Guild Wars 2

So with having time off from everything, I was thinking of making a heavy class. I started about 3 days ago and caught my warrior up to my guardian at level 40. Now I have a predicament. As I mainly play WvW and a decent bit of PvE, I was thinking of making it into a complete tank. So I found the healway guardian and the regen warrior. Both seem to be spectacular for sustaining above 90% health in zergs and 1vX’s. So I came here to decide. Which is better, Healway Guardian or Regen Warrior.

Since I have both I will comment a little on each.

A Warrior has nice self-sustaining through Healing Signet and provides group healing with Shouts/Banners, while cleansing conditions with the same shouts and condition conversion with an off-hand Warhorn. The damage and control remain pretty good even with a high toughness, as there is absolutely no need to invest in anything other than toughness. Scaling of healing abilities is not spectacular enough to warrant wearing Cleric armor.

A Guardian has an insane group-sustain through Selfless Daring and really benefits from healing scaling. This warrants wearing Cleric armor, or a mix thereof, and benefits a lot from endurance regeneration boons and sigils (more heal!). The amount of toughness is incredible and the up-time of protection is not to be underestimated. It can provide shouts with condition cleansing and can convert conditions through the same abilities with Pure of Voice. The damage and control is much lower, but in returns gains the much better healing, boon appliance and utilities (in the form of putting down barriers and reflections).

Both have their uses and both function equally well in an (organized) group. I feel that a Warrior is more on the damage/selfish-end of the spectrum, capable of roaming, while the Guardian is more on the defensive/supporting-end of the spectrum. I don’t roam with my Guardian due to the lack of personal damage, but it is a lot of fun with the Warrior.

Neither is better. Pick your flavor and enjoy.

The difference is that while guard can overall heal for more than warrior if specced to do so, the guard is going to do virtually no damage, while a warrior (which has 8k more health at base levels, higher skill coefficients, heavy armor as well, and the best healing skill in the game) will be much more efficient for the amount of damage he supplies (be it to himself or allies) given the amount of healing he has.

That being said- like Deathspike has said, just pick what you enjoy. Personally, I’d prefer guardian (simply because of balance issues in the game right now, and I like the guard’s feel), so just because something is going to overall be inferior doesn’t mean that you can’t choose it.

I’ve had a Warrior since launch, and recently started a Guardian. The above two are dead on, but I’d like to add the one big difference I’ve noticed. Mobility. I really miss the mobility of my warrior when I play my guardian. Warrior is a lot more flexible when it comes to weapon selection for mobility. X+Warhorn, sword+X, or anything/Greatsword. Guardian has staff and greatsword. Maybe sword if you’re in the right environment. I recall this being the deciding factor when I was choosing between them at launch too.

Thank you for the information. I’ve decided to make a warrior because of the superior mobility and higher damage output while still being very tank. Thank you

Guardian is better because a regen warrior is selfish. A healway guard can put out way more heals in both 5 man and zergs than a warrior who is only good at trolling zergs. empower can full heal you and heal your team for a good 4k if you use Altruistic healing. Guard symbols with heal on tick also heal you for insane amounts and decent healing to your team aswell. give yourself sanctuary, merciful intervention and stand your ground and you have enough heals to not only keep yourself alive forever, but heal your team so much that they will worship you. regen warriors are more just troll builds made to have high uptimes of stability and plenty of runaway skills.

Just my two cents as someone who mains a guard but also has a support/heal war (and mind you, this is JUST from my experience, so take it with a grain of salt): In a group support roll, Guards can do more than just keep heals up in a large group. With my boons and boon up time along with my staff I can literally turn a group battle to my side’s favor just by popping walls and reflects while keeping people’s health up. Since I also heal every time i hand out a boon, as long as I’m in a group I’m kitten near “unkillable”. That being said, I run my war most of the time with full cleric, 3 banners (one of them being the elite), one shout (depending on the situation), and my healing signet. The amount of heal over time I can put out in an area coupled with the emergency group revive and extra regen one of my banners can put down on top of the regen its already putting out I can keep a large area of people alive even if they get spread out some on the battlefield. Add in the warhorn and conditions aren’t too much of a bother. As others have stated, even with that load out i can still put out better damage than my guard (hehe longbow). So yeah. play whatever you feel fits best with your play style.

never played a guardian. but shout heal/regen warrior is pretty nice.

heres a demo of what a regen warrior can do:
http://youtu.be/rqyrd-yZeZ8?t=6s

Thats 400+ish hp/s of regen boons for 15-20 ppl. You will have ~1100hp/s passive regen urself