Guild Wars 2

KaW.3258:

I use a similar build.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3|c.1g.h1l.e.1g.h1c|b.1g.h4.d.1g.h2|1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r|1g.61.1c.61.1g.61.1c.61.1g.61.1g.9c|0.u6ab.u19c.5.5|15.1|e

Neat, a meditation based one.
Since you dont have to have 10 Honor to be take -20% cooldown on shouts youre able to put 5 points on Virtues for the minor trait

[Introduction]

So I have seen many people who really want to make Sword + Shield work because of aesthetic reasons. While it could be argued that this build would not match the great sword or hammer, I do offer a build that in my opinion comes close in overall effectiveness, but it comes with a catch.

[Why Should I Play with Sword + Shield?]

The build lends itself to reactive game play. Which means with decent skill, you can be a very defensive oriented guardian despite your traits reflecting otherwise and your damage doesn’t suffer much for it.
The build rewards good reaction and correct timing usage of your weapon and utility skills.

[But this is boring, all you can do to deal the most damage is auto attack!]

There is a purpose for the sword functioning this way. Both other sword skills function well in a reactive manner, paired with the shield which has 2 skills that are definitely for reactive purposes.
By dealing damage with auto attack, you are free to focus on using your other skills in reaction during the correct times.

Consider the following:
-While Flashing Blade can be used proactively as a start of an attack, its blind functions well as a reaction to slow and powerful attacks, especially telegraphed ones.
-Zealots Defense is used to react to projectile attacks
-Shield of Judgment’s Protection Boon can be used in reaction when you suspect a huge burst of damage incoming.
-Shield of Absorption can be used in reaction to projectiles as well as an interrupt since it knocks opponents down.

[Why are reactive skills more effective with this setup? Can’t I do this with a Great Sword as well?]

You certainly can react with other weapons, however other weapons are built to be used proactively. You lose out on overall effectiveness of the weapon when you have to use a skill to react to something while you are in the middle of a combo or a slow attack.
Weapons like great sword and hammer have combos that is a huge part of why they are very effective weapons. Not to mention they have slow attacks or attacks with long animations like Whirling Wrath where you are unavailable to react with a skill other than shouts unless you cancel.

[Secondary Weapons]

Even if you prefer a certain set of weapons you have to use your secondary weapons to be an effective player in Guild Wars 2 regardless of profession.

It is recommended that you carry a weapon capable of better area of effect damage than that of the one handed sword. Choices can be Staff Great Sword or Hammer.

I use a staff in WvW and PVE because of the symbol of swiftness on top of my preference to support playstyle.

[The Build and Equipment]

This is the build I use
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzcoMV0zMmGvrmmGvrm0xxa0oaqVsqM8kir7070m7kIa70m707ofD70m8ofY

Anything left blank for equipment is up to you depending on preference.
Utility skill #9 can be anything you prefer as well, I like condition removal but sometimes I put Stand your Ground! for stability.

[Conclusion]

Remember that fun is defined by you and only you. I Find reactive game play fun so I prefer the sword and shield. This Guide functions to inform those who wants a build to “work” with sword and shield. Its style of play is different to that of proactive great sword and hammers.

Any questions feel free to ask here or in Private Message if you prefer.

Shimond.2478:

Spiderwick.1879:

All those replies are good, but the topic driffted a bit from the orginal idea. I was not talking about damage, what is the best damage weapon. I was looking at the weapons from the FUN aspect.

So, once again.

If I would like to not just auto attack or use 1 skill, I’m basically forced to go GSword. Potentially, Staff or Mace.

But, for an idea of a Sword and Board Guardian, that is basically, auto attacking.

Well if ‘fun’ is what you were looking for, you won’t get much help – nobody here can define what you find fun.

I actually have more fun with the hammer. I greatly enjoy the animations and the constant blast finisher.

Quoted for truth pretty much. Since fun is self defined I actually am that odd one that gets to have fun with sword and shield because I like just being on constant autoattack so I am available to react with my other skills

Pretty much is just autoattack but I think it serves a purpose really.

I prefer it because its reactive, its akin to GW1 days where my main is a mesmer. I autoattack and react with interrupts, blinds, self defense or whatever else was on my skill bar for a given situation.

Being on constant auto attack lets you be ready to react much quicker and with ease, since you wouldnt be busy setting up anything or be in the middle of an attack animation/casting.

It helps that sword+shield skills are mostly best used in a reactive manner. As I have mentioned in another thread blind and protection against huge attacks, zealots defense against projectiles, shield of absorption against projectiles or interrupt with a knockdown.

All’s left is augment it with utility skills that are best used in a reactive manner as well, like stability-granting skills.

eldain stenlund.4306:

Best way to fight a thief.. is to run away.

A guardian can be very resilient against thieves so I find thieves to be the ones who run away.

In which my tip in fighting a thief is, dont chase them.

Usually not worth your time/You dont have enough control to keep him from escaping/He could be leading you to a trap/Hes just waiting for your defensive abilities to be on cooldown

Sword and shield allows to me to be reactive much easier really.

Because all i have to do to lay on the damage is press 1 once I get to be ready to react to the situation with my other skills

Blind or Protections against huge attacks, Sword #3 against projectiles, Shield #5 against projectiles/knockdown interrupt, condition removal/stability. All done at the right time with ease

Simply put Im done arguing about whether or not vertical progression is necessary/good or not.

My loss of motivation to play boils down to one thing.

Lack of non-cosmetic grind/having a stat plateau like GW1 was advertised to me, and I bought the game because of that.

Its not about what is right or wrong in game design, its about the game not being what i bought it for to begin with

Casca Longinus.3168:

once again, you want the reward without the work

Im expected to work on games i paid money for?

Last time I worked, I was the one who got paid.

Natural.7013:

Minos.5168:

plasmacutter.2709:

Natural.7013:

How is it a boatload? Because you don’t like it, so it’s crap. Vocal minority again.

You don’t even read the rest of my post. BTW, accusing the majority on this board of being a “vocal minority” sounds like the Romney camp before the election. We all know how well that went.

47% of people will never agree with anything ArenaNet does.

Good point.
/thread

I hope you realize that not only are you agreeing to a joke post regarding the recent election.

But let me give you the benefit of the doubt and you don’t follow US elections.
Its actually worse, since you actually believed that if the post wasn’t a joke, you’re agreeing to a completely made up percentage with no basis.

Gaming Background
My first gaming experience was that of the gameboy/nes era.
I loved playing games on the nes and snes.
I also grew up in asia so I grew up on the arcades.
So it was in my belief that playing a game should be its own reward, not numbers. And from my arcade background, that skill should be rewarded not time spent.

MMOwise my first one was Ragnarok Online, the concept of grinding for gear was new during those days and I enjoyed it. I also played other online RPGs such as Phantasy Star Online, Diablo 2, and other games here and there that was very grindy like Dungeon Fighter Online, Mabinogi, etc.

Then came Guild Wars 1. As I grew older the amount of free time I have diminished, I had little free time to begin with as there are plenty of other great games to be played, not just one. I enjoyed Guild Wars despite its shortcomings in the combat system etc. But its core concept stayed the same, grind was cosmetic, skill won vs time spent. I gladly bought whatever I can from the online shop to support the game and bought all releases and expansion.

Do I love/hate GW2?
Before November 15 I absolutely loved it, I bragged about it to friends whoa re reluctant, I offered to pay half of the game’s full price for friends who have little money to be able to enjoy this game and play. I bought things from the online store even If I knew it wasnt a necessity to support the game.

But now, I dont know, I didnt ask for a refund because Arenanet has a 7 year good reputation to me. I still have a tiny hope they dont go through all the way with this.
For now Ill keep the game installed, no motivation to play. Definitely not buying expansions or gems.

Syfin.6875:

Thank you for the great answers. I now understand. But now it makes me wonder. How would horizontal progression not become stale. It sounds like you arent working towards anything beneficial to your character… Does the game stay interesting. If so, how?

We can bring this back to an old school game. Super Mario Brothers.

Throughout the game you can reach your maximum “stats” and that is big mario via mushroom plus ability to shoot fireballs with fire flower.

Now, why does the game continue to be interesting despite reaching your maximum early on?

Its because the levels become harder and more intricate as your progress your skill.
Mario does not gain a turtle resist overalls or anti pit moustache, you just get better.

In GW1, you reached your max at lv 20 and you gain your earliest gear early on. Why does it keep interest?

Because new areas have tougher enemies that require understanding of the game to beat, you push through because you progressed your skill, not because your character got more stats.
You can now go to the underworld, fissue or woe, the new dungeons in eotn etc.
It doesnt stop there, they introduce Hard Mode. The game got EVEN tougher with the introduction of hard mode and you still got the same stats as before.

But it was enjoyable because it was REAL difficulty that cannot be beaten by just grinding for better gear

why are there a good number of posts that go like this?

“People complain about wanting A but not B
And now people complain about wanting B but not A
Whats wrong with you people?”

The people who complain about the 1st line arent the same as the ones in the 2nd line.

The reason Why i side with one of them is because the people who are angry that there is vertical progression are here BECAUSE THEY WERE ADVERTISED BY ANET THAT THE GAME WOULD NOT HAVE IT

While the others are people who bought the game without research or without knowing that this game was SUPPOSED TO NOT HAVE VERTICAL PROGRESSION

There are people who want a refund and have justified reasons for it.

Then there are people who want a refund even if they already enjoy 600 hours of gameplay.
Theyre doing this partly in spite, partly to “communicate” to a company.

Companies need to be communicated to in terms of money. Because that is all they really care for.

So frankly, even if its spite, I have zero problem with people asking for a refund, no matter what reasons they have just or unjust. Because THIS is the only way theyll hear the consumer’s voice. Just look at this thread, among all the outrage where is the reply that isnt PR or doublespeak?

I’m still waiting for Genesis to address Gonzo’s quote and refute it.

I mean I’m here to read a good debate/arguement but I still don’t see any arguement against it. If youre just gonna reply against select posts then I’m sorry but your arguement is weak.

Here you go again in case you want to actually take a jab at it. Its a quote originally from Gonzos post.

“We’re not going to rest on our laurels now. We started this company to innovate and bring players new experiences. Guild Wars 2 is the perfect game for Guild Wars players, but it’s not just the same game repeated again. We took this opportunity to question everything, and we have some exciting answers for you today.
The first thing you should know about Guild Wars 2 is that, this time around, there’s no question that it’s an MMORPG. It’s an enormous, persistent, living, social world, filled with a wide variety of combat and non-combat activities. There’s so much depth here that you’re never going to run out of new things to discover.
So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.”

So obviously people have reason to compare gw1 and gw2 because of what is said here by the developer.

Your turn. Ball is in your court.

If they wanted more gem store revenue, cull the gambling nonsense and bring on the armor skins and more towns clothes with special shenanigans skills.
Weapon skins that didnt need you to gamble, sell it at a premium price and people will buy it and prefer it over uncertainty in the BLC
Name changer, Looks changer, Gender Changer.

Hell even sell some ORDER changer. How many people asked if there is a way to change which order they joined? (id buy it)

They were creative on what to sell on the cash shop in GW1, what happened?

If they thought money was going to be an issue they could have made it so you start with 3 characters instead of 5 to push sales of extra character slots.

A lot of things are possible without compromising the manifesto

been silent for long. But reading and refreshing this thread. Was holding out opinion till the patch comes. Now, i can for sure say youre getting no money from me anymore.

Arenanet, there’s an old saying.
“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither”

I dont understand what kind of thieves you guys are killing

All I know is whenever I “win” against one theyll just run. No Badge for me.
Unless getting them to run away is considered “killing”

its fun when you can get the people on the map to coordinate.

My problem with it is the golem area. A lot of people will not cooperate with you on that because they want the event to fail so they can farm the sparks, not accomplish the intended goal.

Rainshine.5493:

I don’t know how often anyone would benefit from the vigor on Smite. Do you stand in smite very often? The whole point is to deal damage from range. :B

And a symbol that gives vigor WILL deal damage. On top of that it will deal damage more consistently rather than randomly like smite is now. On top of that your traits can make it last longer, be bigger, etc etc etc

The whole point of giving it vigor ability rather than anything else is that turning smite into a symbol already is packed with benefits and is a good enough buff. To comply with symbols having to grant boons, choosing the least “strong” boon is good.

Just like i hate it when they nerf something with a heavy hand, id not appreciate buffs with a heavy hand

well yeah regen is a boon. I just didnt know whether its just a straight up heal or regen

symbols doesnt need to be boon+damage+field

Doesnt the mace symbol only heal?
Anyways if scepter #2 is to turn into a symbol it would be nice for it to deal damage, combo field light, and give vigor

if its WvW, I just run from them. There is no point fighting them since its a fight you cannot “win”.

Just now there was a thief being a troll around the borderlands so I decided to see if I can stop him. I loaded my skillbar with as much cc as possible.
Everytime you get them in danger/low health they will have way too many teleports and stealth abilities to run away from you.

I was using Hammer:
-#3 is way too slow on animation not to mention projectile speed that they will just dodgeroll it
-#5 either gets dodge rolled out or they use one of their teleports

Along with the hammer, my utilities
-Judge’s Intervention: I teleported to him, cool but after that it was just nothing else. Used it with hammer #5 to get him inside but (see above)
-Signet: (Forgot its name but it does a knockdown) Despite being a slow cast, He got hit by it. 1.5 Seconds used to catch up to him 0.5 seconds to hit him once and he ran off.
-Signet: (Imobilize) I whiffed this one its my fault. I casted it while i was out of range.

So at that I decided its just not worth it. You can fill your skill bar with cc but youll have no other useful things. You can take a couple of cc but it wont be enough.
So yeah, if you see them. Fight them, if they run then go the opposite direction and ignore them.

Isnt humans the highest population race lorewise anyways?

It bothers me that so many people think retreating is not heroic or is cowardly.

Must be why I can kill a lot of players in WvW.
Ive always thought being a guardian with limited snaring capabilities that anyone can easily just retreat if they decide that its a fight they cannot win with me.

Instead they stay and butt heads with me and end up dead.

Retreat isnt cowardly, its being smart.
On Topic: I still think its unnecessary, Ive always just thought of it as me telling the opponents they should retreat.

thats the problem with skills like sanctuary and this.

If they really dont want targetted healing then Id rather they remove the skills and put something in more useful and doesnt take up space in our skillpool rather than put skills in there that are just straight up useless because it doesnt agree with their design philosophy.

Or just remove the stupid healing. and balance accordingly.

for something that people can simply dodge through; yes i agree its lacking.

I do all this effort just to catch someone inside and see him dive through it.

To be honest I want skills that work based on your skill, not based on the opponents lack thereof (in this case it works against people who do not know how its as simple as dodgerolling through it)

I understand its because theres evasion/invicibility in a dodge roll and that causes the immunity to the knockdown. In that case just make it so i can cast Line or Ring of warding on the move or have it be instant/quick cast time.

OpLickem.8250:

I personally love the jump puzzles. I’ll often bother my friend to just go exploring for jumping puzzles with me around the world for a days fun. I’m not very good at them, but it’s something different and challenging in another way other than combat.

Only thing I don’t like about this jump puzzle is it’s really not friendly with my PC setup. I use a desk built for a laptop and I literally have 3 cm’s of space left to right before my mouse falls off the desk. I have to play games with 2000 or 2800 dpi or I can’t move well in them. This does not bode well for puzzles requiring me to move in the same direction a lot without enough of a break to reposition my mouse.

TL;DR – The puzzle was fun for the first 10 hours but I just clocked in 40.5 hours total over the last 5 days and I still haven’t finished the puzzle once. Fun now at 0%.

then you had your fun, time to stop.
Isnt this how its supposed to be?

If you guys keep having so much trouble with norn and charr blocking you ask soemone to party with you and call target on you so you have a red target above you

Took me about 8 hours of headscratching but I finally did it.

Its nice, reminded me of old NES SNES games.

If I didnt complete it before the event was over, then tough luck. It means I came up short in the end. I dont see the problem with it.

I dont think my character gets any weaker, lose any stats, etc etc. If I dont complete it

yeah i agree, I dont get why they didnt nerf Retreat! too

That wasnt working properly, some dirty guardians used it against me to chase me, not retreat from me.

@DiogoSilva:

I agree but when they made the patch notes all they said is “because of retaliation”. If they can be transparent about it then cool

im not complaining about nerfs in general. I played mesmer in GW1, and it happened to my professon A WHOLE LOT.

The whole problem is theyre doing brain surgery with a chainsaw instead of a scalpel.
Almost every nerf theyve handed to the guardian is heavy handed.

Whats wrong with nerfing little by little until you get the balance right? Thats what they did in GW1 with the exception of the ones they claimed they actually want to be unusable. (Smiters boon)

@Kita:
Oh man forget my suggestion yours is better. Since the arguement was that save yourselves is nerfed to better use it for its intended purpose, your suggestion would make retreat be used for intended purpose as well.

While were at it make Stand your ground! root you and your allies too

That way all you dirty sinful guardians who have been using Retreat! to charge forward cant do this anymore

id like to see

“Altruistic HEALING no longer HEALS the player”

its as heavy handed as the recent nerfs but at least this one would give me a chuckle

this is just stupid. All the benefit of the doubt ive given them because of their track record on the GW1 cash shop, all out the window.

out of principle unless they stop this nonsense theyre getting no more gem purchases from me. Maybe not even an expansion at this rate because i really hate this kind of shenanigans.

As consumer, i speak with my money. I hope the majority if you guys will too and deny anet the money so theyll understand. I dont want this company to turn into another Nexon

they are so heavy handed with nerfs, even when something is deserving i still dont like it.

If something needs a nerf, reduce the kitten thing’s effectiveness slightly. If its still powerful do it again, dont drop it by huge numbers.

Im just annoyed and angry because we got this trash and mesmers got their scepter projectiles sped up. Weve been asking for this im sure more vocally and no change. Its like no dev reads guardian forums.

I have altruistic healing so i will support no matter what to get heals for myself.

But I only revive people who actually make an effort to stay alive.
These people dont realize that no matter how much damage they deal, whenever they get downed not only do their dps suffer, they kill the dps of the team as a whole since someone has to stop attacking to get them up

Its always the case even with games with dedicated healers even.

Reminds me of TF2, I play medic and every time i start to heal someone at 20% hp he will jump back into the fight immediately thinking heals make him invincible.

Same with your unfortunately bad team. They think guardian skills make them invincible when its really just something to take pressure off like the above poster has mentioned

Wall of Reflection: No need for explanation everyone loves this
Spirit Weapon Hammer: Very good constant disrupt and its command is just really devastating even though its easily dodgeable.

All the Shouts: Its because I love altruistic healing. If you have allies around you, you just get massive heals every time you shout. Stand your ground is great because stability is great, Hold the line because protection is just a tide-turning boon, Retreat! because run speed is an important part of pvp and just makes pve flow smoother, Save yourselves is just a nice dps boost

Yeah i know anet has shyed away from targetted healing in gw2 but theres really no feasible way to make this skill not bad without letting it be targetted.

At the very least ground targetted, they seem to be fine with that i think

Eveningstar.6940:

My trait build lets me grant might to allies every time i crit, faster i swing, (not to mention the 3 hit on the swords final chain) the more might i grant, the more might I grant, the more healing i get.

I use Sword as a weapon swap in Altruistic Healing too. The Might generation from Sword is indeed cool. Remember that you’ll get a lot of Vigor off sword crits too!

oh definitely, not only can i dodge more often, since my dodge has heals built in em vigor becomes even more valuable

All I really want is a little better heal for the #5 skill. Otherwise the shield is fine. Its just niche.

I use sword and shield. I like how fast the sword hits for my trait build and I like the shields #4 for altruistic healing

My trait build lets me grant might to allies every time i crit, faster i swing, (not to mention the 3 hit on the swords final chain) the more might i grant, the more might I grant, the more healing i get.

The ridiculous healing and constant might granting works really well in dungeons for me

EDIT:
Oh and my 2ndary is staff, Symbol of Swiftness + #4 skill is basically almost a full heal to me with a party/zerg

anyone who thinks anet isnt listening to their playerbase is just either being ignorant or blind.

The GS isnt even hit that hard. Its just annoying that they swapped the hotkeys

warriors’ theme is that they are weapon masters. It makes sense their traits are better when it comes to weapons.

I dont know much about warrior traits but a direct comparison isnt a fair assessment. Im not saying youre wrong, im saying your way of backing up your claim is.

There are several other things that differenitiate both classes that a direct comparison between similar traits isnt going to work. Like someone said earlier, apples and oranges.

perhaps maybe increasing the size of the cone would help

Staff doesnt get affected by 2H mastery?
I thought it did, at least it was the last time i had that trait on.

Maybe im just seeing things

You shouldnt invest 5 points just for it. But it should always come “free” in many builds because people put points in honor anyways for the shout cooldown reduction, symbol size increase, or 2handed weapon cooldown reduction.

whether it is deserved or not i dont know, i havent used the trait. But what I am annoyed about is how extreme the nerf is.

From 10 seconds to 3?
If they thought it was OP, drop it to 6 or maybe 5 seconds. If its still Op, knock another second off. Theres no reason to make drastic measures like this unless theres an exploit involving this trait i didnt know about

i was gonna curse but instead of the filter doing it to me, i will just type it out myself

This is motherkittening kittens, staff is already kittening fringe and it honestly didnt need kittens to kitten the kittening kitten that kittens the kittening kittens