Guild Wars 2

bleh, was looking forward to some details on the new weapon skills and traits.

THAT would have been the real kicker of the Beta instead of rolling with a bunch of hammer tossing turds and clearing content we won’t care past the first 10 min of game launch

Every single streamer i see is playing rev, anyone had a chance to test the other classes yet?

Hi, guardian main here who plays ranger quite a bit in sPVP and WvW.

I would like to say you are wrong and that teleports on a guard are the ONLY thing that lets them survive a ranger.

Keep in mind as a ranger you should ALWAYS have the high ground or be able to open up from 1600+ range. If you are facing a guard in melee range, you are doing something wrong, but in this case the guard is the least of your worries, you would be dead to any class, particularly thief and mesmer.

Once a guard uses his focus 5 they become a poor HP spunge for your burst. You have many ways to create distance, guard has only teleports to close it, and 1 of them is on a 32 sec cooldown.

When you trait hunter shot its at 12 sec cooldown with point blank shot about the same as well. Add in pet fear and CC and you are looking at twice more ways to make distance than the guard has to cut it.

if you are losing to a guard, you are doing something wrong. if you are facing a guard on a point, unless you are much more skilled than a guard, you will lose as a power ranger.

I am a guardian main and i can tell you that rapid fire is the ONLY ability that allows rangers to barely survive vs thieves and mesmers.

Yes, i did say survive. Thieves have the upperhand vs ranger because stealth lets you close gaps and be in their face without even wasting steal or sig teleport. With thief in melee range there is only so much a ranger can do before he is dead meat.

If rapid fire is changed to not track stealth anymore, rangers will be extinct within a week time on sPVP due to being hard countered by thieves and mesmers to a certain point.

Thieves usually die to ranger when its 1v2 or when they are caught without stealth on a lowground or when they are offguard…and honestly any class will die in that situation.

Thing is, ranger opening on a thief means that its 50/50 due to teleports and evades and steath from the thief
Thief opening on a ranger usually means dead ranger.

What “build” though, its meditations and meditations with carrion amulet and Burn on block instead of focused mind.

Honestly if its not physical burst medi, its burn medi.

There are only 2 viable builds for the guard right now, meditations and shouts.

Everything else is trash.

If you haven’t done so already, you can try a burn hybrid meditation guardian, but you will need to change all your gear to carrion or dire depending how condi heavy you wanna go. Keep in mind most people will use condi reduction food so you need to account for that.

negative, sword auto #3 is in a good spot.

I mean you can’t even hit half the environmental objects with it but….sword is in a good spot, for sure!

Arkinos.7245:

Hunter.4783:

Long bow seems more like an added PvE flavor to counter the ever harder encounters they are added.

You can already see in in most fractals where its easy to range a boss rather than melee. Ofc melee is faster but ranger is much much safer and the only viable way to clear a pug 50 fractal. they already admitted that PVE is getting harder, so its probably why they are adding the longbow now

Thats the point.

Guardians have no ranged weapon that does reliable damage vs highly mobile targets.

The new CC mechanics for bosses means they are more or less immune to Ckittenil you deplete the bar. This means that a mobile boss that cant be facetanked is unnecessary hard for guards, and a new weapon is the perfect opportunity to fix this.

A reliable ranged weapon wouldnt hurt for pvp either.

its just a first aid band rather than solving the problem.

Scepter auto attack is bad, and everyone knows it. All they have to do is make specter projectiles similar to arrow projectiles and it would solve the PvE issue. Again, no guard has ever complained about PVE and it doubt a faster ranged weapon will bring much.

The core of our problems stem from PVP< and its where they need to start looking. Based on the skill descriptions, LB on guard is going to be a long range slow weapon with some support thrown in, which sounds awesome in PVE but worthless in PVP.

Then again, maybe im overthinking it, and its gonna balance itself out. we will see. I just don’t trust Anet with sPVP balancing.

Normally i would agree, but in sPVP, if you are not running the meta, or the best build for your class, you are holding back your team.

And i wonder how many understand that rated sPVP is not your carebear friendly dungeon run where you have people running random builds in rares because they find exotics are expensive. You can’t carry those players in sPVP im afraid

its why you don’t see zerker 6/6/x/x eles or warriors in tourneys

In any case, these 2 skills need to be buffed.

Why are they still at 50% effectiveness? The bunker guard stopped being a viable build ages ago. This is not 2013 anymore.

Can we get them back please?

Here is what we need:

- A snare, preferably trait related so they don’t pigeonhole us into a single weapon. Half of our traits are garbage so it shouldn’t be that hard to fit that in

- A source of bleeding. Again trait related, can be added somewhere down in radiance

- MERGING OF THE STUPID VIRTUES TRAITS. Especially the ones related to VofValor, and VoJ to a certain extend. its stupid to have 2 different traits for an extremely similar functionality.

Unerfing of SY and selfless daring which i have no idea why haven’t been reverted to this day…extremely silly

Long bow seems more like an added PvE flavor to counter the ever harder encounters they are added.

You can already see in in most fractals where its easy to range a boss rather than melee. Ofc melee is faster but ranger is much much safer and the only viable way to clear a pug 50 fractal. they already admitted that PVE is getting harder, so its probably why they are adding the longbow now

… And of course because they have no idea what they are doing with the class. The problem with the guardian is that in sPVP its balanced around 6 points in Valor and 4 in virtues. and any deviation from core spec is considerably bad. Presuming they keep the leaked LB skills, i really don’t see how they are going to change anything from the current situation.

The guardian lacks tools and flexibility, especially in sPVP. The greatest changes to the guard must be made with sPVP in mind, NOT PVE. There is not a SINGLE guardian in here that has ever complained about their viability in PVE and even though scepter is lame, its actually a very good weapon on a stationary target. The irony will be when specter outDPSes LB in PVE stationary targets.

Unless the longbow magically gets the ranger LB skillset, i highly doubt it will bring anything extraordinary to the table. I know its early to QQ and call doom and gloom but so far i am not seeing anything promising.

If anything i am looking forward to trait and skill changes rather than LB, but i highly doubt they will change anything besides add new traits related to our new weapon

BTW, i feel we have to start trying not to get killed twice as hard now, especially when there is this….

And im sure its the same with many others.

Does Anet plan to do anything anytime soon? Cuz its getting ridiculous.

Engies are BREAKING sPVP, you all know it.

Some embrace it by rolling an engie and try to rack free wins, others skip sPVP, and others take up the role of bringing up the issue (again) in hopes for things to change.

If i was to choose a meta, it would probably NOT be this one

Btw, this was BEFORE the reset, when it was NOT engie win day

creepmatic.9435:

You don’t even need 4k hours on Guard to see that it’s broken. And by broken I mean trait synergy wise.

People play “medi hamm” with 0.1.6.1.6 take hammer and call it medi hammer build. How?
You can play that specc with other weapons and it still doesn’t change your gamestyle. All our hammer traits are in Zeal. And you need 5 points to trait hammer for offensive symbols and and vuln on immob. Taking Glacial heart does not define a guardian hammer build. It’s an RNG element that procs without any strategical play involved.

But no one goes 5 deep in Zeal. Why?

Because you can’t play guard in this meta without 4 in Virtues, 1 in Honor and 1 in Radiance. So you have x.1.6.1.4 as the base build. And you have 2 points left to customize it which sadly is not enough to make a proper build.

All you do is get the basic survival skills, slap a Zerker amulet, get some traveler runes and fill the slot’s with air/fire sigils to make up for the dmg loss.

It surely works decent enough. But how can you call this not broken when you need 12 out of 14 points only dedicated for survival?

I guess what @Hunter was trying to say is, that Meditation Guardian doesn’t have flavor to it and lacks the complexity which other classes have regarding build defining traits, which rewards different styles of gameplay.

At least that’s how I feel about it.

Edit: PS: Not like going 5 points into Zeal will make things more interesting anyways. It just shows the simplicity and bland nature of the guardian traits in general, and how much you need to sacrifice for your own survival to even be viable in a competitive environment.

Pretty much this.

You have this one build, and you slap different weapons to it, and see how that works. But you can’t deviate. And all your utilities and traits are there to help you SURVIVE. Valor meditation line is arguably the most SELFISH spec in the game, yet we need to go deep into it just so we aren’t blown away in seconds.

And you bring nothing beside DPS to the party. Sure you can bring a medi guard if you want to blow people up but other classes do it better.

Didn’t you all catch the memo? We are in a good spot right now

Shanks.2907:

Harbinger.8637:

Guardian is in a good spot. Yes, there are small tweaks and QoL changes I feel that are needed

Agreed. Guardian isn’t in such a bad position where it would take a barrage of buffs to get the wheels moving. However, like you said, there are quite a few changes that I think would go a long way.

• soft CC (cripple on sword/greatsword and maybe a chill on blind trait)
• fix the projectiles on sword AA #3 (melee reflects)
• faster projectiles on scepter AA/change Smite to a symbol
• speed up hammer AA #3 by at least .25s maybe even .5s
• 25% movement speed trait (would open up runes instead of being pigeonholed into traveler/pack runes and create more diversity)

You know guardian is in a pretty good place when smaller changes can make the difference. Of course I’d like to see signets and spirit weapons be reworked to be viable. I also really liked oobs’ idea to make Flashing Blade similar to a reverse Phase Retreat. Especially with the new teleport changes coming and (from what I heard) you’ll have to be in range to even teleport.

Small changes can shift the meta on ANY class, guardian is no exception

Also, adding CC is generally considered a HUGE buff to a melee centric class.

Right now the class has 1 mediocre working spec. Some think to think its enough, others don’t, and others will disagree with either side for the sake of e-glory.

Saiyan.1704:

Hunter, I would take advice from the more accredited Guardians on this thread. They are obviously more skillful, and more knowledgeable on where Guards stands in the Meta.

As for your 1v1 dilemas, I’d recommend my burn build.. but I don’t think any Guardian build would satisfy you.

Like others have said, the Guardian was probably never your class to begin with.
Best regards.

Oh, will you listen to yourself?

“accredited” players, are nothing but more vocal posters. Did they finish some secret guild wars 2 collage or something? Are you joking me? You really think for a second this ultra casual MMO has a huge skill discrepancy between beginner and “pro”?

Ridiculous…

And way to change perspective on things.

My post went from: “hey guys, i think guardians have issues” to “Hunter, you suck, you can’t play, guards are fine”

FYI, i was using MY burn build before those videos started popping on the forums. i like how you go the extra mile just to flex that thingie.

silvermember.8941:

Hunter.4783:

Tyreal.5230:

Hunter.4783:

Tyreal.5230:

if u upload some gameplay, im sure ppl would be willing to give u pointers on wat u should’ve done in x-situation. the reason why everyone’s giving u a hard time is because all they see is you complaining in a post. Which, most posts of that nature tend to be from less than average players(skill wise). Everyone here isn’t having the same one-sided experiences that you have listed. They could probably help you. There are a number of players that wouldn’t mind having some practice duels with you and give you some tips to be better with your guardian.

besides, how the kitten did this thread change into me having trouble with playing guardians.

All i did was point out the major flaws of the class and added that a few hours into ranger offered me more strategical insight than 4k hours did on my guard. Its as simple as that.

Yet, here we have all the hotshots bashing at me for being bad for no reason whatsoever.

This is why i say that the class forums are a crap-pool right now where constructive feedback is the last thing in anyones mind.

Okay, calm down dude. You didn’t even read what I wrote yet you’re going off on people. I didn’t say you were bad I said that’s what your post tells everyone compared to every other post of the same nature. When you act like that how can you expect nothing but negative replies to your post.

Also, this isn’t a “any tips? having a hard time playing guard in spvp” thread, it’s more of a guardian sucks cuz i can do X and X stuff on ranger that I couldn’t on guardian.

The first post in my thread was a negative reply, from the guardian guru himself no less, in about 5 sec after i made my post.

Again, this is NOT a “omg help me out” post, “neither is it a guards suck” one. Im simply stating that it only takes a few hours of playing another class just to see what the guard lacks.

So you are saying in a game with different archetypes not every class can do everything and some classes are better at x than other class, which is a fact.

In any case it sseems you are the type for blaming your failures on everyone except yourself. In any case the fact med guards are in the meta even with the celestial meta goes to show you are wrong and might just be bad.

Not always, ele, engie and war are in the meta. Meta = staple mark of the team

You can argue thieves are too just as well as medi guards, so are necros and rangers as they were all present in the last games. Just cuz a class is present doesnt make it “meta” and doesn’t mean it has no flaws

Tyreal.5230:

Hunter.4783:

Tyreal.5230:

if u upload some gameplay, im sure ppl would be willing to give u pointers on wat u should’ve done in x-situation. the reason why everyone’s giving u a hard time is because all they see is you complaining in a post. Which, most posts of that nature tend to be from less than average players(skill wise). Everyone here isn’t having the same one-sided experiences that you have listed. They could probably help you. There are a number of players that wouldn’t mind having some practice duels with you and give you some tips to be better with your guardian.

besides, how the kitten did this thread change into me having trouble with playing guardians.

All i did was point out the major flaws of the class and added that a few hours into ranger offered me more strategical insight than 4k hours did on my guard. Its as simple as that.

Yet, here we have all the hotshots bashing at me for being bad for no reason whatsoever.

This is why i say that the class forums are a crap-pool right now where constructive feedback is the last thing in anyones mind.

Okay, calm down dude. You didn’t even read what I wrote yet you’re going off on people. I didn’t say you were bad I said that’s what your post tells everyone compared to every other post of the same nature. When you act like that how can you expect nothing but negative replies to your post.

Also, this isn’t a “any tips? having a hard time playing guard in spvp” thread, it’s more of a guardian sucks cuz i can do X and X stuff on ranger that I couldn’t on guardian.

The first post in my thread was a negative reply, from the guardian guru himself no less, in about 5 sec after i made my post.

Again, this is NOT a “omg help me out” post, “neither is it a guards suck” one. Im simply stating that it only takes a few hours of playing another class just to see what the guard lacks.

Tyreal.5230:

if u upload some gameplay, im sure ppl would be willing to give u pointers on wat u should’ve done in x-situation. the reason why everyone’s giving u a hard time is because all they see is you complaining in a post. Which, most posts of that nature tend to be from less than average players(skill wise). Everyone here isn’t having the same one-sided experiences that you have listed. They could probably help you. There are a number of players that wouldn’t mind having some practice duels with you and give you some tips to be better with your guardian.

besides, how the kitten did this thread change into me having trouble with playing guardians.

All i did was point out the major flaws of the class and added that a few hours into ranger offered me more strategical insight than 4k hours did on my guard. Its as simple as that.

Yet, here we have all the hotshots bashing at me for being bad for no reason whatsoever.

This is why i say that the class forums are a crap-pool right now where constructive feedback is the last thing in anyones mind.

Nah, is more like the forum syndrome, as i like to call it. People will dissagree just for the sake of disagreeing. You think guards are “in a good place”?

Fine with me, lol.

Didn’t you know? this is the infamous catch 22 on these forums.

If you claim class X is either not good enough or too OP someone will come out of the woodwork in an attempt to gain e-glory and flex his kitten and will call you a nub and that he currently has no problem with class X.

Thats why im not nearly as active as i was on these forums. Learned my lesson when i was being quite vocal about the OP warrior days

savacli.8172:

I believe we have a case of wrong class for the wrong player that finally found the right class for his play style.

In all seriousness whether it be a Medi guard that’ll blink in for the burst or a bunker holding the point Guards tend to get targeted not so much become they are an easy pick off but because they can turn around a fight if not dealt with immediately.

Turn what around? Are you joking? Eles and thieves can turn matches around, not guards.

My point is, you can’t contest as a guard since any D/D ele, engie or warrior will beat you to it
You can’t bunker since aforementioned classes do it better
You get singled out and focused in mid, you all know that by now
Anything you can do, other classes do it better.
So why even play a guard in sPVP when other classes are simply…better right now

Sure, necros might be in the same spot as we, but a power necro left unchecked can down 3 people in mid in a matter of moments. Same with ranger. Guards just run in, WW and die to retaliation and condi spam

Guess who is enjoying the highest win ratio and fun factor in sPVP right now

Guards are a joke right now,
can’t 1v1,
get focused in group fights asap without able to provide anything,
can’t bunker.
NO tactical gameplay

During the last game on my ranger, im getting focused by this warrior. I hunder shot him, dodge out of cleave and stomp the guy downed next to him while stealthed. Normally players would expect 1 to stealth and run away,
THIS is far more than i could achieve with a typical; guard gameplay

If anything i would say its the easiest class to get into sPVP right now with the lowest skill cap yet with the lowest gain.

There are my thoughts after playing a guard full time since the start of the game. Am i the best guard? No, Do i know what im talking about? I would hope so at least.

Are guards balanced at the highest level of play? I don’t know, but you can’t balance the game for 0.000001% of the player base. Until i can play in MLG i will be retiring my guard from sPVP and focus on other classes which reward skillful and tactical play

Sauncho.8076:

is also worthless in a 1 v 1. It’s glass or a poor man’s bunker, not much else.

Pretty much this. Other classes can both roam and bunker better than you. There is NO REASON to bring a guardian in a 5v5 right now.

Warrior ele, engie thief, x

where X being a double of the first 3 will ALWAYS be superior to bringing a guardian.

CMF.5461:

I watched the games, and tage was singled out and downed, because I believe that he as the guardian (not the player) was the weak spot. I tried to look for clutch plays, but mostly it was an onslaught of focus fire on a point.

Tage was playing the role of a point roamer mostly, which could have been better suited with a more mobile class, but mobility wasn’t too much of an issue. After that he played the role of target CC with scepter and hammer immobilize, another war could have covered that either with hammer ae CC or another shoutbow sword immobilize on a shorter cooldown.

Proabably not an optimal choice but another thief could have replaced a medi guard for roaming and target burst lockdown kills. Rangers make good +1 to group fights as well.

I wouldn’t want to advocate for another engie or ele heavy group though, so overall I am glad for the diversity, but felt like something else could have subbed in.

What they did have for them are players who are good at their class playing together as a team, which is probably why they went with a medi guard over any of the other things I suggested.

I agree with you 100% and was thinking about this as well.

A medi guard right now is mediocre at best in the current meta.

It is too squishy to bunker or even hold points for a little bit
Too easily kitable by most classes
Cannot safely contest far and even home over a D/D ele and engie…and there are tons of those.

All i see medi guards do right now is soak up burst while and hope to live long enough for your team to down someone else.

If anything, HYBRID guard is slightly better, because of a stronger 1v1 presence and can even be a threat for aforementioned classes when it comes to contest points…if only for a little bit.

I personally don’t see what the hype with tage and medi hammer is right now. tage is a good player and guard is prolly his best class, its why he was added in the roster, but as CMF said, several other classes would have been a better pick

I personally feel Medi guards are tougher fight to DPS warriors now.

Partially because you can predict the warrior by what weapon they have out.

Lets say you are facing hammer/GS. You know to expect CC chain when in hammer and you know when facing burst when in GS. So as a result you pop stability and mash his face while he has hammer out or save stun breaker for Earth shaker —> 100b transition.

Alternatively, you can use blinds, stuns and what not when in hammer to prevent the CC. Warrior missing that hammer burst is a huge blow usually

Lastly, pressure hurts warriors more than guards, as it puts them in the defensive for their regen cannot outheal it. Poison is a HUGE deal to warriors as it eats up their regen. Guards, especially when running with 2/0/6/0/6 don’t have to worry about either, due to the many cleanses. And our heal and now much improved elite makes us invuln to most forms of CC on top of it.

TBH i play both warrior and guard a lot and im much more confortable going melee with my zerker medi guard than im with the warrior

You forgot the most important aspect.

Teleports on a heavy armored soldier class are cools and make warriors (and necros/eles for that matter) green with envy.

Cuz you know…teleports

If you have some Gold to spare, Rune of strength, +4 in Virtues + 2h weapon specialization = permanent 12 might stacks.

Add boon duration food, and you will be the most overpowered front line and support hybrid in the game.

Full PTV with some zerk in the mix for the extra spice.

Who ever said staff was bad?

trait 6 in virtues and get both IX and X. Stability on F3 is the best investment you could possibly make.

You will have to adopt the defensive medi variant however
2
0
6
0
6

I cannot take seriously any videos where you see thieves and engies eating up a full WW on greatsword or a scepter 2.

At least show us a fight vs MEDIOCRE opponents, these guys were just bad.

And signet for healing skill? Get out of here!

Tell me what servers u are facing please, so i can guest there and /lol at them personally….seriously…so bad

Your video shows how bad players in WvW are rather than your skills. Any tool can stand there and GS #2 —> Hammer #2 and stomp afterwards.

Im sorry if im being honest and blunt

Considering that this is their chance to make up for all the class discrepancy kitten ups, i would say LONG BOW would be the main weapon for this new class.

Lets face it:

Axe: Melee centric, more of the same crap. Would compete with mace and sword. We don’t need more melee

Rifle: Another likely addition; only problem is that it just dont fit with the classs

Short bow: Well, i would say it would be as likely as the longbow, but since u are a kitten motherkittener who don’t mind staying in melee range to tank kitten, it would make u less likely to wield this over the longbow

Warhorn: Bleh, would only bring 2 skills to the table, and appart from some form of swiftness, it would suck most likely, and u can’t really beat focus as offhand

Which leaves us with:

LONGBOW: Its a weapon which lorewise, can be infused to deal and unleash magic, or even condi dmg, which the guard desperately need. Besides, dont you fella want to shoot Blue magic arrows instead of throwing ultra slow magic orbs at some fool who is kiting and /loling at you?

20 and 24 respectively

Perma prot w/o hammer inc! mace/shield suddenly became much more viable in pugs cuz now you supply both regen and prot.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/preview-of-upcoming-balance-changes/

Litany of Wrath: The percentage of health returned from this skill has been increased from 20% to 25%. The aftercast of this skill has also been reduced by 0.5 seconds.
Dev note: In addition to gaining a little more healing from this skill, guardians will be able to use skills much sooner after casting it.
Shield of Judgment: The cooldown on this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
Dev note: This change is a general usability improvement for the shield overall.
Shield of Absorption: The cooldown on this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
Dev note: Same as above!
Zealot’s Fire: The increased cooldown component has been removed.
Dev note: This penalty felt unnecessary and it wasn’t fun.

Shield buffs,
Torch buffs,

but more importantly

ELE AND ENGIE NERFS, MIGHT STACKING NERFS!

locoman.1974:

I think just in case my main (sylvari guardian) is going to invest in a set of armor that completely covers the face…

http://www.gw2armorgallery.com/armour/sylvari/sylvari-heavy-karma-dark-male.jpg
“no sir, no sylvaris here”…

See? This man knows whats up.

Already thinking ahead.

Kicking talking cabbages from my party is just the beginning. Wait till we do massive gkicks, THEN, plant tears (lol) will flow

I would suggest you little vegetables start looking for a server which will take you in and aggregate there, just a suggestion.

Considering guardians are slowly being driven out of the meta, i wouldn’t really go and say spirit weapons will be OP anytime soon.

If anything i can hope for them to be at least meta worthy material, but as of right now, they are better off deleting or completely overhauling them than try to kittenly make them “viable”

Oh please, stop acting like you all suddenly got good in PVP because of your skills.

A brain dead player can roll turret engie and be as effective as a medium skilled players. So shove your attitudes.

The OP cries for that broken kitten class are justified and that class WILL get nerfed, you all know it. Stop pretending you are the best players in sPVP and suddenly everyone else got demoted to nub skill level.

Some of the posts here are simply…baffling

Leave the engie alone you say? Sure! Sounds easy enough, no one wants to die after all.

But what happens when you have TWO turret engies on the same team? as its common to see now ranked arena? oh sure, lets ignore both of them and all lets camp home! sounds like a plan!

But no way a team will always have 2 turret engies right?
Well, in that case, you have 1 turret engie holding home and you have the rest of the team zerging nodes, all they need to do is DECAP both points and they win.

Turret engies are the most overpowered build that graced the world of tyria since 2 years ago. Bunker guards and D/D eles have NOTHING on this spec.

Use range you say? Sure!
But what if i dont play range classes? does it mean i have to roll over and die? And even IF i went range, the engie can still line of sight me.
I swear some of you posters on this thread are barely out of rabbid rank, as you haven’t heard of line of sighting ranged characters.

…to the point where its getting ridiculous.

No class besides a D/D (almost equally as OP) stands a chance vs them, and even then, turret engie takes the cake.

This spec should have been nerfed a while ago, i do not understand why nothing has been done yet.

There is no point in playing a sPVP match when one side has 2 thieves and the other has 2 engies, the imbalance is clear as day.

Currently the only counter to celestial is bring more celestial and kitten on everyone else. I don’t even bother playing on my thief or guardian anymore. An engie will wreck me so bad i will want to punch the monitor 5 min into the match.

As of right now, the match is determined by first and foremost class matchup and number of Celestial users. It is ridiculous when i know how the match will end before i even start the game.

PvP has never been this broken, as there is NO COUNTER to the engie on point or heck, to a D/D. Suddenly you have a dueler who can bunker AND burst at the same time, and at that point you know something needs to be changed.

I don’t care about the broken matchmaking system, what i care about is that i am being forced to play 1 of the 3 dominant specs in order for my team to have a chance at winning

Keksmuffin.1450:

Lately I’ve seen way too many of these condi/hybrid guard forum posts that mainly consisted of another weird variation of the same hybrid build and weird video montages of mediocre players farming horrible players with said build.

The builds have been pretty much variations of these two:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApcoVDxbI8DNR8QZ1HUdAkAP61/wMkDA-TJRHwAV2fIwTAAZZAAnEAA

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApcoVDxZI8DNBARlZREhWGARw1hQFsBA-TJRHwABeCAILDA4kAEa/BA

The standard offensive guard builds look like this:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR7dlsApcoVDxbI8DVR8QlZK+i2UVAgz1/QQkDA-TZBFwACuAAEOIA12foaZAAPBAA

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAS7dlsApcoVDxbI8DRRDRld8df5nN4c9BchBAA-TpBFwACuAAIeAAEOIA12foaZAAHBAA

I’ve seen a lot of people comparing zerker and hybrid guardians and using the weirdest arguments. People said condi guard could hold points better and survive longer than zerker while the only defensive thing that condi has over the standard builds are a bit more HP.

It has no vigor and even if you would trait for it you would barely get vigor procs with carrion. Your autoattacks hit for not very much so you have almost no counterpressure, as soon as your weaponswap is on cooldown people can basicly freecast on you and you’re forced to blow your defensive cooldowns really fast while zerker can put symbols or smite under him and stuff like thieves will get punished really hard for engaging without the guard even using defensive cooldowns.

Also hybrid guard doesn’t really have burst. It kills kind of slow and barely has any impact in teamfights. I saw a few people calling krait runes renewed focus a burst… Just no. You use your most important defensive cooldown to get ONE stack of bleeding, ONE stack of torment and poison on people. You really think that’s worth it and you really think you can call that a burst?

Also one of the things that lets you notice that you have a zerker guard on your team is insane cleave on downed bodies, especially from GS. The best thing condi guard can do is swapping weapons for poison and then do pretty weak autoattacks.

People also bring the argument that condi guard is better in some 1v1 matchups. This is the one thing that is true and that I have to agree with. However that’s barely relevant. You might be able to freekill mesmers and thieves with it but you have an an advantage against that anyways and you might have a slightly better matchup against celes dd ele but you still shouldn’t win against them if they are decent. The only really relevant one is engi because they go from being a hard matchup on zerker guard to being a freekill on condi guard. I got 1st place the last ESL 1v1 cup by 1 shotting engis with condi guard a bunch of times so I should know.

Apart from that zerker is almost always better than condi guard as soon as your 1v1 get’s +1’d and becomes a 2v2 which happens a lot when people call that they are losing their 1v1 against you. Zerker actually has some kind of cc with gs or hammer that your teammate can make use of, your teammate ccing targets does not really doanything for condi guard since you hit your passive burning stuff and instant weaponsswaps anyways while it can mean being able to 100-0 targets for zerker guard which I’ve done a lot in 2v2s together with hambows or rifle engis. Also condi guard neither has a safe stomp nor good cleave on downed bodies which makes it more likely that people can rez against you. Also zerker can support their teammate better since they can afford going into virtues and get the cleanse on f2 or even stability on f3.

In actual 5v5 games condi guard is also pretty much outclassed by condi engi because they both bring burning and geo/doom swaps but engi also brings cc, more defense, utility like stealth, more mobility and better support cuz healing turret op.

tl;dr: Literally the only thing condi guard does better than zerker is killing engis.

Feel free to disagree, feel free to prove me wrong by playing condi guard in any ESL 5v5 tournament and doing well with it. I hope that we can get an actual discussion going and not just people repeating the same stuff they already said in the forum posts I mentioned (dat krait runes burst tho).

^ This 100%

Condi guard works vs bad players and the first time vs good players.

Engies, D/D ele and even shoutbow warriors bring so much more to the table that its not even funny.

If you want to play something new, by all means go ahead, but if you want to be competitive in todays meta, look at a different class.

As far as i know, guardian is dead in sPVP, celestial killed it.

Every single content in the game can be cleared while fully naked wielding a weapon of your choice, Dont pretend like GW2 is hard, so claming you have “done 100% of the content” does nothing but make you lose credibility to anyone with half a brain who has played for longer than 2 months.

All the discussion is centered around efficiency, and how quickly you can clear the content. Never in this forum has anyone complained about being UNABLE to clear a specific dungeon of fractal with x or y build.

I still dont know whether you are being serious of sarcastic, and frankly i don’t care. I simply don’t want to get the random nub rolling with a similar build to yours whom i will have to kick midway through bloomberg for dragging everyone behind and wasting 5 min of everyones time.

Guardian is the class with the least amount of variety, and this should surprise noone. Zeal is mostly useless save for 2 traits (out of 13) and radiance is not faring much better. The irony with radiance is that people go 25 points all in just for the MINOR trait and end up using the majors for flavor which is ridiculous.

Its the ONLY tree where spending 30 points is detrimental, compared to spending 25, and that should tell the devs something, assuming they know even what im talking about

valor is viable for 2 specs, and honor is valiable for 1 spec, and virtue goes only up to Master level, for there is no one, in the history of Gw2 who put a point in virtue grandmaster triats for any kind of remotely serious builds. And i have been around healway, and i think that build was a joke exploiting player ignorance

So we have more than half the guardian traits which are WORTHLESS, and this says a lot from the getgo.

Now lets go over to class mechanics:

Virtue passive AND active abilities = a joke. You need to trait them to be worthwhile, which is completely stupid. its like having to trait mesmer shatters in order to do damage.

No viable condi builds, which deserves no explanation

We are also the class with the least amount of CCs. I can’t tell you how frustrating SPVP is these days where im stunned and snared nonstop whereas i have to chase kitten kitten necros, engies, rangers, and eles just to poke them with my sword while eating a myriad of CC and condi in the process. Good engies and D/D can 1v2 guardians all day, because we are in a good place right now.

We have no viable ranged options in competitive play, end of story

SPVP on my guard is so frustrating now i find i have to move over to my D/D ele or ranger every 2 games in order not to punch my monitor. Did i mention how i am seeing less and less guards in sPVP. Any soloQ team with 2 guards or more is better off AFking from the getgo and save themselves the embarrasment, especially if there is an engie on the other side

First of all, its rune of Strength, not rune of Force.

I personally don’t really care who Stella is, nor her build. I can tell you from experience that what eats the guardian up in sPVP are the massive condi pressure from medium range that engies and necros can unleash.

That is why you need 2 things to succeed in sPVP: Range options and condi condi cleanse.

Scepter takes care of the first,
2/1/6/1/4 takes care of condi pressure

Even though u are a guard, you are SQUISHY, you will NOT survive to build up and utilize 25 stacks of might. Hence why you want to make sure those 3-4 sec u are attacking, you are doing the most dmg, hence why u go fire/air sigils

Mobility is key, you are NOT a point defender, you want to help decap and support in middle. You NEED travelers and/or Speed runes.

All your build does is try to max stats, but that does not win in SPVP, procs and burst does.

Most Stella videos are done in WvW while rocking full buffs and food, and 30k HP and generally fighting scrubs. The same approach wont work in sPVP vs dragon ranks

They need to add a harsh report and penalty system.

Kicked 2x on the same day while afk with 4 party reports = 1 day ban from sPVP and rank penalty

And you suddenly see much fewer of these scum

As a top 150 soloQ player i dread nothing more than facing an engie on a point. 1v1 will be no contest unless there is a huge player discrepancy.

Even IF necro counters engie, engies counter everyone else! Especially when fighting on point.

“but but… there is more to SPVP than nodes!”
- As long as SPVP is conquest based, this issue will persist. If you lose 2-3 nodes like this, you lose the game.

“Mes too counters engie!”
- Hardly, mes, a class with minimal condi removal stands no chance vs one of the classes with the highest condie pressures and ways to directly negate your burst

“Bring a friend!”
- Sure! and you end up getting crushed at middle and getting rolled over for the next 3 min till everyone is back together. Or you lose the fight for tranquility. In any case, this is not the solution.

You cannot have strong CC, invuls, 3s blocks, extremly strong condi pressure and turrets (which act as CC, damage and healing indipendent of the player)

Warriors got hammered because they could spam CC/AoE on everyone like no tomorrow. Do you really think you are gonna get away with the current status of the class?

Gulesave.5073:

I think it’s supposed to be a gorget. A very dangerous gorget that should only be worn for ceremony, and even then with great care.

This one is not secured properly, and the spade shape creates a weapon that can only be used against your own face. It would quickly maim you the moment it took a blow, or if your head suddenly tilted forward for some reason, (such as tucking and rolling to dodge, for example). I hope you weren’t planning on keeping your teeth and/or nose.

But don’t worry, those mordrem wolves will probably go for the arteries in your exposed thighs and armpits first.

You sir, deserve kudos for making me spill my tea and making me lol IRL for a good 5 min. Not many can do that these days.

/hats off

“but but… they are balanced for tourney play!”

NO! they are not! Haven’t you seen the dual engie set up teams. And besides, this mentality if wrong because you don’t want a game mode only to apply to 20 players, do you?