Guild Wars 2

Seriously, i still melt guardians with my condition warrior (bow/sword/warhorn).

If i get in trouble i just swap to bow and start circling the poor little thingy.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Anet-LF-Game-Designer-for-Raid-Content/first#post4462318

There is an existing thread on this topic…second page.

Sorry, didnt see that.

I know Chris Whiteside has mentioned raids and raid content on numerous occasions.

The new (to me at least) thing is that it seems arenanet is looking for potential staff members that has experience in creating raid content.

Something is in the working

http://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH05/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=NCSOFT&cws=1&rid=1884

Really good for the ones into pve.

My point was mere that the gimmickbuilds are more or less found in choice of sigils, runes, food and utilities (spirit weapons) than the actually traits.

For instance if you go for lifestealing as choice of survivability its about sigils, runes and food and not the build it self.

The issue with the guardian is that unorthodox builds accomplish specific goals worse than the standard builds. (Wvw and pvp)

Neither zeal or radiance offers anything specific that you cant do by traiting in the other lines. Ofc pure damage excluded.

Trying to accomplish specific goals just makes you less effective.

No, it’s still random and now the chill is to short.

The day it has 5s cd, 3s duration and works with all weapons and is triggered by hitting, not critical, then I will find it to be a valid choice compared the traits it’s competing with.

Tested some 6/x/6/x/x yesterday and spirit weapons are still useless. I cant understand how they could make them so bad when it comes to AI.

Shanks.2907:

It’s too bad on the evasion runes. On first glance they looked great for how I want to play. With an ICD of 10s the boons should be 5s, to match most uptime on other runes (runes of pack ~50% uptime on swiftness/fury).

It would be nice if they made it to pvp, but they could use a couple second buff.

My thought exactly, they looked great and the concept is very interesting for a guardian.

Yeah 5 sec uptime and a larger aoe and they would be valid but three seconds is just to little.

That recepie costed 19 gold to get and the runes are account bound on pick up as well, lol.

Harbinger.8637:

Talyn.3295:

I am kinda interested in the Superior Rune of Evasion.

It just sounds really strong, especially if you’re using energy sigils.

-Bought the recepie
-Removed my travelar runes
- Crafted 6*evasion
- Put them in my zojjas/keepers set
-Tried them out for like 45 minutes
-Put back the travelars
-I will not look back

They have have 10 sec internal cd but work out of combat. One weird thing is that even with 50% boon duration i didnt see the 1,5 s increase on uptime on fury and swiftness i thought i would see.

The aoe on the cripple is just to small

The guide might be old but tbh nothing has really changed. Its still up to date except one or two builds and some minor tweaks on rune and sigils.

Tbh if i was going for strength runes and might stacking with celestials i would actually drop AH/medi and invest in virtues. Imo boonduration and might duration are essential to stacking builds. That and firefields which are enhanced by virtues.

From a wvw perspective

A step in the right direction and hopefully they reworked all functinality in the spiritweapons and also moved the traits so they arent to spread out.

Hopefully they also adressed how spread out symbol traits are, we are talking about max two symbols in two weapons and unlike necromancers mark no one in their right mind goes for full symbol builds which is our main area control tool.

When they talk about build diversion i sincerely hope they adress survivability in condition builds and in offensive setups besides symbols and spirit builds.

Im a bit excited about our elites as well, sounds promising.

My concern though is that this preview is all we get, we seen it before, and if so its just aint enough.

direct damage warriors can be delt with.

The real issue arises when you meet a properly built and half bad played hybrid build.

I main a small party guardian for over 2k hours in wvw and had about 300 hours on my warrior and i just cant be killed by a guardian in a 1v1 when playing my bybrid with bow and sword/warhorn.

It doesnt matter how many blinds and blocks you pack, all my skills has to low cooldown and i can apply +10 stacks bleeds for 1500 damage per second at any point. And 20 seconds into the fight the guardian has everything on cooldown and now we are talking about 20 stacks of bleeds with 2500 damage per second. Ofc with at least 3 cover conditions.

I melt guardians what ever build you bring.

I also swap my longbow for hammer and still play hybrid and might stack so basically i can combine >2k power with 2500 damage per seconds in bleeds and over 600 heals per second, add in 27k health and you get the picture..

Seriously, it cant be matched and only pure direct damage warrior build might be considered a possible/likely win.

Dont worry about it. In any scenario in this game you can totally alter your stats through amulet, acccessories and rings. Rings and accessories are easy to get.

Why not mix soldiers and berserkers in your armor, berserker accessories and fine tune the set up for different gamemodes with a mix of amulets and rings.

Most damage comes from choice of traits, not gear, and no one can tell if you have two pieces of soldiers or keepers in a pve run as long as you have a proper build.

What you really need to figure out is what runes you should use, that is the tricky part imo. Runes different greatly but rune of strength is a good choice in all gamemodes.

While picking up purity (indirect thru pov and trooper rune) and strength in numbers which your team can benefit from.
Compare that to a meditation build (also 6 into valor) which doesnt benefit the team at all.

As i said, dont mix up personal preference and playstyle with objectivity.

In any scenario when there is one teammate around ah is one of our options since it doesnt force the guardian to choose utiilities that doesnt support the team. In coordinated 3man squads ah surpasses meditations in all aspects as long as you chose the proper weapons.

So the proper feedback would be:
IF you soloplay, ah is useless, which isnt true either since it allows you to chose from a larger variety och utilityskills.

All the guides that are stickied that goes into build in specifics are still up to date. The thing is nothing really happend to guardians since release and the same builds that were valid than is valid now for spvp.

If people down vote stuff its more personal preference than actual performance in the build.

Front line player suggest that you tag up with a a teammate and if so the standard 0/1/6/6/1 with meditations or AH is still very valid. Depending on weapon and choice of runes you could go 0/6/6/1/1 and take a bit more defensive amulet and still be very tanky.

Check out the sticky that focus on spvp builds, it all there and i really mean all.

Check out the stickies, you can find the most common roaming builds in harbingers wvw guide.

Reborn, if you are going to use SyS you need the setup/build for it and also you need to set it up properly in your game play. Its one of our best support skills in the current meta so being able to use it and have the skill to use it is definitely one of the trademarks of a good guardian in wvw. I suggest you try again, a meditation guardian brings very little to the table in zerg/large group composition.

What gamemode? Pvp,pve or wvw?

And also check the stickies. Everything you need can be foundation there.

Damage on a guardian is about multipliers. I suggest you pop up to the sticky which explains the pve dps guardian in detail.

Instead of removing points from virtues add one more and get more damage per boon. (Multiplier) After the nerf on crit damage virtues are at least as good for damage as valor and bring more support, even though marginally. Boon duration is also nice when moving around in the world.

Add one more point in radiance for more damage on conditioned enemies. (Multiplier)

Just keep 2 points in zeal so you get more damage on burning foes. (multiplier)

If you are going for greatsword as main weapon add in 2 points in zeal for heals and more damage on GS. (Multiplier). Suggest you pair the gs with focus+sword so you get multiple sources of blinds which adds the amount of conditions which increase your damage.

4/5/x/x/5 is a good start imo.

Hi OP.

Promised to get back to you with a screenie of a setup which packs both a punch and has sustain.

The pic is my triple shout build and it uses the same trait (0/1/6/6/1) as you mention in OP, the stats are with buffs running from food, guard kills and 25 stacks of power from player kills. Minor bloodlust.

Gear
Celestial armor except chest and legs that are keepers. Traveler runes. Celestial backpiece, berserker accessories and cleric amulet and rings.

Weapons are celestial with energy sigil and secondary is sigil of accuracy on the hammer. My secondary weapon is staff and i have energy and bloodlust in the staff. I also use scepter/focus and the same sigils are use in that setup as in the staff.

Food is Master maintenance oil and truffle steak.

This one hits for 4k with mighty blow and dodge heals for >1200 each dodge with 3100 armor.

Im very satisfied with this set up tbh and can strongly recommend it to anyone that is into wvw.

Btw, your main source of leeching will be critical (sigil and food) so reconsider using mace, since it hits really slow compared to the other weapons you have at your disposal.

This is one of the builds I played around most with and not posted about. As a dark templar. In age of Conan.I’m still trying to get a life leecher to be competitive. It’s a very fun concept.

Skip vampirism runes, they are really weak. Also skip gear with healing power. If you use healing power you are more or less committed to invest in honor to make real use of the stat. All life leech proccs scale terrible/non existent with healing power and so does meditations.

For gear mix berserker, knights and valkyrie. It’s as simple as that.

Skip the new healing skill, it’s uselessness.most scenarios.

There is no contradiction in triple shouts or medi/consecration.

They all serve their purpose and triple shouts are very much valid in wvw.

Two examples is when you have soldier runes and when you have melandru runes. In the first case you focus on team wide removal and you lack swiftness so retreat is your third shout.

In melandru runes you dont use your shout for nothing but condi removal on the team and rely on the runes, food and purity for condiremoval on self.

The strength in shouts are the aoe compared to consecrations which only works really well in confined spaces.

Triple shouts work and has its place. Consecrations work and has its place. Medis work an has its place.

Personally i run all three setups and all combinations of them, i use one setup with one of each which works really well. SyG, Smite Conditions and Purging Flames.

OP, i have a setup with triple shouts (like yours) with the same trait distribution that works really well in wvw, with decent/good damage and really nice survivability.

Will post a screener on the buffed stats later on. Its a mix of keepers and celestial armor, cleric rings and amulet and berserker accessories. Its not stat optimized but i can live with that.

Check out Harbingers newly stickied wvw guide for possible builds and weapons sets. It covers most of your competitive options.

If you are into hammer i suggest “my” guide which focus on AH and tbh mostly x/x/6/6/x. There are some minor stuff that i will update later on but in essence its fully updated and usuable.

If you want pure supportbuilds you can find the “healway” from christos in the stickied FAQ.

Send a pm or ingame tell if you need some ingame advise.

Well deserved.

One of the reasons I have issues committing to other professions is the quality of their forums.

This thread made this section even better.

Just report some the posts so they get deleted and we will have your posts in a “row”.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Tarsius.3170:

Someone mentioned on this forum that the 6th bonus only applies to allies and not the caster ( like Sigil of Benevolence ).

I’ll add it to my list of things to test though

“Mentioned it”? It’s on the rune description. I don’t know why, but people don’t tend to read the effect properly: “10% Outgoing heal effectiveness TO ALLIES”.

And with responses like this i think that you either havent read the tooltips on the guardian skills or you havent understood that most of our skills actually buffs allies and the guardian is an ally in that perspective.

As been said, the issue is that in almost all other cases allies incorporate the guardian. Just read the tooltip on shouts for instance.

Doesnt matter i got one educated answer and that is often enough.

Lucente.5071:

This effects outgoing heals to allies and does not affect the caster. For example if battle presence heals you for 200hp it will heal allies for 220hp.

Ok, thx!

didnt work with meditations in spvp. Had the same heal with monk as i did with water. Didnt check VoJ though and i assume its the same with AH.

Spvp might work different from pve/wvw hence the reason i would like to have a test outside of spvp.

Does it increase heals from meditations/AH, regeneration, passive VoJ and food or is it just the heal skill, skill 6?

Would test it myself but i only have 3 runes atm and no plan on doing pve atm.

Great write up.

“Reported” it to the mods with a request to sticky it.

Hopefully they edit as well so the “spam” is removed.

Read the guides. They are there for a reason.

But start with 5 in virtues and after that focus on radiance.

Weapons, pick the ones you enjoy the most.

what is new?

It looks like the same triple medi hammer/scepter build a lot of the roamers has used since release of the game. Give of take a trait or two.

Hi OP.

Would really appriciate an update of the guide due to the new traits.

I realize it costs gold to do it in a proper fashion so send me a pm if you need a contribution.

Crapgame.6519:

Is that the one that has the 6th option that turns you into a mist form at or around 10% health? I’m just wondering if going 6 deep would be worth it since “I” seem to drop really fast at 10%. I guess I mean it doesn’t seem like it would help much if this is the rune I am thinking of. I guess I should check.

Its the one but after getting a set valk/knight/pvt with those runes i can pretty much say its still very bad.

The mist form can be a winner but the leech is just bad, as before the patch.

Food and sigils are still the way to go if its lifeleech you want.

Sat down yesterday and checked thru the patchnotes and in general 4 of the traits in the feature pack could be an option in an 30 point valor build due to their placement i radiance, valor, honor and virtues.

The thing is though that they all are pretty terrible. The exception is the trait in virtues that actually can have some use. But if its more vigor you need ther are other means thru sigils, runes and food that solves this better and without sacrificing a trait in our best supportline.

In short nothing changes.

I will check out some changes to sigils and runes and adjust the guide if neccessary. IM especially interested in the change they made to rune of vampirism, this one was really bad before but might be an option now.

So consider the guide to be updated.

Sorry for tanking so long to answer you.

Been busy playing golf in spain and playing GW2 whle not putting.

Celestial armor can only be crafted and its heavily timegated.

zaktam.1256:

alright, thanks, that website is super helpful
also, where do you get your celestial armor? is that the dark armor you can get for karma in cursed shore?

Its really totally up to you.

I will only craft one ascended armor and the one i did craft was celestial even though i know/knew its not favorable from a stat perspective.

If knights is your favourite by all means do it.

Jarrin Herr.8072:

Would you run a full Beigarth set as an ascended version of knights armor?

I use different sets for different jobs, i have 5 sets for wvw exclusively. You need to figure out how you want to play wvw and adjust your set accordingly.
Btw i dropped assasins.

chaosmesmer.9857:

Just getting back in gw2 after a few months, been wanting to update my current build and this looks just what I need. I usually just play WvW roaming, do you suggest I go for your set which is really mean in WvW? Also, what exactly is your mix of valk/ber/ass armor? I’m guessing its head+gloves/shoulders+pants/chest+feet?

popcorn is so good.

For the love of god, stop comparing apples and oranges. At least if you wa nt to help OP, compare similar level of gear and different trait lines.

Sidenote, cool to see that people starting to admit that honor infact is a sponge, which i pointed out over 6 months ago when trying to promote virtues as a much better choice. Its really cool to see some of the antagonist in that thread now have jumped on the bandwagon, promoting virtues with the same level of conviction.

But seriously, the absolute amount of support that can be found in virtues is just meager. Sure the relative amount seems like a good trade off but if dps is what you want in pve encounter i seriously dont understand why you should invest one single point in virtues or honor.

The guardian has the majority of its support in the skills and the traitlines offer very little to enhance that, one or two traits being the exception.

People just put points in virtues to feel good about them selves when in reality, if dps is what matter, they should leave the traitline and invest max 5 points into.

@OP
10/25/30/0/5 Hammer/GS
full zerker, scholar runes, right food for the encounter.

DPS wise very close to all the meta builds and more dps than most of them. Tanky as hell with AH/medi. Difference in support is virtues. You wont be in charge of condiremoval on the team and no lowered cd on wall of reflection. That is what you loose out on.

Musashi.3125:

Watch this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7g78BllcxY

Is that a serious advice?

@OP

1. All weapons has their purpose
Hammer/GS/Staff for AOE
Scepter/1h sword for single target
Mace/Hammer/staff for support
Staff for pve mobility in combination with shouts and boon duration
Focus for dps and defense
Shield for defens
Torch for support and burst and fun gameplay.

There is no single best weapon:
1. Choose what you like.
2. Choose what you need.

1. 5 points in honor (best trait we have for personal survivability)
2. 5 points in virtues, (best minor trait we have for support)
3. 25 points in radiance to increase damage thru more crits and ofc 10% extra damage on conditioned foes
4. Now you are at a junction and you basically can go into x directions.
4.1 Fill up honor for larger symbols and longer lasting symbols and maybe pure of voice (hammer and other symbol weapons)
4.2 Go 25 points deep into virtues for more support and ofc and more damage on each boon you and ofc boon duration which facilitates you moving around in open world, imo the best open world dps enhancer is to be able to move fast between fights.
4.3 10 points into zeal to get 10% more damage on burning foes, this will dictate what utilities to us and you need fast hitting weapons like GS/1h sword and scepter to keep the burning on the foe.
4.4 If you are into 1h weapons fill up radiance with 30 points and pick 15% more crits on 1h weapons and place 10 in total in zeal.
4.5 25-30 points in radiance (1h or 2h), 30 points in valor for fury and heals on meditations and 10 points in zeal for 10% more damage on burning foes.

Basic builds:
10/25/5/5/25
10/30/0/5/25
10/25/30/5/0
10/30/30/0/0
0/30/30/5/5
10/25/10/20/5
10/25/0/25/5
10/25/0/10/25

Each weapon has an optimal build dps wise but i wouldnt build after that, i would build based on what i like to do and gamestyle. Atm i play a really worthless burning build (conditions suck on guardian) because i like it.

For instance 20 points into zeal makes gs very nice indeed with more damage and heals on the gs. Start playing and after you have found your pace come back here and tell us how you like it and we can optimize a build for you and what you find is fun.

Gear you get in open world from drops. Focus on getting power and crit on your gear. go to the trader every 5th level and upgrade with blue gear so you are no more than 10 levels from your cap. Thats enough and its cheap. Join in on champion fights when you can, they drop nice gear.

When you get to level 75 you start thinking about gear, before that the above is enough.

double placing of the hammer symbol.

If the target dies before the third hit and the third hit lands it places SoP, as it should be.

What happens next is the bug. If you press the chain again you will place a second SoP and also get double damage from dual ticks and double uptime on protection from the symbol.

i dont now how many times i asked the mods for a sticky. Finally you are back where it belongs.

Thx mods and Foofad.

Sticky this one please.

in the roaming build i would move points out of zeal into honor and virtues.

More dodging and regen+protection and 3 stacks of might on kill beats the low uptime you have in small groups on burning you have for the extra 10%.

In the second build i would remove empowering might due to small aoe and mediocre effect and use 2h mastery since you use 2 2h weapons. If you are going to run in zergs with the second build AH is much stronger than meditations. With three allies in your hammer symbol it will heal you with well over 1k per hammer swing also add in virtues and shouts and you get both more sustain and support.

Shouts are also better group support in zergs. hold the line, stand your ground and maybe signet of judgement for more retal, aoe weakness and ofc less incoming damage. Or swap in a consecration when needed for SoJ.

For zerging go 0/5/30/30/5 or 0/0/30/30/10 where the latter is the more supportive one and ofc superior aria, 2h mastery, pure of voice, purity, strenght in numbers and ofc AH.

You might even consider adding in rune of soldier on top of pure of voice for extreme team condi removal. Tbh investing in honor and not trait PoV is imo questionable in zerg game play. The only reason not to do it is if you are going for symbol bombing and use soldier runes and if so the third utility should be judges intervention and 2 shouts.

But thats me.

I have crafted all trinkets, armor and also ascended chest and legs.

My opinion so far is that they are really nice with toughness and/or protection. So valor or virtues for traits and hammer, hold the line, protection duration and ofc honor line for dodgeheal is nice.

I have over 60% critchance without fury and with close to 100 % uptime on protection i dont miss toughness even in zerg wvw in a 0/5/30/30/5

Absolutely worth the investment.

Harbinger.8637:

Gartar.9275:

What is a AH build:P?

Any build that puts 30 points into Valor and gets Altruistic Healing. The most common would be x/x/30/30/x.

This guide shows you almost all the combinations.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-30-pts-in-valor-gameplay-Hammer

Will add the build i forgot later this week or next, included in this thread, but im a bit busy at the moment.

But a start in all kinds of pvp centric content is to put 30 points in valor for either meditations or AH.

Easy, full berserker/valkyire with speed runes to compensate for low health and increased speed.

10/25/30/5/0 and 0/30/30/5/5. Personally i prefer the latter, its basically the same build which are used in tpvp as the guardian burst build. The main reason i prefer the latter is that the uptime on burning is just to low to benefit from fiery wrath in zeal. The damage modifier in radiance is much more reliable when going solo or small party roaming. The benefit from fiery wrath when soling with a mediation build is close to none.

Smite conditions, judges intervention and stand your ground as utility.

I find scepter and focus to be supreme as secondary weapon in a solo/roaming build and also adds dps and burst..

Its about killing as fast as humanly possible in solo builds.

each of the temple in orr sells armor but you need to go to a number of temples to get all pvt and i if remember correct the head isnt sold by any of them.

If the temple is closed guesting is an easy solution. Here you can find what temple is open on which server.
http://www.gw2state.com/temples.html

aspirine.6852:

Brutaly.6257:

brannigan.9831:

In spvp hammer is way too slow there is no way around it.

I have 200 tournements under my belt an 90 % of the matches i used the hammer as main weapon and i never run bunker.

And i disagree.

But did you win any of those 200 matches =)

First i thought i wouldnt answer this because its just rude but the answer is yes indeed. My team has very good statistics in pvp.

Hunter.4783:

Already have a full set and weapon equipped. Now the REAL problem is the lack of similar stat accessories. Basically to capitalize on healing power, you either need celestial or a combination of cleric accessories.

Combine clerics and berserker trinkets. You can get almost the exact same effective healthpool and power. I crafted My exotic just now and will take them for a spin later this evening.

brannigan.9831:

In spvp hammer is way too slow there is no way around it.

I have 200 tournements under my belt an 90 % of the matches i used the hammer as main weapon and i never run bunker.

And i disagree.

Its a learn to play issue and it kind of funny that OP find it to be an old mans weapon. If we use the OP logi, old people which have slower reflexes and worse eye to hand coordination should be the ones complaining since the weapon actually demands higher awareness and more proactive gameplay to be effective.

Nothing wrong with the hammer at all, it just has a higher skillcap compared to our other weapons and some people just dont have the patience to get there.

With that said i would like to se some QoL (not to be confused with quality of weapon) changes that would make it aesthetically more attractive. Removing one symbol tick and fasten up the third step and ofc moving while placing RoW and the less skilled might find it more attractive.