Guild Wars 2

There has JUST been a major balance patch [8.8] that has changed spirit weapons and has shaken up the whole meta and the classes
The whole community is still trying to wrap their heads around all this because it was very major, you’re welcome to look at the recent Patch notes which will probably be somewhat helpful, while we all wait for the new guides about the optimal builds

You don’t “need” a lot of healing power, as many of the guardian healing skills tend to work off of pulse frequency (Like Writ of Persistence, Shared Virtues and Sig of Courage).

But here is your conundrum (and it finally makes sense now). Toughness only reduces Direct Damage, but not Condi damage. Most classes can self sustain by dodging, or internal healing traits to boost the overall effectiveness of their heal skills.

However, most classes can’t sustain good condi cleansing…. This is of critical importance with the new Condi meta actually being viable, as they now focus on frequency application; But Condi cleanse skills are mostly burst oriented.

This is where it gets extra weird for Guardians. Guards have relatively low base stats across the board, but they more then make up for with their Boon cycles and very, very strong AOE cleansing ability. But that alone can’t save you from a rapid condi stack if you aren’t in a clear spot to purge.

Thats where Vit comes in. Its an HP buffer that lets you soak a few seconds of condi stacks, or keep you alive between some of your cool downs. You really don’t need a lot… but based on several hybrid builds prior to the update, 15k Health is actually enough to absorb bleed over damage from your defenses; and is easily refilled through your healing link traits. Thats about ~350 Vit over your base which you can gain pretty easily with most gear that includes toughness.

If you want to be a good support guard, take a small amount of healing (around 200, don’t really need more then that) and focus on group cleanse (pure of voice) or group buffing (Writs or Virtues). If balanced right, you would only need around 2500 Defense to soften rapid hits while your Prots and Aegis helps with the big ones. You can then dump the rest of the points into offense.

The guardian tree Valor has a trait called Monk’s focus that reduces all the cool downs of meditations. It works for all meditations except judges Intervention. The cool down says it’s reduced to 36 seconds but when I use the skill it’s still 45 seconds. If you take off monk’s focus and use the trait Smiter’s Boon the cooldown for judges intervention is 36 seconds while it says 45 seconds. even when you use monk’s focus and Smiters boon the Judges intervention is now 36 seconds but only if you use Smiters boon.

Smiters boon- Smite condition cure a condition and deal damage to the target. Deal double damage if your condition is removed.

Monk’s Focus- Using a meditation heals you and grants fury to you and nearby allies. Reduce the cool down of ALL meditation skills by 20% and meditations heal you.

I hope this is fixed soon please spread the word.

These two make me think “what the heck” …

• Backstab: This will now only apply revealed when you hit a foe.
• Berserker’s Power: You are now required to hit with the burst skill. This will trigger in the same way as the trait Cleansing Ire.

So the Warrior loses all their adrenaline and gets nothing from either of their two GM traits … but the Thief isn’t revealed if they miss their backstab?

Why is it that Warriors (and everyone else) are punished for missing their attack but Thieves are not? I don’t understand why Steal gets to be a special exception to this rule.

• Burst Skill misses/blocked/evaded … full cooldown, all adrenaline consumed
• Shatter Skill misses/blocked/evaded … full cooldown, illusions consumed
• Any skill in the game misses/blocked/evaded … full cooldown (or Initiative still consumed).

But then you have Backstab.

It just seems silly to me that in the same patch notes we’d have ArenaNet making sure the Warrior has to worry more about missing while making it so the Thief doesn’t have to worry as much about missing.

I think you’re going to get a lot of negative feedback with the title.. But I am inclined to agree, to some extent.

With our old trait lines being bolstered so much I’m having a hard time working out when I would want to take the DH line. Coming from a purely PvE perspective I see almost no reason that DH would be taken outside of a potential max DPS build (utilising Big Game Hunter) that sacrifices utility for the sake of DPS.

In my personal opinion the 2 minors are straight up BAD and wholly unappealing for PvE.

• Defenders Dogma: Getting a free ‘5th attack’ proc on Virtue of Justice after a block is too niche, and while it may happen in PvE encounters, it won’t happen often and the result of it proccing will be underwhelming.

• Pure of Sight: Just plain bad. This damage multiplier will never be active with PvE’s current state. Why not bake this into the Longbow AA?

The virtues sound fairly appealing, with the re-work of justice and courage being seemingly more powerful, with courage verging on OP if it retains its ‘all attacks’ blocking, rather than just projectiles. Not sure if it’s just me, or the stream, but I hate the animation for the justice spear-tether, the chains looked awful and the de-tethering animation was clunky and ugly (/rant).

I feel like the traits weren’t at all well thought out either, some of my favourite bad examples are:

• Piercing Light: This feels like a trait thrown together to appeal to condi builds and to make it seem like traps weren’t shoehorned into the guardian class.

• Hunter’s Determination: I am truly struggling to work out how a brief bit of stability on a ranged weapon skill is useful.. Even assuming you’re in the fray, and that CC is being thrown your way, it comes after a cast-time skill.. which could be interrupted. I don’t like this trait at all, maybe put 2 seconds of stab on cast, and 1 extra per target hit? Though that’s potentially too powerful.

• Dulled Senses: This trait feels like it was implemented purely to synergise with the bad GM trait that knocks back.. as is the guard has minimal knockbacks, certainly not worth traiting for.

• Hunter’s Fortification: 4 seconds of protection in a TINY radius on virtues.. and it’s a GM trait? This is god awful protection up time tied to important CD’s, it’s only going to trigger passively, nobody would ever pop a virtue for this. Maybe virtue of justice spam on trash mobs would have some nice synergy, but it’s so niche, and requires 2 trait lines.. not even worth humouring. If you want prot uptime, take a hammer, not a GM.

• Heavy Light: Tiny knockback with a sizeable ICD that only applies to ONE weapon.. No thanks. What’s more it’s not even controllable, it could proc at a stupid time that serves you little to no benefit, passive rubbish at its finest.

There’s plenty more I could say about the traits, with numerous others being (IMHO) equally bad, but I won’t bore people.

The traps seem ok, though I doubt they will ever be seriously run outside of gimmick builds (also the maw animation looked awful and low-res, but that could be me again).

I’ve no issue with longbow and the skills associated with it, skill 5 could use a CD reduction, but my main beef is with the traits.

I am messing with some build ideas with the calculator on Dulfy and i’m struggling to find a reason to take Dragon Hunter.

Weighing up the pros and cons i think we are at a disadvantage taking DH, the LongBow and 2/3 new Virtues are good, but traps are problematic to use, condi guard still isn’t viable, and the DH traits are extremely lacklustre compared to the great things our core traits offer.

Is DH really worth taking just for a viable range weapon? We have survived this long with only sceptre could we give the LongBow a miss?

I was super excited for the LongBow, i would love to use it, but unless they fix traps and make the traits worthwhile the Dragon Hunter is not worth taking in my opinion. Our core traits are just too good, and with the new changes coming in they will be even stronger.

HoT is still in beta so hopefully we can still get changes to make the DH a viable option (although considering shield is still broken i dont have high hopes). The main problem is the DH lacks synergy with our other trait lines and our core profession mechanics.

Thoughts?

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

Given that Mordremoth seems to be mostly underground,

So… the turned Sylvari are hipsters. <_<

I thought it would be cool to make a general thread about the stream and try to keep most of the stuff focused in here so you don’t have to crawl through 10 different ones about the same subject, but of course everyone is allowed to do as they please.

Ready Up will air live on the Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel this Friday, May 8, at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7) @ http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

While you are waiting you can play around with that_shamans specialization calculator and theorycraft your own combinations. Shouldn’t take long after the stream for the elitespec trait to appear there

The closer it gets the more hyped I’m getting, what interests me most is what sort of combo fields, if any, the traps will be, their cast-times (combined with activation time), cooldowns and of course the damage/conditions they will apply, new possible combo finishers from F1 and F2, and the Wings of Resolve just looks phenomenal (imagine male Norns and Charrs)

edit: linking dulfy.nets images from http://dulfy.net/2015/05/08/gw2-dragonhunter-ready-up-livestream-notes/ here:

I know, I know, there’s a thousand and one topics about the reveal already and anyone not particularly interested in the Guardian or it’s new specialization is likely annoyed with all the chatter. The reason I’m making yet another topic about the Dragonhunter is to outline what I perceive them to be capable of — and as this will be a lot of text, I didn’t feel like boggarting someone else’s thread, and it’s in the guardian subforum so others aren’t inconvenienced by a rational analysis of what has been revealed.

And yes, I realize there will be a livestream tomorrow to outline further information.

Guards have had significant disadvantages with ranged gameplay, mostly due to the largely lack-luster implementation of the Scepter. The longbow will provide this with it’s higher base range and suite of skills. Another sector they fall short in is condition damage, and while we have very little information about the new utilities (more to come tomorrow) traps in general usually apply various conditions, with only a couple of the Thief traps varying from this vein to apply more specialized effects. Lastly, the updated profession mechanics which appear to be a straight up buff across the board.

The Longbow

While they only specify the effects of two abilities in the blog post, all five are shown in the teaser video. What is not known, is the total effects and damage, but here is what I can see from the teaser.

1: single projectile that deals direct damage and does not apply conditions. Possibility of effects such as piercing or unblockable to give flavor and interest. Estimated (read: assumed) 1200 range. 28s into the trailer

2: Single target blind, appears to have a roughly 5-8s base duration depending on whether they fudged it for the teaser video. 30s into the trailer

3: Symbol of Energy — symbol cast at range that applies vigor to allies and appears to deal damage to enemies (appears to proc Virtue of Justice’s burning effect) 34s into the trailer, described in the blog post

4: Deflecting Shot — described to destroy projectiles along it’s path, unknown range or flight speed and radius of effect, but likely similar to the Revenant’s projectile shield but moves in a line away from your character. described in the blog, not present in trailer

5: A channeled AoE ability similar to the Ranger’s barrage (at least in animation) that deals multiple strikes of damage and appears to either trap enemies within its area of effect like ring of warding. 40s into the trailer

Like I said, what we do not know is the base damage, nor the scaling of these abilities but the kit seems well rounded to provide both dps potential and party support. The two aoe DoT abilities (#3 and #5) which could be chained to keep a foe within the symbol for max dmg, in addition to whatever effects are hidden on the auto attack. And having access to a blind (#2), aoe Vigor (#3), projectile destruction (#4, possibly with a trait to reflect instead but that’s pure speculation) and an aoe snare on #5 are all strong tools to help control the foe from range.

While I expect they may temper the base damage of the bow’s abilities due to the large number of strong effects, I fully expect it to become a staple on many damage-oriented Guardian builds due to the great utility it provides — imagine being able to force an enemy to stay within your symbols for their full duration while you spin on them with your greatsword. Also, being able to provide aoe Vigor isn’t to be underestimated in a support role.

I was at Rezzed in London last Saturday and was very lucky to win one of the Extremely Rare and Highly Coveted Totally Authentic Guild Wars 2 Toasters!

Some people I met there asked me to post a picture of the toaster on the forums, so here you go, a pic of my breakfast this morning! I can confirm that it makes the toast taste more delicious than regular toast.

These toasters are quite rare and only have a couple of mentions about them on the Internet so far. One was posted by ANet to Wartower.de admins during Halloween 2012, one is in Josh Foreman’s kitchen (I think) and another is owned by this guy. There’s also somebody’s housemate who has one, supposedly purchased at a mysterious faire.

I had a great time at Rezzed and was completely chuffed to be able to be there. It was amazing getting to meet and talk to all the ANet devs and other players, and of course to play HoT. Thanks for coming to London!

So with the latest discount I urged a friend to get the game as I was getting back into it myself. And what I found was….upsetting? Disturbing?

Low-levels are a mess. From a launch message of ‘you can jump right in and PvP from level 1’ to everything being locked.

Skill 2 unlocked at lvl 2
Skill 3 unlocked at lvl 4
Lvl 6 you learn how to dodge
Skill 4 unlocked at lvl 7 (along with your off hand)
Skill 5 unlocked at lvl 10 (along with vistas)

Skill buying and skill points locked until lvl 13
WvW locked until 18, PvP until 22

My friend got bored at level 7 of there being nothing but grinding on mobs, pressing the same 4 buttons. So we quit out of the senseless boring low-level grind. I bought a load of mats and helped them craft-grind to lvl 18.

Now I know why lvl 20 boosts are showered on all of my characters.

I felt so ashamed having encouraged my friend to play the game only to realise that 99% of it was locked away because they were too low level and hadn’t unlocked it yet, hadn’t joined early enough to get it. Gone was the game that I had joined where it was ‘go and do whatever you want’ in exchange I’d found a game that slowly drip-fed you content like water torture more than an actually having fun.

It’s like ANet doesn’t trust its players to be able to pick up on everything. If that’s the case make the intro event the tutorial it was. Railroad people for 5 minutes to teach them, not 10-15 levels. Where lvl 1-20 is your weakest content you don’t want to be keeping new players there.

Locked things:
Dodging (by virtue of not telling players about it for ~6 levels)
Underwater Combat (note for Asura this unlocks long after the quest that used to get you to use it)
Mail
(Guilds?)
Skills
Skill Points and Challenges
Vistas
Traits
Trading Post
Crafting
WvW
PvP

I look forward to adding more things that are locked.

as for now no builds used this trait

this trait remove 1 boon every 10 sec

problems:
almost every profession can proc boons rapidly (ele, guard,engi,warrior,thief, mesmer)
most of the fights tend to be over under 10 sec or 20 sec
you dont have control on which boon will be removed and when

mesmer,necro ,engis and thieves have skills and traits which remove boons when hitting enemies (aoe removeable/transfer)

solution:
make it a better boons removable
or make it shorter as guardian proc burning often

1. when apply burning to a foe remove 1 boon with every second of burning (10 sec recharge) – longer boons removal
2. when apply burning to a foeS remove 1 boon (5 sec recharge) – aoe boon removal

this change will bring bunker guardian even better (and active) and also make the medzerk/hybrid more better in team support and 1v1

ppl claim guardian cant perma burning so it wont be op if every seconds of burning you remove boon as enemy will cleanse it so you have 10 sec cd to your next burning proc and it will do better then removing 1 boon every 10 sec
or
by making it aoe removable of 1 boon every 5 sec it got more team support and to see how bunker can stand in a point forever without doing anything but contesting and must to think twice and dodging etc… also its not op as most boons end before 5 sec

also it will make some meta build like d/d ele , engi , guardian rethink about their boons with 20 might stacks protection regeneration etc..

I would dispute that zealot is the best gear for wvw. Soldier is better for zerg play, and dps builds don’t make good use of healing power.

It looks like a gear set meant to be mixed in with other pieces. You wouldn’t want to go pure zealot for example, because you would be so squishy that the healing wouldn’t help you. What’s the point of healing when you get oneshotted and your health drops fast anyways?

Healing power doesn’t scale that well with many things and is poor with low toughness. On the other hand, high toughness can benefit from healing power as each health point recovered is worth more. But at the same time conditions would eat away at the guardian’s naturally low health pool and isn’t mitigated by toughness. Poison, in particular which reduces healing would be lethal.

It is however true that zealot’s gear does the 2nd most damage next to zerker (I’m just going to ignore assassin as it doesn’t really hold much relevance to guardians) since it is power primary which gives it an advantage over knights or cavalier, and beats valkyrie because that’s power/ferocity. So it’s a potential substitute for these things. For example, you could go soldier armor and instead of zerker trinkets/weapons, you could sacrifice some damage to go zealot weapons or something.

The final issue is finding things that actually scale with healing power and that tends to be the death of it. The primary forms of guardian self heal, altruistic healing and monk’s focus aren’t too hot with healing power. Regeneration, dodge heals, and mace attacks do, but that is pretty niche. All, and all healing power points to a group support guardians, as healing power improves group heals like selfless daring way more. In the end, I see more opportunities on zealot gear on my thief than my guardian…

TL;DR Zealot’s gear is possible as a supplementary addition on specific niche builds that have very high toughness/vit and would like a bit more damage, and have traits/skills that scale with healing. But in most general cases, I think you’re better off with something else.

So maybe something like this (just throwing crap out there):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWlsApWoNDxVI8DNRCBl5M+P2fYFl4yAsAA-TVSBABBt/wZKBXVp3VKDOVXQlq/swhAQjrAAAPAgAAIAhNDAZAW2CA-w

or

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWlsApWoNDxVI8DNRCRk1M2frpXHscA-TVSBABBt/wZKBXVp3VKDOVXQlq/swhAQjrAAAPAgAAIAhNDAZAW2CA-w

This would use energy sigils to perform tons of 800’ish as opposed to 400ish roflcopter heals and make use of battle presence. Damage isn’t half bad with 2k base power, defensive stats are a bit weak but not particularly squishy.

Another possibility is to sprinkle a little more survivability in a damage build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAsdRlsApcoVDxbI8DVR8gkjNVFAznJv+XwcA-TlSBABWqqSg7PQpaFrq0zMlgXpMAP9BLcIA04JAAwJAgMALbB-w

Not too happy with my theorycrafting, hopefully someone else can make use of it.

Here’s the real explanation of why GWEN is used and why other professions aren’t as common.

Guardians bring group boons and group condition removal. The most important boons are Stability, Protection, Might, and Swiftness. Stability renders most of that warrior and guardian CC useless. No other profession can bring as much group Stability. That’s why guardians will always have a major role in WvW groups.

Warriors don’t really do much anymore. They were really popular with hammer trains, but once players started running more stability and damage shifted to backline, their usefullness greatly decreased. Also, in a WvW group, warriors rarely need Cleansing Ire. The condi cleanse is coming from guardians, elementalists, and warrior warhorn as well as the -40% condition duration food.

Elementalists are almost always staff. You sometimes see d/d for boons with the frontline. Elementalists provide water fields, lots of utility through CC, boons, and condition cleanse, and area damage. Most run a balance between offense and defense and rely on cantrip utility skills to live.

Necromancers have become a huge damage source. In WvW groups, they’re running power because condition damage is near useless due to all the condition removal. Necros can project heavy damage at range and can pile on AoE damage bursts as well. They can also spec and gear for some utility to help the frontline.

And the others?

A thief or two are found 10-30 player groups. They pick off enemy necromancers and elementalists and anyone that’s out of place. But they have to know when to stop chasing. Most thief players just keep attacking until their target dies or they die and then complain about their profession being weak.

WvW groups have a token mesmer for portal, veil, and sometimes null field. The problem with mesmers is that they’re heavily reliant on clones or phantasms, and both of those are ripped apart by all the cleave that goes out.

Engineers just can’t compete with others. They’re a little like warriors and a little like necromancers or elementalists in their role. They have CC like the warrior, but a lot of it is negated by stability. But their self-survival isn’t as good. They have good medium ranged damage like necromancer or elmentalist, but their AoE damage isn’t as good. They have water fields with Healing Turret like an elementalist, but the elmentalist also provides boons. And Engineer a bit more vulnerable to thieves than elementalists and necromancers. Healing bomb engineers don’t have the boon output of a guardian.

Ranger just doesn’t work well in large groups. The pet has the same problem as mesmer illusions where it dies too easily and takes away utility and damage. Ranger melee is focused more on small fights and jousting, not just constant attacking. Longbow just isn’t as good for damage as elementalists or necros. And rangers have little group utility that can survive the cleave damage in a large group.

Hammer is the best support weapon a guardian has for pve. Other than that the best support they have is blind/vuln spam, consecrations, and aegis. Clerics is probably the worst gear there is and running all tank gear is generally a waste. Aggro in this game is based on a lot of different factors and not just toughness so running a mix of tank and zerk would be a better tradeoff of being able to stay alive and hit harder. As far as shouts go having a full shout bar won’t help the group as much as running the right utilites for the right occasion like retreat mostly, wall/shield when there are projectiles, stability when needed, purge when you need removal or a fire field for might stacking, and bane signet when nothing else is needed. Running the best utilities for the occasion usually means you end up with 1 shout most of the time. Shelter and renewed focus would also be better choices for survival. Something like this would be better support for you and your group http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWlsApUo9CxZI8DVR8gk1Y7+UXAMfu9qYA-TxRBABXp8rS1foZ/B80BAwFAIvHAgZKBBA-e

Saturn.6591:

^I doubt that the difference in dps between a meta-build and a less optimal build (taking AH for example) is THAT big. Depending on the build and the skill of the player using it, I guess it equals out or at least almost equals out. And then there’s always the skill of the players you run with, which is a factor too. It might happen that they bring you into situations where you would die in a meta-build but could survive in a non-meta build; who knows.

I guess outside of speedruns it doesn’t really matter if you run meta or not, as long as your dps is still acceptable and you bring at least some useful things to the party.

Assuming that the only changing variable is trait set, then you’re right, the DPS difference isn’t that big at all (for your given example of 10/30/30 vs. meta). That’s purely DPS though. When you put 30 points into valor, you’re sacrificing all of your utility traits, for something that isn’t overly amazing, short of the 30 crit damage. Taking AH doesn’t mean you instantly do poop DPS, but it does mean that you’re investing a lot of points into a line that isn’t as good as people think it is.

As for your last paragraph, yea, pretty much. The general idea though is to convince people that there are better alternatives, and why they should consider using them. Some people are better than others at achieving this. Ideally, people wouldn’t need to take AH, because it’s not too useful and it’s quite an expensive trait. On the other hand, it only really becomes a big problem for PUG groups when people who run AH, decide that it needs to combined with full clerics/PVT. If they used AH with the other 40 points being used well, and with offensive gear/runes, then it would be better for everyone.

Gear

Armor

• Berserker – Everything other than below
• Knight – Archdiviner #2, Snowblind stab the fire event, Old Tom, Uncategorized Champ room to get the Ettin

Trinkets

• Berserker

Weapons (All Berserker)

• Hammer – Main weapon
• Staff – Use only when running, kiting, vet grawl to cc, and when mobs aggro to an LoS spit to drop line of warding
• Greatsword – Use when mobs don’t run to an LoS spot, use for dps rotations against easy trash/bosses, use to cc ice ele, use to group mobs
• Sword/Focus – Use as a swap for hard bosses to use shield of wrath and then swap back to hammer
• Scepter – Use for when you need to range things if need be. Only the Anamoly needs to be ranged if it is on you with the floor destruction
• Spear – Use underwater
• Trident – Use for projectile defense and blasting fire fields at the start of the fight and for interrupting the jellyfish beast agony
• Mace, Shield, Torch – They aren’t worth taking over the weapons above

Runes

• Scholar

Sigils (Multiple sets is optimal)

• Force + Night
• Force + Accuracy
• Force + Energy if you feel the need

Consumables

Food

• Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
• Cheap Alternatives – Minotaur Steak, Slice of Candied Dragon Roll, Dragon’s Breath Bun, Plate of Steak and Asparagus

Utility

• Skale Venom – OP #1 thing to use for fractals

Skills

Heal

• Shelter – Main heal since using blocks is the best way to survive as a dps guard
• Signet of Resolve – Mai Trin and Elemental Source

Utilities

• Retreat – Use for bosses, running, and if nothing else is needed for other content
• Wall of Reflection – Use when there are projectiles
• Shield of the Avenger – Use when there are a lot of projectiles along with Wall of Reflection
• Sanctuary – Subject 6
• Purging Flames – Use for condition removal or to blast for might stacking if you have a free slot
• Stand Your Ground – Dredge, Harpies, Elemental Source, Rampaging Ice Elemental, Molten Furnance room after tunnel
• Hallowed Ground – Elemental Source, Rampaging Ice Elemental, Molten Furnance room after tunnel
• Bane Signet – Use if you have a free slot for extra dps
• Hold the Line – At the start of Krait battles

Elite

• Renewed Focus – Main Elite
• Tome of Courage – Old Tom
• Tome of Wrath – Use at bosses where Renewed Focus is worthless to give group haste

Virtues

• Virtue of Justice – Spam for blinds and to trigger Fiery Wrath
• Virtue of Resolve – Use if team is low
• Virtue of Courage – Use to alternate blocks at boss fights or at LoS spots

How Am I Supposed to Survive?

• Blind Spam – Virtue of Justice Spam, Leap of Faith
• Block Rotations – Virtue of Courage, Retreat, Shelter, Shield of Wrath, Renewed Focus
• Projectile Defense – Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger, Sanctuary (if need be)
• Crowd Control – Binding Blades for grouping mobs to kill quicker, Line of Warding or Ring of Warding when luring to a LoS spot to keep them interrupted while you attack freely and blind them from behind the line/ring
• Dodge – You have vigor from Vigorous Precision
• Condition Removal – Purging Flames and Whirls in light fields
• Perma Protection from hammer
• DPS – Stuff will die faster than you! Rallying off good dps is usually better than reviving.

General Comments:

My videos were done at 48 so some of the strategies may be overkill for early levels.

I put the specific gear, traits, weapons, skills in the video description for each event/boss or you can look at the build info above.

I didn’t bother with the brain dead parts and I took only quick and clean parts to not waste your time

All the videos are shown as the anchor build which is different from the updated build. It does just as well for survival while offering more dps, flexibility, blinds, and vulnerability.

LoS means line of sight. This is a technique where you pull mobs around a corner and they swarm to it and group up in front of you so you can tear them apart.

Most pugs won’t melee things like mossman, bloomhunger, jellyfish beast, archdiviner so you may get complaints if you do so

My groups may make things look easy. You may struggle but hang in there

Use your virtues. Always spam F1, use resolve if your team is low and in trouble, and use courage for aegis chains, agony attacks, and if your team is low and in trouble.

If you are expecting good loot or an easy time in fractal than I’d suggest not bothering with fractals. You get terrible loot vs time and it will get tough but will make you a much better player and help learn your class.

Now on to the guide…

Solo

Bloomhunger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td6ZAB6Lsxc

Archdiviner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P7Y4G3lLmU

Speed Kills

Dredge Power Suit 20s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiIU_ktc2Ac

Rampaging Ice Elemental 25s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXLDvQOKzxU

Bloomhunger 43s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDgdf0G9cU

Mossman 56s
http://youtu.be/ZsECC8zU8Ws

Mossman 4s
http://youtu.be/NlhVsoabtgo

Other Feats

Rampaging Ice Elemental Melee Kill without Superheated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYg2_WU_7rA

Archdiviner Full Melee at Final Seal
http://youtu.be/g7fWSETTFIg

Captain Ashym Full Melee
http://youtu.be/ILQgWA9UU7w

- Now this is a topic i have yet to see and therefore i will post it myself. I know one cannot directly compare two classes since there is a lot more to consider rather than direct traits and effects but there are some intuits shait going on here in my opinion.

- This will be a long first post and yes i am sorry about that.

- So to get the core component of the class we have to understand the basic goal of each of the two class, i am going to refer to the wiki on this so it might and probably is outdated but that is the best i got.

- Warriors - are masters of martial skills. They rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive. They’re versatile in combat and benefit from offensive and defensive abilities. Warriors inspire allies and demoralize enemies. As a soldier profession, warriors wear heavy armor.

- Guardians - specialize in protective and defensive magic. A deep sense of loyalty to their allies fuels their passion and power. As a soldier profession, guardians wear heavy armor.

- So that is the core concept of the two classes now lets get to work shall we.
The below post will show you a spreadsheet of all the meditation and shout mechanics. But i warn you, it will be a wall of text so if you already know the mechanics skip them.

- Now let the discussion begin, As i can see it most of the Warriors shout do what they intend to do for a offensive class focused on supporting. Giving exactly that a offensive support with the exception of “Shrug it off”.

- Both classes have rather similar traits when it comes down to it, they both have recharge reduction both have healing on activation as Grandmaster and they both have one additional trait that both give it in two different ways. Warrior gain adrenalin and Guardian gain fury.

- Now lets start the direct discussion about Guardians version, first off two of our meditation are offensive tools one with teleport in it and one with condition cleansing. Now this for me At least seems awkward, for a class that is about protecting allies.

- This once again become really awkward when you start comparing both Guardian vs Warrior as there version heals themselves and an additional 4 allies for a smaller base but a lot higher scaling value than the Guardian. And add to that that there version that removes condition will cure Allies and act as a stun breaker(self only as a breaker i assume) with only a difference of 5 second, while our version deals damage(We are supposed to be defensive support right.

- That adds even more to the awkwardness of what they want to achieve with Guardian Meditation, Then we have the additional trait recently added in a patch and probably not fully balanced yet but it last for 4 seconds(No Guardian that run full meditation is ever going to have boon duration, but with boon duration of 100% it becomes good) it is really lack lusting, once again it feels weird as it only buffs ourselves.

- And Warrior has an additional choice if they want to use Runes so all there shouts will remove one additional condition of yourself and four other allies within range. While as far as i know there is no Runes to buff meditations.

- We do however have one benefit over the warriors so far when comparing traits, we have all our three in the same tree while they have two in the same and one in a different so we do have that on them at least.

- So what does this add up to. Well i am not against Warriors gaining a supportive role, we all should be able to contribute with more than one role but our classes are defined that Warrior is supposed to be the offensive support. While we are the Defensive support, Yet when one compare the two builds traits and skills against each other, it feels almost like the opposite. That the Guardian is a overall offensive skills while the Warrior has defensive support.

- And as a final notice as i have posted before if one compare the current cool down on average to a Warrior vs Meditation, Warriors average is a lot lower if we use the three fastest shouts vs the three fastest meditations.

Without Traits 20% as both classes have it.
Fourth one was excluded as they both have 60 seconds cool down.
Warrior average cool down = 26.6666666667 on the three fastest one equipped.

Guardian average cool down =38.3333333333 on the three fastest one equipped.

- I know Meditation is supposed to be a more selfish spec but for me, it makes no sense currently if we compare the two against each other. Especially since Guardian is supposed to be more defensive support class overall while warriors is supposed to be offensive.

- And that concludes my demonstration any questions?

I honestly think it branches more than just Resolve. As I’ve said before, if you invest 30 into Virtues, your passives become even more useless than they already are. Virtues, by nature, should provide a significant buff to the player and if activated a decent buff to yourself and allies while sacrificing that powerful passive. As it stands currently, the passives are so bad that you’ll always pop the active.

No offense taken, it’s good to have a productive conversation about how the Guardian!

I too would like to avoid heavy conditions outside of burning – the Guardian was modeled after the Paragon and they were a Burning focused profession. Other conditions existed, but lots of their skills revolved around the Burning condition, either applying or when applied.

I think we have a lack of skills that have a reaction when Burning occurs, and maybe that’s where we should start (ignoring traits). Zealot’s Flame is rather lackluster as it’s first an AoE burn and then a ranged attack that damages and burns – but what if the target is all ready on fire? Double the burn duration applied by Zealot’s Fire?

With that example, maybe then we can develop ideas from that. Say with Shield of Judgement if targets are on fire increase burning duration, or spread burning to others. Shield of Absorption could also add if allies are on fire inside the shield, burning is converted to regeneration.

Maybe we can have a Trait instead that amplifies our Burning affects based on specific skills – i.e. Shield skills do X to enemies and Y to allies if burning condition is present – and not just +/- % damage or a simple Heal, but create an alternate affect.

Possibly what you want to do is make people afraid of being burned when a Guardian is around – like “Oh kitten cure it quick before X or Y skill is used”. In the hands of a Guardian, the Burning condition is a priority to remove, otherwise it leads to further pain beyond just some condition damage.

There we won’t be so focused on raising Condition Damage, but just applying the condition itself. Condition Duration might be important, maybe. Virtue of Justice would definitely benefit from this change.

Hmm…..I think that’s a good start, no?

EDIT: Made a mistake calculating Adrenal healing… Will Post here anyway So others don’t look crazy for quoting me. Fixed in a later post.

Caution maths ahead…

Where h is healing power:

Guardian
—————————————-
Virtue of Resolve 84+ .06h
assuming 150 h = 93 heals/s
adding in 25% duration for Absolute Resolution (20 in virtues)
116.25 heals/s

Selfless Daring (dodge heal) (15 in honor)
129+h
time to dodge
10 seconds w/out vigor
5 seconds w/ vigor
with perma vigor and 150 h
279/5 = 55.8 heals/s

Signet of Resolve
8338+1.25h 40s cooldown
8525.5 w/150 hp
213.1375 heals/s
32s cooldown with Signet Mastery trait (10 in radiance)
266.421875 heals/s

438.471875 total heals/second (with 20 in virtues 15 in honor and 10 in radiance and perma vigor/dodging when avail)

Solved for h
1.25*(84+.06h)(129h)/5+(8338+1.25h)/32=105+.075h+25.8+.2h+260.5625+0.0390625h=
391.3625+0.3140625h heals/second

Warrior
—————————————-
Adrenal health (15 in defensive line)
1 bar) 125+.15h
2 bar) 240+.15h
3 bar) 360+.15h
assuming 150 h
with 3 bars 382.5 heals/s
with 1 bar 147.5 heals/s

Healing Signet
392+.05h
assuming 150 h = 399.5 heals/s

399.5+382.5= 782 heals/sec (with 15 in defensive line and a full adrenaline bar)

Calculating how much healing power a guard will need to equal a warriors healing with signet and adrenal health
782=391.3625+0.3140625h
390.6375=0.3140625h
h=1243.8208955223880597014925373134

Summary:
A guard with 20 in virtues,15 in honor,10 in radiance,perma vigor,dodging every 5 seconds, and 1244 healing power heals for the same amount as a warrior with 15 in defense and the healing signet equipped with full adrenaline.

Someone correct me if i mathed up

Ranger

• Currently relies a bit too much on passive traits
• Access to a lot of protection and capable of being offensive with pets + spirits while having a lot of defensive utility to fall back on (evades/fears/blinds)
• Spirit build currently has too much flexibility (good 1v1er, good teamfighter) compared to other classes
• Currently very locked into Wilderness Survival tree since the passives + traits in the tree are too good and they lack good stunbreaks and condi removal

Necro

• No tells on their marks; can’t tell which mark is being cast
• Set up perfectly to deal with DPS Guardians with good ranged damage, snares, and Corrupt Boon
• Able to take down a Bunker Guard relatively quickly
• Still very strong, only class keeping them in line currently is CC Warrior

Engi

• One of the toughest matchups for DPS and Bunker Guardian due to kiting + grenades and bombs
• Good ability to kite and play defensively when needed and can close to melee and drop bombs/nades at their feet when winning
• Elixir R can be used to sometimes win a losing duel
• Grenades could have a minimum range in PvP (240?) so they can’t be thrown at feet and have every nade hit
• Bomb damage is a bit high in PvP, could see a slight reduction
• Lacks good stunbreakers but otherwise still a very strong class with high skill cap in PvP

AoE cleave too strong in PvP, lowers the viability of single-target damage builds when AoE is so effective at winning teamfights, also AoE needed in the meta to counter AI

Mesmer

• Currently has a tough time in the meta due to the strength of s/d thief and AoE condi damage
• Toughest matchup 1v1 is the Countless “on clone death” build
• Against shatter, AH DPS Guard has a lot of ways of cleansing immob and blocking shatters

Elementalist

• D/D has seen too many nerfs and fallen out of the meta especially with S/D Thief boon stealing
• Best option in the meta is 0/30/20/0/20 build with Rock Solid to cover Ether Renewal and deal with CC Warrior
• S/D build is great burst but a bit too narrow to deal with the various threats in the meta including S/D Thief
• Bunker Ele needs more group support options to compete with Bunker Guard

Power meta more fun to play and watch than the current condi/attrition meta

Here’s a summary of what was discussed in the video for those that don’t have time to watch it:

Guardian

• Altruistic Healing DPS

1. Few different ways to build it, most involve staff
2. Good build with some good and some bad matchups 1v1
3. Could lower CD on “Retreat!” to enhance viability of non-staff versions
4. Works well on double guard teams in combination with a bunker guard for additional suppport
5. Symbols promote static gameplay, perhaps make them traitable to become auras

• Meditations

1. Lacks ability to stick to targets (no swiftness, few snares)
2. Lacks a good way to escape bad fights
3. Upcoming fury trait is ok but doesn’t help above weaknesses, swiftness or chill would help more
4. Could add ground-target to either of the 2 teleport meditations to help above
5. Chill-on-blind trait would be another option
6. Zeal should have a good GM trait to pair with Meditaions instead of being forced into Radiance and one-handers

• Bunker

1. Still strong, EU altruistic healing bunker build just as hard to kill as warrior bunker
2. Virtues bunker still offers the best mid support in the game
3. Would like to see more support options added for other classes to compete with bunker guard

Dodge Spam

• Some classes have too many dodges
• Classes with Vigor traits (like “Vigor on crit”) should see a lowering in the amount of Vigor given since these classes typically have near 100% Vigor uptime
• Sigil of Energy should change to 25% endurance return in PvP
• A slight damage nerf across the board may be needed to compensate for the lower number of dodges

Warrior

• Bunker build strong in solo queue, doesn’t offer enough support compared to guard to compete in team queue
• Healing signet overbuffed, very strong in combination with soldier/cleric amulet and CC
• Berserker Stance is very strong, maybe it should match the tooltip rather than complete immunity
• Skull Crack is a very long stun for an instant-cast skill — should either have a short (1/4-1/2 sec) casting time or have lower stun duration
• Sigil of Paralyzation is currently bugged to round up to the nearest second, going to change on Oct 15th but perhaps they should be removed from PvP entirely if current stun durations remain as long as they are

Thief

• Sword/Dagger bulid currently has too much evasion and is hard to punish when overextending
• Its ability to pressure and stick on other glass cannons is currently keeping Mesmer and Ele out of the meta
• Sword #2’s Shadow Return perhaps should not be usable while CCed
• Stealing 2 boons may be a bit too strong (instead steal 1 boon or remove 2)
• Slightly decrease the evades in addition to lowering Vigor access (maybe reduce the effect of Feline’s Grace)
• Shadow Trap offers too much map mobility and has no good counterplay other than running your own thief/mesmer

Butter.3024:

Without Holy Trinity it is gonna be hard to make all the stats viable, any body got any ideas?

The problem with thier stat system is that they made beserker and condition sets the only sets that actually modify abilities
the game is designed where ability use is the most important thing.
they reduced the amount of guaranteed hits (skillfull play involves minimizing damage through position, evasion, and preparatory skills like blocks, dmg cancels, etc)

this is why beserker is the best, its not because there are no other factors besides DPS, but you can avoid/prevent/reduce damage, support, and CC virtually the same as anyone else no matter what gear you are wearing.

on the opposite side, 70% of your skills are less effective if you dont have berserker.
as long as this is the case berserker will always dominate the game.

the only other sets that matter ability wise, are condition, and boon duration sets, however, a skilled team can already get max boons when they need to, and do like 50% more dmg without using any boon duration. Condition sets also matter, but conditions dont work very well on bosses, and work very poorly in events with more than 8 people.

the best solution imo?

make other stats effect abilities, and other game play related things.

toughness could effect damage mitigation/prevention stats;
endure pain could have a maximum damage blocked, or have its duration effected by toughness, or vitality for example.

vitality could reduce condition durations or mitigate condition damage, and effect some evasive skills

healing should be changed to an overall support stat lets call it newhealing;

new healing could give a buff to the effectiveness of all boons, and give everyone in the party a bonus as well.
say self bonus maxes at 20% bonus to boons and an overall party bonus to boons. A fully support focused player would make the other 4 players in his party get more power from might, more protection from protection, as well as buff himself.

these are just ideas, but the premise is that the abilities and skills you use need to be effected by more than just power crit dmg, and condition dmg. a berserker can support, avoid/prevent damage, and CC as well as any other geared player. Thats really the problem

Not only do they need to adjust condition caps (I think they are trying things out with the “everything stacks in intensity now” stuff) but they need to rethink defiant, if the control part of the new trinity is ever going to be a real thing then we need to see ways to control other than maybe interrupt one attack that you meant to and the rest of the fight the boss occasionally stops moving for half a second when his stacks go down.

I understand that being able to stun lock a boss is lame, but there are many ways that can address this, it has been suggested before that the buffs work backwards, and control effects do their thing as per pvp until the boss has been hit by a few, and then it becomes immune to those effects for a duration, then back to the start, hey even call it enrage or something, give them a temporary speed/damage boost, give them more/different abilities to use during this period of time, make them call in adds, or make the players do a jumping puzzle style dodge (like the laser room in MF), maybe even make the changes last till a certain condition is met (like the dredge fractal boss being dragged under the molten iron/lava/whatever it is). Suddenly you introduced a new layer of strategy because the players have to plan for the boss’s boosted phase. That way people designing their build around control have something to do.

That way you also don’t have “dead” skills in a fight, on my support guardian when I have to switch to range, I use my staff. Do you know which skill I never hit in a typical boss fight? You guessed it line of warding! Why? Because it is useless, it doesn’t remove stacks, it isn’t a combo field, it only wastes time. Sanctuary is also nearly useless, and shield 5 (those two are good for most ranged attacks but still). So many skills that we as players are forced to take, don’t even work against bosses, which is how you end up with people complaining “every fight is skill 1 and strafe till it is dead”. My suggestion, maybe remove the damage on a lot of the skills and make their effects better, why not make the cripple last longer, or shorten the cool down, the player isn’t using dancing dagger for the damage, so let them use it when they want a cripple, and make it be worthwhile for them to stop using their damaging abilities.

If even half of those changes happened we would start seeing build diversity, and actual strategies involving skills between players.

I know that seems like a rant, and there is a lot of frustration in this thread, but honestly I love this game, that is why I am passionate about it. I want this game to succeed, and be fun as possible, we need these kind of changes to make it feel more interesting, as it is right now, in an effort to make all professions equal it feels we have swung the other way. There are no unique play styles, no unique resource management opportunities. Sure there’s death shroud, but that is little more than an extra weapon that gives extra health, it’s the necro kit if you will, or conjured weapon. Initiative should feel entirely different than the other professions, but because only a few skills are worth using most of the time, it’s kind of foolish to not spam those skills.
Edited: Grammar

Focused Mind now gives Fury? Mediations are now instant? I suppose these are both cool as I used Focus Mind specifically to use Smite Condition without interrupting my attacks. However, I do have a major concern. The “increase to support skills” had better be a major boost as there are plenty of skills that have little use.

Hallowed Ground may apply 10 seconds of Stability (+100% of SYG!), but it has a +166% longer cooldown of Stand Your Ground! It requires your allies to remain in the field, applies a single second per tick, and does not break stuns. Sanctuary is a tiny bubble with a long cooldown and a low heal that isn’t compariable to anything the class already has to offer. Judge’s Intervention could still use a cooldown reduction as it not only requires a target, but its cooldown is longer than any other teleport skill in the game. And Spirit Weapons, well, let’s just say there isn’t much of a reason to summon a floating sword that dies about as quick as a Phantasm with a much longer cooldown.

Shouts are still a go-to utility, and Signets to a lesser degree (I have been falling in love with Signet of Judgment recently). Tomes and Spirit Weapons generally fail. Mediations have varying success without traits and can have good support with heavy investment. Consecrations have mixed results, but generally improve with a smaller investment.

As for weapons, well, nothing was mentioned. I’d assume any fixes and a few number changes instead of real changes. Two-handed weapons reign over the others, off-handed weapons generally have mixed utility, and the main-handed weapons require a large trait investment usually giving poor results compared to the two-handed weapons. Sword needs general improvement (missing attacks with ease), Mace needs its support raised (blocks one attack if an ally trips) , and Scepter just needs to be reliable (Smite spreading damage). I’m not saying the other weapons are perfect. I have my concerns with each, especially Symbols in general, but I would much rather build another two-handed Guardian than feel disappointed with a one-handed build.

To be honestly, I’m quite done trying to suggest anything. There are dozens (if not nearing 100+) good suggestions for the Guardian on this board that get overlooked with each patch. Sure, ArenaNet can doll up Purging Flames to be a viable group Condition removal skill, but it still doesn’t bother to address some of the core issues the class has. All I hear from developer interviews is that the Guardian is a solid class when in reality, there are far more active classes in competitive environments than Guardian. Guardian may hold a firm grasp on one of the top-three classes in PvE, but that usually relies on the same gimmick for every build. I’m still holding myself away from sPvP until Guardian builds diversify enough for me to enjoy my primary profession.

There’s still a month before the update. I honestly hope it turns out better than the last big rebalance.