D/D Ele and even mesmer will spoil you if you’re swapping off of them to thief.
Thief’s role in sPvP right now is primarily decap and +1 ambushing. You’ll win some 1v1s against other really squishy classes, but anything bunker, or D/D celelele, or a good mesmer / burn guard / condi anything…just run.
It’s still incredibly valuable to have a good thief on the team, but you’re almost entirely reliant on your team to help you set up kills for you.
You should also note that in a team fight, though you can down people easy if they’re already engaged with a teammate, you need to get in, do your damage, and get out ASAP. Thieves are good stompers / rezzers too, and you should try for it, but if you’re getting focused get out of there. If you go down, you’ll likely rally the enemy team and lose the whole fight for your team. Don’t be a liability, protect yourself first.
I’m not sure D/P has better burst actually, it’s just much easier to land and stay on your enemy with.
Shadow Shot is huge in playing the quick “in and out” game that is more or less required now that every other class is doing huge damage in melee range or big AoE damage.
Also D/D has some rather disjointed skills. Death Blossom has rather pitiful damage with a bleed efect (useless for direct damage burst). The evade time is VERY short and it’s combined with an activation delay, making it hard to time correctly especially when factoring in lag. Dancing dagger is ok I guess, making CnD easier to hit and can get rid of clones, but so can shortbow. CnD is also much easier to mess up than Black Powder + heartseeker, and again requires melee range.
Overall, on demand blind, interrupts, teleports seems more important considering the type of enemies you’ll be facing these days.
Sad to hear. I quit PvP at rank 40 because it was just too frustrating dealing with crazy condition specs everywhere and not seeing any real improvements in sight. Now warriors are crazy OP?
Before I left I remember warriors being bottom tier at almost everything, now it looks like the exact opposite. What happened to the anti-whack a mole balance I was always told about?
Eles look like they’re still in the gutter, a shell of their former selves.
Looks like mesmers aren’t much better off…Same thing, what happened here?
Looks like I’ll be staying away from this game for a long time. Thanks.
Thanks for the heads up. Reading around, it looks like there’s a lot of hate towards Warriors. What’s going on, too much sustain or something?
I remember the big uproar when Ele’s were top dog, but never had too much trouble with them, is this similar or worse do you think?
So it’s been quite a while since I’ve really gotten back into GW2, I think maybe close to a year now.
How is PvP doing these days? When I left, condition builds were just becoming big and Necros became the alpha predator. I played Guardian primarily and had trouble countering them as I remember even with tons of condi removal.
Have the devs been pretty good about keeping balance in check?
sPvP was my favorite thing when the game was released. However, after a year of trying to look past problems I’ve had to give up on the game (at least for a while).
1. Atrocious balance. Condition meta is probably the worst we’ve ever seen. Brainless passive play and cheap builds are created just to survive in this insanity. Mindless AoE spam, mindless AoE condition spam, little animation tells on important skills. Luck and spam, I’m tired of it.
2. No real incentive for playing sPvP.
3. Lack of public testing. I may not be a game dev, but I am a professional software dev for a different industry, and we would be in big trouble if we put out changes that directly affect our users that we told nobody but internals about. Get a public test server, and let your customers HELP you with your beta builds.
What everyone else said. That is seriously one OP combination until ANet does something about condition builds not needing to invest beyond one stat (condi damage) to do significant damage.
I would actually suggest you join a guild and get to make some friends that you can run with. I hate running with most pugs. Bad I can tolerate, but I hate running with jerks / idiots.
Also, get a good build. Gear is up to you, but I reccommend either full zerk like other people have suggested, or a mix of zerker / knights if you like to have some toughness. Get very familiar with this build, but don’t be afraid to swap utilities as necessary. If you know you’re coming up on a boss with strong projectiles, pick up WoR and Master of consecrations, your party will love you for it.
Lastly, just because you may be “full DPS” doesn’t mean you can’t support. In fact it’s hard to make a guardian build that doesn’t have any support whatsoever, it’s just the nature of playing the class. A staff can make your party really love you, because the only thing better than lots of DPS is lots of DPS + 25 stacks of might for your group.
Shield of absorption is solid, binding blade gets doubled up on some targets instead of staggering out to a secondary target just past the closest one, Banish is a long cd single target knockback (don’t get me wrong I love it), but theres much better AOE CC’s out there and we just aren’t on their level.
I absolutely agree, but I guess what I meant was I’m not sure we need to be on the lolwarrior stunlock type level of CC. What we have for hard CC does it’s job well. What we almost completely lack is soft CCs.
I think soft CC would be best, nice and spread out simply to control range. Soft CC’s are also typically a lot longer duration by default and easier to increase duration via traits / runes.
It’s true, we could use some more soft CC. However, some classes like thief, there’s likely nothing we can do if they really want to run.
Unless you’re playing a burst build, and can surprise them, most classes can and will run as soon as they get under 20% and know it’s hopeless. If you’re playing a real match, that’s still a win for your team, as now they’ve wasted a ton of time doing virtually nothing, and you get the last /laugh.
(edited by Jericho.4521)
@ Jericho: What hard CC does a Guard have that is useful to carry in anything bigger than a 1v1?
@ Amins: When I read that I heard Ahrnold’s voice when he played Mr. Freeze.
Not sure what you mean by useful…
I guess I personally just use Shield of Absorption / Binding Blade / Banish as key skill interrupts and to help res / stomps, knock off enemies from a point, or occasionally in tandem with other teammates to lock down a target. I feel like they’re actually more important in teamfights..
Not sure if Wards classify as hard CC in and of themselves, but they can make a pretty big difference in larger skirmishes on a point.
Guardian need range, mobility and softCC
but in…
pve guardian is fine without that
spvp guardian is fine without that
wvw guardian have a problem, unless you only play as zerg boon/condition remover.Arenanet dont care about wvw. End of history.
True, but giving literally every other class a form of hard CC and living Guards out is poor planning imo. Yes we have walls/rings but those are on long cooldowns and highly situational, and half the time to make these skills work right you have to combine them with a utility to make them worthwhile.
I mean come on, a class gets a FOUR SECOND DAZE because we are Guards…we don’t even have a 1 second daze =/
We already have solid hard CC options, the problem is that we completely lack any reliable soft CC, with very limited access to swiftness. What I would like to see are some cripples added to at least a few weapon skills, as it stands it makes melee too risky for little reward, something that should be the exact opposite.
Other than that, which I consider somewhat minor, as our group support is still unrivaled, I’ve been glad they haven’t made sweeping changes to the class. Fotm’s will come and go, I’m glad guardian has always been a solid choice. We just need bug fixes, and maybe a few more tools to help make melee not be such a kite-fest.
I’m more worried about what they’re going to do to other classes..
It seems like guardians would have more trouble soloing, without damage(in pve) Is that true?
Not really, the reason people pump power at low levels is that pretty much every other stat except for Vitality doesn’t scale well at low levels.
Also, at all levels of purely overworld PvE people tend to use more offensive gear while leveling because there’s not too much out there that is dangerous enough to warrant using defensive gear, “so why not just plow through it faster?” is the mentality.
When you actually reach 80, that’s when I’d start settling into, “Do I want my first set of gear to be pure offensive, tanky w/ damage, or pure tank / healing?” I said first set, because if you stick with it, you might find yourself switching between sets of armor depending on the situation.
Thank you J, I feel much better about my guard now :P Can you link a leveling build? I’ve seen a few, but they aren’t explained, or don’t make sense. I put five in the bottom two traits
That’s a good start, those two minor traits give you a lot of bang for your buck so to speak.
As for a build, I won’t bother linking you one for now as you don’t need it. Your traits and gear will likely change drastically once you hit 80, then we can help you with a real build. Leveling..It’s pretty hard to go wrong and you can reset any time. Here’s my general rule of thumb:
When you only have single stat gear to equip, focus on Power. With 2 stat gear, make it Power and Vitality. 3 stat gear, it’s up to you at this point, but I would go with Power, Precision, and Crit Damage (aka Berserker’s or Zerker’s gear).
For over-world PvE, there’s really almost no need for toughness, especially at lower levels. Even then, I wouldn’t even consider it until you can get 3-stat gear (level 60 I think??) Then, if you want, invest in some Knight’s gear and mix it with zerker’s.
Utilities are up to you, shouts are simple and effective at any level. Traits…I’ll give you some very important advice here: Don’t trait purely for stats. Pick traits for their purpose FIRST, then consider how the stats affect your build. Stats come primarily via gear, so pick traits based on what works for you and what is most important for you to have first. You DON’T need 30 Zeal w/ 30 Radiance to do damage, in fact that’s a pretty poor option just fyi.
Wow, well there’s a lot of moaning about Guardian lacking vs. Warriors right now. Play what you want. I main a Guardian, and it is true we lack mobility. That is one of our biggest flaws, but honestly nobody does group support like we do.
You can comfortably play any game mode as both, leveling is easy peasy on both, dungeons….Well I’ll say my opinion: Guardians tend to make running dungeons easier due to insakittenup support, Warriors tend to make them faster due to their insane DPS. Both are desired, but Warriors are most desired for “speed runs” if you actually care about that. Just my opinion from personal experience.
Both are perfectly viable, it’s just that had you asked a month or two ago, people would probably have flat out told you to pick Guardian. Warrior got some pretty healthy buffs recently primarily for sPvP / WvW that are just getting realized and picked up into the mainstream. Due to a larger overlap now of Warrior’s abilities into Guardian territory, people are feeling pretty salty about it.
Here is what I do know: Guardians, other than directly after the beta, have changed very little. Most people will say Guardians are among the most balanced, or even THE most balanced class in the game. So you have a much lower chance of getting buffed to the sky and promptly smacked down as we’ve seen with almost every other class.
Well other than poisoning, I’m not 100% sure how you’d kill them any faster than your are already, it’s just kind of the nature of fighting a build with lots of blocks / regen as a thief. My guess is you’d have a similar problem against guardians, if not worse.
I do get what you’re saying about Warriors these days though, when I get a good 1v1 with them it’s like fighting a bizzaro version of myself (as a Guardian).
Well what profession / build are you running?
Heya so I’ve been doing only pvp in the past couple of weeks and i found a pretty decent build to match any class, im running 0/0/30/20/20 with full zerk gears using a gs and hammer, i can handle any class, even the condi mes, but when it comes to stunlock wars, i just get lost.. ive tried many builds the one that works so great against them is the spirit weapon build, weapons just thor them apart, but i find it too cheesy, so, would there be anything im missing out that could help me counter skullcrack war using a 0/0/30/20/20 gs/hammer build? Thanks:)!
Well you have 20 in virtues, I assume you’re picking up Indom. Courage? If not, definitely pick that up, also SYG is an obvious choice, as well as Renewed Focus.
I’m not a fan of the hammer, I prefer Mace / Shield, but Mace / Focus works well too. Since they need to be somewhat close to you, it’s easy to pop Symbol of Faith w/ Writ of the Merciful + Protection and Retal and wail on them when you can. It’s just important to keep your regen up while pressuring them as much as possible.
If they are running hammer, the attacks are easily telegraphed. A block, blind, or aegis works wonders here. If it’s Mace / Shield + GS, try to keep up stability when they are in mace, then punish them as fast as possible when they swap to GS.
Keep your retal up as much as possible and force them to stand in your symbols.
Other than that, it comes down to predicting the skull crack and staggering your stability, blocks, blinds, and your elite to mitigate the big hits, and try to soak the filler hits with your retal / regen / prot. Their healing signet means you can’t afford to back off of them.
Where is all this guardian whining coming from all the sudden? Is it warrior envy or something?
Ive always had a few things I would like to see changed on guardian, but there is some really random QQ coming from this thread for some reason. Guardians are still in a pretty decent spot, I think the issue is that we don’t really fit into the current condition bunker meta too well. But honestly, I cant see this trend lasting too much longer, necros got toned down, spirit rangers got hit this last patch. The only thing making warriors OP is their passive signet, which I wouldn’t be suprised if it got toned down too.
I think people really need to calm down and realize we are at a good fairly balanced (but still needing some slight fixes cough cough zeal) spot, and that some of the condition builds need to be toned down some.
Agreed. In 2 weeks we’ll see how well the condi bunkers fare after ANet gets done with them. Who knows, maybe we’ll get some buffs too.
Shelter: 30s CD that has no way of being reduced. 2s Block, also no way to extend the block. Lower heal than the signet, and the signet can be traited to 32s CD. Shelter can also be pierced by unblockable attacks like traited Necro marks, and warrior’s signet.
Shelter is a good skill, but it’s strength is wasted unless the guardian uses it to purposely block a burst.
You say it heals 50% HP on a CLERIC’S guard? Yeah, it does. Cleric guards also have ~12k hp and are literally 0 threat to ANYONE in terms of killing power.
This thread has to be a joke.
Where is all this guardian whining coming from all the sudden? Is it warrior envy or something?
It does have an animation. It is a Icon on the opponents bar. If anything, perhaps make the HuD customised like it was in gw1, so player can arrange different on screen info to be in area’s that is more user friendly to their play style.
I for one would love to see my skills attached to the right side screen and move my buff/condi to lower left screen and my opponents buffs/condi’s to lower right screen so I can evaluate quickly where I am at and where they are at.
I like this idea, then everyone could basically get what they want tailored to their interests. Problem is it would probably take a significant amount of developing time, but I think it’d be worth it.
Happy to see that they are at least addressing one of the biggest issues first though. Time will tell when it comes to the “big” balance change. I REALLY wish we could get a public test server.
Any word on if this rune set will be available in sPvP?
Interesting thoughts jericho, thank you for being intelligent and informative rather than combative.
Haha no prob, I try to be! But I do see your side of it too, and I think things that provide a huge amount of stability need looked at, as it shouldn’t completely shut down a build. We don’t want Build Wars 2 after all.
Build looks pretty good, but I think Sigil of Leeching and Sigil of Energy will conflict. Don’t know that for sure but you may want to test it, as most on-swap sigils conflict with one another and you may get one effect or the other but not both.
Stability needs a giant, massive nerf bat. It is by far the best boon in the game because, for a short duration, it completely negates 1/3 of the trinity: control.
I disagree. We are already seeing a big outcry from CC heavy builds, namely warrior skull crack, which is very easy to repeat with a short duration. There’s also chain fear necros which are insanely popular and have been for a while. Stun breaks alone, assuming the player has at least one and they are up, are often just not enough as they can be baited, while both fear and skull crack are not easily telegraphed. Stability helps fill this gap, and is far from an “auto-win” skill. It simply allows you to control your character for a few seconds against these builds. Long duration stability may need looked at, but I believe shorter, easy access stability should stay unless something drastic changes in the meta.
Also, I suppose one could make the argument that “CC completely negates 1/3 of the trinity for a short duration as well: Damage.” Actually, it shuts down damage, healing, damage mitigation, positioning, and interrupts whatever you were just doing.
The rally / stomp system is also something that would need considering, as if stability becomes too hard to access, it can shift teamfights even more into the zerg mentality where whoever has more players wins.
On topic: A better visual queue might help, or it might hurt. We already have a ton of flashy things going off on the screen, especially in teamfights, the devs might not want to add more clutter. I personally am not opposed to the idea however, but I think paying attention your target’s buffs is already doable, and should be encouraged.
This is the only profession subforum I’ve known to not have “omg OP nerf now” whiners on the daily.
I only made mine under the pressure of my guild at the time, as they all wanted to make similarly named Charrs. Nobody had made a Charr guardian yet, and thus, my main was unknowingly born.
Insightful post Jericho, thanks!
I see now people chose according to the ability gained instead of the stat given. It now seems more interesting, since I was worried about not having enough damage.I think I’ll be using this:
Valor 10: Retributive Armor
Honor 30: Superior Aria – Empowering Might – Pure of Voice
Virtues 30: Vengeful – Absolute Resolution – Indomitable CourageWith Knights Armor I’m going to have a decent Crit-Chance and Toughness, to be critting a lot giving might, my shouts will have a short CD and probably I’ll be quite tanky.
I think I like this build, it has lots of versatility and finally using Save Yourselves won’t kill me with all those conditions :PJust one question though, is there any way to up the natural regeneration of Guardians? I’ve read somewhere that Warrior heals like 500 each second?
Sword Focus for giving perma might (due to the 15% crit chance) could be worth it?
Sounds much better than what you were running before. My only suggestion is that you may want to test out Empowering Might and see if you actually like it. It is primarily useful not directly as a might stacking perk, but as another source of healing with a group via Altruistic Healing (I think you end up with like 5 stacks at maximum because of the internal cooldown). Since you’re not running AH, there may be better options. Symbols heal, symbols are larger, 2-hand CD reduction, etc. might round it out a bit more depending on weapon choice.
As for weapons..All of our weapons are good, but obviously some will be better with certain builds and scenarios. If I’m running with a group, I tend to use Staff + GS / Hammer. If I’m in spvp and solo, I usually run GS / Mace + Shield. Sword is a good choice for single target DPS, but if you find yourself in group battles, GS is going to go farther for you. Sword really comes into its own with Right Hand Strength, but that requires 30 into Radiance.
Edit: For upgrading guardian heal capabilities… You could use a whole bunch of cleric’s gear to pump Healing Power (I wouldn’t recommend it, although there’s a popular build called Healway that does this and works ok for roamers), or you could change traits around. We have a ton of traits, even minor traits, that heal us for doing stuff. AH is probably going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, but only if you’re in a group. Other than that, Absolute Resolution + Mace Symbol + Dodging (with Selfless Daring) + Sigils of Leeching do a solid job of getting your health back up.
You should also keep in mind that we don’t really need 800 healing per second, as we already have easy access to protection, which warriors do not. You should focus first on damage negation, then mitigation, and lastly healing.
(edited by Jericho.4521)
Thanks for the pointers, Jericho. My guard just hit 80 a couple days ago and my trait points are everywhere. This’ll help me focus up a bit and figure out how I want to build it out for general PvE.
Glad I could help!
My build is Power 30, Precision 10, Touhgness 20, something like that, not ingame right now.
I don’t really want to be a DPS-zerker Guardian, but it’s required to do dungeons faster, deal damage as long as I’m in a group who knows the dungeon.
I have Knights Armor only and Ascended Amulet and 1 Ascended Accessory.My problem is mostly WvW. I used to run GS and Staff… now I’ve changed to Staff and Scepter/Shield, because I know I have no change at all in melee range, so I just avoid it. But this is probably related to my lack of knowledge, I’m not familiar with all other classes, so even with my abilities on, I’m not sure when to use my skills.
My Scepter 3, most of the time it gets dodged! I cannot anticipate the dodge from enemy, unless I’m paying attention on checking if they ran out of Endurance (but at that time they’re dead already).
My shield 4, when is that necessary?I think that for WvW I’ll have to go Toughness 30, Vitality 30 and some Valor to get reduced shouts.
I’ve become very attached to shouts Save Yourselves, Retreat, Stand your ground, Hold the line.
I’d would say that without noticing I’ll be running a Shout Support Guardian, but I’m not very familiar with how to use this abilities.
EDIT= anyway to go around the 5 people limit that shouts have?
First tip: You may know this, but I’ll say it anyways: Try to avoid setting your traits purely for the stat bonus. It’s not something to ignore, just don’t make it your first choice. Try to pick traits based on the goal of your build first, then examine how those stats affect things. Your stats will primarily be affected by your gear choice, and damage multipliers via traits, runes, and sigils. In other words, full zerker guardian doesn’t necessarily imply 30 zeal, 30 radiance.
I would really recommend dropping that 30 Zeal to maybe 10 or 20 at max. 10 Is good for Fiery Wrath (+10% damage on burning enemies), too much more than that and you’re missing out on some really awesome traits just to get more power.
I treat the precision line as an all or nothing thing, so 30 or 0. I typically only bother with it for Right Hand Strength. Again, your choice as even without points in this line, you can get a solid crit rate via your gear stats if that’s what you want.
The Valor (Toughness, crit dmg) line is where things get interesting. In PvE, most people run Altruistic Healing to maximize their survivability in dungeons or in WvW when running in a group. If you’re running solo, you may want to consider Monk’s Focus instead, though that would mean giving up your shouts. You don’t need either of these to be effective, just putting that out there. In fact, you don’t even need a point in valor, but there ARE some really cool traits here.
Honor Line (Vit, Healing Power), I almost always go with 30 points. If you play with shouts, having Pure of Voice is amazing. Other than that, I consider Superior Aria a must, 2nd trait is your choice. If you’re running AH, go with Empowering Might. Anything else is a toss up.
The Virtues line…If it’s pure PvE, you don’t need a whole bunch here, but AT LEAST put 5 points in to pick up Inspired Virtue (+Boons on Virtue Usage). I personally run 30 in this line for PvP, using Vengeful, Absolute Resolution, and Indomitable Courage. More points into this line also means a built in +Boon Duration. If you’re doing any sort of PvP, Absolute Resolution + Pure of Voice means you can survive much better against heavy condition users, which is a major factor these days.
Runes and sigils are up to you.
Just note that with any sigil that has an internal cooldown, it will conflict with any other sigil that also has a CD. Example: Using Sigil of Earth (2s CD) and Sigil of Energy (9s CD) means if you swap weapons to proc energy, sigil of earth cannot proc for another 9s. The same is true in reverse.
As for gear… Some will say zerker only. I say it’s your choice, but make sure it compliments your build and don’t skimp TOO much on offense. Knights works well, especially in combination with zerker.
(edited by Jericho.4521)
If you’re outnumbered especially vs. 3+ even reasonably competent enemies, yes you will likely die. The only time you’ll come out on top on those is if there’s a huge difference in skill, and it depends more on how much your enemies are bad than you are good. If you go solo in WvW, expect plenty of unfair fights and situations you can do nothing about.
As for your first point, I agree. It is annoying having to manually swap builds and gear, hopefully they will allow build templates sometime soon.
Other than that, can you post your current build so we can add some suggestions?
Wait wait wait…So the base radius for our symbols is now what it used to be traited with Writ of Exaltation??? Does this mean I can finally run something else instead of ensuring my symbols actually hit something outside of the range of my toes? Sweet.
Most of the symbol changes were just correcting the effects to match the actual area of the symbol. A lot of the symbol’s effects were 120/180 when the actual area was 180/240.
That being said, we did increase Symbol of Swiftness and Symbol of Faith from 120/180 to 180/240 to be consistent with the other symbols. =)
Ah, I see. Looks like I’ll probably still run WoE. Thanks for the clarification!
Wait wait wait…So the base radius for our symbols is now what it used to be traited with Writ of Exaltation??? Does this mean I can finally run something else instead of ensuring my symbols actually hit something outside of the range of my toes? Sweet.
Also, 40% healing power scaling with MF. Sounds tasty.
I first made a guardian during the very first beta weekend, and didn’t like it for whatever reason and didn’t touch the class for months.
When the game was released, it wasn’t until my guildies were all making charr characters and pushed me to make one that I reluctantly made a Guardian.
By the time I got him up to 80 I was shocked at how stupidly effective guardians are in any sort of group situation.
And really, that’s the reason I keep coming back to Guardian as my main, even though I have 6 80’s, all with plenty of PvP experience. They are good at almost everything, plenty of build variety, desired in every game mode, and they are IMO the perfect force multiplier for any team-fight in PvP or in a dungeon / fractal.
Also seems to pair pretty perfectly with my girlfriend’s Warrior when she wants to run as a dynamic love-duo. lol.
OP, this is the build I’ve been running and I’ve had good success with it:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7Fc3x;0RFk30E3RG-90;9;49TT;01;019A09B;4LNV45;1KJG4KJG45Bc
If you’re just starting off, you might want to take Akamon’s advice and swap out the 10 Zeal for 5 Honor + 5 Virtues, as those are always great choices. I just prefer having that extra bit of pressure, as DPS builds work best when you force enemies on the defensive early. Sometimes I’ll swap one of my offhands for torch, because it synergizes well, but often times I like the extra defensive capabilities of focus + shield.
I started running this primarily to combat the current surge of Necros, as you’re going to need some solid condi removal + good pressure AND stability if you want to survive these guys and this build does all of those well. Renewed Focus in this build not only recharges virtues, but also clears all condis, and gives you all boons for a short period. This lets you pretty much negate an entire condi burst rotation if necessary.
As for offense, you’ve got plenty. Sword is the real killer in this build, but I usually open in scepter to put a little pre-skirmish pressure on a dangerous target. Also useful to get enemies to blow dodges on this set before you swap sword, since then you’re not just constantly chasing them around.
As for Sword / Focus, as others said the shield popping hurts pretty bad, and few enemies see it coming. Since you don’t have JI with this build, I just use Flashing Blade instead for the same effect. Zealot’s Defense HURTS, I’ve seen it crit for up to like 7k when it fully connects, so make sure your target has used their dodges before you pop that as it’s best to land all hits as close as possible. Other than that, Sword auto hits like a truck and procs Justice burn a lot.
I do agree that warriors are unfortunately bottom tier right now for organized play and need something, but they are not so far off the mark like they once were.
Also, hi @Copenhagen! I fought against you a couple times earlier this morning, and I was impressed.
I would just try using some zerkers gear / trinkets and swap more in / out until you feel comfortable. Many guards at higher level fractals run nothing but zerkers gear and do just fine, so it’s really more of a matter of how well you can play with it.
For traits, I’d say the typical setup you have is probably fine, but zerkers vs. knights can make a big difference in damage output.
Ehh? Guardians have pretty amazing condition removal options regardless of build.
Absolute Resolution is only 20 points into virtues, Purity is only 10 points in valor, and several of our utils including meditations clear / convert conditions. Even our self heal can passively remove condis that stacks with Purity.
I’ve made “glassy” guardian DPS builds that use things like RHS and I STILL have more condi removal than most of my other classes (save ele) could dream of.
I agree that it’s hard to move TOO far from at least 30 in valor. Some do, but it’s pretty tough for me to give up since Monk’s Focus / Altruistic Healing are stupidly powerful.
However, for once I’ve been enticed to run 20 into Zeal and pick up Fiery Wrath + Zealous Blade which I’ve found works well in sPvP on a more offensive setup. Also, I had just started using the scepter, so the buffs there are awesome.
Condition builds are still not all there, I’m not sure what they’d have to do to make them viable short of going the route of necro and giving extra conditions to stack.
If you’re running a heal-based build, pure of heart / mace of justice is a great buff too.
sPvP can still teach you plenty about combat so I would still jump in and practice.
I’ve been using it in sPvP and so far I’ve been pretty surprised at how nice it is. 25hp per hit seems low, but for some reason it seems to work well with more offensive-based builds for a little extra sustain + extra pressure.
I probably wouldn’t ever take it in PvE, but that’s a bit of a different ball game.
Basically just have a lot of condition removal, stability, and pressure and they’ll cave.
I usually carry smite condition / contemp of purity and Absolute Resolution. Sometimes I’m even running lyssa runes, so it makes things a bit easier. If you have contemplation of purity, try baiting the corrupt boon and use it after, it’s a godsend with focused mind + monk’s focus. Also, try to stagger your condi removal, don’t just blow it all at once. If you have 8+ stacks of bleed, that’s a good time to cleanse.
Other than that, focus them hard and keep pressure on them. If it’s a group battle, I like to call target on them first, as they are incredibly dangerous if left alone. I find scepter works pretty well as you can immob them and dance around a bit, they’ll have a hard time targetting you. After you make them blow dodges, it’s just like any other class. Bait them into standing toe to toe with you in melee range, as with almost every other class this won’t end well for them unless they have wells, which you can just dodge out of, or pull them out of.
Can’t wait to try out the new and improved scepter! Overall I think these were nice changes, nothing earth shattering for us, but we don’t need anything massive I suppose.
My current favorite gear combo is Knight’s weapons + armor, mixed with cavalier trinkets. This gives you toughness, a decent crit rate (mine hits 50% flat with food buffs, +20% with fury) and some decent crit damage on top of it. To make up for the lack of power, I run with a staff for Empower + Empowering Might and battle sigils to easily hit 20 or more stacks of might by myself.
All of this together means you can get something like 3.5k armor, 3k+ attack, ~40 Crit damage, and ~50% crit rate, not including fury (if you have a charr, battle roar is awesome!!!) and be dishing out tons of boons for your party that in turn heal you and make you all stronger.
For PvE / Dungeons, I usually always run with shouts + AH. For PvP however, I almost always go with triple Meditation or 2x Med + Sanctuary / WoR with Monk’s Focus.
(edited by Jericho.4521)
I ran a full cleric’s build for a long time and it was a great success in dungeons in terms of support, just be aware you won’t be outputting much DPS yourself, but if you have some DPS chars in with you, they’re damage will shoot through the roof while you can keep them safe.
I ran Staff / Mace + Shield, but the second set I would swap out depending on the situation. Staff with Empower is absolutely amazing and your party members will love you for it.
I can’t remember my exact trait setup, but something like this would be pretty good:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7Z-Bx;0RF-40L3RG-90;9;6TEO;448A1;018-S-F66;93ND
Runes are your choice, but I would go for increased boon duration (2x Water, 2x Monk, 2x Major Water or 2x Hoelbrak) or 6x Runes of Mercy if you play with some not so good teammates a lot.
Edit: Sometimes it’s better to swap out one of the shouts for Wall of Reflection or Sanctuary based on the situation, and swap Vengeful for Master of Consecrations. Good thing with this build is you can do it on the fly.
(edited by Jericho.4521)
Mentioned it before, but no one ever seems to acknowledge it. Here is a little video about the sword and something odd it can do.
Yes I submitted a bug report, and yes it works on moving targets such as other players.
Interesting. I wonder if that’s completely exclusive to the sword, or even the guardian in general? I swear I’ve done that with the GS before.
Two-handed Swords? aka Greatswords?
Mesmers
Edit: And for medium, Rangers.