Guild Wars 2

If a guardian is built right (this means a bit of vitality on gear) it becomes one of the most durable profession in the game. It survivability is on par with warrior’s and necromancer’s.

A build for full damage still keeps the most of the guardian’s defences so despite they lack the sheer HP amount of a medium or high hitpoint profession a guardian compensates for this with active mitigation.

Do not get me wrong I do like some vitality on my guard this is why I run marauder/carrion/soldier/knight mixes of gear in every game mode (not at the same time obviously :P). My highest HP guardian had 20,6k HP before the GuardStack nerf and it was a frontliner, an anchor in the middle of a zerg. Currently I storm through the new areas with around 15k HP and I while I have to work hard to stay alive my DPS is also pretty impressive. Note: even if I had 20k HP I could still die.

My final thought is that the guardians do lack a few things but the durability and survivability is not one of them.

Happy Guardin’!

I just realised that my question was absolutely stupid… I do not even play burn guard myself… I play a hybrid carrion+knight GS+Sw/T build…

But I don’t know… I do not really want to play a normal power based guardian anymore… Heck I did it for years. So I might stick to the sub-par damage…

Anyways thank you for your input

It was nice to watch indeed! +1

LB3, 4 and 5 you have to anticipate your foe’s movement better. If you force them to a path you can still pull them or do a quick JI+WW+trap+GS5 on them…

But I do not want to be an …hole! Nice work done and I will link this to my guildies!

Keep it up!

Any good carrion-burning LB+X build out there?

I really enjoy playing carrion-knight burning guard in PvE right now but I still farm the points to unlock the Dragonhunter…

Is a Burn DH a viable thing? (ofc I know EVERYTHING is viable in outdoor but is it on-par with a non-DH burn guardian?)

Thank you for your advice!

Sure if you got a lots of experience with the zerker gear and how to survive it can be done… But…

Some mobs can oneshot you (tormentor, smokescale, mushrooms and 50% of the veterans) the other half two-three shots you if you are out of cooldowns.

I think this is the expansion where full zerker gear with full focus on offence is a really bad idea especially if you are a solo player.

But basically nothing have changed in the dungeon meta so it is still full zerker.

I did not try the new fractals so I have no idea what’s happening there sorry.

tl dr:

if you can survive in zerker do it so if not, mix some defence in otherwise you will spend most of your time on the floor or running back from a WP…

my 2 coppers

You need:

Survivability: full zerker is not the best option, go for knight/carrion/mix-of-zerker and the others-whatever

Stunbreak: if you get stunned while a tormentor shoots at you you are dead.. you have to break stun!

Condi cleanse: you need at least one short CD condi removal… This can be weapon-trait-utility

You need defence: mace-focus-shelter-whatever… just when the kitty hits the fan…

This lets you choose 1 or 2 utilities depending on your build to play around…

Hehe, brilliant move!

Nerf theefz!!!

Just kiddin’!

If someone understands his/her surrounding this well s/he could be an excellent player with every profession.

Yeah this is how I see it.

With moving the reset time to a less busy part of the day they preventing the massive queue to occur. The biggest part of the players are going to log in between afternoon and early night so the stress on the servers are lessened somehow.

Also since practically there is/was no point to log in Friday afternoon to play wvw everybody organised their time to play Friday night.

With this change somebody can log in any time Saturday and enjoy the new match.

@RevanCorana:

Thank you for your answer. I used to use my hammer as a “power-back-up” weapon with Intelligence and Fire-Air-Generosity-Rage. I used my Sw/T or GS to stack burn and saved PurgingFlames for the Hammertime.

But you are right! Most of the “condition” traits feels wasted while using Hammer… But I like it sooo much

I will try something else then but definitely not marauder. It’s getting to be boring….

Hi lads!

Do you have any advice for a hammer main weapon build made for Stronghold?

Do you think my usual carrion+FL with Hammer and GS or Sc/F would do it?

I am absolutely in love with the Hammer so I do not mind -10-15% DPS or the fact that I can land my auto’s one in a blue moon.

I did miss the last beta so I have no idea… In the first one I was pretty satisfied with the efficiency of my build however…

Cheers!

Lord Hammer Hand…

Do you know what makes me sad?

That you are probably right….

Yes please buff eles…

EA and ElAt minor must be a baseline and give us more powerful traits!

I play the most difficult prof to master and I don’t want to be beaten by 3-4 facerollers!

Make this happen ANET or I go angry on the forums! Feel free to count this as an intimidation!

Man this guide is AWESOME!

+1 for sticky…

OK, just some thoughts here:

Player C plays Carrion with a condi build.

Player B plays Barbarian with a power build.

Who has bigger burst? (player B obviously)

They all have the same HP.

The burn can be reduced to 10% by using one or two condi cleanse ability in the first 15 seconds of the fight. And be dodged (apart of JI which is tricky to dodge I agree)

If I slot no stunbreak, invul, evade, distortion, godknows ability my build would be condidered CRAP!!! What the hell keeps you away from traiting or slotting a condi cleanse ability or trait?

Any other mortals had to do this since launch but it was: stunbreak, invuln, evade, distortion, stealth etc…

And now at this very second you have to use something else to protect your bottom you start to cry…

Every single player since launch were forced to use some counterplay against power-burst

And you are complaining that you have to defend yourself against something else too?

But I mean… Really?

EDIT: and don’t you think that a condi player surely slots some condi cleanse and this makes them weaker against power burst then before?

Yes BB does track through stealth. This is one of the main reason Guardian can counter a Thief (or a Mesmer…). If we can force them to emergency-stealth… We can pull them out of SR (if this is the source of the stealth or estimate their position and land a leap+WW or a Smite or MightyBlow, or whatever.

You as a Thief player should have be prepared for this as soon as you see a Greatsword like we Guards have to be prepared to get a 6k Backstab out of nowhere if we see a Dagger…

I am prepared to never win against a Thief 1v1 who wants to reset the fight… I have between zero and nil chance… Such is the life…

Does this make me a crybaby? Nope… I accept my build and I know my limits.

My two cents…

Indeed!

My first meeting with a Veteran Smokescale (that teleporting abominations in a smoke field…) was very painful but fortunately only lasted for a few seconds

It just ate me for breakfast without going lower than 80% of the HP.

And man those Mordrem Archers with their rocket launcher…

I like this design! Bring some abilities to actually SURVIVE in the jungle otherwise it swallows you at whole.

The mob’s abilities are diverse and strong. The best thing is that they are not OP once you learn the mechanism but I see pure damage builds get rekt really hard in the jungle.

For example you need some toughness/vitality to survive more than 2-3 hits from the archers otherwise you got killed the second you run out of dodges. And this feels EPIC!

I would recommend Thief…

It’s role makes it a lone wolf anyways but at least you are independent of your teammates (for at least a bit…). But if you do so please have a back-up prof like mesmer or mediguard in the case you are in a 2-3 thiefs-party and nobody wants to swap.

You can also try the meditation guardian. It’s off-combat speed is slow but with Pack runes, GS and maybe Retreat instead of Smite Condition it might work for you (btw traited GS and pack runes with Retreat is almost equal to a permanent +25% movement speed, not to mention Judge’s Intervention from 1200 range). With this build you might be a bit slower than other far-pushers or a typical thief but you have the same playstyle.

My two cents…

I never give up!

If the enemy team pulls ahead like 200 points and we have a DC or AFK I usually ask one of the enemy player to duel me on-, or off-point. 50% of the cases I have a positive answer.

So instead of going AFK or get rekt 3v1 I might enjoy 2-3 minutes of the match at least.

Given the long queue times this is the best way to have fun

They wont move GlacialHearth into a new traitline… It would mean Hammer is a very effective PvP weapon… and the don’t want to do this….

No we want the new players to get into WvW… After they levelled their toon up, learned the basics AND payed the purchase price.

They can get the feeling of the unique feature of Gw2 as 150v150v150 battles in HotM and if they like it and decided to actually BUY the game they are absolutely welcome to the WvW community.

So in the case they do something stupid like on purpose rallybotting, trolling and cheating they have to face the consequences.

Have you been in sPvP hotjoin yesterday? Did you see what’s going on there?!

Imagine this in wvw please and give it a second thought!

Do you REALLY want 20000 f2p accounts to get into WvW who cannot be banned? Who do not have to fear anything because:

“Hey this game is f2p I do whatever I want you can suck my… you b2p pregnant fish!”

Is THIS what you want?

EotM can be run in multiple instances but a “normal WvW” cannot. It is absolutely possible for an enemy server to create 100 accounts on your server, logging in to your BL or anywhere and restrict your player limit. Spies exists I admit but most of the servers only have one or two topmost. Imagine if a 100 strong wvw guild decides to troll the enemy and flood their BL with f2p accounts. They do not even have to spend supply or start crap upgrades and build crap siege… Their sheer presence could kill an entire match-up because the defenders cannot log in to wvw due map limitations…

And this is bad… Really bad!

ArchonWing I hope you do everything within your power to make ANET restrict the free accounts to EOTM.

I trust you :P

+1 to restrict free accounts to EOTM.

They can get the feeling of the epic battles but cannot troll the kitten out of the normal WvWvW maps.

Welcome newcomers!

Every starting map is filled with veteran players eager to help you!

Feel free to ask any of us let it be camera settings, loot and XP gaining, combo mechanism, skills or utilities!

I personally spend a few hours running around with new saplings and I met loads of other helpful veterans!

Welcome to Tyria!

I think it’s much better to show a weak weapon on BWE and buff it after than show an OP one and nerf it to the ground.

The traits seems all right to me but I’m not a theorycrafter or an expert player anyways.

With Daredevil elite the Thief might have a niche in sPvP apart of contester/+1er. With so many dodges and face-to-face toe-to-toe options they MIGHT get a different role. I do not know I don’t play thief very often. But as a guardian main I wish you the best!

Go for it! And try every weapon and build! Until you reach the top1000 in EU or NA you can play practically every weapon and be successful. And get a team/guild! A hammer gua really shines in a coordinated team environment!

I tell you something:

As a burn guardian I have somewhere between zero and nil chance to win against a thief who uses Generosity Sigil. Virtually none.

A condi guardian is basically hard-countered by a thief who uses Generosity and even a hybrid has hard time since the thief can turn the JI or the PF against them.

(laying down a PF , the thief walks out-in, teleport, BAMM, 9 stack burn on me…)

Sorry to say (I think this is the first time I write this down on this forum…)

This is a L2P issue :S

In wvw if you use Zeal and Valor use Shattered Aegis and Communal Defences together since the CD trait has no target limit.

Stay away from the spirit weapons and the retaliation traits please…. Use one consecration, one shout and one meditation utility if you are not traited in any cooldown reduction…
prefered:
Stand your Ground or Retreat!
Hollowed Ground or Purging Flames
Judge’s Intervention or Mercyfull Intervention…

Well, a few advices…

In WvW: replace the sword/focus with staff or mace/focus…. the flashiness of the sword only helpful in a havock (3-10) environment… Hoelbrack runes, lemongrass food is also a good option. Altruisting Healing won’t help you much without staff or shout trait….

Silv is right!

Burn (or hybrid) guardian is a very viable choice for spvp now…. but only if you do not mind that you are overall a bit less effective than a standard meditation power build…

Guesstimation: it’s around 80% of the sheer damage output of a medi build but more survivability….

I still play my hammer/gs hybrid build in spvp and I enjoy it…. Is it suboptimal? Yes! Is it fun? YES!

Honestly I don’t know… We have every guardian-ish weapon already… Unless they bring the spear out of the water I don’t see any weapon matching the image of a guardian…

Offhands are different… I can imagine a warhorn or even a shield (sigh)…

Axe is barbaric. Let the common folks chop trees.

Pistol or rifle is not for a “noble” fighter.

Polearm… Yes this would be awesome!

Quin:

Guardian is a good profession in every game mode.

In wvw they are the backbone of any zerg or havock (3-10 players) group.

In pve they provide nice party buffs and bring decent DPS and some most wanted utility like Reflect, Blind and Aegis.

In pvp they are very good group supporters with shouts also they have decent “turtle” builds. The burn guardian considered “cheese” (easy cheater mode) but it is effective. The meditation guardian can dish out some devastating damage in the matter of seconds and they can offer some minimal but important group support via virtues.

You have to be on your toes however…. Guardian has the lowest HP pool in the game (with elementalist) but has loads of active defence with blind/block/aegis.

Trapper runes + traps on Dragonhunter spec…

Oh yes we all should praise the allmighty symbols and spirit weapons… Just keep listing the modifiers and I can tell you even more how much they suck…. IF the enemy stands still… If your party members stay still… They wont….

Hell I’m even struggling to position my AR in a teamfight not to mention a symbol….

If you really think you are able to enjoy these multipliers for more than a second… You are either a top player or somebody who has no idea how sPvP works in reality…

Just my two cents…

Happy Guardin’!

Symbolic Avenger GrandMaster is actually weaker then the Fiery Wrath minor trait. I do know that you can have both but if you look at these traits in vacuum the Minor is better.

Symbol uptime is restricted by weapon AND range. You get no benefit from it if you use sword+focus for example. Nor you have any bonus damage using scepter.

Fiery Wrath uptime however is not restricted by range (you proc burn every third or fifth auto anyways) and this trait works if the burn condition wasn’t applied by you…

If both of these trait were in the same line in a competitive group fight I would prefer the – currently minor – Fiery Wrath over the Symbolic Avenger any day!

So practically our Zeal Minor trait is more powerful according uptime than the Zeal Grandmaster.

Maybe a staff-hammer-mace or such a build could get more raw damage out of the Symbolic Avenger trait, but the 50-90 % uptime of the Fiery Wrath with it’s ONLY 7% modifier would be the superior choice….

…and we are back to the topic: I have no idea how ANET does the balance of the GW2… mostly with sledgehammers I guess….

My two cents…

EDIT: The symbolic avenger trait does not worth a GM spot! It would be a fair competitor for a minor one…

Hello girls and boys!

I spend this entire weekend to test the Dragonhunter Guardian… I tried everything… shout-bunker-meditation-condi-hybrid… It did not work… And…

(oh, crap, wrong forum…)

So I started a chronomesmer and give it a go for the last two hours of my weekend… (my highest level mesmer is 18 and she was struggling to take down a veteran oakhearth…so I’m such a bad player that if you google “noob mesmer” it will show my character…)

And all the sudden everything felt so smooth… I could get down 2 vet smokescales alone whereas my DH was having a bad time against even one… I felt I’m an unstoppable killing machine, like a veteran mystic who always has a trick up into his sleeve. I had more fun during this 2 hours than in the entire beta weekend…

I’m a bit jealous because I love the Guardian but if this chrono gameplay stays and the DH stays as it is now the OMFG will have an another member for sure!

I love the animations I love the concept. It’s a well thought specialisation and absolutely satisfying to play…

(P.S.: ANET if you read this… Give some love to the other specs aswell! You did such an amazing job with the Chrono that choosing anything else feels bad….)

My 2 cents

Happy Guardin’! (oh, well…)

Huh lads I spend the entire weekend testing the DH and the traps…. You can read my feedback in many posts so I will not write it down again… This afternoon (Sunday) I rolled a chronomesmer just for the “lulz” (my highest mesmer is level 18 ATM…).

I cannot even compare the gamestyle, the efficiency and the fun-factor of the two professions. Sorry to say but after this experience the DH feels even more crappy than before… And if you know me you know that I love the Guardian and I was looking forward to play DH… These hours just convinced me to say:

Dragonhunter is crap….

I’m sorry :S

Virtues need to be an instant cast! This alone would make the whole traitline appealing without bow or traps… Instant leap while casting, blocking while casting would make DH virtues a very viable choice over the vanillia ones. This change only would buff our shield to an acceptable level with mobile knockback or blast finisher or heal or whatever.

Mace and Hammer auto, Sword#2, Torch#5, Shield#4 and #5… All the issues were gone if instant leap and/or block becomes accessible…

Making the DH virtues instant and not breaking any casting would give us a huge reason to play DH!
Just imagine:
-WW with F1
-WW with F3
-JI+Banish+F2 to knock the enemy towards your team…
-F3-RF-F3 for a good amount of party defence
These combos would worth to trait into DH!

The DH traits have no synergy with other lines AT ALL. There is no defensive ability on the Longbow unless traited knockback… There is no other guardian weapon wht lacks a defensive AND CC ability… and no, just do not say LB#3 and #5 are the ones….

And anyway: is the F2 LEAP a leap finisher?

EDIT: shield? our useless weapon could become a beast! Leap wherever you want and heal/blast/knockback there! while chanelling… No more rooting issues as long as you spec into DH!
Hey this is an excellent idea from others… make it real ANET!

Making the DH virtues instant and not breaking any casting would give us a huge reason to play DH!

Just imagine:

-WW with F1
-WW with F3
-JI+Banish+F2 to knock the enemy towards your team…
-F3-RF-F3 for a good amount of party defense

These combos would worth to trait into DH!

And anyway: is the F2 LEAP a leap finisher?

EDIT: shield? our useless weapon could become a beast! Leap wherever you want and heal/blast/knockback there! No more rooting issues as long as you spec into DH!

Hey this is an excellent idea from others… make it real ANET!

I spend a few hours playing DH but it feels absolutely downgrade. You cannot insert the DH in a build because you actually screw yourself. Shout-Medi-Burn-Bunker… you just handycap yourself if you choose DH over… whatever else…

Same with the LB… it sounds good on paper but hell… Slow, rooting, no CC, unpractical, no defence ability… Sc-F any day…

Same with the Virtues… cast-time: again slow mechanism in a fast environment.

Same with traps: slow, non-targetable, no utility, unpractical, weak, easy to dodge

Overall:

As Fashion Mage said: wannabe ranger without the utility of the pet…

BTW: who’s brilliant idea was to give the Virtues cast time? Why didn’t he give the elementalist attunement-swaps, the reapers shroud or mesmer shatter skills a cast time!?!?

Overall: the DH is just matching the developer’s mood at the design’s date: slow, sluggish, boring, uneffective

If you enjoy it play it as you like… But I will not… in this form…

@Beldin:

No-no, you misunderstood me! I don’t want every mob to be yellow… But I would like to see some areas where you can stop safely for a minute or so without killing 5 mobs. It’s a bit awkward that you cannot even say “Hi! How are you?” in the guild chat without getting a respawning mob right into your face…

After like every 20 mobs there should be a resting spot… I cannot really explain but I’m sure you know what I mean….

The overall mob density feels a bit overwhelming but at least you have to fight to go forward. But I would really appreciate more breathing room where you can answer your guild chat or drink a glass of water/wine/coke/optional… Just “replace” every 20th mob with a yellow veteran and there you go!

I do like the difficulty of the mobs but since they keep coming and respawning you cannot even type in the map chat: “nerf teefz!”

Just my two coppers!

They do not track the Guardian performance since release… This is why shield and spirit weapons are crap…

It’s just like weeing aginst the wind… You feel relieved but your pants are wet…

And grant retaliation and aegis…

Every single team runs 2!!! dd eles… if this is not a proof that it’s OP then I don’t know what is… They like it….? Sure buddy sit down…!

You cannot have any logical explanation why every WTS team has 2 elementalists apart of mentioning OPness.

Your defending ability could be handy if you were a bunker… But no you are defending the D/D ele…

What?

Oh, and PM me please when the next WTS gonna be won by a double engi-ranger-necro-warrior setup…

Until this happens…

nope.. you can only go 30/30/30… but hay! that’s an extra master and grandmaster to play with…

Oh sure aiming the Wall of Reflection is a PITA now but the rest of the consecrations got really better. They give you remote presence what guardian mostly lacks (especially since the virtue radius nerf…). But since the patch I see random guardian builds utilising one consecration sometimes just because it’s good and useful.

The Signet of Courage is a game-changer if you fight against NPC’s, have quickness AND a steady source of stability in pvp environment. Which you have access to. So I don’t argue with you that the SoC is crap. I say it’s crap without some support abilities And standing still usually means two downed instead of one….

Happy Guardin’!

Please do not laugh loud but…

Did you try Speed runes?

It gives you all your build lack:

extra HP for condi-sponge
movement speed
in-combat switness

And I think you should use something else instead of Impact Sigil… The two stun effect you apply barely last for 5 seconds all together… I would go with Force since you have high power anyways, but hey! this is your build

I will try this out soon but that Signet Elite is taking the p….

My two cents BTW…

GS/Hammer is for teamfights with every drawbacks and advantages. You can score a kill on 1v1 against a melee heavy build every now and then but soloing without scepter is a big NO unless you are bunker.

I also run H/GS and I find it very viable in teamfights. The utility/CC and damage is well balanced here. But if a ranged catches you off-guard… You are in trouble