Guild Wars 2

fugazi.5139:

Jax.5261:

Stealth is a terrible mechanic but it’s not strong in GW2 due to conquest being conquest.
Having no counter-play is very common in GW2 anyway, so it doesn’t matter all that much since there are a lot of other things that need fixing too.

Also, Fugazi you are a no-name kitten-ter! BAM!

Lol love you 2<3. And yes that is my point exactly. There are so many other issues. kitten stealth play right now.

Stealth shouldn’t be in the game period. Neither should RNG or spam, but it’s the way they’ve designed the game unfortunately.

I thought you’d have quit by now, you rage like e’ryday =D

Stealth is a terrible mechanic but it’s not strong in GW2 due to conquest being conquest.
Having no counter-play is very common in GW2 anyway, so it doesn’t matter all that much since there are a lot of other things that need fixing too.

Also, Fugazi you are a no-name kitten-ter! BAM!

Amins.3710:

Staff is a WvW weapon and it’s amazing.

Anyone saying otherwise hasn’t figured out how to use it yet or it doesn’t fit ~THEIR~ group composition.

It’s also outstanding in PvP.

Merril.7620:

any advice for in your face engi’s when I’m running a bunker build, hm/x/sh

conditions to the moon, and they have tons of cc to keep me from dodge/healing

• Don’t take damage from confusion
• Evade the shield knockback / bombkit knockback
• Don’t heal when poisoned, avoid poison
• Call for a roamer or your nec/engi to come and assist you

There aren’t many 1v1’s you can win as a Bunker, your job is to dominate team fights and hold points until your allies can get to you. A lot of the problems I see people have are due to just their team being in the wrong spots and rotating/roaming really badly. Obviously I can’t tell you if this is your issue but you should probably just think of whether you should be on that point in the first place or the side point bunker or whether one of your allies should have gotten to you faster / already been there in the first place.

Sorry for the late reply.

Talking specifically in terms of tpvp:
Nothing even comes remotely close to a Guardian Bunker and the role they play in pvp. It’s not just about holding the point, you have to support your team through condition removal, control and boons while securing stomps and resing allies. No other class has anything remotely as strong as a Guardian does in this regard.

You have to take the entire match into account not just well 3 guys jumped on me and I died and I wouldn’t have died if I was a spirit ranger so spirit rangers are better, or anything to that logic.

On top of all this Guardians are more effective bunkers than warriors anyway, you are not using your dodges/blocks/elite correctly if you think otherwise. The only difference is the perception due to Guardians sacrificing damage for support (which is the only way they can bunker) while other classes don’t have the support and will usually have some damage instead.

This is a team game.

hahahaha
I really hope this is a joke!

Shelter is easily countered, obviously you’ve never played Guardian.

I need this for checking how much damage my bursts can do for trolls <3, I’m too lazy to paste it into a txt file and you deserve the credit for writing it up!

edit: the co-eff for Judge’s is ~.329

Until the PoV bug is patched I will be using this on Khylo:

http://tinyurl.com/kuhh938

1. Play Guardian
2. Aquire Wimminz
3. ?
4. Profit!!!

Guardians 4lyf!

cymerdown.4103:

Jax.5261:

stunningstyles.7054:

I run soldier/berserker amulet in tpvp…stomping isn’t an issue

Then you lose a lot of crit chance, which means while playing staff you lose a lot of dps (due to the lack of crits, other weapons will not lose as much) you also run lyssa runes instead of solider runes which means you don’t have no where near enough condi clearing support for your team. You’re also missing the 3 condi clears from Resolve and the Stability from Courage and massive heals from regeneration that you wouldn’t really pay attention to.

There’s always a trade off and it’s pretty massive when you drop a bunker guard for a dps guard.
Not to mention you don’t have any control skills to gain a point in the first place (no hammer) and your build is hardly DPS without crit chance. I don’t know if you’ve ever played a bunker before but if you’re good at it you’ll realise why a DPS build can’t fill it’s shoes, it’s a completely different role.

Actually, he is taking Absolute Resolution in his build. Anyway, I think we’re both beating a dead horse here with the dps vs bunker argument, we’ve covered all the major points pretty well. In closing, I play both bunker and dps guard in solo queue, and I like to think I can play them both at a pretty reasonable level of skill. Each have their strengths, but in high level team play, I think a whole year’s worth of top level teams choosing their team comps carefully speaks for itself. It’s not as if all those teams are unaware that dps guard builds exist or something,

Everytime I go to respond here you’ve pretty much said the exact same thing I was going to say but worded better.
So yes I’m just going to leave it here, soloq’s a whole different ball game to teamq and I definitely love playing DPS (it is my favourite build along with burst) but there’s that giant trade off that makes it not worth it in co-ordinated teams.

Well I loved the new change, although I think it’s pretty bad for newer players who kind of lose where they are on the minimap and have to look for a few seconds to find their icon.
Players who have played enough will instantly know where they are due to playing the map so much.

stunningstyles.7054:

I run soldier/berserker amulet in tpvp…stomping isn’t an issue

Then you lose a lot of crit chance, which means while playing staff you lose a lot of dps (due to the lack of crits, other weapons will not lose as much) you also run lyssa runes instead of solider runes which means you don’t have no where near enough condi clearing support for your team. You’re also missing the 3 condi clears from Resolve and the Stability from Courage and massive heals from regeneration that you wouldn’t really pay attention to.

There’s always a trade off and it’s pretty massive when you drop a bunker guard for a dps guard.
Not to mention you don’t have any control skills to gain a point in the first place (no hammer) and your build is hardly DPS without crit chance. I don’t know if you’ve ever played a bunker before but if you’re good at it you’ll realise why a DPS build can’t fill it’s shoes, it’s a completely different role.

tanshiniza.8629:

Jax.5261:

stunningstyles.7054:

the more dps u can get while still being able to do your job as a bunker and condi clearer the better

But you don’t as a DPS, even running an optimal DPS build, with Soldier’s + PoV, you still won’t be able to secure stomps or give your team the high healing power regeneration like a Bunker.
Even running with a Hammer, which is pretty much standard in DPS atm, you have less control and less ‘set-ups’ for your allies.

If it works for you, do whatever you want, but that doesn’t mean it’s optimal or recommended.

I play a Hybrid Guardian that’s more focused towards DPS in the grand scheme of things and yes I cannot heal or buff my team as well as a Bunker but dealing damage is it’s own form of support and if you add sound mechanics into this as stunning stated then it can be superior to just running bunker.

We have some Impressive AoE DPS and hounding all the enemy team with this and making them burn cool downs and go on the defensive stops them from killing your team mates since they’re more concerned about surviving themselves.

As for stomping ‘stand your ground’ hasn’t done me wrong so far and when in doubt VoJ.

It’s not just about having Stand Your Ground, you need toughness to survive, you need condition clears to make sure you don’t die (and SY to remove poison off your downed ally), you need more than one source of stability, unless you plan on only being able to res once per half minute, you need to be able to stay on the point and support your team.
Even with the DPS build I use: http://tinyurl.com/kjhnvt5 I always play sidepoint with a bunker mid. It doesn’t matter how you build the bunker build will just always do better unless the current meta changes.

Cymmer already mentioned it above: there’s always a trade off and in this case it’s a pretty big one. I’ve tested this a lot and against really good players too, especially res/stomps if you don’t have the correct toughness + prot + stab you really don’t stand much of a chance and DPS guardians rarely are able to secure those stomps well.

stunningstyles.7054:

the more dps u can get while still being able to do your job as a bunker and condi clearer the better

But you don’t as a DPS, even running an optimal DPS build, with Soldier’s + PoV, you still won’t be able to secure stomps or give your team the high healing power regeneration like a Bunker.
Even running with a Hammer, which is pretty much standard in DPS atm, you have less control and less ‘set-ups’ for your allies.

If it works for you, do whatever you want, but that doesn’t mean it’s optimal or recommended.

cymerdown.4103:

Adam.6047:

Clear lack of understanding of guardian mechanics here.

-Absolute Resolution – Activating Virtue of Resolve removes three conditions. Virtue of Resolve’s passive effect is stronger.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Resolve

Skip to 2:55 on the video and watch as he shows that you remove 3 condis from your team with virtue of resolve active. Oh wait it didn’t, yes he condi cleansed by that using save yourself and contemplation of purity. The team condi cleanse had absolutely nothing to do with him activating virtue of resolve.

Maybe you’re just trolling, but I’ll bite I suppose.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Absolute_Resolution

“The active effect removes three conditions from you and allies in the area.”

And did you really have to name your picture “stunningscrub.png” when you didn’t even take the time to click the link on the page you linked? If you played bunker Guard, or just any Guard build using that trait, you’d already know it removes condis AoE.

stunningstyles.7054:

The way gw2 game mechanics work and guardian traits (aka dodges, blinds, aegis) I have plenty of bunker by being mechanically sound and dodging CC and damage. That why I feel having more dps is better. People feel u needa bunker in 5v5 comp but if your good enough to avoid damage in high congestion fights its fine to be dps guard.

Well, first of all, I think you use Soldier/Zerk ammy if I’m not mistaken, and I believe Energy sigils (sorry if I’m mistaken here, I’m going from memory of when I looked at your video a while ago) so you’re a bit more of a bunker than a dps in that your damage is ok but you’re more about tanky and less about bursty, so as far as your equipment goes (as well as your trait point allocation). So yeah, you’re sort of a bunker already except that you wield a Greatsword and equip Zerk jewel; calling yourself a “DPS Guard” isn’t quite 100% accurate if that’s how you’re built, since you do some damage but much lower than a zerked out player.

But my main point is, let’s say you were zerked out and playing a true DPS Guard setup. You say you can mitigate a bunch of damage by dodging and otherwise not playing bad, and of course that’s true, but the same could be said of a bunker build. The big difference is the amount of pressure you can handle, amount of time you can hold out 1vX, and the amount of team support you’re able to give. A bunker can stand on point for long periods of time 1vX or in a team fight, and that’s a big deal because if you have to give up the neut while you’re fighting, that’s a lot of points lost, and this is Conquest mode after all. The more your team is able to hold a capture while fighting, the more points your team gets in the end. Another big thing is stomps and resses. All the dodge rolls and other damage avoidance measures in the world don’t enable you to facetank cleave damage while you get off that all-important stomp or res that wins or loses the fight, and sometimes being able to provide more damage is less important than being able to just end the fight with a stability-covered stomp. Speaking of stability, that’s another thing you’re losing out on compared to a bunker, since the typical build runs Indomitable Courage (X in Virtues). That’s two more aoe stabs per teamfight that you don’t have, and sometimes those are really key.

So yeah, what I’m trying to say is that DPS Guard offers one set of tools, and Bunker Guard offers another. I won’t say one is better than the other, they just have pros and cons, that’s all. The way I think about it, as a DPS Guard, you’re a lot like a Warrior. You just have more boon and cleanse support, more AoE damage but much less single target damage, and you have the same weakness in that you have to be in melee range to do most of your damage, so you can be kited with cripple/chill/immob once your cleanses are burned. Other than that, the two are pretty similar if you think about it, and you’d never say Warrior > Bunker Guard because they’re two totally different roles.

^ This is what I felt like typing up but was too lazy to sit down and do it. Good on you.

Ralkuth.1456:

Jax.5261:

Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been in hospital.
I think you’re referring to the DPS build? I don’t use a Mace on a bunker, other people do due to Valor VII giving the bonus 250 heal power (which translates to 125 bonus dodge roll heals and the extra heals in regen) but I really don’t recommend it due to you missing out on snares completely by avoiding the Scepter.
If you were referring to the DPS build it’s designed to have much more sustain in team fights and 1v1’s but it doesn’t put out as much damage. It is very well spec’d for team fights.

Wishing you all the best in your recovery.

I do suppose what I’ve seen was the DPS build. I was assuming there would be use for a symbol build in bunkering, but I’m much more comfortable in the classic control bunker setup (I wonder if it would ever change… for the better, or if it even needs any change) and I don’t know what I was thinking… there was no way symbol passive healing could override the effectiveness of the standard loadout. Plus, I lose out on too much control (Resolute Healer, as well) to get the trait anyway.

Unfortunately, taking the variety of builds into account, the current bunker build is unlikely to change very much. Other builds just won’t bring enough toughness to the table to actually force a stomp or not enough utility, etc.
The only variation I’m thinking of at the moment is dropping one energy sigil, if you don’t miss any of your dodges you only need the one (except khylo). Having two will allow you to survive in futile situations a little longer but if your team does everything they should, it really won’t make a difference.
So something like a doom sigil (to use on the enemy bunker’s heal) or something like that may be the future for the bunker.

There is a way to make use of the symbols in bunkering but you do have to go 0530305 and you miss out on a lot of condition removal and control. I haven’t tested it with the new Shout bug which could mean it’s viable currently.

Brutaly.6257:

Jax.5261:

I could help you guys do the tpvp DPS guide if you’d like.
It’s very different to wvw and pve and spvp and monkeys.

When Blasino/Foofad :-) posts the first draft just post in in that thread and we get a discussion and im certain it will be added if relevant.

Mind you, its a guide to dps first and foremost. Its not a guide to builds even though there will be builds in in it, or at least i think so.

CMF.5461:

lies, everything is exactly the same as monkeys. I can’t believe a word you say now

Open minded is a key word and ofc some parts differ between tpvp, pve and wvw.
Just the fact that you dont think it does shows how needed the guide is.

The reason I stopped doing guides on every single build is due to the way anet constantly updates and changes the meta. I still have video guides of all of them but having 10 or so constantly changing guides would take too much of my time.

The worded guides are either out of date or on guru.

Wait, wait, wait.
WAIT
So in WvW you don’t need condition removal because two food items will reduce it to nothing!?
Is that a thing?

I could help you guys do the tpvp DPS guide if you’d like.
It’s very different to wvw and pve and spvp and monkeys.

Teams: Bunker > DPS
Yoloq (aka carry all the badE’s): DPS > Bunker

It’s extremely difficult to carry on a bunker, unless you’re playing with good players, otherwise nobody will utilize your buffs or snares or anything but their tunnel vision. I’m sure everybody knew this anyway, as they’ve all been privy to the average ‘teammate’ in soloq.

Regarding your build: Due to you using a GS you won’t be able to take out a bunker 1v1 and you won’t be able to control a point if required. You’re relying on players not paying attention to animations or Judge’s.
Lyssa’s runes are far less effective at dealing with conditions than trip shout + soldier’s is. Unless they can only put one stack of conds down and are done for the fight.

@the guy who was talking about vuln stacking
Guards can stack 25 vuln with blind and immob Easily and can easily maintain 12-15+ throughout a fight, it also takes no skill to do, thus it is easily achieved by sitting on your keyboard. The ramification for this are: you may damage your keyboard, you may damage your bottom and that you lack a lot of sustain due to the spec you’re playing and end up dying and nobody will miss you =(

Also it’s not achieved through symbols because the Zeal tree is literally the vampire tree, it sucks the life out of your other traits, and as a result, out of your build.

Anyway this is the first stable internet connection I’ve found at this stupid hospital and I only wish I were here to receive peck implants.

Ralkuth.1456:

Hi Silven, many thanks for this post. Helped me keep interest in Guardian with the Meditation builds especially.
A quick question about the mace focus / staff setup for bunkers… What is the builds focus and would it need a specific team comp to run well. It seemed to be specced completely for teamfights.

Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been in hospital.
I think you’re referring to the DPS build? I don’t use a Mace on a bunker, other people do due to Valor VII giving the bonus 250 heal power (which translates to 125 bonus dodge roll heals and the extra heals in regen) but I really don’t recommend it due to you missing out on snares completely by avoiding the Scepter.
If you were referring to the DPS build it’s designed to have much more sustain in team fights and 1v1’s but it doesn’t put out as much damage. It is very well spec’d for team fights.

Jasher.6580:

This is the best spirit weapon build.
-
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7Z-g;1RFF80V3RG-90;9;4T;0JJ59A;428-48-S-F6;2H7l1AoF28BB
-
I think it does more burst than any other profession in the game.
-
Summon your weapons… Empower them with your staff… F1, Switch to Greatsword… watch your spirits die to aoe very quickly without doing anything.

Fixd

Storm.3952:

Jax.5261:

Thanks. To respond to your questions:

• Most people feel that they need way more condition removal in this meta, while I don’t agree with them completely, we definitely do need this minor trait. There have been countless times fear would have screwed me over and this trait has saved me, that’s reason enough to bring it.
• Consecrated Ground means you can cast Sanctuary anywhere, this means if your ally was going down somewhere else (which happens most of the time) you can still deny the stomp and secure the res. You’ll rarely ever get normal Sanctuary to deny the stomp.
• Dual Energy sigils are extremely important on this build as they let you live against numerous enemies for long periods of time. It’s also important to note that dodge rolls make up most of your healing and missing out on that energy sigil means a lot of health/damage mitigation you’re missing out on.
  That being said there are times where I only need 1 energy sigil to survive, but that’s in extremely specific situations where I make no mistakes and it’s usually to counter other players with Doom/Hydromancy, etc. (not something you’re really thinking about in hotjoin).

Thanks for your reply. I’ll keep these changes and see how I get on then, I understand what you mean about CG so i’ll be trying that out!

One last thought. I mentioned about condition removal (maybe too much?) and if I swap in Purity, what are your thoughts on using Dolyak runes instead of Soldier? Or is an extra removal on shout for me and allies nearby too good to negate?

Dolyak runes are awful tbh, they serve no use, the healing is really, really weak. The extra removal on shouts is way too good to give up for any runes at this time.

http://tinyurl.com/kh2shhb

With HtL over SY
It’s on here:
http://tinyurl.com/SilvenGuardianBuilds

Just as a quick side note:
The game has always been a condition based meta (since beta), it’s just condition builds are becoming more common place in hotjoin and lower rank comps. That’s why the builds don’t change that much when there’s a new ‘fotm’ because it isn’t that different to what’s already being run in tpvp.

Storm.3952:

I’ve started dabbling in pvp and up to rank 10, so nothing very exciting.

I’d been running with a staff/hammer build with a 0/0/30/30/10 just off my own ideas and it was pretty decent. I looked around and tried a few 1h builds but just couldn’t get to grips with it, probably due to my AH staff/gs/hammer playstyle in pve.

I looked at your sticky (very nice by the way, easy to understand) and tried the Spirit Watch build and it’s great! Before I had retreat on my bars a lot due to me being a typical capper rather than killer (I think that was drummed into me from WoW days “Fight near the cap for gods sake!”) but with the extra boon duration and swapping in 2h mastery, swiftness is just as good and I can put Sanctuary on my bars, a move i’ve barely used before to be honest, but so good for taking off some pressure when trying to cap and helping out allies.

A couple of points/changes i’ve made and you may agree or disagree with, i’m the noob after all.

Valor 10pts. I’ve gone for Strength in Numbers over Purity. It strikes me as we have so much removal with the shouts and the virtue, do we need that as well?

Virtues 10pts. I’ve gone for Master of Conc over Consecrated Ground. Maybe I just don’t understand CG but shorter cd and longer sanc seems better to me?

Sigil of Energy on hammer. This may be the way I play but a lot of times I found that I didn’t switch from staff to hammer with energy missing. Perhaps it’ll just take some time to get used to, but for now i’ve gone for Sigil of Hydromancy (I haven’t tested this one so it may be pants).

If anyone thinks i’ve chosen weaker options please say, i’m happy to learn!

P.s. is there a more enjoyable thing than hammering someone off Skyhammer?

Thanks. To respond to your questions:

• Most people feel that they need way more condition removal in this meta, while I don’t agree with them completely, we definitely do need this minor trait. There have been countless times fear would have screwed me over and this trait has saved me, that’s reason enough to bring it.
• Consecrated Ground means you can cast Sanctuary anywhere, this means if your ally was going down somewhere else (which happens most of the time) you can still deny the stomp and secure the res. You’ll rarely ever get normal Sanctuary to deny the stomp.
• Dual Energy sigils are extremely important on this build as they let you live against numerous enemies for long periods of time. It’s also important to note that dodge rolls make up most of your healing and missing out on that energy sigil means a lot of health/damage mitigation you’re missing out on.
  That being said there are times where I only need 1 energy sigil to survive, but that’s in extremely specific situations where I make no mistakes and it’s usually to counter other players with Doom/Hydromancy, etc. (not something you’re really thinking about in hotjoin).

Very good idea and pretty good job covering everything. Only error I found over my quick skim over was:

Tarsius.3170:

If the opponent teleports away ( Thief or Mesmer ), you can use Judge’s Intervention to relocate to their new position mid-stomp to finish them off.

Works on Ele’s too, if you time it correctly. ^^

Sorelus Imperion.3469:

Wouldn’t adding a superior earth rune to the weapon solve the problem ? The relatively high crit chance which can be provided by the 15% boon of the Radiance line makes it probable to trigger causing said bleeding and working in synergy with the increased condition damage.

I’ve played around with condition Guardians A LOT.
The only small and simple change that you could currently make would be to make Rad X give bleeding per sword skill, even with earth you only get 3 stacks which doesn’t nearly do enough pressure. If running condition you also need a doom sigil or 2 doom sigils to put the pressure on once they’re down (or 2 for throughout the fight).

Haha, thanks!
I kinda feel bad about being so cynical but the truth is if this game was actually that bad we would’ve all left a long time ago.
Thanks for the support guys!

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ok guys, since you are all only focusing on tiny portions of my posts, I am just going to stop posting to prevent further confusion.

I will say again though; I don’t want anyone to be confused that I think hit boxes or skill effects are the only things that matter. This is very much NOT what I was saying. Not at all.

Zoom
That was the issue going over your head.

Nobody’s contesting that the hitboxes are different. Responding to somebody who clearly does not know what everybody else is complaining about and not the people with valid complaints doesn’t give you the right to then ignore said people with valid complaints.
So now we end up with nobody listening to the actual issue and instead the folks back at ANet going “hah remember that thread where they thought hitboxes for Asura were smaller? Our player base doesn’t know anything!”

Shameless bump, had people inquiring if I deleted my thread.

Just a fun fact, you can one-shot people with Staff burst.
Ofc it’s not as strong as other burst builds and relies a lot on terrain but in DPS builds the staff is amazing (eg. Symbol DPS with Hm/St is the strongest guard DPS build in tpvp atm) and you can burst with it for trolls.

Unless you’re not talking about pvp in any form this thread is ridiculous.
Radiance is a really strong line for RHS and Justice is blind for DPS builds. Burst Guardian builds are viable in tpvp and do use 30 in Radiance, if you don’t think you have enough survivability you really just aren’t spec’d right.
You have perma Vigor, problem solved.

Also to address another topic above:
The only buff we need to make condition builds 100% viable is Radiance X to give all 1h sword skills 1 stack of bleeding per hit (only on auto-attack may work with higher bleed durations) and that would give you a perfectly viable Guard condi dps build and Condi Bunker build.
Which would be really cool for the game, ANet does not like cool things and it won’t be considered.

No, what I hope people are referring to by damage are control skills if you are talking about damage then you really are just doing it wrong. They are still the main bunker in pvp.
Guardian is Bunker/Support/Control, a role which no other class comes remotely close to filling. That’s why they’re on every team.

The giant misconception is that Guardians don’t do any damage on a Control Bunker but that’s false too, due to Chains of Light and your other snares/controls you can get your ally to hit their full amount of damage which results in a large amount of indirect damage from the bunker themselves.

Make it so it isn’t locked up until the match begins but you also can’t see your enemy until it begins, don’t open the gate and don’t show them on the scoreboard

With this idea there is NO downside to anybody’s point of view, this is of course the best and most obvious way to go about this problem (which is also the reason the complete opposite was implemented).

This actually happened to me today LOL!
Their solution to failing after pushing far (after we wiped them mid)
Was to rephrase the strategy with different language so it sounded better.

In response to telling them that it’s not only a bad idea but it was also what had lost us the previous game they responded with “so you want us to 4v5 them then!?!?” which, ironically, was the exact idea their strategy suggests.

JonPeters.5630:

Defektive.7283:

JonPeters.5630:

We believe the majority of the issue is the effects spam. News on that front coming VERY soon. Once that is out of the way we can start to address other concerns.

Jon

That’s probably a good first step. However, it’s fairly common for competitive games to have standardized avatar models.

Example: Unreal Tournament.

I wouldn’t put it past the community to request this as a feature since it does make sense in the scheme of things.

Didn’t you just basically request it? :P

I’ll bring it up when I get back, although I know we haven’t explored it much and there will be some issues.

Err how are there issues in any way? The only difference between races are the sprites right? Which means making your screen personally only show enemies only as Humans:

• Would be easy for you guys to do
• Means other people are playing Asura but you don’t see them as such
• Removes this issue from affecting balance (which should never have been the case in the first place)
• Observers can still watch the players as the race they are actually playing but the players can have them all standardized so that the game is fair.

Not wanting to start something else but you guys only seeing this suggestion 12 months down the line when people have been suggesting it constantly since the beta is extremely frustrating. There are countless threads which pop up every week or so and the conclusion is the exact same every single time.

And to address the issues which have been addressed countless times in other threads from highest to lowest priority to fix:

• Asurans have small animations which means you have less reaction time, which sometimes makes a skill on an Asura undodgable while on a Human it is dodgable,
• Asurans can be covered by other animations so it’s impossible to see the animation before you are hit by it, Banish is the big one. You guys are addressing this though but not the other points unfortunately.
• Asurans can be harder to follow with their animations and movement, not for me personally but some other players have told me that it can put more strain on their eyes trying to chase something much smaller, obviously less of a problem but something to consider.

Hope you read this so you can finally understand our problem and why reducing particle effects doesn’t fix it.

PS: We don’t mind if this does take a while to fix but acknowledging the issue would be a step completely in the correct direction and an even bigger step would be to confirm that you guys are fixing this BALANCE issue.

Amins.3710:

Jax.5261:

Amins.3710:

^ You don’t need stability to stomp. You need to learn to time your VoC. =]

Against any co-ordinated players you need stability to stomp, unless you’re talking 1v1.

You don’t need stability to stomp.

As I said, you’ll get controlled against players who are co-ordinated unless you have stability up.

Amins.3710:

^ You don’t need stability to stomp. You need to learn to time your VoC. =]

Against any co-ordinated players you need stability to stomp, unless you’re talking 1v1.

Arken.3725:

Surprisingly enough, Inner fire isn’t really that useful for a Guardian in solo situations since the duration is relatively low. The trade-off from 5 in virtues/honor isn’t really worth the extra damage if you’re not surviving long enough to utilize it.

I assume you meant Fiery Wrath?
Inner Fire is really good on all kinds of Guardians due to the matchups we get, they 90% of the time have burning in their build and there’s no internal cooldown for Inner Fire.

Cozeh.9203:

Jax, I just want to say your builds/recommendations and the way you contextualise them is awesome. Keep up the great work!

I’m getting back into GW2 and everything you post is immensely helpful. I really like the bursty/aggressive style (which I’d love to have played as a Warrior if the class was semi-viable) but Guardian seems better suited for it at the moment.

Thanks a lot! =)
I really do like playing aggressive Guardians but the teams I play in rarely require it.

MammerJammer.6174:

Great feedback.

I guess the consensus is that I am undervaluing the defensive potency of vigor. If I went to 0/30/30/5/5 and changed my runes/sigils as listed above, would I be better off picking a more offense neck item combo? Thanks again!

No Guardian build works in spvp without 5 in Honour, unless you plan on your burst 1 hitting and relying on no sustain (which is silly since you can easily spec for a lot of sustain).
Although it does depend on what you are trying to counter, if you’re trying to counter a roamer with a lot of burst damage having high health and toughness is good, even if you sac a lot of damage. In most cases you lose a lot of the counters you gain by going a burst guard when you spec for a more defensive triple meditation spec, this is because it’s just far more efficient to go a symbol DPS build which will have more sustain and more damage.
The only real reason to go meditation, burst focused builds at the moment is to run a full burst spec, otherwise your traits are better spent elsewhere.
For what you’re trying to do I’d suggest this:
http://tinyurl.com/mrlegr9

Now I completely understand what you’re trying to do with the Mace and that’s be defensive, but in this spec the Mace is a completely offensive weapon, not defensive. Even though the skills look defensive and do give you some amount of defence, it just isn’t nearly enough to mitigate the damage that you’d want to be avoiding. The scepter on the other hand is extremely good at keeping your enemy at range and maintaining your damage if they are able to kite you while having the amazing ability to set up your own spikes with chains of light.
You can swap out the sword for the mace if you want, which is currently how I play Guardian burst.

Ironically by trying to play a more balanced build you’ve decreased your survivability to much less than the burstiest of Guards. All Guardian builds will make use of Vigorous Protection (Honour 5) which gives them a near 100% uptime of Vigor, giving you the dodge rolls you need to survive.

You said you just want to play the same build but maybe wanted the traits to be fixed / better sigils or runes. So here are the suggestions which are catered to purely that idea:

This will give you an insane increase in survivability and is pretty much a requirement in any Guardian build:

• 5 Honour
• 5 Virtues

You aren’t spec’d for burning, you’re going to achieve much less with it than you could by putting the attributes in to power/prec, this means smoldering isn’t needed and your strongest defensive sigils are energy:

• Energy or Fire (one each wep set)
• Force on Sword set
• Minor accuracy on Mace set
• Scholar runes or Rage runes with Bloodlust instead of Minor Accuracy

There are a lot of things on your build I would change due to unnecessary specs or redundant traits, things like Shelter just always being better in pvp. But the two changes I wrote up beforehand specifically address your question.

akamon.2769:

haha the laser is pretty OP then. oh, another neat trick where binding blade shines on this map! what i like to do is when in the thick of battle, and the laser is coming down from my team and people start to flee? you know what to do lol.

just watch them eat the laser. then you can easily finish them off.

XDDD 4 people! very nice! i have a sudden urge to just camp the side points now. hahaha BB is op on skyhammer. >.>

You can dodge when they’re using the pull on Binding Blade and it severely reduces the pull (to where you barely move at all) that’s why I quite often eat Binding, they think they’ll force a stab or get free damage on me when I won’t be getting either and it’ll put them out of position.

Yeah the laser isn’t dodgable, pretty big joke haha.
I haven’t tested since the tiny update so they could’ve hotfixed but MI heals 6k when you port and 4k if you don’t.

And I tried the GS pull a few minutes ago and got 4 people down with one pull hahaha ^^

akamon.2769:

hey Silven, do you reckon there’d be a need for a specific spec for the new Skyhammer map? thuogh really, as long as you maximize your stability uptime, use CC and stunbreaks accordingly, you should be alright. was thinking maybe having traited hallowed ground would be good for fights at the laser playform.

also, one neat trick with the GS: while capping either of the side points, a Guard from the opposite team came around the corner, and used binding blade with the disappearing platforms between the point and himself, then just as the platform disappears, he pulls 3 of us down. and then i assume he capped the point. :///

i started doing it to others and works really well. same can be done across the map. although, i guess getting the timing off is the hard bit. haven’t played the map enuogh yet – are they just timed? i know theyy seem to spaz out a bit before they disappear.

http://tinyurl.com/ll2jlaz
The 5 in Rad is purely for this map.

Still running control with shield, Hammer and shield can both knock people completely off the mid point and side points too. Merciful intervention I’ve been trying to use due to the 6k heal glitch atm and it helps when people try and hit you off the side.
The platforms fall away after you stand on them, and very amazing suggestion with the Greatsword, doesn’t have any play in bunkering but in dps it would be a good idea. You can try play hallowed but something like Judges to get you back on the point when you run away from the cannon (or off to get out of the cannon effect) until it’s changed to be dodgable at least >>.

mrook.4163:

Silven, I have been messing around with Merciful Intervention as well, in an attempt to make a bunker with a different playstyle. While it is definitely map specific (I was teleported all the way out of the clocktower) it has always been an interesting skill and with the improvements I find myself hoping it may be useful now. I began testing this build last night with mixed results:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAW5elUgSDXHyNEf4ESmiVCBxUwRf01DIKiaIA-TsAgzCoIKSVkrITRyisFN+Y9xuBA
It seems strong to condi burst, and sustained direct dps. It’s also a lot of fun to play. On the flip side, it feels weaker to sustained condi dps, and lacks boons (especially stability). Right now I feel it is weaker than a 0/0/10/30/30 but I hold out hope we may soon have a new way to play a bunker!

At the moment MI is bugged and heals for 3x as much as it should, so it could be a decent idea. Remember Guardian bunkers are more about support than bunkering so you need to focus on supporting your allies to a much greater extent than just holding ground, that’s why meditation bunkers weren’t played to begin with. You could try it out for a side point holder though.

I also made a ton of mistakes in the DPS builds, ALL of the links were wrong =(((
They’re are now fixed!!! Sorry guys!!!!
Also a few changes to bunkers soon!

All builds completely updated for 24/7.
I am now messing around with Merciful but it doesn’t seem useful =(

@Bash.
Burning on the Guardian is too easily removed to be useful unfortunately =(
You didn’t get RHS with 30 in Rad, that means you miss out on a massive ~400 precision on one handed weapons.
You could be running Lyssa or Soldier’s runes to better deal with conditions or damage ones to increase your damage output. Going with Scepter means you get a ton of one-handed dps instead of the GS and the snare + high uptimes of vigor with Vigorous Precision AND you get force on your torch set for the big hits.
I do like your idea with the fire aura from leap + Purging, but you don’t give yourself enough survivability unfortunately.

I liak playeeng gerdiern becerse condershen berlds are viaberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl.

Anert gerves us alert of berlds that errrr gerrrrd ernd usferrl.

The same reason anybody would play Guard:
Chix dig Guards.

Just so you know I was joking, I’d rather eat a cactus than be in a guild with you.

Everything you said in the OP was bs.