Guild Wars 2

They should have buffed Warriors obviously. Every other elite spec seems fine though.. if you watched some of the NA thief play yesterday like Caed you’d see it’s just a class that takes skill and alot of people can’t play up to it’s potential which IMO is a good thing to have.

For the first time yesterday I really enjoyed watching some of those matches, my biggest problem aside from too many effects is it’s hard to quickly tell who’s who class-wise in a 3+ fight, I would love if there were little class icons beside the players health bar/name in viewing mode.

Amins.3710:

Good Stuff Incomingray, as always.

As a side comment, I’d look at loosing the 200 +healing and adding +24% Boon duration by going to exotic accessories and adding +4% Doubloons for the Hammer (blast finish) / Staff set up.

Thanks much Amins, gonna try that out this weekend.

@Kekmuffin, I don’t die much in the group setups I describe, the idea is to have zerky dps mostly and ideally a Mesmer and thief for stealths, we do a ton of teleport stomps also with my banish tho it may not show in the video, they stomp very well.

I really think green numbers are as important as white ones, even if someone’s at 90% health.. Keeping people at high health with regen battle presence and a steady stream of other heals keeps people in the battle instead of pulling out to heal or wait for endurance. Battle presence also counters a lot of residual condi damage.

I don’t see much utility in being tankier or having another stun break, hammer staff and wall of reflection are huge utility.

I should have talked more about tome of courage in my post I realize, tome #2 cleanses and blinds quite well(got buffed to remove more condis) the #3 twice in a trained tome is like half a minute of protection and regen on whoever I get it on, against double your numbers that’s huge huge mitigation. Aoe daze #4 twice in 30 seconds can also be a total game changer.. Big utility at the breaking point of a hard outnumbered push. Resetting the fight with full heal has won so many fights I’ve been in.

In “serious” tpvp I use renewed focus and a diff build for sure..

wvw really is just fun we go around trying to build up hard fights usually ends up being ordinary unorganized people and I feel we have an impact on the playing field for whoever cares about that… We do play very serious though and I feel this setup is very effective supporting my friends who like to be glass cannons for the most part.

Appreciate the feedback

Virtues:

Justice – I use this while buffing might and whenever else, with the 5 pt virtues trait it gives out some might to people at far range, I pretty much use it on cooldown while we’re doing damage.

Resolve – Huge huge wide range burst heal, i’ll use it early and often, especially when I see conditions pop up as it wipes out 3 off everyone anywhere near you(due to absolute res trait), battle presence keeps ticking so I see no use to save it too long, not that long of a cooldown with 6 in virtues.

Courage – Just like resolve, i’ll use this pretty early in a fight when burst starts to happen, timing it the best is tricky that’s the nature of aegis, the protection is a huge bonus… using this often is part of keeping a squishy looking like a tank on a big push.

Anyways hopefully that’s enough of a mini guide for the build, be happy to discuss it with anyone, i’m sure it will drop to page 2 in no time though but at least i’ll have something to link people in my video description Here are a couple other somewhat recent videos i’d recommend if you liked this one. I feel like my newest clips are getting better, group has gotten better suddenly lately and had more time to play, new video shouldn’t be too far away if you like this one.

Utilities breakdown:

Stand your ground – most important utility for a small group, let your team know when they get stability and unload focus fire.

Hold the line – I can’t see not using this when healing a small group, short cool down huge boons, get near as many teammates as you can in a fight and burn it right away, protection is a big deal when healing outnumbered.

Wall of reflection – use it or wipe, currently Rangers jumping into an outnumbered fight from far away will end everything, spot them, get a wall up and everyone must focus fire them, try to put a line of warding behind them before your bursters get on him. Regardless of Rangers, projectiles are everywhere and this is crucial.

Healing breeze – anything else is insane, with this gear setup it puts out a ton of healing, practice aiming it and stay away from Shelter when supporting friends.

Gear and sigil/runes:

I mix Magi(prec/vit/healing) with Clerics(pow/tough/healing) across the board. You may want to try some Nomads(heal/vit/tough) if you can’t stay up while it’s crazy, I like to max out healing power and have some damage.

Monk runes are what I use(boon duration/heavy outbound healing), they’re perfect for my purposes, water runes are fine too, especially if duo/trio where outgoing healing isn’t as vital and you need more healing on yourself.

Staff:
Sigil of energy: creates huge dodge healing and survivability, using it on both weapons I switch weapons all the time just for this sigils healing.

Sigil of speed: a key to the build you may not expect, when enemies are building up make sure to kill everything with staff out, it will stack up like 4 minutes of swiftness and solve a huge mobility problem when you need to retreat as well as keep you moving to teammates quickly to heal them in the fight… positioning is key and dodge heals are short range.

Autoattack: adds up, procs your vigor, spam it when you can.

Orb of light #2: trickiest Staff ability to master effectively I think, blow it up in your face for an emergency heal or send it at a teammate.

Symbol of swiftness #3: I throw this down in the middle of fights on cooldown mostly for the damage and light field.

Empower #4: tricky to use effectively, tell your teammates when buffing it and hopefully they get near you, I often use this after stand your ground cause it draws lots of cc, huge heal with this build.

Line of warding #5:
This is such a key subtle ability, when someone is getting focus fired put it down and tell them so they can run back and forth over it hopefully tripping up angry melee… Also great for drawing out early stability on an enemy push and trapping ranged runners… Important to learn how to angle your body as it casts for best orientation.

Hammer:
Sigil of benevolence, you could use life instead for more healing on yourself
Sigil of energy for same reasons as staff.

Hammer to me is a tricky weapon to master, to me having a blast finisher on such a short cooldown is amazing, a long range yet tough to aim immobilize is great, a long distance punt never gets old and is super helpful for things like teleport stomps and then ring of warding which is amazing for reasons like Staffs line of warding. Autoattack chain is very powerful too when you can land it in the right places..

I believe for this style of play hammer is far more supportive than mace/whatever offhand, however I think there is also a huge learning curve to mastering hammer and timing it’s abilities… alot of people will think a healing build should include Mace but the problem is when the going gets tough noones going to stand in your heal circle, noones gonna get your protection and noone is going to get your autoattack chain heal pretty much, I wish the weapon were reworked completely but I love hammer anyways.

Hello, bored at work today, thought i’d share my new video and put together some kind of guide. I’ve been making guardian vids since beta with a variety of styles and for a long time I’ve been mainly interested in small group healing. In pve I’m full zerk, in spvp usually more bunkery builds and solo I play meditations dps with traveler runes.

I do realize this is not a popular way of playing and I don’t usually bother to promote my videos. I just like to make and watch em when I have time. I am always hoping small group wvw gets more popular but I think it can be too punishing and a lot of people who try it get frustrated with all the siege and angry zergs that teleport and catch up and corpse camp.. I am always hoping to inspire guardians to try this kind of approach out with some friends as I and my group mates find it exciting and much more fulfilling than blob fighting.

Here is the video link if you want to watch before reading or don’t care about the wall of text. Hammer Staff healing:

Video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIaoI3_biR4

Build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWl8ApXotCxWI0ENRCBl9M+fOw+DhoEXFAA-TlhXwA1UCqSXwR1KMqqCg9HQo8jMALTA-w

Build philosophy:

The approach is mainly about running around in WvW supporting some focus firing high dps players looking to disrupt large groups and take them on and take towers/camps.(helps to have at least one non-squishy heavy in the group though) ideally 2 to 5 man group – on voice comms – it does not work solo at all and only duo with someone with high damage. In zerg fighting I see no problems but that is not my thing so no comment.. we just like to distract or waste zergs time baiting and stretching them and cutting off waypoints.

The point of this build is to maximize healing output and keep squishy teammates topped off as much as possible and turn things around with tome of courage. In my videos you’ll see a lot of green numbers and seemingly wasted heal cooldowns. I believe if you keep squishy people at high health through taking a lot of damage it causes confusion and target switches especially if you’re fighting unorganized people which is usually the case. If you do fight a hard team who do focus fire well the idea is to blow all cooldowns to keep that person up then switch to tome and really let some heals fly… Hiding your squishies squishiness?

Focus fire their squishies and lock them down with CC, BOON STRIP stability with a mesmer and have a thief/mesmer for stealths to reset/retreat.

It isn’t an easy build to play. I’ve been playing variations of it since the olden days and I’m still improving at it. I used the elite focus trait and healing breeze long before their recent buffs. I even used hallowed ground over wall for a time before the ranger infestation so I could reliably play out my tome of courage at a pivotal moment (elite focus trait now grants stability). Stuff like burning cooldowns consistently and knowing when you shouldn’t and also doing damage/cc while keeping an eye on who you could dodge heal next is tricky. There’s a steady stream of heals available to you and while fighting there’s always someone taking damage.. have to really see the field. Pulling Tome of courage out a little too early or a little too late can make or break a fight.

Trait breakdown 0/0/2/6/6:

Valor – Strength in numbers – an obvious choice, lots of toughness for the party.

Honor – Superior aria – Shout cool down reductions an absolute must for hold the line and stand your ground.

Two handed mastery – Very important, hammer staff, no brainer.

Battle presence – to me this is far far more important for outnumbered group fights than shouts converting condis to boons, this really adds up and if you don’t know it keeps ticking heals on allies even after you’ve activated your virtue of resolve – essential.

Virtues – Master of consecrations – full zerk Rangers are now everywhere and they’re basically moving ballistas, your wall of reflect needs this trait.

Absolute resolution – no brainer with so much healing output, I burn this early and often for condi clears, don’t let them bury their big opener condis with trash ones, soon as I see 3 or more on some teammates I slam this right away.

Elite focus – I’ve used this for a long time for 30 second tome but now it is much much better and to me the ultimate trait for turning the tables in a tough fight with stability being granted for tome.

Well thats your prediction, either way it’s inevitable so might as well be on the list of things to do, i’d be just happy with the larger mouse cursor, it doesn’t seem like some massive programming project does it? For people who have 4k monitors? Whom there are more and more of every day.. there are 4 sizes of interface, i’m just asking for a 5th one for 4k or that range.

Also what are you talking about saying I think 4k is mainstream, obviously its not even remotely anywhere near close to mainstream, i’m asking for a larger mouse cursor basically, don’t need to get into all these statistics, some people can afford 4k monitors, simple as that, I didn’t realize it would look so great or I would have got one earlier.

Monitor was 699, bought the video card a year ago its worth about 400 now(gtx770), game looks amazing at max resolution, smooth in wvw large fights with pretty high quality settings, 60hz displayport, looks great.

Won’t be too long before people have higher res monitors/better video cards, largest interface is very small at 4k 30 inch.. I think the game should support the upgrade better since the game looks so good at 4k res.

Behellagh.1468:

Well the Steam Hardware survey shows all of 0.02% have 4K res screens. Even if you toss in “unknown” it’s less than 2% with monitors over 1920 wide and most of those are the 2560×1440 ones. We are still talking $500 plus and all those pixels likely also means a beefier video card setup which then needs a beefier PSU to power it and better cooling to keep it running a peak speed rather than Chernobyling your box.

Sure not as much a lot of uber video horsepower for GW2 but if you are blowing $500 and up on a monitor of that resolution and size, you aren’t just playing MMOs.

Hello, I got a 29 inch 4k monitor and the game looks amazing but even on largest interface size it is way too tiny and hard to see so because of interface in WvW I need to downsize my resolution…

Wondering if there’s plans to give us a larger interface size as more people are moving to 4k res… even just a larger/easier to see mouse cursor, in a big fight at that resolution it goes practically invisible which is a shame cause all the animations and whatnot are sharper and easier to see and the game looks so great otherwise.

Pie Flavor.1647:

have you ever been to high level fractals? the builds from players are the most unimaginative builds I’ve seen in any game. Full berserker gear

Many(most?) people don’t run full zerk in stuff like high level fractals, in preform speed runs of course they do, alot of people don’t know the content well enough or don’t have good enough reflexes to go full glass cannon.

Been pugging high level fractals since the beginning and the difference in group damage from one run to the next is huge… I think build variety is only small on the forums where people who are able to go full zerk in a level 50 fractals post like its the only way to play but I believe the truth is full zerk in dungeon land is and always has been almost a minority.

bri.2359:

I have been running both my ranger and guardian as power / might stacking builds for almost a year now. However, runes are Hoelbrak essentially the same as runes of strength (same power, same might duration), but a fraction of the cost even a year ago. Now runes of strength are at crazy levels.

I’d say they’re extremely different, -condition duration vs 7% damage? That 7% damage is a really big deal for PVE dps, the -condition duration can be a big help in pvp.

Did a high level fractals 2 guards 3 wars, felt just as fast as ever, super fast run, I think some people are just struggling with some changes and maybe in some defeatist overreacting way equipping lower dps gear on top of the changes.

I put runes of strength on my Guardian and tore everything up just fine in full zerk.

Huge letdown on rune and sigil changes, feels like the devs erred on the side of caution big time here, most of the irrelevant ones just got a tiny bit less irrelevant but it’s mostly the same exotic vendor trash.

6 completely useless traits for any kind of guardian play that makes sense, nothing even interesting about them.

Hi, I was clicking around my skins in PVP build exploring the new interface and clicking my weapons and selected my unbound Genesis and it instantly soulbound it without asking… this should not happen. Beware

I swear I heard hold the line the other night, i’ve been playin Guardian since beta alot and it felt like the first time i’d heard it maybe, I was wondering if its just a bug that puts it with the other really rare things your char can say.. maybe I was having some kind of audio hallucination but I swear my Asuran said it.

Tome is amazing with healing power in small scale organized play, I have been running Elite Focus with it for a long time(tome is 30s instead of 20) with lots of success, 2x #3(long lasting regen/prot) and 2x aoe daze goes such a long way, all the abilities are great… I put down a hallowed ground before it in real rough situations and it often singlehandedly turns outnumbered fights around, have to land the #1’s and keep dodge healing.

Dredge isn’t hard to me personally but I pug and I hate it so much, I go into fractals praying I wont get it, as it doubles most pug runs length entirely.

I’m currently starving to death while people repair halfway through dredge, if it were any other 3rd map i’d be done awhile ago.

It’s TOO LONG

Hi, made another video a couple days ago, just wanted to share it with yall..

Same build as my other vids of late if you’ve seen em.. in a nutshell 0/0/10/30/30 with clerics/magi mixed, elite focus(30 sec TOC, I just point this out because I believe it’s an underrated underused trait for wvw group support)… using hallowed ground(to support TOC, realize it reapplies stability, many seem to assume it can be stripped easily)/stand your ground/hold the line.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASRlcgCDXFSLEm4ES2DRCBLJsHYUGtRXFSIA

Hammer/Staff, 25% or so crit and about 1700 healing usually depending on group size… be happy to chat about it if anyone finds it interesting, this style has been working extremely well for us for quite awhile for how we play, teammates tend to be high damage builds.

I like many thought the Halloween weapons would start dropping again in some way so before the patch I sold my long kept weapons: shield for around 400g, greatsaw for about 315g, scythe for I forget but alot..

Then on I think one of the days after the Halloween patch where it started to look pretty certain that they weren’t going to make a return I had a bit of a panic and watched the TP all day, eventually saw about 18 greatsaws available, then refreshed and saw about 10 available, I quickly bought one for about 350g and then refreshed a moment later and they were all completely gone, gave me an adrenaline rush to have got it lol. I swear I saw about 20 greatsaws some with really high buyout prices disappear in minutes.

Gonna hold on to it for awhile

Been doing small group wvw roaming since beta and I think the only 2 essential things are a support guardian and a mass invis Mesmer(ability to portal super important too), every other class can be relevant with a skilled player and a good build in my experience, all about focus fire and not dying/causing your team to die.

cranked.3812:

Technically speaking that would be the detriment of 3 other players. OP said he runs with his girlfriend who apparently doesn’t mind the extra long runs either.

Speaking of the OP I don’t think you read my post or you’d realize we’re wondering IF the build would end up being really bad damage comparatively, thanks for the advice people.

Hello, my gf and I pug fractals all the time(we do lev49s and did 48s forever in old system, have experience), she has been thinking of playing her Warrior and just got a precision/conditon/power ascended weapon and likes to play ranged.

Was wondering if it’s worth going with a condition build(ptc?) and making the ascended weapon a longbow and using that for range primarily(I play guardian and can put down fire fields to help proc burning ) and switch to rifle and also use sword/sword when meleeing.

Here’s a build I dreamt up in editor:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAsczmkOEFETECA7hfuMSaJVB4SKOzMA-TEAjAA

Any opinions about the build and style would be appreciated.. is this completely terrible damage compared to a zerker war? In pug type situations I should emphasize.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

This is not considered a bug.

The Fractal Skin Box is not dropping for the Fractal levels currently available (up to level 50).

It’s not accessible to anyone at this time.

You could at least apologize for faking everyone out completely. Terrible.

Just did a long 37 run and we killed molten bosses and no chest, no win, no loot, big waste of time run. Killed Molten firestorm 2nd, don’t recommend anyone ever doing that after that happening.

He died and disappeared and event never completed, just showed in top right that boss had no health forever.

Made a new vid, silliness and ninjaing a tower with portal

I can’t understand why people want it to be hard to get to 80, mmos have been out for a long time and alot of us are sick of the process, it’s nothing new, I crafted my 2 alts to 80 and as much as I want another 80 it’s not worth taking time away from what I actually play the game for, WvW and fractals, as an experienced mmo player the whole levelling part of the game might as well be a whole other game entirely.

I’ve had several friends choose to not get into gw2 because of the levelling, they just wanted to WvW and it doesn’t work out as a lowbie the way we play.

At least those of us who have got to 80 ‘the right way’ whatever thats really worth should have a much easier path to get alts up. I understand the arguement that new players should learn their class before jumping in lev 80 content and agree to a certain extent.

To people saying how super easy it is to level up also may want to realize some people only get a couple of hours to play every few nights and they have other games they enjoy.. it’s not just that it takes time but that for alot of mmo players levelling up in pve is extremely boring, I LOVE this game but I can’t stomach the thought of having to level up in the game world again.

Perikittenor.1892:

Incomingray.8075

You are still assuming to much, and as we all know. Assumption is the father of failure.
Use concrete facts rather than assume a lot.

Not everyone uses boon duration. Not everyone uses Virtue traits, not everyone is fighting against poor enemies.

If you start to calculate with positive bonuses such as your allies give you stability, then you calculate that the opponent can remove it.

I’ve been very specific about the situations i’m talking about its use in(wvw, always full of good and bad players), and really 10 second protection 14 second protection either way it’s helpful but i’ve been talking about being a healing based Guardian which means you at least have 20 in virtues probably 30, I really think you’re nitpicking over nothing, no boon duration doesn’t change things all that much.

Also are you aware that Hallowed ground keeps reapplying stability, it’s not just a one time stability that can be removed easily, just want to make sure, with some people saying it’s useless it makes me wonder.

Tongku.5326:

Hollowed Ground is completely useless due to combat mobility.

Strange how you call something that grants combat mobility useless due to combat mobility, i’m not trying to solo a 28 man, its a key player in winning fights frequently for me, i’m sorry it’s completely useless for you in how you play.

I think it’s important to say what type of WvW it’s meant for, zerging or small group? Guessing large scale.

I have a hard time saying what problem I have with going super heavy on boon duration, but I wonder if it kind of just makes easy situations easier, when it comes to people who focus fire your teammates or you’re heavily outnumbered I find the boons lasting a bit longer aren’t as important as having higher healing output, for my style(small group) I really believe in focusing more on healing power(I get 15% boon duration from my runes of altruism and then have 30 in virtues).. but this is the core of your build and a big gameplay philosophy thing and your style you seem to like boons to last a really long time.

(edit realized your crit is 33%) I think you should take a look at swapping EM for battle presence, I think people around you may benefit more from the constant VoR ticks instead of that much might(which will take some time to build up in stacks i’d think). Points for Emp might if you’re running around with a zerg spamming staff #1 all day tho.

Taking signet of resolve over healing breeze I think you should take a closer look at too since you’re support based, even with like 900 healing power it will heal your teammates for alot after the buff, but I don’t know what you’re diving into to tank so maybe shelter would be a better choice too I dunno In zerg fights I think maybe 1 condition dropping every 10 seconds isn’t too much to write home about.

Taking save yourselves and/or judgement signet over stand your ground I highly question, why not just go with hold the line and syg with -20% shout cooldown instead of the rez bubble, esp with a boon duration build, people around you will benefit greatly, imho SYG is our most important utility for any kind of group based WvW.

Last thing i’ll say is take a good look at hammer over mace/shield, personally I believe hammer provides a ton more support for your group, I used to go back and forth between staff+mace/shield and staff+hammer for supporting and i’ve come to feel that hammer completely blows mace/shield away for overall support, but that’s a big debate, I just recommend try doing what you do with hammer instead sometimes.

Hope that’s some interesting things for you to think about in your build.

Perikittenor.1892:

To Incomingray.8075.

i will admit that hollowed ground, will directly support you in ways that enemies will have a huge disadvantage to counter, yet i find it weird that you rely on a 80 sec cool down to make a 180 sec cool down effective. I do however have some complains on your other reasoning.

For me it’s a 64 second cooldown, lasts 12 seconds due to the trait, I certainly don’t rely on it either, alot of times I get a mass invis or pop stand your ground or just watch what’s going on and try to cast it at the right time.

I find it weird that you state that you have to rely on your allies, and yes. We all do rely on our allies for support in different situation. But if you are allowed to rely on your allies to give you stability and protecting you. Are not the enemies allowed to rely on there allies? Or are we talking a 5vs1 situation here, where you need to use the book?

I find it weird that you somehow read that I have to rely on my allies I didn’t say I rely on them for anything… but yeah it’s a group elite.. mainly I get mass invis from a mesmer sometimes stealth from a thief, people can run all sorts of interference. I really don’t need stability or stealth either, they are just good insurance when it’s available, if we’re facing some kind of organized group i’ll try harder to go into tome with stability or a stealth ready.

If you can rely on allies to give you stability, I am rather sure. The enemies can rely on allies to strip boons on you as well. For me, skill number 5 in Courage will almost never go off, even when allies give me stability.

People very rarely strip stability off me, our group heavily employs arcane thievery on our focus targets that have stability however, it works great, people can try it on me but I often cast SYG while summoning tome and their window of opportunity to react is very small, there just aren’t that many good organized groups out there stripping boons on the right target I find.

But i do however find the book 1: Target area healing
To be awesome.

And 3: Cone regeneration and protection (10) seconds, never add boon duration unless you state you are doing so.
Also awesome.

I would say #3 is beyond awesome, I added boon duration because I think any healer build will have 20 or 30 in virtues anyways and alot of people have some boon duration in their runes, my regen/prot last 14.5 seconds and I can cast it twice, thats half a minute of my group taking 33% less damage, I can put hold the line up before and after also, in some fights #3 is the most important thing tome can do, think how much damage is mitigated in a tough outnumbered fight with the 30 seconds of protection.

Number 2: has the potential to be awesome, cure condition and blind foes with bouncing effect, but as we all know it almost never hit its target.

It hits targets just fine for me, weird.

Number 4 lack the same problem 5 do, cast time and have to stand still. 4 is a lot faster however and usually it will go off but not as often as you would like. What i find the book do as a awesome job however, is that it will lure hostiles away and make you into a sponge for almost all damage, and considering the +1000 toughness and +50% max health(think it is a % increase on toughness, but I am not sure.). It really do work wonders, especially since they can’t ignore you as well.

I manage to get off both aoe dazes with elite focus usually, tricky part is making sure they don’t all have stability and you aren’t blinded, clear blind or their aegis with #2 or a few seconds of patience and then cast if you have trouble with it, in my experience it’s super effective.

Check out my video peri to see how it’s working for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdPs52iTeA8

Oh yeah one important point, be an Asuran Guardian! Sometimes I get my casts off cause i’m small and hiding.

Tongku.5326:

In order for the tome to be effective I have to have another guard in my party providing stability for me while I use it. I tried it many times. I think I actually managed to get a “Judgement” off on my opponents maybe twice, literally, since the game launched due to its cast time. Yea I know I can pop my own stability then go tome, but that is not enough, boon stripping, and CC make it an overall worthless ability without being to pop my own while in the “tome mode”.

I think this is crazy, just pop stand your ground as tome is being cast, or put hallowed ground down, or ask a groupmate for stability or stealth. It IS enough, I cast full heals uninterrupted all day every day and it wins fights, and aoe dazes and I give out 14 and a half seconds of protection/regen, all the time, on cooldown, with 30 seconds of tome of courage.

I almost NEVER get interrupted with my tome out and I reset fights all the time, after a year of using tome of courage i’m going to say some of you just need to try harder and practice. It’s the most powerful ability in small group wvw in the game to me very clearly.

It’s also powerful in zerg fights, spam #1 while dodge healing with sigil of stamina for max possible group healing in the game.

Hallowed ground is an amazing ability that compliments tome of courage, it is truly amazing in small group play or zerg play(on a chokepoint/area of high CC), there are times where I see more than one problematic necro and I may put purging flames on instead but hallowed ground is a key player in winning fights quite regularly for me and my group, if you’re a healer, you put it down, you empower, healing breeze, tome full heal, whatever, not much is going to stop you.

Tomes 14 second regen/protection in a tough fight can mitigate more damage for 5 people than anything, 33% damage reduction, think about how much that adds up to over that long with regen ticking over 300.

Tome of Courage is heavily a group based elite and the more teamwork and communication you have the more it can turn fights around and win them I find, sometimes it should be used at the very start of a fight when you know your group is about to take a ton of damage, sometimes it should be saved… I think it’s the most difficult yet most powerful thing a guardian can use in group wvw.

edit: nevermind

For me without elaborating too much hammer is my most used weapon across the span of pve/pvp types of play, playing heavily 99% guardian since beta, however my vast majority of play is small group WvW, where I find it essential to my style.

Guardian hammer is by a good bit my favorite weapon in the game, all abilities it has, I think people struggling with it should be patient with its autoattack and dodge in it and use stability/well timed dodges to stay on an enemy, that’s when it really shines. In pvp its a must to get good at using the immobilize with focus fire.

I’m very happy with Healing Breeze how it is, I enjoy shooting heals at people, may sound weird but I enjoy the way it functions, it’s part of why I love healing in WvW on my Guard, I used it for a long time before the buff too. No complaints, seems totally balanced to me.

Like everything though it’s totally situational, I believe the reason hardly any Guards use it is cause they haven’t tried it since the buff, unless you put yourself out there in harms way all the time and you’re squishy I think more Guardians should use it regardless of their healing power, the common Guardians out there who are already so tanky should try living without Shelter and throw some heals at their friend that’s getting pressured.

Hello, I trio in WvW all the time and have for a long time and I very strongly suggest you go with Mesmer.

Mass invis, blink, portals… strong damage and survivability.. guard/ranger/mesmer is a great combo.

Main thing though you need to look at is mass invisibility, with the way out of combat speed works and how everyone in a zerg will get 60 wxp off you each so they will often chase you, your Guardian or Ranger will be getting chased by the many teleporter/warpers in WvW to be put in combat and caught.. nothing a Guardian/Ranger combo needs more than the odd mass invisibility IMHO. (and if they feel mass invis is not a huge deal i’d point out that a 3man draws more aggro from enemies than a 2 man.)

I’ll link my vid I just made which contains alot of Guard/mes/mes and some Guard/war/mes which are the trio combos I play the most, perhaps it will give you some ideas or help you with your decision, it doesn’t really show the true impact of mass invisibility properly since we don’t do a ton of retreating in the clips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdPs52iTeA8

Hi, just wanted to share an idea I had, I enjoy thinking about WvW theory and would be interested to hear why it may be a bad idea or good.

What if when a server owns every keep(in EB keep+castle) on a map they get a debuff that makes walls/gates vulnerable by 25% and if they have all keeps and towers they are 50% more vulnerable, for being.. spread too thin? Like all their engineers and good workers just can’t handle owning everything! Ok I haven’t thought of a really great realistic explanation yet.

One key part of the idea would be to give people defending the weakened structures more reward/wxp per tick maybe double… once a tower gets taken the 50% debuff is down to 25% and once a keep is taken the bonus is gone and the debuff drops from the remaining buildings.

This I think could create interesting split up strategies to try weakening all the buildings while they are all owned, especially helpful when a zone is fortified up, instead of quickly rushing to ninja a keep before the dominating servers zerg shows up to stomp you out, but even that sometimes impossible task at least now would be realistic.

It would help promote defending instead of abandoning a zone once your zerg steamrolled through it and give people who own nothing a much more realistic goal to shoot for.

I just think this would make the game more fun/interesting especially in bad matchups/times of day for both sides.

Tome of courage is my favorite thing in the game and it’s not true that good players can just cc you, you can cast stand your ground as its casting, you can put hallowed ground up, you can get stealth/stability from a teammate etc., with healing power Tome #1 is a very powerful heal, all of the abilities are super strong IMHO.

Get some support from your group if you cant make the most of it, it’s not an easy thing to use and takes timing and seeing what may be about to unfold damage-wise.

Here is a vid I made recently with Elite Focus(30 sec tome) healing in small group WvW, I feel like it’s key to winning hard fights and it can make normal fights easy against a group that won’t get a full heal or near perma regen/prot or 2 wide radius aoe dazes etc.

Wanna point out another thing, burn all your cooldowns before a tome, after you make the most of the 20 or 30 seconds in tome you can come out with all or most of those cooldowns back up.

Also I shouldn’t just mention small group stuff, I feel like too many Guards dont run tome with healing in a zerg fight, I love jumping in on a huge keep push and spam #1 for 30 seconds on the frontline while dodge rolling with sigil of stamina, really gives the frontline a full head of steam getting constant 2k heals. Anyways yea i’m a bit of a Tome fanboy.

styx.7294:

That’s a lot of precision…

Well I gotta correct myself a bit, I end up 20-23% crit with my heavier healing bigger group set and when I do a 2man or maybe 3 man depending, I bump it up to about 26-30% with some berserkers and an ascended power/tough/heavy precision ring, way I see it is if i’m going to be in a tough fight against 3-5 people as a 2man I won’t be hitting as many people at once and I need higher crit(more damage helps anyways in this situation) so I can reliably proc vigor, when fighting 10+ people at once 20% is totally fine for the most part esp for staff autoattack, when I analyze my clips and see myself get into trouble alot of the time it seems to stem from not getting vigor procs/remembering to keep attacking clumps of people.

Hello, I just made a video trying to demonstrate the strength of a +1700 healing Guardian with 30 second tome of courage from the elite focus trait in small group WvW playing with high dps teammates, it’s working very well for us and hopefully you find the vid helpful or interesting.

I always group with Mesmers, I believe Guard/Mesmer are the 2 most important classes, mass invis is very important, I made a thread on the Guardian forum explaining how the Guardian style works with a small group that’s linked in my description.

Nefejrangh.2584:

Well played, i like so much small scale video :p, in this period i’m playng a mesmer in my team, can you link the spec of the mesmers in your team pls? I’m just curious, because your team have a good survival in lot of difficult situation and i’m always reday to improve myself.

Hey i’ll get their spec and message it to you or something, basically if i’m with 2 one is berserker one is alot of valkyrie and thats all I really know besides the obvious from weapons.

styx.7294:

You mention having precision. How much? What kinda crit rate you prefer to have?

I like to have 25-30% crit, I guess imho below 20% is really bad, just seems like when I go too low theres times I cant get the vigor proc and it can mean so much.

Crapgame.6519:

Thanks for taking the time to record, edit, and share. Always good to see how others play.

Edit: What server? I thought I read in the youtube comments Dragonbrand? If so, then heck, we probably either have, or will, meet up in WvW…

It ended up being mostly sega genesis only a couple of amiga tunes but if you skim through my older videos especially my later Warhammer vids theres alot of cool amiga stuff. Anyways yes we’re on Dragonbrand and thanks, glad it was worth watching.

edit: new vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c1yFyj6Dxg

Hello. I just uploaded a vid of my favorite thing to do in the game which is heal supporting in WvW small group outnumbered stuff and thought i’d share it here.

I know small group WvW is done by like 0.001% of the gw2 population but I feel like its popularity is on the rise a little and I hope this video can help some Guardians get a group together and try out a style like this.

build is 0/0/10/30/30 http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWSlcgCDXFSLEm4ES2DRCBLJsHYUGtRXFSIA

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdPs52iTeA8

Brief keys to this style of play for me:

Tome of Courage with Hallowed Ground and Elite Focus so it lasts 30 seconds, I get healing to 1700-1800 in a 4+ man group and if i’m duo or trio depending on group i’ll sink it down in favor of more precision/damage(I find precision is important for healing to maintain vigor procs). I believe all of the Tome abilities are insanely helpful if used right, with high healing power you get alot of bang for your buck with #1 and #3 abilities.

Hammer/Staff: to me they are the great support weapons, hammer you can jump in the mix and get off nice blast finishers, buff protection, put up light fields like crazy, immobilize people which creates kills with a communicating assisting group and trap them in rings… ring of warding and line of warding are so important for drawing stability out of enemies and allowing your berserker teammates to make space and get healed while bursting.

Playing with a Mesmer in the group(my gf plays a Mesmer yay), makes going down alot more forgiving, makes for nice escapes, helps cast a full heal/aoe daze that can turn a fight around. Really important thing with Mesmers too is they can steal boons (stability!) on your focus target which really makes your CC helpful.

Gear is a mix of mostly Clerics with some precision/vitality/healing power, depending on group I mix in more or less precision/berserkers, sigil of stamina or energy are great choices for this stuff imho, energy better for a tough evenly matched fight where people aren’t gonna die alot and sigil of stamina for stuff like outnumbered chaotic fights where your group gets consistent kills.

Burst healing, big key, making enemies think your berserker teammates are tanks so they get confused as to who to attack, this doesn’t only work against pugs, most Guardians in WvW do not spike heal with all our cooldowns/dodges/tome, against pugs in particular it really breaks up their assisting and causes target indecision.

It’s not an easy way to play, i’ve been WvWing in many builds since beta as a Guardian and I always feel like i’m improving.. it’s important to have high dps teammates and good focus fire/communication, things that can be really hard to come by in WvW .. i’m hoping in the future alot more people get interested in small scale WvW and I hope this vid can help give some Guardians ideas, I feel like it is a very strong setup for supporting a group in WvW and we’re having alot of success with it.

Love to discuss this stuff if anyone has feedback/questions.

skeppi.9750:

I’ve got the full zerk setup now and find a lot of deaths happening now usually from condi as groups tend to lack condi removal. I do die from missing a dodge as I’m still learning whats to be avoided on bosses I haven’t fought often enough.

I have another question which is what build do you suggest when running fotm with pugs? is it better to have a tanky setup for these groups and any suggestions.

PS I did try a S/F build but found myself dying a lot in pugs so switched to a 10/15/0/25/20 and find I survive longer but condi’s >_<

I’ve been pugging fractals forever and do 48s regularly in a 0/30/30/0/10 setup, i’ve done them with the assortment of popular builds without valor and I just find in full zerk valor helps me alot to stay alive supporting everyone in all the problematic situations that arise in pugs, the 10 in virtues helps alot I switch between master of consecrations and unscathed contender depending on things.

Without a really high crit% you wont get much out of the crit damage and without full zerk you probably dont need the toughness/survival..

I recommend trying it out, just remember, keeping up unscathed defender is a big deal on alot of the boss fights, have +endurance food ready for the lava boss in case you have to tank him(not having vigor procs is one of the real challenges of the build esp if you dont know the boss attack routines), try having a 2h with sigil of stamina to deal with the trash.

Alot of pve high level Guardians as you probably know think full valor is the most useless thing in the world, the build is far from optimal, to me it’s versatile and if you work it right can do nice damage and keep you up which in my experience is what supporting is all about in pug land, my reflects and blocks are all I need. It is working wonderfully for me, runs are often smooth and consistent and I feel like my valor just barely keeps me up all the time to save the day with our utility.

JonPeters.5630:

Symbol of Swiftness
To clarify the new Symbol of Swiftness will give you 4 seconds of Swiftness every single pulse regardless of if you have swiftness or not. This is a improvement in many situations and a slight loss in the situation where you were using the Symbol as just a one time buff. I think this makes it feel more like a Symbol, which is good. We are still discussing the idea of it being 5 seconds, but there is some danger of that going pretty high with boon duration.

Since non zerg WvW involves alot of running away from random zergs showing up during a fight, you guys must see how this is a bit punishing possibly, I feel like i’m the core support of the group but when things go sour I feel too easy to catch, alot of times during respositioning to avoid getting unavoidably flattened by all the zergs of warpers out there(so many warpers and teleporters with range tagging us into slowmode combat).

Why are we losing some of our only burst escape? Usually the swiftness I get from my symbol if i’m able to place it somewhere that it wont end up tagging me into sure-death combat will barely get me away, do you feel we should be holding a utility slot hostage all fight with retreat standing by to do not much but give us a mediocre escape?

Can we get thrown a bone with a proper escape of some kind to choose if the symbol of swiftness is going to run out in an emergency escape early enough to really make sure you get caught into combat? Like merciful intervention with a better cooldown and ground targetting? Not sure how many of you guys do your WvW content solo or small scale but you must see the unnecessary frustration of getting caught by a out of combat heartseeker spamming teleporting thief with a zerg all hungry to get their 60 wxp off one person each.

When our group is roaming one class that never gets away from us ever is Guardian(along with Necro of course).. I think this is the only issue people are having with the change, we already lack quick escapes to an annoying degree.. I love small group roaming so much and the challenge of not getting caught by an annoyed zerg, i’m pretty happy with how things are currently personally but I just feel it’s all a little out of balance vs the out of combat speed/teles.. this is just looking like a help for zerg guardians mostly in regards to WvW.

In July it was announced for 2nd half of 2013:

We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds! You will be able to earn these new traits and skills by unlocking them. To go along with this, we’ll expand the content and options to earn skill points to help encourage players to experience different challenges and content throughout the world. These skills and traits will be designed to be balanced with the existing skills/traits we currently have in the game, and will simply compliment and expand the range of abilities and tactics available to each profession. Both WvW and PvE players can acquire skills and traits, and additional means of earning skill points will be addressed for both core content areas.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

Does the December class balancing info mean that we are no longer going to see any new traits/utilities in 2nd half of 2013? Has it been put off? Was really looking forward to this announcement, guessing all this class balancing stuff wouldn’t be announced without telling us there will be some new traits/utilities that may offset problems.

As a smallscale WvW Staff using Guardian this is the first time i’ve been upset at any class changes since beta, we’re the easiest class to catch by out of combat speeders/blinkerswith zergs behind them(besides necros without spectral walk/good use of death shroud tele).

Swiftness isn’t even great mobility in the first place, we need something like a good version of merciful intervention(lower cd, better effect, choose where to teleport) more than ever.

JonPeters.5630:

• Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse, rather than 8 seconds if you have no swiftness and 1 second if you have swiftness.

Isn’t this a bit of a harsh change for WvW Guardians who don’t zerg, it was already really hard to get away from a surprise mob of out of combat people with the usual speeders and teleporters, trying to get my symbol of swiftness to not tag anything so I get stuck in combat and caught for sure, glad I get to group with Mesmers often so I don’t have to completely waste a slot on retreat now, I think Guardians already had enough mobility issues seeing them all shell out 7-8 gold(per piece) on a new 25% speed 6piece traveler rune bonus(which again won’t let you get away from the heartseeker thieves and warping war/eles etc.).

I can’t figure out the reason for this change with the mobility other classes get, swiftness isn’t even that great in the first place and it’s all we get pretty much(besides judges intervention which a support guard should not be using).

Oxxy.7068:

Incomingray.8075:

Oxxy.7068:

What kind of group-support you bring while using AH in PvE? Whatever your awnser is, any build without points in valor can do it better.

Alive Guardian group support, the kind that matters.

Good to know you didn’t read anything i’ve said.

I did, it didn’t make all that much sense.

Oxxy.7068:

What kind of group-support you bring while using AH in PvE? Whatever your awnser is, any build without points in valor can do it better.

Alive Guardian group support, the kind that matters.

spoj.9672:

You seem to think because we run most dungeons in organised groups that we play a completely different game. We dont. Difference is weve learnt whats good and whats bad.

I don’t know, it seems like you don’t pug 40s and 50s fractals if you think valor is completely useless in all pve.. i’m not up for taking it on with 10/25/0/10/25 personally… some groups are really bad and I love the challenge, valor helps me alot with consistently staying alive to keep them alive with our various utility skills when things are going badly.

spoj.9672:

A standard hammer build or 10/25/0/25/10 gs/sword focus build are both very good for pugging fractals. And both of them dont use valor.

edit: i’m glad those builds are very good for you, I can see they don’t have valor and .. so?