Guild Wars 2

Entire post is from a WvW perspective.

Depending on your Profession and build, you should know if you’re able to run and whether or not you’re able to 2v1. If you’re not sure you can take them but know you can run, make sure you keep that option open. If you know you can’t run and aren’t sure you can take them, just go for it all-out and if anything, make them have to run.

Prioritizing targets: Always focus an up-scaled player unless they’re a D/D Ele tank.

If you see a Guardian, assume he’s slow and tanky and focus someone else. If he’s rocking a Greatsword or Sword, assume he’s built for burst and treat him like a lower-burst, slightly higher survival glass cannon Warrior.

If there’s a Thief and he’s not up-scaled, don’t try to kill him, you won’t be able to. You’re better off focusing the other player and forcing the Thief to run.

If you see a D/D Ele, immediately try to determine whether he’s the burst build or the tank build. If they’re burst then pressure them early. If they’re tank then save them for later. Either way, avoid their initial CC combo. If you see a Staff/Scepter Ele, you should be able to get an easy kill if you avoid CC. If they hit you hard, then they’re built for damage and you’ll burn through them in seconds. If they’re mostly annoying but don’t hit too hard, assume they’re running Pow/Tuf/Vit and might take a bit longer to kill.

If you see a Warrior, assume they’re glass cannon. Make them miss their burst and burn them down quickly before they can burst again.

If you see a Necromancer, just keep pressure and burn them down easily (sorry Necros). If you don’t hit them hard and they’re stacking Toughness, focus someone else unless you manage to get them low quickly.

If you’re fighting an Engineer, stay on your toes as you never know what they’ll throw at you (literally).

Not sure what to tell you about Mesmers/Rangers as I rarely encounter them.

Go Knight’s gear Pow/Pre/Tuf or Soldier’s Pow/Tuf/Vit (more tanky, less damage) with 30 Valor which gives 30% critical damage (meaning your crits will deal 180% of base damage), 300 Toughness, and with Altrustic Healing that heals you every time you give a boon to yourself or allies. Valor has options for survival, damage, and support from traits.

Heinel.6548:

If you’re using a hammer then the AH nerf doesn’t really concern you. It was mostly sword/torch builds that really abuses it that gets affected.

Though as a hammer guardian, I think it is actually better for you to go aggressive instead of support. If your group is static, and has an ele, it’s easier for an ele of almost any configuration to keep swiftness, regen, protection and at least a few stacks of might perpetually on the group. Use your blast finisher on their combo fields, and immobilize foes and keep up the pressure on targets. As an AH guardian you should have no problem over extending to get the kill even if you are under fire. It’s the best way a guardian can contribute to general skirmish warfare.

If you still want to consider doing support. The best support a guardian can offer is through blocking. Mace/shield gives you a couple blocking options, sword/focus gives you a couple blinding options, then try to fit as many blind and aegis procs as possible through utilities, traits, profession mechanics, runes and elites. It is a rather skill intensive build though as you have to time everything just right. Another notable skill is sanctuary, which can be used as a quicker casting ward you can use on the go (if traited), a knockback, an almost guaranteed rez, a thief initiative waster (if they’re stupid), and the list goes on. I think most WvW guardians would fall in love with sanctuary.

I agree with your first two points, but in your last I think there are some issues.

First, a block heavy Guardian isn’t the best kind of support. The most blocking you can give to allies (support) comes from VoC activation on a long cooldown, an Aegis from a Rune, ‘Retreat’ on a moderate cooldown (but you’ll probably use it when you want Swiftness rather than when you want a free block for allies) and Sanctuary on another long cooldown. You also have Shield of Absorption and Wall of Reflection for projectile blocking, but that hardly changes the case that “blocking” for allies is infrequent and situational. Yeah it’s great for your own survival, but your options for blocking attacks at allies are far fewer in number.

Regarding Sanctuary: It’s a good skill, the only problem is your opportunity cost. Unless traited it’s a 120 second cooldown ability that lasts 6s, and traited it’s 96 second cooldown that lasts 8s. By comparison, that’s potentially sacrificing 3-4 uses of Stand Your Ground which gives 5s Stability and Retaliation to you and 4 allies. It’s potentially sacrificing 2-3 uses of Wall of Reflection, which can be 25-30% uptime of Projectile reflection versus the 6s every 96-120s on Sanctuary. Etc.

In addition, it will not stop any reasonably competent person from stomping a downed ally. The radius of Sanctuary is not large enough to prevent someone from walking up next to the bubble and stomping an ally in the bubble. There’s also the issue of AoEs destroying any allies in the bubble, which normally would be ran out of or dodged. Against some enemies it actually won’t do anything, like a Greatsword Mesmer whose attacks almost all go through Sanctuary (the exception being ‘2’, but the Mesmer can still spam ‘1’ at a 1200 range while moving while you are stationary).

@Rerroll, I hope someone at ArenaNet reads your post.

Only reason I don’t like these kinds of threads is that I see dozens of things I want to argue against, but that’s not the point of these threads.

Gilgamesh.2561:

Ah, there it is. The other thing no MMO company has seem to figure out. There are players out there that aren’t casual, that are skilled, but who don’t have the time nor interest of finding a bunch of anons to play with and would rather play with a small group of friends or solo — but still compete competitively in the ladders..

MY LIFE IN A NUTSHELL

Thanks for that.

I play WvW hardcore and sPvP casually. I might get more interested in sPvP, but I can play uncompetitive matches solo or coordinated matches with 5 people. What about playing with 1-3 friends before I dedicate myself to making a 5-man team?

Seether.7285:

Liewec.2896:

i did’nt think Vit was massively attractive for guardians since their HP scaling is so laughably poor anyway, stick a truck load of vitality in and you’ll get what, 2k more hp?

1 vitality gives the same amount of hit points regardless of your profession.

I thought by ‘HP’ he meant “healing power”, because it’s true that Healing Power scales poorly with Guardian heals.

Liewec.2896:

i did’nt think Vit was massively attractive for guardians since their HP scaling is so laughably poor anyway, stick a truck load of vitality in and you’ll get what, 2k more hp?

It’s really not, but if you’re going bunker and already have a bunch of Toughness, you might as well make that even more effective by getting Vitality.

For pretty much every Guardian build your priority is Toughness first.

Arheundel.6451:

Pow/Prec/Tough amulet? Yes bro you can count on my vote…but I doubt that will ever happen , a PvP version of knight amulet pow/prec/tough would be far too OP, imagine a thief or mesmer with such amulet…wow it’d be game over for everybody

I fight these in WvW all the time. Except I also have Knight’s, so they’re not the only ones with mitigation. However, I still see Berserker’s more common with some Toughness on the side.

Besides, in taking Pow/Pre/Tuf you sacrifice the Crit Damage from Berserkers and resistance to Conditions/Burst from Vitality.

Actually… then it wouldn’t be Glass Cannon vs Glass Cannon vs Glass Cannon vs Bunker anymore, and people would actually have balanced builds.

If a chunk of people ran Pow/Pre/Tuf then you’d see less full glass cannons. The glass cannons would realize “Hey, this guy isn’t super squishy and insta-killing me, but he also doesn’t take 5 minutes to kill!” and have to do more than try to insta-kill. Much less 1-2-3-dead combos, more skilled play.

If you want to go balanced damage/survival, what amulet might you pick? Pow/Pre/Vit? Sure conditions won’t be as bad, but a Thief might still walk up on you and nearly insta-kill you, or you might get locked in a Warrior combo and take 12k damage in 3s from no Toughness, or you might get insta-shatter killed by a Mesmer, etc.

People complain about burst and about bunker, but there’s not much of an easy alternative. Pow/Pre/Tuf does that. You still maintain the weakness to conditions, so it’s not like there’s no downside.

Edit: Non-Guardian specific reasoning for real Knight’s in second post

In sPvP you have Knight’s gear, and in PvE/WvW you have Knight’s gear. As most people know, they’re not the same.

Knight’s in sPvP is Pow/Pre/Vit while in PvE/WvW it is Pow/Pre/Tuf. Being a Guardian, this is huge.

As a Guardian there’s really two main options in PvE/WvW: Pow/Pre/Tuf for damage or Pow/Tuf/Vit for tankiness.

Guardian survival mostly comes from being able to prevent the big attacks and being able to mitigate/heal through the rest of the damage. Having Toughness is crucial because it makes your healing exponentially more effective, and it’s what allows moderate-high damage builds while still having decent survival instead of being entirely glass while lacking the burst of a Warrior/Thief glass cannon.

In sPvP there is no option for this. You can go Pow/Pre/Vit for moderate-high damage but drop very quickly, or go Pow/Tuf/Vit and be bunker. The only solution I’ve found is to take Pow/Tuf/Crit/HP and dedicate the rest of my build to getting Precision. Even in doing that, I can only get my crit to about 35% max, but in doing so I’m going 30 points into a line with limited synergy and I sacrifice a lot of power. This combination makes most playstyles from small scale PvP in WvW unworkable unless you’re lucky (and even then the stat combination here is far less than ideal).

Bunker builds are not affected, which is another reason you see so many bunker Guardians. Pow/Tuf/Vit is still there, and so the mechanics work just fine. You still deal some damage from the +Pow, you mitigate damage and make your healing more and more effective from Tuf, and Vitality makes your Tuf more effective and helps fight conditions.

I would definitely play for sPvP, but it’s impossible to transition my playstyle to sPvP due to this limitation, and I don’t play bunker.

I don’t see why it shouldn’t be added, and see plenty of reason to do so. I imagine there must be many more cases where adding real Knight’s would benefit more people, and make sPvP more appealing.

You can’t have an E-sport unless it’s fun. You can make it fun without having to make it an E-sport.

We know you’ve put a lot of work into sPvP to make it an E-sport, but sometimes you have to admit what is fun and what isn’t, and rethink things from the ground up.

People find duels to be fun. People find playing causally with 1-2 friends to be fun. People find other gametypes like capture the flag to be fun.

GW1 PvP wasn’t fun to people because it was built to be an E-sport, people had fun because it was built to be fun. Were Starcraft and LoL created entirely with E-sports in mind? Nope, they were primarily made to be fun. They had the correct formats to become E-sports, but it all starts with fun and grows from there.

Phule.1968:

Ultimately the game needs to change the rewards into something that reflects the effort people put into it. The points system should reflect the amount of attendance relative to kills more, and less on flipping camps and other structures. That’s the only way to gain an understanding of even match-ups instead of a point system that rewards high population at all hours.

SoS is #1 on a huge winstreak when we have an equally huge coverage gap that JQ and SBI exploit.

morrolan.9608:

For those mentioning culling its clearly not an easy fix.

^

How about this:

1st: Go up
2nd: Stay
3rd: Go down

Sometimes the best soltuion is the most simple one.

SoS will fight to the last hour. Be ready JQ.

I keep seeing that said, but do you have any evidence that this is happening on a grand scale to actually affect WvW? You can keep saying that there are some people out there that will server hop, yeah, but do you have any evidence that it is happening enough to ruin the game?

I was on SoS before it took off. It’s when a number of guilds from Dragonbrand, PRX, and a few other guilds joined in the same 2 week period when it was t4 and hadn’t won a match.

Over a month later, we’ve had a few other guilds join, but most came very early on in SoS’s rise. We’re #1, and yet I haven’t seen a huge influx of bandwagoners like everyone claims there is. In fact, we need transfers. We have a huge coverage gap that still hasn’t been even partially filled.

To me it seems like a witch hunt where people are trying to find something to blame for lower WvW populations on their servers, so they yell “free transfers are ruining the game!”.

Edit: I read the OP’s post again and found something interesting.

“anyone can claim to be the top skilled when they have a team 20 times the size of their opponents”

And yet, if you transfer to t1 you’ll constantly be fighting enemies that also have just as huge numbers as you. If anything, t1 is HARDER. Much, much harder. In t1 you don’t PvD. When you go out and attack a keep, you’ll be met with a zerg just as large or larger than yours. In t1 you actually need need to use tactics all of the time to be successful instead of zerging. In t1 if you bring your zerg to a map that is empty of enemy players, it won’t be for long. They’ll send their forces there too. You have to work for the win.

Xolo.3580:

3) More stuff to do for smaller groups.
Might not be an “easy” fix, but I feel that steamrolling around with a 50 man zerg is not the most interesting form of PvP.

IMO there’s plenty of this already. For example, 10 of us just ran around a map for an hour flipping supply camps and draining supply from towers for our main group. We just did a 2 golem rush on a tower near their spawn, and when the enemy zerg responded our main force already had 5 rams at the inner gate in their keep. We took that keep, when we had previously tried 2 times in the last 2 hours.

1.) Prioritize stealthed targets in culling so they always render after stealth ends.

2.) Remove the Glicko system. It’s too hard for servers that are clearly the next tier material to have a chance to get in that tier, because they have to win by massive amounts and the server above them has to lose by massive amounts. It also makes the matches more stale than they have to be by keeping matches the same.

3.) Make badges loot from taking keeps/towers/supply camps and remove them from Jumping Puzzles.

Edit: For WvW, the Guardian can be awesome, you’ve just got to build correctly.

I recommend the Scepter in almost every build for WvW. In a siege it allows you to deal a bunch of damage to enemies and weapons on walls with Smite (since it actually hits siege every time), and it gives you another option when being kited other than to die. It’s a great weapon to use when your melee skills are on cooldown, and its a good weapon to set up your melee.

If you’re going to roll with large groups of people, use a few shouts, 5 points in Virtues to spam them for buffs, and probably a Staff. The Staff gives you good utility, buffing, and you can spam the ‘1’ skill through gates and wreck face!.

If you’re going to be with small groups, you ought to use the Hammer/GS/Sword in one set. The GS is a great skill to deal massive damage to other small groups, the 1h Sword is great for attacking a single enemy, and the Hammer is heavy on control. The Hammer is the hard counter to 1v1 hit-and-run Thieves you’ll see becoming more common. Mix any of the above with a Scepter and you’re in good shape.

For movement speed just swap out for a staff and cast 3 out of combat. It’s not 100% swiftness, but it’s around 75% which is better than 0%.

Depending on your playstyle you have a bunch of different options.

Do you want to be super tanky, or be able to hit hard with above average survival?

If it’s the tankiness go with Soldier’s gear (Pow/Vit/Tuf). If it’s damage/survival balance go for Knight’s gear (Pow/Pre/Tuf). You can get Soldier’s gear from Karma Vendors in Orr, the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon, or WvW gear. You can easily get Knight’s from the Trading Post or Sorrow’s Embrace.

As for build, you’ll need to experiment and find what works for you. If you wanted to be super tanky, then 30 Valor with Altruistic Healing trait is a match.

HOWEVER: Don’t limit yourself. I know far too many Guardians that have never even touched a build outside of 30 Valor. If you want to find a build that works for you, you need to experiment and not just take what the rest of us say is the best.

I’ll link you a few builds below to look at the synergy between some traits you might have missed. My builds are generally trying to be damage heavy while not sacrificing survival or support. You can get some interesting combinations while trying to do so.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRApd7elYgKCnEyKEf4Eh1DCCQ/VfAf4M0I8B

The above is an a WvW/PvE/PvP build I made a while ago, that makes use of a few tricks to make the Mace and Scepter hit like trucks while keeping defensive abilities.

It’s a vulnerability build that let’s you deal 10% more damage when enemies have a condition, and 10% more damage when you don’t have full endurance. When you also take into account the 10-25 stacks of vulnerability that will be on your enemies, the build offers 30-45% increased damage. In addition, you get the +15% critical chance with the Mace and Scepter, and 300 precision. Empowering might gives 1 might per crit, so you’ll always have the maximum amount of stacks possible from it.

The vulnerability comes from Immobilizes which give 5 stacks which there are two of, the blinds which come from Virtue of Justice spam when killing enemies and the Focus skill, and Symbol of Faith which is a symbol that also inflicts vulnerability in this build.

There are plenty of cool combinations like this.

Even for AH builds you have options. The first one I’ll link is almost standard, and the second one is a few tweaks for damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlYgiDXFSLEf4ESmiVKBxUgRw31DICDZIA

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYg6CXFSLEfIFRuA7DEETBGz41DHSRGC

The second one is almost the same as the first, except you switch the Hammer for the GS and put 15 points in Radiance. This means when you’re running through a zerg of enemies or a bunch of mobs in PvE, you can spam Virtue of Justice which gives 3 stacks of Might to all nearby allies, which also heals you due to Altrustic Healing, in addition to spamming AoE burning.

Basically, try everything.

AH doesn’t need to be nerfed, there just needs to be more viable options. Yeah it’s better than most options, but saying it’s overpowered is assuming everything else is balanced and doesn’t need improvement.

The reason almost every Guardian runs 30 Valor with Altrustic Healing in their builds isn’t because it’s overpowered. They run it because it fits into bunker builds, support builds, and damage builds.

Opc.4718:

But in any case, no matter who we play against, the situation is always the same and it gets stale.

That’s why the ranking system needs to change, not WvW itself.

It’s too hard for servers that are better or simply have a much larger population to rise in rank and tier. The current system also means you’ll fight the same opponents again, and again, and again.

Stealth stomping: Earlier today I was following this zerg to a siege in EB since my guild wasn’t on. We faced off an enemy zerg at a distance and I got downed due to previous focus fire and conditions. I was in the middle/back of our zerg and figured I would be rezzed any second since I was at about 1600-1800 range from the enemy zerg. Instead I got stomped. The Thief reappeared seconds later, 1200 range away from me and ran to the enemy zerg.

So no, stealth stomping isn’t something that only works in 1v1.

I believe this is because they don’t want you to be able to interact with enemy players, so they homogenized your choices to just “report” for everyone in WvW as they don’t have the ability to segregate your options.

At least, that’s what I figured.

Opc.4718:

@Alarox “If you choose to attack, you want to pick the server that won’t be able to defend as easily. Server A is ideal.”

I don’t know about you but that NEVER happens in any of the lower tiers our server has played in. Server B is more ideal because they have less people than Server A, and by attacking them, they are similarly engaged at two fronts. They will be even less likely to retaliate because they will be inferior to Server A (numerically or otherwise). Situation two as described by OP is always what results.

We’re describing the same thing. One server is the weakest, so the two servers attack it. You want to not be double teamed in a given situation? Make it hell for enemies to attack you. Hard target protocol. Make it so that attacking you is frustrating, and call everyone on the map to defend. You only have 1 tower? Fill it with 5 catapults behind the gate, 20 arrow carts on the walls, and 10 counter trebs ready.

An enemy zerg rolls up. Your entire force on the map is in that tower. It’s the most fortified structure they’ve ever seen. “kitten this”, they go off to do something else. People are impatient, they won’t stand there and do nothing, but they also don’t want to get wiped by zerging your tower. They’ll attack the other server.

A smart server can actually flip this to their advantage. There’s a guide on Guru about it.

Note: Unless you’re already in the lowest tier, maybe your server is just in the wrong tier? If you always have a population disadvantage, then you’re in the wrong tier. If you’re already in the lowest tier, then it’s not WvW that needs to change, it’s the interest in WvW on your server.

@Draygo

By that logic, why not do 1v1v1v1v1v1? Or why not 1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1?

Here’s why: the more parties involved, the less effect each party has on the outcome, and the less it is about you actually fighting each and every other server.

If I’m in a match with 16 servers, what does server 15 have to do with me when I’m server 3? What influence can I have over server 15? None. It’s entirely out of my control. All I can do is have relatively meaningless fights againsts the servers I just happen to be next to.

If you have a 1v1v1v1, it’s more like 2 1v1s for each server, rather than a real 1v1v1v1. If I’m on a map and I control 25%, then I’m next to two servers that control 25%, while the last 25% is separated from me. Trying to stretch for that 4th server is basically suicide as you put yourself surrounded by 3 enemy servers. Basically, you’re overly balanced.

In addition, you’re out of control of much of the battle. In a 1v1v1, you are a crucial player in every single battle. In enemy 1v1s, you can come in and change the entire dynamic. In a 1v1v1v1, you can’t gain control over the situation. You can’t gain dominance. In a 1v1v1, you can come in and start a 2v1. You can wipe one force out, and claim something for yourself. You can take advantage of the 1v1 and fortify. You can try to bait your enemies into a 1v1 and sit on a higher PPT. What do you do tactically in a 1v1v1v1? You attack to the left when it seems best, or you attack to the right when it seems best.

When you get to a 1v1v1v1, you no longer have a say in everything that happens. In a 1v1 or a 1v1v1, you can influence every single event. IT IS FAIR. Fair in the sense that you earn the win or loss. The moment you reach 1v1v1v1 there are things out of your control.

Take everything I said above together, and you’ll see why I believe 1v1v1 is plainly superior.

I explained this in another thread, so I’ll copy paste:

Let’s use A, B, and C to represent servers.

If server A seems weak, server B and server C can both mutually benefit by attacking server A. Why would server B attack server C when they can gain more PPT by attacking server A? The same can be asked for server C.

If server B is attacking server A, server C has three options.

1.) Fortify
2.) Attack server B
3.) Attack server A

If you fortify, you’ll get to a point where you’ll have to pick 2 or 3, or until you yourself are attacked.

If you choose to attack, you want to pick the server that won’t be able to defend as easily. Server A is ideal. Server A won’t be able to retaliate as they are already stuck fighting server B. Server A will also have to split their forces in defending on two fronts.

So I hope you understand by now. A 2v1 is not an alliance. A 2v1 is entirely selfish. It’s simply each server doing what benefits them the most.

Phoenixfudge.5290:

lol WvW is nothing but a zergfest. Nothing really matters except how many players you have.

Try coordination or using your brain instead of facerolling your keyboard.

Go to t1 and go 100v30 against any skilled guild while facerolling and see if you win.

A 1v1v1 is not the most balanced way of doing things because servers will 1v2 the 1st place server. A 1v1v1 is the most balanced way of doing things because it limits temporary population advantages and naturally forces a 2v1 *DUE TO MAP CONTROL, not point totals.*

For example, lets look at a 1v1 scenario where server A and server B are fighting, and server A has a massive population advantage in NA morning. In this case, server B would lose everything, 0 PPT, because every battle is overly advantageous for server A. Now, look at the same scenario with server C involved.

Assume server C has low population as well. In this case, server A would already have large map control, so server C and server B would have no choice but to fight server A. This means server A’s population advantage is cut entirely in half.

Assume server C also has a high population in NA morning like server A. In this case, server C and server A would likely have a similar control of the map, but collectively more like 80% while server B has 20%. You could say this is just as bad as the 1v1, but you’re overlooking a large factor. In a 1v1, server A would have about 700 PPT in the morning. In this 1v1v1 scenario, server A would instead have only 350ish PPT because their map control is split with server C. Having a 1v1v1 means you only need to regain half the points you normally would to catch up.

That is the reality of the 3-way battle, and that is why a 3-way battle is the best possible option for balance.

That’s not a fundamental flaw of WvW. It’s barely a flaw of WvW. It’s a severe flaw with the rating system.

Glicko is meant to match players with other players of a similar skill, only. It’s not a system that can be used for tiered ranking.

It’s actually possible to for T1 to be worse than T6, but you’ll never know because both matchups are of similar skill. The only way for you to change you ranking is to lose significantly or win significantly, AND for the server in the tier below/above you to lose significantly or win signficantly.

Glicko does not create tiers, glicko creates matchups. It’s not tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 4, it’s matchup 1, matchup 2, etc.

This is a system that stagnates any form of ranking progression for servers, because it’s meant to make similarly skilled matchups, not catagorize the skill of each server into brackets.

Lot’s of Thief/Mesmer drama. “You’re more OP!” “No, you’re more OP!” Maybe you’re both right.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Why do people think everything they don’t agree with needs to be “fixed”?

Because many people have no respect for anything that they don’t agree with.

RvLeshrac.2673:

It jacks up the price of everything on the TP, screwing most of us out of equipment and materials because we’re not unethical, amoral kitten.

Edit: In the following, I have a lot of fun responding.

Did you even take economics in high school? O.o

The demand of the items in question does not change. The supply of the items in question does not change. There is no inflation due to this, as there is no net increase in the amount of gold. Therefore, there are no reasons for the price of anything to go up.

Edit: Actually, you could make the argument that demand does go down due to people being geared out from these runs, in which case the price will only drop for all of you.

Regarding “unethical and amoral”, based on what standard? Yours? You think that just because you believe something, everyone else must cater to what you say because you yell “it’s bad and you’re bad!”. It’s the same excuse people have been using to try to control other people for thousands of years. If you can’t force someone to do something, you try to guilt them to do what you want.

Here it sounds like you’re angry because some other people are getting something easier than what you can get, and you’re trying to take the moral highground by saying that you’re against it because it’s “unethical and amoral”.

Sarcasmic.6741:

How is it amoral or unethical? They have a service to provide, the buyers have gold. Seems pretty much standard business model to me.

But… I said it’s unethical! You have to stop it! You don’t want to be a bad person do you?

Bartho.7896:

Paying for a service is cheating?
Then buying a legendary off TP is cheating too?
Or buying a portal in EB JP?
etc etc

It’s not cheating… it’s just amoral! You better not do it, or else I’ll mark you as a bad person!

OpenWounds.6729:

i understand what your saying but, im melee, and if theirs 5+ other melee’s i mean, i cant really not die -.-. but i understand what your sayign

Time your dodges, blocks, blinds, etc. Learn to change your style on the fly based on aggro and positioning.

And bring a medium-ranged weapon on your off-set.

Recently.1043:

The fact that every team guardian is required whereas most teams don’t even want a warrior should tell you all you need to know about the respective powers of these classes in pvp. Guardian is arguably the only required class to have in tpvp to be successful.

and wvw is not real pvp. you can roll whatever the hell you want in wvw and succeed.

Overall your above post is a really simple minded way of looking at things, and regarding WvW it’s just false.

1.) Do you know why Guardians are needed in tPvP? The only reason is that they have bunker builds. That is the only reason. The only one. It’s not because they’re godly. It’s not because they’re the best at everything. It’s only because tPvP is based entirely on capture points and Guardians happen to have bunker builds.

2.) Depends on what you do in WvW. If you roll with coordinated guilds on upper tier servers who face off against other coordinated upper tier guilds, then you NEED synergy builds.

Harbinger.8637:

My retaliation build is very solid. 3k attack/armor with +16k hp. Also add 40% crit chance with 69 crit dmg. My retaliation hits people for around 400 dmg, add the amount of dmg I’m already putting out. Plus my survivability, it’s more then a gimmick.

Love stacking close to a minute of retaliation. I can pretty much keep it up indefinitely.

What’s your opportunity cost in comparison to a build where you didn’t focus on Retaliation but kept the rest of that build?

Abazigal.3679:

I see many guilds playing free tournaments and acting like " it’s too easy, no challenge , etc.. " yet they’re still running builds that give no chance to opponents ( typically 2 guardians 1 mesmer 1 ele). Why isn’t there any risk taken ?

People want to test their best against the best of other skilled opponents. They don’t want to purposefully play worse to match uncoordinated players.

I agree. The only reason I don’t use the Sword is because of the lack of AoE.

I can choose Sword and deal slightly more single target damage, or use the Greatsword and have unparalled AoE capability.

The main problem with the Sword is Zealot’s Defense. Using this skill seems to only be reliable in PvE. In PvP even new players know how to dodge it, and a dodge isn’t even need.

Zealot’s Defense vs Whirling Wrath:

ZD immobilizies, WW slows you
ZD 15s cooldown, WW 10s and can be traited to 8
ZD 888 damage, WW 1251 damage
ZD no finisher, WW is a Whirl
ZD single target, WW is a wide AoE
ZD blocks projectiles, WW doesn’t

There needs to be tradeoffs. One can’t simply be better than the other in almost every aspect.

Soryuju.8164:

Also, I still don’t understand why people think Sword just does single-target damage…every swing of the autoattack chain is AoE. Every part of the chain has a range longer than the GS’s autoattack (#1 and #2 are 150 range, compared to the GS’s 130, and the #3 is 300 range in a cone). I never have trouble hitting groups of enemies all at once with the sword, and frequently kill multiple enemies at a time with it. If you have trouble hitting 3+ enemies with the sword simultaneously, you need to work on your positioning, because the potential is most definitely there.

It’s more that the Greatsword’s non-auto attack abilities are all AoE while the Sword only has its first 2 hits in the auto attack as reliable AoE. The third attack is a cone, which is often impractical to line up unless in PvE.

My main concern is how competitive Guardian burst builds would be compared to other ones. They have the damage if built correctly for sure, but would it be a viable choice versus picking a Thief or Mesmer or even Warrior instead?

The problem is the mobility and time-to-kill. I’m confident that in a fight to the death on a capture point I could kill bunkers or other roamers, but I’m wondering if the movement speed between points, the inability to run from a battle, and the slower burst (relative to a Thief or Warrior) would prevent me from being a viable option.

I suppose I could go a burst/survival hybrid, but that leaves me confused as to what my role would be in a competitive team.

Thoughts?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

A full offense guardian is fantastic precisely because your damage output equals that of a glass cannon but you retain the defensive capabilities of a bunker build. As such it’s not accurate to call them a “glass cannon” because there really isn’t any such thing.

Build and video please.

The remainder of your post rests on you providing evidence that such a build is capable of providing the burst of, let’s say a glass cannon Warrior/Thief (which are the standards), while maintaining the survival of a bunker. I’ve played the Guardian a lot, and I know damage and bunker builds inside and out, and I don’t know of a build that can do both to the degree you describe. In response to the remainder of your post, there’s a lot more to survival than long cooldown defensive skills.

I’m not saying Guardians can’t be bursty, or that they can’t hybrid damage/survival. What I’m saying is that a Guardian full glass cannon berserkers doesn’t have burst large and fast enough to compare to a glass cannon Thief or Warrior, and the survival drops below that of a Warrior/Thief. Warriors have roughly twice the health pool while having the same armor as the Guardian. With Toughness, the Guardian gains more survival due to the healing becoming more and more effective. Without toughness to enhance the effect of healing, the Warrior has far more survival as a glass cannon than a Guardian. With regards to the Thief, they have stealth and the best mobility in the game, giving them almost unparalleled survival. It’s not that they can take a punch to the face better than anyone else, it’s that they don’t have to be in risk of taking a punch to the face if they don’t want to.

Harbinger.8637:

Greatsword/Scepter Power- 5% more dmg. Don’t see anything wrong with this.

Wrathful Spirits- 10% more dmg. Again nothing bad about it.

Healer’s Retribution- Good. I use it with my retaliation build.

Powerful Blades- 5% dmg. Like I said with the other, don’t see the problem.

Perfect Inscriptions- I find it decent if you run a Signet heavy build.

Strength in Numbers- Good in WvW.

Mace of Justice- Same as the other 5%.

Wrathful Spirit- Decent to use with a retaliation build.

Pure of Heart- Good for support/bunker builds.

Retaliatory Subconscious- Good for retaliation build.

Elite Focus- Not bad tomes at 30 seconds, and Renewed Focus for five.

Shielded Mind- This is actually pretty decent because it also breaks stuns on all allies in range.

[5% damage increases]: 1.) It’s not a significant increase. 2.) They’re traits that you only pick because there’s nothing better, and because it just happens to fit your build.

[Retaliation traits]: In building for as much Retaliation duration as possible, you’re most likely sacrificing so much more damage/utility/survival. If you have a huge amount of Power and Toughness then it might be worth it as Retalition will do some damage and you’ll be able to take enough hits to where you wouldn’t be better off just building for direct damage. Outside of that though, it seems more like a gimmick more than an applicable strategy versus anything but P/P + Quickness Thieves.

[Perfect Inscriptions]: It only affects 3/5 Signets, and SoJ is only affected by an increase from 10% to 12%.

[Wrathful Spirits]: Spirit Weapon damage to your total damage is like ‘1’ to ‘20’. +10% of ‘1’ is ‘1.1’. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s such a small factor.

[Strength in Numbers]: In WvW most people are already running some form of +Toughness gear. If you were surrounded by glass cannons then it might help a bit relative to their survival without you, but in practice it’s just a negligible effect.

[Elite Focus]: It’s good, but is it worth 20 points into Virtues? IMO, not at all.

[Shielded Mind]: I actually didn’t know it breaks stuns on allies. That’s pretty good. The only problem I see is that you’d have to be running a dedicated buff build if you want to go 30 Virtues, as that only leaves 40 points left and Honor/Valor is almost a requirement.

Urthona.3198:

In certain fights, Unscathed Contender is basically a flat 20% damage increase, which is actually really good for a minor trait. Yeah, it’s situational, but there are other decent options in Virtues 10 to use the rest of the time.

Unless you never touch your traits in between fights (in which case, it’s your fault you’re not taking advantage of the system) then calling the trait worthless is misleading.

True, although it only has synergy with the Scepter as the rest of our weapons put you directly in harms way. For PvE though, I can see usefullness. Outside of that, it seems more like a liability as other traits can always be useful, while this one carries a significant risk of be useless. If it’s a risk that you’re willing to take, then roll with it.

As the title asks, what roles can the Guardian play in tPvP other than bunker?

I main a Guardian and have close to 1000 hours as one at this point. However, I haven’t touched tPvP and I’m curious as to what role I could play other than bunker or a dedicated buff kitten.

@Dreztina + HappinessFactory (and anyone else who posts in the future):

Everyone wants to win, and almost everyone gets competitive about something they do after they play it for a while. However, the profiles are about what drives you the most.

For example, when you play is your objective almost entirely to win? Will you sacrifice things you have more fun using in order to ensure you’re using the ultimate min/max meta? If so, that’s Spike.

Timmy is casual in the sense that his objective isn’t his overall performance, while Johnny’s and Spike’s are. Spike wants to win, period. Johnny wants his cool, unique build to work. Timmy wants to have fun.

Here’s another way to look at it:

-Spike is concerned with the end result. (To what extent did I win/lose?)
-Johnny is concerned with the process. (How did my build do? How were the skill/trait interactions?)
-Timmy isn’t concerned with overall performance (Did I have fun?)

It’s all about which of these you play for the most. Which can you not sacrifice?:

Are you willing to get facerolled in order to use the big flashy (albeit simple) builds? (Timmy)

Are you willing to lose to less-skilled players because you want to use a unique, and complex build? (Johnny)

Are you willing to sacrifice individuality and styles you prefer in order to win? (Spike).

I’m a Johnny/Spike hybrid. (a hybrid is a clash, not a compliment or additon btw)

Primarily I want to use unique builds and find interesting connections that other people missed. But, I’m not satisfied just if my build does what it was meant to do, I’m only satisfied if my build works AND if it is meta-level effective in combat.

It goes the other way as well. I’m also not satisfied if I win with the FoTM/meta-builds. I have to win with a build that is my own. I can’t be uneffective with a build that is my own, and I can’t be effective with a build that isn’t my own.

As you can imagine… it’s very difficult for me to find a set-up I like for more than a few days.

I’ll explain this so simply that even the OP, in his emotionally unstable state, can understand.

Let’s use A, B, and C to represent servers.

If server A seems weak, server B and server C can both mutually benefit by attacking server A. Why would server B attack server C when they can gain more PPT by attacking server A? The same can be asked for server C.

If server B is attacking server A, server C has three options.

1.) Fortify
2.) Attack server B
3.) Attack server A

If you fortify, you’ll get to a point where you’ll have to pick 2 or 3, or until you yourself are attacked.

If you choose to attack, you want to pick the server that won’t be able to defend as easily. Server A is ideal. Server A won’t be able to retaliate as they are already stuck fighting server B. Server A will also have to split their forces in defending on two fronts.

So I hope you understand by now. A 2v1 is not an alliance. A 2v1 is entirely selfish. It’s simply each server doing what benefits them the most.

A build tool link for you to look at the traits mentioned below: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQBAA

Criteria for “poor” traits: Traits that simply aren’t good enough to be worth the points you put in (or sometimes just worthless), and that the only reason for taking them is that you have no better alternatives (or have nothing but other poor traits to choose from). I’m leaving out traits that can greatly affect some builds, but are rarely used.

(*) = Grandmaster Trait

Zeal-

Revenge of the Fallen
Greatsword Power
Scepter Power
*Wrathful Spirits
*Zealous Blade

Radiance-

Healer’s Retribution
Shimmering Defense
Inner Fire
Searing Flames
Powerful Blades
*Perfect Inscriptions

Valor-

Strength of the Fallen
Strength in Numbers
Mace of Justice
Glacial Heart (Good in theory, but far too infrequent and unreliable)

Honor-

Wrathful Spirit
Pure of Heart
*Battle Presence
*Pure of Voice

Virtues-

Unscathed Contender
Retalitory Subconscious
Elite Focus
*Shielded Mind

The problem with the Zeal line is that it’s difficult to get your build to match up with the traits in the line. The minor traits mostly influence the Hammer/Mace due to their almost constant Symbols, but the Major traits affect Spirit Weapons and the Greatsword (among other completely random things). However, the main problem is that BOTH Grandmaster traits are worthless. Spirit weapon damage is already a small chunk of your damage, and traiting for adding 10% to a small fraction doesn’t change the fact that it’s a small fraction. The Greatsword trait only heals for 25 per hit. You’d be better off going 30 points into Valor to gain far more survival, AND damage.

The only reasons for going into Radiance are only 2 Major Traits (for 20% faster Signet cooldowns and the Grandmaster trait for 1h weapons), possibly the Minor Traits, and the Precision. Every other Major trait is filler that, if you’re lucky, might somehow kinda synergize with your build. The other Grandmaster trait for improving Signets is poor. It doesn’t even affect 3/5 Signets. For Signet of Judgement, it increases it’s effect from 10% reduced damage to 12% reduced damage. For Signet of Resolve it actually doubles it’s effect. That’s 4/5 this trait is negligible for.

Minus a few pointless traits, Valor is a solid line. Both Grandmaster traits are very effective, and overall the line increases survival and damage significantly.

Honor is mostly solid. Its Minor traits are very effective, and most of its Major traits as well. However, it has 2 very situational Major traits (they CAN be useful, but there’s no reason to take them over the other very good traits) and it has 2 poor Grandmaster traits. Pure of Voice is bugged and only works for 2/4 shouts (and ArenaNet is in no hurry to fix it). Battle Presence is barely effective assuming you don’t activate VoR, while all traits affecting VoR encourage you to activate it, rendering this a wasted Grandmaster trait.

Virtues is a strange traitline. If you happen to have a build that benefits from it, you might go 10 points in. The only time you really want to go 20 points in is if you’re running an entirely buff-centric build and you’ve already gone deep in Valor and Honor. The problem with Virtues is that it has traits that give increased survival and damage, but in going 20+ into the line you lose MORE survival/damage than you would gain by going into another line.

Overall I think the main focus for future balances to Guardians lies in the traits. Much of them are good, both balance wise and usability, but the current selection leaves a lot to be desired.

Your thoughts to add?

You’ll be fine in PvE but struggle in PvP (unless you invest much of your build into gap closing/CC). It’s the nature of the Guardian.

Lot’s of people posting about berserker-build Guardians that clearly haven’t played them.

If you go full berserkers with a Guardian and go glass cannon, you lose virtually all survival and still don’t gain as much DPS as a Warrior glass cannon.

The point of a glass cannon is to be able to down your enemy quickly enough so that your own lack of defense isn’t a factor. A glass cannon Guardian is basically a free kill for any competent player.

I know because I used to be ignorant and thought a Guardian’s defense would carry over into a full glass cannon. The reality is that Guardians have a very low base survival without Toughness. Light over-time healing is pointless when you’re able to be bursted down by almost anyone due to a base health of 11k.

I’m setting a couple of things straight. Maybe a thread 90% trolling can be constructive. We’ll see.

Here are the problems with the Thief:

1.) Burst is too quick and easy to execute. Thieves start strong and then lose initiative; there is no build up. They don’t have to work to 3 shot you with the current OP builds.

The burst is nearly instantaneous (meaning you have to react quickly and almost flawlessly), and it’s simple to perform (meaning anyone can do it).

2.) Stealth is the ultimate offense and the ultimate defense. Stealth means you can initiate any battle on your terms, end any battle on your terms, and fight any battle on your terms. The result is a no risk in battle for the attacker.

If you stealth at the start of the battle, you can jump your enemy or exploit any weaknesses they have.

If you stealth mid-battle, you can choose when to avoid enemy combos, and choose when to execute yours. You gain complete control over the battlefield as they have to guess where you are, and if they guess wrong you exploit that. If they guess right, it’s not like they can catch you (or even know they guessed right).

If you stealth at the end of battle, you can run without fail. Paired with arguably the best mobility in the game, you are uncatchable. This brings me to my final point.

3.) Stealth mixed with Mobility. When I first heard about Thieves pre-beta, I never thought they would be overpowered. I figured to have survival, they would choose either mobility, choose stealth, or hybrid and sacrifice offense. Instead, they have excellent mobility, stealth on demand and near perma-stealth, all while being glass cannon.

The damage itself isn’t a huge problem. The major problem is that you don’t sacrifice enough by going for that damage. Mobility and stealth is the ultimate combo for preventing damage.

Overall Thieves aren’t very overpowered, and according to Thieves I know there are some parts that do need buffs. But, there are these few areas that together, lead to a truly overpowered combination.

Powerful and easy burst, with high survival, and no risk to initiating combat.

You can give Thieves powerful burst. You can give Thieves good in-combat survival. You an give them good escape mechanisms. But, you have to FORCE trade-offs, which is the prerequisite to balance in any game.

Scepter: Single target DPS; our 1200 range weapon and our kiting weapon
Sword: Single target DPS; good for attacking enemies
Mace: Defensive with AoE damage; the survival weapon

Shield/Focus: Support/Survival off-hands
Torch: Offensive off-hand; best burning weapon

Hammer: AoE damage and CC
Greatsword: Our primary damage weapon: AoE and single target
Staff: Sustained AoE damage and support; mostly just a utility weapon

They need to prioritize “fun” for sPvP.

Magiofdeath.2745:

Nevermind it was SoS. I guess they’re bored and have nothing else to do aside to annoy players at the JQ BLs JP. That’s awesome and super mature of you. Winning and being asinine. Please take out PvE crap from WvW. Going there and getting a repair bill because people want to be asinine is not fun.

PvPing in a PvP zone where you’re meant to PvP is so immature right? The only asinine part about it is how you knew you were in a PvP zone, and didn’t consider the possiblity of PvP occuring.

Opacus.4390:

or the perma stun of Guardians etc… No complains here it seems.

Stopped reading here. Guardians have 0 stuns. They have 2 knockdowns total, on 30s+ cooldowns.

Ask for evidence = get trolled. Nice.