Guild Wars 2

I would love this but anet doesn’t take our suggestions

dd ele stronker

guardian is one of the best classes to deal with burst due to our blocks and blinds, typically you shouldn’t lose unless youre totally outplayed.

Charak.9761:

“Best guardian in the world”

all bunkers. That’s Cute.

bulletpunch

Voting for you. I don’t even care if the event is gonna be bad because of it, if anet is too stupid to send the only person who really desreves to go then it doesn’t really matter anymore.

ty tage i appreciate it when a really experienced guardian makes some pointers like this

hehk.8705:

Why is blu not just being flown out?

He has done more work than anyone else in the community and deserves it more than anyone. At the same time he is not a top tier player like the others on the list and should not be playing in an “All Stars” competition, he is a caster not a player and we do not want the casting mess that was pax.

Staff Auto
Doesn’t do dmg, doesn’t support. What’s it for? Idk either but it breaks all the windows on one side of Clocktower in one auto, that’s cool right ?
Staff 2
Really important skill. This and dodge heals do the majority of your direct healing support. When playing offensively, intelligence will usually give you 2k hits. Try not to detonate when you’re going for more dmg, since the dmg is tiny and the cd goes super high. When healing allies, always detonate if you know it’ll hit. That’ll land for a 2k heal every 10s which is pretty awesome. To aim it try to select enemies your allies are near or just manually aim by deselecting target or selecting ally and adjusting your camera.
Staff 3
I usually just throw this below my feet in team fights whenever it’s up. Sometimes I’ll give it to allies if they need to kite (necros and mesmers don’t have swiftness give them some love)
Always use it when it’s up since it now stacks.
Pro tip: Change your major trait for symbol duration before the match starts so your team gets 10s more swiftness, just make sure you change it back before the game starts though.

Empower
Every guard loves this skill. It’s so awesome. In a team fight it heals like 8k and also lands a 2.5k heal on allies. This skill is important to use correctly. I usually try to break LoS by going off point and have a teammate temporarily stand on point while I heal myself up and give da might stax. Also I always immediately empower when a stomp is failed due to a refuge. Since my dmg without mace 3 is completely horrid, I might as well take the moment to give might and heal everyone a little, especially myself. You have to remember Empower and Shelter are the two skills that are mostly for keeping yourself alive, so use them cautiously.
Line of Warding
Epic. Guardian can decap players who are dumb enough to leave point and no way to get back to it easily. Also amazing for locking down a player attempting to leave point or kite on graveyard. Most guards waste their Line when running to mid point off the bat but i feel like its a waste since most good guards won’t pop a Stab for it. If placed correctly this skill can also interrupt stomps and rezzes. Also, interrupting a guardians shelter with this is a dream come true.

Dodge Heal
Needs a section of its own. This kitten heals for over 800 on an ally in mace and you have a dodge like every 3 seconds. Doing the math that’s like 250 healing per second. Almost another healing signet! Take into account your Regeneration boon and staff 2 proc you can probably heal someone around 600-700hp per second. So don’t tell me bunker guards healing isn’t OP af!
Anyway, practice positioning yourself so you will land your dodge heals on allies. When someone on my team is being focused, I typically am almost entirely focused on landing dodge heals and orbs in order to keep him alive just long enough to down someone else. Of course you still want to watch your other allies as well as condition pressure on everyone, but your positioning and weapon skill usage should typically be dedicated to support on your focused ally.

Rotations
Guard always wants to be in the team fights as mentioned above. A good rule is if there are 3 enemies on one point you should be there. Try not to let your team leave you alone on a point. (Speaking about mid mostly). Leave someone else to defend it in case they 1v1, while you rotate typically between mid and far and in some cases help home if they rush. Guards are actually pretty strong in 2v2, however, when defending a point you don’t want to be with a squishy person who kites. Because you’re defending, the enemy knows they can’t kill you and will just 2v1 the squishy with little support since he’s off point. (However if hes good enough he may just completely disengage and reset like a thief) This doesn’t apply to assaulting though as the enemy has to be 1 person on point doing practically nothing while your squishy nails him while kiting the other.
Just try to never be the one to stay and cap a point. Often even my team makes the mistake of leaving me to finish capping mid after a team fight. Only exception is when the only other choice are Mesmer, CS Thief, power necro etc that shouldn’t be on point.

Other things I just remembered

Thanks for reading and remember, I’d like to hear how you guys play bunker guard. One reason I made this thread is because there really isn’t much discussion on how to play Bunker Guard the most effectively, and it’s be cool to do that here.

Hold the Line!
This is usually considered the least important shout, which is true. When removing condis, you probably want to pop this one first. However still remember it has several seconds of protection that can be used as described above with Courage.

Stand Your Ground
Might be the only reason people run bunker guard, this skill is that important. If you waste this skill you did your team a disfavor. Some people say to save it for stomps but tbh that’s not true. Pretty much everyone on your team has another way to get a stomp, including you with virtues and focus. Use stab when your team needs it, if people are getting cc’d in AoE dmg then that’s perfect. But don’t waste it as something stupid like a stun break when you’re not being focused.

Save Yourselves
This is your teams full cleanse. You’re AH, you don’t die. So if you see 5 million condis on your team, hit one button and GG. Usually once you cleanse your team they’ll help peel for you until you recover from having 25 stacks of torment and confusion for 10 seconds. Also good for peeling for the person being focused. 7s immob? Np ill take that. Immobilize is always near last priority on cleanses so this skill is vital for taking it off.

Shelter
This is the only skill you don’t have to worry about saving. Just pop that kitten when you don’t feel safe. It’s good for completely negating burst or heavy Aoes while healing at the same time.

Renewed Focus
Some people make the mistake of not using this utility until you’re low. Um hello you’re AH you’re not gonna die. Pop this once all virtues are on CD and you don’t feel like the fight is about to end in your favor. I usually use it right before someone goes down so ill have a blind and block for the rez/stomp.

Weapon skills!
First off let me explain sigils. Energy is obvious since that’s more healing and more living. Intelligence however is a bit more iffy. You get the definite vigor proc giving you 60% more dodges (not including energy sigils) but also you actually get some dmg!! Try it out. Protector strike or staff orb with intelligence and watch the 2-3k hits. More deeps sure is nice especially when you lose practically no support compared to Renewal or something.

Mace Autos
Yup you’ll do this. When you weapon swap you want to auto a couple times after your protector strike for a few more thousand dmg. The third is also a heal. I’ve given people support by autoing AI next to the ally being focused
Mace 2
Good for setting up an empower, you’re gonna stand in one spot anyway you might as well take the extra 1.5k heal from sitting in the symbol. Also good for setting on a downed ally right before they go down and likewise for a downed enemy. More people will be there which means more heals cuz AH and that regen tick.
Protector Strike Mace 3
Awesome skill. Can be used defensively or offensively. I’ve downed people using this skill and have hit up to 4k. Also good for an instant block when switching out of staff. It can also be used to body block for someone stomping a downed person. However, when doing this, make sure you’re farther away from the downed person than the person stomping. This will block the interrupt for your ally but you’ll still be hit by it.
Ray of Judgement Focus 4
This skill isn’t the best in our kitten nal to be honest. It’s a good self cleanse. Also can be used to blind enemies who hit hard like zerker warr or necro. Trying to blind before a stomp with it can work but usually doesn’t.
Shield of Judgement Focus 5
This is practically required for AH guard. Because you don’t have the second Stability ability, you need this to confirm stomps. Comboing this with Justice is usually guaranteed stomp in team fights. Also can be used to protect yourself when CCd when you don’t want to burn a CD or you just don’t have any left. One of the coolest things is trying to steal Meditations on Temple with this. Ask people I’ve played with and they’ll no doubt mention how I steal stillness in the middle of a 4v4. One of the best ways to do this is divert your team away from the buff, then having you pop Renewed Focus for the passive aegis. Then you can start casting, use Shield when hit once, then virtue again after the shield ends. Also use Justice for another blind if they’re close. The amount of steals you can get by doing this is actually ridiculous.

COOL DOWN MANAGEMENT
This is pretty much what defines how good of a guardian someone is. If you spam abilities and you don’t win the fight quickly, it’s GG and you lose the fight. But if you hold onto those CDs too long, you’l lose efficiency and maybe lose the team fight due to subpar support. It’s really tough to get this exactly right, as you have to take into account your comp and the enemy comp and have to understand how long a fight will last.
“Tempo” is what I refer to is how fast team fights go. This depends on both team comps. If both times are really heavy burst and high damage specs, the tempo will be high. Thus, you want to be burning those CDs quickly and giving support to the person being focused just long enough so you can knock someone out on the other side. Furthermore, I’d both teams are really tanky, you want to be really slow with your CDs due to slow tempo. Due to how CC works in this game, someone can be 100-0’d in a team fight just because of a good immobilize or CC train. Thus, you want to be using minor utilities to keep everyone alive, but you have to save some important CDs for those burst attempts.

Now this is the part where I go through every skill in your kitten nal and tell you when to use it effectively and efficiently.
Virtues:
Virtue of Justice
This skill is mostly used for the blind. As mentioned above, you can stop things like Earthshakers. This is especially important if you’re empowering without Stab, since you don’t want to burn an aegis for something like that.
It’s also good for the burning. Coordinating with a terrormancer to give them burn when condi bursting can add thousands of burst dmg with just this one skill. One of the most common uses is to blind a 2 skill in downed state while stomping. Likewise, you can stop incoming CCs while rezzing with it. Overall this skill is really important, so don’t waste if for da might stax.
Virtue of Resolve
Best healing utility NA. 2k+ heal at 1200 range wot yes!! And regen!! If you’re coming into a point with a person losing a 1v1, popping this might just be all they need to win. Furthermore, it’s good for that little heal some people need to stay alive until their utilities come back up. The 1200 range means it can hit anyone, even your free casting engi or Mesmer on the roof of clock tower.
Virtue of Courage
One of our best utilities. Since if has such a long CD, I try to save it til someone needs it. One of its best uses is when someone is down. The protection + aegis will almost guarantee a Rez when combined with Resolute Healer. However you typically want to pop it once you see something like a hammer stun, not exactly immediately. This skill is also useful when someone far away needs peels. A quick Courage+Resolve can be life saving for a Mesmer getting trained by a thief etc. Also a common usage is when you see a thief from the enemy team coming to point. Often if you’re in a 2v2 then your ally is too focused on the fight to watch for the thief too. It’s your job to make sure that pesky thief doesn’t land a burst or steal. Virtue of Courage ftw, as it’ll usually block a steal and ruin the thiefs burst as well as give protection for the rest of the burst. It’s also really good if you’re quick with reactions. If you see your ally about to he Eviscerated, pop that kitten and save his butt. He’ll thank you later. One of the best uses is when you see HEAVY AoE dmg like with meteor shower, frost bow, or wells (waste if its corruption though). This will nullify a lot of the AoE burst and at least give your team a few thousand more HP since they didn’t get hit as hard.

READ THIS FIRST THIS GUY IS 10X BETTER THAN ME
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Tages-short-Spvp-guide/first#post4193021

I want this to be a discussion thread as well as a guide. If you feel like something I said isn’t the best then please tell me as I’m always trying to improve everything I do.

Even though bunker guards have practically been the same since launch, there are still no real in depth guides besides Kensudas Virtue guard guide, and nothing for the AH Guard. Some people think its just a face roll spec (let’s be real most Tpvp builds are), but if you think your only job is to live and passively apply support to your teammates then ur doin it wrong.

General Things to Know for TPVP

If you know anything about Tpvp you probably know bunker guard should always rotate to team fights and should never ever ever be in a 1v1 (unless you absolutely have to hold out on a point like if someone on your team just died or to contest a Meditation on Temple). The more fights the guardian is in the better.
Also, AH guard is amazing for being out numbered. One of the best situations you can get for your team is a 2v3 with a tanky class like Ele or Warrior fighting with you on far point. This will let he rest of your team secure a 2 cap while you will probably live for several minutes on far, maybe even contesting.

The Build Itself

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApdWlsApfntCxWI8DRRCRkjNY/dmedQzBA-TJBHwALLDA4UA0b/hBPBAA

The build is a standard 0-1-6-6-1 (0-5-30-30-5) and I’m sure most of you have run it in the past as its an amazing build is most game modes. However for the sake of the guide ill go over the traits.
Blind Resolution – A good trait with an insta cast blind that you can use to stop skills like Earthshakers or Churning Earth with ease. Can also use to stomp, but not guaranteed because of outside AoE stuns.

Strength in Numbers – Good trait, 150 toughness for free to your team mates is awesome. Can be switched out for Purity against more condi oriented teams.
Mace Healing – Awesome trait because your dodge heals will heal 150 more on allies and obviously regen ticks more.

Altruistic Healing – Backbone of the whole build. Needless to say, this trait gives you like half of your survivability. Empower on staff turns into a 8k heal, each virtue proc a 1k heal, dropping symbols on point heal you like crazy. This lets you put yourself into pressure but still able to focus solely on keeping your allies up.

Vigor on crit – Really good. Major reason I run intelligence. The more dodges, the more heals, the more survivability and ability to save CDs for allies.
Shout CDs – Nothing needed to be said here. You run 3 shouts you’ll need this.

Dodge Heals – Soooooooo important on AH. Unlike virtues, you don’t have massive support from just hitting buttons. You NEED to be able to land the majority of dodges on your team, preferably whoever is being focused.
Resolute Healer – 2good. Knocking back enemies and stopping projectiles is enough to solo Rez an ally in a 5v5 team fight if they don’t have stab. Really strong in resetting a 2v2 as well.
Pure of Voice – Great trait that relieves condi pressure on your team when combined with soldier runes. We’ll touch more on this later.
Virtue boons – Like most Adapt minor traits on guard, this trait is awesome. Protection on courage is definitely the most important, with the 1200 range 6s protection.

VOTED FOR HIM /

lilz shorty.1879:

Lol I guess they felt I went to ham on noobsicks up there. Haha ill tone it down lmao. These kids can’t handle the heat

ur kitten talking pretty hard i might root for you now

lol jk ur comp negates any respect

Stark.1350:

No offense, but if you’re struggling against a turret engineer, you need to learn to play. And I run a turret engineer. I know exactly what can completely own me without batting an eye.

Basically you’re a horrible player.
The only reason turret engi isn’t a massive problem is bc good players refuse to run it and the people who do are horrible at it (hence the no dodging BS)

Mike.4830:

Eurantien.4632:

Mike.4830:

Eurantien.4632:

Mike.4830:

Sorry that the best team on NA couldnt make it. Turns out real sports are more important that esports.

Apex did make it…

Sorry to burst ur bubble, but they got shrekt in scrims

Oh my bad, thought we were going by past tournaments. Carry on.

Your right, i’m sure Blacklisted is up there with the top teams as well.

In that case so is sharks with lasers YES WE’RE ESPOrts

Play for winning toL? that’s what we do, works well enough.

Agreed to above. I don’t need to know a necrosDS d If I did just show it above his head when he’s in it.

we put together our team from scratch with no prior tpvp experience with any of us and we think we’re pretty competitive so i mean its pretty ez imo to find a team

Bhawb.7408:

How many thousands of times has a guardian panicked and popped massive CDs to protect the Necromancer from… their own degeneration?

story of my life +1

guard should not lose to warr idk what ur talking about

+1

It’s pretty much necessary

when tehir team is up 400- anything else below 300 and holds home with 5 people on their team just sitting on it where theres no way to use side mechanics to come back

vana.5467:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

now just because you do not like it, does not mean everyone else has to not like it too, yes?

Obviously. That’s why I’m asking.

If you’d indulge me, let me follow up on some points where I’m not too sure what your stance is:

Quite often, risk in skill usage comes from recharge- and resource management as well as cessation of movement. In GW2 it comes entirely from either recharge or resource management. Is this also a case of simplicity being better to you? Do you prefer the lower risk / more straightforward design?

You say simplicity of skills is a good thing and to a certain extent I agree with that, but it necessarily takes away from the “player skill” required to use it, no? (this being anything from individual timing/reflexes to team coordination).

you play pvp on an extremely low level and do not even try to play it competitively and then make accusations that there’s no skill involved. at least you sound smart, but we can all still tell youre a noob.

caed kitten talks me more than morf so im gonna root for caed

Jax.5261:

Moobs.8231:

Jax.5261:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRArd8flsApaolDxbI8DRh/Qkj1FTB4cd55HA-TJhFwADOCAAeAAj2fYaZAA

I don’t spend much time looking through the forums so I’ll just list off a few responses you may get.

• Scepter is a really good weapon for damage (due to its huge amount of individual attacks), setting up burst with snares and quickly killing clones and other ai.
• If you don’t know how to land the auto attacks they’re easily kited as mentioned above, learn when to use and not use it correctly and you’ll be better than fine.
• Feel free to change around sigils but unless they were nerfed a few weeks after the sigil update they’re good.
• The reason GS is super common atm is because of the huge, huge buff to sigil of rage and the 2 slot sigils on 2hd weapons. You’ll Always proc rage on WW and that means it will mostly land.
• Focus with Scepter, not with your sword, I shouldn’t have to tell people this when these basic were figured out within one week of beta release.
• 1 in Honour and Virtues is pretty much non-negotiable in pvp.

Anyway the reason this is all outshone by the GS is listed above and every 1v1 duel I played after the sigil update I needed a sword to go with the GS to win. My win rate just went to nearly 100% swapping out the scepter.

pz

interesting, cuz i run that same build except running rage on sword since we’re specced so far into it. you definitely sound like you have more success than me.

PvP is honestly almost 100% dodging based, mechanically. The better you are at dodging the better you’re going to do, makes more of an impact than build or anything else tbh.

yeah i know ive been playing pvp on my guard for about 18 months now and about a year on this spec. just feel like it has too many soft counters

Darnis.4056:

Pvp as a whole is fine.

Tiny Asuras, awful balance decisions,(rip sword/x mesmer) and lack of features promised since beta (Templates) really rustle my jimmies though .

this person is the only person in the thread you should listen to. everyone else is just a pve casual who hasn’t played the game long enough.

one thing you should know is that some classes straight up WILL NOT beat another class (this is why the noobs above me complain about balance). the game is balanced around a 5v5 conquest situation. half of the game is rotating the classes that will beat other classes to the correct places and make sure everyone’s in a good situation. the actual skill cap on classes are actually fairly low, though it’ll probably still take you a few months to learn how to effectively play your class.

Simon.3794:

OMG engi so hard 1v1, not.

engi easily one of the easiest 1v1 class.

same skill level, avg/+ : Necro>engi>all.

same noob skill level, too noob : hambow > engi > all.

let me guess you main necro or engi which is hard counter to engi so you think necro is the best class

Neptune.2570:

Playing shatter mes

Easiest: Guard (Dps and bunk), Ele
Hardest: Engi, Thief

Playing Ranger

Easiest: Thief, Mesmer
Hardest: Warrior

if youre beating dps guards on shatter mesmer youre playing some kittenty guards

Aeolus.3615:

i went to Queensdale yesterday and there was alot of players doing guardians and thiefs was like the game were about those 2 classes.

Funny i would guess if a player thinks as guardians the healing class he his gona get really desapointed.

it’s a healing class lol.

Jax.5261:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRArd8flsApaolDxbI8DRh/Qkj1FTB4cd55HA-TJhFwADOCAAeAAj2fYaZAA

I don’t spend much time looking through the forums so I’ll just list off a few responses you may get.

• Scepter is a really good weapon for damage (due to its huge amount of individual attacks), setting up burst with snares and quickly killing clones and other ai.
• If you don’t know how to land the auto attacks they’re easily kited as mentioned above, learn when to use and not use it correctly and you’ll be better than fine.
• Feel free to change around sigils but unless they were nerfed a few weeks after the sigil update they’re good.
• The reason GS is super common atm is because of the huge, huge buff to sigil of rage and the 2 slot sigils on 2hd weapons. You’ll Always proc rage on WW and that means it will mostly land.
• Focus with Scepter, not with your sword, I shouldn’t have to tell people this when these basic were figured out within one week of beta release.
• 1 in Honour and Virtues is pretty much non-negotiable in pvp.

Anyway the reason this is all outshone by the GS is listed above and every 1v1 duel I played after the sigil update I needed a sword to go with the GS to win. My win rate just went to nearly 100% swapping out the scepter.

pz

interesting, cuz i run that same build except running rage on sword since we’re specced so far into it. you definitely sound like you have more success than me.

you can run my glass build which is 2/6/6/0/0 with full zerk (or 0/6/6/1/1 for more survivability). its probably the best thing you would want if you want really high dps.

pve is just repetition at least pvp you have to adapt

i always knew i was better than what the leaderboards told me
finally they tell the truth!

you guys realize there are weekly 2v2 and 3v3s right

cymerdown.4103:

Agreed, Guardian is the best point contester in the game because you’re resistant to both condition and regular burst. Most classes can do one or the other, but none other can do both while also providing aoe support. To achieve this, using soldier runes and either going 3 shouts with AH or 2 shouts with Virtues is necessary, otherwise you or the team get melted by condis. Cleric is generally better than magi because as long as you have sufficient condi removal, the most important thing is surviving burst well enough to make your healing power effective, and toughness is the best star for that. And yes, resolute healer ftw,

Generally speaking, I would pick a top spec and roll it for at least several weeks, learn the ins and outs, and then branch off once you really have an intimate grasp on the role and plusses minuses of the options. These builds are tried and true over almost 2 years for very good reasons and those reasons may not be clear until hundreds of pvp hours have been played. Good luck!

if yorue going hard core make sure you pick which one (AH or virtues) depending on your team’s comp. typically a more squishy team that cant stand on point (like having 1 mesmer and 1 thief) will need AH while a more tankier comp (like double warr/engi) its better to run virtues and maybe healing breeze

teamq’s

can you upload this to youtube so it doesnt take my internet 4 hours to load thank you

try to get bacon mon only problem is sometimes he can’t talk in ts bit you won’t find a better ele

good to hear! but I still think resolute healer is better than writ of the merciful. Typically AH is enough to self sustain yourself … btw you should take soldier runes too.
tbh when running mace and staff you pretty much might as well just go straight support.
if you want a build that you’re asking for I’d go for a more clickingstyles kind of setup, with staff/gs instead of mace.

Siroso.2769:

I’m terrible with timezones, so I’ve probably missed the boat, but I would love to know Helseth’s thoughts on TCG vs. the comp that Outplayed ran this week (soldiers hambow, d/d Ele, necro, double engi)…

he pretty much answered this on the stream