Guild Wars 2

I already traited for Malicious Training in Marks, which is great for the birds, I think.

Vigorous training appears to apply to all pets as long as there is a switch made.

As far as phasing these traits out, they have a really cool idea and I think something like them belongs in the BM trait line. I do think their execution could use some clean-up, but the principle of how they work, adding another layer of utility or damage to a pet, is interesting.

I was testing the different bird pets in sPvP because the low CD bleed on Hawk and Eagle is pretty nice, but I realized they’re like the only species of pet that doesn’t have some sort of buff in the traits.

I’m looking at Rending Attacks, Stability Training, and Intimidation training.

These aren’t necessarily the best traits ever, but they open up interesting pet-centric opportunities in the trait line, and I’ve noticed that birds seem left out.

If I had to put them in one of the categories existing, I think Rending Attacks would be the best place. Is there some sort of balancing reason birds were left out?

Mine is either Guardian or Ranger.

Guardian is just a cool all around class with great support and control skills.

I love Ranger because it’s the best mix of play style and story, I also really enjoy having a pet.

I dig protection on the shield, and I don’t have many complaints about shield 5, but it seems strange to me that focus 5 and mace 3 act a lot more like traditional shield skills than shield 4 and 5.

Honestly, though, I would really hate to see all that fancy knockback on shield 5 go away.

A cool compromise to me would be this:
Shield 5 acts like Focus 5, gain a barrier that blocks attacks. After x attacks, barrier bursts and knocks foes away. Move the projectile blocking to focus 3 where it’s more in line with the distance of focus 4. That way the shield maintains the majority of it’s control, gains a traditional blocking aspect, and resolves the issue.

As for Shield 4, it could easily be swapped with Mace 3. Why those two are not swapped makes little sense to me. You bash the mace into the ground and send a protective shockwave ahead of your allies, BAM applied protection. You raise your shield and block incoming attacks, reflecting damage back at attackers, if you are not directly attacked, allies around gain protection.

Why you would use your mace like a shield is beyond me, and why your shield is just firing off shockwaves? Idk.

Playing around with builds some more, I found on that is a little gimmicky, but still a lot of fun while offering decent control and support for the team.

It looks like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWSlUgiDnGyKEf4EhVBBi9AjwPjXPoYEbIA-ToAg1CnISSlkLJTSyksJN4YxB

It’s essentially a modified meditation build that sacrifices some personal damage for boon removal with Searing Flames and stacking might with Empowering Might. Depending on the fight, weapons can be swapped out as usual, but for any fight with more than 2 enemies (or even a mesmer/necro team) Staff stacks might ridiculously fast. The second weapon could easily be any of the core meditation build weapon sets. I prefer hammer or sw/sh for the control it offers, but the high damage and crits on Mace 1.3 would work well too.

I like playing around with the runes because Scholar and Soldier get boring, and Pack gives the nice chance to proc extra might/fury and boosts precision. I’m sure this build would work with standard scholar/soldier runes as well.

While I’m sure this build isn’t necessarily “the best” at any one thing, it’s the closest to the middle ground of damage, control, and survivability (often by pushing people out of place with the damage rather than face tanking) that I have found. Even in games where this build falls behind where a more pure build might be, it’s still a lot of fun to see the might stacks and crits rolling in.

Edit: I simply prefer hammer/staff because it’s enjoyable to me. Heading into the high crit builds deeper into Radiance and including a torch/inner fire would likely be more beneficial to damage at the cost of control.

I’m less concerned with hammer 5 and more concerned with hammer #1’s third strike. I get that it’s a defensive symbol, but actually landing the third strike on pretty much any class that’s dim witted enough to just stand next to you? It’s so rare.

My options are get kited trying to land hammer 1.3 or hammer 5, or stand in place and pray the arrows raining down on me are from a friendly spirit bow. Because, you know, people use those.

@akamon, that’s actually pretty helpful. I’ve been messing around with the builds, trying out new set ups and variations on the guides, and I’ve found so far that trying to focus too much on a single build has been my downfall.

More than a “bunker” build, I’ve been looking for a high survivability build designed more to disrupt the enemy team than really stand on a point and defend. I think moving away from the stationary bunker to a more mixed control/survival set up lets me effectively control points like a bunker, while still being useful roaming.

I’ve never been really interested in the high burst/damage builds simply because I don’t really think it suits a guardian, and there are plenty of pure damage players in sPvP already. That said, I do think some of the AoE damage builds are a great sort of alternate control. It’s a shame that zeal is such a bad trait line. I’ve tried to use it for some of the nice symbol buffs and spirit weapon stuff, but it’s never been as useful as honor, virtues, or valor. Even early radiance has some better options.

Either way, I think a lot of the problems I’m facing come with time played, and I am admittedly newish to the game. While I think guardians could use some tweaking and quality of life changes as a whole, I’m finding that with more games played, I am dying less and contributing more to the scoreboard.

I haven’t tried putting the burning and the retaliation builds together. It did seem like it relied a lot on being attacked. I mean, on one hand, that’s kind of the point, but on the other you’re right about the lack of damage otherwise.

I’m trying out variations of the builds posted in the sticky with PvP advice, and so far the super bunker hammer/sw+sh and hammer/sc+sh are decent for not dying, and the hammer/staff build is by far the best I’ve found. The two bunker builds are just really nice for removing all the conditions, and for whatever reason the hammer/staff build is listed as a Symbol DPS build that does surprisingly well on the survivability front.

That being said, the biggest downfall of all the builds I’ve seen, except maybe meditation stacking builds, all rely on stacking shouts. I haven’t seen a single suggested build (or tried one, for that matter) that successfully allows for less than 2 shouts. I can’t say whether shouts are just that good in conjunction with traits, or if the other skills are just that bad.

tl;dr: Questions and concerns about PvP as a guardian in three parts.
1. Dealing with multiple enemies
2. Dealing with constant conditions/pets
3. Are some weapons really just bad for guards?

I love PvP with Guardian, but I feel really useless with most builds. Pretty much any non-bunker/survival build. Even with the bunker/condition removal builds, I end up with another bar of conditions a second or two later.

I’ve looked at most of the guides here for PvP, and I’ve read a lot of the talk that came after the 10 Dec changes. A lot of people seem to think guardians, as they are now, just aren’t really suited for sPvP. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case, but after playing in PvP I do have a few questions.

First, how do you deal with being outnumbered on regular occasions? I’ve found that one of the play styles for guards is to pick a spot and keep it, but in the game, you’re team will either leave you solo, or you’ll get rushed on the way to that spot. Even with the tankier builds/runes, it’s so easy to be overwhelmed.

Second, how are you dealing with condition stacking and multiple pet enemies? Necros and Mesmers seem to be really popular, and in addition to having the range advantage, there is an army of pets/illusions getting in the way of an already illusive/survivable target. (On that note, dealing with range as a guardian. Do we have more options than sword2/intervention/hammer3? And what about when those are on cd/duration ends?)

And finally, are some weapon combinations really just a bad decision? I really prefer a hammer/sw+sh build, but the shield doesn’t feel much like a shield when I could have better skills from a focus. I do switch weapons as needed, but for some builds that leaves you needing to swap traits constantly, and other times it feels silly to have to switch weapons just to be effective. I get having an alternate set of weapons, but if you constantly have to switch to a more useful set, what’s the point of having the original anyway?

I’m mostly asking these questions because I don’t know if these are problems with the guardian in a PvP setting, or if there is something I missed in the guides/forums/while playing that I can improve to have a better PvP game.