Guild Wars 2

Now that Guard can no longer be used to send pets off walls in WvW, does anyone feel this shout still has some kind of real utility to them? Would anyone actually keep Guard on their bar, and if so, why? I am not a beastmaster, but I can’t imagine any situation in which I would trade out other skills for this.

I don’t mean to complain by the way, we all saw this change to Guard coming a mile away and it seems pretty fair, I’m just wondering whether people think it can still be a useful skill.

It’s got zero use now.

It was fun while it lasted.

Guard has other uses…

1. Guard grants 10 or more seconds of Protection to the pet, with 24 second traited cooldown this is very significant.
2. Guard makes your pet more efficient by staying in one area instead of running back to you (especially useful if you are upstairs and it is down).
3. Guard makes your pet more efficient because it chooses its own targets in a distant area without mobs having to aggro on you or you hitting them.
4. Guard allows you to essentially ground-target F2 skills.
5. Guard grants stealth to the pet, which can be used for a sneak attack of a long-activation f2 skill like Firebreathing.
6. Guard allows you to grab mob aggro in two different places simultaneously.
7. Guard can be used to save your pet’s life by dropping aggro (though this may not work with new stealth aggro rules.)
8. Guard allows you to send an invisible pet to attack someone while you hide behind a building/ridge. Pet appears out of thin air with no ranger in sight.
9. Guard allows you to attack targets at range 4000, especially useful for hitting siege equipment.
10. Guard allows you to send a Reef Drake just enough into the water to use Sonic Barrier, which you can then use for Chaos Amor or Confusing Arrows on land.
11. Guard can be used to lure mobs to a specific area (invisible pet appears, they rush to that corner of the room).
12. etc.

I’ve been playing around soloing dungeons lately, and guard has been extremely useful. My current build can not only maintain permanent protection on the pet, but stack it up to 30s duration or more.

Points 8 and 9 seem pretty solid, and to some extent point 4. I don’t really think the others would justify slotting Guard for me, personally, unless maybe I wanted to attack siege equipment from far off.

You only need guard to hit a target at range 4000 if there are no enemies within range 2800 between you and your intended target, but the stealth and protection certainly help it approach siege more easily. You can read more about range 4000 fighting in my thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/How-far-can-too-far-go

Guard doesn’t have any reasons to be on the bar in either group play or 1v1 situation. It’s too situational, it doesn’t help a group in dungeons, it takes up one of your skill slot when half of its function should really be built in for pet command. There are other skills that are much more helpful for any kind of build. Traps, signets, QZ, LR, or even other shouts.

It has no use at all in WvW. It certainly can do something, but its not worth using a slot over other skills.

Other than a quick stealth and protection, I can essentially do the rest myself with binds.

If you’re using EB you need the pet near you so guard is worthless there

I’m 30 into BM, yet I won’t waste even a second of my time worrying about my pet having protection. It’s smarter to just swap your pet prematurely and have another slot skill available.

The pet by itself is a minor annoyance, so again I see zero benefit from having it guarding downstairs or something. You can try and pretend its going to sit down there and make an impact, but we all know people aren’t even going to pay attention to it.

If you have guard on and we come across each other, I will win. Everytime.

You’re pet will go stealth with protection for a second, I’ll LOL that you chose that option, then bury you.

PvE I can see some utility, but the only thing its useful for in wvw is making yourself a target.

The skill is now way more situational than it was previously. I only use it in dungeons where I know a party member may need an extra hand, but that’s highly situational. Also in wvw to send the pet in stealth, however that’s rarely the case anymore because it turns out to be a waste of a skill compared to other things I can come up with.

We should make a memorial to the skill’s best utility: a keep with everyone inside dead and the pet doing a little dance on top.

What is annoying is it got nerfed because another class is overpowered with Portal.

It got onto my bar in PvE because of the changes to Stealth mechanics, actually.

I use my pet to manage adds alot, so I have some good uses for the Protection component. Guard was always tempting, but such a hard sell because having stealth for a nanosecond would cause the pet to drop aggro, and it would have a hard time recovering it. Now my pets appropriately snaps it back up.

The actual stated purpose of thing, to put a pet somewhere else and have it stay there, is so mind bogglingly situational. I think crystal bashing in CoF is about the only time I actually used it for that purpose. Other Utilities sorely need to synergize with it in meaningful ways in order for the relocation to actually be something worth doing.

Another use: Writing a giant message spelled out with ranger pets put on Guard. Everyone stands in a line, and then at the appointed time their pets all run into position and then MAGIC, stealth wears off and the message appears. Whatever the message is, it will be underlined… which is important. And of course someone should record from high above.