Guild Wars 2

BOBBLE HEADED SHARK TEETH!!

I have to admit, the only problem I have with Scepter in its current form is the speed of the autoattack at long range, and I think both Smite and Chains of Light are fine as is. I’m personally in the camp that would like to see the stream of magical tennis balls swapped for something else entirely, because besides the speed issues, it’s kind of a boring/goofy aesthetic. Give me fast-moving blue fireballs, as opposed to slow-moving blue orbs, and I’ll be happy. If the Scepter’s autoattack damage or rate of attack needs to be reduced (I’d prefer the latter) in order to compensate, that’s fine. I don’t even need the fireballs to move at arrow speed – just fast enough to be practical as a weapon at 1200 range.

I personally believe the other skills are fine as is. I don’t really think of Smite as an AoE attack, simply because the area affected is too small for it to serve that purpose. I think of it as either an area control skill that’s good for harassing targets, or as a spike-assist skill when used with Chains of Light. Basic combos like CoL > Virtue of Justice > Whirlng Wrath/Zealot’s Defense already hurt opponents pretty badly, but if you drop Smite under their feet as you chain them down, you can get some really nice burst going even without running a glassy build. In that sense I’d agree with Setun, that part of the Scepter’s use comes in as a setup weapon. I’m not going to say I’d mind adding a combo field to Smite (Light most likely, though I think Fire would be more interesting), but I think it’s already a strong skill, and you’d need to increase its cooldown to 8-10 seconds to keep it balanced if you buffed it.

TL;DR: Get rid of slow-moving orbs, replace with decently fast-moving fireballs at a slower attack rate. I think Smite’s fine, but if you’re adding a Light or Fire Field to it, it’ll need an 8-10 second cooldown instead of 6.

Setun.4368:

I will admit that the mobility options for warriors really do pigeon-hole you to using specfic weapon types if you want to move around the field quickly / effectively. I’ve actually almost given up on pvping on my warrior mostly because of the general lack of mobility. I actually run a mace + shield / sword + axe warrior shout healing build only because I’ve essentially given up on being any kind of real ‘balls deep’ dps. It definitely feels that once commited to a fight, warriors have a hard time of pulling out if things aren’t going as planned. Especially if you have chilled or crippled, then you’re essentially dead in the water.

Yea the lack, of condition removal forces you to go soldier runes. I love these runes, run sword/warhorn and hammer and you won’t have any conditions on you. Never tested my build in sPvP, because I don’t like that game mode. It does wonders in WvW. I can just run around and ignore mesmers/thiefs. They try their best but you are just a rock running around. Yea you won’t have insane burst if you go tanky, but who cares, nobody can kill you so just dps them down, you got time.

I played necro, thief, guardian and engineer and I don’t feel that my warrior is superior to any of em. I main him, just because of his insane tankyness. So much fun.

ps: it is really fun to see a thief spam all his initiative on you and you do 1 heal cycle back to full healt xd. They mostly run than.

MiLkZz.4789:

-Amazing in WvW

At providing badges to the enemy.
~ZING!~
XD

Well yeah of course they’ll be voted weakest. Nearly all of the warriors I have met just run 100blades. Easy to anticipate, dodge and counter when you see the warrior carrying a gs. Maybe if they dared try a different build maybe they wouldn’t be so low.

Actually, its a consensus from consistent tPvP players.

As the maker of the thread, I weeded out those whose opinions seemed bias in their reason.

The list is actually fairly consistent with what’s occurring in tPvP.

It’s obvious in tPvP for example that Ele’s are at the top of the most wanted list, with Warriors at the bottom. The classes that filled in in the middle were shown to be the most wanted classes for a team composition in tPvP.

We do have range options. Scepter/Torch, for example. However, if they changed scepter to be a little more interesting to use (because it feels like the spammiest weapon in the game), that would be nice.

Heavy armor long range nuker isn’t going to happen though. Would defeat the whole purpose of having ranged specialists in other classes.

grats on hitting 80! ; ))

0/0/30/20/20 can be seen as a “defensive” build. but with the right traits / gear, you can still hit hard. it’s not a bad trait setup and i have one build that runs exactly that.

i remember when i hit 80, the armor choices were daunting and i wasn’t sure what to do at all. so don’t worry and don’t rush. take your time and rule number 1: never forget how to enjoy the game!

that being said, i went from a mix of greens and blues to slowly getting a full set of rare armor, piece by piece. i also invested as soon as i could in exotic weapons, because at that point, going to an exotic weapon wa a shuge DPS increase – kill faster = more money, less dmg against you, etc etc. then i started to work towards full exotic sets.

i went for all Knight’s armor to start with. high toughness (which will help you with your armor), some power and precision. many Guards sort of set the armor benchmark to be around 3k, which is around 1.8k toughness. then you can tweak up and down depending on your play style.

if you feel you’re dying a lot, you can try to go for Soldiers / Power Toughness Vitality armor – which you can get from the AC, SE and HotW dungeons, as well as using karma (42k a pop) at the various Temple karma vanders after clearing the temples in Orr (lvl 80 zones).

then once you find a play style you enjoy, you can start to experiment with more combinations. as a starting point, full knight’s with soldier chest and pants is quite survivable.

but even more important than gear, learn to dodge from the big hits! the more dungeons you do, the more you’ll be able to tell which hits are going to hurt the most and you can completely avoid those. positioning can be important too, don’t stand in the middle of 5 – 6 dungeon mobs, hoping to survive without actively and mitigating dmg proactively. we have a ton of blinds, blocks, stability to help us survive. also, using Line of Sight can help a lot as well so be aware of your surroundings and use them to youer advantage!

this was kind of all over the place, but hope it helps. there are a variety of Builds posted on this sub-forum by many vet and knowledgeable Guards that you can take a look at.

• Brutaly’s AH and Crithammer guide (see stickied)
• Silentstorm’s Paladin
• Blasino’s Allpa (which is geared towards fresh 80’s so you can check that out)
• Harbinger’s Paragon

which i feel are all very “hybrid”, low learning curve, highly effective builds. keep looking as there are a lot more guides out there and Guards and you can take a look at as you keep getting ebtter and better at the Guardian ; )))

it’s a sturdy class, but takes some learning and effort to play effectively!

Ah I guess that makes sense. Slightly disappointing but I guess I should have figured that out just by reading the tool tip. Oh well, I still feel like a baller watching those numbers fly up.

Think of it as you would a blender. The longer some thing sits in there the more it’s cut up and turned into mush. I always try to picture a glass cannon thief in this scenario because it amuses me greatly :P

Who is ‘we’? Is that a french mouse in your pocket?

Game is still new and I’m sure they will develop and add things over time. There is no substitute for the WvW we have now so I’m thankful to have it and look forward to more in the future.

ZoroDaOtter.3859:

Blind Exposure -> Halting Darkness: Applying blind also applies one second of immobilize.

Problem solved?

This would be broken as hell.

What I like is that I see threads like these that remind me what the Rangers forum could be like.

Read through the forums, there are good suggestions (boonway, healway, crithammer). You can be tanky and hard to kill, burst healer, very strong boon giver: You just have to experiment.

As for mobility – I see a lot of threads about our lack of mobility. When in a zerg you get swiftness all the time; when solo roaming you can use “Retreat!”, staff #3, Judge’s Intervention, and even sword #2. It’s not as bad as you might think.

The range of the throw may be 900, but the range of the pull seems to be significantly shorter. Enemies may sometimes get stuck in the terrain as well. And occasionally, if you pull an enemy while it’s using a skill, you will interrupt the skill but fail to pull the enemy to you.

This is one of the reasons I prefer the hammer.

Use great sword when you need more damage but in dungeons/groups if you know game mechanics hammer is awesome.

Pvt Frosty.6973:

can’t quote coz body length

None of those problems will be fixed by cripple.

First, What you should expect in a fair fight:

With an offensive guardian build you only need to get a few hits in to kill someone. The whole fight shouldn’t last more than 20 seconds. On GS and Hammer, the CC abilities themselves are also full on attacks. If you can disrupt a heal skill with the pull or a knockdown it’s pretty much impossible that anyone would survive. JI’s 1200 range teleport give you the element of surprise that’s not unlike stealth if you engage from behind (I know culling is bad you don’t balance around culling). If that doesn’t work then you are facing a bunker. Pick a new target.

Second, the problems:

The first complaint here that one could make would be that spike guardians don’t have any reliable escape options the other glass cannons have. But the guardian is also the class that’s best suited towards an offensive but not full on glass cannon spike build. The autoattack-centric dps means their main damage source is resource-free and always available. There’s not many must-dodge burst abilities that people watch for. This is where the differences comes in. Classes that has more abundant snaring capabilities are also more burst centric, and their playstyle revolves around aligning these two elements together at the same time to achieve a kill. The guardian damage source is constant, and the only thing you have to jiggle is to keep people in range. This alone gives you more freedom than 100b-warriors (one shot or go home), and even thieves, who have to manage initiatives. When those classes mis-aligned or their combo is countered, they are left with no option other than escape. Guardian with at least some staying power can try to continue to maneuver themselves around the fight and pressure their targets to death.

The second complaint is that bunker guardians cannot kill. When you face a target that kites you all the time and you can’t really bring them down, you are actually getting killed by a (semi)bunker. This problem only exists in WvW as that’s where solo roaming is rampant and the game is not balanced around that. This is where the guardian is truly seeing trouble and it’s a WvW thing. In sPvP, bunkers do not chase, so anyone can run if they please. Whether this will eventually be fixed remains to be seen. There are some points for and against fixing this issue. For one, different classes are supposed to serve different function in WvW. Guardians cannot solo roam (as effectively, but still somewhat viable) just like thieves cannot zerg ball. Then there’s also the issue that WvW is supposed to cater to casuals and solo roaming is a big part of it. If anything about the guardian were to be changed for this though, it has to be localized to WvW only. As the guardian is in a good state in sPvP.

The third complaint has to do with running from zergs. In terms of mobility, guardian is on about the same level as mesmers, but mesmer has stealth. Not sure if design choice but the guardians tool set does not include something that can allow them to reliably extract themselves from sticky situation. I personally think this is a bug. The teleport skills should teleport you forward (or backward in case of merciful intervention) when no targets are selected or available. Leap skills behave this way. Instant leap skills (phase retreat) also behave this way. There’s no reason the guardian teleport skills don’t behave this way. Barring that, there’s always the option of making merciful intervention ground targeted. This is again up to Anet to say, however.

ANet just had to kill off the mentor we’ve bonded with and replace him with a talking tree.

Star Ace.5207:

There’s no “two builds”, and there are also many possible builds for those who do use those traits. Guardians in good hands will be tough to beat in any guise that suits the player, not only two.

There are a few builds which are clearly superior because they add so much effectiveness and have low opportunity cost. For example, 30 Valor with Monk’s Focus is far superior to other offensive builds because it:

1.) Gives +30% critical damage
2.) Gives +300 Toughness (the main stat that every Guardian needs)
3.) Massive self healing.
4.) Great condition removal (SC, CoP, Purity)
5.) Cooldown reduction on an almost required utility skill for offensive Guardians (JI)
6.) Potentially +4-6% critical chance

In not going 30 Valor, you gain almost no damage even if you go 30 Radiance/Zeal (because of the 30% critical damage), and you lose a massive amount of survival.

Your first sentence claims “there are also many possible builds for those who do use those traits”. Obviously. When people say there are “two builds” they’re saying there are two exceptional build templates with X% of it predetermined and the rest being optional effectiveness in one area at the cost of effectiveness in another. The base X% of the build adding such a substantial amount of effectiveness for low opportunity cost relative to other possible options. I explained this above.

Your second sentence has nothing to back it up except the fact that you’re saying it. Not trying to be mean, but I’m being honest in the hope that you’ll elaborate or concede that point.

Who is complaining about Guardians? I’ve given up on all other professions for running harder dungeons and Fractals 20+, I only use my Guardian there. I also run my Guardian in WvW with lots of control abilities (immobilize and line of warding) and of course my Guardian fairs well both as Bunker and even dps spec in sPVP. If anything I have no major complains about this profession, if anyone has real complains on Guardians they must have never played any other Profession before…

Arken.3725:

Actually I have to disagree a little bit there on the heals and boons a little and here’s why.

Guardians boon upkeep is very small, most of the time we can only have 1 type of boon for 5 seconds in a long cd. Again, I see others not having some of the same issues with upkeep. Heals goes hand-in-hand with the lack of mobility recently stated. Guardians either stay in symbols/immobile(empower) or they die. It really goes against the philosophy of the games combat mechanics.

Just so we are straight, I’m going to start omitting Eles from my comparisons to Guards. We all know Eles can do just about everything and more, and I’m tired of saying, “except Ele” in all my posts.

With that said, no other class has access to number of boons guards have access to. Save Yourself gives you every single boon except aegis for at least 10 seconds. With the popular Healway build (which I consider the cookie cutter)you have access to:
—perma-retaliation.
—perma-vigor (more heals on dodge).
—access to might stacks on crits and blocks (usually perma 5+ stacks of might if not more).
—the various other sources of boons you can have from other utilities / abilities (protection, swiftness, some fury, regen, stability).
No other class has access to a reliable source of Aegis – Mesmer is the only other class with access to it, and for them its 100% luck based. EDIT – I think Engis too.

I would venture to say that a Healway specced guard can provide more boon support for himself and allies than just about every other class that is specced for support.

Those other classes focus on a small set of boons, and yes, they can probably keep those few boons they have access to up for longer than a guard can. But a Guard can continually pump out smaller duration boons and a wider variety of them.

Symbols and Empower are not the main source of healing for the cookie cutter pvp AH build. They get the majority of their heals from critting which provides Vigor and Might, and from the other sources of boons they have access to. Popping all 3 virtues at the same time easily gives 50% of your total health back, and using Renewed Focus makes it so you can do that again after 4 secs. Plus the various other heals they have access to (heals on dodge, etc.)

As a former mace wielder I must say I love it. Mace/Focus can make you a veritable tank on it’s own. Lots of block and lots of heals, not to mention the healing is a short range AoE burst.

You will not get big damage, but you will last a darn lot longer than anyone with a great sword.

why would I need cripple? I mean, the only use I could see is if they are trying to get away from me and I don’t feel like leaping/teleporting/blinking/yanking them back/walling them off/walling them in/or just hitting them from range.

cripple? psh

Your meant to melee stuff, not to cripple it and kite

Guardians have access to many teleports and leaps on short cooldown. Add a cripple to it and it would be difficult to kite them at all. And btw, with a shout build it is not that difficult to get perma-swiftness (or close to it).

They have quite a few immobilizes. Isn’t that better?

This forum post is just going in circles.

Keelin.5781:

If you honestly think that i should have less fun in WvW because of my class choice then i don’t know what to tell you.

And if you can’t have fun in WvW except when dealing significant damage from range then I don’t know what to tell you.

Ang.2157:

At the moment i have no reason to do WvW on my guardian main when i can do it on my low level ranger and be a lot more useful to the team.

I imagine somewhere on the Ranger forum there’s a post in regards to Rangers needing heavy armor because they can’t survive focused enemy fire that reads:

“At the moment I have no reason to do WvW on my Ranger main when I can do it on my low level Guardian and be a lot more useful to the team.”

I honestly think some people rolled the wrong profession.

SWORD (main-hand)
Flashing Blade

• Teleport no longer requires a target. If the teleport is activated without a target, the Guardian simply teleports 600 range forward in a straight line.

FOCUS (off-hand)
Ray of Judgment

• Recharge increased to 30 seconds.
• Channel a piercing ray at your foe that damages and inflicts blindness. Allies near you gain regeneration and cure conditions.
• Damage (3x): 100
• Blind: 2 seconds
• Regeneration: 1 second
• Duration: 1 second (Cast-time would probably end up equating to 1½ seconds)
• Radius: 180
• Range: 1,200
  • The radius effect (granting regeneration and curing a condition) triggers at your location.
  • The Regeneration and Cure Conditions effects trigger 3 times respectively (once for each attack).
  • The animation is actually a ray now and not some prissy bubble.

ALTERNATIVELY

Ray of Judgment

• Invoke a ray at target location. Foes are damaged and blinded. Allies gain regeneration and cure conditions.
• Damage (3x): 100
• Blind: 2 seconds
• Regeneration: 1 second
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Pulse: 1 second
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1,200
  • Ion Cannon beam animation ala Ray of Judgment in Guild Wars 1.

Shield of Wrath

• Channel a shield around yourself that blocks attacks and grants retaliation. Upon its final pulse, the shield damages nearby foes.
• Cast-time increased to 3½ seconds
• Damage: 300
• Retaliation: 1 second
• Pulse: 1 second
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Radius: 180
• Combo Finisher: Blast
  • By “Pulse,” the description means to say that the shield grants Retaliation every second while being actively channeled (a full channel will pulse retaliation 3 times).
  • This skill will block attacks so long as the Guardian continues to channel it (or until its duration expires).
  • The radius applies to the skill’s damage that occurs at the skill’s final pulse.
  • The blast finisher triggers at the beginning of the skill.

SHIELD (off-hand)
Shield of Judgment

• Changed to a skill-chain: Shield of Judgment—> Judge’s Ward
• Create a shielding wave in front of you that damages foes and grants protection to yourself and up to five nearby allies.
• Damage: 302
• Protection: 5 seconds
• Range: 600

Judge’s Ward

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Push back and weaken all foes in front of you with a wave of spiritual energy.
• Weakness: 5 seconds
• Knockback: 300
• Range: 600

Shield of Absorption

• The bubble no longer roots the caster or requires channeling in order to maintain it past the initial cast-time.

TORCH (off-hand)
Zealot’s Flame

• Recharge increased to 20 seconds
• Light yourself aflame and gain regeneration, might, swiftness, and you periodically burn up to three nearby foes.
• Burning: 1 second
• Self-burning: 3 seconds
• Regeneration: 5 seconds
• Might: 5 seconds (3 stacks)
• Swiftness: 8 seconds
• Pulse: 1 second
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Radius: 600
  • By “Pulse,” the description means to say that the skill will burn up to 3 enemies in a 600 range radius around the caster once every 1-second interval starting with the moment that the skill is first activated (the burning duration inflicted for each pulse is 1 second).
  • The self-burning only triggers once upon activating the skill.

Zealot’s Fire

• Immobilize and damage all nearby burning foes.
• Damage: 300
• Immobilize: 2 seconds
• Range: 240

Cleansing Flame

• Recharge increased to 20 seconds.
• Cast-time decreased to 2¼ seconds.
• Damage (5x): 1000 (skill only strikes 5 times now; still does the same amount of damage overall)
• The final attack removes up to 3 conditions from the caster (removal only triggers on the final attack tick, but regardless of whether or not it actually hits anything).

SCEPTER (main-hand)
Orb of Wrath

• Changed into a skill-chain: Orb of Wrath —> Orb of Fury --> Judge’s Insight

Orb of Wrath

• Cast-time removed
• Damage reduced to 80

Orb of Fury

• Fire a slow-moving orb at your foe.
• Cast-time: 0 seconds
• Damage: 80
• Range: 1,200

Judge’s Insight

• Smite your foe with a direct strike that inflicts vulnerability and grants you might.
• Cast-time: ½ seconds
• Damage: 150
• Might: 1 second
• Vulnerability: 3 seconds
• Range: 1,200

Smite

• Changed to a chain-skill: Castigate —> Smite --> Scourge
  • Skill-chain recharge increased to 8 seconds. Recharge only begins after the final skill in the chain is used (or if the player waits too long to use a subsequent skill in the chain).

Castigate

• Damage and cripple foes in the target area.
• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Damage: 100
• Cripple: 2 seconds
• Radius: 240

Smite

• Cast-time removed
• Damage (8x): 835 (this skill now only hits 8 times)

Scourge

• Cast-time: 0 seconds
• Damage (8x): 835
  **Completely equivalent to Smite.