Guild Wars 2

Don’t know how I didn’t see this thread..

NA Guardian Stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/jaxsilven

High level tournament pvp

Add me:
Guardian for Tournaments/Hotjoins/1v1

IGN: Silven

When you’re walking down the walkway at Uni and think “Ooh if I put a Sanctuary here everybody would fly off this walkway!!!” and giggle to yourself….

True story >>

gravestorm.2580:

So played last night. It was FUN, but somewhat confusing (cd on weapon skills and more complex class panel).
A bit sad that guard have no acess to cripple/chill btw. I fell less protected without stalth. As i thief i remember good guard players that can withstand alot of my dmg and at the same time dish out good dps to overcome my healing and make me run.

Couple more Qs if you dont mind.
- where is a trait called “Focused Mind”? Cant find it somehow.
- how to abuse teleportation for movement w/o target? Coz if i use it w/o one my guard moves nowhere.

No worries, the easy questions first:

• Focused Mind is the Valour Major trait X – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Focused_Mind
• You have to have a target for the Guardian teleports, which means you ask your allies for a target and press T or you have to click beforehand. Remember things like the windows on the clocktower and pets can be teleported to.

Retaliation does a lot of DPS so don’t forget that, make sure you’re stopping their burst with RF/Shelter and you’ll do quite a lot. Also pressure = counter pressure, and by that I mean if you pressure them enough they can’t pressure you!

Valkyriez.6578:

Sorry silvan, gotta disagree with you there. If I wasn’t on my phone I would go further into detail but great sword v greatsword a warrior should win easily.

Other weapons in the mix and it changes things, but without the hp to last long enough for sub optimal damage to wear him down, the warrior will rock you.

What build are your using?

akamon.2769:

gotcha. i see you’ve chosen fire. i was deciding between fire and force myself. is going with fire mainly for the added AoE? in terms of adding DPS, i feel it’s one of the best out there, especially with a decent crit build. though i feel Force could be a good contender as well. then again, in terms of those “spike” moments, fire would definitely add more pressure.

You’re absolutely right, just remember although this is a ‘DPS’ build it doesn’t mean you only have to do DPS, the idea with fire/air/rage, etc. is that it randomly procs. So it will catch your enemy offguard, which is extremely important in PvP. If they can judge the damage you’re dealing (force) then a lot of times they know exactly when to pull out, even good players don’t really judge the enemy DPS taking into account the Fire sigil.

For example: when I play against a Symbol DPS Guardian I always know Rage can proc at any moment, so I’m really careful and take note of when it does because I know instantly a Whirling Wrath is coming. But other players won’t and they will easily be hit by all of your Whirling and probably your Binding Blade too.

tl;dr: Fire gives that ‘surprise’ the enemy doesn’t usually anticipate while force means they know exactly how much damage you’re dealing.

akamon.2769:

Jax.5261:

• They can be a problem, the idea with condition builds is to use smite condition to remove poison/burning instantly while pressuring them to the point it’s hard for them to get conditions on you. Big example is the Necromancer, once you pressure them enough they won’t be able to damage you.

assuming this is where and why taking the trait Focused Mind is almost required for all PvP builds?

Yes otherwise poison will be covered by other conditions, as it is lower down on the ‘condition stack’ while bleeding is up the top. It also doubles offensively by compacting more of your burst so that your enemy has less time to react.

Valkyriez.6578:

Meh, I played axe/mace warrior with no issues. Sword/shield for 2nd set for added utility and control. I didn’t play at the top level though, but either did 95% of the other people claiming to.

Go duel a great sword dps guardian on your great sword warrior 100 times. You could win 99 of them with nothing but an amulet on.

Actually a Warrior would win close to 10% of them, unless you were running no secondary heals (meditation, AH, Symbol).

• HB is easily kited, if with frenzy + bulls it’s easily dodged. If you miss the dodge then you use Stand Your Ground + dodge and you dodge at least half of it.
• Whirling Attack is easily dodged, although this is the one I personally have trouble dodging (for some reason my brain doesn’t pay attention to the animation) but other people do not.
• Bladetrail is easily kited.

Warrior burst is entirely easily dodged and a Guardian using any of the three secondary heals will be easily able to defeat one. Remember the entire time the Warrior is taking retaliation, so you’re wearing them down without fighting.

But again this is a team game, so Warriors already needed a Guardian to snare for them or the enemy to be trying to res/stomp or out of dodges. In a 1v1 situation all the dodges are saved for use against the one player not the whole team.

tl;dr: Warriors are actually at a significant disadvantage no matter what the Guardian build.

gravestorm.2580:

Thnx Jax. It means alot to actualy have a mentor( in a good sense) like you. Friendly and not judging. Would be gr8 to have someone like you in every class forum!
I ll pick option C. Simple for the start, balanced, high mobility sounds perfect. Will try different things, do the tweaks acording to my playstyle.
Here are some questions/points to clarify i wish to ask:
-Why do you pick shield over focus? Is it because of knokback part to interrupt foes. focus seems to give much more surv with #5.
-1h sword as main dps seurce? It does that much, compared to GS?
-“stand your ground” everywhere to secure stomps?
- Condition build are not a probem?
Thnx for the links. Looking forward to see all your moves and to learn something new >_<

To answer your questions:

• At first I was running this build with a focus yes, but it’s much harder to deny a stomp without a shield and the blind can basically only shutdown churning earth it’s that slow. Yes it’s good at shutting down burst and definitely run it on Spirit Watch for the block on the channel but you really need that knockback for stomps.
• The sword has so much more DPS than the greatsword due to Right Hand Strength which gives something like 700 precision and still being able to invest into a Soldier’s amulet. The greatsword is when you jump into a group fight, it’s going to do a lot more damage than the sword.
• Stand Your Ground IS the best guardian skill, you can easily secure stomps/reses/deny control, etc. So important for almost every Guardian to have, the only reason it’s not on the DPS one is that you need the extra healing from CoP. But otherwise 100% of Guardians use this skill.
• They can be a problem, the idea with condition builds is to use smite condition to remove poison/burning instantly while pressuring them to the point it’s hard for them to get conditions on you. Big example is the Necromancer, once you pressure them enough they won’t be able to damage you.

If you have any more questions/clarifications just ask.
I want to thank you and everybody on this forum for being much nicer than any other part of the forum.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Jax.5261:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Jax, you can go to Guild Wars 2 > Forums > Professions > Guardians for that type of thread. :P

Are you working on your link for the symbol build?

I guess so, and which symbol build isn’t working? 0o

Symbol Nuke Builds — (no link)
Symbol builds provide high AoE DPS as well as high amounts of support, through symbol boons and healing. They can easily turn the tides in fights, and can 1v1 very well. They have a few optionals but usually these builds sacrifice armour and health to gain high crits on the symbol ticks (easily over 1.2k tick damage each symbol).

Sorry I’m not sure how to use different headers, that’s the title for the next 4 builds, they’re all Symbol Nuke but specialize slightly differently into different areas.

Obtena.7952:

OMG no face melting perma burning build? HAH, J/K

Great work. Someone should sticky. Much more organized than the random ‘post your build’ thread. Thanks for doing this.

I did play around with Burning builds quite a bit, infact my very first PvP build used burning a lot but that was back in the beta and either (bug/nerf) made it so the smoldering sigils no longer stacked and you don’t get the massive burning duration off VoJ anymore =( And thank you!

akamon.2769:

@Jax – quick question – do you think Sigils of Rage are still applicable now after the change? would there be other sigils better suited for the symbol builds?

They are not, I’m going to change them now, it was specifically to get Whirling Wrath off due to it being so easily dodged.

Shiren.9532:

Did you see any rangers breaking the game with their 5 trait point quickness? Cause I didn’t. Most rangers were under performing even with quickness on pet swap. I saw lots of people building guardians and eles, even glass thieves, but rangers never reached FotM and yet they still get nerfs.

I’m sorry, I actually have no clue what you’re referring to when you say they were never in the FotM. Could you explain how they weren’t?

Blasino.3128:

If you like burning go for it.

But against a skilled opponent you won’t kill them with a burning build guardian.

Mathematically, a condition build guardian doesn’t touch a burst guardian in terms of damage. Its not even close.

It’s a troll thread XD

I honestly have no problems with the Guardian in tPvP, aside from a few bugs of course. I can also give a standpoint of the scepter from a purely spvp perspective:

• Scepter 3 is one of the best skills a Guardian has, the ability to root an enemy for one of your allies to burst down is so incredibly strong. Hundred Blades with the enemy snared (at the same time), mesmer shatter with the enemy unable to dodge. It is so amazingly strong, although a buff to this skill will promote a lot more teamwork play, unfortunately people would just spam it too much and it would encourage bad players to use it even worse.
• Scepter 2 is a very decent skill does put that extra bit of damage on and it’s the nutorious aegis remover! Nothing removes more aegis than smite! Making it a symbol would make symbol builds viable on a bunker/support build, which would be insanely OP unfortunately! Although if these builds were toned down slightly (in the amount healed) then it would be a very fun build to play.
• Scepter 1, so hated by the community, due to being able to dodge by vibrating on the spot. The shortbow on ranger is also vulnerable to this type of dodging (don’t tell anybody it’s a seekrit!). It’s currently way too powerful to make all the projectiles hit and I like it the way it is, in PvE it doesn’t matter the enemies stand still. I don’t want the scepter to be a DPS weapon because it’s going to make support Bunkers overpowered and they’re going to take away defensive skills instead (which will make Guards UP).

So to sum up; if you really want the scepter buffed it will have to only be a PvE change because it’s already extremely strong in PvP and if they do chose to buff it in both we’re going to get nerfs to both PvP and PvE in other defensive areas.

gravestorm.2580:

Hi all,
I ll try to be as honest as i can: Changing class here, after yesterdays patch i feel no fun playing sword/dagger thief anymore (to much dmg inbetween stealth, unlike prepatch i do die till my stalth heal abuility goes of cd). And my other build, wich is death blossom condi build was hurt even more.
So here i m. Looking for another class to master in spvp.
Because of stylish “blue flames-teleportation” flavour i wish guard is what i m looking for.
And these things are:
1. Good balance between surv and dmg. Tending a bit mor to dmg
2. Mobility
3. A extra little support.

Greatsword and meditatios seems exectly what i need. Or am i wrong?
So what can you sugest to me: traits, utilities, gear, runs, amulet, weapons, weapon enchants.
Any help will b apritiated.

Sry for my english btw.

Hey man, in tpvp there are 3 main types of Guardian Builds:

• Symbol AoE DPS/Heal
• Bunker
• Roamer Burst/DPS

You’re going to be leaning towards a roaming DPS Guardian build, high mobility, survivability through meditations and a lot of burst/dps. You’re acutally going to benifit a lot from your thief style of play, many Guardians haven’t learnt to roam correctly yet because you can take a lot more damage before needing to pull out of a fight.
I’m going to quickly assume these things:

• You want your build to include Judge’s Intervention
• You’re playing a roaming postion in co-ordinated PvP, so ignoring hotjoin zerging tactics.

I will be taking the 3 points you mentioned above into account of course.
First off you’re going to need to decide on your focus, there isn’t specifically one build for each task.

• If you’re wanting to go for a lot of 1v1 play and the best overall survivability, this is if you’re playing sidepoint a lot, has easily enough mobility to get there in time. Look to A
• If you’re going for full burst and trusting completely on your well timed dodges and shelter/RF for survival then chose B (this is the most difficult to play but can 1 shot a lot of players like thieves)
• If you want to be good at roaming, helping sidepoints, being very strong in midfights, bursting, DPS with the highest Mobility, Choose C (has the most utility and easiest to play)

A – Side Point Master (Sw-Fc / Sc-Sh) – http://tinyurl.com/c7dazqh
Benifits this build has over the others:

• Dual Energy Sigils
• Focus for defense/offense
• Scepter shield for good ranged DPS and keeping your enemy off the point/you
• Massive amouts of dodge rolls through vigor and energy sigils

B – Full Damage (Sw-T / Sc-Fc) – http://preview.tinyurl.com/cgtala5
Benifits this build has over the others:

• Spec’d completely into damage
• Can 100-0 many enemies
• Double zerka amulet
• A lot of single target pressure
• Contemplation of Purity to relieve condition pressure

C – Balanced Roamer (Sw-Sh / GS) – http://tinyurl.com/c5he37d
Benifits this build has over the others:

• Decent amount of team support
• Has a lot of AoE damage, for team fights
• Most mobility
• Decent dodge rolls through vigor

Overall I suggest you use C as it is the most balanced, will be good in any team (a lot will want you to roam not just to play sidepoint) and even if they don’t you should still be in team fights.
If you have any more questions I can definitely ask them.

I do tutorials on my stream and youtube: http://www.twitch.tv/jaxsilven

All my refined builds are here: http://tinyurl.com/SilvenGuardianBuilds

Second to submit, I’m famous now right?

OneManArmy.5617:

Shelter is the most susceptible heal to unblockable interrupts.
Having it go on full cooldown denying you the 2seconds block and the heal, it means you will probably not survive the next 30seconds, which is huge.

Some say use stability when you are going to heal,but if you have to use stability you may as well use the signet of resolve that heals for double the amount and if it gets interrupted you only get 3-4seconds of cd, not to mention the passive condition removal.

I don’t think you realise just how strong Shelter is…

Acandis.3250:

Just for you, Silven.
http://www.twitch.tv/acandis19/b/382966000

Well I can’t kittening read apparently, sorry.
That’s actually really stupid.

Rednik.3809:

Jax.5261:

And yet not a single wvw stream I have ever seen has displayed a player with a decent ability to dodge. Even though doding is considered a standard asset to just being decent at PvP.

And yet not a single group of guys with loud sPvP titles (such as Ransacker) displayed ability not being something more then lootbags for coordinated WvW guild. Even though survivability is considered a standard asset to just being decent at PvP.

Couple of things, if you show me a good wvw player using good mechanics (and I mean actually good mechanics not just knowing simple weapon rotations) then I’m definitely open to changing my mind, the fact is I haven’t yet and I’m not likely to.
Secondly nobody cares about titles and they were probably bad. But the average good tPvP’er is miles ahead of the average good WvW’er.

R E F L H E X.8413:

Jax.5261:

R E F L H E X.8413:

Jax.5261:

R E F L H E X.8413:

Jax.5261:

R E F L H E X.8413:

Now, I don’t WvW so I don’t know if quickness is that big of a problem in there—though I’d imagine it’s hard to avoid really telegraphed abilities when all you do is PvE all day and you follow the blue-marked commanders

You do realize that wvw’ers will line up and just go at it for hours at a time sometimes, players vs players on the frontlines yea?

Lot more action goes on in wvw than I’ve ever seen in spvp.

When you have say the green keep and stonemist tension, that is one of the spots people will go at it for hours and hours at. This is nothing but fighting, no capping a small circle at all, all 100% fighting. Feels a lot more like arenas/gvg that way tbh.

And yet not a single wvw stream I have ever seen has displayed a player with a decent ability to dodge. Even though doding is considered a standard asset to just being decent at PvP.

I used ot just run up to the frontlines do my mesmer combo lay out 1-3 people and run back behind my safezones.

I couldn’t tell you about other players, but when I went back to spvp from doing non stop fighting it felt like going from gvg to arenas.

It felt kinda really easy.

Then you were playing against bad players, they exist in hotjoin too.

Apparently tpvp also then if you wanna go that route.

If you’ve ever went from gvg to arenas then you know how it feels.

Low lvl tpvp (since I left, maybe it’s all low level now), and no I went from GvG to AB, RA was too trash.

AB was the lowest form of pvp possible you didn’t even need to res sig! the whole idea of this is being you are used to interacting with 16 players and then drop it down to 8, making everything so much easier.

RA actually was. If you really want to debate this we can talk in PM, but I’m not going to derail the thread further.

Acandis.3250:

Jax.5261:

I think quickness kind of needed a nerf, most of it was telegraphed completely and when burnt it meant you gained the advantage if you kept majority of your hp.
But they definitely need to improve the other skills so that the classes still retain the dps.

I’ve already expressed I didn’t think quickness needed a nerf in SPvP, I think the only thing this nerf has accomplished is making Eles even harder to kill.

And that is your opinion, but I think it did for the improvement of the game, quickness ruins the viewability of the game making it less viable as an esport and makes it harder for newer players to react to certain abilities. I definitely do not endorse the severe nerfing of the warrior though and I think other changes should be made to make the ele beatable rather than reinstating quickness.

Ezrael.6859:

No, I’m thinking that the current mechanics punish too hardly when the skill is interrupted.

It’s built around being able to block for 2s, that’s why it has the lowest base healing for its cooldown. But when interrupted by unblockable abilities there’s no blocking and no healing and a 30s cooldown.

There is a way to work the mechanics for this to be less harsh, like removing the channel from Healing Breeze and making it a single full heal at the end.

The thread will not be closed because you ask for it to be. Your ego on these forums has gone crazy ever since eG let you join them – you do realise it’s only because all the other Guardians in the game quit.

Cool your dacks, this is one of the things I feel are well designed in this game. If you get fear marked or GS Pulled then yes you’re going to have your skill on recharge this is because you’d be able to spam block/heals otherwise and that would be imbalanced.
This is completely ok too, if you’re going to use the most powerful heal skill in the game then you’d better use it when it can’t be countered. If you think it is about to be countered then stability will stop the mark/pull from working, you really are only at a disadvantage if you’re not paying attention.
Any of the changes you suggest will be a nerf in the long run because that’s the only way too implement it without making it overpowered.

R E F L H E X.8413:

Jax.5261:

R E F L H E X.8413:

Jax.5261:

R E F L H E X.8413:

Now, I don’t WvW so I don’t know if quickness is that big of a problem in there—though I’d imagine it’s hard to avoid really telegraphed abilities when all you do is PvE all day and you follow the blue-marked commanders

You do realize that wvw’ers will line up and just go at it for hours at a time sometimes, players vs players on the frontlines yea?

Lot more action goes on in wvw than I’ve ever seen in spvp.

When you have say the green keep and stonemist tension, that is one of the spots people will go at it for hours and hours at. This is nothing but fighting, no capping a small circle at all, all 100% fighting. Feels a lot more like arenas/gvg that way tbh.

And yet not a single wvw stream I have ever seen has displayed a player with a decent ability to dodge. Even though doding is considered a standard asset to just being decent at PvP.

I used ot just run up to the frontlines do my mesmer combo lay out 1-3 people and run back behind my safezones.

I couldn’t tell you about other players, but when I went back to spvp from doing non stop fighting it felt like going from gvg to arenas.

It felt kinda really easy.

Then you were playing against bad players, they exist in hotjoin too.

Apparently tpvp also then if you wanna go that route.

If you’ve ever went from gvg to arenas then you know how it feels.

Low lvl tpvp (since I left, maybe it’s all low level now), and no I went from GvG to AB, RA was too trash.

I don’t understand, it’s a condition, what’s the problem?

R E F L H E X.8413:

Jax.5261:

R E F L H E X.8413:

Now, I don’t WvW so I don’t know if quickness is that big of a problem in there—though I’d imagine it’s hard to avoid really telegraphed abilities when all you do is PvE all day and you follow the blue-marked commanders

You do realize that wvw’ers will line up and just go at it for hours at a time sometimes, players vs players on the frontlines yea?

Lot more action goes on in wvw than I’ve ever seen in spvp.

When you have say the green keep and stonemist tension, that is one of the spots people will go at it for hours and hours at. This is nothing but fighting, no capping a small circle at all, all 100% fighting. Feels a lot more like arenas/gvg that way tbh.

And yet not a single wvw stream I have ever seen has displayed a player with a decent ability to dodge. Even though doding is considered a standard asset to just being decent at PvP.

I used ot just run up to the frontlines do my mesmer combo lay out 1-3 people and run back behind my safezones.

I couldn’t tell you about other players, but when I went back to spvp from doing non stop fighting it felt like going from gvg to arenas.

It felt kinda really easy.

Then you were playing against bad players, they exist in hotjoin too.

I think quickness kind of needed a nerf, most of it was telegraphed completely and when burnt it meant you gained the advantage if you kept majority of your hp.
But they definitely need to improve the other skills so that the classes still retain the dps.

R E F L H E X.8413:

Now, I don’t WvW so I don’t know if quickness is that big of a problem in there—though I’d imagine it’s hard to avoid really telegraphed abilities when all you do is PvE all day and you follow the blue-marked commanders

You do realize that wvw’ers will line up and just go at it for hours at a time sometimes, players vs players on the frontlines yea?

Lot more action goes on in wvw than I’ve ever seen in spvp.

When you have say the green keep and stonemist tension, that is one of the spots people will go at it for hours and hours at. This is nothing but fighting, no capping a small circle at all, all 100% fighting. Feels a lot more like arenas/gvg that way tbh.

And yet not a single wvw stream I have ever seen has displayed a player with a decent ability to dodge. Even though doding is considered a standard asset to just being decent at PvP.

Did I miss something? Conditions were already the meta.

Aeolus.3615:

+1 here usually, roaming on GToB, and trying to get gear back :P

some player was “screaming” for people ot go to FA the other day lol

That would be me.

Maybe they’re making so you have to go kick a PvE’er in the pants and make them buy you a server! Good way of forcing PvE’ers to play PvP!
.
.
.
.
.
.
A man can dream….

Reiven.2543:

Jax.5261:

For those who want to play FA and AB I’m setting up a group of people to play every Thursday at 8pm GMT.
Which will happen from this Thursday onwards, we’ll try AB first and if we simply don’t have enough we’re going to FA.

Your character wouldnt happen to be Silven Shadow would it (ranger)?

If the AB idea doesnt work at least we can always play during double weekends haha.

Otherwise GW2 has taught me that having Frenzy+Mending+Bstance is good on a warrior so im gonna go try that in GW1.

Yeah my IGN in GW1 is Silven Shadow or J A X E D

For those who want to play FA and AB I’m setting up a group of people to play every Thursday at 8pm GMT.
Which will happen from this Thursday onwards, we’ll try AB first and if we simply don’t have enough we’re going to FA.

I wish I was back to play this =(

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Oni.5429:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Kultas Sunstrider.9218:

Gallrvaghn.4921:

working as intended. direct counterplay to pesky bunkers in the current meta. insta-neut enemy capped point with orb

sadly everyone is playing bunker ftw in that map. anet’s plan failed

Thieves become quite useless. Also there is no teamfight, so mesmers start to play with moa morph.

That’s an absolutely horrible idea. Time warp is more than worth it on sw.

That is just what I saw in the last matches. And ye, it’s not that effective.

Timewarp is amazing, especially for the initial fight + the orb capture, even the good teams we played against we got the node within 2 or 3 seconds of getting to the altar. You can capture it inbetween staff attacks and if your team controls right the aoe won’t be down to stop you (or they have no necro).

Brutaly.6257:

In tpvp i agree with you. In wvw, where you can do dodge rolls for 2k each, i disagree.

The itemization in wvw makes heal/retal builds silly strong compared to bunker builds in tpvp.

Sorry, I didn’t realised it wasn’t nerfed in PvE. My bad.

R E F L H E X.8413:

Jax.5261:

R E F L H E X.8413:

What he is doing is predicting the thief will be attacking him with his shield block, this is the best way to really prevent the thief as he will get kittened if he knows the thief is ready and doesn’t do so.

He was trying to time it for the block on the thief, and it works pretty well.

The random dodges can be seen as being used in the same way, know the thief is there but can’t see him? Get the hell out of the way, or try to dodge when you think he is about to attack, screwing up his positioning wasting his invisibility. I enjoyed the video.

It also seems like he is using whirling as a way to get himself away from an invisible character he knows is about to backstab him.

no

Yes, I’ve prevented every single thief I’ve encountered by predicting their strikes they ONLY killed me when either….

1 – I failed to react or hit the wrong mouse button. Usually I am caught off guard here by running by an already invisible character not knowing at all.
2 – All my defensive skills were down already and then I was running and an invisible wild thief appears.

As a mesmer dieing to thiefs especially in wvw meant you played horrible in that encounter the mesmer should win 100% of the time.

I also ran mace/shield + hammer warrior and predicted them quite often then beat them with stunlocks.

Same for glass cannon ele but you only get one defensive skill that way, but killed the majority of thieves unless arcane bubble was already recharging.

Then you’re playing against bad theives.

R E F L H E X.8413:

What he is doing is predicting the thief will be attacking him with his shield block, this is the best way to really prevent the thief as he will get kittened if he knows the thief is ready and doesn’t do so.

He was trying to time it for the block on the thief, and it works pretty well.

The random dodges can be seen as being used in the same way, know the thief is there but can’t see him? Get the hell out of the way, or try to dodge when you think he is about to attack, screwing up his positioning wasting his invisibility. I enjoyed the video.

It also seems like he is using whirling as a way to get himself away from an invisible character he knows is about to backstab him.

no

alex.7950:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tDRwKYTYus

thief can dps all the time….but i just only 100s and stand right here
and block all the time.
OP or not…you guys think about it.
but ANET really making gw2 pvp not fun at all, in my view.
i miss gw1 gvg.

This is just bad gameplay to be honest, remember you engaged with 2 utilities on cooldown in a 1v1 that gives you a massive disadvantage in any matchup.
Ok here’s what you did wrong:

• 0:12 – Random dodge
• 0:14 – Useless Shield 5
• 0:16 – Good dodge, but could’ve got an attack skill off instead and dealt more damage.
• 0:27 – Missed your entire burst, 2 utilities wasted
• 0:29 – Whirling’d the wrong way
• 0:31 – Random Dodge
• 0:37 – Ignored Shadow Refuge
• 0:45 – Missed Whirling
• 0:46 – Random Dodge
• 0:54 – Random Dodge
• 1:00 – Missed Shield 4
• 1:15 – Random Dodge

I Stopped watching there, you don’t dodge correctly, just randomly press it. A lot of bad skill usage, of course you’re going to lose to a clearly superior enemy, I don’t think he’s goo either.
This is what I meant in my earlier thread of learn to dodge because this is why people think thieves are OP.

Rok.5074:

Healway build is very strong 1v1. You may not like it, but there’s no denying that it is very effective, especially when you start getting comfortable enough to swap in more PVT gear to the basic Cleric gear.

I didn’t say that I don’t like it, I said it’s an early version of the control bunker which can be beaten by good Symbol DPS players.

Divinci is a really great person but clearly fed up with the way we’ve been treated by arenanet and the general crap on the forums.

Brutaly.6257:

The gear difference between tpvp and wvw is huge and its two entirely different games. As an example DPS guardian in wvw is really weak compared to in tpvp.

In a groupcentric build signet of judgement is actually very good since it has aoe retal and 10% is additive which means you can run with perma >80% mitigation with a proper build and still do decent dps. It all depends on what you are looking for. SoJ might be bad for your playstyle but i can see a number of scenarios where it actually is a great addition, negating burst in combination with protection for instance.

No you dont necessarily need shelter to negate bursts, you can also use a cc remover and dodging. I have no issues what so ever with burst when doing wvw, with signet as heal. Im not saying shelter is worse, i just say they do two different things and both are viable depending on playstyle, sometimes i like to use my shouts for the team exclusively and a signet heal helps me to achieve that. I use both btw.

The healway is surprisingly strong in 1 on 1 and it doesn’t matter if the symbol hits for 1k. Two hits deals 800 in retaliation damage and the healway negates the incoming damage by dodgerolling and healing for almost 2k. Its a lame build and for people that cant play but its very strong in one on one but close to useless outside of duelsituations. What you describe as the guardian circle is so true in tpvp, in wvw its not. Frankly i dont know of any player that plays a pure control bunker or pure symbol dps, with success, in wvw even though personally i would like to play a symbol build but its just to weak in wvw due to symbolsize.

I can tell you for sure that there is no chance at all that a dps guard beat me on my balanced shout/signet guardian. In Tpvp i might loose, in wvw, no way.

I had a look and it seems healway is just the meta bunker from tpvp about 4 months ago, not spec’d into fury at all either. So it’s definitely defeated by symbol DPS, just to clarify.

Silver.8023:

I’ve tried using it against big AoE hits and I think it’s saved all three(?) of us but there could be other things altering that outcome as I wasn’t specifically testing for it. I always thought a protector should at least protect their allies. Surely it should block once for everything in the tiny shield area.
I still think it should also be a whirl finisher regardless of whether it blocks or not because c’mon, you spin around regardless. It’s only long enough to send out one bolt anyway and that bolt usually just flies UP or something lame….

Edit: Oh! Idea, imagine the crazy trait synergies you could get if, instead of simply blocking, it applied aegis once per ally up to five allies! You still get protecty blocks from it whilst channeling, a dash of synergy with Altruistic Healing, a nice party support block application AND you get all the nifty synergy with all the aegis traits. It’s balanced enough if you ask me as allies would have to be in that tiny radius to get the aegis anyway. Ah well, just a thought.

That being said, I’d rather they increase trait synergy with other weapons too, mace already has it pretty good.

Blocks once for one person.
And your suggestion is still way overpowerd.

Also, just to clarify.
I’m not trying to be mean or anything, not my intention.
I guess the tl;dr is play to your advantage, not to the enemy’s advantage.

If I’m trying to win, which I usually am (unless just joking around), I wecome Zergs because they’re very easy to defeat.

Firstly, AFKing is never good, this promotes really basic bots, they can just sit on a point and get points for free. Redesigning the system so this is useless and winning is useful is a much better way to go.

To address your 3rd point. This is one of the most common and funniest things I’ve seen in games, 100% of pvp games.
“Stop not letting me kill you”, although it’s never specifically said like that, usually something like “Stop running” or “1v1 me”, I’ll explain in greater detail here. I don’t actually have a word for people like this because it’s very wide spread, it’s the idea that anybody not playing the game you want to in your head is a ‘bad player’. The biggest example I can think of was in Runescape when people would tell you not to wear armour so that the fight would end quickly, which is basically saying stop not letting me kill you.
People in PvP play with an advantage, they’re going to zerg because it gives them the advantage, maybe yes their 1v1 skills are balls, so they zerg. But this game isn’t 1v1 so if you’re set up for 1v1 and you get zerged you’re dead, your fault. If you set up so you avoid the zerg well then you win, or you peel people off so you can 1v1 them, you make the game your advantage.
The main reason for zerg is the 3 extra players compared to other formats, but you take this into account, you run a build good for this style of play or you’re just bad. I’m not excusing HJ, it’s bad but if you decide to disadvantage yourself that’s 100% your choice.

Nothing I suggest is likely to be a feature of the game because I’m usually logical and rational and those are both traits Arenanet do not share.

This actually already existed, the block bug, you probably just didn’t realise it existed in pve.
It was extremely gamepbreakingly overpowered, so technically it has already been tested and we know this is a very bad idea. Sorry!
Aegis already exists for a reason, so do blinds. Additional blocks I really don’t approve of, it would make the Guardian way stronger than it already is.

Currently if you use prot strike and somebody more than one player inside the area it will block for one (unless the skill specifies hitting a single target and going aoe like a sigil then it will block once but it won’t aoe onto all of them).

Dual Energy, when you learn to dodge roll correctly you can run much ‘riskier’/stronger builds without actually having the risk.

Kneru.8014:

This is another issue, but with sPvP as a whole. I get it, you want conquest to be a main focus, so you have enough of those maps for tournies. Great!

But, just about every game is Zerg vs Zerg. Personally, I’m not even going to bother if it’s just a zergfest. I’ll leave immediately. It’s not fun. Even in tournies there have been a few groups that just zerg.

Sure, I can go backcap, as a Thief I have the mobility. But, it’s Player vs Player. Backcapping points all day long, is one of lower interest. Plus, I made a Guardian the other day to learn their skills, and maybe take up bunkering. Hard to practice doing that when it’s degraded into nothing but a zergfest.

There also seems to be a lot of lower ranked players starting to pick up sPvP. Great! But if this zergfest continues, I feel like nothing will change. They will learn to play with the zerg, more people will become accustomed to it, cycle continues.

All that needs to happen is give +10 points or so, per… I dont know, 30 seconds? For guarding the area around a node. People will get their glory, it will encourage a more defensive play style, and it will (in theory) cut back on the zerg. Sure some will still zerg, but they’d probably zerg anyways. Others will continue to run straight into a zerg and die like lemmings, that’s fine too!

I know I don’t speak for everyone, but I’m sure most will agree. And that’s what everything has degraded into lately, a zergfest.

This promotes bad play and won’t help anybody improve, all it will do is introduce players afking in hotjoin.
I play bunker and get plenty of points each match because you also play support too, you carry team fights so you should be in team fights. In tpvp this is easy and you can tell your team to cover the point you were on while you support the team fight. So if you are just sitting on a node and getting no points, well you’re actually in need of improving your gameplay rather than ANet giving you points for nothing.

Hotjoins are a different story, completely different playstyle but when I play with a friend the synergy between a Guardian and burst or sustain classes is really good and you can beat people with quite a significant numbers disadvantage. For example my friend and I playing Guardian and Ele were able to keep their entire team from exiting far beyond their spawn a few games in a row.
If you’re playing solo change your build to have more offense (run zerka symbols/GS over hammer or staff) because you’re not playing the gametype otherwise, you’re being played by it.

Yes, the point system is still badly designed but it’s also your fault for getting no points. You need to improve you awareness of enemy location during the game and strategy, in HJ the gameplay is bad, so you have to change your strategy to be good during the game.
But to improve HJ so that points are correctly attributed:
– 200 glory for winning + difference in score divided by 5
– 100 glory for losing
– Personal glory capped at 100
– Personal score of 0 = no glory
Win = 200+(difference)/5 + (0 to 100)
Loss = 100 + (0 to 100)

Unfortunately you’d also have to make HJ with no side swapping and easy to play with your friends. Which ANet seem to think are bad things for some stupid reason.

Archaon.6245:

xtra.3968:

ele best bunker?
lol

Guardian can usually survive a bit more than ele…but for sure ele has an indecent mobility for being a bunker…so for a tpvp situation ele is probably the best since the other team can just ignore the point with you guardian and they can fight 4vs5 on the other 2…ele can still cover another point if needed (Or go contest even 1vs2 and usually decap far side) and come back in no time. Let’s say if i have to run with one bunker and have to chose between ele or guardian i would probably take an ele..

I guess you’d be right if you were correct about the usage of the Guardian. Purely holding a point is the playstyle of a new or an inexperienced player.
The current Guardian Bunker meta is a control/support Bunker which follows around in team fights to give your allies the buffs they need to win quickly (and snares etc.) but can still hold a point solo and control most players off the point to gain control of it.
The reason Guardians don’t always seem like better bunkers than eles is because they’re built to do massive amounts of support too so they actually drop a lot of self defence, ie. Sanct Ground Target, using a Staff, etc.
I’d always take a Bunker Guardian over a Bunker Ele and so would everybody else, there are however a few builds which play with no bunkers but in that case you’d take neither anyway.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Jax, you can go to Guild Wars 2 > Forums > Professions > Guardians for that type of thread. :P

Are you working on your link for the symbol build?

I guess so, and which symbol build isn’t working? 0o

Red Falcon.8257:

Jax.5261:

Balanced Roamer (Sw-Sh / GS) – http://tinyurl.com/c5he37d
Balanced between AoE and Single target DPS, both extremely strong. This is so you can easily hop into team fights and still be very strong 1v1. Very resistent to burst builds and can force stomps with high AoE. If you have no clue what your enemy is running this is quite often your best build, if you’re roaming.

One thing.

How can this build roam with no access to swiftness whatsoever?
The point of a roamer is to roam fast and kill, no swiftness is slow as hell.

2 teleports and a leap, can get between points faster than an ele.

Just wondering if people would like a thread like:
Guardian Questions and Answers
Where you ask a question and I or somebody else will give an answer.
Strategy, general questions, how to beat certain things.
Would people be interested?

madatom.5218:

Liewec.2896:

Empiren.6401:

most people who have played WoW know that tanks don’t survive on their own.
without doing significant damage.

highlight of my time on wow was pvping as a max geared blood DK with twice everyones hp, constant health gains and topping the damage meter every BG
that being said, it was very cheap and required 0 skill, just like any of the copy/paste builds in Buildwars 2’s meta whether its dagger ele, backstab thief, bunker guard, trap ranger, s/p mesmer, they’re all the same copy/paste EZmode.

ele atleast requires some APM and CD timing, since they manage 29 skills while most classes only manage 16 to 20

im not sure if its a testament to how over-designed eles (and engineers depending on how you build) are or how under designed everything else is, warriors are particularly kitten in this sense, absurdly braindead to the point where i feel nothing for people complaining about warrior issues

Don’t pretend any class in GW2 requires any reasonable level of APM, or any MMO for that matter.

Blazin Blunt.6908:

Hi guys im also fairly new to the game, but i am using this build:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|2.1g.h1b|6.1n.0|1n.71h.1n.71h.1c.71g.1n.71g.1n.71j.1n.71j|21k.0.1g.64.1g.64.1g.64.1g.64.2u.0|0.0.u56b.u28b.a2|0.0|v.19.16.18.0|e

It works pretty well due to the constant damage reduction of the armor and protection. But when i get knocked down allot then the S hits the fan. Because you guys are (very) experienced (imo) players, im wondering if we have like 4 or 5 other guars specced like this is it possible to have a continues uptime of not only protection but also stabillity? And wouldn’t that be Frikkin awesome not to be downed and have like a minimum of 70% damage reduced?

The key to not getting knocked down is not just stability but dodging/blocking/blinding key skills which will knock you down. You can’t chain stability beyond 3 stacks I believe, so you’d have to have a split second downtime in between usage. TBH I only use stability if:
– I expect an instant control (like shield of absorbtion) is going to hit me.
– I’m immobilized and can’t dodge the control.
– I have no energy they’re going to control me.
The other point is using stability at the correct times, if you’re just using it because you think maybe a skill like Banish is about to be used then you’re not going to stop many skills (especially since the player will wait for your stability to end and they can even cancel their skill if they’re midway through using it).
These are you main sources of anti-control:
– “Stand Your Ground!”
– Dodge Rolls with:

• Energy Sigils
• Pure of Voice to give you Vigor
• Vigorous Precision (Honour 5) to give you Vigor
  – Indomitable Courage (Virtues X)
  – Renewed Focus
  – Shelter
  – Justice is Blind (Radiance 5)
  – Hallowed Ground with Consecrated Ground (Virtues III)
  – Increase your boon duration for slight increases in Stability duration
  – Flashing Blade, Leap of Faith, Ray of Judgement
  – Shield of Wrath
  Then you can just control them first, Banish them, now they can’t touch you. Pressure them so that they have to run away, most people don’t realise this is one of the best forms of damage mitigation. Or snare them so they just can’t get close enough to control you.
  There are many, many ways but the best is to dodge the skills that do it in the first place.

PS: Bullet points ended up stupid and I’m not going to bother fixing <3

Davinci.8027:

Archer Henchman.2534:

Davinci.8027:

Archer Henchman.2534:

Oh good, quality drama before bed!

Davinci, I’ll have you recall that the last time we played, I ran a clinic on your team, carrying mine to a solid 500-1X0 victory and then your group quit playing and migrated over to playing smite. Sataar was in the game. Hman was as well. I neutered both of them, and mace skull cracked you three times for three downs leading to three won midfights.

So you’ve won 1 game out of maybe 50+ losses? GJ

We won 2 out of 5 games with a group of randoms we threw together against your team that night, and two of the matches we didn’t have our random ringers on voip.

Batting .600 against a pug? Feel proud. I hope smite treats you guys well.

Sleep time for real this time. Night night cutie

So we had an off-night. Are you proud? Khalifa was playing d/d and we were messing around with some kitten… The sad thing is is that you put so much emphasis on those 2 wins…

I do remember destroying your main team 500 – 100 repeatedly back when people used to play, though. I remember a lot of teams used to do that to you.

You’re trying really hard to sound smart, but it’s not working.

In any case, it doesn’t matter at this point. Back when the game used to actually be competitive, you were no where on the scene, and your team was never even close to being considered one of the top teams…
I’m just really confused as to why you think you’re good :?

Chill man, there’s no need for this discussion.
Both of you stop, this achieves literally nothing except totally derailing the topic.

No more posting on this topic, keep the thread on the actual topic. If you’re so desperate to continue please go private message eachother.
Please =)!