Guild Wars 2

I’m level 34 and I’m just frustrated playing this class in dungeons. I’m constantly looking at my skill bar at the cool downs and I don’t know when I’m supposed to use my virtues, especially the shield, I just use it when I feel like it’s been a long time since I last used it =.=

My other character is a thief and I’m reaaaally good with mobility and staying alive through evades and all my damages but for this class which I expected to be easier is WAY harder

All I want to know is when you guys felt fluid with the class. I know it takes 1000 hours blahblahblah to master a class but I know it doesn’t take that long to actually feel comfortable with a class. I forgot when I got comfortable with my thief so that’s why I need to ask

King Noob IV.3560:

I’m level 34 and I’m just frustrated playing this class in dungeons. I’m constantly looking at my skill bar at the cool downs and I don’t know when I’m supposed to use my virtues, especially the shield, I just use it when I feel like it’s been a long time since I last used it =.=

My other character is a thief and I’m reaaaally good with mobility and staying alive through evades and all my damages but for this class which I expected to be easier is WAY harder

All I want to know is when you guys felt fluid with the class. I know it takes 1000 hours blahblahblah to master a class but I know it doesn’t take that long to actually feel comfortable with a class. I forgot when I got comfortable with my thief so that’s why I need to ask

It all depends on the person, really. I first loved the class when I was able to summon spirit weapons. They usually did all the tanking for me and I could dish out a lot of damage too. I pretty much soared through PvE till about lvl 70 or so but that’s just the roaming aspect of it. I haven’t ran dungeons in some time so I don’t have much to say about that :P I usually brought a lot of support while also dishing out decent damage. As for F3 I would see whether or not a big hit was coming, especially an aoe hit. If not then I wouldn’t use it at all. A lot of your virtues are passive until you’re in a “holy kitten ” scenario

Saiyan.1704:

King Noob IV.3560:

I’m level 34 and I’m just frustrated playing this class in dungeons. I’m constantly looking at my skill bar at the cool downs and I don’t know when I’m supposed to use my virtues, especially the shield, I just use it when I feel like it’s been a long time since I last used it =.=

My other character is a thief and I’m reaaaally good with mobility and staying alive through evades and all my damages but for this class which I expected to be easier is WAY harder

All I want to know is when you guys felt fluid with the class. I know it takes 1000 hours blahblahblah to master a class but I know it doesn’t take that long to actually feel comfortable with a class. I forgot when I got comfortable with my thief so that’s why I need to ask

It all depends on the person, really. I first loved the class when I was able to summon spirit weapons. They usually did all the tanking for me and I could dish out a lot of damage too. I pretty much soared through PvE till about lvl 70 or so but that’s just the roaming aspect of it. I haven’t ran dungeons in some time so I don’t have much to say about that :P I usually brought a lot of support while also dishing out decent damage. As for F3 I would see whether or not a big hit was coming, especially an aoe hit. If not then I wouldn’t use it at all. A lot of your virtues are passive until you’re in a “holy kitten ” scenario

you know what I realized, I didn’t actually love what I was playing. I like gaurdians and their concept, but it was the weapons I didn’t love, more specifical the sword and scepter stuff. I switched to hammer and I’m just messing kitten up everything feels way more natural because it fits my playstyle PERFECTLY going ham mode with gs and hammer. What differentiates this game so much from other mmos is how weapons work, like even if you’re playing a tank in this game the weapons drastically affect how you play which I didn’t realize till now.

but yea virtues are still a problem since I’m still a noob :P but wait does aegies block absolutely everything? like this mechanic I never really understood, no matter what attack it is it will block the first tick of damage dealt to you? including cc from that specific attack? I thought it just blocked damage from auto attacks or something

Just hit 80. The moment you get your grandmaster traits then you’ll realize it takes quite a lot to take you down. For the time being, I’d say trait one or two into virtues. The first lesser trait is arguably one of the best a guardian has. For your utilities, I’d get Save yourselves or purging flames first. Guardian is hard to learn, but you’ll master the class fairly quickly. I’d say 100+ hours will see to that you’ll be fairly proficient at it.

Aegis guarantees to completely negate one attack. It can be a single arrow shot to a gigantic attack from a boss so it’s a very timing oriented virtue to activate. If your aegis blocks a cc, yes it’ll completely negate that as well which is nice. I

Depends on what you call decent.

Guardian has one of the lowest health pools in the game so staying alive has to do with 2 things even when you hit lvl 80:

1. The ability to use you active defenses and to time dodges. The only way to learn is to repeat the content and ask for advice, learn to read the attacks from mobs and bosses and not rushing to use all your dodges/virtues/reflects/blocks/cleanses at once.

2. As you have one of the lowest health pools you depend on having a good party to run content with and by good party I mean people who has high dps and kills stuff fast. I run dungeons and fotm with a group of 4-5 metabuild users and I always run with my Guardian and things go pretty smooth. when I pug with my Guard total different story, now I prefer to pug with my PS Wrrior or my Ele.

I used to have a very hard time running the guardian zerker meta build in dungeons due to how glass it was. I ended up just running shouts with altruistic healing to stay alive for the longest time.

Eventually though you become aware of what blocks and blinds you have available as well as when to use them. I never regained the passive tanky feeling I had when I ran altruistic healing with shouts but I’ve become much more aware of my options of surviving.

Weo weo.6378:

Aegis guarantees to completely negate one attack. It can be a single arrow shot to a gigantic attack from a boss so it’s a very timing oriented virtue to activate. If your aegis blocks a cc, yes it’ll completely negate that as well which is nice. I

You really shouldn’t say that it “guarantees” a block when Anet has been rapidly shifting toward making more and more PvE attacks unblockable.

For me personally, the initial comfort of playing the Guard class wasn’t as hard as say the Ele or Engi classes who have odd “weapon” and skill mechanics.

Feeling comfortable with the class, well, that’s on a case by case basis. For example I enjoy the idea of master of all four elements, but Ele took me a while because I had never come across a toon with that sort of attunement mechanic. But Guardian came to me more naturally because my playstyle is more support-oriented so my brain by default is always looking out for boons, buffs, and any way I can help my team. You may have picked up easier on thief because the assassin/rogue archetype may be your natural playstyle.

Mastery of the Guard class tends to become a contradiction because you come across concepts such as blocking anything except for that which is unblockable. But that’s a beast for another thread.

Man, I was all set to start playing with a guardian until I read this thread. Low health pool? Frustrated with playing in dungeons? Ugh.

I was looking for a class that can be tanky, wears heavy armor and is wanted in dungeons (for PVE purposes) and can solo relatively well while leveling.

MeththeMadman.7420:

Man, I was all set to start playing with a guardian until I read this thread. Low health pool? Frustrated with playing in dungeons? Ugh.

I was looking for a class that can be tanky, wears heavy armor and is wanted in dungeons (for PVE purposes) and can solo relatively well while leveling.

Guardian is an active profession compare to lets stay Warrior that rely on pure passive stats. It’s harder to play, but there is a lot of easier build that make you feel tanky.

‘’Frustrated with playing in dungeons’’ that’s a personal opinion and you can find someone saying that with every single profession, it all depend if the profession fit your playstyle or not.

Guardian survivability come from active defense and since active defense is FAR FAR FAR more important than passive stats defense, Guardian is the king of defense in this game. But of course, it doesn’t fell like it for new player that want to play some of the best build around. Because those build left you with little passive defense and you need to rely on reflex and knowledge of encounter to survive.

You’ll become good when you stop looking at your skill bar and start looking at your allies health bars.

About the virtues, that’s how I was using them: Virtue of Justice – every time when it’s off cooldown. Virtue of Resolve – for healing if me or someone else in my party is low health and have used his healing. Virtue of Courage – very carefully. You can use it to block any big burst incoming to you or (more important) to anyone of your allies.

After Virtue of Courage, I’d use Renewed Focus to recharge it, and in case some of the other Virtues is not used, I’d just use them while chenaling Renewed Focus.

1 month in a great guild.
Since you have a high armor(good for direct damage) and low hp pool(good for conditions since it goes through armor), you can take more direct hits than conditions with your passive defense. Your active defense is aegis, blinds, reflections, projectile absorption, condition cleansing. You have a lots of tools to keep your whole team alive as a Guardian, and knowing when to and how to use them defines your skill as a Guardian. Warriors, having the highest armor, health and healing from Healing Signet are the best at being independent, just bashing things, dropping banners, giving might to others when needed, but their playstyle is almost always the same. Guardians have to adapt to every single fight on what they’re bringing, otherwise the team might end up wiping. In solos, it depends on your personal skill and skill traits, in groups, a Guardian might make the difference on the team being alive or not.

You can have the whole team not take damage from a huge blockable enemy skill using one group Aegis, you can keep your team protected by over a minute of projectiles if you invest into it, you can clear a kittenload of conditions if the situation requires, you can blind many mobs (not as well as the Thief(Black Powder/Smoke Screen) or the Elementalist(Sandstorm)) but well enough to make a difference. Do reasonable damage to make the kills faster. Guardian has a lot to do, and I’ve been loving it for two and a half years anyway, because it’s a load of fun.

Using the first virtue everytime it is available is fine because everybody burns the target. The other two I find is best kept for the passives until you see someone about to be downed or a big aoe coming in.

Signets are really nice too when you activate them for everyone to retaliate and such. Signet of mercy was appreciated a few times.