Guild Wars 2

Hey guys I need some advice from my fellow mesmers.

I am really struggling against this match-up, these guy give me alot of problems when I’m playing my mesmer. I have tried shatter, lockdown and phantasms against these guys and I just can’t seem to kill them unless they are bad.

If they are tanky they seem to be able to sustain a load of punishment and if they’re dps they can kill my clones too quickly and hit like a truck. I might get them low but then once they start healing, I can’t interrupt them and after that I feel like I’m out of steam while they can keep chugging on.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated here!

It can be hard to burst down a bunker guardian fast. But you should be able to win the matchup eventually with shatter spec. Try to find a good timing to push him off the point and decap.

DPS guardian does have an advantage over shatter mesmer. The best way would be kiting them with z-axis movement. They tend to be way more vulnerable after blowing up their utility skills. So personally I feel using a staff would help fight them a lot with the weapon’s great kiting potential.

Shatter or condi specs counter them.

Just remember to kite.

They do have a couple teleports & a leap but they are either on long CD’s or have short range (or are tied to their survivability & stun breaks).

Also while they do have immobilize effects all are on moderate CD’s & they have no cripple effects.

This makes them rather easy to kite if your practice.

With many of their attacks they have to be close to you to do significant damage. You can bait this out and almost wait for it, but it takes patience and a bit of kiting as others have said. When they get in close, dodge their attack and unleash a quick shatter combo, even if just one clone.

Guardians is built around boons. The key to beat them is
1. kite them.
2. Time your attack when their boons are down .
3 STRIP their boons.

For defense you need quick reflex as they can be very very bursty with their teleport / pull swirl in your face thing.

So you guys are suggesting letting the guardian engage on me rather me engaging the guardian and just baiting out his utilities?

Caom.9251:

So you guys are suggesting letting the guardian engage on me rather me engaging the guardian and just baiting out his utilities?

Kinda.

Thing to remember about the guardian, especially medi guards is that their utilities make up a very large amount of their self survivability.

For a med guardian this is even more so because in addition to healing them on use they are their stunbreak, teleport (one of the few ways they can get in close) and only means of condition clears.

So my suggestion would be to stay at range & kite while staying on your toes. (this should force them to use the teleport/stunbreak) after which you focus on getting range again while avoiding their damage.
Then unload on them (forces them to spend CD’s to heal) then play defensively until you can do so again, at which point their Cd’s should still be down.

Or you could just go condition spec and wear them down over time.

Their ability to clear conditions is extremely CD reliant as medi spec so as long as you avoid their damage you can wear them down.

Caom.9251:

So you guys are suggesting letting the guardian engage on me rather me engaging the guardian and just baiting out his utilities?

you don’t have to bait out their abilities. Most guards will have a pretty set rotation. Glass ones will pull/port spike damage you . As soon as you hit them they will pop boon and invun stuff. It’s just matter of not waste your cds when they have their defense up.

1) Never underestimate the guardian.
2) If in doubt, start kiting the guardian.
3) Do what I do and just make it up as you go.
4) ????
5) Profit.

Many guards I encounter in PvP will load up all their boons. (this is funny on Necro, because you wait for it and hit them with Corrupt Boon ) . On the meta battle condi build I send in clones and dodge to replace them if needed. Dodging pops the clones for AOE condition hits.

Guards load up boons then slaughter the clones. They often go down fast as the boon stack falls.

Another very effective strategy against guards is to MOA them. Then hit with your attack while their defense is shut down. Just be careful to hit the Moa when they aren’t actively defending e.g. with a meditation or aegis.

Most of the time, if I hit the moa, the guard is toast.

Kite him and wait until he runs out of boons. Then burst.
Ahhh, and dodge his teleport.

Yeah, it’s effective to Moa him. But it only shows how bad the Mesmer is. Next time he engages you, Moa is on CD and then, you’re dead. So learn to fight him without Moa. After that, you will never use this skill again.

MandJ.8965:

Kite him and wait until he runs out of boons. Then burst.
Ahhh, and dodge his teleport.

Yeah, it’s effective to Moa him. But it only shows how bad the Mesmer is. Next time he engages you, Moa is on CD and then, you’re dead. So learn to fight him without Moa. After that, you will never use this skill again.

I have to disagree about moa in pvp. If you can remove a bunker from the fight at the start of the match you SHOULD do it. A lot of the times whoever wins mid pt at the start wins the fight, moa the bunker burst him down right at the start pretty much wins control. In wvw ye I never use moa.

If you have interrupts, just wait for the unbelievably noticeably spinning animations. You aren’t going to interrupt their heal, so focus on that.

Two things I always be careful with are range/positioning and watching out for boons like retal or blocks/stability/invuln.

kitten hard fight with most guardian builds (assuming good players) – either in avoiding being facerolled by the “spin-to-win” or other surprisingly high damage skills, or trying to break down a regenerating mountain.