Guild Wars 2

Guardian was designed to perform as a bunker at PvP in the vanilla game.
Along the time his perform as bunker was highly decreased due overbuff of another classes while Guardian did remain mostly the same.
After the expansion the Guardian has 0 use as bunker, and his best build (meditrapper DH) is a dps one. And guess what: is far from being the best at that role.

nerovergil.5408:

Like kitten wth… freaking tanky and can spam huge aoe nuke…wtf anet? what balance spvp team thinking? what fun in playing op class? this isn’t esport at all!!! i never meet an op class like DH in all my 20 years of gaming.

Bad grammar, poor skills, mediocre trolling attempt; will score 2/10.

Only one DH in the whole roster of 30 players in the last weekend World Tournament (which anyway performed poorly) should be enough to stomp any claim about the “DH opness”.

DH is so good that was only one in the six teams at the world tournament last weekend (and didn’t went too well for him). Which means: if you known how to play the game and you’re in a conformed team you probably want a different class filling the slot of that DH.

Guys, I think you’re missing the point a bit here.

Nostradus asked about the state of the Guardian in the game. I did provide my honest opinion about each department. I argued that fractals were the weakest department and reasoned why.

Now, I didn’t say that the task was impossible, I did say that was suboptimal, slow and dangerous, and explained why. So, Nostradus is free to main Guardian for fractals if He wish, spent a lot of gold crafting the needed stuff, and IF He gets kicked from the player finder when brings a Guardian to high level fractals, at leas He will known the “why”.

Personally, I don’t have too much time to play the game in work days, so usually I spend 40 min gathering resources and 15-20 min with the daily, and tha’s all. If I want/need to do a fractal of two I do like to finish the task asap, so faster is usually better for me.

Napo.1230:

1. What hard counters rev? Or what is it weak to?
2. What should I look out for? (think ranger knockback you no it’s followed by a rapid fire or zerker stance icon on warrior )

1) Power Rev uses Glint + Shiro and in traitlines Herald, Devastation and either Invocation Or Retribution. Weapons are usually staff and any combo of main sword.

If the player uses Invocation the damage is higher and also can have a slighly better self-healing and a bit of condition cleansing (each time He evades), but loses all access to stability. You can expect this build to play more aggressively and a very high burst. The main two weakness of this build are condition damage and soft cc.

If the player uses Retribution then will have better access to stability (easily 2 stacks for at least 5-6 seconds each time He evades) and longer lasting access to protection, but will lack almost entirely any access to condition cleansing (aside from sigil of generosity, maybe?). No breakstuns, also

In both cases you can expect high burst combos when they activate Shiro’s Enchanted Daggers, with openings as sword # 5 or axe # 5 followed by sword # 3 and then swap to staff # 5 and ending with Elemental Blast, etc.

The condi Mesmer (perplexity) and condi Chronomancer both hard counter those Rev power builds; is just about timming.

The condition Revenant is a whole different beast; usually runs with Herald + Retribution + Corruption traitlines and mace + axe / sword + ? He has massive access to stability, protection and condition inmunnity, but lacks breakstuns and propperly condition cleansing. Is harder to kill but lacks the high burst of the power builds. Usually runs viper or carrion stats, and his damage is hybrid in nature. Their AoE is stronger than power builds and can spam no end amounts of torment and fire damage. Their main weakness are well placed soft cc and ranged foes: is a close combat build that struggles vs targets with high mobility, viable ranged pressure or high access to stealth.

2) You should try to avoid to hit Revs any time they activate the Herald healing or shield #5; you should move away (or evade/block) from Revs any time they use Enchanted Daggers and Jade Winds on Shiro stance (both can be devastating in well timed with a burst combo). Power Revs more dangerous attacks do involve sword #3 and staff #5, but good players will use them in secured combos or as an extra defensive skills, trying to spam autoattacks meanwhile. Condi Revs doesn’t rely on combos; their most dangerous attacks are maybe axe #4 and the Mallyx leap (Unyielding Anguish) due the chill they procs, but any time you chose to fight them at close range you’re asking for a rude awakening (even playing Warrior).

As general rule Rev’s ranged game is crap, so as long as you can pressure them at range and cc/lay condition damage on them they will struggle. Only class which can work well against then in close is perma-evade Daredevil, and still is a risky business.

Condi Mesmer/Chrono should win 80%+ against them, Necro/Reaper is more a fifty/fifty, more skill based than hard countering anything.

Zackie.8923:

almost every build i see uses herald, so what is the base revenant for?

Condition Mallyx + Shiro works, albeit after the Phase Traversal nerf I think that Mallyx + Glint is better (constant swiftness at minimal resource cost, good AoE burn damage, much better boon duration..).

As was said, the fact that Rev seems designed to use the Herald spec means that in the next expansion either the new legend must be amazing or both the legend, the traitline and the new weapon will remain unused due they have to compete against GLINT.

Obtena.7952:

That being said, I would think that the non-boon defensive abilities Guardian possess would make them even more desirable if this boon stealing thing is the problem that the poster says makes Guardians = crap in fractals.

Read my post again: even WITHOUT the retaliation steal issue Guardians are STILL subpar at high level fractals.

The main source of damage from Guardians is usually physical, which performs poorly once the boss HP and armor (specially due the armor increse) starts to rise after level 50+. Condi Guardians rely on fire, which can’t be stacked massively as bleed/poison, neither have a weapon which procs conditions in autoattacks, so they need to spent utility skill slots to burn foes, end even then the damage output is a fraction of what a viper horror reaper can achieve.

It can be argued that Guardians offers useful utilities in fractals (mostly Wall of Reflection, group stability and some consecrations), but the thing is that in high fractals the faster you crush the enemies the less you have to worry about defensive tactics, and neither of the support skills from a Guardian are a need in high fractals.

It took me five to six weeks to grind the gold to craft the full ascended armor and weapons for my viper Reaper (which I only use for fractals), and I understand that can be a though effort for most of players (and also, their success can be suddenly reverted at any of those balance patches which Anet does 4-5 timeas each year) BUT the effort clearly worths the pain: is easy to play, is safe to play, erodes the high fractal bosses HP at voracious speeds and once you have it the rewards soon fills the cost: it lets you do the task in half of the time, and each time you get a ascended drop (armor pieces or weapons) you’re saving 120~150 gold coins.

Anyway, isn’t a problem specifically from the Guardian class: most of the classes and specializations have hard times in high fractals due the “sack of health points” boss design. A few builds can circunvent this issues making fractals a cake walk. Guardians doesn’t have any of those builds.

So, a fast resume: I don’t think that Guardians are crap at fractals due boon steals (albeit is an extra issue), I do think they are crap due they struggle to do damage to bosses, they struggle to keep themselves alive (a zerk Guard barely has 11k HP) and if I can do the same task with other class in half of the time, more safely and effortlessly then I can conclude that I have no reasons to use them is this department of the game.

Seteruss.4058:

Crap at fractals?

Is a well known problem: at high level fractals (81+) enemies steal your boons; Guardian/DH is usually a machine of making light fields, which procs retaliation for your team, which ends with your team annihilated when the enemy steals this boon.

But even without this issue the Guardian/DH doesn’t provide too much to fractals: as the level rises the amount of HP and armor from bosses escalates hugely, so physical damage soon loses eficiency. Currently the best high fractal team composition is having 4 viper horror Necros/Reapers + one healer (Druid or Tempest), which can deal huge condition damage utterly ignoring the enemie’s armor and also tank and body block most of their attacks with their army of minions.

I did fracs with a Guard until level ~40, then swapped to Rev until ~70 and then swapped to Reaper. I’m not saying that can’t be done with Guard/DH, but is just suboptimal and cand end in your character accidentaly wiping your team with a random blasted light field.

Open world PvE: great
Dungeons: great
Raids: decent
Fractals: crap
PvP: irrelevant at high level tournaments
WvW (large groups): good to strong, albeit boring to play
WvW Roaming: too slow for this task
WvW Duels: good

onevstheworld.2419:

Breather stats have never been changeable. Underwater combat in general has fallen to the bottom of Anet’s priority list, so I doubt we’ll see any changes in the near/medium term unfortunately.

Really I don’t care too much about underwater being meaningless for ANet (i.e.: no new aquatic weapon skins, no new underwater content, etc.). But I do care about a BUG wasting my money: Hronk’s Breather is listed in the armorsmith station as a helm kind of armor so I SHOULD be able to reset properly those stats.

Otherwise R E M O V E that content from the game to prevent the players to waste our hard earned GOLD and T I M E in useless items.

Hi, yesterady I did craft the Hronk’s Metal Breather for my Rev and now I’m trying to reset the stats to viper in the Mystic Forge with the usual recipe (the armor piece + 5 ectos + Anthology of Heroes + Viper Intrincate Gossamer Insignia), but I can’t!

The mystic Forge lets me to insert the ectos and the Anthology, but then when I pick either the breather or the insignia the other one fades to grey and turns out ineligible.

Plese, fix this mess ArenaNet.

Edit: also, I recently got the recipe for the Shadow of Grenth backpack, which I want to craft and then reset in stats to berserker, would it work or is also bugged? I want to known if before wasting near to 200 gold coins in a useless ascended piece.

^ Re-Edit: forget that last one, Shadow of Grenth stats are selectable; still have the problem with the Hron’s Metal Breather!

^ Imo condi Ranger (Druid) is way dangerous than condi Warrior (Berserker) due currently is probably the class with the better sustain out there. And that’s in PvP, in WvW due no stat limitations condi Ranger and condi Mesmer are just a match lost.

Awesome! I was using krait runes due condition duración + the elite effect, but can change to balth or torment. Undead seems a bit weak (only around +100 to durability and condition damage). Not sure about leadership, I’m already using durability in my marauder ser but the leadership ones are a lot harder to get and the only reason due they are used in PvP is due the absence of the durability ones. Anyway, thanx a lot for the advices and examples!

Hi, I’m starting to roam with condition Revenant in WvW (previously was using mostly power Rev and Guard) using this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQRApX8snvNeNS6JvJRVlHlsrykSYW5SJYssrklTlRNjOKJNgEWwO93vH-TlyFABrrH4gTAgZaGOZ/hjfAANp8DgjAQCHEAqUCuv6PBAQAmZZ2mtZwRP6RP6RPal5Qn5QvZpAWUZF-w

…Essentialy mace + axe / sword shield (albeit I’m thinking about going sword/sword) with Mallyx and Shiro. The thing is: I found Shiro (Impossible Odds and Phase Traversal) counterproductive for mobility due both skills deplete too much the energy bar, so when I close the gap oftenly I can only use auto attacks for a few, valuable seconds.

So lately I did swap to Glint to use Facet of Elements as main source for mobility, and I’m guessing now about the use of Traveller runes also (the % boon duration and condition duration seems a nice bonus). My current runes (krait) are due experimentation (they area ultra cheap) but I’m not sure if they are the best choice. Some advices, condi Rev users?

DH, worst class in PvP, no spot in tournaments in a streak of 14+ months, and baddies yet unable to play vs such crap…

You can either play Necro and use condition transfer to beat the chrono in a finger snap or play the Guardián and run. For most of the classes, specialy in WvW in which Anet gave up any chance of balance once they chose to remove some amulets in PvP but do nothing in PvE/WvW, the only way to beat a perplex Chrono is facing a bad player.

Otherwise, use Necro or just run. With traveller’s and gs you hace the chance to outpace him (I didt it sometimes).

Guardian is now in a unstopable track of 16 months of uselessness in high level play and in the near future (if fails again in the next patch) is foreseeable for this class to rise as the absolute worst ever for PvP in this game, dehroning the old Warrior as a champion.

Amineo.8951:

Jack Skywalker.5674:

To Buran and Amineo

I mostly do sPvP as I can’t be bothered with collecting gear from raids or fractals to be competent at WvW. I did a coulpe of matches with Scepter+Shield/Sword+Focus and it was pretty good, won 3 out 6 matches.

Yeah I forgot to mention PvP, DH was subpar compared to other classes last season, now there’s a good chance that it will be meta, with the removal of Clerics amulet, it’s gonna be who has the highest burst and DH are good at that in team fights.

It won’t. Guardian bunkers had no damage and no sustain over time, so wasn’t viable at all and now without the cleric amulet his only strenght (team support) is even worse (not like they could compete against othe healers, anyway). So meditation DH is still the best Guardian build, despite being trash tier. Now after 13 months outside the pro pvp meta the Guardian faces another three months of uselessness in high level play, so they can reach the 16th month -and being very close of the uselessnes streak of the Warrior at the beguining of the game.

Rev has weakness, but at least they still can grant one per team in each pro league team.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

I am gonna go Guardian and leave my condi rev alone.

Guardian is crap in every aspect of the game except large WvW groups (due “Stand Your Ground!”). I say this as a player which mained Guard up to the expansion, investing ~4k hours + 2 legendaries in. Revenant is just better, even relegated to sword #1 aa is still better.

Reroll to a Necro. I did swap my fractal gear from Guard to Rev until ~70; then I did craft a light ascended armor, did extract my resistances to the new clothes and got the gains. Never saw back, no remorses.

Zenith.7301:

supa suop.8026:

Zenith.7301:

Even then I hope we never get a ranged weapon. All ranged weapons besides ele staff and necro scepter are trash in PvE.

I hope we do even if it is trash in PvE at least we will have more than one ranged weapon to choose from.

It does not even have to be a full condi weapon. It can be a hybrid like the warrior’s Long-bow.

Oh, great, so an even more useless weapon not even used for large scale WvW because hybrid weapons are trash only used for duels or gimick spvp builds.

Rev’s hammer was a gorgeous AoE weapon for WvW until Anet patches nerfed it to irrelevance, making it useless in every other game mode.

I would chose a good single target ranged condi or hybrid weapon over any other kind of weapon for Rev, specially taking in consideration that the new specilization will prevent us from use Glint, so you can bet that the next spec will be crap at PvE, anyway.

NeXeD.3042:

Regon Phoenix.8215:

ArthurDent.9538:

Regon Phoenix.8215:

Worst class right now, and probably ever

lol, hyperbole much with the ever part.

Started playing 6 moth ago, done some research before starting. To my knowledge, no one was pushed so hard out off meta when even non-meta builds on other classes are considered better than best DH builds. Then again, i just started playing 6 moth ago, so you can use that against my point.

Yeah the whole 6 months thing kinda ruins your credibility there.

To be fair Guardians/DH are outside the game in high level pvp for more than a year now…

Dezember.1295:

1. Does rev do well in Maguuma content by themselves?
2. Would you recommend regular zerker setup for map exploring?
3. Which weapons / stances would you use? I was thinking of basically running my PvP setup with full zerk S/S and something… With dragon (once I reach herald) and assassin stance.

1) I can fight up to six foes at the same time in the Dragon Stand map (they usually patrol in groups of three) and win if I play well my cards, despite Rev isn’t the king of AoE. On the other hand, making mistakes can lead to a fast death if you’re so outnumbered. But overall, once you known the mechanics you can do well.

2) Zerker in PvE can work fine due our sustain is great, and is the best choice for fractals and raids, albeit I do use marauder armor stats for WvW.

3) For power builds I use Glint & Shiro, Herald and Devastation traitlines with either Invocation or Retribution as the third one. In most of PvE situations the best weapon combos are either sword + axe + staff or sword + shield + staff, but for open areas or against very specific bosses you can replace staff with hammer for a more safe approach. That’s for power builds, condition Rev is a very different beast -I’m just starting with so I will not give advice about at this moment).

Marauder is great for WvW raids and roaming, and more than enough for regular PvE content.

In fractals and PvE raids you should aim for max dps; you can argue about “only” losing a 5% dmg, but that tells me that you probably are on budget with your gear (probably a single ascended armor used in each game mode) which means that you won’t be wearing scholar runes (another 10% dmg loss) or specific sigils in the weapons (more loss) nor the top tier food.

So, at the end you probably will lose like a 15%-20% of damage, which is irrelevant in dungeons but critical in high level fractals and PvE raids. This, taking in consideration that Guardians aren’t the best at the dps ladder could lead to some animosity against you in pug games.

They became extinct a year ago in high level PvP; every mutation and iteration of them since was crushed and exposed as useless, and of course no team using one reach the cut to the semifinals.

It’s ok: if you want a tank or support class just use a Tempest or Druid, if you want damage, mobility or utilities then use anything else. Except Guardian/DH: only use them if you want to troll your own team being a drag.

Congrats to TCG, I wasn’t expecting them to win, but they did great. The whole thing in the regular Pro League was a shame, but almost worth the pain just to being able to see the god tier levels of trolling from Helseth in the final interview.

Crovax.7854:

There was a tournament? Why were there no advertisments? Maybe I would have tuned in for a few minutes during the OG OverWatch Invitationals downtime :/

Overwatch! I almost forgot that I paid for that game and is somewhere in my HD… How’s doing? I heard that the random drops do makes generic Korean MMO grinding “reasonable”.

Hi, I’m currently doing ~50 level fractals with my Herald but after crafting ascended viper gear for my Reaper I’m almost ready to try the Viper Horror build in that gamemode. But I’m not that used with this build, so I have some questions about:

• Which skills should use as Viper Horror to break the defiance bar from bosses in fractals?
• Which are the typical skill rotations with this build?
• How viable is the build with random pugs, specifically if isn’t a healer (for the minions) in the team?
• Any tips or limitations to take in consideration in undewater combat?

Thanx in advance.

Tomiyou.3790:

I’ve read the whole page and I STRONGLY disagree with you: having better condition cleanses will help 0 to Revenants vs some of the strongest condi builds.

My Guardian (which has TONS of cleanses and a VIABLE ranged weapon) is unable to beat my friend’s confussion Mesmer, despite I’m able to beat His Thief with my Rev, Warrior and Guard 95-100% of times. Now that Revs lacks viable ranged game and our gap-closing game was destroyed having some extra cleanses will provide mediocre enhancements at best against classes which can spam conditions with just auto-attacks. And trading our balance for such poor reward would be useless.

What you are asking is to turn Rev (which is great vs most of power builds but poor vs condition builds) into a Rev which would be mediocre against both power and condition builds. You offer nothing in trade for the lose os a valuable tool, exactly as they did with Phase Traversal. And for playing a useless class I already have two Guardians, so my answer to your proposal is NO.

Tomiyou.3790:

I’m not talking directly about the whole rev, just the stability uptime, which is permanent unless you cc him hard. This was ok at the start of HoT, but since then we have seen a big reduction in cc. I mean, how the hell am I suppose to cc rev with my fresh air ele? Or how the hell can I cc him with a powerlock mesmer, when I try to burst him? (I would have to use the mantra and f3, only to have him swap to shiro and instantly break -> my 2 very powerful tools are on CD, sorry but that is unfair).

Condi Mesmer demolishes Rev (power or condi), so is not like you don’t have any option to counter the class. Most of condi builds put Revs in a though place due even traited to cleanse is still weak in that department and the opportunity cost to get those defenses is a huge tradeoff in traits and traitlines oriented towards damage.

Probably Warrior: is a core weapon for that class which is both useful currently in PvP and WvW roaming and can be used with ANY specialization (Mesmer’s shield doesn’t, and neither Herald shield).

Herald shield also was nerfed, and currently doesn’t have any use in PvE (in which is replaced for axe to break defiance bar on champions and so). Engineer shield was a thing used for condi builds with pistol, but ages ago, and Guardian just doesn’t have a shield (their shield is called focus, instead).

Yep, with the hammer damage and utility being useless and relying only in mele weapons fights against builds with high access to disengage (most of the ones in wvw roaming) the current PT is unable to compete, and Rev builds based on conditions works better. Power Herald is only viable vs very specific builds with low mobility as DH and Bow/Mace Warriors.

Man, I don’t known how the people is still able to lose against DH in PvP: their damage is crap, has only 2-3 weapons worth to wield, is currently one of the classes with worse sustain and HoT added a ton of missile hating for specializations WHILE increased -heavily- the number of skills that tramples trough DH’s aegis/blocks.

In a few days we will see the new round of finals of the Pro League and AGAIN it will show 0/20 players using this class, which is permanently banned from high end gaming since at least a year ago. Stop beating the horse: is already dead from long time ago.

^ Die your armor in black & gold or celestial & gold and Eternity would fit forever, no matter the time of the day ^^ .

RavenClaw.4608:

Hey guys,
I returned to play yesterday after a while I wasn’t playing. I saw the new changes with the skills and traits, I am a 43 Human Ranger, and I saw the traits they’ve been changed to fit the most similar traits I had before, however, I wanted to ask if there is any chance to reset them and start all over with the skills and traits.
I need more help with leveling, I don’t know how to level fast, I was exploring maps to 100%, and when I got storyline missions I did them, threre is any other way you recommend to leveling? Or maybe if there is and more stuffs like quests or dungs that I should do?
I don’t have good gear, I’m using drops that I get from monsters by exploring maps and doing hearts. My inventory is full of kitten like XP stuff, food, materials I dont know but I don’t have space, what should I do with it? drop it all save it somewhere what to do?
If you know good guides for leveling, traits and skills, gear, for Rangers it will be awesome!
Thank you!

You can reset your traits and trait lines for free as many times as you want, don’t worry about it. Also, the game keeps your trait selection across PvE, PvP and WvW differently.

Leveling is ultra easy: everything in this game provides xp. You can level your character just discovering the maps, crafting, doing PvP or WvW, dungeons, etc. The fastest way would probably be either doing dungeons (a dungeon completed fills ~70% or you level bar) or doing meta events. The leveling tomes from PvP are also very handly for alts.

Buy gear each 5-10 levels; sell everything you don’t use -or salvage it and bank your materials-. Gear isn’t even important before reaching 80, and once you end there exotics are cheap to obtain.

For build for Rangers use this:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Ranger

Did craft Twilight 2 years ago, then Sunrise a couple of months back just to merge both and craft Enternity. Worth every effort.

Foefire is nice but has some handicaps: has no step effects, lacks the convenience of stat swapping and the chaink link -from His origin as spiritual weapon fron Guardian class- seems distasteful. To be honest, I do like more classic skins as cobalt. Foefires seems to me a bit in middle of nowhere.

Legendary items are expensive, but once you have two or three ascended armors for your main toon and if you make a decent amount of gold at week they arealmost the only decent thing in which to spent the coins…

Except in WvW raids (mostly due “Stand Your Ground” AoE balance), Guardian/DH isn’t meta anymore in the game. You can see the most viable builds to each game mode here:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Guardian

…But in each one another classes fill the role better. Congrats, now you’re up to date!

I would like the Guardian to be like an Adeptus Astartes Chaper Librarian; and for the next specialization they should back to the the “tomes” as skill concept.

Guardians should be able to work as “tanks”, which is currently entirely impossible, with classes as Druid, Tempest, Scrapper and Herald outpacing Guardians in both sustain and damage -and oftenly in mobility-.

I think that currently Druids fill entirely the role Guardian should have: you can have huge sustain, big party heals and strong damage due the pets; you can either play as power druid or condi and both options are viable in both PvE and PvP/WvW content, and you still have a lot of mobility. The only drawback is that I don’t like Rangers, but taking in consideration that currently don’t like Guardians either seems fair.

Symbols have huge handicaps: usually are only usefull vs PvE and even then the area and damage buff they provide is small-. They should be more like usefull fields for auto-blasting, but sadly most of the best field/blast combos in the game fell in a few classes (Eles, Engineers, Thieves… ) so symbols aren’t very good to be honest.

Ruru.1302:

Casuals shouldn’t get the backpiece

I spent ~200 matches in the first league, near 300 in the second one and finally 87 in the third before being able to craft the backpiece. In all of them did reach ruby but wasn’t able to rise to diamond (closest time was at 4 pips in S2). This makes me a casual? Do I deserve the leg? ^^

Beastly. Congrats, as always ^^ .

Ayrilana.1396:

You don’t need ascended armor for mid level fractals. You can do fractals up to 77 without ascended armor. You can just buy the AR off the TP and then farm fractals to get the +7’s. Not at all that difficult.

Exotic armor is not an almost death sentence in raids. It’s about a 2-3% DPS difference which would not be noticeable. You’re more likely to fail because of messing up in the mechanics than because of DPS.

In order to do lvl 77 fractals without any ascended armor piece you need your back item to be infused and your two rings to be infused and attuned, and every jewelry piece and weapon to be ascended, which means have been doing fractals for a looong time (so long in fact that the chances are that you’ll craft a full ascended armor before having your rings infused). There’s a long way of unrewarding fractals done before you gain enough agony resistance to get “critical mass”, and then suddenly you start to get flooded by ascended rewards because high level fractals are very profitable. Is not a linear progression at all. Almost every player I known did craft his ascended armor for fractals before having their rings and back piece boosted, which makes perfect sense due attunement only exist since the HoT expansion. So yes, ascended armor is pretty much mandatory for fractals.

In raids the difference between exotic and ascended armor is more or less like this: the more dps you have, the less you have to worry about the clock, and the less you have to worry about the time the easier is to solve mistakes and fails, like ressing a player which falls in downstate and so. I didn’t start to do raids until two weeks ago (being myself more a WvW/PvP player) and did beat Guardian of the Vale the last week and Gorseval just yesterday and my experience is: the more you learn the mechanics the easier goes, but when you need more dps or more healing you need the stats, and if everyone runs in exotics suddenly breakpoints which were facerolls become hard or even impossible to achieve, because the margins become narrow.

Ayrilana.1396:

Buran.3796:

The true problem with ascended armors isn’t the cost of crafting one, but the fact that the same class usually needs different ones for PvE/fractals/raids, wvw raids and wvw roaming/duelling. Oftenly each one of those 3 big departments require different runes and infusions, and a single patch can turn your runes or selected stats into crap.

There’s a difference between need and want. You only need ascended armor for high level fractals. Not because of the stats but merely for the infusion slots. Exotic armor is just fine.

You need ascended armor for MID level fractals, and at the time you have enough agony resistance to do 50’s you probably did craft a whole armor set.

Let me say one thing about fractals: if you ALREADY have max agony res (150) -which means have doing a lot of fractals before- and you can do high level fractals on regular basis this game mode provides so much saves in ascended gear that most of players start to have problems to keep so much ascended stuff. But before being able to do high rewarding fractals you need to waste huge amounts of time in low and mid fractals, which arfe terribad at rewards and which only purpose is to let you gather materials to craft that agony reistance.

Exotic armor is also almost a death sentence for not harcore groups in PvE raids: for casual guilds and pugs the 5-10-15% losses in dps pretty much means a guaranteed failure at those task. Rais are designed to give small margins to error or dps losses, so in order to do then with exotic armor you must either be a world class player in that departmeont ot the players must stack high dps classes (Tempest) like crazy to reach the goals. You need the right stats with the right traits and skills and even the right food.

Skyric.9246:

1. Should I do the HoT personal story right away or get my personal story done first?
2. What’s the fastest way to get exotics taking into account I have only 28 gold?
3. Is there a preferred sequence for masteries, assuming I’d like to do dungeons, fractals/raids? It appears gliding is important.
4. I’ve stockpiled a bunch of materials from salvaging drops i got in the open world/dungeons. Should I concern myself with crafting and save them, or forget crafting and sell them to get gold faster for better gear faster, which will allow me to work on the higher level zones for better gold? I’d like to go for legendary at some point, but it’s not my number 1 priority right now, considering I don’t have good enough gear to do much yet.

1) Rewards in the HoT story are a bit better, despite the missions are harder than in the core game due the HoT “fauna”.
2) Use the laurels to get ascended jewlery; for weapons and armor either run dungeons (Citadel, Crucible, Dredge or Honor) or gather iron (from rich nodes) and fir and tukawa wood to trade. Then buy exotics.
3) For HoT the most important masteries are the basic ones: you pretty much want to have a couple of levels or three in every branch, just for basic gliding, bouncing mushrooms, to trade with the vendors, etc. The gliding one is maybe the most usefull, overall. In Tyria the fractal masteries are important if you want to devote time on them, and the legendary ones if you want to track the new legendaries or the new method. Get first the basic stuff for HoT.
4) You will get more gold gathering stuff in mid level Central Tyria maps and selling them than at any other task except high level farming in the Auric Basin meta event. Just salvage every -non exotic or precursor- you get and save the materials for further use.

Once you have one or two sets of exotic gear (start for zerker, you can craft also a celestial exotic armor while rising your tailoring to 500 -you will need scended armor for fractals- ) then focus on the HoT maps.

Don’t worry too much about the gear; really in open world PvE is more about to known how to play your class than to have the right stats. Stats matter only in mid to high level fractals, PvE Raids and WvW.

I don’t see Guardian viable as support class in the foresable future. Not in a world in which Druids which such much healing is paired which that much powerful pets, or in which Tempest with so much healing and cleansing is paired with such AoE damage, or in wich Chronos and Heralds can combine so much single target damage while having such team buff support.

I’m not only speaking about PvP; Guardian spot in PvE raids is also lauglable aswell. WvW raid shouts is what keeps this class a step ahead utter obsolescence. And as soon as another class will be able to provide instant AoE stability we will be done.

…And just today this glider is again on the market, for six more days. I just bought myself a few minutes ago

Jack Skywalker.5674:

If they removed unblockable from PT and set the energy cost back to 20….would that redeem Shiro?….make it back the go to gap closer for Revenant.

That would be nice; after the nerf I found Shiro almost useless in most departments of the game and I’m very close to drop this legend and to use something more passive and condition related instead.

Yannir.4132:

Then you are in the wrong place, my friend. Play somewhere else!

The TC asked for new weapons, I would love to have a functional shield for some viable use because I’m crafting the legendary one for my Rev and would be nice if my Guard (which already has Eternity) had some use for it.

I known that developers barely read in their own forums (currently are mostly busy with their PR talk on Reddit) but as a player which mained a Guard and has near 5k hours in the game and recently completed the last HoT map, Personal Story, Guardian of the Vale raid and PvP Season 3 using only a Rev I find frustrating the “good spot” -the grave, to be honest- in which Guardian is.

There’s nothing wrong about to wish new weapons for the Guardian… except that the current ones doesn’t work, and the only one barely close to “viable” (longbow) couldn’t be used with the new specialization.

I made Sunrise (and fused to Twilight to get Eternity) in March and spent April crafting a Marauder (ascended) armor for my Rev, so I devoted May to get the 8 stacks of materials + 250 ectos to craft again the Gift of Fortune (I already had the clovers).

When I say “devoted” I mean that I spent like 60-70 minutes a day using my 11 characters to rotate gathering between rich ore veins of iron and tukawas, then selling the mats each 5 days. If you lack the characters then you can do wood gathering with a single character for the same time -is almost as time cost/effective-.

Seriously: is a exclusive skin with stat changing properties as any other legendray out there: is expensive. But is that cost what makes it relevant and will make you proud later. You can finish that in a few weeks, no big deal.

Ayrilana.1396:

Ascended armor only offers a 2% DPS boost. It’s not really worth it.

A character full geared in ascended items does a good ~15% more damage than the same character in full exotics. Of course, the ascended armor is the part of your gear which provides the least stat points and is the most expensive gear to craft, and outside fractals isn’t even required. But don’t say that is a “2% dps boost” because the impact is larger.

The true problem with ascended armors isn’t the cost of crafting one, but the fact that the same class usually needs different ones for PvE/fractals/raids, wvw raids and wvw roaming/duelling. Oftenly each one of those 3 big departments require different runes and infusions, and a single patch can turn your runes or selected stats into crap.

Overall is better than in most of MMOs, but still demanding for people which want to play the game casually.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Buran.3796:

An off-hand shield should be nice.

That meme died months ago

Guardian died a year ago. Didn’t touch mine since the second season on the PvP league, and based on the performance of the class in the Pro League I really don’t care about their next wepon for guard. Could be a main hand horn as far as I care.