Guild Wars 2

So recently I’ve been messing with greatsword and can’t always look at my pet’s health but for some odd reason using guard in dungeons and aoe fights my pet seems to survive more with the protection on it. Anyone else use it still.

I’ve toyed with it but not nearly enough. Ideas for builds/usage (I haven’t necessarily tested these)

• Guard at jade maw (on the rocks before the final arena area) the idea being to keep the pet out of range of JM. Since pets are getting agony resistance, this should be an effective strategy to keep the pet away and untargeted.

• I have guarded at CoF acolytes, CoE cannon, and FOTM harpy climb with some success.

• In pvp, you could Guard and use it almost like a trap. I haven’t worked out the effectiveness of this build per se or what it would look like. I just feel like there’s something there.. some kind of interesting tactic. Keep in mind that rune of soldier will remove conditions on shout, so there might be some compatibility there. I’m just not sure right now.

• General usage: it might be a solid damage utility in general but it’s mysterious to new players and probably underutilized by experienced players. Maybe we can come up with a build in this thread?

Chopps.5047:

• Guard at jade maw (on the rocks before the final arena area) the idea being to keep the pet out of range of JM. Since pets are getting agony resistance, this should be an effective strategy to keep the pet away and untargeted.

• I have guarded at CoF acolytes, CoE cannon, and FOTM harpy climb with some success.

Those won’t work after the recent “fix” to guard.

Rengaru.4730:

Chopps.5047:

• Guard at jade maw (on the rocks before the final arena area) the idea being to keep the pet out of range of JM. Since pets are getting agony resistance, this should be an effective strategy to keep the pet away and untargeted.

• I have guarded at CoF acolytes, CoE cannon, and FOTM harpy climb with some success.

Those won’t work after the recent “fix” to guard.

I used to be a rabid guard user than Anet put 25 arrows through Guards face… now the only thing i can think of is for an agro break… but seeing as how I use my pets to tank with me… well… yeah, not very useful…

I use guard frequently.

It keeps the pet alive longer (10s of Protection which can be improved with Boon Duration.)

It makes the pet more efficient in many situations because the pet instantly aggros on enemies near it without waiting for them to aggro on you, and without running back and forth across the room chasing the target you’re hitting, only to get there right after the target dies.

I love Guard. With me running a Beastmaster build and exclusively in PvE its probably my favorite utility.

The long-duration Protection alone is worth the slot for granting amazing survivability, but its got other utility as well.

Making your pet go invisible lets you send a melee pet in against an enemy without the “pong” effect happening (where the pet and the melee NPC run past each other 2-3 times before settling), and lets your pet get a clean first hit before being spotted. Its also amazing for letting you start combat with a long-windup F2 like a Drake, since stealth won’t drop until the ability fires so the windup is free. And its of course useful for any defense-style event or really any situation where enemies are grouped and not all aggroing you, letting your pet pick its own targets rather than waiting for you to attack something before it will.

The only downside is that the stealth aspect makes your pet lose aggro temporarily, but with the recent patch changing the way stealth effects aggro it’ll regain aggro as soon as it appears again, so usually not that much of a problem. And even that can be used to your advantage, if your pet loses aggro and the enemies switch their attention to you, its again a golden opportunity to fire off something like a Drake F2, let the pet launch its attack while you lure the enemies into the line of fire.

Rengaru.4730:

Chopps.5047:

• Guard at jade maw (on the rocks before the final arena area) the idea being to keep the pet out of range of JM. Since pets are getting agony resistance, this should be an effective strategy to keep the pet away and untargeted.

• I have guarded at CoF acolytes, CoE cannon, and FOTM harpy climb with some success.

Those won’t work after the recent “fix” to guard.

Yes it will: guard before you leave the rock. No problem.