Guild Wars 2

I agree Merc Intervention should be improved, it’s pretty much useless.

Ynna.8769:

If you can’t heal yourself properly, it doesn’t matter how much you heal others. Not to mention that healing others in this game is mostly inconsequential, unless you can do it with little investment.

How much effort have you put into making the +healing guardian work? I think you need to try a different approach if you’re that down on it. Works great for me i’m all excited about it lately and my teammates love it.

Hmmm I enjoy and use Healing Breeze in my healing builds, it is hard to use though, would be nice if it had a bit longer range and wider cone or something.. I like the mechanic of it though, i’m chasing friends around dodging on them anyways, playing a healing guardian in WvW is a ton of fun for me lately.

Here’s a vid I made with healing breeze 1200 or so +healing, i’ve gotten alot better at it the past week and run with 1400 now and it’s working great for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JDySjnJpAM
This clip was one of the first times I played a healing based guardian since release days so i’m improving alot and working on a better video, 95% of my guardian playtime is as DPS.

ComeAndSee.1356:

Healing breeze just isn’t nearly as good as our signet heal unfortunately.

Signet heal -> Passive removes conditions, heals for more, heals faster, AND you can trait it (20% reduced CD on signets) to 32s.

They’re totally different things though why even compare them? Healing breeze is for a high healing build where you’re all about healing others not yourself IMHO.

I also play melee and range switch back and forth constantly in dungeons, every class can do both, my guardian actually uses greatsword/hammer/shield/scepter/torch/staff/1h sword regularly in fractals, switch traits around here and there, melee is hard sometimes, dont do it all the time if you’re not into hardcore dodging.

On the topic of Scepter Guardians they can do great damage, you can swap in your full berserker on alot of fights and use unscathed defender and 1h 15% crit trait and do tons.

yes this is driving me crazy lately since I started playing some staff first time in a long time, seems to be happening after channeling but i’m not sure, but it has gotten me killed a couple bad times that made me want to break my keyboard

I like 20/30/0/10/10 for fractals, shout cooldown if you need it, consecrations cd/duration if you need it or unscathed defender, then lots of dps from the 20/30 , scepter/torch/shield/hammer/greatsword, lots of traits to shuffle around depending on map.

This guide is really awesome, i’m about to work on getting my necro to 80 and this is all really helpful thanks.

I also am shocked at how upset some people are about a bows graphic, I think it looks cool/funny and doesn’t bother me, the effect IS a bit too big though if something had to be changed… so nice to see all these interesting legendary weapons being made by ANet keep up the good work.

Some of you over the top macho dudes really love your video game immersion wow… come on just get your Dusk and stomp those colorful rainbow noobs down in your black bleeding fiery armor and get over it.

I run this build now and then for WvW soloing same weap setup/utitlies, it’s great, except one difference, I use +toughness/-coodowns for shield instead of meditations are instant, to me getting the shield abilities back up faster helps alot, smite condition cast doesnt bother me that much.

Here’s my only vid with this build in wvw, I don’t do spvp yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZL0yewp9aE
I still need practice and I can’t make up my mind on shelter vs signet heal

Well, sorry to hear about your condition just want to make sure you know that dodge can be a single keypress and doesn’t need to be a double tap, you could probably just hit it randomly without thinking about it while fighting mobs and not tense up or anticipate, the dodges will add up.. you could prob pull a couple of mobs and just hit it now and then without even looking at the screen and get it done

Uploaded a new vid 0/20/0/30/20 group wvw

totally should happen, seems so strange to have us go through our bags

Tired of seeing half of my bank full of these things, seeing how alts share bank space too it just doesn’t make sense that if you have saved up alot of these things you lose an entire bank slot to them… please let us put them in collectibles.

Sorry late replies had a busy holidays was away alot. Almost done new WvW vid sorta, also making another set of vids now with just one fight sequence with clips too long for my usual vids.. here’s the first, with me learning triple shout with a dwayna rune set for one of the first times, couple of close calls and some failure.

akamon.2769:

one more thing, do you ever feel you don’t have enough mobility? i guess i got used to using swiftness from staff #3, though we have many other ways as well ; ))

Yeah I definitely struggle with mobility, teleporting, leaping and save yourselves short sprint are my only hope, I usually beg speed buffs off my teammates, I don’t see a way around it though.. I do end up with swiftness alot of the time, sometimes I plan my escape around my Judges Intervention cd

fxchin.8954:

Awesome vids mate! You’re defo someone I look up to as a guardian. One question though, with your current 0 20 0 30 20 build, how do you remove conditions? Other than the signet of resolves’ passive, there’s no other trait/utility in your build that does so and you’re not using soldiers rune. I’m just curious how to survive a zergs condition damage if they start focusing on you.

Thanks glad you like the vids, it’s funny you mention the conditions cause since my last vid i’ve been more annoyed with conditions than ever and have sometimes been using the 20pt trait in virtues to drop 3 conditions on virtue of resolve use, the signet periodic reduction does count for something I guess… it’s part of the endless brain teaser figuring out builds… in my solo builds i’m very anti conditions.

I think what it comes down to for me in what you see in my main videos is I just watch my conditions and back off when it’s too much, my vitality is pretty decent and that helps alot too in giving me time to react to a condition spam, also I get condition removal from teammates ideally, what i’ve decided is my main solution is to get really good at avoiding red circles, especially necro ones. Another thing about heavy conditions is if you see them early and know you have no bailout just run away asap to a safe spot to be brought up from downed, I think conditions are the worst if you don’t notice them being applied and react.

GANGLAND.6357:

Watching this video made me very sad…

Sad because it reminded me of your awesome Warhammer videos- and I really miss Warhammer.

I miss my Witch Hunter I’ll have a thief at some point and try to make him entertaining :P I’m actually excited about the potential of single target buffs and having to assist better like we did in WAR after this big talk theyre having about nerfing aoe.

Aberrant.6749:

I don’t see the point of going as a full zerker guard… if you want a higher dps… why not just bring another higher than max guard dps class instead? I’m not saying it’s BAD, just that there are other classes that can do dps better… so why not play towards your particular class’s strengths?

How does having berserkers gear on not play to our class strengths? I love doing bloomhunger for example, putting down walls, sanctuary, shield of the avenger, with 20% more damage under aegis, 5% scepter damage, 15% torch cooldowns, 15% crit with 1h, I think it’s great single target damage and the usual huge utility… just get 2 armor sets if you’re serious about PVE imo, just helps the group if you can step it up when you wont be taking damage.

Please give us the ability to save favorite trait combination presets and utilities, it’s such a strength of the game the ability to change parts of your build, i’m constantly changing them around during fractals of the mists runs and hate opening the panels and clicking around all over the place to do it while autorunning trying not to fall off a ledge to keep up, I think if players see this option to save setups of some sort it would help encourage them to get more out of their class, no reason for it to be a hassle.

Weapons setups too, sick of going into my backpack to find the weapon icons.

I’ve done alot of fractals, currently doing level 30’s, in PVP I use gs/ham usually but as I started to get into PVE a bit with fractals I gradually ended up using greatsword, hammer, scepter, torch, shield and sometimes staff… all depending on what fractals map is up…

For gear I see lots of debate above, personally I run with mixes of berserkers and power/toughness/vitality depending on whatever, really stats are just like a how much damage can you take or deal slider its not so complicated, do you feel confident you can handle a million dredge zerging you and run in and melee and use blinds/blocks/dodging to live, well it’s possible, gotta know when to duck out it’s not easy, don’t know why people debate about gear, there’s too many different situations especially in a place like fractals, like on bloomhunger or the frost guy no point wearing anything with extra survivability for me, all berserkers.

Traits are all flexible on the fly too, it’s not like past mmos where you’re totally stuck with a build, sometimes I change my scepter damage 5%, torch cooldown 15%, 20% damage while under aegis to all spirit weapon related traits, I change my utilities every map too..

So my advice is to try to be flexible and put in effort to be flexible and change things on the fly, it makes the game more fun for me now that i’m used to doing it, I wish there were things like dual spec or utility presets but oh well.

2 most important utilities imho to consider in fractals: wall of reflection and shield of the avenger

I think it’s best to use both swapping alot, they’re like 2 sides of a coin, hammer is more defensive/controlling, if levelling do the autoattack chain with hammer for protection if you’re in deep.. the 2 weapons compliment eachother big time.

There’s no better or worse of the two.

Cute Asura attack

Koda helm is very cute

akamon.2769:

stuff

Keep experimenting IMO part of why this game is so awesome is there are so many viable builds it’s miraculous, i’ve been working on some solo play since i’ve been off work a bit and and trying things out, triple meditation today. Maybe have some of that in my next vid or a later vid.

Darkmoon Mist Raven.5913:

shelter > heal signet imo.

Hmm Shelter vs Signet is a tough one.. when I do my soloing/duoing shield build with block traits I sometimes use shelter and try hard to time it, but doing what I do in group WvW I think the conditions disappearing + the extra 4k heal offset the chance to block 4k damage to make shelter worth it.

Shelter is great, I just think it suits more of a tanky guardian who is happy being in the line of fire, i’m usually more about topping myself off after ducking out of harms way when blinds blocks and stability aren’t going for a sec and then coming back full health, 100% hp I find is much less aggro, rather they attack someone else who has less than full health, I love topping myself off with that spike, it’s like after rolling around a couple of times in a pile of giant Norns theyre wondering where that Asura with 50% hp went. Maybe i’m crazy but I swear that’s for me the knock against the be low hp and regen alot/block alot with altruistic healing type style, I believe the more you’re at low health % the more focus fire you’ll receive.. of course this is sometimes the proper intention of a guardian, to draw focus fire away from squishy teammates, I do take that on in some situations where I want them to attack me.

I’ve slowed down clips of me in the roughest situations and not often do I see 4k damage worth of hits on me 2 seconds before my signet heal goes off, seems like most of the times it would save more health than signet heal is when i’m locked down caught and going to the downed state no matter what I do, having conditions drop off of me while I haven’t used signet seals the deal for me.

It’s a good debate though, I see them as equal abilities for different situations and it’s hard to figure out for me.. and I should mention that I realize it’s not only damage that gets blocked with shelter, which is what makes it most interesting, I don’t agree that shelter is always superior.

Silentstorm.7531:

Love the video dislike the music lol……

Nooo, the music is awesome did you listen to it loud on good earphones? Anyways glad you liked it despite that, personally i’m always muting pvp videos hehe, esp ones with singing.

Anyways I appreciate the feedback guys, the next vid will be better but alot of work as i’ve been recording billions of gigabytes a day so far and I already had a backlog of long fun fights which were meant to be in the last video but that vids project file corrupted and I lost 2 days of editing and had to start completely from scratch(now I save in steps)… and now I have to stop playing mostly for a week and a half of the holidays so maybe 2nd week of Jan it will be done.

I also feel it seems like alot of people are just looking at the summary post as if it’s some kind of big announcement and that’s all there will be and they didn’t listen to the talk.. i’m glad they’re taking care of keeping the overall game strong, it’s too bad alot of resources have to go to the majority of the player base and not me but lifes tough in mmo land for pvpers(I remember when WoW outright DELETED worldpvp from their game with the dishonorable kill system, Warhammer self destructed several times, Aion was a joke, as was rift, etc.)

Loving WvW so far in this game despite the obvious issues, hopefully all the people doing fractals and dungeons in general are figuring out their classes real good for the february patch… hope it’s a good patch, nothing in this talk made me think it shouldn’t be.

akamon.2769:

one quick question, in your current playstyle, what is staple for you to maintain your heals / health? though it seems more to come in the form of mitigation and knowing wen to dis-engage and then reengage your enemies.

Thanks glad you’re enjoying the vids, as for health maintenance i’d say yeah part of it is definitely being shifty and all over the place… avoiding circles… disappearing into a crowd? To me it’s one of the hardest parts of worldpvp, not tunnel visioning and seeing what’s coming, knowing when to duck and dodge.

Omnomberry ghosts and master maintenance oil are very important, i’m also using the sigil of blood on my hammer atm.

As for builds like 30 honor 30 virtues, I can’t do it(with this style of guardian play), 15 into Radiance is the heart of it all, with a group that can kill fast and wants alot of kills, the VOJ refreshes with the might stacks from 5 virtues, the blinds, the new trait giving 3 stacks of vulnerability on a blind, the fire proc, it’s like an engine that gets started if you can get fast kills… take a good look at 20 radiance, signet CD reduction and vuln on blinds, very important stuff, the 8 seconds or whatever earlier you get the heal signet back up is kind of super important to me I notice when I don’t have it, if it doesn’t come back just in time to save your life it will be back at work cleansing conditions that are sure to be on you at that point in a fight.

0/15/0/20/5 I can’t see any way out of those particular traits anymore for my type of guardianing.

Oozo.7856:

Bumping for a great movie. We run similar builds with the main difference being that I use mace and shield instead of GS for more group support and downed state management with shield of absorption.

I notice that you guys don’t even really try to stomp you AoE people down and saturate that area to deny revives. Shortbow thieves are great for this. We typically don’t have the ranged AoE to do this and having to stomp the players you down can be really frustrating.

For the person questioning the VoC stability trait, it can be a game-changer. The stability can be used to stomp, revive, or it can be used to protect a tome cast.

You might want to look into runes of lyssa. You gain all boons when you use an elite, including stability. That synergizes nicely with the guardian elites. I’m not using the tome personally, but you would gain stability passively every time you use it which would help protect the long cast time heal. The side stat is precision which also fits in nicely with your build and food choice.

Thanks Oozo, you have some great videos, too bad to hear lyssa doesn’t work with tome, it’s an interesting rune set… I am addicted to Tome of Courage and am lucky that I usually have someone to stealth me or Mesmer to give quickness. ToC #5 is my favorite ability in the game probably.

Vektor.1476:

a quick view on your overall stats (perc, vital, power, .. etc) would be great, just started to play guardian and dont have the gold for lot of exotic changing gear, for now.

Well generally I just use power/toughness/vitality armor with precision/toughness/power + power/vitality/crit damage jewelry, pretty mixed up, all ruby and emerald orbs, I change my gear around so I can’t really say anything in particular, it’s hard to strike a balance on stats in this game.. often I toss some of my berserkers armor into the mix.

kaffaljidhma.1496:

I’m wondering where you’d need it in WvW aside from cliffside battles since – oh, I see, for dunking.

I find stability very important for making a push as a group, it affects teammates also, it’s precious more seconds to stay in combo fields and do what we need to do to take down a larger group before we start to get cc’d all over the place.

kaffaljidhma.1496:

When do you cue to pop indomitable courage anyway? I can’t think of any DOT CC other than twister off the top of my head.

The stability stays up after aegis is gone.

Decided to post this after seeing people upset about AH changes in the patch in case it helps or at least entertains, seeing alot of videos with build threads.. I realize alot of people will feel it’s crazy to play without AH in the situations I do but I find with blood sigil on hammer and omnomberry ghosts/pie I can stay alive with my group pretty well without AH, I don’t particularly recommend my build to all players. I’ve played with AH a good bit and I know it’s the best overall WvW trait and it’s a good idea to do WvW in general with that trait. (I havent even tested it post nerf yet)

Here is my newest video before I start rambling if that’s all you care to check out, with diff builds centered around 0/15/0/30/5 http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASRlYg67WFSOEm4ERuA7DAE7BGhfGB I don’t really recommend trying this build vs AH ones if you’re not with some kind of coordinated/organized group with decent toughness/vital.

Outside of the traits linked above I feel there are alot of options, the only things in my build I won’t change right now are 20% reduction on shouts, 20% reduction on 2h cooldown, Empowering Might and 15 into Radiance is a must for me for the justice renewal on a kill.

Right now my usual build when with a good small group is 0/20/0/30/20(http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASRlYg67WFSOEm4ESmiVKBtUAQEE2DMC+yIA) 20 in Virtues to get indomitable courage for extra stability and general boon/retaliation buffs… 20 into Radiance I pick up vulnerability on blind(works with Justice reset nicely and got buffed) and reduction on signet cooldown (I get it just for the self heal signet).. 30 Honor for Empowering Might, 2H Mastery and Shout cd reduction all obvious choices with 30 in that tree I think. There are lots of good ways to work around the core build I think though… i’m pretty interested to hear what others using EM are going with and why.

Utility skills are pretty much always Save Yourselves, Stand Your Ground and Judges Intervention, stability, burst, survivability and a teleport for hammer ring, all irreplaceable for this style of play/trait setup for me.

For gear I go with a big mix and change it around here and there, pretty much everything is a pretty good mix of precision/power/toughness/vitality/crit damage, no rune set right now(of course I think some are very good) just a mix of ruby and emerald orbs, weapon sigils I stack precision or fire blast on GS, Hammer i’m experimenting right now with rune of blood for the heal proc. (also, heal proc food + master maintenance oils)

In a nutshell the build adds damage to your team with EM, provides good stability and decent boon support in general, swapping between Hammer and Greatsword frequently is a must to make use of the shortened cooldowns on all the combo fields/finishers and CC. It’s about fast takedowns of groups, what I find fun.

There are lots of other good ways to work around Empowering Might, you can get it with Altruistic Healing but doesn’t mix well with my preferred style of play, i’d hate to lose either the 15 in Radiance or 2h mastery trait, but i’ve done it without either of those and it’s a totally fine build in general imho.

20/15/0/30/5 is another build I do sometimes for less stability/boon support and more raw damage output with 10% on burning and 5% greatsword damage in Zeal.

Anyways i’ll stop rambling, just still trying to help/entertain and learn so thought i’d post this.

Previous videos
Vol. 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvPm5GLBpfI
Vol. 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdJgVZ4eAUQ

Ganzo.5079:

+20% damage on unschated contenteder? dont make me laugh, this trait must be deleted from the game, or tied to a boon that can last some seconds. Tied with aegis, is simply useless.

Actually this is one of the best Scepter traits you can get for pve especially, I use it most of the time in fractals. It’s fun trying to keep Aegis up for max damage, I love this trait change.

I do alot of 3-6 man, our best 5man is probably Guardian, 2 Thieves, Engineer, Mesmer and sometimes an elementalist mixed in, engi tanks, mesmer confusion/utility, rest of us aoe. I make vids that may help you get some ideas, my 2 most recent:

Downed state adds a layer of complexity to the game and it makes it much more fun for me, it doesn’t take away anything… if it were gone fighting in the game would simply be less interesting, tactical, fun etc.

Finished a new video of running around with my guildies in world pvp trying to kill things.

Here’s my last vid from a couple of weeks ago:

Grumpdogg.6910:

Gates of Madness struggling in Tier 7. Lol nice work.

As if the tiers mean anything, people in high tiers are there from the random guild transfers and oceanic zergs, we’re having fun in a competetive matchup.

This event is an absolute nightmare, reinforcements go on for hours, repetetive to the extreme, not fun at all in any way shape or form….

George Steel.1804:

Didn’t watch too much of the video, but scrolled through and saw you didn’t have wall of reflection on your utility bar. I personally cannot fathom how any guardian can run WITHOUT WoR in WvW, for me personally it is 100% must. This is all the feedback I can offer you

Thanks for the feedback, I have played with wall of reflection quite a bit and it can be amazing but it wouldn’t help accomplish burst pushes with my group, we’re too all over the place it just doesn’t result in much damage compared to SYG and save yourselves which are on shortened cooldowns, take a good look at save yourselves, it lets me get away with alot more damage than would be reflected(and helps my squishy teammates if I draw conditions) plus it lets me put the damage exactly where I want… SYG/judges intervention to me are 100% irreplaceable for this style also. Everything would fall apart and i’d never get momentum without SYG/SY.

I will post my build a later when I have time I was thinking it’s fine to show it in the video but I guess it’s kind of an annoying way for someone to look at it. Glad people like it.

Just finished a new video with clips using builds with Empowering Might trait, mostly 20/15/0/30/5 or 10/15/10/30/5, roaming with a small group in random WvW… I see alot of people talking about Altruistic Healing which is a great trait i’ve played with but I think EM is pretty cool too and tried to just include clips with that trait in this particular vid.

Hope people find it entertaining or helpful for getting into Guardian group WvW melee.. not serious clips or trying to show off.. just having fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdJgVZ4eAUQ

Made a vid from fights on the weekend, was a really fun weekend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnRw2_QzdHw&feature=plcp

See alot of discussion about GS/Hammer here and thought i’d share my new video, build/stats are changing alot these days and will post another vid with higher dps and less survivability soon probably… i’m having a ton of fun roaming around and being aggressive with 3-5mans with this class/weap setup and have no complaints about it at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnRw2_QzdHw&feature=plcp

Threw together my second WvW video

What’s obvious is that it’s a horrible looting system and takes away from the game, MMO’s always start out with silly things like this that eventually get changed when enough people wake up to how annoying it is..

There is NOT auto looting at all what are you talking about, this is like my #1 problem with the game, the bags show up at your feet and its a huge distraction to think about looting them while you’re in a huge fight, I have more important keys to press involving playing the game not collecting loot which I really need, it shouldn’t be this way… people constantly having to double back to pick up bags, it breaks up the gameplay and makes no sense.

Made a pvp vid with my Guardian from playing a couple weekends ago at level 40-50, i’m level 80 now and am making big strides and working on a much better video, just wanted to share some of the fun i’m having so far with this style of Guardian…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID0Xvnztqng