Guild Wars 2

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.

Well I’ll have to test things in WvW out, but against good players you do need Shelter 100%. In tPvP there is no balanced shout guardian and signet heal is amazing guard vs guard, just not verse much else. But yeah I don’t profess to play WvW much at all, I may play it more when I get home.

Guardian Bunkers are also support and they’ll be in teamfights.
Players who defend the side point use other players’ calls to determine whether another player is going for the team’s close point. Either through counting how many players each player calls out at each point or if they see somebody go for it.
If you’re sitting on a point by yourself it’s 100% your fault you got no glory because you’re not doing anything for your team. Not to mention it’s generally just hotjoin players who care about glory.

Unless nobody calls then you’re screwed.

Yeppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
15char

Brutaly.6257:

Well you got some really nice help there just a couple of things.

Vigil gear (rare) is a bit weak and you should farm some exotic PVT. Imo the fastest way to get those is to run ascalonian catacombs. 9 days to have them all and after those runs you also have money to buy rune of the soldier.

Shelter isnt neccessary better than healing signet. In my experience having two passive conditionremovers often makes it possible to purely use the shouts for conditionremoval on your mates, when using pure of voice and soldier runes. Using shelter is only for your own safety. Frankly when you know what you are doing the heal is the last line of defence and most of the time you go down last. So dont rule out healing signet. Personally i even run a signet heal even without reduced cd since i very seldom have to use the heal. This makes it possible to use the shouts exclusively for my team. I run shelter as well but i find that a bit more ego centric, i have to use shouts for conditionremoval on my self a bit more often.

DPS Symbolbuilds are very viable in Tpvp but in wvw they wont work as well. In Tpvp you have objectives which in essence is an area this isnt the case in wvw. I wouldnt go for a dps symbol build in wvw.

Of the builds he posted i would aim for the balanced triple shout. That one allows you to play multiple roles by just switching one trait (vengeful/consecration mastery) and a couple of utility skills. Imo its extremely versatile. If you add in berserker/knights accessories and consumables you can infact have some amazing offensive stats while having great teamsupport. Signet of judgement also has room in this build, aoe retal and aoe weakness is just uber and ofc 10% less incoming damage.

Spirit weapons isnt as good in wvw, they work better in tpvp. If you want a really nice build for 1vs1 or 1vs2 check out the healway build. There is a topic in these forums but dont expect to have any major impact in large clashes but one on one its really nice.

Other than that i have nothing to add to Jax write up.

Few things, although I don’t know all the WvW builds, I’m really good at 1v1’s and maybe the gear difference from tpvp to wvw means that some builds against some they dont in pvp. Just to clarify:
Shelter is only worse if nobody’s going to be attacking you, to survive burst you need it (unless they’re built incorrecly / don’t know what they’re doing).
Signet of Judgement isn’t good for the slot it takes up, the optionals are all stronger. The spirit weapon was just if he was having trouble in 1v1’s because it gives you long combos which can only be stopped by long duration stability, if they stun break you use your next knockdown/knockback and continue with the chain. It actually doesn’t work in tpvp due to every player who has the opportunity to 1v1 has to be built for teamfights too.
I had a look and that healway build has no chance of beating a symbol dps guard 1v1, especially since he’s forced to stand in your symbols which crit over 1.2k-1.5k but a burst guard can beat a symbol dps. In tpvp theres the Guardian Circle (Control Bunker > Meditation Burst > Symbol DPS > Control Bunker).
Maybe I missed something about the healway? I can’t try it until I’m home from holidays, sorry.

Can everybody stop fighting seriously?

As to the clarification Sataar:
I don’t either class is bad, both can easily be played in the current meta and can specialize into a role as well as any other proffession. Mesmer is extremely good at burst and Necro is extremely good at AoE Cond DPS.

Mesmers are very good at bursting players down in team fights, with a Guardian controlling for them they have a really high chance to burst down an enemy. Shatter Mesmers are really strong 1v1, even though their burst is easily dodged they can fake it out a lot, and dodge + mirror or blink + mirror shatters aren’t dodgable if done correctly. They have portal for the most insane map movement there is, even if you’re using it for an ally to go back to close, or to go straight for lord on Foefire (especially since you can still staff 2 past the back door on red base(bug?)). And their burst defence is exceptional, their weakness is in conditions, which in teamfight you have your Guardian with Soldiers and PoV so that’s only present in 1v1’s.

Necros are really strong in team fights but they rely on their allies for defence, yes they have DS and Fears but they’re first to be focused and have to spend a lot of utility keeping themselves alive, when somebody goes down though they pretty much control whether they live or die (either team). But due to their focus in high AoE DPS they sacrifice self defence and can be focused down really fast even with DS. And definitely can’t manage 1v1’s unless spec’d for it.

Then a lot of people forget team comps, most people just think of what they can do specifically by themselves (ie, Guardian support well, Necro has awesome teamfights) but can you actually fit this in your team. If you have a Necro you don’t need a Mesmer, this is because of the Boon removal, you roll cond damage and boon removal into one class this opens you up to run thief or warrior. But I think it’s a lot better with Mesmer, you’ll end up running Ranger which has a lot more survivability and single target DPS aswell as AoE DPS.
But I definitely feel due to the ease of being focused with no real self defence the Necro isn’t as strong as the Mesmer, who has a lot of self defence skills to protect itself and can match the Necro’s utility.

Kwll.1468:

Jax.5261:

Sanctuary is amazing in tPvP, I don’t play WvW enough to have decided.
But in PvP you pretty much have to have it, if you’re running any form of support. If it were much bigger it would be sooooo overpowered.
Right now it’s used for stopping stomps or securing stomps 95% of the time and sometimes if it’s your last option to stay alive.

Not as great as you make it out to be sorry even in TPVP. So you can secure one stomp or rez every 90 seconds. Never mind that you could conceivably still be aoe’d to death or even melee’d to death while in sanctuary since most melee attacks have like 130 range so they can reach you in sanctuary. Its a very buggy ability as well if you don’t “establish” yourself as being in sanctuary by moving and stopping it doesn’t effect you. I personally think its one of those things that pro’s use because everyone tells themselves how great it is but if you swapped it our for something else you wouldn’t really notice its gone. Basically you have convinced yourself how great it is based on the occasional high light type play you can make with it even though 99% of the time its not that great at all.

The trait Consecrated Ground makes Sanctuary ranged and a half second cast instead of 1.5seconds. This means you can quickly use it to deny a stomp anywhere near you when they don’t have stability up. This is very important in teamfights which is what you should be building towards.

And the idea that I’ve ‘convinced myself’ is insane, I practice 5-10 hours each day and constantly try out different builds. I never rule anything out until I’ve had a lot of play time with it. Other players do the exact same thing, or they listen to me or other players who have tested that much, but I know what I’m talking about.

Other optionals instead are SY, Hallowed Ground, CoP or Purging Flames. None of these options are nearly as effective as having an ally survive a stomp. Not to mention if you get stuck by yourself none of them are going to match up to Sanct either. It also opens new plays (such as Timewarp + Sanct + Nullfield + Shield of Wrath = orb cap on Spirit Watch), Skills (Tome of Courage or other Guardians with Tomes) and cap methods (Banish, Zealots Embrace, Ring of Warding, Binding Chains, Sanctuary, Banish, Zealot’s Embrace, Binding Chains).
So it’s one of the Guardian’s most powerful skills and definitely doesn’t need a buff.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

waka.9826:

Vyctor.7395:

Why do you refer to yourself in third person?

Because he is number 1 mesmer in NA

Sorry but does that make him something? I guess no. His behaviour looks nothing but stupid.

It’s a joke.

You seem to have mixed up Necro and Mesmer Sataar!!

Valentine.6529:

Archaon.6245:

Just give portal to everyone…as a mesmer i would be really thankful for that so i will actually bring something else instead of costantly having one less ut skill to chose because you must go with portal + 2..instead of 3…

Share it with other classes or nerf it to the ground making it worthless, lots of mesmer would appreciate that….it would give us way more freedom..

Agreed. Or at least to the classes that need a buff like Necro’s and Engineers. The Sorrow dude doesn’t even know what he is talking about. And really am just about to report this thread as it seems to be just another “this class is OP” thread.

R
E
A
D

T
H
E

O
P

before posting, please. Sorrow doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s against the original topic of the thread, he’s gone off on a tangent and finally figured out he was wrong all along.

Archaon.6245:

Just give portal to everyone…as a mesmer i would be really thankful for that so i will actually bring something else instead of costantly having one less ut skill to chose because you must go with portal + 2..instead of 3…

Share it with other classes or nerf it to the ground making it worthless, lots of mesmer would appreciate that….it would give us way more freedom..

Make it elite or so that it only affects the Mesmer who cast it.

Part 3

So after all that here are your choices in builds with your armour:
Triple Shout Balanced
http://tinyurl.com/bnp6fym
Best All-round, probably the best build for you to start with.

1v1 Beast
http://tinyurl.com/ctpeaev
If you’re having trouble with 1v1’s try this, has a fire sigil on the greatsword to increase the damage, Hammer summon is your best friend.

Sanctuary Support
http://tinyurl.com/bubf2ld
This one has the symbol heal and Target Sanctuary, the best support out of these builds.

Of course just mix and match until you find something that fits you.
And eventually try and build to one of these if you’d like:
Symbol DPS
http://tinyurl.com/cuu9goe
Massive symbol damage, with tons of healing, extremely powerful. Probably the best Guardian build for WvW.

I hope I explained everything well enough for you, thanks for reading! It’s better than me just handing you a build.

sorry for the giant, massive post lol <3

part 2

Option 2: Triple Shout
– Retreat/Save Yourselves> Signet of Judgement
– 10 Virtues with Vengeful (Virtues II)
Retreat: WvW only option, high group mobility and removes a condition thanks to your Soldier’s Runes. Not much to say about this one, I actually love the Aegis that Retreat provides, not many people really use it for anything bar the swiftness. This also has very strong retaliation options with the increased duration.
Save Yourselves: Has a 10 second duration base on all the buffs in WvW holy crud is that amazing, super support skill, pay attention to your allies and pull poison off them, or high cond stacks. Really good for pulling poison off a downed ally so you can res at normal speed. Comes with Fury, definitely a good offensive and defensive option.

Option 3: Consecrations
– Sanctuary/Wall of Reflection > Signet of Judgement
– 10 Virtues with Consecrated Ground (Virtues III) / Master of Consecrations (Virtues VI) if using Wall of Reflection
Sanctuary: Has always been amazing, stopping that vital stomp or securing one. The 0.5second cast time from Consecrated Ground (Virtues III) is much too important to miss, so if you are running Sanctuary you MUST run that trait. Vital choke points can also be cut off too, not to mention just absorbing projectiles.
Wall of Reflection: Really good in WvW and one of the best choices, usually due to the enemy being too laggy to realise it’s up, they don’t know what it does or they simply don’t care. Still a good skill to bring, forces enemies to not use projectiles for a long period of time, or take a lot of damage. Can also be used in reaction to a lot of projectile abilities to reflect them, such as countering a 100Nades Engineer or a Trap Ranger. Consecrated Ground (Virtues III) isn’t as strong with this ability due it not needing to be placed so quickly, you can just walk there and use Master of Consecrations (Virtues VI) instead.

While the shield is very good, you must be extremely consistent with your Shield 5’s interrupts of your enemy’s healing skills.
Change:
Retributive Armour (Valor VI) > Honourable Shield (Valor IX)
This is to just add in some additional critical hit chance to try and get more Vigor from Vigorous Precision (Honour 5). Also increasing Whirling Wrath’s damage and Protector’s Strike can be very strong.

Due to the armour we’re slightly restricted, we can’t use dodge rolls to self heal us due to not being able to break 1000 Heal Power, but that’s OK! Let’s focus on the heals we do have available, don’t worry you’re armour choice didn’t screw you up! I’m not entirely sure how Pure of Voice’s conditon convertion works because I get Vigor almost 100% of the time, so there may be a bug there or maybe I observed incorrectly but that’s very good for us. Vigor is the by far the best boon.
Change:
– Pure of Voice (Honour XI) > Writ of the Merciful (Honour X)
Combine extremely well with your Soldier runes and definitely the best support trait Guardians have, by far. Make sure you take note of your allies and the conditions they have, remove harmful ones (poison/immob/high bleed stacks) this may take getting used to, but this clears so much poison that it’s not funny.

Now our last trait choice is going to be purely up to your playstyle. You can either spec for more support or more damage. Symbol healing will give you more support while 2hd skill recharge reduction will give you much more damage. It looks to me as if your playstyle is more about symbol usage so I’d recommend the symbol trait for you, but I feel the 2h trait is more powerful.
Change:
Pick One
– Writ of the Merciful (Honour X)
OR
– Two Handed Mastery (Honour XI)
Although Symbol heals give you a lot of health when coupled with Altriustic Healing (Valor XI) you do lack a bit of damage, so reducing the recharge on Whirling Wrath and your symbol will do a lot to keep up your damage. Remember good bunkers will still be able to kill players with low damage, just know your skills well.

Finally there’s only one extremely strong option for your sigils.
Mace / Shield – Energy and Minor Accuracy (I THINK THIS HAS ANOTHER NAME IN PVE, gives precision every kill, not superior accuracy)
Greatsword – Energy
You can use fire sigils on the greatsword but your crit is pretty low, if you get full stacks of Accuracy and Fury this should be viable.
Energy mods avoid wayyyy more damage than any other sigil, there isn’t really a debate about these in any way.

Part 1
Sorry for going over multiple posts >>
If it seems like im explaining little things that don’t need explaining I’m just trying to be clear with everything, you said you were new so I assumed you didn’t know 100% of everything. Sorry if that’s wrong!

Being tanky as a Guardian will be making good use of Invulnerability, Block, Blinds and Dodges. This is regardless of your spec, all Guardians in PvP (wvw or spvp) should bring Renewed Focus and Shelter.
Change: (Taking X over Y: X > Y)
– Shelter > Signet of Resolve
– 0 Radiance > 10 Radiance
Even if their entire team is spec’d for conditons Signet of Resolve is not viable, you have to learn to heal your health with secondary heal features such as Altruistic Healing (Vigor XI), Monks Focus (Vigor XII) and Selfless Daring (Honour 15) and concentrate on using Shelter mainly for its block feature, of course if you’re in trouble heal up.
Make sure you do not heal through poison if it’s possible or you’re going to end up dying very quickly.
Renewed Focus is the best Guardian elite by far, Tome of Courage is strong but you have to have a team focused on shutting down burst or you can easily be bursted by a good player. Not to mention it’s very easy to shut down the full heal and the animation is very clear. I only recommend it if you have a good tpvp team or you wvw friends are very co-ordinated.
For Radiance the 10points invested are much better placed elsewhere. Justice is Blind (Radiance 5) is extremely good at blinding specific skills. Skills like Earthquake, Churning Earth, Earthshaker, Banish and Cloak and Dagger are very easy skills to shut down with this blind, of course you have to know the animations and have a quick finger. I do recommend this a great deal but not at the sacrifice of an important trait.

I know Signet of Judgement looks like a decent skill, but it’s not worth the skills that could replace it. We’re no longer investing in Signet Mastery (Radiance II) to reduce its recharge either. So we’re going to remove it in place for a stronger optional skill (I’ll list good options here). This will also decide where those 10 points you took from Radiance will do.
Change (Pick one):
Option 1: Control
– Hammer of Wisdom > Signet of Judgement
– 10 Virtues with Improved Spirit Weapon Duration (Virtues V)
This option is your 1v1 option, good for very good control on your enemy. The auto-attack knocks back every 3 hits and you can use the Command ability to sacrifice your Hammer to Knock Down an enemy. Which sets you up for very, very hard to counter chains such as:
Hammer of Wisdom, Greatsword 5, Greatsword 4, (just after the summoned hammer’s knockback), Greatsword 5 (pull), Hammer of Wisdom command (so the knockdown this time), Greatsword 2, Greatsword 3, swap to Mace/Shield, Shield 4, Shield 5 when they try and heal.

over the text limit one sec!

sorrow.2364:

jportell.2197:

Ergh. And by the time iLeap recharges guess what is still on CD Diversion which is a big part of our combo. Thieves can reset their combo every three seconds (p/d thieves are scarier to mesmers than a BS thief) And warrior 100 blades can reset it sooner as well. Because a mindwrack without the preemptive diversion hardly hits at all.

…
So a shatter combo uses Diversion before the burst starts.
I’ve heard enough. I’m done.

It does. Sorry to burst your Sanctuary!

Vuh.1328:

Since this is a mesmer thread i’d like to put this in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cP7VI2jpH0

This made me think of how to fix asura, make it so the player’s screen is facing directly up 100% of the time while playing asura in spvp then they can’t see your animations either!
Anet will probably implement this.

This one time I went on the forums looking for legitimate conversation and but owait…
I found this thread instead.

Mougen.6702:

Jax.5261:

Mougen.6702:

Jax.5261:

Mujen.2089:

GS is guardian’s best weapon offensively. Scepter I would personally only bust out with if I had to range, I almost never use scepter. Staff is mainly support. Hammer I would say is a close 2nd to GS.

You have to find your own playstyle, Jax likes scepter, I don’t ever use it except when i cant melee. Everyone has their own. Check out those videos, the 2nd has a forum post with build discussion.. it’s very motivational!

Not if you’re planning on using symbol DPS.

What would you suggest for my build as a dps weapon? I love the mace and shield combo, but its very hard to land kills with seeing as the damage is so low. I normally just use the great sword to get out some quick damage.

What gametype?

well… I kinda wanted to do wvw, but I think I messed up. As I said I’m very new to this game and I didn’t/don’t quite understand gearing. So right now I’m sitting in full soldier gear, with this build… It doesn’t seem to be working well, that or I’m just god awful haha.

I can help but what are you trying to achieve? What style offensive/defensive/certain skills/traits? If you just want a good build I’ve got a lot, but sometimes people want one for their playstyle (ie. hammer).

Sanctuary is amazing in tPvP, I don’t play WvW enough to have decided.
But in PvP you pretty much have to have it, if you’re running any form of support. If it were much bigger it would be sooooo overpowered.
Right now it’s used for stopping stomps or securing stomps 95% of the time and sometimes if it’s your last option to stay alive.

You’re a Guardian and died to Thief burst… what…
use your skills, ANY SKILLS!!!
please…
I live in AUSTRALIA and have easily enough time to dodge this with terribad ping, unless I get venom’d then I use a utility in the same amount of time.
No excuse.

Just read some of the posts and you said “maybe you’re just bad”.
You are bad, this isn’t a hard game, stop insulting/blaming others and learn to play.

condiments.8043:

Jax.5261:

Updated the links that weren’t working!

Hey thanks for the builds. My brother is running the staff/hammer defensive build and loves it. I usually run with him on my ele and the CC options work great for setting up burst.

Any tips for him?

No worries. The best way to set up burst is actually with scepter 3, but then you lose the control off the hammer or support off the staff, Zealot’s Embrace is usually dodged. But I do love Hammer/Staff (it is what I currently run). Just remember you have to be in team fights to support and be able to hold the middle, I think some people don’t realise they’re meant to be in every team fight.

The reason I love playing this Guardian role is because I can support my allies extremely well and if you play well you can solo almost anything. So my advice would be:
– Careful of your dodge rolls, use them properly, don’t spam. If you’re running Vigor builds then use a dodge if you’re at max energy with vigor up (or you waste Vigor and dodges you could’ve had) and you don’t have max HP.
– Mighty Blow tons, you need to do this for damage, if not then you’re not pressuring your enemy.
– Cancel skills when they won’t land correctly or you want to fake the enemy into dodging (press esc near the end of the animation), eg Banish, Ring of Warding and Zealot’s Embrace.
– Keep your auto-attack up, you won’t get too many symbols off in PvP, but if they mess up then you get prot and extra damage.
– Staff is amazing, high AoE damage, hits through sanct to stop channel buffs (orb especially).
– Remeber Line of Warding can snare an enemy better than an imob.
– Keep your allies buffed with Empower (when they ask or you see somebody already stacking, ele combos with fire).
– Swiftness symbol is also damage, consider it when using it, it adds a lot to your fight.
– Mighty blow + fire fields or any field tbh. Make sure you know which gives swiftness, retal, fire etc. You’ll be using mostly fire and light with Ele+Guard.
– If running SoA, you can use it as an interrupt, don’t forget =S
– Remember Shouts remove conds AoE (so Resolve traited), so watch your allies condition bar too.
– And know what your virtues do, I hate not having Justice cause blinding, but you can change that yourself.

There are hundreds of tips I can give so if you need anymore just ask here, maybe something more specific? Mapwise or against a specific combination of enemies.

Mougen.6702:

Jax.5261:

Mujen.2089:

GS is guardian’s best weapon offensively. Scepter I would personally only bust out with if I had to range, I almost never use scepter. Staff is mainly support. Hammer I would say is a close 2nd to GS.

You have to find your own playstyle, Jax likes scepter, I don’t ever use it except when i cant melee. Everyone has their own. Check out those videos, the 2nd has a forum post with build discussion.. it’s very motivational!

Not if you’re planning on using symbol DPS.

What would you suggest for my build as a dps weapon? I love the mace and shield combo, but its very hard to land kills with seeing as the damage is so low. I normally just use the great sword to get out some quick damage.

What gametype?

Updated the links that weren’t working!

Mujen.2089:

GS is guardian’s best weapon offensively. Scepter I would personally only bust out with if I had to range, I almost never use scepter. Staff is mainly support. Hammer I would say is a close 2nd to GS.

You have to find your own playstyle, Jax likes scepter, I don’t ever use it except when i cant melee. Everyone has their own. Check out those videos, the 2nd has a forum post with build discussion.. it’s very motivational!

Not if you’re planning on using symbol DPS.

Link, I haven’t been able to play since the last.

Mougen.6702:

Mujen.2089:

Bring a ranged weapon is my take on it.

Isn’t the scepter like, god awful?

Actually one of the best Guardian weapons

Mougen.6702:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNApeRlYgyCXFyIEm4EhVBCi9Aja8jXPcoEZIA;TYAqsMZJyymlLLZWA

So this is my build. I just hit 80 the vigil gear and soldier runes for it. I was going for a more tanky feel. I had a few questions about the set up.

1. Does the signet of resolve effect stack with purity trait and remove 2 conditions?

2. Does Altruistic Healing apply to shouts? Does it apply to boons gained by my symbols? Also does it heal for a bit just by applying boons to myself?

3. Writ of the merciful, does it heal me as well as allies? Does it stack with the healing I get from my mace symbol?

Thanks guys, I’m a bit new so I know this maybe some silly stuff to ask but I just want to be clear.

1. yes
2. yes, yes, yes
3. yes, yes

Acandis.3250:

I haven’t been able to narrow down the specifics of the bug but it seems that if you have a weapon set with an Energy Sigil on a weapon, and Stacking on the other, when you weapon swap you don’t gain any energy.

I’ve noticed this with Healing and Precision sigils, not sure about power.

Are you sure you don’t have another recharge sigil? works perfectly for me.

The previous poster started with something along the lines of “I can’t backstab Asura models properly” which means people who were trying to discuss the topic of Asuran models having animations that can be entirely hidden were drowned out by people raging about thieves because they die in hotjoin a lot.
And then other people who were trying to make a different forum post to address the actual problem would get merged with the stupid thread because forum moderators couldn’t read.
So no of course the thread wasn’t taken seriously by ANet.

Danto.6748:

Hey there, I’m Danto, the Guardian of Team Curse and I’d be interested to join you in this podcast. Please let me know through PM if you require any particular info or any other details.

^ Ideal choice if you want somebody who knows the most about the class in pvp.

Few things.
– Dodging correctly will improve your game a lot. Especially against Thieves and Mesmers, you will take next to no damage from their burst.
– Shelter and Renewed Focus are skills you must have.
– Always target with your mouse, don’t cycle through enemies to attack them (unless you want to close target, or you know exactly what you’re tabbing to)
– Make sure you control the correct skills (especially shadow refuge and heals)
– Save your greatsword pull for stealth if you’re having too much trouble.

If you have more specific questions or require more specific answers just tell me or message me.

mbh.8301:

Jax.5261:

There aren’t enough players for it to work properly. Unless you’d rather have no game OR play against somebody way worse than you.

You just said that when you play on your main account you get matched up with good teams and when you play on your low ranked account you get matched up with bad teams.

So, which is it?

If there are enough players, or I get a massive queue and play against the opposite, which prevents you having no game at all, you get an unevenly matched game. Which sucks, but there aren’t enough players.

Ilithis Mithilander.3265:

Jax.5261:

I got my PC custom built by a friend but my GF wasn’t so lucky, I need help in upgrading what she needs so I can play GW2. What do I need to upgrade so that I can play (minimal settings is fine, atm it won’t let me install for some reason).

Not sure exactly what to put here, so ill just list off some stuff.

Specs:
Win7

Processor: Pentium® Dual-Core CPU E5400 @ 2.70GHz (2 CPUs), ¬2.7GHz
Memory: 3GB RAM

G Card: Intel® G33/G31 Express Chipset Family
Chip type: Intel® GMA 3100
Approx total memory: 256MB

What resolution do you want to play at?

What is your budget?

What is your minimum acceptable framerate?

1280×1024

$50-150 maybe, possibly could spend more (they seem to be cheaper in the UK which is where I am atm)

I would be fine with 20, I honestly would just like to log in.

Was hoping a gcard upgrade would let me install and play because I don’t feel up to the challenge of installing a graphics card and processor.

I got my PC custom built by a friend but my GF wasn’t so lucky, I need help in upgrading what she needs so I can play GW2. What do I need to upgrade so that I can play (minimal settings is fine, atm it won’t let me install for some reason).

Not sure exactly what to put here, so ill just list off some stuff.

Specs:
Win7

Processor: Pentium® Dual-Core CPU E5400 @ 2.70GHz (2 CPUs), ¬2.7GHz
Memory: 3GB RAM

G Card: Intel® G33/G31 Express Chipset Family
Chip type: Intel® GMA 3100
Approx total memory: 256MB

mbh.8301:

Jax.5261:

I assure you it works. With good players I’m always against top teams, if we queue at the same time we will always face eachother. If I solo q I won’t get against those teams very often, if I play my alt I get with loads of low levels (1-40) and never against good teams.

You assure me it works?
How can you assure me using your alleged personal experience.
Obviously my personal experience, and that of others, does not agree with yours.
I guess you must be right, and many others must be wrong.

If they wanted to release rankings, they could’ve done that right off the bat. Everyone knows it would be as dramatic as the start of a cross-desert horse race, but at least we would actually know it existed.

When they tell us that the ladder has to be reset before they turn on the ladder, I will invite you to forcibly insert your opinions in your most delicate orifice.

There aren’t enough players for it to work properly. Unless you’d rather have no game OR play against somebody way worse than you.

mbh.8301:

daydream.2938:

The devs announced it, they arent lying.

It would be nice to have more info on how this mmr works. Also it is limited in its potency by the limited population playing tournis.

On the topic of mmr; the Jons said that they didn’t want to share the details of the mmr system because of…reasons? Maybe it was things. Sounded shady.

Oh yeah! more gw1 references! Because in gw1 players knew how the rating worked from day 1. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_ladder#The_Math
After not playing a match for a month it drops you off the ladder, but you keep the rating until there’s a reset.

If the mmr system isn’t appreciably better than this one then I’d bet that the hidden mmr system was a ruse / feint / lie. The only other option is even more disheartening.

I assure you it works. With good players I’m always against top teams, if we queue at the same time we will always face eachother. If I solo q I won’t get against those teams very often, if I play my alt I get with loads of low levels (1-40) and never against good teams.

Blasino.3128:

Silven,

If you need help to min/max your gear I’d be happy to offer my services =).

Sure mate, the only negative is that I can’t play until the 7th of May, but can definitely take notes in the meantime / theorycraft ^^.

Enzo Kensei.9850:

Jax let me start by thanking you for help me with your guides/build on my new Guardian and let me say that you’re balanced roamer build in pvp is a must! Great balance in offence and defence and single target…let the crits fly.
I wanted to ask you one question, in PvE what i should use? I will try it in PvE the same roamer build and what stat’s the armor must have and the type?
Thanks once again keep up the good work ;D

Well it’s super strong in PvP for having the ability to 1v1 very well and do well in group fights while having crazy survivability. In this way it’d work in WvW too. PvE I don’t run meditations because symbols just do more for your team and enemies don’t move, so you always get the most out of them. So yeah, it would still work but I think there are better builds. Idk the exact stats, not a PvE guru, but something that has a lot of power 45% crit chance and 17k hp (I’d try for 3k armour too).

Blasino.3128:

Silven I agree with you that there are generally less skilled www players. I think that is why we tend to think X build is awesome because we can 4v1 terrible players.

I use PvP to improve my skills against very skilled players as I’m a WWW’r first. Like you said, in WWW I drop symbol of faith they sit in it trying to melee me. In PvP they get out of it quickly.

Also, I’m not a fan of Bunker Guardians in WWW. That is why I run a WWW version I made of the symbol build. It has a lot of survivability with a lot of damage. In WWW you can the best of both worlds since gearing isn’t standardized (we can min/max) and we can use consumables.

Akamon and I actually converse a lot, sharing guardian ideas =). We learn from each other with different perspectives on things.

Yeah I realise, which always confuses me, I try think of if my enemy was a robot how would they counter me. That’s how I build to in pvp, in WvW there’s no point, Rage sigils in PvP are a must if counting on WW to hit, in WvW it will just hit. So I haven’t specifically made anything for WvW yet, I run symbol DPS but I know Bunker works too with a friend. But you have to rely on your ally, remember bunkers support too, most people don’t know but it’s the immobs/snares which make a bunker such good support.

Amins.3710:

I completely disagree w/ the WvW comment.

The reason we get it off so much is because there’s soooo many people around you ~all the time~ where you can change to a closer target and still get the 3rd strike off.

That’s why.

Not because there’s “horrible players”… to which there are, but you can still get it off in good guildvsguild encounters.

Well I understand what you’re saying, but you can’t really disagree with me saying I’ve never seen a good WvW player XD. On the rare occaision that I WvW or watch a WvW vid/stream, I’ve never seen another player who can dodge correctly, uses their skills effectively or reacts well and fast. Maybe it was just a fluke I’ve never seen a good stream, but it’s fairly safe to say there’s quite a large difference between tpvp and wvw.

akamon.2769:

sweet! just checked it out. i’m mainly looking to WvW ; ))

i’m trying to build a symbol Guard with higher offense as well. though until i can get better gear, it’ll be more on the tanky side for now. do you feel for your control build, it’s tough to get the hamemr symbol off while PvP or WvW-ing? as in.. it’s not as “on-demand” as say from the GS and mace. though with the appropriate control skills, am sure you can. i can just imagine laying the hammer symbol down, trapping them with either #3 or #5 and then switch to GS, drop SoW and just watch the numbers tick.

A hard question to answer, in WvW I’ve never seen a good player on the other team, ever. So I can run literally whatever I want, it’s why Hammer is so good at damage in WvW but nowhere near as much in PvP, people will let you get off your symbol everytime. In PvP they kite so much, dodge correctly (assuming good players) that you don’t get the symbol off on hammer much, which I’ll explain here:
– You have to use your control abilities to assist in your allies’ burst.
– Which means you take time out of your auto-attack to use your abilities.
– You have to cancel quite often so that their counter to your control is faked out.
– Which means you have even less time to auto-attack.
– Then you have to use your control skills again when their anti-control ends (from the fake out)
– Which wastes even more auto-attack time.
So a lot of your ‘auto-attack time’ is wasted by cancelling skills to fake out dodges and stability, etc. While skills like Banish and Zealot’s Embrace will be almost 100% dodged by good players, which means your symbol will do 0 damage anway. I do love the symbol but it’s rare to see too many of them in a fight, except Bunker v Bunker.
Mighty Blow is dodged so much for some reason, generally it’s because they haven’t positioned themselves very well so they’re target for quite a few MB’s. But it doesn’t always bring consistent damage.
So to completely answer your question:
– Hammer Symbol is not ‘on demand’ in PvP, in WvW it is due to easier players.
– But, the thing with PvP is understanding your skills properly, if you realise you’re about to get off a Hammer Symbol, you simply ring of warding straight after, swap to GS, 4, 2, 5, 3, pull when they run/try heal, back to hammer, 2, 3, 5, 2, etc. And you make the occurence of the symbol extremely useful.
Hope this helped, just yell at me if I missed the mark
Also, I don’t mean to be offensive to WvW players, I’m sure there are good ones out there, just haven’t seen any and I don’t watch w3 streams. Usually I see stuff like RoW + JI → MB → WW. And I think “Well I would’ve dodged that MB and WW completely or even just used SYG and walked out.”

Acandis.3250:

gezz.5618:

i had playing like over a mouth and i feel that im not learning much, i did till some point but know im struck in a mediocre level of play

Hey, if you’re in NA send me a message in-game. I run a guild dedicated to helping new players improve.

^This, Arcandis is really good and can help you.

Red Falcon.8257:

Tips:
1. Use Tinyurl to make links clickable.
2. Videos.

Thanks! I put them all as tinyurl and I have videos on my stream and youtube, which I also posted. Unfortunately if you need anymore than what are up on there I can’t make more until May 7th! =(

kubetz.3058:

I’m glad you’ve made this topic on official forum. I’ve been following you on twitch/youtube for a while and I learnt a lot.

Keep up the good work!

For anyone interested – Silven youtube channel is http://www.youtube.com/user/RoknnOut .

Thanks for the idea, I stupidly forgot to link everybody, is up in OP now ^^

akamon.2769:

thanks to Blasino, i’ve been thinking more about symbol builds and good seeing these guides as well! will check our your channel as well. good stuff and well though out builds.

I linked my PvE build in the OP too ^^. I actually bought commander with gems from tpvp so it works when leading wvw too.

condiments.8043:

Yeah pretty much the only thing holding offensive guards back right now is just how good their defensive builds are compared to all the other bunkers in the game. Most teams are going to want you to go defensive if you land a spot on a team and unless you run double guard which is much rarer for comps now.

Great build list btw.

It depends on your team, I know a lot of people just haven’t seen good offensive Guardians to want them on their team. But they’re definitely becoming more popular, especially with the defence of symbol DPS.

sorrow.2364:

Jax.5261:

Why would I play thief? They’re not very good, only really good players like Caed even do decently with them, but that’s because they’re good players not because the class is overpowered.

Man, you live out of this world or you are playing a completely different game or Guardian is a that stupid and easy to play class at the point that it makes a Thief looks like hard to play.
Try P/D + D/D with 0/0/20/20/30 and come back here again to say Thief is hard.
There are also some videos on youtube of people winning and killing people as a Thief smashing the keyboard randomly.

No I was talking about good players, not hotjoin/wvw.

In beta it was a percentage.
I hit 223 in pvp and 337 outside of pvp, that’s almost exactly 1/3 reduction.
Although it may be bugged, definitely for the better, that extra 33% would be insane.

Does it take armour into account?

sorrow.2364:

Jax.5261:

You may actually want to try playing these classes. Because your argument is very uninformed.

I did and I’m still doing it. I moved my main from Necromancer to Thief. I think you should too.

Why would I play thief? They’re not very good, only really good players like Caed even do decently with them, but that’s because they’re good players not because the class is overpowered.

sorrow.2364:

Jax.5261:

Dodging (and learning to play) is the answer to this ‘problem’
Warriors do more damage, therefore they’re OP by your logic.
They have more defensive abilities due to having lower armour.
Mesmers only have visual confusion if you’re new to the game and stealth is easy to predict and ends up weaker in tpvp when used in a large amount.
If everything were to stand still and afk, yes everybody would have a 1-shot kill build, fortunately they don’t and due to playing full burst once you dodge the burst (USING NONE OF YOUR SKILLS BECAUSE DODGE ISN’T A SKILL) you can use your skill against them without worrying too much about what they can do.

There is something you missed in my previous post. Looks like that making the text bold isn’t enough to get your attention.

not justify in any form that two professions are capable to deal such an high amount of damage in a that small window of time

Looking closely:

IN A THAT SMALL WINDOW OF TIME

So no, Warrior does not OP according to my logic.

You again missed what I wrote. I know, English isn’t my main language, but I don’t think I wrote that bad to make my post incomprehensible.

It doesn’t justify also that those profession have such an high amount of innate defensive capabilities coming from visual confusion, that don’t need any form of traiting to be effective into.

Looking closely:

that don’t need any form of traiting to be effective into.

THIS is the point. I’ve never said that they have other form of defenses (like visual confusion isn’t enough), but the point is THIS, which you accurately ignored.

And, again, you fell into the “dodge is the answer” argument. I don’t really care how fragile those professions are in your opinion, neither the fact that dodge isn’t a skill. I don’t want also to point out the imprecision of what you wrote (Do you really think that after the burst happens the attacker will be standing still? What is stealth for so?), fact remains that those professions can’t be that punishing for a distraction of a fraction of a second, expecially when you consider the situation of other professions.

You may actually want to try playing these classes. Because your argument is very uninformed.

Blasino.3128:

I’ve followed your stuff on Guru for a while =). Its a lot of good info. I’ve actually altered Kaypud’s and other symbols builds to a bunker style for s/tpvp. Works great but lacks the CC your mid bunker provides.

I also use a symbol build in WWW/PvE too, and its pretty amazing. I’m really surprised more guardians do not focus on symbols more often. Very powerful tools: offense, defense, buffing, pseudo area denial, and combo field. Built right you can pretty much have a symbol up most of the time.

Thanks man. Yeah there’s currently a triangle for Guardian Builds: Bunker > Roamer > Symbol DPS > Bunker.
And I use the same in PvE but with target sanct.

sorrow.2364:

Jax.5261:

IF YOU CANNOT HANDLE BURST, LEARN TO DODGE.
If you don’t know how to dodge properly you deserve to have a hard time. If there was no dodging in this game it would be completely different, but there is, so it isn’t.

In the case you missed what I wrote, I’ll write it again to you.
DODGING ISN’T THE ANSWER TO EVERY FLAW
The fact that you can dodge bursts, does not justify in any form that two professions are capable to deal such an high amount of damage in a that small window of time while other professions aren’t, which makes way more sense when you consider that every profession is designed to be capable to deal burst, sustained and conditional damage.
It doesn’t justify also that those profession have such an high amount of innate defensive capabilities coming from visual confusion, that don’t need any form of traiting to be effective into.

According to your logic, an instant-kill skill is balanced just because you can dodge it, which is stupid, senseless and out of every form of balance.

Got it?

Dodging (and learning to play) is the answer to this ‘problem’
Warriors do more damage, therefore they’re OP by your logic.
They have more defensive abilities due to having lower armour.
Mesmers only have visual confusion if you’re new to the game and stealth is easy to predict and ends up weaker in tpvp when used in a large amount.
If everything were to stand still and afk, yes everybody would have a 1-shot kill build, fortunately they don’t and due to playing full burst once you dodge the burst (USING NONE OF YOUR SKILLS BECAUSE DODGE ISN’T A SKILL) you can use your skill against them without worrying too much about what they can do.

MMR works.
There are not enough players so it searches for people outside of your level, or you beat the lower levels enough so you’ll find higher levels.
Works perfectly, just not enough players for it to work the way you want it to.

Razor.6392:

Jax.5261:

Wooyadeen.6491:

Razor.6392:

Elementalist: Immortal, can only be countered by ANet patch notes. If you face one better forfeit.

Mesmers: Look for the real one, it’s not hard. Once you do that you counter them 100%.

Thief: Impossible to counter because stealth is broken. That petrifying 45 seconds cd elite needs to be removed.

Warrior: does too much damage so they have no counter. make sure to bring up the fact that warrior does loads of damage everytime someone complains about some other class doing ridic burst.

Guardian: Don’t need to counter them because they’re balanced. They do no damage anyways.

Need help for engi, necro and ranger.

Read this.

Fundamentally wrong list, this thread is also a giant troll.

wrong, nothing i said is false

The
List
Is
Fundamentally
Wrong
Sorry for any misunderstanding.

Wooyadeen.6491:

Razor.6392:

Elementalist: Immortal, can only be countered by ANet patch notes. If you face one better forfeit.

Mesmers: Look for the real one, it’s not hard. Once you do that you counter them 100%.

Thief: Impossible to counter because stealth is broken. That petrifying 45 seconds cd elite needs to be removed.

Warrior: does too much damage so they have no counter. make sure to bring up the fact that warrior does loads of damage everytime someone complains about some other class doing ridic burst.

Guardian: Don’t need to counter them because they’re balanced. They do no damage anyways.

Need help for engi, necro and ranger.

Read this.

Fundamentally wrong list, this thread is also a giant troll.

sorrow.2364:

Jax.5261:

Got bored of replying to somebody who can’t understand simple things.

Funny. It is the same thing I thought after your third l2p answer to my reasoning. But, despite you, I wasn’t worried to lose my argument to the point I thought that escaping was the only solution.

IF YOU CANNOT HANDLE BURST, LEARN TO DODGE.
If you don’t know how to dodge properly you deserve to have a hard time. If there was no dodging in this game it would be completely different, but there is, so it isn’t.

Razor.6392:

Elementalist: Immortal, can only be countered by ANet patch notes. If you face one better forfeit.

Mesmers: Look for the real one, it’s not hard. Once you do that you counter them 100%.

Thief: Impossible to counter because stealth is broken. That petrifying 45 seconds cd elite needs to be removed.

Warrior: does too much damage so they have no counter. make sure to bring up the fact that warrior does loads of damage everytime someone complains about some other class doing ridic burst.

Guardian: Don’t need to counter them because they’re balanced. They do no damage anyways.

Need help for engi, necro and ranger.

iTroll

Defensive

Bunker —
The recent nerfs to bunker builds severely reduce the selection of builds we had to choose from. At the moment there are two main focuses: Teamfights and Solo Point Control, you have to take both into consideration when choosing a build. Bunker Guardians are amazing due to the amount of team healing they put out while being able to easily get stomps and reses. Don’t forget the scepter is by far the highest damage weapon for the bunker, not in direct damage but through snares you can make sure you ally’s burst hits (could mean the difference between 2k and 14k damage).

Pros:

• Large AoE condition removal
• High Armour/Heals
• Loads of dodge rolls
• Unrivaled Support
• Can be High Control
• Great Bunker

Cons:

• Weak to sustained DPS (45s+)
• Can be bursted if you don’t pay attention
• Low DPS but can hit high with intelligence sigils

Standard Bunker (St / Sc-Fc) – http://tinyurl.com/lkepj5q (NEW)
This is your standard bunker build there are a few minor changes you can make, like bringing an extra consecration or Tome of Courage but if you don’t know what you’re doing just play this.
Map Specific:
Nifhel/Foefire: Coming SooN!
Temple: Coming SooN!

Control Bunker (Hm / Sc-Sh) – http://tinyurl.com/kfhp3oq (NEW)
My favourite Bunker build by far, you can carry your team more with this build if you get time alone with the enemy bunker. If all you’re doing is teamfighting I would recommend the Standard Bunker (except Khylo/Spirit ofc).
Map Specific:
Khylo/Skyhammer: http://tinyurl.com/k4xr5aw
Spirit: http://tinyurl.com/mp95t35

Thought I might leave this in as a fun build:

Binding Bunker (Hm / Sc-Sh) – http://tinyurl.com/leydb53
This bunker build uses Binding Jeopardy to set up spikes with large amounts of vulnerability for easy kills. In co-ordinated teams this will give you quicker kills and in less co-ordinated teams it gives you more of a chance of landing a kill. On Temple you can win team fights at mid EXTREMELY fast with your roamer.

Link to my youtube uploads:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RoknnOut/videos?view=0&flow=grid

Link to my Stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/jaxsilven

PvE/WvW Build
http://tinyurl.com/cvaz3wd
I have a new pve/wvw build, will upload it later >: )

As always thanks for reading!! ^^