Guild Wars 2

Sparkie.3465:

Lunarpac.4631:

Why shouldn’t I be able to roll a greatsword dps?

You have a weapon swap button for a reason. You are intended to use it, frequently, in combat. In a dungeon, either drop back to range until your next greatsword leap of faith cooldown is up, or swap to a defensive build until your greatsword whirling wrath & leap of faith cooldowns are up.

Your other group mates are also weapon-swapping too, if they’re doing it right. The classes without weapon swap are swapping other things – engineers are kit swapping, elementals are attunement swapping.

If you’re not weapon swapping in a dungeon, you’re probably doing it wrong – no matter what profession you are.

What you shouldn’t have to do is flail around in your bags frequently for a 3rd or 4th weapon combination. I think many guardian weapon combos are good enough to be your 2nd choice in a dungeon, so I don’t really see a problem there with a lack of options.

Indeed, I weapon swap frequently, which I’ve stated before. I use a scepter/focus for swap, and chain my defensive cooldowns pretty much at all times (more so regarding abilities than virtues, it happens that I’m able to keep the passive virtue effect without having to pop them for aoe blindburn/heal/instant aegis to survive).

It’s not that I am too squishy (although I could get tankier, I could be a lot more squishy as well, I’m somewhere in the middle of the scale), the problem is that I generate too much threat. When I say too much threat, it’s to the point that I die in the end because I have no more defensive rabbits to pull out of my magical hat. Sure, I could run 200 yards away, stand in a corner, and hope I lose aggro. But I doubt that’s how GW2 was meant to be played.

As I mentioned, I already play with a scepter/focus as swapset, meaning I gain the benefit of the focus shield. I don’t want to swap to the most defensive build just to be able to survive in dungeons because of constant aggro. If that’s the case, something else is wrong. Why shouldn’t I be able to roll a greatsword dps?

The only time I can play “normally” is when I’m in the same group as another melee guardian. Whenever that happens, I find myself getting aggro a lot less, and gameplay feels more smooth because I don’t have to constantly chain my defensive cooldowns and virtues.

As for those who want to build threat: if I want to take aggro off another groupmember, I just walk up close and whack the mob in the face with my greatsword. 1-2 hits and whirling wrath usually does the job. I have no idea how the mechanics work though. I’ve played with light armored, heavy armor, people in blues, people in exotics, ranged, melee. The only thing that have changed my situation is when other melee guardians are present in the group.

There is a thread in the general discussion forum (posted by me) on the same topic, but I decided to confer with some fellow guardians on how to solve this.

Here’s the backdrop: I maintain a lot of aggro in and outside dungeons. A lot. Some fights I rally 3-4 times, until I die instantly.

These scenarios occur on a common basis:
1. Aggroing more than half the mobs on the devourer gauntlet event, even when standing at the bottom of the slope, and not attacking any but the closest 3-4 devourers.
2. Getting grilled by all 3 flamethrower-mobs simultaneously.
3. Aggroing the final boss before entering the room, even after the other groupmembers have entered and begun hitting acolytes. I retain aggro throughout the fight, even after the boss has teleported to other players, he always runs back to me.
4. Ground targeted spells and direct spells cast by enemy spellcasters are more often than not aimed at me, even if I have the reflective wall up.
5. It frequently happens that I retain aggro on dynamic champion events (in the outside world) for 10 minutes or more. 10 players plus can be whacking away at the champion mob, but even so it will do everything in it’s power to chase me down.

From what I could gather from other people, and the wiki, the threat table of mobs seems to be affected by:
- closest target to them
- who is dealing damage
- top damage dealers
- who is using a shield
- Guardians draw more aggro with less dps

At the time of writing, I mostly play with a greatsword (scepter/focus as swap), but generating tons of threat – dying a lot as a result. This is while my groupmembers remain relatively unharmed. Sure, it may be a skill issue (meaning I suck), but in the end I just run out of defensive options and eventually die. It’s not that I do crazy dps or anything, most of my friends outdps me, I’m just a threatmagnet. I’ve tried kiting the mobs whenever I’m out of defensive options, but this becomes problematic against mobs with any cc and/or ranged attacks.

So from what I can tell, these are my options:
1. Never play as the only guardian in a group (splitting aggro)
2. Drop the greatsword and go all out scepter/focus (going ranged)
3. Drop the greatsword and get a shield to survive the aggro (full tankbuild)

Am I missing something here? What’s the secret to being a succesful guardian?
Thanks for reading and/or helping out.

Evil Zealot

Here’s me, Evil Zealot, WoTU.

I see. So instead of a holy trinity, Anet went with some sort of semi-tank system with that design move?

So basically what this means for me is, melee damage dealing Guardians are sub-par in GW2. I don’t even do near as much damage as my Warrior friend (who seldom has aggro whenever we play), but I still get to tank most of the mobs?

I’m going to have to either play completely at range with scepter/focus or staff to avoid aggro, or go all out tank with shield (which means I’ll generate even more threat) to survive getting aggro as much as I already do.

I see, well as I mentioned, my problem is that I’m not that tanky (only 10 points in the toughness trait, 0 in vitality) but I’m still getting aggro like crazy, and dying a lot as a result. This is while my groupmembers remain relatively unharmed. Sure, it may be a skill issue (meaning I suck), but in the end I just run out of defensive options and dying because of it.

Hmm, I only have 10 points in the toughness traits, and 0 in the vitality trait. Would make sense if people with higher toughness/vitality generated more threat though.

Hello!
Thanks for taking the time to read this topic.

I’m having problems with threat, in fact, A LOT of problems.

I’ve run CoF a ton of times (who hasn’t?), and I find myself having aggro on the majority of mobs more often than not (which feels remarkable considering we’re 5 members in the group). I’ve tried to look at it from an objective perspective (and not just “omg I always have aggro lol!”), and something seems a bit off with the threat mechanics.

The following scenarios occur on a common basis:

1. Aggroing more than half the mobs on the devourer gauntlet event, even when standing at the bottom of the slope, and not attacking any but the closest 3-4 devourers.
2. Getting grilled by all 3 flamethrower-mobs simultaneously.
3. Aggroing the final boss before entering the room, even after the other groupmembers have entered and begun hitting acolytes. I retain aggro throughout the fight, even after the boss has teleported to other players, he always runs back to me.
4. Ground targeted spells and direct spells cast by enemy spellcasters are more often than not aimed at me, even if I have the reflective wall up.
5. It frequently happens that I retain aggro on dynamic champion events (in the outside world) for 10 minutes or more. 10 players plus can be whacking away at the champion mob, but even so it will do everything in it’s power to chase me down.

These scenarios happen frequently regardless of me playing melee (greatsword) or ranged (scepter/focus), and does not seem to happen less frequently if I hang back for a while before entering the fight, I seem to steal aggro very quickly (2-3 strikes is usually enough).

If anyone has any clue as to how the threat mechanics work, I’d love to hear them. Gear related? Toughness? Armor? First strike?

I’d like to avoid this much attention from mobs, having to dodge, heal, weapon swap, and keep defensive abilities on constant cooldown while rallying 2-3 times per pull is not that fun in the long run.