Guild Wars 2

MiniAchilles.4617:

@Brigandier that’s just the thing, with my Ele I can specc for survival and defense and still have enough damage to kill my opponents, same as my Thief and as I had a cloth wearer and a leather wearer I wanted to make a plate character, how ever the Warrior really doesn’t do much for me so I’m left with the Guardian.

I don’t doubt it, especially considering those classes are more on the offensive side of things. Guardian strikes me as filling the “cleric” spot in the general MMO roster, but since they gave everyone their own healing abilities, they just overwhelmed the job with support abilities. I play glass cannon personally, and while I get a lot of kills, it almost feels like I am forcing the job to do something it wasn’t quite intended to do.

The fix would be to just add some measure of gaining badges at a decent rate as a support player. If that was available I wouldn’t mind supporting the kitten out of some allies.

@Brigandier
You completely missed the point O.o The thread isn’t about comparing the greatsword or other weapon sets, it’s about how Leap of Faith misses on uneven ground.

You must not have read my post. People cry about greatsword’s weaknesses like it is their only choice. Did it not occur to any of you that maybe they made Leap of Faith suck because they think it makes the weapon balanced?

Sword #3 roots me on the ground but I work with those requirements. Maybe GS users should think before blowing Leap of Faith on uneven ground? Maybe it’s not a bug, but a mechanic?

It’s just another “bawwwww I love X weapon and X weapon should be able to do everything” thread.

Beer mug or GTFO.

Nirvash.3018:

Sword dps in terms of auto attack is better than GS, but the damage from the sword sucks! The #3 skill cannot be cast while on the move!

Obviously you’ve not played extensively with sword. The DPS is better, and Zealot’s Blade easily out damages Whirling Wrath, especially if your traits are set for sword damage. #3 skill does root you to the ground, but can be immediately interrupted letting you go back into a full speed run. This isn’t an issue with Sword #3, it’s a feature. The issue is you not understanding its mechanics.

Blink is not actually that great I swap between sword and sceptre in WvW
The blink’s damage is far to little for it to be compensated by a blind! (It occasionally miss the blind as well)

Flashing Blade has almost no animation and is instant, allowing sword basic chain DPS to start in almost instantly easily compensating the damage loss. The blind does not fail in my experience, maybe you got attacked while landing it?

GS all round beats the sword.

Buttdoctor verdict: Booty Bothered. Maybe if you had paid attention you would have noticed I said to use them together.

1. Equip Staff
2. Spam #1 in all directions while dodging clones, if mesmer goes invisible look for that damage number to appear where they are hiding.
3. ????
4. Badges

The issue is when you say you don’t want to go glass cannon yet you still want to be offensive.

Honestly, it’s like saying you want to be a race car driver but don’t want to drive a very fast and dangerous vehicle.

With Guardian, if you want to play offensively and win, your damage needs to be at a certain tier; however, getting to that tier means pretty much sacrificing everything else. While you will be hard to kill because of your stats, you will find it very hard to get kills of your own. If your objective is to grief your opponent and not make much progress yourself, then I would say go for it. If you want badges, you’re gonna have to learn you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

I think people are a bit too attached to greatsword because it works so good getting up to 80 in PvE. Have you really considered why using it works better for you than say, Sword/Focus? A quick comparison:

Greatsword basic chain: Good wide arc hits multiple mobs, medium attack speed.
Sword basic chain: Smaller arc but can still hit multiple mobs in front of you, fast attack speed.
Question to be asked: Do you need the super wide arc Greatsword gives? 90% of the time Sword’s arc is just as effective, and with the 15% crit bonus trait can do way better damage.

Greatsword Whirling Wraith: Can do high damage to a lot of mobs at once.
Sword Zealot’s Defense: Does higher damage than Whirling Wrath if built for it, but single target only.
Question to be asked: Are you fighting enough mobs for Whirling Wrath to be worthwhile?

Greatsword Leap of Faith: Leaps in doing damage and blinding nearby enemies. Can throw you off cliffs, can miss, and has a 15 sec cooldown.
Sword Flashing Blade: Teleports you to targeted enemy and blinds nearby enemies. 10 sec cooldown.
Question to be asked: Well, really, is there one? Leap of Faith does more damage, but it loses out due to the animation, risk, and unreliability.

Greatsword Symbol of Wrath: Does damage to enemies in the circle and grants allies retaliation. Some PvE use here, but the circle is so small it’s pretty limited.
Focus Shield of Wrath: Creates a shield that blocks 3 attacks, if not destroyed it bursts outward damaging enemies. This move is VERY underestimated. I have seen it crit players as high as 6.8k in PvP, not to mention the protection it offers you.
Question to be asked: Again, there’s really no question about it. Shield of Wrath dominates in almost all situations.

Greatsword Binding Blade: DoT damage with the option to pull surrounding mobs in. Super handy for peeling people away from big groups, etc. Everyone knows this one.
Focus Ray of Judgement: Besides blinding a few mobs and helping allies, this can be a bit limited on use. It’s a bit slow to go off, but the blind can be useful blocking highly televised attacks.
Question to be asked: Do you need the capability to pull enemies to you? Peeling people off a zerg or PvE usage would seem pretty obvious here.

And now my point…

Greatsword has a lot of flaws, but it has a few nice perks too. The issue is everyone trying to main a greatsword and ignoring all the other options. In a lot of cases Sword/Focus is the better choice. But why pick one or the other? Try playing with an emphasis on Sword/Focus and use Greatsword as your secondary weapon to quickly swap in during those times when Greatsword kicks kitten

Coming from a former greatsword onry guardian, who now only uses it during select situations.

Which food are you using?

Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup

Superior bloodlust could be a little bit boring to use if you loose the bonus each time you die, which would happened often in WvW.

It can be, and sometimes I don’t go through the trouble of boosting it up all the way. I primarily use sword when I am fighting mobs or taking supply camps etc, so I equip my bloodlust sword and get what bonus I can.

I assume that your 57% crit without bonus is when you were your full berserker armor + jewel ?

Yes. Full Berserker’s Draconic set along with full Berserker jewelry, and the power/precision/crit backpiece from the level 80 storyline mission. The staff also has power/precision/crit.

What are the runes on your armor ?

I am using 6/6 Rune of Divinity, which ends up giving me +60 to all stats and +12% crit rate. There are probably better options for all out attack, but my initial plan was to have other set types with divinity runes so I could mix/match.

For those wondering about my 2.5k crits, I feel the need to elaborate that when I say glass cannon, I really mean glass cannon in as full of a sense as you can mean it. Consider this:

• I use superior rune of bloodlust on mobs before fighting (+250 power)

• I use superior rune of strength on my berserker staff (30% chance of a might stack on crit)

• I have a 57% crit rate, not counting orb bonuses up at the time or food. Read this again, and look up at list item #2. Now read it again while considering how many people I may be hitting at the same time. Sitting at 8 or 9 stacks of might without staff #4 ability is pretty normal in my case.

• I have 103% crit damage+, again this is before food bonus.

• I use staff #4 ability in good timing with my other staff buddies. This can lead to pretty insane boosts.

Someone mentioned I may have been fighting level 1 players, and you might be right because most of the time I use staff it is against large groups.

I can’t stress enough that the reason this works is purely psychological. With almost the same setup as above, I have hit some players for 11.2k with sword #3 (yeah, probably a noob, for the naysayers), so obviously staff isn’t winning because of superior DPS. It seems to me you would need to be just glass cannon enough to cause people to say “oh kitten” and run. For those saying we couldn’t have taken down 30, when half your zerg runs away do you stay and fight? They turned tail and got the hell out, and it was a mistake.

You’ll get no argument from me that we shouldn’t survive in doing it, and we probably won’t if/when people figure it out. Until then I am gonna go cash in.

Interested in trying this out, could you post the full build? including skills?
Also where do you buy the bezerker items from?
Thanks.

I am using the Berserker Draconic crafted exotic gear. It has power/precision/crit dmg, and can be bought directly off TP. I have 6/6 Superior Divinity Runes in it (though, I am sure there are more pure glass cannon type runes, if you want). I also have all the Berserker crafted jewelry, and the power/precision/crit dmg back piece from the 80 story mission. Some Butternut Squash Curry is nice too, if you don’t mind the cost.

As for the skills and traits, you can see them here: Click

My traits are pretty much set up for maximum sword damage with emphasis on crit rate. I have 30 in Valor because of the 30% crit dmg (the +300 toughness helps too…), the bonus to precision, and the ability to heal myself with meditations. I have Retreat set when I feel like I am gonna be playing chase down (i.e., keeping up with them while they try to do everything possible to get out of my staff cone of death), but against groups or defending a fort I might swap in something more appropriate. Elite skill is a matter of preference.

It sounds like fun and kudos to you for making it work for you, but I’m not buying the 3 vs. 30 boast. 3 glass cannons would drop like rocks if even 1 person started AoEing you guys down.

I don’t have a screenshot or video, but feel free to try it out yourself if you are skeptical. You’d be surprised what 3 guardians with some good teamspeak communication can accomplish. Also per above, I do have +300 toughness in traits, so I’m not entirely defenseless. Orb bonuses help too.

I get 2500 dmg in 2 hits with greatsword while wearing my bulky armor. I also don’t have to worry about longbows killing me before I even reach the wielder.

lol, so you’re one of those guardians I take a moment to /laugh at before destroying?

Disclaimer: Glass Cannon tactics ahead, support guardians beware.

Do you like Badges of Honor?
Do you hate Scepter, and feel we have no good ranged options?
Do you like killing people? Lots and lots of people? Potentially defenseless people? (Cmon now, you know you do)

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, it’s time to get your Staff out.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s probably “Brig, why the hell would I use a staff? That kitten is support guardian only, and the skills on it SUCK. It’s practically useless!”, but I am here to tell you that you are wrong.

Prepare to have your kitten ruined. Enter Glass Cannon Staff Guardian.

Being a kitten that gets off on seeing huge numbers, I decided to deck my Guardian out in Exotic Berserker’s EVERYTHING, threw in some Divinity runes (I know there are probably better, but I figured a bit of balance wouldn’t be too bad), and got all Berserker Jewelry. I even got the Berserker backpiece with the sick kitten crit on it. I would roll in WvWvW with Greatsword and Sword/Focus, and usually do pretty decent with my couple buddies, but dying so quickly got old and I was getting frustrated. Then I equipped a staff (Berserker’s, obviously) to grief some invaders trying to take one of our towers from inside the gate. I had heard you could get a few kills that way.

Holy kitten, suddenly I see 2500 crits everywhere.

The sky started to darken, the lightning began to flash, and the rumble of thunder was heard. There could be no doubt…

I was getting aroused.

End Sarcasm

First, while this may not apply to hardcore PvPers in sPvP, in WvWvW as a Guardian, when you crit someone a couple times and take them down by half, they usually GTFO. Survival instinct just kicks in, and 99% of the time you will see this happen. Then begins the whole game of Leap of Faith or trying to shadowstep your way on top of them again. Take other opponents into account, and you usually look like an idiot chasing someone down while everyone else beats you down. Guardians are so easy to kite it’s not even funny, in fact it’s infuriating.

This instinct to run from a damaging Guardian is exactly what makes Staff so awesome, especially with a super high damage build. Staff has good range, it has a super wide attack area, no targeting is required, and the key feature is it hits multiple enemies at once. In case you haven’t made the connection yet, this means after you crit EVERYONE a couple times, EVERYONE runs, leaving you practically untouched.

Me and two friends began to experiment with this extensively over the past week. All 3 of us are glass cannon Guardians with staff. At least 10 times now with just the 3 of us we have destroyed groups as big as 30. We get close, shadowstep in and start spamming #1 on all of them, and they always run like hell. We pop retreat and chase them with staff #1 until they die, then trek back a couple miles picking up all the loot bags we leave behind. It doesn’t matter how much they roll or zig zag around, they simply can’t maneuver away from you and get away.

Anyone else with a glass cannon build care to try this out? Right now I am running it with 10/30/30/0/0 and making more badges than I know what to do with, but I would like to see if anyone else can come up with some more awesome ideas for it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, it also rules for fights so packed that nobody can see who they are fighting. Just run around with staff til you see a damage number, then just zone in on them until they are dead. They probably can’t see you either, so there’s no danger of death. You get sweet badges and the satisfaction of knowing you destroyed some poor guy who couldn’t even see you.