged weapons because the typical WvW scenes people find themselves in are either two zergs playing footsies in an open field, or attacking a keep. Then over the last week, I decided to ditch the “range” mindset and ran berserk at people. As it turns out, it worked surprisingly well.

The key to success of a melee fighter in WvW is to know where and when to charge. Charging into enemy lines head on will likely get you killed, just as much as charging at their flanks when your own people aren’t willing to push the lines. Timed right, you’ll find yourself in the midst of squishy glass cannons, diverting 80% of the enemy zerg’s attention away from your front lines, and finally, a field of Bags of Loot with the enemy routed.

Dannico gave some good tips of things to do, I’ll add my own, i.e. what I do:

1. Protect siege (Catapults and Ballistas)
Thieves, Warriors and Guardians are keen to rush at friendly siege. Stay near them and ward off the attacks. Circle of Warding stops the initial attack, Banish banishes and Zealot’s Embrace is your best friend when dealing with annoying Dagger Storm Thieves.

2. Watch for reinforcements
During sieges, enemy reinforcements will be trying to sneak past your forces to enter the Tower or Keep. Considering it is much easier to defeat enemies on the ground, stopping them before they get a chance to man siege weapons or rain damage on your own forces is a great boon. So instead of planting your face against the gate, watch entry points into the besieged locations and stop their reinforcements. Watching these flanks also allow you to warn your team of oncoming zergs.

3. Assault Supply Camps and Dolyaks
With just two to five invaders, an undefended Supply Camp will fall rather quickly. Flipping an enemy camp, especially one deep inside their territory typically distracts their reinforcements for a good 10-15 minutes, while at the same time allowing your team to steal supplies to reinforce your own position. Further without supply flowing into the Tower or Keep, the Defenders cannot repair walls and gates.

If you’re abandoning range, prepare to sit on the sidelines for the majority of your WvW time – dead or alive. Most battles are skirmishing… with an eventual charge. Even-numbered engagements with lots of melee are rare.

I only use the staff if I have to. Usually, I prefer to stand around doing nothing than wave the staff. It’s a pretty sissy weapon.

Yep. All you can do is sit there watch your dudes have a ranged fight for 15 minutes while using Empower and the heal orb. It’s either that or jump into melee and get focused to death tho.

Kumu Honua.2751:

If you can’t see yourself using scepter or staff I suggest you become a siege master of epic proportions.

Awsomeness right there !! <3

I love torch, it’s very offensive weapon in wvw. torch 4 and 5 deals a lot of damage and most importantly they are hard to avoid. In my opinion torch 4+5 is the most reliable damage out-put of all guardian’s weapons.
And, torch is extremely good against dagger storm, both 4+5 won’t be reflected, and 5’s range is 400, it makes DS can’t hit u, but u can hit him all the time. 90% of time when a theif pop DS around me, he will be a dead meat. what you need to do is just torch 4+5, it will do at least 10k damage to them, then use what ever else (e.g. GS 2), u can finish him if they don’t stop and run away. (But in most case, they don’t run coz most thieves think they are safe while casting DS)

As someone who is out there a lot (and a commander), there is a number of things I like to do my Guardian, but I do stick with the central theme of being pretty darn sturdy.

For weapon sets, I tend to use Mace+Shield/Scepter+Shield and Greatsword/Staff.

Mace + Shield works best if I have a few other study folks up in the front lines with me, mashing a team, as this weapon set has probably the most healing/defensive capabilities, but requires you to melee. It also pulls off decent healing on those around you.

Scepter + Shield works best as a very standard weapon set as you can pull off decent damage, have a ranged aoe you can cast on walls (to kill enemy players and siege), and have a root for enemies attempting to run.

Greatword is great for getting up in the faces of some enemies and and just being a bit more intimidating, ESPECIALLY with skill #5. That is a great skill to wrap up a few kills, and just disrupt movement (especially if you have a guardian buddy to do this with).

Staff is real nice for being more supportive in the backline. It has some nice heals and buff capability.

As far as general build (utility + traits), I play very sturdy. Of course, this depends on the types of groups you are in, but as a commander, when I have 15-20 people running around with me, I find it works best to be able to actually stand up in the front line. This includes skills like “Retreat!” and “Hold the line!”. Also, paired with the trait that heals you when you place a boon on an ally, you get tons of extra healing with those supportive skills. This lets me use weapons like the greatsword to do solid aoe damage while still being sturdy.

anyone speccing into Radiance for more crit chance? is it worth it?

if you wanna go crit chance, you’re going to get more out of gear, by far. trait lines are more for the major and minor traits. : )) i go all knight’s armour as well as trinkets. if you want slightly more survivability of some HP as a buffer to the many conditions that get rained down on you, you can swap out the chest and pants for some Power/Vitality/Toughness gear (temple karma, or dungeon AC, HotW, SE gear). that should give you decent toughness as well as crit chance.

certain traits in the valor line also help – for e.g. the 5% of toughness to precision trait. and then weapons you can go berserkers or knight’s. and then slot Sigil of Accuracy if you want a further boost.

the first time i went into WvW i was only level 21. i got my butt whooped. but over no longer than a short couple hour session, i was able to net 20+ badges as well. given, back then i didn’t really know what i was doing. now, i’ve learned my class more, have better gear, and developed my own playing style, while learning how things work in WvW, even as a Guardian, supposedly weakest in range or don’t do enough DPS, we can easily rack up kills, die a lot less so you got a positive ratio going there, as well as help your teammates without them even knowing it.

just a few highlights:

• being able to “banish” invaders who are performing the stomp animation on any of your fallen allies and knock them away, then proceed to bring your downed ally right back up and even to full health if you wanted; match hammer #4 up with JI and you can surprise smack people around
• using hammer #5. pop it when you see an enemy running towards you. watch them topple. strafe around then, hit hammer #4 before they even get up and knock ’em ino the ring and watch them topple again. then start bashing away before they even know what hit them
• using staff #1 behind the walls while defending a keep, i kept seeing crits all over the place. followed by 7 – 8 EXP points and a few bags of loot show up.. not sure why they would stand there taking the hits.. that’s just ONE guardian. as sissy as the staff may be.. it’s undoubtedly extremely effective in WvW. now imagine if you had a party of 5 Guardians all doing the same thing
• hammer + scepter combo gives you a ton of CC and extremely useful for chasing down stragglers
• once a group memer portal bombed a group of 10 people, trying to cap our supply camp. i GS jump blind in, binding blades those who were trying to get away and fight, VoJ to blind again, drop symbol of wrath, then WW and just watch their health drop before they could even do anything – then my team spotted them and we just cleaned them up

all the while being very survivable. you will still get loads of kills. even with the x/x/30/30/x build, you have very high sustained dmg depending on your gear and weapons.

in WvW< i feel i should be running Renewed Focus more for the invul. and refreshing of virtues.. but Tome of Wrath can do so much sometimes. it really scares people off if you’re running towards them, raining fire down on them. have pushed back or cleaned out enemies zergs with just ToW on multiple occasions. a squad of just 3 of us once held off a zerg of 10 – 15 people for quite some time until reinforcements arrived.

i love playing WvW as my Guardian. : ))