Guild Wars 2

If they’re not allowed to move, could they at least be ground targeted?

They can move.

The target just need to get out of it’s line of sight…

(also if we could place them… we would be called op… wait.. we are already…)

Sadly the warden is crap. Would be better if they added a ranged phantasm to the focus, maybe a bow wielding one with some rapid fire like attack.

iWarden is our most beastly AoE phantasm. The iBerserker is good, but it can’t hold a candle up to the iWarden’s damage.

Luckily the iWarden is on the focus which houses a cripple and a pull ability. Very easy to mob up/disable groups of enemies.

However, against single targets, like boss fights, the iWarden’s overall dps (even if the boss sits still) is lower than the iDuelist and the iWarlock.

Darzinth.7960:

iWarden is our most beastly AoE phantasm. The iBerserker is good, but it can’t hold a candle up to the iWarden’s damage.

Luckily the iWarden is on the focus which houses a cripple and a pull ability. Very easy to mob up/disable groups of enemies.

However, against single targets, like boss fights, the iWarden’s overall dps (even if the boss sits still) is lower than the iDuelist and the iWarlock.

You need to be a really bad player to get stuck with the iWarden and let it do its damage. It’s damage is just slow and he never follows a target. And the only reason a berserker wouldnt be able to hold a candle up to the warden is due to all the flailing the warden does, it would blow out the poor candle.

Although I hope your post was full of sarcasm.

iWarden is a good PvE phantasm in most cases. The only times it doesn’t fair well is against fights you can’t control where the enemy is likely to be.
-The fact it blocks Ranged Projectiles while it “flails around” is a good reason why its useful. Reflects when traited instead.

That said, iWarden IS bugged. It still believes its a Ranged Phantasm, as it will only move into about a 900ish range when following a target and then stops. If the enemy is within that distance, it won’t move. If it moves beyond that, it follows until it meets its incorrect “minimum distance.”

PvP wise, its horrible in most situations. 1v1, its almost worthless unless you sit in its bubbles for projectile projection when its up and attacking the foe back (read you need to pair with the Scepter and not the Sword or more likely conjure then swap weapons). Even then, its limited HP is against this as its easily destroyed by AoE. sPvP, its sadly ranged-bug nature makes it horrible for the constant moving nature of the play. Bunkers may find it okay, but it needs to be timed so that it spawns in the claiming area when an enemy enters it. In WvWvW, its mostly useless but its hilarious to spawn it in the enemy zerg and block a number of enemy ranged attacks before they blow it up (pair with the reflection trait).

Of course the Focus’ Temporal Curtain + Into the Void almost makes up for the lack of a truly useful phantasm in WvWvW.

It used to be really good when it would help stack confusion since it is a whirl finisher and can be spawned and then throw a combo field over it: eg Warden + Feedback/Nullfield/Temporal Curtain/Chaos Storm/Time Warp OR some other profession’s combo fields can be used. They nerfed it to max at 3 stacks, which is a load of crock. You used to be able to stack confusion (or any condition) to like 15 constantly anytime you could combo field with it. Now it seems to be limited to 3.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Darzinth.7960:

iWarden is our most beastly AoE phantasm. The iBerserker is good, but it can’t hold a candle up to the iWarden’s damage.

Luckily the iWarden is on the focus which houses a cripple and a pull ability. Very easy to mob up/disable groups of enemies.

However, against single targets, like boss fights, the iWarden’s overall dps (even if the boss sits still) is lower than the iDuelist and the iWarlock.

You need to be a really bad player to get stuck with the iWarden and let it do its damage. It’s damage is just slow and he never follows a target. And the only reason a berserker wouldnt be able to hold a candle up to the warden is due to all the flailing the warden does, it would blow out the poor candle.

Although I hope your post was full of sarcasm.

No sarcasm. Phantasm build sucks in PvP. But, focus still owns in a shatter build.

One of my fav spvp hot join moves In to the void —> ileap —> diversion —> mirror —>dodge-→mind wrack—>maybe blurred frenzy. The pull into the leap make it unavoidable unless they dodge the pull. sometimes pull,dodge,leap,mirror,mind wrack. W/e the focus is great in spvp/tpvp. Warden is ok for rangers on ledges and summoning one on top of a downed enemy but thats about it.

Many people miss the fact that he’s an AoE cleanse on a 25 sec CD with Curtain, just drop a curtain on him and go stand on him for a sec to remove some conditions, that’s really not too hard and since he discourages people attacking you while he’s whirling it’s pretty useful too.

pve or wvw/pvp? for pve, I use iWarden very often. It does the most damage comparing to my other phantasms. It’s quite situational though since most bosses do aoe but it’s a beast against single target or ranged mobs/bosses.

For wvw, I generally go with this…… down one enemy>pop temporal curtain> pop iWarden on the downed enemy> wait for iWarden to start wielding — which should be very quick> then use Into the Void.

With full dps build, you should kill 1 and down another 2-4 players.

warden is a joke and the reason i can’t ever run focus as my main offhand. Pulling people off walls, running ori or solo farming is the only reasons to use focus… Who came with this stupid idea of no letting iwarden walk anyway? Why not make him walk but when he starts his chain he’s rooted? That won’t be OP at all and he’d much much more useful.

It can be great occasionally, but for the most part it is extremely unreliable.

If it is a boss that stands still or an enemy immobilized it is the highest damaging phantasm we have… But the fact that it doesn’t move just ugh… :/

There is a great Into The Void, Warden Combo that goes like this:

-Cast Temporal Curtain
- Start Casting iWarden
-Half-way through the iWarden cast, use Into the Void (it’s instant, which is why this is possible)
- The iWarden will spawn on your knocked down opponent
- Use iLeap
- Dodge Roll (if you are using Deceptive Evasion/Shatter build)
- Swap (immobilizing your enemy in the warden’s range)
-Blurred Frenzy
-wait patiently for the warden to finish his dmg
-Shatter

This can be tricky and takes practice, but if you can pull it off, it’s lights out for the enemy.

Nice one westibone, I’ve been toying around the same type of idea but with a Late illusionary leap,

iLeap, Summon Warden, Change, BR , Daze, Mirror , Mindwrack.

It works better when they’re already dodging the early illusionary leap…

But your combo is pretty tight . Late temporal curtain if they don’t run away is great.

For PvE the iWarden doesen’t need any improvements in my opinion. I use it very often and with the reflection trait it kicks kitten It is probably the strongest weapon skill you can use on a ranged enemy (drop one on a young karka if you don’t know what I’m talking about) and still does the highest possible mesmer dmg on any group of enemies. If you know how to use temporal curtain to pull enemies together (I’m still working on it to be honest :P) his lack of mobility is no big problem.
The focus is of course useless on most melee bosses but you can easily switch to sword/pistol for them.

If you have problems with mobs walking out of your iWarden’s range I would guess that you are playing with randoms? I usually tell my friends to stay in the iWardens range if possible or even pull some mobs in there (guardian with greatsword are great for this).

@Westibone: That is a great combo for PVE, and I used it often while leveling. Tagging/kiting mobs and setting up a zerker/TP/warden/Void/Leap/BF/shatter combo will take out several trash mobs in seconds if you line it up properly. Hint: use the zerker as bait to help you place your TP. TBH, I still use focus in most of my PVE builds.

The problem is that it doesn’t work so well in PVP. Because player movements are usually more unpredictable or spread out, you can’t really predict where the warden will spawn, and so it doesn’t reliably line up with the enemy and the TP. Getting just one player in the warden’s AOE can be tough, but several? And if you only get one, a magic bullet/duelist can do the job much easier and more reliably.

Don’t get me wrong, the focus is still a decent weapon for WVW due the utility, CC, and using it defensively (which is mostly TP, but warden can be used as a “safe zone” to set up combos), but using the warden offensively is just not reliable. Unless you are fighting bads that don’t move much, and then you really don’t need it anyway.

Gaiawolf.8261:

@Westibone: That is a great combo for PVE, and I used it often while leveling. Tagging/kiting mobs and setting up a zerker/TP/warden/Void/Leap/BF/shatter combo will take out several trash mobs in seconds if you line it up properly. Hint: use the zerker as bait to help you place your TP. TBH, I still use focus in most of my PVE builds.

The problem is that it doesn’t work so well in PVP. Because player movements are usually more unpredictable or spread out, you can’t really predict where the warden will spawn, and so it doesn’t reliably line up with the enemy and the TP. Getting just one player in the warden’s AOE can be tough, but several? And if you only get one, a magic bullet/duelist can do the job much easier and more reliably.

Don’t get me wrong, the focus is still a decent weapon for WVW due the utility, CC, and using it defensively (which is mostly TP, but warden can be used as a “safe zone” to set up combos), but using the warden offensively is just not reliable. Unless you are fighting bads that don’t move much, and then you really don’t need it anyway.

The iWarden spawns directly next to the target when it is summoned. If that target is on the ground from your Into the Void pull, that’s where it will show up. If they have stability or dodge the pull, that’s one thing, but if you pull in the middle of your warden cast and it’s successful, the warden will pop on their knocked down body, leaving you time to use iLeap/swap and further immobilize them.

IF you miss the combo, at least the warden will pop (unless blocked, etc), and you can run and camp out on him while he is spinning, forcing the opponent to either come attack you (thus taking dmg from him), shoot you from range (reflected due to Warden’s Feedback), or just wait you out (neutral, your cooldowns refresh)

@Westibone: That is pretty much exactly how I use Warden, which by the way I’ve never seen the Warden’s summon get blocked (block doesn’t give invulnerability or blind which are the only ways to stop a phantasm summon). That said, try it on a blocking NPC at some point, it lands, successfully, without fail. Sword/Focus gives you so many defensive and combo options it’s hard to see playing any other way for me now.

Westibone.3985:

There is a great Into The Void, Warden Combo that goes like this:

-Cast Temporal Curtain
- Start Casting iWarden
-Half-way through the iWarden cast, use Into the Void (it’s instant, which is why this is possible)
- The iWarden will spawn on your knocked down opponent
- Use iLeap
- Dodge Roll (if you are using Deceptive Evasion/Shatter build)
- Swap (immobilizing your enemy in the warden’s range)
-Blurred Frenzy
-wait patiently for the warden to finish his dmg
-Shatter

This can be tricky and takes practice, but if you can pull it off, it’s lights out for the enemy.

This combo is hellish and I can attest to its effectiveness seeing as I’ve eaten it once. I say once because so little people use it because a) most people don’t bother to think for themselves and b) it requires less effort to summon a Phantasmal Duelist.

I can’t use any other offhand for my build aside from focus. As a hybrid phantasm build that requires me to be in melee range most of the time, temporal curtain and the reflect from wardens saves me a lot of trouble. Of course I don’t use it offensively.. My main damage comes from me and my iWarlock. It’s a tricky build that I run but effective as per my experience. It’s really a matter of gameplay. For me, I hate the pistol the most. I don’t find magic bullet all that great.

I personally love all off hands except maybe the torch but only in specific instances does each one really shine. The magic bullet may not give BETTER crowd control than T.C and into the void but it gives it faster. The sword off hand does good damage with its phantasm and its block. The focus combo is just like putting your enemy through a meat grinder. I rather enjoy it. All are good my friends.

The torch is rather underused atm but I find it extremely useful in PvP. It’s the only offhand that I use in PvP, I’m actually very surprised myself since I would’ve thought focus would work better with the bunker/support build I created for my toon.

Leo Paul.1659:

The torch is rather underused atm but I find it extremely useful in PvP. It’s the only offhand that I use in PvP, I’m actually very surprised myself since I would’ve thought focus would work better with the bunker/support build I created for my toon.

Bunker? How do you bunker with cloak? Would you be talking about WvW and not PvP, because really anything with cloak removes you from being on point and it only takes a few seconds with somebody on point with you to neutralize in PvP. Sure you can take a hit but if they neutralize and run away they were successful and you failed to do your job.

Sorry my english is below average at best I admit. I meant to say a high survival support build. I get easily confused with terms.

It’s fine as it is. Having it be placed as a ground target will be pretty OP. If there is one thing I want, though is for the spawn to be more consistent and reliable.

It outputs the most damage from all the phantasms by a longshot. (bar maybe iWarlock doing damage to targets with every condition on the enemy).

If you get good at using Into the Void and throwing baddies on top of the warden + iLeap for cripple, the other phantasms cannot really compare in terms of raw damage output

It does a Whirl Finisher that lets you put temporal curtain on it to clease conditions or add confusion stacks with an ethereal field of your choice

I often like to hide in it as it can absorb projectiles (or even better, reflect them)

To me, it’s the best Phantasm.