Guild Wars 2

Ross Biddle:

I/we run the metabattle builds, Which is not a good answer but since I’m a sheit warrior player I had to start somewhere….

I’m 100% sure that a more skilled warri player has better experiences.

We did not run Berserker since my guildy has no access to it. I just wanted to show her that Warrior can be played in sPvP… I was wrong!

As I said:

It might be just me! That I’m a crap player who did not get the concept of a warrior at all!

But after a few matches we both played traditional staff ele and did just well!

I’m not saying you are wrong… I just told you my experiences.

Happy Guardin’!

I don’t know guys….

Yesterday a new guild member asked me to help him to get into PvP… So I gave him a warrior build and logged onto my warri to practice some together…

We did a few Stronghold games and I can tell you:

Warrior is useless now!

Sure I did not play the prof since ages but it feels so weak it’s beyond description….

Apart of the so-so mobility and the condi-cleanse it offers NOTHING!

I tried GS-LB-Mace-Hammer…

It’s a PoS right now…

I did not try the teef but it’s even more underpowered…

Please ANET give us some formidable opponent in warriors and thieves!

Currently a Lesser Elemental proposes more threat than a warrior!

I remember a thread where the best suggestion for a ranger elite was like this:

“transform into a warrior for 10 seconds”

This was rated as OP and never got in-game…

If I were you I would exchange 2-300 toughness for vitality. 2800 armour is far enough (I run 2550 now) to survive and the +2-3k HP gives you more breathing room.

And the staff is not a good ranged weapon swap it for LB (even if the traits are not unlocked but the first minor). Scepter is also great.

EDIT: why I didn’t see the post above me??

Just what Akijo said…

Hi there!

Once you get to the Mist (which is a lobby for PvP players) you can make a build by clicking on the button on the top of the screen. There is also a vendor who sells cheap weapons if you don’t have one yet.

Do not forget! The pve or wvw gear has NO EFFECT on your stats! Only the ammulet and the rune.

Now you can do some practice… There are training golems on the west side of the island representing different armour-types: light, heavy and medium.

You can also find some practice NPC-s on north to learn some of the enemy’s tricks.

After you messed around a bit practicing combos and openers you can head to the metabattle.com and check the pvp builds.

But beware! These builds are for experienced PvP players. Feel free to swap an offensive ammy to a more tanky one until you get used to the game. Sure Marauder/Berserker does more damage but you cannot learn if dead.

Replace them with Barbarian/Soldier and practice!

About builds:

Please make sure you always have one of these:

-stunbreak ability
-condition cleanse ability
-one “Oh kitten!” button

And please understand this:

The learning curve in GW2 spvp can be quiet steep! Don’t give up, bring friends, keep going! It can take up to 100 matches to understand the map, the enemy team, the tactic, everything….

Jana: the thief is not weak because their damage is low… It’s kitten because a Revenant can do their job… And do it better.

Gua? You do not need it… What for? Ranged? Do not make me laugh… Traps? HAHAHAHA

Warrior: The one shot wonder did go… but you wanna be a bunker… c’mon… Druid is there…

So disappointing…

Hey you see it wrong!

AR should swap place with UC

All problems sorted

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/EU-Pro-League-Meta/first#post5790892

Here you go!

(thanks Morwath!)

@Vikkela:

My counting was the same…

So every team who ran a Guardian lost….

Every winner team had at least 1 revenant.

Two teams out of four used double Rev…

3 out of four winner team had a druid (TCG is the exception).

This is all the pattern I realised.

The looser teams had either a guardian or a e/w/a staff ele (Honey)….

I just made a Cry-thread while you were typing this… thank you anyways…

In the EU matches:

No Thieves or Warriors were represented…
Every team who had a Guardian lost.
Every team who had two Revenants won.

Nerf Thieves, Warriors and Guardians please…

Thank you!

(You can provide a more detailed match-up, but I did not write down the compositions…)

I’m happy with it so far!

In PvE I absolutely enjoy the ranged nukes (I think the CD on TS is too short… I do not like to spam this BTW). Traps with mace/GS offer great AoE damage and some utility.

In spvp the traps are situational but offer great point denial tools. I run shattered Aegis build now FYI.

F skill are on-par with the old Virtues.
F1 is a great pull in both pve and pvp.
F2 is a great heal and the shorter CD means more condi-cleanse. It’s affected my immob/cripple but I do not mind since this makes it somehow balanced in Spvp.
F3 with RF gives you a serious standing power till help arrives.

Overall I feel DH a good elite spec. It has a minimal synergie with other weapons but it does have some.

I tried about 6 different builds including some condition/hybrid and I enjoy all of them.

Very good idea!

Let the ANET devs brainstorming about the new and innovative pet-battle and make this an E-sport! They can surely balance 4 abilities!

So they leave the current sPvP as it is!

If they spend some money on actual balancing and if watching the game was enjoyable by a random person we would never get a pokemon 2.0!!!

Honestly: I did watch all the ESL and the Qualifications in the last few weeks… If I wasn’t play gw2 PvP every day I wouldn’t have a flying kitten what was on my screen…

Gogo Pokemon2.0

I just did 21 matches in unranked in a row now… I can count on my right hand how many times Maw got somebody. All of them was in teamfight. There is no chance you can land a Maw in 1v1, I don’t even try it anymore.

PoB and ToF can be landed. True. But either they walk through it with stabi/invu or just dodge.

Traps are excellent area denial tools but they are not good damaging abilities.

A revenant or a reaper can still beat your brown thing out of you. Mesmers… do not even…

Timston: I absolutely agree!

I expect something like the Shield changes a few month ago… It only took them 3 years to buff it with CDR and some buffs.

So I do not want big things… I made a list like everybody else what “I” want to be changed.

The changes I suggested are indeed minor (apart of the #5 skill The Ward).

+200 range here, -0.25sec cast there, a stun instead of immob over there. Just tiny bits.

Basically nothing would effect the PvP because 2-3-4 are already impossible to land against any good opponent in 1v1. In a teamfight you can land them but the Banish… Nobody gets hit by it anyways. The Ward is only used to block bottlenecks, secure res or stomp or kill the runner who would die anyway if you wield a scepter.

My only “gamebreaking” suggestion was the #5. It does need something revolution.

Happy Guardin’!

1, I’m fine with it maybe .25-.5 cast time reduction on the symbol.
2 a few hundred yards increase will do, nothing spectacular needed but if MB stays as this it should be buffed to around TS level.
3 Zealot’s Embrace also could stun the target and immob everybody it passes through. Nice addition for both PvP and PvE
4 Make Banish unblockable, reduce the cast time like 25% OR make it cleave
5 The Ward… This has the most potentions… Make it a moving field, make it fire field, add prot or stability to the players inside, let us detonate it for some effects like stun or burn, reflect projectiles (not like we need more reflect), make it ground targetable with 600 range… Anything you like :P

Hi there!

Yes LB guardian plays pretty similar to the ol’ranger (the time your pet was dead 95% of the time).

If you can match your LB with a strong melee weapon like GS or Mace+x, but…

…and here is the good thing: you can use scepter+focus and being basically full ranged and have a strong self-defence ability. If the sc+f IS your melee set it can do surprisingly great damage at close range and also offers an immob (to keep up the range damage bonus) and that sweet AoE explosion or block from Focus#5 to help with condi-cleanse for example.

P.S.: The DH is now a kind of ranger whose pet damage has been integrated into the weapons….

Loki:

Honestly? Who the hell uses Hammer in a Burn/Hybrid build (apart of me… I still do this)?

It’s so suboptimal I cannot even describe…

The Hammer is a CC/Support weapon so it should work like this. But it does not!

Not counting the sword MH it has the clunkiest CC in the guardian’s set.

But sw+s or sc+s beats it…

F3 is indeed blocking everything afront of you… AFTER you have finished the cast… I do not know if this is a tooltip error or a bug.

@Arcaedus:

Honestly I can live with this bug or “working as intended”…

But the Hammer weapon"s issues affect the whole guardian community unlike the DH’s single F ability.

I know it’s annoying as a DH but as a “Guardian” I feel the Hammer fix is a more urgent problem…

Just my two cents…

This was not a balance patch… only a bugfix bunch…

I assume they will collect more data…

Buff Thiefs and Warriors please! (if any dev reads this ….)

True Shot is a typo… they meant DeflectingShot what was indeed unblockable…

Confirmed by Karl…

I feel really sorry for Sizer… And I’m not biased at all…

He tried but failed miserable…

Even if he played a “out of my mind” traveller mediguardian … he could achieve more….

Buff thiefs and warriors please! This is kind of a joke!

(gua main here…)

There is nothing wrong with soloQ…

If I have a stupid build I go there to check it… sometimes I head to a duelling server and I whisper a guy I would like to practice with… They are mostly helpful.

If I wanna do any serious PvP I head to Unranked even if solo… Sure I usually play with one-two guild members and on TS obviously.

Please believe me this:

The full premade on Unranked is not an issue… The main problem is:

There is no Ranked at this moment so all the very skilled e-sport lads and gals are mopping the floor with me

Just wait till 1 of December (if I remember correctly) and we all gonna have a breathing room…

Do not give up!

So what is the whole purpose of this thread? To flame more?
Or give some feedback? We have like 2987,6 posts already…

That’s it?

Bad troll is bad!

I like my Asura DH-Guardian…

She is small so there is a reason using traps to getting down a mighty foe like a dragon. Also Asuras have affinity for mechanic so the traps are quiet obvious choices.

The “Personal Shield Generator” on F3 and the “Mechanical Chains” on F1 are also fit into the Asura DH theme perfectly. The only exception is the “Wing” but practically this is the only ability what needs “Divine” explanation.

The longbow itself fits perfectly. Small wielder who wanna take small risk

As secondary weapons I do not like the GS. It just does not fit into the theme at all. That spinning attack casting magical projectiles is for an elementalist and not for a DH.

I think the Hammer is the way to go for an Asura DH RP character. Sword also make some sense but it needs finesse and that is not a must-have skill you need to hunt down dragons a size of a small town.

However a Charr DH would be absolutely perfect with Longbow + GS… If the traps and the precise shots failed it’s time to go all in! An a huge greatsword is what you need.

Happy Guardin’!

Can I have a source link please?

Ragnar:

I’m doing the same: different builds and playstyles…

I know you ALL will laugh but Hammer is a perfect secondary weapon for LB and traps. It has less damage than a GS of course but if your opponent burns his dodges on traps/TS he becomes more vulnerable to MB, ZE, and the other skills.

The f1 skill is absolute insane if combined with the Hammer skillset.

There is NO amount of Stability what can save you against a Hammer/LB guardian. Sure the sheer damage is less than a GS-wielder but the trapdaze-barriel-ZE-MB-F1-banish-JI-ring-trap again combo can wreck havock….

You might say this is not “meta” or “too weak” but I gonna stick to this combination for a few more matches and I will see

Stay away from HotJoin… get a good build and join Unranked….

There is no matchmaking in HJ really…

(well UR has some issues due to every high MMR player is forced to play UR instead of Ranked… So they can melt faces… This will change in December…)

Get a few buddy or a guild… they can help a lot…

You cannot even imagine how easier is even the unranked if you play in a premade (2-3-4 counts aswell)…

Do not let yourself burning out! Seek for help!

I for example learned everything from my PvP mentor… He can still destroy 80% of the matches my Guardian with his Thief whatever I do… And I should hard-counter him

Uh lads who uses Traveller?! This was soo 2014… wake up, this is the year of Speed

Anyways Speed runes does not decrease damage in overall. It makes you get there faster, move around faster, stay alive longer which gives you a damage boost…

Sarcasm off:

I stated on this forums a few times… only thing guardian (and to a lesser degree Mesmers) need is an offensive +25% movement speed rune…

We have pure defensive: Speed
We have celestial: Traveller
We need a Sup. Rune of Stubborn now…. (power/regen duration/+25% movement)

Eh this would never happen :S

I used to be a medi guardian than a hybrid (gs/hammer+virtue/rad/valor).

Now I give a go to the OP DH with DH/valor/zeal or rad

I shall not know but here is my feedback:

Thief is actually a stronger +1 against me if I play DH than against my regular medi/hybrid build.

If my attention is to pewpew people and someone blows my traps (mesmer/necro/ranger) than I have actually less defence than a regular Guardian build.

Also if a thief is prepared for the fight (like I used to be against my archenemies like necro/mesmer) they bring Thief’s Guild !!! (yeah, I know…. I have a thief as well….) or Daggerstorm… The DH pushes their pants just further down once the traps are blowed. Even a burn/hybrid guardian is more capable of doing 1v1v+1 than a Draghonhunter.

All the sudden their +1 present is deadly for my DH meanwhile I could manage this pretty easily on my hybrid guardian.

So if a thief plays it’s (I know… forced…) role as +1 it can be even more deadly to a DH than to a vanilia guardian….

My two cents…

I have a great time!

Since every Guardian is playing DH now I gave it a shot too!

It was impressive…

…for like 5 games…

It’s not my style…

So I keep using my ol’fashioned GS/Sc+F medi build and beat the brown thing out of the “elite specs”. And you know what?

I had some whispers about me as a DH being OP….

Should I cry or laugh?

@OP

We had a same topic on the guardian forums a few weeks ago. The OP of that topic wanted to buff the guardian’s HP to something 20k like warriors.

I did not support that idea either (I main a hybrid GS/Hammer guardian in sPvP and HoT too…).

Why? Because your and my profession was created with the added survivability in mind. Ele’s have a crapload of buffs and heals and Gua’s have loads of active mitigation and initial toughness.

If you was buffing the HP of the ele or the gua all hell would brake loose…

The celele is in the meta for a reason… They can 3v1 in ESL just fine.
Guardians used to be the only “zerkers” in the high-PvP ground for a reason… They could and can melt faces while staying alive.

Your and my main prof can just dominate in high level PvP WITHOUT any HP buff. Just imagine what would happen if your dream came true?

Just my two cents…

Make sure you do not spend a fortune on gear but here are some advices:

Never let the weapon be more then 5 levels below your current level! Same goes for armour but the number here is 10 levels. I usually re-gear my toon every 5-10 levels. I used to buy some cheap sigils (nothing special, water, air, fire sigils and for example Sigil of intelligence are so cheap… If you find a level-appropiate weapon (or buy one sometimes) it well worth it.

Do not bother with accessories or armour runes!

Note: if you start crafting you can make levelling easier. First it gives you a huge XP bonus (since you enjoy the sheer experience of the levelling this might be not a good idea for you…) and you can sell the stuff you make (and obviously keep one for yourself at ever 5 levels). But if you want profit this is a BAD way! The raw materials can be sold sometimes three times the price of the crafted item.

Oh, one more thing: IceBow and an elemental can make your life much-much easier!

And please! Try every weapon! You may want to be a ranged wizard but after doing 5-6 levels with Dagger/Focus you may want to be a kitten spell-ninja-warrior-thingy

Like I did

Quality of Life

Ghotistyx:

You are right! But as I said if a weapon has 3 out of 5 abilities which are CC spells and we only have power creep it means the weapon is falling behind. The creep on the AA and the #2 is not enough to keep the weapon viable. On a CC weapon you need some kind of “cc-creep” let it be increased damage, reduced CD or added effect.

The hammer is in a bad situation now because the MightyBlow is weaker than the TrueShot the AA chain is slow as a glacier. The CC abilities might come handy but they have extremely long CD even traited.

The whole meta shifted for a faster pace and there is no place for a weapon with mediocre damage and the CC skills on a long CD.

Even +300 range on the MB and -0.3 sec casttime on AA#3 would bring the Hammer back in the meta.

If ANET wants to keep the hammer as a CC weapon they should slightly reduce the CD of the 3-4-5 or add some more effect, like boonstrip on ZE, unblockable on Banish and movable Ring (or pulsing stability or something)…

Just my 2 cents…

Any opinion about Mischief sigil? I know it’s on swap but a guaranteed f1 + blind might wort it on a weapon set what has no blind to start with….

What about Incapatitation sigil on a DH’s support weapon? Do you think keeping up the vulnerability-cripple-damage boost traits worth a sigil slot?

Thank you!

They are useless!

I’m done with the wvw “team” for a long time….

They are so kittening unprofessional it makes MY ears burning in shame…

Dear ANET WVW DEVELOPING TEAM…

This is the time to get a shovel…

Because nobody’s gonna shovel the kitten back into the bull but you!

/sadface

I was just about to make a thread about this…

Headed to WvW… No ruins…

Headed to an Altar… After 10 minutes of kittening walking and defeating 5 air elementals in 10 seconds I realised that “this is not a ruin kitten ”

So I headed to LA where I can get all the info I may want to know… A fellow lad told me that ANET “by kittening mistake” forgot to update the wvw daily system…

I said this is bullkitten so I get to the wvw forum… aaaaaand

Surprice!

They DID kittening forget it…. (my apologise to the guy I did not believe first… You ANET do OWE my an apologise!)

How can you be so freakin’ unprofessional?

Unbelievable!

I dunno guys…

The Hammer is by far my most beloved weapon of the Guardian kitten nal. It feels like it does not have ANY ability affected by the power creep. It is a CC/support weapon so maybe this is why. There wasn’t any CC creep I got told. So obviously if a weapon set lets say GS has 3 damaging abilities it has more effect from the creep than a weapon with only one damaging ability.

It DOES feel underwhelming to wield a Hammer now. It needs some “oomph” let it be CD reduction, might, extra damage on MB, whatever.

Note: you can bypass the AbsoluteResolution trait just by slotting PurgingFlames to take GlacialHeart. I tried this… Since GH is almost useless (cool I now have CD reduction an the abilities I can land once in a blue moon…) there is still no point to take GH over AR “even” if you slot PF for virtually condi-immunity.

Hammer is in a bad-bad spot right now. It was not affected by the power-creep, it’s trait is a competitor for one of our strongest trait in a teamfight and it has no party support apart of landing 1-2 CC in a MINUTE! (seriously if somebody dies to a JI+Ward+Zealot’sEmbrace+MB+Banish combo… This takes like 6 seconds! They would also die to a ranger shooting autoattack on them…)

Sad Guardin’! :S

I would aim for a more balanced stat allocation:

50% crit chance (and almost perma fury) is enough
so is around 200 crit damage

I wouldn’t touch the armour set (or the weapons either).

If you use Soldier ammy and 2-3 soldier and knight earring/ring you can get 2600 armour and 14k HP which is far more HoT friendly

Also in HoT I always use some food. Even the cheap HP regen thingy can help a lot (for you it’s even better since it helps to keep the Rune bonus up). The +60 vitality food is also cheap. You can maintain your 2-3 hours playtime by visiting one Flax Seed farm place….

I don’t know if you have enough laurel, guild commendation and so on but I would change these first (and you can use them later on your other levelling toon…).

Sure the traiting can help but you cannot make wonders if some mob hits you for half of your HP bar every 2 seconds. And there are five of them

Happy Guardin’!

I use Speed runes. I know it sounds silly but it is indeed easy to implement in any build.

Flat HP is never bad on a Guardian. The in-combat proc can save your life in 1v1 and if you run with a havock/zerg you have perma swiftness.

So I can tweak my character around this rune. I can equipp more zerker gear because the Vitality bonus of the Speed runes. Sure the Pack is shiny and powerful IF you have access to swiftness.

Just my 2 coppers…

Nike:

I did say a few month ago:

…only thing we need is an offensive rune set with +25% movement speed…

…the forumers beated me to death

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Movement-speed-problems-an-easy-solution/first#post5142018

Hello there!

I enjoy this conversation because I have an 80 d/d ele alt (my plan was to get the elite for this alt second) and I want some more info on Tempest. If it does not worth the hassle I will upgrade a different prof first.

And I’m listening….

Garimeth:

Sure I agree a few HP could help us in the HoT areas. But the OP was asking for 22k base health which is absolutely absurd. The guardian would become an undestroyable profession.

And I think the Guardians’ HP is fine everywhere but in the HoT maps.

Hey we are the dominant “zerkers” (now marauders but still…) in sPvP and killing every other zerkers at our pleasure even if they have a high base HP.

(OK, mesmers giving me bad time but you get my point…:D )

EDIT:

OK so I really have to start my Revenant… You stated your Rev has more survivability (one of this is the sheer amount of HP) and more damage. If the Rev is absolutely overwhelmingly better then my Guardian I have to try it

For PvE:

All you need is:
around 2500-2600 armour and no more! If your main weapon is the LB then you can go for a bit less (say 2400) if you prefer the mace aim for 2700 even 2800 since your mace heal can keep you up.

HP: this is tricky. I’m absolutely confident with my 14k HP but your mileage may vary. This also depends on the traits-utilities. If you have traited meditations next to the traps you are fine. If you use shouts you might need a few thousands more.

Every other stat points go for damage! We have weak scaling with healing power (excluding a few like dodgeroll-heal).

So basically you need: soldiers, knights, and berserkers.

In PvP it’s a different story: try marauder (power-precision-ferocity-vitality).
If you feel this weak (i did Anno Domini…) try Barbarian! Toughness is a wasted stat (IMHO) on any guardian if not bunker!

You can aim for something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAT5ensABVDhddCmDB8DhlEi6aZDgEQ+5b+sPL/+vAE-ThRLgAvKDeU/BQ3A3+DxK98VCGAABgbucbucbezA-e

The guardian even in zerker can tank and live against a hard hitting and slow single opponent for eternity.

The warrior lacks active damage mitigation but it is a strong sponge against fast but weak attacks.

[insert revenant here i yet to start one]

The basic guardian have to make a decision:

“Do I want to face multiple enemies? If yes I have to invest more in vitality and healing power because I’m weak against them…”

Same for the Warri:

“Do I want to face veterans-hard hitting mobs? If yes I have to invest in Toughness/Endurance because my selfregen and HP pool won’t save me against them…”

I do not say the Guardian cannot use some extra HP! I’m aware of the problem: this whole content is against us. Constant attacks cannot be mitigated and our (initial) self sustain is not capable of keeping us alive. So we either need +vitality or +healing power on our gear or we have to be on our toes like no tomorrow…

I’m happy to sacrifice some of my stat to get some extra HP. I hit weaker but I live longer.

And this is the most important thing:

Even after little trades I still do not feel that my DPS sucks. Sure a full zerker can dish out more damage but they already made their sacrifice.

I think the whole concept of the guardian (including DPS-CC-and support) was made by the rule: The Guardian HAVE TO make trade-offs.

Just my 2 coppers…