Guild Wars 2

Black Box.9312:

In WvW, support guardians exist only in large group settings, where balance is largely irrelevant because it becomes a numbers game. Beyond this, most “support” comes in the form of elementalists providing water fields, which are then blasted for area heals. Guardian’s party healing skills are terrible, and until healing power is improved to actually be effective they will stay terrible.

The most important support abilities from raid guardians are 1) Stability 2) Power stacking and 3) Condition cleansing.

I do agree that they lost some of their appeal as support -specially in PvP, where some other classes can tank as good while providing better damage-, but in large groups at WvW they are still very relevant. You can run a raid of 20 only guardians and melt everything in your path just pressing staff 1. The reson due the meta is GWEN is because not overyone has/likes to play a heavy character.

“Aggro” mechanics aren’t very relevant in this game; “tanks” do exist in PvP/WvW because you can tolerate some amount of damage from other players so you can distract them for gettin objectives, but in PvE some monsters can one shot you no matter how much HP/armor you have, so the game is played based on the avoid of damage (evades, blocks, blinds, invulnerability skills…) instead of “tanking”.

I don’t care about “taunt” coming to Guardians because I don’t play “bunker” Guardians.

Armors (at least for Norns, which both of my Guardians are):

Phalanx Armor: one of the most realist, better carved and more detailed and ornated armor in the game.

Primeval Armor: more “fantastic” panoplia, but still very barroque and imponent.

PvP Glorious Armor: shoulders, gauntlets and boots are great, legs and cheast are meh, helm is nice but shaves your beard if is displayed.

Norn Tier 2: most of the pieces have a feeling of bein massive and brutal, I particulary appreciate the helm design.

Norn Tier 3: Helm is ok, chest and leggins are great due are one of the few ones with capes.

Crucible of Eternity dungeon armor: shoulders, chest and gauntlets are awesome.

Draconic armor: legs and boots fit very well with the Crucible upper pieces.

Karma (thorns) armor and Orr dungeon armor: for people looking for a more demonic look.

Some banal arnmors in scales and chainmail are also very appealing. I like a lot the Radiant shoulders, but the metal can’t be died.

Two of my characters:

[URL=http://s28.photobucket.com/user/Bvran/media/Guild%20Wars%202/GW2Rank80DragonPvPVuhlkanampFvlgrim.jpg.html][IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/Bvran/Guild%20Wars%202/GW2Rank80DragonPvPVuhlkanampFvlgrim.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Currently my main (the Guard with the Phalanx armor in abyss) is using a mix between Glorious shoulders and gloves, Norn Tier 2 helm, Primeval Chest, Norn Tier 3 legs, and Phalanx boots. Woul post a screen later.

The wall seems useless against AoE damage; the same happens with Wall of Reflection, which is one of the main reasons due this skill is fading in WvW.

So far I’m not very impressed with the new class: only two sets of weapons (a hammer which doesn’t perform as a hammer and a mace + axe). Sounds tankish and slow (we already have our dose of tanks and slow characters), not the blazing blade teleporting between targets that was showed in the first trailer.

Warriors are pure users of physical skills (offensive or defensive), Guardians are hybrid users of physical skills with magic focused on defense and support; I was expecting a Revenant as a hybrid combining physical skills + offensive magic, but so far seems more dffensive than agressive to me.

skeptic.2409:

I noticed that guards are only good in a group but alone they crumble fast and cant hold there own against 2v1s

Yesterday slugging* in WvW near a flag in the center ruins a Mesmer came at me and we did engage in a long combat; after like 90 seconds or so a Thief joined to the enemy, so I had to chose to focus in this new foe -due the Mesmer was decent and the combat was meant to last- to prevent the double focus as much as I could. Was a clever choice: the Thief was able to land his Basilisk venom, but I managed to avoid most of the burst. Less than 15 seconds later the Thief was in panic mode trying to left the fight jumping away but I crush him to death; albeit with most of my skills were in cooldown I was still able to turn the tide against the Mesmer and kill him. The Thief was arguably bad, but the Mesmer was decent.

I guess that dps roamers searching for easy preys aren’t used to face a Meditation Guardian with 3k armor and ~23k HP which heals over 1k HP x evade. Guardians are terribad for roaming due their slow pace and lack of soft cc, but so far they are also one of the strongest class in duels.

(*) The Guardian version of roaming, distinguished by it’s slow, silly walk.

I did some test; with Cleric amulet Virtue of Resolve passive healing is 158 and the heals from the evades reach 1361. With the same build but Celestial amulet the passive healing is 128 and the heals from the evades reach 868.

Despite celestial amulet increases the average auto attack damage by ~15%, and the lost of 30 points from passive heals in VoR isn’t too troublesome, a lost of ~36% in the heals from the dodges are very significative. Not sure if worths the change in PvP. In WvW is a lor more easy to modulate.

Anyway, I did upload some vids testing my current build in PvP (I’m not great, is just for reference to figure how the build fares, and which kind of sustain can be expected):

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Well as I said before, Ascended is only 5% better than exotic so it’s not mandatory. You can easily ignore it. Besides you can get partial ascended gear without grinding. Exotic armor/weapons and ascended trinkets is what most of my characters have. Ascended trinkets are kitten easy to get.

Please, stop spreading facts proved as false. Using a mix between celestial, cleric and zerker gear in ascended quality instead of using the same gear in exotic quality provides a power increase ~12%, a critical chance increase ~28%, a ~4.5% critical damage increase, a ~28% of healing power increase and provides a bit better HP and armor. Just do the maths:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARSlsApaolDxbI8DNR8QVVAgdS8fV61/QQkDA-TliFABfs/AUKHkUdlBVJoKlgGpkDgnAgl6CcUFiEuEABAQAu5Nzm3MwQH6QH6QHa38m38m/8mlCIilRA-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARSlsApaolDxbI8DNR8QVVAgdS8fV61/QQkDA-TViFABmpuCNKZ8R5wH7PAgSQjUC9iKEmoSQl6CIFQELjA-w

This is just an example, differences can be enhanced in pure zerk or pure condi damage builds. That doesn’t mind that exotic can’t do the work (they can), but in some areas (WvW roaming) the differences are BIG.

Also, the easiest ascended pieces to get (and I mean getting the ones you want, not the random unsalvageable junk from fractals) are trinkets, which require at least ~160 laurels (which means that you need more than three months to get just five pieces). The other pieces (armor, weapons, back piece) requiere several hundreds of gold coins in material cost, which is also steadly on rising since their introduction.

Being less grindy than other games doesn’t magically make GW2 a “non-grindy game”.

^ I did the research, it could work. With my build and cleric amulet the numbers are like:

16905 HP, 3043 armor, 1232 healing power, 1751 power, 19% crit chance, 170% crit damage.

With the same build but celestial amulet would be:

21285 HP, 2831 armor, 738 healing power, 1531 power, 40% crit chance, 199% crit damage.

So how well -on paper- falls one gainst the other? Celestial loses a substantial amount of armor (212), but the total is still high (2831) and in exchage the HP rises hugely (4380), so could compensate the armor lost -specially angainst conditions.

In damage, going from 1751 power + 19% crit chance +170% crit damage vs 1531 power + 40% crit chance + 199% crit damage means gaining ~7%-8% overall damage (this doesn’t take in consideration the fury from meds and pack runes, neither the condition damage enhancement, which in celestial rises from 40 to 488). So, albeit the 1531 attack power seems small, probably the celestial amulet can deal even more damage over time.

The tricky thing is to evaluate how much going from 1232 healing power in cleric to 738 in celestial (a fall of 494) would affect to the healins, specially the passive F2 and the evades. In WvW having around 900 healing power provides ~1000 heal points per evade, but the procs are dfferent in PvP and with cleric and 1232 healing power I think that I gain around 750 HP x evade.

I must check this in the practice, but so far could work.

Shanks.2907:

It does suffer the same problems yours would though. That is a lack of burst and mobility. ~50% uptime on swiftness in combat isn’t terrible, but out of combat you’re a turtle. Traveler runes could be taken over pack runes, dropping some power, precision and fury for consistent movement speed.

I do use Traveler runes with the exotic armor of one of my Guardians (I have two) in PvE/WvW, but after the nerfs in critical damage (ferocity) in both Traveler and Divinity runes their appeal in pure fighting somewhat diminished a lot.

In PvP I like more Pack runes due the distances are short and the procs last enough to cover some of your displacements (taking in consideration that close and mid must be your concerns: far point invading are more a priority for thieves, warriors and some other classes with way better mobility than us.

For WvW, mobility is a bigger problem, but isn’t limited to the low speed guardians move across: also includes the lack of tools to evade skirmishes in clear disadvantage. If you want to focus in taking down camps and ruins with a few fights against players here and there Traveler runes are mandatory, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to cover the maps at reasonable speed. Still, Traveler runes alone wouldn’t save you from being kitted or catched for more fast classes.

The other option is to gain awareness about our reality: guardians doesn’t have optimal tools for mobility or to flee away or conceal, so one can just asume that going in roaming must provide a lot of deaths, but we can chose to die in our own terms, wearing runes designed to duel or fight in small skirmishes instead of using others oriented towards evading a defeat. Guardians are for bushido; if one is afraid to die those shinobi disguised as thieves are better choice :p But I conceed thatTravel runes are very useful roaming in small groups just for preventing you for being an anchor to the team.

Both are useful. On the paper, sword auto attack is stronger, but scepter can compensate it a bit thanx to Smite, due you can keep doing auto attacks while Smite is hitting. The burst from sword, Zealot’s Defense, cuts your auto attacks, roots you in a place (which is risky) and despite the tooltip (which says “600”) no way in hell is reliable to consistently hit targets outside a range of 200-300.

But the scepter has his own handicaps; most of the ranged weapons in the game have auto attacks which hits the target almost instantly, so the only way to prevent the damage is either coverin behind a physical obstacle, using evade or a skill capable to prevent the hit or negate the damage. But using a evade or utility skill just to prevent auto attacks is highly ill-advised, due evades and utilities are a few, whereas auto attacks can be spammed.

And this is when the problems with the scepter arise: the auto attacks from Warrior’s longbow and rifle, Thieve’s pistol and shortbow, Ranger’s long and shortbow… Always hit, as long as a line of sight exist. Orb of Wrath, instead, is more tricky: they move slowly -despite their speed was patched and enhanced-, so at medium range a target running in circles can “evade” some of them, and at max range (1200) walking sideways of their axis can just negate most of the hits. The more close you fight, the more attacks hits.

So, albeit scepter is a great weapon in PvE, where it works consistently at a sustained pace, using it against players has some drawbacks. Their best asset is probably the Chains of Light, due in team works is a blast to nuke a target focusing damage.

Sword has his own appeals; despite using it we are at risk of being kitted, and being particulary tricky to use when a foe starts to run in circles around the perimeter of the cap nodes in Conquest (specially annoying if our antagonist has interruptions or drops AoE damage or conditions) the sword does sustantially more damage per hit, and instead od one inmobilization each 20 seconds it provides a teleport each 10 seconds witha an AoE blind.

Personally, after using both for a while, my choice is moving more towards the sword because 1) I usally play in random teams, so the Chain of Light from scepter isn’t always taken in advantage and 2) scepter isn’t the best ranged weapon in the game, whereas sword dps packs well against other melee weapons.

The runes of choice are Superior Runes of the Pack: they provide power and precission + might, swiftness and fury. This build has a low innate critical chance in PvP due the monolitic design of the cleric amulet, BUT the choice of accuracy sigils + Pack runes + Focused Mind will almost grant perma-fury as long as you keep hitting things in combat.

So now, the Guardian gains a lot more sustain: you still have most of the blinds, the burns and the evades of a typical Meditation build, but gets a lot of health points and a ton of healing power; the passive effect from Virtue of Resolve is now stronger and you get large amounts of heals from evades.

Some key features:

What is lost in the exchange is damage, but to how much extent? Compared against the typical Med build around a 30%-50% damage is lost (the amount varies largely based in which kind of damage are you looking for: the changes diminishes more the dps burst than the sustained damage over time).

The thing is that I don’t play this build based on burst: most of the time I kill a foe the largest part of the inflicted damage comes not from gs 2 (Whirlind Wrath) or sword 3 (Zealot’s Defense) or focus 5 (Shield of Wrath), neither Judge’s Intervention or Smite Condition: most of the time the auto attacks from gs and sword are the main sources of the dent in the enemy health pool.

Med Zerks usually try to land a burst doing damage as fast as possible, due with less than 16k HP and 2500 armor sitting next to the enemy can truly hurt. That’s a minor problem for a Meditation Cleric, which in PvP has near 17k HP, over 3000 armor and heals over 1k HP per evade.

This build isn’t as tanky as a Guardian holder or doesn’t provide as much raw power as a Meditation Guard, but I find myself capable to beat both of them using the “Zen Guardian”, because the better sustain and the capability to deal damage consistently over longer periods of time. I found also that some other classes which previously I found impossible to beat as a Guardian as Necros or Eles are doable with this spec. As the name implies, I play the “Zen Guardian” calmy, keeping pressure on the target at close range, waiting their use of evades, burst and “panic buttons” before even releasing my own burst. Auto attacks are played aggressively while Flashing Blade, Judge’s Intervention or Contemplation of Purity are saved to break inmobilizations or to prevent big burst.

Drawbacks:

About the troubles of the build, has a few: Engineers focused on interrupts and Mesmers with broad access to invisibility and soft control are the ones I struggle the most.

The lack of precission makes mandatory to get close and land crits to get Fury (along with the use of meditations), so builds capable to kite us at range or players with AoE damage while running around pillars and other obstacles while dealing damage can be challenging against a gs/sw+focus loadout.

Players that heavily rely on condition damage can also be a threat, but I found that as long as you notice and prevent their cc tools they can be neutered.

Anyway, I think that this build has a solid use and potential in PvP, so feel free to try it and get your own conclusions. In WvW roaming, due the large avaibility of costomizable gear it gets the best potential, due the same armor can be achieved but getting a lot more power, precission and HP. A few samples based on the same concepts:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApcoVDxbI8DRRDRljNYHBZQXe9BkABAA-TVCBABPqEkjLIgYKfIV9HWVCBwTKoo9HyT3zGHEhAAIA38mZz2sNv5Nv5hO0hO0hO0+5P/5Pv5PLFQELjA-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARSlsApaolDxbI8DNR8QVVAgdS8fV61/QQkDA-TliFABfs/AUKHkUdlBVJoKlgGpkDgnAgl6CcUFiEuEABAQAu5Nzm3MwQH6QH6QHa38m38m/8mlCIilRA-w

So, that’s all. I’m not a pro and I’m not playing in any guild devoted to PvP, so I’m sure that a lot of criticism can be made here. I I’ll appreciate any advice, since to date this is the build I’m having more fun and success playing with Guardian, but I want to improve. Thanx and excuses for my poor English.

Disclaimer: this isn’t a build of my own; I’m sure that the concepts around are largely known, and I did make my arranges based on the build of a fellowship member in my guild. I’m not pioneering here.

Preamble:

Despite being in the game since August 2011, I didn’t start to play pvp more seriously until the beguinning of 2013. From January to May I did it using a Meditation Guardian, just due I didn’t like how Guardian holders works. From May to August I did change to Hambow Warrior; at that point I did reach rank 80, playing 99% of the time in random teams at

Since then until a month ago, I mainly stayed at Warrior: Meditation DPS builds and hybrids are great at duels, but due the metagame in PvP was moving towards more tanky builds (i.e.: celestial Eles, Engies and Warriors) ,they were also more risky to play, specially in n vs n skirmishes, in which the sustain from other classes and builds clearly outpaced the capabilities to get fast kills from dps builds (not only Guardians).

But a month ago I started to play again Guardian, keeping the basics of the DPS Meditation ones, but focusing the build towards enhancements in sustain. I found those changes useful, and I’m currently forging an ascendent armor for WvW roaming largely based on the same concepts. I think that the build works well in PvP, despite the caps in stats customization, and due the variety in the PvE/WvW gear, can works wonders in duels/small group roaming in WvW. This is the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApcoVDxbI8DRRDRljNYHBZQXe9BkABAA-TZBBwAcuAAAeCAjLDUc/hNHEAA

Basics:

In PvP, this build has the foundations of any other Meditation Guardian: Shelter as healing skill, Judge’s Intervention, Smite Condition and Contemplation of Purity as utility skills, and Renewed Focus as elite skill. As for traits, the usual 6 points in Valor are required, with Meditation Mastery and Monk’s Focus as mandatory ones. The third could be Focused Mind, Purity, Retributive Armor or Glacial Heart, based on your preferences.

The weapons of choice are the usual suspects: I like greatsword + sword/focus, but scepter, torch and hammer can be useful in this build; any of them can fit here and can change the way in which you play. As for sigils, the thing is more restricted: either energy or hydromancy, and then accuracy, or air. There’s some others that can be used punctually, but the ones cited had the best synergies with the whole build.

So, what are the changes with the usual Meditation builds? First, the need to spent 6 points in Honor: this will rise the vitality and healing power in 300 points, and will let us to trait Force of Will (another 300 points in vitality) and Pure of Heart. The third trait could be either Two Handed Mastery, Resolute Healer, Writ of the Merciful or Protective Reviver. Pure of Heart and ì]Writ of Merciful[/i] are a complement to Selfless Daring, and one or other can be chosen based on the weapons in use -or even both at the extent of THM-.

As the result of these trait choices the build will have a notable boost in the HP pool, a good base in healing power and the ability to heal yourself on Aegis removal, and you and your team on evades. The second change with Med builds is the amulet of choice: Cleric instead of Berserk. This synergizes with the selected traits. The last 2 trait points can be used as desired; albeit I like the more a 0/1/6/6/1 loadout a 2/0/6/6/0 can be fine, and some others also.

Geiir.7603:

Zaxares.5419:

I support it in theory, but it would be very hard to police, and somewhat open to abuse too. What’s to stop angry players from mass reporting some poor newbie who stumbled into Unranked and is doing all the classic mistakes like double-capping, zerging, or getting into pointless fights while all 3 points are capped? Without some form of chat confirmation, it can be very difficult to prove whether somebody is match manipulating or just a bad player.

Which is why I really hope that Anet save some match information, like scores, chat logs and so on. If they keep that then it will be very easy to spot wether this is a new player (they can just check his stats) or a veteran kitten.

I think that is very hard to prove nothing except having a referee over your shoulder.

In example: yesterady in one of my matches, playing as a meditation guardian in Niflhel, I did stay on close over the whole match, keeping our base. I got like 25 points due scoring the area and two succesfull defends (few kills). We won by a landslide (by more than 300 points), but for most of the match my role was just to stay alone, on close, doing nothing, scoring nothing to myself, despite the point I keep on guard was scoring for my team the whole match.

Another example: a player does a great job, scores a lot of kills and contributes to the the advantage of his team; then suddenly He makes personal a duel with another player, leaving a side the match and just engaging in the fight. As the result, the team loses, but who are we to judge them? The ultimate goal of the game is (must be) to have fun, and for him having that fight can be more fun that just winning another irrelevant match.

I remember my two (only) matches in LoL. I was utterly bad; in one of them I died like 17 times, and one of the players of my teams was mad blaming me for “feeding the opposite team”. He was wrong, but despite I did try to argue my novelty to the game He still was raging all the time.

The way to prevent disgusting behaviour from your team mates is just trying to play always with the same people, making comformed teams. The game still doesn’t have numbers enough in PvP to have a functional matchmaking based on skill levels and personal delivery, so ramdom teams will provide random experiences.

Morwath.9817:

Buran.3796:

Stroghold isn’t a GvG game mode. Is just a PvP mode.

I’m in a dedicated WvW guild, with around 60 active members, which raids 4-5 days at week with a group of 25-30 players. In the clan no one cares about PvP (well, except me), they don’t play PvP on regular basics, they don’t have a proper PvP team, and when they ocassionally play PvP is oftenly in hotjoin.

So I had to break my path to rank 80 PvP playing alone in Conquest playing with randoms, barely keeping a 50% win/lose ratio.

This new Stronghold mode will mean nothing for devoted WvW clans, and will change nothing about the curret PvP numbers, which are niche (as WvW numbers are also: no disrepect here, is just how the things are). Most of Guild vs Guild battles in WvW involve from 15 vs 15 to 30 vs 30 players, so no one (aside current PvP players) will care about Stronghold.

Just stop calling it “GvG”, because it sint. Is a PvP mode.

Just stop calling your zerging in WvW a “GvG”, because it’s not proper “GvG”, just “Zerging in WvW”.

Thanks for understanding.
~ GW player since 2005

I didn’t call the way in which people plays at WvW in any way. I just said that Stronghold isnt a “guild vs guild”. Is just a PvP mode, 5 vs 5 battle arena. Which doesn’t fit the definition of “guild vs guild”.

Currently the game lacks “gvg”; the most close thing is the casual, arbitrary clan vs clan encounters nead the windmill in the borderline maps. The expansion will not change this.

Stroghold isn’t a GvG game mode. Is just a PvP mode.

I’m in a dedicated WvW guild, with around 60 active members, which raids 4-5 days at week with a group of 25-30 players. In the clan no one cares about PvP (well, except me), they don’t play PvP on regular basics, they don’t have a proper PvP team, and when they ocassionally play PvP is oftenly in hotjoin.

So I had to break my path to rank 80 PvP playing alone in Conquest playing with randoms, barely keeping a 50% win/lose ratio.

This new Stronghold mode will mean nothing for devoted WvW clans, and will change nothing about the curret PvP numbers, which are niche (as WvW numbers are also: no disrepect here, is just how the things are). Most of Guild vs Guild battles in WvW involve from 15 vs 15 to 30 vs 30 players, so no one (aside current PvP players) will care about Stronghold.

Just stop calling it “GvG”, because it sint. Is a PvP mode.

The V.8759:

I don’t know how you guys are thinking about it, but this also gives the class so less depth. The skillcap on the warrior is so low because of this.

Please do note that I really do respect players that go to the maximum with their warrior and reach out to the skill ceiling, however in my opinion this ceiling is just so low.

Current Warrior is extremely hard to play (in PvP or WvW) against competent players. The hammer, mace, axe and bow skills are highly telegraphed, easy to evade/blind/-put your favourite counter here-. The Rifle is useless. The distinctive feature from Warriors -the burst attacks- are now a pale shadow from the past, due those abilities were largely nerfed in damage and now adrenaline is unsuitable to stack to use it surgicaly, because almost instantly decays to 0.

Since everyone is able to easily avoid most of conventional Warrior skills, the meta in PvP is moving towards passive damage: swords + condition damage and tons of sustain to crush enemies through auto attacks in atrition squirmishes. Is a dumb way of play, but is the way ArenaNet WANTS everyone to play EVERY class in the game.

Ezeriel.9574:

Taking the bleeding away from rifle was easily the dumbest thing anet has ever done.

Was absurd, indeed: a underused weapon, with a kind of damage which was niche in Warrior builds which goes nerfed to reach the “zero use” status.

I’m starting to think that the vanilla Warrior with the mediocre “192 HP heals/sec” signet was much more capable and versatile than the current “no rifle/no mace/no axe/no adrenaline enought to burst” Warrior, which seems a pile of ruins from the former glory they have.

Aeolus.3615:

Buran.3796:

Why not delete Spirit Weapons instead? There’s already a ton of pet classes in the game (Rangers, Minionmancers, Mesmers, turret Engineers…) and those ones were always more or less viable, whereas Guardian Spirit Weapons were a joke even in the days in which were indestructible.
(…)

Well because its simpler to redesign/change something that is already built than implementing from scratch.

I`m not asking for new skills. Just a delete of SWs, to prevent people from being emotionally involved in useless skills. Just erase them.

Why not delete Spirit Weapons instead? There’s already a ton of pet classes in the game (Rangers, Minionmancers, Mesmers, turret Engineers…) and those ones were always more or less viable, whereas Guardian Spirit Weaons were a joke even in the days in which were indestructible.

I remeber the days in which I did level my first Guardian using SWs and man, seeing that in time, how clueless I was! SW aren’t only subpar: even if they were proficient, it still would be a lose! Because means relying your gameplay in a passive style. If you enjoy that kind of gameplay with your Guardian just try a Maruder 6 Demon Hunter in Diablo III… -is comfy and rewarding for a while, but starts to becoming boring very fast-.

I would argue that (despite the common opinion) currently hambow warrior is one of the harder class to play: their skills are not only highly telegraphed (most of them takes at least 0.75 seconds to complete) but also their special feature (adrenaline burst) was weakened to a almost useless tool, negating the class signature. And that is without even taking in consideration lag spikes (which utterly destroys this kind of gameplay).

If you use a hambow warrior is really hard to beat competent players, because there’s too litle you can do to be impredictable.

On the other hand, the classes/builds with the lower floor are anyone based on conditions: passive damage + sustain/evasive gameplay = facerolling wins.

Saiyan.1704:

Everyone in that tournament played with classes they liked best, not because their build were the most OP in game. Guardian’s are still very much solid bunk classes and useful in any top tier tournaments.

Fair point, but the tournament also showed that guardian is no longer a “must” in a team composition in order to be competitive. So, taking in consideration that dps guards lacks sustain for n vs n in PvP matches, and bunker guardian is one of the most boring builds in the game, what is left?

Weapon skills in guardians lack variety in terms of condition damage or soft control, which explains the overwhelming scarcity of builds for guardians (which are played in PvP almost as in the day of release).

Meditation guardians are good at duels, and bad at everything else. Bunker guards are no longer needed in PvP teamplay, as the lastest tournament showed.

My main was a guardian, but I don’t play Him since May and I wouln’t touch Him for PvP even with a ten feet pole. You seriously think that the guards need a nerf? Meh, whatever, I’m okay with that.

I think that the OP has right to be upset. The old system was much better.

I did level up 8 characters to 80 before the changes, but I still lack two classes to have the different eight unlocked. So for the 2 last ones I had to use the new system. It’s horrible:

1. For the 9th character I had to spent every saved PvP tome, every level skill point and most of the PvE map skill points to bein able to pay both the skills and the traits for the character. It takes you an astonishing 210 skill points to unlock all the traits to XII, plus another jaw dropping 150 skill points the las five level XIII traits. Plus 40 gold coins (not bad, but ~x10 times the cost in the old system). That’s 360 skill points (50% over the whole pints in the world map), and without paying the skills!

1. Fot my 10th and last character I wasn’t able to use more than ~30 PvP tomes; I did pay all the skills, but the world map has not enough skill point to pay the cost of the traits, so the character is basically useless outside PvP. There’s other ways to get those traits, but involves PvE and get bored with PvE.

1. Meanwhile, my three main characters are sitting over more than (combined) 1500 unused skill points, because skill points still remain as (maybe the only) character bound currency, instead of being account bound.

I think that we all known why ArenaNet did this: to force players to spent more time in the game, forcing a sort of grind that demands weeks, even months, to make a single character playable in PvE/WvW.

The reason due I think this is a mistake isn’t because my comfort, but due is counter productive for the gameplay: leveling untraited and unskilled characters is crap, and having a unfinished level 80 character doesn’t compels me to complete it, compels me to not use it.

Which is what I do: I’m not using my 10th character. I’ll keep it “naked” until skill points became account bound and then I’ll use them to finish the trit spending.

adozu.6398:

pvp: meditation build melts faces when dueling any other berserker class, ranging from “strong” to “hard counters”

Meditation is strong in duels, duels have small impact in high level PvP matches, in which mobility, sustain and support weight a lot more. In the past Guardians used to be the quintaessential holders, but this is not longer true. In the 2-3 last big tournaments (including ToL 2) half of the top teams didn’t use a Guardian at all, a meta which is currently the dominating pattern in NA and is being increasingly popular in EU.

So, yes, Guardians are decent at PvE (in which every class works), in duels (a game mode which lacks official support) and is still relevant in WvW raids, but they don’t work at all as roamers and they are fading in PvP, replaced by other classes which fit better in most of roles.

Ynna.8769:

I’m not sure if I agree that roaming Guardians are useless and hopeless. They have a few drawbacks (slow as hell), but they can still contribute a lot. Granting boons and removing conditions is never not useful, neither is stacking Might, offering Swiftness and Stability or dealing good damage. (I’m not saying a single build can accomplish all those things).

You are thinking more in the “N vs N” small skirmish component of the term “roaming”, in which Guardians is ok. I was thinking more in the “solo roaming”, which means being able to cut down dolyaks, take camps and also to kill lone players without assist. And in those task, as lone roamer, Guardians have a big “nope” over His heads: they are slow moving around the map, they lack tools to properly disengage or evade encounters against the odds. If you build for sustain, you’ll not be able to kill enemies, if you build for the kills, you will not be able to sustain yoursefl enough. Other classes can outpace you while keeping enough punch to kill foes and enough sustain to being able to fight outnumbered if you have advantage in skill. That doesn’t happens using a Guardian.

Purple Miku.7032:

Buran.3796:

Finally, PvE is a faceroll, barely matters the class or build you use, so no big problem here.

Translates to “I don’t care about it so it’s not a problem” regardless of the fact that the majority of players on this game do care about PvE. It is a problem when there are glaringly obvious balance flaws between classes and bugs galore.

“Barely matters” means (to me) that the PvE content is as easy and forgives so much that even playing bad and with builds and charactars lacking synergies you still will be able to pass through the content.

Also doesn’t matter too much if a power-based character is clearly surpassed by other power-based characters taking in account that PvE utterly destroys the viablity of condition oriented, crowd control oriented and tank oriented builds.

Doing “-xx%” less damage than other classes in PvE isn’t a big drama; having PvE content that renders useless entire weapon sets and diminishes all non full zerker gearing is a much heavier problem, because greatly diminishes the variety and fun in the game. But again, is not that bad due PvE can just be facerrolled.

PvE: any thing works here
WvW (raids): still useful, albeit mostly boring
WvW (duels): strong
WvW (roaming): useless and hopeless
PvP: Guardians no longer are required

Yep, is Guardian in a good spot (as always): I did replace my Guard for my Warr in June and even after the Warr nerf my Warr is still well ahead in proficiency and fun.

Warriors are still VERY strong in sPvP, still one of the best “off-tank” characters in the game, and maybe the best one in small skirmishes, due the way in which retains damage, sustain and crowd control at the same time. Heads above of Guardians at this moment, imo.

In WvW the nerf did hurt the most, but is sitill viable, at least in group fights. As a roamer is no longer the best, but still decent.

Finally, PvE is a faceroll, barely matters the class or build you use, so no big problem here.

Kontrolle.3514:

I thought TESO will crush GW2? What it havnt? wait what? it totally failed?
What happened to wildstar? What? Oh thats sad.
And who ist this archage? A sequel to one of the most failed MMO games ever?

Jes im still a GW2 WvW fan, since beta. Even with all the failures and problems this game has, it is till the best thing out there. Anet should really focus more on WvW as endcontent. As soon as they bring the big hit, people will come back because, yes no subscription fee. Dont Worry there are enough players to WvW for the next 2 jears.

Curb your enthusiasm. Competition doing it bad =/= GW2 doing it good.

I don’t need a better game than GW2 to stop to play GW2, I (a lot of us) can leave the game (and will do) just because the game became dull and boring after 24 months of stagnation. And by the way, I spent more hours in RoS this Summer than in GW2.

I will not take part in this fall tournament, due I’ll be busy with another game. Guess that after another 4 months or so ArenaNet proclaims a whole revamp of WvW, with a new scoring system, GvG, maybe even a expansion pack.. would arrive in time to save the guild I belong? I DON’T THINK SO.

Of course GW2 will stay alive this year and probably a few more for the PvE people, but I’m not a PvE player, neither the guild I belong, neither this forum. A year ago I was worried about the WvW lack of progression, lack of evolving, lack of support and vision from ANet. Now I’m not longer worried, since I feel that I did fulfil my goals in the game, and is time to move on.

The game is not dead (PvE). But WvW and PvP? Utterly.

I did start in the game at the release, and did the PvE content several times in the first 6 months. Then I did feel the stagnation so I joined to a WvW clan and did play daily raids 4 days at week for 15 months, until the end of the Spring tournament. At that point was obvious that the game mode was in stagnation (again) eroded by the scoring system (which rewards coverage and zerging) and the lack of alternatives. So I did leave WvW around ~450 rank.

Then I focused my time in PvP and did reach Dragon rank (two weeks ago), but without a propper PvP team there are no incentives to keep playing. It’s a shame, due GW2 has a solid combat system, which is wasted because the lack of interest from ArenaNet in the competitive aspects of the game.

As a PvE MMO GW2 is a solid game, but I think that after two years with the same trick pony is more than evident that this is not a W vs W/ R vs R/ G vs G/ P vs P game, and after more than 3000 hours spent in the game I’m not longer interested into keep playing game modes that aren’t fun to me.

The most shocking part is how short the game fell in competitive modes taking in consideration tha GW2 was arguably one of the milestones of the genre exactly because how good and persistent were its PvP modes.

As far as PvP concerns, the Guardian meta is dead at high level play.

In the ToL 2 (both EU an NA) both winner teams hadn’t a Guardian at all, and both finalist (using dps Guardians) were utterly outplayed.

Is not that bunker Guardian is useless (He still can play very well the role), but now some other classes can be as good -if not better- in the role, and the dps variants of Guardian are just a dead weight at high level gameplay.

For PvE just go full berserker in your gear, using greatsword and sword + focus or scepter + focus to complete the map. Due the large amount of blind and block sources the Guardian has the map completion is utterly trivial with this class.

Things change a ton in PvP and WvW; in PvP you can either go for a tank (holder) role, which means using staff, mace, focus, shield and scepter most of times (hammer and gretsword can be fine along the staff) or go for a dps build (usually based on meditations, using gs + sword/focus, gs + scepter/focus or sword/focus + scepter/torch ). At high level of play 99% of time only bunker guardians are used. In WvW the most common guardian builds -in raid- wield staff + gs or staff + hammer and they are usually tanky and focused in the last 3 lines of traits (mostly for group support=, whereas roaming guardians can go either support or dps.

But notice this: guardians are great in duels, but otherwise terribad in roaming due the lack speed (no constant swiftness) or stealth, and they mobility skills -which are great as close gappers and to enter in combat- are severly lacking for avoiding combat.

As a player which mains both guardian and warrior, imo warriors are in better shape now.

^ So black and/or white at 2700 gold for the next time, then.

Need to be an option. On sale at 900 gold in a future patch

Grebcol.5984:

Is it just me or is this condition out of control? In every match now there are many Hambows + Guards whos spams that condi.

Burning can’t be stacked in intensity, only in time, which means that if a team has more than one player using a build based on fire a lot of potential damage will be wasted.

Notice also that in team play oftenly the goal in x vs x skirmishes is to focus in one player each time, to kill it as soon as possible, and in such conditions (pun intended) fire is crap: multiple fire users focusing the same target will not scale the damage in the same way as other stackable conditions or physical damage.

Confirmed, in two times I even had my skill icons flashing intermittently followed by a 5 seconds frozen time. I only did experience such effect in WvW a year ago or so, but never in PvP.

The problem is that the only good thing about PvP is the combat system (and the instant access to any build configuration). Some serious issues includes:

• Animation from some races (Asuran) tricky to see, which leads to unfair advantages. Yeah, will be fixed in September, but for me seems a thing which takes you 2 days to solve, NOT TWO YEARS.

• Transparency over structures (covering your view) working inconsistently, sometimes blinding you. Also, the cursor dissapears when you press righ mouse to rotate the view, and makes harder to land some area effects. The overall visibility of the game -to both playeras and spectators- isn’t too good.

• The matchmaking system doesn’t work. Oftenly pairs low level random players against conformed pro teams. Oftenly starts matches with 4 vs 5, which is unnaceptable. The game would have ranked leagues (bronze, silver gold…) to better pair players, but the lack of PvP players makes this impossible.

• There’s only a single game mode, based on control points, which favoures bunker builds. There’s not duel arenas, guild halls or so. There’s not season ladders or significative rewardings along the path for competitive, devoted players and teams.

• The support for the sPvP was along this two years, severely lacking (at best). Most of time is no-existent. If a problem, unbalance or some glitch/exploit emerges it takes months to be fixed (if affects only PvP or WvW).

• They waste such mazing potential… Take the PvP, create a larger map with “ancients” and “towers”, makE your own DotA game based on the excellent combat system from GW2 and the open the PvP part of the game in f2p to reach critical mass: monetize the cost with tons of cosmetic stuff and voila… a huge success.

Sadly the game has the basic tools to be a great multiplayer game, but the developer lacks the vision or the faith in that part and did chose to entirely focused their work in the PvE part. That’s what happened: ArenaNet lacking faith in his own product.

jakakettu.9083:

Today I wanted to re-read the rules of conduct of GW2 just for some fun. (yes… I have odd sense of fun) And then I noticed something quite interesting…..

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct/

The part 22.
“While participating in Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay, you will not participate in any form of match manipulation. Match manipulation is defined as any action taken to fix or manipulate the outcome of a match or alter or manipulate the rankings or ratings of the ladder. This also includes disrupting other people’s game experience by not actively participating in matches in good faith, a.k.a leeching.”

How many times have you seen this happen in pvp lately? There’s atleast one person in PvP or in tournament who refuses to play.

Another quote from the beginning:
“Please be aware that failure to comply with these rules of conduct may result in the termination of your Guild Wars 2 game account according to the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement.”

I also wanted to hear from the Anet itself – can we get that report button for AFK players in sPvP already so we can follow your rules of conduct better?

What do you think?

Sorry but this manifest is crap, wroten in the early and naive days in which ArenaNet did belive that the game was tailored to make a huge success in the e-sport market -which, guess waht, didn’t happen at all!-.

As an example: the most blatant form of match manipulation is the matchmaking system, which is responsible of so many games started with 5 vs 4 even on Conquest mode. So Arenanet is responsible of a ton of matches played in unfair conditions (we were witness of some of them in the recent ToL matches).

Another example of match manipulating is to deliberately hide the ranks of the players, in order to prevent the players to known how much doomed is their fate from the start, due the matchmaking has no remorses in mixing low ranked random PvP players against high ranked conformed teams. The game hides those stats on purpose just to prevent intelligent players from leaving the countdown due they can easily notice when they just has no chance.

So, the game itself manipulates the matches in order to fill “x” slots, no matter how unfair is each roster and the disparity in dedicated time, w/l ratios, etc, between players, and end even don’t hesitates in starting a game with 1+ empty slots along minutes.

I didn’t saw too many leechers (at least in Conquest, in which I play 99% of the time). Instead which I mostly saw in terms of “afk’s” is mostly players which after 3-4 minutes palying in number disadvantage or being crushed by a much more experienced/organizated team just choses to drop the ball and no loger fight -which for me is FINE, given the current environment-.

To prevent this the best politics is to be crystal clear: let the players to see the ranks and stats of each player before the match, change the matchmaking to pair teams which can fight in fair conditions, refuse to start a mach if 1 or more slots are empty, and implement a surrender option to finish a match (with reward caps) for the ones in which the disparity is too large to be called “competitive” at all.

But don’t worry: probably none of those things will be done, so you can keep whinning about players in the forum instead of noticing the true origin of those faults (ArenaNet’s indifference).

I’m ~3500 hours in the game now, with 8 characters, a free slot and enough gold to get a 10th slot. All my current toons are at lvl 80, and 7 of them have the full amount of skills + traits. My two last characters (and the two more that I plan to build to finish my roster) were leveled entirely through scrolls and tomes obtained from PvP using my main characters (not a single step in PvE or WvW for those tooms, outside farming a rich iron ore each day).

I did leave playing PvE at the beguining of the year (after having done 3 times the full map, achieving one legendary, being done dungeons hundreds and hundreds of times) and did leave the WvW after the end of the Second League, so from May to now I just did the daily achievements and PvP (currently I’m at rank 73, I expect to reach 80 this month), and the new trait system is, indeed, atrocius.

To my luck, I will not need to jump in the new trait system due (to great extent) I already have 6 of the 8 classes with all the skills and traits, and PvP gave me gold, tomes and scrolls to fulfill the other ones. However, that luck doesn’t prevent me to notice how abhorrent is the current trait system: it prevents low level characters to progress and experiment with traits, and forces them to either spent a huge amount of gold and skillpoints or urges them to do things that aren’t funny at all (like demanding to do task in high level maps to get low level traits). Is just absurd. The skill point requirements for the last traits are also insane (so huge that I din’t unlock a single 13th trait for my main -a Guardian- despite He swims in a pool of ~800 skill points due I see no reason to waste 150 of them on that crap). If looks obnoxious for a veteran player with resources to pay the price you can figure what looks like for a beguinner player which just steps on the game…

In 3 weeks my journey will be complete: all classes, legendary, several full map completions, max rank at PvP… Arenanet barely changed the (stagnated) WvW since the release, failed to make a competivive/popular PvP and the PvE part is going from easy and boring towards to easy + grindly + boring.

I don’t known what is happening: the game has arguably one of the best (if not the best) combat system in any MMO, and has potential to be a success as both competitive e-sport and as pupular G vs G arena, but Arenanet just drop the ball, did stop supporting those aspects of the game and focused their efforts into turning the PvE in a korean grindfest. Well, worse for them: for sure I have more alternatives available in the market. My main objective playing games is to achieve fun, and at the current state GW2 barely does that.

^ But at the cost of losing a lot of sustain and team support. In example: you will not find a single serious PvP team wasting a slot in a DPS Guardian, so the only Guardians you will find in competitive PvP rosters are bunkers, whereas in the past NA Legendary Tournament in 3 out of 4 teams from the semifinals they did run double Warrior.

Yes, you can have fun with a Guardian using a DPS build, but you lack variety of builds compared against the options available in Warrior, and you have 0 chances of playing Guard in a competitive team filling other role than being a bunker.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

It might be easy to abuse for lots of rewards if you’re not careful (entire teams just giving up at the start for instant rewards, for example.)

Well, really Isn’t needed. I always play alone and only in Conquest mode (my clan is more WvW oriented and they had no regular PvP team), so when I get attached to a particulary bad group of random players vs a conformed team or the game displays a 4 vs 5 match, then after a minute or two of struggle I just give up and sit on a corner untill the enemy facerrolls -just clicking a skill from time to time to evade afk kicks-.

Is even better due a very fast victory means less points to the winner. The problem isn’t really how to give up a fight, but how awkward the matchmaking system works sometimes. But currently some matches are just a waste of time for both teams.

For a Meditation Guardian the GS/Hammer setup works better in PvP than in WvW, due the speed cap and the smaller scale of the maps. You can still use the GS or a Hammer, but using both in WvW will make you to be poked at range due your lack of mobility. The best setup por a WvW dps Guardian would be either:

• Pairing a GS or Hammer with a Sword + Focus or Scepter + Focus.
• Using Scepter + Focus with Sword + Torch.

The first ones works better in small skirmishes, the late one is better for duels but lacks AoE damage.

About the runes, amongst the most popular ones are either the ones wich provides mobility (Traveler), the ones focused in enhancing the dps (Divinity, Scholar, Strenght) or in survability (Melandru, Hoelbrack).

For weapons, armor and accesories, must be said:

• Ascended accesories are easy to obtain, so in terms of cost is better to chose before which armor we will use, then the weapons and finally the trinkets (which can be swapped easily between characters). The accesories are the items which provide the better ferocity x stat point cost, so in dps builds usually they end being berserker ones, but as I said, accesories are easy to get, so maybe the best chice is to made the armor/weapons in zerk/valkyrie/assassin ascended gear and then to complement the accesories with the amount of armor/health/prec you need in your build.

Personally, I would not use condition/healing stats in a dps meditation guardian, specially in WvW roaming. For group suport the Healway builds with cleric stats can work fine, but tha’s a whole different beast.

Caedmon.6798:

The crit nerf was needed,the dmg some classes could do was just too much at times,espec on thieves.Fights last a bit longer now,im really liking it eventhough ive been hit with the nerf bat aswell,no complaints here at all since you can pretty much still compensate for the lost dmg.

I extremely disagree. In PvP the physical damage was nerfed since the early days in the game, and with the huge buffs to condition builds since the summer some classes had really hard time dealing with others wich can stack vitality + thoughness + condition and just being able to killing you with their auto attacks with minimal effort if a decent player is behind the character. The new nerf makes burst physical damage almost useless.

An I must ad: some classes, as Guardians, doesn’t have any viable condition build to fill the current condition meta. A nerf in the PvE critical damage is a thing, a new one in PvP just destroys my main character.

I have the same fears: before the patch my dps guardian with zerk amulet + 30 in Valor + Runes of Divinity had a 62% enhanced critical damage and now with the exact traits and gear the table shows only 50% enhanced critical damage.

Did they lied about? ANet said that the PvP was balanced and the Ferocity change would not affect PvP due the game mode has it own internal balances since the release of the game.

I must add than even If the critical dmg is now nerfed in PvP I will not change a bit my dps Guardian, no matters how uncompetitive and useless He ends. Bunkers are just plain boring, I did burn that bridge months ago and ther’s no turning back for me.

Silv.9207:

4) They put Force of Will on Honor line, that increase your Vitality by 300, giving around 3000 hp. That amount of hp can make you think to be good to increase our chances to fight condition damage, or to make dps live longer, but to obtain that trait you need to spent 30 trait points on a defensive trait line and a DPS don’t do that, and if you want to fight condition damage you must chose to 3000 more hp or Pure of Voice, that clean 1 condition whit shouts (2 if combined whit Soldier Rune). And to fight condition damage I prefer Pure of Voice, than 3000 more hp. A good condiiton damage dealer can inflict 1800 condition damage per second. Whit 3000 more hp you can survive 2 seconds more… and I prefer to clean away conditions and reduce to 0 the damage than increase my hp by 3000 ans curvive 2 seconds more.

I think that the trait may work very well in dps builds; usually those builds work around the use of 2-3 meditations, so probably you will not have the luxury to spent a skill slot in a shout to take advantage from Pure Of Voice, and the extra health can be very handly against burst builds. During the last month and half I was using a 10/10/30/20/0 triple meditation build in PvP and was fine, so I think that a X/X/30/30/0 can work.

The other new traits are bad, I agree.

I don’t support their idea, I’m just trying to understand why Guardian has 0 viable builds based on conditions.

Condition Guardians doesn’t exist. Some Guardians use specific traits to enhance their PHYSICAL DAMAGE through the use of fire, but those ultimately are physical damage builds and not based in conditions.

Guardians due lore aren’t allowed to use venom, torment or bleeding (defesive class) and fire as condition is useless due can’t be stacked and any reaply must wait in chain, so this condition is very easy to prevent. An example: if you fight in PvP and ther’s some longbow Warrior in you team your chances is that you will not be able to do a single point of condition damage to a foe as long as the target is fighting in the ground area of the F1.

This wasn’t a problem because DPS Guardians were fine a year ago, but since the last Summer the condition builds are steadly becoming the meta in some parts of the game (duels, roaming, PvP), and as I said due lore restrictions Guardians can’t have access to viable condition builds.

blakdoxa.7520:

An actual boon duration rune set would be the answer here.

Then players would have to make a decisive choice on whether to take a full boon duration set over another set or mix and match set.

No, is not. I already have 2 armors with this 2×3 loadout, and none of them is extensively used in PvE or WvW, due for PvE you don’t need boon duration, and in WvW Soldier runes are usually better for raid gaming. So, is not like those rune combinations were too strong, too usefull, or unbalanced in any way. But was a viable option for some specific builds (i.e.: healway Guardians).

So after the next patch the effort I spent in getting those runes will be ruined, two of my full set armors will be useless, the amount of viable builds will be nefed (a collateral effect of diniminishing the available options) and you are talking about a hypotetical alternative (which can be viable or not, but in any case will not be available at 0 cost).

Sorry, I can’t understand how can someone defend ArenaNet for their decission of nerfing a underused and underpowered choice. Just makes no sense.

Wait to see the % critical damage nerf before craft anything. Otherwise, Celestial armor + full zerker trinkets are better choices than PVT or Knight. For weapons either zerk, valkirie or celestial based on your class (assuming we are talking for raids, in roaming condition can be better for some classes but condi works bad in dungeons).

In terms of stats doesn’t matter at all since what you want is the skin and then you will use transmute to get the ones you want.

In terms of looks and coolnes I love both (I think that the skins are the better ones for hammers, including Juggernaut) and I have both: Entropy in a Guardian called “Fvlgrim” which uses purple and gold as main colors along Entropy, the Sword of Lord Taeres, Anomaly and some other purple-themed items and a Warrior called “Vuhlkan” which uses Genesis along a green/gold armor with other weapons with golden particle effects (trying to fit the looks of the two WH 40K primarchs).

Between both of them I think that Genesis is slighly cooler, but by a narrow marging. At the end is all about the primary colors of your character: use Entropy if you will wear gear in dark tones and choose Genesis if you will use white/clear/angelical ones.