Guild Wars 2

Limm.8401:

YES.
I have effectively stopped playing my alts after the introduction of Guard Leech and Applied Fortitude.

Same, 2.5k hp for face rolling a few guards is a significant advantage.

Setun.4368:

Just gotta find ways of making it work. For example; using sword #3 ranged block in front of a pile of enemies trying to chip away at your group / zergs health, the blink is fantastic at causing disruption when you pop in a zerg since a large number of said enemies will try to target you, thus taking pressure off everyone else.

The area zealots defense covers is tiny, if you end up in a ranged stand off with neither side pushing you are far better off using wall of reflection and keeping your staff out for empower.

If your jumping into a zerg by yourself you’re doing it wrong and then I suppose using a sub optimal weapon set isn’t going to make a huge difference. However hammer or great sword still cause more disruption when amongst your opponents mid or back lines.

kiba.2768:

i find shield invaluable in w3 for zvz.

The issue with the shield in large scale fights isn’t that the shield skills themselves are bad but that our one handed weapons are poor for this kind of combat.

Scepter is single target on the auto attacks, I shouldn’t have to say any thing more about that.

Sword while amazing for smaller groups offers nothing special to large group play. The blink and rooted projectile block lose there usefulness when you are trying to stay with your main group.

Mace is not a terrible option but still doesn’t compare to hammer, staff or even great sword in terms of usefulness in large scale combat.

The heal way build is workable with a shield instead of a focus. You lose some regen, blinds, some blocks and possible aoe damage but gain aoe protection and an aoe projectile absorb/aoe heal.

Personally I’m not a fan of the shield in WvW and only used it in spvp/tpvp and would never touch it when running in a large group.

You actually considered dropping stand your ground for a consecration? Boo!! Terrible guardian!! xD

Other than that was a pretty good and informative video.

Most fields are big enough that you shouldn’t be jumping outside of them with mighty blow, if you then you are too close to the edge and need to move back. Even on lava font if you stand on one side and mighty blow you still gain the area might.

Unless the ele dropping lava fonts or static fields doesn’t have the increased aoe on staff trait and in that case you should find a new ele.

I’ve also noticed PoV removing 2 conditions recently. Mine don’t always get converted into boons thou, some times one condi will and sometimes none. I don’t believe I have ever seen both conditions converted into boons.

Jscull.2514:

Power creep? Good players should be rewarded.. Supply mastery rewards casual idiots who want to build siege more. ZERO progress made towards a player vs player atmosphere.

What gaining 2.5k hp by face rolling a few guards isn’t enough power creep already? What about the 100 power and 100 condition damage? How much more of a difference do you want between someone who has the time to farm ranks and someone who doesn’t?

Thank you both of you for the opinions about utilities. I never really considered the life force gain as worth much but I guess that comes from not not actually being a necro.

Ascii.9726:

I’m usually always 25 might stacked or close too after stacking and blasting fields prior to an engagement and it makes the initial Suffering and Corruption very deadly. 25% on any AoE boons over a 4 min fight is very noticeable.

I’m aware of might stacking in WvW but from my experience the duration of the might gained from blasting a fire field is dependent on the character using the blast finisher not the player gaining the might.

To my knowledge all other boons in the game work this way. For example if a guardian with high boon duration uses empower next to some one with no boon duration they still get the same duration of might.

Ascii.9726:

The drop in Toughness and the Boon Duration will hit your boons alot, 25% less on a 25 might stack is quite noticeable

Except your build doesn’t supply that might so your boon duration means nothing. Unless I’m terribly wrong about how fire fields + blast finishes work.

On the more constructive side would you consider dropping spectral walk for spectral wall or well of darkness? Does the lack of a stun breaker out weigh the benefits of either skill? The swiftness seems pointless to me when running with a guild group.

phokus.8934:

At first glance it does seem a bit odd but worked really well in organized group play. I haven’t played this build in ages and will most likely pick it up this weekend to give it a whirl to see how it goes. I found that having a lot of shouts made them “wasted” when playing so I switched it up with other abilities that provided me with better survivability. Courage trait I’d swap out depending on who we were running with and what the comp was.

Sorry but how do you waste an aoe protection shout that deals with 2 conditions? From my play experience hold the line is a much larger boost to my survivability than contemplation of purity.

I also cannot think of any comp where an aoe stun break is better than aoe stability unless you have terrible timing and keep getting CC’d before you can press f3.
Sure stability has the weakness that it can be stripped but the main sources of boon stripping are null fields and wells of corruption which should only get one tick off before your group rolls out of them.

Iconoklast.2389:

One option is to use Soldier runes. But in your build you use meditations in which case smite condition works just fine and sets up a nice fire field for might blasts

Smite conditions is not a fire field.
o.O?

phokus.8934:

A while back I used to run a support build with the greatsword and staff. It worked extremely well in organized group play (that was the key there, organized, not zerg) and the amount of uptime you provided your members was significant enough where you could take on greater numbers.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYgqC3GyIEf4ES2jVCBXQsHaUG1RXFcIA-jkCBoLAoNQEEQ0HAZPJNLaQjVWFRjVNjIqWZDzUuIa1CBgcMA-w

You have made some strange choices there.

Soldier runes and pure of voice but only one shout and no superior aria?
With the changes to weakness signet of judgment is nice but I have never seen much point in contemplation of purity. I’d much rather remove conditions on me and allies than just turn the ones I’m suffering from into boons.

From my experience the stability from virtue of courage is better than the aoe stun break as all too often you get multiple CCs piled on top of each other so all to often you end up breaking one just to get hit by another. Stun break also doesn’t help get past guardian wardings or necro fear walls.

Korval.3751:

By the way would my healing build be good in a support role for WvW? Would 2-3 Guardians running the build be awesome?

Short answer? Not really.
The build is passable if you are just running in a pug zerg following a commander but it is not something I would want in a guild group.

Long answer? Not in a guild group because while additional healing options are nice to have the main source of healing comes from water fields and blast finishers. Boons and condition removal become a much better support choice than a little bit of extra healing.

Mace and shield while not a bad weapon set does not compete with the hammer when running in a guild group. A low cool down blast finisher is amazing and beats out anything the shield brings.

Stand your ground is one of our best utilities but you picked up none of the traits related to it like cool down reduction or pure of voice.

Merciful intervention is a waste of a skill slot and a waste of a trait slot just to lower the cool down on this one skill. The healing is low, the cool down is still too long when traited and in a large fight you can’t even be sure where you are going to teleport too.

Sanctuary is an amazing skill but loses a lot of it’s usefulness when you don’t have consecration skills use ground targeting. The skill is much more rewarding when used as a CC skill similar to line of warding rather than a small aoe heal.

Tome of courage is not bad as it has some very useful skills but it locks you out of all your normal skills which a long with it’s best skills requiring you to stand still significantly cuts down it’s usefulness.

Meditation mastery is a waste, you would be much better off with strength in numbers. Going over 10 in virtues is pointless in my opinion because there are no decent traits in that tree that you would want outside of strength in numbers.

Altruistic healing is unnecessary. Living longer than the majority of your allies is pointless as once most of your side is dead or down you have generally lost that fight. Sure there will be a few fights that a couple of AH guardians living a little longer makes all the difference but the chances of that are very unlikely, you are not a warrior with a war banner. There are far better trait choices that make a difference in every fight not just once in a blue moon.

Since all symbols are light fields, larger symbols and symbol healing are not worth bringing. The only times you should be standing still long enough to get a decent heal are the times you’re on top of a fire or water field. The symbol traits also compete with other more useful traits like superior aria and two handed mastery.

Consecrations cool down is not bad but with sanctuary being your only consecration then ground targeting is a much better option.

Elite focus is not a terrible choice but the cool down on tome of courage is too long for it to be a good choice and it competes with things like absolute resolution and indomitable courage which are far more useful.

Runes of water? One condition every 30 seconds is terrible, the heal when you use your 6 skill is meh and there are significantly better choices out there for a support guard like soldiers or 2 monk, 2 water, 2 sup sanctuary.

In my opinion a support guardian is better off running something like this.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlUgyDXFSLEf4ES2jRCBTQsHYUG1RXFSIA-jECBoLBiaIQZPFRjt2NsVXRr8KIqZER1KbYiAYGD-w

Have you read the heal way guide yet? It’s a great build that preforms pretty well in all areas of WvW.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/WvW-The-Healway-Guardian/first

If you are not a fan of healing power and prefer something more offense based for 1v1s and small group fights there is always a zerker guardian.

fishergrip.4082:

In terms of WvW, guardian > warrior. You’ll own warriors 1v1 all day long.

WvW isn’t only about 1v1. Warriors have their place in a group.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Agreed. I actually play AH when I run a zerker build in WvW for funsies (very rarely) so that I have at least some sustainability, but it’s just a little too selfish for my tastes when it comes to supporting the group/zerg.

It’s certainly a solid choice for sustainability and it has synergy with blind/vuln/Might-spamming builds that utilize EM and 15 in Radiance, which is its own form of support, but it’s not my preferred build. I do enjoy having one or two such builds in my group comp though. Dat free Might and dem blinds.

Personally I would not want a guardian with 15 in radiance AND AH in my group. While 15 in radiance is nice for the blinds/vuln if you bring AH along as well then you are not bringing pure of voice and a guardian without pure of voice is not a guardian I want around in a team fight.

You don’t really have to try to get a lot of retal if you are running SYG and have invested trait points into virtues it’s just a nice side bonus.

AH isn’t even worth it in large fights. What is the point of living longer if all your team dies? 0/0/10/30/30 preforms much better in large fights than any AH build the additional boon duration, condi removal and aoe stability are amazing.

LoBo.1724:

Sure, you want to have some warriors running with you on the frontlines.

You DON’T want to actually BE the warrior though. Trust me, you’re a lot happier on the guardian.

Yeah but the problem then becomes never having enough warriors and very few of the ones around seem to like running hammer/sword+warhorn or they don’t want to run the elite banner or they want to run utility banners or they want to stack healing power and it’s enough to drive you to make a warrior. -.-

Vash.9183:

Your EU coverage is demoralizing to some people since the other two servers have to start NA prime with paper keeps and towers. At least your EU can prepare your NA for a solid start.

What starting NA with no upgrades and a dismal ppt? That must be terrible, on SoR we couldn’t possible imagine how hard that could be for you.

Farzo.8410:

As he said in his post, you may change whatever you like to, this is just what he has been going with. Try to go 2 monk, 2 water and 2 of the other and see how it works!

I am aware of that. The rune choice simply made me curious.

Almost the exact same trait set up I’ve been using in WvW lately except I’m running increased retal duration since the 25th patch.

So why 3 water and 3 monk and not 2 of each with 2 major sanctuary? Do you believe 100 healing power is better than 10% boon duration?

Sanctuary was mine till the recent nerf/bug fix. I no longer find it as useful with the longer cast time so I’m going to be boring and say SYG.

Warriors and guardians bring different things to a zerg, one is not plain better than the other. Warriors bring several useful things that guardians don’t like a low cool down aoe stun, aoe vigor, aoe fury and an aoe fear but they lack things like aoe protection and aoe stability. For a proper melee train you want a healthy mix of both with a few supporting mesmers, eles and necros.

What is wrong with some of you people? My staff ele without lightning flash or fiery great sword never has issues getting from point A to point B.

You don’t have to out run people completely just enough to out heal the damage they land on you while chasing. Most peoples damage out put drops when trying to chase some one down.

Nice vid and certainly did look fun. I think you put a little to much emphasis on high ranks/commanders thou considering those people are rarely running 1v1 builds and spend most of their time in large group fights.

I’m sorry but some of you people in this thread make me laugh. You’re going to wait till I run out of aoe retal to throw around before you attack?

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|2.1c.hz|6.1c.hz|1c.71g.1c.71g.1c.71h.1c.71h.1c.bw.1c.bw|2u.0.2u.0.21j.0.2u.0.21j.0.2u.0|0.f4.0.u28b.p3a|1.7|v.10.16.19.1i|e

Don’t even need to waste blast finishers on light fields, so many better fields to drop a blast on.

AnAltruisticEgoist.5476:

Blackgate loves a good 2v1, bring it on SoR and JQ

That’s a nice amount of blue in EB.

MagiKarp.8201:

My comment was regarding the current T1 meta of; Recruit recruit recruit, if we had that system months ago, the servers might all be relatively more balanced because people wouldn’t have to transfer to the top 3 in order to enjoy tier one, creating more competition between servers instead of the current meta of stack wars.

Tier one meta has always been recruit recruit recruit. Titan just recruited most of their guilds before the game even launched.

Doomdesire.9365:

Why are people acting as if SoR’s NA is “stacked” now? It’s always been like that. Nobody complained about it when BG was winning, nor JQ. It’s more like JQ/BG seems to be getting demoralized + we don’t lose everything overnight. Choo, FEAR, TW have been here from the start. Tysm joined quite a while ago in T1. These complaints are literally coming out of nowhere….

Our NA was easier to deal with when they had tier 3 keeps and we didn’t. Now our NA doesn’t have to spend half their time assaulting tier 3 keeps/towers just to gain a foot hold on a map.

MagiKarp.8201:

Lalnuir.4957:

MagiKarp.8201:

Kitten bro if we had 12k gold as a server we’d be buying everyone!!!

Man even 5k gold! I’de buy every guild.

Black gate is so poor they can’t make up 12k gold between the whole server? =P

I’de be surprised if anyone actually could, besides JQ.

12k gold over a whole server really isn’t that much. If everyone on the server was actually interested in pooling money together for what ever reason which just isn’t going to happen. It’ll only take 20 gold each from 600 different people to reach 12k.

An interesting note one of my guild mates has over 7k gold on his own between gold on his characters and asset in the bank or on the tp, but then he spends most of his time making money.

graverr.6473:

Post patch? Easy.The ones that can drop an arrow cart faster and run suply fastest.

Obviously thieves then. Shadow steps + hs spam for travel and haste for building. =P

MagiKarp.8201:

Kitten bro if we had 12k gold as a server we’d be buying everyone!!!

Man even 5k gold! I’de buy every guild.

Black gate is so poor they can’t make up 12k gold between the whole server? =P

selan.8354:

no mesmers are only needed for portals and the nerf of 50 per cent wasnt needed. it nerfed us to kitten!i am up now as i used condition builds and if it needed a nerf 15-25 percent would have done the trick

Hey I’ve heard null field and veil are pretty useful.

Tarkus.4109:

Anyone can say that they won a fight on the forums, even if they get smashed repeatedly and focus way too much on one tower leading them to have the lowest PPT for most of the evening (basically AFK’ing and running back inside whenever faced with an even fight).

Good fights though, I managed to get final rest from that final push

Right I’m sure you guys got called over to JQ bl just to have a tea party not because WM and ICOA couldn’t handle us themselves. =P

Also the fights around that tower where way more fun that map hopping to flip which ever keep/tower has the least defenders. I’ll take enjoyable fights around one tower over focusing on the ppt any day. I will give you props thou you and WM worked pretty well together in the open field once combat actually started.

Grats on your final rest, hope that makes up for your first push into briar before clearing our arrow carts. xD

Ouch WM + MERC + friends hurt. Sorry you guys got wiped by HIRE and friends when you where on on your own that you felt the need to blob up. =P

Dear bg, please continue to rush sor when we hold the high ground. I love the bags. =]

Setun.4368:

Sounds like you mad bro. Actually I mostly solo camp turn, havoc squad, or run in a small group. I’ll join up with zergs only if they need backup, which is why I said Meditation builds are handy in all pvp encounters, or did you miss that part when you were kitten? Nice try on trying to make yourself feel better though! Next time don’t try to belittle someone when they present information that is counter to your train of thought. Just makes you look silly. <3

Shouts > Meditations for large scale fights. No guilds look for a meditation guardian for large scale fights.

Sure med guards can ‘work’ in a large scale pvp but anything can ‘work’ in a pug zerg.

Sleepyy.1598:

Why aren’t MERC posting tonight

I don’t know. Can’t have anything to do with that +105 ppt.

Sylvanwood.2746:

Aurust.8961:

SOR was getting 2v1’d pretty kitten hard inside BG’s EB keep.

I promise you JQ didn’t attack SoR…

DON’T PUSH SOR

Magical Sky Daddy.7540:

That’s pretty poor sportsmanship SoR; ever think maybe that’s the reason why you don’t get transfers? :/

So what are TSYM, HIRE, OCX, NYS?

Sor on the forums =/= sor in game.

Ungood.3054:

Not to mention that 3 weeks ago, T1 EU looked pretty balanced why the fuss now?

Well in a nut-shell Anet opened free transfers to the then number one server sfr. It got flooded with new people, queues got dreadful and the server collapsed.

Zaganor.8390:

lol dont tell me you thought that was even?

Even? No, I did not claim they where but you never wiped 80 sor with 30 bg.

You took the tower when we had maybe15 defenders in the end thou. Grats on that?

Zaganor.8390:

Yeah I’d log out as well if a 30 man BG team wipes my 80 man SOR team. Especially after /laughing and /suprised repeatedly as spam. Excellent job BG in that fight.

Really 30 bg wiped 80 sor? What sor bl were you playing on?

Leorcyn.1063:

Chiolas.1326:

Playing for points is ok, but not when an injustice (PvD) kittens over our fun.

The injustice would be for the game to stop when you go to bed.
The world doesn’t revolve around your person.

Play sPvP, games are timed.

He doesn’t want the game to stop outside of prime time. He wants servers to earn less points when they significantly out number their opponents. If you play during off peak time you still get to play the game but you just earn less points if you roll over another server with 4 times their numbers. You would earn normal amount of points if you had similar numbers regardless of the time.

Had fun rolling with HIRE earlier tonight, had some good fights with MERC and friends. Sor had every tower and keep in sor bl before HIRE logged for the night and with no other commanders on the map black gate just kind of rolled over the dozen or so defenders that remained.

One commander over four maps kinda blows but it happens. ALTS from tsym did a pretty good job defending veloka and our eb keep with nothing but a bunch of pugs.

If your not in a guild your best bet would be to find a front line commander and stick with them. This can be tricky depending on what server you are on as a lot of commanders don’t run organized groups.
Don’t charge into enemy groups by yourself. Push when your side pushes, fall back when your side falls back. Make sure you’re running stand your ground as CC can be death to a melee train.

If there are no organized groups around when you play then a guardian is not the best choice. They can feel really lacking when your in an unorganized zerg.

Isaac.6041:

Nope it’s still not the same because T8 NA was stuck in same position for much longer time than your T1 EU.

And T5 NA is still stuck in same match longer than T1 EU even though Ebay is winning many times over. So you’re not the only tier having problems.

If the other two servers in US T5 lost a large chunk of their WvW guilds. They would fall down the tiers. When a server collapses in the US ladder they drop tiers, this has happened again and again because servers in the lower tiers want to take their spot.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Just watched the SOTG. They only thing they said about Retal was that they’re concerned with how much of it comes from light fields because it allows for groups to put it up very often. They’re concerned with uptime and will likely only change that.

Something about high group uptime lowering the value of direct AoE damage.

I also wasn’t aware that Retal did less damage in PvP. I feel like I would have seen that in patch notes somewhere in the last several months (granted, I’m only rank 15 in PvP and am almost exclusively a WvW player).

Retal does less damage in spvp. You’ll generally see ~2xx damage per tick for instead of the ~3xx damage you see in WvW.

Don’t know which part of the sotg it was in as I haven’t watched it yet myself but this thread is where I found out about the retal nerf.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/State-of-the-game-WvW-Highlights