Guild Wars 2

still have not gotten mine.

ArashiKai.2496

Arah P2 Guardian: http://youtu.be/T3c-u2fAoCY

McClueless.1974:

Also I wish that there was a GM Virtue trait that turned all light fields into fire fields. Call it “Wrath of the Protector” or something

that actually sounds really neat!

its one of the reasons a bear is able to take incredible amounts of punishment without much investment at all. the downsides are that it does crap for damage, and the “Defy Pain” skill is beyond your control to activate, so if you need him to be invuln right away, you may as well just swap him out then.

speaking of which: any chance we could get to see the status of our pet? (boons, conditions, effects, etc.) they could get placed right above the interface with slightly smaller icons, and it would better help with managing our pets.

Fomby.4295:

Buddy.7563:

The greatsword’s Maul would make sense, though I imagine they would also increase the CD on it.

I dunno, guardians get a 4 or 5 second blast finisher depending on traits. And it does lots of damage.

they also dont have any water fields to proc healing, just light and fire fields (though that can lead to some silly might/retal stacking). what we are saying here is if gs 2 had a blast finisher on it, any ranger who packed healing spring would be able to just heal tank through almost everything, something truly outrageous.

wow. nice job! also, extremely lucky of you to not get trapped at all

i find SoA to be the most useful of the spirit weapons, and only in certain circumstances (projectile heavy content). the sword can be useful for early leveling, but its damage just falls off so hard late game. other than that though, i do agree that spirit weapons are lackluster.

the guardian does have long range weapons, they just do crap damage compared to his melee options. scepter is the single target version, while staff is a more mid-range, aoe, supporty, timey-wimey flavor. either one is adequate for ranging anything down.

as a side note: jumping puzzles, like anything else to a newbie gamer, are difficult the first time around. after doing them a few dozen times or so, they just become second nature

Clumsy.6257:

ArashiKai.2496:

stemare.2578:

Well, rune of the scholar are pretty bad for a melee and cost way too much. For the rest it’s an interesting build, but you took away 20% faster recharge on 2h weapons which means less spam and less DPS.

as a previous person said, learn how to dodge. that is the best way to stay at near full. think about this: you have permanent vigor, so your dodges come back quickly, you have a blind on gs3, and an interrupt on gs5. plus, if things get really hairy, you can just drop back to range with staff and regen up and tossing out the occasional empower. if all that isnt enough to keep you alive, much less at near full, then i would pick a different rune set (though personally, i think if the above is happening, youd need to rethink your playstyle.)

also, cdr is nice, but not needed; just manage your cds better. you’ll get more damage out of more stacks of might (works well with Pack or Strength runes btw) than you will with 20% cdr. most damage comes from auto-attacks anyway, not the other skills, so cdr is useless in that sense. as a side note: EM is more versatile in builds than THM is. So why sub in Pure of Voice? to give the party (and yourself) some on-demand condition removal, something your original lacked. Signet of resolve won’t be enough; maaaaybe if you paired it with the Purity trait, you could get away with it, but not by itself. and if you ever dont run shouts, you can sub in Battle Presence to give the party some much needed regen.

there are very few situations in high end pve where well timed dodging will be able to keep you at higher than 90% hp (note: high end =/= cof), ruby orbs are much more reliable and once you drop the scholars you no longer need to stay above 90% meaning you can go full berserkers and actually increase your damage well past a 10%

i’ll concede that point. what i am trying to point out are different rune/orb sets that could give him more of what he needs. Scholar runes were some of the first sets i thought of, i just completely forgot about orbs as well :P

the problem with magi’s is it has no power. all the crit % and damage in the world won’t mean a kitten thing when you hit like a wet noodle in the first place. also, if you’re relying on retaliation to do damage, that won’t do anything at all, since it scales off power, but deal condition damage, so it cant crit. eventually, you will run out of heals and condition removals, then you will get torn apart. splashing a bit of magi’s hear and there may be fine, depending on your needs, but avoid using it as your “main” affix.

http://youtu.be/E-f4Qrxufq8

exploited the first boss, so feel free to discount that.

end boss was the mokittenn ive had in a long time. that said, you could probably play a drinking game with how many times i got desperate :P

stemare.2578:

Well, rune of the scholar are pretty bad for a melee and cost way too much. For the rest it’s an interesting build, but you took away 20% faster recharge on 2h weapons which means less spam and less DPS.

as a previous person said, learn how to dodge. that is the best way to stay at near full. think about this: you have permanent vigor, so your dodges come back quickly, you have a blind on gs3, and an interrupt on gs5. plus, if things get really hairy, you can just drop back to range with staff and regen up and tossing out the occasional empower. if all that isnt enough to keep you alive, much less at near full, then i would pick a different rune set (though personally, i think if the above is happening, youd need to rethink your playstyle.)

also, cdr is nice, but not needed; just manage your cds better. you’ll get more damage out of more stacks of might (works well with Pack or Strength runes btw) than you will with 20% cdr. most damage comes from auto-attacks anyway, not the other skills, so cdr is useless in that sense. as a side note: EM is more versatile in builds than THM is. So why sub in Pure of Voice? to give the party (and yourself) some on-demand condition removal, something your original lacked. Signet of resolve won’t be enough; maaaaybe if you paired it with the Purity trait, you could get away with it, but not by itself. and if you ever dont run shouts, you can sub in Battle Presence to give the party some much needed regen.

be very VERY careful about what labels you apply to builds. tags like “ultimate”, “best”, etc. imply that the build you present is the be-all, end-all that everyone playing that class needs to use, and if they play anything else, they’re doing something horribly wrong. people have already pointed out flaws in your build that are just inherent to its setup, and no amount of stat allocation is going to change that, which renders your title moot. personally, i use sword/focus and staff, and have zero problems with them.

alright, now to the meat of it. your toughness and vit are far too high. aim for something like 16-14k hp and 3k armor. the rest should go into crit dmg so you can take advantage of you high precision. also, you have 30 points in honor, why not take Pure of Voice and do away with the soldier runes? there are a lot of interesting choices for runes like Pack, Lyssa (my fav), Ogre, and Scholar, to name a few.
here’s a start for you:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYgyCXFyIEfYFRuA7DAsqQ8wegR43xrCUE-jQyAoLIMGAhBgABl9KiGbxtIasabMlbi0wC1CBUeBA-e
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1n.h15|6.1c.h1l|1c.7e.1c.7e.1c.7e.1c.7e.1c.7e.1c.7e|21j.0.2s.0.31j.0.2s.0.31j.0.2v.0|a2.f6.a6.u298.5|55.7|v.16.19.1b.1i|e

the first link is for the site you are using, the second one will show you the effective power and health of builds, allowing you to quickly judge the difference in power between multiple builds and optimize your setup.

gennyt.3428:

Throw pistols in there while we’re talking about it.

Edit: ok seriously I’m getting “kitten” throw into my posts, and its annoying.

but…but…..kittens are so CUTE!

actually, i like some of the dagger skins. hammers on the other hand…..

bump for online!

i think it’s solid enough, but i do have one gripe: it’s generally considered bad practice to have an on-crit sigil and an on-swap sigil together, especially on the same set, mostly because they share cooldowns and the main hand will proc over the off hand. this is not to say i dont see your logic here, and it might even work, but you may want to rethink your sigil choices. for your gs, i would put in a sigil of bloodlust, force, or accuracy, as per your preferences. if the sigil set on your off set doesnt work out, you could still keep one of them and sub in a more static sigil like the one listed above.

Hello ladies and sirs! I’m ArashiKai and I’m going to be starting a gw2 livestream. i’ll mostly be playing whatever my whims desire, but this will mostly include dungeon runs, a road to Juggernaught, some farming, and a bit of wvw; so pretty much a little bit of everything. i play guardian mostly, though i’ve been know to pick up my mesmer and warrior. im willing to answer any questions you guys might have, and hope we all have a good time!

stream: http://www.twitch.tv/ArashiKai

there was a stink about this sort of thing at launch when either someone at anet or ncsoft (not sure which, so do the research) demanded youtube to take down a video that was being monetized and contained gw2 content (or something along those lines >.>). the key thing was that the monetization was done through youtube and not a partnership, which takes care of all the legal mumbo jumbo and how a lot of people who make money via yt vids do it. to be 100% sure, asking support is the best way to find out.

traits start getting real complicated here, but there are some must picks. the basis we’ll use is 10 zeal and 25 radiance so we can get Fiery Wrath (Zeal II) and Radient Power (radiance 25). from there finish off radiance picking up Blind Exposure (VI), Powerful Blades (X), and Right Hand Strength (XI). also, pick up Inspired Virtues (virtues minor 5), since it’s cheap and gives a lot of bang for its buck. a surprisingly damaging trait is Unscathed Contender (Virtues I), provided you can keep aegis up for the whole fight. with Retreat on your bar, you have a total of 3 sources of aegis, which should be more than enough for most fights, so pick this up if you can afford it. if using a gs, pick up Greatsword Power (Zeal VII) so you can squeeze a little more damage out of it. from here, it’s largely your preference; you can finish off zeal for the extra power and damage for symbols, or you can put points into valor for the crit damage and toughness.

skills can be a bit complex here as well. for your heal, use the one you’re most comfortable with, but if you need a hard recommendation, i would say Signet of Resolve for the passive condi removal. your elite is also mostly preference, though Renewed focus will give you an extra use of Courage if you’re running Unscathed Contender.
now for the mess that is utilities. if you know your warriors are running the Empowered trait, you can give them 7 of the 9 boons in the game on your own, increasing their damage output tremendously. this can be done with the shouts Stand Your Ground and Hold The Line, Symbol of Swiftness (staff 3), Virtue of Justice, and Virtue of Courage. this leaves open one more slot for a skill of choice, which i would say is a toss up between Bane Signet and Sword of Justice. Otherwise, slot both of them in along with Save Yourselves.

whew! pretty sure ive hit everything. experiment and try out what works best for you. if you have any questions or think i missed anything, dont hesitate to ask!

if it’s general pugging you’re looking for, roll a warrior/mesmer; lot easier with those and a much lower chance of getting kicked.

however, with the right setup, the guardian can bring some unique tools to a cof run. let’s start with the basics. Obviously we want full zerker weapons, armor, and trinkets. for sigils, we want Night and Smothering, and jewels should be full ruby. food will be omnomberry bars for the MF/GF and potent potions of flame legion slaying, since thats all we fight here.

for runes, we have a couple of options. if you’re on a budget, ruby orbs will be perfect, since they are cheap and give you the sats that you need. for the rich folk, divinity are also a good choice. if you are good about staying at near full health, scholar runes work wonders for dps. strength runes (and other might duration runes) could be considered if you are useing Empower (staff 4) as a main part of the groups might stacking, since the might doesn’t last as long as some other sources (FGJ, Fire+Blast combos), however, avoid these if you arent a huge part in the might stacking.

For weapons, have a sword/focus in one set at all times with our choice sigils (doesnt matter which weapon they are in). for the second set, a staff or gs make the most sense. staff provides easy might stacking, though it may require a little bit of timing to make the most of it. if using a gs, play it like a warrior does and use it’s burst skills (WW, symbol), then swap to sword for the rest of the fight. if you’re feeling particularly fancy, toss in a Mighty Blow (hammer 2) inside a fire field for some extra might stacks.

at one point in time, your dream was actually a reality: 3 spirit weapons going to town on enemies while the guard rained kitten from behind with scepter and staff, sometimes going into the melee themselves. sadly, spirit weapons are targetable now, and very squishy at that. not to mention that going pure range on a guard is just dumb in the first place. if you’re still bent on having a “holy mage”, i would suggest a meditation/consecration build. in no way will you be doing major amounts of burst, but your sustained damage is very formidable (provided you go meditations). Tome of Wrath can be fun in some circumstances, and lends to your archetype, but the other elites are better, imho.

many thanks, sirs! i understand that a warrior/thief could do it faster, i just think that knowledge is power and having this sort of skill would be useful if i find myself in that situation.

one last question: could this work with a 20/30/0/0/20 trait spread and lyssa runes, or will need to finagle some stuff?

I’ve been in some groups who have the mesmer do the gate controller and i am wondering how they do it? i’ve only ever stood in the braziers, so it’s a mostly foreign concept to me. Is there a particular trait setup i need? what about weapons, utilities, and rotations?

Help would be very much appreciated.

your build is very useful for groups, but for solo roaming, it’s a bad idea. Look at it this way: you are taking a tank/support spec that deals relatively little damage, and expecting it to kill people by yourself. at best, you can hold out until someone arrives, but if that someone is another enemy, your life gets a lot tougher, and probably shorter. start out with knight’s armor with beryl upgrades and jewelry and a 10/5/30/20/5 trait spread focusing on meditations. you get much more damage and still retain quite a bit of durability, however your group support plummets (but hey, in a 1v1, it’s just you and the other guy, right?). once you get used to it, feel free to swap out for some zerker pieces and move traits around to fit your playstyle. good starting weapons are gs, hammer, 1h-sword, scepter, focus, and shield. carry a staff to get around, just remember to swap it out for a more appropriate weapon (though i have seen some creative uses with it).

edit: here’s a link to get you started:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|c.1n.0.d.1n.0|2.1g.0|1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7|1p.61.1p.61.1p.61.1p.61.1p.61.1g.67|a0.5.u16c.k39.5|54.7|0.0.0.0.0|e

just got my Bolt today! i think the pic does it justice…

Shadowlancer.7102:

@ ArashiKai.2496

In celebration of all your hard earned rewards, I present to you this video on your behalf!

http://www.youtube.com/embed/0r5UfLDxQW0?start=288&end=301

hahaha!!! i got a good chuckle from that!

in regards to what build i run in wvw:

i use a 10/5/30/20/5 trait spread using meditations for mobility and spot condition removal/damage.

weapons are knights sword/focus air/force (respectively) and zerker hammer with fire.

armor is full knight’s with 6 lyssa runes for mass condition control.

trinkets are a zerker/zerker backpack and amulet with valkyrie/valkyrie (beryl/beryl) rings and earrings.

for slot skills, i have Shelter as my heal, Judge’s Intervention, Smite Condition, and Stand Your Ground as utilities, and Renewed Focus for my elite.

This setup comes with a lot of damage and the control to pull it off with some nice durability coming from Monk’s Focus and 5 seconds of near invulnerability.

this originally started as a project for mjolnir waaay back in november. i had gift of lightning all made and just needed the last 250 charged lodestones. i got to about 26 when i realized that i didnt really want to play a hammer guard anymore, and not a whole lot use 1h-sword. so i sold my remaining lodestones, bought a kitten ton of mats, and trod down the road of acquiring a legendary. a special shoutout to one of my in-game friends, who had the patience to teach and farm cof p1 with me. /salute Marcus Belmont

BEHOLD MY TRUE POWERS!!!!!!!!!!

the problem with casual gamers and trying to solo these dungeons is a more casual gamer doesn’t learn/master all the mechanics needed to solo the gw2 dungeons, whereas someone who really wants to undertake such a goal will do his/her research for hours, and then start putting in more hours of actual testing their own theories to see if they will work. i’m not saying the gw2 dungeons CAN’T be solo’d, but i would very much recommend against a casual player from trying to solo them if only to save them a rather large migraine.

frankly, jul, the fact that you have not shown us any video evidence at all, and that phira has shown not just 1, but 3, albeit edited, videos lends more credence to his argument. and his party only works for a coordinated group; a pug would get torn to shreds if they don’t know what to do. i’ve played with phira before, and while i think he may be an elitist jerk, he does know what he is talking about, and props to him for coming in and attempting to break meta. i, and hopefully others will realize this as well, cannot take you at just your word: make a video showcasing a 4 warr/1 mesmer run is in fact, faster than a 3 thief/1 warr/1 mesmer run.

there is some dr on dungeon chests; you get the max reward if it’s the first run of the day on that path, and then a smaller reward every run after that, which gets smaller if you run it multiple times in succession. if you run the path fast enough, you can actually make more money just running it nonstop as opposed to just doing one run, small break, another run, small break, etc. (see cof p1 for that crash course). also as an additional note: dungeon chests are not affected by gold/magic find.

http://youtu.be/bVWP6I2tPSM

I’ve been seeing a lot of complaining on the forums about how hard AC is now, and I’ve even been in parties who wipe multiple times to SQ. And while hardly worth as much prestige a Lupi solo or a whole dungeon, let’s take a quick look at some of the things we can do to make our lives easier against this (relatively) easy boss:

1) If you can swap it out to something more useful, do it! I swap out weapons all the time here along with utilities, though that second one I forgot to do on the actual boss pull and I wiped. Even still, there were other optimizations I could have made to make my life easier and maybe not wipe in the first place.

2) Slow and steady may not win the race, but at least it doesn’t end up splattered on the walls. I’ve lost count of how many times SQ got spawned and parties wipe to the additional spiders (either in haste or ignorance, that’s up in the air), and we lose even more time. Take it slow and only pull what you feel comfortable pulling. As you get more experienced, you can make bigger pulls.

3) Take what you need. No more and no less. If a skill can’t/won’t help you in a fight, don’t take it and swap it out for something more helpful. My first SQ pull I went in with WoR and SoA and I was rewarded with a Walk of Shame. So, I swapped out more relevant skills and weapons, learned from my mistakes, and beat her with little trouble.

4) Mistakes are there to be made and learned from. Tying in with the last point, don’t get too discouraged if a wipe occurs. The best thing you can do is figure out why you wiped, swap out appropriate countermeasures, and try again. The real defeat comes from throwing your hands up and saying “I quit!”

Now, onto more encounter specific pointers:
1) Projectile reflection/absorption is your friend against the spiderlings. If you see a Wall of Reflection or Feedback or Smokescreen get thrown down, position yourself so that you have the skill between you and as many spiderlings as possible. Pull out a range weapon if you have to, don’t take hits that you don’t need to take.

2) Know what spawns the boss. I think this is mostly ignorance, but I’ll list it here for those who don’t know: The Spider Queen Spawns when all the LOW LEVEL Spiderlings are dead. Scattered throughout the room are some level 1-3 spiderlings. Leave these alive if possible until the party is ready, then kill them to spawn the final wave of adds and the boss.

3) Know the boss’ attacks. Perhaps there are still some people out there who think SQ is her old faceroll self, but that’s not necessarily true today. First, her poison cloud does heavy damage to those who stand in it, so get out of it while you can. Not to mention, the animation for this attack shows SQ tossing out some projectiles, but this is purely graphical and cannot be reflected or absorbed. Her auto attack now inflicts weakness and 6 stacks of bleed if it hits. The good news is, the bleed stacks will be removed before the weakness if condition removal is used. Finally, she has a new attack where she channels a cone of webs in front of her. These webs will immobilize you and inflict moderate damage. A well timed double dodge seems to be able to avoid this attack; otherwise, use condition removal to get rid of the immobilize before she puts a poison puddle on you.

Hope this helps with newer people trying to get through AC and getting stuck on the Spider Queen!

http://youtu.be/bVWP6I2tPSM

woke up and figured, “why are so many people having trouble with AC lately and wiping to Spider Queen? she isnt even that hard!” so i set out on a journey to prove just that! or you can view this as another episode of I <3 PROJECTILE DEFENSE!!!, take ur pick

bear in mind, i wasn’t entirely awake for the run, and i’ve had little to no practice, save for watching some of the other solos. so forgive the fail…….

its a scammer/botter/gold seller. just report them and move on. also, don’t fall for their trap

Tanking, while possible, is more difficult in GW2 than other mmo’s in part from wonky aggro mechanics, but mostly that bosses hit so hard no matter how durable you build. that said, warriors and guardians can be very tanky, holding aggro and taking punishment and giving it right back out. personally, i like asura a lot, especially heavy armor ones. it’s so cute and fun to watch a tiny guy wallop something over the head with a weapon twice his size, plus, they get neat little tricks few other races can match.

there does exist Berserker/Valkyrie rings, but not Valkyrie/Valkyrie.

i would say that a d/d ele vs guardian matchu kitten lightly in favor of the ele on the sole premise that the ele can disengage much more easily than the guard can ever hope to. that kind of a fight will just go on until 1) someone makes a dozen or more mistakes and the other capitalizes or 2) outside help arrives, which personally, i think is more likely to happen. if/when that happens, an ele can escape the fight much easier than the guard can with RTL + Mist form + Lightning Flash.

may want to fix your link if you want any sort of criticism and/or discussion.

“Are there any fun guardian builds?”

you’re better off asking us to name all the fish in the sea

i imagine if you just typed “build” into this forum search, you would get a plethora of unique and fun builds. i’ve heard good things about everything from Paladin to Healway to Altruistic Hammer and everything in between. granted, there is a little bit of crap to wade through, but the good builds are very distinguished, and any question you have about any build can and will be answered by our illustrious team of guardian experts

personally, i’m running a 10/5/30/20/5 sword/focus build and having a blast in everything from PvE to WvW.

the only thing that Pure of Voice does not work on is Fear. the wiki (perhaps incorrectly?) states that PoV should convert Fear to stability, but i have yet to see that happen.

and here i find the joke is on all of you guys. i figured, since i have terrible luck and didn’t want to deal with disheartening myself on a huge losing streak, decided to buy my zap off the TP. so i farmed my kitten off until i hit ~300 gold, put in a buy order, waited a few days, and POOF! zap was mine. all i need now is the t6 mats and im set for life.

in short, unless you have it in with the RNG Goddess, dont gamble on the MF; you’re better off taking the money you spend on rares/exotics and saving it for the TP.

and if for whatever kitten reason you DO want to gamble, please, for the love of The Six, DON’T USE RARES! it’s a small enough chance that you get an exotic, so imagine chances of getting the precursor.

the dungeons AC, SE, and HotW all give Soldier gear with their respective tokens. also, with the exception of the helm, the various temple vendors sell soldier armor for karma. finally, you can trade Badges of Honor from WvW for soldier gear.

i like your enthusiasm for trying new things!

the only thing i would change are Searing Flames to either Blind Exposure or Signet Mastery and Pure of Heart to Superior Aria. Searing Flames is an extremely niche trait that other professions can do a lot better (necros, thieves, mesmers), and you will get more mileage out of either suggestion i made. i have never noticed the heal ever from Pure of Heart, and the cooldown reduction on shouts from Superior Aria synergize nicely with Pure of Voice, allowing you to remove conditions more often.

on another note, stay away from condition damage. based on how burning works (it stacks in duration, not intensity), guardians make rather lackluster condition damage dealers. not to say you can’t ever USE burning (as in the case of Radiant Power and Fiery Wrath), but my experience has taught me that condition damage is a poor investment on a guardian.

mhm. again, the only way to change a skin is to use a transmutation stone. if you just put the sigil in without using a stone, the skin and other stats of the weapon will behave exactly as they were before the sigil change.

less complicated format: changing sigils has no bearing on skin effects whatsoever.

after the quickness nerf, i would avoid sigils of rage, since they aren’t as silly now as they once were. sigil of fire is a popular choice, and even just a major one can fill your needs if you’re low on cash. others include accuracy, force, air, strength, and blood.

as far as the actual weapons they are solid choices.

i fail to understand what the hubaloo of wxp/loot trading from dueling is being raised about. the OP clearly states (and I have witnessed and done so myself) that they only duel until one person reaches the DOWN STATE, not death. sure allies of the downed person rez him, if only to speed up the turnover process, but that’s the only interference i ever see, save for morons who interrupt such friendly duels.

should work fine.

i actually like what amins runs, and i use a lot of his build myself with much success in zergs and dueling alike.

I use Knight’s sword/focus with a sigil of bloodlust and force and a zerker hammer with a sigil of fire. for armor i have full knight’s with 6 beryl orbs, and all beryl jewelry, except for the backpack is an ascended zerker/zerker. trait-wise i run 10/5/30/20/5, picking up Fiery Wrath, Meditation Mastery, Retributive Armor, Monk’s Focus, Writ of Exaltation, and Empowering Might. Slot skills are Shelter, JI, Smite Condition, Contemplation of Purity, and Renewed Focus. Food is Oils and Omnom Pies

I’m aiming for a set of Lyssa runes for easier condition handling and to (hopefully) replace CoP with SYG. Other than that, i think a little more crit chance would be nice to see more consistent damage, but im still able to get very nice spike damage. the first tweak i would consider is to slot some rubies in my jewelry (amulet and rings, maybe) for that higher crit chance, though that will cost me some vitality. that said, the healing from monk’s should keep me alive long enough to kill my target.