Guild Wars 2

That’s exactly the same that’s happening to me.

Outside combat it seems fine, though if I pay attention and there’s a bunch of people moving on screen, I can notice some of them slightly teleporting.

But when I engage in combat, it’s a total mess… not only it lags terribly in the response of my skills (I press the skill, and it’ll only start casting a second or so after), it feels I’m playing a second later than everyone.
So I’m getting CC’ed even with stability, dodges doesn’t work at all, and the constant fast-forwarding battles are rendering it unplayable.

And today, again…

I noticed it started today at about the same time as yesterday… maybe it’s peak time now for the server I play? (though unlikely, because I’m lagging in sPvP)

I’ve already called complaining to my ISP but they don’t seem to know what’s wrong.
I only know that this is getting really really frustrating…

It seems to be the game, it’s totally unplayable now… when I’m walking it looks fine, when I engage in a combat the game is always freezing and then everything happens fast with my character using 1 or 2 skills (that I clicked as I engaged the combat) and auto-attacking the mob until it’s death in a fast-forward motion.

Is there anyway I can get the game back to normal?

Since this afternoon the game is with a terrible lag for me. Every 5 seconds or so, I lag for about 0.5, 1 second, where everyone stands still (or keep moving to where they were going) and then for the next second everything happens fast as if to catch up with what was happening.

This is making any sort of PvP unplayable, and PvE really annoying (misdodges, can’t see what’s going on, hoping nothing happens when I freeze, etc).

I’ve used two connection tests (not just for speed) and they showed the connection is fine, I downloaded some random stuff and even torrents are working just fine, though I don’t have any other online game to test it.

Before I call cursing my ISP, how can I test my connection with the game alone to check if it’s working properly (if it’s the game or my connection)?

EDIT

Just figured out how to check my latency ingame with the Resource Monitor. It showed an average of 300ms, but I’m having problems now so I don’t know how it was before.

Then I learned my server’s IP, Ehmry Bay, and tried to ping it 10 times. All timed out.
Could be some sort of programming so unlogged people don’t ping servers, so I tested with the main server (found on google), and showed only 70% packet loss.

So I think I figured why I’m having these terrible lag even though my connection seems to be fine. It also seems to start at about 3 PM PDT, started around this time for yesterday and today.

So, what can I do? Schedule my playing time to before 3 PM?

In order for leveling:

1. 10 Zeal, Fiery Wrath
2. 10 Radiance, Signet Mastery
3. 10 Valor/Honor until reset
<reset at 40>
1. 20 Zeal, Fiery Wrath, Greatsword Power
2. 20 Honor, Writ of Exaltation, Two Handed Mastery
3. Valor/Radiance until next reset
<reset at 60>
1. 20 Zeal, Fiery Wrath, Greatsword Power
2. 30 Honor, Writ of Exaltation, Writ of the Merciful, Two Handed Mastery
3. Max Zeal, Zealous Blade
4. Either Valor or Virtue.

Final build is: 30/0/10/30/0 (I prefer Valor than Virtue)

You get self healing from (values without any Healing Power) Writ of the Merciful (130~), Selfless Daring (450~), Virtue of Resolve (105~), Zealous Blade (25~).

Preferably pick a Gear that focuses on Power (Soldier, Berserker, Valkyrie), or Knights (less Power but it’s still better damage than most), same for trinkets, but always use either Exquisite Rubys or Beryls for gems. Runes up to you.

Utilities are up to you, you have the option of enhancing Shouts (at the cost of 2 Handers goodness), Spirit Weapons (great for WvW, not so good for PvE unless it’s specific content and only the Shield is good) and Meditations.

Weapons are always Greatsword & Staff, any Sigil you want.

Then learn practice this until you learn your character’s/player limitations:
Pick the Staff, run around trying to engage in combat with as many monsters as possible (make sure they don’t stun you, if they do, do have “Stand Your Ground” equipped) by auto-attacking (wide area), Orb of Light (long range), and occasionally dodging (don’t waste both at once) and dropping the Line of Warding to block the mobs (don’t go too far away from their area or they’ll run away).
Right after your Line of Warding, still close to it, start casting Empower, after it’s done, Symbol of Swiftness, swap to Greatsword, Symbol of Wrath, Leap of Faith (for extra Retaliation, optional) and Whirling Wrath.

Causes 2x Symbol damage, stacks up to 8 Vulnerabilities, heals you twice for 130ish each second, triggers Zealous Blade for an extra 25 healing per target inside, plus the Whirling Wrath damage, and an average of 350~ Retaliation damage.

This is the AoE farming build.
I pull as much as I can (except some overpowered, unbalanced, and badly designed mobs such as Risen Nobles) and with the low cooldown of these skills, you can do this pretty often, and it’s great for tagging and killing packs of mobs on events.

It also serves well as support in WvW and part-time healer, while having a good damage potential, but it lacks survivability of Valor builds (0/0/30/30/0 + 10) and it’s not a good roaming build (builds more suited for 1v1s and 2v2s for example).

Oh please don’t mess with Unscathed Contender, that trait is awesome when you know how to use it.

Scepter Power moved to Powerful Blades, renamed to something else:
Increases one handed damage by 5%. (One handers going all too Radiance)

In it’s place, some new trait related to Symbol, damage oriented, like “Increase Symbols damage by 10%”.

Greatsword Power renamed to something else:
Increases two handed damage by 5%. (Two handers to Zeal)

Zealous Blade
Your attacks heals you. (Wouldn’t make it exactly awesome, but at least you’re not locked to Greatswords only)

Wrathful Spirits
Increase Spirit Weapons damage and health by 50%. (Yes they suck right now)

Perfect Inscriptions
Increase the passive effects of signets and maintain their effects even when they’re in cooldown. (I still wouldn’t use it because there are better traits, but it’s still something)

Mace of Justice
Reduces the cooldown of Mace skills by 20%. (Couldn’t think of anything else)

Glacial Heart replaced by some other trait such as:
“Nearby allies gain Protection (2 seconds) when you are struck by a critical hit.” (a defensive version of Empowering Might)

ATourist.8359:

Can a guardian handle himself in solo roaming?

Guardians are are behind Thieves, Elementalists and Mesmers for roaming in my opinion, and on par/above the rest.
You can hold on your own pretty great, Guardians are the sort of guy that no one wants to face head-on, since they have high offense (melee) and defense. This also means they are prone to get harassed to death.

ATourist.8359:

Or does he need a team at all times. I mean say you get jumped by a thief as you are trying to join your group… can you do something about it or just a sitting duck?

The Thief will either avoid you in the first place, or he will just try to harass you. This means he’ll stealth infinitely with combo fields and blinds, and will slowly kill you.
And there’s little to nothing you can do to prevent that, unless the Thief is bad, but I’m talking about average > above average skilled players.

You do have plenty of time though until he kills you to either find a teammate to help lockdown the Thief, at which point he’ll just run away from you, or to get into a Tower or something.

ATourist.8359:

I hope they’re not just boon-whores, pardon my language.

Guardians are second or third in boon-stacking, losing to Elementalists and maybe Engineers (not counting self-stacking Warriors).
Our boons aren’t that special except for our on-demand Stability, which is a HUGE thing.

ATourist.8359:

I’m not looking for amazing damage nor amazing mobility, I know that these can be found in other classes.

We have average mobility, and amazing damage.

ATourist.8359:

But I don’t want to feel like a sitting duck running around in wvw, because enough enemies will join in eventually and the damage mitigation will be overcome.

I don’t think you’ll feel like a sitting duck, you’ll feel more like a juggernaut that everyone will avoid facing head on.
They will retreat and come back with 2+ to kill you in a minute or so, or they’ll be playing bunker builds and will drag the fight forever by running from you and constantly healing.

And from my experience, only Thieves (the annoying stealth ones) get to do enough to damage to push me back while “bunkering”.

ATourist.8359:

Can guardians do enough damage to down others in small group fights?

Think like this: Guardians have AWESOME melee damage, and AWESOME defense. But they’re slow, and they don’t have any “tricks” to pull on fights.
We’re strong in the basics of combat, dealing damage and reducing damage taken.

But we lack control to combo/burst someone like a Thief, Mesmer or Elementalist does. Our utilities are mostly defensive and protective, and we don’t have a good ranged option like all other professions. Our only “real” ranged (1200) is strong so it works for PvE, but it’s easily avoidable so it’s crappy for long-ranged fights (the closer you are the easier to hit), one of the most common battles in WvW.

As for potentials, we have decent condition cleansing, average/decent healing, crappy condition damage, awesome melee damage, awesome damage reduction, average/decent pressure, average/below average control, average/below average mobility, below average ranged, below average escapes.

If you like the playstyle of something listed as average/crappy in the list above, try something else than a Guardian.

The trait increases the Consecrations durations by 20%, not a fixed amount.

Wall goes to 12, Purging to 6, Sanctuary to 7.2, Ground to 12…

I want Soldier/Valkyrie and Soldier/Berserker… been saving laurels and thinking if they’ll ever get in game.

I’d be terribly kitten ed if I spent 150~ laurels for all the Ascended Trinkets just to get the ones I really want implemented a week later.

Check this post.

Indeed for bunkering/point holding Guardians shine, but in my opinion, you’ll find that Guardians are even poorer or equal roamers than Warriors, so if you really enjoy that kind of play do try the Thief/Ele professions.

Burn builds aren’t viable, they lack the damage/sustain and are weaker bunkers overall, so I’d advise against it.
Burning is only an additional damage that helps a bit, but it shouldn’t be your focus.

Sil.4560:

No, this is a problem too. It shouldn’t be balanced heavily in favor either way.

I think it’s best this way actually, you can’t (usually) get 1~2 shotted since this would heavily favor professions that works with “gimmicks” as defense (remember Thieves before the Signet nerf?).

Sil.4560:

If you were running from the thief/ele, you lost before they could chase you down. There is plenty you can do in fights that appear to favor the ranged. I run full melee in WvW and have great success, because I know when and where to drop siege, and the best moments to run out and cause some chaos in the enemy zerg. Guardians can do both of those things just as well.

It was a simple 1v1 fight on the road, no one was “running” away.
There was no siege, no mobs, no other objectives around. And I’m fairly confidant in my skills for 1v1 as a Guardian, seeing as I always won the damage dealt/damage taken ratio game against pretty much anyone.

The 1v1s I lost I was totally outplayed because they just didn’t play into my game, instead, they focused highly on theirs which is control and mobility.

As an example, they didn’t get hit once by any Symbol (as one should expect), I couldn’t chain 2 attacks in a row, let alone complete a combo, at all, and I was totally kited, ranged, and occasionally melee’d to waste some CDs.

Even when I put up a decent fight, they had no problems running away for a few seconds more to come back right away. I cursed my healing on high cooldowns, while I watched them heal nonstop (or stealth nonstop).

This doesn’t happen in PvP though.
If they’re not close to melee range and taking my Symbols damage and/or wasting dodges and movements to avoid them, I’m capping the point.

(By the way I started my Elementalist and then Mesmer just because I hated losing to roamers on my Guardian in WvW)
(ps. read as great roamers, because mediocre players can’t play on your profession limitations and definitely don’t work on theirs)

Sil.4560:

All of that, yet balanced out with such ridiculously over-the-top sustain and damage reduction that the only other primarily melee class in the game can barely touch them. They are far from being fairly balanced with one another. If you can’t see that warriors need serious help in competitive game modes, you’re completely detached from reality. Guardians have far too much advantage, one on one.

Do you realize that Warriors have more mobility (in & out), more control, more burst, better raw stats, better ranged options than Guardians?

So, if you’re not detached from reality, do you really think that Warriors having equal or superior melee prowess wouldn’t be imbalanced?

Sil.4560:

So how are those duels with warrior treating you? Let me know how the effort ranks there compared to either guard or ele.

I’m not sure what you’re talking about, I don’t play Warrior.

Sil.4560:

Clearly you do expect that. Because right now the balance is in favor of guardians and you’re a-okay with it.

What sort of game are we playing right now? I said I don’t expect, you say I do… are you having fun? I’m glad then.

Sil.4560:

If you’re getting your kitten beat that badly by roaming warriors as a bunker-oriented guardian, you should be pretty embarrassed. Even worse if it’s happening to a mesmer. If you think a mesmer and a warrior are fairly balanced 1v1, you’re on crack.

Now here’s something new!
You do know that Mesmers are pretty much unbeatable in 1v1s, right?
I think that, even being the profession I have the least experience with, I can easily beat pretty much anyone who lets me get close for a second or two.
Even overpowered Guardians.

Too bad they’re not as great for everything else such as support and bunkering eh?

Sil.4560:

“Play another class” is not balance. It’s another cop-out to avoid the real issue of fairly balancing classes.

No, the real issue here is you.
You’re complaining you can’t beat a Guardian on a bunker game (capping points in PvP) because they’re too strong.
Why don’t you try to fight an Elementalist or Ranger with your Rifle alone, and then go complain Warriors need serious help because they can’t beat Elementalists on a ranged fight? (on their forums)

If you get into the Guardians’ game of meleeing, you’re going to lose.
If you’re taking damage from Symbols and Retaliation, you’re doing it wrong, and you will lose.
The same way the Guardian will lose if he ever gets off their game and attempts to play a mobility/ranged game, or if he gets kited.

This is the best tip I can give you, besides saying “L2P” (which I’m trying to avoid).

This also has been dragged enough, with a few flame attempts, and it’s now a rant, not a discussion, so I’m quitting it.

Sil.4560:

This is why warriors – and possibly other classes – need better ways to cleave through the overkill bunker problem we have now.

This isn’t a problem to PvP, it affects the entire game.
If you played other MMOs you might notice that there is a certain point that everyone picks damage over defense, because the faster you kill, the less damage you take and is a generally much better bet than trying to outlast opponents.

In GW2 it is different, there is no point of damage that you’ll achieve and 1~2 shot people so you don’t have to build for defense.
This means, in a competitive scenario, bunkers are better than non-bunkers.

But this isn’t relevant to the discussion so I’ll leave it at that…

Sil.4560:

The “cost” is not as high for some classes (read: guardians) as for others. This is imbalance. This isn’t a difficult concept.

Do you play Guardian at all?

When I lost my first 1v1 to a Thief/Elementalist because they could outrun me in WvW, I hated Guardians.
When I was behind the gate watching it go down without anything worthwhile to do, I hated Guardians.
When I fought those “no melee allowed” fights, watching everyone else going ranged and I’m having to work 10x as hard to survive as a melee in a melee-unfriendly fight, I hated Guardians (lies, I enjoyed it because of the challenge).

Terrible range, no escape, weak mobility, poor target control, weak on-demand burst, lowest health forcing me to build/gear for it, highest healing cooldowns, melee-focused (means I can be kited)…

If Guardians were weaker than Warriors in melee, that I’d call imbalance. But no, I say they’re evenly balanced so it’s not a point to complain.

Sil.4560:

You yourself have admitted that you need to put forth a higher amount of effort on one class to achieve the same result as another. To say that one class is often innately more rewarding than another for less effort while trying to preach that it is purely up to player skill is a blatant contradiction.

This is only regarding PvP.
I can easily outdo my Guardian’s performance by 1000% with an Elementalist in WvW with even less effort, because the mechanics there allow me to.
They give me plenty of space to kite and run, and huge walls to protect me so I can focus only on offense. I can for sure say that I got 10 or 20 times the amount of kills on my Elementalist than my Guardian in WvW, despite having played the Guardian longer.

Now, I don’t expect to be able to outdo a heavy melee-focused profession in… melee.

And unfortunately, the point capping mechanic in PvP gives them room for it.

Sil.4560:

I should be able to pick up any class and have a reasonable expectation of defeating any other class, provided my build is suited to that task against their build.

Then rejoice, because you already can.
You can defeat any profession based purely on your skills alone, but it doesn’t mean you can win situations.

If you’re still not getting what I’m saying, try some WvW roaming. No objectives around, nearly open fields with few obstacles around, and have your matches with people around.
This is balance.

If you’re dead bent on beating Guardians on their own bunker game with another profession, then go check the PvP forums to look for professions who can pull it.
I’ve read that Engineers are pretty good at it, and Elementalists as well.

While leveling I think some Vit is always good since it’s a better effective health increase than toughness, and you have plenty of time to recover between each monster.

For later in the game though, it’s up to you, some Guardians say they can manage fine with 10800~ (the minimum health) to 13800 (with 30 in Honor), but personally I feel like paper so I always aim for 18k+

Vitality has a better effective health increase than Toughness (it means you get more “health” per point spent), but Toughness’ really excels as a battle drags on and you make more use of your healing skills, but it also is weaker against Conditions (defense doesn’t reduce condition damage), so an average here is recommended.

Sil.4560:

And that design favors certain classes over others. This is what we call imbalance. You have failed to make a point.

Eh… no, because the game doesn’t revolve only around that.
Classes works differently and some are better than others because of the role they play in each area, such as how I think Guardians sucks for Sieges while other classes such as Elementalists have it easy.

I don’t call it imbalanced just because of that though, I understand my Guardian has it’s strong and weak points, asking to get rid of the weak points is what would create the imbalance (just imagine a Guardian as strong as an Elementalist because our range currently sucks).

Sil.4560:

Once again, split skills. WvW still needs about as much help as PvP does because the same glaring flaws exist regarding the warrior class against other professions. Thus it does need help in both modes. And once again, a class being good in PvE but bad in PvP is not balance. It’s a pitiful excuse to make sure the warrior doesn’t threaten your precious guardian.

I think the problem isn’t with numbers only, it’s mechanics. Guardians excel at bunkering, and that’s what PvP is about.
Unless they change how Guardians are meant to be played, making it a weaker bunker, but then they’d need to improve our mobility or ranged, making us exactly like… Warriors?

Sil.4560:

This game takes very little real skill, even in PvP. What you are left with is balancing classes against one another because people with half a brain know how to optimize their play and use advantages of a class as they are.

Even if you consider it little skill, it’s still 1000% more than clicking on rotations and depending largely on gear (and consequently, builds) and team comps.

Sil.4560:

snip

All I am reading from you is a bunch of poor arguments which try to rationalize the fact that classes themselves are not yet properly balanced to make yourself feel better about playing a class which you yourself defined as “easy mode”.

Bottom line, yes, I can agree with OP’s original thoughts that guardians are easymode.

Funny, because all I am reading from you is a rant of how you’d wish your profession of choice (which seems to be Warriors) were easier to play or more represented in PvP, out of… jealously?

As I stated before, I also play an Elementalist and Mesmer in both PvP and WvW.
Personally I enjoy my Elementalist more, and I’m also frustrated at how hard I have to play to achieve the same results as my Guardian.

I feel the limitations of being unable to do as much damage/harassing in 1vX and I feel the most frustrated when I face another bunker and after a long fight we both (me and the opponent) think _"eh, let’s move elsewhere this is going nowhere".

I do, however, feel a bit more happy when I think about the things that my Guardian can’t do, such as combos, exceptional control, awesome mobility and better on-demand bursts.

Too bad that these alone aren’t what determines a win/lose in a PvP match.

I don’t see how can you consider this to be unbalanced though, it’s just that Guardians excel at bunkering, but this comes with a cost.

Sil.4560:

Being good in one mode (PvE) and poor in another (PvP/WvW) is not sufficient balance. It means they haven’t properly balanced each mode yet, which is what they’re aiming to do with split skills and general buffs that don’t make the class OP in, say, PvE.

And frankly, if all professions achieved this balance you speak of, the game would become boring.

WoW (World of Warcraft, not sure if you’ve played it before) once had different classes and they all played differently. Balance was always a topic for discussion.
And then, they decide to homogenize everything, pretty much everyone had the same type of skills, same controls, same everything.

The main difference became your character’s color tag and armor looks, and this was when I (and other 3 million) people quit.

So, TLDR, what I’m trying to say is, don’t try to face other profession’s strengths with your profession’s weaknesses and call it imbalance, instead, look for other ways of how you can succeed and provide support and you’ll fare much better.

Sil.4560:

Don’t give me the same brainless argument that it’s “up to you”. Wrong. The game is not yet properly balanced against classes and this is a fact that even Anet agrees on, hence their efforts to buff classes like warrior in competitive play.

They’re buffing uncommon/unpopular builds, not the whole profession…

Sil.4560:

No amount of player skill is going to overcome vast statistical and mechanical advantages, no matter how much you try to rationalize it to yourself so that you can feel like you aren’t just using class advantage as a crutch.

Your “mechanical” advantages (and therefore statistical) don’t come from professions, but from the PvP design.
I repeat, you can’t expect a perfect balance when you’re dealing with 2 dif. things, but they’re well balanced for being different.

If they buffed Warriors to the point they would play exactly like Guardians in PvP (read as in easy mode, that’s how I think Guardians in PvP are), Warriors would simply be insanely overpowered in both PvE and WvW.

And playerskill is the most determining factor to the outcome, regardless of profession or build. That said…

Sil.4560:

You lose 1v1 to a warrior as your guardian? You should be ashamed.

…so if you’re playing a Warrior and you can’t kill a Guardian simply because they’re a Guardian, I have some bad news for you.

(Again, don’t blame the balance, if there’s anything that isn’t balanced is the PvP design of standing in circles, giving advantages to less mobile, more bunker-ish play styles)

Exedore.6320:

Compared to other professions which are good in tPvP (ranger, mesmer, elementalist, engineer), guardian is even or at a slight disadvantage.

I play Ele and Mesmer as well, and I disagree with you… I find my Guardian easily the best for PvP, it’s much easier holding points and require much less from me than when I play something else.

I could be biased though, if I play better with my Guardian than my Ele/Mesmer, but I don’t think that’s the case.

Tharjax.9068:

To make a long story short, he basically was saying based upon what Colin was saying, that GW2 is doing ok, but not well enough (bringing in enough money) to warrant an expansion.

Instead of thinking like this, why don’t we think that the game is doing so well that they will keep providing extra content monthly instead of leaving us a whole year (or more) with the same content just to profit from expansions?

They don’t sell high end gear for cash, just vanity items. They allow you to buy cash with gold. They provide extra content monthly. They don’t charge a subscription fee.

If the game wasn’t doing well, don’t you think it would require an expansion to make up for it?

“Dynamic Events” is pretty vague, so I’m splitting it into categories:

Killing Veterans/Champions
Both are great, but Elementalists have a slight advantage here because they can sustain better (their group as well).
Mesmers don’t have much ways to heal themselves other than their healing skill, so they fall short when the battle drags out, but they do feel stronger in damage.

AoE Farming Events
Events where spawns a bunch of monsters, and you have to kill or tag them as fast as you can.
Elementalists win with a blast here. Mesmers are terrible for tagging absurd amounts of enemies in short time, and their AoE damage isn’t on par with Elementalists, sometimes not even enough to tag enemies. It is manageable though, but feels more like a job.

Walking around killing stuff
Both are great, but Mesmers have a slight advantage with more damage negation and burst than Elementalists. You can kill stuff probably faster since you don’t need to heal and end up with more than 90% health easily.
Works fine up to 5~ or so enemies, where Elementalists start getting the edge (and it’d fall in the AoE farming).

Like Byron said, Mesmers are awesome for duels (1v1s) and they provide a different support with projectile protection, Time Warp and Portals, lacking in AoE power.
This means their role have more appreciation in WvW and PvP (and dungeons to some extent), since in PvE all you need to do is AoE/Burst mobs.

Elementalists are a good choice overall, they do great in all aspects of the game and I’d suggest starting with them, and only play a Mesmer if you know what you’re doing and what you want (playing a specific role for example) or if you enjoy the profession more.

Sil.4560:

How about the classes like warrior, which are at an inherent disadvantage compared to guardian due to poor balancing? There’s no “choose a counter” or “skill or teamwork” about that, it’s merely balanced badly. This game isn’t well balanced and is undeniably still in need of some fixes. I should be able to pick up any class and have options for defeating any other class, provided my build is suited for defeating their build. That’s balance.

The game is pretty well balanced.
There is no perfect balance when you’re talking about different things, but since the game was designed in a way that the player’s actions play a bigger role than attributes, rotations and builds, means it’s ultimately up to you, the player, how the battle goes.

Guardian and Warrior have some decent 1v1s.
The issue is that Guardian’s lack of mobility is actually helpful in tPvP where you don’t want to be mobile at all, instead you just want to be able to hold your ground for as long as you can.
Professions such as Thieves and Elementalists that are balanced with their mobility in mind can’t even compare, and that’s why they focus on bunkering.

A good Thief can give a Guardian hell in WvW, but the same playstyle, which is pretty effective against Guardians, is meaningless in tPvP.

So don’t blame balance.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I’m trying not to be sarcastic about this, but the guy asks for a Max DPS GS build and you two give him a Right Hand build instead? Why?

I was just “fixing” the build posted.

Also, this might come in handy in the future when the OP notices the risk of playing a glass cannon in melee are not worth it, and maybe switch to the overpowered (but boring) Scepter DpS builds.

WyldKat.4712:

Edit: Wait, what candy thing? There’s a candy thing? I like candy!

It was from some past event, Halloween I think?
That’s the same image from the Candy Detector…

Oohhh found it, I thought it was my candy thing… thank you very much!

I had a Sample Detector and was going around looking for the green nasty stuff, then it suddenly disappeared when I was at the Karka Hive. I though “oh there must be a timer”, so I went back to get another.
When I talk to the NPC “Can I get another of your sample detectors?” the dialogue closes and nothing happens.

Is this a bug?
How can I get another sample detector if I lost my first one?

Blazin Blunt.6908:

This is the maximum DPS build there is to find;
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|b.1g.h2.d.1g.h1|1.1g.h2|1g.71j.1g.71j.1g.71j.1g.71j.1g.71j.1g.71j|2s.d19.2s.d19.3s.d19.2s.d19.3s.d19.2s.d19|f2.u00b.0.p00.0|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

Good luck with that

Fixed for you: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|b.1g.h2.d.1g.h1|1.1g.h2|1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e|2s.d19.2s.d19.3s.d19.2s.d19.3s.d19.2s.d19|k29.u00b.0.a2.a1|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

It’s not GS though, but it’s probably one of the top if not the top DpS in the game (even the dev said Scepter is so).

Smasher.6821:

That’s an interesting approach. but does your damage lack ? The problem I would have with that would be it seems a bit too one sided to benefit you personally with boon duration, and less of the party (except heals) I think personally I’d want to sacrifice some of that for more sustained damage.

Boon Duration doesn’t apply to boons you receive, but ones you cast.

Your Empowering Might (base 5 sec) if you had 50% Boon Duration would be 7.5 to everyone around you (up to 5). If some other Guardian also procced Empowering Might, his stack would just add for 5 seconds.
So everyone else would have 2 stacks of Might for 5 secs, 1 stack for 2.5 before it runs out.

LightningBlaze.4913:

If you mean a build where you won’t have bad consequences for your mistakes and still be able to win while being unable to read and outplay your opponent/s… yep there’s only one viable and it sub-similar ones.

Very well said, this means you acknowledge that this build allows for such kind of play.

This also means that, if you have a player who’s using this build and outplaying you, you won’t even get that Elementalist lower than 50%.

Tiresias.6473:

I would like to quickly mention that a lot of classes invest heavily into their Class-specific trait.

To be honest, this makes sense and I don’t see it as much of a problem. The unique class mechanics are, understandably, very powerful and defining.

I just want to have more than 1 viable build, like Mesmers, Engineers and some other professions have.
Anything not 0/10/0/30/30 is subperforming in PvP and 1v1s~5v5s anywhere.

Guardians, Engineers (1 build), Mesmers (1 build) and Thieves that I know of don’t invest heavily in the profession trait line for the meta.
Rangers if I recall correctly also have a strong build not based on BM. So if those are still true, that’s at least 5 out of 8… so 3 out 8 is kinda different from my definition of “lot of classes”.

Currently, one of, if not the most used build for Elementalists rely on Arcana 30.
The build is the 0/10/0/30/30, with very few variations. It gives us strong bunkering stats and is probably the top build for PvP and any sort of competitive play.

I’d like to be able to spend on other lines and have other builds to choose from, giving me some build variety so I don’t feel pigeon-holed into the same build forever.

So, first my analysis of the *why*s.

Why is the Arcana tree so important for competitive play?
For survivability. Elementalists play with the lowest health and armor, but probably highest control, and Arcana improves our survivability in many ways:

1. Evasive Arcana
It’s not a ground breaking trait except for the Water effect. It’s a 1600+ AoE healing and condition cleansing. Can be used every 10 seconds, which pairs nicely with the 9 seconds attunement CD with 30 points in Arcana.

2. Elemental Attunement
Provides 5 seconds of Protection when changing to Earth, and Regeneration when changing to Water. If you count a minimum CD of 10 seconds to change between attunements, this potentially gives 50% uptime on Protection and Regeneration.

3. Final Shielding or Renewing Stamina
Increases survivability in minor scale compared to the above.

4. Attunement Recharge
From 15 seconds to 9 with 30 points in Arcana. This by itself isn’t a big deal either, but paired with the Water’s Master Minor Trait Healing Ripple, this allows for an extra 1600+ AoE healing every 9 seconds.

So let’s sum it all up and see what sort of boons an Arcana Elementalist have just by spending 30 points in Arcana:
- Up to 50% uptime of Protection
- Up to 50% uptime of Regeneration
- 1 Cleansing Wave every 10 seconds
- 1 Healing Ripple every 9 seconds

Eh… I’m not really surprised that Elementalists are regarded as very strong bunkers.
Assuming Eles are in a good position in PvP (which I won’t discuss), this means this is the requirement for us to maintain this spot.

How can we achieve build diversity then?
By giving the same stats above to Elementalists, but not tying them to the Arcana tree.

An example is by changing Elemental Attunement to be a baseline skill of some sort (something like a buff when changing attunements) so any build will have it, and changing the trait to be something else that doesn’t increase survivability even further. Like the buff being caster-only and the trait making it affect all allies for example.

Reducing the attunement recharge rate and changing the Arcana trait to maybe give more bonus points depending on the attunement, or improving the effects of the attunes would fix the “need” of the 9 seconds Healing Ripple.

This would only leave the Arcana line with the additional Cleansing Wave from Evasive Arcana, and this would improve other builds’ survivability making it more viable for PvP.
Some number crunching would be needed so we don’t have high damage builds with the survivability of the Arcana/Water bunker one.

I hope the designer in charge think about it, I’m kinda tired of being locked to 30 points in Arcana for PvP matches…

Any other ideas on how to balance this?

Bonus Set isn’t working at all.

Any chances it’ll be fixed soon? I’d like to buy one…

lolynot.1928:

Stop doing so much math, try it out and see what you like better.

Math is good and incentive improvements, better than reading reading someone’s opinion on the forums and assuming it to be an absolute truth.

If everyone was like that, we wouldn’t have Guardians claiming that “AH is the best support build”, “Guardians can’t DpS”, “AH provides synergy and versatility”, among other gems…

Highest DpS for Guardians: 20/30/0/0/10 + 10

If you want for dungeons and FOTM, pick the Scepter and Shield, Fiery Wrath, Scepter Power, Right Hand Strength, Unscathed Contender, and whatever else you want (I suggest 10 in Honor for Vigor and Shouts).

I think with this setup Guardians are probably one of the top if not the top DpS in the game… though it sucks to be ranged with the Scepter and you gotta work to keep Aegis up all the time.
Scepter will hit (almost) as hard hitting melee move, with a high rate of fire, but moves slow.

Provost.6210:

And, pound for pound, toughness is worth more than vitality any day as a guardian. Even after the 3k mark when you get less benefit for what you put in.

That’s not true, toughness is weaker than vitality point by point from 0 from the survivability perspective, if you got the heals to support that (and Guardians can).

A full Toughness Guardian with 10k health can still get 3~4 shotted (imagine 3 guys critting at once a high damage skill), when a Vitality Guardian would survive at least 1~3 hits more.

The difference between base defense (for Guardians) and 3600 defense is 35% damage reduction. Base to 2800 is 20%.
800 points is 8000 Health, much better than a 15% damage reduction if you think about survivability only.

But in the end they provide survivability differently and their effectiveness is related to healing, so none is better or worse than the other. Balance is what works best here.

A better option would be to simply allow Salvaging of Karma/WvW gear with regular kits, but with the warning “This gear can’t be salvaged for materials, do you wish to continue?” only salvaging the Rune (with the proper %).

Thank you for the info, I’m not really concerned about PvE since I think all professions are fun and balanced for PvE, this Engineer would be mainly for WvW.

I want a profession that can be really good at zerg x zerg battles, preferably with conditions (I have an Elementalist and I don’t think it kill things good enough, people always run from AoEs) and still being able to provide some support and survivability (no glass cannon).

I was going for Necromancer, but a guildie told me Engineers are as good or better than Necromancers for AoE conditions in WvW, but since I don’t want to level both to 80 to figure out which is better for what I want…

I saw some of your vids Amadeus, and found out that the Bomb Kit is actually useful… I thought people would easily avoid it but I forgot they’re the ones wanting to melee Engineers…
I’m going to give Engineers a try, thank you for all the info!

Please remove the charges from Conjures.

Change the “Conjurer” trait to something like “Conjure Weapons conjure an additional weapon” or “Conjured Weapons last longer”.

And just leave the time limit at 1 minute.
Buff their #1 to on par of an auto-attack (some weapons aren’t) so it becomes viable to actually spend one Utility for having a different weapon with different purposes.
The charges are counter productive since people won’t be spamming #1, the weakest skill, because they’re blowing charges when they’re mostly using the Conjured Weapon for a stronger skill.

So right now they’re mostly used for one or two skills only, then discarded (except the Greatsword, but this one has a decent auto-attack). This is pretty weak comparing to other utilities.

Making other Conjures stronger to be on par with our own regular attacks would offer a different playstyle, bringing more versatility and utility to groups as well, but keeping the Greatsword still stronger than them so it doesn’t lose it’s appeal.

I want to start an Engineer because I’m interested in their condition builds, and I’ve been checking for builds here but I didn’t found a particular “this is the build!” topic.

I’m not even sure if Engineers have this sort of thing (like Guardians and Elementalists who have meta builds), and with all the traits scattered and being unexperienced as I am, I don’t know what’s considered the best for condition builds.

I’m currently testing a 30/10/0/30/0 build, with Sharpnel, Enhance Performance, Grenadier, Hair Trigger, Fast Acting Elixirs, Potent Elixirs, HGH.

So my questions are…

- Is the Grenade Kit better for conditions than Elixir Gun? I went Explosions because of Condition Duration, but I had to give up Firearms and Condition Damage… I don’t want to lose Alchemy as I’d like to have at least a few points for some survivability.
- Do the Bomb Kit have a decent proper use? It seems useless besides PvE where mobs stay still, but the Confusion there seems great…
- I’m using Elixir H, Elixir B, Elixir S, Grenade Kit as utilities, for this kind of build (conditions) what are the most used ones? I’m considering Elixir Gun, Tool Kit (I love Confusion) and Elixir C for another quick Elixir but I’m clueless of their effectiveness in battle.

Sorry if these questions seems too newbish, but I’m clueless about Engineers and I’d like to know how they work out before starting one (or if I should go Necromancer or maybe Mesmer for conditions).

I read about how you can transmute the starting items to white ones and send them to another character in case you lost your original one, and I’m asking if the same is possible with any of the Order Gears.

I have a Whispers character and I’d like to buy it’s armor and send to another character of mine via transmutes, is it possible?

JonathanSharp.7094:

It’s important we play all classes, even less popular specs on less popular classes.

Speaking of popular, when can we see another “popular professions” chart again?

I enjoy playing the least popular ones… makes me think I’m somewhat rare and valuable!

Irena.1062:

depends on where your toughness is at, after 3k you start to see diminishing returns for adding more into toughness.

Diminishing returns don’t start after 3k, they start from 0…

This is why the first few toughness points are so important. At 1836 defense (lowest possible) you have 0% damage reduction (means you take full damage from everything).
Guardians from using Heavy Armor have their lowest at 2127, which is roughly 14% damage reduction.

So the first 300ish points grant 14% reduction, the next 300ish points grant only 10% (to a total of 24%), the next 300ish only 8% (32%), etc…

Irena.1062:

What I mean is, that more than 3k armor is a waste, very much like more than 1k healing is a waste. You need a good balance of stats to be succesful. This is related to trinity death.

Healing Power doesn’t suffer from diminishing returns and is an excellent stat to invest, and there’s hardly any “waste” when focusing on a single attribute.
The way the game is designed is that even if you do focus only in 1 single attribute, it’s still a significant increase (unlike some other games) and you can’t pick only 1 attribute, always having a balance on 3.

Arguing that X toughness is worth more or less than Y power can’t be quantified because they serve totally different purposes, so even if you’re getting diminishing returns from an attribute it doesn’t mean it’s bad.

This is very well designed if you think about it, points from builds don’t make such an impact to define roles, meaning even bunkers get to do “decent” damage (but still the lowest damage if you compare it inside the damage tiers), putting down the weight of min-maxed build point crafting and instead granting effects (such as traits) and player skill to be more important than points.

Sorry about the long post, but what I mean is, spend the points wherever you see fit, where you think it’ll work best for your play style. It won’t be wasted if you’re making use of it.

Go to http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/ and play around the site until you get a build you like.

You can switch gears until you’re content with a decent health and defense to not get 1 hit downed, and getting a good balance on power, crit chance and damage.

If you’re just starting out and you’re inexperienced, I suggest taking full Soldier set/trinkets, Ruby or Beryl gems and any damage Rune.
You’ll have high amounts of defense, health and power, but low crit chance and crit damage.

Your gear will allow you to survive pretty long while you figure fight mechanics, tricks and such.
After you’re pretty experienced with it, you can run full Berserk or a mix of Berserk and Soldier/Knights for better damage.

KensaiZen.3740:

No it doesnt heal teammates, but it keeps you alive to heal team mates.

I never die on my Guardian, but this makes sense because with AH I can even stay alive if I get killed.

KensaiZen.3740:

Its about build synergy, peoples.

Agreed.

Best synergy traits/skills:

1 – Altruistic Healing: You Shout, Empowering Might or Symbol allies and you heal yourself. Greatest synergy ever.
2 – Monk’s Focus: You use Meditation and heal yourself for 2k even without healing, staying alive for even more aliveness.
3 – Retributive Armor: You get more damage as you get more defense. This is borderline OP imho and is only Adept Trait level!

Worst synergy traits/skills: (these seriously need a buff)

1 – Battle Presence & Absolute Resolution: 300~ regen (without Cleric’s) to 5 allies around you, but without AH you’re dead so your allies aren’t regenerating at all. Need to be reworked/switched places.
2 – Right Hand Strength & Empowering Might: roughly 30% extra chance to proc EM to allies from the Radiance alone, but without AH your allies aren’t getting the Might stacks and your damage is also null because you’re dead.
3 – Sword/Scepter & Torch: These need to be buffed because they don’t work well with AH builds as Symbol weapons do.

Obtena.7952:

OK, you win. AH is the absolute pinnacle of support builds because you continue to belabour your comprehension issues with my post. :BIG ROLL EYES HERE:

It’s good that you think so too, one more Guardian reached the light…

My “I don’t want to die” WvW build.

DeathPanel.8362:

Sigil of fire is actually very bad for wvw for guardian. (Or really any other class for that matter)

Wrong.

DeathPanel.8362:

Bloodlust or perception sigils are the best things for guards in wvw depending on their build.

Wrong.

Any Sigil that works well in sPvP (I like Hydromancy, Fire and Energy).
Or Sigil of Force and/or Accuracy.

Only use stacks Sigils if it’s Sigil of Life and you’re playing support safely (no front line fighting, no rushing), or if it’s on a weapon you don’t care too much about damage (Staff, Mace).
Don’t expect to be able to keep 20+ stacks unless you’re rolling on your enemies constantly, and if this is the case any Sigil would do.

kokocabana.8153:

It’s definitely not necessary or unbalanced since doing the math shows that it’s not worth on picks alone, but as a quality of life improvement, it’s a good investment.

That’s exactly why I bought it too.

I used to have a bunch of Mithrils and just one Oric when I happened to find an Ori node, but even using Mithril Tools I couldn’t help but think “This 8c Copper Ore is costing me 1.6c to get it…”
And when I was out of Mithril, just with Oric, I would always skip Copper and Platinum Ores as I don’t think it’s worth paying 4c to sell something for 8c minus taxes…

“Fun” is kinda relative… my fun is mostly getting things done, and I’ve been using this build: 30/0/0/30/0 + 10 in either Valor or Virtue.

And using mostly three setups:

1. Greatsword & Staff
Fiery Wrath, Greatsword Power, Zealous Blade
Writ of Exaltation, Writ of the Merciful, Two Handed Mastery
(Valor) Meditation Mastery / Purity / Retributive Armor
(Virtue) Master of Consecrations / Unscathed Contender

2. Sword and Shield & Scepter and Focus
Fiery Wrath, Scepter Power, Focus Mastery
Superior Aria, Empowering Might, Battle Presence
(Valor) Retributive Armor / Purity
(Virtue) Master of Consecrations / Unscathed Contender

3. Greatsword & Staff
Fiery Wrath, Spirit Weapon Mastery, Eternal Spirit
Writ of Exaltation, Writ of the Merciful, Two Handed Mastery
(Virtue) Improved Spirit Weapon Duration

I use the One Hander setup for dungeons, bosses and some champion events, and the Two Hander setup for event farming and general PvE farming.
I switch between the two Two Hander setups in WvW, but it’s usually the Spirit Weapon one if I’m running with a zerg.

What I find fun about it is being able to pull 5~10 mobs, dropping two symbols and Whirling Wrath, dealing great AoE damage (from Greatsword + Symbols + Retaliation) while healing myself from both Symbols’ and Zealous Blade.
There’s plenty of places where you can pull a bunch at once, and I’m always wandering around there… or soloing/figuring group events (there’s very few that can’t be done solo, but it takes some tricks).

As for animations… I enjoy both the Human and Norn Females, maybe because they resemble somehow the Valkyrie archetype from some old games I used to play…

Indure.5410:

^ I was expecting a /sarcasm comment at the end, but didn’t see one so I’m now confused. Is this post serious or not?

I’m afraid I’m gonna have you figure it by yourself…

I tried my best to come up with all the reasonings he didn’t explain in his logic so far, and I must say… it’s as if I’ve been enlightened!

Currently rocking a 0/0/30/0/0 build because that’s all my Guardian needs.

DeathPanel.8362:

Your support is ZERO when you are down or dead, and frankly you will be down/dead far more than any AH build in any type of content that is remotely challenging.

So let’s talk about FACTS now. Because FACTS and DATA everyone can believe and agree with.

- AH builds help the Guardian stay alive longer, and because of this, it means Guardians will outdamage and outheal any other Guardian build possible.
Because other builds will be surely dead anytime soon and an AH build won’t.
The data clearly shows it.

- The Valor line provides 300 Toughness and 30% Crit Damage. This is clearly the best attribute increase compared to any other line.
Why would you take 10 Power and 1% Condition Duration over 300 Toughness and 30% Crit Damage? Increasing your damage by 1% (or less) is not worth losing tons of survivability from it, and as the point I made above shows, proved by facts, that survivability deals more damage than anything else, it’s just so wrong to skip Valor.

- Even if you have superhuman reflexes, logical thinking and general-level strategy capabilities, allowing you to dodge and avoid attacks in extreme hard content by moving and walking, you can’t avoid AoE and you can’t avoid cramps.
One small slip, you forget to press “walk forward” and BAM! You’re dead. AH builds allow you to quickly recover from this, whereas other builds can’t even get close to the regenerative power of an AH build.
AH build also allow you to rest your hand often to avoid cramps because of it’s higher base toughness.

- 9 out of 10 Guardians use an AH build variant. That’s a FACT. Why would people not use an AH build when it’s clearly superior?
Unless they think they’re smarter than the other 90% Guardians out there, which is statistically impossible, so this means we can affirm with certainty that they’re just subperforming.

- AH builds not only outperform damage, healing and support builds by outlasting, but they outperform them mathematically assuming a never dead state as well.
AH builds with Empower provides a healing total of 2000~ x5 allies + 4500 from AH (total 14500).
Compare this to Empower of a non AH build: 2000~ x5 allies (total 10000).

- AH builds also have a 30% more Crit Damage than other builds. I’ve crit Whirling Wrath for 15k with it already, it’s more than enough to kill anything in the game except bosses and veterans/champions.
In WvW I’ve crit 4k on bunkers and up to 8k on glass cannons.

- And lastly, because of the nature of AH in that we get healed by supporting allies, this means all our actions are also focused on support instead of just damage. AH builds brings unparalleled support with Shouts and Symbols that, besides their usual effects, also heals for 100~ x effect per target hit.

There’s nothing more to be said.

DeathPanel.8362:

There are NO other builds that outperform AH in support.

DeathPanel.8362:

Notice how even in your interpretation of my statement I never said it maximizes support. All you’ve done is create a strawman argument.

So it is possible to outperform an optimized build with a unoptimized build.
That’s amazing, I’m an unexperienced Guardian so I thought I had to built for damage if I wanted to damage, but I didn’t know it was possible to damage & support from defense as well.
Can you share your awesome tactic of how is this possible with us?

DeathPanel.8362:

I already stated before, 10% boon duration does not make a noticeable difference in support, while not having AH, 30% crit dmg and 300 toughness makes a huge difference in everything else.

I totally agree with you.
Even if they’re not two direct comparable attributes, it’s obvious that 30% Crit Damage, 300 Toughness and Altruistic Healing is better than 10% Boon Duration.
Who doesn’t think so?

DeathPanel.8362:

Your simplistic view that blindly stacking support trait lines would achieve better overall support is totally unfounded and naive.

Right.

I think what most people are missing is that there’s a sticky about the AH build in our very own Guardian forums, this means if you’re not playing AH, you’re doing it wrong.

I honestly feel sorry for any unexperienced Guardian who might be coming to these forums, happen to read a thread with posts filled of this uninformed, heretic knowledge proposing a non-AH build is actually better in anything than what any AH build can offer.

Is it possible, if you don’t have any characters in your account?

A friend will be starting playing soon, but I’m afraid he might forget or click the wrong server when you first log, and I’d like to know if he can change servers if he doesn’t have any characters created yet, or if he deletes all his characters.

I’d guide him step-by-step, but I’ll be internet-less for a while due to moving out, and he’s the type of “Choose the Ehmry Bay server! – Okay, Tarnished Coast, I got it!” person…

juno.1840:

Anyway, I don’t see how AH makes me less “versatile” as you put it. If anything I have a great range of flexibility. As was mentioned above, it’s a very useful build that can accomplish a lot. IMHO, more than any glass cannon build.

I didn’t say it makes you less versatile, but that it certainly doesn’t make a Guardian versatile.
Once you pick Valor 30, you locked out 30 points of any role into the survivability one. This means you gave up support, healing, damage just for survivability. You get some damage from points though.

On the other hand, if you picked Honor 30, you can freely switch traits to improve either support, healing or damage. This is versatile. And you get some survivability from points as well.

The entire point of AH vs Non-AH builds is the simple question of “do you need that survivability?”

I’ve started playing without AH since the game launched, and I build various times for AH since then.
Most of the times, including WvW, I felt it a waste of points because I wasn’t really needing or feeling the need of the survivability it provides.
The playstyle I achieved didn’t take it in account in the first place, so while keeping the same playstyle felt just lacking since I essentially “lost” 30 points I’m not really using.

To make it worth, though, I did attempt different playstyles, riskier ones, just so I could fully take advantage of it, but I didn’t found any that felt as useful as builds without it.

As a player who’s always seeking higher performance, I chose to avoid AH for the great good of my team/group.
As a player who’s going to group with strangers in the future, I’d like those Guardians to take that into consideration as well so I don’t think they’re weighting my group down.

The same reason that Signet Warriors aren’t exactly popular in groups because they give up all group support for their own damage bonus, I see AH Guardians as liabilities because they’re giving up group support for their own survivability.
Although they don’t give up all support as Warriors do, their own survivability doesn’t help the enemies die faster as well.

If you search for some Warrior’s theorycrafting you’ll see that Warriors found out that group support increases damage better than their own self damage increase signets.
Also, that’s why people say they enjoy Guardian in their groups for all the utilities we bring. I know for sure they’re not saying it’s because Guardians are awesome in self-healing.

I just hope the Guardian community grows up and stop this “AH build the best” egoistical hive mind and actually work in bringing the best for their groups.

KensaiZen.3740:

My guardian runs the usual 30/30/10 armoured with melandru runes and uses ALL beserker jewelry. Enough damage and support for any situation.

“Enough” damage and support is relative.
Check the builds I posted above, they don’t run AH and their group value are much better than what any AH build can offer.

At the cost of your survivability, which can be helped with various other skills, you bring much more to a group.

In a group, a Zeal/Honor/Virtue – Symbol/Spirit Weapon Guardian can help with awesome Projectile Protection (Shield of the Avenger, Wall of Reflection, Shield of Absorption) and great AoE healing (Symbols, Empower, Orb, Bow of Truth).

That’s some insane damage mitigation here. Not only all non-ground ranged attacks are nullified (these skills don’t seem to be limited to the 5 targets AoE limit), but they’re still providing AoE healing for the attacks that are getting through.

This is great for those battles where there’s that “ranged” line that people are too scared to cross, or for turtles/sieges in general.

For an AH Guardian to provide the same level of support, it would require at least 2 Guardians for this.

KensaiZen.3740:

Also because of flexibility of the AH build. All it requires is gear change to specialise more (currently have 4 armour sets on me at all times)

I can mighty blow bunkers for 3k and lights for 5k a pop. It is very versatile.

Any build with Selfless Daring and Cleric’s Gear can be as hard to kill as an AH build. They hit for less, but they heal for more (and it’s AoE).
So this build “versatility” due to gear you speak of isn’t limited to the Valor line only.

And even then, changing gears wouldn’t do much as your build would be still be lacking some key traits that other builds use to their best.

AH (and Valor line) brings (the Guardian’s) survivability and nothing else, there’s no “versatility” on this.
You can read all the traits and you won’t find many (just one actually) traits that benefit allies or improve skills that benefit allies.
It also has very few traits that increase damage in any form. And 30% extra Critical Damage isn’t the same as an extra 10%~15% damage at all times (it’s worse).

An example of versatile line is Honor (brings support, healing and damage).