Guild Wars 2

Not sure, It could be incomplete just due to people not having ranks past a certain point.

haviz.1340:

Bash.7291:

First picture is unbuffed stats, 20% crit is missing due to RHS and sigil of accuracy.

Second picture is stats with food buffs +bloodlust stacks. In normal combat I can keep 4-5 might stacks on, along with 75% fury up time once I get a proc 100% uptime against anything that causes burning, giving me 84% crit with 1h, 53% with 2h. Food is Omnom pies and sharpening stone.

Sorry to disappoint you but sigil of accuracy actually shows +5% now.

Not sure how that would be disappointing, Good to see they actually fixed something. Even with taking out that 5% Still leaves me at 79% with fury…. which actually does bug me slightly that it is not 80.. Ill have to switch one of my jewels out for a ruby now >.<

*edited to remove the censor from “that it is” when its is used -.-

First picture is unbuffed stats, 20% crit is missing due to RHS and sigil of accuracy.

Second picture is stats with food buffs +bloodlust stacks. In normal combat I can keep 4-5 might stacks on, along with 75% fury up time once I get a proc 100% uptime against anything that causes burning, giving me 84% crit with 1h, 53% with 2h. Food is Omnom pies and sharpening stone.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Maybe if he picks one build and sticks to it, lol.

I get bored easily, so sue me -.- Besides, I am currently enjoying my new build at the moment, does pretty well for group play and for solo roaming, and I managed to get out of 30 valor!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_reward

That is the list of what gear you get through which set of rankings. sadly the good looking stuff is much higher on the rankings.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Bash would rage so hard if I got Might on Retal application.

Wow, had to actually search to see that was added in that list. And yes, would most likely flip a table or some other rage induced random thing like that.

@sandra: …..uh no. Almost all of those changes would make guardian grossly over powered. Also, most damage builds dont run AH as it is, they run monk’s focus. Only the 0/x/30/20+/x builds really run AH, high healing power builds dont need it. Also, radiance already is attractive, i use it in every single one of my builds both 1h and 2h based.

Wolfbrand.6523:

I get that the AOE pulsing burn has that synergy, but for ranged specs it has almost no value. This is more of a trait to increase the viability in WvW and dungeons rather than solo where the torch acts as more of a ranged offhand to complement scepter.

Scepter needs to be fixed before we even talk about ranged sets, and in all honesty, guardian is not meant to be a fully ranged class, we are meant to get in the middle of fights, not sit on the side lines. That is even according to the dev’s description of guardian gameplay.

That’s actually half the purpose. Tagging with scepter is quite hard in WvW. Feels bad to have to constantly switch to staff just to feel like you’re doing something outside of beating on a gate — but I like your suggestion too of toning it into a smaller but stronger AOE. Perhaps even a little faster so that it synergizes better with scepter #3.

Unless they make smite a symbol (which i have been asking for since i first used it) The only fix is to either use staff to tag people. Personally, If your playing just to tag people, then your playing wrong. Play to kill, not just to tag and get loot.

And…that’s the point. You’re being very short-sighted. It’s good situationally in one place in the game. This makes it a little worse in WvW (2 seconds instead of 3) but better everywhere else. You have some control over giving yourself fury. Giving the player options and abilities to utilize is much better than the massive amount of passive bonuses that traits give.

If a trait is useful in 2/3 modes of gameplay I consider it something that can go on the back burner until other traits are fixed. Also, Fury is the ONLY buff we don’t have much of, and I am fine with that. (Besides the fact that I found a way to get around it)

It’s about fun. Self-rooting is not fun, especially for an ability that isn’t particularly amazing (comparing to similar abilities like Hundred Blades, Pistol Whip, etc). This is a game about movement, placement, and dodging. Self roots should be limited. It’s more a simple perk that enhances fun while not breaking a weapon.

Zealot’s defense is possibly my favorite skill in the game, and I know alot of other people that think the skill is amazing as it is. The only issue I have seen other than people complaining about the self root, is the fact that the tooltip says it blocks but it doesn’t, which I do agree needs to be fixed. My question is, why should I not compare it to the other self root abilities? What flare do they have that Zealot’s defense doesn’t that makes it a case that it deserves to be mobile?

All of these changes were suggested with the criteria of:

• Increasing fun
• Bolstering weak traits
• Helping weaker weapon sets (everything outside of Staff/Hammer/GS)
• Diversifying traits to work outside of specific niche roles
• Maintaining balance

Simply stating “it’s fine the way it is” for traits that never see the light of day, or are simply boring is not proper enough reason to maintain the status quo of X amount of viable traits.

All that might be fine and dandy, but all the traits you listed are all traits that are in working trait lines at the moment. Radiance has a point as one of our best 1h DPS trait lines, honor and valor are 2 of the most used, and virtues has a great support for any spec, and can even be the base of some builds. Zeal has none of that. It’s traits past 10 points are pretty much horrible, half of which should be combined to actually make something useful. I would much rather have our dead trait line fixed before adding “fun” to other already useful trait lines.

As far as “diversifying weapon sets” which weapon’s really need help from traits? 1h sword and scepter are great with radiance, GS/Hammer can fit anywhere, Staff has a good support role. the only one that is partially lacking is mace, which I agree needs some help. Torch is our best Damage offhand, focus is best for self defense, and shield is great for group play.

Amins.3710:

Bash.7291:

Amins.3710:

Symbols should not immobilize.

I would suggest:

1) re-making Glacial Heart: Symbols Chill on pulse.

2) Protectors Impact: Create a Symbol of protection when you are Immobilized or Frozen.

I don’t mind symbols chill on pulse at all. I just got yelled at too many times for trying to suggest chilling as it was “too strong of a debuff” I think a 1 second immobilize when the symbol is laid down is still fine though, as it would work kind of like muddy terrain and the engineer’s glue shot. With the amount of condition reduction food being used at the moment in WvW, and the fact that people already fight in points in sPvP, I don’t see a 1 sec immobilize on symbol creation to be OP.

I get it, but here’s my concern.

As from the perspective of WvW.. most people in group play are typically Hammer/Staff.

Being able to toss down your staff symbol at range, switch into hammer -> imobl again, then ring them up… that’s a TON of ’ w t f ’ on the receiving side.

And seeing as how most are 2h mastery, it’s done every 12s on the staff. Then spec into symbols larger and symbols last longer… you’re pretty much better off than Muddy Terrain, which is already a phenomenal ability.

Maybe add in a “Chance to Proc”: IE 60% Chance to Chill on hit.

Could always get around it with an internal cooldown so you cant weapon switch and spam symbols that way. Honestly though I would like chill on symbols, makes more sense with the whole “magical knight” style they go with regarding gaurdians. Though you do have a point I always forget about staff and 2h mastery since i never use either >.>

Amins.3710:

Symbols should not immobilize.

I would suggest:

1) re-making Glacial Heart: Symbols Chill on pulse.

2) Protectors Impact: Create a Symbol of protection when you are Immobilized or Frozen.

I don’t mind symbols chill on pulse at all. I just got yelled at too many times for trying to suggest chilling as it was “too strong of a debuff” I think a 1 second immobilize when the symbol is laid down is still fine though, as it would work kind of like muddy terrain and the engineer’s glue shot. With the amount of condition reduction food being used at the moment in WvW, and the fact that people already fight in points in sPvP, I don’t see a 1 sec immobilize on symbol creation to be OP.

My personal fixes to traits focus in zeal, as it is currently our must under used and broken trait line.

1) Move Glacial heart to a 20 point talent in zeal, lower the duration, lower the CD, and make it work with all weapons. (something like 20 second cd, 2-3 second duration)

2) Upgrade zealous blade. a) make it include the 5% extra damage from greatsword power, (this will clear room for Glacial heart as well.) b) Either make it scale slightly with healing power, or buff the heal slightly.

3) Remove the 5 point talent and move each symbol talent down a tier (vulnerability on symbols to 5, symbol damage to 15, add in a 25 point trait to make symbols immobilize up to 3 targets for 1 second on the first pulse of the symbol. and cripple them for 1s on each pulse. Make it so only the cripple applies to Hammer symbol, as adding an immobilize to that spammable of a symbol would cause issues. This could also be a 30 point talent so you would have to choose between this an zealous blade. This talent also has the possibility to fix mace in a pvp setting, as mace has 0 snare and 0 gap closing, making it almost worthless unless you are bunkering on a point in sPvP

Wolfbrand.6523:

All professions suffer from some lackluster traits that never see any use. Guardian is no exception. Maybe we can get some visibility for the upcoming patch that is bringing trait changes. Post your trait ideas here!

Radiant Fire
Torch skills recharge 20% faster. Zealot’s Flame no longer burns, but now explodes dealing area damage on up to three foes.

Radiant fire doesn’t really need a change, 15% is plenty for already extremely short Cds on an offhand, and you are destroying the torch synergy with the 10% extra damage to burning targets in the zeal tree by removing the burning, if anything make torch #5 actually add burning with the trait.

Wolfbrand.6523:

Scepter Power
Scepter damage is increased by 5%. Smites area of effect is increased by 50%.

Making smite bigger would just hamper it more as it doesn’t pulse, is does 15 hits to targets in the effect. which would mean with a bigger area each hit would only hit a person like once in zergs, leading to a straight drop in damage per more targets. It would be better to have something where smite actually hits less times but does more damage per hit, that way it makes it better all around.

Wolfbrand.6523:

Inner Fire
When you are set on fire or inflict burning you gain 2 seconds of fury.

Inner fire is fine as it is, maybe even broken in sPvP and zerg vs zerg battles, as it has no CD already, and is applied each time burning is applied. Stand in an enemy fire field for the duration and then just cleanse the condition and boom, tons of fury.

Wolfbrand.6523:

Powerful Blades —> Harnessed Blades
Sword and spear damage is increased by 5%. Zealot’s Defense may be used while moving.

I really do not get why everyone complains that ZD needs to be able to be used while moving. Mesmers and warriors and thieves all have skills like ZD that root them while casting. The only difference is that they all have ways to immobilize/cripple on the same weapon, thus making them easier to land. Guardians need some CC on things other than hammer and scepter, not movement while using ZD.

Wolfbrand.6523:

Mace of Justice
Mace damage is increased by 5%. Symbol of Faith is instant.

Don’t mind mace of justice, though it still wouldn’t make me ever want to use mace >.>

Wolfbrand.6523:

Unscathed Contender —> Fury of the Saints
Deal 15% more damage while under the effects of aegis. When aegis is removed, you gain fury for 6 seconds.

The whole trait honestly needs to just be scrapped, it is more of a gimmick than a working trait, and is extremely situational.

Never test any skills on the target dummies in lion’s arch. Those things are so broken for what skills hit correctly and whatnot. From what I have seen the skill still seems to work fine, but will test again in a few mins just to make sure.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Lyssa

It is a known bug,

There are only 2 changed I would like to see to the 1h sword at the moment.

1) Increase flashing blade’s damage. Yes it is a great teleport gap closer, but it hits like a wet noodle. and least up it a tiny bit..

2) Make ZD’s projectile slightly angled (so they cross more like an X fashion) to make the attack slightly wider. This would solve the issue of people just completely strafing them at around 400 range.

Maiden England.3491:

How about you take a fully geared guardian into wvw with a sword and then come back and tell me what’s what. You obviously haven’t tried it enough.

I know this isn’t directed at me, but from someone who has used 1h sword in WvW for a LONG time, maybe you should just give up on using it, because it doesn’t seem to be the right weapon for you.

Setun.4368:

Bash.7291:

Words.

The point of my post was to show that there’s options. Now whether you want to complain about said options having a counter is your business, but the fact remains that we have tons of ways to keep in someone’s face, or at least control their movements. Every class has a way of negating / dodging their CC moves (i.e. blind will kitten over a ranger’s entangle and put it on full cooldown), and we ways of impairing their movement skills through knockdowns, and knockbacks. Also just a fun fact immobilizes still work on people who run with stability, so even if they walk out of your ring / line ward you can still keep them pinned for a few seconds via immobilizes. I do everything under the sun on my Guardian from solo roaming to zerging, and in none of those cases do I ever have an issue with chasing down enemies (unless they hide behind their gates), or getting away from what could be a bad situation. Do I still get caught / does an enemy escape? Of course, it’s going to happen sometimes, but I don’t run around crying that we have 0 ways of hard CCing or chasing someone. kitten happens, just deal with it and move on.

Once again, My issue with ring/line of warding isn’t that stability counters them, its the fact that they are bugged to begin with and allow people to dodge roll/ jump over them. Also, Staff is a support weapon, yes its great for zergs and all, but as a roamer, it sucks.

Yes, immobilize sticks through stability as well, but out of our 3 sources of it, only 1 is good at any range, and is almost a requirement to land another attack on the same weapon. Signet of wrath has a horrible passive for guardians, and really should not be taken in any circumstance, Zealots embrace is decent, but can easily be side stepped outside of 400-600 range, and not dodge rolled, just strafing away from it is enough.

I mean, I can give you the list of every CC or gap closer off the wiki if you want, you will see that guardian is severely lacking in almost every aspect compared to most classes, and even more so compared to the other two melee classes thieves and warriors, who also even have ranged options.

Good for you on being able to chase everyone down though. I guess you don’t get many thieves/warriors/eles/rangers/mesmers that turn tail when they start to lose.

foofad.5162:

There are so many z-axis targetting issues it’s not even funny. Sword Wave isn’t the only one, Staff auto has issues too, particularly hitting things below the character. Greatsword leap still flings you into the air and drops you down instead of sending you directly at a lower target,

Which is funny because after watching a ranger’s swoop, which should work pretty much exactly the same, they dont have a z-axis issue and it drops you down. Only thing nice about it not working correctly is shooting long gaps with the GS leap.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Bash.7291:

Just as an example of how much CC we honestly lack:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stun
Only necros and guardians are the only classes in the game without stuns
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cripple
Only class in the game with horrible cripple ability (underwater downed skill, and elite tome which nobody uses)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Daze
Only available on an elite tome
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chill
Only available on a horrible trait with a huge CD
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Immobilize
The only CC we have, Which alot of other classes have as well.

You’re kidding right? Push, Pull, Launch don’t count as CC? They are by far the most valuable hard CC’s in a conquest game.

Additionally Ring of Warding and Line of Warding are unique mechanics that are not available to any other class, and the ability to prevent opponents from entering the node space is also wildly valuable. If an opponent touches either, then they are also hard CC’d.

Guardian isn’t perfect, but CC is not what it is lacking.

Once again, I talk regarding WvW as I have mentioned 2 previous times in this thread. Yes, launch and knockback are CCs which do 0 for keeping enemies near you, which is a problem for guardians in WvW. Yes, Ring of warding and line of warding are good, but are also completely negated by stability, which everyone and their mother spams now, and are also broken mechanics which can be dodged and actually JUMPED over. As far as pulls go we have 1, which falls off the second that someone goes out of 600 range of, which as I said, is as simple as a charge or teleport ability, Also Binding blades has a very distinctive animation that makes it very easy to outright dodge.

And before the “this isnt a WvW thread comment”, I brought it up because of the fact that we are great in spvp only because we have point control, in other parts of the game, such as WvW, we are lacking.

Setun.4368:

Alot of stuff

…. I run a meditation build, and have for a very long time now….

CC:
Bane signet: Pretty good
Signet of wrath: Horrible passive
Binding blade: Decent but any charge/teleport is going to put the enemy out of the 600 yard pull range
Ring of warding: Buggy as hell, people can get out without stability
Line of warding: Same issue as ring of warding, also on a support weapon.
Zealot’s embrace: Easily dodged outside of like 400 range due to it being a slow moving straight line.
Shield of absorbtion: Pushes people away… not exactly the best thing for a guardian to do when trying to chase someone.
Chains of light: Good
Sanctuary: Long CD, also does nothing to keep people near you unless you have ground targeting and place it infront/in tight areas.
Wall of reflection: Helps great against ranged, does nothing to keep people near you
Spirit hammer: pretty bad now that they can be killed, and requires a very specific trait set up to use correctly. only useful in spvp

Retreat: Horrible utility to have on a med build, or any build in general, long cd, and only gives one aegis block, it is literally nothing more than a 20sec swiftness on a 60 sec cd
Save yourselves: Good utility, but once again, wasted on a med build due to long CD
JI: Best utility we have IMO, never leaves my bar, but also requires a target and has a 45 sec cd (less if traited, but still long for a gap closer)
Flashing Blade: Pretty good, does need an enemy to use correctly as well.
Symbol of swiftness: Doesnt stack correctly with other swiftness buffs, also on a support weapon
Contemplation: I wouldn’t really call this mobility, it might give you swiftness at times and yes it does clear CC, but it doesnt really do much to catch up to people. That being said it is still a great utility
Leap of faith: Good gap closer, but has slight terrain issues.
Mighty Blow: … a 300 range attack… it barely gets you anywhere.

Also keep in mind, that you list all this stuff, but ALOT of it you cant have at once, like hammer has great CC, and 0 gap closing. 1h sword has a gap closer but no CC, in a meditation build you have to run at least 2 meditations, one of which is smite condition and generally the other is judges. while judges is great, if someone has swiftness they instantly outrun you after you use it. That leaves your room for 1 more utility, which is not going to be enough to pin someone down for long enough.

The big issue is that without hammer/scepter, we don’t have much CC to follow our gap closers up with, and even then, half the time we have to use CC to even be able to land our hits. (Zealots defense due to the nature of the projectiles, WW, due to slow movement speed, smite due to small area targeting) that leaves us having to burn our CC just land hits and not to actually keep an enemy close.

Just as an example of how much CC we honestly lack:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stun
Only necros and guardians are the only classes in the game without stuns
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cripple
Only class in the game with horrible cripple ability (underwater downed skill, and elite tome which nobody uses)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Daze
Only available on an elite tome
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chill
Only available on a horrible trait with a huge CD
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Immobilize
The only CC we have, Which alot of other classes have as well.

Sil.4560:

Good for you, you’re not playing easymode. That said, your class still has more options available for viable builds than a class like the warrior does, which is something that needs to change also. Forcing classes into little holes so that they can only play one or so viable roles is a horrible way to design a game with competitive play, IMO.

Viable builds…. 10/30/30/0/0 RHS builds, 0/x/30/30/x AH/EM builds, 0/0/10/30/30 Healway builds. Though there are some slight variations to these builds, all in all, we have about 3 well used viable builds. Yes there are random off builds (like the one I use) But those are generally specific to the person that uses them, and set for that one person’s playstyle. What I find funny is that a warrior also has things things that we don’t have, such as range and mobility and CC, which in WvW (which is my main focus) are huge and can determine the outcome of the battle. To gain any of these (except for range, which we have 0 of because of scepter AA speed) We have to sacrifice alot. I would honestly kill just to get a little bit of the CC that a warrior has, maybe I could kill runners in WvW at that point.

Huh, that is odd, I thought they fixed this a while back, I will have to test again to see if it came back.

Back from the Jan 28th game update:

Sword Wave: This skill is now able to strike gadgets that are low to the ground.

Sil.4560:

Don’t be dumb. I’m tired of overly forgiving classes like guardians being such a faceroll while I’m actually playing a class that requires some semblance of effort to achieve the same results. I’m here as a reminder that no, you aren’t as fantastic as you think you are, and that you’re hiding behind class imbalance for a number of your successes. As soon as we get ways to bring down this noob-friendly bunker blight easier, things will be much better.

So you are here in the guardian forums to do nothing but complain about guardians… at least that is what I hear in pretty much every single thread you reply in. And before the “You only say that because you play a faceroll bunker class” comment back at me, I only play damage based builds, not bunkers.

60-70ish is about the best you are going to get unless you want to start sacrificing stats at a higher ratio. You can look up the item nomenclature chart on the wiki to see what the ratios are and were the best places to get them are. Best spots are the gems for jewelry, accessories ( not rings) ammulet, and shoulder/boots/gloves are the lowest hard stat losses. I always do weapons as well since they provide the largest actual crit damage number.

akamon.2769:

iirc, and from experience, i think instant medi only really affects Smite Condition (which can be useful in PvP). Judge’s and Contemplation should be instant already (might have to double check Contemplation).

depending on your build, instant medi is good for Smite Condition to get rid of the exact condition / get rid of a condition faster or to pull it off while not having to wait for your current animation / action to complete first.

unless, if i completely missed what Lighter meant by instant medi.

The trait was alot more usefull before, when contemplation was not a stun break and had a cast time, however they changed it a long time ago so now only merciful intervention and smite condition have a cast time. And honestly Smite condition’s 1/4 second cast time is pretty much nothing and shouldn’t really mess with any other skills. Merciful’s randomness pushes alot of people away from it already so the trait really is not as useful as other ones in that skill tree.

Lighter.5631:

Bash.7291:

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Maybe I am over reacting, but I main a Necro, have played Thief, Mesmer an Ele as well (though I found pre-nerf ele bunkering to be so distasteful that I refused to do it). Now that I have spent a little time focusing on my Guardian in tPvP as a bunker I feel a bit like I am fishing with dynamite.

What I mean by that is I pugged a group and we rolled some premades that we really had no business beating based on talent just because their guard was bad and they could not neut the mid point, ever, unless we chose to let them. I don’t consider myself to even be good at Guard at this point, and it just seems like the sustain/CC combination that I can bring to a match requires SOOOOO much from the opponent to take me off point that as soon as I have a point in control there is no possible way that 2 players are going to neut the point on me unless they are both better players than I am, or my team has focused elsewhere and I know I am suiciding for points.

Has this occurred to anyone else playing Guard? I guess what I am saying is that in a game where standing in the circle is the single most important thing it seems like the Guardian is far better suited than anyone to do that without having to sacrifice the ability to contribute to team fights.

Can someone help ease my conscience on this please? I really am enjoying the CC machine bunker style play, but I know that I could not reproduce this result on any of the other classes I have played, and that bothers me.

Honestly Guardians are extremely good at holding points due to how the class was built. They were made with the ideal that once you are in a fight, you are stuck there, and thus we have the tools to make that happen, well at least in t/sPvp at least. The issue with guardians though falls into other pvp like WvW, where forcing people to stand in a small circle for a length of time doesn’t happen, and it shows how bad the profession is for CC/Mobility in a larger field.

I honestly consider it a semi even trade, We cant catch people to kill them in WvW, so we can defend points well in s/tPvP. Though it does suck playing a roaming guardian in WvW for that point -.-

i run dps gs / sword focus instant medi build in tpvp. and i have no problem catching people with insane speed.

Thats why I said we have issues catching people in WvW, not s/tPvP… I have no issues either in there, but WvW is a completely different issue.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inner_Fire

Yeah, its 3 seconds per application of burning (not per second of burning) I always run this skill in sPvP since there seems to be an insane amount of bow warriors in there for some reason. I personally don’t think it really needs a change outside of maybe needing to be worded correctly

Anyways, on topic for torch, I do agree that the cleanse needs to be available for yourself, just like ele’s water channel heals them. (Which is why I am confused as to how it doesn’t already cleanse on self.) The Z-axis thing is annoying and also effects other skills like zealots blade and such as well.

As far as putting cleansing flame on a shorter channel I honestly think it would be better as a trait. Add it into the torch CD trait to make it channel shorter and It would be fine. Just lowering the CD alone on it without might make it a bit too strong with both cleansing and that much of an increase in damage on it. Also the fact that it is on a fairly short CD to begin with.

kurtosis.9526:

Thanks for the feedback everyone, much appreciated. I’ve decide to go Asura, primarily for two reasons:

1. I want to get a Commander Tome on my guardian, and since Commander Hunting is a thing, I want to be as hard to pick out and target as possible. My guys can see the blue tag easily, but hopefully I’ll get lost in the zerg from the enemy’s point of view. Of course, that doesn’t help vs people who just tab through looking for the Commander icon, but still better than my huge Norn.

2. After trying out an Asura I like how Hammer actually doesn’t feel terribly sluggikitten still feels a little slow on a Human.

3. The Asura T3 Tron armor is so cool it makes me actually care about armor skins. Never saw it in Abyss before.

I personally hunt asura for that exact reason in zergs lol. But it is true, the larger you are the more likely you are to be targeted. And yeah, for some reason the larger classes do feel very slow with their animations, (My original char was a char warrior who I ended up dumping, just recently made a sylvari warrior and found it to be much more to my liking and feeling alot faster)

Linguistically Inept.6583:

sure bunker guards cant chase people down…
a meditation+sword guard can

yeah… until the enemy has swiftness and simply outruns you after your gap closers….

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Maybe I am over reacting, but I main a Necro, have played Thief, Mesmer an Ele as well (though I found pre-nerf ele bunkering to be so distasteful that I refused to do it). Now that I have spent a little time focusing on my Guardian in tPvP as a bunker I feel a bit like I am fishing with dynamite.

What I mean by that is I pugged a group and we rolled some premades that we really had no business beating based on talent just because their guard was bad and they could not neut the mid point, ever, unless we chose to let them. I don’t consider myself to even be good at Guard at this point, and it just seems like the sustain/CC combination that I can bring to a match requires SOOOOO much from the opponent to take me off point that as soon as I have a point in control there is no possible way that 2 players are going to neut the point on me unless they are both better players than I am, or my team has focused elsewhere and I know I am suiciding for points.

Has this occurred to anyone else playing Guard? I guess what I am saying is that in a game where standing in the circle is the single most important thing it seems like the Guardian is far better suited than anyone to do that without having to sacrifice the ability to contribute to team fights.

Can someone help ease my conscience on this please? I really am enjoying the CC machine bunker style play, but I know that I could not reproduce this result on any of the other classes I have played, and that bothers me.

Honestly Guardians are extremely good at holding points due to how the class was built. They were made with the ideal that once you are in a fight, you are stuck there, and thus we have the tools to make that happen, well at least in t/sPvp at least. The issue with guardians though falls into other pvp like WvW, where forcing people to stand in a small circle for a length of time doesn’t happen, and it shows how bad the profession is for CC/Mobility in a larger field.

I honestly consider it a semi even trade, We cant catch people to kill them in WvW, so we can defend points well in s/tPvP. Though it does suck playing a roaming guardian in WvW for that point -.-

There are a few people on here that do agree that things that are broken need to be fixed (see the fix to zeal thread). But I think more of the issue is that so many people are set in their standard builds and thoughts that guardian are not meant to build damage that they really don’t care about changes because it does not effect their current build. I know personally I think this way towards non damage builds, since I play mostly roaming WvW, however I am generally not one to jump in and say “hey we don’t need these changes” furthest I will go is to fix the more broken things first. (such as zeal trait line, our lack of combined CC/Mobility, etc)

foofad.5162:

I’ll look once I get home from work, but some corrections: Soldiers gear can be bought on the TP, it’s called Sentinel. Mace is not the lowest damage if we are talking 1v1. What makes Mace less viable is groups of enemies, because unlike basically every other melee weapon, Mace doesn’t cleave 3 targets on its last hit.

I’ll help you ou in depth once I get home.

Sentinel is actually slight different from Soldiers, It has Vitality as its main stat, instead of Power like soldiers. It is kind of random honestly but it is slightly different. And I would think that mace would actually be best for groups of mobs since symbol is aoe, and the #3 skill is pretty good damage AoE. I mean, Sword only gets auto attack cleave, and scepter only gets smite which is even more horrible vs multiple targets.

YiSC.1983:

Bash.7291:

YiSC.1983:

A symbol build could work well depending on what situations you end up finding yourselves in.
I find them fun in sPvP but I’ve been too lazy to get the equips to run it in WvW.

Wouldnt bother symbol builds are fine for point defence in spvp because people need to be on points to take/defend them. In WvW there is alot more available space to move and not sit in a symbol.

If they’re finding themselves in a zerg situation I can see some uses for it :o
Both symbols are very defensive so he would be able to front-line pretty well while also ticking damage against ~5 people.

True, but when people notice they are taking 1k damage crits because of what they are standing on they tend to move. You also run into the issue of symbol builds requiring points in zeal to maximize potential, It is going to be hard to make a tanky build with points in zeal in a WvW setting.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.3|b.1g.h2.d.1c.h19|1.1p.h1l|1n.7c.1c.7c.1c.7c.1c.7c.1n.7c.1c.7c|1i.61.1n.61.1n.61.1g.61.1i.61.1c.61|a2.u24b.u61c.0.0|16.1|w.1a.15.13.1i|e

Pretty standard 1v1 roaming build. Can replace sword with scepter for more burst damage, which i would then suggest switching the signet cd trait for vulnerability on blind. Has 3k+ toughness but not that much health, but between meditations healing you, passive regen from virtue, and shelter you should be fine for any 1v1 or small group roaming. The build itself does not have much condition removal, which I use food to balance it slightly, since most condition builds wont have enough kick to kill you outright before you just strait out out damage them. If you feel you need more removal, drop bane signet for contemplation of purity, which also gives you a third heal off your utilities.

YiSC.1983:

A symbol build could work well depending on what situations you end up finding yourselves in.
I find them fun in sPvP but I’ve been too lazy to get the equips to run it in WvW.

Wouldnt bother symbol builds are fine for point defence in spvp because people need to be on points to take/defend them. In WvW there is alot more available space to move and not sit in a symbol.

As i already told chris, pretty much the same stuff in the podcast that he gets on my case for on a daily basis. not running more support style in zergs, using 1h weapons in groups the standard stuff :p

Still a good podcast, though I would have thought they would talk more about his specific build rather than general WvW questions, but then again it makes sense since he is the first true wvw guard to be on this.

Sandra Martino.3870:

Actually, they do. Yes you can rune for boon duration or take Retreat, SY + a staff… The latter which i actually do but if you do any other build/setup you cannot keep up with the zerg and other professions do not have this disadvantage.

That said, there are 2 more issues that need to be fixed before this, scepter auto + zeal trait line. Much much much more important.

I only ever need staff to keep up with a zerg, and sometimes not even that. Most zergs are pretty good at keeping up swiftness on people. The key is making sure not to end up in a tail of the leading commander.

akamon.2769:

I’ll take on this challenge with you, OP! I ran 0/0/10/30/30 with hammer + mace/shield for a long time and a loved it. Huge staying power, and I still killed. Arguably, not as much as fast as our other builds. I’ll try and come up with sth other than what you’ve listed. Though, I will say a symbol build would work magic! trapping a group with hammer 5 and drop double symbols? Game over.

Ever try running a RHS damage build with mace? Its pretty decent. The only issue is the complete lack of mobility. I might try messing around with a different build later, maybe something along the lines of a 10/30/0/30/0 build based around group play.

Cempa.5619:

Jax.5261:

http://tinyurl.com/afzt9sz

Hard counters Phantasm Mesmer. Just so everybody knows.

Hi Silven.

Would this build translate well into WvW? If so would you use full Knight?

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.3|b.1g.h2.f.1g.h19|1.1p.h1l|1n.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1n.7r.1c.7r|1p.61.1n.61.1n.61.1g.61.1i.61.1c.61|a2.u24b.u61c.0.0|16.1|w.12.15.13.1i|e

Is the version I currently run in wvw. Normally I run with a Soldier focus offhand but I deleted it on accident when I was getting rid of some extra copies of Spvp gear >.< The build has good condition negation through food and melandru runes, along with sigil of generosity and smite condition. I generally only run contemplation of purity while with zergs as a panic button, while roaming it can easily be switched out for signet of judgement for added defense, or bane signet for added power/CC. If you are roaming you could also forgo the GS for sword/torch as well, but the big issue is the lack of AoE on pretty much all of our 1h weapons, so if you run into a 1 v X situation it might cause issues.

For a 10/30/30/0/0 build I tend to use it when I am about to burst people in Spvp/WvW, as burning adds 20% damage to my attacks, and I would rather try to wait for them to waste condition removal before I burn my best source of burning. (har har) In Pve I just spam the hell out of it since it refreshes on every kill, and in Dungeon I just spam because the total duration from each person attacking the boss ends up being longer than the CD anyways.

Daecollo.9578:

Yes, change there damage reduction signet to movement speed please.

…. No, hell no, you leave the damage reduction signet alone, that thing is amazing. 10% straight damage reduction, retal on allies and weakness on enemies on use on a short cd… I do not believe there is a better signet in the game other than maybe warrior elite which has a useless passive.

yeah… as much as our mobility is crap outside of a horrible utility and a support weapon, I would much prefer some snares so we might be actually able to kill something while roaming every once and a while.

Sorem.9157:

Exactly what I am saying lol. People cant get immobilize out oftheir heads, but that would generate us a 5x 1s immobilize on a symbol which is AoE. Imagine that on a team fight, all u have to do is pull everyone and then lock them, lol. Cripple fits the Guardian perfectly, and so does chill (Hence we have Glacial Heart). I made it blind because it is actually harder to land during the raw gs combo and i didnt want Anet to think it would be too strong, plus it could be used more often if failed. Many classes have stupidly easy access to cripple, and i cant figure out why guardians, as an essentially melee class dont. IN MY HONEST OPINION i thinkthat cripple on symbol would be the best go, but i was scared of anet thinking they shouldnt givr the greatsword even more AoE power haha xD

As I said before, I would love our slows to be chill based, but alot of people blasted that idea before, mostly because of the 66% CD increase that comes along with chill, and the effect that would have regarding our already decent survivability. Though, to be honest, a 1 sec chill pulse on symbols I do not think would be an issue, as once you move out of the symbol you are pretty much free, and the only weapon that you can spam symbols on is hammer, which is easily avoided anyways.

I just do not feel that cripple makes as much sense as chill, considering guardians are more of a magic based knight, were warriors are the physical based.

foofad.5162:

It takes 2.5 seconds to complete it’s chain, yes. That’s including the full begin and end animation times. But there’s only a half a second between the actual hits. Hit 1 happens almost instantly, hit 2 happens half a second later, cools down, hit 3 happens half a second after that. All told, from first damage to last damage, is one and a half seconds. You can sanity-check this by actually looking at the tooltips – First swing has no cast time because it’s instant (but does have an animation before damage is applied and it can be interrupted). Second swing has half a second cast time, third has half a second cast time, and then what isn’t show is the wind-down animation at the end of Sword Wave.

But we don’t care about chains, we care about burst, as you said. And when you compare the damage values, Sword slightly edges out Torch in terms of how much damage is applied in the one second it takes to activate, cast, and lob Torch 4. We know this, again, thanks to the tooltips. With a Berserker amulet and no traits, Sword Arc and Sword of Wrath do 562 damage, and Sword Wave does 1053 (each projectile doing one third of that). Add it, multiply it by .66 (because we only care about two thirds of that because our time frame is one second) and you get 1436 and change. The tooltip on Torch 4 is 1422.

So no, it’s not more burst damage. It’s virtually the same, or less if you’re being critical. It’s even doubly less because no one, in reality, is going to interrupt their sword auto attack.

And Torch 5 is still terrible.

Yay math!

So, 1200 (rounding up) with the first 2 auto attacks, 1650 total with AA #3

2400+1650= 4050

4050 × .66 = 2673

2673 vs 3000… (btw going on tooltips is bad mmmmkay?)

Don’t make me compare it to scepter AA in the same situation too, because yeah, its way less.

Devils.3679:

Why are people talking Torch? i started this thread to get other guardians like Lightrayne.7829 to say yes people scepter is bad(99% of the time). i know Anet put it in so new player could get use to the game and learn how fights worked(Yes i did this also). I just want to encourage players to say “Hey i’m a melee class and that its how i will learn to play to benefit my team”. If it dungeon dps you want why are people talking sword torch? GS/staff delivers the most substained AoE dps with the right build. With dungeons AoE is what you want and i can still hit for over 10k on single target. Thats without full zerker as we need to stay on our feet.

Because scepter is completely fine? Why force people to play melee when they can pretty much do the same with a ranged weapon? If you only made a thread to get people to agree with you on principal alone, then why make the thread? You had to know people would disagree. (And I am sorry about the torch tangent, but all offhands must also be considered when we are comparing a 1h weapon to 2h weapons.)

foofad.5162:

Bakitten291:

foofad.5162:

>implying torch has better DPS than autoattacking

A) he said burst, overall sustained dps auto attack is higher than any other damage ability
B) try torch #4 sometime, one of the highest single target burst a guardian has (only second to maybe a well done ZD)

Torch 4 takes a second to cast with its animation. Sword autoattack takes one and a half seconds. If you add a full sword attack cycle’s worth of damage and take two thirds of it, it slightly out-damages torch 4. In other words, the only thing worthwhile about torch 4 is the burning, and since you have Virtue of Justice anyway it’s basically pointless. Its only saving grace is being ranged… but it’s a projectile and can be blocked and reflected as such. Scepter hits just as hard due to its fast attack speed. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about burst damage or DPS if the time-frame is the same and you deal the same amount of damage. Torch also doesn’t have a dedicated damage multiplier trait, so it’s even further behind in damage than what I said if you pick up the Sword or Scepter power traits.

Torch 5 does less than a third of the damage in its 4.25 second cast than autoattacking does, and it doesn’t even cleave 5 targets like a regular AOE, it only hits 3.

Lastly, where burst damage is most important is in short fights and PvP. Burst damage is meaningless against bosses and large groups of trash. Since we’re talking about PvE here, burst is much less important than sustained damage.

In summary: Torch is bad, don’t use it.

First off, sword AA takes 2.5 seconds to complete its chain. same as GS, the only difference is the number of hits. Second, Sword AA #3 is actually considered projectiles and can be blocked and reflected as well so even then that falls into the same catagory as torch throw.

Third, I just tested this in the mists. 3k damage crit with my torch throw on a heavy golem 1.2k same target, same set up with sword auto attack crit. even with 2 sword auto attacks (which would take longer than the torch throw) you still do not equal the damage of torch throw. Even with the power traits, it still would not catch up in damage.

So yes, it is more burst damage. And to which I repeat, he said burst damage, not sustained dps.

foofad.5162:

>implying torch has better DPS than autoattacking

A) he said burst, overall sustained dps auto attack is higher than any other damage ability
B) try torch #4 sometime, one of the highest single target burst a guardian has (only second to maybe a well done ZD)

Devils.3679:

May i remind us Guardians that we are one of two heavy armor classes the one of them 2 that has the best damage mitigating skills. if we are saying that fights can not be melee what does that say about the game, I do use scepter but not to sound like i’m having a go but i use it when i’m being lazy. Yes i am always lazy when i fight GL(lupi)lol. but come on i run a balanced zerker soldiers mix and melee anywhere i go.

A Guardian with a scepter is just a let down to any party. Come on if a mob moves you lose 100% of your burst dmg and that burst dmg is low at best mace auto attack can hit for more in a single attack than what smite hits for in total.

Uhhhh. 100% of your burst? You must not run torch offhand very often.

Jax.5261:

http://tinyurl.com/afzt9sz

Hard counters Phantasm Mesmer. Just so everybody knows.

Pretty much, I run 10/30/30/0/0 variant and don’t have any real issues with mesmers 1v1, unless i screw up bad and keep focusing clones instead of him -.-

Only main difference is that I run knights ammy and zerker’s jewel.

Bloodgruve.6038:

10/30/0/25/5 is what I run for RHS.

Fiery Wrath – 10% to burning targets
Radiant Power – 10% to condition’d targets
Elusive Power – 10% when under 100% endurance
Powerful Blades – 5% with Sword

Throw on Empowering Might and Inspired Virtue+Renewed Justice+Blind Justice you’ll build a decent stack. Its also nice to grab the Honor tree simply for the HP, you can more easily go into Zerker gear this way. With Omnomberry Pie and Sigil of Blood you’ll heal a decent amount, get in trouble just back off to ranged until you can get back in. Mace is another option here as it gives more healing, damage output doesn’t match Sword but its not too far off if you can manage your symbol and Protectors Strike.

If you want a bit more versatility and support go 10/30/0/30/0 for the ability to work with 2h weapons and/or Pure of Voice, also good for WvW. 10/30/30/0/0 will give you that sought after Altruistic Healing and some big crits, your hp will be lower here so more proactive survival is needed.

GL,

Blood~

so…. little… armor… Shiver

Dub.1273:

Guardians lack of damage and offensive buffs. Also they can’t inflict long duratiom conditions. Give a guardian perma fury, get critdmg into radiance and make them able to inflict conditions permanently – then they’d be as good as warriors. (InPvE!)

Guardians don’t lack the damage, most players just lack the willingness to spec towards that damage. Any deep radiance/valor build with the right gear is going to put out alot of damage, the issue is that most people cant get away from the honor trait line that offers very little damage and is pretty much a support/bunker line.

As far as perma fury, I really do not believe that is the solution, as honestly it is very easy to get crit % on a guardian, (RHS easily pushes my 1h crit into 60+%, with just regular non perc 2h weapon im above 30%) Also we do have sources of fury that are easily overlooked. Radiance has a 10 point trait that gives your fury each time you suffer from burning, which in wvw, and even more so in Spvp you get ALOT, even more so fighting another guardian. Save Yourself has 10 second fury which can be upped with boon duration, and also runes of the pack, which are great for group based damage guardians gives you and allies might, fury, and swiftness when struck.
I used to believe that guardians needed more fury as well until I actually looked into it and figured out how to get it.

Keep in mind this thread is for fixing the zeal line, not just damage in general.